Once in Rogers’ office, Morse produced the photograph of the strip club. And immediately, with the speed of an experienced ornithologist recognizing a picture of a parrot, Rogers had identified the premises.
“Just off Brewer Street.” He unfolded a detailed map of Soho. “Here— let me show you.”
The early evening was overcast, drizzly and dank, when like some latter-day Orpheus Morse emerged from the depths of Piccadilly Circus Underground; when, after briefly consulting his A-Z, he proceeded by a reasonably direct route to a narrow, seedy-looking thoroughfare, where a succession of establishments promised XXXX videos and magazines (imported), sex shows (live), striptease (continuous) — and a selection of freshly made sandwiches (various).
And there it was! Le Club Sexy. Unmistakably so, but prosaically and repetitively now rechristened Girls Girls Girls. It made the former proprietors appear comparatively imaginative.
Something — some aspiration to the higher things in life, perhaps — prompted Morse to raise his eyes from the ground-floor level of the gaudily lurid fronts there to the architecture, some of it rather splendid, above.
Yet not for long.
“Come in out of the drizzle, sir! Lovely girls here.”
Morse showed his ID card, and moved into the shelter of the tiny entrance foyer.
“Do you know her?”
The young woman, black stockings and black miniskirt meeting at the top of her thighs, barely glanced at the photograph thrust under her eyes.
“No.”
“Who runs this place? I want to see him.”
“Her. But she ain’t ’ere now, is she? Why don’t you call back later, handsome?”
A helmeted policeman was ambling along the opposite pavement, and Morse called him over.
“Okay,” the girl said quickly. “You bin ’ere before, right?”
“Er— one of my officers, yes.”
“Me mum used to know her, like I told the other fellah. Just a minute.”
She disappeared down the dingy stairs.
“How can I help you, sir?”
Morse showed his ID to the constable.
“Just keep your eyes on me for a few minutes.”
But there was no need.
Three minutes later, Morse had an address in Praed Street, no more than a hundred yards from Paddington Station where earlier, at the entrance to the Underground, he had admired the bronze statue of one of his heroes, Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
So Morse now took the Tube back. It had been a roundabout sort of journey.
She was in.
She asked him in.
And Morse, from a moth-eaten settee, agreed to sample a cup of Nescafé.
“Yeah, Angie Martin! Toffee-nosed little tart, if you know wo’ I mean.”
“Tell me about her.”
“You’re the second one, encha?”
“Er— one of my officers, yes.”
“Nah! He wasn’t from the fuzz. Couldna bin! Giv me a couple o’ twennies ’e did.”
“What did he want to know?”
“Same as you, like as not.”
“She was quite a girl, they say.”
“Lovely on ’er legs, she was, if you know wo’ I mean. Most of ’em, these days, couldn’t manage the bleedin’ Barn Dance.”
“But she was good?”
“Yeah. The men used to love ’er. Stick fivers down ’er boobs and up ’er suspenders, if you know wo’ I mean.”
“She packed ’em in?”
“Yeah.”
“And then?”
“Then there was this fellah, see, and he got to know ’er and see ’er after the shows, like, and ’e got starry-eyed, the silly sod. Took ’er away. Posh sort o’ fellah, if you know wo’ I mean. Dresses, money, ’otels — all that sort o’ thing.”
“Would you remember his name?”
“Yeah. The other fellah—’e showed me his photo, see?”
“His name?”
“Julius Caesar, I fink it was.”
Morse showed her the photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Julian Storrs.
“Yeah. That’s ’im an’ ’er. That’s Angie.”
“Do you know why I’m asking about her?”
She looked at him shrewdly, an inch or so of gray roots merging into a yellow mop of wiry hair.
“Yeah, I got a good idea.”
“My, er, colleague told you?”
“Nah! Worked it out for meself, dint I? She was tryin’ to forget wo’ she was, see? She dint want to say she were a cheap tart who’d open ’er legs for a fiver, if you know wo’ I mean. Bi’ o’ class, tho’, Angie. Yeah. Real bi’ o’ class.”
“Will you be prepared to come up to Oxford — we’ll pay your expenses, of course — to sign a statement?”
“Oxford? Yeah. Why not? Bi’ o’ class, Oxford, innit?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“Wo’ she done? Wo’ sort of inquiry you workin’ on?”
“Murder,” said Morse softly.
Mission accomplished, Morse walked across Praed Street and into the complex of Paddington Station, where he stood under the high Departures Board and noted the time of the next train: Slough, Maidenhead, Reading, Didcot, Oxford.
Due to leave in forty minutes.
He retraced his steps to the top of the Underground entrance, crushed a cigarette stub under his heel, and walked slowly down toward the ticket office, debating the wisdom of purchasing a second Bakerloo line ticket to Piccadilly Circus — from which station he might take the opportunity of concentrating his attention on the ground-floor attractions of London’s Soho.
Chapter thirty-four
The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain terrible.
With a lecture A.M. and a Faculty Meeting early P.M., Julian Storrs had not been able to give Lewis much time until late P.M.; but he was ready and waiting when, at 4 o’clock precisely, the front doorbell rang at his home, a large redbricked property on Polstead Road, part of the Victorian suburb that stretches north from St. Giles’ to Summertown.
Lewis accepted the offer of real coffee, and the two of them were soon seated in armchairs opposite each other in the high-ceilinged living room, its furniture exuding a polished mahogany elegance, where Lewis immediately explained the purpose of his call.
As a result of police investigations into the murder of Rachel James, Storrs’ name had moved into the frame; well, at least his photograph had moved into the frame.
Storrs himself said nothing as he glanced down at the twin passport photograph that Lewis handed to him.
“That is you, sir? You and Ms. James?”
Storrs took a deep breath, then exhaled. “Yes.”
“You were having an affair with her?”
“We... yes, I suppose we were.”
“Did anybody know about it?”
“I’d hoped not.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Storrs talked. Though not for long...
He’d first met her just over a year earlier when he’d pulled a muscle in his right calf following an ill-judged decision to take up jogging. She was a physiotherapist, masseuse, manipulator — whatever they called such people now; and after the first two or three sessions they had met together outside the treatment room. He’d fallen in love with her a bit — a lot; must have done, when he considered the risks he’d taken. About once a month, six weeks, they’d managed to be together when he had some lecture to give or meeting to attend. Usually in London, where they’d book a double room, latish morning, in one of the hotels behind Paddington, drink a bottle or two of champagne, make love together most of the afternoon and — well, that was it.