‘That he’d performed four postmortems and all had stopped pacemakers. And since then we’ve been told the other four had pacemakers too. It looks pretty open and shut. The antiterrorist boys are getting down to the how. I’m concentrating on the why and the who.’
‘And the which.’
‘Sorry, Ellis. I don’t quite follow that. I’m feeling a bit dim this morning.’ Amiss took another draught of coffee.
‘Well, we don’t know if the intention was to murder one, some or all of them.’
‘Oh, I see what you mean. It’s a bit hard to imagine somebody with a grudge particularly directed against people with pacemakers unless, of course, there’s a Pacemakers Liberation Front. I guess the most likely scenario is that the Animal Avengers were having a second crack at Reggie Poulteney and the other poor bastards just happened to cop it along with him.’
‘Second crack?’ Milton was puzzled.
‘Of course, that wasn’t on your territory. Pour me out some more coffee, Ellis, and I’ll try to give you a coherent story.’
***
‘So what’s your hunch? Do you think these Avengers might be behind everything?’
‘How would I know?’ said Milton. ‘My instinct would be that it’s too much of a leap from behaving like a lot of yahoos and writing childish letters to committing mass murder. But of course if they were responsible for the letter bombs they might be capable of anything.’
‘But you don’t know if they are.’
‘Too true. Paul Jarrett, my pal on the antiterrorist side, tells me there are at least a couple of dozen animal activist groups, maybe half of which are in the thick of civil disobedience and around half a dozen of whom he thinks are capable of serious violence. His money was on the Animal Liberation Army. He’d never heard of the Animal Avengers till their threatening letter to the peers.’
‘I still think the murderer is more likely to have been after an individual,’ said Pooley. ‘Just like in Agatha Christie’s ABC Murders. Maybe Poulteney’s daughter-in-law hired a hitman.’
‘You can’t seriously think that. I’m no defender of Vanessa Bovington-Petty, and I could just about imagine her having the guts to try to murder Daddy-in-law in an indirect way which couldn’t be traced back to her, but I’m damned if I could seriously see a disaffected Sloane being behind wholesale murder. It’s much too far-fetched. What do you think, Jim?’
‘Life isn’t like Agatha Christie.’ Milton sighed. ‘Or not any more, anyway. We live in a world where terrorists have launched devastating attacks on the City of London, the New York Trade Centre, the Tokyo underground, and Oklahoma City, just to pick four at random.’
‘The IRA, Islamic Fundamentalists, Doomsday cultists and antigovernment fanatics,’ said Pooley. ‘I suppose since foreigners always thought the English were mad about animals it would be appropriate if it is their defenders who make our contribution to terrorism.’
‘Dammit, as Jack frequently points out, we’re animals too.’ Amiss sipped his coffee gloomily. ‘I know it’s a failure of imagination, but I find it difficult to understand how people who call themselves defenders of the rights of some can be so cavalier with the rights of others.’
‘Mad people find causes that enable them to cloak their madness with virtue,’ said Milton. ‘Now, enough of all this philosophizing. Ellis and I have to get back to the Yard to catch up and plan our course of action. What are you going to do?’
‘See what the newspapers have made of it and meet Jack for lunch. You can leave messages there for her, and they’ll get to me.’
‘Robert.’ Milton looked serious.
‘I know. Be careful.’
‘I mean it. If these really are pro-animal terrorists, you’re right up there in the line of fire beside your pal Troutbeck.’
‘Well, there isn’t much chance of persuading her to take care. Myles read her the riot act last night and she kept explaining she’d be fine. Trouble is, she thinks she’s invincible.’
‘Well, you’re not.’
‘I’ll watch out. I promise. Besides, I should be safe enough today. Jack rang earlier to say that she thought the Lords might be a bit depressing, so she’d told Beesley to take us to the Cavalry Club. I should think the inhabitants of that place would see off any troublemakers in short order.’
Chapter Sixteen
Amiss’ relationship with his Indian newsagent was warm and mutually supportive. He wrote references when Sanjeev Patel applied for citizenship or needed a permit to sell alcohol; in turn, Patel kept Amiss’ spare keys and took in his parcels, and they enjoyed chatting over the day’s news.
‘This dreadful business in the House of Lords is really most extraordinary,’ he said, as Amiss leafed through the tabloids, which were in a state of ecstatic hysteria. ‘Do you think it’s something in the heating or air-conditioning that kills eight people out of several hundred? Picks off the weakest, perhaps. Like legionnaire’s disease.’
‘Interesting notion, Sanjeev. But according to the papers they all seem to have died at about the same time.’
‘What I don’t understand…’ Patel pulled out a paper at random. ‘Look here. It says the police think they died at about nine o’clock but nobody noticed them until more than an hour later. How could that be?’
‘I suppose they thought they were asleep.’
‘There’s a difference, Robert, in being asleep and being dead. Mark my words, there’s something very sinister going on. If your neighbour looks suspiciously quiet beside you, you investigate.’
Amiss shook his head. ‘Sanjeev, I fear you don’t understand the British upper classes. If anything untoward happens beside you the etiquette is to pretend not to notice.’
‘What? Even if you fear something serious has happened?’
‘Let me tell you two stories. Several years ago an enormous lump fell out of the House of Lords ceiling onto a seat in the chamber and just missed one of the lords. Now what would be the reaction if that happened in Delhi in the Lok Sabha?’
‘All hell would break loose.’ Patel laughed. ‘I expect we would have a stampede.’
‘Well, in the Lords everyone sat in his place and pretended not to notice. And don’t you remember that a couple of years ago some lesbians abseiled down from the gallery in the Lords and everyone ignored them. So you see why I have no difficulty in understanding what could have happened last night. To investigate your neighbour’s condition, unless he directly asks you for help, would be seen as impolite and intrusive.’
Patel shook his head. ‘Intrusive is not a word we understand much in our culture, and that is bad, for we are much too inquisitive and meddling. But from what you tell me, your aversion to it is worse, for it may be lethal.’ And sighing at the irrationality of man, he left Amiss to peruse the papers while he attended to another customer.
***
‘Are you the chap in charge?’
‘One of them.’
‘I’ve told them over and over that I’ll only talk to the c-in-c.’
Milton assumed his most soothing tone. ‘I am a detective chief superintendent on the Murder Squad, Lord Beesley. There is no one more senior here at present who understands as much about last night’s atrocity at the Lords.’
‘That’s not what I want to talk about. Well, only in a way.’
Milton summoned up all his patience and shifted the phone to his other ear. ‘I’m here to listen to whatever you have to talk about, sir. Just fire away.’
Beesley sounded dubious. ‘It’s about Reggie Poulteney. You know someone tried to kill him before.’
‘By damaging his saddle. Indeed, yes, sir.’
Beesley was cheered by this evidence of intelligence. ‘Oh, good. Now this is very delicate. I don’t want it talked about.’
‘Why don’t you just tell me, sir, and then we can discuss what to do with your information. As I’m sure you’ll appreciate, the most important consideration is to bring to justice whoever killed or tried to kill Lord Poulte
ney.’
‘Well, I know. But we don’t want any scandal unless it’s absolutely necessary.’
‘No, sir. And there won’t be an unnecessary scandal. Trust me.’
Amazingly, that request worked. ‘It’s Hawkins, you see. He rang me up and told me what he’d seen the night before Reggie took his toss.’
There was a silence. ‘And what was that, sir?’
‘He saw Vanessa Bovington-Petty…do you know who that is?’
‘Lord Poulteney’s daughter-in-law. And who is Hawkins?’
‘Poor Reggie’s head groom. Well, he saw Vanessa coming out of the tack room in the middle of the night. Didn’t tell anyone, but now he’s worried in case she tried to kill Reggie then and had something to do with last night. Asked my advice and I told him I’d have a word with someone and then he must make a clean breast of it.’
‘Excellent advice, sir. Now if you tell me what you know, you can then ask Mr Hawkins to ring me as soon as he can do so discreetly. And you can reassure him that I will go to all reasonable lengths to conceal his identity.’
***
‘Lady Poulteney is on her way up.’
‘Thanks, Jane. Ask Sergeant Pooley if he’ll come in now, please.’
Pooley entered, notebook in hand, looking expectant.
‘Ellis, I forgot to ask you if you’d ever met this woman. I mean, you haven’t come across her at society weddings or hunt balls or Henley or wherever your sort of person hangs out, have you?’ He was pleased to note that Pooley was toughening. A year ago he would have blushed, but now he smiled and said, ‘No, sir, not even at Ascot.’
‘Good, then you can stay.’
‘Before she comes in, sir. Have you heard about her and the Rutland police?’
Milton looked puzzled. ‘All I’ve seen are the not very helpful interview notes faxed to me this morning. Why?’
‘Gossip from a friend there is that she was very respectfully treated by Inspector Hill, who’s notorious as a pushover for the gentry. Apparently there was a hideously embarrassing moment when, after she left the drawing room after the interview, her fluting voice was heard saying to someone: “What a sweet deferential little man!”’
‘Good. With luck she’ll still have a false sense of security.’ He picked up the phone. ‘Send her in, Jane.’
As Vanessa swept into the room, Milton stood up.
‘How nice to see you, Superintendent. Oh sorry, have I mucked that up? Aren’t you a chief or something?’ Her manner reminded Milton irresistibly of the attempts of some of his superiors to be gracious to junior staff at the Christmas party.
‘Please sit down, Lady Poulteney. And superintendent will do fine. This is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Pooley.’
‘Not one of the Worcestershire…? No, sorry. Of course you wouldn’t be.’
She sat down, oblivious to Pooley’s look of relief and Milton’s twitch of the lower lip. ‘Thank you for coming to see me, Lady Poulteney. And may I first offer my condolences on the loss of your father-in-law.’
‘Oh, yah. Poor old Daddy-in-law. It’s so tragic. We’re absolutely devastated. Now, what do you want? I haven’t got very long, actually, what with a lunch date and absolutely heaps to do now with the funeral and all that and the move to Shapely Bottom. Can’t see how I can help.’
‘I want to know your movements on the night before the late Lord Poulteney’s hunting accident.’
‘Oh, really—not again. I gave all that to some frightful flatfoot simply ages ago. You know, the village bobby, or whoever they sent me.’
Milton’s voice was even. ‘I have seen the statement you gave to Detective Inspector Hill. However, you appear to have omitted to tell him about your visit to the tack room in the middle of the night.’
‘How dare you!’ She flushed a violent red. ‘It’s absolutely not true.’
‘You were seen.’
‘You’re making it up.’
‘Lady Poulteney, calling me a liar is not the best way of convincing me that you speak the truth.’
This non sequitur was delivered so crisply and authoritatively that she backed down instantly. ‘Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean that. I was just upset.’
‘I have first-hand evidence that a woman answering to your description came out of the tack room at about four a.m.’
‘Oh, so it wasn’t anyone who knew me. So they must have been mistaken.’
While Amiss had described Vanessa as ‘medium-thick’, this piece of stupidity was more than Milton could have hoped for. ‘Thank you for as good as admitting you were there. And even if you hadn’t, I think you would have found it difficult to convince a jury that two women with straight blonde hair, of medium height and wearing an overcoat identical to yours were likely to have been on the premises of Shapely Bottom Hall that night.’
‘But whoever said I was is just a wicked liar trying to blame me for whatever they did themselves.’
‘Won’t wash, I’m afraid. They couldn’t have known about your coat.’
She fiddled with her engagement ring for a minute. ‘Well, all right then. I was there. I went to look for a brooch I thought I’d lost earlier that day.’
‘You went out in the middle of a January night to look for a brooch?’
‘Yes. It might have got trodden on in the morning by the grooms and it’s my favourite brooch, and it was only at around half past three in the morning that I remembered I’d had it on when I was in the tack room and hadn’t seen it afterwards.’
‘Did you find the brooch?’
‘No. I mean yes.’
‘And did you mention to your husband the following morning your relief at having found it?’
She looked as hunted as a fox in a cul-de-sac with the hounds coming round the corner. ‘Er, I don’t remember.’
‘Please stop insulting my intelligence, Lady Poulteney. Considering what later emerged about your father-in-law’s saddle, it is inconceivable that if you’d been in the tack room innocently you wouldn’t remember whether or not your husband knew you’d been there. And it would be very hard to convince a jury that you wouldn’t have mentioned your uncomfortable expedition.’
‘Jamesie and I weren’t speaking that morning.’
Milton sighed. ‘It will be very easy to check, ma’am. I can send a police officer round to see your husband now to get his story and hold you here, incommunicado, until he’s given it.’
She began to cry. Neither Milton nor Pooley was hard-hearted, but they were completely unmoved. After a few minutes she got tired of snuffling and blew her nose.
‘Now, Lady Poulteney, why don’t you simply tell me what happened?’
‘You’ll accuse me of trying to murder Daddy-in-law.’
‘The case looks pretty straightforward, I’m afraid.’
‘No, it’s only those horrid sabs trying to blame me for what they did.’
‘Look, Lady Poulteney, it’s perfectly simple. Either you tell me what happened—what actually happened—or I charge you now with the attempted murder of your late father-in-law. That will give us plenty of time to discuss at leisure if, having failed on this occasion, you hired a hitman or perhaps even yourself killed Lord Poulteney and in the process murdered seven others.’
This provoked hysterics.
Milton sighed. ‘Detective Sergeant Pooley, please open the door so that witnesses can see that we are not actually assaulting Lady Poulteney, apologize to them for the noise and tell them we hope it won’t last long.’
It didn’t. When she realized that the screaming and wailing were having no effect, she ceased them abruptly, sat up straight and said, ‘Very well. I’ve been making an idiot of myself, but I was frightened. But please promise you won’t tell my husband if I tell you the truth.’
‘I can’t make promises, but I won’t tell him anything unless it is necessary.’
She gazed intently at her gold-buckled, patent-leather clad feet. ‘I went to meet a man.’
‘Who?’
&nbs
p; ‘Oh, dear, this is so embarrassing.’
‘Less so than being arrested, I imagine.’
‘There’s no need to be horrid. If you must know, it was one of those awful sabs. We had a date.’
‘Just tell us the story.’
She attacked it with a rush. ‘I was out riding the afternoon before and I got off near Wreckett’s Brook because I thought Betty might have picked up a stone. When I was looking at her hoof this fellow came up and we sort of started to talk. Anyway, he asked me if I’d like to meet him that night, and it didn’t seem any harm to say yes. I didn’t mean to turn up.’
‘But you did.’
‘Well, I was upset that night. Really furious that Daddy-in-law was getting ready to propose to Lady Flexingham and really fed up with Jamesie, who wouldn’t talk about it. He just lay there snoring away—he’s an absolutely ghastly snorer—and I love Shapely Bottom so much, and I know just what I want to do with it and I was really cross. So I thought it was all too beastly and I thought the hell with them, I’d go and meet this fellow just to spite them.’
‘What time was this?’
‘About two-thirty. We’d said we’d meet at three. So I got the key from the nail beside the side door and when I went into the tack room he followed me.’
‘Who was he?’
‘He said his name was Stu and that he was a sab.’ She saw Milton’s face. ‘Yes, yes. I know. You’ll think I’m awful and I hate those people, but he was exciting in a sort of sultry way and…’ She hung her head again. ‘You can’t imagine how boring Jamesie is. I mean, he’s awfully nice, but he’s really boring.’
‘So then?’
‘Well, I don’t have to spell it out, do I?’
‘I’m afraid you do, ma’am.’
‘Oh, well, if you must know we had sex a couple of times, and then I went back to the Hall.’
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