“And he thought he’d got away with it, ’cos I passed out, but then I came to and played dead—I’ve had to do that before—and he didn’t realize because he’s as thick as two short planks and a nasty bugger with it, and then…” She took a sip of tea and they all took the opportunity to breathe, which they’d been neglecting to do, so thrilling was Gertie’s story.
“And then I heard him make a phone call, and he asked for the police and said he wanted to report a murder, and I thought that’s a bit rum, blabbing against himself. He came back and I could feel him looking at me and I didn’t even breathe—I should be on the stage. You only just missed him.”
“And do you know who he was?” Nellie asked.
“Don’t know his name or nothing,” Gertie said, “but I’ve seen him around. He’s a copper, that don’t surprise me. Do you know what the worst thing was?”
Freda couldn’t imagine anything that could be much worse than what Gertie had already told them, but Gertie said, “The worst thing was that he laughed all the time, as if it was the greatest joke in the world to try and choke a girl to death.”
* * *
—
“Bloody hell, this is like being a queen,” Gertie said, luxuriating in the leather of the back seat of the Bentley. Nellie had thought it best they leave the Sphinx before the police arrived. “Too bloody right,” Gertie said.
“Where to, ladies?” the chauffeur asked them.
“Oh, just drive around, my man,” Gertie said loftily, putting on a silly posh accent. Freda and Gertie collapsed in giggles. They were bubbling with high spirits. Surviving a brush with death is a powerful tonic. Hawker smiled indulgently at them, remembering his own daughter at that age.
“Kingly Court, please,” Freda said when they had calmed down a bit. Gertie was already nodding off to sleep. Freda could have happily lived in this car. In the rear-view mirror she saw Hawker raise an eyebrow when he was told the address. “You’re sure?” he said.
Vanda was up when they arrived and said, “Christ, Freda, I thought I was seeing double, you’re like two peas in a pod.” Freda related an abbreviated account of the morning’s events and Vanda said, “Bugger me,” which was also something Duncan used to say, and Vanda used to laugh and say, “Would if I could, pet.”
Gertie climbed into Freda’s little bed in the cupboard and fell into such a profound sleep that Freda had to check that she hadn’t died a second time.
* * *
—
A skulking Sergeant Oakes cursed as he watched the Bentley drive away. Freda Murgatroyd was a problem. Oakes had thought to make her Nellie Coker’s problem instead. A dead body in the Sphinx should be enough to stop Nellie opening up again somewhere else after they took over her clubs. He had been pleased with the initiative he had shown. Maddox would be too, surely? But now it seemed that rather than solving the problem of Freda he had made it worse.
He could have sworn that the girl had been dead when he left her in that storeroom, yet here she was, walking, talking and sitting in the back of Nellie Coker’s Bentley. And not only that—there were now two of them, as if she’d multiplied in there. They were so alike that he didn’t know which was the real Freda Murgatroyd. Now Oakes had two problems on his hands.
* * *
—
“Sit down and pull yourself together before the police arrive,” Nellie commanded Ramsay. “Here, have more tea.” She added more brandy to his cup. “When they ask, nothing happened, right?”
“Right.”
“Remember—there was no murder.”
“But there was no murder.”
“Exactly,” Nellie said.
* * *
—
Frobisher arrived at the Sphinx with a uniformed constable in tow. Not Cobb. For all Frobisher knew, Cobb was also Maddox’s acolyte. Nellie’s Bentley was parked outside but drove off as Frobisher approached. The criminal fleeing the scene, he thought.
The Sphinx was unlocked and they entered unhindered, passing beneath a cheap reproduction of the mask of Tutankhamun and then down a steep corridor. It was unknown territory and unnerved Frobisher slightly. “Use caution,” he said to the constable. “If there is a killer, he may still be here.”
A nightclub was not designed for daytime. The unforgiving electric lights illuminated every tawdry corner. A few orphan balloons bobbed around untethered and paper streamers littered the floor. The cleaner had clearly not been in yet. There were two people sitting at one of the little tables, Nellie Coker and her son Ramsay. Nellie was drinking tea, the picture of serenity. Ramsay, on the other hand, looked pale and agitated.