The mysterious nature of the call piqued Terry's interest. The word package—with its intimations of either a money drop, a drug drop, or a dead letter box—clinched the deal. Since he was so close to Kensington Gore, where the Royal Albert Hall overlooked the south border of Hyde Park, Terry went to investigate. A concert audience was just leaving, so the Hall was open. He tracked down the seat high in one of the balconies and found a package of music beneath it.
The Chandler music, Barbara thought. But what the bloody hell was it doing there?
He thought at first that he'd been sent off on a fool's errand intended for whatever fool was supposed to answer that phone on the corner of Elvaston Place. And when he'd met up with Vi to collect a fresh batch of phone box cards, he'd told her about his brief adventure.
“I thought there might be money to be made,” Vi told Barbara. “So did Nikki when we told her about it.”
Shelly dropped Vis hand abruptly, saying, “I don't want to hear nothing about that bitch.”
To which Vi replied, “Come on, Shell. She's dead.”
Shelly flounced over to the chair she'd been sitting on earlier. She plopped down and began to sulk, arms crossed over her bony chest. Barbara speculated briefly on the uneasy future of a relationship between two women when one of them was so perilously dependent. Vi ignored the demonstration of pique.
They all had ambitions, she told Barbara. Terry had his Destination Art and Vi and Nikki had plans to start up a first class escort business. They also had a need to support themselves once Nikki broke with Adrian Beattie. Both operations depended upon an infusion of cash, and the music looked like a potential source of it. “See, I remembered when Sotheby's—or whoever it was—was set to auction a piece by Lennon and McCartney. And that was just one single sheet that was supposed to fetch a few thousand quid. This was a whole packet of music. I said Terry ought to try to sell it. Nikki offered to do the research and find the right auction house. We'd split the money when the music sold.”
“But why cut you in?” Barbara asked. “You and Nikki. It was Terry's find, after all.”
“Yeah. But he was soft on Nikki,” Vi said simply. “He wanted to impress her. This was the way.”
Barbara knew the rest. Neil Sitwell at Bowers had opened Terry's eyes to copyright law. He'd handed over the address for 31-32 Soho Square and informed the boy that King-Ryder Productions would put him in touch with the Chandler solicitors. Terry had gone to Matthew King-Ryder with the music in hand. Matthew King-Ryder had seen it and had realised how he could use it to make himself the fortune that his father's will denied him. But why not just buy the music from the boy right then? she wondered. Why kill him to get it? Better yet, why not just buy the rights to the music from the Chandler family? If the production that resulted from the music was anything like the King-Ryder/Chandler productions from the past, there would have been plenty of lolly to go round in royalties even if fifty percent of it went to the Chandlers.
Vi was saying “—couldn't get the name,” when Barbara roused herself from her thoughts. She said, “What? Sorry. What did you say?”
“Matthew King-Ryder didn't give Terry the solicitor's name. Didn't even give him a chance to ask for it. He booted him out of his office as soon as he saw what Terry'd brought with him.”
“When he saw the music.”
She nodded. “Terry said he called security. Two guards came up straightaway and threw him out.”
“But Terry had gone there just for the Chandler solicitor's address, hadn't he? That's all he wanted from Matthew King-Ryder? He didn't want money? A reward or something?”
“Money's what we wanted the Chandlers to give him. Once we knew the music couldn't be auctioned.”
A nurse came into the room then, a small square tray in her hand. A hypodermic needle lay on it. Time for pain medication, the woman said.
“One last question,” Barbara said. “Why did Terry go up to Derbyshire on Tuesday?”
“Because I asked him to,” Vi said. “Nikki thought I was being a fool about Shelly—” Here the other woman raised her head. Vi spoke to her rather than to Barbara. “She kept sending these letters and hanging about and I was getting scared.”
Shelly raised a thin hand and pointed to her chest. “Of me?” she asked. “You 'as scared of me?”
“Nikki laughed them off when I told her about them. I thought if she saw them herself, we could plan to take care of Shelly some way. I wrote Nikki a note and asked Terry to take it and the letters up to her. Like I said, he was soft on her. Any excuse to see her. You know what I mean.”
The nurse interposed at this juncture, saying, “I really must insist,” and holding up the syringe.
“Yeah, okay,” Vi Nevin said.
Barbara stopped for groceries on her way back to Chalk Farm, so it was after nine by the time she got home. She unpacked her booty and stashed it within the cupboards and the munchkin-size fridge of her bungalow. All the time in her mind she picked through the information that Vi Nevin had given her. Somewhere within their interview was buried the key to everything that had happened: not only in Derbyshire but also in London. Surely, she thought, a mere assembling of the information in the right order would tell her what she needed to know.
With a plate of reheatable rogan josh from the grocery's precooked section—of which Barbara had quickly become an habitué nonpareil when she'd moved to the neighbourhood—she settled herself at her tiny dining table next to the bungalow's front window. She accompanied her meal with a lukewarm Bass and laid her notebook next to the coffee mug from which she was reduced to drinking, since several days of crockery, cutlery, and glassware had piled in her kitchen's diminutive sink. She took a gulp of the ale, forked up a portion of the lamb, and flipped to the notes from her interview with Vi Nevin.
Once the pain medication had been administered, the patient had drifted off to sleep, but not before answering a few more questions. In her role of Argos watching over Io, Shelly Platt had protested Barbara's continued presence. But Vi, lulled into a drug-induced ease, had whispered responses cooperatively until her eyes had closed and her breathing had deepened.
Reviewing her notes, Barbara concluded that the logical place to begin in developing a hypothesis about the case would have to be with the telephone call that Terry Cole had intercepted in South Kensington. That event had set all others in motion. It also stimulated enough questions to suggest that an understanding of the phone call—what had prompted it and what exactly had arisen from it—would lead inexorably to the evidence that would allow her to nab Matthew King-Ryder as a killer.
Although it was now September, Vi Nevin had been quite clear about the fact that Terry Cole had intercepted the phone call in South Kensington in the month of June. She couldn't give the exact date, but she knew it was early in the month because she'd collected a fresh batch of their phone box cards at the beginning of the month and she passed them to Terry on the same day that she picked them up. It was then that he told her about the curious call.
Not the beginning of July? Barbara enquired. Not August? Not even September?
June it was, Vi Nevin insisted. She remembered because they'd already moved house to Fulham—she and Nikki—and since Nikki had gone on to Derbyshire, Terry had questioned putting her cards in the phone boxes when she wasn't in town. Vi was quite sure of that. She'd wanted Terry to put up her own cards as soon as possible, she said, so that she could continue to build her clientele, and she'd told the boy to hold Nikki's cards for posting until the autumn, when he was to place them in boxes a day before the young woman returned.
But why, then, had it taken Terry so long to go to Bowers with the music he'd found?
First, Vi informed her, because she didn't tell Nikki straightaway about Terry's find. And second, because once she did tell Nikki and the plan was hatched among them to try to make some money from the music, it took some time for Nikki to research the best auction houses available to handle a sale of the sort they imagine
d. “Didn't want to pay lots of sellers’ fees,” she murmured, eyelids heavy. “Nikki thought 'f a country auction first. She made phone calls. Talked to people who knew.”
“And she came up with Bowers?”
“'S right.” Vi turned on her side. Shelly raised the blanket round her charge's shoulders and tucked her in up to her neck.
Now, munching her rogan josh in her Chalk Farm bungalow, Barbara reflected on that telephone call yet another time. No matter which way she considered it, however, she arrived at the same conclusion. The call had to have been intended for Matthew King-Ryder, who failed to be there at the designated hour to receive it. Hearing the single word yeah spoken by a male voice—by Terry Cole's voice—the caller had assumed that his message about the Albert Hall was being received by the right person. And since whoever had possession of the Chandler music wished to remain anonymous—why else make a call to a phone box?—it seemed reasonable to conclude that either the passing of the music from his hand to King-Ryder's constituted an illegality or the caller had come into possession of the music illegally or the music was going to be used by King-Ryder for a purpose that was itself illegal. In any case, the caller thought he'd passed the music along to King-Ryder, who'd no doubt paid a significant sum to get his mitts on it. With that sum in hand—probably paid in advance and in cash—the caller faded into the fog of obscurity, leaving King-Ryder out of the money, out of the music, and out of the picture as well. So when Terry Cole had dropped into his office flashing a page of the Chandler score, Matthew King-Ryder must have thought he was being deliberately ridiculed by someone who had already double-crossed him. Because if he'd arrived in South Keninsgton just one minute late for that telephone call, he'd have stood round for hours waiting for that phone to ring and assuming he'd been had.
He'd want revenge for that. He'd also want that music. And there was only one way to have both.
Vi Nevin's story supported Barbara's contention that Matthew King-Ryder was the man they were looking for. Unfortunately, it wasn't evidence, and without something more solid than conjecture, Barbara knew that she had no case to lay before Lynley. And laying before him irrefutable facts was going to be the only way she could ever redeem herself in his eyes. He'd seen her defiance as further proof of her indifference to a chain of command. He needed to see that same defiance as the dynamism that brought down a killer.
Pondering this, Barbara heard her name called from outside the bungalow. She looked up to see Hadiyyah skipping down the path that led to the back garden. The motion-detecting lights came on as she passed beneath them. The effect wasn't unlike a dancer being spotlit as she flew across the stage.
“We're back, we're back, we're back from the sea!” Hadiyyah sang out. “And look what Dad won me!”
Barbara waved at the little girl and closed her notebook. She went to the door and opened it just as Hadiyyah was finishing a pirouette. One of her long plaits had come loose from its restraining ribbon and was beginning to unravel, trailing a tail of silver satin like a comet in the sky Her socks were rucked and her T-shirt was stained with mustard and ketchup, but her face was radiant.
“We had such fun!” she cried. “I wish and I wish that you could've come, Barbara. We went on the roller coaster and the sailing ships and the airplane ride, and—oh, Barbara, wait'll you hear—I got to drive the train! We even went to the Burnt House Hotel and I visited Mrs. Porter for a bit, but not all day because Dad fetched me back. We ate our lunch on the beach and after we went paddling in the sea, but the water was so cold that we decided to go to the arcade instead.” She gulped for breath.
“I'm surprised you're still standing after a day packed like that.”
“I slept in the car,” Hadiyyah explained. “Almost all the way home.” She thrust her arm forward and Barbara saw that she was carrying a small stuffed frog. “See what Dad won me at the crane grab, Barbara? He's ever so good at the crane grab.”
“It's nice,” Barbara told her with a nod at the frog. “Good to practise with while you're young.”
Hadiyyah frowned and inspected the toy. “Practise with?”
“Right. Practise. Kissing.” Barbara smiled at the little girl's confusion. She put her hand on her tiny shoulder, ushered her to the table, and said, “Never mind. It was a daft joke anyway I'm sure dating will've improved enormously by the time you're ready to try it. So. What else have you got?”
What she had was a plastic bag whose handles were tied to one of the belt loops in her shorts. She said, “This is for you. Dad won it as well. At the crane grab. He's ever so—”
“Good at the crane grab,” Barbara finished for her. “Yeah. I know.”
“Because I already said.”
“But some things bear repeating,” Barbara told her. “Hand it over, then. Let's see what it is.”
With some effort Hadiyyah untangled the bag's handles and presented it to Barbara. She opened it to find inside a small, plush red velvet heart. It was trimmed with white lace.
“Well. Gosh,” Barbara said. She set the heart gingerly on the dining table.
“Isn't it lovely?” Hadiyyah gazed upon the heart with no little reverence. “Dad won it at the crane grab, Barbara. Just like the frog. I said, ‘Get her a froggie, Dad, so she'll have one as well and they can be friends.’ But he said, 'No. A frog won't do for our friend, little khushi! That's what he calls me.”
“Khushi. Yeah. I know.” Barbara felt a rapid pulse in her fingertips. She stared at the heart like the votary of a saint in the presence of relics.
“So he aimed for the heart instead. It took him three tries to get it. He could've got the elephant, I suppose, because that would've been a lot easier. Or he could've got the elephant first to get it out of the way and given it to me, except I already have an elephant, and I suppose he remembered that, didn't he? But anyway, he wanted the heart. I expect he might've brought it to you himself, but I wanted to and he said that was all right as long as your lights were on and you were still up. Was it all right? You look a bit peculiar. But your lights were on. I saw you in the window. Should I not have given it to you, Barbara?”
Hadiyyah was watching her anxiously. Barbara smiled and put an arm round her shoulders. “It's just so nice that I don't know what to say. Thanks. And thank your dad for me, won't you? Too bad expertise with the crane grab isn't a highly marketable skill.” He's ever so—
“Good. Right. I've seen that firsthand, if you recall.”
Hadiyyah recalled. She rubbed her stuffed frog against her cheek. “It's extra special to have a souvenir of a day at the sea, isn't it? Whenever we do something special together, Dad buys a souvenir for me, did you know? So I'll remember what a fine time we had. He says that's important. The remembering part. He says the remembering is just as important as the doing.”
“I wouldn't disagree.”
“Only, I wish you could'Ve come. What did you do today?”
“Work, I'm afraid.” Barbara gestured at the table where her notebook lay. Next to it sat the mailing list and the catalogues from Quiver Me Timbers. “I'm still at it.”
“Then I mustn't stay.” She retreated towards the door.
“It's okay,” Barbara said hastily. She realised how much she'd been longing for company. “I didn't mean—”
“Dad said I could only visit for five minutes. He wanted me to go straight to bed, but I asked if I could bring you your souvenir and he said, 'Five minutes, khushi! That's what he—”
“Calls you. Right. I know.”
“He was ever so nice to take me to the sea, wasn't he, Barbara?”
“The nicest there is.”
“So I must listen when he says, 'Five minutes, khushi! It's a way of saying thank-you to him.”
“Ah. Okay. Then you'd better scoot.”
“But you do like the heart?”
“Better than anything in the world,” Barbara said.
Once the child had left, Barbara approached the table. She walked carefully, as if the heart we
re a diffident creature who might be frightened away by sudden movement. With her eyes on the red velvet and the lace, she felt for her shoulder bag, rooted out her cigarettes, and set a match to one. She smoked moodily and she studied the heart.
A frog won't do for our friend, little khushi.
Never had nine words seemed so portentous.
CHAPTER 28
anken treated the black leather jacket with something akin to reverence: He donned latex gloves before handling the bag into which Lynley had deposited the garment, and when he laid the jacket onto one of the tables in the empty dining room of the Black Angel Hotel, he did it with the sort of ecclesiolatry that was generally reserved for religious services.
Lynley had phoned his colleague shortly after his futile interview with the Black Angel's employees. Hanken had taken the phone call at dinner and vowed that he'd be in Tideswell within the half hour. He was as good as his word.
Now he bent over the leather jacket and examined the hole in the back of it. Fresh-looking, he noted to Lynley, who stood across the table from him and watched the other DI scrutinise each millimeter of the perforation's circumference. Of course, they wouldn't know for certain until the jacket was placed under a microscope, Hanken continued, but the hole appeared recent because of the condition of the surrounding leather, and wasn't it going to be a treat if forensic came up with even a microscopic amount of cedar right on the edge of that hole?
“Once we have a match on that blood with Terry Cole's, any more cedar is academic, isn't it?” Lynley pointed out. “We've got the sliver from the wound, after all.”
“We have,” Hanken said. “But I like my cake with icing.” He bagged the jacket after examining its blood-soaked lining. “This'll do to get us a warrant, Thomas. This'll do a flaming treat to get us a warrant.”
“It'll make things easier,” Lynley agreed. “And the fact that he allows the manor to be used for tournaments and the like ought to be enough to allow us to—”
In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner Page 60