The door on the other side, number 6, was opened by a woman in a lime-green face-pack and towel-turban. ‘I’m sorry, this is absolutely the only thing that helps a hangover,’ the woman explained in a muscular, penetrating voice. ‘You’re the police, aren’t you? You’ve been going door to door and you don’t look like Jehovah’s Witnesses. If you come in, are you going to get water everywhere? I’m waiting for a little man to come and revarnish the hall floor, and it does stain. I’m Heather Allen.’ She offered her hand and withdrew it, blowing on her nails as she beckoned them in. ‘Your polish is a wonderful colour, I don’t think I’ve seen that shade before.’
‘They stopped making it in the 1950s,’ Longbright admitted, hiding her hands. ‘I have to get it mixed at a theatrical suppliers.’ No one had ever noticed before.
‘How unusual. Can I get you anything? Presumably you don’t drink alcohol on duty, and this lad doesn’t look as if he’s old enough.’ Now it was Bimsley’s turn to be embarrassed. ‘I didn’t really know the old lady—it is the old lady you’re asking about? But I did run a few errands for her. She couldn’t get out. Her brother had bought her one of those little motorized cart-things, but she wouldn’t use it. I can’t imagine why, they only do about eight miles an hour.’ The tinge of hysteria in her prattle bothered Longbright, who made another mental note: this one spends too much time alone, and needs to impress upon others that everything is fine.
‘When did you last run an errand for her?’
Heather Allen tucked a glazed lock of auburn hair beneath the towel as she thought. ‘Before the weekend, it must have been Friday, she told me she needed some bread.’
‘How?’
‘What do you mean?’ Mrs Allen looked alarmed.
‘How did she tell you? Did you call on her?’
‘Oh no, nothing like that. It was a beautiful day, she was standing at the back door and we spoke.’
‘She didn’t say anything else? Other than asking you to get her some shopping?’
‘No, well—no, I mean. No. I’m sure she didn’t.’
Longbright sensed something. ‘For example, she didn’t say she was worried about anything? Didn’t seem to have anything pressing on her mind?’
‘Well, that sort of depends.’ Mrs Allen appeared to have been manoeuvred to the lounge wall. Longbright stepped back, wary of her tendency to be aggressive.
‘On what?’ she asked.
‘I mean, there had been the letters. I presume you’ve been told about those.’
‘Perhaps you should tell me.’
‘It’s really none of my business.’ Mrs Allen’s voice rose as her sense of panic increased.
‘Anything you say will be treated with the utmost confidence,’ assured Bimsley.
‘It seemed so childish—not to her, obviously—some racist notes had been put through her letterbox. It’s not the sort of thing you expect any more.’
‘How do you know about it?’
‘I’ve no idea. I suppose she must have told me, or maybe one of the neighbours, but I can’t remember when. I never saw them.’
‘She didn’t know who’d sent them?’
‘I don’t suppose so. I mean, she didn’t know anyone.’
‘Perhaps you would inform us if any other details come to you.’ Longbright produced another business card, but knew that the unit was unlikely to receive a call. Some people had an instinctive distrust of the police that no amount of goodwill could alter. She enjoyed seeing in people’s homes, though. The décor in this one was far too cool and impersonal, especially for a woman who favoured leopardskin.
‘Come on, you,’ she told Bimsley as they headed out into the rain. ‘Let’s get back. Notes and impressions.’
‘I don’t do impressions. And I thought you took the notes.’
‘Mr Bryant wants to see what you can do.’
‘Nobody can read my writing,’ Bimsley protested, narrowly missing a tree.
‘James Joyce had the same problem. You’ll manage.’
Arthur Bryant knew far too much about London.
It had been his specialist subject since he was a small boy, because it represented a convergence of so many appealingly arcane topics. Over the years he had become a repository of useless information. He remembered what had happened in the Blind Beggar (Ronnie Kray shot Big George Cornell three times in the head) and where balding Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie had been left dead in his Ford Zephyr (St Marychurch Street, Rotherhithe), how a Marks & Spencer tycoon had survived being shot by Carlos the Jackal in Queen’s Grove (the bullet bounced off his teeth), and where you could get a decent treacle tart (the Orangery, Kensington Palace). He knew that Mahatma Gandhi had stayed in Bow, Karl Marx in Dean Street, Ford Madox Brown in Kentish Town, that Oswald Mosley had been attacked in Ridley Road before it became a market, that Notting Hill had once housed a racecourse, that the London Dolphinarium had existed in Oxford Street in the seventies, and that Tubby Isaacs’ seafood stall was still open for business in Aldgate. For some reason, he also recalled that John Steed’s mews flat in The Avengers was actually in Duchess Mews, W1. Not that any of this knowledge did him much good. Quite the reverse, really; the sheer weight of it wore him out.