by Janet Neel
‘Bit like being faced with Oedipus Rex at a cocktail party,’ Perry observed, thoughtfully. ‘Absolutely no subject you could raise without falling into a trap.’
‘And how is your dear mother?’ Francesca offered, side-tracked. ‘So sorry to hear. And your father?’ She and Perry started to giggle.
‘Very poor taste,’ Charlie said furiously.
Francesca scowled at him and McLeish realized that he must have interrupted an earlier quarrel, a rare event in that close-knit gang.
‘What about Mickey? You’ve let him go presumably?’ Perry was hastily moving off dangerous ground.
‘No. There are reasons why I can’t do that.’ McLeish hesitated; he had, indiscreetly, told Francesca about Dorothy’s statement that placed Mickey Hamilton on the spot when Nigel Makin was attacked but was not prepared to add to his indiscretions by telling her brothers. He was perfectly confident, as he had been all along, that Dorothy was lying, but it would simply be unprofessional to release Mickey before it was clear beyond all possibility of doubt that he was not implicated in the attack on Makin.
Perry and Charlie gazed at him expectantly, but, seeing that nothing more was forthcoming, politely forbore to press him. Charlie swung his chair forward with a crash; like all Wilsons he had been sitting with the chair tipped perilously on its back legs. ‘I really am going. I must go round to Tristram’s.’
Francesca opened her mouth to comment and closed it again, while Perry looked exasperated.
‘Give him my love,’ Francesca said, finally. ‘I’ll find your jacket.’ She went into the corridor leaving her brothers watching each other.
‘He wasn’t singing well, Charlie,’ Perry said, defensively, ignoring McLeish as completely as if he were not in the room.
‘You could have said no thanks, you wouldn’t audition! They’d be bound to want you rather than Tristram because you’re better known.’
‘He fucking sang badly.’ Perry’s mouth was set hard and he was colouring steadily.
‘He was nervous because you were around.’ Francesca, returning and seeing battle rage, threw herself into it. ‘He is jealous of you and he sings less well when you are there, although he is the better singer in many ways.’
‘He bloody isn’t!’ Perry was now blazing with temper and McLeish watched, wonderingly, deciding with interest that Perry was that angry because he was feeling guilty.
‘Look,’ Perry said furiously, ‘it’s a big world out there. Tris has more than just me to compete with: if I hadn’t been singing, Richard March or Alun Edwards would have got it, believe you me.’
‘So let him lose to someone else and hate them for it. You’re his brother.’ Francesca, now as angry as he, glared at him, the two scarlet faces like mirror images of each other.
McLeish moved to intervene, but subsided on Charlie’s warning scowl.
‘Perry,’ Francesca now had herself in hand and had drawn breath, ‘you may be right and Tris would not have got it. But you know he is jealous of you, and you have a secure career – why get in his way?’
‘I very much wanted to sing that Requiem with Andrew Goldberg conducting, that’s why. It’s only done about once every three years, and who knows where I’ll be next time?’ Perry, in instant reaction to his sister, had returned to rationality as well. ‘I’m sorry about Tris; I know I make him nervous. I’ve asked Goldberg if he’ll take him for the second tenor part, but he sang so badly at the audition that it’s an uphill fight. I have got Goldberg to agree to hear him again, as I’d have told Charlie if he’d only bloody listened.’
Charlie might not have bloody listened, but McLeish had, hearing even through exhaustion the echo of Alan Fraser bargaining for a place on the expedition for Mickey Hamilton as well.
Charlie picked his moment to suggest that, since John was plainly exhausted and needed food and the company of their sister, it might be a good idea if he and Perry went away. He bustled his brother into a beautifully cut denim jacket, while Francesca and Perry kissed each other, ceremonially, rather in the manner of chieftains concluding a truce over the bodies of murdered kinsmen.
‘God bless you, Charlie,’ McLeish murmured to him as they stood in the corridor watching Perry trot back up the steps with some offering for Francesca, hastily garnered from the back of the car.
‘Oh, they won’t quarrel for long,’ Charlie said, with just an edge to his voice. But Perry and Tristram might, McLeish added silently for him as he waved the brothers into the Rolls.
‘Must telephone,’ he said urgently to Francesca, who was belatedly offering the hospitality of her house in terms of a bath and food. He made three phone calls from the living-room and realized he was falling asleep at the end of the last one. Francesca found him five minutes later slumped uncomfortably on the end of a sofa, and bullied him upstairs and out of his clothes into her substantial double bed. McLeish’s last thought was that he must stop doing this or she would never marry him; what use was a man who arrived only to fall asleep? Vowing to wake up again when he had got a couple of hours in, he went out like a light.
When he woke he could just see daylight at the edge of the thick curtains and it took him a minute to remember where he was. He felt round the bed for Francesca, but she was not there and her side of the bed was cold and neatly tucked in. He sat up on the side of the bed, chilled by this, and reached out for the bathrobe she kept for him on the back of the door. At least that was still there, he was somewhat reassured to find. On the landing, sunlight streamed in and he realized it must be at least eight o’clock. He opened the door of the spare bedroom next door and sighed: Francesca had slept there, her nightie was on the floor. A very poor omen. She had never done that before, but had always crawled into her own bed beside him, no matter how good an impersonation of a dead man he was giving.
He pulled the belt tight on his bathrobe and went downstairs, grimly wondering if this was what happened to so many police marriages – after a bit your wife moved into the spare room and didn’t even bother to wake you in the morning? Well, it wouldn’t do. He paused to brush his teeth and put a comb through his hair, and marched into the kitchen, surprising Francesca loading the dishwasher.
‘Did you have a good sleep, darling?’ As always when angry, she was gathered, coherent and formally polite.
‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ The only way to deal with her in this mood, as he had learned from her brothers, was to go straight into the attack.
She straightened up, holding a plate like a shield, but he rested secure in the knowledge that her upbringing would prevent her from throwing it at his head. He walked over, took it away, and put his arms round her, feeling her stiffly resistant. ‘You weren’t even in bed when I looked for you,’ he said reproachfully, and she exploded.
‘John! Bloody liar. You were dead to the world. I came and looked at you at midnight, I switched on all the lights and marched round the room, collecting clothes and dropping shoes. Absolutely no response.’
He held her firmly, blessing the advantage that eight inches and a good three stone offered in these circumstances. ‘Sorry. Can we go back to bed now?’
‘No, you cuckoo. Neither together nor separately. I have staved off two people wanting you but both will ring back in a few minutes. And I have a nine-thirty meeting, and I haven’t read the papers. Not that it matters all that much, given that it is an inter-departmental one and there are at least twenty of us, but still. John, stop it, we do not have time. And you’re all bristly.’
‘What were my phone calls?’
‘Someone called Pryce at seven-thirty and Bruce Davidson at seven-forty-five.’
McLeish looked down at her. ‘Commander Pryce?’
‘S’right.’
‘My guv’nor.’
‘Only ranks to Under-Secretary, doesn’t he? I wasn’t going to wake you at seven-thirty for one of those.’
McLeish wondered aloud for whom Francesca would wake him.
‘Well, I nearly did for Bruce be
cause I know he doesn’t call you here unless he must. He said it would wait an hour, but you must call him back before you start the day.’
‘You should have woken me – the phone calls could have waited, but we could at least have had breakfast together, if nothing else. You were cross with me.’
‘Absolutely.’
He was kissing her when the wall phone rang behind her head. He picked it up, holding on to her with his free arm. ‘Sir.’ He listened patiently to Commander Pryce’s qualified congratulations.
‘No, we haven’t charged him with Fraser’s murder yet. No proof, sir … Yes, as soon as he’s making sense we’ll be talking to him … With a solicitor present, sir, yes, I don’t doubt. There should be no problem about charging him for the attack on Nigel Makin – there’s just an inconsistency in Mrs Vernon’s statement that I’d like to clear up. He’s safe enough where he is.’ McLeish promised to keep in touch, keeping to himself the thought that in as much as the Commander expected to spend the next two days in Devon, this might have its difficulties, and put the phone down.
Francesca had escaped and was sorting papers methodically into a briefcase. ‘I was right, wasn’t I?’ she observed from the other side of the kitchen table. ‘Not worth waking you for, he was just being an Administrator and keeping up Morale. Of course, that’s all chaps at that level really do.’
McLeish opened his mouth to argue that whatever the principles obtaining in the unarmed branch of HM Civil Service, a Commander in the Metropolitan Police Force carried real responsibility for real actions, but the phone rang again. He ignored it long enough to cut Francesca off at the door and kiss her goodbye, then dived back to it. He listened, his eyes widening.
‘Jesus Christ! A fingerprint! No way that could have got there by accident. On the inside of a piece of paper in the pocket of the jacket?’
‘A partial fingerprint,’ Bruce Davidson warned. ‘The chap in Forensic is in no doubt, but he thinks it’s shaky as evidence. Not enough points of comparison for a court, he says.’
‘What took them so long, anyway?’
‘They only got the jacket yesterday from Scotland. It’s yellow oilskin and it had been lying out and there was nothing there – just smudges from gloved hands. But then this wee piece of paper was in the right-hand pocket. It had got wet, of course, but the inner fold was dry. They were actually very quick, once they got the jacket.’
But it won’t quite do to convict a murderer, McLeish thought, shivering slightly as the cold of the tiled kitchen floor struck through his bare feet. ‘Look, Bruce, I must get dressed and eat – I missed supper. Make sure the lads do all the local chemists again for that thermos. He can’t have bought that in three different shops, like the pills, so we may have a chance there.’
‘Can I tell the sergeant in charge about the wee print? That’ll cheer him on his way.’
‘Yes, of course. It’s not to go beyond him in detail, but he can tell the lads there’s some new evidence. These shop enquiries are hard graft.’
They rang off and McLeish raced upstairs to dress, noting gratefully that however cross Francesca had been it had not impaired her domestic efficiency. Clean underclothes, socks and shirt awaited him, tucked in a corner of a drawer, and he threw the ones he had worn for thirty-six hours into a linen basket, knowing that they would be dealt with.
He realized he was noting these domestic details in order to control mounting tension; it was always like this when all the pieces started to come together. He knew he had this one right now, and the problem that was winding him up was how to prove it. A confession might well be more than he could achieve – particularly if a good lawyer was present – and the conventions governing fingerprint evidence were rigorous. No matter how confident he and Forensic might be that they had their man, a partial fingerprint would cut no ice in court.
McLeish was downstairs, hunting through the fridge for bacon and eggs, before he understood suddenly that he would not be able to bear it if Alan Fraser’s murderer went free. He would never climb with Alan again, he could probably never bring himself to climb with anyone at Culdaig, but he could avenge Fraser’s death and he would, if he had to choke a confession out of the murderer.
He ate his bacon and eggs without tasting them, put the plates mechanically in the dishwasher, then walked into the big cloakroom in the extension at the back of the house, washed his hands and stood contemplating his own face in the mirror above the basin. Very dark hair above brown eyes and a broken nose and strong, wide jaw – despite the straight mouth it was basically a good-tempered face, he thought detachedly, and indeed he considered himself a rational, mild-mannered bloke, not obsessive like so many good coppers. But he understood, looking himself in the eye, that there were two things he had to have in order to go on living with himself, and he didn’t much care what it took to get them. First, he had to get Alan Fraser’s murderer sewn up so tight that he would never escape the web of evidence. Second, he had to get away from his position as privileged visitor in Francesca’s house and honorary brother to all the Wilsons, by persuading her to marry him. That, he observed coolly to his reflection, would take a little time: nailing Fraser’s murderer was today’s job. He picked up his raincoat and was out of the house and into his car seconds later, not looking back as he went.
News of various sorts awaited McLeish at the office: Dorothy Vernon had a good night and had expressed an urgent need to talk to him. He sighed; this was a necessary piece in the jigsaw, but he wanted to stay at his desk, at the centre of the investigation, and he already knew what she was going to tell him. Nonetheless, courtesy and ordinary humanity demanded that he go and see her as soon as possible, and he asked his secretary to ring the hospital and tell them he would be there in an hour. Robert Vernon had also rung him twice, and, while anything he had to say was probably stale news by now, he was owed a return phone call at least.
‘Chief Inspector. Thank you very much for ringing back.’ The words sounded rusty, and McLeish realized it must have been a long time since Robert Vernon had to thank anyone for ringing him back.
‘I just wanted to tell you that Sir Richard Brown of Brown Taube will be acting for us in connection with this affair. Our usual people, Freshfields, say that he is the best.’
McLeish, with effort, murmured something non-committal. The head of that firm had an absolutely unparalleled track record in persuading judges that his distinguished clients had not really meant to defraud insurance companies, cause inconvenient ex-lovers to be physically intimidated, or embezzle millions via funny offshore islands, or else that they had been driven to it by pressures that would have caused anyone to do the same. Hardworking policemen, who tolerated conditions that would, on the evidence, have driven these particular defendants to justifiable homicide, were not keen supporters of Sir Richard.
‘I hear you’re seeing Dorothy – Sir Richard will be there. I thought I should let you know.’
‘Thank you. But I’m pressed for time, so I’d be grateful if Sir Richard would be punctual or make another arrangement.’
‘He’ll be there. I made sure he cleared his diary.’
McLeish waited out the pause, realizing that Robert Vernon had more to say.
‘What about Hamilton?’
‘He is still in custody.’
‘You haven’t let him go, then?’
‘No.’
‘Of course, you’ve to talk to Dorothy. I mustn’t keep you back, Chief Inspector, I’ll see you at the hospital at eleven.’
McLeish signified what pleasure he could at this prospect and returned to his list. He rang the Scrubs hospital to discover that Bill Vernon, although still heavily sedated, was making sense and could, if necessary, be questioned, although it was the registrar’s view, offered unhopefully, that they would get more sense out of him after another twenty-four hours.
‘Is he well enough to be put in an identity parade?’
‘Today? Just about. If you must.’
‘I
don’t know yet if it will be necessary. You’d better make a note that Sir Richard Brown is acting – yes, him – so I want all this done kosher.’
McLeish got himself transferred to the remand wing and learned that Mickey Hamilton was being visited later that morning by another distinguished member of the English legal fraternity. Mickey’s uncle’s position in Edinburgh must be all that he’d said it was, to get Roy Butterworth himself. Seeing that Sir Richard was presumably due there later in the day also, the Scrubs would be unusually honoured. He felt the familiar tension pressure at the back of his neck, and picked up a paper-clip and chewed it anxiously, hearing in his head Francesca telling him to stop it or he would take all the enamel off his teeth. On this thought the phone rang.
‘I’m sorry I was cross, but I might as well not have a lover.’
A typical Francesca opening, he thought, amused, combining a due apology with a direct attack. ‘That’s all right. And it may all be over by tonight.’
‘Well, that’ll be nice. And for poor Mickey – he must be tired of being in jail.’ She was, he could hear, in a rush as usual. ‘Darling, ring me later? I’m not doing anything else tonight.’
The phone remained stubbornly silent thereafter, until the time came for him to leave for the Wellington. He borrowed Pryce’s driver, called Bruce Davidson, and went off, taking the in-tray with him. He had been prepared to take a stern line with Dorothy Vernon, but she greeted him, looking very white and old, with a bandage going right around her head, two burgeoning black eyes, and diamond earrings sparkling incongruously against the bandage.
‘I don’t suppose anyone has thanked you for saving my life, John,’ she said, seeing him smile, ‘but I do thank you.’ She bent a stern eye on her husband who, embarrassed, murmured some approximation.