‘This is very civilized.’ Brock stretched back in his chair expansively. ‘I could live here quite easily. There’s everything you’d need on your doorstep: Mrs Rosenfeldt’s bratwurst, Mr Boll’s fresh ground coffee, the Balaton Cafe, and Dr Botev to prescribe Plustranil if it all gets too much. Shame about Kowalski’s bookshop, though.’ He nodded at the empty window up towards the north end of the lane.
‘Mind you, I see there are other services available here to compensate.’ He indicated a small handwritten card taped discreetly to a corner of the cafe window, offering ‘Swedish massage’ and an escort service. ‘Probably the same old dear who was giving “French lessons” here twenty years ago.’
‘Yes,’ Kathy nodded, ‘this is a real place, isn’t it? I’ve never been here before, and yet it all seems quite familiar, homely.’
‘It’s real, all right. Not like that yuppie tourist kitsch they’ve turned Covent Garden into,’ Brock grumbled. ‘That used to be real once, too.’
‘Although…’ She hesitated.
‘What?’
‘There’s an element of strangeness about this place, too. Maybe that’s part of what makes it real. I noticed it yesterday. There are odd things that are difficult to interpret. Over there’-she waved her hand towards a shop window beyond the door of the doctor’s surgery-‘there’s a framed photograph in the window of some elderly gent, edged in black, and draped with a flag I’ve never seen before. And that enormous empty flagpole on the top of this cafe building! And there’s a poster or sign up in that window on the second floor next door, which you can hardly see from down here, as if it’s aimed at the house across the street. Or’-she looked around with a frown-‘that building over there with all the window boxes of geraniums, as if you were in Austria or something, except that they’re all dead, except for just that one window. It’s almost as if the people who live here are all frantically signalling to one another, without letting on to the people passing through on the street.’
Brock laughed. ‘Yes, I like that. And you don’t think the signals are friendly?’
‘I don’t know. I feel I don’t know the code.’
Brock looked up at the aggressive Gothic lettering on the sign for the Balaton Cafe, and the unlikely clashes of colour on some of the front doors.
‘Whatever it is, I suspect it’s not in English,’ he said. Then, changing the subject, ‘I can see how Sundeep didn’t hit it off with Dr Botev.’ He smiled, thinking of the distaste with which the dapper, fastidious Indian had referred to the Slav.
‘He’s a rough diamond, isn’t he?’ Kathy said. ‘Those hands! But this time I thought he was rather sweet.’
‘Sweet wasn’t exactly the word that sprang to my mind.’
Kathy smiled. ‘I think he was in love with Meredith. His voice softened a little each time he mentioned her name.’
‘Yes, now you mention it, that could be. But that just makes his opinions about her death all the less reliable. He didn’t really give us anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a theory, but he wasn’t game to try it on us. Not yet, anyway.’
The offices of Hepple, Tyas amp; Turton were next to the Balaton Cafe, above a small tailor’s shop which appeared to have closed down some time ago. The solicitors’ brightly polished brass nameplate was set beside a door which opened on to a staircase leading straight up to the first floor.
A large woman in her mid-fifties was sitting at the reception desk, opening mail. She beamed at them through ornately framed glasses and invited them in to an inner office.
‘I’m Sylvia Pemberton,’ she said, ‘Mr Hepple’s secretary. He hasn’t arrived yet, I’m afraid, but he shouldn’t be long. I spoke to him myself about your appointment at 12. Probably stuck in the traffic-his other office is in Croydon.’
Her manner was confident and jovial, and gave the impression that she was much more likely to know what was going on in the office than Mr Hepple. There weren’t many indications, however, that much was going on. The photocopier and typewriter in the front office were both ancient, and the general air of tidiness seemed to owe as much to a lack of activity as to Ms Pemberton’s efficiency.
‘Can I get you coffee?’
‘Thank you, no,’ Brock said. ‘We’ve just had a cup at the cafe downstairs.’
‘Yes, I think they pay Mr Boll to fill the Lane with the smell of freshly ground coffee. I’ve become a passive coffee drinker just living here-I live in the flat upstairs.’ She gave a hearty chuckle and then frowned. ‘But look, that was terrible about Mrs Winterbottom. So sudden. I was shocked to see the ambulance there yesterday, and the police. People are saying there’s some doubt about how she died.’
‘Too early to say yet,’ Kathy replied. ‘We’re just checking things.’
‘Oh dear. She was so much a part of everything around here. It’s difficult to imagine the place without her. She just… I don’t know… kept everyone up to scratch, in touch with the latest. Always ready to step in and help if things went wrong. She really was
… well, the life and soul of the place. Mind you, the way things seem to be going around here-’
The sound of the street door stopped her.
‘That’ll be Mr Hepple now. I know he’ll have a coffee. Are you sure?’
Kathy shook her head, but Brock relented and she went out to meet her boss.
They heard his voice as he came puffing up the stairs. ‘Ah, Sylvia! Traffic was terrible, terrible! Visitors here? Mr Boll has given me a terrible thirst for one of your splendid coffees.’
He burst into the room, a diminutive round figure in a pinstripe suit, thinning dark hair plastered down over a pink cherubic face, tossed a briefcase on to the empty desk, and shook their hands.
‘Sorry, sorry. I only get over here once a week now, and each time it seems to take a little bit longer to get through.’ He threw himself onto the chair behind the desk and took a deep breath. ‘Terrible business about Mrs Winterbottom, terrible. And I understand you suspect foul play. Appalling. The Lane has been quite untouched by all the burglaries and muggings one finds elsewhere. And now this.’ Suddenly his mouth opened and a look of revelation lit up his face. ‘Brock! The famous Inspector Brock!’ he cried. ‘The Manchester Poisoner! The South London Granny Killer! And that most recent thing-the murder of those two young policemen. Oh, most unfortunate. What was it? The “City Securities Slayings”, the press called it. Oh, indeed, we are honoured to have you on this case, sir. The authorities must view Mrs Winterbottom’s death with considerable disquiet!’
‘We’re not sure of the cause of death at this stage, Mr Hepple,’ Brock answered. ‘An autopsy’s in progress at present.’
‘Quite so, quite so. But one must be extremely concerned for the others who live here now if there is some violent murderer on the loose. Miss Pemberton, for example.’ His eyes widened in alarm at the thought of Miss Pemberton in danger.
‘There were no signs of violence.’
‘Ah!’ His eyes widened further as this sank in. He continued in a hushed voice, ‘You mean, she may have known the culprit? Oh dear.’ They could see his mind running over the possibilities. ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’
‘We really can’t say yet. But we’d like to get some background information on the lady. You’ve been the family solicitor for some years, I believe.’
‘Indeed, yes. Hepple, Tyas amp; Turton have been here in this office since my father founded the practice sixty years ago, in the same month as the Wall Street Crash. A propitious beginning!’ Despite his concern over Meredith Winterbottom’s death, it was apparent that Mr Hepple was unable to resist the telling of a good anecdote. ‘I have been acting for Mrs Winterbottom and her family ever since she moved here with her husband in 1967. Well, earlier actually, because I did the conveyancing on the house when Eleanor bought it earlier in that year.’
‘Eleanor?’
‘Yes. Meredith and her husband Frank Winterbottom were in Australia at that time. They went out there as soon as they got married, after he was demobbed at the end of the war. Twenty years later they decided to come back and asked Eleanor to choose a house for them in London. He had made a bit of money in Australia-import and export, I think-and I imagine he had in mind a comfortable suburban villa in Sevenoaks or Amersham. Instead Eleanor bought them number 22 Jerusalem Lane, WC2. It was a bit of a shock at first. Frank’s first words to me when they arrived were to put the place on the market again because they weren’t stopping.’
Mr Hepple chuckled at the memory. ‘However, it was an extraordinary thing. The house didn’t attract any buyers for a while, and by the time one came along they didn’t want to sell any more. Meredith was the first to fall
