Dead of Winter

‘When she got to the top, Florrie paused, still nervous, not sure whether it was safe to go back to her pitch. The blackout was on, of course, but she could still see the girl who’d gone past her crossing the Tottenham Court Road, heading east, which was the direction Rosa would have taken. Just then there was a disturbance behind her, a lot of pushing and shoving on the stairs, and a man came up, forcing his way through the crowd, obviously in a hurry, not caring who he elbowed. When he got to the top, he looked around, saw Florrie standing there and asked her straight out if she’d seen a girl with a bag in each hand go by.’

Cook paused, rubbing his nose. He looked reflective.

‘Now it seems they had a conversation of sorts, Florrie and this fellow, and although I haven’t got the sense of it yet it’s pretty clear what happened, reading between the lines. She didn’t want him chasing off after some other girl, she wanted to hook him herself: she was thinking it would save her the time and trouble of going back to Soho Square to look for a customer. But if that is what she had in mind, it didn’t work out that way. What happened was he turned nasty.’

‘How?’ Billy killed his own cigarette. ‘What did he do?’

‘That’s what I don’t know yet.’ Cook had his hand on the doorknob. He looked at them both. ‘But what say we go inside and find out.’

The door behind them opened and a uniformed constable came in bearing a tray laden with cups of tea. He carried it carefully to the table, set it down, and with a nod to Cook left the room. Billy glanced at his watch. He’d promised Helen to have Madden at Waterloo station by half-past three when they had dropped her off earlier. The possibility of grabbing a bite of lunch had vanished, but they still had some time in hand. Not that there was much point in lingering. They had just about squeezed French Florrie dry.

Or she them.

He grinned as he watched the woman seated across the table simultaneously extinguish the cigarette she’d been smoking and refuse the cup of tea Cook was holding out to her with a disdainful gesture. Small in stature, and with sharp, catlike features, she was dressed in a tight blue skirt and a blouse cut to display the tops of her small breasts. Red hair shaped like a cap framed her carefully made-up face, to which she was attending now, applying lipstick and following this with a dab of powder to her nose from a compact she’d removed from her handbag a moment before. Then, having studied the result for several seconds, she snapped the compact shut.

‘Eh bien, c’est fini?’

Billy’s schoolboy French was just about up to understanding her words, though not a number of others she’d used in the course of the description she had just given of her brush with the man who in all likelihood had killed Rosa Nowak, an account laced with epithets and gestures which, though crude, had lent a compelling edge to her narrative. Listening to her, Billy had realized why Lofty was setting such store by her testimony, why he considered finding her such a stroke of luck. An experienced detective himself, he knew it wasn’t often that you came across a witness as observant as Florence Desmoulins; one whose memory seemed so attuned to the finest detail; whose quick green eyes missed nothing. Talents she had no doubt honed in response to the demands of her profession, but no less valuable on that account.

A case in point was the description she’d given them earlier of the man she’d encountered at the top of the stairs outside the tube station. This was the first question Cook had put to her on returning to the interview room, and Florrie had responded without a second’s hesitation.

‘He was not young,’ she had told Lofty. ‘More than forty years, I think. Tall, but not as tall as you. Nor this gentleman.’ Her glance had shifted to Madden. ‘Mais peut-etre comme toi.’

The remark, which Billy didn’t understand, had been addressed to Cook’s colleague, Joe Grace, one of the detectives sent to Little Russell Street, who was standing with his back to the wall by the door, having given up his chair to Madden. Without warning Florrie had risen and walked over to where he was standing, checked her height against his and then returned to her seat, nodding.

‘Comme ca.’ She had gestured with a jerk of her red head. ‘The same.’

Cook had noted it down as five feet ten inches and then quickly determined that the man’s face and figure had been lean and his hair black and cut short.

‘What about his eyes?’ he had asked then, and Florrie had shrugged.

‘At night in the blackout all eyes are dark.’ She spoke with an accent, one she might even have exaggerated a bit, or so Billy thought, rolling her rs and saying ‘ze’ when she meant ‘the’. ‘Perhaps you already know zat, Inspecteur.’ Her smile had been half taunting, half provocative, and Lofty had chosen to ignore it, staying bent over his notepad.

‘And what was he wearing?’

‘Wearing …?’ Florrie had considered the question for some time, gazing up at the ceiling as if the answer lay there. ‘A dark coat and a hat is all I remember. He was carrying … how do you call it? A case?’

‘A suitcase?’

‘Non … plus petite. It was smaller.’ She demonstrated with her hands.

‘A briefcase, then?’ Cook asked, and she nodded.

‘Exactement.’

‘Could he have been a businessman?’

She shrugged.

It was then that Cook had asked his witness to describe her brush with the man, and Florrie had launched into a graphic description of their brief encounter.

‘I have come up the stairs, oui, I am standing there, and this man, ce connard, he asks me if I have seen a woman carrying two bags.’ She had shrugged. ‘I know who he means, it is the same girl who went past me, but I think maybe he would like to stop and talk, so I make a joke, I say, “What’s your hurry?” ’Her voice took on a droll note. ‘I ask him if he want to spend some time with me. I am being friendly. Tu comprends?’

Out of the corner of his eye Billy saw a cynical smile flit across Joe Grace’s thin, pockmarked countenance.

‘But he only asks again about this girl, where she has gone, and when he speak a second time I change my mind. Even though he is smiling I know this is one I don’t want. So I say, “What’s it to you?” Et sans rien dire il me prend par la gorge, le salaud.’

‘What’s that? What did you say?’ Cook struck the table with his fist in frustration. ‘Speak English, damn it.’

‘He grab me by the throat.’ Florrie spat the words back.‘Comme ca, tu vois.’ She clutched her own throat. ‘And then he speak, but so softly only I can hear. He say, “Answer the question or I break your bloody neck.” ’

Flushed in the face, eyes bright, she stared at Cook.

‘And I tell you, Inspector.’ Her own voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper. ‘This one … he means it.’

In the silence that followed, Cook caught Billy’s eye.

‘And so?’

‘And so I tell him. I say she go that way …’ Florrie waved her hand. ‘And he leaves, walking fast, across the road, and when he is more than halfway I call after him. I shout, “Tu n’es qu’un connard … une merde”, which is a big piece of shit, if you want to know.’ Her voice had risen. ‘I tell him I won’t forget his face — “Je n’oublieraipas ta sale gueule,” I scream, so I know he will hear, and I am ready to run because he stops and turns and he looks at me and I think he is coming back. But instead he goes on and I don’t see him again.’

She sat back, breathing fast, her breasts rising and falling beneath her blouse. Like her cheeks they were flushed. After a moment’s pause, she spoke again, but in a lower tone.

‘You are thinking he is the one who killed this girl? Maybe you are right. I wish now that I had not told him which way she go.’

She glanced down at her hands. Then, as though to rid herself of some memory, she shook her head, reaching for her handbag at the same time. Unsnapping the clasp, she plucked out her compact and while Cook was checking through his notes she repaired the make-up on her face.

‘Eh bien. C’est fini?’

Cook glanced at Billy, who shook his head — he had nothing more to ask her — then at Madden, who was