‘Never heard of him,’ Nelly said.
Trevor leaned forward slightly towards her and, taking a lock of her long hair in his hand, twitched it sharply.
‘Help! Murder! Police!’ Nelly said.
Trevor put his big hand over her mouth and spoke to her.
‘Listen, Nelly, for your own good. We got money for you.’
Nelly struggled, her yellow eyeballs were big.
‘I get my boys to rough you up if you won’t listen, Nelly. Won’t we, boys?’
‘That’s right,’ Collie said.
‘Won’t we, boys?’ Trevor said, looking at Leslie.
‘Sure,’ said Leslie.
Trevor removed his hand, now wet, from Nelly’s mouth, and wiped it on the side of his trousers. He took a large wallet from his pocket, and flicked through a pile of bank notes.
‘He’s at Miss Frierne’s up the Rye,’ Nelly said. Trevor laid his wallet on the table and folding his arms, looked hard at Nelly.
‘He got a job at Meadows Meade,’ Nelly said.
Trevor waited.
‘He got another job at Drover Willis’s under different name. No harm in him, son.’
Trevor waited.
‘That’s all, son,’ Nelly said.
‘What’s cheese?’ Trevor said.
‘What’s what?’
Trevor pulled her hair, so that she toppled towards him from her chair.
‘I’ll find out more. I only seen him once,’ Nelly said.
‘What he want with you?’
‘Huh?’
‘You heard me.’
Nelly looked at the two others, then back at Trevor. ‘The boys is under age,’ she remarked, and her eyes flicked a little to reveal that her brain was working.
‘I ask you a question,’ Trevor said. ‘What Mr Dougal Douglas come to you for?’
‘About the girl,’ she said.
‘What girl?’
‘He’s after Beauty,’ she said. ‘He want me to find out where she live and that. You better go and see what he’s up to. Probable he’s with her now.’
‘Who’s his gang?’ Trevor inquired, reaching for Nelly’s hair.
She jumped away from him. Leslie’s nerve gave way and he ran to Nelly and hit her on the face.
‘Murder!’ Nelly screamed.
Trevor put his hand over her mouth, and signalled with his eyes to Collie, who went to the door, opened it a little way, listened, then shut it again. Collie then struck Leslie, who backed on to the bed.
Trevor, with his big hand on Nelly’s mouth, whispered softly in her ear,
‘Who’s his gang, Nelly? What’s the code key? Ten quid to you, Nelly.’
She squirmed and he took his moist hand from her mouth. ‘Who’s his gang?’
‘He goes with Miss Coverdale sometimes. He goes with that fair-haired lady controller that’s gone to Drover Willis’s. That’s all I know of his company.’
‘Who are the fellows?’
‘I’ll find out,’ she said, ‘I’ll find out, son. Have a heart.’
‘Who’s Rose Hathaway?’
‘Never heard of her.’
Trevor took Dougal’s rolled-up exercise book from an inside pocket and spreading it out at the page read out the bit about that Rose Hathaway who was buried at a hundred and three. ‘That mean anything to you?’ Trevor said.
‘It sounds all wrong. I’ll ask him.’
‘You won’t. You’ll find out your own way. Not a word we been here, get that?’
‘It’s only his larks. He’s off his nut, son.’
‘Did he by any chance bring Humphrey Place here with him?’
‘Who?’
Trevor twisted her arm.
‘Humphrey Place. Goes with Dixie Morse.’
‘No, never seen him but once at the Grapes.’
‘You’ll be seeing
He went down the dark stone stairs followed by Leslie and Collie.
‘Killing herself,’ Merle said, ‘that’s what she is, for money. Then she comes in to the pool dropping tired next day, not fit for the job. I said to her, “Dixie,” I said, “what time did you go to bed last night?” “I consider that a personal question, Miss Coverdale,” she says. “Oh,” I says, “well, if it isn’t a personal question will you kindly type these two reports over again? There’s five mistakes on one and six on the other.” “Oh! “ she said, “what mistakes?” Because she won’t own up to her mistakes till you put them under her nose. I said, “These mistakes as marked.” She said “Oh! “ I said, “You’ve been doing nothing but yawn yawn yawn all week.” Well, at tea-break when Dixie was out Connie says to me, “Miss Coverdale, it’s Dixie’s evening job making her tired.” “Evening job?” I said. She said, “Yes, she’s an usherette at the Regal from six-thirty to ten-thirty, makes extra for her wedding sayings.” “Well,” I said, “no wonder she can’t do her job here!”’
Dougal flashed an invisible cinema-torch on to the sprightly summer turf of the Rye. ‘Mind the step, Madam. Three-and-sixes on the right.’
Merle began to laugh from her chest. Suddenly she sat down on the Rye and began to cry. ‘God!’ she said. ‘Dougal, I’ve had a rotten life.’
‘And it isn’t over yet,’ Dougal said, sitting down beside her at a little distance. ‘There might be worse ahead.’
‘First my parents,’ she said. ‘Too possessive. They’re full of themselves. They don’t think anything of me myself. They like to be able to say “Merle’s head of the pool at Meadows Meade,” but that’s about all there is to it. I broke away and of course like a fool took up with Mr Druce. Now I can’t get away from him, somehow. You’ve unsettled me, Dougal, since you came to Peckham. I shall have a nervous breakdown, I can see it coming.’
‘If you do,’ Dougal said, ‘I won’t come near you. I can’t bear sickness of any sort.’
‘Dougal,’ she said, ‘I was counting on you to help me to get away from Mr Druce.’
‘Get another job,’ he said, ‘and refuse to see him any more. It’s easy.
‘Oh, everything’s easy for you. You’re free.’
‘Aren’t you free?’ Dougal said.
‘Yes, as far as the law goes.’
‘Well, stop seeing Druce.’
‘After six years, going on seven, Dougal, I’m tied in a sort of way. And what sort of job would I get at thirty- eight?’
‘You would have to come down,’ Dougal said.
‘After being head of the pool,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t. I’ve got to think of my pride. And there’s the upkeep of my flat. Mr Druce puts a bit towards it.’
‘People are looking at you crying,’ Dougal said, ‘and they think it’s because of me.’
‘So it is in a way. I’ve had a rotten life.’
‘Goodness, look at that,’ Dougal said.
She looked upward to where he was pointing.
‘What?’ she said.
‘Up there,’ Dougal said; ‘trees in the sky.’
‘What are you talking about? I don’t see anything.’
