He checked his watch. “In about fifteen minutes.”
Jerry wasn’t sure why, but it suddenly became important for her to see the room. Removing the passkey from the wall compartments behind her, she slipped away from the desk and took the elevator to the fourth floor. The room at the end of the corridor had been sealed along the doorframe to prevent anyone from entering. Now the seals had been removed, and the maids had been allowed to make up the beds.
There was nothing left in the room to reveal anything of its previous occupier. Had she honestly expected there to be? The police would have removed Jacob’s belongings and forwarded them to his family. The room would have been searched, but their forensic team would have had no reason to examine it. After all, it wasn’t the murder site. Instead they had concentrated their efforts on the ground-floor men’s washroom.
Jerry walked into the bathroom and flicked on the light. Her pale reflection stared back at her, auburn hair flopping in cobalt eyes. She drew back the shower curtain and checked the ceramic soap holder. Max Jacob had risen and showered on Monday morning, not knowing that this was to be the last day of his life. Why had he come to London? How had he spent his final hours? Presumably the police already knew the answers to those questions. Could she call the detective and ask him? Wouldn’t he think it odd that she wanted to know?
She could hear rain hitting the windows in the bedroom. The morning had begun as dimly as last Monday had ended. She knew there was something wrong with the way she felt; that something had been triggered by witnessing an act as private as dying. It all felt so sudden and unfinished. Jacob could have suspected nothing. He had come to the front desk earlier that day and chatted pleasantly to Nicholas. He had certainly not been in fear of his life then.
Jerry re-entered the bedroom and searched through the desk drawers. The hotel stationery had already been replenished, and lay neatly arranged for the next resident. If Jacob had left behind any sign of his occupation, it had since been removed by the police and the maids.
She pulled open the bedside drawer, and was about to close it again when she noticed the Bible. Her eyes traveled down the bookmarked page to find a passage heavily underscored.
John 3.19…and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
A scrap of notepaper had been folded inside. It bore a number: 216. She flicked back through the pages, noting other marked passages.
Psalms 139.11…Even the night shall be light about me.
John 12.35…Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you…
Genesis 1.16…And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night…
There were dozens of penciled references, all of them offering advice on matters of light and darkness. Presuming Max Jacob had marked the passages himself, he obviously believed in practising his religion. But that made no sense. Surely the name Jacob was Jewish? She was about to check that there was nothing more of interest when she heard the lift arriving. The room’s new occupant could well be checking in. She slipped the Bible into her jacket, closed the door behind her, and kept walking to the end of the corridor.
¦
John May rang the doorbell and stepped back.
A constable stood guard beneath the large sycamore at the end of the front garden. Water was running from his jacket, soaking the knees of his trousers. There was no sound save that of the rain falling into the trees in the deserted Hampstead avenue. Bryant trudged through the bushes at the side of the house, pushing aside the wet leaves to peer in through dirt-spattered windows.
Finally there was a sound from within, footsteps thumping and stumbling in the hallway. The gentleman who laboriously unlocked the door was a little younger than his brother, but in every other way the dead man’s double. The heavyset face, with bulbous crimson nose and pendulous lower lip, recalled to mind any number of Hogarthian caricatures. Peter Whitstable’s heavy winter brown woollens were barely of the present era. He seemed to have trouble opening the door. Finally he managed to pull it wide, whereupon he looked up at May, stumbled on the step, and fell into his arms.
“Good God,” said Bryant, returning to the doorstep, “he’s completely drunk.”
“Help me get him into the kitchen.” May hooked his hands under the Major’s arms and hauled him across the hall, enveloped in the sour reek of whisky. “He’s no use to us like this.”
“Give him a coffee, by all means,” said Bryant, “but let’s ask him a few questions. We might get some honest answers while he’s in this state.”
The house smelled of lavender polish and old Scotch. None of the furniture could be dated after the late 1900s. Oils and watercolours of every size and description filled the walls, butted frame to frame. It was as if they had stepped into a cluttered Victorian home untouched by passing decades. Heavy green-velvet curtains kept light and time at bay. Bryant’s eyes grew brighter as he examined the gilt-framed photographs on the walls lining the kitchen corridor.
“It’s like wandering into the past,” he remarked.
“How dare you, Sirr,” slurred the Major suddenly, raising his head and fixing Bryant with a bloodshot eye. “To gentlemen of enlightenment, this was our time of glory. Let others tear down the past with their caterwauling music and their free love…and…” He collapsed, unable to summon a third example.
May sat their man on a straight-backed chair while Bryant made strong coffee. Beneath the sink were more than a dozen empty whisky bottles. Major Peter Whitstable had not turned to alcohol to numb the news of his brother’s death. He and Johnnie Walker were old friends.
The kitchen was immaculate in the old-fashioned manner of having been scoured to the point of erosion. A vast iron hob dominated the room. Copper saucepans hung in gleaming rows. A Victorian ice-cream drum stood beside a rack of spoons and ladles, and looked as if it was still in use. As Whitstable didn’t seem capable of organizing this himself, the brothers most likely had a housekeeper.
“Jus’ put a shot in it, there’s a good chap,” he mumbled as Bryant passed him a steaming mug. When no such action was forthcoming, the Major removed a silver flask from his jacket, unscrewed the cap, and tipped in an ample measure before either of the detectives could stop him.
“We have no desire to impose on you in a time of grief,” began May, “but some urgent questions must be addressed.”
Whitstable slumped back in his chair. “I can’t believe he’s gone,” he said. “Or rather, I can.” He promptly fell asleep. Bryant nudged him awake, none too gently, and prised the spilling mug from his hands.
“Th’ bastards won’t get away with it,” Peter Whitstable cried, swinging his great head from one face to the other. “We’re not the only ones against this, you know.”
“What happened to your brother?” asked May. “Why should someone want to kill him?”
“‘S obvious,” said Peter Whitstable, making a half-hearted attempt to sit up. “Enemies. Anarchists. Sybarites and sodomites. None of us are safe! The country’s gone to – where has it gone?”
“We’re not going to get any sense from him,” whispered May.
“Let me try.” Bryant dragged a chair close. “Major Whitstable – Peter – may I call you that? I know you’d like to be left by yourself. If you want we can take the guards from your house and leave you alone, in peace.”
“God, don’ do that!” he shouted, terror clearing his drunken stupor. He sat forward, his eyes widening. “We’re in terr’ble danger, horrible things could happen!”
“Then you think whoever killed your brother will come after you?”
“I do believe that. Yess.” He patted his pockets for the whisky flask. “And you, too, if you get in the way. Darkness is rising, y’see.”
“Explain what you mean,” challenged May.
“S’plain, yes. Follow me.” Whitstable lurched to his feet, holding a finger to his lips, and beckoned to the detectives. “Have to come upstairs.”
At the first landing, Bryant had to move fast to stop the Major from falling backwards. A gloomy room opened from the landing. Here the smell of furniture polish and dead air was stronger than ever. The heavy floor-length curtains were parted no more than a foot. Photograph frames and military trophies cluttered the green-baize- covered mantelpiece, and dingy oils of horses filled the walls. The Major weaved his way over to a walnut sideboard
