‘You going to see her?’

  ‘What else can I do?’ There was no need for me to tell Lottie that I had another lead – in the form of Sylvia Clay.

  ‘The girl won’t know anything.’ Lottie declared confidently.

  ‘She knows O’Connor’s killer.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Intimately.’

  CHAPTER 10

  I arrived at Furze Croft around 6 o’clock that evening. That seemed to me like a good time to pay a visit to a tom, before she got too busy. I could easily have got there earlier but I resisted the urge, knowing my interest was becoming more than professional. Instead I’d loitered around town for a few hours, but even then set off before I needed to, forcing myself to walk slowly. The building was only a couple of years old, ultramodern in its design and unashamedly intended to impress, certainly from the outside. It didn’t really feel like Brighton around here, or even Hove. The area was too secluded – too suburban. There was no trade here, no shops selling their wares, no pubs, no tourists. People simply lived here, and even then not like in the tight terraces that covered the side of every other hill in the town – places like Grove Street. People lived over there because they had to. If you lived here, you wanted to. This was the realm of the Eloi. And yet some trade was done. Why else had Rachael Westby come here?

  Even the doorbell exuded modernity: a polished brass plate with numbered buttons for each flat and a grille above, which I guessed hid a loudspeaker. I pressed No 202. After a few moments the speaker crackled, and then a voice spoke: ‘Yes?’

  ‘Spindly sent me,’ I said.

  There was a pause and then a reply. ‘I’ve not got long.’

  I hesitated to assure her that I wouldn’t need long, but she didn’t wait for more. The door buzzed and I pushed it open. It took me only a few minutes to find my way up to flat 202. When I got there, the door was already ajar. I knocked anyway.

  ‘I left it open for a reason,’ came her voice.

  I went in, closing the door behind me. It was a big enough living room, looking out to the south, but I didn’t go over to take in the view. She reclined on a chaise longue, wearing a pink satin dressing gown, white fur trimming the lapels. This was undoubtedly the girl from the photographs, though my comparison with Claudette Colbert seemed less appropriate now I saw her in the flesh. She smiled up at me but it was not a friendly, open expression – inviting rather than welcoming, if there can be a distinction. I stood there, fingering the rim of my hat nervously, wondering if it was down to coincidence or my subconscious that I held it so that it covered my crotch.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she asked. She spoke with the suggestion of a London accent, which I guessed was genuine. Overlaying that was a childlike lilt that I took to be a professional affectation.

  ‘Charlie,’ I said, ‘Charlie —’

  ‘Sit down, Charlie,’ she interrupted. Evidently my surname was of no interest to her. I did as she’d asked. ‘My name’s Rachael,’ she continued. She was a real treat for the eyes. The images of her flashed through my mind, but photographs never do a girl like that justice. I’d tried to take account of it when I drew her, but I hadn’t gone far enough, not from what I could see.

  ‘Did Spindly tell you how much?’ she asked.

  I wondered whether I’d been wise to mention Cochran’s name. I’d met him once. The gangling frame that gave him his nickname disguised a brutal strength that he’d never been afraid to put to use. The best way to avoid his getting involved was for me to come clean.

  ‘I didn’t come here for that,’ I said.

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘What did you come here for?’

  ‘To talk.’

  ‘That’s nothing unusual, but I still charge.’

  ‘Not like that.’ I leaned forward, handing her my calling card. ‘I want information.’

  She held the card close to read it. She must have been very short-sighted, but too vain to wear eyeglasses. It didn’t take her long to register my line of work.

  ‘I think you’d better go,’ she said coldly.

  I tried to play it tough. ‘Not until you tell me what I need to know.’

  She stood up and went over to the telephone. ‘It’s pretty obvious Spindly didn’t send you, but he’ll be very happy to get rid of you.’

  ‘If you don’t talk to me, you’ll just have to talk to the police.’

  She didn’t waver. She had the receiver to her ear and her finger on the dial. She narrowed her eyes to see it better. ‘Why should the police want to talk to me?’

  ‘Blackmail.’

  Her finger paused in mid-air, as if pointing at the telephone. She thought for a moment, then began to dial. ‘You’ve got nothing,’ she said.

  I reached into my bag and brought out a folded sheet of paper. I tossed it in her direction, but it hit the air and didn’t get very far, landing on the carpet a few feet away from her. As a gesture, it was less dramatic than I’d intended, but it got her attention. She put the phone down and bent forward to pick up the drawing. She opened it out and peered intently, again bringing it close enough for her to focus on, but at the same time too close to take in as a whole.

  ‘I think you’re going to need your glasses.’

  She glanced at me questioningly over the top of the sketch, wondering how I’d guessed her little secret, but she didn’t try to pretend otherwise. She sat back down on the chaise longue and reached over to open a cigarette box that rested on the table beside it. Inside were her spectacles. She slipped them on. They looked expensive: egg-shaped lenses hung from ornately decorated gold half rims, level with her eyebrows. I could understand why she chose not to wear them. They suited her, but not her profession.

  Now she held the drawing at a more comfortable distance, able to survey the scene in its entirety. I wasn’t sure which one I had given her, but from the size I knew it would be displaying the full width of the bed, not just a close-up of a face. She would be able to see her whole body and his, except where one concealed the other. She examined it for perhaps half a minute, then looked at me as she spoke.

  ‘Did you draw this?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You’re quite the artist … in a perverted sort of way.’

  ‘It wasn’t me who took the photo.’

  ‘No. But then a camera’s just a machine. This is more intimate. Your hand created this; touched it.’ It was much the same conclusion as I’d come to myself while drawing it. I enjoyed the idea of us sharing the same thought; another way that I could touch her.

  ‘Did you know he was there?’ I asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘O’Connor – taking the photographs.’

  ‘Of course. Can’t you tell?’

  ‘Tell?’

  ‘I’d have done it differently otherwise.’

  I tried not to imagine what the difference might be. ‘You know he’s dead?’ I remarked instead.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Alan O’Connor died last Saturday. Murdered. A bullet in the face.’ I’d decided I’d get more out of her by shocking her.

  Her eyes bulged and her hand shot to her mouth. She seemed genuinely about to vomit, but controlled herself. I instantly regretted my brutality, though I was now even more confident it would get me what I wanted. I walked over and sat beside her. She reached for my hand, squeezing it – the first time we’d touched, outside of my imagination. She let the drawing fall to the floor, from where those dark eyes of hers stared up at me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘Who?’ she asked. ‘Why?’

  I was surprised she couldn’t guess, but it was better that she didn’t. O’Connor had been taking photographs for use in blackmail, and now he was dead. The motive was pretty obvious, as was the killer. It had to be one of the people he’d photographed, and she knew as well as I did that it wasn’t her. And from there it wasn’t hard to work out who the next victim might be. But I wasn’t going to suggest that. She might clam up and tell me nothing.

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ I said gently. ‘That’s why I need your help.’ I felt like a louse, manipulating her like that, but it wasn’t as if I was actually lying.

  ‘Not now,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve got a client coming, and I can’t think anyway. Come back tomorrow. I’ll tell you, I promise.’

  I jumped on the invitation, perhaps too eagerly. ‘I’ll be here first thing,’ I said, then realized that ‘first thing’ probably meant very different things to the two of us. ‘What time do you get up?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not here.’ Then she smiled – more than smiled. It was a total change in her demeanour; an opening up. ‘Why don’t you take me to lunch?’

  The archness to the expression on her face made no secret of the fact she was somehow playing me, but to what end I couldn’t guess. If this was the only way I was going to get something out of her, then so be it. And there was more to it than that. I could imagine the envious looks I’d get, sitting in a restaurant on the seafront opposite a girl like her. No one would know the reason she was there, and that I wasn’t her regular companion. And only I would know what kind of girl she really was, the girl I’d seen in those photos. Only she and I. I remembered Lottie’s offhand comment about finding me a nice girl. Maybe I didn’t need her help. And maybe it wasn’t a nice girl that I was after.

  ‘You’re sure?’ I asked her.

  ‘Sure about what? That I eat lunch?’

  I laughed. ‘I’ll pick you up at noon, then.’

  ‘I can’t be back too late.’

  ‘Half eleven?’

  She gave the slightest nod of assent. ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘You’ll find out,’ I replied.

  *

  I got myself back home, but couldn’t remember anything of the route I’d taken. I’d been trying to prepare myself for the following day – to decide what I was going to ask Rachael – but, as soon as I pictured the scene of us seated opposite one another, my mind wandered to other details of how our lunch would progress. I felt her eyes on mine, imagined the sensation of her foot against my calf beneath the table as we conversed, anticipated for how long she might let her lips touch my cheek as we said goodbye. It was better to indulge such fantasies now than tomorrow. Tomorrow I’d be brought back down to earth; I knew that.

  I stepped through the front door about to hail Mrs Croft with my usual greeting, just as I did every day. But before I’d said a word I noticed the message pad that sat on the table, next to the telephone. Mrs Croft’s big, childish, block capitals shouted at me.

  CALL YOUR MOTHER

  I already knew what it was about. Mum would be wondering about the small brown parcel that had arrived in the post, addressed to me. It was O’Connor’s money – the money I’d offloaded at Victoria. Given my arrest, it had turned out to be a cuter move than I’d imagined. And there’d be no trouble collecting it, given that we’d already arranged I’d be going round there for …

  ‘Shit!’

  Thankfully I’d kept my voice low. That wasn’t the usual salutation with which I assailed my landlady. I glanced around, but both her doors were firmly closed.

  I had reason enough to swear. I’d already planned to go to mum’s for lunch the following day, Wednesday. We’d set the date weeks ago. And now I had made a very similar appointment with Rachael. I’d have to cancel one of them, and I knew which was more important. Seeing Rachael was business: not that this was quite how it looked in my head when I contemplated the prospect, but that didn’t change the truth of it. I still had a murder to investigate, though I couldn’t tell mum that. But I’d find a way to appease her.

  The phone rang for a good thirty seconds before she answered. As soon as I heard her voice, I knew this was going to be a tricky conversation. But within five minutes we’d sorted things out. I hung up, then tore off the sheet of paper with Mrs Croft’s message and crumpled it into a ball. I’d obeyed the instruction written there, and found a solution that would keep everyone happy. I’d still be seeing Rachael tomorrow, and I could still indulge in the anticipation of how our rendezvous would unfold, though now in rather different ways from those I had imagined before.

  I went up to my rooms. I could faintly hear the wireless from the floor above, and the sound of Crosby moving around. I thought about going up to talk to him, but he’d been away for a whole week and, from the little I knew of him, I reckoned he wouldn’t take kindly to answering my questions. It was best left to the police. There was nothing to be done until tomorrow, but the clock told me it was too early for bed, particularly with thoughts of Rachael on my mind. In my living room the window still wasn’t fixed and I felt suddenly uncomfortable, unwilling to spend the evening in the place where O’Connor had died. But neither could I go to bed. There was a simple solution. I grabbed a book and went downstairs.

  It wasn’t a long walk, just as far as Preston Circus, a big junction of five roads, including the main route out of Brighton. The new fire station facing on to it made the whole area look different. It had only been open a week, but I’d watched it being built, and so for me the transformation had been gradual. The pub hadn’t been affected. The Hare and Hounds was a big place, which meant it never had that homely atmosphere enjoyed by some establishments. I knew a few of the regulars but, if you sat on one side of the pub and they were on the other, they might never notice you. And even if they did, they’d leave you in peace. I got my pint and sat at an empty table by the window, but I didn’t look out. Instead I started to read.

  ‘The Road to Wigan Pier.’ The statement was filled with disdain, pretending to read the title as if that precise combination of words had never before been uttered. Even so I recognized the voice. I must have been reading for an hour or so by then. I didn’t look up.

  ‘By that socialist, isn’t it?’ Marchant continued. He sat down beside me, forcing me to pay him some attention.

  ‘It’s not as simple as that,’ I said.

  ‘Better that than the Nazis, I suppose.’ He pronounced the ‘z’ of ‘Nazis’ in the same way as the second ‘s’ of ‘suppose’. A lot of people did. Some understood enough German to know how it should sound, but mispronounced it as a mark of deliberate disrespect. Others were just plain ignorant. It was impossible to tell which was which.

  ‘They claim to be socialists too,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t buy that, do you?’ He seemed a little drunk. He cradled a Scotch in his hand, and I doubted it was his first. I’d never seen him in the Hare and Hounds before, so guessed he must be here to see me. Perhaps he’d stopped in for some Dutch courage on his way to my flat, and I’d saved him the trouble of going any further. It seemed likely that whatever he wanted was unofficial. He could easily have put a stop to my investigations into O’Connor’s death, but he hadn’t. That counted for something.

  ‘It was good of you to come to the funeral,’ I said.

  ‘Sniffing for clues, really.’

  ‘Me too.

  ‘Find anything? No, don’t tell me.’ His change of mind took only an instant.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked.

  ‘I’d have to pass it on.’

  ‘To Tremaine?’

  Marchant nodded.

  ‘I think he’s worked most of it out anyway,’ I said. ‘He seems pretty acute.’

  Marchant let out a sharp, exasperated sigh. ‘He’s worked it all out, and he’s not going to do anything about it.’

  ‘He’s got his reasons. Good reasons.’

  ‘Maybe so, but that doesn’t make me feel any happier. Be better if he’d just kept it all to himself.’

  I turned to him. Perhaps this was why he’d sought me out. ‘He’s told you something else?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s told me enough. How else am I supposed to make sure this Kraut doesn’t get arrested, if I don’t know his name?’

  I said nothing. It was thrilling. My business was all about information. In almost every case, somebody knew who did it – somebody other than the criminal himself. It was just a matter of getting them to spill the beans. There’d never been any question that Tremaine knew the name, but he wasn’t going to crack. Marchant was a different matter.

  We sat in silence for over a minute. At first it had seemed quite obvious that he was going to let me in on his secret but, with each passing second, the likelihood receded. In the end there was nothing I could do but ask directly, fearful of the response I would get.

  ‘You going to tell me?’

  ‘Wish I could. But, as Commander Tremaine has so clearly explained, that would be tantamount to treason. He said there’ll be people hanged for less, when the war comes.’

  ‘“When”?’

  ‘That’s what he said, and he’d know.’ The inspector downed the last dregs of his whisky and deposited the glass heavily on the table. He wiped his lips with his hand. I stood up.

  ‘Another?’ I asked.

  ‘Please,’ he answered rapidly.

  I drained the remnants of my pint and went over to the bar. When I came back, I found Marchant had my book in his hands. Once he saw me, he put it down, apparently embarrassed.

  ‘Don’t let me stop you,’ I said, handing him his drink.

  ‘That’s all right. My wife read Keep the Aspidistra Flying. She told me I’d like it, but I couldn’t get into it. This looks much the same.’

  ‘It’s not,’ I said. ‘This isn’t fiction.’

  ‘Even less reason for me to enjoy it, then.’

  We talked for a little longer, but not about O’Connor’s murder. We tried literature, but obviously he wasn’t much interested. Then came football, for which the same applied to me. Finally, we settled on rugger, where we had some common ground. But by then we’d almost finished our drinks. He didn’t offer me another. We walked a few yards down London Road together, then I turned off into my own street. He seemed about to say something as we parted, but then thought better of it.

  I made an effort to be quiet as I opened the front door and climbed the stairs to my room. It was late and Mrs Croft would have long been asleep. For my part, I wasn’t tired and, once I’d changed into my pyjamas, I decided to read some more. I opened the book where I’d marked it and immediately noticed the new addition. It was right at the top of the page, above the printed text: two words, written in pencil. It could only be Marchant who had put them there, and they could mean only one thing. They comprised a name, a German name: