Miss Treadway & the Field of Stars

‘If there are no clues, there are no clues.’

‘Well, she’s gone somewhere. What about that boy that got taken from the station in Manchester? The one the Brady couple beat to death. If the brother-in-law hadn’t gone to the police would he have been found? And the little girl in the moor? She’d been missing ten months. Why did no one find her sooner?’

Leonard was back now, dressed and peering into the little silver coffee pot that perched on the stove. ‘No one’s suggesting she’s dead.’

‘Well, why aren’t they? Just because there isn’t a body doesn’t mean she’s okay.’

Leonard frowned at her. ‘Anna, come on. We’re all a bit scared but really … She’ll turn up. It’s just a horrid time.’

‘It’s a horrid time for us, but what about Lanny? What if we’re all sitting round saying, isn’t this awful, this worrying is so exhausting, and in the meantime someone’s doing something to Lanny? What if they’re hurting her? What if she’s trapped?’

Leonard shook his head and set out cups.

‘I was thinking of going down to the club tomorrow, the one she talked about in the interview,’ Anna said, though really it had only occurred to her just now. ‘I mean, what was she doing there? Was she meeting a man? Was she buying drugs?’

‘Depends on the club.’

‘I’m going to start with Roaring Twenties.’

‘See, no,’ Leonard said, putting a couple of teacakes under the grill to toast, ‘I don’t see Iolanthe in there. They’re playing reggae and ska and all sorts of weird Caribbean stuff. It’s mostly a club for coloured kids.’

‘I’ve never been in. What’s it like?’

‘Not really my kind of place. I’m not a nightclub man. It was white when it started. White-owned, white-run. You know … Jewish kids down from Hampstead pretending to be cool. Coloured musicians on the stage, whites only on the dance floor. Not overly popular with the musicians, as you can imagine. I went there a couple of times in the early days and it was fine. Quite small. Good for a night out and an ounce of weed. Few years went by and it shifted. Musicians hated the colour bar, got antsy. They got themselves a coloured manager for real. Count Suckle, playing all this Caribbean music from his enormous sound system. Honestly, it was the size of a car and the floors would shake underneath you, the whole place bouncing and rolling. He disappeared a while back. I heard he got sick of all the drugs being sold and got himself another gig up on Praed Street. So now it’s Duke Vin but very popular with the pop music lot. Ringo Starr’s been seen drinking there, Daltrey, Keith Moon, Freddie Garrity. Whoever owns it must be raking it in.’

Leonard carried over plates of teacakes and tiny black enamelled cups of coffee, while Anna shifted in her seat. She herself had long ago learned to avoid any mention of a person’s skin or nationality, and she wondered at the carelessness of Leonard’s language.

Leonard was talking again. ‘You know the big coloured guy on the door, Charlie Brown? He was John Christie’s landlord.’

‘At Rillington Place?’ Anna asked.

‘London’s much smaller than you think. Everyone is somehow connected to everyone else. Even if they do all hate each other.’

There were no curtains at the windows, only offices overlooked the room and Anna searched the sky for signs of light. She hated winter mornings, that irresistible pull back to bed. ‘Do you really think we all hate each other, Leonard?’

‘D’you know what I think?’ Leonard plonked himself down on the sofa next to her. ‘I think it’s all about money. I think we all come for the same reason and we call it jobs or houses or culture but what we really mean is money. Money makes places shiny. It makes them glitter. The rich come flooding in because they have things to do with their money. They can spend, show it off, make more of it. The poor come flooding in because poverty is terrifying and they gravitate to the place where there’s the most work. The immigrants come here because if you don’t head for where the money is you’re going to be going back on the next boat. My parents came here because the pogroms laid waste to their town and there were Jewish boarding houses and Jewish companies. Why’s Ottmar here? Why are you? We all come looking for the shiny and then we find that there isn’t very much to go around. And if all that’s binding you together is a search for shininess … well … those are very dangerous ropes to bind any group of people together.’

Anna stared, perhaps a little too intently, at Leonard’s face. ‘You never said you were Jewish.’

Leonard looked taken aback. ‘I assumed you knew.’

‘I think I thought you must be but then you never mentioned it.’

‘I don’t practise.’

‘There just … there weren’t any Jewish kids at my school. I think sometimes I just assume everyone who seems English is English.’

‘I am English,’ said Leonard. Pointedly.

‘I know … but I meant Anglo-Saxon Protestant English. Fruit scones; Book of Common Prayer; Henry-the-Eighth-had-six-wives English. You know. English English.’

‘You’re eating a bloody teacake; what more d’you want?’ Leonard worked a currant out from between his teeth. ‘Nothing can ever be too English, can it? Nothing can ever be too pure. It’s like there’s an entry test for Englishness and only twenty people pass it every year. Are you clever? Are you virtuous? Are you kind? It doesn’t fucking matter. All that matters is that you’re English.’

Anna made an apologetic face but Leonard was now in full flow.

‘It’s like the bloody countryside. Benji’s English, of course. Went to the right school. Carries the right blood. And we’re all meant to love the countryside. Wellingtons, dogs; all that bollocks. Of course we never get invited anywhere. Too queer for country houses. Too faggoty for gaudies or hunts. We have to do it ourselves. Discreetly. He makes me go on driving holidays to Wiltshire and Somerset. And I sit there, with my sunglasses on, blocking out the scenery, reading Barthes just to piss him off. “Look at that view!” he cries. But no, I will not look at the bloody view. It’s all the same anyway. Vulgar, garish greenery. Ancient oaks. God, I hate it. It’s so small. So unimportant. So fucking parochial. I hate it and it hates me back.’

Anna looked at him. There was a manic grief in his expression, alongside the annoyance and humour. She realised suddenly that she didn’t know Leonard very well at all. At work he was professional and friendly and precise but there was so much messiness to this other Leonard, this angry Leonard who lived in a half-bare flat with his city-suited lover and his odd neuroses. Anna knew the kind thing would be to hug him; to tell him to be any way he wanted. But even that little outpouring of intimacy seemed too great a leap. For a little outpouring of intimacy could easily become something more, something familiar, something desired, essential, habitual.

‘I’ve made you uncomfortable, haven’t I?’ Leonard said.

‘No. No!’ Anna assured him.

‘Shall we be English again?’ Leonard asked with a small, watery smile.

And Anna smiled back. ‘Let’s.’

Going Out

Wednesday, 10 November

The wind blew fiercely down Regent Street and the secretaries and shop girls in their black and white winter coats squealed and skittered, handbags swinging wildly, hands reaching out and grabbing for a friendly arm. Hayes watched them all bowling towards the tube stations as the lights in the department stores went dark. Then he crossed the street and headed into Soho. It was half past five and he’d soon be off shift but he’d been warned that the clubs didn’t open until early evening. He wanted to have an informal chat with Charlie Brown or anyone else he could find before the evening rush started.

He was frustrated by the lack of urgency in the office. Inspector Knight seemed convinced that Iolanthe had left of her own accord. He had gone to speak to his boss that morning, to ask for backing in investigating the multiple bank accounts, but Knight had dismissed him without thought.

‘Dead end, Hayes. Not worth your time. She’ll be off her head or knocked up. That’s why women run. She was seen at Roaring Twenties, which says to me she didn’t care much what happened to her. Older woman. Single. Lonely. Probably sleeping around. She’ll have been buying dope or worse and getting herself felt up by the lower classes. We’ll get a call, sometime, you mark my words … She’ll be found dead. Overdose. Heroin. Suicide. In the stained sheets of some coloured’s bed.’

‘But how can we be certain, sir, that it wasn’t about money? She was earning well. It could be robbery or extortion or kidnap.’

‘Trust me, she’s just another low-rent Monroe. Childless. Looks going. Nothing to live for. Waste of our bloody time.’

Two hours later, as Brennan pored over the meagre round of witness statements for the fifteenth time, he was called to the phone.

‘Detective Sergeant Hayes? It’s Anna Treadway. You interviewed me yesterday.’

‘I remember it well, Miss Treadway. How can I help?’

‘Well, I was talking with someone last night and it sparked in me a realisation … silly, really … and you probably know this. But Yolanda and Iolanthe are the same name.’

‘Oh …’ And then there was silence on DS Hayes’ end of the line.

‘I know … I felt very silly when I realised. And since you hadn’t said anything about this in interview …’

‘No. Of course. From violet. And flower. I even did Greek at school.’

‘And there’s something else. The last day, the Saturday, she got a phone message from an American man by the name of Cassidy. Second name I’m guessing.’

‘What was the message?’

‘Well, nothing really. Just to say he’d called. And the boy on the stage door said that it wasn’t the first time he’d rung the theatre.’

‘Do you know who Cassidy is?’

‘No idea. Sorry. Someone from back home, I guess. If I can be of any more help, Sergeant Hayes, please let me know.’

‘Of course, Miss Treadway. Thank you for calling.’

And now Hayes stood on Carnaby Street in a light drizzle and watched a young coloured man unloading equipment in front of the door of number 50. An older man in a rumpled suit was scooping up wires and helping him through the doors. Brennan drew himself up to his full height of Barnabyness and approached the suited man.

‘Good evening, I was wondering if you were Charlie Brown?’

The suited man gazed quizzically at Brennan. He nodded, a little noncommittally. ‘I’m Charlie.’

Brennan held out his hand. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Barnaby Hayes. I’m with the Metropolitan Police and I’m working on a missing persons case. I’m looking for Iolanthe Green. Do you know who that is?’

Charlie nodded. ‘Actress. She came in here a few times.’

‘Was she with anyone?’

‘I don’t think so. I think she came on her own. Couldn’t swear to it though.’

‘Did she leave alone too?’

‘Couldn’t say. I’m watching them coming in more than going out. They pass me by, I say goodnight, that’s all.’

‘Was there any gossip about her, do you know? Was she seeing anyone? Was she drinking a lot? Was she behaving wildly, perhaps?’

‘So many people, Sergeant. They come, they dance. We get musicians and actors in here sometimes. Not such a strange thing. Mostly it’s just very chilled. You know, the whole place is just quite chilled. We don’t go in for violence.’ Charlie smiled broadly and Brennan found himself smiling back though he didn’t know quite why. He had a momentary impulse to ask Brown about John Christie but Barnaby stamped on that quite firmly.

‘Thank you, Mr Brown,’ Hayes said.

‘My pleasure.’ Charlie nodded him away. Hayes walked slowly through the rain, back towards Regent Street, then he turned north towards Oxford Circus and started to walk as swiftly as he could into the wind. All along Oxford Street commuters were waiting for their buses and women in expensive coats with fur collars were hailing cabs. Hayes wondered at this great sea of the oblivious. He wondered at so many people tripping gaily through life when so much in the world was wrong. And then he wondered, as he often did, which of them was out of step. Was he the freak? Choosing to know, to actively seek out the unpleasant and the animal and the cruel. He stopped to pull on gloves and button his coat by the window of John Lewis. His reflection was half visible, laid over the headless form of a man in an argyle golfing jumper. He tidied his hair and watched in the reflection how men in mackintoshes queued to get on their bus. How foolish of him to assume that they were all happy. Of course they felt pain. Each one of them might well be spilling over with grief or self-loathing. But, still, their misery was all their own. The misery he dealt with was other people’s; which can often seem more terrible than the kind you know.

The tall figure of Barnaby Hayes, with its neat, short hair and clean-shaven face gazed back at him. He liked Barnaby more than he liked Brennan. Brennan was good but Barnaby was admirable. Brennan was idealistic but Barnaby was effective. Barnaby looked like the men in the adverts for cigarettes; he was an English gentleman: beautiful, polished, refined.

At Marble Arch he headed north-west up Edgware Road. Pages from the newspapers blew past him. Cigarette packets, paper bags, the cord from a bundle of Standards. Sussex Gardens flashed by. Sale Place.

On Praed Street Hayes searched the signs above the shops for Cue Club. He found it at last: a little door beside the Classic Cinema marked 5a. Hayes climbed down the unlit wooden stairs.

The club was quiet but not deserted. A man with a quiff stood behind the bar restocking the shelves. On the little stage at one end of the room a boy in T-shirt and jeans sat surrounded by speakers cleaning the jacks of a handful of wires.

In a dark corner of the room a tall, well-built man sat at a wooden table drinking tea with a woman in a coat. He looked over at Hayes as he entered and nodded his head.

‘Can we help you?’ he asked. The woman in the coat turned and stared at Hayes. She was Anna Treadway.

‘I was looking for Count Suckle.’

‘That’d be me. I’m having tea with the young lady. Can you wait? Martin’ll get you a drink.’ Count Suckle – whose real name was Wilbert – nodded towards the bar.

‘Thank you. But I won’t drink, I’m on duty. Are you licensed to serve me at ten past six?’

Wilbert stood and straightened his suit. He approached Barnaby, his hand outstretched, his wide eyes open and intense. ‘Yes, as it happens, we are.’

Hayes took his hand and shook it. ‘Barnaby Hayes. Detective Sergeant. I hope you don’t mind me asking but did the young lady come here to talk about Iolanthe Green?’

Anna stood and faced Hayes. ‘I didn’t want to tread on any toes; I just thought I’d seek out the opinion of someone who knew Roaring Twenties. Because Lanny had been going there. So we were chatting … about clubs and suchlike. Clientele. I mean, she didn’t just vanish, did she?’

‘Have you spoken to anyone else who might be a part of this investigation?’

‘One or two. Duke Vin. Lester Webb. Pete King at Ronnie Scott’s.’

‘When? When have you seen all these people? You said nothing about this at interview.’

‘I only started talking to people today. There seems to be a lack of urgency in this investigation. What if it is murder? What if she’s been kidnapped? What if she’s lying in a hospital somewhere and can’t remember who she is?’

‘But this is a police investigation and you’re not a member of the police. You could be prejudicing the enquiry. You could be putting yourself in danger. You don’t know … I’m sorry – I am sorry – but you have to stop talking to people about this.’

Wilbert had been watching things bubble over with an increasing sense of enjoyment but now he felt the need to interject. ‘Sergeant Hayes, Miss Treadway’s just worried about her friend. She’s doing no harm. Anna, my dear, can I get you a drink on the house? We have a live set starting in an hour. You can stay, listen. Sergeant Hayes, if you want to talk to me I’m here. Let’s talk.’ Wilbert smiled at them both like an indulgent mother then he called over to the man behind the bar. ‘Martin! Get the lady a drink. On us.’

Anna nodded to Count Suckle and – giving Hayes a wide berth – went to take up one of the seats by the bar. As it was she didn’t really want to drink, nor did she particularly want to stay, for she was having one of her antisocial patches. But she couldn’t leave now. Not when Hayes had suggested that that’s what she should do.

‘What’ll it be?’ the barman asked.

‘Single Scotch, thanks.’ Anna watched Hayes as he talked to Count Suckle. There was a lot of serious nodding going on and Count Suckle was struggling to explain something, his hands conjuring in the air between them both.

The Scotch was a little harsh but it did its job; Anna sank lower in her chair. She was vaguely aware that a second person had joined her at the bar but she refused to take her eyes off Sergeant Hayes.

‘Are you here for the band? Or are you with the band?’ Anna looked up to find that a tall, thin black man in a moddish suit was leaning against the bar looking at her. His neatly cut hair held the suggestion of a quiff and he wore thick, dark-rimmed spectacles.

‘Neither,’ she answered, ‘I was speaking with Count Suckle.’

‘And having a drink.’ The man sat down two seats away from her and the barman, Martin, handed him a tall glass of something.

‘Are you a friend of Wilbert, then?’ the man went on, drinking down half his glass in one great gulp. He saw Anna watching him and laughed: ‘It’s Coke. I haven’t got the legs to drink rum like that.’

Anna smiled, embarrassed, aware now that her judgement had been written on her face. ‘I’m not really a friend of Wilbert – is that Count Suckle’s name? I’m more of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. I’m asking around because someone I know went missing.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry. Can I help? Would I have seen him? Or her?’

‘It’s Iolanthe Green. The actress. I was her dresser at the theatre and eleven days ago she walked down Charing Cross Road and …’ Anna gestured a little wildly and slopped Scotch down her skirt.

The tall, thin man drew a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it over: ‘It’s clean.’

Anna wiped herself down and replaced her glass on the bar. She handed the man back his handkerchief. ‘Sorry. I don’t drink very often and I’m not very good at it when I do.’

The man laughed and repocketed the damp hanky. ‘My name’s Aloysius. I’m Count Suckle’s accountant. Pleased to meet you.’

Anna shook his hand and as she did so her eyes slid over to the table in the corner where Count Suckle now sat alone.

‘When did the policeman leave? I didn’t see him go.’

‘I’ve no idea. You know, I read about Miss Green in the newspaper. It’s a strange thing. Why d’you think Wilbert knows where she is?’

‘Lanny – Iolanthe – had been going to Roaring Twenties before she disappeared, but when I went and asked the men there, they just didn’t seem to want to answer my questions. And Leo … my boss told me that Count Suckle used to work there and I thought maybe he could help me.’

‘What did Wilbert say?’

‘He said he hadn’t seen her and yes, there were drugs, but he couldn’t imagine her getting herself into much trouble at the Twenties unless it was maybe with a man.’

‘D’you think she ran away?’

‘In a way, I hope she did. Every other possibility just seems so bleak.’ Anna stared at the band setting up on the stage and figured that it was probably time to leave. She felt out of place here and she certainly wouldn’t know what to do with herself at a proper nightclub when the music started and the crowds arrived. She glanced over at Aloysius, who was watching her with a strange and thoughtful expression on his face. ‘I think it’s time I went home,’ she told him and she stood.

Aloysius put out his hand and touched hers briefly. ‘It was nice to meet you, Miss …’

‘Treadway. Anna. I’m sorry. I really need to go. I barely slept last night.’

‘Take care of yourself, Miss Treadway,’ Aloysius called as she disappeared up the stairs.

Outside, Praed Street was bitterly cold. Buses shunted slowly past in a queue of traffic. Anna stared at the bus stops but she didn’t know the routes, and the crowds of people huddling about the shelters put her off. She started to walk towards the Edgware Road with an idea of finding her way home along the least windy thoroughfares.

She stood at the traffic lights at the top of Edgware Road in a crowd of people waiting for the little man in green to appear. Fingers plucked at her shoulder but she pulled herself further inside her coat and ignored them.

‘Miss Treadway.’ She recognised the Jamaican accent without quite being able to remember who the voice belonged to. The lights were changing and she was pushed and shuffled into the road amongst the other bodies.

‘Miss Treadway!’ There was the voice again. She turned but could only see the man and woman directly behind her, forcing their way forward with grim-faced determination. Anna started to trip, righted herself and kept on towards the pavement.

Once safely on the other side, she pushed her way over to stand under an awning and survey the crowd. A man bundled into a great grey army coat sat in a little shelter behind a pile of newspapers. He was shouting the name of the paper from behind his hands, which he’d cupped over his face to warm himself. His fingers were filthy and Anna found herself disgusted by the sight of the blackened nails. Did he have a wife? she wondered. Did he touch a woman with those filthy hands? Did he touch himself?

Aloysius’s figure appeared to the right of her. With his face shaded from the sodium by a wide-brimmed fedora he looked to Anna as if he had arrived from another time. He reminded her of men of her father’s generation, the gentlemen of the thirties and forties with their smart, conservative clothes and their smart, conservative lives. What kind of a name was Aloysius anyway? Had he been to Eton? Well, obviously not, but he seemed to be playing up to something. Standing there in his mackintosh and his fedora, looking for all the world like some fellow from a black and white movie, he reminded her of Jimmy Stewart … if Jimmy Stewart had been black. The image of a coloured James Stewart momentarily confused her and Anna realised that she didn’t quite know how to think about black men, for she really had no frame of reference. As he stepped under the awning Aloysius took off his hat. ‘Miss Treadway, I don’t mean to gossip. But I might have an idea of what has happened to your friend.’

Dr Jones Is Having Supper

Wednesday, 10 November

Ottmar’s eyes followed every woman who walked past the cafe window. Samira had not come home from school and it was dark already. She’s still so small, he thought, my baby girl. He could see her at once as a baby and a five-year-old and a young woman of thirteen. He saw every part of her, every stage, every moment of strength and rage, determination. She was her mother’s daughter.

Ever since she’d turned sixteen, she’d been going out in the evenings, staying out late, school nights, every night.

‘Where have you been?’ they asked her as she wandered up the stairs to the flat at midnight or one o’clock.

‘Becky’s house.’ ‘Mary’s house.’ ‘I went to the late show with Bernie.’

‘Who’s Bernie?’ they asked.

‘Short for Bernadette.’

‘Where does she get the money?’ Ekin asked and Ottmar shook his head, too scared to suggest any of the possible answers that presented themselves.

Back in February, during Ramadan, Sami had told them that she would no longer be attending the mosque. Ekin, the only one of the family who bothered to fast during the day, screamed at her daughter: ‘Idiot! Do you want to burn in hell?’

‘I think I want to be a Marxist,’ Samira told her.