“Shit! I don’t like the sound of that. Where are you now?”
“On my way to the professor’s apartment,” Dave said.
“Give me the address. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”
By the time Paolo arrived at the professor’s penthouse, the forensic team were already in place.
“Who’s in there?” Paolo asked Dave, slipping on white overshoes so that he could enter.
“Barbara Royston and she’s not in a good mood.”
Paolo took his eyes off the shoes and looked up, almost losing his balance in the process.
“Maybe she was having a nice relaxing weekend like me and resented being called out,” Paolo said.
Dave shrugged. “Could be. I’m just saying, be careful. She bit my head off just for asking a question.”
Paolo grinned. “That’s normal behaviour for Barbara. Come on, let’s go in and see what we can find out.”
He saw the forensic pathologist leaning over a figure sprawled in a deep armchair and headed towards her.
“I hope you’ve covered up,” Barbara said, without even looking round. “I’ve got enough to do without worrying about contamination.”
“Hello, Barbara. Happy Saturday to you, too.”
She glanced back at him and gave a half smile. “Sorry, Paolo, this call came in at a particularly bad time.” She shrugged. “Sometimes I wonder why I do this job.”
“Because you’re good at it,” Paolo said. “What can you tell me?”
She glared at him. “If that half-hearted compliment was meant to soften me up so that I’d answer questions before I’ve had time to make a proper examination, you’ve wasted your breath.”
Paolo took a step back. “Whoa, calm down. I don’t know what’s eating you, but whatever it is, I’m not the cause.”
Barbara shook her head as if trying to rid her mind of an unpleasant image. “No, I know you’re not.” She nodded towards the body. “He’s been injected with something. I won’t know what until I can do a proper tox screening, but there’s a faint smell on his face, which makes me think he was given something to render him unconscious before the injection was administered. There’s very little sign of struggle other than the table being knocked over. I think someone came at him from behind.”
“Thanks, Barbara. When will you do the autopsy?”
“I’m not going to be able to get to it until Wednesday morning. I’ll let you know what time.”
Paolo nodded his thanks. “I need to speak to the housekeeper. I’ll come back and fill you in if she comes up with anything that might help you.”
Barbara smiled and Paolo was horrified to see tears forming in her eyes. He stepped in closer so that nobody would be able to overhear.
“What is it, Barbara? Can I help?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s something I need to work out for myself.”
“Okay, but you know where to find me if you change your mind.”
She nodded and Paolo turned away to leave the study, stopping when Barbara called out to him. He turned back, eyebrows raised in question.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Any time.”
Paolo caught up with Dave, who’d been chatting to one of the forensics team in the hallway.
“Nothing to help us so far, sir,” he said. “There are plenty of prints, though, so we might get lucky when they are tested against the database. Did Dr Royston have anything to say?”
“Not much. You know what she’s like about giving information before she’s had chance to test every aspect of the body. He might have been knocked out before receiving the killer injection. That may or may not be useful. We’ll have to see what else comes up. I’m looking for the housekeeper. Do you know where she is?”
“In the kitchen, sir. She’s with a WPC.”
“Right, let’s go.”
As they approached the kitchen, sounds of giggles drifted along the hallway. Paolo had expected the housekeeper to be distraught, but she seemed to be in the middle of telling a joke when he and Dave walked in.
“…and the man dropped his trousers,” she said, followed by gales of laughter, hers and the WPC’s.
“Thank you, Constable. Detective Sergeant Johnson and I will take over now.”
The WPC stopped laughing mid-chuckle and straightened up.
“Yes, sir. This is Mary Prentice, Professor Edwards’s housekeeper,” she said.
Paolo nodded and waited for her to leave the room before addressing the woman who was still wiping away tears of laughter.
“Please, take a seat, Mary,” he said, pointing to a chair at the head of the kitchen table. He pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. Dave sat opposite and took out his notebook, ready to record the interview.
“You don’t seem very upset at the loss of Professor Edwards.”
Mary stopped laughing. “I’m not particularly sad, to be honest. He wasn’t exactly the most likeable of people. I’m more upset about losing my job than anything else.”
“He wasn’t a good employer?” Paolo asked.
“The pay was good, better than good, but he was an arrogant pig who’d throw something at you as soon as look at you. I’ll be glad to move on.”
“Could you tell me the exact sequence of events, starting from the last time you saw the professor alive to the moment you called in 999?”
For the first time, Mary looked serious. “Am I in trouble?”
“No, why would you think you were?”
“Well, I let the reporter in. I didn’t know he was going to kill the professor though, did I?”
“Reporter?”
“From the New York Times. He’d only phoned to set up the meeting a few hours earlier. The professor was beside himself with pride. Thought he was the bees’ knees, he did.”
Paolo exchanged a glance with Dave. This was getting interesting.
“Okay,” Paolo said, “let’s start at the very beginning. When did the man phone and what did he say?”
“The phone call came in the morning and the man asked to speak to Professor Edwards. I asked him who he was and what it was about. I have to, you see. The professor won’t…wouldn’t speak to just anyone. He felt he was far too important for that. Anyway, the man said…hang on, I have it written down on the pad over there.”
She stood up and walked over to the kitchen phone, picking up a notebook before returning to sit down again. She opened the pad and showed it to Paolo.
“See, here it is. Mr Seth Buchanan from the New York Times.”
“Do you know why he wanted to interview the professor?”
“Do I know? If the professor had been able to find a town crier the whole of Bradchester would have known! The paper is running a series on important men of the world, or some such, and they decided Professor Edwards should be included. If they’d been looking for selfish, nasty, bigoted egotists, I’d have put his name forward myself, but that man was only important in his own eyes.”
“You really didn’t like him, did you?”
She shook her head. “No, but then you find me one person who did. The man hardly ever went out, but he still managed to upset nearly all the other residents in this apartment block. If he wasn’t complaining about the neighbours’ pets, it was their children. He didn’t think the doorman did a good enough job, the cleaners weren’t up to his standards, the lift didn’t run as smoothly as he thought it should. You name it, he found fault with it.”
“Would you be able to give me a list of people who bore him a grudge?”
Mary laughed. “I’d need a few notebooks to put down all the names. It’d be quicker to say who didn’t bear him a grudge. That would be anyone who hadn’t met him. He collected grudges like no other man I’ve ever known.”
Paolo smiled. “Still, it would help if you could write down all those you can think of who bore particular animosity towards him. Now, to get back to the reporter. You took the call and passed it along to the professor. Then what?”
“Professor Edwards called me back into his study, told me he was going to be in the New York Times and sent me out to get a copy of the latest edition.”
“And the journalist seemed on the level?”
“I don’t know. The professor didn’t discuss it with me, except to gloat about how all his colleagues would be green with envy.”
Paolo glanced over at Dave scribbling furiously in his notebook. Dave looked up and nodded. He was keeping up.
“Let’s move on to the journalist arriving. Could you describe him for us?”
“Oh, that’s easy. He had on those wire-rimmed glasses, you know like the ones John Lennon made famous? Um, let’s see. Light brown hair, but now I think about it, it could have been a wig. It’s amazing the number of men who worry about being bald.”
“What makes you think that? Did it not fit properly?”
Mary put her head on one side. “No, it wasn’t that. It was his eyebrows,” she said after thinking for a while. “His eyebrows were too dark for his hair. Although I suppose some people do have dark eyebrows and light hair. Just look at that politician, the one who reminds me of a panda with his white hair and black eyebrows.”
Paolo hid a smile at the thought of one of the previous government ministers being thought of as a panda. “Anything else? How tall was he?”
“I’m not good with heights,” Mary said, “but he was much taller than me.”
Paolo had mentally assessed Mary’s height at about five feet, so most men would be taller than her. Not much help there. He stood up.
“My height, would you say? Or taller?”
Mary stood next to him. “Yes, about the same as you, give or take an inch.”
Paolo sat down again and waited for Mary to do the same. “Eye colour?”
She shook her head. “Sorry, I didn’t notice.”
“Was there anything else the reporter said that you can remember? It doesn’t matter how trivial it might seem.”
She glanced up at the ceiling, as if seeking inspiration. “Not really,” she said. “Oh, hang on. What about this? The professor asked me if I’d been on the phone all week. When I said no, he didn’t seem to believe me. Apparently, when he asked the reporter why the interview was being set up at such short notice Mr Buchanan told him he’d tried to call several times during the week, but couldn’t get through. He was in the UK for a fortnight to interview several people for the series and our phone had been engaged each time he’d dialled, but I think that’s a lie. We hardly ever get calls here. As I said, the professor wasn’t exactly in demand socially.”
“But the professor accepted what the reporter had said?” Paolo asked.
“Yes, because he believed all the flattery the man gave him over the phone about being so relieved he’d finally been able to get through. Besides, the professor would never miss out on a chance to get his name in the paper.”
“Would you be prepared to come to the station on Monday to describe the journalist in detail? We might be able to put out a sketch from your observations.”
“Oooh, I’ve seen that done on the television. Yes, I’d be happy to give it a go.”
Paolo stood up and handed Mary his card. “Give me a call Monday morning and I’ll let you know what time to come over. It will probably be in the afternoon. In the meantime, if you remember anything else, anything at all, feel free to call me.”
“I will, but I don’t suppose I’ll have reason to call. I’ve told you everything I know.”
Paolo waited until Dave had finished his final note taking and the two of them headed back into the hall.
“Blimey, she really didn’t like her boss,” Dave whispered as they reached the front door. “Just goes to show. Maybe you’re not so bad after all.”
Paolo returned the grin that accompanied Dave’s comment. “Any more from you and your career prospects are going to go into a deep decline. Come on, let’s get to the station. It’s at times like these I wish George was still with us. No one could beat that man at digging up facts.”
Dave shrugged. “Sorry, sir, I know he was useful, but I don’t miss him about the place. I can never forgive the fact that he took money and sold us out to the press.”
Rummaging for his phone, Paolo ran through a mental list of people he could call in on a Saturday to run some background checks. There were a few uniformed officers who showed promise and were looking to move over into CID. When he got to the station he’d see who was up for some overtime. In the meantime, he wanted his best people on duty and that meant getting Cathy Connors to come in.
“I’m going to get CC to meet us at the station, Dave,” he said. “If the professor is the first of six, we need to work fast to find out who might be next on the killer’s list.”
CHAPTER THREE
Paolo replaced the receiver on his phone. He hadn’t been surprised to learn that the real Seth Buchanan had never left New York and that Professor Edwards wouldn’t have been considered for the series he was writing in any event. The professor hadn’t done anything outstanding and the series was based on men of merit. He stood up and wandered to his office door. Leaning back against the frame, he looked out over a largely deserted office. Apart from three uniformed officers, there was only Dave and CC at work. Dave was hunched over at his desk, phone in hand. From the way he was furiously scribbling, it seemed he was getting plenty of information. CC had been similarly engaged, but she replaced her receiver and looked up at Paolo.
“It’s weird, sir. All the people he mentored, right up to the point he retired, were male with one exception. You’d expect there to be a more even split considering psychiatry is one of the professions where there is a large number of female practitioners. Anyway, you’ll never guess which name has just come up as his only female specialist registrar while he was the consultant at Bradchester General,” she said. “Our friend from the child prostitution case, Jessica Carter! She trained under Professor Edwards, but they had a falling out some years back. Mind you, from what I’ve been hearing, so did just about everyone he came into contact with.”
Dave put his phone down. “I’ve been getting the same message. If we’re going to interview everyone who had it in for this guy, we’ll need to draft in half the forces in the country. Disliked doesn’t even come close. The man was loathed wholesale.”
Paolo sighed. The housekeeper hadn’t been overreacting.
“Okay, sadly, we don’t have enough manpower to call on everyone straight off. We need to concentrate on the most likely candidates at this stage. What’ve you got, Dave?”
“I’ve got plenty of neighbours he upset, but it’s not likely to be one of them because surely a neighbour would have been recognised by Mary Prentice, if not the professor himself. Other than that, everywhere he practised, all the institutions and hospitals, seem to be full of former colleagues who would struggle to find a good word to say about him. But then again, if it was someone the professor knew from the past, surely he’d have recognised the man as an impostor.”
Paolo shook his head. “Not if the man was heavily disguised.”
He looked over at CC.
“Same here, sir. So many people disliked him; it’s going to be hard to narrow it down.”
“Do your best,” Paolo said. “Have you got a list of those Jessica Carter might know? Pass it here and I’ll give her a ring to see if she can come up with anyone with a greater than usual reason to hate him.”
Paolo went back into his office and shut the door. He tried to tell himself he was only interested in calling her to find out about her connection to the professor, but he knew he was lying. Before Lydia had asked him to move back into the family home, Paolo had been close to asking Jessica out. He knew she liked him as much as he liked her. It could have grown into something, but he’d chosen to give his marriage another try. He hadn’t spoken to Jessica for six months.
Should he mention he was now free again or just keep things on a professional footing? Jessica most probably
had someone in her life by now. Of course she would. A lovely woman like that wasn’t going to be single for long.
He’d say hello, but keep the conversation to questions about the professor. If she was still interested in him, she’d let him know. It would be better that way. He didn’t want to put her in an awkward position.
He glanced down as he dialled her number and was amused and exasperated to see his hands trembling. Like a teenager, he thought. Let’s hope I don’t end up tongue-tied like one when she answers.
The ringing stopped abruptly as she answered. “Paolo? It is you, isn’t it?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
Jessica laughed. “The magic of modern technology. I’ve never taken your details out of my contact list, so your name came on the display.”
There was a brief moment of silence as Paolo thought about the fact that she hadn’t erased his name, but he tried not to read too much into it. After all, he had names in his phone that were no longer needed. It might not mean anything.
“How are you?” she asked. “And Katy, how is she doing?”
“Fine, thank you. We’re both fine. Um, this isn’t a social call exactly.”
“Oh.”
Paolo heard ice forming on the single syllable.
“That is, it’s not just a social call. I…you know I…how are you?”
He heard her laugh and wondered if he sounded as stupid as he felt.
“Before you get any more tongue-tied, what can I do for you, Paolo?”
Relieved to be able to get back on track, Paolo got to the reason for his call. “The news hasn’t been released yet, but your former mentor, Professor Edwards, has been murdered. We’re compiling a list of possible suspects.”
“And I’m on it?”
“No, not at all, but your name came up and it seemed to me you might be able to fill in some background detail on people who were close to the professor or working with him at the same time as you.”
He heard her sigh. “Close to him? I doubt anyone could be described as close to him, but read out the names and I’ll see if I can help.”
“Before I go through the list, CC pointed out that you were his only female specialist registrar, was that deliberate on his part?”
Call It Pretending (#3 - D.I. Paolo Storey Crime Series) Page 2