by Sabina Manea
They laughed, a brief but necessary antidote to the unhappiness that the Professor seemed to have cultivated around her. It had been a long and intense day, and they were both ready to stop. While they were engrossed in conversation, the pub had gradually filled up with a trickle of weary commuters, reluctant to finish their return journey to lonely bedsits or demanding family homes. Lucia and DCI Carliss willed themselves to persevere for a little while longer.
‘The Professor was very attached to that Society of hers. Adam’s been well looked after, but if I were in the housekeeper’s shoes, I’d be pretty hacked off. All those years of service and not a penny out of the estate,’ said the policeman.
Lucia corrected him. ‘If Mrs Byrne knew about the will, that is. She could have been entirely in the dark. And judging by what I saw in Bloomsbury, I’m not surprised the Professor endowed her brainchild so generously. Her work was her life.’
‘Adam must have hoped for some cold hard cash out of the old lady, if, as you say, he’s got money worries. Though I don’t get why he’s so desperate.’ Carliss scratched his head and leafed through his notes. ‘Ah, here it is. He’s an accountant. Works for a firm called Runciman Parry, just behind Leadenhall Market. He can’t be poor.’
‘Drinking is an expensive habit.’
‘Not that expensive. He wasn’t paying rent, for a start.’
‘Good point. Now the Professor is out of the way, he wants to shift Beatrice Hall as fast as he can. He told me to carry on with the decorating. With the current state of the property market, he’s going to be a multimillionaire overnight. Paying me a few thousand to tart up the place ready for viewings is small change compared to what’s about to land in his lap.’
‘So, he’s got a very strong motive. He bumps her off, and bang – he gets the house, so he can get on with solving his pressing cashflow issues.’ Carliss paused pensively. ‘He corroborated the housekeeper’s story on the argument you heard in the kitchen – said she’s forever on his back to clean himself up. On the poison, he says he didn’t know it was there. He claims he’s never looked under the kitchen sink – he would have had no reason to. He came down to the garden around three forty-five, just before the Professor, as he wanted first dibs on the champagne. Again, he says he didn’t notice anything of interest.’
Lucia turned the information over in her mind. Why did it seem all too convenient? So far, they had an impossible murder and two potential motives, mitigated by some tenable explanations. The picture was incomplete.
True to form, Carliss pre-empted her. ‘We’re not getting very far, are we? The Professor really had a knack for angering everyone around her. But that doesn’t automatically make them cold-blooded killers.’ He yawned, and Lucia agreed that they had reached a natural end for the time being. ‘Seeing how we’re not going to solve our puzzle tonight, shall we have another one? My round again. My mum’s brought me up right – I shouldn’t let a lady pay for drinks.’
‘In that case, I won’t let that good upbringing go to waste.’
The pub was emptying now that the reluctant commuters were grudgingly making their way back to their abodes. There was nothing waiting for her at home – no pet, no children, no lover. Faced with the silence of the flat and the weight of her own imagination, Lucia far preferred the current status quo and whatever else it may bring. She was enjoying the thrill of the chase.
They went their respective ways after the second drink. Lucia ambled slowly back to Beatrice Hall, where her van was still parked. She had no compunction about getting behind the wheel following the best part of a bottle of wine. She was a confident – if somewhat reckless – driver.
As the vehicle came closer and closer into sight, she noticed something was very wrong. She stood by it for a good few minutes, hypnotised by the words that had been menacingly scrawled in tall, blood-red capitals on its side: “BITCH. YOU’LL PAY”.
Chapter 13
More than anything, the defacement of her beloved van made Lucia angry. She refused to indulge in feeling sorry for herself. Instilling fear was the end goal of the vandalism, and she was damned if she was going to succumb to it. First things first. She didn’t want to drive back to her place with the vehicle in that state. After taking a photo of the damage, she got out a pot of metal paint that matched the body most closely and swept over the writing. She knew it was unlikely the perpetrator would be caught, and she wasn’t planning to report the incident to the police. It would have been a waste of their time, and in any case, it would have only been summarily logged and relegated to the bottom of the pile. Now it was invisible, the effect of the threat was diminished. Nonetheless, it wouldn’t be wise to forget that someone out there not only wished her ill but was prepared to make it happen. She had her strong suspicions about who that someone might be.
There was no question of moping around at home passing time. Despite her best efforts to shake it off, the incident had unnerved her. She was on her own, and whoever did this must have known that. She decided a walk on the Heath would help clear her mind. The early evening sun waved in and out of soft clouds, and once she got past the first couple of ponds the grassy expanse stretched out before her, far removed from the urban clutter of Belsize Park that she had just left behind.
In the first pond past South End Green, the swan nest was empty, and the parents were proudly parading their nearly grown offspring, now improbably large but still in possession of downy grey feathers staining the immaculate white. It had been a long and dry summer, and the grass was spattered with singed patches of yellow where the worst damage had been done. A flock of feral parakeets, a semi-mythical apparition that clashed with the Englishness of the hilltop village, had settled in a tall, gnarled oak tree, their shrieks competing with the dozens of mewling prams on their final outing of the day.
Lucia had her eyes on the prize – the viewing point at Parliament Hill, from where the city could be surveyed in all its disorderly, overbuilt glory. The most distinctive landmark was St Paul’s, a tiny sugary fancy of a building that somehow managed to hold its own in the midst of unforgiving glass towers. The walk had the desired palliative effect, even though she wasn’t predisposed to bouts of sentimentality. The meandering circuit back to her flat would take her up to Christ Church, where she could reminisce about the familiar school playground and time whiled away at the gate before sauntering home just around the corner. Paradise twice over, her mother used to call it – four solid walls in God’s own London village. That night, she couldn’t sleep.
The following day, DCI Carliss smoked a stealthy cigarette as he waited for Lucia outside Beatrice Hall. He stubbed out the offending item just as she pulled up.
‘What’s happened to your van?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing. Probably bored teenagers having a dare.’ As soon as she opened her mouth, she instantly knew the reply had been too quick, too dismissive to fool him.
‘Nonsense. What happened?’
There was little point in carrying on with the pretence, so she decided to come clean. ‘Someone – I’ve got a good idea who it is – wrote a nasty message in big red letters. Must have been while we were at the pub yesterday. Childish, really.’ She showed him what she had found and told him about Danny.
Carliss’s expression hardened. His eyes were ice-cold, his easy-going manner long gone. ‘This isn’t a joke, Lucia.’ He’d dropped the politeness, so she knew he wasn’t fooling around. ‘You could be in danger. This Danny bloke sounds like a nasty piece of work. Tell you what. I’ll get one of my boys to keep an eye on him, low-profile, from a distance. There’s little chance we can prove anything, but people like that aren’t smart enough to hide their behaviour for long. Who knows what else he’s been up to?’
‘Really, there’s no need. I’m not scared of the likes of him.’ That wasn’t entirely true, and she clearly wasn’t fooling the policeman.
‘No ifs, no buts. It’s no trouble, so it would be silly not to. I’ll call the station right now, befor
e we get distracted by the big house circus.’ A short conversation ensued, with Carliss giving polite but firm instructions. ‘It’s all set up. We’ll hear back at the end of the day. He’s a sharp one, PC Harding – angling to move to CID – he won’t miss a thing.’
Lucia unloaded the tools and paints out of her van. She planned on devoting the morning to her work, after which her schedule would take an entirely different turn. They went through to the drawing room, which had unwittingly metamorphosed into their de facto command centre.
Uncharacteristically, DCI Carliss had brought along a rucksack, which Lucia now eyed up intently.
‘I’ve got a little present for you.’ He fished out the Baccarat coupe, neatly packaged up in what looked like a sandwich bag, albeit extensively labelled, and handed her a pair of surgical gloves. ‘What are we looking for?’
‘I don’t know. Something that’s hiding in plain sight.’
Lucia put on the gloves and held the delicate object up to the light. Its apparent simplicity belied the painstaking craftsmanship that had been expended on the piece. There was a small amount of dried-up sticky residue at the bottom, as expected, but nothing else out of place. She ran her finger along the rim and paused for a few seconds, weighing up a thought.
‘I’m fairly sure the champagne in this glass was poisoned,’ she said, ‘and the Professor drank it.’
Carliss was running out of patience, but Lucia rather liked seeing him squirm. She would enlighten him in good time. ‘The suspense is killing me. How?’
‘I’m not absolutely certain yet. I’ll need to do a bit of research to confirm my theory. I don’t want to toss around unsubstantiated claims.’
‘OK, if you say so.’ He sighed and suddenly looked very tired. ‘Assuming you’re right, on whatever basis, we’ve got our means. The killer slipped the 1080 in the Professor’s cup, she drank it and collapsed. We’ve made a scrap of progress, theoretically speaking.’ He looked around him. ‘Since I haven’t yet spoken to the other witnesses, I’m running out of excuses to hang around here. I thought I’d have a thorough look at the kitchen before I shoot off back to the station. What are your plans for today? You look like you’re cooking something up.’
‘I am. I checked out Adam’s employer. They’re forensic accountants, specialising in fraud investigations. I was planning to do a recce of their offices and see if I can glean any information about what exactly he does for them.’ There was nothing more enticing than a spot of fieldwork, just like old times.
‘Sounds like a good day out. OK, let’s keep in touch and see where we get to.’
Chapter 14
Most of the morning passed by in a haze. Lucia managed to scrape down a few walls in the music room. Their bareness emphasised the stained-glass bay windows in all their florid Pre-Raphaelite glory. She wondered whether the room might look best pared back – off-white walls, so as not to compete. There was no chance she could concentrate any longer. She went back to her van, away from prying ears.
‘Good morning, Runciman Parry. How can I help you?’ The voice on the other end of the line was young, female, with a well-spoken but indisputable London accent.
‘Good morning. Your firm was recommended to me – more precisely, Adam Corcoran, one of your accountants. Do you know if he’s taking on any new clients?’
The voice paused for slightly too long. ‘I’m sorry, nobody of that name works here. I can put you through to the managing partner, who I’m sure would be delighted to help.’
‘No, thank you, it was Adam in particular that I wanted. Not to worry, perhaps I got his details wrong. Thank you for your time.’
Lucia felt victorious to have her supposition confirmed. If Adam had ever worked for Runciman Parry – and the receptionist’s hesitation suggested this may have been the case – he no longer did. Not very clever of him to lie to the police, she mused. However, unless they had reason to disbelieve him, it was unlikely they would have followed up to check. She glanced at the dashboard clock. It would take the best part of an hour to get to Leadenhall Market. If she set off now, she would arrive in time to catch the office workers filtering out for their lunch break. There was nothing to lose.
The Northern Line took her to Bank. She walked along Cornhill, past the magisterial beauty of Tite’s Royal Exchange and through the medieval heart of the City. Next came Gracechurch Street, a thinly disguised pretext to cut across the kaleidoscopic Leadenhall Market before she would finally turn into Lime Street. There, Runciman Parry inhabited an understated Art Deco block overshadowed by the outmoded futurism of the Lloyd’s building. The route was satisfyingly deserted – the mobs had not yet been released for their allocated hour-long reprieve. Every other doorway was a bar, pub, or restaurant, with smartly dressed waiters and conservative menus to accommodate the tastes of the few professions that maintained their dedication to the disappearing art of client entertainment. Lawyers and bankers had long given up the luxury of a liquid lunch and had cornered themselves into bland, hypoallergenic meals washed down with still water in meeting rooms. Insurance was the only industry left to resolutely fly the flag for brightly coloured socks and sybaritic occasions lubricated with rivers of claret. The market was their stomping ground, where deals were sealed over lunchtime pints and afternoons were spent reluctantly sobering up before doing it all again in the evening.
On Lime Street, the neat row of brass plates at the main entrance bore evidence that the address housed a number of businesses. Lucia paced up and down on the pavement outside, struggling to conjure up a new strategy. When she lifted her head, she couldn’t believe her luck. Through the ground floor windows she glimpsed a reception desk inscribed with the unadventurous but assertive Runciman Parry logo. Behind it sat the neatly attired spitting image of the barmaid at the Red Lion. This had to be her girl. On the dot of one, the receptionist sprang to her feet, grabbed her large, soft-leathered handbag, outward proof that the firm was generous with its remuneration, and strode out of the door. She was wearing a pencil dress and vertiginous heels better suited to a photo shoot than the uneven cobbles that they were forced to negotiate. Lucia followed closely behind her. The girl walked into the nearest sandwich shop and joined the mercifully short queue. She soon settled at a table and pulled out her phone.
Over the years, Lucia had narrowed down her investigative techniques to the two that elicited the most results – cajoling and directness. The present situation called for the latter. She walked over and sat down at the receptionist’s table. The girl looked up for a moment and instantly retreated back to her phone. It was a busy lunchtime, after all, and there were no other seats left.
‘Hi. It’s Gemma, isn’t it? You work at Runciman Parry.’ As with the handbag, Lucia had deduced that outward presentation was key. The receptionist had ensured that her career progression was widely advertised on all public channels.
She had got the girl’s attention. The manicured hands clutched the phone tightly, but the thickly feathered cat eyes glanced up.
‘Yeah. Who are you?’
‘I’m a friend of Adam Corcoran’s. I’m sorry to come up to you like this, but I’m worried. We all are. He’s been acting strangely – he’s not sleeping, not eating, drinking himself stupid. For a while I’ve suspected he’s out of a job, but he won’t talk about it. I just want to know what’s going on, so I can help.’
Gemma scrunched her face in disbelief. Before she could say anything, Lucia went on. If this didn’t work, nothing would.
‘Please, I really am desperate. His aunt’s just passed away – they were very close – and that’s made him retreat even further into his shell. I know you understand. Don’t we all have a friend, a cousin, a brother, or someone who needs help but won’t ask for it?’
One of the elements in the plea had hit the spot – at a guess, the brother part. Gemma thought hard. She flicked her head to one side, then back to her phone and eventually looked Lucia straight in the eye.
‘Alright. They sacke
d him a couple of months ago. I don’t know what came over him. He was one of the well-behaved, quiet types, you know, always polite to us girls, buying everyone drinks after work on a Friday. A few weeks before they let him go, he changed. He was in late, left early, hardly spent any time at his desk. Always popping out “for coffee,” he said. The day he got sent home was a train crash. He shouted at a client and stormed out in the middle of a meeting. He was in a bad way, practically foaming at the mouth. They told him not to bother coming back.’
‘Did you ever speak to him? Did he hint at what may be wrong?’
‘No. Not for want of trying, mind you. He always put on a brave face and said he was fine. I’m guessing that’s what he does at home, too.’ Gemma looked genuinely concerned.
‘Yes, just like at home. Thanks, Gemma. You don’t know what a great help you’ve been.’
‘I hope he cleans himself up. He’s a good bloke, just lost his way.’
She had a soft spot for him, that much was obvious. In films, naïve girls always fell for cold-blooded killers, Lucia thought. She reminded herself she hadn’t yet proved he was in that category.
She debated whether to call Carliss straightaway and decided against it. He was probably poring over the remaining witness statements, and there was no point in distracting him. Besides, she thought she should get back to Beatrice Hall and settle into her work, lest Adam might think she was slacking off. It really was the perfect cover for gathering further intelligence on the suspects. She was incorrigible.
Chapter 15
The walk back to Bank had been marred by a downpour that no longer dried as soon as it hit the ground. By the time Lucia emerged shivering into the daylight at Belsize Park, the rain had given way to unabated sunshine, and she warmed up a little in her damp clothes. Haverstock Hill was liberally sprinkled with the familiar mid-afternoon clientele – mothers and maternal substitutes carting around varyingly sized children, elderly ladies lugging mysterious packages to the post office and builders enjoying surreptitious cans of Red Bull. Nobody had anything urgent to do, nowhere pressing to be. The wheels of this corner of affluent North London, well-oiled by an army of absent City workers, turned slowly.