Eleanor?’ Peg added.
Eleanor shook her head. ‘Sometimes, in the last months, she seemed a little confused. I think, seeing the Kowalskis leaving unsettled her more than she realized.’
‘Did she ever mention the name Bob Jones, or Judith Naismith?’
Both sisters shook their heads.
‘Have you ever seen a man who wears a bow tie calling around here?’
Again a negative.
‘And did Meredith ever talk to you about selling books or papers to anyone, to make a little money?’
‘Well now,’ Eleanor thought, ‘I recall some while ago, she did speak about getting rid of Terry’s old children’s books. I don’t know if she ever did.’
‘Did she, or do you, own any old original documents-handwritten papers, letters or essays-which were left to you by your mother?’
‘We have old birth certificates and things like that. And family photographs. We did go through Meredith’s papers-on Monday, I think it was-to make sure she hadn’t left any instructions about her funeral arrangements. But I don’t remember anything like what you describe.’
As they got to their feet, Brock said casually to Eleanor, ‘Do you know of a writer called Proudhon, Miss Harper?’
‘Of course, Chief Inspector.’
‘Only I was advised to read him by someone recently.’
‘Were you? I should have thought you’d be better off going straight to Marx. But perhaps you would find something in him. It was Proudhon, after all, who argued that without robbery and murder, property cannot exist.’
‘Really? Well, yes, that does sound appropriate. Do you have any of his books?’
‘I have an old copy of Confessions, I believe, although it’s some time since I’ve looked at it. I’d lend it to you, except that it used to belong to our grandmother, and I wouldn’t like to lose it.’
‘Of course. Well, thank you very much for the tea. The cake was quite delicious. Now we’d better get back to the tedious job of repressing and alienating the proletariat, if you don’t mind.’
Peg chuckled, and Eleanor looked sternly disapproving.
15
They couldn’t get any reply when they rang Bob Jones’s office, and when there was no answer from his home number in Paddington either, they decided to drive over there.
Regent Gardens was in effect an elongated square, with two long rows of cream-stuccoed terraces facing each other across a central grass strip. A series of columned porticos projected forward from the terraces to form entrance porches. Their front doors were approached across steps built over the moat which provided light to the basement rooms. In 1815 these terraces were among the most soughtafter of the new residential developments springing up to the west of Regent’s Park. Each portico provided a fashionable Doric address (noble, severe and indomitable, in keeping with the mood after the victory of Waterloo) for a family of the merchants and minor branches of nobility who moved in to speculate on rising property prices, and were soon to be disappointed by the crash which followed. Now each portico sheltered an untidy panel of door buzzers, intercoms and name cards, the steps accommodated ranks of empty milk bottles, and the narrow roads which ran along the front of the terraces were jammed with cars and motor bikes parked on meters.
Bob Jones’s flat was on the ground floor. The front door to the building was slightly ajar, and Brock and Kathy went in, pushing past a padlocked bicycle just inside. At the far end of the hall a flight of stairs rose beneath an unshaded bulb, and two tall panelled doors faced each other halfway down the length of the hall. The one on the right was open.
Or, rather, it was hanging from the jamb, its frame broken and smashed as by a sledge-hammer. They stepped over splintered wood and looked inside. The place had been trashed. Furniture was tipped over, table legs smashed, cushions ripped. Across the far wall of the room a message had been sprayed in black letters a metre high. FUCK YOU YUPPIE PIG. In the centre of the room, sitting on the floor among the debris, was Bob Jones.
‘Are you all right?’ Kathy asked.
He looked up, slightly dazed. ‘Hello… Look what they’ve done to my books, the bastards.’ All around him were architectural books, their backs broken, pages ripped. ‘They were about the only things I took with me when Helen and I split up. I thought I’d start afresh, but I couldn’t bear to let go of my books. And now they’re gone, too.’
‘What happened?’
He took a deep breath and struggled to his feet. Kathy gave him a hand.
‘They came back again, didn’t they?’
‘Who?’
He shrugged. ‘The first time was about six months ago. I came home and someone had broken the lock and taken my CD player and the video. So I replaced them with the insurance, and put better locks on the door. Three months later they came again. That time they broke the locks open with a jemmy and took the new stuff I’d just got. So I replaced it again and put locking bolts in the door and a steel angle in the jamb. So this time they didn’t bother with the locks, they just smashed the door in on the hinge side and did this.’
‘Have they stolen the electrical equipment again?’
He looked around. ‘Looks like it. Perhaps it’s a regular three-month thing. They’ve probably got computer files of people who’ve been done over, with dates of when they’re due for another check-up, like the dentist.’
‘Were they this violent before?’
‘No, not at all. The only damage in the past has been to the door. Maybe they got annoyed at having to work so hard to get in.’
‘We’d better call the local CID from the car,’ Kathy said. ‘Your phone seems to be out of action.’
‘What’s the point? They’ll never catch them. Last time I told them about the gang of kids that terrorizes the street-ten and eleven-year-olds-throwing stones through the windows, smashing milk bottles, slashing tyres, that sort of thing. The policeman told me I should get an air gun and shoot pellets at them. I ask you.’
Kathy looked around. The flat was one large room, once the main reception room of the house, and tall enough for Bob to have inserted a sleeping deck across one end, with a galley kitchen and bathroom tucked in beneath it. Access to the upper deck was by a stair almost as steep as a ladder. The furnishings were spartan- canvas blinds rolled at the windows, photographic studio lights, industrial book-shelving, a few pieces of cheap Habitat furniture.
‘Where’s the letter you told us about?’ she asked.
‘I put it back in its frame. It was hanging over there.’
They looked in the corner he indicated, then among the wreckage, but found no sign of it.
Kathy went out to the car to call for the local police while Jones made coffee and Brock righted some chairs and cleared a space. When they sat down, Kathy spoke.
‘They’ll be here in a bit. Meantime, perhaps you could help us with the reason we came round here, Mr Jones. We were a little uncertain about a couple of points in your statement yesterday. Could we just go over a bit of it again?’
He sighed. ‘Which bit?’
‘The bit about finding Meredith Winterbottom asleep. Describe for us again exactly what happened when you arrived at Jerusalem Lane last Sunday.’
‘Oh, that bit.’ Jones seemed suddenly flat, defeated. He sighed again, lowered his head and began to recount what had happened-ringing the doorbell, going upstairs, entering Meredith’s flat, Judith looking round the bedroom door and seeing Meredith asleep, him going upstairs to check the sisters. Then he stopped.
‘Go on,’ Kathy prodded.
He lifted his head and looked at her, then at Brock.
‘You know, don’t you?’
Kathy got a tingling sensation along her spine.
