Murder in Misdirection

by Anne Cleeland

  Nellie nodded, and thankfully didn’t seem to think this request was unusual—although if she’d already heard rumors of criminal wrongdoing at Holy Trinity, she would no doubt think it connected.

  Much struck, Doyle paused with this thought. Was it connected? It did seem an extraordinary coincidence, that the church that had served as a meeting place for the corruption rig players got itself burned down—not to mention assorted priests and charwomen seemed to be dyin’, left and right.

  After gathering up the children and taking her leave of Nellie, Doyle uneasily pursued this train of thought, as she walked back to the flat, listening to Emile’s chatter with half an

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  ear. Father Danilo said that Acton was paying blood-money to his sister, but the only known sister was dead—after torching a church, no less—so perhaps there was a spare sister in the woodwork, somewhere. And why would Acton be paying these people at all? Blood-money, the dead priest had said—and presumably, he would know.

  With a sense of growing dismay, she finally examined a thought that she’d been trying to avoid examining. One of the things you learned at the Crime Academy was that committing a successful arson wasn’t easy, which was why so many arsonists wound up dead or in prison. The charwoman was a simple woman, Nellie had said, yet she’d done a spectacular job of burning the place to the ground. Acton, himself, had burned down a building or two in his youth—but it was completely unthinkable, that Acton would burn down a church—wasn’t it?

  “It makes no sense a’tall,” Doyle confessed aloud. “I’m lost.” “No, we’re almost home,” Emile assured her, pointing

  forward. “Look, there’s the doorman.”

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  Interesting, that the zoo outing incited such interest. No matter; a worthy opponent made the victory that much sweeter.

  “Y ou should come,” Doyle teased Acton. “It’s just the sort of outin’ you’d prefer.”

  It was the week-end, and true to his word, Williams was taking Emile on an expedition to the zoo, along with his young cousins. The party had expanded because Officer Gabriel had caught wind of it, and asked if he could bring his younger sister, Marnie, and then Doyle had decided that she may as well come along as an excuse to invite Mary and Gemma. She was rather hoping to re-kindle Williams’ romance with Mary—if it could even be called that—and it wouldn’t hurt to throw them together again, this time in a situation that didn’t involve mysteriously dead husbands.

  Acton responded to her teasing with his usual politeness. “As tempting as it sounds, I must regretfully decline.”

  “Don’t forget about the church dishes.” They’d decided that Lizzie Mathis was going to deliver a set of plate-ware to the church, and claim they were only on loan from Trestles for the occasion. Nellie, of course, would come to the complicit understanding that they’d never be reclaimed; Doyle was a wily one, too.

  “Mathis will make the delivery this morning.”

  “You’re a good man.” She lifted her face for his kiss, and noted that he seemed in good spirits, yet again, which apparently came from masterminding some scheme that may-or-may-not involve arson. Arson, blood-money, and the ducks of St. Petersburg.

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  Startled, she wondered where this last thought had come from—for the love o’ Mike, her poor overly-pregnant brain was working as a sad shadow of its former self, if her intuition was dwelling on Emile, and his tales of duck-feeding.

  Acton broke into her thoughts. “Do you have any spending money?”

  She glanced up at him. “Oh—d’you suppose I’ll need it? I have my credit card.”

  Pulling his wallet from his inner jacket pocket, he produced a few crisp bills. “Best be safe—the children may want treats from the vendors.”

  “Oh—oh, of course, Michael. Thank you.” Thinking about this, she added, “And I suppose I should offer to pay for Mary and Gemma’s admission, too. I think poor Mary’s pockets-to-let, and I wouldn’t want to break her weekly budget.”

  “It may be simpler to pay for everyone,” Acton suggested gently. “And thus spare her feelings.”

  Seeing the wisdom of this, Doyle confessed, “That kind of thing never occurs to me, Michael, because I never had any money to speak of, before I met you.”

  He smiled, and rested a palm against her cheek. “You do, now. As much as you’d like.”

  Laughing, she warned, “Don’t try to spoil me, husband—I’ll wind up like that wife in the tale about the magic fish, and never be satisfied.”

  “I disagree,” he said softly, and caressed the cheek under his hand. “Instead, you are satisfied with very little.”

  She clasped his hand, and turned it to kiss the palm. “All I need is you, my friend.”

  This promising tête-a-tête was interrupted when the concierge buzzed to say that the driver was downstairs, and so Doyle gathered up Emile, and bid her husband farewell.

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  “Make certain to check in with me,” he reminded her as they left, and she winked in acknowledgment. In truth, it was a bit surprising that he was willing to let her wander about at will, the past few days—he tended to keep her close, especially now that she was full term. Of course, she’d have Williams and Gabriel with her, so there would be plenty of loyal help at hand.

  And besides, Acton wanted to take this opportunity to sneak off to Layton’s, again, even though he’d said nothing to her about it. With an inward sigh, she acknowledged that there was something brewing over there—over in the financial district— and that Acton was in the thick of it, for some reason.

  And so, whilst Emile described the St. Petersburg zoo at great length, Doyle braced her back against the wall of the lift, and thought about her husband, who was dyin’ to shower riches on his hardscrabble bride, even though she wouldn’t know what to do with it, even if he did. Faith, she’d never even asked about his wealth—wasn’t very interested, in fact—but she’d always had the sure impression that Acton had buckets of money. His grandfather had married an heiress, of course, but she knew that it was ridiculously expensive to own a fancy flat in Kensington— not to mention an estate like Trestles, where there didn’t seem to be anything particularly productive going on, aside from a lot of trimming and flowerbed-gardening.

  Of course, her husband had been involved with Savoie in his illegal-weapons rig, and it must have paid well—never a shortage of black-market buyers, after all—but it was clear that Acton was not one to let the grass grow under his feet, when it came to building up the family fortunes.

  So—Acton was in cahoots with Layton about something, and, on the side, he was paying blood-money to a dead priest’s sister. But until she could discover a potential sister who wasn’t yet dead, this seemed to be a dead end, itself.

  “Do you think there will be ducks, at this zoo?”

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  Something in the child’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts, and she contemplated the small face that was turned up to hers. Leaning down as best she could, Doyle suggested gently, “Would you rather we avoided the ducks, Emile?”

  Sobering, he nodded, and for once, seemed at a loss for words. “Saints and holy angels,” Doyle declared in a voice of righteous anger. “Never say one of those black-hearted St.

  Petersburg ducks haled off and bit you?”

  Silently, he nodded, and then hesitated slightly, before pushing up his sleeve to reveal a small white scar, on his forearm.

  Taking his arm, Doyle examined it carefully. “Well, if any one of those paltry London ducks tries to come near you, I will shoot him dead, Emile. My hand on my heart.”

  With a small smile, the boy ducked his head self-consciously. “When I held the bread, they all came in a bunch, hissing at me.”

  “Not on my watch, they won’t.”

  The doors slid open, and the boy glanced
up. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  Doyle nodded solemnly, as they stepped out of the lift. “I won’t, but you should—scars are very interestin’. Your Papa has one on his face, and everyone who meets him wonders how it got there.”

  Brightening, the boy disclosed, “He said it was a knife-fight.” “There you go. He had a knife-fight, you had a duck-fight.” With a bark of laughter, the boy bounded across the lobby. Nothin’ to this havin’ boys business, thought Doyle, as she

  followed him; I don’t know what I was so worried about. She nodded to the concierge and greeted the driver, who was examining Emile’s scar with great interest.

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  “By your wisdom and understanding you have made wealth for yourself, and have gathered gold and silver into your treasures.”

  T he zoo visitors were all assembled outside the giraffe exhibit, and Doyle found it all very interesting, since she’d never seen a giraffe outside of a picture book. As a matter

  of fact, she’d found many things very interesting this morning, and truth to tell, she was well-tired of it. I keep forgetting that there’s a good reason I can’t abide crowds, she thought; mental note.

  The first interesting thing had to do with Officer Gabriel, who was on indefinite loan to the CID from the MI 5 domestic counter-terrorism people, lending a hand whilst Scotland Yard worked to dig itself out from under the unholy mess that was left-over from the corruption cases. The young man had been assigned to a few cases with Doyle, and although she felt they were friends, of sorts, she always had the feeling that she couldn’t read him very well— he played his cards very close to the vest. Indeed, Acton had mentioned that Gabriel was originally called-in to monitor DCI Drake on the sly, but now that Drake was off-the-hook, Gabriel’s role seemed to have evolved into helping out where help was needed—they were so short-handed.

  To everyone’s surprise, Gabriel brought along his elusive girlfriend—a tall, willowy blonde who seemed a bit reserved, in contrast to Gabriel’s hail-fellow-well-met likability.

  Doyle would have written it off as the attraction of opposites, except that such wasn’t the case. Even though there

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  was now proof-positive that the mysterious girlfriend existed, Doyle knew—in the way that she knew things—that the young woman was not, in truth, Gabriel’s girlfriend, and that there was no romantic attachment between the two. Exactly why such lengths had been taken in this ongoing pretense remained a mystery, and Doyle decided that she didn’t much care.

  On the other hand, she was glad to see Gabriel’s little sister Marnie again—the girl was in-between rounds of cancer treatment, and her prognosis was now excellent. She was a bit pale and thin, but informed Doyle that she was going back to school in the fall.

  “I’m going to school, too,” Emile broke in importantly. The older girl was roundly ignoring the younger children, and it was clear that Emile found this type of treatment unacceptable. “I’m going to wear a uniform.”

  Marnie frowned at the boy. “Where are you from?”

  “St. Petersburg,” he replied, happy to have garnered her attention. “I was going back to live there, but now I’m not.”

  Doyle had forgotten that the boy had a trace of an accent— being as everyone who wasn’t Irish always had a strange accent, anyways—but she was reminded that she should find out why Emile had believed he was returning to Russia. With Savoie in prison, it seemed a very unlikely possibility—perhaps the boy had misunderstood a chance remark. It was bothering her poor, disfunctioning pregnant-brain, for some reason.

  Whilst Marnie and Emile were talking, Gabriel’s erstwhile girlfriend took the opportunity to approach Doyle. She was coolly attractive—tall and lean, and as Doyle was currently envious of anyone who was tall and lean, she had to tamp down an impulse to entertain uncharitable thoughts. Although to be fair, there did seem to be a valid basis for uncharitable thoughts; whilst the girl’s manner was warm, behind her eyes she was a bit

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  cold, and assessing. In a strange way, she reminded Doyle of Lizzie Mathis.

  “I’m so happy to meet you, Lady Acton; I’m a big fan.”

  This was, of course, in reference to the bridge-jumping incident. DS Munoz had been stabbed—and then thrown into the Thames, for good measure—and Doyle had been in the unfortunate position of coming to the rescue in spectacular fashion. The story had been picked up by the media, with the result that Doyle was now something of a folk-hero, despite her longing to be left alone. It all went to show you that no good deed went unpunished.

  Doyle tried to be gracious, even though she knew the other girl’s admiration was not exactly sincere. “It was nothin’, truly; the papers made it up to be more than it was.”

  With a fond gesture, Gabriel hooked his arm through his companion’s. “Easy, Tasza; the baroness hates to speak of her mighty deeds.”

  They all laughed—which is what Gabriel had intended—but Doyle’s attention had been caught. Tasza? It was an unusual name, but she’d heard it before. Who else was named Tasza?

  Gabriel continued, “And speaking of mighty deeds, Lady Acton was there on that fateful night when the DCS was brought down—at Acton’s estate, no less. It must have been like a scene from The Hound of the Baskervilles.”

  Doyle didn’t understand the reference, and so she merely said, “Well, it was a close-run thing. Horrifyin’, to think that the DCS of Scotland Yard was such a blackleg, through-and-through. Lucky that Acton twigged on to it, in the nick of time.”

  “It is an extraordinary story,” Tasza agreed. “But it’s not yet been told, since now he’s completely turned his life around.”

  As Doyle was winding up to say something rude and skeptical, Gabriel intervened smoothly, “Tasza follows the DCS’s ministry, and finds it very inspiring.”

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  “Oh,” said Doyle, very much surprised. “Oh—well, I suppose his is a redemption story, then.” She was understandably confused, because Tasza did not, in fact, find the DCS’s ministry inspiring—it was not true, and Gabriel knew that it was not true. I wonder what’s going on, here, she thought with a flare of impatience; for the love o’ Mike, I just wanted to visit the zoo, and do a bit of matchmaking on the side.

  Thus reminded, she glanced over to see that Williams was pulling his cousins off the wrought-iron fence, whilst Mary held Gemma’s hand at a small distance. A nudge will be needful, and some delicacy besides—although delicacy wasn’t exactly the fair Doyle’s strong suit.

  From the corner of her eye, Doyle noted that Gabriel and Tasza exchanged a glance, and then Tasza immediately addressed Doyle. “I should buy tickets so that the children may feed the elephants—the elephants are coming up, I think.”

  “That would be excellent,” Doyle agreed, thinking that such a task might focus everyone’s attention for a moment. As it was, the boys and Marnie were tearing around the elm tree that stood in the pathway, shrieking, whilst Williams watched with a benign eye. He then walked over to stand next to Mary, and the two began talking. Quickly looking about for the nearest bench, Doyle announced, “As a matter of fact, I think I’ll sit here and rest for a moment, whilst you fetch the tickets.”

  “All right—will you help me, Marnie?”

  After Tasza and the girl walked away, Doyle was not at all surprised to find that Gabriel came over to join her on the bench, his lanky legs stretched out before him as they observed the boundless energy on display. “What do you think of my Tasza? I’m worried you don’t approve.”

  This was plain-speaking, but as Doyle excelled at plain-speaking, she was not thrown off. “I will admit that she doesn’t seem your type.”

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  He laughed aloud. “Wait—is this the part where we gleefully snub each other?”

  Doyle had to laugh along with him. “I suppose
it is. Although it would all be miles easier if you just explained to me outright what’s goin’ on, here.”

  There was a small pause. “I’d like to, but I can’t,” he offered in his easy manner. “Loose lips sink ships.”

  “Are you tryin’ to sink Acton’s ship?” she asked bluntly.

  If he was thrown off by the question, he hid it well. “What is his ship doing, that you are worried about such a thing?”