Barry Maitland - The Marx Sisters

‘Hold her there, will you? I’ll get back to you within ten minutes.’

She dialled again, this time the Yard, and spoke to Brock.

‘Right, Kathy,’ Brock said after she’d explained, ‘tell them to pull her off the flight and hold her till we get there. I’ll pick you up where you are as soon as I can.’

Brock peered through the glass panel in the door of the detention room. Beneath a bright fluorescent light a uniformed policeman sat impassively at a bare table with arms folded. Opposite him stood Judith Naismith. She leant over the table, one hand propping herself up, the other resting on her hip. Although only a murmur could be heard through the door, she was clearly haranguing him. She had straight, shoulder-length ash-blonde hair, and was of similar build to Kathy, slim and of medium height, but her body was more angular, her gestures more explosive. When they went inside, Brock noticed her sharp and humourless eyes, and decided that Dr Naismith was going to be a formidable customer.

He introduced Kathy and himself.

‘What exactly is the problem here?’ she demanded, folding her arms. ‘You do realize I’ve missed my flight?’

‘I’m sorry about that, but we’re investigating the murders of two women which have occurred recently in central London, and we believe you may be able to help us with our inquiries. We only just learned of your whereabouts, and under the circumstances it seemed the only course open to us.’

He gave her a conciliatory smile and began to take off his coat. Her face had given no flicker of response to the mention of murders. Brock indicated to the uniformed man that he could go, and took his place at the table. Kathy waited by the door.

‘Please.’ Brock indicated the chair opposite him. ‘Sit down, Dr Naismith, and we can sort this out.’

She stared at him for a moment without moving and then turned to Kathy. ‘I hope you people are within your rights.’ She looked at Kathy slowly from head to foot, then back to her face again. Her stare was rude, intended to intimidate. Kathy returned it calmly, not showing the embarrassment which, to her annoyance, she began to feel.

Brock reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out his notebook and Judith Naismith’s passport. ‘Come and sit down, Dr Naismith,’ he repeated absently, flicking through the pages of the passport. She still made no move, and he began to write in his notebook. Finally she sat down abruptly in the chair, half turned away from Brock with one arm hooked on the chair back, her legs crossed, in an attitude which suggested great self-control in the face of outrageous provocation.

‘Why are you leaving now, Dr Naismith? I understand you were planning to stay longer.’

She slowly turned her head towards him. ‘What business, exactly, is that of yours?’ She enunciated the words slowly, as if to someone with limited understanding.

Brock stared at her for a moment.

‘We’d like you to tell us about all of your recent contacts with Miss Eleanor Harper, of 22 Jerusalem Lane, WC2. Let’s begin with the last time you actually saw her.’

There was silence for a moment before she said, with the same exaggerated patience, ‘Am I under arrest?’

‘No, you’re not, Dr…’

‘Am I then free to go?’

‘Are you saying that you refuse to co-operate with us?’

‘Am I free to go?’

Brock sighed, closed up her passport and placed it back in his inside jacket pocket. ‘Where will you be staying in London?’

‘I’d like my passport, please.’

‘I’m afraid that’s impossible. You won’t be able to leave the country until you’ve answered my questions.’ She looked at him with surprise as he got to his feet and pulled on his coat. ‘If I were you, I’d get myself a good solicitor, Dr Naismith,’ he said, and headed for the door.

‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do!’ she called after him, but they were gone before she finished the sentence.

On the way back into central London, Brock, irritated, searched through an address book in his pocket and then made a transatlantic call. The voice at the other end sounded clearer than on a local number.

‘Good to hear you, David. Are you coming over?’

‘Not this time, Nigel. I need a bit of information quickly, and I thought you might possibly be able to help. It’s about an academic at Princeton.’

‘If I can. What discipline?’

‘Economic history.’

‘Oh yes? We have a Search Committee in place at the moment for a senior position in that department here. I could say I’m inquiring for them.’

‘Yes, that sounds good. I just want to get some background on the woman. She’s a British subject, been over there for thirteen or fourteen years, since doing a doctorate at Cambridge. Name, Judith Naismith.’ He spelled it, and, after some perfunctory small talk about the weather and each other’s health, rang off.

‘FBI?’ Kathy asked.

Brock shook his head. ‘No. Friend from the army. Went over there twenty years ago. Professor in the Midwest now.’ He lapsed into silence and said nothing more on the journey back.

During the night, while Brock and Gurney continued their questioning of Terry Winter, unseasonable freezing winds from the north and east displaced the damp, mild westerlies of the previous days, and a bitter change set in. Waking early on the morning of Friday 3 April, the third day of the investigation into Eleanor Harper’s death, Kathy shuddered to see that the view from her window of the distant street lights was obliterated by swirling snow. She breakfasted hurriedly on tea and toast, hauled on her long coat, scarf, gloves and woollen hat, and made for the lift.

There was just one policewoman in the office at Jerusalem Lane, minding the phones. She said that Winter had been charged, but she didn’t know what with. Copies of statements were on their way over from the Yard, as well as a report from the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory at Lambeth Road over the river, on the hammer found in the building site, but neither had yet arrived.

Impatient and edgy, Kathy pulled her outer layers back on and stepped out into the cold dawn of Jerusalem Lane once more. Flurries of snow were gusting through the high chain-link fence which topped the plywood panels of the construction site. Here and there it collected in small drifts. She walked rapidly back up to the north end, head down, and ran across Welbeck Street to the news vendor on the corner. The man had moved his plastic tarpaulin round to the east side of his stall, and Kathy huddled in its shelter. As she searched in her bag for money to pay for the early-morning editions, a red Mercedes sports car pulled over to the kerb on the other side of the street. The interior lit up for a moment as the passenger opened his door, and Kathy saw the driver, a woman, lean over and give him a kiss. He was a big man, who took a moment to haul himself out of the low car, as if his shoulder were giving him trouble. Just before he pulled the collar of his coat up and turned to hurry down Jerusalem Lane, Kathy recognized Brock’s bearded face.

The laboratory report arrived shortly after Kathy returned to the incident centre. It confirmed that the hammer was the one used to strike Eleanor’s forehead in the moments immediately after her death. It was a ballhammer, with a rounded head, as used by plumbers. Its shape and size were consistent with the indentations in Eleanor’s skull, and scratches on its surface matched impressions found on the plastic bag.

Kathy and another officer returned to Winter’s house in Chislehurst to speak to his wife, Caroline. She seemed to find their questions faintly amusing, as if they had no bearing on her own life. She was unable to recall ever having seen the hammer before. Her husband, she said, was not a great handyman.