by J. F. Penn
Chapter 23
Walking across Westminster Bridge, the sun warm on his skin, Matthew smiled. A champagne fizz thrummed in his veins, anticipation of what was to come. Today was the Second Reading of his proposed Bill on changes to the Mental Health Act in the House of Commons. Today, he was supposed to debate the merits of the clauses with those Ministers who cared enough to speak. But Matthew knew the truth. There was no way this Bill would go any further, no way that the media and the public would find out what he wanted, what he needed them to know. There were too many who protected their own interests, who had constituents that were more powerful, lobbying groups that wanted the mentally ill to disappear and stop being a drain on taxpayers' money. Even when most of the mentally ill were taxpayers anyway.
Christian Monro's research had galvanized support for extreme right-wing views, meaning that this Bill, generous to those in need, would be quashed by stronger voices than his. But the Bill would make the news tonight, Matthew would make sure of that, and the politicians who scoffed at the mentally ill might finally experience a slice of their pain.
He looked up at the Palace of Westminster, the cool stone blessed by sunlight. He never failed to be in awe of its grandeur. The Elizabeth Tower, named Big Ben after its bell, towered above the Thames, its clock face marking time for the nation. Originally a medieval palace, the buildings had been destroyed by fire a number of times and the present design had been constructed in the mid-nineteenth century. The Gothic architecture was dominated by vertical lines, as if a giant beast had raked its claws down the outside of the building, anchoring the spires to the banks of the river that nurtured the great city of London. Matthew dodged around the tourists on the bridge, understanding their need to capture its architectural beauty. This was his city, and pride swelled his throat as he glanced east towards the London Eye, the Shard and onwards, imagining the Thames Barrier and the ocean beyond.
London had always been a refuge for those on the perimeter of society, and every kind of outsider could find a niche in its maelstrom. Those who didn't fit into provincial towns could lose themselves here in anonymity, those rejected as wrong somehow could be welcomed into a community. There was a place for all here, but Westminster didn't truly represent the people of London. It still stood for the elite, those who sat above the marginalized and judged them for what they didn't have and couldn't get. Matthew had tried to break through the barriers of class and attitude, but the group he represented had too many disparate voices, weakened by years of their own suffering. They were too busy trying to survive each day, and couldn't spare the energy to convince others they were worthy of higher regard. But today these men of power – and they were mostly men – would understand.
Matthew approached the Parliament entrance for MPs and other regular visitors, and pulled the small rucksack from his shoulder, readying himself for the security protocol. The area was set up like an airport, with clearance machines for bags and a metal detector to walk through. He exhaled to try and control his fast heartbeat.
"Good morning, Jen." He smiled at the middle-aged security guard who worked here most mornings.
"Is it a good one?" Jen frowned, exhaustion evident in her stance and a dullness in her eyes.
"Are you alright?" Matthew asked, part of him desperate to run past her as fast as possible, but holding himself back. He was known to be a bit chatty in the mornings, more friendly than most of the MPs who rushed by, oblivious to those who served them.
"Sean, one of my kids, is ill. I was up all night with him." Jen ran the rucksack through the detector, and Matthew tried not to pay attention to it, keeping his face concerned for her as he stepped through the archway with no problems.
"That's a shame. I hope he gets better soon." The baggage machine beeped. "Oh, I'm sorry," Matthew said, his face suitably apologetic. "It's my flask again, you know it always sets the bloody machine off."
Jen pulled the rucksack out and opened it for him. Matthew took out the metal flask, its matte silver surface reflecting a distorted version of his face.
"I don't know why you don't just use a plastic one," Jen said. "It would save all this nonsense. I swear we go through this way too often." She paused. "Unless you're just angling for some extra time with me."
Matthew laughed along with her, trying not to make her comment too much of a joke, even as he noted her grey hair and bulging uniform.
"Chemicals in plastic …"
"Get into the water," she finished for him. "Yeah, I know." She shook her head. "As if we don't already have way too much to worry about." She handed him the flask. "Enjoy your day, Mr Osborne."
The flask was cool in Matthew's hand, an innocuous container within which judgement sat waiting.
Matthew walked through the grand building towards the Churchill Room. He had arranged for a reception before the Second Reading debate and as it was after lunch, he knew the Members would likely have a few drinks. You didn't become an MP without being able to hold your alcohol, and fortifying oneself for an afternoon debate was a pleasurable way to drift easily through the rest of the day. He passed a few other MPs in the hallway, nodding to them but not stopping. Matthew put on the air of a man worried about his fortunes in the hours ahead, and he knew that people wanted to avoid talking anyway. They all expected his Bill to be kicked out. After all, he'd only made it to the Second Reading by calling in some favors, and today was his last chance to be heard.
The Members' Lobby was empty, a moment of calm before the MPs arrived en masse for the afternoon debate. Matthew checked his pigeon hole. It amused him that these archaic wooden boxes were still used in an age of instant connection through email and social media. Perhaps the post boxes were only used for the romantic trysts that everyone knew went on inside the nooks and crannies throughout the palace, behind the faded grandeur. Power was ever an aphrodisiac.
Matthew turned into the Churchill Room, the paintings of previous Ministers looking down with superiority onto the long tables set out for the reception.
"Everything ready, Peter?"
Peter Jensen looked up from polishing glasses on the table in front of him, making sure there were no spots to be seen. "Just the wine to bring through, Mr Osborne."
London's hard water made it difficult to ever get glass crystal clear, but Peter seemed to manage it. He had been a steward at Westminster for many years and Matthew had fostered a friendship with him, enlisting his help for a number of events. Part of him worried about the old man today, whether he would be blamed for what would happen. He pushed those thoughts aside.
"Oh, I can get that," Matthew said, as Peter made to put down the glass he polished. "You finish the glasses. Don't let me interrupt."
"I've decanted some of the better stuff from your selection." There was a mischievous twinkle in Peter's eye, a nod to the snobbery of the wine elite.
Matthew smiled. "Thanks. I need all the help I can get this afternoon."
He slipped out through a door that led into an anteroom. A couple of the waitresses bustled around with canapés at one end of the room, but they barely gave him a glance as they were so engrossed in gossip. Matthew went to the wine table, slipping off his rucksack and pulling the flask out. With his back blocking any view of what he was doing, Matthew grasped one of the vials and poured a generous amount into a couple of the decanters. He needed to work quickly, as Peter didn't have too many more glasses to polish. The chatter of the girls continued, but Matthew was hyperaware of their presence, his heart hammering at the thought of being interrupted.
There were ten other bottles of wine open on the table, their contents breathing. He checked the labels, all excellent wines he had ordered for the occasion. Working quickly, Matthew dribbled a little of the vials into each bottle. It was a much larger dose than St Paul's, but then, that had been a dry run, and this was the real thing.
He heard the voices behind him change volume, turning towards him perhaps, wondering what he was doing. He grabbed a cloth and wiped the rim
of the final bottle, slipping the material over the flask as he turned to face the approaching waitresses.
"I'll take these in to Peter," he said, voice measured. "Thank you ladies, for all you do to help."
The girls smiled and turned to go back towards the kitchens.
As soon as they left the room, Matthew packed the empty vials into the flask, put it back in his pack, and pushed it under the table. He picked up two decanters and started to carry them out into the main room, just as Peter came in.
Matthew smiled. "I was just chatting with the girls," he said, handing Peter the decanters. "You take those and I'll bring the other bottles."
Chapter 24
Jamie looked around Matthew Osborne's flat, remembering how she had sat with him here, an echo of the love for his sister a fleeting thought through her mind. They had been briefly united in grief, but he had used the emotion to blind her to his true plans. How could she not have seen that other facet of his personality? The side that wanted revenge and justice. The side that she had shown herself in the fiery labs of West Wycombe.
"Where should we start looking?" Missinghall asked, standing in the middle of the room, his large frame filling the space. As they both pulled on sterile gloves, Jamie thought back to the conversation when she had been here last. Matthew had indicated that she sit on the sofa and he had sat opposite in the green easy chair, its springs sagging in the middle, the once-rich colors faded.
"We need to get into his mind," Jamie said, as she walked over and sat down in the green chair. "I think he used to sit here most often." She leaned forward at an angle and put her hand down by the side of the chair, grinning as she sat back up, a worn copy of Shakespeare's Hamlet in her hand, its slim leather cover decorated with intricate swirls.
"'The balance of his mind is lost,'" Jamie whispered, looking at the cover, remembering a line from a long-ago English class.
Missinghall shook his head. "I've never seen it, but I presume Hamlet was mad? There seems to be a lot of that going round at the moment."
Jamie tilted her head on one side. "The play also contains the suicide of Ophelia, and the theme of madness runs through Hamlet like a thread of tainted blood."
"Seems entirely appropriate for Matthew Osborne to be reading it then," Missinghall said. "Perhaps he sees himself as some kind of tragic hero."
Jamie thumbed through the pages. "Look at this. It's dog-eared and some of the text is worn away towards the edges where his thumbs would rest. He was clearly obsessed with this book." She paused, shaking her head a little. "I just didn't see the depth of his infatuation with Lyssa and her suicide."
"It's not your fault, Jamie," Missinghall said. "None of us thought he was a serious suspect. He's an MP, for a start, and he has that charity thing. The guy's a model citizen."
Jamie's gaze fell on the wall where Lyssa's striking canvases hung. Matthew would have looked at them while sitting in this chair reading, a permanent reminder of his loss. What if he had something else there, too?
"Help me take those down," Jamie said, pointing at the paintings.
Together they lifted the first canvas from the wall to reveal smooth plaster behind it. As Jamie put it on the ground, she saw the back was marked by a bloody footprint and a scrawled message in looped handwriting.
"'Our vain blows malicious mockery,'" she read.
"Let me guess. Hamlet again?" Missinghall said as he grasped the edge of the second canvas.
Jamie nodded. "It's from the beginning of the play, when a ghost appears on the battlements of the castle in Denmark. The guards try to strike at the shade, but their swords pass through, making a mockery of their attempt – fighting fate can only ever be futile." An echo of Polly's death rippled through Jamie, and she understood Matthew's loss anew.
"Are you OK? Do you want to stop?" Missinghall asked, and Jamie saw empathy in his eyes.
"No, let's get this done."
They lifted together and put the second canvas on the floor next to the first. There was an alcove in the wall behind, a shadowed niche. Jamie lifted a fat sheaf of papers from the space, held together by a thin, brown folder. She carried it to the table and laid it down carefully so no papers would escape. She opened the file and flicked through a few pages, noting the chapter headings.
"It's Monro's book," she whispered, looking up at Missinghall. "The manuscript he was going to publish. It's his advice to the government on resuming sterilization of the mentally ill, on aggressive restraint for those committed and the resumption of the death penalty for those convicted of violent crime, specifically the criminally insane."
Missinghall exhaled with a whistle. "That stuff would have got Monro on every talk show in the country."
"Look at the symbol on the pages," Jamie said. "The book is sponsored by RAIN." She read from the text, "'The mad are monstrosities and tainted creatures.'"
Jamie turned another page to see a picture of Timothy MacArnold's grinning face, his arm raised to display the glitter of embedded diamonds. The reflected sparkle in his eyes was calculated to make the viewer judge him as maniacal. The following pages were a handwritten scrawl of notes, quotes from Timothy that he had thought would make him a superstar, but it looked like he had been digging his own grave.
Turning the pages further, Jamie found a case study of physical punishment as a treatment for mental illness and then a series of family trees with symbols for what Monro had labeled as degeneracy.
"'Three generations of idiots are enough,'" Missinghall read from the text over her shoulder, an account of Buck vs Bell,1927, after which compulsory sterilization had been introduced in the US.
"This policy was Hitler's inspiration for his own eugenics program," Jamie said, remembering the horrors of Mengele, the Auschwitz angel of death hacking away at the bodies of his live subjects. She turned another page.
"Oh," she said with a sigh, unable to keep revulsion from her voice, as she saw what Monro had done to Lyssa Osborne. The series of photographs showed the young woman in various restraints. Her drugged eyes were glazed and staring, and a line of drool dripped from her mouth. She sat on the bench in Monro's private study, the box of sexual sadism sitting in plain view.
Jamie looked down at the canvases, what remained of Lyssa's vitality and passion for color. She thought of the vibrant woman dancing, her eyes bright with joy as she created, and what Monro had turned her into.
"I don't blame Osborne for wanting revenge," Missinghall said in a quiet tone, his large hands gentle on the page, his gloved fingers tracing Lyssa's face.
"That's the problem with this job," Jamie said. "Sometimes even murder is totally understandable. But this still isn't conclusive evidence of Matthew's responsibility for Monro's murder, and there's nothing here to link him to the gallery owner or the cathedral." Jamie was silent for a moment as she considered the options. "He's got to be at the Houses of Parliament right now, so I need you to go babysit, Al. I'll stay here and continue to go through this paperwork. See if I can find something we can clearly arrest him for, and in the meantime, you can keep an eye on him. Make sure he stays put."
"Sounds like a plan," Missinghall said. "I haven't been in the Houses of Parliament since I was a kid on a school trip. I'll text you when I'm there."
***
After a short journey across town, Missinghall quickened his pace as he strode towards the Churchill Room. The officers at the entrance had let him in based on his warrant card and a phone call to Detective Superintendent Cameron, but he was under clear orders to only observe for now. This was such a high-profile group of people that the consequences would be extreme if they had it wrong, especially before such an important Reading of the Bill. Missinghall's hand touched the outside of his pocket for the third time, checking that his phone was still there. Until there was word from Jamie of clear evidence to arrest Matthew Osborne, he would just have to wait. Missinghall looked up at the grand tapestries and the intricate wall carvings as he walked past, and smiled. This wasn't su
ch a bad place to hang out in the meantime.
The door to the Churchill Room was open, and the hubbub of people talking spilled out into the corridor, voices lubricated by just enough alcohol to keep them going through the afternoon session. Missinghall stepped inside the reception room and stood against the wall, taking in the scene. He caught sight of Matthew Osborne deep in conversation with several Members of Parliament. There was a strange sense of recognizing these people from the media, of knowing snippets of their lives, but of course, they were just like anyone else in person. Pulling out his phone, Missinghall texted Jamie. Am on scene at drinks reception.
A young woman in a black and white uniform approached with a tray of canapés.
"Smoked salmon terrine, or venison carpaccio with fig," she said, offering the platter and a napkin. There was an answering pang in Missinghall's stomach as he surveyed the delicious tiny bites. It couldn't hurt to have a couple – after all, he might be here for a while and it was almost time for afternoon tea. He took a couple of each, popping one in his mouth. It was usually just a Rich Tea biscuit on the job, so these were too good to miss.
As the young woman walked away, a waiter took her place, holding a bottle of red wine with a splendid label that Missinghall knew he and the Missus would never see down their local.
"Can I interest you in this vintage, sir?"
The waiter held the bottle slightly tipped over a bulbous glass. Missinghall's mouth was full of glorious venison, so he could only nod slightly, realizing he needed something to wash down the food. He didn't drink much and it wasn't officially allowed on duty, but a few sips would surely be allowable, if only to blend into the crowd and keep an eye on Matthew Osborne. The waiter poured a generous measure, the wine swilling around and coating the sides of the glass.