“How?”
“Deceitful. Got up to things around the house. Made mischief, but never got caught. He gave Mum a hard time though. Couldn’t forgive her.”
“When did Kate find out? I mean about Tony and her father?”
For the first time since I forced my way in to her home, Liza Caldwell smiled.
“Why, Mr McRae, you’re not as clever as I thought.”
I sat stunned. “No one’s told her?”
“Who? Her own father died a few years after mine. Left us this place in his will. Conscience money. My mother died without telling anyone in the big house.
Only Tony and I know.”
“And why haven’t you told her? For god’s sake, woman, you let her commit a cardinal sin!”
“Is it? Why is it, Mr McRae? Tony was denied his birthright, now he’s getting it. Sort of. He’s my brother.”
“But he’s Kate’s brother too!”
“Only half.”
“Dear god. So this is why you wanted to make me think he was dead? Why you played along with them?”
“Can you blame us?”
Us? What was Kate’s motivation if she didn’t know? But in a way I couldn’t blame Liza, or even – in a moment of rare generosity of spirit – Tony. The scandal would have destroyed everyone. I was the loser so far. And so was Kate Graveney – if she ever got to learn about it.
Before I could ask her more – like who used the boudoir upstairs – I became dimly aware of the very familiar sound of a police bell. So familiar that I didn’t immediately pick up on the notion that it was coming this way. The Flying Squad. For me. I heard tyres squeal outside. I jumped past Liza and into the kitchen, bashed open the back door and nearly took a nose-dive down the steps into the garden. I raced over the grass and through the canes holding up last year’s dead plants.
Before the first cries followed me I was over the high wall at the back and in the back garden of the house in the next street. I looked wildly about, but couldn’t see a gap. Then I did, but it was a dozen houses away. I began hauling myself over walls and crashing through privets until I found a gap of daylight.
Along the way I lost my hat. I wrenched it from the hedge, sprinted for the side of the house and was through and into the street, fleck and shrubbery flying from me like a runaway horse at Aintree.
Way behind me I could hear the clanging start up as the chase began again. A car was heading towards me. I leaped out and flagged it down. It screeched to a halt. The woman driver rolled down her window.
“You idiot! I could have killed you!”
I wrenched open the door and pulled her out. The engine was still running and I whacked the car in gear, leaving the poor woman shrieking and wailing in the middle of the road. I had about a minute to get round the corner and into the High Street. I flung the wheel round and round and took corners in a screech of rubber. I broke on to the High Street and abandoned the car by the roadside.
I turned my collar down, removed the dents and debris from my hat, and began walking slowly and calmly to the underground entrance. Police were checking faces at the station; I did an about turn and walked back down the road. A bus was stopping up ahead. I ran after it as it began chugging away, leapt and caught the bar. The conductor grabbed my arm.
“Only just, mate! Only just!”
I managed to pant out, “Where are you going?”
“Cor, mate! You nearly kills yoursel’ an’ you don’t know where you’re going?
Marble Arch, mate, that’s where. An’ that’ll be threepence, if you don’t mind.”
I didn’t mind. I didn’t care. So long as I had some breathing space to get my thoughts straight and plan my next moves. One way or another I was going to get some answers.
TWENTY
The chase across the gardens and the sprint for the bus left me with jelly legs.
I hadn’t eaten or slept properly for days and was fighting flu and a flood of bad memories. I must have looked a nightmare to the other worthy citizens on the bus. I stank to high heaven too. A couple of old women tut tutted me. I couldn’t blame them. As my heart slowed to around two hundred, I tried to think, tried to draw on my SOE training. It was simple; I needed a safe house. I changed buses three times and kept away from empty streets or boys in blue as best I could until I got to my goal.
I kept telling myself Soho was the last place they’d be looking for me. But I had my hat wedged down over my face just the same. It was lunchtime – no time to be entering a whorehouse, though there were a few half- hearted blandishments from girls on corners or their pimps. My big worry was the reception I’d get.
But I was at the end of my strength. I was dizzy with fatigue. If I wasn’t welcome here, I might as well phone Wilson and tell him to come and get me. I turned into Rupert Street and stood leaning against the door jamb and knocked.
Mary opened the door with a smile, then the smile evaporated. “You in big trouble Danny! Your picture in papers. They say you a big time no-good murderer.
I no want trouble here.”
“What? What are you talking about, Mary? Trust me. Please let me in.”
She heard the desperation in my voice and by rights should have slammed the door on this filthy tramp – newspapers or no newspapers. Instead she took a quick look round the street and dragged me into the hall. She pressed me against the wall.
“You stay here. No move.”
I stood shoulders drooping while she scampered into her parlour and came out clutching a Daily Sketch.
“You see. You see. You front page.” She shoved it at me. I took it and slid down the wall till I was sitting on the floor. I gazed at the photo and the screaming front page headlines: RIPPER ON THE LOOSE! The photo was of me. In my sergeant’s uniform. They must have got it from Army files. I looked much younger than the image I’d stared at this morning. But it still looked like me. I looked up in bewilderment. Mary was standing over me, her arms folded and her eyes slitted. I read on:
The Ripper strikes again! But this time police have a lead suspect from evidence found at the scene. A manhunt is underway to find former Sergeant Daniel McRae…”
Police Inspector Herbert Wilson told reporters that “Every murderer finally makes the mistake that catches them out. A gun was found at the scene of this latest vicious crime, covered in the murderer’s finger prints. We believe the weapon – a service revolver – was dropped when the murderer was disturbed.
Thanks to diligent police work, we are able to match the fingerprints from the gun with those of a known criminal, Daniel McRae…”
God hadn’t finished with me yet. Caldwell and Wilson were his avenging angels. I laughed, but was near my wit’s end. This fifth girl had died two nights ago, when I was lying half demented in the shed by the Serpentine. When I woke in a strange place with blood on my hands. As I read and reread the words, my flabby grip on sanity began to slip again. I thought I’d given the gun to Millie. What was it doing by the body?
I looked up at Mary. “I don’t understand. I don’t… I didn’t…” But I hadn’t a clue what I had or hadn’t done. I must have looked pathetic and not much of a threat, for she grabbed the paper from me.
“On feet, Danny. Stop messing my hall. Customers no like.”
I struggled up and she walked off and stood by her parlour door. She pointed in.
I took the hint. I shambled past her into her room. Her dazzling room. Nothing prepares the eye for this much red. Crimson dragons, scarlet cushions, cherry curtains, carmine couch, coral chairs. A room to please a vampire.
“You stink, Danny! Don’t you sit on my best sofa.” She picked up a paper from the huge pile behind the door and spread it out on her couch and then indicated I could take a seat.
