The Death of an Irish Consul (17 page)

McGarr followed the entry across the page of the airport log. “What sort of registration is that?”

Lieutenant Simpson, looking over his shoulders, said, “That’s a rental helicopter.”

“Avis. Heathrow,” said the man. “Rumor has it they’d rent you a dive bomber if you could get up the cash. Americans, you know.”

“What’s her name?” McGarr asked.

“Don’t know.”

“Do you have her check stubs? Did she ever charge?”

“Can’t allow that. I’d never get my money.”

O’Shaughnessy asked, helping himself to yet another drink, “What does she look like?”

“She looks good,” said the man, “you know, for an older girl, that is. I got the impression the man with her was her last ‘fling.’ Can you understand me?” He winked. “She had this way of doting over him, waiting on him and such, although it was clear to me she hadn’t waited on many other people in her life.”

“How are her legs?”

“Fragile, you know. Birdlike and—nice.”

“Blondish hair, bent nose, high cheekbones?”

“Yes, I’d say so.”

“Hitchcock’s wife,” said McGarr. He stood, took five pounds out of his wallet, and placed it on the folder. He paused for a moment and put five more on top of that and asked, “May we take the bottle with us?”

“Indeed, indeed. And thank you. I buy the stuff from a fellow who comes through the international section of Heathrow. Doesn’t cost me half what you put on the desk. And since you’re not local police and Irishmen to boot—except for the lad, of course”—he meant Simpson—“let me do something else for you.” From under the desk he pulled a case of Beamish half-pint bottles. He put six of them in a paper sack for them.

“That’s some plane in the hangar over there,” said O’Shaughnessy, when they had gotten outside.

“Is it fit to fly?” Simpson asked.

“Fitter than the day she rolled from the factory. And that’s more than a plane, that’s my retirement. I figure by the time I’m ready to pack it in, that’ll be an antique some eccentric will squander half his fortune on. Are you checked out in airplanes too, Lieutenant?”

“Yes. Prop jobs and jets. Fighters, too.”

“Then stop back when you have more time and I’ll let you give her a run. Nothing made on the other side of the swamp could ever touch that craft.”

“I’ll take you up on that offer sometime soon.” Simpson was delighted.

McGarr could see him reassess what they could see of the Spitfire in the now deeply shadowed hangar, looking at it this time with the eyes of a pilot who would someday fly one of the most important historical items of Britain’s recent past. There was no question of his not returning and soon.

At the Heathrow Avis office, the manager confirmed the Fishguard airport attendant’s information. “Graham Hitchcock, Mrs. E. L. J. Hitchcock, Sixty Avenue Road, St. John’s Wood.”

“Strange name for a woman,” said O’Shaughnessy.

“Strange woman,” said the manager.

“How so?” asked McGarr.

“Ah—I suppose I shouldn’t say. She’s a good customer of mine. No—I won’t say. I spoke out of turn.”

“How good a customer?”

“She rents a ship a couple of dozen times in a year, which makes her a very good customer.”

“Who cleans the helicopter?”

“Bobby Greene.”

“May we speak to him?”

“If he’s on.” The manager took them out to the time clock and checked Greene’s card. “You’re in luck. He’s got fifteen minutes. He’s down in the shop.”

There Greene said he couldn’t remember from one day to the next what the helicopters contained, if there was mud or grease or trash on the floor of each airship. “Once I switches on the vacuum”—he pointed to the large industrial vacuum cleaner—“me mind slips into suspended animation.” Earlier, McGarr had noticed the science fiction paperback in his overall pocket. “I become an automaton. You’re welcome to peek into the lost and found, though. Anything I find I put in there. Come twelve month, we sell the lot for a bonus. You won’t believe what people will leave in airships. I think it’s because they’re so glad to be down safely, they just rush away.”

He unlocked a door and McGarr and O’Shaughnessy stepped into a closet so vast it shocked them. Clothes on hangers lined both walls; baggage, umbrellas, and cartons were stacked under them. McGarr didn’t know what he hoped to find. “You didn’t happen to come across any shell casings or shell boxes, or, say, anything like a hypodermic needle, did you?”

“Anything I found I put in here. The small stuff is in that bin. But the sort of space a dope addict is looking for can’t be found in a helicopter.”

There McGarr found ballpoint and fountain pens,
ladies’ hats, gloves, pairs of shoes, sunglasses—one pair was a wraparound type, the heavy chrome of which made McGarr’s face look like the windscreen of a sleek automobile when he tried them on; O’Shaughnessy laughed and said, “Flash Gordon. I wonder why the old boy”—he motioned to the door—“hasn’t taken them home with him”—rubber boots, wallets complete with money and identification, keys and rings, pocket secretaries, cassette tape recorders, cameras, even two portable typewriters.

After fifteen minutes of pawing around, McGarr and O’Shaughnessy left.

Before taking rooms at the Carlton for the night, McGarr phoned Gallup and told him what he had discovered. Gallup agreed to make an appointment to interview Mrs. Hitchcock early in the morning. McGarr would have preferred to do this at Scotland Yard, but Gallup objected. “We just can’t go hauling in the widows of once powerful men for a criminal-type interrogation until we’ve got facts. All you know is that she and Foster might have had a ‘relationship,’ that she flew a helicopter and was in Ireland on the dates of the murders.”

“Shoe size.”

“Shoe size be damned. Another unavailing item of quite circumstantial evidence. We must see her at her house in Avenue Road.”

“In state, you mean.”

“Absolutely. And I hope she’s regal and guiltless. I detest scandal. Everybody, even the police, loses. And,
incidentally, your request to inspect the Service dossiers of the murdered men has been denied.”

“What? But why? I don’t understand.”

“I was told simply that nobody can see them. They’ve been declared ‘Most Secret.’”

“Is it because I’m not English?”

“No. I asked to see them myself and that request was denied too.”

“But why is that? Don’t they trust
you
?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

McGarr thanked Gallup for trying anyhow, and then hung up.

Next he phoned Noreen at the Excelsior in Siena. While McKeon and Ward were keeping tabs on Battagliatti, she was reacquainting herself with Tuscany. He told her the events of his day.

“You sound hoarse,” she said. “Are you catching a cold?”

“Don’t think so. Probably too many cigarettes. This case is beginning to bother me. See if you can impose upon Falchi to get me a meeting with Foster. Everywhere I turn, he’s been there.”

“But he’ll never change his story.”

“I’m not so much interested in his story.”

“Well, what then? He won’t permit you to learn anything about him personally. He’s been around too long for that.”

“I don’t know what I mean. I just feel like there’s something missing, my never having talked to him at length.”

“You had better get some rest.”

After sandwiches and further drinks in the bar, McGarr and O’Shaughnessy went upstairs to their rooms. There, McGarr got a phone call. It was Gallup again to say all was arranged for 8:45
A.M
. at Hitchcock’s widow’s house in St. John’s Wood.

McGarr undressed, climbed into bed, and began leafing through all the dossiers he had collected.

And Graham Hitchcock was indeed icily imperious at first. What was more, her barrister was present. He was a bald old man whose nose seemed to rest on his coppery moustache. After having adjusted his hearing aid and inquired McGarr’s name and credentials, he insisted upon Gallup’s asking all questions of his client. “A matter of jurisdiction, you see.” He was wearing tails and, upon sinking into a wing-back armchair, appeared to doze off. His eyes closed, but McGarr could tell he was listening to and probably would remember every word of the interview. McGarr had run up against old foxes like him before.

Mrs. Hitchcock wore a gray pantsuit with a white silk blouse that had ruffles on the bodice and cuffs. Her shoes were black patent leather, stockings a silvery nylon. She was somewhat nervous, but confidently so. She sat very straight without allowing her back to touch the chair. McGarr imagined that even at this age—fifty-five—she was still actively athletic. Her small body seemed strong and even fetching. McGarr could imagine himself taking her down for a tumble.
The way her hair was sleeked back along her narrow temples interested him most. And she was aware of his eyes on her. She smiled to him slightly before Gallup asked, “On the nineteenth and twenty-sixth of June you fueled helicopters at Fishguard airport prior to flying to Ireland. Where did you go in Ireland and what did you do there?” He was reading from his small black notebook.

“On the nineteenth I flew to Baldoyle race course. That’s about fifteen miles north of Dublin. On the twenty-sixth I flew to Leopardstown race course. That’s ten miles or so south of Dublin. I own, breed, and race horses. That’s my profession. I’m certain the officials of both courses will vouch for my presence there and, incidentally, for at least two days after the last date you have mentioned.”

“I must warn you we plan to check everything you say.”

“Please do.” She turned to McGarr and smiled again.

Gallup looked down at his book. McGarr had written the questions in case Gallup had to do the asking. “Let’s see. Did you use the helicopter otherwise?”

“No. My barrister”—she indicated the old man—“has a signed receipt. The total mileage was seven hundred seventy-two miles, certainly not enough to fly to Slea Head and back.”

McGarr had already checked that; it was true.

“Did you fly any other helicopter while you were in Ireland on the stated dates?”

“No.”

“Did you leave the Dublin area on the stated dates?”

“No.”

“Where did you stay on the stated dates?”

“Both times at the Intercontinental Hotel in Balls-bridge.”

“Were you alone?”

She flushed a bit, but she turned to McGarr and said, boldly, “No.”

“Who were you with?”

“On the first stated date, June nineteenth, I was with Sean O’Ryan. He’s one of my jocks.”

“What’s his address?”

“How should I know? Wait a moment.” She placed a finger on her temple. “Swords. I seem to remember he lived someplace in Swords. A big, gloomy room with the bathroom down the hall. That’s all I can tell you.”

“And on June twenty-sixth?”

“With a man named Persson. His first name is Henry, I believe.”

“Address?”

“I wouldn’t have the slightest idea. I met him in the bar. He went back to his room long before I was awake. Wife and all that, you know.” She turned to McGarr. She was smiling. “Does this shock your Hibernian sensibilities, Chief Inspector?”

“Not at all, ma’am. I’m only bothered by the misfortune of having met you under such constraining circumstances.” McGarr then directed his eyes to her barrister.

The old man seemed to revive and he glanced at McGarr. There was a twinkle in his eye.

Gallup continued. “Our records show that you own a twenty-two-caliber Baretta automatic. Where is it?”

“I don’t know, haven’t seen it for years. My husband gave it to me for protection while he was on assignment in Finland.”

“Why did you feel you needed protection?”

“Who knows? Intruders, I suppose. He was worried about me.”

McGarr broke in. “Did he know of your predilection for different men?”

The barrister cleared his throat.

McGarr glanced at Gallup, who, blushing, restated the question.

“I think so,” she said. “At least, I knew of several of his affairs with my friends. I caught him
in flagrante
—”

“Ahem!” the old man snorted, and she stopped talking.

“Were you having an affair with Moses Foster?”

“Yes—if you could dignify our relationship with that word.”

“Did your husband know about it?”

“Yes. I even think he encouraged it. In any case, it was he who first brought Moses around. You see, he believed that just because he was no longer interested in sex, no other of his near contemporaries could be either. Thus, he reasoned that I needed a playmate, I sup
pose. Somebody—how shall I put it?—somebody lesser than he, somebody…black, somebody who would defile me was his choice. I believe it’s a common male attitude at his stage in life.” This last remark was said to McGarr.

“What was Foster’s attitude to your husband?”

“He hated him and everything he stood for. That’s why he—I don’t want to say ‘raped,’ exactly—that’s why he ‘forced’ me the first time. It was at a party right here in this house. He took me into the laundry room and didn’t even bother to close the door completely.”

Again the lawyer cleared his throat.

“All the other men were afraid of him,” she added. “And, of course, nobody had thought of carrying a gun to the party.”

“How long have you been seeing Foster?”

“Years now—two, three.”

“How often?”

“These questions are entirely too personal,” the old man objected without opening his eyes.

“This is a murder investigation,” said Gallup.

“Whenever and as much as I can. I used to fly up to Scotland at least once a fortnight. When he was in London I saw him nearly every day.”

“What was the appeal?” McGarr asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe my husband was right.”

“You needed somebody to defile you?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

McGarr kept himself from asking how Foster ac
complished that, although he sorely wanted to know. Instead, he asked, “What is he like as a human being?”

“Solid,” she blurted out. “When he’s not trying to be cruel, that is. I mean very masculine. On rare occasions he can be extremely jolly, too, but most of the time he’s just, you know,
there
.”