The House of Lost Souls - F. G. Cottam [43]
‘Arthur’s café for lunch in an hour?’
‘Why not?’ Seaton said. Arthur’s was just before the pie-and-mash shop on Kingsland Road as you headed towards Dalston Junction. After the Favourite, next to Camden Town Underground station, Seaton thought it the best café outside of Dublin. One of Arthur’s mixed grills might just provide the necessary inspiration.
She was found in the river, low tide leaving her corpse stranded on the pebbles near Shadwell Stair, not far from the Prospect of Whitby pub. And that was probably as close to a common public house as someone from her background had ever come. How could she have descended so far as to die destitute? Did none of her eminent friends try to help her? Had she gone mad? The stigma of insanity was the only explanation Seaton could think of for the blanket neglect of her former circle. He looked at the obituary again, which stated with genteel disdain that she had died from a self-inflicted wound. That was an odd way even for the Times in 1937 to describe a drowning.
He called Bob Halliwell, the desk sergeant at Bethnal Green nick and one of his better-cultivated contacts. Though cultivated was not a word you would associate with Halliwell generally. Halliwell had told him once he spent his spare time fly-fishing. Seaton thought Halliwell probably the sort of angler who dynamited for trout.
Bob Halliwell listened patiently. Then he said, ‘Forty-six years. Mick, even by your standards, this is a pretty stale lead.’
Halliwell called him Mick because he came from Dublin. Worse, the policeman thought this was genuinely funny. ‘It would have been Whitechapel’s ground back then, that stretch of the river.’
‘But you’d have the paperwork since the consolidation. And the file would have been transferred and archived and put on to your computer records.’
Halliwell sniffed. ‘In theory,’ he said.
‘Go on, Bob,’ Seaton said. ‘It’s worth a drink.’
‘It’s worth more than one,’ Halliwell said. And then, reluctantly, ‘Give me the name again. I’ll call you back if I can find anything.’
He was looking out of the window, to where Mike Whitehall waited for him for the walk down to Arthur’s when Bob Halliwell returned his call fifty minutes later.
‘She didn’t drown, Mick. She cut her throat before jumping and bled to death in the water.’
Through the window, in the car park, Mike was adjusting the knot of his tie and patting down his hair in the wing mirror of the editor’s Granada. Mike, tall and slim and dapper in his black suit from Robot in Covent Garden and his crêpe-soled Robot shoes.
‘So it was suicide?’
‘It certainly looks that way.’
‘Anything else unusual?’
‘Malnutrition. She had starved herself.’
Through the window, Mike had taken the pager from his belt and was playing with it.
‘She was destitute,’ Seaton said.
‘No, she wasn’t. We still have her effects here. I’ve got them in front of me. She was wearing diamond earrings, was madam. She was wearing a ring set with emeralds and rubies and a Cartier watch strapped to her wrist. Stuff like that was easy to pawn back then. Still would be. She wasn’t a candidate for the soup kitchen, if you want my professional view. She was starving herself out of choice.’
‘How come you’ve still got her effects?’
‘According to the accompanying note, her cousin was supposed to collect them.’
‘But he never did?’
Halliwell laughed. ‘Hasn’t so far. They’re still waiting.’
‘And she cut her own throat?’
‘That’s what the surgeon said.’
‘I owe you one, Bob,’ Seaton said.
‘Chivas Regal,’ Halliwell said. ‘No half-bottles, mind.’ He hung up.
Twelve
In Arthur’s café Seaton sat opposite Mike, while the proprietor strolled between the crowded tables telling his customers what it was they were going to eat. There were menus in Arthur’s, printed in brown italics on heavy yellow paper in transparent plastic sleeves. But once you’d been there often enough, Arthur, dapper in his white waiting-on coat and short-back-and-sides, would dictate your order to you. In the beige décor and