‘Accommodation? Why do we have to have policemen from London? What’s wrong with the other ones?’
‘Nothing, ma’am. They’re doing an excellent job, but for reasons which I cannot disclose, Scotland Yard is taking over. Now about the office?’
‘They made do with a corner of the hall.’ She clicked her tongue, ‘Oh, I suppose you’d better have mine. I hope you’re not going to need it for very long.’ She stood up, picked up her Filofax, and moved towards the door.
‘As long as it takes to conclude our on-the-spot investigation of the murder,’ said Milton stiffly.
She winced. ‘Please don’t use that terrible word.’
Milton’s patience tended to wear thin when he was confronted with hypocrisy. ‘What word would you prefer? Stabbing? Killing? Or would you like me to say he was put to sleep?’
Relations deteriorated after this, but did not quite break down. She bowed to the inevitable, gave them copies of lists of clients and staff along with the timetables of the day, and telling him he could use McIver to find people, she swept out of the room with her head high.
Milton tried Amiss’s number without success. He pressed the PORTER button on his keyboard. ‘Mr McIver, do you know where Mr Amiss is, please?’
‘Dinna ken, but mebbe he’s back with Mr McGuire.’
‘Please find him if you can and ask him to come down to Mrs Cowley-Bawdon’s office to see the police from London.’
***
‘It’s such a relief to see you both.’
Milton jumped up to greet Amiss and gave him a rough embrace.
That his friend’s voice was slightly slurred came as no surprise; Milton knew Amiss’s propensity for taking to the bottle when confronted by sudden death.
‘Come and sit down,’ said Pooley, giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder, ‘and tell us all about it.’
‘Nothing to tell really. Someone stabbed him just two feet away from me and Mick and we didn’t see or hear a thing. Mick’ll tell you the same thing. Good bloke, Mick. We’ve been drowning our sorrows together along with his mates.’
‘I’m glad you’ve got support. Now just let’s run through the events of the afternoon and then we’ll send you back to Mick.’
The local police force had done a great deal of the donkey work, so Milton and Pooley were able to confine themselves to talking to the key witnesses—those who had been in the vicinity of the Turkish bath between three and four. Then they spent a couple of hours going through all the evidence, checking and cross-checking.
‘Seems perfectly clear to me, Ellis. Is it to you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Let’s just make sure we got the same answers. Surprise, surprise, no one admits to being the mystery man and only two male patients have no alibi for that time. Correct?’
‘Correct: the American film producer and the Scots barrister.’
‘They deny ever being in Saudi Arabia. They haven’t even been in London during the time Ahmed was there. Both of them have seen him around Marriners, but have never spoken to him.’
‘That’s right.’
‘With the exception of those on holiday, all the staff were on-duty and have alibis.’
‘Right. So it looks almost certain that we’re dealing with an interloper.’
‘I’m knackered,’ said Milton, throwing down his pen. ‘It’s nearly midnight and I think we should leave it until the morning. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of getting a drink in this place.’
‘Hardly, sir. Unless we try Mr McGuire.’
‘His party’s unlikely to be going on still.’ He dialled Amiss’s number and got no answer. ‘Where are we supposed to be sleeping, anyway?’
‘Mrs Cowley-Bawdon said to ask McIver. I forgot all about it. He’s surely off-duty by now.’
Milton pressed PORTER and got a most disgruntled response. ‘I’ve been waiting till ye were ready, so I could show ye to your quarters.’
‘I’m very sorry to have kept you, Mr McIver. Perhaps you could show us now. We’ll pick you up at your desk.’
He picked up his papers. ‘Stupid old bastard,’ he said to Pooley. ‘All he had to do was to give us the room numbers hours ago. We could perfectly well have found our way ourselves.’
‘I expect he enjoys his grievance.
They found McIver and followed him to the bedroom that had been allocated to them: single rooms were declared to be out of the question. McIver’s back was stiff and his accent apparently deliberately impenetrable: they couldn’t decide if he was always like that, if he regarded the murder as having been their fault, or if it was because he considered them socially unacceptable.
‘Thank you, Mr McIver,’ said Milton. ‘Now can you tell us where we can find Mr Amiss?’
McIver pointed to a door at the end of the corridor. ‘That’s his room, but ye’ll mabbe may find him in Mr McGuire’s, room seventeen down the other end. I warn ye,’ his tones were sepulchral, ‘I’ve reason to believe they’ve drink taken.’
‘Well, they have had a very unpleasant shock.’
McIver began to speak of weak vessels and Milton interrupted him. ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,’ he said firmly. ‘Thank you, Mr McIver, that will be all.’
He threw himself down on one of the beds. ‘Great God,’ he said, ‘he’s worse than Romford.’
‘You shouldn’t say something like that until we’re off-duty, sir.’
‘We’re off-duty, otherwise I wouldn’t say it. Go and see if Robert’s up to a chat, will you, Ellis?’
‘Why don’t you come too? Mr McGuire might give us a drink.’
‘Oh, all right. Mind you, I can’t imagine he’ll have any left.’
Amiss’s room was empty, so they walked quietly to McGuire’s door and listened. The low hum of voices emboldened them to knock, and the door was opened by McGuire. ‘Come on in, you’re more than welcome. How about a drink? Gin? Whiskey? Vodka? Beer?’
There were half a dozen people in the room; the number of glasses strewn round suggested that there had been far more at various times. ‘That’s very kind of you, Mr McGuire. Actually, we were looking for Mr Amiss. A few things we needed to check on about the deceased, you know.’
‘You’ll get nothing out of poor Robert tonight.’ He waved towards the bed, where Amiss slept deeply. ‘He didn’t want to be on his own, but he couldn’t keep awake, so we put him to bed here. I’ll take his later on. Have a drink anyway, gentlemen. And it’s Mick.’
‘Well, I must admit that’s a very attractive idea, Mick. We’ve had a very long day. Whiskey and water please. And it’s Jim.’
‘And the same for me, please,’ said Pooley. ‘And it’s Ellis.’
McGuire sat them down on the side of the bed, got them their drinks and introduced them to their fellow-guests, three of whom they had already met. ‘You’re very impressively equipped with booze for someone on a health farm,’ observed Milton. ‘Cheers.’
‘Oh, I’ve usually only got the one bottle. But of course we had to have a wake for that poor fellow, so I sent someone off to get supplies.’
‘Not, I suppose, that he’d approve of our drinking in his honour,’ said a fat MP whom Milton and Pooley had interviewed earlier that evening.
‘You’re wrong there, Gervaise, old boy,’ said Mick. ‘Robert there told me he wasn’t one of your strict Arabs. Great lad for the wine and the women, apparently. Sure, God help him, I’m glad he had a bit of fun out of life while he had the chance.’
‘I know it’s de mortuis nil nisi bonum and all that, Mick,’ said a moustachioed old man, ‘but I heard a bit about him from one of the girls, and he seems to have been a total sex-maniac.’
‘I suppose there’s worse kinds of maniacs.’ Milton was intrigued by the extent of Mick’s charitableness. Was it drink or death, he wondered?
‘He was a handsome devil,’ observed Gervaise. ‘Wouldn’t be surprised if women went for him.’
‘Handsome is as h
andsome does,’ said the moustachioed man. ‘That squint didn’t add to his attractions.’
‘I never saw him close enough to see a squint. Remember I only arrived this morning. But I saw him in the woods when I went for a walk. And I must say, he’d that kind of lithe grace women go for. You know—animal attraction and all that guff.’
‘How did you know it was him?’ Milton sounded casual.
‘Because he was an Arab, of course. There aren’t any others around Marriners, are there?’
‘Unless the Ayatollah sent someone to get him,’ observed the man with the moustache and they all fell into slightly drunken sniggers.
Chapter 30
‘I’m trying to work out how an outsider could do it,’ said Amiss, ‘but I see almost unsurmountable obstacles.’
‘Yes, I know. Ellis and I chewed them over last night and again this morning for what seemed like hours.’
‘Where is he, anyway?’
‘He’s ferreting around following up a couple of hunches. You know what he’s like.’
‘Trying out the hypothesis that Ahmed committed suicide but swallowed the knife before he died in order to put the blame on me?’
‘Something like that, no doubt.’ They reached the woods and began to stroll along the path that meandered through the centre. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘At least half-human. I think I’ve slept off most of the booze and I’m pretty well over the shock. Mick’s therapy was extremely effective.’
‘He seemed to take it all in his stride.’
‘It’s not surprising: he used to be in the SAS.’
‘An Irishman?’
‘Why not? They’ve been a mainstay of the British army for centuries. Mind you, he steered well clear of involvement in Northern Ireland.’
‘Well, well. That’ll teach me to get as hung up on stereotypes as you. Now, will you take my word for it that it’s almost a hundred per cent certain it was an outsider?’
‘I have to.’
‘And all the staff and students at the school are ruled out. Everyone’s accounted for.’
Amiss reflected. ‘Even Kenneth?’
‘Who?’
‘Gavs’s chap. They had a joint fling with Ahmed, don’t you remember? I’m sure I told you.’
‘You probably did, but I found Ahmed’s sex-life very confusing. I’ll get him checked out, of course, but if we’re going to track down all Ahmed’s bed-partners, we’ll be at it for weeks.’
‘So you don’t want to be reminded of Di?’
‘No. Yes. Who’s Di?’
‘The call-girl he picked up at the picnic. I told her we were going to Marriners.’
‘Oh, God. All right. She might have an Arab pimp.’
They turned off the main pathway and ambled through a large concentration of silver birch. ‘It was here that Gervaise Whatshis-name saw the Arab.’
‘But he’s not certain it wasn’t Ahmed.’
‘No. He said the photograph was inconclusive.’
‘You said he used the word “lithe”. No one could have called Ahmed lithe; he lumbered.’
‘Compared to friend Gervaise, Ahmed was lithe. Still, from what you’ve said about Ahmed’s condition yesterday, I really can’t imagine that he took time out of bed for a brisk walk.’
‘Has anyone else sighted a strange Arab?’
‘I’ve arranged that everyone be in the hall in thirty minutes so I can ask them that. In fact we’d better be heading back there now. I must have a word with Ellis first.’
Both were deep in thought as they walked back through the wood, but as they emerged into the meadow that separated it from the gardens, Amiss saw Pooley in the distance walking swiftly towards them. ‘Look, Jim,’ he said. ‘That’s lithe.’
‘It’s more Ellis doing his imitation of a red setter who’s sniffed a scent.’
‘Ahmed’s was certainly strong enough.’
‘You’re clearly not mourning him much, are you?’
‘No, though I find it hard to shake off the shock of seeing him dead. It seemed somehow much worse that he was naked. Undignified. And I could wish that I hadn’t been so unfriendly toward him during the last few minutes of his life.’
‘Considering the way he treated you, I think your behaviour was beyond reproach. Stop looking for reasons to feel guilty.’
‘Sorry, Jim. My besetting sin. I got a lecture on it this morning from Rachel.’
They met Pooley in the centre of the meadow and he turned and walked with them towards the house. ‘It’s Interpol, sir. They’ve identified him at last.’
‘Took them long enough.’
‘Turns out they didn’t bother until yesterday to check on his fingerprints.’
Milton stopped suddenly. ‘But we sent them those last week!’
Pooley shrugged.
‘Shit! Well, what have they got?’
‘He was a Saudi, but he wasn’t a prince. His name wasn’t Ahmed ibn Mohammed ibn Abdullah; it was Abdullah ibn Mahommed ibn Ahmed and he was wanted at home for murder.’
‘Of whom?’
‘Some criminal associate, it would seem. Interpol say he had a small international reputation as a tenth-rate assassin.’
‘My God,’ said Amiss. ‘He was even too lazy to kill people properly.’
‘Ned Nurse’s murder was quite imaginative,’ pointed out Pooley.
‘Doesn’t fit Ahmed’s mentality. Coshing him on the head, yes. Lacing a drink to cause an accident, no.’
‘There’s a limit to coincidence, Robert,’ said Milton. ‘For the moment we’ve got to proceed on the assumption that the school’s resident assassin did the assassinating, even if it was done in a rather unorthodox way.’
‘And who assassinated the assassin?’
‘Any new developments, Ellis?’
‘Only that I think his french windows were opened from outside. There were no obvious signs, but I managed to do it with a credit card.’
‘So someone tried to get him on Wednesday night?’
‘Could be. And found the bird flown.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Amiss. ‘Why should anyone kill him the risky way they did, when they could just have waited until the next night and got him in his room?’
‘That it, Ellis?’
‘I did some more checking on timetables. It would have been very difficult for an outsider to get hold of Ahmed’s daily timetable: the only copy was in Mrs Cowley-Bawdon’s office, which was always locked when unoccupied.’
‘Hell.’
‘But every day they pin up, on the notice board in the staff room, the schedule for each treatment centre with the patients’ appointments written in.’ They were approaching the stairs leading up to the front entrance. ‘Now, come with me,’ said Pooley, and he led them round to the back of the building and down a discreet flight of stairs. ‘Here’s the staff common-room.’
‘Well, well,’ said Milton, stepping into the empty room through the open french windows and walking straight to the large notice-board on the right-hand wall. ‘Let’s see. Ah, yes, Turkish bath: 3.00, Van Hattem, Inglis, Dodds, Bell, Guy, Le Druillenec.’ He came out and joined them. ‘Easy.’
‘If you know they’re there,’ said Amiss.
‘I didn’t,’ said Pooley triumphantly. ‘I just snooped round.’
‘There are lots more unanswered questions,’ said Milton, ‘but now it’s time to talk to the assembled masses. Ellis, come with me and stand respectfully behind me when I speak. Robert, trail along slightly behind us now and then join the audience and revert to being a recent acquaintance of mine.’
It had taken Milton half an hour of oozing charm at Mrs Cowley-Bawdon to gain her agreement to calling the meeting. Once she yielded, she proved highly cooperative and exhibited the terrifying efficiency that made Marriners operate so smoothly. As he came through the front door she was standing there with a list. ‘Every member of staff is here, Superintendent, and all the patients except Mr Amiss. Ah, no. I see
him now. Come on, Mr Amiss. You’re late. Over there, please.’
Amiss scurried obediently to his place. ‘Now, everybody. Here is Superintendent Milton to talk to you. Please listen carefully. Superintendent. Over to you.’
Milton stood in front of a crowd which he knew must number seventy-five: forty-five patients and thirty staff. He cleared his throat as quietly as he could. ‘Ladies and gentlemen. I shall make this as brief as I can. First, I’d like to thank Mrs Cowley-Bawdon for being so very helpful.’ He looked towards her. ‘She has made every effort to make our job as easy as possible. We greatly appreciate her efficiency and kindness.’ He bowed and she inclined her head slightly in his direction and smiled graciously. Milton was visited by the ignoble thought that such blatant flattery might pay off in the lunch she provided for him and Pooley. The previous night they’d been given nothing but mousetrap cheese and biscuits. ‘The purpose of this meeting is to speed up our inquiries, although I can assure you that we will be very sad to leave this haven of luxurious serenity.’
Amiss stared incredulously at Milton.
‘You have all been seen individually by Sergeant Pooley and me or by other officers. Now I should like you do something that requires you all to be together. When I’ve finished, I want each of you to spend a few minutes looking at everyone in this room with the object of finding out if anyone you’ve seen at Marriners since Monday is missing—other than the unfortunate gentleman who died yesterday.
‘Now of course you can’t remember everyone you saw, but for one reason or another you might remember noticing someone who you realise is not now present. A gentleman, for instance, might have glimpsed in the distance a Marilyn Monroe lookalike, or a lady might have seen Robert Redford’s twin brother, yet as they look around this room they notice that attractive though their companions are, there is no one who quite fits such a description.’ He paused for the titters to cease. ‘Such a person might have been wearing a white coat, a dressing-gown, a dress, a suit, or if you were in luck, they might have turned up naked in your sauna.’ More titters.
‘That’s it then. Thank you all very much for listening. Any questions? No? Well, in that case, Sergeant Pooley and I will retire to Mrs Cowley-Bawdon’s office, for in her kindness she continues to sacrifice it to us. Please come to us if you think you can help.’
The English School of Murder Page 18