Dark Mirror

by Dark Mirror (epub)

  Finally Pip phoned in. ‘I’ve got it, boss. Tina was here all right, looking at stuff from the Havelock archive. She requested the Haverlock diary on the evening of Wednesday last.’

  Kathy sighed, rubbing her hand across her face. ‘Great.’

  ‘What do I do now?’

  Kathy thought. ‘I think we’ll need to retrace Tina’s steps. Leave it for now. Tomorrow, I want you to go round all the libraries we know Marion and Tina went to, and get a complete record of their borrowings.’

  The line was silent for a moment, then Pip said, ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’

  Kathy put the phone down. The evening was drawing in, the streetlights flickering on outside the window. She felt a tightness in her chest, her stomach. Maybe Brock had been right, she thought, this had become too personal—Rafferty’s threat of legal action against her, Jock’s cat, Prague, Guy. Rafferty. What was his part in all this, the predatory stepfather? She remembered sensing a false note when Douglas Warrender had described his relationship with Rafferty. If Warrender had arranged Julian Fenwick’s services, then it suggested that Warrender and Rafferty were closer than Warrender had implied. And Rafferty knew them all—Warrender, Ogilvie and da Silva—all of them locked together somehow, using and reluctantly protecting each other, a single nut to be cracked. She closed down her computer, shrugged on her coat and caught a District line tube out to Ealing Broadway.

  •

  Kathy followed the deck to the door of the Raffertys’ flat and rang the bell. Sheena Rafferty answered, not recognising Kathy straight away. Kathy explained that she had some important information of a personal nature to explain to her, if she could spare a moment.

  ‘I dunno,’ Sheena looked doubtful. ‘Keith told me not to speak to you.’

  ‘It could be to your advantage, Sheena. It won’t take long.’

  The word advantage did the trick, as Kathy knew it would. She didn’t enjoy deceiving Sheena, but she was sure that Marion would have thoroughly approved of what she had in mind. She followed Sheena into the sitting room. Two half-drunk glasses stood on the coffee table, a gin and a beer. Sheena reached for the gin and a cigarette.

  ‘Make it quick, will ye? Keith’s takin’ a shower. He’s lost his job and he’s not in a good mood.’ The rumble of plumbing promptly stopped.

  ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Fine, fine. What is it ye want exactly?’

  ‘It concerns your daughter’s estate, Sheena.’

  ‘Estate?’ She looked dubious.

  ‘Her property, her assets, that will come to you, as her next of kin.’

  ‘What, like an insurance payout?’ she said hopefully.

  ‘I’m not aware of any insurance, but it’s possible, I suppose.’

  ‘Och, well, what about compensation, victims of crime? I’m a victim too, you know.’

  ‘Again, I don’t know about that. What I have in mind is potentially much more significant.’

  There was a roar from the doorway. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ Keith Rafferty stood with a towel around his waist, skin pink from the shower, eyes blazing. ‘I’m calling my lawyer right now.’

  ‘No, hang on, darlin’,’ Sheena said quickly. ‘The inspector’s come to see me, about Marion’s assets.’

  He hesitated. ‘What assets?’

  ‘She’s just about to tell me, is that no’ right, Inspector?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, go on then,’ Keith said.

  ‘This is a private matter I have to discuss with Marion’s mother, Mr Rafferty. I’m well aware of your lawyer’s insistence that I should have no further contact with you, and I don’t feel comfortable having you present. Maybe I should speak to you another time, Sheena, when you’re alone.’

  ‘Now wait a minute.’ Keith stuck his jaw out. ‘If you’ve got anything to say to my wife I want to hear it.’

  Kathy shook her head and rose to her feet.

  ‘Sheena!’ Keith snapped. ‘Tell her you want it that way.’

  Sheena winced under his glare and nodded. ‘Aye. I want Keith to hear.’

  ‘Well, if you’re quite sure. This is only an advisory visit, you understand, to make you aware of a potential situation that could concern you.’

  ‘What?’ Sheena looked mystified, Keith aggrieved.

  ‘Get on with it,’ he snarled.

  ‘Are you aware that Marion owned a house?’

  Sheena’s eyes widened. ‘What sort of house?’

  ‘A very attractive detached property, in Hampstead.’ Kathy turned to meet Keith’s eyes. He looked away.

  ‘Hampstead? Owned it, you say?’

  ‘That’s right. It’s in her name alone, no mortgage.’

  ‘But . . . how much would that be worth, then?’

  ‘Quite a lot. Three-quarters of a million, at least.’

  Sheena gasped. ‘But how? Marion was a student. She had no money.’

  ‘No, but she had an admirer, a wealthy man who bought it for her, as a present.’

  ‘Oh my dear Lord! My wee Marion? Who is he, this feller?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t disclose that.’

  Kathy felt Keith’s eyes on her, burning, trying to work out what she was up to.

  ‘Oh!’ Sheena gave a sudden trilling giggle, jumping to her feet. ‘Did ye hear that, Keithy?! Did ye hear that?’

  ‘Yeah. So what’s the catch?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kathy said, ‘I’m afraid there is a catch. Marion signed a document giving the house back to this man in the event of her death.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Sheena collapsed again onto her chair, horror on her face.

  ‘But,’ Kathy went on, ‘and this is the reason for my coming to speak to you, that may depend on the results of our investigation into Marion’s death.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you see, this man is naturally a person of interest to us, having been so much involved in Marion’s recent life. And if it should turn out that he was responsible for her death, well, the courts might decide to set aside that document, as amounting to the profits of a crime.’

  There was silence for a moment. Then Keith said softly, ‘But is that likely? Do you suspect this man?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say, Mr Rafferty. The case is still wide open at this stage, and we’re sifting through a great deal of evidence. I just thought I should alert Mrs Rafferty to the fact that if we were to lay charges against him at some point in the future, then she should consider seeking legal advice. Three-quarters of a million pounds is a great deal of money.’

  ‘Aye,’ Sheena said dazedly. ‘It sure as hell is that.’

  twenty-seven

  Brock dropped the report into his out-tray and sat back with a sigh, rubbing both hands across his face. It was all very well giving advice and direction to Kathy and the others, but he had learned to doubt such advice when it came from senior figures who hadn’t actually touched the evidence for themselves, hadn’t heard the subtle doubt in the witness’s voice, had forgotten how contradictory and confusing the options were. Alex Nicholson’s suggestion that they might be investigating a double suicide had already occurred to him. Tina’s death seemed like a mirror image of Marion’s, following Marion’s example, perhaps even fulfilling a pact of some kind between them. Kathy had known Tina, and Brock had sensed her sympathy for the student and her scepticism of Alex’s idea, just as she had resisted from the start the possibility of Marion’s suicide. He suspected that Kathy identified with Marion’s struggle, and with Tina’s, too closely for that.

  But what did he know, stuck behind his bloody desk reading other people’s reports? And then there was that disconcerting thing, the sudden appearance of Douglas Warrender on the scene, immediately after Brock had reassured Suzanne that he wasn’t involved. Had Suzanne heard something? He wanted to talk it over with her, but that would only complicate things further, and probably put her in a compromising position.

  He heaved hims
elf out of his chair and reached for his overcoat. ‘I’m going up to the British Library to see how they’re getting on,’ he said to Dot as he strode through her office.

  ‘The new HR Deputy Liaison Officer is coming to see you in an hour, don’t forget.’

  ‘Put him off. Urgent business.’

  Just getting out of the office lifted his spirits. When he reached the forecourt of the library he paused and took it in once again, peaceful now, the police tapes gone, tourists mingling with students and researchers, people cheerfully drinking coffee in The Last Word café. He went across to the library entrance beneath the lowering roof planes, catching a glimpse of the towers and finials of St Pancras station next door. At the enquiries counter inside he showed his ID and was directed to an office in the administrative area nearby. There he found Pip Gallagher bent over a pile of books. She jumped up when he greeted her, looking guilty, like a school student caught falling asleep over her homework.

  ‘They’ve given me this table and they’re bringing me the books that Tina asked for in the past couple of weeks, Chief. I’m trying to make notes for Kathy.’ She gestured at a clipboard on which she had laboriously written comments beneath the titles of each volume.

  ‘Big job,’ Brock said.

  ‘Yeah.’ Pip sighed. ‘I’m not sure if I’m doing it right. Kathy wants to establish some kind of logical trail that Tina followed, leading up to the diary that undermines da Silva’s work. I’ve got the borrowing or request records for both Marion and Tina at all the libraries we know they went to—that’s the British Library here, the London Library where Marion collapsed, the National Archives at Kew, the Family Records Centre in Finsbury, and the University of London Senate House Library.’

  She spread the printouts over the table, and Brock immediately understood why she was looking so glum.

  ‘Lot of books,’ he murmured.

  ‘Yes. I’ve started with Tina’s lists, putting them in date order, and starting at the beginning.’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘I wondered if she might have left any notes in the books, or written anything in the margins. No luck so far. Basically I’m trying to write a short description of each book, so Kathy can get an idea of what they’re about.’

  ‘And you started here because . . .?’

  ‘Well, Tina was attacked here, and also she spent most time here recently. She wasn’t a member of the London Library like Marion, so she has no borrowing record there, although they do remember her visiting a couple of times and having a look around. She did leave a record at the other places, but I haven’t got to them yet.’

  Brock realised the size of the task Pip had taken on. It would take her weeks. ‘Hm.’ He scratched the side of his beard, looking at the lists. ‘Most of the titles look like books about Victorian history and art, don’t they? Are they all like that?’

  ‘Some are about poisons and criminal cases.’ She pointed at one, The Cult of the Poisoner, and another, The Arsenic Conspiracy. ‘And there are some that you can’t really tell.’ She indicated After Midnight and The Brinjal Pickle Factory, which were among the later entries on Tina’s list. ‘They could be about anything; you wouldn’t know from the titles. There’s a few like that. Why The Brinjal Pickle Factory? God knows what that’s doing here.’

  Brock was intrigued. ‘Okay. Well, I might have a look at the lists while you carry on checking the books.’

  Pip looked apprehensive, clearly wondering what the chief was up to, as he took off his coat and jacket and rolled up his sleeves.

  He began by looking for items that cropped up most frequently, books that Marion and Tina had kept returning to. They seemed predictable enough: volumes of poetry, diaries and letters relating to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Then he tried to relate borrowings to what they knew of the key events in Marion’s life—when she moved out of Stamford Street, when she lost the baby, and immediately before she died. It seemed that Marion had first discovered the Haverlock diary, hidden in the Havelock archive, the previous September, after which she made regular requests to see it.

  At the same time she’d been checking other volumes from the Havelock archive, including the two memoirs that Pip had mentioned, After Midnight and The Brinjal Pickle Factory, both written by a Robert Harding. Marion had also searched for items from the archive at other libraries, presumably to see if there could be other copies of the Haverlock diary in existence. Her requests for ‘Haverlock’ were apparently unsuccessful, but it seemed that she had found the Harding books at both the National Archives in Kew and the London Library, and had requested them at both places. Brock wondered why. Tina must have noticed these requests, he thought, because they had been among the latest items she had been investigating. In fact, The Brinjal Pickle Factory was the last book that she had requested from the British Library, on the morning of her death.

  ‘Have you had a look at this Brinjal Pickle Factory book?’ Brock asked Pip.

  ‘Yeah, it’s like a cookbook, Chief.’ She poked around in the pile of volumes in front of her and handed him a slim hardback. Its dark green covers were faded, its pages yellowed, and when he opened it he caught the musty smell of old, unread pages. It wasn’t just a cookbook, he discovered, more a memoir by a former colonial administrator of his early years in India before the war. Skimming it, he could find no references to arsenic or the Pre-Raphaelites that might have provided some clue as to why it was on the lists.

  ‘How about After Midnight then?’

  It turned out to be much the same. Its subtitle was A Memoir of Bengal, 1947–71.

  Brock scanned the index at the back of After Midnight, a catalogue of the great names of the early years of independent India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, from Mountbatten and Jinnah to Sheikh Mujib. There was no mention of Haverlock or Rossetti, but his eye did pick out Warrender, R. 82.

  He turned to page eighty-two and found the reference:

  Among our staff in Calcutta at that time was Roger Warrender, later Sir Roger, newly arrived in early 1948 with his attractive young English bride, Joan. Roger had had a great war, by all accounts, serving with Wingate and the Chindits in Burma with distinction in 1943, and later in the counter-offensive against the Japanese invasion of India in 1944. He had enormous panache and energy, and the turbulent conditions in Bengal at the time of Independence soon called upon all his courage and stamina, not least when Joan fell pregnant with their first-born, Douglas, under trying conditions. They became among our longest-serving staff, both playing significant roles in our evolving relations with the ruling groups in East and West Bengal. They departed finally in 1963, to London briefly, before moving on to New York, where Roger took up a senior position with UNICEF.

  ‘Found something, sir?’ Pip said.

  ‘Call me Brock, Pip, for goodness’ sake.’ He showed her the page. ‘Looks like Marion was doing a bit of homework.’ He took the book and the lists of borrowings over to a nearby photocopier and worked for a while, then returned them to Pip’s table.

  ‘I’ll let you get on,’ he said, and strolled off, humming to himself, leaving Pip with a puzzled frown on her face.

  •

  Kathy looked flustered, negotiating with her Action Manager and someone from head office over a file of time sheets. From the doorway Brock could see that it wasn’t going well. He called over, ‘Kathy, can you spare a moment?’ She looked relieved, and left the others to it.

  ‘I just paid a visit to Pip at the British Library,’ Brock said.

  ‘Oh?’ She looked surprised. ‘Any luck?’

  ‘She’s plodding on. But maybe you can tell me something about this . . .’ He spread out the photocopies he’d made. ‘These two books are in the Havelock archive, along with the Haverlock diary, and Marion also requested them at Kew and the London Library.’ He’d highlighted the entries with a coloured marker. ‘They’re about India. But when I looked in the index of one of them, After Midnight, I found a reference to the Warrenders. Here.’ He handed Kat
hy the copied page which she read.

  ‘Reading up about her boyfriend’s family history,’ she suggested.

  ‘Yes, only she discovered this book last September, see? And Douglas Warrender told you he didn’t meet Marion until October, didn’t he?’

  ‘But she was working for Sophie Warrender, so the name would still have been of interest to her.’

  ‘Mm, yes. Why look for the same book in three different libraries, though?’

  Kathy said, ‘I didn’t realise that Douglas’s father was with UNICEF in New York. I wonder if he was involved with the well-drilling program in Bengal, where he’d been working all those years. Dr da Silva’s friend, Colin Ringland, told me about it. It’s his area of research. It’s funny, isn’t it, how they all seem to be interconnected.’

  Brock thought. ‘Perhaps we need to shake them up a bit, open up some of these connections.’

  ‘Yes, I agree.’

  ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  He watched her go back to her desk and thought, She’s up to something. He knew her well enough after all this time.

  •

  Kathy didn’t have much longer to wait. As she sat down with a fresh cup of coffee her mobile phone rang, the number she’d given Sheena Rafferty. It was Keith, sounding all the more shifty for trying to appear guileless.

  ‘Yeah, erm, look . . . I was thinking about what you were saying to Sheena the other night, and it made me put two and two together, like.’

  ‘And what did you come up with?’

  ‘Eh? Well, some things began to make sense. You were talking about Warrender, right?’

  ‘Was I?’

  ‘Well, I know he was Marion’s squeeze. I think I may be able to help you with your inquiries.’

  ‘That’s very public spirited of you, Mr Rafferty. You’d better come in and see us.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Mr Warrender has got friends all over the place. I just want a little chat, somewhere neutral. You know the Swan in Lambeth?’

  ‘Okay, but I’ll have a colleague with me.’

  ‘No, don’t do that. Just you and me, okay? Make it five, tonight.’