‘55 Pembridge Mews. Parking’s difficult there, so you’d better park nearby and walk down.’
‘DCI Cook?’ Larry asked.
‘I’ve messaged him. He’ll be down here soon enough.’
‘Have you phoned the woman?’
‘I’ve not got a mobile number for her, and there’s no phone registered at the house.’
‘Not many are these days,’ Larry said.
Wendy grabbed a biscuit out of a packet in the small kitchen area on the way out, Larry did not.
Larry was driving, and there were roadworks on Challis Street which took ten minutes to clear. He turned into Bayswater Road, tempted to push through the traffic, but he did not. It was not an emergency, just a visit to a potential witness, a person who could help them with their enquiries. At Marble Arch, the nineteenth-century white marble-faced triumphal arch, he followed the one-way system around it. Which triumph the structure celebrated, he didn’t know, but it wasn’t important, not now – getting to Pembridge Mews was.
They travelled down Bayswater Road, passing Buckhill Lodge, the first of the two entrances into Hyde Park that Colin Young could have used, the second being Lancaster Gate. That was passed quickly enough, then Kensington Church Street, the next intersection of interest, the road down to the Churchill Arms.
Two intersections later, Larry turned right into Pembridge Road, taking the right turn after four hundred yards into Pembridge Villas. Two more intersections and Pembridge Mews was on the left. Larry parked close to the entrance, this time placing a sign on the car dashboard that it was parked on police business and exempted from the thirty-minute time restriction.
The mews houses, formerly stables, usually with carriage houses below and living quarters above, had served the large city houses in front of them. But now, two hundred years later, there were no horses, no servants, only very exclusive residential dwellings. Visually, they looked the same as they had in the past; inside, most had been gutted and rebuilt to the highest standards. Wendy thought that Matilda Montgomery’s house was the prettiest in the street.
Larry knocked on the door, Wendy standing back to see if there was any movement inside. She then peered through a window, to see that no lights were on. Larry knocked on the door again, this time louder than before.
A woman came out of a door on the other side of the mews. The street was narrow and not suitable for cars, although a motorbike was outside one house, a couple of cycles propped up against another, a strong lock around them. ‘Matilda’s not been there for a few days,’ the woman said. She was neither friendly nor dismissive.
‘Sergeant Wendy Gladstone,’ Wendy said as she opened her warrant card.
‘Matilda? What would the police want with her?’
‘Routine enquiries.’
‘She lives alone. I hope she’s not been in an accident.’
‘You know her well?’
‘For the last two years. She comes over to my house, I go over to hers.’
‘We need to find her,’ Larry said, having decided that the door had been knocked on enough.
‘She never said anything the last time I saw her. Sometimes, she goes away, but most times she lets me know. Although I’ve been away myself.’
The woman was elegantly dressed, she was also tall and slender, statuesque, a model perhaps.
‘Your name?’ Wendy said.
‘Amelia Bentham, the Honourable.’
‘Your father?’
‘Lord Bentham. He doesn’t use his title, nor do I mention it normally.’
‘You told us.’
‘You’re the police. Mind you, it comes in handy when I’m booking a good table at a restaurant. A title still opens doors in this city.’
Wendy did not comment that she thought very little of the class structure and those who hung onto it. The whole system should have been abolished a long time ago, around the time that Pembridge Mews had stopped being a place for the horses and the downtrodden servants of those in the big houses.
‘We need to check her house,’ Wendy said.
‘I’ve got a key.’
‘If you walk around with us, otherwise we’ll need a court order.’
Larry phoned Isaac, now back in Homicide and keen to find out about Matilda Montgomery, Bridget having detailed what had been messaged to him in a précised form on his mobile.
‘Make sure Amelia Bentham is with you at all times. I don’t want any comeback on this.’
‘There won’t be. I’ll stay outside, just let the two women go in. Supposedly, Matilda Montgomery and Amelia Bentham have an agreement to look after each other’s properties, feed the cat, the fish, whatever.’
‘Is there a cat?’
‘I’m speaking figuratively. So far, we don’t know much about Miss Montgomery.’
‘Miss?’
‘According to Amelia Bentham. Her brother comes to stay occasionally.’
‘Is it him?’
‘It’s probable. We’ve not shown a photo to the young woman yet.’
‘Her age?’
‘Amelia Bentham’s in her twenties. She speaks posh, which should upset Wendy, but the two women are getting on like a house on fire.’
‘Matilda Montgomery’s age?’
‘Miss Bentham, how old is Miss Montgomery?’ Larry shouted over to the two women. Up the street, a couple of curtains moved, and an old man, bent over and with a walking stick, listened, adjusting the volume on his hearing aid. A dog barked from inside a house further down.
‘Damn nuisance,’ Amelia said. ‘A neurotic Chihuahua, but then, aren’t they all?’
‘Matilda Montgomery’s age?’ Larry repeated the question.
‘Twenty-nine last week. We went to the local Starbucks, shared a cake to celebrate.’
‘Not to the pub?’
‘Neither of us drink, not much anyway. Her brother likes to occasionally, but he’s not been around for a while.’
‘How long since he’s been here?’
‘I’m not sure. I saw him three weeks ago, and I’ve been away for ten days. I returned three days ago.’
‘Photo shoot?’ Wendy said, hazarding a guess.
‘Yes, a photo shoot. I’m a model. You’ve not been buying any magazines lately?’
