Murder In Thrall

by Cleeland, Anne

  “Well then; I won’t anymore.” Apparently, her wayward tendencies had not been curbed by the lecture.

  A smile tugged at his mouth and the tension was broken. Almost a chuckle, she thought, relieved. But I am still too flippant by half.

  The pawnshop was typical of its genre—a small and overcrowded establishment with iron bars protecting the windows. A variety of items were displayed on shelves with the more expensive items, such as jewelry, in locked glass cases. The proprietor watched them come in with a sullen expression, drawing on a cigarette. Another smoker, thought Doyle with an inward sigh; I’m to wash my sweater yet again.

  “William Blakney?” asked Acton, showing his warrant card.

  The man nodded. “This about Giselle?”

  Acton leaned against the counter, glancing over the merchandise. “Can you tell us when you last spoke?”

  “She called me the night before. Do you know who did it?”

  “What did you speak of?” Acton never let the witness run the interrogation.

  Blakney crossed his arms on the counter, a movement that displayed his impressive tattoos to advantage. “She was shook up about the murder at the track—they were all of them shook up, I guess. She wanted to know if I heard any rumors.”

  “Who is ‘all of them’?”

  He was wary, suddenly. “Her friends. The ones at the Laughing Cat.”

  Doyle saw Acton glance at her to check for veracity, but this was true.

  “What sort of rumors?”

  Blakney was weighing what to say. “Whether I’d heard about who did it, and why.”

  “Why would they think you would know?”

  He shrugged. “I hear things, sometimes, in this business.”

  Doyle thought this an interesting piece of information; one would think a pawnbroker may know of thievery, but little else. Perhaps this man, like Acton, had his finger on the pulse of underworld doings. As Acton had said, anyone was capable of anything.

  “And had you heard anything?”

  “No.”

  Acton watched him for a moment. “Do you know any Russian nationals?”

  Doyle blinked, as this seemed off-topic.

  Blakney didn’t like this question and shrugged in a deprecatory fashion. “You meet a lot of people in this business.”

  The two men looked at each other. Doyle had the impression Acton had more to say but was constrained by her presence. “Did you and Giselle quarrel?”

  “Not lately. We used to.”

  “Why did you break up?”

  “She liked men.”

  Yes, thought Doyle. That was evident; but some man didn’t like her.

  “Did you kill her?”

  “No; if I was going to kill her, I would have done it a long time ago.”

  Acton was asking the questions out of routine; he didn’t think Blakney killed Giselle and neither did Doyle.

  “What do you know about Capper?”

  He spread his hands. “The latest boyfriend.”

  “Were they quarreling?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Have you seen him in the past few days?”

  He was surprised at the question. “No. I never met him.”

  Acton glanced at Doyle to verify, but thus far the man had not equivocated in the least. An honest pawnbroker, she thought; give the man a prize.

  “Did she have a relationship with the trainer?”

  He looked at them, amused. “I doubt it. He wasn’t exactly heterosexual.”

  Oh, thought Doyle; there goes the love triangle angle.

  “Were they friends?”

  Blakney considered. “She would mention him; I think they were friendly. She wasn’t happy he was killed.”

  Doyle took down Blakney’s information and he agreed to call if he heard anything further. The man watched Acton warily as they left, not having moved from his stance at the counter. It was the comment about the Russians, thought Doyle—I wonder what that was all about.

  Acton was quiet in the car, and Doyle respected his mood as long as she was able. “Do we have a workin’ theory, sir?”

  He stared straight ahead and said absently, “Not as yet. I would very much like to speak to Capper, with you to listen in.”

  “Any leads on him?”

  “There are too many—that’s the problem. He could have gone to ground any number of places. ”

  She ventured, “The case is a ball of snakes, it seems—impenetrable.” She glanced at him sidelong. Now there was a ten-pound word.

  He pulled himself from his abstraction and glanced her way. “I hope my lecture on the way over didn’t terrify you. You were cowed, I think.”

  “Never,” she replied with spirit. “I am uncowable.”

  “What did you think of him?”

  She ventured carefully, “I didn’t think he was hidin’ anything and he didn’t seem very concerned. That is, until you scared him, speakin’ of Russians.”

  Acton glanced at her. “He is running illegal weapons. It’s common in a shop like that.”

  She was left to assume it was Russians who were doing the aforesaid gunrunning. “Oh. Will you report him?”

  This question threw him for a moment. Interestingly enough, he had to think about how to answer. “It depends.”

  Doyle’s scalp tingled. She bent to fish around in her rucksack, sheathing her occurrence book as she added casually, “I imagine runnin’ guns must be lucrative, to take such a risk.”

  There was another pause. “I imagine so.”

  Mother a’ mercy, she thought. Mother a’ mother a’ mercy.

  He changed the subject. “Let me buy you dinner.”

  With a mighty effort, she pulled herself together and smiled at him. “Are we to arm wrestle about this again? I may be poor but I am prideful.”

  He bestowed a rather warm look upon her. “I promise I won’t lecture you.”

  “As much as I enjoy your lectures, I am off to church tonight.” She paused. “You are welcome to come along.”

  He teased her. “What would you do if I accepted?”

  She laughed aloud at the picture thus presented. “Why, I’d parade you through St. Michael’s like a holy conquest.”

  He chuckled.

  There it was—an honest laugh, she thought with satisfaction. Good one, Doyle; on to the next project, which may necessarily involve trying to keep the exalted chief inspector out of prison.

  CHAPTER 8

  HE SAT AT HIS DESK, DRINKING SCOTCH AND DECIDING THAT HE really had no choice; he could not go on as he was. He ran his hand over the book she had given him; back and forth, repeatedly. He would couch it in terms that were least threatening to her and work from there.

  The next evening Doyle received a call from Acton just as she was finishing up. She hadn’t heard from him at all during the day, which was unusual—he must be hip-deep in trying to make some sense out of this nonsensical killer before the wretched man haled off and did it again; she had certainly drawn a blank. Her best theory could not withstand the light of day—she wondered if perhaps the killer was indeed a professional but called to report the crime so as to watch as the scene was processed—to see how CID handled it. Quality control, so to speak; perhaps he thought it would help him determine how to evade identification. She didn’t know if she could broach said theory to Acton—he may humor her, and she hated it when he humored her.

  Taking the opportunity to catch up on her other cases, she tried to organize the assignments on her desk. She was not very organized; on the other hand, she suspected that Acton was OCD. We amalgamate, she thought with satisfaction—now, there’s a good word. Of course, there was the little problem of illegal gunrunning, but the more she thought about it the more she thought she must have crossed her wires and misunderstood. It happened sometimes—she’d leap to a conclusion that wasn’t warranted. That little run-in with the dry cleaners came to mind. And it was ludicrous to think that a chief inspector at New Scotland Yard was
some sort of underworld figure; ludicrous. She paused for a moment, trying to remember if ludicrous meant what she thought it meant, but then decided she wasn’t going to think about it just now, she was going to think about this wretched case that made no sense.

  Her best working theory was so lame as not to count, and she knew that when Acton couldn’t come up with a theory, he simply processed the evidence without the distraction of a theory. In this case, since there was so little hard evidence, it meant questioning witness after witness and running backgrounds, hoping to notice something of interest. Therefore, when Acton buzzed her at the end of the day it was a welcome respite.

  He sounded a bit weary himself. “I may have a tip that Capper will make an appearance at a friend’s house. I think I’ll stake it for a while.”

  This was encouraging. Doyle had begun to think perhaps Capper had been killed as well. If he was still alive, his going to ground would indicate he was trying to avoid questioning. While they didn’t think he was their killer, he must know something or he wouldn’t be playing least-in-sight.

  “Where is it, sir?”

  “An address on Grantham Street. It’s possible he’ll show up there tonight—are you free?”

  “Yes, sir.” Of course she was free; it was her job. He only asked as a matter of form, but she didn’t mind; it had occurred to her that after the pawnshop visit, they had been bantering in the car. Who would have thought Acton could banter? The stakeout could be interesting instead of mindlessly boring. It must be a good tip; stakeouts were usually left to lesser beings such as herself—he must truly think Capper would show up.

  “I’m in an unmarked. I’ll swing by and pick you up in front.”

  She was packing up her rucksack when Williams leaned into her cubicle entryway, his broad shoulders filling it up. “Doyle.”

  “Williams; I wish you were on this wretched case.”

  Williams had a lopsided smile that was rather charming, all the more because he didn’t bestow it often. “Shall we brainstorm? We can get something to eat.” He was wearing a steel-blue sweater that brought out the blue in his eyes, and she breathed in the faint scent of cologne.

  “Sorry. I’m due on a stakeout and I’m on my way out—next time; I promise.”

  “I’ll go with you, Williams.” Munoz had overheard from the next cubicle and appeared beneath Williams’s arm, giving him her brilliant smile. “Where shall we go?”

  Williams, poor soul; you don’t stand a chance, thought Doyle. She met his eyes for the briefest moment and saw an answering gleam of amusement before he followed Munoz out. Ah; I stand corrected—Williams is nobody’s fool.

  Doyle took the lift up from the basement and walked through the lobby and past the security desk to the front of the building. Hopefully the stakeout would not last too long; this case was making some serious inroads into her sleep. And for some reason she didn’t feel optimistic about finding Capper tonight; something in Acton’s voice—

  Acton was pulling up to the curb just as she walked out, and she hurried over to get in so that he wouldn’t have to explain to the patrolman in front that he was waiting for her. Good timing, she thought; he must have been close by.

  She slid into the unmarked as he took her rucksack and placed it in the back seat; then they drove away into the miserable Westminster evening traffic. With some surprise, she was immediately aware that he had been drinking, although there were no discernable signs. He said nothing and she said nothing, but she covertly observed him, wishing she knew the protocol for a DC to tell a DCI that he shouldn’t be driving. Of course, there was the very real potential that it would be just as dangerous for her to attempt to drive, and so she held her peace and hoped for the best. After a few moments she relaxed; he seemed competent to drive, and truly, there was no indication other than her sure knowledge. He may have come by the tip at a pub; he did not offer to tell her and she did not ask. No bantering tonight, she thought with a pang of disappointment; he seemed preoccupied.

  They arrived at the Grantham Street address just as darkness fell and sat in the unmarked watching the house from across the street. Occasionally a car would drive by, but there was no sign of activity at the house. It was a very quiet neighborhood.

  He said little for nearly an hour and seemed disinclined to talk, and as she had little new to report, she respected his mood and stayed quiet. It was the longest he had ever gone without taking a call, and she wondered if he had turned off his mobile. She finally shifted her position and ventured, “Not a lot to see, so far, and it’s dinner hour. Was it a reliable tip, d’you think?”

  “No more or less reliable than the usual,” was his rather equivocal answer. He tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel. “I hope it isn’t a wild-goose chase.”

  She didn’t want him to feel badly if it was a false alarm and assured him, “It is well worth the possibility of takin’ in the duplicitous Mr. Capper, sir.” Now, there was an excellent vocabulary word, and deftly used. She hoped for an opportunity to use “innocuous” again, now that she had straightened it out.

  “What would you ask him?”

  She smiled. “Before or after I beat him with a nightstick?”

  He considered. “After.”

  So; perhaps there was to be bantering after all. “I’d ask him if he killed Giselle. Then I’d want to know who he is afraid of, and why he didn’t want to ring her up that night but wanted to meet in person, even though he knew the coppers were after him.”

  “Good questions.” He nodded with approval.

  “You, sir?” She glanced over at him. The light from a streetlight slanted across his face so that his eyes were illuminated.

  “I’d ask what was so important that he risked arrest to go speak to a man at the track he didn’t know who could get him in a lot of trouble—and then why he stayed to wait for the police.”

  Doyle hadn’t even thought of this. “Your questions are better,” she conceded.

  “Yours were just as good.”

  “Please don’t humor me,” she pleaded, half joking and half serious. “I hate it.”

  There was a pause. “Fair enough,” he said, and meant it.

  She felt a little foolish, and subsided. He spoke into the silence, “If nothing occurs within the hour, I will call for relief.”

  “I am fine for as long as you need me.” She was trying to make up for her fit of the sulks.

  But Acton was not to be outdone. “No; I have imposed upon you. I hope you didn’t have to scuttle any plans.”

  “Free as a bird, sir.” Although there was an instant meal in her freezer that was calling her name—she hoped her stomach didn’t start growling.

  “My mistake; its tomorrow that you’re booked. A seminar, I believe.”

  She blinked, wondering how on earth he knew of this; she would not have confessed to it under torture. As they were being overly kind to each other, she admitted, “I wouldn’t mind missin’ it, truth to tell—do your best to get hold of another tip for tomorrow, if you will.”

  He leaned an arm on the back of the seat and turned to her, intrigued. “You attend under duress? What is the topic?”

  She made a wry face and glanced again at the dark house, trying to decide whether it was too embarrassing to tell him. He did ask, though, and she didn’t like to lie. “It’s a singles mixer, disguised as a self-help seminar so as to preserve our dignity.”

  “Ah—I see. What is the protocol?”

  She appreciated his making light of it, and unbent. “It’s a shameful process, truly. We are given a profile of all persons attendin’ so that we can discreetly eye the possibilities whilst pretendin’ to listen to a speaker. Then we’re supposed to assess our ‘shape’ and create a ‘rubric of our potential compatibility’ with the other poor souls. As a reward for survivin’ the ordeal, there is punch and cake afterwards. It sounds horrifyin’ and I may lose my nerve—it is a wretched, wretched pity at times like this that I don’t drink.”

  Ther
e was a pause while he ducked his chin, considering. “What is wrong with the men of London that you must resort to this?”

  It was a sweet compliment, and much appreciated. She smiled and disclaimed, “Faith, I suppose it’s not a bad idea. In the first ten minutes of a blind date you know whether it’s hopeless, but by then you’ve committed to the whole evenin’. This saves you a great deal of time and trouble.” She paused. “And I know for a fact they’re going to serve plum cake, which is an added incentive, as I couldn’t possibly date anyone who likes plum cake.”

  “Are you seeking a companion?”

  She was startled by the tenor of the question, but his interest seemed genuine and she didn’t want to embarrass him by being embarrassed. Choosing her words, she replied, “I feel obligated to make a push, I suppose. It’s a bit difficult for me to mix with people—” she halted abruptly, wishing she could take the words back. Doyle, she warned herself in horror, you knocker, don’t speak of it—

  But he said with much sympathy, “Yes, I imagine it is.”

  For some reason, she felt the sting of tears and had to compose herself for a moment; she was a solitary soul for all the obvious reasons and she was touched that he understood. Of course, he was an oddity himself—they were kindred spirits, in a way. With an effort, she pulled herself together and said lightly, “I’d invite you to come along, but it’s through the Holy Mother Church and you’d throw a rare wrench into the works.”

  He tilted his head forward and contemplated the house for a moment. “I have a different sort of problem, meeting someone.”

  This was unexpected. Why, I believe we are having a personal conversation, she thought in surprise. “You astonish me—is it the title or your handsome face?” Acton held a barony that went back generations; it was probably awarded for beating down the pesky Irish.

  He reacted to her teasing with a small smile but continued, “You would be amazed how many insincere women are very good at pretending to be sincere.”

  “I believe it,” she said readily. “We meet a good many of them.”

  He nodded. “Yes, we do. But I am also expected to make a push.”