Текст книги "Ragtime in Simla"

Автор книги: Barbara Cleverly

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Chapter Twenty-nine

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To her credit, Maisie did not look round.

‘Maisie, I want you to go over this with me. Tell me if you think I’m reading too much into it, making an already mystifying situation even more complex than it really is.’

‘All right – just so long as you only expect me to call on my common sense. I can’t involve any higher authority so don’t think of it! Can’t be done – not on a personal level. It would be like asking the name of the next Derby winner.’ Maisie paused and looked searchingly at him. ‘Are you – are we – in danger, Joe?’ she asked.

‘I’m not sure. We could be. This is rather a wild scene! There are no guarantees.’

‘I think you’d better explain.’

Joe began slowly, ‘It goes right back to the two killings. The modus operandi as we call it in the trade.’

Maisie nodded. ‘You don’t have to spell every word. I’m not illiterate. Merl’s brother (horrible man!) was a sniper in the war. Bored the pants off us talking about his experiences and I must say there’s not a lot I can still remember about what he had to say but there are one or two things in your account he would have picked up on and argued about till he was blue in the face. You said Lionel was hit in the head – one shot? – and Korsovsky was hit in the chest – two shots? Well there you are!’

‘Maisie, you’re amazing!’ said Joe with feeling. ‘It’s a foul trade. Merl’s brother would have said – and I would have agreed with him – that snipers always choose the same target area. I’m not talking about a snap shot across No Man’s Land – some fool putting his head above the parapet – but a serious, long-range, carefully planned killing. That’s what we’re talking about. We came to recognize snipers from their technique; even gave them nicknames. And the area they choose is the chest. Much bigger target, you see, less chance of getting it wrong. And if they have time they make sure they’ve pulled it off by firing two rounds. The killing of Korsovsky was cool, controlled and done by the book. I think it was done by a completely different person from the first killing. Lionel was killed by one shot. To the head. I inspected the scene of the ambush with Charlie Carter and I can tell you it was a pretty amazing piece of shooting! I’m a good shot but I wouldn’t have risked a single head shot. Not at that range.’

‘And you say the guns were different?’

‘Yes. I think Merl’s brother would have had a comment to make on that too.’

‘Killings were only a year apart – he’d have used the same rifle. Merl’s brother went through the whole war with the same gun. God! – he knew the sensitive parts of that bloody gun better than any woman’s. Still he did sleep with it for four years.’

‘So what I’m saying is that the first murder was done by Rheza Khan. It’s his style. A first-rate shot, arrogant sod! A hard target – the head – and only one shot necessary. We know he was five feet ten or thereabouts – a couple of inches shorter than me I would guess – and that he smoked Black Cat cigarettes. His motive was strong. I don’t think he did it with Alice’s knowledge though, let alone her approval. I’ll swear she was genuinely surprised when Troop and I brought it to light in her presence. I’ll go further – I’d have sworn she genuinely put down both killings to her blackmailer, whoever that was.’

Joe paused for a moment, his thoughts on the last few minutes he had spent with Alice, his nostrils seared with cordite, his ears singing from the gunshot echoing in that small stone room and, above all, he remembered her saying over her shoulder before she jumped: ‘I never asked Rheza to kill anyone for me, Joe.’ He remembered her almost proud insistence on the fact that she had never lied to him. He had set this aside in the face of the one enormous outrageous lie of her impersonation. But suppose she had been telling him the literal truth all along?

He spoke aloud her farewell sentence, changing the emphasis. ‘I never asked Rheza to kill anyone for me, Joe,’ became, ‘I never asked Rheza to kill anyone for me, Joe.’

‘But did you ask someone else to kill for you, Alice?’ Joe asked.

‘Listen, Maisie! How does this sound? Lionel gets killed without Alice’s knowledge by Rheza for the reasons we know. Now, a year later, Korsovsky is expected in Simla. Alice wants him dead.’

‘To protect her identity? Couldn’t she just have done a bunk with her ill-gotten gains? She had plenty of warning – the theatre had booked him back in November. All she had to do to avoid being recognized was stay in bloody Bombay in April. Doesn’t wash, Joe.’

‘That wasn’t the reason she asked for his head on a plate. No. There was a darker reason. Revenge. She hated him with all the fury of a woman who had truly loved him and been rejected, deserted. I know she was capable of this. I’ve seen her kill a man for the same reason. The moment she discovered Rheza had cheated and betrayed her he was lost. I watched her face as she shot him. I even pleaded with her not to do it. She didn’t hear me. She was set to kill: concentrated and unswerving. And she smiled while she shot him.’

Joe shuddered. ‘And then she turned her gun on me. I’ll never know why she didn’t kill me.’ He described the last few charged minutes before Alice escaped.

Maisie snorted. ‘There’s two reasons and neither of them is that she was overwhelmed by your masculine allure! You were a good insurance policy, Joe! There was no point in upsetting Sir George by gunning down his guest and agent and she left you feeling flattered – aren’t I right? – that she’d kindly not pulled the trigger. Just in case you ever met again your last memory of her would be that she had – I can’t say saved your life – but had failed to take it. You owe her one, Joe. She knows that. You know that.’

‘And the second reason?’

‘Drama. Playacting. Showtime. Takes one to know one! That’s what Alice or Isobel or whoever she is has really been doing all the time. If you’ve got it right she spent five or six years whoring her way through France and, by God, you learn to put on a performance on that kind of stage!’ Her face clouded for a moment. ‘I’ve known one or two tarts who could have played Drury Lane if they’d had the vowels. And this one had. I always thought there was more to Alice Sharpe than the virtuous veneer. God! Think about it, Joe! That sugar-icing, touch-me-not respectability underpinned by a tart’s skills in handling men – it’s an unbeatable combination!’

‘It certainly had all the men in Simla twisted round her little finger.’

‘And she made the most of it! Playing a part – that’s what this woman is all about. I bet she doesn’t know who she really is, she’s been through so many changes of mask!’

Joe remembered his first sight of Alice, in the spotlight, tears streaming down her face for a lost lover, he remembered her body pressed shivering against him, her breath warm against his cheek as she whispered that his life was in danger and melodramatically gave him her gun. He saw her framed in the embrasure at the Red Fort before she leapt towards freedom. ‘Playacting all the way,’ he said sadly. ‘You’re right, Maisie.’

‘Still – acting’s one thing, killing’s… well, that’s a bit real-life, like. This Korsovsky – it was such a long time ago. 1914, that’s eight years. I was deserted in the war and if I ever set eyes on the bugger again I’d shake his hand and thank him for the forethought! Would any woman still want to kill a deserting lover – even the love of her life – after all that time?’

‘Alice would. In fact, I’ll go further,’ said Joe feeling his way through his argument. ‘We know from Korsovsky’s papers that he was due to appear in the Roman theatres of Provence shortly after the Beaune rail crash. Was it a coincidence that Isobel Newton was travelling to the south of France at that very time? This was the first time he’d returned to the place where they met since his desertion. The first chance she’d had to get close to him again and, perhaps, even to kill him. The rail crash intervened and she had other things on her mind but, waking or sleeping, I don’t think the overpowering need to be avenged ever left her.’

‘And you’re saying that she asked – or blackmailed – she could have blackmailed, Joe – somebody in Simla to gun him down? Some feller who happened to be the same size as the first assassin was known to be and who smoked the same cigarettes – everybody had heard, on the quiet of course, a description of the chap they were looking for first time round.’

‘She would have had to find someone the right size, yes. That would have been tricky to fake – but the cigarettes?’ Joe smiled. ‘That was a fake! I think she sent a non-smoker! A non-smoker armed with a pack of the same Black Cats. The killer puffed unenthusiastically at a couple of fags and stubbed them out. We worked out from the timing of Korsovsky’s arrival in the Governor’s car that there hadn’t been time to smoke more than two cigarettes and that would account for one of them being put out hastily and half smoked. But not both! Those stubs were left there for us to find as were the spent rounds and the deeper than necessary scrapes where boots and elbows had rested. So the bumbling police would assume that the maniac sniper had struck again. And then Alice spreads the rumour that it’s a deliberate political provocation – quite a credible theory in the present climate.’

‘But who, Joe? Who shot Korsovsky? You know, don’t you? Are you going to tell me?’

‘No.’ Joe smiled irritatingly. ‘Are you ready for Act 3 of this performance? I think it’s time for the killer to speak.’

Chapter Thirty

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The jazz quartet had pressed on with its rehearsal, gathering strength and gathering an audience. All deck chairs within earshot of the ballroom were now occupied and white-jacketed stewards slipped to and fro at speed delivering long iced drinks in bright colours, the green of menthe, the fiery orange of grenadine and the yellow of citron. The group broke into a fast-paced ‘Broadway Rose’.

‘Maisie,’ said Joe, ‘look at those two nuns over there. Tell me what you see.’

Maisie looked. ‘Stupid cows,’ she said, ‘sweating it out under all those layers of cloth! And why do nuns always wear glasses? Does becoming a nun do your eyes in or do you have to be short-sighted in the first place before they’ll take you on? At least those two have had the sense to order drinks. One of them, the big one, is drinking fizzy mineral water by the looks of it and the little one is drinking something her Mother Superior would never approve of, I should guess! What is that pink drink anyway?’

‘Looks like a Campari-soda to me. Distinctly intoxicating,’ said Joe.

‘Should we tell her? Perhaps the waiter got her order mixed up and she’s too inexperienced to realize! Can’t be doing with a legless nun aboard!’

‘It’s all right. That one can take her liquor!’

‘Tell you something else, Joe,’ Maisie added, her voice suddenly bright with excitement and suspicion. ‘Just look at her right foot!’

‘Her foot? What do you mean – her foot?’

‘Look at it! It’s been tapping to that jazz rhythm for some time now. I’ve never seen a syncopating nun before, have you?’

‘See what you mean! Come on then, Maisie – into battle! Let’s go and renew an acquaintance!’

They strolled arm in arm along the deck and paused in front of the two grey figures. To the gentle click of rosary beads a French voice was whispering through the office for the day. As Joe turned to look at them and opened his mouth to speak they both looked up, calm and friendly.

‘Dieu soit loué!’ said the smaller of the two easily. ‘Mais c’est le Commandant Sandilands et Madame Freemantle!’ She leaned close and whispered in English, ‘I had wondered when you’d condescend to recognize us! Don’t tell me! You’re running away together! Oh, how romantic that is! Don’t worry! Your secret’s safe with us!’

‘Wish I could say the same, Sister Alice,’ said Joe affably. ‘And how do you do, Marie-Jeanne.’

‘We were just saying – it’s getting very crowded up here and rather too hot,’ said Alice, seemingly undismayed. ‘Why don’t we go below? The Richelieu lounge perhaps will not be so full of people. I’m sure there are things you and Mrs Freemantle would like to confide in private.’

‘We were rather more expecting to put you two in the confessional,’ said Joe. ‘But – lead on, will you? We’ll follow. Not anticipating that we’ll lose track of you out here in the middle of the ocean.’

They settled down on buttoned leather seats around a small table screened by the fronds of potted palms from the rest of the room. As a steward approached Alice immediately opened the conversation. ‘First things first,’ she said. ‘Get us some drinks, will you? Campari-soda for me, Perrier water for Marie-Jeanne. And you? Port and lemon for the old artiste, perhaps? Whisky-soda for the copper? Put it on my bill. Why not? And the second thing – which you should not forget, Joe – is that this is a French ship. But, of course, I hardly need to remind you of that! I can see that for you and Mrs Freemantle the choice would ensure discretion. Imagine the wagging tongues on a P&O ship! For us also the choice is significant. The captain is in command here, and though you may find it hard to believe, Scotland Yard has no authority whatsoever over this little part of the French Republic. Marie-Jeanne and I have papers, perfectly valid papers, which would satisfy the most pernickety juge d’instruction that we are who we say we are – simply two sisters of the Carmelite order on our way from India to… well, let’s say somewhere west of Suez. Give us any trouble whatsoever and I won’t hesitate to complain of interference to the captain.’

Joe had no doubt of this and he had no doubt that any Frenchman would hasten to take the part of a religieuse, especially a pretty one, against an Englishman if she accused him of harassment.

‘I acknowledge the difficulties, Alice, and don’t worry, we’ll stay as far away from you as is possible on a ship this size until we reach Marseilles. And then, while we go on north to London I expect you and your friend will – let me guess now – transfer to a transatlantic liner and on to New York? New Orleans?’

A flash of humour behind the spectacles told him his guess was right. He found it very disconcerting to be talking to Alice, whom he had known in some quite intimate situations, now hidden from him in the folds of headdress and the concealing habit. He found the lack of thick copper-coloured hair confusing and wondered briefly if she’d cut it off the better to enter into the spirit of the playacting. Marie-Jeanne on the other hand looked as though she’d been born to play this role, her quiet air of puzzled sanctity convincing and disconcerting.

‘I was about to ask how you had managed to slip out of Simla but I think I can work that out,’ Joe said. ‘The passenger lists from the station… what was it? – “… four French nuns, three box-wallahs, two brigadiers…” Sir George wasn’t joking when he read out the list? You were the French nuns?’

‘Well, I was one of them, Joe. The other three were girls from Marie-Jeanne’s staff. My only worry was that they were enjoying the performance so much their over-acting would give us away but all was well. ICTC had supplied habits to the convent and we still had some in stock. Your men were looking for a single Englishwoman. They didn’t look twice at a flight of French nuns! There are always some going or coming through the station anyway – it was hardly an unusual sight.’

‘And the swag, Alice? The loot? The ill-gotten gains? Stashed away in your luggage in hollowed-out bibles?’

‘Something like that,’ she smiled. ‘Trade secret, Joe! Don’t ask!’

‘How did you manage to get back into Simla?’ His mind going back to that dark night, he added, ‘We all thought you must be dead. I was horrified for you.’

‘Thank you, Joe. I appreciate that. I decided to play safe and return the way I’d come. It wasn’t easy in the dark, in fact it was awful! I didn’t stop – just slogged away on that good horse at a slow pace. The worst part was coming across your rescue party, flares and all, clattering along in the dark. Not that they were likely to catch sight of me – I saw them coming a mile off – but you’ll never know how tempting it was to rush forward and ask their help. So many of them. So solid. So cheerful. It was agony to hear their silly, familiar voices getting further and further away and the blackness and silence rolling in again. Leaving me shivering and alone.’ Her voice wavered.

Maisie groaned and kicked Joe’s ankle.

‘All’s well that ends well,’ said Joe brightly, ‘and it certainly seems to have ended well for you, Alice. Tell us where you holed up in Simla. You disappeared without trace. And some very clever fellows were watching for you: Charlie’s regulars, George’s irregulars. Quite a decent reward discreetly on offer as well.’

‘I was in the convent of course. The Mother Superior was very understanding when I explained that I was being pursued, misrepresented and threatened. I have been a very generous patron of the order, you understand, Joe. She repaid a portion of my kindness. And glad to do so. I still have friends, you may be surprised to hear.’

‘And then Mademoiselle Pitiot joined you later, travelling openly to Bombay to keep a long-arranged business appointment.’ He turned his attention to Marie-Jeanne. ‘With another glove salesman, I wonder? The kind who disappears before he can confirm your alibi? Like the gentleman you had lunch with on the day of Korsovsky’s death?’

‘No,’ she said placidly, ‘not a glove salesman. The recent purchaser and new owner of Belle Epoque. The sale was arranged some while ago. No mystery there!’ Marie-Jeanne went on absently telling the beads of her rosary.

‘Not impossible, I suppose, to locate your guest,’ Joe went on ruminatively. ‘But to be honest I didn’t even try. I did, however, talk with the maître d’hôtel of the Grand. I checked their bookings and, of course, there it was: a table for two for lunch at one o’clock in the name of Mademoiselle Pitiot. The maître d’hôtel, who knows you well, remembers you arriving and showing you to table number ten which you had particularly requested. He reports that the lunch party didn’t break up until after half-past two as would have been normal. The murder occurred several miles away over rough country at precisely two forty-five.’

Marie-Jeanne continued to fix him with a melting look of innocence. ‘This is what I told you, Commander. I commend you on your thoroughness because it establishes that what I told you was the truth.’

‘Thorough? Yes, Marie-Jeanne, I was thorough. Belatedly thorough. Before I left Simla I returned to the Grand. I insisted on having table ten pointed out to me and on interviewing the waiter who had personally served you throughout the meal.’

‘Oh, yes?’ said Marie-Jeanne without curiosity.

‘Table ten is right at the back of the dining room, screened from the rest of the diners by potted plants – a sort of little kala-juggah all on its own and conveniently close to the rear door. Your guest must have been a bit puzzled when you left the lunch table – but only a bit. Filled with anticipation of the best the house had to offer it may have been a moment or two before he realized that the pretty girl who returned and sat down opposite him was no longer the hard-headed bargainer but something younger and more pliable. One of your assistants? Identically dressed? Why should he complain? The waiter spoke very admiringly of her. It was discreetly done according to him and did not surprise him. It’s not unusual for him to preside over clandestine meetings of an amatory nature and his estimation that this was what was taking place was reinforced by the large tip he was given at the end of the meal. The lunch was a great success apparently and the pair rolled away through the back door a good deal the worse for copious amounts of food and two bottles of burgundy. The time was well past half-past two, nearer three, he says, and if you had indeed been present, Marie-Jeanne, there would have been no time to allow you to get out to Tara Devi in time to lie in wait and shoot Korsovsky. But you weren’t there, were you? You’d ridden a distance of five miles through the hills by then, and were setting up your ambush. Puffing halfheartedly at a couple of Black Cat cigarettes and firing two dumdum bullets into my friend’s heart.’

After a long silence Alice found her voice. ‘None of this matters any longer, Joe,’ she said. ‘Don’t you see? No one is going to want to hear such things – not any more – not even George Jardine. Why don’t we just acknowledge that you’re a very clever chap? I’m sure that’s what you want to hear. And why don’t we leave it at that?’

She made to rise. She seemed suddenly uneasy, eager to end the conversation.

‘Well, I want to hear it!’ Maisie broke in angrily. ‘The whole world ought to hear it! And it’s a crying shame if there’s no way two conniving, murdering creatures can be brought to justice because they’ve got the means and the nous to get themselves away over frontiers and over seas! Joe, are you just going to let them get away with it? I hate the thought that these two can just set up somewhere else and use the money they’ve got their hands on! If they’d stolen a gold watch you’d be down on them like a ton of bricks!’ she finished acidly.

‘I have to. There’s no way they can be pursued as things stand at the moment. India to the USA – that’s too far for British justice to stretch, I’m afraid.’

They were both looking at him with sly triumph. A sudden surge of anger and distress for Korsovsky shook him.

‘But Feodor was well known and much loved in America,’ he said. ‘It mightn’t be difficult to get the attention of those who would want to bring his killers to justice. Why the hell did you have to kill him, Alice? You could have just left Simla – you could have avoided him.’

Alice seemed not to know how to reply and it was Marie-Jeanne who answered. Laying a protective hand over Alice’s she said, ‘Alice told me last November that this man was to come to Simla. I don’t know how much of Alice’s history you know, Commander? Perhaps you are not aware that this Russian, this glamorous, much-fêted figure was, like most Russians as far as I can tell, a smooth, sentimental, self-serving…’ She paused and finally brought out the word explosively, ‘… shit! He met Alice when she was visiting the south of France under the guardianship of a family friend and managed to seduce her. And she a schoolgirl at the time. He promised marriage of course. He didn’t reveal that he was already married to a Russian lady who was living in New York. At the first sniff of a European war he went back there and wrote a letter to Alice telling her all. I have seen it. I know that this is true.’

‘That’s enough, Marie-Jeanne. He knows all this. I told him. He doesn’t need to know any more. We must go now.’

Alice’s voice was curt and Joe was again aware of a lapse of confidence. The awareness was followed by the sudden gratification which accompanies the realization that an opponent at cards is bluffing. There was one more thing that Alice wanted to remain concealed, something that could still do her damage if he guessed it. And he thought he had guessed her weakness.

‘No, stay a little longer. Here come our drinks,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Marie-Jeanne, do go on but remember that I met Korsovsky and formed a good opinion of him. It would take much to convince me that he would behave badly to the innocent young girl I’m sure Alice was in those days.’

Alice gave him a look of guarded suspicion but Marie-Jeanne was eager to continue. ‘You will see how misplaced was your good opinion, Commander! Alice didn’t tell him that by this time she realized she was pregnant. This was dealt with in a discreet clinic in France but the scars of this emotional and physical abuse have stayed with her unhealed – corrosive even. She hated him and for good reason. Alice has been more than kind to me, I owe her more than I can say and it was a small thing to repay some of what I owe by removing the cause of her torment. I was brought up to shoot – a skill in which I excelled my brothers though of course like my many other qualities it went unacknowledged.’

‘But not unremarked, Marie-Jeanne,’ said Joe. ‘I and many others were deceived by the marksmanship. We assumed that the killing had been done by a sniper of formidable talents.’

A slow smile of satisfaction acknowledged the compliment. ‘It was a man of just such talents who taught me. My father’s gamekeeper had been a soldier. He had fought the Rifis in Morocco and survived. I have a good eye and the target was not a difficult one,’ she finished modestly.

Maisie gave a snort of disgust. ‘Your target, as you call him, was a living man and your talent splattered his blood and flesh all over Joe. And I’d still like to know why. Because I’m not convinced by all this nonsense about doing it for poor little Alice.’

Marie-Jeanne looked stonily beyond Maisie, loftily refusing to acknowledge her presence let alone her right to speak out in criticism.

Undeterred, Maisie pressed on, a sudden gleam of understanding in her eyes. ‘You were doing it for yourself! Why does anyone kill? You were looking after number one! You knew this Russian was the love of her life… if he’d resurfaced in Simla who knows what might have happened? She told you she hated him but you’re clever – you weren’t deceived! Love? Hate? They’re very close. I’m guessing – and I think you guessed – she’d have had her bags packed and been off on the next boat with him! Leaving her old friend and protégée Marie-Jeanne to face the music. You love her, Marie-Jeanne, don’t you? She’s your whole life. There was no way you could risk letting her meet Korsovsky again! She never asked you to kill him for her. You did it for yourself!’

A slight flush on Marie-Jeanne’s pale cheeks was the only sign that Maisie’s darts had hit their target and she remained tight-lipped and scornful. Her silence seemed to incite Maisie to deeper fury. ‘Men! We’ve all wanted to line them up in our sights and pull the bloody trigger, haven’t we, love! Who were you really killing? Who were you really seeing when you squinted through your sights? Your father, your brothers?’ She paused for a second and added, ‘All the men who’ve ever looked at you and then looked hurriedly away again? You talk about it as though the act of killing were a gift, a selfless offering to this evil-minded little tart here – it wasn’t! There was nothing generous or even dutiful about it. You enjoyed it!’

‘Maisie! Maisie!’ Joe had been the only one to notice that Alice had visibly winced when Maisie used the word ‘tart’. He was right then. Alice had not told Marie-Jeanne about her past. Incredibly, the devoted Frenchwoman still believed that Alice was Alice Conyers. She would never have told Joe the story of her emerald green underwear had she known of the deception and now, after all that had happened, she was still unaware. And this was what Alice was so anxious to keep from Joe. He had only to reveal who she really was to wreck for ever the only relationship which had any meaning and value to her. She did not want him to give her away to Marie-Jeanne.

In a wash of comprehension Joe began to understand the relationship between these two women. So different and yet so closely linked. He saw that to Marie-Jeanne Alice was still the battered and damaged little girl she had rescued from the Beaune rail crash. The girl she had put together again. Healthy, successful, beautiful but ultimately still in need of protection from her previous life, still in need of a refuge. And to Alice, Marie-Jeanne was that refuge. Someone who asked no questions and who in all circumstances gave her the shelter so brutally denied by others. Marie-Jeanne’s unquestioning belief in her was vital to Alice. Her message to Joe was, ‘Don’t give me away.’ And Marie-Jeanne, so close to Alice, had still no realization of the switch. Alice was Alice Conyers.

He looked steadily into the blue eyes and thought that this was perhaps the first time he had seen the real girl. The nun’s habit, the spectacles were no longer even a distraction. The eyes were pleading with him, fearful, trying to convey her message. Maisie had foreseen this moment. What had she said? – ‘You owe her one, Joe. She knows that. You know that.’ And now, wordlessly, she was reminding him. Suddenly Joe was weary. Weary of the blackmail, the deceptions, the heat. He wanted to be finally free of this woman, owing her nothing, all contact severed. He resented the emotional and professional demands India had made on him and in that moment Alice represented for him the writhing layers of Indian intrigue and he wanted to be rid of it. He wanted his London life with a cold wind blowing off the Thames, the Lots Road power station puthering out smoke, the bells of St Luke’s, Chelsea, waking him. He wanted to be back in bed with Maisie.

He got to his feet. ‘I can’t forgive you, Alice Conyers.’ The slight stress on his use of her adopted name told her what she needed to know. Joe was acknowledging and cancelling his debt. ‘London bobbies aren’t in the absolving business and you’ll have to look to a higher authority for that. You’ve got away with it as far as I’m concerned. For now. For here.’ He took Maisie’s arm and with a nod to each woman he walked away.

At the door Maisie, whose disapproval had been conveyed by the tension in her arm and the tight line of her lips, finally rounded on him. ‘I see what you’re at, Joe, and – all right – there’s not a lot you can do,’ she hissed in his ear, ‘but it riles me that they can get away with murder. I can’t leave it like that.’

She shook off his restraining arm and walked with dignity back to the table to confront the silent pair. They waited, wide-eyed, for her to speak. Maisie paused, head slightly on one side, eyes unfocused as she listened with attention to inner voices. At last she began to speak in a low voice which Joe, standing uncertainly in the doorway, could only just make out.