‘Have you been here since it opened?’ Billy lit a cigarette.
She nodded. ‘I was working in an office in Henley when I heard they were looking for staff. It’s not a bad job, if you don’t mind taking off your clothes.’ Her crooked grin displayed the tips of her small, pointed teeth. ‘Well, most of them. Only the members strip down completely.’
‘I didn’t know that.’ Biting into a piece of shortbread, Billy returned her grin. The thought of Constable Crawley’s hunger pangs aroused no tremor of remorse in him.
‘So what brings the law up this way?’ She put down her cup.
‘Routine inquiries.’ His comic policeman’s voice brought a bubbling laugh from her lips. ‘It’s true, though.’ He went on in more serious vein. ‘A young girl disappeared in Henley a while back, and her body’s only recently been recovered from the river. We’re trying to establish her movements, based on where it was found. It’s no easy job. She went missing three years ago.’
Doris Jenner was gazing out of the window. Her eyes had grown misty. ‘Poor kid… I remember when it happened… Susan… Wasn’t that her name?’
‘You’ve got a good memory.’ Billy was impressed.
‘Not really… it was something else, something that happened to me that day… or rather it didn’t…’ She smiled mischievously. ‘Now don’t get me started, Sergeant.’ She reached across the table for his cup and refilled it.
Billy waited for her to go on. He was enjoying their conversation. There was a flirtatious edge to her manner that flattered his male vanity. ‘Go on,’ he prompted.
‘You don’t want to hear about it.’
‘Maybe I do.’ He was half-flirting himself, but his words held a germ of truth. One of the reasons he was a good detective – quite apart from the skills he’d acquired – was a basic curiosity in his nature. He was interested in people – why they were who they were. He didn’t have to force himself in that direction. It came naturally. And he listened as he always did, out of habit now, as he had once observed John Madden listen.
Doris Jenner collected herself in her chair. Her brown eyes twinkled. ‘All right, then. But remember – you asked.’ Her glance was provocative. ‘It all has to do with a boyfriend I had then – his name was Jimmy. He was a member here. That’s how we met. Jimmy lived in Birmingham, but he used to drive down every Saturday in a big fancy car. You couldn’t mistake it, and I used to sit at the desk outside and watch for him through the window.’ She smiled, her eyes hazy with reminiscence.
‘We never let on, of course. The staff’s not allowed to fraternize with members. But I always had Sundays off and when I’d finished work on Saturdays I’d leave on my bike as usual and cycle down the road to Henley, and after a few minutes Jimmy would roll up behind me in his big car and we’d load my bike into the back and off we’d go!’ She laughed. ‘I thought he was going to marry me, I really did… he’d sort of hinted at it…’ She stretched her arms and sighed.
‘Well, anyway, that particular Saturday I sat there at reception all morning waiting for him to turn up and he never did. I kept looking out of the window hoping to see him arrive. Once I thought I’d spotted his car, but it wasn’t his, it was someone else’s, and I almost burst into tears. I couldn’t believe he’d let me down. I’d had my birthday two days before and Jimmy had promised to take me to London that evening. We were going to go dancing. I was sure he was going to pop the question…’ She lifted an eyebrow and shrugged. ‘I can laugh about it now, but I’d never been so miserable in my life, and when I went back to Henley that evening I was ready to jump into the river myself. That’s when I heard about the girl… Susan…’
She stared at her hands. Billy sat silent.
‘I was living in lodgings at the time and my landlady told me the police had been knocking on doors up and down the street asking if anyone had seen her. She knew the girl’s mother, my landlady did. She said although they were still searching in the town, everyone knew the poor kid must have fallen into the river. I went up to my room and lay face down on the bed, and I must have stayed that way for half an hour when suddenly it hit me! There I was, snivelling and feeling sorry for myself, but what that girl’s mother must have been going through! And at that very same moment! So that’s why I remember that day, because it taught me something.’ Her look was defiant.
Billy put out his cigarette. He thought about what she had told him. ‘What happened to Jimmy?’ he asked.
Doris Jenner rolled her eyes. ‘He wrote me a letter full of excuses and said he didn’t know when he’d be able to get down again. I made some inquiries and found out he was married. I don’t know how he’d managed to pull the wool over his wife’s eyes for so long, coming down to the club every weekend, but I never saw him again.’
The door opened and the young man from reception put his head in. ‘Your constable’s here,’ he said.
‘Tell him I’ll be out in a minute.’ Billy kept his eyes on Doris Jenner. He waited until the door had shut, then he spoke to her. ‘You mentioned a car, not Jimmy’s, another one. Can you tell me more about that?’
‘What?’ She blinked. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You thought you’d seen his car, you said, when you were waiting. But it was someone else’s…’
‘Yes?’ She stared at him. Her glance hardened. ‘Are you being a copper now?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I’m being a copper.’ He met her gaze.
‘Is this about Jimmy? Is he in trouble?’
Billy shook his head. ‘No, it’s about the car. That’s all I’m interested in.’ He paused. ‘You see, you said before that Jimmy had a fancy car. “You couldn’t mistake it,” you said. But you did. Does that mean you hadn’t seen another like it before that day?’
Flushing, she stared out of the window. Her lips had thinned to a hard line. ‘If you came here to ask questions, you should have said so.’
‘I didn’t. It was hearing your story.’
‘I thought we were being friendly.’ She wouldn’t look at him.
Billy sought for a way to heal the breach between them. ‘Let me tell you what this is about, Doris.’ He leaned forward. ‘It’s to do with that young girl, Susan Barlow.’
She turned to face him then, a deep flush still mantling her features, but with a glance that was less hostile. ‘I don’t see how,’ she said.
‘I need to know if a stranger came and parked his car here that day. Please, try and think back. Tell me exactly what you saw.’
Doris Jenner swallowed. She seemed to be in two minds as to whether or not to respond to his question. But then she shrugged. ‘I was sitting at reception, as I said, and I saw what I thought was Jimmy’s car drive into the parking area, so I waited, expecting him to come through the door, but he never did. I couldn’t understand why – it’s the only way into the club – so I went outside and looked for his car and saw what I thought was it parked away down the other end under a tree. I still thought it was Jimmy’s. You’re right – I hadn’t seen another like it – not at the club, nor anywhere else.’
‘What make of car was it?’
‘Don’t know. Can’t help you there. It was foreign, that’s all I remember.’
‘Foreign? Are you sure of that?’
She nodded. ‘Jimmy was proud as punch of it. Said there weren’t many like it on the road. It had lovely leather upholstery.’ She laughed cynically. ‘Do you know what it smelled of to me? Money.’
‘To go back, you saw this car parked at the far end of the lot… ?’
‘Yes, but there was no sign of Jimmy. I wondered if he’d gone into the gardens, though I couldn’t think why. They weren’t kept up even in those days. Anyway, in the end I walked down to have a closer look at the car, to make sure it was his.’
Billy shifted slightly in his chair.
‘Well, it wasn’t.’ She shrugged.
‘How did you know that? Was it a different colour?’
‘No, that was it.’ She waved a hand impatiently. ‘That’s how I made a mistake in the first place. It looked just like Jimmy’s. Dark blue. But when I got closer I saw they were different. It was the upholstery. Jimmy’s was light brown. This one’s was blue. Dark blue, like the chassis.’