‘We know he had a row with his son. Isn’t it reasonable to suppose that that was what she heard? And aren’t you wrong therefore to make him a class-two suspect?’
‘Not when there is ample evidence that Jenkins, Stafford, Nixon and Wells also had reason and opportunity for a showdown.’
‘All right, Jim,’ said the Commissioner. Christian name again. His sigh of relief went unnoticed. He was going to be let get on with this on his own. ‘I really can’t find much to criticize about your handling of the case, although I’m a little perturbed about the delay in finding out where Nigel Clark worked.’ Milton blessed his own adroitness over the private detective’s receipt. The case records were ambiguous about when it was found. ‘Still, one can’t avoid occasional lapses, and your skill in handling the suspects is undeniable. Carry on as you suggest. I’ll hold off the politicians for another few days.’
Milton felt a warm glow as he left the room. Maybe he’d get a promotion out of this yet. He hoped it would be at the expense of William Wells. He didn’t enjoy sending people he liked off to prison.
‘You’ve got fifteen minutes before Stafford arrives, sir,’ said Romford. ‘There’s been an urgent call for you from someone who refuses to give his name. Said he’d ring back about now.’
Amiss again? Milton just had time to instruct that someone be despatched to Kensington for Sir Nicholas’s manuscript before the phone rang.
A secretary established the caller’s identity as the editor of a Sunday newspaper—one of those specializing in victimization in the name of public morality. Leaving the worthwhile scandals of corruption or misuse of power to its less prosperous competitors, it preferred to ruin the lives of those guilty only of sexual indiscretion. Milton bit back on his disgust and began the conversation on a polite note.
It got harder to maintain as the nasty, evil-minded little hypocrite’s story unfolded. The voice purred on about the public’s right to know, concern for our national security, sympathy for the fine job the police force was doing in upholding law and order, anxiety to see justice done—the clichés piling up in proportion to the stature of the unfortunate, who was in for the old mud-slinging treatment. The figure in the pillory was Harvey Nixon.
The bare essentials were straightforward enough. One of the Enquirer’s staff, Susan Taylor, had received a hand-printed note suggesting that she might fruitfully occupy herself by finding out where Nixon usually went on Sunday evenings. Miss Taylor was a hard-working and ambitious reporter, the editor claimed, committing herself to ensuring that our leaders conducted themselves at all times with the integrity which the public rightly expected. This Milton translated to himself: The unscrupulous bitch wanted to rise in her profession by sniffing out signs of sexual unorthodoxy among senior politicians in a shaky government.
So dedicated was she, her editor smarmed on, that she gave up her Sunday nights for several weeks in following Nixon to an address which proved to be that of a well set-up call-girl. Further research indicated that other regular clients included two judges, three M.P.s and a handful of senior civil servants. The lady specialized in Establishment figures.
‘None of them was acting illegally,’ said Milton.
‘Ah, but she also went in for Embassy clients, not all of them from friendly countries.’
Milton looked at his telephone incredulously. He wasn’t going to be landed with a re-run of the Keeler affair, was he?
‘Mr Nixon isn’t by any stretch of the imagination a defence risk, sir.’
‘That would be for the government to decide when the story broke.’
‘You mean that you were going to print this story and ruin Nixon without any solid reason to suppose he was doing anything worse than visiting a call-girl? He’s a divorced man, dammit, with virtually no time to himself.’
‘There’s no need to take that tone, Superintendent. I have been weighing up the case for and against.’
And I know which way you’d like to come down, you nasty little shit, thought Milton. He was feeling sick.
‘Why didn’t you inform me of this before?’ he asked aggressively. ‘You must have known it might be relevant to our enquiries.’
‘I didn’t know about it until last night, when Miss Taylor returned from a much-needed holiday. I believe in giving my reporters a lot of freedom to follow up promising leads without always running to me for approval.’
‘I want to see that tip-off note immediately.’
‘I’m sorry, Superintendent, Miss Taylor didn’t think it was worth preserving. She destroyed it weeks ago. All she can say about it is that it had a Westminster postmark.’
Chapter Thirty-one
With a perfunctory expression of gratitude, Milton slammed the phone down. Romford came in to say that Stafford had arrived, and was told to hold him for a couple of minutes. Think it through. The odds were that the anonymous note showed the fine Italian hand of Sir Nicholas again, though he’d probably never be able to prove it. Assuming it did, how could he have known about the Sunday-evening peccadilloes? Unless Nixon had been dreadfully incautious, there were two obvious ways: either there had been some trailing done or one of the other clients had gossiped. Which, in turn, meant the prostitute talked to client A about client B. Unlikely; these girls knew the value of discretion.
He summoned Romford and told him to have the call-girl interrogated—no time to do it himself. All he wanted were dates and times of Nixon’s visits and the names of her other clients. He looked at his watch. Ten-fifteen. Word about Wells and the newspaper article should be around the department by now. Romford was instructed to make appointments with Wells, Nixon and Lady Clark—preferably in that order. He reminded Milton that he would not be free until he had seen both Stafford and Shaw, who had indicated that his patience was running out. Milton hesitated. He couldn’t face putting Shaw off again, but it would be absurd to waste his time today on such an unlikely prospect. He had been getting obsessional about seeing all the suspects himself. One of his inspectors or sergeants could stand in for him.
‘But whoever does it is to get a complete statement of how often they met and exactly what Shaw thought of him,’ he warned. Romford went off, speculating on what was making Milton state the obvious all the time in giving instructions.
He seemed to have taken that lapse over Nigel Clark too much to heart. It was a good thing that he, Romford, wasn’t the type to get upset. Someone had to keep his head. Though mind you, he couldn’t blame the Super for getting cross about this new development. He reflected primly that these top-shelf types didn’t half go in for irregular sex. One adulterer, one adulteress, one homosexual, one bachelor knocking off a married woman and now a divorced man visiting a call-girl. Romford reflected on his model family life and began to compose the sermon on the sins of the flesh he would give the next time his chapel called on him. By the time he lifted the telephone, his mind had strayed to a fantasy of what the call-girl probably looked like.
Milton was short with Stafford. He told him sharply that he had reason to believe he had given a distorted account of the phone-call he had had with Sir Nicholas. The industrialist looked suitably abashed.
‘I’m sorry, Superintendent. I admit I held back some of it, but I couldn’t see how that would do any harm. Since I knew I didn’t kill him, I couldn’t see why I needed to confuse the issue by strengthening my motive.’
‘It does great harm, Mr Stafford, when people implicated in a murder enquiry take it upon themselves to decide what is and is not relevant. Don’t you realize that I need all the evidence I can get about the behaviour of Sir Nicholas before he was murdered?’
Stafford abandoned his misunderstood look. ‘You’re right, of course, Superintendent. I was looking at it from my own point of view, not yours. I’ll tell you everything this time.’
He went on with what was by now a drearily familiar tale of outra
geous goading. Sir Nicholas had been so unfriendly and unsympathetic on the telephone that Stafford had eventually accused him of setting the department and the grants board against him.
‘He said he had indeed, and was proud of it. I was past it and should come to terms with the fact. He said if I liked, I could talk to him about it after the Monday morning meeting.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said “go to hell” and put the phone down.’
‘You didn’t speak to him after the meeting?’
‘No, Superintendent. I didn’t ever want to speak to him again. I was afraid I might lose my temper. He came up to me just before the meeting started, but I turned away and began to talk to someone else.’
Milton believed him. Stafford had been clutching at his last shreds of dignity. He couldn’t imagine him wanting to get involved in a shouting match which might attract witnesses. He let him go.
Romford came in looking pleased with himself. ‘Lady Clark will see you in half an hour, sir, and Mr Wells will be free between twelve thirty and one fifteen. Mr Nixon says he could see you after that, but he’s got to answer questions in the House at two forty-five and would prefer to see you later if you don’t mind. Prime Minister’s Question Time starts at three fifteen and he’ll slip away as soon as he can. He suggests you go to his room in the Commons about half three and he’ll be along as quickly as possible.’
‘Three thirty will be fine, tell him.’
Milton set off for Kensington and Lady Clark. He was preoccupied with this new story about Harvey Nixon. It might be totally irrelevant, but he feared it wasn’t. If Sir Nicholas knew about Nixon’s sexual activities, he surely wouldn’t have missed the chance to tell him, before or on Monday. He had been planning an Armageddon and Milton couldn’t imagine him wasting good material like the news that a smut-sheet was on Nixon’s trail. Could even the gentlest man have kept his head when he heard that? If it hadn’t been for Gladys, Milton might well have asked to be relieved of the case on personal grounds. Sir Nicholas deserved to be in the dock, not whoever had been driven to murder him. His killer deserved a decoration. But not Gladys’s. He resolved to think regularly about her from now on. There was something about the world he was moving in on this investigation that blunted his zeal. Gladys was more real to him, although he’d only seen her dead.
He got to South Kensington quicker than he had expected and killed a few minutes gaping absently into shop windows. His eye caught a display of pale furniture, rich carpets and expensive knick-knacks. Leaning casually against the reproduction Adam fireplace, its face set in a refined smile, was a mannequin dressed with restraint, elegance and classic good taste. It bore a marked resemblance to Lady Clark. Madame Tussaud’s could put it straight into the Chamber of Horrors if she turned out to have murdered Gladys, though he supposed they wouldn’t think it a gory enough killing to warrant her inclusion. Still, you could never tell what would seize the public imagination. Despite all the popular contempt for Whitehall, there was a national appetite for shenanigans among its high-ups. Milton thought about Nixon again and groaned inwardly. At least he was having the decency not to interrogate him before he had to perform in the House. He glanced at his watch again and walked briskly towards Lady Clark’s house.
‘You’ve come to rebuke me for not telling you about Nigel, haven’t you, Superintendent?’ she said, as they sat down.
‘Among other things, Lady Clark.’
‘Look,’ she said, and there were tears in her eyes, ‘I told you about my marriage and my adultery. Could you seriously expect me to tell you also that my only child had turned out homosexual? It wasn’t relevant. I knew he had had an argument with Nicholas about Ronald, but he couldn’t have killed him.’
‘You can’t be sure of that.’
‘I can. Not just because I know it to be totally out of character for Nigel to raise a hand against anyone, but because whatever Nicholas said to him about Ronald, he couldn’t really hurt him deeply. Nigel is in love, just as I am. In a similar position, I would have been able to take anything Nicholas said against Martin because he couldn’t hurt me any more. He had lost that power long before his death.’
‘But Nigel was very upset by what his father said.’
‘There’s a difference between being upset and being wounded deeply enough to want to strike, Superintendent. I assure you, I have never seen Nigel so happy. It’s because he’s developed so much emotionally since he met Ronald that I’ve been able to accept their relationship.’
‘You can’t expect me to see it quite so simply, Lady Clark.’
‘No, of course I can’t. But you must accept that he has an alibi for Mrs Bradley’s murder.’
‘I know he has been given an alibi by his mother, as I know his mother has been given an alibi by him.’
‘I suppose I should feel insulted by the implications of that remark, but I can’t. I’ve been expecting it. You think Nigel might have lied to protect me as I might have lied to protect him, and I’m in no position to prove that that didn’t happen. I can only say that while I have a great deal of sympathy with whoever murdered Nicholas, I feel a violent contempt for whoever killed that poor woman to keep himself out of jail. You can believe that or not as you wish.’
‘Did Nigel know about you and Mr Jenkins?’
‘No. I didn’t want to burden him with my troubles. He had enough of his own.’
‘Have they ever met?’
‘Never.’
Milton had already decided to believe one suspect this morning. He didn’t know if he could afford to believe two. Maybe the whole damn lot of them were plausible liars and he was getting gullible. He contemplated going through with bullying Lady Clark in the way he had intended. He couldn’t. It wouldn’t sound convincing. In his heart he believed she was about as capable of having anything to do with Gladys’s death as Ann was.
‘All right, Lady Clark. We’ll let it go at that for the moment. Can I ask you something else? Did Sir Nicholas ever go out alone on Sunday nights?’
The question took her aback.
‘Sunday nights, Superintendent? Not often. There was a period a few months ago when he went out an awful lot at weekends and stayed out very late many evenings during the week. I suppose he went out on a few Sundays. I couldn’t be precise about it unless I looked at my diary and thought about it for a while.’
‘Where did he go?’
‘I don’t know. He used just to say he wanted to walk and think for a while. Sometimes he said he was working at the office. I wondered for a while if he had found somebody too, but when he went back to his normal habits after a few weeks I decided he had probably just been overworking. What do you think he was doing?’
‘I don’t know, Lady Clark,’ lied Milton. ‘I haven’t got enough to go on. I was just following up a possible lead.’
He knew all right, he thought, as he walked back to the tube. He would lay heavy odds that Sir Nicholas had spent his spare time—as Susan Taylor was to do later—following Harvey Nixon.
Chapter Thirty-two
Amiss had started his day in a state of vindictive contentment. He was pleased with the thought that William Wells was going to have hell to pay. He hoped Milton would give him a real going-over. With luck he’d turn out to be the murderer. So what if some of the ripples did spread to the department? From what Milton had told him of the other suspects, they all seemed like reasonably decent people. If anyone was guilty it should be the greatest available shit.
He had the joy of being present when Nixon and Sanders told Wells what they thought of him. Sanders necessarily had to be rather circumspect; it was an embarrassment that his predecessor had been the one to set Wells off on his disastrous trail. Nixon didn’t have any such inhibitions, however. Amiss had never seen him in a temper before and was surprised at how loud and offensive he could be. N
ot that he said a word that either of those witnessing the dressing-down would have disagreed with, unless Sanders, perhaps, found the expression ‘prize cunt’ a bit unparliamentary. Amiss doubted it though. He was pretty sure that his own smile of approval had been mirrored in Sanders’s face.
It was worth staying in the civil service if he was going to have treats like this from time to time. He was certain Sanders had brought him into the meeting as a sort of thank-you for having put up with Sir Nicholas for so long. The only disappointment was that Wells didn’t seem as upset as he might be. Although he had looked a bit shaken initially at the discovery that Nixon could turn nasty, he had lapsed into sullenness by the end. He just kept muttering about putting his constituents first, and he was visibly pleased that the Prime Minister had decided to reconsider the decision immediately. He was talking to colleagues on the phone now. Sanders—and indeed Nixon—had pleaded with the P.M. to stick to his guns, but the issue had never really been in doubt. It would take a brave man indeed to put his small majority to the test over something as potentially explosive as a public clash between two of its ministers.
‘That was a right slaggin’-down ole Nixon gave Wells,’ observed Phil with appreciation as Amiss went back into his office.
‘What do you know about it?’ asked Amiss incredulously. It was far too early for the news to have got round the department.
‘I ’appened to be in the corridor, didn’t I? I ’eard Nixon shoutin’ at ’im about ’is bein’ a traitorous little shit. Good for Nixon. Never thought ’e ’ad it in ’im.’
Amiss cuffed him moodily and retired to his desk. Something would have to be done about Phil. He seemed to regard the department as a vehicle for his entertainment. Still, maybe that was a healthy viewpoint. It was better to be entertained by your job than crushed by it. God knows he deserved a few chuckles himself after his time with Sir Nicholas, although it was arguable that the very traits in Sir Nicholas that made him hard to bear had been the direct cause of all the unusual entertainment he had got that week. The new boss, too, had come courtesy of the same chain of events. Not for the first time recently, he caught himself in internal debate in classic civil servicese—‘on the one hand’ balancing ‘on the other’, and all implications given due weight. And to think there was a time when he’d dreamt of being a rock-and-roll star.
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