‘Are you really a communist?’ she asked, wide-eyed. ‘I thought they all gave up when the Soviet Union folded.’
‘I’m not anything. I’ve never belonged to a political party in my life, but I was brought up by a mum who taught me a few simple, obvious ideas like equality before the law and so on. Try and practise that in England and it upsets a lot of people.’
She turned her wineglass, thoughtfully. ‘Grandpa was a socialist,’ she said. ‘Perhaps that’s why he thought well of you.’
‘We don’t have socialists in England any more. They call them ‘old Labour’ now, but I don’t think that would have worried your grandfather.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘He used to say, ‘Just make up your mind what’s right, my girl, and don’t let anyone mess you about.’’
I raised my own glass. ‘Here’s to him,’ I said, and she lifted her own in acknowledgement.
We had finished dinner and removed to the coffee lounge when Macintyre tracked us down. ‘Chris,’ he trumpeted from the doorway, ‘the jealous drunkards in the front bar tell me you are playing host to a beautiful foreigner.’
I groaned inwardly, fearing some indiscretion from Mac relating to the day’s post-mortem. Quickly I said, ‘Meet Dr McKenna, Mac. She’s the granddaughter of Walter Brown who died this morning.’
‘Not, I hope, a medical doctor,’ said Macintyre, taking Sheila’s proffered hand. ‘I don’t think I could stand the competition.’
‘No worries,’ she said. ‘I’m a social historian, not a real doctor, Mac. And the name’s Sheila and we’ll have less of the foreigner bit. I’m pure Belston on both sides of the family.’
Macintyre dropped into a chair. ‘I’m sorry for your bad news,’ he said.
‘Grandfather was an old man, Mac. He can’t have had long.’
‘No, surely, but it’s not the way an old man should go.’ The doctor beckoned a passing waiter and ordered drinks. When the waiter had gone he asked, ‘Did you tell Sheila about the button?’
‘The button? What button?’ she asked.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’d only just heard of your grandfather’s death when I came back to the office. Finding you there and puzzling about the letter drove it out of my head. You tell Sheila, Mac.’
‘Do you mind if I discuss a physical phenomenon in the dead?’ asked Macintyre, with unwonted delicacy.
‘You carry on, Mac. I’m not going to cry Ruth all over the table. I want to know what your button is about.’
‘Does cadaveric spasm mean anything to you?’ asked the Scotsman.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We’ve got a song about it in Aussie.’
He was wide-eyed. ‘A song, you say? About cadaveric spasm?’
‘Sure,’ she said. “Gallant Peter Clarke’ — Clarke was bailed up by a bushranger and fought with him. The bushranger killed Clarke, but Clarke had his throat in a grip and never let go when he died. Hours later they found the killer still trying to get away. So the song says.’
‘That’s not in Camp’s Forensic Medicine,’ said the pathologist, as though it should be, and I grinned to see Macintyre so completely upstaged. ‘Still,’ he went on, ‘you want to hear about the button.’
He outlined his theories quickly and clearly. Sheila’s expression grew more perplexed. The drinks were served and, when Mac had finished his explanation, she sipped at hers thoughtfully for a while.
‘Let’s get this right,’ she said, eventually. ‘You think that the man in the leather jacket had nothing to do with Grandpa’s death?’
‘That’s not what I said,’ replied the doctor. ‘He might have done. I believe the police got his description from the park-keeper, who saw him hanging about outside when he unlocked the gates this morning. What I am saying is that that was not the man your grandfather was struggling with when he died.’
‘And Grandpa was killed by a skilled karate blow?’
‘Aye, an expert blow.’
‘And the police are ignoring what you have told them?’
‘So it would seem.’
‘Then what the hell’s going on? Do your police often ignore evidence in murder cases?’
‘Sometimes,’ said Macintyre. ‘Sometimes.’
‘And what times are those?’ Sheila demanded sharply.
‘Usually when the funnies are involved.’
‘The funnies?’ She looked bewildered.
‘The security services,’ I explained. ‘DI5 or 6 or 9 or one of those.’
Sheila’s jaw dropped. She looked from me to the pathologist. ‘Are you saying,’ she said slowly, ‘that poor old Grandpa was killed by a government agent?’
‘Something like that, lassie. Something like that.’
4
‘That’s crazy!’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, Mac, but that’s ab-so-lutely crazy.’
‘Aye,’ he said, soberly, ‘it is, but it may be something like the truth, nevertheless.’
I was watching the old doctor and cursing him silently. ‘Aren’t you pushing it a bit?’ I said.
‘I wish I was, but we’ve both heard the stories of cases that the police don’t want to look into, or that they won’t look into because someone has told them not to. Remember the lady who grew roses over in Shropshire? That was never solved, was it? They say she was killed by a private security firm employed by one of the funny departments. And yon fellow who was shot by the SAS up north — the fellow who killed a copper who caught him hanging about a government transmitter? They even took away the newspapermen’s films of the shooting. You can believe me or not, but I know they kill. I’ve been in my business a good few years and sometimes you get the scent of something that is nae as it should be.’
I knew he was right, but I didn’t want him to be. ‘I thought one Prime Minister asked the secret service to put down Idi Amin and they said they had ‘no facility’,’ I remarked.
Mac stared at me. ‘Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? Believe you me, Chris, they’ll kill when it suits them.’
He hauled himself out of his chair. ‘I’m an old man,’ he said, ‘and maybe I’ve had a drop too much. I shouldnae be upsetting you, Sheila. Goodnight to you both,’ and he ambled away.
Sheila watched him go. ‘Is he for real?’ she asked.
‘It’s not my business to upset you, either, but for all his professional Scotsman act, Hector Macintyre is a damned good forensic pathologist. I’ve had occasion in the past to regret not listening to his advice.’
She shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘I can’t handle this. My grandpa gets mugged and murdered and I’ve got a lawyer and a pathologist saying that the government did it! Why would they?’
I couldn’t answer that one. I set my glass down. ‘I never really knew your grandfather,’ I said. ‘What was he like? What had he been?’
‘He was the first of his family to wear a white collar,’ she said. ‘His people were miners, but he left school and went into an office, a land agent, I think. Then he went into the Town Hall. He was forty-five years in local government. Retired with a gold watch.’
‘What did he do in retirement? Did he have any hobbies?’
‘Oh, sure. He walked miles and he read. History mostly, political, social, local. I came over five years ago, when my parents were killed, and we spent the whole time walking. We visited every historic site for miles and he was faster up and down hills than I was.’
‘And his mind?’
‘His mind?’ she echoed. ‘Oh, the letter — no, he wasn’t going daffy five years ago and it didn’t look like it from his letters. You saw him more recently, what did you think?’ I remembered the tall, upright old man who never wasted a word and I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘There was nothing daffy about your grandfather. He was a pleasure to deal with. Completely lucid and straightforward.’
‘That was Grandpa,’ she said. ‘If he thought something ought to be done then he did it.’
‘Didn’t that attitude make him enemies?’
> ‘Not really. I think he was pretty good at his job and even those who didn’t like his politics had to admit that.’
I sank into silence. After a few moments I said, ‘You didn’t mention the forces. Was he ever in the services?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘He was a pacifist before the war, but the Nazis convinced him. He wanted to fight, but he was in a whatcherme-cally … ’
‘A reserved occupation?’
‘That’s right. Having changed his outlook he was pretty peeved that they thought he was better at pushing paper.’
I stared into my glass. ‘I have to agree with you — Mac’s theories don’t make sense. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for it to be more than a mugging.’
‘Not unless he was killed because he knew the secrets of the ring road contracts in 1948.’
‘There wasn’t any ring road in 1948.’ I grinned. ‘They planned one in 1938, abandoned it during the war, built the first half in 1958, and they’ve just announced that they’re not going to finish it.’
She grinned. ‘Grandpa would have been furious,’ she said.
After another round of drinks I paid the bill and she walked with me to the lobby. ‘Thanks for tonight, Chris,’ she said.
I was embarrassed. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I owe you an apology. I invited you for dinner to try and keep your mind off things and we’ve spent half the evening talking about those things.’
‘No worries,’ she said. ‘When the time comes I’m going to fold up and howl like a baby, but right now I want to know why my grandpa died. I’m just grateful you didn’t leave me alone in a strange town to start howling.’
‘I’ve got no court appearances tomorrow,’ I said. ‘There are formalities. You’ll have to identify your grandfather and Sergeant Parry will want to talk to you. I’ll pick you up here at ten and we can arrange it.’
There were cabs on the rank outside the Victoria, but it was a warm night. I decided to walk home while I pondered on Sheila, her grandfather and Doc Macintyre’s theories.
My home is a Victorian villa in Whitegate Village, on the far side of a hill from the town centre. Without hurrying I soon covered the mile or so of main street that led to the Village, and turned into the old, winding streets of an area that had remained remarkably unchanged since it really was a village. One of the reasons I live there is the Village’s tree-lined streets and alleys and now the lamplight shone through the leaves, casting a green glow on the narrow pavements.
The pondering wasn’t going very well. Somehow it kept being distracted by recollections of a pair of grey eyes with freckles underneath. I’d hardly looked at a woman seriously since my marriage broke up, largely because I’d been too busy and anyway you’re not supposed to mess with lady clients. That can end up putting you in front of a board of hatchet-men in a Masonic Temple in Carey Street who just know that you’re not fit to grace the legal profession. Now I’d been smitten by a transient Australian. As I walked down the steeply sloping street on which I live I passed a parked car in which a dark huddle in the front seats suggested that someone else was harbouring romantic thoughts.
I had almost reached my gate when a slight noise drew my attention. Close behind me a car engine had coughed quietly into life.
Surprised by the sound, I turned, straight into a pair of powerful headlights that had just been switched on. I was dazzled by the glare but I knew the car was almost on top of me. It had rolled silently down the slope after I passed and was now coming at me under power.
As the vehicle mounted the pavement, I grabbed wildly and unseeingly for the top of the gate and sprang upwards as hard as I could. It was not hard enough. The top of the iron gate raked my leg painfully as I rolled across it, but I dropped inside it just as the car flashed across the gateway, scraping the wall alongside.
I lay on my own front path, gasping for breath and feeling the blood beginning to seep along my grazed shin. It hurt like hell and I was too winded to pick myself up. If they came out of the car at me, they’d got me. Then I heard it accelerate away down the hill. When its note faded I climbed cautiously to my feet and let myself in through the front door. With a torch from the house I limped back into the lane. The weather had been dry for days and there were no tyre-marks that I could distinguish, but I did find the scatter of dirt from the underbody where the car had mounted the kerb in its last swing towards me and on the right side of the gate there were streaks of blue enamel on the brickwork.
Indoors again I took a careful, wincing shower and dressed the long scrape that the gate’s top had left on my leg. Then I lay in bed and wondered. Had someone really just tried to kill me?
5
The first moves in the morning were painful. Apart from the scraped injury down my left leg, the limb’s abused muscles had stiffened in the night. Even a long hot shower effected only a slight improvement and I was forced to take a cab into the town. In the bright summer morning I found it even harder to believe that someone had set out to kill or maim me at my own gate on the previous night.
Sheila was waiting for me at the Victoria, and I let the cabbie fetch her and take us across to the office. I limped painfully up the stairs behind her and, over coffee, phoned Detective Sergeant Parry.
When I put the phone down I said, ‘Right, John Parry wants you to make a formal identification. Would you like me to come with you — for moral support?’
She shook her head. ‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘He was my grandpa, we were each other’s only family. I’d like to do it on my own.’
‘I was only thinking — ’ I began, but she interrupted.
‘Five years ago I had to identify my parents. They went off the Eyre Highway and they’d lain in the sun before I saw them. I shall be all right.’
I let her go and sat leafing again through Walter Brown’s two files. Eventually I flung them into the out-tray with a grunt of impatience.
Jayne put her head round the door to say that Sheila was back, together with Sergeant Parry.
‘What’s this I hear,’ Jayne asked, ‘about you dining at the Victoria last night with your sun-raddled old academic biddy? Client relations, was it?’
‘Have you really nothing better to do than gossip about my private life?’ I asked.
‘Me? Gossip?’ she exclaimed, wide-eyed, with an innocent hand pressed to her chest. ‘Everybody I’ve spoken to this morning from the magistrates’ clerk to the window cleaner mentioned it. Good job I didn’t tell them that you came in stiff and limping!’
‘Just show them in and let us have more coffee,’ I said, knowing that I was losing.
The big Welsh sergeant ushered Sheila into the room. ‘Morning, Chris,’ he said. ‘I’ve explained to Dr McKenna — Sheila — that I’ll have to take a statement from her as to what she knew about Mr Brown.’
‘Not much that’ll help you, sergeant,’ she said.
‘Nevertheless,’ he said, ‘it’s got to be done. Usual procedures and all that.’
He unzipped his document case and spread statement forms on the desk, beginning to fill in the headings on one in his neat, even script.
The exercise did not take long and I learned nothing new. When Sheila had signed the forms, Parry slid them into his briefcase and stood up.
‘Thank you,’ he said to Sheila. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll need to bother you again unless something comes up, but can we contact you here?’
‘Until further notice you’ll find me here or at the Victoria, yes. Tell me, sergeant, how long do you expect this to take?’
‘How long?’ he repeated.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘How long before you nail the scumbag that killed my grandfather?’
He shook his head. ‘No way of telling, really. We’ve got the description I told you about, but it’s not much of a help. Lot of blokes in Belston would meet that description, and maybe he doesn’t come from here.’
She looked him squarely in the eye. ‘You’re talking about the man the park-keeper saw, the man in the
black leather zipper jacket?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s all we’ve got at present.’
‘What about,’ she said slowly, ‘the leather button in Grandpa’s fist?’
Parry looked at her blankly, and I could see that the sergeant really didn’t know what she meant.
‘You’d better sit down again, John. It sounds like someone’s been keeping things from you,’ I said.
Parry lowered himself back into his chair, looking from me to Sheila for enlightenment.
‘Have you talked to Dr Mac?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘Howard dealt with that himself. Gave me the report when he assigned me. Why?’
Quickly I outlined Macintyre’s information and theories. As I talked Parry’s face set harder.
‘I knew nothing of this,’ he said at the end. ‘Howard gave me a summary of Mac’s report. Never mentioned a button. When I saw the cause of death and suggested an ex-soldier Howard pooh-poohed it. Said a martial arts freak was more likely.’
‘And what difference does it make?’ asked Sheila.
‘It makes it difficult,’ said the detective. ‘If my super’s playing about with the funnies, it’ll make it bloody difficult. Still — difficult isn’t impossible.’
He stood up again and I asked, ‘Did you bring the keys to the house?’
‘Yes.’ Sergeant Parry delved into his document case and brought out a small bunch of keys and a form. ‘You’ll have to sign for them,’ he said.
I scribbled a signature and took the keys. ‘I take it we can go to the house when we like? Your boys have done with it?’
‘Nothing there for them,’ said Parry. ‘A place for everything and everything in its place, all beautifully dusted and polished by Mrs Croft. Nothing to help us. You’re welcome to it, but if you come across anything we missed give me a shout.’
When the detective was gone I called a cab. ‘No time like the present,’ I told Sheila. ‘Let’s go and look at the house.’
Walter Brown’s home in Grenville Street was late Victorian, standing at the left-hand end of a terrace on the slope above the park. At the front a small lawn lay behind a low wall, and a path at the side led to the front door and carried on to the rear of the house.
The Victory Snapshot (A Chris Tyroll Mystery Book 1) Page 3