The Killing of Katie Steelstock (16 page)

“I see what you mean and the answer’s yes. Provided the two samples were typed reasonably soon after each other. Machines develop different peculiarities as they grow older.”

“Like people,” said Ian.

Soon after that Les came back and said, “You’re right. It was a Crossfield Mark Four Electric.”

Mr. Mapledurham was consulting a large book. He said, “Crossfield Mark Four. Ex-factory at the end of 1973. Available in the shops early in 1974. I’ll make one guess about your machine. It doesn’t come from an office. If it had been bashed by an office typist for several years the type face would be a lot more worn. Anyway, this letter wasn’t typed by a professional.”

“How can you tell?”

“Spacing and alignment. If you wanted a guess, I’d say a private owner. Someone who did a fair amount of typing, but not a professional.”

“Thank you,” said Ian. “That’s going to be very useful.”

“Do you want a written report?”

Ian thought about Superintendent Knott and said, “Yes. I’m afraid we shall want a written report. I’ll give you the address.”

Mark Holbeck’s agency occupied the third floor of an eighteenth-century house in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. It looked across at the Tuscan portico of St. Paul’s Church, designed by Grinling Gibbons, from which Samuel Pepys had watched a Punch and Judy show and in which Professor Higgins had met Eliza Doolittle.

Mark Holbeck was a young-old man with a sunburned and freckled bald patch in the middle of an outfield of sandy hair. If you asked what he did for a living he would tell you that he dealt in words and flesh, which meant in the jargon of his trade that he promoted both books and people.

The books were all around him, new copies in bright jackets. They filled every shelf in his office, spilled over onto the floor, occupied the window seats and trespassed onto his table. He shifted a couple off a chair and waved to Shilling to be seated.

“Of course I read all about it,” he said. “It was in the later editions of the Saturday papers, and the Sunday papers made a meal of it.”

First surprise. Lack of any real evidence of distress.

Shilling said, “She was your client. I imagine it must have come as a considerable shock to you.”

Holbeck looked at him with the suspicion of a smile. “Sorry, Sergeant,” he said. “No crocodile tears. Naturally I don’t approve of people who kill my clients. It costs me ten per cent of their annual earnings. And in Katie’s case that was beginning to add up to a very respectable sum of money. But no personal involvement.”

“I wasn’t suggesting anything of that sort, sir. I was just surprised that you didn’t seem to mind much. On a personal level, I mean.”

The two men looked at each other. Each was sizing the other up. Holbeck said, “What are you after, Sergeant? An analysis of her character or a list of her friends?”

“Both might be helpful, sir.”

“I’ll do what I can for you, on one condition.”

“Yes, sir?”

“That you stop calling me sir. It’s a habit policemen seem to have picked up from watching television.”

Shilling grinned and said, “O.K. It’s a deal.”

“All right then. I first met Katie when she was eighteen. She had just left a top-line girls’ school and wanted to behave like all the debby friends she’d made there, but she realised that she hadn’t quite got the money to do it. Only two choices. She had to make money or marry it. And there were quite a few men – old men”—Holbeck’s mobile mouth wrinkled at the corners—”who were prepared to buy her, even at the price of matrimony. She was sensible enough to say no. And she started out on the other route. She had no acting experience, so it was tough going. She got a job as a researcher with one of the independent television companies. A producer who liked her looks – correction, who liked her – wangled her a spot in one of their advertising quickies. And it
was
a wangle. He’d have had to get round Equity rules, but he did it. That was the beginning.”

Holbeck stopped. He was looking back seven years, and some of the things he was seeing seemed not to please him.

He said, “You need just one quality to succeed in that field. It isn’t beauty and it isn’t brains, though both are useful. It’s a rockhard, chilled-steel determination to succeed. You asked me just now if I liked Katie. I didn’t like her. But I respected her. One day – it was after she’d been working for about two years and making peanuts out of it – Rodney Ruoff, the photographer, made an approach. Through me, of course. I’d been half expecting it. Katie was playing down her age in those early commercials. Down to fourteen or even younger. Girls with small bones and unextravagant figures can go on doing that for a surprisingly long time. Rodney was very interested in young girls. And boys. He’s known in the trade as ‘Rod the Sod.’ He’s also a brilliant photographer and really has got some sort of pull with the television studios. Katie knew all about him. She asked my advice. I said, ‘Steer clear of him. He’s dangerous.’ She said, ‘If I was able to handle you, Mark, I ought to be able to handle him.’ And off she trotted to his studio near the Kings Road.”

Holbeck paused again, then said, “I’m damned if I know why I’m telling you all this. It must be because you’ve got such a disingenuous sort of face. You don’t look like a policeman at all. When you first came in, I thought you were another hopeful pop star. Sorry.”

Shilling was unoffended. He said, “It is a fact that people do talk to me. But not often as usefully as you’re doing. So please go on. How did Ruoff get on with her?”

“I’m not sure. He certainly took some wonderful photographs of her – dressed, half dressed and undressed. And peddled them round the studios. Whether he got anything else out of her, I rather doubt. In fact, I’m pretty certain, if anyone got anything out of anyone it was the other way round.” He smiled. “I remember I ran into Ruoff at a party about a year ago. Katie was a big property by then and, knowing he had an interest in her, naturally I was ready to talk about her. As soon as I mentioned her name, Ruoff went the colour of a beetroot. I thought he was going to burst into flames. He squeaked out, in that funny high-pitched voice of his, ‘Don’t talk to me about her, Mark. Don’t mention that bitch to me. She’s a criminal. She’s a thief. Why did you ever send her to me?’ I had to remind him that it was the other way round. He’d sent for her himself. But he wasn’t listening. He was too bloody angry.”

“Did you gather what he was angry about?”

“Not exactly. I gathered that she’d lifted some of his property, but done it so cleverly that he couldn’t go to the police. You’d better ask him. I imagine you’ll be wanting a word with him.”

“I’ll be seeing him next. Will you tell me something else. That is, if you don’t mind. It’s rather a personal question.”

“You alarm me.”

“When you were talking to Katie about this photographer chap, she said, ‘If I was able to handle you, I ought to be able to handle him.’ Did she mean anything in particular by that?”

“I knew I was talking too much,” said Holbeck gloomily. He thought about it. Outside, a motorist tried to go around the Covent Garden piazza the wrong way and got spoken to by the driver of a vegetable lorry.

At last Holbeck said, “All right. Confession is said to be good for the soul. I made a fool of myself. Mind you. I was seven years younger then. And you can take that smirk off your face, Sergeant. This isn’t going to be a sex story. No. It was Katie’s contract. I’ve got a standard form, drafted by my own lawyer. When I showed it to Katie she opened those innocent eyes wide and said, ‘Oh, we don’t need anything like
that,
surely. It’s much too legal for poor little me. I wouldn’t understand a word of it. If we must have something in writing – you know, about the ten per cent and all that – just give me a bit of paper. I’ll jot down what I think we’ve agreed and we’ll sign it here and now.’ And she sat straight down and did just that. Ten lines of schoolgirl handwriting. I’ve got it in my safe over there. Any time I feel I’ve been smart I take it out and read it. It’s an excellent corrective to self-esteem. Because she’d slipped in a final sentence which said, ‘Agreement to be firm for two years and then renegotiable.’”

“And that wasn’t a good idea?”

“As far as I was concerned it was a lousy idea. When these kids start out, it’s make-or-break and it usually takes a year or two to show which it’s going to be. If they’re a flop, they want to get out anyway. If they’re a success, that’s when you begin to get back some of what you’ve put into them. In fact it took Katie almost exactly two years to make the grade. It was that song that helped. Remember it? ‘What Are They Like in Your House?’” He hummed the well-known tune.

“I was at school when it came out,” said Shilling. “We used to sing a rather coarser version of the second line.”

“Any song which can be perverted is halfway to success. It was short-lived, but it was dynamite while it lasted. It blew Katie up into stardom almost overnight. That’s when I hoped she’d forgotten what was written on that paper.”

“But she hadn’t?”

“She’d made a copy and she’d kept it. She showed it to me sitting where you are now, with a wide smile on her face. She said, ‘You realise I can walk away whenever I like, Mark. There are plenty of people would be glad to have me now.’ And she trotted out the names of some of my rivals. And that’s the way it was from then on. Whenever we had an argument, she’d say, ‘All right, Mark. If you don’t like it, I’m off.’ And then, of course, I’d have to knuckle under. I don’t think she actually meant to leave. She just liked having the whip hand. And cracking the whip every now and then.”

Shilling thought about this. It opened up a rather startling line of thought. He said, “Are you telling me she had a sadistic streak?”

“That’s rather overstating the case. You don’t call a kitten sadistic when you see it playing with a ball of string or chasing a leaf.”

“No. But I might when it grows up and becomes a cat chasing a mouse. Do you think she tried the same game on with Ruoff?”

“You’d better ask him,” said Holbeck. “Only keep upwind of him. When he gets excited he’s inclined to spit.”

Ruoff’s house-cum-studio was in Chelverton Mews, which lay north of the Kings Road. It had three tubs of hydrangeas in front of it and a big white metal knocker in the shape of a bull’s head on the scarlet front door. Shilling seized the bull by the horns and knocked. When this produced no response he tried the door, found it unfastened and went in.

A notice on the wall of the entrance hall said, “Studio Upstairs. Excelsior.” An enlarged photograph of a human hand pointed upward. Shilling went up. It was one of those tall thin London houses which have their living rooms on the second floor. A further hand pointed up a further flight of steps. Bedroom floor. Further steps-scrubbed and uncarpeted. Above him a murmur of voices. A notice on the door at the top said, “Pray Enter.” He went in. It was a small room and was empty.

The wall opposite the door was entirely covered by a photomontage made up of heads, bodies, arms and legs. Some of the heads were upside down. The arms and legs had been arranged into groups in a floral pattern. The effect in that small brightly lit room was hypnotic.

He was staring at it when a door in the left-hand wall opened and a boy came out. He was wearing grey flannel shorts and a cricket shirt. Shilling guessed his age as twelve or thirteen. He said, “Excuse me. I was wondering if your father was anywhere about.”

“About what?” said the boy.

“I mean, could I have a word with him?”

The boy said, “You’d have to shout pretty loud to do it from here. He lives in Southwark.”

“Then I take it Mr. Ruoffs not your father.”

“That’s right. And I’m not his son.”

“Who are you?”

“Me? I’m one of his favourite models. If you’ve come to have your photograph taken, Rod’s in there. Got to be off. Got another engagement.”

“How old are you?”

“Ninety-nine,” said the boy. “Next birthday. Goodbye for now.” He departed and his footsteps went clattering down the stairs. Shilling stood looking after him.

The murmur of voices which he had heard as he was coming up broke out again. It was louder now and came from behind the door in the left-hand wall. Shilling opened it cautiously and looked in. The first impression he got was of blinding light, directed not at him, but toward the far end of the room. Light and heat. The room was overpoweringly hot. It stank vilely of sweat and of some scented stuff which had been splashed about, presumably to hide the smell of the sweat.

On a low stage, bathed in the full glare of the lamps, two young men were engaged in a wrestling match. He thought at first sight that they were naked, but then saw that they were wearing flesh-coloured tights. A squeaky voice from behind the lamps said, “Hold it,” and the wrestlers froze into immobility. “Left hand a little higher, love. Pull his wrist up behind his back. You aren’t really hurting him.”

“He bloody is.”

“Hold it.”

“For Christ’s sake, Rod, I’m getting cramp.”

“That’s it. All right, relax. And shut that bloody door.”

Shilling, who could already feel the sweat running down his face, backed toward the door. The voice said, “See what he wants, Louie. But outside. For God’s sake, this isn’t a public waiting room.”

A paunchy man, wearing off-white trousers and a singlet, followed Shilling out into the anteroom and slammed the door. He said, “Mussen come barging in there, chummy. Rod gets very up-tight when he’s working. He’s artistic, see.”

“I’m sorry,” said Shilling, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief. “It’s very hot in there, isn’t it?”

“It’s the lamps. You’ll get used to it. Turn sideways a moment.”

“Why?”

“Profile, lad. That’s the important thing. Not bad. Not bad at all.”

“You’ve got it wrong,” said Shilling. “I haven’t come here to have my photograph taken.”

“Then what the hell have you come here for?”

“To talk to Mr. Ruoff.” Shilling took out his warrant card and slid it across the table.

The man looked down at the card without touching it, looked up again at Shilling and said, “You could have fooled me. I’ll tell him.” He departed into the studio, closing the door carefully behind him. Then a murmur of voices, which went on for a long time. Shilling composed himself to wait. He was determined on one thing. He was not going into that stinking hothouse again. Minutes ticked by. Then the inner door opened and a small man bounced out. He had pink cheeks and a grey beard which jutted from his chin as though it had been trained in espalier. It waggled when he spoke.