‘Cheers,’ she said. ‘I’m Ellen Barton, Mr Hardy, and I’m very pleased to meet you.’ She drank and hiccupped. ‘Excuse me.’
I drank too. At least it was cold. ‘That was a very dangerous thing you did, Mrs Barton, making that phone call.’
‘Ellen,’ she said. ‘I thought I was anonymous. How did you find out it was me?’
I told her. She nodded and finished her wine. She let about half a minute pass before she poured some more. ‘I remember that day. Gee, she was a nice kid.’
‘So everyone says.’
‘Yeah, a nice kid. So what’s your interest?’
I told her. She listened but she seemed to have trouble concentrating. She twitched a little inside her blue silk dress with its beaded top and wide, unfashionable belt. The buzzing of a fly distracted her; she seemed to be watching motes in the beams of light that slanted through the blinds.
‘Did you see the shooting, Ellen?’
‘Sort of.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Wouldn’t have a smoke on you, would you?’
I produced the silver packet and she pounced on it greedily. ‘Very nice too. You gonna have one?”
I shook my head. She lit up and puffed luxuriously. ‘Remember de Reszke, in the tins?’
‘No.’
‘Ah, they were lovely cigarettes. Not like the rubbish they sell now. ‘Course, these are all right.’
‘The shooting,’ I said.
‘Yes, I saw it. That is, I was looking out the window and I heard the shots and I saw her fall.’
‘You didn’t see who did it?’
‘Not properly. Look, why’re those flats empty over there?’
I told her about Leo Wise’s plans for the Greenwich Apartments. It was hard to keep her mind on a single subject; I couldn’t tell whether the wine was making her that way or whether she’d be worse without it. She had nearly finished her second glass. ‘Tell me what you saw?’
‘A man. That’s all. In the corner. He ran across and down the lane. He…’
‘What?’
‘He jumped over her. Jumped!’
‘Would you recognise him again?’
She shook her head; the purple hair wobbled. ‘Dark. Couldn’t see properly. Bastard!’
‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Why?’
She stubbed out the cigarette and poured some more wine. Her hand shook and she spilled some on the table. ‘Bugger it. Know how long I’ve lived here?’
I shook my head.
‘Forty years. Think I haven’t seen it before? Shooting? I’ve seen it! You can’t do anything.’
‘You did something the other night. You rang the flat’
‘I’d had a few. I felt sorry for her.’
‘How did you know I wasn’t the killer?’
‘You used a key. Looked like you had a right there. But, he was a tall man, same as you. I like a big man.’
‘Mm, well, what happened then?’
‘After a bit, ambulance came up the lane. Police. I put out the lights and went to bed. Didn’t sleep much, but.’
‘Did the police interview you?’
‘Yeah. One came. Told him I was asleep. Didn’t hear or see anything. Look, three, no four people been shot around here. Police never caught one killer. Not one. Have some more plonk, sorry rosey’s good.’ She wasn’t the drinker she thought she was, two and a bit glasses, admittedly big ones, and she was awash. Of course, I didn’t know what sort of a foundation she was building on. She lit another cigarette, just managing to get the match in the right place. Forty years, she’d said. I wondered it she could unscramble them.
‘Before the girl…” I began.
‘Remember Jack Davey?’ she said suddenly.
I did remember him. He was the best thing on radio in the days before transistors, the Top Forty, and talk-back. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Hi ho, everybody.”
‘ ‘s right! ‘s right! Hi ho, every…everybody. Ooh, he was a lovely man, Jack Davey.’
‘I don’t see…’
‘Jack Davey had a girlfriend who lived in that flat.’
She leaned forward conspiratorially as if the gossip was still hot stuff although Jack Davey has been dead for nearly 30 years. ‘Lovely girl, showgirl or something. He used to come and visit her. Silver hair, beautifully brushed always. And he wore a camel-hair coat. Funny thing, that… people wore coats more. Must’ve been colder. Must be the bomb…’
She was back in the forties, with her dipso private eye and Jack Davey, and I wanted her in the eighties as neighbour to Tania Bourke and Mr Anonymous. The problem was to get her there. ‘Did anyone else famous live there, Ellen? In the Greenwich?’
‘Oh, sure. ‘Course, I forget their names. Been a long time. Lee Gordon, he was there, or a friend of him. Anyway, they held parties there. Parties! You shoulda seen them! Packed! You couldn’t squeeze another bottle in.’
She laughed at her joke and took another drink. Gordon was an entrepreneur who’d brought the big names out from America, Sinatra and the rest, and made a bundle by putting them on in the Stadium. Gordon died and the Stadium was pulled down, but this was better-sixties. ‘Do you remember a man and a woman who lived there, I’d say about two or three years back.’
‘Too long ago.’
‘Come on, you remember Jack Davey.’
‘Jack Davey… lovely silver hair, all brushed.’
I took out the photograph of the group around the table. ‘Look at this. Do you know her?’
She reached for the glasses and put them on. A sip and a puff and she was ready. ‘Ooh, yes. I remember her. Air hostess.”
‘That’s right. Do you remember the man?’
‘Yes, yes. See him alla time.”
‘What? You see the man who lived in the flat? You see him now?’
‘No, no, no.’ She slapped my arm. ‘Silly. No, haven’t seen him for years. I mean this one.’ She put her finger next to the face of the blonde man, the one Tania Bourke was giving the big Yes to.
‘Who is he?’
‘Darcy. Heard one’a the girls call him Darcy. Runs one of the clubs down th’ road. Probably other places too… money, y’see. Still lives there-flat over th’ club. Right? Inna old days they all usta live inna city, th’ people with th’ money. Jack Davey. Now where d’ they live? Inna country. Look at that John Laws. Farmer! Talks about th’ farm onna radio all th’ time. That’s no way for a pers’nality t’be. Jack Davey wouldna known one end of a cow from another.’
‘He was the same with horses, I understand,’ I said. ‘Which club, Ellen?’
‘Champagne Cabaret. Down the road. Not surprised he knew her. She was a pretty girl.’
‘Did you know them? Talk to them?’
She shook her head. The cigarette was between her lips and ash flew. ‘Naw. They weren’t there much.’
‘You remember the man?’
‘Bit.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Ordinary. Wore a uniform.’
‘What kind of uniform? Pilot’s uniform?’
‘No. Don’t think so. No wings ‘n that.’
‘Police?’
More head-shaking, more ash. ‘Like police but different. Blue. I don’t know. Johnny O’Keefe went to Lee Gordon’s parties
She was tired and drunk, ready to slip back among her souvenirs. I swallowed the rest of my wine and she did the same. The bulb-shaped bottle was almost empty. She poured some more wine and ran her fingers over the surface.
‘That’s pretty. I’ll put flowers in it. Flowers remind me of funerals, but. That poor kid. I’ve seen a lotta funerals.’
I stood and took a few steps towards the door. She got to her feet slowly and came across the carpet putting her feet down on the red roses on the carpet, avoiding some purple splotches. ‘Usta be a dancer,’ she said. ‘C’n tell, can’t you? Never lose it. That kid. she moved nice too. I remember how she moved, real light an’ nice. An’ then he shot her…’ She ran her sleeve over her eyes and spread the blue makeup across her forehead.
I put a card on a table by the door. ‘Ring me if you think of anything. Wait a minute. You said she moved lightly, like a dancer?’