by Sabina Manea
Uncharacteristically, the outer gate was unlocked and slightly ajar. The steps up to the entrance were cluttered with the debris of dry leaves and petals that heralded the arrival of autumn. What was left of the flower border bore the dejected look of abandonment. Now that its mistress was gone, the house was unloved – Mrs Byrne had to all appearances given up.
When Lucia got to the top of the stairs, the door opened with perfect timing and she was greeted by DCI Carliss, whose face broadened into a smile. ‘Thank goodness you’re here. This place gives me the creeps. I hope they’re paying you well for it.’
‘They will be if I ever get the work done. I’ve got some news to share.’ Lucia was more thankful to see him than she would have liked.
‘So do I. That’s why I called out of the blue. Let’s settle in first.’
They walked through the overbearing doors and stood in the entrance hall. There was no sign of Mrs Byrne – she must have been in a bad way after the death and the consequent upheaval.
Carliss said, as if reading Lucia’s mind, ‘The nephew and the housekeeper are around, but we should be pretty safe for a while. I’m about to interview them, so they’re probably hiding in their respective cubbyholes, getting anxious. Shall we?’
They went through to the cavernous drawing room with its blistering gold pillars. The heavy wallpaper was peeling in places, and the paint had turned a chain-smoking yellow. Lucia opened the French doors for some fresh air, and in doing so inadvertently glanced at the spot where the Professor had collapsed. Against the serene backdrop of the garden, it didn’t seem real. Outside, with school drop off and the commuter rush hour nearing their end, the noise of the traffic had subsided, replaced with a dull whirr of a drill. Home renovation was a beloved local sport that could be practised in all weathers since it could be so conveniently outsourced and expertly directed from the comfort of a crisp office or a yoga studio.
Carliss launched himself into a shabby armchair. ‘We’ve got the tin from under the kitchen sink – if we’re dealing with a killer, let’s hope they’ve left something of themselves behind. What makes no sense is that there’s no 1080 anywhere else – in her glass, on the other glasses, on the crockery, cutlery, food, drink, you name it, they’ve tested everything. It takes about thirty minutes for the first effects of the poison. She collapsed at five thirty-five. Even assuming a delayed reaction, she couldn’t have ingested it earlier than four thirty. We know she was at the party, in full sight of everyone, since around four. Nobody remembers her going back into the house during that time. So, unless we’re missing a trick, we’ve got ourselves an impossible death.’
Since Lucia had last seen him, he seemed to have acquired two deep furrows cutting across his forehead. He looked like he was taking the case very personally, like a specially crafted puzzle that he was under intense pressure to crack.
‘In case you were wondering, the timing of the death rules you out,’ the inspector added with a self-satisfied smirk. ‘You’d only just got back to the house when she collapsed, so there’s no way you could have administered the poison.’
‘You weren’t seriously suspecting me, were you?’ gasped Lucia incredulously.
‘No, not really, but I’ve got to keep my eyes peeled, haven’t I? All in a day’s work.’ He looked through his well-thumbed notebook. ‘We can discount suicide. I suppose she could have had the 1080 on her and slipped it into her mouth when nobody was looking. But traces would have been found in her pocket. Or a wrapper with traces of poison would have been found somewhere in the house or the garden. She could conceivably have disposed of the wrapper in some ingenious way that escapes me right now, but that’s really pushing it. Any bright ideas?’
Lucia racked her brains, trying to lure out a niggling image that had stuck in her subconscious. The Baccarat coupe that the Professor was drinking from was so distinctive from the others. It was as if someone was taunting them with the obvious solution, only to snatch it away by making it unfeasible. ‘Do you think you can get me the Professor’s champagne glass from police evidence? Just for us to examine ourselves, and then you can sneak it straight back.’
Carliss was baffled. ‘Well, yes, I suppose I could. Nobody else is looking at the case right now, so I should be able to get away with it. But I don’t see what it’s going to add if forensics have already been all over the glass. I suppose two more pairs of eyes won’t hurt. Your turn now. What’s the news?’
Lucia savoured the anticipation of recounting the outcome of her trip to Bloomsbury, secretly pleased with herself for taking the initiative to play detective. Her resolve to leave her former life behind was being seriously undermined. She hoped the inspector wouldn’t reprimand her for going further than the brief she’d been assigned, but she figured that by now he had little choice.
The policeman’s eyes did widen, but by the end he looked more impressed than annoyed. ‘Bloody hell. I should be angry, shouldn’t I? I told you to listen, not to ferret around. But I’ve got to hand it to you – you’ve done some excellent work. Better than most of the sergeants I’ve trained over the years, all pointless diplomas and not an ounce of common sense between them. You’ll have me out of my job at this rate,’ he added with a wink. ‘She’s a very slippery character, our Professor. I’ve got some contacts left in the Home Office – people I met through my parents, and who’ve owed me a few favours over the years. I’ll see if they can get hold of anything that might enlighten us.’
‘There’s something else. After the visit to Clapham, I went back to the Red Lion. Adam was there and acting very strangely. Something is going on that is severely unsettling him,’ Lucia said. She pondered whether to mention Adam’s regular tête-à-têtes with Danny but decided to hang on to that fact for now – she didn’t see how it was relevant to the Professor’s death. ‘According to the barmaid, who doesn’t miss much, he’s got serious money trouble. It seems the Professor wasn’t being especially generous with her factotum.’
‘Hmm. I’ll see what I can shake out of him, and that funny housekeeper of theirs. Right, I’d better go find them both. Are you OK to hang around till I’m done, so I can fill you in on all the dirt?’
‘Of course. I wouldn’t dream of going anywhere.’ Lucia had plans of her own – some quiet snooping upstairs while the interviewees were detained.
Chapter 11
The basement stairs creaked, signalling that the two witnesses were heading out of the kitchen. Carliss went ahead to meet them. Lucia busied herself examining a wall just outside the drawing room where she could get a good view. Adam was the first to emerge, followed by Mrs Byrne’s dragging steps. Their faces bore the marks of sleep deprivation – unsurprisingly, given the recent horror they had experienced. Lucia couldn’t be absolutely certain from her vantage point, but she thought she could detect another sentiment – guilt, laced with a touch of fear.
Carliss gave the uneasy-looking duo a comforting smile. ‘Mrs Byrne, Mr Corcoran. I do apologise to have kept you. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, and I’m sorry for having to intrude again at such a difficult time. I know you’ve already given your statements, so I’ll do my best to avoid repetition. Mrs Byrne, would you please follow me to the drawing room? Mr Corcoran, I won’t keep you long.’
Adam loitered behind them, unsure what to do with himself. Lucia seized the opportunity and narrowed in. ‘Hello, Adam. How are you holding up?’
He jumped. ‘Lucia, I didn’t see you there. You startled me. I’m as well as can be, under the circumstances. It’s awful. I just can’t stop thinking of poor Auntie suffering like that.’ He didn’t appear altogether convinced by his own predicament.
‘I know this is probably the last thing on your mind, but have you thought what you want to do about decorating? I’d assumed you wanted me to carry on, so I’ve been turning up as usual, but I totally understand if you want to call it off.’
He looked perversely cheered up by the change of tack and scanned the entrance hall with scarce
ly concealed satisfaction. ‘On the contrary. In fact, I’m glad you’ve mentioned it. I was going to call you, but since you’re here, even better. I’d very much like you to carry on with the work.’
‘No problem. I’d be very happy to stay on if you’d like me to and if I’m not intruding.’
‘Thanks, Lucia. Don’t be daft, you’re not intruding. If I’m honest, it’s nice to have another soul around the place. The house is far too big for me and Mrs B.’
Lucia made a mental note of the exchange as extremely informative. She didn’t delude herself that the apparent trust he put in her stemmed from genuine appreciation. He simply didn’t see her as a threat, having relegated her to the category of unobtrusive domestic help. The invisibility of service was a source of eternal fascination to her. This viewing point offered an uncompromising insight into the lives that she so easily entered. Her clients thought nothing of laying their existence bare before a total stranger, on the premise that money exchanging hands could somehow buy her blindness. Adam headed out of the front door, cigarette at the ready. His muffled voice was barely audible from inside – he must have been on the phone.
With Adam suitably distracted, Lucia decided to take her chances and venture upstairs. Now her engagement was secure, she had the ideal excuse to roam the place at her leisure. There was plenty of wallpaper to steam off, as well as old plastering to survey, and so no room was out of bounds. As she braved the lofty staircase, she noticed the dust had settled thickly on the bannister. She would start with the Professor’s inner sanctum – the library. It felt like opening a secret door into another world. Despite the recent warm weather, the windows were firmly shut, leaving no escape for the smell of dry paper and overheated leather. Lucia made a superhuman effort not to sneeze.
The room was unchanged since her meeting with Professor Kiseleva. The desk was cluttered with old lecture notes, drafts of articles and what appeared to be an indiscriminate choice of books on a variety of areas of mathematics. The Professor seemed to move from one idea to the next until she narrowed in on her subject. The latest notes were on her draft book, a comparative study of Soviet and US research into the automation of decision-making. Dropping maths at the first opportunity at school had left Lucia’s scientific knowledge embarrassingly lacking, a fact she now regretted. None of the content made much sense. Drafts upon drafts of the same chapters were covered in indecipherable red scribbles, like the remains of moribund insects that had crawled across the page to their death.
As much as Lucia would have wanted to linger in the library, she was conscious that time was of the essence. She closed the doors slowly behind her and set upon deciding where to go next. The other doors down the long corridors either side of the landing were all identical. One was slightly open, and this distinguishing feature made it the next port of call. It was Mrs Byrne’s room. She had left her own window open, though the still air outside hadn’t managed to chase away the faint smell of washing powder and recently vacuumed carpet. The housekeeper was markedly more fastidious about her personal space than she was about the rest of the house. The décor was in line with expectations – a nun’s cell devoid of personality. The single bed was in the meagre company of a chest of drawers, a narrow standalone wardrobe and a single armchair covered with a well-worn throw. Lucia was momentarily held back by instinctive politeness, instantly overridden. The imminent violation had strong mitigating circumstances.
The wardrobe contained nothing but featureless, much washed clothes of the type that Mrs Byrne customarily wore. On top of the chest of drawers was a lumpen crucifix bearing the inscription “Rome, Anno Domini 2012” on the back, and, next to it, a framed photograph of an attractive auburn-haired woman holding a small boy on her lap against the background of a funfair. The unbridled joy on their faces stood in sharp contrast to the gloomy surroundings in which their fleeting impression now found itself.
Lucia thought she heard steps downstairs. The interviews were probably over. She risked one last incursion. However, the door she opened was a neatly made-up spare bedroom – nothing of note. She tried again, and this time it was Adam’s room that she found herself in. It made sense why she thought the door had stuck. The floor was invisible – dirty clothes, plates and glasses were strewn liberally all around. The smell matched the montage. What Adam had been up to left little to the imagination. There were a couple of empty bottles of red wine by the bed, and a half-drunk bottle of blended whisky on the windowsill. Quite a lot more time than Lucia had at her disposal would be needed to wade through the mess. She walked downstairs with a firm but relaxed step, a simple justification at the ready, should she be challenged.
Carliss stood at the bottom of the staircase, waiting. ‘I’m not even going to ask what you’ve been up to.’ His smile indicated there would probably be no recrimination for her actions. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. I could do with a pint.’
Chapter 12
Aside from the Red Lion, the other pub in the near vicinity was the wincingly named Hampstead Belle. Its unsuspecting predecessor, the Plough, had been stripped of its unsuitably low beams and rough wood floors, which had been deemed unfit to accommodate the fragile heads and designer footwear of the local clientele. The end result was a desolate open-plan hall that would have been adequate for low-budget business conferences. It was, moreover, a gastropub, serving the full range of goods available for delivery by the lorry every Monday morning. The advantage was that nobody Lucia knew drank there, especially not in the middle of a working day. Without the need for prompting, Carliss hunted down his usual pint of best bitter and a large glass of white Burgundy for his companion.
‘Regale me with your exploits. How many skeletons did you find upstairs?’
‘Not as many as I was hoping. I didn’t get to spend much time in the bedrooms, as I didn’t want to attract too much attention to my whereabouts.’
Carliss listened carefully while Lucia set out her findings, all the while adding new detail to his intricate diagram.
‘Hard to believe the housekeeper was once young and pretty,’ he said. ‘I wonder what happened to the boy. Her son, I assume. She kept that one quiet – but then, I didn’t ask.’
Lucia made a mental note to work on Mrs Byrne for this information. ‘What did she have to say about the tin of poison?’
‘She knew it was under the sink, of course. Said she barely ever used it – couldn’t remember when she last had. She wasn’t aware of anyone else tampering with it, though she couldn’t be sure. On the day of the party, she prepared all the food and laid out the spread upstairs. Emilia helped. Mrs Byrne was backwards and forwards between kitchen and terrace, and once the guests arrived, she was busy attending to them. She served them drinks, and some of them – Adam in particular – also helped themselves. She didn’t notice anything unusual or untoward.’
‘What about the argument with Adam?’
‘I asked about that too. It didn’t take her by surprise – either that, or she’s an excellent actress. She’s been trying to get him off the drink. Every time, he swears to her on everything he holds dear that he’ll give it up, only to have another relapse. That day they had a bust-up. Do you believe her?’
‘It sounds plausible enough. Like I said, I couldn’t hear what they were saying. She’s not exactly a fan of boozing, from what I’ve noticed. I can’t help feeling there might be more to their relationship than she’s letting on, but it’s just a hunch, and hunches are worth nothing without hard facts.’
‘Once a lawyer, always a lawyer. OK, on to Adam.’ Carliss consulted his weighty notebook. ‘Adam, Adam, Adam.’
‘Come on, spit it out.’
‘This one’s very good. Adam isn’t who we thought he was.’
‘You mean he’s not related to the Professor?’ It had been apparent all along that, whoever Adam was, he wasn’t cast in the same mould as Alla Kiseleva, and it was unlikely she would have warmed to the family of a maligned husband.
If Carliss
was piqued, he didn’t show it. If anything, he was admirative. ‘I should have known you’d work it out. OK, so who do you think he is?’
‘I can’t be sure of the details, but he must be connected to someone she was very fond of.’
‘You’re far too good at this game. He’s the son of an old friend of hers, a colleague from the Mathematical Society. Martha Corcoran died prematurely – an aggressive cancer – when Adam was barely out of his teens. Adam never knew his father, so Professor Kiseleva took him in, and he’s lived with her ever since.’ The Detective Chief Inspector leaned back enigmatically into his chair.
Lucia could see he had a final trick up his sleeve. ‘What is it now?’
‘Now the Professor’s gone, there’s an awful lot left behind,’ he said cryptically.
‘You mean her will. Adam is the main beneficiary and the executor. He gets the house, and the Mathematical Society gets her money.’
Lucia had a pang of remorse at taking the wind out of Carliss’s sails yet again. They had developed an ongoing game of amicable competition which they both enjoyed, all the more as neither took offence at the other’s winning a round. They made a good partnership. Lucia liked the DCI’s straightforwardness. With him, what you saw was what you got – a safe pair of hands, not easily fazed.
‘You can do my job for me. I could go back to the station, and nobody would notice the newly promoted DCI Steer has taken over.’ There was no hint of malice or bitterness in his voice. He was simply acknowledging that she had scored another point.