‘Tomorrow, maybe yes, maybe no. But you need rest yourself. Today, absolutely no.’
Denton looked grim. ‘Somebody wants me to go to Paris. A trip to University College Hospital won’t compare.’
‘Paris!’ Bernat frowned. ‘Paris is not a restful place. I trained in Paris. During the-’
Maude was standing in the doorway. ‘Now there’s a gentleman named Munro to see you.’ He looked aggrieved. His work day had ended two minutes earlier, and here he was, announcing yet somebody else. Denton said to show him up, and the boy said that
‘I am going,’ Bernat said.
‘No, no, stay.’ Bernat had a half-finished glass of sherry. He looked uncertain, probably embarrassed. Munro, however, seemed unfazed by either patient or doctor. He was carrying his hat and coat and grinning. ‘Your man flew out of the house before I could give him my things.’
‘My man’s a kid, hardly out of short pants. Sling them on the bed.’ He introduced the two men, said that Bernat was a doctor and Munro a policeman. ‘Two professional visits in one,’ he said. ‘Munro, if you want a drink, you have to get your own. Atkins got his head broken.’
‘So I heard. Nothing for me, anyway.’ He looked at Bernat. ‘Well, how is he?’
‘Our host? Generally in excellent health, his wounds stable, still weak and I think a little shocked. But promising. ’
Munro looked at Denton. ‘I’d like to hear your tale of what happened. Guillam’s keeping his own counsel — his prerogative; he’s being a good cop. Tell me what happened.’
Bernat said he shouldn’t listen to private police business; no matter how much both men insisted, he drank off his sherry and left. He had seemed at ease with Denton, clearly was not with Munro, or perhaps only with two other people instead of one. ‘Shy,’ Denton said. ‘Been through the pogroms; maybe it’s because you’re a policeman.’
‘Coppers have that effect. Part of the job.’
Then Denton told him the story of the two attacks, ending with Guillam’s visit and Guillam’s disdain for the Mulcahy story. ‘Guillam hates my guts,’ he finished.
‘That’s just Georgie. He wants to be a superintendent, at least; always on the make. To him, you’re a rival. I know, it’s stupid, but he’s like that. He doesn’t want anybody else to have an idea. Down on me because I had your observation about the peephole before he did.’
‘He wants me to “get away”.’
‘Yeah, that would suit him. Plus you must admit, he has a job to do.’
‘Which I don’t prevent him doing.’
‘Yeah, you do, if you get in the newspapers and spout ideas that the coppers then have to deal with — which he’s afraid you will if a reporter ever gets hold of you. It’s really hard enough being a London copper without civilians saying it should be this way or that way. As if you had to listen to Guillam tell you how to write books.’
Denton grunted. ‘Somebody else wants me to go to Paris.’
‘Happy to go in your place. You’ll buy the ticket?’
Denton laughed. His visitors had made him feel better. ‘How about you go next door to the Lamb and get yourself some beer and a couple of plates of beef? The boy servant seems to have forgotten that I eat in the evening.’
Munro stood. ‘I’ll get beer for me and beef for you. Mrs Munro expects me at home, and she expects me to eat what’s put before me. If you’re eating to help that arm, you should have liver.’
‘Beef. The redder the better.’
Munro was whistling when he came back. The whistling got breathy as he struggled up the last flight of stairs with the tray, but he made it — a little red-faced, a little winded — and laid out the beer pitcher and a glass, roast beef (not very red), mash with sprouts, a bottle of some sort of sauce. ‘Barman at the Lamb sends his best. Shocking you’re hurt. Crime is a scandal, and the police should all be sacked.’
‘You didn’t tell him you’re a copper.’
‘Didn’t seem friendly to disabuse him.’ Munro took a long pull at the beer and sighed happily and began to cut up Denton’s meat for him. ‘So — you think it was
‘The attack? Yes, I think it was him.’
‘Well, you’ve seen his face now. He’ll either come again or go to ground.’
‘I saw half his face.’
Munro glanced at the Colt. ‘You expect him back, I see.’ He put the plate on Denton’s legs. ‘Constables going to be kept at your door?’
‘A few days.’ He ate some of the roast beef. ‘I might as well go to Paris.’
‘And give up on Mulcahy?’
‘Mulcahy’s dead by now.’
‘You surprise me. Why?’
‘There’s no point in attacking me unless he’s already got rid of Mulcahy. I think he was afraid that Mulcahy had told me something.’
‘What?’
‘I wish I knew.’
Munro drank his beer and frowned at the wall and said, ‘Willey’s got a solid case on the Cape Coloured he grabbed. They kept a lot of it out of the papers, but the long and the short of it is that the poor bastard was covered with blood and drunk as a lord when they found him, plus he gave them a confession. Willey laid charges a couple of hours ago.’
‘What’s that to me?’
‘Willey’s got the girl’s killer. Whatever your Mulcahy and the man who attacked you do or don’t have to do with the great scheme of things, they didn’t murder the Minter girl.’
‘Because Willey has a South African sailor who’s too frightened to know what’s happened to him? Munro, you know either of us could get a confession from a man in his situation even if we knew for a fact he was innocent — black man in a white country, found drunk and bloody, probably can’t remember what the hell he did that night, afraid they’ll hang him and so willing to say anything. And who made the peephole — the black man?’
‘The peephole’s neither here nor there. Denton, there’s no evidence that it had any connection with the murder at all! Or with your Mulcahy, for the matter of that. Fact, Willey’s people tracked down the landlord of the house in Priory Close Alley — lives out in Staines, never goes near his property, has an agent to do all the dirty work. The agent rented the closet to a man who gave the name Smithers, can’t remember anything of what he looked like. Paid six months in advance. Smithers may have been Mulcahy, but it’s wasted time to Willey.’
‘It means he probably has a witness.’
‘It means there’s an
Denton swigged borscht and chewed beef and shifted his position in the bed. ‘The girl,’ he said. ‘We have to learn more about the girl.’
Munro grinned and shook his head and, finishing his beer, clumped down the stairs and let himself out.
Chapter Nine
After night fell, he lit the gas in his room and on the stairs, and then, the loaded Colt in his hand, he went down and lit a lamp in the long room. He felt only a little dizzy, still weak but clearer in his mind. After sitting for a few minutes in his chair, he went down to the ground floor and lit the gas there and opened the front door. A different constable was standing out by the street but came hurrying when he saw Denton.
‘Something wrong, sir?’
‘Only putting my head out for air.’The evening was cold, hazy with vapour that was condensing on the stones
