Murder, London-New York Read online

  ‘Find anything, Joe?’

  ‘Knife with a very sharp point and a sharp underside blade was used. Ought to say dagger,’ the detective inspector amended rather hastily. ‘It was blunt on the top edge, though, where it tore the canvas. Whenever it was used with a downward movement, it cut pretty clean. I’d say it was about eight inches long, judging from the sweep of the downward slashes, and probably three-quarters of an inch wide at the hilt, tapering to that sharp point. Call it a stiletto.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Roger. ‘Put that all down in writing, won’t you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Roger rang off, got up, and went to the door; then he hesitated. He ought to make sure that someone was in here, that was the custom. He opened the door and saw a detective sergeant strolling along and whispering something under his breath.

  ‘Hallo, Brown. Come and stand-in until I get back, or Mr Turnbull turns up, will you?’

  ‘Okay, Super!’

  Roger grinned.

  He went along to the Records Office, but the man he wanted was out. He walked on to Fingerprints, where in a small room chock-a-block with articles of all kinds, from bottles to bed warmers, handkerchiefs to cigarette cases, ashtrays to pokers, all in a great heap in a corner; on a small desk were several smaller articles and one or two bowls of a grey powder. In the next room, Superintendent Toombs, the Yard’s top man in Fingerprints, was sitting at a large desk. Toombs was a fat man, round-faced, genial, always smiling.

  ‘Hallo, hallo, hallo,’ he boomed. ‘The Superintendent has come to make sure this department is doing its job properly. Take a seat and we’ll show you, Superintendent!’ He held out a huge hand. ‘Damned glad to hear about it, Handsome.’ Roger made noises. ‘And you’re tired of our bleating by now,’ Toombs went on. ‘Well, I made a rush job on the prints from Wickham’s flat.’

  ‘Thanks. Get anything?’

  ‘Print on door handle, back, print on two easels, print on one palette, print on kitchen tap, all identical,’ said Toombs. ‘Take a look.’ He pushed a photograph over, showing what looked like the careless smudge of a child’s finger, with a dozen lines marked on it, notes scribbled alongside each. ‘Tented arch pattern broken by four small scars, thin scar running right across. Broad thumb I should say. All the same – and not Wickham’s or the girl’s, the charwoman’s or any of our chaps. I can establish that, if you like.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

  ‘You’re learning! Well, I expect you know what’s coming,’ went on Toombs, and paused, but Roger didn’t spoil it for him. ‘They’re Michael Ashley’s prints. I’m told he’s gone on a journey.’

  Roger felt excitement rising fiercely.

  ‘How about doing the impossible for me?’ He took out the envelope in which he had put the spent book match found at Wickham’s flat, and opened the envelope cautiously then shook out the match. ‘Can you get enough of a print off that to compare with the others?’

  ‘Daresay,’ said Toombs, and picked it up with a pair of tweezers, stood up, went to a bench behind him, and put the match onto a glass plate. He clipped the match cautiously, put the plate under a microscope, bent closer, and screwed up one eye. He twisted a little knob, then pushed the match about with the end of the tweezers.

  He straightened up.

  ‘Take a look,’ he said. ‘Same print on one side, you can actually make out the whole of one scar. There’s your impossible, Handsome, it just takes a little longer.’

  Roger peered through the microscope; and even to his comparatively inexpert eye, the likeness between this segment of a print and the others were quite evident.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, and didn’t try to keep the excitement out of his voice. ‘Look after that match for me, we may want it for evidence. See if you can get the lab boys to check the burnt top, and tell me how long ago it was struck, will you?’

  ‘Like a bit of the moon, as well?’

  ‘Anyone would think you’re the only man here who can do the impossible,’ said Roger, from the door.

  ‘You’re in a hurry aren’t you?’ Toombs observed. ‘Going to rush and report to the Big Chief like a good little Super, I suppose?’

  ‘Just going to make a telephone call,’ Roger said, and added as he closed the door: ‘To New York.’

  He didn’t notice Turnbull until that moment. The CI was approaching, and obviously had heard the remark.

  ‘They’ll fall down on the job,’ he said, jeeringly. ‘These damned Yanks are all talk and no do.’

  That was too much.

  ‘If you’d talk less and do more we might get this job finished,’ Roger said tartly. ‘I’d rather work with Goodison of Homicide than you in this mood. Shake out of it.’

  For a moment there was utter silence, but Roger did not like the way the other man glared at him.

  Part II

  NEW YORK – FIRST PHASE

  7: Hot Day

  IT WAS ONE OF New York’s hot days, when the humidity made life nearly unbearable. Temperature 96, humidity 84, the headline said in three inch high letters, and lethargic newspaper sellers did not doubt it. Drooping crowds believed it, too. The bus drivers were snappier, and the traffic snarls seemed to grow worse, as if sweaty hands on the wheels made it impossible for anyone to steer properly. The sky was a metallic blue merging into grey, the kind of sky that threatened heat for another two or three days. No wind came from either river. No one hurried, which was nearly a miracle.

  Faces were drawn, damp, pale. Here and there a pretty girl, freshly made-up, looked like a daisy growing in a jungle. The shops were dark caves. People disappeared into elevators and were hurtled up to air-conditioned offices and slid inside as if it was their only hope of living. All this was worse because New York was so full. In two weeks there would be the annual exodus up state or into New England, and to the beaches and the sea with its promise of coolness and its traps and dangers.

  The policemen looked too hot to blow their whistles at the drivers of cars and trucks and taxis, and the drivers looked as if they would not hear a whistle if one sounded. But they did. A crowd waiting on Broadway at 34th Street to surge across the road was pushed from behind, and a dozen people staggered onto the road, close to cars which were swishing by. A traffic cop turned his massive chest towards this helpless fringe, and roared: ‘Get orf der road!’

  Lieutenant Ivan Goodison, of the New York City Police Department, Homicide Branch, was so near the traffic policeman that he almost felt the gust of air as the shout came. The words roared through the open window of his Mercury, which had no air conditioning; he couldn’t afford it. Anyhow, a police lieutenant with air conditioning in his car would be regarded with heavy suspicion. He was as hot as the other 23,000 policemen in the city, but less irritable than many because he was going home. Home was an apartment on Riverside Drive, between 80th and 81st Streets. Home had air conditioning in three rooms. Home had his wife and his twelve-year-old daughter, big easy chairs, a 21 inch television and, for the old-fashioned, a portable radio. Home had a view of trees, the Hudson, the varied craft which floated on the river, New Jersey, and, if you craned your neck, a view of the George Washington Bridge. Home was twenty minutes drive away if he had the luck, fifty minutes if he had none. He could not make up his mind whether to get over to the Hudson River Parkway, or battle with traffic lights and massed cars, trucks and taxis. He would probably make quicker time if he went across to 10th Avenue, but he did not intend to take the cross streets until he was at 42nd. If he got snarled up with the big trucks feeding the department stores or Pennsylvania Station he could lose another half-hour. It was half-past twelve, and he wanted to be home by one o’clock, because at one o’clock Rose would have the meal on the table. She was a creature of domestic habit. She didn’t, for instance, like going to bed in the afternoons.

  Ivan Goodison grinned.

  She wasn’t expecting him. She would jump up when he arrived, and complain that he hadn’t called her, she hadn’t anythin
g to eat, she wasn’t ready for him, she hadn’t even put on her make-up. Five minutes later they would be laughing and hugging each other, and everything would be fine. Only two or three times a year did he get away like this, unexpectedly, and he was going to make the most of it.

  He was so much off duty that his radio to Headquarters was dead. He was hot and looked it, but heat didn’t worry him. The radio was playing soft music, which stopped abruptly for a man with a Texas drawl to interrupt and explain that in New York right now the temperature was 93 and getting hotter, and humidity was 84, and getting worse. There were swift headlines of news, a couple of commercials, and music again, by which time Goodison was past 41st Street, and ready to swing west off 42nd. Then he saw a patrol car in his mirror; it seemed to push other cars aside, and draw level. The uniformed prowl cop in it called: ‘Lootenant Goodison?’

  ‘No,’ sighed Goodison.

  ‘You’re asked to report to the nearest Precinct Headquarters at one o’clock, Lootenant,’ the driver said, as the lights changed, and then added as he pulled away: ‘You have a telephone call from London, England.’

  Goodison sat up.

  ‘From where did you say?’

  The words floated back to him: ‘London, England.’

  It was like being told there was a call from Mars. He looked at his wristwatch; it was sixteen minutes off one, and if he were lucky he could take this call near his home. He meant to be lucky. The traffic seemed to divide for him, and he had a long run of green lights, so that there was no need to turn off Broadway. Who would be calling him from London on police business; that was, who would call him?

  Roger West?

  ‘If that son-of-a-gun keeps me away from home this afternoon, he’ll hear about it,’ Goodison said, and forgot both heat and humidity.

  He reached the Precinct with two minutes to spare, double parked, nodded to a sweating patrolman on duty, and hurried up the steps and into the low, old brick and brown stone building. He did not know it as well as most precincts, but here were all the different doorways, the legends on the boards which stuck out just above head height.

  He went into the open doorway marked DETECTIVES, and three men in shift sleeves, and looking too hot to stand up, were playing checkers. One stirred himself.

  ‘In there, Lootenant.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘In there’ was a small office where Charlie Speigal was sitting, wearing his coat, his spotted red and white bow tie perfectly tied although he had done it himself, shaven face free from sweat, eyes cool and untroubled; he was a neat and effortless man who seemed to possess some kind of internal air conditioning.

  ‘Hi, Charlie.’

  ‘Hi, Ivan. You planning a hands across the sea programme?’

  ‘I’m planning an afternoon at home,’ Goodison said. ‘How about calling Rose, and telling her I’m on my way—’

  ‘You call Rose,’ Charlie said. ‘I don’t want to get you into trouble.’

  ‘Is it that bad?’

  ‘The next thing you know you may be flying to London, England,’ Charlie guessed, ‘and Rose wouldn’t like it if you had kidded her you were going to Riverside Drive.’ He glanced at his gold watch on a wrist free from hair, the shirt cuff unbelievably fresh and white. ‘It’s two minutes past, maybe they changed their mind about calling you.’

  The telephone bell rang.

  ‘That’s yours,’ Charlie said, and stood up. ‘You won’t want me listening in.’

  ‘You stall around,’ Goodison insisted, and lifted the receiver. ‘Goodison here … Sure, I’ll take it … Sure, be glad to.’ He sat on a corner of the desk, grinning down at Speigal. ‘You don’t get any slower,’ he declared. ‘You called Headquarters the moment you knew I was in the street. Charlie, one day they’re going to make you a real big fella in the little old Police Department, maybe you’ll be commissioner one day … Yeah, speaking … Sure, I can hear you, Mr West! … West, well how about that! Sure, it’s Ivan Goodison … Just as if you were in the next room, Handsome! … I’m fine … Yeah, yeah I know Rapelli’s, I know Rapelli in person, also … Well, I get paid for it, don’t I? … What? … Yeah, I read an English newspaper every morning of my life, I heard all about the slasher and the Roy woman … Yeah, I read she often visited New York … No kidding.’

  Charlie Speigal was looking on without smiling. The door was ajar, and a detective with a bald head stood close to it; there was no talking in the outer room.

  ‘Sure,’ Goodison went on. ‘I’ll get that all done, thanks a million … sure, I understand, you can’t prove a thing.’ There was a long pause, then he demanded: ‘When are you coming to see us again? … Okay, Handsome, see you.’

  He rang off, put his slim hand to his forehead, where the fair hair grew well back, and then slowly made combing motions with his fingers. Speigal pretended to be uninterested.

  ‘Well, what do you know?’ Goodison asked.

  ‘You’re going to be late home,’ said Speigal.

  ‘You’ve got it wrong,’ Goodison said. ‘I just have to be on duty earlier than I’d planned, that’s all. You read about that slasher killing in London?’

  ‘It was in the Journal-American.’

  ‘The guy who probably did it is on his way to New York.’

  Spiegel came to life at last.

  ‘That so?’ His eyes positively sparkled. ‘He flying?’

  ‘Right now he’s at thirty thousand feet,’ answered Ivan. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Charlie, West was careful to say that this might not be the right guy, but he wouldn’t telephone from London unless he felt pretty sure. The airplane left London airport around five o’clock London time, around noon our time, it won’t be here at Idlewild until midnight. I got time to do everything I want to.’ He still sat on the corner of the desk. ‘I’ve got time to think it out, also,’ he added, and stood up.

  ‘What with?’ Speigal asked.

  ‘You wouldn’t know,’ said Goodison. He moved to the door. ‘Thanks for the hospitality, Lootenant.’

  It was so hot in the station that it seemed cool in the street although the sun was almost directly overhead. The coolness was an illusion, and the Mercury was roasting hot inside. Only two people were in sight, apart from the patrolmen outside the police building.

  Goodison was not far from his home, but on the short journey he did a lot of thinking. He wouldn’t go himself, but would detail two detectives to meet the aircraft, identify this Michael Ashley, and follow him. He would also have the Rapelli shop and apartment watched, which amounted to the same thing, for father and daughter lived above the shop on Madison Avenue. For a wealthy art dealer, Rapelli lived very modestly. Goodison recalled all he knew of the pair, their business, their customers. It was said that more millionaires called at Rapelli’s in the course of a month than visited the Stork Club. Probably that was right.

  He opened the door of his seventh floor apartment without making a sound, and crept in. It was nearly half-past one. He crept to the bedroom door, which was ajar. The whole apartment was blessedly cool.

  Rose lay on the double bed, eyes closed, wearing only a white nylon slip, raven haired, pale, with her dark lashes curling up, and her breast rising and falling so evenly that Goodison knew she was asleep. He kissed his hand to her, then tiptoed to the kitchen and closed the door before opening the ice box for some food.

  After eating a corned beef sandwich and blueberry pie, Goodison checked with the officers most likely to know what Rapelli and his daughter were doing. He began to trace back on Michael Ashley’s visits to New York, and also on Margaret Roy’s. West had told him enough to make that easy, and he didn’t have to do it himself. At three o’clock, sitting on the side of the bed, he told Rose exactly what had happened.

  ‘Why don’t you get me that box we keep the old magazines in?’ she asked. ‘I’ve seen a photograph of Telisa Rapelli, I’m sure of that. It’s in Sadie’s room. While you’re getting it, I’ll get dressed.’

  ‘You can stay t
he way you are,’ Goodison said, and grinned at her as he went out. He found the magazines, took them back, and found that Rose hadn’t stirred. ‘How lazy can you be?’

  ‘I think it was in Life.’ She stretched forward. ‘Let me see.’ He drew the box further away from her, and she had to lean close to him. Then she realised what he was doing. ‘Gimme!’ she ordered, and leaned back on her pillows, drawing a sheet high.

  He surrendered.

  They found the picture of Telisa Rapelli in a copy of the Saturday Evening Post, in an article about the new craze for the English Victorian painters in the United States. There were also illustrations of some of the paintings, and a full page of the woman. She had a high-bridged nose and a very full mouth, and looked silvery haired although she was only thirty-six.

  ‘And your friend Handsome West thinks the killer might ask her to help him,’ Rose mused. ‘Sure, she’ll help him, if she’s in love with him. She’ll help him if it suits her, also. I can tell her kind.’

  ‘Why don’t you give up being a housewife, and become a policewoman?’ jeered Goodison.

  ‘I can tell,’ Rose said.

  It wasn’t a job he need do for himself, Goodison insisted, but because of West’s personal interest, he wanted to be up to date with it. So he left instructions to be called as soon as the plane had landed and Ashley had been identified. He waited up until half-past one, when his daughter and his wife were fast asleep, but the call didn’t come. He went to sleep quickly, comfortable in a city where the streets were thickly dotted with the poor who tried to catch a breath of coolness in the hot night air. The first sharp ring of the telephone woke him and he hitched himself up and stretched out for the telephone, before Rose was really awake; she was so used to this kind of disturbance that she usually slept through it.

  ‘Goodison,’ he announced.

  He listened.

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  He listened again, frowning, and something must have stirred Rose, for she turned over, and he sensed that she was looking at him.