They’d made a three-way division of labour at the St. James house at half past nine that morning. St. James would continue on the path to Breta, taking on the Geoffrey Shenkling School. Deborah would collect a sample of Dennis Luxford’s printing in order to eliminate him as a potential author of the kidnapping notes. Helen would question the denizens of Cross Keys Close to find out if anyone had been lurking in the area in the days preceding Charlotte’s disappearance.
“The Luxford business is probably unnecessary,” St. James had told them. “I can’t believe he’d write the note himself if he took the girl. But we need to eliminate him as a matter of course. So, my love, if you don’t mind taking on The Source…”
Deborah flushed. She said, “Simon. Good grief. I’m terrible at this sort of thing. You know that. What on earth shall I say to him?”
“The truth will do,” St. James had told her. Deborah looked unconvinced. Her entire experience in this line of work had so far been limited to a single episode of quasi-breaking-and-entering in Helen’s company nearly four years in the past, and even then Helen had sallied forth in the lead, requiring Deborah only to footsoldier along behind her.
“Darling,” Helen told her, “just think of Miss Marple. Or Tuppence. Think of Tuppence. Or Harriet Vane.”
Deborah had finally settled upon taking her cameras with her as a security blanket to shelter her from the inclement weather of the vast unknown. “It’s a newspaper office after all,” she explained anxiously, lest St. James and Helen rush her out of the Chelsea house unarmed. “I won’t feel quite so odd if I have them with me. I won’t look out of place. They have photographers there, don’t they? Lots of photographers? At the newspaper office? Yes. Of course. Well, of course they do.”
“Incognito,” Helen cried. “Darling, that’s it. The very absolute thing. No one who sees you will know why you’re there and Mr. Luxford will be so appreciative of your thoughtfulness in sparing him that he’ll cooperate forthwith. Deborah, you were made for this line of work.”
Deborah had chuckled, her most reliable trait an ability to be joked out of her natural reticence. She’d gathered her cameras and gone on her way. St. James and Helen had done likewise.
From the time he had dropped her at the corner of Marylebone High Street and Marylebone Lane, heading himself west towards the Edgware Road, Helen had been asking questions. She’d started in the shops along Marylebone Lane, and she’d framed her questions round the disappearance of a child whose photograph she flashed once again but whose name she was careful not to give. Helen pinned the highest of her hopes upon the owner of the Golden Hind Fish and Chips Shop. Since Charlotte stopped there as a matter of course on Wednesdays prior to her music lesson, what better place was there for someone to wait for her and to watch for her than at one of the Golden Hind’s five wobble-legged tables? There was one specifically where a watcher could have waited, tucked into a corner behind a fruit machine but with a clear view of anyone who might have come strolling along Marylebone Lane.
But the shop owner, despite Helen’s encouraging mantra-like murmuring of “It could have been a man, it could have been a woman, it might well have been someone you’ve never seen here before,” shook his head and continued pouring vegetable oil into one of his capacious cooking vats. There might have been someone new hanging about, he said, but how was he to know? His shop was busy—and thank the Lord for that in these sorts of times—and if someone new was to come in for a nice bit of cod, chances are he’d think it was someone from one of the businesses that backed onto Bulstrode Place. That’s where she should be asking round, anyway. The buildings that them businesses were in had picture windows looking down on the street. More’n once he’d seen a secretary or a clerk-type gawping out the windows instead of seeing to their work. Which is why, tell you, Miss, the whole flipping country is going to hell. No work ethic. Too many bloody bank holidays. Everybody with a hand out, looking for the government to lay something in their palms. When he took a breath to expatiate further upon his chosen theme, Helen thanked him hastily and left him St. James’s card. If he did happen to remember anything…
The businesses backing onto Bulstrode Place took up several hours of her time. She had to bring to bear all of her skills at artfully blending persuasion and prevarication in order to manoeuvre past receptionists and security personnel so as to gain access to anyone having a work station, office, or desk near the windows that overlooked Bulstrode Place and Marylebone Lane. But here, again, she gained nothing but a questionable job offer for a more questionable job from a leering executive.
She did little better at the Prince Albert pub, where the publican greeted her question with an incredulous laugh. “Someone hanging about? Someone looking out of place?” he guffawed. “Luv, this’s London, this is. Hangers about’re my business. And what’s looking out of place these days? ’Less someone came in dripping blood like a vampire, I wouldn’t even take notice. Even then I might not, times being what they are. My only question’s can they pay for their drinks.”
After that she began the painstaking sojourn through Cross Keys Close. She’d never actually been in a section of London so reminiscent of Jack the Ripper’s haunts. Even in broad daylight the area made her nerves jangle. Tall buildings stood on each side of narrow alleyways, so the only sunlight that broke into the gloom was the occasional blade of it, which slashed at a roofline, and the even more occasional pool of it that managed to gather on a front step possessing a fortuitous exposure. There was virtually no one about in the area—which certainly suggested the distinct possibility of a stranger’s presence having been noted—but there was also virtually no one at home in most of the mousehole dwellings either.
She avoided Damien Chambers’ house, although she did take note of the electric keyboard music issuing from behind the closed door. She concentrated on the music teacher’s neighbours and worked both sides of the thread’s-width cobbled street. Her only companions were two cats—one ginger, one tabby, and both with hip bones jutting out at starvation angles—and a small furry creature with a pointed snout. This last skittered on tiny legs along the front of one building. His presence suggested that as brief an exposure to the area as possible was what was called for.
Helen showed Charlotte’s photograph. She explained her disappearance. She sidestepped natural questions like Who is she? and Are you suggesting foul play? She went to the heart of the matter once the preliminaries were completed: Chances were very good that the girl had been abducted. Had anyone been seen in the immediate vicinity? Anyone suspicious? Anyone lingering around too long?
From Number 3 and Number 7, two women whose televisions were coincidentally roaring with the same chat show, she received the same information as she and Simon had received from Damien Chambers on Wednesday night. Milkman, postman, the odd delivery man. Those were the only people who’d been seen in the mews. From Number 6 and Number 9 she received dull-faced blank stares. From half a dozen more she received nothing at all since no one was at home. And then she scored at Number 5.
She thought she might be in good hands when she first knocked on the door. Happening to glance above—just as she had kept glancing round uneasily as she made her way through the network of alleys—she saw a wizened face watching her surreptitiously through a crack in the curtains at the single first floor window. She raised a hand in greeting and tried to look as pleasantly non-threatening as possible. She called out, “May I speak to you for a moment, please?” and she saw the eyes narrow. She smiled encouragingly. The face disappeared. She knocked again. Nearly a minute went by, then the door cracked open on a chain.
Helen said, “Thank you so much. This won’t take a moment,” and rustled in her shoulder bag for Charlotte’s photo.
The eyes in the wizened face watched her warily. Helen couldn’t yet tell if they belonged to a woman or to a man, since their owner was dressed asexually in a green tracksuit and trainers.
“Whatchawan?” Wizened-Face asked.
Helen produced the picture. She explained Charlotte’s disappearance. Wizened-Face took the picture in an age-spotted hand and held it between fingers with bright red nails. That, at least, settled the question of sex, unless the poor dear was an elderly transvestite.
“This little girl has disappeared,” Helen said. “Possibly from Cross Keys Close. We’re trying to establish if anyone has been lurking round the area in the past week or so.”
“Pewman rang the police,” the woman said, and thrust the photograph back at Helen. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand and jerked her head at Number 4 across the alley. “Pewman,” she said again. “Wasn’t me.”
“The police? When?”
She shrugged. “Was a tramp hanging about early week. Know the sorts, doanchew? Go through them rubbish bins looking for food. Pewman don’t like that. Well, none of’s do. But Pewman, he’d be the one rang the police.”
Helen worked on putting this information together. She spoke quickly lest the woman decide she’d said enough and slam the door. “You’re saying there was a vagrant in the neighbourhood, Mrs….” She waited hopefully for an appellation to hang upon the woman, an indication of growing warmth and trust between them. Wizened wasn’t having any. She sucked on her teeth and favoured Helen with a look that spoke volumes, none of which had anything to do with amity. Helen continued. “This vagrant was here for several days? And Pewman…Mr. Pewman?…He phoned the police?”
“Constable run him off.” She grinned. Seeing her teeth, Helen made a mental vow to visit her dentist more regularly. “I saw that much, I did. Tramp fell into the rubbish bin howling ’bout police brutality. Pewman did it though. Phoned the police. Jus’ ask him.”
“Can you describe…”
“Hmmm. Can do. Good-looking, he were. No-nonsense type. Dark hair like a cap. Real nice. Real clean. Li’l bit of caterpillar on his lip. Look of authority ’bout him, there was.”
“Oh dear, I’m sorry,” Helen said, and forced her voice to remain patient and pleasant, “I meant the vagrant, not the policeman.”
“Ah. Him.” The woman made another wipe at her nose. “Was dressed in brown, like army stuff.”
“Khaki?”
“Thassit. All crumpled up like he slept in it. Heavy boots. No laces. Rucksack…one o’ them big things.”
“A duffel bag?”
“Thassit. Right.”
The description would probably fit ten thousand men currently wandering round London. Helen pressed further. “Did you notice anything else about him? A physical characteristic. His hair, for instance. His face. His body.”
Wrong question to ask. The woman grinned and Helen was regaled by yet another display of her teeth. “Was looking at the copper more’n him. Nice little arse on the copper, there was. I like a man with a tight little arse, doanchew?”
“Quite. I’m an absolute martyr to the male posterior,” Helen said. “As to the other man…”
She was able to add only his hair. “Mostly grey, it were. Hanging out in straggles from beneath a knitted cap. Cap itself…” She used one of her fingernails to rub along her gumline and down between two teeth as she thought. “Navy in colour. Pewman phoned the coppers on him when he’s going through his dustbin. Pewman’d know what he looked like better’n me.”
Pewman, blessedly, did know. And even more blessedly, he was at home. A screenplay writer, he explained, and Helen had caught him mid-sentence, so if she didn’t mind…
Helen went directly to the vagrant without explanation.
Pewman said, “Oh yes, I remember him,” and supplied Helen with a description that made her marvel at his powers of observation. The man was fifty to sixty-five, he stood perhaps five feet ten inches tall, his face was dark and deeply lined as if from too much sun, his lips were so badly chapped that they were white with dead skin, his hands were roughed up—barely healing cuts on the backs of them, his trousers were held up by a maroon tie that was worked through the belt loops. “And,” Pewman concluded, “one of his shoes was built up.”
“Built up?”
“You know. One sole was about an inch thicker than the other. Polio in childhood, perhaps?” He gave a boyish laugh at Helen’s look of astonishment at his powers of observation. “Writer,” he said in apparent explanation.
“Sorry?”
“He looked like a good character, so I wrote a description of him when I saw him going through the rubbish. One never knows when something’s going to be useful.”
“You phoned the police as well, according to your neighbour, Mrs….” Helen waved vaguely across the alley, where, she saw, her conversation with Mr. Pewman was being observed from a crack in the curtains.
“I?” He shook his head. “Nope. Poor bugger. I wouldn’t have phoned the cops on him. There wasn’t much in my rubbish, but he was welcome to it. It was probably one of the others. Probably Miss Schickel from Number 10.” He rolled his eyes and tilted his head in the direction of Number 10, farther down the alley. “She’s one of those up-by-their-bootstraps types. I lived through the Blitz, etc., etc. You know the sort I mean? They’ve got zero tolerance for the down-at-heel. She probably warned the bloke off and when he didn’t disappear, she’d have phoned the cops. And kept phoning till they came round and rousted him.”
“Did you see him get rousted?”
He hadn’t, he said. He’d just seen him going through the rubbish. He couldn’t have said for certain exactly how long the man had been hanging about the area, but he knew it was more than one day. Despite her lack of tolerance for her less fortunate fellow man, Miss Schickel was unlikely to phone the cops after only one incursion into her rubbish bin.
Did he know the exact day when the vagrant had been rousted?
He thought about this, playing a pencil through his fingers. He finally said that it must have been a couple of days ago. Perhaps Wednesday. Yes, Wednesday for sure, because his mum always phoned on Wednesday and when he’d been talking to her, he’d looked out the window and seen the poor bloke. He hadn’t seen the man since, come to think of it.
Which was the moment when Helen thought of the gumshoe expression. She’d finally hit pay dirt. It was a solid lead.
The existence of a lead ameliorated the frustration St. James was suffering. With the blessing of the headmistress of the Geoffrey Shenkling School, he’d spoken to every female child possessing a name even remotely close to the nickname Breta. He’d interviewed eight-to twelve-year-old Albertas, Bridgets, Elizabeths, Berthes, Babettes, Ritas, and Brittanys of every race, every creed, and every possible disposition. Some were shy. Some were frightened. Some were outspoken. Some were delighted to be out of their lessons. But none of them knew Charlotte Bowen, either as Charlotte, as Lottie, or as Charlie. And none of them had ever been to Eve Bowen’s Friday afternoon surgery with a parent, a guardian, or a friend. He’d come away from the school with a list of the day’s absentees and their phone numbers. But he had a feeling that the Shenkling school was going to be a complete dead end.
“And if that’s the case, we’re left with having to check every other school in Marylebone,” St. James said, “while time continues to pass. Which is, of course, to the kidnapper’s advantage. You know, Helen, if we hadn’t had confirmation from two other sources that Breta’s indeed a friend of Charlotte’s, I’d be willing to lay money on Damien Chambers’ having cooked her up on Wednesday night on the spot to get us off his back.”
“His bringing up Breta did give us an instant direction to head in, didn’t it?” Helen noted thoughtfully. They’d joined forces in the Rising Sun pub on the high street, where St. James was brooding into a Guinness and Helen was fortifying herself with a glass of white wine. They’d arrived during that quiet period between lunch and dinner, so aside from the publican who was polishing and shelving glasses, they had the bar to themselves.
“But you’d be hard pressed to make me believe he managed to get both Mrs. Maguire and Brigitta Walters to corroborate his story about Breta. Why would t
hey?”
“Mrs. Maguire’s Irish, isn’t she? And Damien Chambers? That was an Irish accent, surely.”
“Belfast,” St. James said.
“So perhaps they share a common interest.”
St. James again considered Eve Bowen’s position at the Home Office and what Mrs. Maguire had alluded to about the MP’s special interest: putting the screws to the IRA. But he shook his head. “That doesn’t explain Brigitta Walters. How does she fit in? Why would she tell the same tale about Breta if it wasn’t the truth?”
“Perhaps our concentration’s too limited in looking for Breta,” Helen said. “We’ve thought of her as a school friend or a neighbourhood friend. But Charlotte could know the girl from somewhere else. What about from a church group? Sunday school? Choir?”
“There’s been no mention of that.”
“Girl guides?”
“We’d have been told.”
“What about her dancing class? We’ve not looked into her dancing class, and it’s been mentioned more than once.”
They hadn’t looked into it. And it was a possibility. There was her psychologist as well. Both leads needed following up; both leads might hold the key they were looking for, so why did he feel so reluctant to deal with them? St. James wondered. But he knew the answer. He curled his fingers and felt the tips of his nails dig into his palm. He said, “I want to get out of this, Helen.”