needed an exorcist, not a psychologist.
The bus from Paddington was crawling along Oxford Street and I saw there was still bunting up from new year, or maybe even VE Day. But it couldn’t hide the squalor we’d made of our lives. We don’t understand how we could have won the war and ended up so destitute. How we could have booted out old Winston after he saw us through the Blitz. How we could have given so much and got so little in return. How we could match the picture now with the one we’d held in our shaky memories as we marched on Berlin.
As I hefted my little case down the stairs of the bus, wincing as the healing ribs tugged at me, I weighed the options. I could give up now and take to the bottle; it would be easy to play the victim. I’d earned that right, hadn’t I? Or I could stop bellyaching and go find out the truth no matter how awful.
There was no one waiting for me except the moggy. She – I’ve no cause to label it a she, but cats always strike me as female – was waiting, hungry and meowing outside my door. It furled itself round and round my legs until I stroked its thin ribs and let it in, then stuck close to me till I’d filled a saucer with milk. I parked my case down and sat on the bed watching her, listening to the rasp of her tongue as she gulped it down. Someone would miss me.
I took off my coat and emptied my case of its dirty shirt, underwear, pyjamas and shaving kit. I made some tea and took it through to my desk. I wanted to plan my next steps; tackle Liza Caldwell first or Kate Graveney; frontal assault or pincer movement.
I drew up my chair and sat down. I stood up and sat down again. Something felt different. I’d sat here a thousand times and my body knew the angles to within half a degree. I looked down at where the desk legs sat on the lino. The dents were a fraction out of line. My desk had been shifted. I looked round the room.
There wasn’t much to play about with in here. Desk, two chairs, phone, filing cabinet, hat stand and that was it. Had Val been dusting or mopping? Why would you move a desk that weighed a ton?
I walked through to my bedroom and looked around. If the place had been given a going over it had been done by experts. I went back through to the office and sat down. I opened my drawers. Tumbler still in the usual place, notepad, pencil, pen and ink. No bottle. I thought I had a half-full Red Label, but I guess I’d got through it. I couldn’t recall a real session in a while.
I walked over to my filing cabinet to check my client records, such as they were. About twenty of them by now. All neatly ordered alphabetically. A suspicion took me straight to the G section, but Kate Graveney’s was there all right, and my few notes were in the correct order. I began sifting through the rest. As far as I could see, they were all there too.
Then it struck me. My clippings were missing. All the newspaper reports of the murders. I checked each of the drawers but there was no doubt. Val? Had she removed it to stop me dwelling on the horrible subject?
Then I heard footsteps. Ones I knew. They were already on the second floor. I found myself gripping the arms of my chair, conscious of trying to control my heart. Wilson hove into sight and stood panting at my door. He was sucking for air but smiling. I couldn’t see any marks on his face; I couldn’t have hit him hard enough.
“Get out, Wilson. Or rather, don’t come in.”
He ignored me and slouched in. “Looking for this?” He drew out a folder from under his arm and waved it at me as he approached. He tossed it on my desk and slumped, chest pumping, into my visitor chair. It groaned under him. I wished his heart would pop.
I looked at my clippings file and then at him. There was still some contusion about the left eye, and his mouth looked swollen. Better. I was through playing games. I picked up my smart pen and unscrewed the top. This time I was on my own ground. If he attacked me I’d see how long he could fight with a pen in his fat throat. My voice was cold. “Did you have a warrant?”
He smirked. “By the book.”
“Yours, or the police manual?”
“All proper. Of course.”
“I’d like to see the section that allows you to steal a man’s whisky.”
His smile widened. “Thirsty work.” Then his face closed. “Why are you so interested in these murders, Mr McRae?”
Mister now. What was going on? “I told you before, Wilson, I was curious. That’s all. Professional curiosity.”
He reached out, took the folder and flicked through the clippings. He was obviously intimate with it. He found what he was looking for and laid it out flat on my desk, facing me. It was the one reporting the arrest of the “Ripper”.
My handwritten Ha bloody ha! leapt out from the page.
“Why did you write that?”
“Because I knew you had the wrong man.”
“And how did you know that? You cleverer than all of us down at the Yard? That it?”
“Looks like it, doesn’t it? The man you arrested didn’t fit with the picture that was coming through from the newspapers.”
“Oh, really. Got that from the papers, did you? Wasn’t because you knew who the real murderer was?”
“I don’t have to answer any more of these daft questions.”
He sighed. “Not here. Not now. But you could, if I was to arrest you.”
“What the hell for Wilson? You’re flying a kite.”
“For the murder of three women in London. Not to mention the little incident in France.”
“That’s bullshit! Total shite!” I was furious and terrified at the same time.
“Is it? After our little set-to the other night, I got a warrant, McRae. Saw your personal file at the SOE. Documents missing, weren’t there? But there was a note on top. Said you weren’t to get any information about events or people in the SOE if you came looking. Made me wonder. Didn’t find the missing papers on you when you were arrested for breaking and entering. Had a little hunch. I’m good at hunches. Asked for your old boss’s file, Major Caldwell. What did I find?”
I knew what he found. My stomach was knotted with the terror of what he would do with that information.
“Seems you’re a handy man with a knife.”
“There’s no proof!”
“Maybe. But it made me wonder about our little run-in in Soho. Made me wonder what you were doing there. So I got another warrant and found this.” He stabbed the clippings with his finger. His nails were shredded and split like a miner’s.
But they’d seen no such honest work.
“So what? It’s no crime to read the newspapers or keep bits of them.” Which was true, but I knew how it looked.
“No, but it’s adding up. It’s all adding up, McRae. Circumstantial to be sure, but it’s beginning to come together.” He leaned over the desk at me. “You ever pay little visits to Soho, McRae? You know, for fun? Like New Year’s Day? If we start showing your photo about the place, would they recognise you?”
This was too close. I panicked. “No more than they’d recognise you, Wilson, if I started asking around.”
His face purpled and his mouth worked under his puffy cheeks.
“I think some day soon you’ll make the one mistake, McRae, leave the one clue, that ties you to one of these.” He pointed at the paper. “And when you do, we’ll have you back down the nick and this time you’ll stay there. Until of course…
“He mimicked a noose going round my neck and pulling tight.
He tossed the clippings folder on my desk and clumped out the room. I sipped at my cup to stop the shakes. The tea was stone cold, but I drank it anyway. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, it had. Trouble was, I could see Wilson’s point of view. Leaving aside his tendency to punch first and ask questions after, my own police training would have sent me down the same road. I would have made myself a suspect if I’d been in his shoes. And he didn’t know about my blackouts, those little gaps in my life that were unaccounted for except for the cryptic – insane? – scribbled residue.
Hell, in the grey world of circumstantial evidence I could make a case for Wilson himself being investigated. God knows what he got up to in Soho with those poor girls Mary said he misused. Did it get out of hand? He certainly had the violent tendencies. Doc Thompson would have him in a straitjacket in a flash.
