CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

ULTIMATELY, ULRIKE DECIDED TO SOLDIER ON. SHE HAD little choice. Upon her return from Brick Lane, Jack Veness had handed her the telephone message from Patrick Bensley, president of the board of trustees. With a knowing smirk, he’d said, “Have a good meeting with the prez, did you?,” as he’d passed her the slip of paper, and she’d said, “Yes, it went very well,” before lowering her gaze to see upon the phone message the name of the man whom she’d claimed she was leaving Colossus to meet.

She didn’t try to pretend anything. She was too caught up in trying to decide what to do with the information she had from Arabella Strong to quickstep into giving Jack a reason why Mr. Bensley had phoned her while she was supposedly meeting him. So she merely folded the message into her pocket and leveled a look at Jack. She said, “Anything else?,” and endured yet another insufferable smirk. Nothing at all, he told her.

So she decided she had to continue, no matter what it looked like to the police and no matter how they might react if she handed over information to them. She still had the hope that the Met would respond in a quid pro quo fashion, defined by keeping any mention of Colossus away from the press. But it didn’t really matter whether they did or did not because, regardless, now she had to finish what she’d started. That was the only way she was going to be able to excuse her journey to Griffin Strong’s house should the board of trustees get wind of it from someone.

As far as Griff himself went-as far as Arabella’s vow to lie for him went-Ulrike didn’t want to dwell on this, and Jack’s reactions gave her a reason not to. They moved him directly to the top of her list.

She didn’t bother with an excuse when she left Colossus a second time late in the day. Instead, she took up her bicycle and headed along the New Kent Road. Jack lived in Grange Walk, which opened off Tower Bridge Road, less than ten minutes by bicycle from Elephant and Castle. It was a narrow one-way street across from Bermondsey Square. One side of it comprised a newish housing estate, while the other bore a terrace of homes that had probably stood in the spot since the eighteenth century.

Jack had rooms in one of these houses: number 8, a building distinguished by its fanciful shutters. Painted blue to match the rest of the woodwork on the sooty building, they had heart-shaped openings at the top to let in the light when they were closed and secured. They were open now, and the windows that they would otherwise cover were hung with lace curtains looking several layers thick.

There was no bell, so Ulrike used the door knocker, which was shaped like an old-time cine-camera. To compensate for the noise from Tower Bridge Road, she applied some force to the knocking. When no one answered, she bent to the brass letter box in the middle of the door and lifted it to peer inside the house. She saw an old lady lowering herself carefully down the stairs, two-stepping it sideways and with both hands on the railing.

The woman evidently saw Ulrike peering in, for she shouted, “I do beg your pardon!,” and she followed this with, “I believe this is a private residence, whoever you are!,” which prompted Ulrike to drop the hinged lid on the letter box and wait, chagrined, for the door to open.

When it did, she found herself confronted by a crumpled and very peeved face. This was framed by tight white curls and, along with her thin-framed body, they shook with indignation. Or so it seemed at first, until Ulrike dropped her gaze and saw the zimmer frame to which the old lady held. Then she realised it wasn’t so much anger as it was palsy or Parkinson’s or something else that was causing the tremors.

She apologised hastily and introduced herself. She mentioned Colossus. She said Jack’s name. Could she have a word with Mrs…? She hesitated. Who the hell was this woman? she wondered. She should have sussed that one out before barreling over here.

Mary Alice Atkins-Ward, the old lady said. And it was Miss and proud to be so, thank you very much. She sounded stiff-a pensioner who remembered the old days when people had manners defined by courteous queues at bus stops and gentlemen giving up seats to ladies on the underground. She held the door open and manoeuvred herself back from it so that Ulrike could enter. Ulrike did so gratefully.

She found herself immediately in a narrow corridor much taken up by the stairway. The walls were jammed with photos, and as Miss A-W-which was how Ulrike began thinking of her-led the way into a sitting room overlooking the street, Ulrike took a peek at these. They were, she found, all photos taken from television shows: BBC1 costume dramas mostly, although there were also a smattering of gritty police programmes as well.

She said in as friendly a fashion as she could, “You’re a fan of the telly?”

Miss A-W cast a scornful look over her shoulder as she crossed the sitting room and deposited herself in a ladder-backed wooden rocking chair sans a single softening cushion. “What in heaven’s name are you talking about?”

“The photos in the corridor?” Ulrike had never felt so out of step with someone.

“Those? I wrote them, you ninny,” was Miss A-W’s retort.

“Wrote?”

“Wrote. I’m a screenwriter, for heaven’s sake. Those are my productions. Now what do you want?” She offered nothing: no food, no drink, no fondly reminiscent conversation. She was a tough old bird, Ulrike concluded. It was going to be no easy feat to pull the wool here.

Nonetheless, she had to try. There was no alternative. She told the woman that she wanted to have a few words about her tenant.

“What tenant?” Miss A-W asked.

“Jack Veness?” Ulrike prompted her. “He works at Colossus. I’m his…well, his supervisor, I suppose.”

“He’s not my tenant. He’s my great-nephew. Worthless little bugger, but he had to live somewhere once his mum chucked him out. He helps with the housework and the shopping.” She adjusted herself in her chair. “See here, I’m going to have a cigarette, missy. I hope you’re not one of those flag-waving ASHers. If you are, too bad. My house, my lungs, my life. Hand me that book of matches, please. No, no, you ninny. Not over there. They’re right in front of you.”

Ulrike found them among the clutter on a coffee table. The book was from a Park Lane hotel where, Ulrike imagined, Miss A-W had doubtless terrified the staff into handing matches over by the gross.

She waited till the old lady had extracted a cigarette from the pocket of her cardigan. She smoked unfiltered-no surprise there-and she held the burning fag like an old-time film star. She picked a piece of tobacco from her tongue, examined it, and flicked it over her shoulder.

“So, what’s this about Jack?” she asked.

“We’re considering him for promotion,” Ulrike replied with what she hoped was an ingratiating smile. “And before someone’s promoted, we talk to those people who know him best.”

“Why do you suppose I know him any better than you do?”

“Well, he does live here…It’s just a starting point, you understand.”

Miss A-W was watching Ulrike with the sharpest eyes she had ever seen. This was a lady who’d been through it, she reckoned. Lied to, cheated on, stolen from, whatever. It must have come from working in British television, notorious home of the thoroughly unscrupulous. Only Hollywood was meant to be worse.

She continued to smoke and evaluate Ulrike, clearly unbothered by the silence that stretched between them. Finally she said, “What sort?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“No, you don’t,” she said. “What sort of promotion?”

Ulrike did some quick thinking. “We’re opening a branch of Colossus across the river. The North London branch? He may have told you about it. We’d like Jack to be an assessment leader there.”