by Ian Simpson
As he tried to go back to sleep, he realised he was between a rock and a very hard place. If he treated Linda Swanson’s murder as another literary agent killing, Chapayev would rant about him to the press and make a nuisance of himself. If he concentrated on the South Ossetians and Russians, he would be the laughing-stock of the Met within days. And Jumbo would not be happy.
Worst of all, he craved a drink.
* * *
‘I find it hard to believe any of our suspects is guilty.’ Flick sounded as depressed as she felt. The morning had been a complete waste of time. At first she had thought the girl was pretending, but after quarter of an hour’s questioning, became convinced that she had never heard of Candy Dalton, and had no brother called Pavel, in or out of prison. Now, with Osborne off sick, she had called a meeting with Baggo and Peters to assess progress.
‘But whoever is doing this is clever and will not stick out like a sore thumb,’ Baggo said.
‘Johnson is a real villain, the only one with a record, so I make him favourite,’ Peters said.
‘Wallace is a trained killer, and he can do more than he pretends, I’m sure,’ Baggo said.
Flick said, ‘Candice Dalton is a mass of contradictions, and she feels very deeply about things, I think.’
‘That medieval freak sounds pretty scary,’ Peters said.
Flick pointed to the pile of A4 sheets on the table in front of them. ‘Well, I think we should go through what’s left of our long list, entry by entry, and see if we can find any more who are worth interviewing.’
The others murmured agreement.
Flick took the first one off the top of the pile and scanned the synopsis. ‘Cilla Pargiter has written Buried Alive. An archaeological dig in Egypt goes badly wrong when the spirit of a murdered priest seeks revenge for his premature burial.’
‘I hope they left lots of nice things for him in his tomb, or did they just do that for Pharaohs?’ Baggo muttered.
Flick glanced at him. For no apparent reason, he had brightened up as the day had gone on.
* * *
‘My office, Scotland Yard. Now. I don’t care what you’re doing.’ Jumbo’s voice squeaked down the line. It was hardly the greeting Osborne had wanted on his return to work. The previous day had been his first day’s illness since he became sober, and he had wanted a quiet, easy morning.
There was nothing for it but to obey. Osborne cursed as he drove across town. Jumbo was an ass, but a dangerous one. Palfrey had not been included in the summons, so he would not be able to hide behind her immaculately-pleated trousers. He would have to be careful.
He found the Chief Superintendent pacing up and down. His eyes blazed and there was sweat on his dome. He threw down a red-top newspaper. ‘Well?’ he shouted.
Osborne had not seen it. On the front page was a picture of Chapayev, mouth open and pointing a finger. The headline read: RUSSIANS KILLED MY AGENT.
‘Oh,’ Osborne said.
‘The Russians are furious, the Foreign Office is furious. So is the Home Office. And I am incandescent.’ The last word came out as a cross between a bellow and a squeak, but from someone of Jumbo’s size and rank, it scared Osborne.
‘Relations between us and the Russians are very delicate, and they are important to us. I warned you the other day. Yet here’s this man saying you’ll hunt down the killer regardless of diplomatic immunity or human rights. Why, Osborne? Why?’
‘Well, sir, I saw Chapayev before you spoke to me.’
‘But you’ve no business saying that. And don’t deny it. Chapayev recorded your conversation.’
Osborne’s heart sank. ‘Oh. Sorry, sir. I never meant that to reach the public.’
‘Of course you didn’t, you fool. But it did.’
‘If you want me off the case, sir …’
‘No, I do not.’ Jumbo put his face in Osborne’s. ‘In case I have failed to make myself clear to you, I want you to find someone we can charge with the other literary agent killings. And Ms Swanson’s murder will be among the charges that accused faces. Do you understand me?’
‘Yes sir. Will that be all, sir?’
‘Try to cover up that black eye, will you? And I don’t want to know where you got it.’ As Osborne reached the door he added, ‘This may well be one of your last cases. You’ll no doubt be looking forward to a comfortable retirement. I hope nothing happens to put that in jeopardy.’
Seething, and tortured by his newly-awakened craving, Osborne drove slowly towards Wimbledon Police Station. As he digested Jumbo’s ill-disguised threat, it occurred to him that Chapayev’s press briefing might, in the end, protect him from scandal. He parked in a quiet street where he sat for a while, chain-smoking and thinking. His eye drifted across the road. There was a row of shops, one of which pulled him like a magnet. He got out of his car and crossed the street.
* * *
‘How are you getting on with your crap crime writers, Felicity?’ Osborne’s mood was bullish when he got back to the nick.
Flick looked at him with contempt. More dishevelled than usual, he sat with his feet on his desk, munching his third doughnut and scratching his crotch. Baggo and Peters exchanged sly grins.
‘We have four main suspects, so far, and it has been difficult to eliminate any of them.’ Flick described their findings, noting that, for the first time, Osborne paid close attention.
‘Is there anyone else worth a look?’ he asked.
‘There’s someone from Dogmersfield we were thinking of visiting.’
‘Dogmersfield? Where’s that?’
‘Hampshire. A country village.’
‘Why?’ He threw the paper bag at the bin, missed, but left a trail of sugar across the floor.
Flick leaned forward. ‘It’s a revenge-based story: a man is found in his bath, electrocuted by a heater that has fallen or been dropped in. And the bathroom door is locked. His wife is suspected, but her lawyer, Phyl Sloane, a woman by the way, investigates. She discovers the handyman who worked on the house is the son of a man who was ruined by the victim years ago, and committed suicide by drowning himself. The handyman fitted one of those safety locks you can unpick from outside, crept into the house, drugged the wife, got into the bathroom and killed the husband, then locked the bathroom door from the outside again. So the murder sort of fits with the grievance.’
‘Who’s the writer?’
‘R. L. Lawson. I don’t know more than the name and address.’
‘I think we should pay a visit this afternoon.’
Flick was astonished. ‘We?’
‘Yes, Felicity. We. ’Cos WE need to quell public anxiety by getting off our arses and making a bleeding arrest. We’re supposed to be policemen, not some middle-class book group.’
Peters cleared his throat before either Osborne or Flick could make their relationship even worse. ‘There’s a lot of stuff in from the lab for the Harvey Nicks murder,’ he said.
‘Give it here.’ Osborne stood and reached out an arm, nearly touching the front of Flick’s jacket.
Peters handed over a thick sheaf of paper.
Osborne groaned. ‘Give us the short version, will you?’
‘Well, gov, the poison was aconite, from Monkshood. They must have squeezed the juice out of a lot of plants, because what was injected was a very strong dose. That’s the main thing. The syringe was common-or-garden, there were no fingerprints on anything. Pretty professional, I’d say. Are we going to have a look at that South Ossetian restaurant? Chapayev was on the phone earlier, looking for you.’
Osborne said quickly, ‘Not today, Danny. We’re all off to Dogfield.’
‘Dogmersfield,’ Flick corrected, her voice icy.
** *
‘Nice place,’ Baggo said to Peters as they drove through the village, homely and attractive, even on a gloomy, damp afternoon. In front of them, Flick, grim-faced, drove while Osborne snored. The M3 had been unusually quiet and Flick had ignored
the speed limit. She and her two backseat passengers wanted the awkward journey to end as soon as possible.
The sat-nav proved helpful, and Flick located Lawson’s address without difficulty. She parked on the verge, got out and slammed her door.
‘Do you think he’s been drinking? Look at that eye,’ she muttered to Baggo as Osborne shook himself and slowly clambered out of the car.
Baggo shrugged. He suspected the boss had been drinking and fighting, but he didn’t want to say so.
Osborne pushed open a squeaky gate and headed up a sloping path to the front door. It was a solid door, weathered, slightly warped, and pitted with metal studs; a door to repel enemies. The house was detached, with a mature wisteria covering much of the stone frontage. The pitched roof dipped in the middle. One slate had detached itself and sat perilously on the gutter above a sash window.
The bell sounded loudly with two rings. A full minute passed before the door was opened and a man peered out. He had a full head of white hair and a pale, lined face.
‘Mr Lawson?’ Osborne demanded.
‘Yes.’ The voice was mellifluous, upper middle class.
‘Mr R. Lawson?’
‘Yes. Who are you?’
Osborne thrust his warrant under Lawson’s nose. ‘We are police officers, and we have some questions for you. We’d like to come in.’
‘Of course, of course.’ Lawson opened the door and shuffled across a dusty, cluttered hall, dominated by a huge, dark Welsh dresser. The officers followed him to a small, cosy room where a TV crime series was blaring from an old-fashioned television. ‘Sit down,’ he said, although Osborne had already occupied the most comfortable armchair.
It took a few moments to turn off the TV and for everyone to find seats. Lawson, a small, neat man, perched on a hard chair which Peters placed in front of the television, facing Osborne.
‘I believe you write?’ Osborne asked.
‘Why, yes.’
‘About crime?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘What else do you write about?’
Lawson looked puzzled. ‘All sorts of things, but you must be here about crime.’ He smiled and touched his right eye.
Osborne smiled back. ‘We just need to have the full picture, Mr Lawson. Have you tried to get your writing published?’
‘Oh yes. But you must know that.’
‘Do you have an agent?’
‘No.’
‘What do you think of literary agents?’
‘From the little I know of them, I do not like them one little bit.’ His voice shook as if he was unused to expressing himself as forcefully.
‘Why not?’ Osborne leaned forward and gestured to Baggo to take notes.
‘I am sure that there are some very nice, honourable ones, but some are just stinkers.’ He pursed his lips and his eyes blazed.
‘And what have you done about it?’ Osborne asked quietly.
‘Nothing. They don’t even have a professional body worth complaining to. Toothless. I think it’s deplorable.’
Osborne looked triumphantly at Flick.
Afraid of what he might say next, she shook her head.
He was not going to be put off. ‘Before we go any further, Mr Lawson, I should tell you that you are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say will be taken down, and used in evidence. If you fail to answer a question, that failure may be founded on in court. I ask you again, what have you done about literary agents? Four have been murdered recently, as I’m sure you know.’
What little colour there was drained from Lawson’s face. ‘I … I haven’t, wouldn’t …’ he stammered, then fell forward and sideways, striking his head on the brass fender.
Flick produced a clean handkerchief, which she used to staunch the gash on Lawson’s temple. Meanwhile Baggo rushed to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water. By the time he returned, Lawson was sitting on the floor, groaning. A minute later, the door burst open and a large woman, several years his junior, with a bust that would have graced the figurehead of a galleon, screamed then retreated to the hall.
Peters needed to hold her wrist to stop her dialling 999. ‘We are the police,’ he repeated as Baggo waved his warrant card in front of her.
Twenty minutes later, Lawson was resting in another room and the woman, Mrs Lawson, was listening, stony-faced, as Osborne tried to explain what had happened.
‘How on earth did you make Inspector?’ she asked when he finished. ‘He is R for Robert Lawson. I am R for Rachel, L for Laura Lawson. I am a retired solicitor, and I have tried my hand at writing crime fiction. My husband is older than I am, and he is not as sharp, mentally, as he used to be. In his prime, he had more brains than the lot of you put together,’ she spat out angrily. ‘He has taken to writing to the local paper about all sorts of things, but mostly about crime, burglary in particular. He had a letter published yesterday, and no doubt thought you were here to talk to him about his theories. So of course it came as a shock when you practically accused him of being a serial killer. I go out to enjoy an afternoon’s bridge and come back - to this!’ She put her face close up to Osborne’s, wrinkled her nose and drew back. ‘Now listen very carefully, Mr Osborne, I want you and your lackeys out of my house within one minute. I don’t want to see any of you ever again, and I shall be complaining to your superiors. I shall take my husband to hospital now, and when he is feeling better, I shall strongly encourage him to sue the pants off you. Now GET OUT!’
Heads down, the officers left.
‘I’m very, very sorry,’ Flick said before Mrs Lawson slammed the front door.
‘Well, she could be a killer,’ Osborne said after they had driven several miles in silence. ‘You’d better be the one to question her, Felicity, but maybe leave it till next week.’
14
Richard Noble’s breathing was laboured as he passed the bottom gate of Hardcliffe’s field. He looked at his watch and cursed; he was still off the pace. This was the third half-marathon he had run in the last two months, and unless he improved he would be lucky to beat four and a half hours. The London Marathon was nine weeks away. Parker was evasive about how his training was going. Typical. He had always played his cards close to his chest. Years after they had first met, how well did he really know Lionel Parker? The stake in their personal race, £500 to Marie Curie, would not bother Noble, but his partner would milk the bragging rights, and that would be insufferable. Why, oh why had he risen to the challenge? Drink, pride and braggadocio. That was a good word; one of his authors had used it recently, a woman with a feel for the richness of the English language.
He tried to keep his stride rhythmical as his route took him along Hardcliffe’s farm road, and into the tulgy wood – that was what he called it. As the dark-trunked, skeletal trees dimmed the late afternoon light, and the pot-holed road rose steeply ahead, he recited Jabberwocky to himself, and wished he might whiffle through the tulgy wood as the Jabberwock had done.
Uphill, he slowed almost to a walk, but kept going. On the brow, he resisted the temptation to stop and recover his puff. Downhill, his stride lengthened. Just round the bend at the bottom, he would turn down the footpath leading past his garden gate. He had less than half a mile to go – for today.
To his right, a deep trench ran along the verge. Hardcliffe was putting in new drainage pipes, but the men were slow. The trench had crept up the side of the road over several months, leaving an untidy, raised trail of infill like the slime left by a snail.
Something caught his right ankle, then his left. As he fell forward, his outstretched hands took the impact with the ground. Suddenly, a shock went through him. He felt excruciating pain and he could not move. Something pushed him to his right. He scraped across the road until he fell and landed on the damp, cold earth at the foot of the trench. The charge of electricity stopped and he tried to move, but a second burst hit him and a boulder landed on his back. Then heavy lumps of clay soil began to
fall on top of him. Remorselessly, they covered his head and body, weighing him down. He could do nothing to save himself. Face down in crushing darkness, he tried to scream, but knew that all his killer would hear would be a muffled, agonised animal noise. He realised that he was about to die and thought desperately of Vanessa, and Gill and Jenny. Then he repeated to himself The Lord’s Prayer. He automatically asked for his daily bread, sincerely begged forgiveness and grudgingly forgave those who had trespassed against him. Then he blacked out. After a lifetime of fine dining, the last thing Richard Noble tasted was earth.
* * *
‘Wallace is one hell of a man,’ Danny Peters told the rest of the team, meeting on Monday morning to discuss progress, or the lack of it. Peters had spent Friday in Bracknell, observing Ralf Wallace’s block of flats in the hope of assessing his incapacity. Unobtrusively parked on the road, he had a good view of the flats. It had been early afternoon before he had glimpsed Wallace, who had emerged in his wheelchair and started to propel himself up and down the car park as fast as he could. But he was not the only observer; three hoodies sat on a wall, swinging their legs and nudging each other.
‘Hey, Spazzy!’ one called.
‘You need a fucking motor for that thing,’ shouted another.
Wallace ignored them and continued his exercise. The hoodie who had called out first jumped down and came behind Wallace. He got hold of the handles at the back of the chair and pushed down, lifting the front wheels and taking control. For some minutes, he steered the chair about the car park in a crazy, zig-zag manner, Wallace shouting at him to stop. Peters was on the point of intervening, but did not want to destroy his cover. As it looked as if the hoodie was going to ram the chair into a corner, Wallace reached down and pulled on his left brake. The chair flew round, causing the hoodie to lose his balance and his grip. Having regained control of his chair, Wallace backed into the corner.