“That was January, three months ago. I’ve seen a hundred theories from you people, none of them based on the facts. There are no new angles. Major Anthony Caldwell was mad as a hatter and took up killing young women because he liked it. End of story.”
It wasn’t, of course; it was the beginning. But it was all that anyone was going to get out of me. She ignored my theatrics. As I raised my head she had her eyes fixed on the scar across my skull that even my red mop can’t hide. She pulled a shorthand notepad from her raincoat pocket and flicked it open. She poised a pencil over the page.
“Do you believe that?”
“I’m not a psychiatrist.”
“But you’ve known a few,” she said with a lift of a heavy eyebrow.
“I spent a few months in a loony bin if that’s what you mean. All better now.” I tapped the trailing end of the scar that terminates just above my left brow, and smiled to signify the end of that little probe.
“That’s how we ran the story. Not one of mine.” She made it clear how little she thought of her fellow hacks. “I’ve been reviewing the facts and some things don’t add up. I thought there might be a more interesting truth behind it.”
“Five murders wasn’t interesting enough?”
She stared defiantly at me. The eyes were black olives swimming in milk, and the skin round them was a soft brown with a little fat ridge beneath the lower lids; harem eyes behind the yashmak. “Not in themselves, no. They’re just numbers, unless you know something about the murderer’s mind, or the victims’. My readers want the inside story, the human story.”
“Tell them to read Tit Bits.”
“I see we start from rather different views of a newspaper, Mr McRae.”
I shrugged. “What didn’t add up?”
“Don’t tell me you’re interested?” She balanced her pad on her lap and raised both hands to her beret. She dug out a pin that had Exhibit A in a murder trial written all over it, wrenched off the cap and shook her hair out. The briar patch exploded. This woman was unscrupulous. She went on, careless of the effect on me.
“It was the sister. Not the Caldwell woman, the upper class one…” She flicked through her pad. “Kate, Kate Graveney.”
“What about her?”
“She was… unexpected. I’m good at my job, Mr McRae. Thorough. I do the leg work.
My colleagues prefer to sit in the pub and make it up. I go look for myself. And I ask questions. I asked some of the girls in Soho, the working girls. It helps being a woman – at times. They told me that the classy Kate operated a little side business, she was a competitor of theirs offering a service that none of them could – or chose to – provide.”
I kept my gaze level and waited. I wondered if she’d met any of the girls from Mama Mary’s house. I’d have a word with Mary later.
“You don’t seem shocked,” she said.
“Nothing much shocks me any more, Miss Copeland. Especially if it’s made up.”
“So it’s not true.”
“Even if it were, I imagine if you were to print it you’d be sued till the Trumpet’s last blow.”
She had the grace to look rueful. “I know, I know. But there’s another thing.
The word on the street – and I do mean the street – is that Kate also knew about the murders. Maybe even helped. You know what those rich society girls are like.”
“’Fraid not. I don’t throw enough cocktail parties up here. Maybe I should. What do you think?”
“I think you’re covering for this woman, but I don’t know why. Love? Sex? A gentleman protecting a lady’s reputation?”
“Will that be all, Miss Copeland?” I got to my feet.
“Call me Eve. Can I call you Danny?”
“Call me what you like, Eve. But I have work to do. If you don’t mind.”
“Wait, wait. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get taken seriously as a woman in this business?” She shoved her hair back from her face. Her big eyes suddenly lost their certainty. I sat down.
“No, I don’t. I guess it’s tough. Now all the men are back.”
She nodded. “All with their old jobs guaranteed. I don’t mind. It’s fair enough.
But things changed when they were away.”
For the first time since she got here she was being sincere.
“It gave me a chance. I took it. I did anything and everything. I even got blown up in an air raid.” She reached down and pulled up her skirt. She pointed to a white scar running from her knee and disappearing up her thigh.
“I had my own daily column, for god’s sake. Then all the men came home, and bang, I’m back down the ladder. Not all the way. I still do a weekly. But I need to be ten times better than they are to get back to daily. Do you see?”
She was leaning over my desk, longing written across her exotic face. It made her suddenly vulnerable. Then I noticed; the East End accent had gone. Nothing replaced it. I mean she spoke without an accent of any sort.
I nodded. “We all need some breaks, Eve. But the Caldwell case is closed as far as I’m concerned. It’s too personal. All tied up in my memory problems and headaches. I don’t want to bring them back. Do you see?”
Her face took on new purpose. She pulled back. “OK, Danny, let’s leave the past.
I can’t run to a lot of expenses, but what if I could pay you to let me inside?”
“Inside?”
“Your world. Villains and crooks. Fast women and mean men. The underworld. A Cook’s tour of the wrong side of the tracks. I want you to introduce me to thieves and murderers. There are clubs I can’t get into on my own, unless I change my profession.” She bared a set of even, white fangs. I could imagine them sunk into a story and not letting go.
I stared at her. “You’re having me on, aren’t you?”
Her soulful eyes glittered with wicked interest. “Take me out on a case.”
“Seedy hotels, following Mr and Mrs Smith?”
“You do more than that.”
I shook my head. “Was this the career opportunity you had in mind for me?”
“I pay you for information. I write it up and we both do well out of it.”
“You make me sound like a copper’s nark.”
“A man of principle, dispensing justice where the courts fear to tread,” she inscribed in mid-air.
I laughed out loud at the image. But then I thought about where next month’s rent was coming from. And I thought about being paid for spending more time in her lively company. Who could pass up an offer like that? I should have; I was barely over the last woman in my life, real or imagined. I needed repair time.
“Eve, it’s a deal. If anything comes up, I’ll give you a call, OK? My rate is twenty pounds a week. Can your paper cover that?”
“Fifteen.”
“Eighteen plus expenses.”
She nodded and grinned and stretched out a hand. We shook. Like a regular business deal. She crammed her thatch under her beret again and skewered it to her head. I saw her to the door and watched her spiral down the stairs. I would have whistled as I walked back to my desk but it would have echoed after her, and she would have read too much into it.
I thought about the warehouse prospect and wondered if I should have mentioned it. I decided to see how my meeting went this afternoon. Then I might call and let her in on it. And, if I was honest, it wasn’t just about the money.
THREE
Tommy Chandler was short but wide. His barrel chest was constrained from exploding by taut red braces. He
