Free Princes Gate by Mark Ellis Page B

dress more than once.”
    “Did you ever see anyone pick her up?”
    “Told you, Inspector. No male callers.”
    “I just wondered whether she ever had someone waiting outside. A car perhaps?”
    “Not that I noticed. And I don’t make it my business to spy on my lodgers. Did see her get into a taxi once though. Thought that was a bit flash for a girl like her.” Mrs Bowen vigorously stubbed her cigarette out in a silver ashtray on the table in front of her. She leaned back in her chair and attempted unsuccessfully to cross her legs, displaying a considerable expanse of white flesh in the process. Merlin decided he’d got enough information for the moment.
    “Time to get back to the Yard, I think. Thanks for your help.”
    Mrs Bowen rose to her feet. She smiled and fluttered her eyelids. “Are you sure I can’t offer you something? Something a little stronger than tea. Sherry perhaps?”
    Merlin smiled regretfully and hurried out into the street.

    She sat hunched up over a corner table weeping. From the beginning of the war pubs had seemed to be standing room only every night but this evening was an exception. A couple of AFS officers propped up the bar. In the opposite corner of the lounge, three old ladies sat silently together, slowly sipping their port-and-lemons. A couple of tables away two well-dressed older men, breaking their journeys home from the office, exchanged quiet words under their bowler hats. Johnny Morgan returned with the drinks. “Come on, Kathleen. Get this down your neck. It’ll make you feel better.”
    She removed a small handkerchief from her bag and blew her nose on it as delicately as she could. The tears stopped momentarily. “It’s so awful. Who could have done such a thing?”
    “Some madman, I suppose.” Morgan’s nose disappeared into his pint glass.
    “Who would have wanted to kill someone so kind and lovely?”
    After fidgeting with her handkerchief for a moment, the tears began again.
    All eyes were on her. Morgan put his arm around her shoulders. “Close friend died you know. Girl’s a bit upset – as you’d expect.” The ladies in the far corner nodded sympathetically. The two office workers raised their hats and mumbled a few indistinguishable words, while the AFS officers turned away, uninterested.
    “Drink your drink. It’ll make you feel better.”
    She reached for her gin and sipped it carefully. Her tears stopped. Morgan reached into his jacket for a packet of cigarettes and waved it in front of her. “Yes please, Johnny.”
    Morgan lit up the two cigarettes in a flamboyant style he’d seen in a recent Bette Davies picture and passed one over. “Did you see that policeman then, sweetheart?”
    “Yes, I did.”
    “What did he ask you?”
    “Oh, this and that. He asked me what Joan was like, who her friends were, did we go out together and so on.”
    “And what did you tell him?”
    “That she was a lovely, friendly girl who was good at her job. That she and I used to go out together sometimes, to the pictures and so on. He asked whether she had any boyfriends.”
    Morgan blew a smoke ring which slowly disintegrated above them. “And what did you say to that?”
    “I said none that I knew.” She took another sip of her drink and then looked up sheepishly at Morgan. “Do you know if she had a boyfriend?”
    “Me? No. Why should I?”
    “Just wondering. I know that she occasionally went out on the town in the West End with someone or other but she was always very secretive about it. Perhaps she mentioned something to you. You know, like on the Thursday before she disappeared.”
    Morgan clenched his teeth. “I didn’t go for lunch with her that day.”
    “But Mr Priestley said…”
    “He’s a blind old fart. You didn’t tell the police anything like that?”
    “No. But you did see her outside the office from time to time didn’t you? I saw you together in the park once.”
    “A lot of us see each other outside the office from time to