Barry Maitland - The Marx Sisters

Brock frowned. ‘Kathy?’

‘There’s something in what Bren says, sir. I’ve always been uncomfortable about not getting to the bottom of what was happening to Meredith before she died. Of course her depression could have been due to Terry putting pressure on her, but I always thought it was more than that-something to do with her life here in Jerusalem Lane. It’s difficult to imagine it now, with them all gone, but the atmosphere was so real, and so intense. They were like characters from some weird melodrama, all so passionate, and all locked together in this little street. Do you remember Dr Botev, and the impression he gave that he knew what had happened to Meredith? And Mrs Rosenfeldt and her dark hints about the Nazis? We put all that to one side. But maybe… I don’t know.’

‘Go on,’ Brock said.

‘Well, maybe they all knew things were coming to an end here, and maybe someone had some final score to settle with Meredith.’

They were silent for a moment, until finally Brock spoke. ‘All right, we know where Mrs Rosenfeldt is. See if you can trace Botev, Kathy. Bren, we’d better get hold of the records from the local CID of that break-in at the Winters’ house. And let’s find those damned books!

‘One other thing,’ he added as they got to their feet. ‘If your theory is right, Bren, about Winter stealing the papers from Eleanor, he probably has to assume that Peg knew Eleanor had them. In which case he won’t really feel safe to sell them until Peg is dead, too.’

Peg received them with her usual radiant composure. She was seated at a table by the window of her hotel room, letters and sympathy cards spread over its surface.

‘People are so very kind,’ she sighed, picking up a card. ‘The Stoke Newington Socialist Guild. How very thoughtful of them to write.’

Kathy felt not for the first time that Mrs Blythe was rather enjoying all the attention coming her way. ‘Peg,’ she began, ‘we were speaking to Judith Naismith this morning.’

The old lady smiled blankly at her. ‘Naismith? Should I know her?’

‘She came to see you and Eleanor, about your books and other papers.’

‘Oh, the dreadful American academic woman!’ She frowned. ‘I’m afraid we had very little time for her.’

‘She told us about her theories. We had no idea you three sisters were the descendants of such a famous man.’

Peg puffed up with pride. ‘Oh,’ she preened coyly, ‘we didn’t advertise it, you know. And these days, being the great-granddaughter of Karl Marx is rather like what it must have felt twenty years ago to be the last descendant of the Tsar Nicholas-you know, a historical relic from a bygone, irrelevant and very unfashionable age.’

Brock smiled. ‘You don’t believe it’s irrelevant, though, do you, Peg?’

She returned his look. ‘No, Chief Inspector, I do not. But’-she gave her tinkling laugh-‘from what one reads these days, I am almost the only one left.’

‘But the wheel will turn, eh?’

‘Ah, yes.’ Her eyes were bright as she answered him. ‘How short people’s memories are!’

‘What did you make of her notion that your mother might have passed down to you important documents which came from your great-grandfather?’

‘Nonsense!’ she chirped, her eyes still unaccountably shining. Kathy wondered if she was flirting with the old man. ‘She was full of silly theories, like all academics. Eleanor recognized her type straight away. She used to meet them all the time when she worked in the British Museum. So bossy, and so insistent, you know, like those awful American religious people who knock on your door. It was distressing, especially for Eleanor. She thought Eleanor had something hidden, something about her books.’

‘Did Eleanor feel threatened by her, would you say?’

Peg frowned and shook her head, ‘Eleanor did not feel that she needed to be protected, Chief Inspector,’ she said quietly. ‘She was a strong person. Of all of us she was the strongest. Perhaps that was why she believed, like our great-grandfather, that you do not need a strong Party, because they themselves were so strong and good.

‘But I’-and the persona of the sweet, frail and brave Queen Mother slipped back over her again-‘am not strong or good, and so I believe that we must have strong leaders and a strong Party to keep us upon the true road.’

Brock looked thoughtfully at her for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Well, Mrs Blythe, I believe that you at least are in need of protection. I am going to have to insist that you tell no one else where you are staying. And I am going to arrange for a woman constable to stay here in this hotel with you. If you would like her company, that’s fine, otherwise she will stay out of your way. But she will be here.’

‘I am sure that isn’t necessary, Chief Inspector, but I do appreciate your concern. Of course I would be delighted to have her company.’ And then, as she showed them to the door, ‘Eleanor’s model was her great-aunt, you know, another Eleanor, whose picture she hung upon her wall. Our Eleanor lived as noble a life, and died as noble a death, as that model she revered. I do have a great fear that when the time comes for me to join them, I shall not be as strong. I should so hate to let them down.’

‘Answer the door to no one until our officer arrives,’ Brock said. ‘She will phone you from the front desk first, and identify herself.’

There had been a slight thaw the previous afternoon, followed by a sharp drop in temperature during the night, so that the snow and slush had now solidified into rutted, glazed mounds of ice. When she got out of the car, Kathy had to pick her way carefully across the pavement and down the short drive leading to the front door of the semidetached house. Like most of the originally identical pebble-dash houses on the street, this one had been through several cycles of improvement, the original timber casements of its bow windows replaced by modern aluminium windows with mock diamond pane patterning, and a recent bedroom extension inserted into its tiled roof. The drive was almost the only one on this Saturday morning not occupied by a car, and its surface had not been cleared of snow.

It took Dr Botev so long to come to the door that Kathy almost gave up. Then she heard a shuffling from the inside, the door opened a little, and the doctor’s thick lenses peered out at her.

‘Kathy Kolla, doctor. From the police. I phoned half an hour ago.’

He led her through a small hallway made almost impassable by open cardboard removal cartons, and into the front room where more boxes were heaped so that an orange settee and armchairs resembled life rafts floating in a sea of wreckage. He sat down heavily without a word, leaving her to clear a pile of old towels off a seat opposite him. After the cold outside, the warmth of the central heating was suffocating and she unbuttoned her coat.

‘Nice street,’ she smiled at him, hiding her shock at seeing him so changed. He had lost at least twenty pounds, his shoulders sagged, his complexion was grey, and the stubble on his chin had grown into a bristly white beard stained yellow around the mouth.

‘How long ago did you move in?’

He stared at her for a moment, then mumbled, ‘October.’

Five months, she thought, and not a single box unpacked.

‘What are the neighbours like?’

He shook his head vaguely and seemed to withdraw into the cushions of the armchair. Kathy wondered if it had been a mistake to sit down.

‘Look,’ she said as she got to her feet, ‘would you think it rude if I made us a cup of tea? I’m gasping for one.’

He looked up at her, vaguely surprised.

‘Could you show me where the kitchen is?’