The Danger Next Door (Anne Lambert Mysteries)

by Kris Langman

  Inspector Northam studied the intruder calmly. “Hmm. Why don’t you tell me more about this situation, constable, before I go blundering into it.”

  “Right. Yes sir. Sorry.” The officer was very young, not more than twenty-two or three, and was rapidly turning pink about the ears from embarrassment. Anne noticed that he was twisting his hat in his hands, something she thought only happened in movies involving Victorian street urchins.

  “You see,” continued the officer, “we found a perfect set of shoe prints, both feet, in the mud just in front of the pier. We took a plaster cast, and Turner brought it into the house and quietly began comparing it to shoes in the bedrooms. He wasn’t sneaky about it, exactly, but he did avoid the family members, especially Lady Soames. I think he wanted to avoid a scene.”

  “Very wise of him,” the Inspector remarked dryly.

  “Anyway,” said the constable, his ears bright red by now, “it turned out that the cast was an exact match for a pair of shoes found in Daniel Soames’ closet. A pair of shoes which had traces of wet mud on them.” He paused and looked at Inspector Northam expectantly. If the constable was certain of a positive reaction to his news he was disappointed. The Inspector stared at him for a long moment, then took out his post-it pad and made a note on it. He tucked the pad back in his pocket.

  “Hmm,” he finally responded. “Damn convenient, that.”

  “Convenient sir?” asked the constable with a confused frown.

  “Planted. Don’t you ever watch American TV shows? Kojak would have spotted this as a frame up right away. Even those idiots on The Bill would have been suspicious. Of course, that doesn’t mean it actually is a frame-up. Just something to keep in mind. The real criminal could have borrowed Daniel’s shoes, put them on, walked out to the pier – careful to step in the mud – attacked Miss Lambert, and then returned the shoes. All speculation, of course. But plausible.”

  “Yes sir,” said the constable doubtfully.

  “I take it that the esteemed Lady Soames kicked up a ruckus when Turner tried to question Daniel.”

  “Exactly sir.”

  The Inspector sighed. “Rank has its disadvantages. Remember that you two,” he said to the constables. “Well Miss Lambert, I’d better go down and deal with this. PC Ridley will be staying with you until you leave Kent. After that there isn’t much we can do. We will of course continue the investigation, but as far as your personal safety is concerned, well I don’t know what to say other than be careful.” He left the room, the young constable following in his wake.

  Anne looked at PC Ridley, who had returned to her seat by the door. “Is it okay if I take a shower?” she asked. “The bathroom is down the hall.”

  “Of course,” answered the constable, rising from her chair. “I’ll wait outside the door.”

  “Is that really necessary?”

  The constable fixed Anne with her direct blue eyes. “Well, that depends of course on who attacked you. If the attack was just a random incident, some trespasser, then no, protecting you is not necessary.” She briefly dropped her gaze to the floor. “It’s up to you, but in your place I would go see this Inspector Beckett in London. Tell her everything you know. She’ll do her best to help you. It’s her job.”

  “But what if I don’t know anything?” asked Anne.

  “Then tell her everything you guess.”

  Chapter Eight

  Anne couldn’t believe what she was about to do. It was unthinkable. It was wrong. It had flashed into her mind at three a.m. the night before and stuck there like a tick on a dog, burrowing deeper and deeper until removal was impossible.

  But it was a workable idea, she told herself now as she sat in her office, nervously tapping a pencil against her desk. A workable idea - maybe. But not a good one. Someone could get hurt – someone other than herself. The guilt just wasn’t worth it.

  She set the pencil down on her desk with exaggerated care and headed for the reception area. It was a quiet morning, and no clients were waiting. An anemic ray of London sunshine picked out a coffee stain on the industrial-blue carpet. Lindsey was flipping through Vogue and making small cooing noises at a spread on Valentino evening dresses.

  “Hi Lindsey.”

  “Hi yourself, Anne. How’s the arm?” Lindsey nodded at Anne’s left arm, which was sporting a new, whiter-than-white cast.

  “It’s okay. It kind of itches. The A&E doctor said that’s a good sign. Means it’s healing.”

  “That’s great.” Lindsey flashed her a friendly smile, her teeth glowing brightly. Lindsey was wearing a rose-colored silk dress which made her look more innocent and less sexy than usual. It also made her look younger than her twenty-five years, which served to increase Anne’s guilt exponentially.

  “Lindsey, could I ask you a favor?” Don’t do it! her conscience screamed at her.

  “Of course,” Lindsey said, looking puzzled.

  “I need you to take this guy out to lunch. Tomorrow. Between twelve and one-thirty.”

  Lindsey stared at her. Her mouth opened, then shut again. “Why?” she finally asked.

  “It’s . . . well. . .”

  “It’s important,” Lindsey said quietly.

  “Yes.”

  “This is none of my business – and I’ll be happy to help, by the way – but does this have something to do with that car that hit you?”

  “Maybe. That’s what I’m trying to find out. I need to get this guy out of his office for an hour. So I can do a little . . . research.”

  “This guy, is he the one who hit you?”

  “I don’t know,” Anne answered honestly. “But I need to find out.”

  “I see.” A small worry line appeared in the middle of Lindsey’s normally placid forehead. “I have to admit, I didn’t care much for the guy when he was here. Twitchy little bugger, and definitely a cokehead.”

  “Oh. No. That was Daniel Soames, the owner of the car. This is . . . someone else.”

  * * * *

  Anne wrapped her parka around her more tightly. It wasn’t cold outside, but she was shivering anyway. She leaned against a rough brick wall, watching the front door of Austin Friars House through the wrought-iron gate of the alley. She had double checked the clinic’s schedule last night – it was posted on their web page. Dr. Davidson’s two colleagues were not in the office on Tuesdays. The reason was not given and Anne didn’t care. As long as they were gone. Mrs. Reed was an obstacle, but not an insurmountable one. Anne was pretty sure she could get past the receptionist. Mrs. Reed would go into that small kitchen behind her desk at some point during her lunch hour.

  That only left Dr. Davidson. Anne checked her watch impatiently. It was fifteen minutes after twelve. Office workers had been straggling out of the building since noon. Lindsey had gone in at 12:05. It had been Lindsey’s idea to chat up the security guard. She would flirt a little, act embarrassed, and confess to the guard that she had a crush on a cute guy with white-blond hair who she had seen coming out of Austin Friars House. The guard would wave Dr. Davidson over when he came down for lunch, introductions would follow, and Lindsey would whisk the doctor away to Chez Gerard on Bishopsgate.

  Anne jumped as a group of suits walked by the mouth of the alley. If she stayed there much longer someone was going to report her to the police. She scrabbled in her pocket for a tissue and blew her nose, resisting the urge to check her watch again. A flash of turquoise caught her eye. Finally. Lindsey’s dress today was a clingy silk wrap-around with a front slit in the skirt which came up so high it barely qualified as business appropriate. Anne had never seen her wear it in the office before, and guessed that it had been brought out specially for today’s mission.

  Dr. Davidson was clad in a precision-tailored cashmere overcoat. He was carrying a black trenchcoat. Lindsey paused at the top of the steps and held out an arm. The doctor helped her into the coat, his hands lingering just a touch too long on her shoulders. Anne winced. She could feel the guilt welling up. She wondered
again if the doctor knew where she worked. If he’d ever gone up to their office. If he’d ever seen Lindsey.

  Too late for second thoughts now. Lindsey and the doctor had disappeared. Anne took a deep breath and slipped through the wrought-iron gate and darted across the street. She pushed through the door of Austin Friars House and nodded at the guard in the blue blazer who was sitting behind the reception desk flipping through Tatler. Anne took the stairs. Memories of the building’s ancient, creaking lift were vivid from her first visit. The last thing she needed was to get stuck in the lift.

  She ran up the stairs two at a time. At the exit to the second floor she paused, listening. A group of women passed on the other side of the door, giggling about Prince William. Anne waited until she heard the lift doors close on them, then quietly slipped through the door and trotted down the hall. She preferred not to meet anyone if she could help it. It was a public building, no one would question her right to be there, but she didn’t want word getting back to Dr. Davidson.

  Anne stopped next to the dusty ficus which stood guard at the clinic’s door. No sound came from within. She leaned casually against the wall and folded her arms. She wondered how long she could hang out in the hall before attracting attention.

  A delicate cough sounded behind her. Anne jumped, then realized that the noise had come from within the clinic. Mrs. Reed. It sounded like the receptionist was at her desk. Paper was shuffled, a chair squeaked, and then . . . ding. A microwave announced that it had finished the important task of heating Mrs. Reed’s lunch.

  Anne waited for the signal – dishes rattling in the kitchen. There. She held her breath and cautiously poked her head around the door. The reception area was empty. Resisting the temptation to run, she slunk past Mrs. Reed’s desk and into the short hallway which ran down the center of the clinic. Dr. Davidson’s elegantly decorated office was to her right, but she went past it. She glanced through a door to her left. Another office. Not what she was looking for. At the end of the hall she paused next to a closed door. Despite her caution a loud click sounded when she turned the handle. She froze. The noises coming from the kitchen had ceased. Don’t just stand there, you idiot, Anne told herself frantically. Hide!

  She shoved open the door and jumped inside, closing the door behind her. She put her ear against it. Footsteps would be hard to hear on the plush carpet of the clinic. She looked around for a hiding place. She was in a low-ceilinged room, about twelve feet by six, full of filing cabinets. A grimy window let in a weak stream of daylight. A table with boxes of loose folders underneath it was pushed against the wall. Anne crawled under this and pulled the boxes in front of her. Her shoulders hunched with tension as she waited. And waited.

  Nothing. The door didn’t burst open and disgorge Mrs. Reed at the head of the entire Bishopsgate police station. Anne took a deep breath and crawled sheepishly out from under the table. She tried to ignore her shaking hands and turned her attention to the filing cabinets. The drawers weren’t marked so she tried one at random. It was filled with pens, pads of paper, post-its, and an empty can of Pringles – Original Flavor. The drawer above it was empty of everything except dustballs. Anne sighed and tried a drawer two cabinets over. It wouldn’t open. She tugged at it without success. Locked. As were all the rest of the drawers. Her shoulders sagged and she looked behind her at the door to the hallway. She’d have to find the keys.

  She glanced at her watch. 12:25. At most she had an hour left. Forty-five minutes to be on the safe side. Lindsey had promised to drag the lunch out as much as possible, but there was only so much stalling she could do before starting to look suspicious.

  Anne eased open the door of the filing room. The click as the handle turned was barely audible this time. No one was in the hall, though she could hear Mrs. Reed talking on the phone at her desk. Leaving the filing room door open a crack, she crept to Dr. Davidson’s office and slipped inside. She was tempted to close his door but knew that would be a mistake. Mrs. Reed was sure to notice the closed door if she happened to come into the hall.

  The sculpted pine desk in the center of the room seemed the most logical choice. Anne crouched down behind it and eased open its only drawer – a long shallow one which ran the width of the desk. A Mont Blanc pen. Typical, Anne thought, and mentally rolled her eyes. Nothing else occupied the drawer except a blank pad of paper. Damn. She glanced around quickly. As it had on her first visit, the lack of office equipment struck her. The room more closely resembled a nineteenth-century drawing room than a psychiatrist’s office. If Mrs. Reed had the only set of keys to the filing cabinets then she was stuck. That didn’t seem likely though. Dr. Davidson was not the sort to give away all control like that. Of course, it was possible that he took the keys with him when he left the office, but Anne didn’t think this was the case. A bulky set of office keys would ruin the precise line of his expensive suits.

  Anne flopped down on the chair behind the desk with a discouraged sigh. 12:30. The overture of La Boheme floated into the room. Mrs. Reed was listening to the radio. Anne was tempted to give up. She still had to face the difficulty of getting past the receptionist and out of the clinic. She gazed absently at the desk in front of her. The curved pine legs were fashioned in a heavy modern style and were almost a foot wide at the top. Her eyes lighted on a faint line cut into the wood. At first its significance didn’t register, but then she realized that the line traced a rectangle. A drawer was built into the leg of the desk. There was no handle. Anne pushed on the leg experimentally. Nope. She tried another spot. There. A tiny spring-loaded drawer ejected from its hiding place. Hidden drawers were a bit melodramatic, even for Dr. Davidson, thought Anne, but then realized that the drawer was most likely hidden so that it didn’t spoil the lines of the sculpted desk and not from any nefarious purpose.

  She got to her feet and bent over the drawer. A set of keys on a plain silver ring nestled on its bottom. Anne carefully pulled them out, squishing them together in her fist to prevent clinking. She closed the drawer and padded to the door. Mrs. Reed was singing quietly along with ‘O soave fanciulla’. Anne dashed across the hall and shut herself in the filing room again. She relaxed slightly. It was unlikely that either Mrs. Reed or the psychiatrists came into this room on a daily basis.

  She selected one of the smaller keys from the ring and tried it in the locked drawer she had chosen earlier. The key didn’t fit. There were seven unlabeled keys in the set, five of which looked small enough to fit the cabinet drawers. 12:40. Anne exhaled impatiently and tried the next key. Then the next. Finally. She yanked open the drawer. Files of varying fullness were labeled Anderson, Bakely, Broughton . . . She moved to the right and selected a drawer in the last cabinet. Piper, Packard, Roberts.

  Soames was in the next drawer she chose. Anne pulled out the file. It was nearly six inches wide and stuffed to capacity, its bottom worn through in places, sheets of paper poking through the holes. She laid it on the table she had hidden under and pulled out its contents, careful to keep the papers in order. There wasn’t time to read each sheet. Most were invoices. She skipped over these, thumbing through the stack as fast as she could. There were pages of typed notes which she skimmed but didn’t linger over. Anne guessed that Mrs. Reed had typed these up from the doctor’s notes. He would be careful about what he let the receptionist see. She flipped through the sheets until she found a handwritten note.

  ‘Jimmy spent entire session comparing Jameson whiskey to Jack Daniels. The Irish ended in the lead.’

  Ok. Not particularly helpful. Anne flipped through to the next scrawled note.

  ‘J.S. rehashed his school days. Wyndham becoming an obsession.’

  This was more like it, but the lack of detail was disappointing. What she needed was a note in Dr. Davidson’s handwriting stating that he was blackmailing James Soames. The note should of course be signed by the doctor and notarized by two witnesses. Anne sighed and checked her watch. 1:10. Damn. She was running out of time. She started flipping faster.
Too fast. She almost missed it. It was stuck between two invoices and covered in doodles. Precise, geometric doodles of interlocking squares and triangles.

  ‘J.S. harping on incident again. The boy had it coming, not J’s fault, etc, etc. Tired of this obsession, no matter how useful.’

  Anne read it again and then laid it to one side. It was suggestive, but it was not enough. She thought of the anonymous note slipped into her mailbox. That had mentioned Wyndham Preparatory. That letter combined with this note might have been enough to take to the police. If only she hadn’t handed it over to Dr. Davidson. Aargh. Now she needed more. For a brief moment she let herself hope that the doctor might have tucked the note somewhere in Jimmy’s folder, but reality quickly squashed that idea. To keep the note would have been both stupid and careless. The doctor was neither. He gave the impression that every detail of his life was carefully planned and even more carefully executed.

  Anne scanned the remaining handwritten notes in the folder but nothing else useful turned up. She folded the note she had set aside and tucked it into the pocket of her jeans. She carefully returned the papers to their folder and tucked ‘Soames, James’ back into its place behind ‘Sanderson, William’. With the cabinet locked and the keys in her pocket Anne prepared herself for the trials to come. Don’t think too much about it, she told herself. First return the keys, then get past Mrs. Reed. Keys, then Mrs. Reed. She took a deep breath, flexed her shaking hands, and reached for the doorknob.

  “Good afternoon Miss Stewart. The doctor is out to lunch at the moment, but he should be back any second. You’re just a few minutes early.”

  Anne didn’t hear Miss Stewart’s reply. She didn’t need to. It was obvious who Miss Stewart was. One of Dr. Davidson’s patients. Calmly seating herself in the reception area, blocking escape.