The Mannequin House (8 page)

He extracted one of them from its envelope and straightened it out.

Quinn handed the letter to Coddington, who read it with a devouring gaze.

‘The others are in a similar vein,’ said Quinn, handing them on. ‘All signed by “E”. And the stationery is the same in every case.’

‘What do you make of it?’ asked Coddington, handing the letter back. Quinn passed it on to Inchball.

‘It’s intensely passionate. There’s a naivété to the writing. Note the frequent capitalization of words and the almost childish phraseology in places. But there is an intelligence in evidence too. It’s remarkably free from spelling mistakes and the other signs of poor literacy. One might almost begin to suspect that the naivété is feigned. The writer has been educated to a respectable standard. Perhaps she comes from a good family . . .’

‘She?’ cried Inchball. ‘What about all this
I love you
guff? It’s a love letter, ain’ it?’

‘That doesn’t mean it wasn’t written by a girl.’

Inchball groaned.

‘But I don’t think it’s a love letter in the sense you mean. It’s the protestation of a deeply felt emotional bond – of love, yes . . . but of the kind of love that is felt between two members of the fairer sex. It puts me in mind of a schoolgirl crush.’ Quinn turned to Coddington. ‘The girl next door who’s crying . . . what did you say her name was, sir?’

‘Albertine.’

‘She’s not French, though?’

‘No.’

‘So it’s unlikely to be her real name.’

‘You think she might be E?’

‘The depth of her grief seems proportionate with the intensity of feeling expressed in these letters.’

‘I’ll talk to her,’ said Inchball.

‘Gently,’ warned Quinn. ‘For now, just find out what her real name is. Don’t mention that we’ve seen the letters. And when you have done that, find the housekeeper and bring her to me.’

Inchball shot out of the room with a heavy, forward-leaning stomp.

Quinn met Coddington’s questioning eye with a shrug. ‘Despite what you say about Blackley not allowing admirers, someone must have bought her the furs and the other things. I suspect Miss Mortimer may know more than she has told you.’

‘It’s not
that
that I was wondering about.’ Coddington cocked his head, listening to the ebb and flow of despair that sounded through the wall. They heard the door open and Inchball’s heavy tread. The detective sergeant’s muffled growl failed to stem the tide of weeping.

Quinn and Coddington watched each other warily as they strained to hear what was transpiring in the next room. More footsteps, Inchball’s judging by the weight and speed. Then a sound like a metallic groan: the bed springs straining under an additional weight, perhaps. The sobbing became somehow subdued – not calmer, but dampened, as though something large and soft had been placed over the mouth of the weeping girl.

Coddington made as if to dart from the room, but Quinn caught him by the arm and held him.

The timbre of anguish changed again. Desperate gasping for air. Then a sharp keening arose, a high, fierce spiral of sound. But it was immediately swallowed into the same smothering mass.

There was a low, indistinct rumble from Inchball.

The muted wail continued, before decaying into a jagged series of stifled sobs. The ferocity of the sobs gradually lessened at the same time as the interval between them increased.

Quinn rippled his brows questioningly as he faced Coddington; the other man’s answering nod conceded whatever was implied by Quinn’s expression.

Now there was only silence from the next room. For Quinn, it was a strangely thrilling silence, for it held in it the promise of a breakthrough. The girl had stopped crying. There was every possibility that she might speak.

At last it came. Her voice, a fragile tremor, little more than a throb in the air, but full of the heat of her tears. They strained to make out what she said but her words were barely articulate, a vocal wrenching rather than speech. Nevertheless, she had spoken.

‘We couldn’t get a word from her,’ whispered Coddington.

‘He is a father,’ said Quinn, not bothering to lower his voice. ‘He has a father’s heart.’

‘All the same, it is surprising.’

‘That’s what motivates him. It’s why he does this job. Why I want him in my team.’

‘And you, Inspector Quinn? What motivates you?’

Quinn looked down at the bed. ‘I don’t like to think of them getting away with it.’

Coddington smoothed out his moustache distractedly. ‘It must be more than that.’

‘Must it?’ Quinn shook his head to deter a reply. He held up the letters as if to ward off further prying. ‘Why did she hide these in the frame of her bed, do you think?’

‘Embarrassment?’

‘Then why not destroy them? No, she hid them in the way that we hide the things that are most precious to us. This is hidden treasure. She hid them from prying eyes. Perhaps from those who would coarsely mock the delicate feelings described in these letters. Or perhaps from one who might be jealous of this . . .’ Quinn waved the letters gently. ‘Love.’

‘You think the letters are connected to her death?’

‘Let’s say they pique my interest. Do they not yours?’ As an afterthought, almost insolently, Quinn added: ‘Sir?’

Coddington continued to fuss away at his moustache as if he was trying to work something out. ‘Yes, of course.’

In the next room the bed springs sighed musically as a weight lifted from them. Inchball’s terse footsteps clipped on the boards again. Quinn dashed for the door and intercepted him on the landing.

‘Did you get a name?’

‘Edna Corbett.’

Quinn nodded. It was as he had expected. ‘Edna.’

‘That’s your “E”, guv.’

‘In all likelihood.’

‘Shall I still fetch the housekeeper?’

‘If you please.’

Quinn returned to Amélie’s bedroom and passed on the name to Coddington.

‘So, you were right. She is our letter-writer.’

Quinn made no comment.

Coddington’s hand went back up to his moustache. ‘I say, Inspector Quinn, here’s a thought. You said that Amélie concealed the letters to hide them from someone who might be jealous.’

‘I merely put it forward as a possibility. A theory.’

‘Well, staying with that theory, what about this? Suppose this girl, Edna, or Albertine, or whatever you want to call her . . . suppose she was the jealous one? Suppose she was jealous of Amélie’s relationship with whoever gave her all these presents? It’s possible, ain’ it? Couldn’t that be a motive?’

Quinn looked down at the letters in his hand.

‘All that passionate feeling,’ Coddington continued. ‘Love can turn to hate like that, you know.’ He clicked his fingers.

‘But have you seen her? There’s hardly anything to her. She’s a mite. Do you really think she’s capable of strangling the life out of a healthy girl?’

Coddington parroted Quinn’s own words. ‘I merely put it forward as a possibility. A theory.’

Quinn screwed his face up in distaste.

‘What’s the matter, Quinn?’ Coddington’s tone was suddenly bullish. ‘Is it because you didn’t think of it yourself?’

The remark struck home. ‘It’s possible, of course. Sir. As yet, there are still many features of this case that we do not understand. We must try to bear all possibilities in mind. And not jump to any conclusions.’

‘Of course, yes.’

‘What you are suggesting is something along the lines of a
crime passionelle
, as the French have it. A crime of passion. And yet, the business with the lock rather militates against that. That smacks of premeditation, I think. And this girl, she may be capable of strangling her best friend, her beloved friend . . . But is she also capable of contriving this feat of mystification?’

‘Perhaps she had help?’

‘You are proposing a conspiracy? A man to engineer the mechanical trickery? Then I am afraid it looks less and less like a
crime passionelle,
which therefore undermines the reason why you suspected her in the first place.’ Quinn found himself stroking his own rather insignificant moustache. He realized with horror that he was unconsciously mimicking DCI Coddington’s trademark mannerism. His hand flew away from his face. He glanced quickly at the other man. Had he noticed?

Coddington’s gaze was angled down towards the bed. But the tail of a smile flickered across his lips and vanished.

Q
uinn turned his back on Coddington and crossed to the window, which looked out over a long, narrow garden at the back of the house. The sun was a soft flare high up to his right, just at the periphery of his vision. Sometimes, in the midst of a murder enquiry, it shocked him more to discover the sun still shining than to find a bloody handprint or a discarded garrotte. The garden itself had benefited from the recent downpours. It presented a lush, almost unruly abundance – predominantly green, but with other spring colours starting to come through. It was like something unleashed.

A vestigial path led away towards a high wooden screen at the bottom of the garden, fragments of paving stone peeping through the long grass of a loose-edged lawn. Long-established climbing plants – Virginia creeper, wisteria, ivy – covered the screen. Layers upon layers of concealment, everywhere he looked.

The structure of the house projected out on the right, with Amélie’s room being set back in relation to it. Two other windows were set in the wall that came out, curtains drawn: more concealment. Quinn sighed. He made a half-hearted effort to lift the sash window.

‘The window was fastened from the inside,’ Coddington informed him. ‘Besides which, as you can see, the woodwork is painted fast. It’s immovable.’

‘So whoever killed her did not get out this way?’

‘It would appear not.’

The door opened. Quinn turned to see Inchball return. He stepped to one side, revealing Miss Mortimer behind him.

The housekeeper’s face was set in an expression of impatient belligerence. ‘What is it now? I have work to do, you know. The girls will be back soon, expecting their lunch.’