She shook her head and repeated, ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’ She looked directly at him. ‘Nicholas, you are asking for more than I’m able to give. I like you and Marcus says you are a good man, but I don’t want any more than a working relationship. If I can help you track down whoever did this, whoever did that to those people, I will.’
She turned away, ‘I appreciate that you might think you have … um … feelings for me, but it’s impossible. I simply can’t reciprocate.’
‘Is it something to do with your late husband?’ he asked, remembering what Marcus had confided in him, half expecting a furious response. Instead he was amazed when she laughed, but there was a bitter edge there.
‘No, well, not exactly. Even if … it’s three years since he died and I … No, I don’t talk about that ... I don’t talk about him, but I hated that man and …’
Just then they heard a voice call. ‘Verity, Verity. Where are you, sweetie?’
‘It’s Adelaide. I thought she wouldn’t be able to resist having another go at you, Commander.’
She went into the hallway and saw Jet coming from the study.
Adelaide, followed by Lucy, rushed up saying, ‘Has he taken off the thumbscrews yet? Are you alright, Verity? Well, hello, Nicholas. What a lovely surprise.’ She stepped over to him with both hands outstretched. ‘Have you been bullying poor Verity? Naughty, naughty. Oh, and who’s this? Really, Verity. Entertaining two handsome men, greedy girl.’
Verity merely said, ‘Detective Sergeant Jet Blanchard, Adelaide Browne, Lucy Winsome. He’s a c-tec—here to try and trace those emails.’
He looked gobsmacked when she held a hand out to him and said, ‘Adelaide Browne … Jet, is it? Jet, that’s an interesting nickname. What’s the reason for that?’
‘I’m a fast worker,’ said Jet, then blushed bright red. ‘I … I … I mean fast on computers, not, you know …’ he stammered.
‘Adelaide, leave the poor guy alone,’ said Lucy sternly. ‘Hi, I’m Lucy. New York, right?’
His face lit up, ‘And you’re New York, for sure. Brooklyn?’
They started chatting animatedly, finding common ground.
Adelaide was saying to Verity, ‘Are we going to eat together? Let’s do that. Have you asked him to stay for dinner? What’s been going on? Have they traced those horrible pictures yet? And those emails?’
Adams was standing bemused in the midst of all these conversations then he shocked them all into silence as he raised his voice, a voice edged with steel.
‘Enough please! I am conducting an official investigation here, not a tea party. DS Blanchard, please take Miss Browne and Miss Winsome down to the living room and stay there till I say. Keep them there if you have to handcuff them!
‘Ms Burne, kitchen, please.’
There was a moment of stunned silence before Jet, Lucy and Adelaide turned and headed towards the living room. Adelaide took a few steps then turned with an impish look and said, ‘Oh, Nich-o-las, you’re sooo beautiful when you’re angry!’
Verity spluttered. She couldn’t help it … she had to laugh. Whether it was Adelaide’s words or the stunned look on the Commander’s face she couldn’t say, but it burst out of her, releasing the tension that had been pent up all day. She braced her hands on the kitchen bench and laughed uncontrollably. Nicholas glared at her then started to laugh himself.
‘She’s priceless, your cousin,’ he said when he’d recovered enough to speak. ‘But she’d drive me crazy. She never shuts up!’
‘Oh, you get used to it. I just tune out and keep one antenna twitching. There’s always a point to what Adelaide’s saying but she tends to bury the important stuff amongst trivia. Now did you get what she was saying, or rather, asking, before? The important message there was … did we trace the origin of those images … she has a huge feeling of guilt about those murders.’
‘That’s ridiculous … why should she feel guilty? Because she announced they were to be on her show? She didn’t kill them. Only the people that did are guilty, not Adelaide … and not you either, Verity.’
‘I can hear a lot of laughing coming from out there. Maybe we’d better see what’s going on with that trio. Is that Adelaide?’
‘No, that’s Lucy and Jet. And I think we’d better break that up.’
Adams looked at her, wondering why she would say that. It seemed pretty harmless to him—two Americans far from home, sharing thoughts in an alien land. He stepped out to the hallway and called him.
Jet came back to the kitchen. ‘I don’t need any more time on this search. I know this is going to keep going round in circles, same result you had, Ms Burne. Anyway, um, Miss Browne and Lucy have asked me over to their house for supper. So I’ll go over with them, if that’s okay with you, sir. Thanks for letting me play with your stuff. And it was great to meet you, Dr Burne. Um, you mentioned about the Tyle. Any chance I could see it before I go?’
‘Lucy has one. Tell her I said you could look at it. Please keep quiet about anything you may have seen or heard here. Some of that equipment is not on the market yet.’
Nick asked him, ‘What about your game?’
‘Well, sir, I called my buddy and put that off. Why get hot and sweaty with a guy when I can be cool and comfortable with two lovely ladies! I’ll get my bag.’
He went back into the study, grabbed his bag then rushed back to the living room and joined the other two as they headed out the rear doors and through the back garden to Adelaide’s house.
Nicholas turned to Verity, ‘Well, that’s quietened things down a bit.’
In the kitchen again Verity poured two more coffees.
‘Look, I want to talk to you about this case again, Verity. Off the record, I think you might be able to help with certain aspects.’
She made a non-committal sound.
‘Just say yes, please. There’s something stewing in the back of my mind, and I want, need your help to get some information on the quiet.’
She looked at him with raised eyebrows and said, mockingly, ‘On the quiet. Why Commander, do you mean an illegal act? There are strict laws against bypassing the central computer, BigSys. I’m shocked that you would suggest such a thing.’
‘I may not be up to your standard in computing but I am a detective and I can detect a tricky set up with my eyes closed. You don’t have to confirm or deny, but I think you’ve got a link through a certain private satellite. I’m not sure quite how that works but I suspect those images were sent via some similar connection, his or someone else’s. Now that means there’s someone out there who’s as smart as you perhaps, someone who has managed to break through the formidable encryption of that connection. That must irk you.’
Verity merely said, ‘No comment. Look I’m really tied up with some important, um, stuff now.’
‘What sort of stuff? Something for Circe.’
‘No. It’s something to do with a money laundering scheme. Don’t look at me like that—all the information is for the fraud squad. I have to keep this quiet. My name, or rather a pseudonym I was using, leaked last year and I had some pretty nasty threats.’
At his horrified look she said, ‘They didn’t know who I was but I know how to defend myself … I learned from Amy. She was my bodyguard for a while and we have a session at least once a week. Adelaide too.
‘And the one a couple of weeks ago who attacked Adelaide—he landed on his arm and it broke when she tossed him. By then the security guards had arrived. Addie didn’t want him charged but since he attacked one of the guards it turned out she didn’t have to be involved in any charges.’
She thought for a few seconds. ‘We have a sort of at-home almost every Sunday at Adelaide’s place, so if you’re at a loose end next Sunday you’re welcome to drop in. I think Adelaide’s latest flame, Dr Richard, will be there, so you’re safe from her.’ She grinned at that.
Nicholas was a little surprised at her invitation and said, ‘I’ll look forward to that. Now y
ou didn’t actually say you’d help me.’
Verity thought about what her uncle had said about Nicholas Adams. He is a good honest man, Verity. I knew his parents, I know him and there isn’t a bad impulse in him. He can be as tough and hard as he needs to be for his job, but he has the respect and loyalty of everyone who’s ever worked with him. Trust him, Verity, he’ll never let you down.
She looked straight at him then and said simply, ‘Yes, I’ll help you. We’ll talk some more about it, but not here, somewhere else.’
Chapter 24
Verity decided to go to the park and sit quietly, drinking in the view again. She had a lot to consider. Maybe she’d see Oscar again; maybe he’d let her interview him today. Intrigued by the old news coverage of the terrorist attack she’d dug out, she was keen to get his firsthand account.
In the foyer she stopped to chat to the guard at the security desk.
‘Have you ever met that old fellow in the park, Jim? Professor Morgenstein?
‘Prof? Yeah, interesting old bloke. I often go over there to eat my lunch and he’s usually there. He knows a lot of stuff—the park’s history, ocean racing, gold mining, trees—can talk about anything.’
‘I might go and have a chat with him now if he’s there. It’s such a beautiful day, a few minutes in the park would be a nice change. ‘Bye, Jim.’
She crossed the road and walked along the narrow path. She didn’t see him until she heard him call, ‘Miss Burne, I’m over here.’
She looked around and saw him sitting on a bench in deep shade. As she made her way over to him he said, ‘Too hot to stay in the sun for long at my age. Come and join me, my dear.’
He gave her a welcoming smile. ‘One day you must come and see my collection of old silents and early talkies from the 1920s and 30s. That Louse Brooks was a gorgeous woman, and a very cheeky one from all accounts.’
‘Well, Prof, I don’t mind being compared to some gorgeous film star, cheeky or not. My friend Lucy watches the Classics Channel all the time … she loves the old movies too, but old to her is early this century, or at a push, the 1980s and 90s. She always tries to match up people with some movie star too.’
‘Oscar, please.’
‘Well, you must call me Verity.’ She paused and rummaged in her bag for her Tyle.
‘Now have you thought about an interview, Oscar?’
‘Oh, yes. I’ve cleared it with … well, it’s okay to talk to you. But there is something I’m extremely worried about. I don’t know …’ He tailed off. ‘No, the police didn’t say not to talk about it.’
He looked so troubled Verity said, ‘What is it? Bad memories?’
‘No, no, it’s not that, it’s something else,’ he said. ‘I think my neighbour was murdered. The police said it was an accident but I knew him. I’m sure it was set up to look that way, like an accident.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘Last Wednesday.’ He stood up. ‘Can you come with me?’ He started to walk to the edge of the park, pointing to a couple of houses on the narrow street bordering the park. ‘I live in that house and my neighbour the house to the right.’
He paused at his gate. ‘We weren’t close friends but most Thursday afternoons, we’d play chess in his house. He was a strange man, an art collector, and a fanatic about security.
‘Last Thursday I went over as usual, rang the bell and no answer. That was odd as he’d always let me know previously if he was to be away. I waited a minute or so then tried again. No answer so I went home. A little while later I was in my back garden and saw that his back door was open. Definitely unusual. Whenever he went out there he always locked that door. Never saw anyone so fussy about security. All his locks were coded to his prints.
‘I thought about calling the police but I decided to pop over first in case he’d fallen over inside the door. I hopped over the fence.’ He smiled at her look of astonishment. ‘Yes, I’m still pretty nimble and the fence is only waist high. As soon as I went in that door I knew something very bad had happened in that house. There was an atmosphere.’ He shivered at the memory.
‘Nothing was out of place, everything neat and clean. He had cleaning robots, special air filters and air conditioning for the gallery which I could feel when I went out to the hall. There was no sign of him but I felt compelled to go upstairs to where I could hear a strange noise. And there was a smell.’
He stopped and closed his eyes for a few seconds.
‘Are you sure you want to go on, Oscar?’ Concerned, she reached out and took his arm.
‘Thank you, my dear, I’m alright.’ He paused for a second then continued. ‘Where was I? The smell. It was unmistakable. I’d smelt it before—the smell of death. It was coming from the bathroom. And what a bathroom, luxurious, with this huge spa bath right in the middle of the room.
‘Then I saw his naked body lying with his head in the tub. That bath—the jets were churning up the water … that was the noise I heard, the motor. He seemed to have drowned and it looked as though he’d got undressed, tripped somehow, hit his head, maybe knocked himself out and fallen over the side of the tub. The water was right up to the top and splashing the floor too.’
‘And you think it was murder,’ she said, ‘but the police don’t?’
He continued, ‘I pulled him out but I could see straight away it was hopeless. I didn’t touch anything else. I left and called the police. It took them an hour to get there and because of his security I had to let them in through my place, over the fence in through the back door.
‘The sergeant, Mostyn was his name, took a good look around and said, “Well, well, silly old bastard. Looks like an accident to me, unless you knocked him out and put him there, old man. Ha ha, just joking.” He rang the station and asked for the duty doctor and a lock man so they could get the body out through the front door. He left an officer there to wait for them and told me to come down to the police station next day to give a statement.
‘He had a good poke around before he left. I don’t like to accuse him unjustly but I think he stole something, an 18th century scrimshaw globe of the Earth, only 5 cm in diameter. It was the pride of Solly’s collection, and it’s gone. I heard him laugh and say something like “just another dirty old man. Good riddance” to the other policeman as he was leaving. They were laughing. A man was dead and they were laughing. He was naked and left like that … ’
He stopped then as his throat clogged. ‘I don’t think he was a particularly good man but he didn’t deserve to be laughed at.’ And another thing. He claimed to be Jewish, but I’m Jewish and I could see he wasn’t circumcised, so it was most unlikely.’
‘Is there more to this, Oscar?’
The professor nodded. ‘Solly was a creature of habit. He had a set routine for almost every day of the week. Every Wednesday night he had a visitor, a professional lady who stayed until ten. Eight o’clock till ten o’clock. He’d tell me about it during our Thursday chess games. Not in graphic detail but enough for anyone with a modicum of imagination to get the picture. He was quite a young man, you know, only about sixty I’d say and still trim. He exercised every day too.’
Verity smiled to herself at the idea of sixty being young. ‘There must be something else.’
‘Yes, he told me once that he never ever took a bath. Always had a shower as he hated the idea of sitting in his own dirt. So why would he be getting ready for a bath?’
‘Why did he have a huge bath like that if he never used it?’ asked Verity.
‘I’m only guessing but from something he dropped once, I think he liked to bathe the women. I heard the doctor say he’d died between eight and nine the previous night. Now I was coming home about eight on Wednesday night and as I arrived I caught a glimpse of a woman’s back view—tall, long legs, very womanly shape. I heard them speak, his and a woman’s voice.’
‘Was it the same woman each week, do you think? Do you know the name of the agency?’
‘You know, I recall h
e said something about them being used his “strange little ways”, that’s how he put it. Yes, he said, his angels. Is there an escort agency with angel in the name?’
‘I don’t know but I’m sure we can find out.’
‘Oscar, what was your friend Solly’s full name?’
‘Didn’t I say? Levinsky. Solomon, I suppose.’
He saw the shock in her eyes.
‘Miss Burne, what’s wrong? Are you alright?’
She took a few deep breaths then answered grimly, ‘I need to call someone about this. And I think you’re right about it being a murder. I’ll make a call.’
She called the number Commander Adams had given her for his personal phone.
‘Commander … Nicholas. It’s Verity Burne. I have someone with me who you need to see, to listen to.’ She took a deep breath, ‘I think there’s another one.’
‘Verity, what’s wrong? Another what?’
‘Another murder with a link to RAZZ! but this time staged to look like an accident.’
‘Where, when did this happen?’
‘I think you need to talk to this man, my friend Professor Oscar Morgenstein, personally. He’s the one who told me about it. He knew the man, the dead man.’
‘Did you say Oscar Morgenstein? The Oscar Morgenstein ... I thought he was dead years ago. Are you sure about this, Verity … and where are you?’
Verity laughed shakily. ‘I’m standing in Clark-Havington Park, opposite my office building in Lavender Bay.’ She panned her phone around the park. ‘See. The professor needs to talk to you. The local police just brushed him aside.’
‘Do you want me to come there or …?’
‘I can take him to my place or … hang on …’
Oscar said, ‘I prefer to be in my own house, my dear. If your young man is concerned for your safety you can wait here outside.’
‘Commander Adams is a high ranking policeman, not my young man, and I can take care of myself quite well,’ she said tartly.
She could see Nicholas grinning at that as she came back to the phone.
Verity burst out, ‘Nicholas … the dead man was Solomon Levinsky.’
STRANGE BODIES (a gripping crime thriller) Page 15