flourish of her hand. ‘My mother phoned me,’ she said as she and the officers sat in the armchairs. ‘It is about Rosemary Halkier. .’
‘Yes. You are Mrs South. . once Miss North?’
‘Yes.’ The woman grinned sheepishly. ‘It always causes comments to be made. I was Pauline North from Leyton, I am now Pauline South from Mill Hill. . gone northwards to become South. The jokes are endless. I went to Sussex University and married one of my tutors; he was a junior lecturer then. He’s now a professor at Royal Holloway. I teach children now my own are up and away. . no regular post, I am a supply teacher — explains why I am home today. . no phone call from the agency.’
‘It seems you have done very well.’ Penny Yewdall smiled.
‘Yes.’ Pauline South nodded briefly. ‘I am very fortunate. . successful husband, two lovely boys. . good marriage. I am fulfilled but Rosemary should have had the same. Was it really her on Hampstead Heath?’
‘Yes,’ Brunnie replied, ‘I am afraid it was.’
‘Oh. . and I have all this — still alive and all this — but I appreciate it. I appreciate each day because I know that tragedy can strike at any time; you just have to open the newspaper and read about a tragedy striking some poor family.’
‘That’s a good attitude to have.’
‘It’s the only attitude. So, how can I help you? I knew that something had happened to her.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, I mean, no details, just that some ill must have befallen her. . some misadventure. Like the fell walker who vanished up in the Lake District and three or four years later his body was found in a mountain stream. The search party swept the wrong area for some reason, and then years later another walker attempted to cross the stream at the same location and so found the body — just ten feet either side and he would have missed the corpse. But that wasn’t Rose, she wasn’t adventurous like that. . but she wouldn’t walk out on her life and reinvent herself. That’s something that people could do up until the end of the Second World War, but now our National Insurance number and health records follow us everywhere. . all on computer. So really that just left foul play to explain what happened to her. . but she was bright at school, she could have, should have, gone on to university, but she married a fairground worker. Can you believe that? And her life never recovered. Some mistake.’
‘So, tell us about Rosemary, if you can,’ Brunnie said, ‘we are trying to piece together her life at about the time she disappeared.’
‘Well, I was at university, but at home. . must have been between terms, and I well remember her dad coming to our door asking if we knew where she was. Poor soul, he was in a terrible state.’
‘What do you know about her social life at the time?’
‘Not much. We went out for a drink occasionally, just two Leyton girls together. . up the boozer, like good local girls. The landlord of the Coach and Horses knew us, as did the locals, and he and the locals would not let anyone bother us. We just had a couple of glasses of wine and a right good chitchat. . but we were drifting apart by then, and we never went up town together.’
‘Understood.’
‘Any man friend? Rosemary’s man friend, I mean.’
‘Just one. . and not a good one.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. Strange name. .’ she took a deep breath. ‘How embarrassing, so strange that I have forgotten it.’ She forced a smile. ‘It’ll come. . it’ll come, the name is that of the American film star, except his surname is that of the first name of her boyfriend at the time. What was it? What was it? Oh. . Curtis, that’s it. Tony Curtis was the actor and Curtis something was Rosemary’s boyfriend.’
‘That’s very interesting.’ Brunnie turned to Yewdall, who raised an eyebrow.
‘Is it?’ Pauline South asked.
‘Yes, it dovetails neatly, very neatly into other information we have.’
‘I see.’
‘So what did she tell you about Curtis X?’
‘Curtis X, I like that. Curtis X. . well, she was not comfortable with him; he seemed to have betrayed her and she seemed frightened of him.’
‘Betrayed her?’
‘Perhaps that is the wrong word. Not so much betrayed as deceived her. It was a case of the old, old story of the man who could charm the birds down from the trees and then once ensnared, turns out to be a monster of a person who destroys all and everything he comes into contact with. And she fell for his charms, possibly as a reaction to the fairground worker she had married and who she was escaping from — that made her even more vulnerable to Curtis X’s charms.’
‘Oh. .’ Penny Yewdall groaned.
‘You’ve met the type?’ Pauline South asked.
‘Oh yes. . often, all too often — not personally but in police work. We have met the victims. . either dead or alive, the victims of the easy charms of the predatory psychopaths who can smile as they kill.’
‘I don’t know exactly how they met but I think it was in some dimly lit pickup parlour in the West End, or maybe it was the East End — an East End nightclub. She did say he was an East Ender, like she was, so they had that in common, and he was good looking, and also charming, as you have said. I think they became an item quite quickly. She was easy pickings for him. It got sour though, got sour very rapidly.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, she came home with a bruised face, and after a stupidly short period she went back to him, though she never actually moved in as such. She wouldn’t leave her children but was with him every weekend. I do remember her telling me that he had some strange hold over her. She said she knew that she shouldn’t go back to him, that he was bad news, but she still felt the tug to return to him in his huge house in Surrey.’
‘Surrey?’ Brunnie repeated. ‘Large county. .’
‘Virginia Water, she mentioned Virginia Water. The houses down there, like palaces she said, but she felt this magnetic draw to Curtis, which she said she knew she had to resist but she couldn’t resist at all.’ Pauline South paused. ‘It was as though he had some form of control over her.’
‘Yes, I know what you mean. It’s not untypical with that sort of personality. If the victim is weak enough or needy enough that manner of control can be exercised.’
‘Interesting, frightening also, but she was a lovely girl, very attractive. We made an odd couple in the Coach and Horses: me short and plain and she the glamorous, raven-haired, Rubenesque beauty, but inside she was so full of unmet need. She felt really guilty.’
‘Guilty?’
‘About letting her parents down in respect of her choice of husband. . cheap rented flat in Clacton. . and so the wealth offered by Curtis what’s his name was, in her mind, like a compensation, but in fact it was all part of the lure to lead her into the minefield, so it seems now.’
‘You said she seemed frightened?’
‘Yes, she had heard that previous girlfriends, or possibly just one girlfriend, had disappeared.’
‘How?’ Brunnie asked.
‘The staff told her.’
‘Staff?’ Yewdall sought clarification. ‘What staff?’
‘Domestics. . cleaners. . they clocked her for being an East End girl — their class, not posh; saw her as one of them. She said her name was Tessie. . the cook. . just breakfasts and lunch six days a week. Rosemary told me that Tessie had told her to “get out”. Tessie said, “Get out while you’re still alive”. She returned to her parent’s home later that day, and me and her went up to the boozer. That’s when she told me what Tessie had said. Then, the next time we met up she told me Tessie had gone. Apparently, she had turned in her notice and walked out.’
‘Do you know Tessie’s surname?’
‘O’Shea.’
‘And she lived in Virginia Water?’
‘Yes, in some council house development in amongst the mansions, just to balance the social mix and provide cooks and cleaners and gardeners for the hoi polloi.’
