The Saint Valentine’s Day Murders

by Ruth Dudley Edwards

  She was relieved that the answering voice sounded neither angry nor panic-stricken at being rung so early. Amiss senior was clearly a phlegmatic type, who contained his astonishment at the news that his son was mixed up in a murder hunt to a brief ‘What! Again?’

  As she told the story, its sheer improbability struck her for the first time. Nor was it lost on her listener. When she finished rather haltingly by explaining how without Amiss’s intervention the death-tally would have been higher, the flat northern voice commented: ‘Well, lass. If I didn’t already know you were a good friend of Robert’s, I’d have said you were touched. As it is, I’ll confine myself to asking what I can do. I gather he’s not in a state to talk?’

  ‘Not for a while.’

  ‘Tell him not to worry about ringing us till he’s sorted himself out. Should his mother or I come down?’

  ‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary. He’s going to have a lot to do over the next few days. It’ll be better for him to keep active.’

  ‘You sound like a sensible young woman,’ said Amiss senior approvingly. ‘And a thoughtful one. I’m very grateful to you for warning us before we saw it in the newspapers. Don’t let him wallow in it or he’ll fall into a depression and it’ll be days before he comes out of it. Get in touch if you need any advice on how to handle him.’

  Rachel felt a wave of relief as she put the receiver down. In similar circumstances she’d have had to keep her own mother away by physical force. She cast a look around the room and shuddered. At what stage during the evening had Robert kicked over the remainder of the whisky? Its stink was even more pervasive than that of tobacco. He had managed to get through two of the packets of cigarettes he had sent Ann Milton out for. He’d be back on them now with a vengeance—after three years of abstention. She found the energy to pull back the curtains and open the window and then crept gratefully back to bed.

  She was asleep when the phone rang a couple of hours later. She ran to it, hoping to get there before the noise penetrated Amiss’s semi-coma.

  ‘May I speak to Robert Amiss, please? Donald Shipton here.’

  ‘Would you mind if he rang you back? He’s asleep at the moment.’

  ‘Lucky devil,’ said Shipton with feeling. ‘Yes, of course. How is he and who are you?’

  What an admirably direct man, she thought. Presumably he liked to conserve his energy. ‘He’s having a good sleep, so I expect he’ll be OK when he wakes up. As you can imagine, he was very upset last night. I’m a friend of his—Rachel Simon.’

  ‘Well, Miss Simon. I’m not surprised he’s upset. I’ve been in a right state myself. And now I’ve got the press after me. They seem to think I’m running some kind of slaughterhouse.’

  Rachel uttered some commiserating words.

  ‘But you’ve got enough on without listening to my troubles. The press know about Robert. Some idiot mentioned his name to them, but I don’t think they’ve got his number yet. It’s only a matter of time. You’d better be ready for them. They’re quite up to going through the Amisses in the telephone directory.’

  ‘Thank you for the warning.’

  ‘Now, tell him to forget about the office for the rest of the week. I’ve arranged compassionate leave for him and all his staff, but Bill and Melissa have come in anyway. I don’t think we’ll crack under the pressure.’ He gave a cynical snort and said goodbye.

  Rachel sat by the telephone for a couple of minutes with her head in her hands, assessing the likely demands of the day. After making a call to the embassy, she took the phone off the hook and headed for the bathroom and a contemplative shower. Twenty minutes later she was sitting at Amiss’s desk scribbling a few sentences for the benefit of the press. Shuddering at the inevitable fatuity of the final draft, she replaced the receiver. It took only two minutes for the first journalist to strike.

  ‘Sorry. He’s not here. He’s staying with friends.’

  ‘Can you tell me how to get in touch with him?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. He’s incommunicado. But he’s given me a press statement.’

  Dammit, she thought defensively, as she attributed to the hapless Amiss such phrases as ‘deeply shocked and appalled’, events like this generate only banalities. As she finished off with ‘I regret that I can cast no light on this terrible tragedy’, she had the comfort that the journalist seemed perfectly satisfied.

  Four tabloids later her equanimity was beginning to crack. When she answered the telephone yet again her voice sounded harsh and abrupt even to her own ears.

  ‘It’s all right, Rachel. It’s Jim Milton. I infer that you’ve been having a tough morning.’

  ‘On top of a tough night, Jim. But no doubt it’s been worse for you.’

  ‘All in a day’s work,’ said Milton wearily. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Hasn’t woken yet. But he was pretty bad until he finally got to sleep at about 4:00 a.m. After you’d gone he just went on and on about his stupidity in not thinking of Charlie.’

  ‘I wish I could help,’ sighed Milton. ‘But it’s no good trying to pretend that Charlie couldn’t have been saved if we’d had his name. But doesn’t he realize that he saved the lives of Melissa Taylor and probably one of Graham Illingworth’s family as well?’

  ‘It didn’t seem to be any consolation.’

  ‘But no one else thought of Charlie Collins. He’d been gone from PD for over three months.’

  ‘Well, I wish you’d point that out to him, Jim. He’s likely to be more receptive now.’

  ‘I’ll call in when I get a chance. I’ll have to take some kind of statement from him anyway.’

  ‘You’re not free for lunch by any chance?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m up to my eyes, but I could come if you think it’s important to see him soon.’

  ‘I just think it might help if he was forced to face up to the full story now that he’s sober. He might get things more in perspective.’

  ‘Lunch at your place or in public?’

  ‘Oh, here, I think. I don’t think he’ll be fit to go out.’

  As her mind flashed to the one egg that appeared to be the only food in the flat, Milton said, ‘I’ll bring lunch. And my Detective Sergeant, if you don’t mind. He’s a good bloke, Sammy Pike. Mention his name to Robert. He may remember my telling him a story about him a few months ago. See you 1:00-ish.’ As Rachel went to the kitchen to make tea, her heart went out to this domesticated policeman.

  Two hours later she was feeling a sense of achievement. She had cleaned up the flat, fobbed off the local newspaper and a London radio station, and Amiss had been persuaded to get up, shower and dress. Though he was hardly light-hearted, he was showing more resilience than she could have hoped. The promise of Pike’s visit had awakened his interest and he had shown some animation in telling her of the dispute over the Milton dinner table concerning Milton’s lie about Pike’s aberration. She had expressed no opinion on the issue. The moment was not propitious for the luxurious exploration of moral dilemmas.

  She tried to look incurious when Pike arrived. He was a placid-looking man in his early forties. Where he might have looked solidly comforting in uniform, in his plain clothes he looked like a man in search of anonymity. What distinguished him from any other deferential subordinate was the doglike devotion he displayed towards his boss and his obvious anxiety to adapt to the informality of the occasion. Immediately after introductions had been effected, he gathered up the packages that he and Milton had been carrying and headed off towards the kitchen, where he cheerfully refused all offers of help and set to buttering bread and making complicated sandwiches as if that was what he voluntarily did for a living.

  Amiss began shamefacedly. ‘I’ll ring Ann this afternoon and apologize for being such a trial to her last night.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing, Robert. She specifically told me to say that she was delighted to be able to help and you’re not to ring her up unless you want her. All this is bad enough without you f
alling into a state of abjection because you showed the weakness of a normal human being.’ He turned to Rachel, who was emanating approval of this robust approach. ‘How long are you staying?’

  ‘Till Sunday.’

  ‘And your plans, Robert?’

  ‘I’ll stay away from the office until Monday. Apart from anything else, I’ve got to go to four funerals, if they don’t clash.’

  ‘They won’t,’ said Milton, tossing across a piece of paper. ‘Chaps from the local forces have been liaising with the families to make sure they’ll at least have the consolation of as big a turn-out as possible. If you look at that list you’ll see that you can make all of them between Thursday morning and Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘You’re getting through the post-mortems pretty fast, then.’ The choking note in Amiss’s voice caused Milton and Rachel to look at each other in alarm. They were thankful at the interruption caused by Pike’s arrival with bottle and glasses. As he poured the wine Amiss said, ‘Not for me, thanks. I made enough of a fool of myself last night.’

  ‘Robert,’ said Milton evenly. ‘I came here because I thought you might be able to help me. I did not expect that you were going to indulge yourself by acting like a cross between chief mourner and self-flagellator. I have on my hands two widowers, one widow and a pair of bereaved parents. Additionally, I have to contend with co-ordinating the work of three separate police forces, dealing with a popular press that has gone delirious with excitement and incidentally trying to find the reptile responsible for this mayhem. I understand your distress, but I need you to rise above it and give me the kind of support you gave me when we first met. I want information—not remorse.’ As their eyes met, Rachel looked on and wondered whether this tactic would prove to be kill or cure.

  Amiss’s eyes dropped first. He leaned back in his armchair, stretched out his legs, pushed his hands through his hair and looked at Milton again. ‘It’s Charlie,’ he said finally. ‘I can’t get him out of my head.’

  ‘I know you were fond of him. But no one else thought of him either—even those who had worked with him for a damn sight longer than you. It was the most natural thing in the world to think this whole nightmare was confined to PD. Think of how you’d be feeling if you hadn’t made the connection in the first place. Or made it and been too self-doubting to risk making a fool of yourself. You must realize that ninety-nine people out of a hundred would have thought the idea too far-fetched and would have let the whole thing go.’

  Pike, who was standing by with two plates of sandwiches, intervened unexpectedly. ‘That’s right, sir. That Information Officer. He thought you were daft at first. Would usually have taken a lot more convincing, but said you seemed to know what you were talking about.’

  ‘Middle-class confidence,’ said Rachel.

  Amiss smiled wanly and stubbed out his tenth cigarette of the morning. ‘I’m grateful to all of you and I’ll try to be positive.’ He reached forward, helped himself to a glass of wine and raised it in the direction of Milton. ‘To another successful collaboration.’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ said Milton approvingly, as they all drank the toast. ‘I’m only on this case because of you. It took long enough to persuade the local forces that the Yard had to direct this, and my superiors only put me on it because they were impressed by what you had done and I admitted to being a friend of yours. My Chief Superintendent has helped by being out of action with a broken leg.’

  ‘What have you established so far?’

  ‘The preliminary pathology reports indicate that all four victims died of a massive dose of strychnine. It’s a super-toxic poison and about 100 milligrams is the normal lethal dose. Our murderer doctored each chocolate on the top layer of the six boxes of chocolates with about 150 milligrams. They were very sweet chocolate cream that disguised the bitter taste of the strychnine.’

  ‘Thorough chap,’ said Amiss, putting down the sandwich he had begun to eat and reaching for a cigarette. ‘Sorry. Melissa’s indoctrination is slipping. Thorough person.’

  Milton realized the effort behind Amiss’s attempt at a joke. He said gently, ‘I’ve got to tell you now the worst thing, Robert, because I don’t want you to find out from anyone else. It’s one of the most vicious poisons there is. Once it begins to affect the central nervous system it causes breathing difficulties and convulsions, and gives rise to intermittent spasms of extreme pain.’

  ‘How long does it take to die?’

  ‘It varies, but roughly an hour.’

  Amiss sat silently for a few moments and then suddenly rose and rushed to the bathroom. They could hear the sounds of violent retching. Rachel followed him and returned quickly.

  ‘He says he’ll be all right when he’s had a couple of minutes on his own.’

  He was back before their uneasy silence had been broken. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That was just too much on top of my last night’s excesses. Nothing against your sandwiches, Sammy.’

  Rachel felt a rush of affection towards him deeper than any she had previously experienced. He looked over at her and smiled.

  ‘All this will make a man of me yet. If a wet like Jim can become impervious to grisly deaths, so can I. Carry on, Jim. How was it done?’

  ‘All the parcels were sent first-class letter-post on Friday from the main post office near the office. There were six in all—one each for Melissa, Edna Crump, Val Illingworth, Gloria Farson, Jill Collins and Fran Short.’

  ‘So why didn’t they arrive on Saturday?’

  ‘Each one had a typewritten note stuck on saying “Please don’t deliver before first post Monday 14 February, St Valentine’s Day.” The Post Office, bless their romantic souls, obliged and kept the parcels back.’

  ‘Smart murderer.’

  ‘Very smart. That way he ensured the women were on their own when they received the chocolates and assumed they were from their husbands.’

  ‘Why didn’t any of the wives…?’ asked Rachel. ‘Sorry. I’ve thought of the answer.’

  ‘I bet you were going to say “Why didn’t any of the wives ring up and say thank you?”,’ said Amiss.

  ‘I was. But they just weren’t given to phoning their husbands at work.’

  ‘Right,’ said Amiss. ‘That’s the cruel thing about it. All these guys were either careful about money or hard up. Phone-calls from far distant homes during peak hours were only made in emergencies.’

  ‘To continue,’ said Milton, looking anxiously at his watch. ‘Tiny’s wife succumbed to the temptation first, and she died sometime mid-morning. Thank heavens Tiny had that dental appointment and was home earlier than usual. If he hadn’t phoned you, it could all have been much worse.’

  ‘I wondered why he did phone me. It wasn’t necessary.’

  ‘He says it was because he thought you’d give him some support. He likes you. Or so he told the officer who took his statement.’

  Rachel was relieved to see that the impact of this was not lost on Amiss. He looked almost happy for a moment. Then his face became serious again. ‘And the others?’

  ‘No one else touched the stuff until late afternoon. Gloria Farson was surprised to get a present which she could only assume came from Tony. She thought they should celebrate his uncharacteristic generosity by opening them together ceremoniously.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Their seven-year-old son arrived home from school at four o’clock. He had his tea and wandered alone into the living room. He was a greedy little chap, apparently, and when he saw the box he ripped it open and took one. By the time she heard him screaming, called the ambulance and tried to comfort him, it was too late to get in touch with Tony. The office was empty.’

  ‘Edna?’

  ‘She was on a diet, but she obviously couldn’t resist having one at afternoon tea-time. She was on her own, and wasn’t discovered until the police arrived and saw her corpse through the living room window.’

  Rachel looked anxiously at Amiss. She had to ask it
for him.

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Charlie and his wife had been having a bit of a coolness, so though she assumed the chocolates were from him, she wouldn’t open them. I think she wanted some kind of reconciliation scene first. He came home, saw the chocolates and shouted out, “What’s this, then? Something from one of your boyfriends?” Pulled the wrapping off and took one. He had the best chance of survival of any of them. He was the biggest, and the ambulance got to him within fifteen minutes. But his heart was none too strong, and the strain on it so great that he was dead on arrival at the hospital.’

  Rachel took Amiss’s hand and squeezed it. ‘And the others?’

  ‘Melissa you know about. Graham Illingworth’s wife, it seems, was also either working up to or recovering from a tiff with him. So she didn’t open the chocolates either. He’s beside himself with relief over it. Especially since he heard about Tony’s kid. Keeps going on about how it could have been his little Gail.’

  Amiss looked up. ‘That rings a bell. Something from the dinner dance.’ They looked at him hopefully. ‘No. It’s no use. I’m too befuddled still. Can’t think clearly. It’ll come to me.’

  ‘Robert, we haven’t come here to grill you. Have we, Sammy?’

  Pike shook his head sympathetically. ‘Mind you, sir, I’m noting this down as a preliminary interrogation, but saying that Mr Amiss was in bad shape and couldn’t be of much assistance at this time.’

  ‘Quite right. Sammy and I can’t stay any longer. We’ve got a meeting this afternoon with the relevant officers from the three forces. I’m going to interview the main dramatis personae myself in due course, but I’m getting the local people to take care of relatives, neighbours and so forth. My Chief Inspector will be in charge of the routine investigations of sources of supply, checking with post office staff and that kind of thing. Motive’s the real bugger. We haven’t got anything yet. It’s either a lunatic, or someone who so hated one of the women in question he was prepared to sacrifice six or more people just to spread the risk of being discovered.’