The House Across the Street Page 16

  She had to wash in cold water, there was no towel or soap, and she could feel her hair getting greasier and greasier. But then did any prisoner expect the Ritz?

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ she admitted, looking into her handbag. The only thing missing was Edna’s notebook, but she’d expected that. She had a pen now, and a mirror. Even though she didn’t want to put on make-up, it was comforting to have it. ‘Thank you for these things.’

  ‘You are an odd girl, you haven’t asked about food,’ he said. ‘Does that mean you don’t want any?’

  ‘Yes, I do want some, please,’ she said. ‘I was being polite. It seemed ungracious to ask for food when you’d been generous in bringing the other things I asked for.’

  ‘I’m not going to bring you food any more,’ he said.

  A cold chill ran down her spine. She looked at him in horror. What sort of a game was this?

  ‘I thought we’d reached an understanding,’ she said, trying hard not to cry. ‘Look, I know you don’t really want to kill me. I’ve got an idea which will mean you won’t be caught. I’ll say you wore a mask, and I have no idea where you took me. Then I could say, one night you bundled me blindfolded into your car, and drove a long way, only to release me in the middle of nowhere. I kept walking until I came to a house and asked them to ring the police.’

  ‘You’ve got it all worked out, then?’ The chill in his voice was alarming.

  But Katy had to carry on and try to convince him. ‘Don’t you see? It’s a brilliant idea.’

  The answer was a hard slap across her face. ‘I don’t want any ideas from you. You keep your mouth shut and let me decide what I want to do.’

  Quick as a flash, and without thinking, Katy retaliated by slapping him back, putting all her weight behind it. ‘Didn’t you get told as a boy that men do not hit women?’ she screamed at him. ‘Of course you didn’t. I dare say you had a mother who snivelled to your father, and put up with hell from him. Is that why you do it?’

  His face was almost black with anger and he came at her, hands outstretched, as if he was going to strangle her. She knew she mustn’t back down now; to do so would mean he would beat her black and blue.

  ‘Don’t you dare lay a finger on me,’ she roared. ‘I’m not afraid of you. But I’m possibly the only woman in the world who wants to understand you.’

  He stopped short, then turned towards the door, fumbling with the keys as if distressed. Finally he got it open and left, banging it behind him.

  ‘That’s right, run away, you coward,’ she yelled at him through the door. ‘I bet you’ve spent your whole life running from people telling you what you are!’

  It was only when his footsteps had retreated up the stairs that Katy slumped back on the bed and put her hands over her face. She was horrified she’d gone that far. It was stupid, now he would leave her here. Her slapped face stung and she was hungry. What had she hoped to achieve by all that defiance?

  On Sunday Charles decided to contact an old friend, Patrick Bligh. Patrick had been at Cambridge with him studying law. After two years, family financial problems forced Pat to drop out. He joined the police and was very quickly fast-tracked to CID. Charles had expected him to climb the ranks in the force, imagining that one day he’d be a Commissioner, because he had both brains and charm. But a couple of years ago he had left to start up a private investigation bureau. Many of their friends, and his police colleagues, laughed at him and said he’d be skint within a year, but so far he was doing very well.

  Getting no response from Pat’s number, and guessing he was working on his flat and couldn’t hear the phone, Charles got in his car and drove to Ladbroke Square. Pat had bought this basement flat for a song back at the time of the Notting Hill race riots. Although the houses were huge and rather splendid, most of them had seen better days. As for the neighbourhood, that had gone right down the pan. What with war damage, bad landlords who crowded tenants in and didn’t maintain the properties, and young people taking bedsitters there, it was looking rough – almost as bad as its close neighbour, Ladbroke Grove, the area all the immigrants stayed in.

  But Pat was convinced that one day the tide would turn and it would become an affluent area again. He was probably right, for as Charles parked his car and looked around him he saw several recently renovated houses, and the park in the centre of the square had been tidied up. He’d even heard that Ladbroke Grove was improving and was considered fashionable by young people.

  Pat used the front room of his flat as an office, and he’d painted the basement area white with dark blue, glossy railings. He was still working on the rooms further back in his flat. Last time Charles had seen him, he was talking about putting in a good damp course.

  Pat answered the door wearing plaster-splattered green overalls. He was a big man, with a round face, sticking-out ears, dark eyes and thick dark stubble on his chin. He’d shaved off his thinning hair and his bald head gave him a villainous look. But his voice detracted from that, as it was straight out of the top drawer. ‘What a surprise,’ he grinned. ‘But a great one, Charlie boy, as I could do with stopping for a coffee.’

  Over coffee they did their usual banter, Pat teasing his friend about wearing a wig in court and sucking up to aristocratic barristers. Charles retaliated by ribbing Pat about spying on adulterers and the like.

  It was good, however, to see how professional Pat’s office was. There were no piles of papers on the floor, or tottering lever arch files. It was all grey and white, with both his and his secretary’s desks cleared of clutter except for phones, typewriters and filing trays.

  ‘So what brings you round so early on a Sunday morning? You’ve got a new bird and you think she might be married? Or you’ve got tired of the high life and want to join me?’

  ‘There’s elements of both of those, with murder thrown in, Charles laughed, and launched into the story. One of the many things he’d always admired about Pat was that he really listened. It was never necessary to repeat anything; he took all the details on board.

  It took some time to explain the whole thing, but Pat didn’t interrupt or ask for anything to be clarified.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Charles asked when he’d finished. ‘Can you find out where these women are living now? What do you think the chances are of finding Katy alive?’

  Pat put his elbows on his desk and leaned his chin on his hand thoughtfully. ‘We both know abductors rarely let their victims go,’ he said at length. ‘He’s a very angry man, too. I wouldn’t mind betting he’s killed before Gloria and her daughter. The way he set that fire, implicating Albert, it was all a bit polished for a first timer. How did he find out where Gloria was? Bexhill isn’t a town people flock to for its beauty or excitement, so running into her by chance is about as likely as me winning the Heavyweight Champion of the World title. I don’t suppose the woman he ran off the road got a look at his face?’

  Charles shook his head. ‘There’s so much we don’t know. We can’t even be sure that one of these women’s names on the list belongs to his wife. It’s a needle in a haystack job, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but I’ve got pals who can run bits of info through the system. You said that you’d been told by Edna that virtually all her women came via Whittington Hospital. So that’s the first port of call. I expect some of the women will have given false details, but my experience with almoners is that they tend to have elephant-like memories. So let’s see if we can get hold of her right now.’

  As Charles expected, the almoner didn’t work on Sundays, but amazingly Pat managed to get her telephone number from the receptionist by saying it was a police inquiry and very urgent.

  Next he rang the number and it was all Charles could do not to laugh out loud at his friend’s silver tongue. He apologized profusely to Mrs Haggetty for ringing on a Sunday, especially as he was sure she was on her way to church. Then he went on to say he thought she might have some knowledge that could save a young woman’s life.

&nb
sp; As Charles watched Pat writing an address, he saw it was in Muswell Hill. He gathered they were to go to the address right now.

  ‘She was wary,’ Pat admitted. ‘But these women are first and foremost social workers; they mostly deal with the problems no one else can, or will. Her husband will be sitting in on the interview. She sounded a bit nervous.’

  With little traffic on the road, they were there in half an hour, and ten minutes of that was spent before they left with Pat putting on a suit and tie and running an electric razor over his chin.

  The Haggettys’ home was a very well-kept terraced house close to Alexandra Park. Mr Haggetty opened the door to them, a tall imposing man with a shock of white hair.

  ‘This is very irregular,’ he said sharply. ‘But my wife said she doubted you would have asked to come if it wasn’t something important.’

  ‘Quite so, Mr Haggetty. A young women is in terrible danger, and the only person we feel may be able to at least give us a link to finding her is your wife. Now this is Charles Stevenson, a lawyer at the Middle Temple, and I am, as I already told your wife, an ex-policeman turned private investigator.’

  Pat had already said that Charles should take the lead in giving the background to the story. As soon as he began to speak about beaten women, he saw deep concern in Mrs Haggetty’s eyes.

  ‘Two ladies, Gloria and Edna, actually met in the Whittington when they had been badly beaten, and the almoner who was there at that time put them in touch with another woman who helped them get away from their abusive homes. As a result, these two brave women began to help others.’

  He went on then to explain that Gloria and her daughter had died in a fire, and that Edna’s life had been threatened, too. Then he went on to describe Katy’s involvement and subsequent disappearance.

  ‘I wouldn’t have been the almoner at the time Gloria and Edna came to the hospital,’ Mrs Haggetty said, looking very concerned. ‘But in my time there I have tried to advise many women in the same situation. It is an extremely difficult problem; there is no organization to turn to, and the police see it as a “domestic” and outside their remit. Even if they arrest the husband and charge him with assault, a few hours later he’s back home, taking it out on his wife. Because it is so hard, especially for those women with children, to leave and start a new life, a large proportion of them end up returning home. They can’t get work without adequate childcare, and they have no money.’

  She paused, a little overcome with emotion. This was clearly a problem close to her heart. She wiped a stray tear from her cheek and tried to smile. ‘Forgive me, it’s hard to stand back from something so serious. I did inherit a bit of knowledge from my predecessor about Gloria and what she and her friend had achieved. It makes it doubly horrifying that she paid for her kindness with her own and her daughter’s life. We must do all we can to rescue this young woman. Let’s just hope we aren’t too late.’

  ‘Did you pass on any women to Gloria?’ Pat asked.

  ‘Not directly,’ she said. ‘I had no way of contacting her, but there was another link in the chain, old Miss Dunkin. Sadly, she was old and frail and I heard she died last year. Since then the only help we’ve been able to offer women is the addresses of a couple of bed and breakfast places that will take women in an emergency.’

  ‘Then can you recall any of the names of women you met who were badly beaten?’ Charlie asked, explaining about the notebook Edna had kept. ‘The names they used when they came into hospital.’

  ‘Not really, none stick in my mind.’

  ‘Could you look at these names I’ve got here and see if they trigger anything?’ He held out the list Edna had written.

  He couldn’t fault how carefully she looked at the names, her lips pursed, as if willing herself to come up with something useful. She handed him back the paper and looked regretful.

  ‘There are several names that ring a bell, but not loud enough to be sure. But all these women will be on record at the Whittington if that is the hospital they went to. I’m sure, if I study the records and see a patient with injuries that tell me she was beaten at home, I am likely to remember more. With luck, we might find the women on your list. I will warn you at this point, sometimes women like these give false names and addresses. But not all. Anyway, I could do that for you tomorrow.’

  ‘Not today?’ Charles said hopefully.

  She pulled a regretful face. ‘We’ve been invited out to lunch today. But even if I were free, I doubt I’d be able to get permission to dig out old records today. Meet me there at ten tomorrow, that will give me time to get permission.’

  As the two men drove away Charles sighed. ‘This detective work is tougher than it looks on films.’

  ‘It certainly is,’ Pat agreed. ‘Ninety-nine per cent plodding. Only one per cent luck. But don’t be downhearted, Charley boy, that lady will give you names, mark my words. I sensed she was almost on the point of spilling out stuff as it was, but she just wants to be sure she won’t be sending us on a wild goose chase.’

  ‘Us?’

  Pat sniggered. ‘You think I’m going to let you cock it up alone? But even if we get the right wife and identify this guy, find out if he’s got a police record, learn his car registration number and every last thing about him, that doesn’t mean we’ll find out where he’s taken Katy. Presumably, he and his wife have been apart for a long time. He’ll have let his anger with her fester, which is probably why he went after Gloria and Edna. So it stands to reason he’s got himself this hidey-hole since his wife left him. Maybe his plan was to find his wife and put her in it – who knows? – but it could be anywhere in England.’

  Charles was daunted by that; he was used to having a whole case cut and dried before it was brought to him. He hadn’t expected this to be quite so hard.

  ‘But if we find out who he is, surely we can issue a press release to get people to tell us if they’ve seen him?’

  Pat turned to him and gave him a withering look. ‘Oh, brilliant, Charley boy! Don’t you think it’s more likely that he’ll kill Katy then, if he hasn’t already done it? When an animal is cornered, it attacks.’

  ‘So what do you suggest?’

  ‘First things first. We go and get some lunch now. Tomorrow, if we are lucky and Mrs Haggetty pinpoints him, we can stake out his home and then follow him if he goes anywhere. If he isn’t at his house, I favour breaking in and looking for something that will tell us where he is. I’m afraid we can’t get a search warrant on such flimsy evidence.’ Seeing Charles looking so dejected, Pat changed tack. ‘But now, tell me about Katy. What sort of girl is she?’

  ‘She looks like a dainty doll,’ Charles said with a smile. ‘But the similarity ends there. She’s brave, tough, determined and bright, too. I couldn’t bear it if that creep has hurt her.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve fallen for her?’ Pat raised one eyebrow. ‘I thought the day would never come that you’d get smitten.’

  ‘I’ve only had one date with her,’ Charles admitted. ‘She was snatched the following day. So I don’t know if what I feel is just normal anxiety for someone I like.’

  ‘No good asking me,’ Pat grinned. ‘I’m useless with women. My mother keeps telling me it’s time I was married. Like you go along to a shop and pick a wife!’

  Charles smiled. They both had problems with women. Pat fell for almost every girl he met and smothered her with affection. They soon ran from it. Charles knew he was the exact opposite. He never showed enough enthusiasm; women felt frozen out. Yet it hadn’t seemed that way with Katy. He hoped she’d felt something good was there, just as he had.

  Later that evening, Charles called in to see Jilly and her aunt and uncle in Hammersmith.

  The aunt and uncle feared the worst, but Jilly was a lot more positive and asked to talk to him alone. Charles got the impression her relatives were not pleased that she took him out into their kitchen.

  ‘They chip in all the time, especially my aunt,’ Jilly explained as she made hi
m a cup of tea.

  She was wearing a pale grey sweater dress, and although she wasn’t exactly pretty there was something special about her. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and it was clear she’d been getting as little sleep as he had, these last few nights. But she did her best to be upbeat.

  ‘Auntie Joan means well, but she thinks she’s an expert on everything. Yesterday she actually said she didn’t think anyone had taken Katy, but that she’d just gone home to Bexhill, because she knows her father did set that fire. I ask you? Is she right in the head? She hadn’t thought it through at all.’

  ‘You’d be surprised at how many people refuse to believe what’s staring them in the face,’ Charles said. ‘I was once defending a man who had been charged with armed robbery in a post office. He denied that it was him. Then the day before the trial he suddenly told me it was true. He even said where he’d hidden the money he’d taken. I said he’d have to change his plea to guilty and said I’d go to see his wife and tell her. But his wife would not believe me! She tried to punch me in the chest, and shouted blue murder that her Frank would never do such a thing.’

  Jilly smiled. ‘My mum’s told me lots of people in Bexhill are saying all sorts of things about Albert Speed now; she was even told the other day he was a bigamist! Shame they’ve got nothing better to do in their lives than making up stuff about innocent people.’

  ‘I’m very glad Katy has such a staunch friend. Don’t you worry about your aunt’s odd opinions, she’s probably just worried that all this will affect you badly,’ Charles said. ‘Now what was it you wanted to tell me?’

  ‘Only about the kind of person Katy is. She’s really strong, Charles, and she can be amazing at talking people round. I couldn’t tell you this in front of my aunt and uncle, but about three years ago, Katy and I were picked up at a dance by two Londoners. Compared to local boys they were really something – sharp suits, expensive shoes, and they had all the chat. Anyway, these blokes didn’t drive us home, they took us right up to Fairlight Glen – that’s the other side of Hastings. They made it quite clear what they wanted.