Philip Kerr - January Window

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, smartly. ‘What’s it all about?’

‘I’d rather not say yet,’ she replied.

I led the way down the street, to the opposite side of the square.

The mural of a house in front of number twelve rippled in the January wind as if a seismic event was about to take place in the quiet streets of Pimlico; and in a sense it was, at least for the inhabitants of the house next door. All of the lights were switched on. After the twenty grand I’d handed over they probably figured they didn’t need to worry about the electricity bill. As I mounted the front steps I glanced through a chink in the curtains drawn in front of the big window and saw Mrs Van de Merwe and her daughter reading while, sitting on the sofa, was a man watching television. But it wasn’t Mr Van de Merwe; it was another, younger, fitter man and he was watching the edited highlights of the match from Silvertown Dock on ITV. It’s odd how different a match you’ve seen live looks when you see it on television.

I rang the ancient bell and we waited a while before the bolts were drawn and the door opened to reveal Mr Van de Merwe. As he caught sight of the policeman standing behind me his Adam’s apple shifted under his collar like a small, sleepless man.

‘Oh,’ he said, in a tone of quiet resignation. ‘You’d better come in.’

The three of us trooped into the hall. Constable Harrison closed the door behind us and immediately made the house seem small. There were several suitcases on the floor, as if the Van de Merwes were going somewhere — South Africa, probably — but if I was right, a passport to Pimlico was all they were going to need for the present.

We went into the sitting room, where the sight of Constable Harrison brought everyone to their feet. Mariella folded her arms and turned away immediately, while her mother stifled a short wail with the back of her hand, and sat down again; she took out a dainty embroidered handkerchief and started to cry.

‘This is Detective Inspector Considine, from Brent CID.,’ I explained. ‘And Constable Harrison. Detective Inspector Considine has been investigating the death of João Zarco at Silvertown Dock on Saturday.’

I didn’t call it murder; I figured we had more chance of securing a full confession now if I tried to play down the gravity of what had happened.

‘Which I think you know about, Mr Cruikshank.’ I was speaking to the man who had been watching the television. He was about thirty-five years old, six feet tall, stocky, with light brown hair and green eyes, and he was wearing jeans and a thick blue woollen pullover that looked as if it had been knitted by his mother-in-law.

‘It is Mr Cruikshank, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ he said dully. He sighed and then closed his eyes for several seconds. ‘It was an accident,’ he added. ‘Please believe me when I say that I didn’t mean it to happen.’

‘I think you’d better tell us exactly what did happen,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘Yes, I think I had,’ he said.

‘Do you mind if we sit down?’ I asked.

‘No, please, go ahead.’

He pointed at the vacant sofa on which Louise, Constable Harrison and I now arranged ourselves, and then turned off the television.

‘Would you like something to drink?’ he asked.

We shook our heads.

‘Do you mind if I do?’ he said. ‘I think I need one.’

‘Go ahead,’ I said.

He helped himself to a large whisky from a bottle of Laphroaig, emptied the glass and poured himself another.

‘Dutch courage,’ he said, sitting down in front of us.

‘It’s a pity you didn’t have some of that on Saturday,’ I said.

‘Yes, isn’t it? By the way, how did you—?’

‘You were on Mr Zarco’s guest list of complimentary tickets, Mr Cruikshank,’ I said. ‘On its own, of course, that wouldn’t have been evidence that you killed him. But the piece of ceiling moulding you gave him when you met was still in his pocket when his body was recovered.’

I glanced up at the ceiling, and then from my coat pocket took out a photograph of the chunk of ceiling moulding photographed by someone at the East Ham Mortuary.

‘It matches the piece missing from this ceiling. The piece that you gave him when you were complaining about his builders next door. It was them who caused the damage, wasn’t it?’

Cruikshank nodded. ‘You’ve no idea the distress this building work has caused my wife’s parents,’ he said. ‘Day in, day out. They’re old. They’ve a right to the quiet enjoyment of their retirement.’

Mr Van de Merwe went and sat beside his wife on another sofa, and together they gave every impression of two old people who were trying to enjoy their retirement, quietly.

‘I can understand that,’ I said.

‘Can you?’ said Mariella, bitterly. ‘I doubt that very much. This whole sorry saga has driven us bloody mad, I don’t mind telling you.’

‘Please, Mariella,’ said her husband. ‘Let me handle this. By myself. The way I should have handled it before.’

‘So, Zarco gave you tickets,’ I said. ‘For Saturday’s match and tonight’s match, too. As a sign of good faith, perhaps. A little token to help continue the dialogue you’d already had in the hope of resolving your dispute.’

‘Something like that,’ said Cruikshank.

‘As if,’ snorted Mariella. ‘Trying to fob us off with some tickets, more like.’

‘That’s not fair,’ said her husband.

‘Isn’t it?’

‘Please, Mariella. You’re not helping. I liked him, Mr Manson. Well, most of the time, I did. He knew I was a City fan — have been for a while, actually — and, well, as you say, he thought that if we kept on talking we could sort out our differences. Hence the tickets. And perhaps we would have sorted something out, I don’t know. Anyway, he told me to come along to one of the hospitality suites on Saturday, before the match, so that we could talk. Number 123. It belonged to some Qatari businessmen who weren’t using it, he said. He also said that he was going to make an improved offer — for my parents-in-law to get away from the square until the building work was complete. So I went along. And we talked. We were in the kitchen, having a coffee. At first it was all very amicable. Then I mentioned that this house was going to need redecorating after his builders had finished. As you can see for yourselves, the place is covered with dust, because of the vibrations from the constant drilling. I gave him a piece of ceiling moulding that had fallen on my mother-in-law’s head last week as evidence of that. I mentioned a price — an estimate we’d had from a painter and decorator. Twenty thousand pounds. This was on top of the ten he’d already offered us. That was when he accused me of trying to cheat him. He said that he thought we were talking about a sum to enable Marius and Ingrid — that’s Mr and Mrs Van de Merwe — to get away on holiday. And now here I was asking for three times as much to include redecorating as well.

‘Anyway, I’m afraid things got a bit heated. He swore at me in Portuguese. Well, I can speak a bit of Portuguese — I used to work in Brazil. He called me a cadela . And a cona . I won’t translate that but I think you can imagine the sort of thing it means. Anyway I got angry and so I shoved him. Just shoved him, that’s all. I didn’t even hit him. He fell against the window and the whole window just pivoted open behind him for no good reason that I could see, and he went straight out, head first. I mean the window just bloody opened as he fell against it. I tried to grab him — I think I got hold of his tie — and maybe he grabbed me, I’m not sure. As his tie slipped out of my hand I lost my footing and then he was gone.