His speed dates were allocated just three minutes each, at the end of which he was required to give his women a rating of between one and three points. Bimsley’s decision to ask questions about a murder victim instead of enquiring about hobbies, favourite films or dining out brought him looks of incomprehension, confusion and outright hostility until Andrea took him to one side and gave him some advice.
‘I think you need to lighten up, darling,’ she told him. ‘Whatever you’re asking these lovely ladies seems to be having a negative effect on their opinion of you.’
After achieving a rating score two points lower than the leaker, Bimsley decided to sit out the next batch of rounds and talk to the barmaid instead. This time he found himself on to a winner.
‘I worked the same shift as Jasmina most nights,’ said the pixie-faced Polish girl with earnest blue eyes whose name was Izabella, and whose jet hair framed her face like Louise Brooks in Pandora’s Box. ‘She was very nice, but I did not like her boyfriend.’
‘Why not?’ asked Bimsley, succumbing to a pint of lager.
‘He was not interested in her. He had other girlfriends.’
‘Did she ever come in here and drink on her nights off? Maybe with someone other than her boyfriend?’
‘Oh, no. She hated this place.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she had a – what you call it? – a stalker. You get men in every pub who try and talk to you on quiet nights, but this one came in all the time.’
‘Did you ever see him? What was he like?’
‘Too old for her – probably in his early thirties. Brown hair, tall, with a red mark on his face. I was here one night when he started on her.’
‘Can you remember anything he said?’
Izabella thought carefully. ‘I think he’d been fired from his job. He was a bar manager. North London somewhere. We laughed about him after he left.’
‘This is really important,’ said Bimsley. ‘I need you to make a note of everything you remember about this man.’
‘Wait until I finish work tonight,’ said Izabella with an impish smile. ‘I will tell you anything you want.’
Meera Mangeshkar was at the Apple Tree in Mount Pleasant, which Carol Wynley had sometimes visited with her work colleagues, but asking questions of the staff and customers proved difficult because there was a country and western line-dancing night in progress.
This had been a postmen’s pub for many years due to its proximity to the sorting office, but had now been refurbished for the benefit of tourists visiting from nearby hotels. As Dolly Parton warbled through ‘Heartbreaker’ on the speakers and couples in checked shirts and fringed cowboy jackets stamped their stitched boots on the ancient Axminster carpet, Mangeshkar was forced into stupefied silence on a nearby counter bar stool. The combination of beery British boozer and traditional Texas toetap made her uncomfortable, partly because she was the only Indian girl in the room, and felt as if she might get shot. The well-drilled lines of dancers did not whoop and yell like their more liberated US cousins, but concentrated on their footwork, determined to master exercises more culturally alien to the London mindset than Morris dancing.
She became annoyed that, once again, she had been given an assignment that would yield nothing useful or practical, and was thinking about calling it a night when one of the men grabbed her hands and pulled her on to the dance floor for ‘My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys’.
For the next twenty minutes, Meera forgot her frustration and regret about moving to the Peculiar Crimes Unit as, much to her surprise, she discovered the joys of formation dancing to Willie Nelson.
22
* * *
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
‘In the film The Ladykillers, what was the screen name of the old lady Alec Guinness and his cronies were trying to murder? We’re talking about the original British version here, not the remake.’
May looked around at the hunched shoulders and lowered heads. The room in the Old Dr Butler’s Head, London Wall, where Joanne Kellerman had been found dead, was silent but for the scratching of HB pencils. As he wrote ‘Mrs Wilberforce’ on the sheet before him, he accidentally caught the eye of the woman at the next table. She promptly glanced away, suspecting him of trying to cheat. They want to be back at school, he thought, each vying to be top of the class once more.
‘Last question in our film round: give me the name of the ancient kingdom discovered in Passport to Pimlico.’
May wrote ‘Burgundy’ and turned over his paper, ready for collection. He looked around the room at the assembled players, trying to see if any were alone. We always assume killers operate singly, he caught himself thinking. What if there are two of them, perhaps even a man and a woman? Suddenly the conspiring, whispering pairs in the room appeared more sinister. The women had not told their partners, relatives or friends where they were going. Was that in itself significant? If the attacks were completely random and the killer moved to a fresh venue every time, catching him would be a matter of luck. There are nearly six thousand pubs in London, he thought. What are we expected to do, close them all down? Suppose he switches to another hectic public place – inside the Tube, on rush-hour buses, or simply on crowded city pavements?