Barry Maitland - The Marx Sisters

Kathy found his angry sarcasm all the more irksome because there was an element of truth in what he said. She imagined how devastating it would be to be one of his students faced with this choleric venom.

‘I take it,’ she said, as icily calm as she could make herself sound, ‘you’re referring to the dispute which your family had recently with Mrs Winterbottom, who, in case your mother didn’t mention it, we believe may have been murdered on Sunday afternoon last.’

‘If you’re suggesting that I or either of my parents had anything to do with Mrs Winterbottom’s death,’ he exploded, ‘you’d better come right out and say it now, so that I can get a solicitor down here straight away.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear.’ Brock, who had taken no notice of this exchange, was stooping in a corner of the room. He straightened with a grunt and turned toward the table, adjusting the glasses on the end of his nose and squinting at the spine of a small red-covered book which he’d picked up from the floor.

‘A Baedeker!’ He opened the cover. ‘Southern France and Corsica, 1914.’ He flicked through the pages. ‘Maps still there, quite good condition. You don’t want to lose this, Mr Kowalski. They’re worth a few bob these days, aren’t they?’

‘What?’ Kowalski turned to Brock, a look of irritation on his face, as if he was having to deal with some imbecilic first-year student who had lost track of the argument. ‘I wouldn’t know. Second-hand books aren’t my field.’

‘So you’re not in the business with your father? We rather thought, when you were helping him to sell his stock, that you might have been involved.’

‘No… I was simply giving him and my mother a hand. Look-’

‘Tell us exactly what your movements were on Sunday, would you, Mr Kowalski?’

With bad grace he began to do as Brock asked. The three of them had left Enfield after breakfast, catching the train into central London-‘because my wife decided at the last possible minute that she needed the car’. Once in London, his parents went to the shop, while he took a bus to Camden Town, where he had arranged to rent a van for a few hours. He drove it to Jerusalem Lane, into the yard behind the bookshop, and helped his mother and father pack and load the last of the books into the van. They finished soon after 1, and ate a packed lunch his wife had made for them.

‘That was after your father had the accident with his foot?’

‘Yes. We were nearly finished when that happened. My mother knocked the box off the back of the van on to his foot.’ He shook his head. ‘Typical. Anyway, after that I drove to the dealer in Notting Hill who had bought the last of the stock.’

‘You drove alone?’

‘No. My father had to come too, to conclude the sale with the man, but there wasn’t room for my mother. She stayed at the shop.’

‘And you returned when?’ Kathy asked.

Kowalski looked her in the eyes and answered calmly, ‘2 o’clock, I should think. Yes, 2.’

‘Was your father not in pain with his foot? It seemed pretty bad when we saw him.’

‘It wasn’t so bad at first, after he got over the initial shock. The corner of the box seemed to land on the ground, taking most of the impact, and then the edge caught him. When we set off he said he was all right, but by the time we got back he was pretty uncomfortable.’

‘What did you do then?’

Kowalski shrugged impatiently, ‘My mother was doing some last-minute sweeping, and I helped for a bit. Then I took the van back.’

Kathy opened her mouth, but he anticipated her question, ‘Mum came with me. We left Dad to rest his foot. He could hardly walk by this stage.’

‘Times?’

‘Oh for God’s sake, I don’t know. We weren’t away long. We got the tube back from Camden Town on the Northern Line to the station round the corner. We stayed a bit, to finish up. Then I went back to the tube station to call a cab for my parents from the phones there, and when it arrived we all left. I walked back to my station. It must have been around 4.’

They put on their coats and went outside briefly to see the yard in the failing light. By the time they came back inside, Kowalski had stoked up his anger once more.

‘I just want it to be understood that I resent this intrusive pressure on elderly people who, God knows, have had enough to put up with. One shudders to think how you lot would behave if we’d actually done something wrong.’

‘We have to speak to everyone who may have seen something of significance on Sunday last,’ Brock said smoothly to him. ‘It’s a little difficult to see why you seem to feel so threatened by that, Mr Kowalski. If everyone we spoke to was as defensive, we might end up having to pay our constables even more extravagant wages than we do at present. Anyway, thanks for your help, and don’t forget your Baedeker.’

It was dark outside as Brock and Kathy ran back through the rain to their car, which was parked beneath a no-waiting sign at the north end of the Lane.

‘Sorry,’ Kathy said as Brock got the heater going on the steamed-up windscreen. ‘I didn’t seem to be able to get anywhere. You were much better with him than I was.’

‘I wonder if he’s like that with all women. His girl students must get a hard time.’

‘Yes, I thought that. But it was my fault, too. I just found it impossible not to be riled by him. All that anger and self-pity-his job, his little digs at his wife, his rudeness…’

‘And his lies.’

‘Yes. The only time he sounded half civil was when he was obviously lying-about the time they returned from Notting Hill. He said 2, whereas his father this morning said 2.30. We can check that, but I’ll bet the father was right. Which means that the mother was on her own in the Lane for half an hour during the period the sisters were out.’

‘And the father was on his own for most of the following hour, lame or not. And we don’t really know for sure that the son didn’t find some time on his own that afternoon either, say when he went out to call the cab. We’ll have to go back over it all again, and talk to Sylvia Pemberton about when she saw Adam Kowalski that afternoon. But it’s interesting that Felix Kowalski should have felt it necessary to lie about the period that his mother was on her own.’

The office of Concept Design stood at the end of a culde-sac, off a narrow rear access street in a block behind Tottenham Court Road. It occupied a two-storey brick building which had been built in the twenties as a warehouse at the rear of a retail store. On both sides were pre- and post-war commercial buildings about eight storeys high. Behind a large plate-glass window the name of the firm was spelled out in miniature red neon letters. Stepping inside, Kathy and Brock found themselves on a steel bridge, which spanned a large hole in the ground floor and offered a view of the main draughting area in the basement below. Ahead of them, suspended over the draughting floor, was a reception area with glass walls screened by narrow grey venetian blinds.

‘Hello.’

A figure climbed up a spiral steel staircase from the level below.

‘Secretary’s gone home. My name is Bob Jones.’

He was in his late thirties, of medium height, with a mop of tousled black hair. He wore a black sweater, grey trousers, red shoes, and a spotted black and white bow tie. He smiled at them and held out his hand. Then, seeing it was covered with black ink, apologized and withdrew it.

‘Pens always play up at the worst moment. At least it’s not all over my shirt this time. Come through into the conference room, will you?’

They passed the empty reception desk, made of charcoal-grey laminate, and went through into a room behind the louvred screens. It was lined with grey pinboard, to which a number of coloured free-hand sketches had been attached. Track-lighting overhead threw spots of light on to the walls and on to a grey table that stood in the middle of the room.