Read Online The Marx Sisters by Barry Maitland - Free Book Online

exhalation of carbon dioxide is prevented. That’s what causes the panic we imagine with that kind of death. I’ll get back to you when the test results are available, but I think the coroner will have to reach a decision on this one without me.’
    ‘Thanks, Sundeep.’
    When he’d rung off, Brock added, ‘Cagey as always. Still, it looks as if you were right, Kathy.’
    ‘Yes.’ She sat in silence for a moment and then said quietly, ‘I’d like to phone DC Mollineaux, sir. Get him to check that Terry Winter had a cup of coffee in the café next to his salon in Deptford, as he said. Then he can start interviewing the managers of each of the salons to see whether they can produce any of the paperwork Winter’s supposed to have done over the weekend.’
    ‘You didn’t like him?’
    ‘No, I didn’t. I thought he was full of himself. But worse than that, I thought he was the sort of man who expected to get his own way with women, and wouldn’t think twice about lying, or if necessary using violence, to make sure he did.’
    She spoke quietly, but with an intensity which made Brock glance across at her.
    ‘Can you tell?’
    ‘His wife had what looked to me like bruising around her left eye.’
    ‘Really? I didn’t notice.’
    ‘She’d pretty well covered it up with her make-up, and the swelling had mostly gone down, but when I was near her in the kitchen I spotted it.’
    ‘Hmm. You may be right. Anyway, you can relax tonight and feel reasonably satisfied.
    ‘I hope he’s taking you somewhere nice,’ he added.
    She looked sidelong at him and said nothing at first. Then, as she picked up the phone and started to press in the numbers she replied, ‘I’m taking
him
somewhere nice, actually. It’s his birthday.’
    ‘Ah, lucky chap,’ Brock murmured, switching on the windscreen wipers and apparently concentrating on weaving through the traffic on the approaches to Waterloo Bridge.
    He dropped her off outside Charing Cross Station and continued on down Whitehall towards the Yard. Kathywent into the entrance to the station and took the stairs down to the tube. They had got back into town earlier than she had expected, and the corridors were crowded with home-going commuters. She took the Northern Line northbound, but instead of continuing all the way to her home stop at Finchley Central, suddenly changed her mind after Tottenham Court Road and got off the train at the next stop. It was dark when she reached the street, the shop lights reflecting from wet pavements. By the entrance to the Underground a news vendor was pulling a clear plastic sheet down over one end of his stall to protect it from the cold drizzle which was beginning to blow in earnest from the east.
    Jerusalem Lane was deserted. The two lamps which served as street lighting for its length had just switched on, giving an ineffectual dim white light as they struggled to warm up. The shop fronts at this north end of the Lane were all in darkness, and any lights in occupied upstairs rooms were heavily curtained against the night. Kathy thought of the Doré etching in Hepple’s office, with its teeming mass of humanity seething down this street. All ghosts now.
    She walked towards the door of Hepple’s office, and was rewarded by the reflected glow of the windows of the Balaton Café, facing into the little square ahead, and the smell of cooking. There were two front doors beside the brass plate, one for the solicitor’s office, and the other for Sylvia Pemberton’s flat. Kathy pressed the buzzer beside the second. After a moment an unrecognizable squawk came from a small speaker on the wall.
    ‘It’s Kathy Kolla, Miss Pemberton, from the police. We met this morning. Could I trouble you again for a minute?’
    Another squawk came from the box and the front door gave a click. Kathy pushed and went in. The stairs rose in front of her in two straight flights to the second floor, where Sylvia Pemberton stood waiting for her.
    She left her wet