‘What touching pictures,’ I said.
‘Touching is the word, Mrs Shackleton.’ Mr Duffield’s nose twitched. ‘I would say some of these are compromising photographs.’
I could not make myself say what came into my mind.
Mr Duffield stroked his chin. ‘Is there any other explanation than what we are thinking, especially when they are all together, and in a bag stuffed with money?’
It took me a moment or two to readjust my view of Leonard Diamond. This would explain so much about him: his love of the candid shot, which he had perfected; the array of expensive cameras and equipment, not affordable on a newspaper photographer’s pay; the penchant for dashing off on photographic expeditions without a thought for the cost. Say the words out loud. ‘A blackmailer does not need damning evidence. He needs to be able to drop a hint; to say, “You were seen”, or “I have a photograph”. Leonard Diamond was a blackmailer.’
Mr Duffield, said, ‘I can hardly credit it. The last thing I want to do is besmirch his memory. I am looking for some other explanation, Mrs Shackleton.’
‘We’ll let the police deal with it, shall we? Do you want to hand over this material, or shall I?’
‘I’d rather you did. If I’m to correspond with Len Diamond’s sister, there may be matters I could best leave out if I am not too closely involved.’
Slowly, I picked up each photograph with the tweezers and dropped them back into the bag. ‘Is there anything else, Mr Duffield?’
‘I left something in the locker, too. That was another reason I wanted to see you. Tom will be in later today, seeing whether he has his promised locker. Will you come down to the basement?’
My heart began to beat faster, perhaps at the thought of looking at something Diamond had wanted to keep private.
Mr Duffield locked the brown paper bag in his bottom drawer and slipped the key in his waistcoat pocket.
We walked to the lift in silence. The clang of the doors had never seemed so loud. We stepped out into the dim basement corridor. There was a row of metal lockers against the opposite wall.
Mr Duffield inserted a small key into the third locker. The door swung open. A brown paper package tied with string was marked ‘Finished Negatives’.
‘They’re on newspaper property,’ Mr Duffield said, ‘so I expect I should take them to the dark room. It’s just along here.’
‘It’s either that or hand them in to the police, but I can’t see they will want to be making prints along with everything else they have to do. Why don’t you put them in at the dark room, and tell your chap it’s urgent.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll do that.’
‘Good. And I’ll hand the contents of the bag to the investigating officers.’
Mr Duffield sighed with relief. ‘That’s why I telephoned to you. Since the old chaps have died, Len was the closest person I had to a friend in this building. I should hate to let him down in any way, even if he has been mixed up in something unsavoury.’
‘Ask the dark room assistant to make two copies. Then if there is anything of interest to the police, it can be passed on.’
Mr Duffield nodded. ‘I’ll do it now, if you don’t mind waiting.’
‘That’s all right.’
‘And I expect I should leave the camera for the new chap.’
Mr Duffield walked along to the dark room.
I picked up the camera that had been left in the locker. It was a simple reflex camera, with an Aldis-Butcher lens, but on closer examination I saw that it had been skilfully adapted, with another lens on the side. Shutter and lens appeared to be in the correct place at the front of the camera, but had been moved, and replaced with a dummy lens. Len Diamond had been able to point the camera in one direction, and take a picture of something, or someone, off to the side. A French photographer who liked to take candid shots unobserved had secretly used this method years ago. Len Diamond had copied him.
That explained how, when he came to talk to the photographic club, he had shown such an array of photographs of individuals in unguarded moments. ‘How did you do it?’ people had asked. But he kept his secret, until now.
Mr Duffield walked with me along Albion Street. He was nervy because of his shock at uncovering Leonard Diamond’s blackmailing. I was nervy because of having almost lost my satchel to a rascal on the Bank yesterday.
Mr Duffield hugged the brown paper carrier bag of money and photographs to his chest. Len Diamond’s specially adapted camera bulged in my satchel.
Not until the doorman at the Metropole ushered us inside did we come close to relaxing. Mr Duffield handed me the paper bag and took his leave.
The manager provided sanctuary in his office while he went upstairs with my message that I must see the chief inspector in person.
Eventually, Marcus appeared, and glanced at the stuff on the table. He gave me a tired smile. ‘What have you got for me, Kate?’
I told him about the photographs, and the new notes. ‘Neither Mr Duffield nor I have handled them.’
Marcus carefully took out the envelope of money. He picked up a letter opener from the desk and used it to separate and peer at the crisp white fivers. ‘Issued by Becketts Bank. Where is that?’
‘Park Row. It’s my bank, as it happens.’
‘So you’ll know the manager.’
‘Slightly. But I don’t usually rise to such dizzy heights. I deal with the clerks.’
The sight of the notes cheered Marcus enormously. Whether this was because it represented some new line of enquiry, or whether he was one of those people who cannot help being delighted at the sight of cash, I could not tell.
‘We’re going to note these serial numbers, Kate. I’ll write a brief letter to the manager, authorising him to tell us who they were issued to. You can follow this through for me if you will, since it’s your bank.’
His confidence and this official responsibility would have made a lesser woman quite giddy. ‘Very well,’ I said, feigning calm. ‘If it will help.’
At last, I was helping Scotland Yard with their enquiries in a through-the-front-door manner.
Five minutes later, we were in the incident room. Marcus’s freckled sergeant was carefully noting the serial numbers, and writing them in the log book. I copied the numbers onto a sheet of official, headed notepaper. Had the prime minister telephoned at that moment and appointed me head of CID, I could not have been more pleased. The notes amounted to seventy-five pounds.
When we had finished, Marcus put through a call to the bank manager. He introduced himself and looked at me steadily as he informed the manager that he was sending a trusted emissary with an enquiry connected to an important investigation, which required urgent and confidential cooperation.
Bearing my note to the bank manager, I left the hotel, feeling relieved not to be carrying the money, which amounted to several months’ salary for a press photographer, even one as good as Leonard Diamond.
Becketts Bank stands on the corner of Park Row and Bond Street. It is a palace of a building, immortalised by Atkinson Grimshaw in his painting, Park Row by Moonlight, a work of art commissioned by the bank in its own glory.
As I entered the hallowed portals, it was as if the eeriness of the moonlight painting seeped into my flesh. What I was about to find out might shed a moonbeam onto dark and terrible crimes.
The hushed atmosphere permeated the banking hall. An elderly customer stood at a ledge in stooped concentration. Each of the clerks was dealing with someone. No one looked in my direction as I turned towards the holy of holies, the inner sanctum of the manager’s office.
I had met Mr Pearson only twice, around the time when Gerald did not return from the front and there were financial matters to be dealt with. Mr Pearson had been efficient, helpful and kind.
As he was then, so he was now.
‘Good day, Mrs Shackleton.’
‘Good day, Mr Pearson.’
‘Please be seated.’
As I sat down, I remembere
d that when I first came to see him, he had walked round to my side of the desk most solicitously, drew out the chair and stood over me until I sat down. Remembering that time, I guessed that I must have seemed like a lost soul, incapable of finding her way to a chair. I shrugged off the memory, and handed him Marcus’s letter containing the serial numbers.
He read the letter quickly, and then rose. ‘Excuse me a moment.’
A heavy oak door led to an adjoining office. He disappeared through it. After a couple of moments, he returned. ‘Our chief cashier will look into the matter. In the meantime, I have requested tea.’
Wide-ranging small talk took place over a decent cup of tea and digestive biscuits. Mr Pearson asked for my professional private investigator card. I gave him two, believing that working with Scotland Yard would boost my credentials no end.
After about twenty minutes, and a tap on the communicating door, the cashier’s salt-and-pepper head appeared. Mr Pearson once again excused himself and vanished into the other room.
When he returned, he looked grave, and carried a piece of paper.
‘I have the information.’ He took an envelope from the drawer, folded the paper, slid it into the envelope and sealed it. He picked up his pen, dipped it in ink, and wrote: M Charles, Esquire, Chief Inspector.
Charming. All he needed now was sealing wax. So much for my great credentials.
‘Mr Pearson, Mr Charles entrusted me with this task while he follows another line of enquiry. Please tell me the information, so that I may assess what action must be taken, and how quickly.’
He paused. The hushed silence in the room turned even the sounds from the street, a clopping horse, the wheels of a cart, the call of a newspaper vendor crying Sporting Pink, into one solitary faraway hum while I waited for his decision.
Mr Pearson cleared his throat. ‘The money was withdrawn on Tuesday, 28th August by Mr Gideon King.’
Gideon King. Philippa Runcie’s private secretary.
I would have expected King to bank with Runcie’s Bank rather than Becketts, but perhaps it suited him to keep his affairs separate from the Runcie family.
Mr King would have some explaining to do.
On the day I visited Philippa, King had asked me did I think that Everett Runcie was being blackmailed. Now I wondered whether King was trying to confide in me but lost his nerve.
I wanted to kick myself for not being more perceptive.
It was several hours before more information emerged regarding the seventy-five pounds in fivers found in Leonard Diamond’s locker. Marcus ordered that fingerprints be checked. He sent his sergeant to interview King.
There were three sets of dabs on the notes: the cashier’s, King’s and Diamond’s. On the envelope that contained the money were two sets of dabs: King’s and Diamond’s.
I could imagine King’s nervousness at being asked to explain how his money came to be in Leonard Diamond’s locker. Even with the evidence staring me in the face, I hoped there would be some innocent explanation.
Duffield had voiced his suspicions of his old friend when he produced the photographs of unlikely couples. But several of the photographs were so innocuous as to raise my doubts. I wanted to believe that this was simply part of Len’s interest in candid shots, human interest pictures.
I had shared my conclusion with Mr Duffield: blackmailer, but still searched for another explanation, not wanting to believe the worst. Grasping for other possibilities, I came up with the mad hope that Len Diamond was in the process of exposing a wrongdoer. The hope did not last long.
As the minutes and hours ticked by, I saw the photographs again in my mind’s eye, especially the ones of people I knew: Deirdre with Joseph Barnard on Leeds Bridge, Philippa Runcie with the groping Lord Fotheringham, and Gideon King with one of the beaters at the shoot. And the anonymous couples caught in unguarded moments.
Some pictures were innocuous, perhaps, but may make a guilty person worry that something worse might be known about them. What I found so difficult to grasp was that a talented, gifted man such as Diamond could have stooped to blackmail.
Given my part in gathering this evidence, I hoped that Marcus might include me in the investigation that followed. Some hopes!
Yet he did have the courtesy to speak to me privately about the outcome of his sergeant’s investigation. We were in the hotel room. Marcus sat at his desk, King’s statement in front of him. ‘Mr King admits to withdrawing the money from his bank on Tuesday, 28th August, the day before the Ebor Handicap. He says the money was in his wallet and was stolen.’
This seemed to me unbelievable. ‘Why was it in an envelope?’
‘He said he was keeping separate his gambling money and what he wanted to hold onto, what he had withdrawn for his own expenses.’
‘Did he report the theft?’
‘No. He claims to have felt foolish.’ Marcus looked at King’s statement, and read part of it to me. ‘King says, “What sort of idiot lets himself be pickpocketed? It’s not as if there are no warnings. One should be very careful at a racecourse.” He says that he did not mention the loss to others in his party because he did not want to spoil the day. Someone jostled him on his way into the grandstand.’
‘Did he mention Leonard Diamond?’
‘Oh yes, though he pretends not to know the man’s name. He says he had a bit of an altercation with a photographer, that he pushed the man away, to try and stop him photographing Mr and Mrs Runcie and Miss Windham.’
It struck me that King could hardly have denied that, given the number of witnesses who saw him elbow Diamond aside. That contact between King and Diamond could have been engineered: the moment when money changed hands.
Marcus pushed the photograph of King and the young beater at the shoot across the desk. It was not a very good photograph, falling short of Diamond’s standard in terms of composition and lighting, but then one would hardly have expected the two fellows to pose for him.
I faced up to the fact, and made myself say it aloud: ‘Len Diamond was a blackmailer. He was blackmailing King, and King paid up.’
Marcus stared glumly at the photograph. ‘So it would seem. And perhaps King did not pay enough, and decided to end your photographer friend’s life. He may have done a lot of people a favour, but if that proves to be the case, the noose dangles perilously close for Mrs Runcie’s private secretary.’
‘Have you arrested him?’
‘No. There’ll be more digging before we get to that stage. King thinks he will be getting his pickpocketed money back, and that the fingerprinting was for purposes of elimination. He won’t be going anywhere. I have his passport, and have put a warning in place for him not to be allowed to leave the country.’
‘Then he’ll know he’s a suspect.’
‘I don’t think so. My sergeant has a very soothing and plausible way with him. King believes this is to do with the security of ensuring that the money will be returned to its rightful owner.’
I thought back to the film that Mr Duffield had handed in to the newspaper dark room. ‘There are more photographs, Marcus. Perhaps King was not the only man being blackmailed.’
Marcus gave me a sympathetic look. ‘Sorry, Kate. I know you admired Diamond. And you don’t want King to be a murderer because he is Mrs Runcie’s secretary.’
‘Marcus, surely you don’t believe Philippa is involved?’
‘I didn’t say that. But the very fact that he is part of the household makes it more likely that he should come under suspicion. With Runcie dead, the expensive divorce becomes unnecessary. Mrs Runcie had agreed a settlement on her husband. That is now null and void. Mrs Runcie will be able to keep her money.’
The way he spoke, made me believe that Marcus did not only suspect King; he suspected Philippa. When I put this to him a second time, and more forcibly, he made it clear our chat was at an end.
As I rose to go, he said, ‘Does Mr Duffield at the newspaper know I need the other photographs as soon as possible?’
Marcus did a little packing up motion of the papers on his desk. ‘Thank you for your sterling help, Kate.’
He smiled, and I smiled back. ‘Bye, Marcus.’
I wondered whether our positions would ever be reversed, and I would thank Marcus for his help.
I could have gone back to the newspaper offices to try and persuade Mr Duffield to come out for a glass of sherry when he finished work. Or, I could have gone home.
Instead, I decided to pay Philippa a visit. She had asked for my help in finding Runcie’s killer. All that I had done was to bring suspicion into her house and onto her trusted secretary.
The investigation was moving, but whether that was in the right direction I could not tell. Philippa had given me a generous retainer. It was time to tell her that I should return it to her. After all, I had found Deirdre, and that took the investigation nowhere in particular. I had discovered blackmail, and that seemed to me to be going down a dark alley. For once, I felt up against the wall, without ideas, without a plan.
And then a thought occurred to me. Perhaps King had deliberately planted the idea of blackmail in my head, to send me off on a wrong track. He knew of my friendship with Marcus, and that a word in my ear might find its way to the investigating officer.
What if the money in Diamond’s locker was a part-payment towards murder, the murder of Everett Runcie? And having done the deed, Diamond was too dangerous to be allowed to live?
The search of Diamond’s rooms after his death could have been because the killer was looking for money that could be traced back to him.
A Woman Unknown Page 24