Bridges pulled the car to a halt outside the Polish embassy in Portland Place. The policemen understood that Tarkowski normally worked out of the embassy building on Mondays. It was raining heavily and they hurried through the front door. They presented their credentials, a phone call was made and they were ushered by an elderly porter through the austere entrance hall, along a long corridor and into an office at the back of the building. Merlin caught a glimpse of the BBC head office out of one of the windows. A pretty, red-headed girl sat at a desk to the left of a large door beyond which, Merlin assumed, was Tarkowski’s inner sanctum. “Good morning, gentlemen. You are the policemen?”
The two men nodded and introduced themselves.
“I’m afraid the Count hasn’t arrived yet. I don’t know what’s happened. He’s normally here by now.”
“We’ll just wait here, if you don’t mind, miss.” The secretary gave Bridges a twinkling smile. “Please, go ahead. It is nice to have some handsome, male company.” Bridges blushed as the two men sat down on a scuffed leather sofa by the window. They declined the offer of tea and the secretary went back to her work and began clattering away on the typewriter.
“Excuse me, Miss…”
“Wajda. Cristina Wajda, Chief Inspector.”
“I was just wondering. We are investigating the murder of a fellow countryman of yours.”
“Oh dear.”
“A Polish pilot called Kilinski. He met the Count at his home, we understand. It just occurred to me that he might have tried to see the Count here and that you might have met him?”
The secretary considered, her finger touching her pouting lips in a rather attractive pose, or so Merlin thought. She looked up and nodded. “I did meet him. He came when the Count was out once. You say he is dead, poor man. A skinny fellow, a strange face but in a funny way not bad-looking. Very intense eyes. I remember he had a girl with him.”
“A girl?”
“I couldn’t get rid of him. He said he was going to wait until the Count came and sat where you are sitting for twenty minutes or so. Then a girl – well, I say a girl, but I know her – she came and said she wasn’t going to wait for him any longer. He got in a bit of a temper, she stomped away down the corridor and he followed her. That’s the last I saw of him.”
“You say you know this girl?”
Cristina examined her varnished fingernails carefully for a moment then looked back at Merlin. “She’s a waitress at a Polish restaurant in Kensington.”
“You know her name?”
“Sophie Radzinski. She’s from Gdansk like me. Poor Sophie. I presume she was sweet on this flyer. Does she know he’s dead?”
“Probably not. I don’t know about you, Sergeant, but I’m getting a bit peckish. We might end up waiting for Tarkowski all day. I’m quite partial to Polish food these days. And you can wipe that knowing smirk off your face right now. Let’s go and get a spot of lunch at this place. Where exactly is it, Miss Wajda?”
*
A small terrier was greedily eating some pork scratchings the pub landlady had tipped into a bowl by the door as the two men made their entrance. A few workmen stood by the bar, but otherwise the place was empty.
“We shouldn’t really be doing this, should we, Mr Stewart?”
“A spot of spirits in the blood won’t go amiss, my friend.”
Jack Stewart had dragged Evans out of the AFS station for a quick drink in The Surprise. “Go on, get that down your neck.”
Evans had asked for a rum and black and continued to sip it carefully as Stewart knocked back his pint of beer and scotch chaser. Stewart had bought a plate of cheese and onion sandwiches as well and Evans, not having eaten anything since his unfortunate encounter in the park the day before, tucked in heartily.
“Let other poets raise a fracas
Bout vines, an’ wines, an’ drucken Bacchus,
An’ crabbit names an’ stories wrack us,
An’ grate our lug: