by William Paul
‘Beats me. Happens all the time. Anyway, this bloke has made a big effort to find out the rules and customs because he’s not a native in my universe if you understand my drift. So I see him, thinking it will be some insurance job or the like.’
‘Very public-spirited of you.’
‘Look, I’m being straight with you, Chief Inspector. Give me a break, will you?’
Fyfe took a telling. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘So he’s sitting there where you’re sitting now and he’s a big ugly bastard. His head is almost touching the roof and I’ve got a couple of boys on the end of the alarm ready to burst in if he turns nasty and I can hardly believe my ears when he tells me he wants this dear old lady bumped and he’s saved up fen thousand pounds to pay somebody to do it.’
‘Not a big enough fee, Donaldson?’
‘I don’t do old ladies. It’s not right. And he told me all about her, how she was a widow and how she did the flowers for the church and how she was so nice and wouldn’t harm a fly. He was very strange.’
‘And what did you do with him?’
‘I told him it wasn’t possible. He didn’t argue. Just got up, thanked me for my time and walked out.’
‘Did he tell you the name of the woman he wanted killed?’
‘Yes, he did. That’s why I recognised it in the paper. McElhose. The poor old dear. If I’d known I could have prevented it.’
MacDuff’s eyes were watering. He stuffed a fist into his mouth and bit on it, wiping some egg yolk from his bottom lip. Fyfe screwed the paper bag that had contained his roll into a ball and tossed it back into the box lid. He drank some more coffee, burned his throat again. He finished his roll in four bites.
‘Did he give you a reason for wanting this old lady dead?’ Fyfe asked.
‘He said he would inherit something valuable from her.’
‘What?’
‘He didn’t specify. I didn’t ask. I assumed cash.’
‘Did he tell you his name?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was it?’
‘It was a foreign-sounding name but he had a local accent. Ramensky. Alexander Ramensky. Polish probably. I had him checked out because I thought it could be a set-up. It wasn’t. No form. No nasty friends.’
So Ramensky had followed up his theory and checked out the practical possibility of having Zena McElhose’s life swapped for little Lorna’s. If Donaldson MacDuff had moral qualms about such a deed, there would be others who would overcome them for ten thousand pounds. Many anonymous drinkers in late-night bars down by the docks would be glad of such lucrative work. And even if he didn’t find anybody, or if he didn’t have the money, he might have steeled himself to do it personally. Needs must when the devil drives and your only child’s close to death. It would be simple to break into the big house and finish off old Zena. Then there was the slight hitch of coming face to face with balaclava-clad Valentine Randolph who is indulging in his cheeky weekend habit of stealing knick-knacks from under the noses of friends and acquaintances. Or he might have seen Randolph breaking in and seized the opportunity. Whichever, Randolph comes off worse. His heart can’t take the shock. He collapses unconscious presenting the perfect opportunity to be fitted up as the murderer. Zena’s paradox is explained and then Randolph dies without regaining consciousness and Ramensky thinks a guardian angel must be looking down on him, if not on his daughter Lorna.
‘You’ll testify to all this in court, won’t you, Donaldson?’
‘No.’
‘You’ll give a formal statement?’
‘No, and I’ll deny this conversation ever took place if I have to. I have my reputation to think about.’
‘Why bother telling me then?’
‘You needed to know. I’m telling you because I don’t like people who inflict violence on innocent old ladies. It could have been my mother, for goodness sake. It makes me sad.’
‘Well, it’s just as well I’ve got it on tape then.’
MacDuff stopped in mid-chew, one cheek bulging. His eyebrows were once again sucked into the hole in the middle of his forehead.
‘Just joking,’ Fyfe said and MacDuff started chewing again. ‘Thanks for the coffee and the roll.’
‘Are you going to arrest Ramensky?’
‘I’m going to speak to him.’
‘What about the guy in the hospital you found? Was he on a contract? Are you absolutely sure it’s this Valentine Randolph, the fat cat lawyer?’
That had been MacDuff’s real point in shopping Ramensky. He thought the man he rejected had found a rival operator willing to take on the job. That would be enough to give him indigestion; a rival selling services on his territory. And that was why he had phoned in originally. The fact that Randolph was who he was confused the issue nicely.
‘It’s him all right.’
‘What was he playing at?’
‘We’ll probably never know. He’s dead himself now.’
MacDuff sniffed. ‘So there is justice.’
‘Of a kind.’
‘Glad to be able to help,’ MacDuff said. ‘We don’t need people who bump off old ladies out on our streets.’
‘How true. Don’t get up. I’ll see myself out.’ Fyfe rose to leave. ‘One thing I’d like to know, Donaldson.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The going rate.’
‘The rate for what?’
‘For a contract. The rate to bump somebody.’
‘No old ladies?’
‘No old ladies. How much?’
‘Depends. Of course, all this is speculation. I’m not able to say for certain, being a respectable businessman.’
‘Naturally. But what’s the average price?’
MacDuff pouted, fingering his adding machine, taking on the role of cost-conscious accountant. ‘Four thousand for some damage maybe, a few broken bones. Five to six for serious damage, hospitalisation. It can be a bit like the legal aid system. Your income will be taken into account.’
‘I’m on the poverty line. What about terminal damage to someone in the right age group?’
‘Ten thousand.’
‘Very reasonable.’
‘But for you, Chief Inspector, I’m sure a substantial discount could be arranged.’
Fyfe turned to the door. ‘That’s nice to know.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
Monday, 08.53
Sir Duncan Morrison hadn’t personally arrested anyone for – he thought about it for a long time – for at least fifteen years. Chief Constables were supposed to be above that sort of thing, above and beyond. It was a difficult matter of etiquette to decide how to handle the situation. His first thought had been to get Fyfe’s advice but his mobile phone wasn’t taking calls and he couldn’t be contacted. Instead he had got on to headquarters and discovered the first person available was DS Graham Evans who never seemed to sleep. He hadn’t explained fully, just told Evans what he wanted him to do, finding a degree of pleasure in keeping the information to himself and the entire police force he commanded in the dark. In his bedroom he raked around the sock drawer for the set of handcuffs he knew had to be somewhere in the house, but he couldn’t lay his hands on them. He was, he realised, as excited as a schoolboy proudly handing in a particularly good bit of homework for marking. How often did a Chief Constable get the chance to lead by example? This would show them that he wasn’t just a figurehead and pen-pusher. He had already worked out how to be suitably modest when the story was splashed across the newspapers and television screens. The public loved a reluctant hero much more than an arrogant pushy one.
Sir Duncan worried that he didn’t have proper corroboration but Evans would provide that soon enough. He was troubled by a sneaking suspicion that he was being set up just as he was now being told Val Randolph had been set up for Zena McElhose’s murder. If it was all a practical joke the world would laugh at him for being so gullible as to accept this bizarre story at face value without a shred of supporting evid
ence. But he hadn’t accepted it yet, though he believed it. There was concrete evidence and Evans had gone to check that it did exist. That would be the ultimate seal on the confession.
Sir Duncan paced the dining-room, impatiently anticipating Evans’ return. He watched the big man sit doubled over, holding his head in his hands. He was sobbing inconsolably. He was not dangerous. There was no malice left in him. It had all been poured out. He was a totally broken man. He had been like that for the last fifteen minutes. There was no need for the handcuffs he hadn’t been able to find anyway. Sir Duncan shook his head, marvelling at the twist of fate that had put the murderer on the chair and him in command of the situation. He held out a hand towards the big man. The long arm of the law, he thought. You’re nicked, he almost said as he had seen them do on television cop series. But he didn’t.
‘Why?’
It was not the first time he had posed the question that morning. The response from the man in the chair was always the same: a bemused shake of the head.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Monday, 10.24
So where was Ramensky? Marianne didn’t know. He hadn’t gone to work last night. They had phoned up looking for him. He must have gone on the piss instead. Marianne wasn’t angry. She seemed more disappointed that he should have left her on her own. She sat rocking in the fireside chair with her knees drawn up and little Lorna held to her chest. Fyfe sat dumbly in the corner of the warm sitting-room. The gas fire was on full, sucking the moisture and the oxygen from the air, but draughts round the window frame compensated. The curtains, still drawn against the daylight, moved sluggishly. Old Zena’s granddaughter, Carole something, had arrived from the south and was in the house with Marianne. She was a dark-haired young woman with high cheekbones, a wide mouth, and a posh accent. Her eyes were swollen with crying. They looked as if they had been ringed with red crayon. She had formally identified the body that morning. Now she was on her knees in front of Marianne with her forehead resting on the arm of the chair. Lorna stared across at Fyfe, unsettling him. He began to bite at a ragged edge of fingernail on his thumb. He bit too hard, stripping too much away. A smear of blood appeared. He could taste it on his tongue.
Fyfe hadn’t told the women why he had come, or what he had learned. As soon as he realised Ramensky was not there he had turned his visit into a matter of routine, just a check to see if there was anything useful Marianne had remembered since making her statement. Naturally there wasn’t. He stayed because to rush away abruptly might have seemed strange, although the two women had withdrawn into themselves and mostly ignored him. Then he found himself trapped, trying to think of an excuse to leave, wondering why the conventions of polite society assumed such importance in the midst of such an unconventional situation.
On the way over to Ramensky’s home Fyfe had contacted headquarters and spoken to Les Cooper to see what was happening. Randolph’s death without regaining consciousness was common knowledge, and Fyfe’s car was dented from the night before but mechanically sound, according to the police garage. The insurance would pay to have it straightened out. He could collect it whenever he was ready. Otherwise there was little to report except that Evans and Matthewson were following up some kind of tip-off and they had probably found the fountain pen Randolph had signed his farewell letter with. It was in Maureen Gilliland’s handbag. Curious that. She must have stolen it from him.
Fyfe was glad Ramensky had gone on a drinking binge and put himself out of reach. He could understand that reaction. It was what Fyfe would have done. If Ramensky had been there, Fyfe doubted if he would have told him what he knew about his attempt to hire a contract killer anyway. Why should he be the source of more grief for Marianne and her dying child? Why should he deprive the family of its father at such a critical time? Zena McElhose had been old. She would have died soon anyway. If Ramensky helped her along in the hope of gaining benefit for his child, then who could blame him? Who could honestly say they would not have done the same thing themselves? It was stupid, superstitious nonsense, of course, but it might have worked. How was he to know until he tried? And if he didn’t try how was he to know that it wouldn’t work? And Valentine Randolph was an entirely convincing scapegoat. Maureen Gilliland’s suicidal final fling gave him the motivation and the credibility. There was no need to look beyond him. Ramensky’s head on a plate was not required to produce a satisfactory solution. Good luck to him.
Fyfe looked at his watch. He had been here too long, he decided. It was time for him to put his own life in order as best he could. He would have liked to drop in past Hilary but she was almost certainly at work. He stood up, making a show of getting ready to leave. No one watched him except Lorna, her big eyes in the unhealthily pale face following his every step across the room.
The post-mortems would be well under way by now, lethally sharp knives zipping open the pasty white flesh. There would be little blood. It would have more or less dried up overnight. Pinkish liquid would leak out collecting like oil under a car, following the moulded channels of the stainless steel mortuary tables, running down to the open plug hole at the corpse’s feet where, since they were in the northern hemisphere, it would turn in a clockwise spiral and drain away. Old Zena’s skinny remains would be first up, then Gilliland, then Sapalski if he was being done in the same place. Randolph might still be warm by the time the pathologist in his rubber boots got round to him. The dead bodies were like buses, Fyfe thought. There were none for ages and then they all came at once.
‘Don’t worry,’ he told Marianne. ‘Everything will be all right.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Monday, 10.35
It was an ordinary cupboard, known locally as an Edinburgh press, in the corner of an ordinary bedroom. The frame was sanded and varnished, giving it an appearance that suggested it should have a more important role and lead through to another room rather than into shallow storage space. There were doors like it in every bedroom. The key was in the lock.
To get to the press, Graham Evans moved a pair of suitcases out of the way, and then a white chest stuffed so full of clean towels that the top would not close properly. The second-floor bedroom with its flowery wallpaper and utilitarian units was not as tastefully or expensively furnished as the others in the house. It seemed to be very much an afterthought.
‘Well, what do you think?’ Evans asked as he turned the key.
‘I think this is our last chance,’ Matthewson replied.
‘Let’s take a look then.’
He pulled the door open. Inside, at the bottom, was a neatly stacked pile of folded blankets and sports equipment. There were four narrow shelves, starting at waist level. Each contained an orderly line of objects and ornaments, two dozen in all, remarkably similar to the contents of the cupboard they had found at Randolph’s home. The smallest was a red-stoned signet ring, the biggest was a sealed white jar of Stilton cheese, but the thing that instantly attracted both men’s attention was on the front edge of the top shelf, a bookend in the shape of a parrot carved from soapstone.
‘Fuck me, it’s Hunky Dunky’s missing parrot,’ Evans said. ‘How the hell did he know it would be here?’
‘He obviously has friends in low places,’ Evans said.
‘He must know something we don’t.’
‘Presumably we will find out for ourselves soon enough.’
‘And Hunky Dunky gets his parrots back.’
‘Plus the glory. It looks like he’s cracked the case all by himself.’
‘God, he’ll be unbearable now.’ Matthewson put his nose right up against the parrot without touching it. ‘Who would have believed it?’ he said. ‘Aren’t the games some people play truly amazing?’
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Monday, 12.15
Angela was waiting for him. Fyfe saw her, slightly distorted, through the patterned glass of the ten-foot-high revolving door guarding the entrance to the Caledonian Hotel. His bowels went rigid, making him stop. For a fleeting
instant he considered turning and walking away. Then he moved forward again.
The doorman was standing in the shelter of the doorway. He was a big man, almost certainly ex-army, a sergeant-major probably, with a ruddy face and sprouting nostril hair. He was wearing a blue, knee-length tunic coat covered in a deluge of yellow and red braid as if he had spilled multi-coloured toothpaste down his chest. He had a blue cape round his shoulders and carried a half-opened umbrella ready to snap into full size to protect approaching residents and customers from the blustery sleet over the final few yards to the entrance. Fyfe hadn’t qualified as a potential client for the hotel so he got right up to the entrance and was standing on the mosaic coat of arms on the ground before the doorman stood to attention and reacted.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ he said, keeping his parade ground voice in check.
He bowed and tilted his black top hat which shone silkily as it moved. He pushed the door with his free hand so that it gathered speed like a fairground roundabout beginning another ride that would take Fyfe from one part of his complicated life into another separate but inseparable part.
Fyfe stepped into one of the four V-shaped compartments and followed it round. Angela came into sharp focus as he was disgorged inside the hotel. She was about twenty yards from him across the foyer, opposite the reception desk in a kind of dead-end of low-slung leather seats and sofas interspersed with vases of flowers on pedestals. She stood up and came towards him. Heads turned because she was something to look at; beautifully made up and expensively clothed in a long white wrap-around dress split to just above the knee on one side. Her breasts stood proud as if they had been carved with a whittling knife.
Fyfe met her half-way. They held hands, embraced. He kissed her on the cheek. She kissed fresh air beside his cheek. They stood back and looked at each other. Anyone watching them would have seen two old friends having an emotional reunion.
‘Welcome back, Angela,’ Fyfe said.