“I bet you knocked them dead,” Kate said. “I’d love to see a photo of you from then.”
Miss Walker hesitated, lip brush in hand. “Okay. I think I’ve got some somewhere. Just blot your lips on this tissue while I look.”
She brought back a handful of black-and-white studio shots.
“Oh my God, you are stunning in these,” Kate said, genuinely impressed. And then stopped, dead.
“I turned a few heads,” Miss Walker said shyly.
Kate didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak. She kept looking at the glossy photos of Barbara Walker. She was one of the women with the dead eyes in Al Soames’s Polaroids. She recognized the arch of the eyebrow, the hair. Kate took another sip of Cinzano. She didn’t know what to do or say. She couldn’t just blurt it out. Did Miss Walker know?
She was still chattering about her modeling days, laughing over her memories.
“They must have been falling at your feet,” Kate said, trying to keep the conversation going. “I’d love to borrow one to show to the photographer I work with. He’ll be so impressed. Who was your most famous conquest? Mick Jagger?”
Miss Walker laughed. “Don’t be daft,” she said. “I wasn’t in his league. You can take one if you like.”
“Were you living here, then, Barbara?” Kate said.
“At number 63. I told you the other day. I rented a room with a shared bathroom. It was a great big place. My friend from work, Jude, lived there, too.”
“Right. Who else? No men? In the house, I mean?” Kate asked.
“Jude didn’t bother with men really—too much trouble, she said. Jude had her work and her daughter to keep her busy. Until Will came along . . .”
“Oh?” Kate said, leaning forwards.
“Will Burnside,” she said and Kate was taken aback by the bitterness in her voice.
“Who was he?” Kate asked. “Not a favorite with you, then?”
“No, he was horrible.”
“Horrible? How was he horrible?”
“He wasn’t what he seemed. I just didn’t like him. But Jude did. She was absolutely smitten with him . . . I moved out, anyway. Changed job. Had a fresh start.”
“Was number 63 one of Al Soames’s houses?” Kate asked.
And Barbara Walker closed her eyes. It was as if she had shut down. Kate sat forwards and touched the older woman’s arm to remind her she was still there, and the eyes opened.
“Are you okay, Barbara?”
Miss Walker tried a watery smile. “Sorry, dear. Memories, that’s all. Can catch you unawares, can’t they?”
“You look a bit wobbly, Barbara,” Kate said.
“I am,” Miss Walker said, her voice quavering. “You see, people are not what they seem. You see them on the street or at a party and they look like normal people, but they’re not. Sometimes they’re not.”
“What do you mean, Barbara?” Kate said. One minute she was sipping flat Cinzano and lemonade, the next taking confession while wearing platform shoes. No one could say journalism was predictable. She waited.
“I’m just saying,” Miss Walker said, moving Shorty onto her lap.
“But you are all upset. I think you are talking about a specific person, Barbara. Are you? It might help to tell someone.”
Me, tell me, thought Kate, crossing her fingers and legs. Miss Walker closed her eyes again, but jerked them open at a sudden tinny blast of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”
“Christ,” Kate said, rummaging in the bottomless pit of her handbag. “It’s my phone. I’m so sorry, Barbara.”
It took six rings to locate the phone, six rounds of the opening bars to spoil any chance of intimacy.
“Hello, Mick,” she said when she answered it. “I’m a bit busy.”
But Miss Walker was already clearing away the glasses.
“You’d better go,” she said. “You’re going to be late for your party.”
FIFTY-NINE
Kate
SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 2012
Kate found Mick leaning on the wing of her car.
“Look at you, all dolled up. On the game tonight?” he shouted as she approached.
“Shut up, Mick. What are you doing here?” she said.
“Picture desk sent me. To do pics of some reunion you’re going to. Didn’t they tell you?”
“No,” Kate said. “You’d never think we were in the communication business. Look, I’m not sure what you can do. It’s a bit of a fishing expedition. I’m going to this party to find people who were around when Alice Irving was buried. There won’t really be anything to photograph.”
“Fucking desk. It’s my day off. They never ask enough questions before they send,” Mick said, flicking away his cigarette end.
“Sorry, Mick,” she said. “Actually, you can do something. I’ve been given a photo that I need copied. Can I give it to you to do?”
He hunched his shoulders and shrugged. “Yeah, okay.”
Kate was beginning to shiver with cold. She’d left her coat in the car when she’d gone into Miss Walker’s house.
“Let’s get in the car,” she said. “I can tell you about it in the warm.”
She gave him the black-and-white modeling photograph of Barbara Walker and he studied it.
“Lovely face,” he said. “Who is she?”
Kate filled Mick in on Barbara Walker, 63 Howard Street, and Al Soames as he chain-smoked, carefully holding his cigarette out of the passenger window as if it made any difference to the blue fug filling the car.
“And then there are other photos,” she said.
“Others? What—other modeling pix?”
“No, Polaroids of unconscious women—some of them young girls—that I got from Soames’s flat. I think Barbara may be among them. I haven’t got them here, but I’ll show you tomorrow.”
“Fuck. Have you told Terry yet?” he said.
“Give me a minute, Mick. This has just happened. I didn’t know I was going to meet one of Al Soames’s victims. One minute I was having my makeup done, the next this story came tumbling out. Anyway, I want to have a think about it before I tell the news desk. You know what they’re like—they’ll go full-steam ahead. I don’t know if Barbara Walker knows what happened to her. It could be devastating for her. This is going to take some very careful handling.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Poor woman.”
“I’ve got to find the other man in the photos, for a start,” she said.
She wished she still smoked.
“Go on, you get off,” she said, wafting his smoke and the temptation away from her. “I’ll talk to Terry in the morning. There’s nothing we can do tonight.”
“Okay, I’m in the office tomorrow if you need me,” he said, tossing his cigarette away.
A gaggle of aging disco divas tottered past, shrieking and clutching each other.
“Evening, ladies,” Mick called after them.
“Better go. I’m expected,” Kate said, reaching behind her for the purple felt hat.
“Go on then. Can I come? I’m a demon on the dance floor.” Mick pulled a John Travolta shape, banging his hand on the rearview mirror and swearing.
“I can see that, Mick. But I’ve already got a date. You go home and ruin your fiancée’s evening instead. How is the saintly Anna?”
He grinned. “Bearing up,” he said and flicked the brim of her hat in farewell as he got out. She waited until he had driven off before readjusting the mirror to check her face. It’d do. She looked tired.
“I’ve peaked too early,” she said out loud.
She wondered how Miss Walker was. She’d offered to stay with her for a while, but she’d been shooed towards the door.
“You get off,” Miss Walker had said. “I think I’ll shut my eyes for a while.”
“Of course. You have a rest. But I’ll call you in the morning,” Kate had said.
? ? ?
Come on,” she said to her reflection. Joe would be there in a minute and their job shouldn’t take long. They only had to talk to Toni’s friends and see if they could pick up some leads on who might have brought baby Alice here. “Hour, tops, and then home.”
Joe sprinted into view, running up the street to show he realized he was late. “You look like Donny Osmond in that shirt,” she said as he stood panting by the car.
“Bus got stuck in traffic and I got called an effing poofter by a drunk.”
“Never mind. I’ve had a bit of an evening, too, but let’s get in there and chat everyone up. Ready?”
He nodded and squared his shoulders.