Preface to Murder

by M S Morris

  ‘Team meeting, two minutes, sharp.’

  There was only one way for her to redeem herself, and it was by moving forward, not looking back.

  Team meetings were apparently unendurable without the fortification of tea and coffee, so Bridget waited patiently in the incident room for her team to assemble.

  Detective Constable Ffion Hughes was first to appear, bearing her usual Welsh dragon mug, from which dangled a string attached to a herbal teabag. Ginger, judging by the pungent aroma. The smell recalled gingerbread men that Bridget had baked with Chloe when she was little. The memory was comforting, and helped to sooth Bridget’s nerves. Ffion had thoughtfully made Bridget a mug of normal tea in one of the office mugs.

  Bridget treated her to a smile. Ever since Ffion had returned to visit her family in Wales for a few days after Christmas, Bridget had noticed a marked softening in the young detective’s normally prickly manner.

  ‘Everything all right, ma’am?’ asked Ffion, placing the mug on the desk.

  ‘Good, thanks.’ It was a relief to know that whatever Grayson might think, at least one of her team still backed her.

  Next to enter was Jake, balancing a mug of builder’s tea with a chocolate bar and a packet of crisps, closely followed by DS Ryan Hooper bearing a Starbucks coffee and a chocolate brownie. DS Andy Cartwright and DC Harry Johns were the last to appear, carrying a coffee and an energy drink respectively.

  Once they were all seated, Bridget wasted no time in starting the briefing. A killer was at large, and Bridget was determined to catch them.

  ‘Diane Gilbert,’ she said, pointing to a photograph she had pinned to the whiteboard. It was the official press photo taken from inside the dust jacket of Diane’s latest book, and showed her in an arty black polo-neck jumper, gazing at the camera with a thoughtful expression on her face.

  ‘Sixty years of age, an academic at the Blavatnik School of Government, and author of A Deadly Race: How Western Governments Collude in Sales of Arms to the Middle East. She was found dead in her bed this morning. The cause of death isn’t yet known, but a pinprick was discovered immediately below the victim’s left breast which could have come from a hypodermic needle.’

  Bridget took a deep breath before pressing on. ‘As you no doubt already know, Diane was under police protection following receipt of a death threat.’ There was no need to remind everyone that Bridget had been responsible for that protection. They were already well aware of the delicacy of the situation. ‘I delivered her safely to her home last night shortly after ten o’clock. A marked car was in place outside her house all night, and the property was searched before Diane was left alone in her house.’

  Bridget locked eyes briefly with Jake, whose face immediately drained of colour. He was obviously feeling just as bad as her about what had happened. She flashed him a quick smile of reassurance before moving on.

  ‘Her body was found this morning when I arrived at the house to collect her.’ Bridget pointed to her next photograph, showing the open back door of the house. ‘The intruder gained access by smashing a pane of glass in the kitchen door to open the lock. Diane was still in her bed when I found her. There was no sign of any violent struggle.’

  Ffion’s hand immediately went up.

  ‘Yes?’ prompted Bridget.

  ‘If the glass in the back door was smashed, why was the victim still in bed? Why didn’t she wake up and go to investigate the noise?’

  ‘Good question. I don’t have an answer to that yet. Diane may have been a particularly heavy sleeper.’

  ‘Might she have taken sleeping pills?’ suggested Ryan.

  ‘We’ll need to find out. Whatever the reason, it would seem that she was unaware of the break-in, and the intruder was able to attack her in bed while she slept.’

  ‘How did they get access to the house at all?’ asked Ryan. ‘I thought we had a couple of uniforms keeping watch outside.’

  ‘We did,’ said Bridget. ‘SOCO are examining the possibility that the killer climbed over the garden wall. Although it’s not an easy wall to have scaled and there are no obvious marks like a footprint in the soil.’

  ‘Maybe the guys in the panda car had forty winks or sloped off for a kebab,’ said Ryan.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Bridget. Although if it turned out that Sam and Scott had lied to her, she would have their guts for garters.

  ‘The needle mark in the victim’s chest,’ said Andy, ‘does that suggest the use of poison?’

  ‘It’s too early to say.’ Bridget recalled what Sarah had told her. ‘We’ll need a full toxicology report as well as the post-mortem, but the initial signs are that there were no physical injuries to the body and no indications of a struggle.’

  ‘Consistent with the victim being killed in their sleep,’ noted Ryan. ‘She couldn’t just have had a heart attack, could she?’

  ‘We can’t entirely rule it out, but we have to bear in mind that an intruder entered the house. And then there’s the matter of the death threat.’ Bridget tapped the whiteboard where a photocopy of a handwritten letter was pinned next to the picture of Diane. It was written in blue ink on a piece of cheap stationery. The words, penned in a rather elaborate hand, read:

  You think you are clever when you write about guns and bombs. But did you know that words can be just as deadly? Cancel your book, or it will be the last thing you ever write. We will cancel you.

  ‘We have to ask ourselves whether the person who sent this is our killer, and if so, who might that be.’

  ‘It’s a bit old-fashioned, isn’t it?’ said Ryan. ‘Don’t people just send their death threats on Twitter these days?’

  ‘Not if they’re serious about carrying them out,’ said Ffion. ‘And most of the abuse on social media tends to be illiterate. This is all correctly spelled and punctuated.’

  ‘I bet that had her worried,’ quipped Ryan. ‘What’s scarier than a killer who can wield grammatically correct sentences?’

  ‘Well, whoever sent this was clearly very serious about their intent,’ said Bridget. ‘So finding out who wrote it is a top priority. The original letter is still with forensics. All I can tell you for the moment is that it was sent to the writer’s home one week before her death, and carried a London postmark.’

  ‘What exactly was her book about?’ asked Andy.

  ‘Arms sales to the Middle East,’ said Bridget. ‘In particular, to Saudi Arabia.’

  Andy made a note in his notebook. ‘So if the death threat was related to her work, we need to look at the interested parties.’

  ‘A Middle Eastern government,’ said Jake.

  ‘The British government,’ said Ffion.

  ‘The American government,’ said Ryan.

  ‘MI5,’ said Harry, looking pleased to have finally made a contribution.

  ‘Arms manufacturers,’ said Andy.

  Bridget wrote all the suggestions on the whiteboard. It was quite a formidable list of adversaries. Could one of these really be responsible for murdering Diane Gilbert? If so, they could be looking at the work of a professional assassin.

  ‘The letter refers to “we”,’ said Andy. ‘That certainly seems to imply a group or an organisation of some kind.’

  It occurred to Bridget that if Diane’s murder really was linked to the publication of her book, she was going to have to wade through the five-hundred plus pages of A Deadly Race herself – an appalling prospect. She saw the book’s turgid prose in her mind’s eye, its narrow letters wavering before her, and shuddered.

  ‘Whoever sent the death threat,’ said Ffion, ‘must have wanted to stop Diane publishing her book. So why wait until the book was already published before sending her the letter?’

  ‘Perhaps they didn’t know about it until then,’ said Ryan.

  Ffion continued as if Ryan hadn’t said anything. ‘And surely they should have realised that when news of the murder gets out, sales of the book will probably go through the roof. Everyone will want to know what was
so controversial about her writing that she had to die for it.’

  ‘True,’ said Bridget.

  A lot of things weren’t adding up in this case. But the main question now was where to start. She would have to wait for the post-mortem and the toxicology report, as well as Vik’s SOCO team to complete its investigations. The examination of the death threat letter was still being undertaken by forensics. In the meantime, all Bridget had at her disposal was good old-fashioned detective work.

  ‘Andy, I’d like you and Harry to start making door-to-door enquiries in St Margaret’s Road. Find out if anyone saw or heard anything out of the ordinary last night.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Ryan, coordinate with Vik and organise a team to carry out a fingertip search of the garden and the neighbouring properties. Look for anything that might indicate how the intruder gained access.’

  ‘I’m on it,’ said Ryan.

  ‘Jake, you and I are going to pay a visit to the Blavatnik School of Government and speak to Diane’s colleagues. And Ffion?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Bridget passed her a copy of A Deadly Race.

  ‘You want me to read it?’ Ffion didn’t seem at all daunted by the prospect. She picked up the heavy book and flicked through it, her green eyes darting lightly across the dense text. ‘Just over five hundred pages. I can give you a summary by the end of today.’

  Bridget beamed at her.

  6

  The Blavatnik School of Government occupied a starkly futuristic building on Walton Street. Bridget recalled that the uncompromising design of the building in the heart of historic Oxford had attracted both praise and protest. The glass façade of the circular structure reflected the elegant stone columns of Oxford University Press directly opposite, and it stood in striking contrast to the adjacent neoclassical church that was now Freud’s café-bar and which had featured in one of Bridget’s recent cases. Modern architecture wasn’t truly to her taste, but the Blavatnik School was certainly a dynamic and exciting addition to Oxford’s university buildings. At least, Bridget mused, if you didn’t appreciate the appearance of the Blavatnik itself, you could always admire the reflections of the more traditional architecture in its glass windows.

  She and Jake were met in reception by a tall, good-looking man of Arabic appearance. His neatly-combed hair was black and flecked with grey, his dark olive skin was clean-shaven, and his confident manner and smart, sober suit gave the impression of someone at the pinnacle of their career.

  ‘Detective Inspector Hart.’ He bowed gravely as he took her hand and for a brief moment Bridget thought he was about to kiss it. ‘I am Professor Mansour Ali Al-Mutairi and it is my honour to welcome you to the Blavatnik School of Government, although of course I wish it could have been in happier circumstances.’ He turned to Jake, giving him a more vigorous handshake. ‘Sergeant, welcome. Shall we?’ He gestured towards a wide spiral staircase with smooth stone sides that reminded Bridget of a toboggan run. As they climbed, she found herself gazing up at the glass-fronted upper storeys and through the huge window that commanded a view over Walton Street.

  ‘This is a very impressive building,’ she said.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Professor Al-Mutairi. ‘It has been designed to facilitate collaborative working’ – he gestured to one of the many seating areas where small groups were gathered around tables – ‘but it also borrows heavily from Oxford’s architectural traditions and heritage.’

  ‘Really?’ said Bridget, who had failed to spot any obvious similarities with the city’s historic buildings.

  ‘Just so. The circular shape reflects that of the Sheldonian Theatre,’ said Professor Al-Mutairi. ‘And the vertical spacing of the glass panels is identical to the spacing of the stone façade of the Bodleian Library.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Bridget. She risked a look at Jake, who appeared nonplussed by this comparison of what, to a casual observer, might seem to be three strikingly different buildings. Professor Al-Mutairi’s private office – more glass and stone – was located on the third floor with an excellent view of the eighteenth-century Radcliffe Observatory on the far side of an empty plot of land. Professor Al-Mutairi followed Bridget’s gaze to the beautifully-proportioned building with its octagonal tower.

  ‘Ah yes, the Radcliffe Observatory. Built to enable men to turn their gaze to the stars and planets. A worthy occupation, continuing the long tradition of astronomy pursued by Muslim scholars in the medieval world.’

  ‘Quite.’ Bridget shifted her attention to a row of tall, bushy plants growing in ceramic pots along the inside of the windowsill. The shrubs were not particularly attractive, being mainly bare, with tiny spiky leaves, and stood in marked contrast to the clean lines of the building. But every stem was adorned with bright yellow flowers, each one like a miniature sunburst. ‘I see that you’re quite green-fingered, Professor Al-Mutairi.’

  ‘Rhanterium epapposum,’ said the professor fondly. ‘In Arabic we call it Al-Arfaj. It is the national flower of Kuwait, and reminds me of my home. Actually, it is not so difficult to grow. I feed the plants once a fortnight, otherwise they like to be left alone. My greatest challenge is persuading the cleaning lady not to keep watering them.’

  A smile crinkled his face, and he took his place behind a large, tidy desk and gestured for Bridget and Jake to make themselves comfortable in a pair of leather chairs. Jake took out his notebook and pen, ready to take notes.

  ‘Perhaps we could start with a little background about the Blavatnik School?’ said Bridget. She’d noticed on their way up the sweeping staircase that the building didn’t contain the usual fresh-faced undergraduates that you found in the colleges. Everyone here was older. There was a seriousness about the place.

  Professor Al-Mutairi nodded briefly, carefully removing the smile from his face before speaking. ‘Our mission here is a grand one, but essential in this day and age. It is, quite simply, to improve the quality of government and public policymaking throughout the world. To that end we offer a one-year Master’s course and a three-year Doctorate degree. We also conduct research with the aim of finding solutions to public policy issues and global challenges.’

  ‘And what was Diane Gilbert’s position here?’

  ‘Dr Gilbert taught one of the modules in the Master’s degree, but her main area of work was research.’

  ‘I see. Can you tell me how long you’ve known Diane?’

  ‘Dr Gilbert and I have been associated for the past five years.’

  Associated. It seemed a curious word to use, as if the professor was keen to place some distance between himself and the murdered woman. His unwillingness to use her first name suggested an aloofness between the two.

  ‘And your association was what, precisely?’

  ‘A purely professional one. As Dean of the Blavatnik School, I was technically her manager, although Dr Gilbert was not a woman who could easily be managed. She was too headstrong for that.’

  Professor Al-Mutairi’s characterisation of Diane Gilbert chimed with Bridget’s own impressions, but the professor’s response seemed to indicate a strong personal dislike of the dead woman.

  ‘Did you and Dr Gilbert clash?’

  The professor sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. ‘Our personalities were very different, and so were our opinions. But the Blavatnik School is a broad church. We welcome diversity of all kinds.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying, professor, that doesn’t really answer my question.’

  A smile twitched his lips and lit up his dark eyes. ‘In truth, Dr Gilbert and I did not see eye to eye. She possessed – how can I put this delicately? – an unhelpful appetite for courting controversy, even danger. Where Dr Gilbert was concerned, the more controversial her ideas, the better. And she was only capable of viewing the world through the distorting prism of her own political views.’

  ‘Those views didn’t align with yours?’

  ‘They did not. I desir
e a world where free trade between countries leads to increased cooperation, understanding and rising standards of living. For Diane, nothing but a socialist revolution could make the world a better place.’

  ‘Were you aware that Diane received a death threat shortly before her death?’ asked Bridget.

  ‘I was.’

  ‘And did you take any kind of action to protect her from danger?’

  Professor Al-Mutairi smiled wryly. ‘Excuse me, DI Hart, but I was under the impression that was the job of the police.’ Bridget flinched at the reminder of her own sense of culpability over Diane’s death, but the professor quickly moved on. ‘In any case, Dr Gilbert herself showed scant regard for any threat to her person. I can say with all honesty that I admired her courage. She would never allow herself to be cowed by any kind of threat.’

  ‘Do you know if she had any enemies?’

  Al-Mutairi’s brow creased in consternation. ‘Enemies? That is a very strong word, if you don’t mind me saying. Dr Gilbert was a university academic, not a soldier on the battlefield. In the intellectual world, there exists rivalry, certainly. But we do not have enemies, merely colleagues following different paths to the truth.’

  ‘There may not always be one truth,’ said Bridget.

  The professor’s frown was quickly replaced by a grin. ‘Oh, there is always one truth, Inspector. But not everyone can see it.’

  ‘What did you think of her latest book?’ asked Jake.

  Professor Al-Mutairi nodded as if to acknowledge the pertinence of Jake’s question. ‘Arms sales to the Middle East. It is an important area of policy, of legitimate concern. It is only right that it should be researched and discussed. And yet…’

  Jake looked up from his notebook. ‘And yet?’

  The professor’s lip curled down in disapproval. ‘As always, Dr Gilbert allowed her personal biases to infect her work. She was unable to view any topic from a dispassionate perspective. This latest book is a prime example of that.’