Barry Maitland: The Marx Sisters

‘What about her family, Felix? What’s her name? Jenny, that’s it, isn’t it, the girl in Toronto? What about her parents, her friends? What do they think of her infatuation for a bad-tempered, frustrated, middle-aged, married Englishman, twice her age, who has no funds and no prospects? Pretty daunting for them, I should think. Or do they think it’s laughable, that it will all blow over with time? Or do they not even know yet?’

Felix’s face had become blotched red.

‘She…’ he began, then stopped himself, clenching his jaw tight shut.

‘She what?’ Brock prompted mildly. ‘She loves you? She’s pregnant? I found it rather difficult to decide about that from her letters-whether she was just fantasizing, or whether she really was pregnant. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter, does it? Because you were so taken with your fantasy, Felix, so hungry for it, for the money you needed to make it happen, that you killed two old ladies and nearly killed a police officer. And I don’t think that even Jenny’s love can survive the knowledge of that.’

‘I…’ He seemed to have difficulty forcing the words through his throat. ‘I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘Really? Hard on your wife. And your little boy. How long will they bother to come to see you inside, I wonder? Not the full twenty years, that’s for sure. Probably better if there’s a clean break now.’

Then, as if changing the subject completely, ‘She’s a meticulous woman, your wife, isn’t she? I noticed that when I visited your house last night. Everything in its place. Obsessively so. Is that part of the cause or the effect, I wonder? Is she so obsessive about the little things because she knows the big things are so askew, or was her obsessiveness one of the things that made you come to hate her so much? She’s the sort of woman, I’d say, who would insist that a man lower the seat of the toilet after he’s had a pee. Some women are like that, I believe. They find a raised toilet seat offensive because it signifies something about the male member. That’s what they say in women’s magazines, I’m told. Does your wife do that?’

Felix stared at him as if he were mad.

‘Humour me, Felix. I’m all you have now. Does your wife do that?’

He swallowed with difficulty. Finally he nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Yes, I guessed that. Because when you broke into the Winters’ house in Chislehurst and needed the toilet-nerves, I suppose, and you had been drinking beforehand, hadn’t you?-you naturally took off your gloves to undo yourself, and when you finished you automatically lowered the seat, as your wife had drummed into you, before you put the gloves back on. You left a beautiful set of prints’-Brock peered at the second file he had brought in-‘which until today we had been unable to identify.’

Felix’s shoulders gave a little convulsive jerk. A sob came from his bowed head. And then he let go. The tears started to stream down his face and his whole body began to shake.

He was there, reading, when she looked up.

‘What time is it?’

‘Two in the afternoon. You’ve been here thirty-six hours.’

‘God, I’m beginning to hurt now.’

‘You will. At least they’ve removed the tube and the drip.’

‘Yes. They did that this morning. I just seem to keep dropping off. Could I have some water, please?’

He helped her, and now she was able to keep it down.

‘Did you get him, then?’

‘Kowalski? Yes. Danny Finn had arranged with two men from the security firm to keep an eye on Eleanor’s box through the night. They turned up just after Felix attacked you. Lucky for you they got the medics to you so quickly. They held him and handed him over to us. He’s been charged with the attempted murder of you, and the murder of Meredith and Eleanor. You know, you were crazy to go in there unarmed and without telling anyone.’

‘I know. I only meant to observe. It wasn’t until I got in there that I realized it wasn’t going to be so easy.’

‘Well, it had the desired effect. Flushed him out. Funny, I hadn’t really got my sights on him. Should have spotted his anger, I suppose. And the evasiveness of his parents.’ He scratched his beard.

‘He was at the funeral apparently, wrapped up in a scarf. Drew the same conclusion you did from Peg’s announcement. So did Judith. She’s been going berserk trying to stop them pouring the concrete.’

‘Did she have any luck?’

Brock shook his head. ‘Danny Finn wouldn’t hear of it. If Peg wants it buried unopened then he will make sure that’s exactly what will happen. I think he sees it as a sort of obligation to his class roots. If the manuscript is down there, it’s due to be buried under a hundred tons of wet concrete any moment now. They couldn’t do it yesterday because of the cold and snow, but with the mild change today they said they’d probably go ahead this afternoon. When asked, Peg smiles vaguely and says she doesn’t understand what everyone’s going on about. As far as we’re concerned, what’s important isn’t what actually is in the box, so much as what Kowalski thought was there. I couldn’t see us getting a warrant to open it up if Peg didn’t want us to. She’s returned home to Jerusalem Lane now that Kowalski’s been charged.’

Brock stopped talking as a nurse came in to give Kathy more painkillers.

‘What’s that you’re reading?’ she asked him when she had got the pills down.

‘A biography of the first Eleanor, Eleanor Marx. I’d got it out of the library to do a bit of background reading. Won’t need to now, I suppose. I’ll leave it with you if you like. You’ll have the time for it over the next few days.’

‘Days?’

‘Oh yes, they want to keep you here a while for observation. To make sure your side starts to heal up properly. And they’re a bit worried about concussion, too.

‘Best thing.’ He smiled at her kindly. ‘Now, never do this again, Kathy, but everyone sends their congratulations. You got the result.’

Kathy looked out through a tall window at the grey afternoon sky, breathing in the smells of the hospital and listening to its background noises-the rattle of a trolley, an exchange between two cockney women walking past the door of her room, the squeak of rubber soles on the plastic flooring. Everything was hurting in a dull way that discouraged movement. She thought to herself, Yes, I did get the result. Without Brock or Gurney, I found the bastard. But all she felt was anti-climax. Her exposure of Kowalski was nothing like the triumph of the intelligent imagination which Bob had described in his ‘stage three’. Her achievement seemed uncertain, a foolhardy exercise in dumb detection, throwing herself into a dangerous situation and seeing who came out of the shadows to hit her down. There was no flash of inspiration, no euphoria. She even felt mildly guilty that what she had discovered disappointed whatever theories Brock had been forming on the case.

She closed her eyes wearily and drifted off to sleep.

In her mind Peg was staring at her with shining eyes, just as she had on the day before the funeral. She said the words she had used to Brock that day, speaking with intensity, as if her words contained a central truth. At first Kathy couldn’t hear what she said. Then she heard it clearly.

‘Eleanor lived as noble a life, and died as noble a death, as the great-aunt she adored.’

Kathy’s eyes blinked open with a start.

Her room was in darkness, although from the lights in the corridor and the sounds of activity elsewhere she could tell that it wasn’t late. She saw people walk past the open door carrying flowers. Visiting time.

The picture of Eleanor came into her mind, lying on her bed, dressed in white, a bloody plastic bag pulled over her head. What was noble about a death by smothering with a plastic bag? Cut-price, perhaps-disposable, hygienic, but hardly noble. How did great-aunt Eleanor die? Kathy had got the impression from what Judith had said that it was sudden.