by Tom Trott
‘That doesn’t mean anything, he would have been a junior officer back then. Besides, how am I going to steal a bunch of notebooks from the archives and smuggle them to you? And what if Price goes to look at them and finds I’ve signed them out? And besides all that, I’m not going to do it.’
He was making good points.
‘Fine. Meet me halfway.’
‘What does that mean?—not that I’m sure I want to know.’
‘You read them,’ I told him.
‘What?’
‘You read them. There are some questions I want to get answers to, answers I couldn’t find in the casefile. The answers might be in the notebooks, or they might be in other files; I’ll draw up the questions and if you decide you want to provide an answer to any of them you can.’
He sighed on the other end. Like all good policeman Andy was naturally curious, after all there was no harm in him reading them. ‘Send me your questions, I’ll take a look; but I’m not promising anything.’
‘Thank you,’ I said sincerely. That left him speechless.
I sat at the kitchen table and worked most of the night. At one point I had seventeen, by the time I decided to call it a night I had whittled them down to five:
1.Were Derace or Mildred Almore previously known to the police?
2.Did anyone perform a blood test on Kingsley Almore the night of the murder?
3.Whose blood (specifically) was on the boy’s clothes?
4.How long did it take Burke, Merton, and Meek to arrive at the scene?
5.Were there any more farm burglaries after the murder?
8
Blood in the Water
The firm of Berlin & Seamark held offices in a smart six-storey Edwardian edifice in Knightsbridge. It was built of that bright red brick that looks gaudy when new, but ages wonderfully. It even had towers on each corner. This giant cake was piped with white stone that had greyed under decades of London smog. The overall impression would suggest a golden age hotel if it weren’t for the lack of balconies.
I pulled my rented Kia into the tiny carpark behind the building, then I wandered round and up the main steps into the grand double-height marble lobby. I had put on one of my smart suits and for once I looked as though I belonged in a place like this, so I marched straight past the receptionist, who didn’t give me a second look, caught a glimpse of the list of offices, and started up the wide wooden staircase that wound its way up the walls.
Berlin & Seamark were on the fourth floor, at the end of a plush green-carpeted corridor. A brass plate bore their name, and the heavy wooden door that bore the plate was open. A sharp-eyed assistant sat at a desk that faced the entrance. There was a door over each of her shoulders, the room of one of which had to also open on the corridor. Opposite her desk was a small sofa and a coffee table with magazines. The carved wooden ceiling looked original. The parquet floor too, dented with a hundred years of brogues and heels. The walls had been painted cream within the last decade. A bushy pot plant occupied one corner. And the windows opposite my entrance revealed nothing but another lifeless wall of windows from the grey stone building opposite. No warmth made it through the windows, insufficient sunlight filtering down the constructed canyon of the two edifices.
I knocked gently on the open door and smiled. It wasn’t returned. Instead she scrutinised me over her narrow-rimmed glasses. That look could boil an egg. She was the gatekeeper, and from her perch she could see anyone who passed down the corridor, so there was no hope of sneaking in. She must have been in her fifties, and nearer to sixty than fifty. She was wearing a simple cotton dress and minimal jewellery, enough to look smart without looking imposing, but when she spoke she did it in a way that made it clear she was in full control of herself, and probably you too.
‘Can I help you?’
I stepped into the office. ‘I’m here to see Mr Berlin and Mr Seamark.’
‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘No,’ I admitted.
‘Let me see...’ she opened a paper diary in front of her. ‘They have some time next Tuesday, would that be suitable?’
I looked pointedly at the empty sofa, the untouched magazines in their neat pile, and let the silence of the corridor ring out. Then I took a business card from my wallet and held it out to her. I put on my most important voice.
‘Could you send my card through to them and ask them please if they would be willing to give me a few minutes.’
She took the card and read it with raised but disdainful eyebrows. Then she offered it back to me.
‘Both Mr Berlin and Mr Seamark are out presently, I will inform them of your visit when they return.’
‘That’s ok, I can wait.’
She looked appalled. ‘They may not return today.’
‘That’s normal is it?’
‘When they are in court, yes. They are lawyers, Mr Grabarz.’ She jabbed my card at me again.
‘Thank you,’ I told her, ‘keep the card, I’ve got plenty.’ Then I turned to leave.
As I passed the coffee table an idea struck me and I stopped and placed another card on the pile of magazines. When I turned she was scrutinising me again.
‘That way they’ll have one each,’ I explained with a smile as I disappeared out the door.
I waited round the corner. It took two minutes, but then I heard the clacking of her heels on the wooden floor. They stopped as she picked up the card, then I took my chance as she swivelled and took the three steps back to her desk. Whilst her back was to me I stepped silently past the open door and further down the corridor.
The next door was unmarked but had to open onto the same room as the door behind her right shoulder. I turned the handle gently and pushed, it didn’t budge. I heard her clacking footsteps again and quickly leant on the wall opposite, but she didn’t appear. I waited another two minutes, but I didn’t hear them again so I moved back to the lock. I had had enough forethought to bring my picks with me and took the little bundle from my inside pocket. I poked around inside. It was a three-lever tumbler mortice, and took me longer than it should have done because the mechanism was stiff. I had to use a pipe cleaner soaked in DW-40 (my invention) to lubricate it. I wasn’t so much picking the lock as fixing it. When the bolt had finally drawn back I pushed the door inch by inch until it was open just enough for me to slip through.
The most immediately noticeable thing was that, being on the corridor side, this room had no windows, and therefore no light except the little that bled around each door. Turning on the electric light might be noticed, so I used the light from my phone. The room was small, barely more than a glorified cupboard. Each wall was lined with files; against one a safe was buried amongst them, a desk against another. There was a small reading lamp on the desk and I risked turning it on. I heard no clacking footsteps.
I slowly creaked open the top drawer of the left-most filing cabinet, hoping that cases were filed by surname. They were. I rifled through until I found “Almore, Kingsley”. The cardboard file bulged with documents, bent and twisted until it no longer clung on its rails. I gently lifted it from its nest and softly laid on it on the little desk. I started spreading out the papers under the lamp, scanning them with my phone (Thalia had shown me how). There were notes, exhibits, interviews; a lot of information that was in the police file, just said in different ways. As I was two thirds finished the distant ping of a lift arriving sent a jolt of electricity coursing through me. I knew I was making a mistake. This was foolish.
With no time to scan the rest I thumbed through, finding an index card attached with a paperclip to the back of the cardboard cover. At the moment I held it under the lamp I heard a key in the lock behind me. As I whipped round I instinctively shoved it in my pocket.
The office door opened and there standing haloed in the light was a short, dark-haired, forty-something man. He wore a functional business suit, wide tie, blue shirt, and thin glasses. His hair had been brushed, but there was no product to keep it in pla
ce and over the day it had fallen into a fluffy mass. His face and his body language were kind and unassuming, but on his kind and unassuming face was a look somewhere between confusion and terror. He backed out of the room until he hit the assistant’s desk.
‘Ms Manville, could you call the police, please.’
She jumped up to look inside the tiny room and saw me now leaning casually on the desk. I avoided her gaze, I didn’t want my eggs boiled.
‘The police, Ms Manville,’ he repeated in his Kiwi squeak.
I jumped forward with my hands out in submission. ‘Mr Seamark, please. I think I’ve made a mistake here. Give me five minutes to convince you I’m more stupid than dangerous.’
The woman swept up the receiver and dialled.
At that moment another man strolled into the office. This one was of a similar age, but where Seamark’s features were soft and his clothes ruffled, this man’s clothes were sharp, his face sharp, what remained of his hair gelled, and his eyes black like a shark’s.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked casually.
‘He wanted to see you,’ the woman was explaining, brandishing my card, ‘I told him you were out. He must have broken in from the corridor.’
The new man, whom I presumed was Jerry Berlin, nonchalantly leant forward and, unseen by the others, rested his fingers on the receiver cradle, hanging up the phone. The receiver was by her waist but she heard the dial tone and, assuming they had hung up due to lack of dialogue, dialled 999 again. Berlin pressed the cradle again and this time gently took the receiver from her, then my card.
‘Grabarz Investigations,’ he read aloud. Then he looked me in the eyes. ‘You’re not with Weston are you?’
‘I don’t know who or what that is,’ I answered, honestly.
‘You know, not too long ago someone broke in to steal stories for some pathetic True Crime writer, that wasn’t you was it?’
‘No,’ I deadpanned, ‘I swear this is my first time breaking into your office.’
Berlin smiled. ‘You see, jokes are a mistake: you just admitted to your crime in front of three witnesses.’
Seamark shuffled uncomfortably. ‘I think we should call the police,’ he mumbled.
‘I agree,’ screeched Ms Manville, doing her best schoolmistress impression.
‘What will that gain us?’ Berlin asked casually. ‘But a detective who owes us a favour might come in handy. How did he get in anyway?’
‘Through the corridor door,’ she blurted, ‘must have.’
He marched past me into the room. ‘How come? We’ve never had a key to that door ever since we moved in.’ He opened the corridor door, seeing that the bolt was still drawn back. He smiled to himself, almost in disbelief. ‘Seems to me he’s alerted us to a significant vulnerability in our security. Now let’s see what he was looking at?’
He went over to the desk with a smile on his face. He read one line of whichever document was under the lamp and the smile dropped instantly. His playfulness vanished and he became a serious man.
He stepped out of the room. ‘Mr Grabarz, I think you had better come into our office. Ms Manville, please could you tidy up in there and call an emergency locksmith to put a new lock on that door. Something very secure, I don’t care how expensive it is.’
He looked briefly at Seamark, who nodded his reluctant assent, then he marched into the other room and I followed, Seamark behind me. He closed door once we were all in.
This room was on the window side and was barely bigger than its counterpart. There were two desks squashed against the walls and two chairs. There was no room for pot plants or filing cabinets, and only one window. Their office was in a prestigious area of London, in an impressive building, behind a sizeable reception-come-waiting room; but the room they actually worked in was tiny. It was all fur coat and no knickers. But they were lawyers, I guess appearances counted for a lot.
The lawyers each placed their briefcase on their desk. Seamark sat in his chair, Berlin sat on his desk. I sat between them on the only other chair. Berlin stared at me for a minute, then he turned to Seamark.
‘He was looking in the Almore file.’
‘I still think we should call the police,’ Seamark replied.
Berlin turned back to me. ‘Speak.’
I opened my mouth but he interrupted me.
‘Lawyers are the stupidest people to burgle, you know that? In terms of getting in trouble, I mean. Anyway, I wanted to make that point. Speak now.’
I told them about Clarence and where his body was found, that I was trying to find out what about the case was worth killing over, that I came here to speak to them but their assistant said they would be out all day, so I decided to take a look at their files the only way I knew how. And that I knew it was stupid.
‘He didn’t come here to speak to you, did he?’ I asked.
‘No.’
‘Would you know for sure? What if you were out?’
‘Ms Manville would have given us any messages. I don’t remember her saying anything about any private detective.’
He looked at Seamark, who shook his head.
‘We’re here now,’ Berlin stated matter-of-factly.
‘Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?’
Smiling in shock, he looked like I had told a near the knuckle joke. ‘You can ask, I suppose.’
I dived straight into the deep end: ‘Why did you represent him pro bono?’
‘That was Dean, he read about the case in the newspapers.’
‘That’s not how it happened,’ Seamark mumbled, ‘I had lunch with Kezi Mohammed, who runs the London Innocence Program, he told me about the case.’
‘Why didn’t he represent the boy?’ I asked.
‘He’s not a lawyer, he’s an academic; and the innocence program only represents people after they have been convicted.’
‘Did he ask you to take the case?’
‘No.’
‘Then why did you take it?’
He frowned. ‘He was a kid, barely over the age of criminal responsibility. It’s very easy for a Legal Aid lawyer to push a vulnerable client down the path of least resistance. I was worried they would encourage him to change his plea. I thought that if Kingsley was saying he was innocent then somebody should listen to him.’
‘And how did you feel about this?’ I asked Berlin.
‘I took some persuading.’ He sighed. ‘But eventually Dean convinced me it was a matter of honour.’
‘A matter of honour?’
‘We’re not all carnivores,’ he explained, ‘not all the time. It’s the lifecycle of a lawyer, Mr Grabarz: you start out with morals, then pretty soon you have to pay your rent so you sell them, then before you know it you’ve got a Mercedes on the drive and you desperately try to buy them back.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t do it for the publicity?’
He gave that weak smile you give when you’ve heard a joke a thousand times. ‘The other way round: the case had to pay the bills some way. But that’s my black heart, Dean here is just a good man.’
‘Did you believe he was innocent?’ I asked them both.
‘Yes,’ Seamark answered instantly.
‘We disagreed,’ Berlin replied cautiously. ‘At first.’
I glanced around the tiny room. Seamark’s desk was tidy and organised, Berlin’s was strewn with papers and post-it notes. They had worked together for at least ten years, and still they could stand to be so close and so different. There was a strange sense of yin and yang harmony between them.
I gave them a little poke: ‘You lost the case. Surely he would have been better off taking his original lawyer’s advice?’
Berlin gave that same sympathetic smile. ‘He wanted to plead innocent. If we’re honest I think we knew we couldn’t get him off, but we worked our best to get to him the shortest custodial sentence possible. And still keep his honour. I think we succeeded.’
‘And yet he admitted to it all in prison.’
&nbs
p; The smile was getting stale now. ‘That wasn’t our advice.’
‘Why did he change his mind?’
‘You’d have to ask him.’
‘You don’t know where he is do you?’ I asked with a smile of my own.
‘No,’ Berlin lied. Seamark said nothing.
I leant back in my chair. ‘So, what was it about the case that stank, to you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What does that mean? I thought you said he was innocent.’
‘I believe he is, but I can’t tell you why beyond the fact that I believe his story. Dean?’
He looked at Seamark, he just nodded.
Berlin continued: ‘There was no single piece of evidence that proved he was innocent. Normally there is something you can hang your defence on: lack of DNA, someone else’s DNA, quite often it’s DNA-related. You can’t argue with DNA.’
‘Did you have any reason to think the police had made mistakes in their investigation or tampered with any of the evidence?’
‘No, do you?’
‘No,’ I lied.
‘Then it looks like we’re back where we started. Where we’ve always been. Your friend, this other detective, he’s got no connection to Kingsley?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Then it sounds to me like his murder taking place at the Almore house is just a coincidence. Although a tragic one, of course. Now get out.’ He wasn’t playing tough, he said it quite quietly.
I got up with my best impression of resignation. ‘I’m sorry to have bothered you.’
When I reached the door handle he called out:
‘Mr Grabarz.’ There was a pause, and a sigh. ‘Frankly I can’t be bothered and frankly I don’t want to advertise the fact we can be burgled but still you know we’re doing you a favour by not reporting your activity to the police.’
‘I know.’
‘You can do us three favours in return. Number one: don’t ever break into our office again. Number two: if you’re ever in trouble, don’t call us.’
I returned the wicked smile he was giving me. ‘What’s number three?’