The Clockmaker Read online

  Whatever Henry had anticipated, it wasn’t that. ‘But they are bound by international law not to do that.’

  ‘And what are the inspectors going to do to stop them? And what has anyone done to stop them so far? The Americans are selling steel and components, and so are we. True, we are not selling them guns, but we are doing everything but. Mark my words, Henry, this means trouble. And I don’t mean just local trouble.’

  Albert shook himself and got a second measure of the whisky. Henry still hadn’t finished his. ‘You’re really worried, aren’t you?’ he said.

  ‘I confess I am, old man. And I’ll tell you this for nothing: I would ship those boys of mine as far away as I need to, just to keep them out of it. There will be war, Henry – maybe not in the next few years, but it will come.’

  Henry said nothing. It was not a conversation he wanted to have. It was not a thought he wanted to have. Albert must have realized this, the two of them knowing each other well by now, because he sat down and raised his glass. ‘To Cynthia.’

  ‘To Cynthia,’ Henry echoed.

  ‘And now console me by telling me about these common or garden murders that you get yourself involved in,’ Albert said. ‘At least you seem to solve the buggers.’

  An hour later Henry made his way upstairs to Cynthia’s little sitting room. The bright room, with its yellow silk wallpaper, was always cheerful, and the fire burning in the grate made it warm and cosy. Malina was also there, with a work basket. She was busy darning stockings, reinforcing the heels before they had a chance to run. Henry remembered Cynthia and his mother doing the same. Cynthia was lounging in an easy chair with her feet up on a footstool, her shoes kicked off, glass in hand. A slight flush in her cheeks told Henry that this was not her first drink. She set the glass down and came over to embrace him and kissed him on the cheek. ‘So glad to be home and even gladder to see you.’

  ‘I should go,’ Malina said. ‘Leave the two of you to talk.’

  Henry would have welcomed that, but Cynthia waved her back into the chair. ‘Don’t be silly. Henry, would you like a drink or have you had enough with Albert?’

  She poured him one anyway and then flopped back down into her chair and lifted her feet once more on to the footstool. ‘If I go nowhere else this year, I shall be very happy. Travel is all well and good, but it’s so nice to be home.’

  ‘Albert seems unusually morose.’

  ‘Good. Not wishing him to be unhappy, but a little reality will benefit him. Anyway, let’s not talk about that. How are you, my dear? What’s been happening in London since I’ve been gone?’

  For a little while they talked about nothing in particular. Malina finished darning and put the stockings away in the work basket.

  ‘I remember you once stole a pair of stockings,’ he said.

  Cynthia gaped at him and then laughed. ‘Oh my goodness, yes, I did.’

  ‘You?’ Malina was clearly scandalized.

  ‘A young woman who wants to look respectable cannot go bare-legged. I had managed to find myself a better job, but the only pair of stockings I had were more darn than stocking, and I was desperate to make a good impression. I was, what, seventeen, but this was my first really good chance and I so much wanted to look right for it. I’d only got the one decent dress and one that would do at a push, but stockings – oh, for goodness’ sake, stockings. I’d never stolen anything in my life before – well, almost nothing, but that’s another story. But, anyway, I did – I stole a pair of stockings from the little shop next to the drapers. I felt so guilty that the first wages I got, I went and bought a pair just to try to make it up.’

  Malina was torn between scandal and admiration. ‘You’ve come a long way,’ she said.

  ‘The further to fall,’ Cynthia told her. ‘But no, we’re not going to fall. I’ve already made sure of that and I will continue to do so. So, how’s work? What ghastly murders are you involved in now?’

  ‘One,’ Henry said. ‘And this one is as sad as it is ghastly. A young man, a Jew, travelling from Lincoln to London after seeing his fiancée. It seems he got off the train in order to help a young woman who was having an argument – perhaps a rather violent altercation with a man whom she probably knew. It’s likely that our victim went to try to help – that somehow he left the station with these people and ended up dead. His body was missing for three weeks, so you can imagine the state of it when it was returned to his family. As I say, sad and ghastly.’

  ‘Very hard on the family, if he was missing all that time,’ Malina said. ‘I think the Hebrews have stricter funeral rites, don’t they?’

  ‘Apparently so. His uncle came to us when the young man went missing – I’d met him briefly on a previous investigation – and he was desperately upset that the boy could not be found. And if he was dead, that he could not be given the proper rights of burial.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I should be going.’

  ‘It’s Sunday. Time for relaxing. Stay a little longer.’

  He hesitated and then settled back. ‘Just a little longer, then.’

  ‘Only one disadvantage in being back,’ Cynthia said. ‘I don’t have an excuse for missing Bunty Avery’s party.’

  ‘And who on earth is Bunty Avery?’

  ‘Old money, but married a Yank. A millionaire. Old enough money on her side that she has entrée into all the best houses, and her parties are famous for mixing those old names with the new money their daughters might just get their hands on, should they accept the right ring. I do so hate them.’

  ‘Why?’ Henry asked. Generally, his sister liked a good party.

  ‘Because we are neither old money nor American, and you know as well as I do that most of the old families will only give me the time of day if we happen to be on the same charity board – and that’s because they want a donation. Bunty is a game girl, and her husband is a nice enough fellow, but I spend the entire evening trying to navigate. Who will speak to me, and who is likely to cut me dead? After all, my dear, I’m the lowest of the low: a little girl from the typing pool who managed to snag a man who, by rights, should have been snagged by one of their more respectable daughters. They tolerate men, Henry – men who happen to have made money through trade. They do not tolerate jumped-up little secretaries.’

  ‘I thought you were typing pool,’ Henry joked. Actually, his sister had been a very efficient and well-regarded personal assistant to Albert’s father, her knowledge of languages and her ability to deal with difficult customers something the old man had really valued. But he knew just what she was up against.

  ‘You could give Malina a wig and dress her up in your fake emeralds,’ Henry joked.

  ‘Oh, no. If I’m going, I want to wear the real ones,’ Malina objected.

  ‘Not even I wear the real ones. No one notices the difference anyway, and I get nervous wearing that amount of money round my neck. No, good pastes are far better.’

  ‘And you wonder why they don’t take you for a lady.’

  Cynthia scooped a half-melted chunk of ice from her drink and threw it at him. ‘You’d be lucky to find a genuine stone on any of them,’ she said. ‘Crumbling estates and death duties. Rotten plumbing. That’s all their airs and graces get them. I’m happy with my copious hot water and fake emeralds.’

  Henry left just as the blue enamel clock on Cynthia’s mantelpiece was striking nine. He had intended to go home, but some impulse had him hailing a taxi and heading for the Workers’ Circle, wondering if Abraham Levy might be there. The conversation they had had the week before still preyed on Henry’s mind, nagged at him in spare moments, and he wanted to make sense of it.

  The taxi dropped him at the end of the street where he’d been attacked on the previous Sunday night. His assailant had appeared before the magistrate, pleaded guilty and was now locked safely away, but he had still refused to talk to anyone beyond his statement that he’d not known Henry was a policeman: ‘He don’t look like no copper.’

  Henry wasn’t sure if he sh
ould be glad of that or not.

  The Workers’ Circle buzzed. There was no concert tonight, Henry was told as he collected his tea, and he wondered if that meant he should have tried Abraham at home instead. Then he spotted his man, sitting in a corner and playing what looked to be a serious game of chess. Not wanting to interrupt, Henry took a seat close by. Abraham acknowledged him with a glance, but his focus otherwise never shifted from the game. Henry, a reasonable player, judged both opponents to be good, and it seemed others thought so, too. He realized that an interested crowd had gathered, keeping a discreet distance, as Henry himself had done, but nonetheless discussing the game in whispers. Henry listened to the mix of accents and languages. He identified Russian, Armenian, Italian and East London. And something that was not quite German. Like most coppers who’d walked their first beats in the East End, he had picked up a smattering of Yiddish and could discern, in a half-dozen other languages, whether he was being insulted or offered refreshment – each was equally likely, in Henry’s experience – but he often wished he had Cynthia’s faculty for languages.

  She would enjoy this place, he thought. If, when this investigation was over, he was still on speaking terms with Abraham – and Henry knew, also from uncomfortable experience, that not everyone wanted the company of a policeman when their immediate need had been satisfied – he would bring Cynthia to meet Abraham Levy. They would get along, he thought.

  The game of chess seemed to be drawing to a close. Henry could not see how Abraham’s opponent could avoid check and mate within the next couple of moves, but the player obviously had other ideas. He moved his knight to queen’s bishop four and then sat back with a satisfied look. Abraham made a counter-play, but Henry had been right. Checkmate. Abraham’s opponent reached out an old and bony finger and tipped his queen on to her side. A collective sigh from the spectators and they drifted away.

  The clockmaker came over to join Henry. ‘It is always a pleasure, but what brings you here?’

  Now the question had been asked, Henry found that his response was difficult to frame. ‘Last time I was here, I felt … Abraham, you have not told me everything. What is it that you didn’t say? If it is pertinent to the enquiry, then I can’t understand why you should hold something back.’

  Abraham peered into his tea cup as though he might find an answer there. ‘The dead are dead; it is the living that can be harmed. Nothing can hurt my nephew now and nothing will bring him back, but I sense … I have come to believe … that others might be harmed. My brother wishes me to leave well alone – he says that you and I have done enough – and I’ve no reason to go against his wishes.’

  ‘Not even to bring justice to the dead?’

  ‘Justice?’ He waved a dismissive hand. ‘And what is that? The boy is dead.’

  Henry stared at him. ‘What’s going on? We’ve looked into the business and financial interests of the Goldmanns, and on the face of it the family has thrived through their own efforts and some good luck. Your brother also—’

  ‘You have investigated my brother?’ Abraham looked genuinely shocked.

  ‘Of course we have. This is a murder investigation.’

  ‘But Joseph died away from home.’

  ‘Even so.’

  ‘And what have you found? About my brother?’ He sounded anxious, Henry thought. Not just indignant.

  ‘And what could I have found?’

  Abraham sighed. ‘I need more tea.’ He took Henry’s cup without asking and filled both at the samovar. It seemed in that short trek across the crowded room, weaving between tables, that Abraham had come to a decision.

  ‘On the day my nephew was buried, I was, of course, at my brother’s house. He seemed strange. Angry almost. I asked why the Goldmanns would not be coming and he refused to say. I said that Rebecca had been Joseph’s betrothed, that she should be at his funeral.’

  ‘Joseph had confessed to being in love with someone else,’ Henry told him.

  Abraham sat back, clearly shocked. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘But who?’

  ‘A young woman by the name of Adelaide. We have no second name, not yet, but we believe they met on the train and formed a relationship. I don’t know how long they had been seeing one another, but it’s likely that she was involved in his death.’

  ‘How?’ Abraham had grown pale. Clearly, he knew nothing at all about this, but perhaps it explained a great deal about his brother’s behaviour and about why the Goldmanns had not been at the funeral. No doubt Rebecca’s family had contacted his own and let Joseph’s secret out.

  Henry told him what they believed had taken place at Bardney and that this young woman was implicated in other crimes.

  ‘I thought I knew him,’ Abraham said sadly. ‘But he told me nothing of this.’

  ‘He told no one until that last visit when he confessed to his fiancée,’ Henry assured him. ‘No doubt you would have been his next port of call. He would have felt need of your help to break this news to his family.’

  ‘But instead she led him to his death.’ There was anger now. ‘Some mischance, some bungled robbery – that I could accept. But that someone fooled Joseph, and misled him, caused him to misstep, and that he should have died as a result of that misstep – that is almost more than I can bear.’

  He paused and nodded to himself. ‘This, I think, explains my brother’s attitude on the day of the burial. He talked about disgrace, about not wanting to bring dishonour to the family. At the time I could not understand how anything could overwrite his grief. What else mattered? But if he felt his son had been so unwise, had betrayed trust, had made himself a fool … And, of course, he blamed me. Had the body not been found, had I not drawn your attention to this, then the Goldmanns would probably have kept quiet. That pain would not have been added. So he blamed me.’

  Henry watched as Abraham worked this out, gave words to the pain he was feeling. He could understand how that reasoning would make sense but felt also that something more was nagging.

  ‘As I understand it, close family remain together after a funeral. The community looks after the bereaved—’

  ‘And we talk about our dead and slowly, oh so slowly, we come to a place where we can recall the good times.’

  ‘And yet your brother wanted you to go.’

  ‘I will admit that hurt. I’ve not spoken to him since then. To be truthful, Inspector, I thought he might be keeping something else from me, but what you’ve said makes sense of his behaviour. I am, I admit, still hurt by it – on my own behalf and on Joseph’s – but I can understand it.’

  ‘And before I told you, what did you think could be wrong?’

  Abraham hesitated. ‘So many thoughts went through my mind,’ he admitted.

  ‘Like what?’

  Abraham shrugged. ‘Fleeting thoughts, Inspector, brought on because I could not understand his attitude or his anger. But now I feel I do understand and I have to thank you for that. The boy acted unwisely, involved himself with a young woman his family could not possibly have approved of. That is the cause of my brother’s grief. Nothing more.’

  He sat back, looking less pale now, seeming relieved as though a massive weight had been lifted. ‘Anyone can fall in love unwisely,’ Abraham said softly. ‘Most do not die from that lack of wisdom.’

  They talked for a little longer, and Henry departed when Abraham accepted the invitation for another game of chess. He had felt the shift in mood that often happened as an investigation closes for a family and they feel ready to move on and dispense with the police presence that inevitably permeates their existence for a time. At first most welcome it; after a while it becomes an unpleasant reminder of failure and loss, and the welcome dies as the family tries to move on. Henry was rarely affected by such things, but he found he felt it keenly now, as he watched Abraham settle down to his game, and it took him a moment or two to understand why he did.

  It was because Abraham had been all too ready to accept Henry’s story as the complete explanation for t
he brother’s behaviour. It was a relief to him to think, Ah, that’s all it was. Now I understand. I can put all of those other thoughts aside. All those ideas that have kept me awake.

  And that readiness made Henry suspicious. What else had Abraham really feared? Henry had lied about looking into the elder Levy’s business dealings. He had wanted the Goldmanns looked at because he had sensed lies when he had interviewed them – maybe only lies to protect their family, but lies just the same – but the Levys had not come under suspicion. After all, Abraham had approached him, and Henry and Mickey had believed that the family must be united in their anxiety to find their missing member.

  But now he wondered.

  Henry still did not turn his steps for home. Instead, late as it was, he went to the central office at Scotland Yard and set things in motion. The Levys’ finances and businesses were to be examined as carefully as the Goldmanns’.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Addie’s life had shifted on its very foundations that day.

  They had agreed that he would leave his suitcase on the train. They would get off at Peterborough, change trains there, make the decision of where to go at that point. It had sounded so adventurous, so romantic. Joseph would leave his past behind him in the shape of that old battered case and they would begin again.

  ‘There’ll be nothing in it that I need,’ he had told her. ‘I told you, dearest, I’m leaving all of that behind.’ A symbolic act, Joseph had said, and she had almost laughed at the impracticality. Why leave good clothes and a useful valise behind? But she had accepted this was something he needed to do.

  She had assumed, therefore, that whatever money he had told her about would be carried in his pockets and not in the suitcase – and she’d liked the idea of a mystery, left for his family. A suitcase with no owner.

  Somehow it had just added to the sense of adventure.

  But then Gus had forced the story from her and she had known that the adventure was over.