In the midst of which a murderer, eating his morning sausage, laughs.
I could do with a revolution that took him with it, Denton thought, heading homeward. But perhaps, then, the murderer was the revolution Harris wanted, an eruption of violence from within. It would be a grim revolution, then. Harris, he thought, had something more dramatic and final in mind.
He stopped again at his own house to ask Maude if any messages had come, learned none had, went off to Privatelli’s to eat Italian food he didn’t taste; then he walked on, down into the City, across the river (looking north, trying to see where Mulcahy’s roof must be), crossing back over Waterloo Bridge, his legs tiring now, grateful for clocks that told him that the day was looking towards its end: grateful because it would be over soon, failure looked in the face, something else waiting up ahead.
And so he came back to his own house about four. He let himself in, took off his coat and hung it, walked up and down the long room, put water on for tea. Only then was there a sound from below — slow footsteps on the stairs (he whirled around, startled despite himself), then the door opening. It was Atkins, much chastened.
‘My very own Isandhlwana,’ he said. ‘Disaster.’
Denton watched his last hope die but smiled to reassure him. ‘Well — you tried.’
‘Oh, yes, the saddest words of voice or pen, “I tried.”’ Atkins looked under Denton’s arm. ‘You making tea? Maude’s got tea downstairs. Want some?’
‘No, the water’s hot; I’ll make fresh.’
‘Well, then. Pour me a half cup, if you will. My confidence in myself is shaken.’
They sat by the cold fireplace, Denton in his armchair. Atkins had dragged the hassock to the hearth and sat with his chin on his fists, staring into the cold grate. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said.
‘No Stella Minter, then?’
‘If you wanted grown women, maiden name of Minter, Stella, I could provide you with two! But neither had a girl child between 1883 and 1886, did they? I could provide you with several dozen ladies, maiden name Minter, who had girl children between 1883 and 1886, but none of them by name Ruth! And none of them match to any woman, maiden name of Minter, what had a baby girl she named Rebecca between 1885 and 1888. Now, I can give you two Rebeccas born to women whose maiden names were Minter, born in the right years, but they don’t have older sisters, do they? Oh, brothers, oh, yes! They got brothers enough to relieve the siege of Ladysmith, but they don’t have sisters! You follow me, General? My idea about the maiden names was bleeding stupid!’
‘Now, now-’ Denton made comforting noises that he didn’t feel. He let Atkins sputter and run down, and, as sop to Atkins’s vanity, he said, ‘She lied. Not your fault.’
‘Who lied?’
‘Stella Minter. I suppose her real name wasn’t Ruth any more than it was Stella — she lied when she used it at the Humphrey, and she lied when she told the other tart it was her name. She was a really frightened girl — not trusting anybody. It isn’t your doing, Sergeant.’
‘What, I spent the day looking for Ruth and there ain’t no Ruth?’
‘Ain’t no Ruth and ain’t no Rebecca, I suspect, and ain’t no Stella Minter, either.’
Atkins pushed his chin harder against his fists and growled. ‘Yes, that one there is! A Stella Minter there is.’
‘Two, you said. Wrong age — they’re mothers?’
‘One yes, one no. A girl, born — I’ve got it written down someplace — it’s in me dispatch case — born in the right years. Named Stella Minter — there she was, plain as currants in a cake. You do all those names, column after column, you forget what you’re looking for. I’d already done the Minter maidens; I was doing baby Ruths, but I got confused or sleepy, God knows, and there’s a Stella baby, father’s name Minter, and I wrote it down. Stupid, I’m just stupid. It’s a wonder you put up with me, Major.’
Denton stared at the angry servant’s profile. The room was cold; he’d been feeling it for a quarter of an hour, only now realized it. ‘Light the fire,’ he said. He stood. ‘I’m going out.’
‘You just came in.’
‘I want the information you took down about the infant Stella Minter. Chop-chop.’
Atkins looked up at him. ‘What for?’
‘Maybe we’ve been working on a wrong assumption. Maybe her name really was Stella Minter.’
Atkins got up slowly. He fetched matches from the mantel, bent over the grate, in which Maude had laid a fire that morning, then straightened. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said again. ‘Now who’s been stupid?’
‘I want you to be there,’ Denton said to Janet Striker, ‘in case it really is the one. At best, it’ll be telling somebody their daughter is dead.’
‘Surely they’ve seen it in the paper.’
‘You’d think. But people are funny — they could be recluses; they could just be people who don’t want to know things. It was a very small notice.’
Mrs Striker raised her chin. ‘They never reported her missing, if her name really was Stella Minter.’
‘We don’t know that.’
‘I know that, Mr Denton. I get a list of missing women every month. I looked, the first time you visited me.’ They were in her office, the workday coming to an end. She gestured at a scruffy stack of papers behind her. ‘If it was her real name, you’re dealing with people who never declared their daughter as missing.’
‘Anyway, I’d like you to be there.’
She stared up at him, her face weary, the skin shiny as if she had a fever. ‘You’re going now?’ He nodded. She looked at a watch pinned on her breast, looked around the office as if to see what was left to do. ‘How far is it?’ she said.
‘Kilburn — off Kilburn High Road. Twenty-seven Balaclava Gardens. That’s the address on the birth record, at any rate.’
‘And they’re still there?’
Her questions irritated him; he wanted to go, to get it done, even while he knew her doubts were good ones. ‘I’ll find out when I get there,’ he growled.
She opened a drawer and burrowed under papers and took out a small, fat book. ‘We shall see.’ She turned pages, asked him to read off the address again, ran a finger down a page and up the next one, and said, ‘Balaclava Gardens, number twenty-seven — Alfred Minter, licensed accountant. ’ She closed the book with a snap. ‘Still there last year, at any rate.’ She stood, tall and thin and weary-looking, then raised her voice to almost a shout. ‘Sylvie, I shall be out on business. Answer the telephone, please.’
A heavy voice came from a surprisingly small woman on the far side of the office. ‘Yes, Mrs Striker.’
‘You think they’ll just let us waltz in,’ she said to Denton.
‘I brought my police letter. You can tell them what a noble sort I am.’
‘And who’s going to tell them how wonderful I am?’
Balaclava Gardens was a terrace on the west side of Kilburn High Road beyond Shoot Up Hill. Denton recognized it as recent but not new, part of an estate developed long enough ago that the trees were nearing maturity and the front gardens looked obsessively trim and spiritless — the real gardens would be at the back. The cab had come along the edge of a more recent building site to reach the street: the area had been built up in stages, was now, he thought, almost complete.
Number 27 looked like all the others, was perhaps a touch nattier, its garden a notch more obsessive, but what set it well apart was the Headland Electric Dogcart parked in front, its rear axle attached by a chain to a ring in a concrete block.
‘Bloke thinks it’s a blooming horse!’ the cabbie guffawed.