found a log and sat on it and smoked till my hands stopped shaking. I made a very long detour through the woods until I could pick up the High Street.
As the underground rocked me south I sprawled in my seat, emotionally and physically drained. I chain- smoked all the way. I’d gone one step forward and two back. I took out Kate’s photo and stared at the daring eyes looking for answers. I rehearsed what I’d found: people wrote to Liza as Miss. Widows don’t call themselves miss, or if they did, they’d revert to their maiden name.
Tony and Liza had known each other since they were children. They might or might not be married. If they were, it looked like a marriage of convenience to cover up an arrangement between Tony and Kate. But why would they want to hide it? Yet the top floor bedroom – boudoir more like – was furnished for a couple. An intimate couple. Catriona/Kate was named next of kin in Tony’s SOE file, and Kate and Liza were much too pally for women who should have been rivals – even if the man was dead.
And that’s what I kept coming back to: if nothing else was what it seemed, was Major Tony bloody Caldwell really dead?
I picked up a bottle on my way home. I wondered if Val would come by, and had a bit of bread and jam to see me through for a while. Kate’s photo I carefully placed in her file in my drawer.
I turned on the radio and was in time to hear the six o’clock news. I wished I hadn’t. The first item was the discovery of a fourth body in Soho. The killing had taken place in the last three days; it was hard for the police to give an exact time and day, as the victim had lived alone after separation from her husband. She’d taken in callers to make ends meet. At first, because she wasn’t a known prostitute, the police had discounted the connection. But the method of killing was consistent with the other three murders: bloody, brutal, wounds to head and body.
All during the last three days – when I’d been here, incapacitated, but wandering around in my delirium…
Val found me later with the bottle at my feet. It was as good as empty. She made me stick my fingers down my throat until I brought most of it up in the sink. I felt like death, wanted death. All Wilson’s innuendo and Doc Thompson’s guarded analysis, all my own visions of hell, added up to one thing: my blackout two days ago had coincided with the murder of this young woman. I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised to find a pattern of such coincidences stretching back over the three other killings. I was Mr Hyde. Maybe Scotch was my secret potion.
“Why do you do this, Danny?” She pointed at the bottle.
It was a good question. And the usual flip answer “to forget” rang a bit hollow in the circumstances. I had no problems on that score.
“You don’t want to know.”
“I do. I can take it. Is it about something you’ve remembered?” Her dark eyes looked huge in the flickering light. She sat in her usual place, hunkered down in front of the flames.
I shook my head. “You know I get these blackouts. I don’t know where I go or what I do during them. I thought I just collapsed. Went to bed. Had bad dreams and came out of it feeling like shit. But I think… I think I sometimes go out.
And it scares me to death!”
She must have seen the terror in my face for she scuttled over and knelt at my feet. She gazed up at me. “I’ve been here once, when, you know, you had a funny turn. And that’s all you did; you went to bed. You were tossing and turning and carrying on, but you weren’t in any state to be out wandering the streets.”
That gave me hope. But I wasn’t convinced, no matter how much I wanted to be.
“Val, Valerie. These murders. The ones in the paper. Wilson came round accusing me of them. He raided my office. He found my clippings – the articles in the newspapers – I don’t know why I keep them. But he found out about the girl who was murdered in France. And he’s putting two and two together. And so am I!”
“But you didn’t! You couldn’t! You’re not like that, Danny!”
“I wish I had your faith! Look, my doctor at the hospital told me that he wasn’t sure who I was. All he saw was the man with the bashed-in brain and that could be affecting my whole personality, making me different from what I was before.
Before France. There’s no saying if I had it in me. He said it was possible for someone to…” I didn’t want to go on. This was surely losing her. I looked away.
“Possible to what?”
I brought my eyes back round to hers. “Possible to get a taste for it. To do it again, and again. The last killing was a couple of days ago. When I had an episode. It fits, Val. It all fits.”
My voice was flat but my head was bursting with the pressure. She said nothing.
She searched my eyes like she was looking for signs of the criminal in me. She shoved her hair behind her ears. I wanted to breathe her hair.
“I don’t believe it, Danny McRae. That isn’t you. Do you hear me? It isn’t you.”
I cupped my hands and sunk my face into them. “But what if it is? What if you’re sitting here with a madman who’s lost a year of his life? A psychopath who has blackouts and can’t remember what he does during them? What if, Val?!”
For a moment her eyes flickered then she shook her head. “You didn’t do it.”
Her certainty steadied me. Amazed me. “How do I prove it?”
“You’re the detective, Danny.” Her face broke into a grin. “You’ll find a way.
And I thought you were going to check out Miss Toffee-nose?”
“Kate Graveney? I haven’t told you, have I?”
The thought of the tangled little web that Kate, Liza and Tony had spun fired up the professional in me. Even in the darkest times, if I have a plan, an objective, something to drag myself towards, I can carry on. I got up – a bit woozy – and fished in my jacket. I came back and showed Val the photo.
“That’s her. That’s Miss Toffee-nose.”
“Pretty. In an obvious sort of way. And definitely, that nose is made of the finest toffee. How did you get it?” She examined the back.
I told her about my stalking of Liza Caldwell. I hesitated about telling her about breaking into the house, but she seemed ready to take on as much of my mad world as I could give her. I told her about the albums and the photos of Tony and Liza.
“They’re related, aren’t they?!” She was excited, enthralled by the mystery. She was kneeling in front of me, her dark eyes glinting like oil, her thin face lit up.
“That’s what I reckon. But there’s no resemblance.”
“Cousins or something. They’ve made it up. To keep you away. To stop you finding Tony. He could be alive. Oh, you must find out!” She was bouncing up and down on her knees like a puppy. I wished I had her suppleness.
“Calm down. I will. I’ll go see Kate and ask her to her face what’s going on.
All right?”
She was beaming. She sprung to her feet. “I’ll make us a cuppa. Do you know where she lives?”
I thought I knew. Kate hadn’t told me where she lived, just her phone number. It was in Chelsea but the operator refused to give me the address behind the number despite my pleas. But assuming Catriona and Kate were one and the same, her address as next of kin was in Tony Caldwell’s file. I used to pride myself on my memory, something that really helped when I was in the Force. Even now it could still come up trumps.
SEVENTEEN
Of course, I thought – as I wandered down the elegant Chelsea street the next afternoon – the address could be as fake as the marriage between Tony Caldwell and Liza. But somehow I thought not. Onslow Square was the right sort of stamping ground for a girl like Kate Graveney. I imagined the square was especially beautiful in summer, with the trees shading and defending the central private park, and the tall Georgian house fronts gazing down snootily at plebs like me. Most of the buildings were terraced and single-fronted – a door and one massive bay window. But here and there came a break in the pattern and a house stood clear of its neighbours by taking up twice the width.
