The Death of Kings

by Rennie George Airth

  A log crackled in the fire and part of it rolled out of the grate onto the hearth. Madden was on his feet before Sinclair could move. The other two watched as he replaced the burning log and added a fresh one to the blaze.

  Billy had been thinking. ‘I still don’t see why he took his life—Jessup, I mean.’

  He hesitated when he saw the look in Madden’s eye.

  ‘You’re not going to say he fell into that quarry by accident, are you, sir?’

  ‘As far as anyone knows that’s exactly what he did.’ Madden’s altered tone signalled a change in the atmosphere. ‘Both Lennox and I saw a mark made in the mud that could have been where he slipped. Richard always said it was dangerous to leave that area unfenced. He wouldn’t allow his children anywhere near it. I’ll be appearing at the inquest in Petersfield next week, as you know, and if asked my opinion I’ll say I believe it was a tragic accident.’

  ‘I don’t know, sir . . .’ Billy flushed. ‘That doesn’t seem right to me. Ten years ago a man was hanged for a murder he didn’t commit. I understand you might want to protect Richard Jessup’s name. But what about Owen Norris? What about his name?’

  Madden was slow in answering. Watching him, the younger man saw it was only with difficulty that he brought himself to reply.

  ‘I’ve no good answer to that, Billy. All I can say is I won’t be party to any attempt to lay Miss Blake’s murder at Richard Jessup’s door, nor Garner’s if it comes to that. You’ll have to prove it for yourself.’

  He met the other’s gaze.

  ‘Remember, everything I’ve said to you has been in confidence, and I won’t repeat it elsewhere. Of course you’re free to make your own inquiries and deductions, but before you and Charlie Chubb decide whether you want to take this further, ask yourselves what you’ll achieve by it. You can’t prove that Jessup committed either of those murders: you can only show he had a brief relationship before he got married with a young woman who later fell victim to a man who was subsequently convicted of her murder and hanged.’

  ‘What about Garner, though, sir? There’s that length of flex to consider.’ Billy wasn’t ready yet to give in.

  ‘Circumstantial, as I said. You’ll need more than that to make a case.’

  ‘How about the fingerprints left on the bannisters? I’m willing to bet they’ll turn out to be Jessup’s.’

  ‘I expect they will. But as any barrister would point out, the two men were friends of long standing. What could be more likely than for Jessup’s prints to be found in Garner’s house? As for Wing’s decapitation, in order to prove that Richard had any hand in setting that up you would need Lin Jie’s cooperation, and I very much doubt you’ll get it. He’ll say he has no connection whatsoever with the Triads and doesn’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Billy was at a loss. He had never come into conflict before with his old mentor, the man who had taught him his trade and whom he respected above all others. Nor did he appreciate the look of sympathetic understanding which the chief inspector was casting his way just then.

  ‘What do you think, sir?’ He turned to Sinclair.

  The chief inspector considered his reply.

  ‘All this has come about because I asked John to look into the matter on my behalf.’ He spoke after a long pause. ‘He’s been good enough to share his conclusions with us, though he wasn’t obliged to. And as he says, he can offer next to no proof of what he has said: it’s simply how he interprets the facts. In the circumstances I feel it only right to leave any final decision to him.’

  Frustrated, Billy turned back to Madden.

  ‘Well, if we couldn’t have got a conviction against him, why did he go and top himself?’

  Madden lifted his gaze from the fire.

  ‘If you want my opinion—and that’s all it is—because in the last resort he couldn’t live with himself any longer. Even before I guessed the truth I sensed there was something eating away at him. And as I said before, he saw things with frightening clarity. Once he learned that Wing’s body had been recovered with the negatives on it he knew that the police would launch a new investigation into Portia Blake’s murder, one that might result in him being brought to trial. It wasn’t just to protect his own reputation that he’d killed the girl. She was threatening to destroy everything he valued: not only his company, but his marriage to a woman he was deeply in love with. The same danger hung over him now; only it was worse. Even if the police couldn’t mount a successful prosecution, a murder trial would do terrible damage, both to him and to the people he loved, including his children. It would leave a smear on the name of Jessup and everyone connected to it that would last for years, perhaps forever. There was only one remedy, and he was ready to accept it.’

  Madden looked Billy in the eye.

  ‘He did what had to be done.’

  EPILOGUE

  ‘HAS BILLY FORGIVEN YOU yet?’ Helen took her husband’s arm. ‘I saw the two of you having a word after the service. I didn’t realise he would be there. Was his presence official?’

  ‘No, he came of his own accord,’ Madden said. ‘He told me he thought he ought to be there. He said he wanted to close the book on the case. And, yes, I think he’s forgiven me.’

  ‘It’s definitely closed then, is it?’ She looked at him.

  ‘So Billy said. There was simply no point in pursuing it. Even Charlie Chubb accepts that, though he hasn’t forgiven me yet. I shall have to make my peace with him. I’ll take him out to lunch. That should do the trick.’

  The two of them had caught the train up to London that morning to attend a memorial service in honour of Richard Jessup organised by his widow. The occasion, held at St Lawrence Jewry, in Guildhall Yard, had been well attended, not only by City grandees and friends of the dead man, but also by more than a score of old comrades-in-arms who had served with Jessup in the war. A mixed bunch, some of them hard looking, and most dressed in cheap suits, they had gathered in a group with Lennox at the back of the beautiful Wren church, where they stood throughout the service and the speeches that followed. At Mrs Castleton’s request, Madden and his wife had kept her company in the row behind where Sarah Jessup sat with her parents and her children. Later, they had been introduced to the widow.

  ‘Adele has told me how close you and Richard became.’

  As good looking in the flesh as she had appeared in the photograph he had seen in Jessup’s study, and offering him the same open smile she had shown on that damp day in Paris, her straight glance had carried no hint of unspoken thoughts, nor of any suspicion that her husband’s tragic end might have been other than it seemed.

  Turning to Helen, she had added: ‘I hope we can all get together very soon.’

  It was only as they were about to leave that Madden had spotted Billy standing in the courtyard, hat in hand.

  ‘I thought I ought to turn up, sir, just for form’s sake.’ Billy’s handshake had lacked nothing in warmth. ‘Quite a gathering, isn’t it?’ He had nodded at the crowd thronging the courtyard, which included a number of well-known faces.

  ‘The chief super sends his regards. He thought I was bound to find you here and said I was to tell you he still had a bone to pick with you.’ Billy chuckled. ‘Oh, and by the way, you might be interested to hear that we picked up that fellow Chen Yi.’

  ‘I remember the name.’ Madden was intrigued. ‘He was the Red Pole’s assistant, his jackal, Jessup called him.’

  ‘He was stopped going through immigration at Ramsgate—he was about to board the Ostend ferry—and brought up to London. I questioned him myself. He was a smooth article.’ Billy shook his head ruefully. ‘Spoke English beautifully; said he was part owner of a restaurant in Amsterdam and had come over to London to visit a cousin. “What cousin?” I asked. I thought we might have him there, but blow me if he didn’t produce a young Chinese bloke working in a laundry who was ready
to swear on a stack of Bibles that they were related. So we had to let him go.’

  ‘What about the enforcer himself, Wing’s killer?’

  ‘We never saw hide nor hair of him. But, then, we didn’t have either a name or a description.’

  Before they parted Madden had put the same question to his former protégé that Helen would ask him later.

  ‘Am I forgiven, then?’

  Billy’s chuckle had been answer enough. But that hadn’t been quite the end of it, as he made plain.

  ‘Still, it might not have turned out this way if he’d been anyone else.’

  ‘Meaning what, Billy?’

  ‘He was too important, Jessup was, too big a name, to drag through the mud. The commissioner said as much. It was best to let things lie, he said.’

  ‘And you don’t agree?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that exactly.’ Billy weighed his hat in his hands. ‘But I can’t help thinking that all this started because some silly girl got ideas above her station. She wasn’t much kop in the brains department, our Portia. You might even say she brought it on herself.’

  ‘And your point is . . . ?’ Madden eyed him keenly.

  ‘She didn’t deserve to die on that account.’ Billy met his gaze.

  ‘No, she didn’t.’ Madden had put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. ‘Hold fast to that,’ he said.

  He smiled then. ‘Oh, and there’s one other thing. It’s about time you stopped calling me sir, Billy. I’d rather you made it John.’

  • • •

  ‘So you had your knuckles rapped?’ Helen had enjoyed hearing the story. ‘Good for Billy. He’s always been a bit too respectful of you.’

  Madden laughed. It was early evening and they were walking arm-in-arm down the lawn to the bottom of the garden.

  ‘Do you think he had a point?’ she asked.

  ‘More than ever.’ Madden was rueful. ‘The trouble was we became too close, Richard and I. That’s something we were always warned about when I was with the police.’

  ‘But you’re not any longer, my dear, and you never regarded him as a suspect.’

  ‘True. But I can’t help thinking he used our friendship to steer me in the direction he wanted. It almost worked, too.’

  ‘Don’t hold that against him.’

  Surprised by her words, Madden stopped to look at her.

  ‘Don’t think of him that way. He cared for you, John. I could see that. Your friendship meant a lot to him. In the end it was probably what he clung to.’

  ‘I’d like to think so.’ Madden sighed. ‘But then I find myself remembering something a fellow I met down in Kent said to me. He was an old boxer who ran a pub. He had known Norris, the man they hanged for Portia’s murder, and didn’t think he had it in him to kill. But, then, you never know anyone, do you, he said—not really.’

  He felt her hand on his shoulder and he turned to face her.

  ‘You know me,’ she said.

  Madden looked into her blue eyes for a long moment, and as he did so felt his heart swell, just as it had years before when he had realised for the first time that she loved him. He took her in his arms.

  ‘Yes, I do. Thank God for that.’

  • • •

  Unknown to them, they were being observed. Standing by the balustrade fronting the stone-flagged terrace, Lucy Madden and her brother had been watching their parents for some time.

  ‘Look at them!’ Rob was scandalised. ‘They’re just like lovers.’

  He shot a glance at his sister.

  ‘What are you giggling at?’

  ‘Nothing . . .’

  ‘Come on.’ He knew her too well. ‘Spit it out.’

  Head cocked on one side, Lucy considered her reply.

  ‘Do you remember that spot down by the stream where we used to go when we didn’t want anyone to find us?’

  ‘Where we hid whenever the Mitchell twins came over because we didn’t want to play with them?’ He scowled at her. ‘That patch of grass surrounded by bushes? What about it?’

  ‘When they first met—it was during that big murder case when Daddy was still a detective—Mummy fell in love with him almost at once. She was sure that he felt the same, but he wouldn’t say anything. It was because of what happened to him in the war. He was still too locked up in himself. He couldn’t talk about his feelings. He thought he wasn’t a whole man anymore . . .’

  She paused.

  ‘So Mummy invited him to lunch. She got Mary to make up a picnic basket and she took him down to the stream, to that same spot, and laid a blanket on the grass . . .’

  She fell silent.

  ‘Good God!’

  It had taken Rob some moments to find his tongue. He was staring at their parents in disbelief.

  ‘Are you saying she seduced him?’

  Lucy said nothing.

  ‘How do you know that?’ His scowl had turned fierce.

  ‘Mummy told me once . . . woman talk . . .’ She smiled.

  ‘Woman . . . you?’

  ‘Yes, me . . . !’ She speared an elbow into his ribs, making him gasp. ‘And when are you going to shave that horrible beard off? Poor Annabel was in a terrible state this morning. The whole side of her face has come out in a rash.’

  ‘Annabel . . . ? Which one was she?’

  ‘Which one . . . ?’ Lucy aimed for his ribs again, but this time he managed to dodge her flying elbow. ‘You spent half the night dancing with her.’

  ‘She loved every moment of it.’ Rob was enjoying himself. ‘Couldn’t get enough of my beard, she said.’

  ‘She did not.’

  ‘You’re just jealous. You’re longing to know what it feels like. Here, let me give you a taste . . .’

  He grabbed for her, but she was too quick—‘No, you won’t’—eluding his outstretched hand, and then turning and running down the steps from the terrace onto the lawn, pursued by Hamish, who’d been sitting nearby.

  Her brother set off after her and caught up after only a few steps. Wrapping his arms around her, he tried to press his cheek against hers, but Lucy resisted, kicking at him with her heels, and when that didn’t work, falling to her knees on the ground and tucking her head in her arms.

  ‘You beast . . . !’

  ‘Come on . . . at least try it. . . . Girls tell me it feels warm and furry.’

  Bending down, Rob tried to prise her hands from her cheeks while Hamish, beside himself with excitement now, danced around them in a circle. It was the basset’s frantic barking that caused Madden and his wife to break off their embrace and look back.

  ‘Good grief!’

  Madden stared open-mouthed at the sight of his two children locked in combat. As he watched they lost their balance and fell over, still wrestling as they rolled about on the grass.

  He turned to Helen for support, but saw no help would be coming from that quarter. She was laughing helplessly. He was left to shake his head and say the one thing that seemed fitting in the circumstances, even if no one was listening.

  ‘Do you think they’ll ever grow up?’

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