Dark Mirror bak-10

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Oh. Anything else?’

  ‘Yes, the first thing to do: phone Westminster Council and get them to try to trace the contents of a waste bin in St James’s Square. Marion dropped the remains of her lunch there yesterday.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Just do your best, Pip. I’ll get us some help.’

  •

  The secretary at the Department of European Literature was eager to find out how Marion had died, and why the police were involved.

  ‘We’re trying to contact her next of kin and get her home address,’ Kathy explained. ‘So far we’re not having much luck. I’ve just been over to Stamford Street, where she used to live, and they told me they’ve been forwarding her mail here.’

  ‘That’s right.’ The woman reached for the glasses hanging from a fluorescent green plastic chain around her neck and raised them to her nose. She waved Kathy in through the flap in the counter.

  A distraught student appeared at her back. ‘Karen, the student photocopier’s broken down again. Can I use the office one? Please? ’

  ‘Certainly not,’ the secretary snapped. ‘Go and talk to Agu.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Language!’ She took Kathy to a bank of pigeon holes on the wall, and pointed to POST-GRAD STUDENTS M-Z, from which she retrieved a thick wad of envelopes and began sorting. When she finished she had formed one large pile, many with overseas stamps, and another small one, of letters addressed to Marion.

  Kathy began opening them: an overdue book notice from the university library; a bank statement showing a balance of? 386.54; a jeweller’s valuation of a diamond ring, given as? 2400; a notice of expiry of a reader’s ticket to the National Archives; and a letter from a Dr Grace Pontius at Cornell University in the United States confirming her attendance at a conference in August.

  The secretary didn’t seem to know anything about Marion’s family circumstances, and after checking with a couple of her colleagues in the office, couldn’t find anyone else who did either.

  ‘Maybe her supervisor would know,’ she offered. His name was Dr da Silva, but it appeared that he wasn’t in the department that day.

  Kathy took down his contact details and suggested that surely the university would have some kind of record of an original home address or next of kin. The woman phoned through to student records, and after some time they rang back with the details that Marion had given on her original undergraduate enrolment form, six years before. Her home address was in Ayr, Scotland, with a phone number listed.

  When she got back to the car, Kathy tried the Scottish number. It rang and rang, and she was on the point of giving up when a woman answered, her voice quavering and hesitant.

  ‘Ye-es?’

  ‘Hello,’ Kathy said, ‘I wonder if you can help me. I’m trying to trace friends or relatives of Marion Summers.’

  ‘Oh aye? Well, I’m her auntie, but if you’re selling something.. .’

  ‘No, nothing like that. My name’s Kathy Kolla, and I’m a police inspector from London. Could I ask your name, madam?’

  ‘Bessie, Bessie Wardlaw. Did you say the polis?’

  ‘Yes. Are Marion’s parents available, Mrs Wardlaw?’

  ‘Available? Well, her mother’s living in London.’

  ‘Can you give me her name and address and phone number?’

  There was a pause, then a plaintive objection. ‘I have no idea who you are, do I? I mean, you phone me out of the blue…’

  ‘You’re right. I can give you a number of the Metropolitan Police for you to ring back. It is important.’

  ‘Och, can you no’ just tell me what this is all about?’

  ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news, Bessie, about Marion. I’m trying to contact her nearest relatives.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Kathy heard the woman’s hoarse breathing on the other end of the line and hoped she wasn’t going to faint. She was regretting this call, catching the frailty of the woman at the other end, and thinking she should have handed this over to the Ayr police to deal with. ‘Do you have someone there with you, Bessie?’

  ‘Aye, the minister, Mr Fotheringham.’

  ‘Would you mind letting me speak to him?’

  There was a clunk as Bessie dropped the phone. Finally a man came on. Kathy repeated who she was.

  ‘I’m very sorry to have to give Bessie some sad news, Mr Fotheringham. I’m afraid Marion Summers, her niece, died in hospital yesterday.’

  ‘That’s shocking news indeed. How did it happen?’

  ‘She collapsed in the library where she was working. She went into a coma and I’m afraid they weren’t able to revive her.’

  ‘Och, poor lassie. Was it the diabetes?’

  ‘We’re carrying out a post-mortem to establish the cause. You obviously know her well.’

  ‘Oh aye. She lived with Bessie for several years before she went down to London, to the university.’

  ‘Bessie said Marion’s mother lives in London, is that right?’

  ‘Aye, she moved down a couple of years ago, I believe.’

  ‘Was Marion living with her?’

  ‘Hang on, I’ll ask Bessie.’

  After a moment he came back. ‘No, they had separate addresses. I have them here.’ Kathy heard the pages of a notebook turning, then he read out the entries. Marion’s mother was Sheena Rafferty, with a home address in Ealing in West London. However the address for Marion was her old one in the student apartments in Stamford Street.

  ‘You wouldn’t know if she had a partner, a regular boyfriend?’

  There was a muffled discussion, then, ‘I’m afraid we can’t help you there. Bessie hasn’t had much contact with Marion of late.’ Then he added, voice cautious, ‘There’s nothing suspicious, is there, in Marion’s death?’

  ‘We’re not ruling anything out at this stage, Mr Fotheringham. Why? Is there something we should know?’

  ‘No, no. Bessie hasn’t spoken to her sister-Marion’s mother-for over a year. She doesn’t really know what’s been going on down there. What was your name again?’

  Kathy repeated it, and her phone number, and took a note of the minister’s number, promising to get in touch when she had more information.

  She rang Dr da Silva’s home number next. He too sounded shocked by the news of Marion’s death, to the point of becoming almost monosyllabic. To each of her questions he returned a series of abrupt negatives. No, he didn’t know where she lived, nor if she had a boyfriend, nor what other close friends she might have had.

  Kathy snapped her phone shut and stared out of the car window, tapping her hand impatiently on the steering wheel. It was beginning to look very much as if Marion Summers had been covering her tracks. four

  M arion’s mother lived on the second floor of a council block which had seen better days, its brickwork stained, concrete flaking. There was no reply to Kathy’s knock at the front door. A small dark woman rugged up with headscarf and quilted parka approached along the deck carrying bags of shopping.

  ‘Excuse me, do you know Mrs Rafferty?’ Kathy asked.

  The woman looked at her warily and made to move on.

  ‘Sheena?’ Kathy persisted. ‘Mrs Sheena Rafferty?’

  The woman nodded back over her shoulder. ‘Supermarket.’

  Kathy followed her glance and saw the grey box in a gap between two blocks of flats. ‘She’s shopping?’

  ‘She work there.’ The woman shuffled on.

  ‘Thanks.’

  The supermarket was of the cut-price variety, bare concrete floors, industrial shelving and battered trolleys. Kathy found the manager, and saw the look on his face when she showed her identity and said she wanted to speak to Mrs Rafferty.

  He pointed to one of the checkouts. ‘What’s she been up to now then?’

  ‘It’s nothing like that. I have some bad news about her daughter. Is there somewhere quiet I can talk to her?’

  The man nodded and turned to speak to a woman stocking shelves, then led Kathy to a small o
ffice. Behind them Kathy saw the woman taking Sheena’s place behind her till.

  ‘Has she been in trouble?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘Nothing too serious, as far as I know. Borrowing from the other women and not paying them back. We think she and another girl have a quiet line in writing off items at the end of the day and taking them home.’ He sounded bored. ‘Ah, Sheena, come in, close the door. This is a police officer.’

  Kathy suspected he knew exactly the reaction that would provoke. A look of panic crossed Sheena’s face. If she had once had red hair like her daughter it was a desperate blonde now, and Kathy could make out no resemblance to Marion in the worn face.

  ‘I’m DI Kathy Kolla, Sheena. Please take a seat.’ She turned to the manager. ‘I’d like to speak to Mrs Rafferty in private, if you don’t mind.’

  He shrugged and left.

  Everyone responds to the first impact of shocking news in their own way, Kathy thought. Sheena Rafferty blinked wildly, shook her head and looked bewildered. Kathy suspected this was a learned response, her way of postponing a blow by pretending she couldn’t understand what was going on. Eventually there were tears. Kathy always carried a small packet of tissues in her pocket for just such moments. She had no idea how many she’d gone through over the years.

  ‘She was such a darlin’.’ It was a Scottish voice all right, but not the attractive soft accent the librarian had described in Marion; this one had a smoker’s rasp. ‘Such a treasure.’

  ‘Is there someone I can call to be with you, Sheena? A friend, perhaps?’

  ‘Well, there’s ma husband, Keith…’ She said it with a doubtful frown. ‘But he’s at work. I don’t know if he’ll get away.’

  Keith was a driver for a company on the nearby industrial estate, she explained. Kathy called them and they said Keith was out on a delivery, and that they’d contact him and send him home.

  The packet of tissues was exhausted before they reached Sheena’s flat, scattered in damp shreds along the route of their walk back together. By the time they sat down in the kitchen and the kettle was plugged in and a second cigarette on the go, an element of realism had crept into Sheena’s account.

  ‘Och, we didnae always see eye to eye, ye ken. In fact she could be a stubborn wee bitch, but I loved her aw the same.’

  Kathy wondered if she was displacing her memories to an early time, because Marion was a good bit taller than her mother, and could hardly be described as ‘wee’.

  ‘We had our fights, but deep down we were so close.’

  ‘Can you give me Marion’s latest address, Sheena?’

  ‘Aye, sure. It’s a student flat in Southwark. I’ve got it somewhere.’

  ‘Would that be Stamford Street?’

  ‘Aye, that’s it.’

  ‘I believe she moved from there three months ago.’

  ‘Oh.’ Sheena Rafferty looked confused. ‘You may be right. Somebody said somethin’ about that.’

  ‘Was it Marion? Did she give you her new address?’

  ‘No, I was goin’ tae ask her.’

  ‘When did you last see her?’

  ‘Um, that would have been Christmas.’ Sheena shrugged. ‘We had a wee blue. Nothin’ serious. Her complainin’ about me drinkin’ too much, I think. She could be…’ A memory came back to her, and her face crinkled, tears welling.

  Kathy waited, then said, ‘How about her friends? Do you know their names?’

  Sheena looked vague and shook her head.

  ‘A boyfriend maybe?’

  The woman’s mood lifted. ‘Oh no, Marion was never one for the boys.’ She gave a raffish smile- Unlike me, it implied. ‘She always had her nose buried in her books.’

  ‘Just for the record, Sheena,’ Kathy said, ‘I’m sorry, but I have to ask you-this is Marion, your daughter, yes?’

  She showed her the picture Sundeep had given her and her mother nodded, weeping again. ‘Such a lovely lassie.’ Then she looked alarmed. ‘I don’t have to see the body just now, do I? I don’t think, without Keith…’

  ‘Plenty of time for that,’ Kathy reassured her.

  Later, as they sipped tea, waiting for Keith in a fug of smoke, Sheena tentatively raised the possibility of compensation for her loss. Kathy was saved from replying by the arrival of Keith.

  It was clear that he didn’t know what was going on and was prepared to make someone pay for the inconvenience this was causing him. He had a shaved head and a tattoo creeping out of his shirt collar. He glared at Kathy belligerently and said, ‘Who’s this, then?’

  Kathy watched Sheena’s manner change, becoming pliant and eager to soothe him. ‘Oh, Keithy darlin’, somethin’ terrible’s happened.’

  ‘What now?’ he growled.

  ‘It’s Marion. She’s deed.’

  The abrupt words must have hurt to speak, but Kathy also sensed the underlying message: Now, be nice to me, please.

  They certainly had an impact. Keith frowned uncertainly. Finally he muttered, ‘I don’t believe it. Who is this?’

  ‘I’m a police officer, Mr Rafferty-DI Kathy Kolla. I’m so sorry to bring this news.’ Again the bland explanation. She felt like a nurse tucking a shocking deformity up in neat white sheets.

  She left them with what advice and contact numbers she could, and returned to her car. As she reached to turn on the ignition her phone went. It was Sundeep Mehta, sounding out of breath.

  ‘Hi, Sundeep. Any news?’

  ‘Yes, Kathy. I was right. It was definitely arsenic. Marion Summers died of a massive dose of arsenic poisoning.’

  Kathy felt her heart give a jump, and realised that all this time she’d been half convinced that Sundeep’s suspicions were wrong, that some much more mundane and innocent explanation would emerge.

  ‘I can hardly believe it myself,’ he was going on, ‘even though I saw the signs. To strike someone down in that way, in public, in the middle of the day…’

  ‘You know the timing then?’

  ‘Oh, the dose was so large it would have happened quickly, certainly no more than an hour before her collapse. Do you know her movements?’

  ‘The librarian saw her leave the library for a lunch break at around 12.30, and the triple nine call was logged at 1.38.’

  ‘Well then. Do you know what she did during that time?’

  ‘We have just one sighting of her so far, sitting in the gardens in the square outside the library, possibly eating a sandwich. She threw the remains into a rubbish bin which has now been emptied. We’re trying to trace it.’

  ‘Her stomach contents weren’t much help-she lost most of her lunch on the library floor, all cleaned up and gone now. Did she have a drink?’

  ‘The witness thought he saw a soft-drink bottle.’

  ‘Hm. An open cup would be easier. The arsenic could have been in powder form, or possibly dissolved in a liquid. If a powder, it would have to be stirred in… I’m sorry, Kathy, I’m just thinking aloud. I daresay a hundred years ago my predecessors would have known all the tricks with arsenic. I’m going to have to do some research on this, try some experiments.’

  ‘We haven’t been able to find any recent comparable cases, Sundeep. What about you? Have your medical friends got back to you?’

  ‘No, nothing yet, thank God.’

  •

  Brock sat halfway down the long table, irritably scratching his cropped white beard, trying to make sense of the point at issue. He was sitting in for Commander Sharpe, away at a conference in Strasbourg, and had a hundred other things to do. As far as he could see, the last two graphs in the PowerPoint presentation they’d all been subjected to had blatantly contradicted each other. But then, his mind on other things, he may have missed something. Across the other side of the table Superintendent Dick ‘Cheery’ Chivers was sitting with his habitual glum expression. His copy of the management report was impressively embellished with slashes of coloured marker pens, but so far he’d said even less than Brock.

  Brock’s phone trembled sil
ently against his thigh. He slipped it out and checked the screen, then put it to his ear, turning away from the table. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Brock? It’s Kathy. Are you busy?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I can ring back.’

  ‘No, tell me.’

  He listened in silence for a minute, then murmured, ‘Brief me at the office.’ He rang off and got to his feet. The droning voice of the senior manager at the head of the table paused and they all looked at Brock. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Emergency. I think you know Commander Sharpe’s position on the proposal. Dick will fill me in.’ He glanced at Cheery, who stared back with a look of profound envy on his face.

  He made his way down to the ground floor and out into the sunshine, breathing a sigh of relief. Hesitating under the rotating New Scotland Yard sign, he watched a cluster of under-dressed office girls dodge between the cars and thought with a shiver, It’s not that bloody warm. But even as one part of his mind started working out his priorities, another was responding to a breath of pollen in the air, and his eye caught a flash of bright green foliage on a plane tree further down the street. He took a few deep breaths and turned towards Queen Anne’s Gate, feeling the sun on his head, and his frustration easing away.

  •

  When Kathy arrived at the office she found it almost deserted, the few occupants looking harassed. All except Pip Gallagher, who sat alone in the room she shared with Kathy and three other detectives, staring disconsolately at the screen in front of her, face cupped in her hands.

  ‘Anything?’ Kathy asked.

  Pip shook her head. ‘Everyone’s got her address down as Stamford Street. She probably moved in with some bloke, don’t you reckon? How did you go?’

  ‘Dr Mehta got back to me. She was definitely murdered-big slug of arsenic in her lunch.’

  ‘Wow.’ Pip sat up, instantly revived.

  ‘We’ve got to find out how it got there. I’m going upstairs to brief Brock. Want to come?’

  In the outer office Brock’s secretary Dot rolled her eyes as they came in. They could hear Brock’s voice barking impatiently through his open door. Dot said, ‘Go on in.’

  He waved them to seats when he saw them, phone held to his ear, talking to Bren Gurney, one of the other DIs in Brock’s team. ‘Well tell them, Bren. Make sure they understand that.’