Peter Lovesey - Waxwork

‘Sir,’ she said in a steady voice, ‘I have no desire to see them in this place. My husband, yes. I believe I am also entitled to visits from my solicitor.’

The governor distractedly groomed his moustache. ‘Indeed, I was coming to that, but I caution you again that it is most unwise to base any hope on a judicial release from your sentence. Is there any other matter you wish to raise with me?’

‘Not for the present, sir.’

‘There will be opportunities, anyway, of speaking to me again.’

With that, the governor had gestured to them to lead her away. Before they had closed the door he had gone to a cupboard and taken out a whisky glass.

Cribb had slept badly. His brain had floundered for hours in the shallows of oblivion, producing aberrations that jerked him awake. Once he was being ushered in by Jowett to Sir Charles Warren, but instead of the Commissioner at his desk, there was a camera facing them and the little figure that emerged from under the black cloth was female and grey-haired and wearing a crown. He had sat up in bed with such a start that it had disturbed Millie. He had not told her his dream. Instead he had gone to make tea and when he returned with the cup he had distracted her by suggesting they planned a visit to the theatre. He had known she would rise to that. The Mascotte at the Haymarket with Miss Lottie Piper. Millie was so quick with the suggestion that they both laughed. Later, in the darkness, Cribb was troubled. She had not asked him the reason for Jowett’s visit. He had always been frank with Millie. It was as if he was buying her silence for the price of two theatre tickets.

He knew if she heard about this she would jump to the wrong conclusion. She would think the Commissioner had singled him out because he was the best detective in the force. Millie had never doubted it, always believed they were on the point of promoting him. It was no use telling her Warren had gone to Jowett because he was the Judas of Monro’s team and Jowett in a blue fit had blurted the first name that sprang to his lips.

Cribb was a realist. After seventeen years on a sergeant’s rank, it would take fireworks on the Crystal Palace scale to get him lifted.

He had decided to start with Inspector Waterlow. When he looked up the address of the police station at Kew he found an asterisk against the entry. The footnote below stated Not continuously manned. A memory of Waterlow as a constable excusing himself from the beat flitted into Cribb’s mind. He drew a long breath, picked up the valise containing the papers on the Cromer case and walked out of Scotland Yard with a maltreated look in his eye.

He took a train from Waterloo on the London and South Western.

He was the only passenger to alight at Kew Gardens. The platform was deserted. Nobody collected his ticket. It was a good thing he needed no help with directions. The address was Station Approach.

Before leaving the booking hall his eye caught a name among the posters advertising local businesses.

HOWARD CROMER

PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTIST

PARK LODGE, KEW GREEN

The highest class of photographs reproduced under

ordinary conditions of light. Sittings by appointment.

Portraits, cabinet and carte-de-visite, family

groups and wedding parties a speciality.

In pencil, somebody had added Funerals Arranged.

Station Approach was broad and shaded by trees. The police station was located above a chemist’s. Access was up an iron staircase at the side. Cribb opened a door badly in need of paint.

‘Good day, sir,’ said a tall, callow constable holding a large ginger cat in his arms. ‘Not a bad day at all. Capital for Ascot. What can we do for you?’

‘You can tell Inspector Waterlow, if he is in, that Sergeant Cribb of Statistics would like a word with him.’

The cat was dropped like a stone.

‘Statistics. Yes, Sergeant. Very good. I’ll tell him this minute.’ He opened a door behind the desk just enough to put his head and shoulder round. A murmured, agitated exchange took place. He closed the door and turned back to Cribb. ‘The Inspector won’t be a moment, Sergeant.’ He busied himself with some pieces of paper.

‘This your animal?’ Cribb inquired. The cat was leaning on his shins.

‘Just a stray, Sergeant,’ the constable answered unconvincingly. ‘We get a lot of them, being next to the butcher’s. When you came in, I was ascertaining whether it had a collar, for identification.’

‘I hope you’ve got it in the occurrence book,’ said Cribb tartly.

A bald head and shoulders appeared round the door, hands fastening the top buttons of an inspector’s tunic. ‘Cribb, it really is you,’ said Inspector Waterlow. ‘What are you waiting there for? Come inside, man.’

The cat was inside first. It hopped on to the window sill and settled proprietorially in the sun. Inspector Waterlow made no attempt to remove it.

Slimly built, with ferocious eyebrows to compensate for baldness, he had altered little in the ten years since Cribb had seen him. The set of his head on an over-long, narrow neck still unaccountably irked.

‘Stoke Newington, wasn’t it?’ he said unnecessarily. ‘By George, a lot of water has gone under the bridge since those days. Busy times. Sit down, won’t you? Have a spell in the armchair. I don’t suppose you get much time for that. Where are you now?’

The chair was warm from a recent sitter. ‘The Yard. Statistics Branch, sir.’ Some evasion was necessary with Waterlow.

‘Out of the action, then? My word, you’ve earned a turn behind a desk if anyone has. Do you mean to say they haven’t made you up to inspector yet?’

‘I had two commendations a couple of years back. That’s all.’

‘Good man,’ said Inspector Waterlow, more to the cat than Cribb. He was stroking its head with his forefinger. ‘Confidentially, promotion in the force is a lottery, old boy. I’m the first to admit I was no great shakes as a copper. Got my name mentioned in the right quarters just the same-hang it, there had to be some compensation for all the paper-work I did. Soon after you left, I got my stripes. But I didn’t see myself as a sergeant, so I er’-he removed his forefinger from the cat and tapped the side of his head-‘submitted a practical suggestion to the Commissioner: to give up issuing truncheon-cases and have a truncheon-pocket sewn into the uniform instead. As you know, it was acted upon two years ago, and I was made up to inspector.’

‘Doesn’t sound like a lottery to me.’

‘You’re right. I owe it to my inventive mind,’ said Waterlow smugly.

‘Where did you go as inspector?’

Waterlow grinned sheepishly. ‘I did a rather calamitous tour of duty at Bow Street. After that they sent me to Kew. I must say, I find it more agreeable than central London.’

Cribb murmured agreement from the armchair and pondered the vagaries of fate.

‘What brings you here?’ Waterlow casually inquired. ‘No problem over my statistics, I hope? There isn’t a great amount of crime here, you will appreciate. A few incidents in the Royal Botanic Gardens-pilfering orchids, and so forth. We had an indecent exposure in the Water Lily House last month, but I can’t in all conscience say we make many arrests. The most exciting thing in years was the poisoning in Kew Green last spring. No doubt you heard. I sorted it out myself. The wife did it, of course. She confessed before the trial. Facing facts, you see. By then I had a cast-iron case against her.’

‘Nice work, sir.’ Cribb beamed at Waterlow. This was the opening he needed. ‘As it happens, the Kew Green poisoning is what brings me out here. Someone in the Yard has the notion that we could detect crime more efficiently if we kept a fuller record of felonies committed in the past. As you know, the present practice is to list the number of felonies committed under different headings-housebreaking, robbery with violence, arson and so on. That’s a help, but it doesn’t tell us what time most burglaries are committed, or what class of person raises fires.’