Hector looked blank. ‘
‘Hector, I mean I want to know the details of the crime.’
‘Ah, aha. Writer’s curiosity, eh? Well, you’ve come to the wrong shop for anything having to do with police work; I might as well be in Whitehall monitoring the clothing regulations for other ranks in hot climates as here, for all I know about what the police are doing.’ He rang the overweight young man back into the room, told him to ask Detective Sergeant Munro to step round, looked pleased with himself for moving so briskly. ‘Munro will set us straight,’ he said. ‘Munro knows everything.’ He smiled the brilliant and open smile that made up for many failings. ‘Munro is a real policeman, not an ex-army officer dropped into a sinecure, like me.’ He beamed.
‘I was an ex-officer, once,’ Denton said.
‘Yes, but you hadn’t cousins in the senior civil service, had you? You mustered out and went to work — lucky you, Denton. Look at you now.’
Denton grunted. He had mustered out as a temporary lieutenant (three months’ worth, a sergeant jumped up to demobilize what was left) after the American Civil War; ‘going to work,’ as Hector put it, had meant going to an unploughed piece of prairie and trying to turn it into a farm. Going to work, indeed.
Detective Sergeant Munro was huge and walked with a limp. His massive face widened as it went downwards from his eyes; the jaws, seen straight on, were enormous, as if he could have chewed up iron bolts. He had a trace of a Scots accent, something else unidentifiable. His contempt for Hench-Rose was clear, even to Hector, who seemed amused by it.
‘Mister Denton is a famous author,’ Hench-Rose began. ‘He’s interested in a lady of the night who was murdered yesterday.’
Munro looked at Denton, expanded his circle of contempt to include him. ‘Yes?’ he said.
Hench-Rose smiled more fiercely. ‘I thought the first paperwork might have made its way up to us, and we could share it with him and send him on to the right people in CID.’
Munro’s great jaws widened, the effect of a smile. ‘Not our crime, Mr Hench-Rose.’ Dripping with contempt. Hector, not the swiftest of intellects, stared at him. ‘Crime was apparently committed in the Square Mile, sir.’
Hector frowned. ‘Oh, dear,’ Hector said. He looked at Denton. ‘Mr Denton’s American.’ Munro grinned at Denton, offering not a drop of pity for his being American. Hector explained. ‘The Square Mile is the City of London, Denton. My fault for not having realized it; I paid no attention to the location when I read the tale in the paper. We don’t get crimes from the City; the City of London Police get them.’ He looked up. ‘Sorry, Munro.’
‘I can go, then?’
‘Well-Perhaps you know somebody over there Mr Denton could go to see.’
‘Not very hospitable to journalists right now,’ Munro said. He apparently meant the City Police.
‘Mr Denton’s not a journalist.’
Munro looked him over, apparently concluded that Denton was no better than a journalist, whatever he was.
‘Oh, come on, Munro!’ Hench-Rose’s voice was wheedling. Denton could imagine his using it on a sergeant major, one of those invaluable men who do the real work of a regiment. ‘You must know somebody over there who can lend a hand.’ Hench-Rose smiled, the kind of smile that would remind even a sergeant major which of them was the superior officer. ‘Munro, I insist.’
Denton had been making small noises, but neither of the others paid any attention. He had muttered that it wasn’t important, that he would go, that he’d been stupid. No good. He was left feeling embarrassed, as he always was by British displays, however subtle, however polite, of upper-class leverage.
‘I’ll just see what I can do then, sir,’ Munro was saying. ‘If you’re ready to go, Mr, um, Denton, perhaps you could come along with me.’
‘There!’ Hench-Rose displayed his wonderful teeth. ‘You see, Denton?’
Denton made a face — lower lip pushed up, corners of the lips pulled down, eyebrows raised — and thanked Hector for his help and went out behind Munro, turning to cock an eyebrow again at Hench-Rose, who seemed vastly amused.
They paced along a dark corridor that looked as if it ran the length of the building, perhaps of several other buildings as well, a smell of coal and drains just noticeable. The corridor was bitterly cold. Munro seemed determined to say nothing, and Denton, who had lived among all sorts of people, felt no impulse to change things. They came at last to a varnished door much like all the others they had passed, and Munro grasped the handle as if he were going to yank it out of the wall and threw the door open. Several clerks looked up with frightened faces.
‘This is where we shovel the paper,’ Munro said. He led Denton towards another door. ‘Raw police reports find their way up here; we copy them out in a fair hand, three copies each, and send one to Files, one to Prosecution and one to your friend.’ He jerked his head towards the north, the direction meant to include Hench- Rose. ‘No idea what he does with them. In ten years or twenty the gods may see fit to give us a typewriter.’ Munro went through the door into a dismal office piled high with faded brown folders, fell into a chair behind the only desk and began to rummage in a drawer. ‘I’ll give you a message to somebody I know in City CID. That’s all I’ll do. Coppers don’t like civilians much.’
‘I know. I used to be one.’ Munro looked up. Denton said, ‘A place called Railhead, Nebraska.’
‘What was that, two whorehouses and a dog?’
‘Just about. I was the entire police force.’
Munro stared at him. His huge cheeks looked unhealthy in the gloom. ‘Well, you know how we feel about civilians putting their nose in, then.’
‘I don’t intend to put my nose in.’ He told him about the visit from Mulcahy, Munro staring at him the whole time. When he was finished, Munro said, ‘You mean you have evidence to offer. Why didn’t you say so?’
‘I’m not sure it’s evidence.’
‘Leave that for City CID.’ He handed over a piece of paper. ‘Go and see this man. Detective Sergeant Willey. Tell him what you told me. Don’t tell him you’re a writer.’ He stood; Denton stood.
‘Were you in CID?’ Denton said.
‘Used to be. Metropolitan, not City. Then I was crippled. ’ He hesitated. ‘Fell off a roof.’
‘Line of duty?’
‘Pointing the chimney at home.’
Denton went out. Munro had never smiled, he realized. Nor, he guessed, had he.
Detective Sergeant Willey barely knew Munro, as it turned out, but was glad for a chance to get out of the bustle of Bishopsgate Police Station and sit down to listen to Denton’s ‘evidence’. He had a clerk there to take it down in shorthand, along with the questions and answers that followed, all the things that Denton had already been over in his own mind. Willey, long-headed, stooped, tired, was as sceptical as Atkins, but he was polite because Denton was at least nominally a gentleman. ‘Many thanks,’ he said when they were done. ‘We appreciate citizen cooperation. Every bit of information of value.’
Denton wondered how many murders the man had investigated, as he seemed nervous and defeated already. Contrary to what Hench-Rose had thought, Denton knew London pretty well, could have told him that the Minories were in the City if he’d stopped to think about it — knew, too, that City police probably spent most of their time on business crime, not murder.
Denton said, ‘I’m afraid I’d like something in return.’ Willey’s face froze. ‘That’s why I originally went to Mr Hench-Rose. Is it possible for me to see the corpse?’ That idea had come to him as they had talked. Why did he want to see a mutilated female corpse? Emma had swum into his consciousness; he had refused to believe there was a connection.
‘Absolutely not.’ Shocked.
‘Isn’t there going to be a post-mortem?’
‘Of course.’ Stiff now, defending the procedures of the City Police.
‘Post-mortems are sometimes open.’
‘Mr Denton!’ Willey leaned towards him, hands clasped on the scarred desktop. He had hairy backs to his hands, dark curls like wires springing out. ‘This is a sensational case. Do you really think we want details of the poor woman’s body known to civilians?’
‘There’ve been a good many descriptions already, and she’s dead. Plus, she was a tart. Anyway, I’m not
