Singing in the Shrouds

‘Not to say trouble,’ Moir called back easily. A second voice asked derisively: ‘Why don’t you get the Flower Killer, Superintendent?’

Moir said good-naturedly: ‘We’re still hoping, mate.’ And walked away: a man alone on his job.

He began to look for the girl from the flower shop. There were many dark places along the wharf. He moved slowly, flashing his lamp into the areas under platforms, behind packing-cases, between buildings and dumps of cargo and along the dark surface of the water where it made unsavoury but irrelevant discoveries.

It was much quieter now aboard the Farewell. He heard the covers go down on the forward hatch and glancing up could just see the Blue Peter hanging limp in the fog. The gang that had been loading the ship went off through one of the sheds and their voices faded into silence.

He arrived back at the passageway. Beyond its far end the taxi still waited. On their way through here to the wharf he and the driver had walked quickly; now he went at a snail’s pace, using his flashlight. He knew that surfaces which in the dark and fog looked like unbroken walls, were in fact the rear ends of sheds with a gap between them. There was an alley opening off the main passage and this was dark indeed.

It was now one minute to midnight and the Cape Farewell, being about to sail, gave a raucous unexpected hoot like a gargantuan belch. It jolted PC Moir in the pit of his stomach.

With a sudden scrabble a rat shot out and ran across his boots. He swore, stumbled and lurched sideways. The light from his flashlamp darted eccentrically up the side alley, momentarily exhibiting a high-heeled shoe with a foot in it. The light fluttered, steadied and returned. It crept from the foot along a leg, showing a red graze through the gap in its nylon stocking. It moved on and came to rest at last on a litter of artificial pearls and fresh flowers scattered over the breast of a dead girl.

CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_9034f8f1-3016-5b34-8ddf-b69d86682cda)

Embarkation (#ulink_9034f8f1-3016-5b34-8ddf-b69d86682cda)

At seven o’clock on that same evening an omnibus had left Euston Station for the Royal Albert Docks.

It had carried ten passengers, seven of whom were to embark in the Cape Farewell, sailing at midnight for South Africa. Of the remainder, two were seeing-off friends while the last was the ship’s doctor, a young man who sat alone and did not lift his gaze from the pages of a formidable book.

After the manner of travellers, the ship’s passengers had taken furtive stock of each other. Those who were escorted by friends speculated in undertones about those who were not.

‘My dear!’ Mrs Dillington-Blick ejaculated. ‘Honestly? Not one!’

Her friend made a slight grimace in the direction of the doctor and raised her eyebrows. ‘Not bad?’ she mouthed. ‘Noticed?’

Mrs Dillington-Blick shifted her shoulders under their mantling of silver fox and turned her head until she was able to include the doctor in an absent-minded glance.

‘I hadn’t noticed,’ she confessed and added, ‘Rather nice? But the others! My dear! Best forgotten! Still – ’

‘There are the officers,’ the friend hinted slyly.

‘My dear!’

They caught each other’s eyes and laughed again, cosily. Mr and Mrs Cuddy in the seat in front of them heard their laughter. The Cuddys could smell Mrs Dillington-Blick’s expensive scent. By turning their heads slightly they could see her reflection in the window-pane, like a photomontage richly floating across street lamps and the façades of darkened buildings. They could see the ghosts of her teeth, the feather in her hat, her earrings, the orchids on her great bust and her furs.

Mrs Cuddy stiffened in her navy overcoat and her husband smiled thinly. They, too, exchanged glances and thought of derisive things to say to each other when they were private in their cabin.

In front of the Cuddys sat Miss Katherine Abbott; alone, neat and composed. She was a practised traveller and knew that the first impression made by fellow-passengers is usually contradicted by experience. She rather liked the rich sound of Mrs Dillington-Blick’s laughter and deplored what she had heard of the Cuddy accent. But her chief concern at the moment was for her own comfort: she disliked being ruffled and had chosen her seat in the middle of the bus because people would be unlikely to brush past her and she was out of the draught when the door opened. In her mind she checked over the contents of her two immaculately packed suitcases. She travelled extremely light because she loathed what she called the ‘fussation’ of heavy luggage. With a single exception she carried nothing that was not positively essential. She thought now of the exception, a photograph in a leather case. To her fury her eyes began to sting. ‘I’ll throw it overboard,’ she thought. ‘That’ll larn her.’

The man in front of her turned a page of his newspaper and through her unshed tears Miss Abbott read a banner headline: ‘Killer Who Says It With Flowers. Still no arrest.’ She had longish sight and by casually leaning forward she was able to read the paragraph underneath.

‘The identity of the sex-murderer who sings as he kills and leaves flowers by the bodies of his victims is still unknown. Investigations leading to hundreds of interviews have proved clueless. Here (left) is a new snapshot of piquant Beryl Cohen, found strangled on the 15th January, and (right) a studio portrait of Marguerite Slatters, the second victim of a killer who may well turn out to be the worst of his kind since Jack the Ripper. Superintendent Alleyn (inset) refuses to make a statement, but says the police will welcome information about Beryl’s movements during her last hours (see page 6, 2nd column).’

Miss Abbott waited for the owner of the newspaper to turn to page 6 but he neglected to do so. She stared greedily at the enlarged snapshot of piquant Beryl Cohen and derisively at the inset. Superintendent Alleyn, grossly disfigured by the exigencies of reproduction in newsprint, stared dimly back at her.

The owner of the paper began to fidget. Suddenly he turned his head, obliging Miss Abbott to throw back her own and stare vaguely at the luggage rack where she immediately spotted his suitcase with a dangling label: ‘P. Merryman, Passenger, S.S. Cape Farewell.’ She had an uncomfortable notion that Mr Merryman knew she had been reading over his shoulder and in this she was perfectly right.

Mr Philip Merryman was fifty years old and a bachelor. He was a man of learning and taught English in one of the less distinguished of the smaller public schools. His general appearance, which was highly deceptive, corresponded closely with the popular idea of a schoolmaster, while a habit of looking over the tops of his spectacles and ruffling his hair filled in the outlines of this over-familiar picture. To the casual observer Mr Merryman was perfect Chips. To his intimates he could be hell.

He was fond of reading about crime, whether fictitious or actual, and had dwelt at some length on the Evening Herald’s piece about The Flower Killer as, in its slipshod way, it called this undetected murderer. Mr Merryman deplored journalese and had the poorest possible opinion of the methods of the police but the story itself quite fascinated him. He read slowly and methodically, wincing at stylistic solecisms and bitterly resentful of Miss Abbott’s trespassing glances. ‘Detested kite!’ Mr Merryman silently apostrophized her. ‘Blasts and fogs upon you! Why in the names of all the gods at once, can you not buy your own disnatured newspaper!’

He turned to page six, moved the Evening Herald out of Miss Abbott’s line of sight, read column two as quickly as possible, folded the newspaper, rose and offered it to her with a bow.

‘Madam,’ Mr Merryman said, ‘allow me. No doubt you prefer, as I confess I do, the undisputed possession of your chosen form of literature.’

Miss Abbott’s face darkened into a rich plum colour. In a startlingly deep voice she said: ‘Thank you: I don’t care for the evening paper.’

‘Perhaps you have already seen it?’

‘No,’ said Miss Abbott loudly. ‘I haven’t and what’s more I don’t want to. Thank you.’

Father Charles Jourdain muttered whimsically to his brother-cleric: ‘Seeds of discord! Seeds of discord!’ They were in the seat opposite and could scarcely escape noticing the incident.

‘I do hope,’ the brother-cleric murmured, ‘that you find someone moderately congenial.’

‘In my experience there is always someone.’

‘And you are an experienced traveller,’ the other sighed, rather wistfully.

‘Would you have liked the job so much, Father? I’m sorry.’

‘No, no, no, please don’t think it for a moment, really. I would carry no weight in Durban. Father Superior, as always, has made the wisest possible choice. And you are glad to be going – I hope?’

Father Jourdain waited for a moment and then said: ‘Oh, yes. Yes. I’m glad to go.’

‘It will be so interesting. The Community in Africa – ’

They settled down to talk Ango-Catholic shop.

Mrs Cuddy, overhearing them, smelt Popery.

The remaining ship’s passenger in the bus took no notice at all of her companions. She sat in the front seat with her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her camel-hair coat. She had a black zouave hat on the back of her head and a black scarf wound skilfully about her neck and a great studded black belt round her waist. She was so good-looking that all the tears she had shed still left her attractive. She was not crying now. She tucked her chin into her scarf and scowled at the bus driver’s back. Her name was Jemima Carmichael. She was twenty-three and had been crossed in love.

The bus lurched up Ludgate Hill. Dr Timothy Makepiece put down his book and leant forward, stooping, to see the last of St Paul’s. There it was, fabulous against the night sky. He experienced a sensation which he himself would have attributed, no doubt correctly, to a disturbance of the nervous ganglions but which laymen occasionally describe as a turning over of the heart. This must be, he supposed, because he was leaving London. He had come to that conclusion when he found he was no longer staring at the dome of St Paul’s but into the eyes of the girl in the front seat. She had turned, evidently with the same intention as his own, to look out and upwards.

Father Jourdain was saying: ‘Have you ever read that rather exciting thing of GKC’s: The Ball and the Cross?’

Jemima carefully made her eyes blank and faced front. Dr Makepiece returned uneasily to his book. He was filled with a kind of astonishment.

II

At about the same time as the bus passed by St Paul’s a very smart sports car had left a very smart mews flat in Mayfair. In it were Aubyn Dale, his dearest friend (who owned the car and sat at the wheel in a mink coat) and their two dearest friends who were entwined in the back seat. They had all enjoyed an expensive farewell dinner and were bound for the docks. ‘The form,’ the dearest friend said, ‘is unlimited wassail, darling, in your stateroom. Drunk, I shall be less disconsolate.’

‘But, darling!’ Mr Dale rejoined tenderly, ‘you shall be plastered! I promised! It’s all laid on.’

She thanked him fondly and presently turned into the Embankment where she drove across the bows of an oncoming taxi whose driver cursed her very heartily. His fare, a Mr Donald McAngus, peered anxiously out of the window. He also was a passenger for the Cape Farewell.