A Capital Crime by Laura Wilson

Author:Laura Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Quercus Books PLC
Published: 2010-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Eight

A battered chocolate box with grey ash scattered across the empty waxed paper casings; a bottle of powdery aspirins; a cup of cold tea, scummy white on the surface; an open pot of face cream; a plaster model of an Alsatian dog with its tail snapped off; a broken carriage clock, and a lot of dust: Iris Manning’s mantelpiece. The rest of the room was no less depressing – dingy wallpaper, filthy windows, and shoddy, chipped furniture. It stank of stale cigarette smoke and unwashed clothing. Standing on the stained rug and trying not to breathe too deeply, Stratton stared down at the tangle of grimy blankets on the bed. On the off-chance, he knelt down to look beneath the sagging frame, but found nothing except an enamel chamber pot lined with a foul-smelling crust of dried urine.

Stratton doubted if Iris had ever conducted any business in this room. As far as he knew, she’d always worked outside. There was nothing high-class about her: ten bob for a wank; fifteen for a plate; thirty for the lot. Stratton knew her from way back. They all did. She’d been living and working on their patch since she’d absconded from reform school in 1938 or thereabouts, and no matter how many times they’d taken her back, she’d always returned. Now she was missing and had been for five days, and there was nothing amongst her belongings to indicate why, or where, she’d gone. Her sister, who’d decided to look her up after a separation of five-odd years, had reported it.

Missing tarts were not exactly top of the station’s list of priorities at any time but at the moment, with yet another spate of car thefts – there’d been a steep increase in the three years since petrol had come off ration – and Lamb’s obsession with the preparations for the Coronation in June, they were very low indeed. Stratton himself had not taken the news of Iris’s disappearance too seriously, his initial reaction being that she’d got behind with her rent and scarpered, but now he was beginning to wonder. If she had done a midnight flit, she’d surely have taken such clothes as she owned with her, but the presence of a battered valise on top of the wardrobe and several frocks inside it suggested otherwise. Bugger the Coronation, he thought: I should have got here sooner.

A loud thump and several shouts from the stairwell suggested that Policewoman Harris was not having an easy time with the house’s other occupants. Stratton clattered downstairs and found a slovenly creature in a soiled dressing gown barring the way to the kitchen. ‘You know your trouble,’ she was shouting at Harris, ‘you’ve never had it!’ Seeing Stratton, she added, ‘Why don’t you have a bash at her, take that expression off her face?’

‘That’s enough, Bessie,’ said Stratton mildly, recognising her as a tom who’d been hawking herself around Soho for nearly as long as Iris.

‘It’s not my turn,’ whined Bessie. ‘You done me last week and I paid the fine.

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