Invitation to Die

by Barbara Cleverly

  “All the same—an utter scoundrel and doubly shameful behaviour towards men he’d fought alongside! I’d say he got off lightly.” Redfyre’s voice was tight with indignation.

  “And all to preserve the secret of whatever wickedness or shame Sydney Fox had been mired in during his posting in South Africa. His presumably ill-gotten cash was spent on acquiring further wealth, but also to launch his one and only precious son Digby onto an unsuspecting world. Politics! Every aspect of the lad’s life would be put under the microscope, and he’d be constantly in the public eye. He stood no chance—he’d be ruined if ever the story got out.”

  “We only have Ratty’s word on that, sir. And when you spoke in Yorkshire, he didn’t claim to know the whole story. It must have been bad, wouldn’t you say, to have reverberations on another generation twenty-five years later?”

  “Dickie Dunne will know.”

  “And where the hell is he?” Redfyre asked, shrugging hopelessly.

  “No sightings yet?”

  “None, sir. The constables have done a good job checking on all his known haunts in town. There was a lot of, ‘Why don’t you talk to Mrs. Jones at number seventy? Well, you could try . . .’ They were sent spinning off on wild-goose chases. The captain had hidey-holes, doss houses and prime cribs all over the place. And the PCs were very impressed by the loyalty everyone showed. No one’s come near to giving him away.”

  For the first time, MacFarlane was able to eye the black box without frustration. “Well, while we’re waiting for the postmortem on Fanshawe, I can start exhuming these one by one and adding a footnote.” He gave a hideous grin. “Tying a label to the toes. Always a pleasure, that! I’ll go ahead. You, Redfyre, may worm your way back into that college. We aren’t done with them yet. Someone knows who tipped Fanshawe through the window and poured a libation over him. And that Cornelius Wells . . . something not quite right there. He’s another one who makes my whiskers twitch. Is he protecting Digby Gisbourne and thereby the college’s interests? You’ll get no funding out of a hanged man. This daughter, Rosamund Wells, sounds like a load of trouble to me, but you never know your luck. Sometimes the clever Dicks and Doras trip up in their own nets. See if you can get close, Redfyre. Without rocking the boat.

  “Oh, and send young Thoday down to London, will you? With backup. I’ve just arranged for a squad of city police to join the party. They’ll handle the financial crime aspect of this better than we can—the city’s right in the middle of their patch, and they’re used to sharp practice by plausible persons. They’ll have some pretty blunt questions to put to Enquiries At, and rather blunt methods of extracting answers. Including a touch of dynamite, if necessary. One of their lads is an ex-peterman. No safe defies his delicate touch for long.”

  Redfyre offered to pick up the pathologist’s report himself from Trumpington Street when the phone call came through that it was ready. He had other business round the back of the morgue.

  Dr. Beaufort was brisk, as usual. “This is a trifle rushed, Redfyre. But given the college context with potential witnesses packing their trunks and disappearing for nigh on three months, I thought speed might be of the essence. I, too, am bound for Dover and the ferry to the Aegean Isles very soon.

  “In fact, it was quite straightforward. He died falling from a height. Damage done listed in the report, all consistent. No sneaky little pinpricks in the armpits or dagger-shaped punctures. He fell and died of the fall.”

  “Any signs that he might have been helped on his way down?”

  “One only. Fingernails. All intact, by the way, so he wasn’t involved in a fight. I tweezered out a couple of tiny threads of fabric. He could have picked them up brushing against someone in a corridor, slapping someone on the back, it’s that insubstantial. Very dark blue. Navy, really. Gents’ suiting, not evening dress. Over to you. I think you know where to look. But I’d advise you to hurry—they’re having an end-of-term clear-out in the morgue, too.”

  “Had he been drinking?”

  “No. A half glass of sherry. Nothing to turn the head, though his body was soaked in the stuff and the empty bottle broken by the side of the body. Sorry I can’t be of more help. But Redfyre, experience tells me that barring a surprise confession, you’ll never get this past the Prosecution Service—rightly so, in my opinion—as anything chargeable. They’ll see it as nothing more sinister than suicide at the worst, accidental overbalancing at best. So there you have it: unexplained accidental death, because no one wants to hear of a suicide. Especially not the colleges.”

  Report in hand, Redfyre made his way to the offices at the rear of the morgue and engaged the attention of a young man on portering duty. He asked what the situation was regarding the effects of one of the corpses: Vagrant Unknown/Richard Dunne. On learning that the “combustibles” were about to be sent down to the hospital furnace, he ordered a halt and requested the bag of possessions to be brought back up to him for a last-minute examination. A two-bob piece changed hands, and in surprisingly short time, Redfyre found himself handling a familiar greatcoat now smelling eye-wateringly of Lysol.

  He took it out and placed it, folded, on the bench, then ran an enquiring hand over the fabric of the suit below. And snagged one of his own fingernails. It was as he remembered. Loose-weave, summer-weight tweed. Dark blue.

  A week later, all the notes had been typed up—evidence, such as it was, collated. MacFarlane had filled out an arrest warrant. They just needed the right man to wave it at. But no one was giving away Dickie Dunne’s whereabouts. His Cambridge friends and protectors maintained a mystified silence. Negative reports came back from areas all over the country he was known to have frequented. “He could be working his passage back to India, for all we know,” MacFarlane grumbled to Redfyre. “Croaked on some exposed northern moor. We’ll never hear about it. I’m going to shove the Fanshawe file, slim as it is, into the coffin box. When the chief suspect’s a corpse and the Prosecutor is narrowing his eyes and shaking his head, I’m not exactly encouraged to keep the case open on my desk. It would be interesting to find out for certain whose fingers squeezed Abel Hardy in too tight an embrace, but not knowing isn’t going to keep me from my sleep. In fact, I’m relieved that the garbage is off our streets for good.”

  He sighed and came to a decision. “In they go, both of them. Hardy and Fanshawe! Requiescant in pace, the shits!”

  Chapter 24

  Cambridge, Thursday, the 5th of June, 1924

  Redfyre was trotting to keep up with his dog on his usual route through the meadow on Coe Fen. The day had been warm, and the night air was bringing a welcome freshness that descended, trapping the almond scent of the May blossom in a low-floating layer where it blended in an enchanting cocktail with the green river smells. It was one of those magical twilights that faded slowly into a pale grey night, which lasted no time at all before the horizon brightened again. If a Viking longship had ventured upriver and moored in front of him, he’d have leapt aboard, grabbed an oar and gone off adventuring. With his sharp grey eyes and his dark blond hair, he would have surely been accepted by the crew as a long-lost brother.

  He shook the illusion away and grinned. Midsummer madness, he told himself. The town was in the grip of it: Strawberry Fair, maypole dancing on Jesus Green, Shakespeare in the master’s rose garden. The summer party mood of the town seemed to have spread to the riverbank, and behind him, he heard lively shouts of puntsmen pulling in to their berths at the Anchor pub just downstream, while in front, the boozy, raucous laughter of the usual crowd of vagrants clinking bottles around a campfire.

  Was it the smell of something delicious roasting on a sharpened willow stick that had attracted Snapper? He realised that the crowd had gone abruptly silent at the very moment the little dog took off at a ninety-degree angle from his route and charged, unseen, through the tall-growing Queen Anne’s lace towards the encampment.

  “Here we go again!
” Redfyre sighed and set off in pursuit. Nearing the bonfire, he saw silhouetted against it a crowd of about twenty ragged men. Silent, on their guard. Redfyre checked them for horned helmets and broadswords before walking up more circumspectly. When he was within hailing distance he called out in his usual bluff, officer’s voice: “Hello there! Please don’t, for God’s sake, feed my dog a sausage! He’s just had his dinner!”

  “You’re too late, Redfyre! He’s already wolfed one down. How about you? Fancy a Newmarket banger? They’re good,” a gruff but friendly voice answered.

  A tall shape broke from the herd and stepped forward. He was holding a fawning Snapper in his arms. The dog seemed enthralled by the close contact with the old and doubtless strongly scented fisherman’s smock tied up with string about the middle regions of his new friend—or kidnapper?

  “By Gum, lad, you’ve taken your time! I was going to have to come into the nick under my own steam tomorrow morning and surrender!”

  The vagrant company moved, muttering like a Greek chorus, closing ranks in a protective shield around the man in their midst. One word from him, and Redfyre—though probably not Snapper, he thought—would end up in the River Cam within seconds.

  Only one thing for it. Shoulders back, head up, he scanned the group and quickened his pace towards them, like one going to meet his friends. “Well, well! Is this the moment I say, ‘Major Dunne, I presume?’” He stretched out a hand. “John Redfyre, Cambridge CID. Pleased to meet you at last. Any friend of my dog is a friend of mine,” he added. And many in the crowd knew he meant it.

  Hesitant, the men looked to Dickie Dunne for a signal. He tucked Snapper under his left arm, put out his right and shook Redfyre’s hand. The company of tramps sighed in relief at the ancient exchange of peace signals and began to move about again. One of them, whom he recognised, appeared at his elbow with a sausage on a slice of bread. “Here you are, Inspector. I’ve put some mustard on that.”

  It was indeed delicious. He washed it down with a bottle of ginger beer, conscious the whole time of Dickie Dunne’s eyes on him as he chirrupped on engagingly about the excellent weather and the quality of Mr. Musk of Newmarket’s pork sausages. His talk disguised the weight of MacFarlane’s expectation—command, in fact—that hung heavily on him: “As soon as apprehended, read the villain the riot act and wheel him in sharpish!”

  “Major Dunne!” he said, “If you would care to call in at HQ tomorrow, since you seem to be free, you’ll find me at my desk from eight o’clock onwards. Time for a parley, I’m thinking.”

  “I’ll be there, Inspector. Oh, don’t forget your dog. Little beauty! And a good ratter, like his master. He’s down here a lot. Makes himself at home. Till tomorrow, then!”

  He strode in at exactly eight o’clock the next morning as invited and was shown to the inspector’s office.

  Redfyre looked with keen interest at the man who had eluded them, the man so many witnesses about the town had hurried to describe and defend. His barber had talked in distracting detail about his haircut, even particularising the side of the parting and the length to the tenth of an inch. No change there, but the clean-shaven features after three weeks on the lam had acquired the slightly raffish nobility of a Sir Walter Raleigh. He only lacked the earring.

  “Major,” Redfyre said, using his correct rank with military punctiliousness. “Thank you for coming in to help us with our enquiries. We’re investigating the death of an academic, a Dr. Fanshawe, the unfortunate event occurring in the course of a dinner party in the gentleman’s own rooms at St. Jude’s College, held on Friday the sixteenth of May, three weeks ago. We understand that you were present as a guest at that event. Will you confirm that?”

  The piratical image intensified as he grinned sardonically back at the inspector, clearly critical of the policeman’s stiff official tone.

  “Yup! I was there, all right,” he said. “Damned strangest party of my life! As bad as Belshazzar’s feast. Worse, in fact—we didn’t get as far as tasting the food, and there were no skimpily clad girls present. Not even a corseted master’s wife. We’d been lured to”—he lowered his voice and hissed dramatically—“a symposium. In the classical style, if you understand what I’m saying. Disturbing, what! Others felt the same.”

  He left a pause for Redfyre to absorb his meaning, then went on lightly. “It was so boring, one of the guests was moved to chuck the host through the window! Hardy? Was that his name? A dark-haired bloke. Lost his rag when Fanshawe murmured something in his ear, picked him up and pushed him out through the open window. Couldn’t have that! Jolly bad show, I thought, and ran over to intervene. The soldier’s way.” He stuck out two large, calloused hands and demonstrated. “He struggled, I feared for my life—the chap was clearly doolally—and I oversteered. When you get around to charging me, if you can ever fight your way through the circumlocutions, I shall say, ‘I confess to the manslaughter of Abel Hardy.’”

  He held out his hands again, but this time symbolically, for the handcuffs.

  MacFarlane chose this bad moment to burst into Redfyre’s office.

  “You got him! Might have waited for me to have a go at him first . . . Oy, Jenkins! Get in here and put this fellow in cuffs—the ones with the extending chain—and take him down to the cooler to think about his sins over the weekend.”

  “Sir!” Redfyre leapt to his feet. “Major Dunne has come in of his own accord to give a statement. I have not arrested him for any crime.”

  “What are you waiting for? Giving him a chance to disappear for another twenty years? We’re not having that! Jenkins!”

  Dickie Dunne watched the exchange with a detached amusement, smiled and said a polite thank-you as Jenkins applied the cuffs and led him away. At the door, he turned back and said affably to Redfyre, “We’ll speak later, perhaps? I’m sure there’s more you’d like to know.”

  Chapter 25

  Cambridge Police Station, Monday,

  the 9th of June, 1924

  “Sir, sir! There’s a gentleman below at reception who needs a word. Urgently.”

  “Thank you, Jenkins. Does he have a name, this gentleman?” Redfyre was writing up notes on his lengthy weekend interview with Dickie Dunne. The South African story, which he was making every effort to tell succinctly, kept wriggling away from him in a lively way. He did not wish to be interrupted.

  “I expect so, sir, but he’s not giving it. Or ‘vouchsafing it to all and sundry,’ according to him.”

  “Who’s the ‘all and sundry’ down there, this bright a.m.?”

  “We’ve got two stolen wallets, three tarts, a lost dog and the char lady, sir.”

  “Did he ‘vouchsafe’ his business, at least?”

  “Only when he got fed up with me. Lost his rag, banged on the counter, and shouted, ‘Is this the way the Cambridge police normally handle confessions to murder? Multiple murders? If I’m not sitting in front of the inspector within thirty seconds, I shall decide better of it, walk away and take my confession elsewhere.’”

  “Ouch! I bet that cleared the waiting room! What bad manners. Better get your skates on, Jenkins, and ask him to come in. Er . . . not wielding a blood-dripping axe or anything, is he?”

  “None of that, sir!” And, suspiciously, “Though it didn’t help that the shopping bag he’s carrying with him says ‘Baxter the Family Butcher’ on it.” Jenkins rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Joker! But there’s no accounting for what he might have got in there. Four pork chops? His laundry? The head of John the Baptist? I’ll take a look before I show him in. He’s well dressed and full of himself. But he strikes me as the sort who could turn nasty. Do you want me to hang about, sir? Apply the cuffs to this one as well? We’ve got a spare set.”

  “Won’t be necessary, Jenkins. I think I know who it is. And yes, I think you’re right! He’s playing with us! Just flash the bugger a knowing smile and escort him up.”
>
  “Ah! Good morning, Mr. Gisbourne. We last bumped into each other on the dance floor, so to speak? Tangoing to the Latin sounds of Felipe and his bandoneon band. Have you come forward to confess to dislocating my right shoulder in the encounter? No need! Not even my pride was hurt.”

  “Stop arsing about, Redfyre! Rosa warned me you were a smart aleck, so just drop the act, will you? I’m here to sort out several crimes about Cambridge for you. Crimes committed over, um . . . let’s say the last five years. I’m sure you keep good records. You’ll know the finer details. Just write out a formal statement, will you, and I’ll sign it.”

  “Of course. We won’t turn down such a generous offer, but I would first like you to answer a few vital questions of the who, when and why nature. I think we know most of the answers, but let’s introduce a little method, if not quite the proper procedures, shall we? As the first of the killings we’re both interested in occurred five years ago—that offence also a result of tango-induced emotions, when you were a lad of sixteen, busy on the playing fields of Eton?—I am prepared to discount any confession of yours to that crime.”

  He reached into a file box, extracted a single sheet and passed it over the desk. “Now, Mr. Gisbourne, you have there a selection of six related cases we have on our books, all requiring closure. Look on this as a menu for your perusal. I’m striking out the first one, a Mr. Ricardo de Angelis, as being only indirectly connected with the Gisbourne family.”

  Digby took it and stared, aghast. “Six, you say? Six?”

  “Unless you want to add to that number?”

  “No, no! Certainly not!”

  “Perhaps it would help if you concentrated on the last one on the list. The very recent strangling of an old soldier called Abel Hardy on college premises, more precisely in the rooms of a colleague of yours, the gentleman who features in the victim list at number five. (Dr. Fanshawe having been only minutes before thrown from his window to his death in the court below.) You were a witness to both deaths, and have already given us your, shall we say, preliminary and incomplete statement. Following which, you disappeared. But better late than infinitely on the loose, I suppose. Pick up where you left off. And went to ground for”—he glanced at the wall calendar—“well, nigh a fortnight. Why don’t you take up the tale from the moment the party started?”