The War Widow Page 13

  Ella’s naked brow was uncharacteristically corrugated, deep lines running up her forehead. Billie offered her an apologetic smile, then accepted a cup of coffee from Alma gratefully, along with a couple of aspirin from the medicine cabinet. After a few minutes she felt the heaviness of her head lifting a little more. A plan began to form. ‘This will work,’ she said under her breath.

  Her arms were aching, she realised. Her mother and Alma, both much older, would most likely be hellishly sore after that lifting. Had the man been larger, like the portly Georges Boucher, for example, the task might well have been impossible, no matter the necessity.

  Georges Boucher. The auction was today. She had to get there. She couldn’t let sleeplessness, or an interrogation with the cops, prevent her.

  She moved to the telephone table, and was rather surprised when Sam picked up on the fourth ring, sounding quite awake. ‘I didn’t expect you to be up this early,’ he said when she greeted him down the line. His throat didn’t sound the best, but he seemed lucid enough.

  ‘Trust me, neither did I,’ she replied and cast a sideways glance at her still unmoving mother. She seemed to have frozen in place.

  ‘Are you feeling okay this morning? You seemed a bit . . .’ Sam’s voice trailed off.

  ‘Yes, I did, didn’t I? I’m sorry to do this to you, Sam, but I need you to get dressed again in what you were wearing last night and pick me up in Quambi Place, the street behind Cliffside Flats, in about half an hour.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I’m afraid I need you to dress again and pick me up,’ she reiterated. ‘I realise it’s inconvenient. I’ll spot you when you pull up in Quambi Place and I’ll get into the car. Don’t bother getting out, and whatever you do don’t cruise around the front of the building or down Edgecliff Road, as I think the flats are being watched.’

  Sam took a moment to absorb her instructions. ‘Billie, are you okay?’ he asked, concerned.

  ‘Can you do it, Sam?’ She held her breath while she waited for his answer.

  ‘Well, my jacket is a bit crumpled now. It will take a while to press, and—’

  ‘Don’t bother. Crumpled is fine. Just wear it, same as last night. Can you get here in half an hour, in your car? You know it’s important or I wouldn’t ask.’

  There was a pause. ‘Yeah. I can get there in thirty minutes, or a touch longer.’

  She had another idea. ‘Also, do you have a mate you can borrow a motor car from this afternoon? Someone trustworthy and not prone to gossip?’

  ‘I don’t like gossips,’ Sam said simply, then paused again, evidently thinking. ‘Stevo isn’t driving much on account of having his touch of shell shock. His missus doesn’t like him behind the wheel. I could borrow his car, I think.’

  ‘Is the car reliable?’ Billie ventured.

  ‘Oh yes, his missus drives it. It’s solid.’

  ‘Good. I’ll explain more when I see you.’

  ‘Got it, Ms Walker.’

  Billie hung up and looked down at herself, then at the clock. ‘Mum, I’m going to have to borrow some of your clothes. I don’t think I ought to go back to my flat now.’ They’d been lucky to get Zervos out before seven. But if she was right about what her unknown nemesis had in mind, the police would come knocking very soon. They could be there already, searching her place.

  The baroness led her daughter into her luxurious, burgundy-painted bedroom. She indicated the double robes with a raised eyebrow, and Billie opened them up. Either from a strong bond with her past or her current state of relative impecuniosity, Ella’s closet was dominated by 1920s haute couture and ready-to-wear fashions. Billie frowned.

  ‘You don’t have anything more . . . fashionable?’ she asked, somewhat foolishly. She realised her mistake as soon as she’d spoken. ‘I mean . . . newer?’

  Her mother’s eyes flared angrily. ‘That is Schiaparelli, I’ll have you know,’ she said icily, nodding at the exquisite dress Billie had pulled out.

  Billie closed her eyes and took a breath. ‘You’re right, Mother. This will be fine.’ She took off her peach dressing robe and pulled the beaded gown on over her crushed, slept-in slip. The gown did fit beautifully, even if it was a touch shorter than it was designed to be. It would do.

  ‘Schiaparelli will always be fine,’ Ella retorted.

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that, Mum. I meant that it has to look like my clothing, not yours.’

  ‘And you are more fashionable, I suppose?’ Ella responded. ‘With your mannish clothes and your shoulder pads?’

  The baroness crossed her arms tightly as she watched her daughter continue to raid her things. ‘You know, you used to do this when you were six,’ she said, softening slightly. Her mother’s shoes were a bit tight, but Billie got them on over a pair of dark silk stockings, then assessed her reflection in the mirror. The back of the gown had a lovely plunge. The overall effect with the stockings and slightly tight shoes wasn’t perfect, but it would do. She pulled a fox fur over her shoulders.

  ‘I owe you one, Ella. Thank you. You do have the most beautiful wardrobe,’ Billie said placatingly. She looked around. ‘I’ll need that steamer trunk, too, I think.’ She indicated the Louis Vuitton double wardrobe trunk stored in a corner alcove.

  Ella’s eyes followed her daughter’s gaze. ‘Yes, you may borrow it,’ she said, ‘but I want it back in good condition,’ she added primly. Her voice had become a touch stiff and formal, in that irritating way she had sometimes spoken to underlings, back when she’d had them.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Billie murmured, deadpan.

  Ella gasped, horrified, suddenly comprehending Billie’s intention. ‘Oh no you don’t! You can’t put him in there! I’ve had that trunk for nearly two decades. Haven’t you any idea of the value? You could buy first-class passage to London and back for the price of that trunk!’

  Billie shrugged, being deliberately naughty now. ‘We have to get him out of this flat somehow. I suppose we could use your hatboxes, but I dare say it wouldn’t be very pleasant. And we’d need to find a saw.’

  The baroness paled, one delicate hand to her mouth. ‘You wouldn’t really . . .’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Billie conceded. She had a strong stomach, but no. She hoped not to add too much more indignity to Zervos’s untimely end.

  ‘Okay,’ Ella said in a resigned voice, looking at the trunk sadly. ‘Do what you want with the thing. Levi gave it to me. Burn it if you like.’ Levi had been her first husband. ‘Thank goddess that poor fellow is skinny,’ she added.

  Billie put a hand on her mother’s shoulder, conveyed her gratitude with a look, then got to work.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Billie Walker successfully descended the back fire escape in her mother’s beaded dress and fox stole, crossed two property boundaries without soiling her mother’s shoes terribly, and was waiting in the shadows of a tree beside a block of flats on Quambi Place, directly behind Cliffside Flats, when her assistant pulled up right on time in his faded blue 1939 Ford utility. She rushed over, yanked the door open and jumped in.

  ‘Thank you, Sam. I know this is over and above.’

  Sam put his leather-gloved hand to his forehead. ‘Oh, you gave me a fright. How do you always manage to do that? I didn’t see you.’

  ‘That’s the general idea.’ Billie scanned their surrounds. It appeared she truly had been unseen. This was a sleepy Sunday morning for most, and even the keenest folk in the neighbourhood were only just beginning to wake up.

  Sam took in her appearance, registered the evening clothes and stole, and if he noted her under-slept visage he was tactful enough not to comment on it. She had used her mother’s makeup and brushes to get herself together, but there was no cure for those bloodshot eyes. Sam, for his part, had dutifully donned his white jacket of the night before, and his formal appearance sat slightly at odds with the rural feel of his vehicle. His clothing did look a touch crumpled, but that didn’t matter in the slightest. His large aquamarine e
yes searched her face. ‘Are you okay? What’s happening?’

  ‘I don’t think anyone is watching us. Kill the engine for a second,’ Billie instructed, and took a few minutes to get her assistant up to speed with events. He sat listening with rapt attention as she described her groggy head, the discovery of the unfortunate Mr Zervos in her flat, his removal to her mother’s place and what her plan was. She’d never seen his face darken so angrily.

  ‘Who is this bastard who set you up?’ he spat. ‘And drugged you?’

  Was it the bartender who’d spiked her drink? Billie wondered. Surely not. Could someone have walked up to the bar and dropped something in it? And whoever it had been, were they acting alone or following someone else’s orders? Had the same person killed Zervos and moved his body?

  ‘I don’t know yet, Sam,’ she answered, ‘but there is some very dangerous game afoot here. He may be the same person who killed Zervos, and he clearly wants me out of the way and, by extension, he – or she – wouldn’t be keen on you, either. I advise you to watch your back.’ It was chilling to imagine a murderer may have been in her room, while she slept. A shiver moved up her body from the base of her spine and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She stifled the desire to physically shake it off, and instead pushed her dark hair back and straightened in the seat. External calm often helped muster the internal variety.

  ‘I will watch out. Thank you,’ Sam responded. He was shaking his head now. ‘I don’t get it . . . Why switch the body to your place? Why not put it where it won’t be found for a while?’

  ‘Well, it certainly makes a statement. As a warning to me? To get me tied up with cops and rumours and uncertainty? At least long enough to miss the auction today?’ she speculated. ‘I don’t know. Maybe to get me done for murder, but that seems a stretch.’ She’d been thinking on it, but found her faith in the system was not yet so poor that she believed they would actually lock her away. Not for long, anyway. ‘I mean, what motive would I have?’

  ‘He refused to talk?’ Sam suggested.

  ‘So I strangled him? What am I, the Gestapo? No, I’m not convinced a judge would be expected to buy that.’ She shook her head. ‘To get the cops to descend and mire me and the case in problems, yes, but an actual conviction? To put me away for murder?’

  Was it possible?

  ‘Maybe they had a judge lined up specially for the job?’ Sam wondered aloud.

  Billie frowned, thinking. Alma’s coffee was bubbling away inside her, and she felt sharp with an almost supernatural clarity. The drugs of the night before were no longer filling her mind with that awful mental fog, but it was more than that. The horrifying jolt she’d woken to was still running across her nerves, electrifying her limbs and keeping her heart moving at an unnatural pace. Now her assistant was watching her face, she noticed. ‘I don’t know, Sam,’ she finally said to him. ‘At the very least someone wants to warn me off this case, or they want to tie me up with the law so I can’t continue working on it.’

  Yes. A warning. A fear tactic. They thought they could scare her away. Well, they didn’t know Billie Walker.

  Billie tilted up her chin. ‘If they think this will put me off, they are dead wrong. I don’t know just what we’re dealing with yet, Sam, but this is a lot more complicated than we thought. There is something far more interesting, and a helluva lot more rotten going on.’

  * * *

  When Billie and Sam pulled up in front of Cliffside Flats, the sun was up but most of the residents of Edgecliff were not. Billie could not be sure if anyone was watching, but they made a nice show of their arrival in any event, Sam gallantly pulling up at the kerb and walking around to the passenger door of his Ford to help her out with an extended hand.

  Soon they saw they were not alone, as a woman who was clearly an early riser – and from the shade she was throwing Billie, evidently not one to approve of exciting nocturnal activities – walked towards them on the footpath with her miniature schnauzer. She wore a frown as deep as the Grand Canyon. After scowling silently at Billie in her glittering evening clothes, she shook her head and moved along. Sam, it seemed, was not as offensive, as she did not bother to glare in his direction. The diminutive canine took no notice of his master’s moral judgements and Billie did her best to follow his lead. She instead made a good performance of wishing Sam a pleasant day in a formal but light-hearted tone before walking up the sloping path towards the entrance of Cliffside Flats.

  ‘Oh, you forgot something!’ she called, turning back dramatically before she reached the front door of the building.

  Sam shut down the engine, opened the door and got out of the automobile. ‘What is it, Billie?’ he called, a little more loudly than necessary.

  She sashayed back to the street and handed Sam his handkerchief. ‘Nice work,’ she whispered. ‘That should do us well. Thank you.’ If the cops weren’t there to see her arrival, at least it wouldn’t have been a performance completely without an audience. It was hardly enough to wake the whole neighbourhood, but perhaps some of the more nosy residents of Cliffside would be talking about her over their breakfast. She was already a scandal in their eyes anyway. Billie waved as Sam drove off, presumably to get some overdue sleep rather than to change clothes and start canvassing his friends for a motor vehicle to borrow. She took the opportunity to take one more look around the winding main road, wearing a vague, pleasant smile for the benefit of whomever might be watching her. The birds were becoming louder and the sun was already starting to get hot. There weren’t any cops on the street that Billie could detect, not in cop cars in any event, though she didn’t recognise all of the parked motor cars. She thought she spotted a dark head in a parked late-thirties Vauxhall, though it could have been a reflection. She walked back to the front door and slipped inside.

  When Billie stepped out of the automatic lift a minute later, the constabulary was already standing outside her door, looking about ready to break in. She did hate to be so terribly right about things. At this early hour she was faced with one plain-clothes officer and one uniformed constable, both gaping at her as she approached them in her mother’s finery. It wasn’t the current fashion, wouldn’t have been the current fashion just before the war either, but few men would know the difference – she hoped.

  ‘Good morning, officers,’ Billie called, swaying over to them, beads flashing. ‘That’s my door you’re knocking on. How may I help you gentlemen?’

  Even after two hours of hellish morning it was still before eight. On a normal Sunday she wouldn’t be awake until at least nine, and certainly she would have expected to rise later than that after a night out.

  Billie smiled at the two men – her even, pretty smile with hidden steel behind the ivory. The heavy-set constable with a long brow and a thin face like the wedge of a hatchet was someone she vaguely recognised, but the other, taller man had not crossed her path before, she felt sure. He had doffed his hat for her as she appeared in the corridor. A gentlemanly type. He was about six feet in stature, broad-shouldered and rangy, and under other circumstances she would have found him fairly handsome, with his strong jaw and honest face. He had pale eyes and paler lashes and his brown hair was shorn in a neat military cut, short except at the top where it was smoothed down into a side part. His blue suit was nicely fitted but worn. The suit of a man who thought about other things. The silk tie had a bird pattern in burgundy and ivory, with hints of sky blue. Not bad. His fedora had a welt edge, and was held in large but elegant hands. Overall, he was neatly put together and perhaps ten years older than Billie. Either that or the little creases by his eyes had been earned in the war and he was in his early thirties yet. Hatchet Face didn’t require much inspection. He was a little over Billie’s height but about three times her girth. Sausage fingers. A face set in a permanent frown. Aged in his twenties, he was a tough guy underling, eager to prove his mettle. A dime a dozen in this town. She was sure she’d already made his acquaintance on some job or other and had not been impress
ed.

  ‘Miss Walker? We’re sorry to disturb you, but I see you are already up,’ the tall one said without too much sarcasm, which was admirable in the circumstances. ‘I’m afraid we’ll need you to show us your flat.’

  ‘It’s Ms,’ Billie said, sliding past him and unlocking her door.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Ms Walker. Never mind.’ Billie stepped into her flat and slid the fox fur off her bare shoulders, noting the way the movement drew their eyes. ‘May I see your identification please?’ she asked, poker faced. She put one hand out, the other resting on her curved hip.

  ‘Lady, we could have busted your door down if we wanted to,’ Hatchet Face piped up impatiently.

  ‘Well, I see you did not. I’m most grateful to you,’ Billie replied and smiled again. ‘Identification, please.’

  Both men seemed taken aback, and then the tall one flashed her his wallet without a fuss. She took it, held it and read. Detective Inspector Hank Cooper. She looked him over, head cocked.

  ‘Hank. Is that American?’ she asked.

  ‘My mother was American,’ he replied with a crease in his brow, retrieving his wallet. His pale eyes had grown a touch larger. Were they green? Hazel, with shots of green and yellow, Billie decided.

  She took her eyes off his and looked at the constable’s ID casually, then handed it back. Constable Dick Dennison. ‘To what do I owe the honour of this visit, Detective Inspector?’ she asked the tall one. She considered slipping those blasted tight shoes off, but resisted.

  ‘If you could not touch anything, we shouldn’t take too much of your time,’ the inspector said. He was all hard and professional now, as if remembering what he was there for.

  ‘Tea? Coffee?’ she offered.

  They ignored her and began to look around. The constable walked into her bedroom. She heard wardrobe doors opening and closing. After a minute he walked back out.