They found the sign Sew Sally in a side-street over a grimy shop-front behind which a chaotic variety of refurbished over-lockers, blind hemmers, sewing-machines jostled for attention. There seemed to be the hint of an electric light in the depths behind, despite a Closed sign on the door. The rain was streaming down now, warm as soup. Brock got out of the car, strode over to the doorway and hammered with his fist. Kathy used an old newspaper abandoned on the back seat to cover her head as she ran after him. As they waited, him knocking again, she watched the shoulders of his grey suit turn dark as the water saturated the material.
‘No luck,’ he growled in disgust, and was about to turn away when the blind covering the inside of the glass door twitched, and a sharp little nose peeked around its edge, at about waist height. Suspicious eyes examined them up and down, then the door clicked open on a chain.
‘What’s the matter?’ a female voice complained. ‘Can’t you see the flippin’ sign? We’re closed.’
Kathy flicked her warrant card in front of her eyes. ‘Let us in, will you, love? We’re getting soaked.’
The face disappeared and the door banged shut. Then a chain rattled and the door swung open for them. They pushed inside and stood dripping on a grubby strip of carpet, confronted by a small elderly woman armed with a large carving knife.
When Peter White had described Sally Malone as a ‘character’, he’d had in mind one of those tough little cockney women portrayed in films about the Blitz, a sparrow who could take any amount of punishment without complaint, and whose indomitable spirit more than made up for her diminutive size. This was somewhat fanciful, for although she had begun life in poverty, Sally had experienced enough years of comfort to have developed an irritating whine when things didn’t go her way. But her toughness was beyond question, as was her combativeness where her own interests, and those of her friends, were concerned.
‘I know you, don’t I?’ She peered up at Brock’s face.
There were no lights on in the interior of the shop, and the daylight filtering through the rain-drenched shop-front gave the place an eerie underwater atmosphere, like a submarine graveyard for old sewing machines. Brock, with water dripping from his grey hair and beard, looked the part of King Neptune.
‘Hello, Sally. It’s been a long time.’ He waited for her to register his face.
‘Gawd,’ she muttered finally, her eyes widening in alarm. ‘What do
you
want?’
‘We’ve come to talk to you about Eva. When was the last time you saw her?’ Brock stooped towards her, peering down at her upturned face.
‘Eva? Sammy’s Eva?’
‘That’s the one. When did you last see her, then?’ Brock insisted quietly.
‘Months . . . years ago. I don’t know.’
Brock frowned at her, looking unhappy. ‘How about last week?’
‘Last week? No, no!’ The suggestion seemed to alarm her more. ‘Why are you asking?’ she countered, trying to get some of the initial truculence back into her voice. ‘Why do you want to know? Are you looking for her? Is she missing or something?’
‘She’s dead, Sally. Eva’s dead,’ he said flatly.
Sally froze. ‘No. How?’ Her whisper was barely audible above the swish of the rain against the window of the shop and the rumble of distant thunder. ‘Has there been an accident?’
‘She’s been murdered.’
Sally’s little fist rose to her mouth, muffling her cry. ‘Oh, Gawd! Sammy?’
She looked from one to the other of her visitors, aware of them both studying her reactions.
‘Sammy?’ Brock prompted.
‘Is Sammy all right?’ she asked, forcing firmness into her voice.
Brock nodded.
‘When did this happen? I didn’t see nothing in the papers.’
‘You will tomorrow.’ Brock looked around them in the gloom. ‘What about a cup of your famous extra-strength tea, Sally? I think we could all do with one.’
She seemed reluctant but when Brock showed no sign of relenting she led them down a short corridor, jammed with cardboard boxes and drums of fluids, to a small room at the back lit by a fluorescent ceiling baton. There was a table in the centre of the room, and seated at it a man even smaller and more wizened than Sally, with grizzled grey hair and a pair of thick-lensed glasses perched on the end of his nose. He looked up from the machine he was repairing, a tiny screwdriver in his hand.
‘This is my partner, Rudi Trakl,’ Sally announced, and to him she added in a mutter, ‘Old Bill.’
The little man raised his eyebrows. ‘Trouble?’ he asked, in a quavering voice.
‘You remember Sammy Starling, what I used to work for, Rudi? His wife’s been murdered.’
‘No!’ His eyes followed Sally over to the kitchen sink, where she returned the carving knife to a drawer and filled a kettle with water. Outside the window a small cat spotted her and began plaintively scratching the frame. Bedraggled, it was pressed against the glass to avoid a cascade of rainwater from a broken gutter overhead, which drowned its cries. Sally ignored it. ‘Go on, then,’ she said. ‘Sit down.’
‘I’d like to wash my hands, Sally,’ Brock said. ‘Kathy’ll fill you in.’
He followed her directions back along the corridor, and they heard a door close and the sound of a tap. Kathy sat down and gave Sally a short account of Eva’s kidnapping. The little woman sat motionless on the other side of the table, hands clenched on her lap, from time to time exchanging glances with Rudi, until Kathy came to the discovery of Eva’s head, when Sally’s hands shot to her mouth again, smothering her cry.
‘That’s horrible!’ she moaned, voice quavering. ‘Who could do a thing like that?’
‘Yes,’ Kathy said. ‘Who?’
The kettle began to whistle. Sally got shakily to her feet, unplugged it and began the automatic actions of making a pot of tea. ‘I still don’t see why you should come to me,’ she muttered. ‘It’s three years since I’ve seen Sammy. I haven’t seen either of them since I moved out.’
Kathy noted that this wasn’t quite what she’d said when Brock had asked her how long it had been since she’d seen Eva. ‘How long did you live with the Starlings?’ she asked.
Sally sniffed. ‘Since 1964.’ She swore softly at the cat, which was still scratching the window-frame, and reached across the sink to open the window for it. It slid in quickly, and stalked, still mewing, to the fridge. Sally followed it and reached inside for a bottle of milk. She poured some into a saucer for the cat and the rest into a small jug, which she placed on the table with the pot of tea.
‘What’s he doing?’ she complained to Kathy, perking her head towards the sounds of a running tap.
Kathy shrugged. ‘What made you go and live with Sammy and his wife in 1964?’ she asked.
Sally put some mugs on the table and sat down with a sigh. ‘My Colin was killed in an accident on the buses. Brenda and Sammy had just moved north of the river, to a big house in Tottenham. Brenda felt sorry for me, being left on my own, and asked if I’d like to do their cleaning, and soon I was living there, doing their cooking an’ all. That would have been when I first met Mr Brock, too,’ she added.
‘Really?’
‘Yes. That was his beat then, Tottenham.’
‘He came to Sammy’s house?’ Kathy was intrigued. She knew almost nothing about Brock’s early career.
‘I suppose. I didn’t get out much, bringing up the little kid.’
‘Your kid?’
‘No, no. Sammy and Brenda’s boy, Gordon. He was just a toddler.’
‘Ah. So you were really close to the family.’
‘Of course. Brenda was a good mother, but she was kept busy, looking after Sammy’s affairs. She always got herself involved in whatever he was doing. That’s why they had such a good marriage, a proper partnership.’
‘Unlike Sammy and Eva, do you mean?’
‘I never said that,’ Sally said stiffly. Kathy thought of the parallel with Marianna, both women’s lives spent rearing other women’s solitary children.
‘It must have been hard for you when Gordon died, then.’
‘Brock told you about that, did he?’
Kathy didn’t correct her, although she wondered why Brock had told her so little. She felt herself groping for the right questions.
‘It was hard all right. Brenda took it specially badly. I watched her go downhill from that year.’
‘Do you think that had something to do with her death?’ Kathy improvised.
‘Of course it did. That’s when the depression started. It was terrible watching it taking hold of her, for two long years, until she finally—Oh, at last! I thought you’d got lost, Mr Brock.’
Kathy looked up as Brock came back into the room. He slung his damp jacket on the back of the spare chair and sat down, ignoring Sally’s attempt to tease him.
‘Since when have you been in sewing-machines, Sally?’ he said, drawing a mug of black tea towards him and pouring in some milk.
‘There’s plenty around here makes their own clothes and curtains, and need a good second-hand machine, or their old one fixing up. We do a nice little business, Rudi and I, keeps us out of mischief.’
‘Rudi . . .’ Brock looked thoughtful. ‘Have we met before, Rudi? Name’s familiar.’
‘Everyone I’ve ever known was known to you, Mr Brock.’ Sally gave a little cackle.
‘Well, you always kept such interesting company. And the two of you own this business, do you?’
She nodded. ‘We make a good partnership. Rudi’s good at the mechanical side, fixing up the machines, and I do marketing and the books.’
‘Marketing?’ Brock gave a little smile, and she scowled and thrust a handbill at him, advertising their services.
‘Did Sammy help you get started—financially, I mean?’
‘No. We did it on our own.’
‘Has Sammy ever been here?’
‘No.’
‘Sally was telling me that she hasn’t seen Sammy since she left three years ago,’ Kathy added.
Brock looked as if he didn’t appreciate her interruption. ‘I see. After you’d lived under his roof for thirty years.’
‘Haven’t been invited back, have I?’ Sally sniffed.
‘Eva kicked you out, did she?’
Sally bristled. ‘I decided it was time to retire from being Sammy’s housekeeper,’ she said stiffly.
‘To take up a career in marketing.’ Brock sipped his tea. ‘That must have been a big wrench for you. After all those years.’
Sally Malone said nothing.
‘She was headstrong, was she, Sally? Wilful?’
‘Used to getting her way, yes. Well, she was a princess, wasn’t she?’
‘Sammy likes to get his own way, too. That must have led to a few arguments, eh?’
‘I never heard a cross word between them,’ Sally said carefully. ‘Not one.’
‘He was generous to her, I believe.’
‘Very. Clothes, jewellery, as much spending money as she wanted.’
‘Cash?’
‘I’d say so. Why? You think that’s what got her into trouble? Flashing it around?’
‘And you never saw them quarrel?’
‘Never. It was all lovey-dovey.’
‘What about the flat in London? Why did she go there?’
‘You’ll have to ask Sammy that,’ she replied primly. ‘They didn’t consult me. And it wasn’t long after that that I left.’
‘So when did you see her last, Sally?’
‘I told you, three years ago, when I left the Crow’s Nest. I ain’t seen either of them since.’
‘What about Marty Keller? Seen him?’
‘Gawd.’ She lowered her mug to the table, and Kathy noticed the tremble in her hand. ‘Is he involved in this?’
‘Sammy believes so.’
‘But Keller’s still inside, ain’t he?’
Brock shook his head, and Sally pressed her lips tight, face pale.
‘Then that must be it. After all this time! Can’t they leave us alone? Poor Sammy . . .’
‘Poor Eva,’ Brock said. He turned to Kathy. ‘Anything else?’
‘I’d like to hear how Sammy and Eva got together,’ she said.
Brock glanced at his watch.
‘How did that happen, Sally?’ Kathy prompted.
‘I think he was as surprised as anyone.’ The little woman bit her lip. ‘Well, like I said, he’d lost Gordon, then Brenda, and that had changed him. He’d depended on her so much, see, all those years. He didn’t say much, but I could tell he was lost. He was a great one for believing in luck, and I think he’d decided that his luck had run out. He closed himself off, all stiff and hard. Hard as ice.
‘Then one spring, 1993 it was, he went off on business to the Continent, Portugal, all stiff-faced, complaining of his indigestion as usual. A week later he came back, and he was a different man. He’d got a bit of a tan, and there wasn’t no more talk of his tummy no more. I said, “What’s come over you, then?” And he gave me a hug, and said, “Sally, I feel as if I’ve just woken up after a long sleep. For the first time in years I can smell the roses.” Then he went out into the garden, which he’d hardly set foot in since Brenda passed away, and he wandered round, looking at the flowers. That evening I remember he cut up some apples for the deer that come down from the woods.’
‘Did he tell you it was a woman?’
She snorted. ‘He didn’t need to tell me that. He went up to town and bought himself a whole new wardrobe, and had his hair trimmed. He went to see his doctor, and joined the fitness club. Two weeks later he was off again, back to sunny Portugal, with a new set of travel luggage full of mysterious, expensive-looking little packages that he didn’t discuss with me.’
‘Just like that? And the romance went according to plan?’
‘I don’t know that it did, not at first. He came back after that second trip looking out of sorts. He didn’t seem miserable exactly, more serious, like, and determined, as if he’d realised that what he had in mind wasn’t going to be so easy as he’d first thought.’
‘But he didn’t talk to you about it? He knew, I suppose, that you wouldn’t approve, her being a teenager . . .’
Sally took a sip of her tea and pointedly didn’t reply.
‘So what did he do then?’
She pondered. ‘He went back . . . No, hang on. First he sent Ronnie Wilkes over.’
‘Wilkes?’ Kathy said.
‘Yes, you probably know him, Mr Brock. Sammy uses him to do odd jobs.’
‘What odd job did he do in Portugal?’
‘I’ve no idea. I just remember him at the house. He was around a lot then, planning things with Sammy. Then Sammy went over himself a couple of times, and next thing he told me was that he was getting married to a Portuguese princess, and I had to sound surprised—well, I was surprised about the princess bit.’