Death of a Prosecutor

by Wendy Soliman

  They walked briskly and in silence. Riley disciplined himself to think like a seasoned detective accustomed to dealing with violent death. He could not permit his personal feelings to cloud his judgement. There was nothing he could do for Sir Robert now, other than to find his killer and ensure that he was brought to justice. There was a poetic sort of irony about the situation that was not lost on Riley. Sir Robert, he knew, would have appreciated it too.

  By the time they arrived in the courtyard outside Sir Robert’s chambers in New Square Passage, a small crowd of curious passers-by had gathered. Harper and Peterson had managed to hold them back, for which Riley commended them. They had also had the presence of mind to cover the body with a blanket that had been produced from somewhere pending the arrival of the doctor, ensuring that news of Sir Robert’s demise had not yet been made public knowledge.

  ‘Take those people’s names,’ Riley said to Carter and Soames, flapping a hand at the crowd. ‘They all look as though they work somewhere nearby. Can’t think why else they would be here. Keep anyone employed by Sir Robert to one side. I shall want to talk to them personally. Oh, and keep a weather eye out for anyone who doesn’t belong,’ Riley added, aware that the killer might well be lurking close at hand, assuming he had got away with it and ready to congratulate himself on a job well done. Criminal minds were often irrational.

  Riley turned towards Salter and offered him a grim nod. ‘If you’re ready, we’d best take a look,’ he said.

  Salter knelt, shielding the body from general view with his broad back as he pulled the blanket aside. Sir Robert lay face down, his thick salt and pepper hair lifting in the breeze. His hat had tumbled from his head, rolled for some distance, and now rested on its brim in the gutter. Sir Robert’s arms were flung wide, his leather briefcase with its brass furnishings trapped in place by the weight of his body but otherwise apparently undisturbed. A furled umbrella had dropped from his left hand and rested on the cobbles a short distance away.

  Riley knelt too and concentrated upon what he saw, pushing his personal feelings to one side. First impressions at murder scenes were vital. But this killing had taken place out of doors in a cobbled courtyard that left no immediately obvious clues for them to follow. The murderer had chosen his location well.

  ‘Not a robbery, obviously,’ Salter said, speaking in a respectful undertone as he carefully detached the case from under Sir Robert’s torso.

  ‘No, Jack, not a robbery.’ Riley replied, his anger rising to the fore despite his best efforts to suppress it. The dagger had been thrust with considerable force between his friend’s shoulders, leaving only the ornate handle visible. Congealed blood surrounded the wound, the dried rivulets obvious even against Sir Robert’s dark coat. ‘The cowardly bastard who did this crept up on Sir Robert from behind. I think we can safely assume it was a man. I cannot imagine any female having the physical strength to thrust a knife in quite so deeply—or the taste for such a violent attack, either. Besides, Sir Robert was a tall man and the knife is angled downwards, implying that his assailant was taller than him.’ Riley nodded ‘Definitely a man, but that doesn’t preclude a woman being the brains behind the attack.’

  ‘The wife of one of the men Sir Robert had gaoled.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  Salter nodded. ‘Whoever did this must have observed Sir Robert’s movements for long enough to know that he habitually arrived early in the mornings when he was due in court, giving them the opportunity to catch him alone. It would have been too early for anyone else to be around to see what he did, so he was more likely to get away with it.’

  ‘That’s my initial conclusion, too.’ Riley stood and brushed his hands together. ‘It implies that the killer couldn’t get to him anywhere else.’

  ‘Not one of your lot then,’ Salter said with a wry grimace.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t jump to conclusions quite yet, Jack. “My lot”, as you so aptly describe the aristocracy, are perfectly capable of a little subterfuge when the occasion requires it, and back-stabbing is not uncommon. Ah, here’s Maynard.’

  ‘Lord Riley.’ The doctor raised a hand in greeting but did not smile. ‘I hear tell that the victim is Sir Robert. I hope I heard wrong.’

  ‘I’m afraid you did not,’ Riley replied.

  ‘Damned shame.’ Maynard sighed as he kneeled to examine the body, shaking his head repeatedly. ‘The devil’s work,’ he said simply. ‘My first impression is that Sir Robert didn’t see his assailant and had no opportunity to fight back. I’m sure he’d have dropped his briefcase and set about the man with his umbrella if he’d had the chance to, which clearly he did not. Anyway, I can confirm that life is extinct,’ he added for formality’s sake. ‘My opinion is that he has been dead for less than two hours. Rigor mortis has not yet set in.’

  ‘He was found about an hour ago,’ Riley said.

  ‘Well then, you have a fairly tight timescale in which to pin down any potential suspects. That might make your work a little easier.’

  Salter grunted, as aware as Riley was that the field of suspects could fill a concert hall. The possibility of finding the miscreant was, he realistically accepted, slight to non-existent. But that would not, Riley vowed, prevent him from putting every available resource into the search.

  ‘You don’t need me to tell you the cause of death,’ Maynard added.

  ‘No, doctor, but if you could tell me who owned such an unusual dagger, I should be much obliged to you.’

  Maynard nodded. ‘It is unusual, and expensive,’ he agreed.

  Riley felt sure that he had seen one very similar to it somewhere. Quite recently too. He would steel himself to examine it in greater detail once Maynard had removed it from the victim.

  ‘An expensive dagger,’ Salter said, ‘implying that the murderer was himself well-heeled.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Riley replied. ‘He would be a fool if he used his own knife to commit the crime, and this murderer is no fool. He planned this crime carefully.’

  ‘And probably stole the dagger to put us off the scent,’ Salter said with an expressive eye-roll. ‘God forbid that we’d be blessed with an idiotic perpetrator for once.’

  ‘I’ve seen enough,’ Maynard said. ‘More than enough. If you have no objection, Lord Riley, I will arrange for the poor man to be taken away.’

  Riley nodded. ‘Please. I don’t want people gawping.’

  Or gloating, he added silently. Inevitably, Sir Robert had made his share of enemies in his line of work, and not just in the form of the men whose fates he had sealed in front of the Old Bailey’s judiciary. There were just as many barristers who envied his success rate. Riley would need to consult with Lord Isaac Arnold, a prominent defence barrister and close friend of Riley’s mentor, Lord Torbay. Torbay’s stepson Tom was one of Isaac’s juniors and might be able to shed light on the legal world’s in-fighting. It would not be wise to assume Sir Robert’s killer was an aggrieved convict. He might have had ongoing disputes with colleagues, or indeed family members.

  ‘Anything interesting come out of scoping the crowd?’ Riley asked Soames when he and Carter rejoined him. The four detectives removed their hats and bowed their heads in respect as Sir Robert’s body was covered by a blanket and taken away on a stretcher. His remains would now suffer the added indignity of a post mortem.

  ‘No sir, not really.’ It was Carter who answered him after the body had been loaded into the mortuary’s wagon. ‘There are three people who have arrived for work at Sir Robert’s chambers. A junior barrister and two clerks.’ He pointed to the three in question, who were all being kept a little apart from the others. They looked pale and shocked. ‘They seem to be aware that the victim was Sir Robert. We didn’t tell them, but well, you know how bad news spreads.’

  Riley did. ‘Don’t allow them into chambers. I want to take a good look around first, but I need to visit Lady Glover and break the news to her before I do anything else. Stay here,’ he
added to Carter and Soames. ‘Take Sir Robert’s employees to the local coffeehouse and stay with them. Don’t interview them or tell them anything. I’ll do that myself when I’ve finished at Snow Hill. But if they say anything you think might interest me, make a note of it.’ The two detectives nodded and trotted off to do their duty. ‘Right, Salter.’ Riley pushed his hat back on his head and gave a resigned sigh. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

  Chapter Two

  Riley and Salter walked to their next destination, which was Sir Robert’s home in nearby Snow Hill. He lived with his family in a large, well-appointed apartment and, Riley reflected as they strode along, he and his sergeant were replicating the walk that Sir Robert must have undertaken countless times during the course of his long career. The walk he had made for the last time that very morning. A liveried porter admitted them to the building and asked them their business. Their status as detectives saw them directed to the first floor, the entirety of which was taken up by just two dwellings. Riley knew which one was Sir Robert’s apartment, since he had visited it on several happier occasions. It ran the length of the back of the building, with tall windows and balconies looking out over the rear garden and the elegant dwellings beyond.

  He offered Salter a grimace as he rang the bell, which was eventually answered by a uniformed maid. She recognised Riley and allowed the two men in.

  ‘Is your mistress at home?’ Riley asked, handing her his hat.

  ‘I will enquire, my lord, if you would be so kind as to wait here.’

  Lady Glover, an elegant if somewhat insipid lady in her late forties with a nervous disposition that Riley suspected Sir Robert had sometimes found difficult, emerged from the drawing room herself to greet Riley in the entrance hall. Her smile faded when she observed that he was not alone.

  ‘Lord Riley,’ she said, recovering her poise but still raising a hand to her almost non-existent bosom, as though experiencing a premonition of foreboding. There again, two policemen visiting at such an early hour was bound to have set her nerves jangling. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure.’

  ‘Lady Glover. I regret this is not a social call. This is Sergeant Salter.’

  Lady Glover’s brow wrinkled. ‘Is it Norman?’

  ‘Perhaps we should sit down.’ He gently steered Lady Glover back into her drawing room, avoiding answering the question about Norman, the couple’s twenty-five-year-old son who had been constantly at odds with and a severe disappointment to his father. Spoiled and indulged, his various misdemeanours justified by his doting mother, Riley had not considered the possibility of the boy having committed patricide. Frankly, he didn’t think he had the backbone for violence. Even so, family members were always the first suspects in a murder investigation, and Riley would have to take an early opportunity to interview Norman.

  With Lady Glover re-seated in the drawing room and with the door closed against the curious maid’s ears, Riley prepared her for bad news.

  ‘It is Norman!’ she cried, clutching a handkerchief she had produced from her pocket. ‘That wretched boy will be the death of me yet.’

  ‘What has he done this time?’ Riley asked, feeling bad for quizzing the lady when he had such terrible tidings to impart, but aware that he was simply doing his job. He anticipated a fit of the vapours at the very least and would get nothing useful out of his friend’s wife once she’d heard the news.

  ‘Apart from arguing with his father and staying out all night…’ She sighed and offered Riley a brittle smile. ‘Robert doesn’t understand his sensitive nature. They’re always at each other’s throats. But if this isn’t about Norman…’

  ‘I am so very sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, Lady Glover,’ Riley said gently, ‘but I regret to advise you that Sir Robert was attacked—’

  ‘Attacked?’ Lady Glover’s hands flew to her cheeks and clutched them so hard that she left impressions of her fingers on the soft skin. ‘Is he badly hurt? Is he asking for me?’ A lone tear trickled from one eye. ‘I keep telling him that it’s foolish to go to chambers so early in the morning, when no one is about. He inevitably makes enemies in his line of work, as I am sure do you.’

  ‘It’s worse, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Worse?’ Lady Glover looked up at Riley through pleading, tear-stained eyes, clearly not understanding—or not wanting to. ‘What could possibly be…’ A gut-wrenching sob escaped her as realisation could no longer be thwarted. ‘No! Please tell me he isn’t beyond hope. There must be some mistake. I cannot bear it.’

  Riley exchanged a helpless look with Salter, who appeared to be as uncomfortable as Riley felt. They had broken this type of news more times than Riley could recall, but never to someone personally known to either of them. Lady Glover looked to be on the brink of a breakdown. Riley should have anticipated a response of this nature and taken more time to prepare her. He wondered if there was anyone in the house better qualified to handle her at the present moment than he appeared to be. Norman would be worse than useless and her twin daughters, at eighteen, were too young to be of much help.

  Riley stood, poured a measure of brandy from the decanter on the sideboard and forced it into Lady Glover’s hand.

  ‘Drink this,’ he said in a persuasive tone. ‘You have had a terrible shock. It will help to settle your nerves.’

  Lady Glover took a healthy sip, spluttering as the fiery liquid hit the back of her throat. She looked small, frail and bewildered.

  ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why is the entire world set against me?’

  ‘Mama?’ The door burst open and the twins stood on the threshold, clearly wondering why their mother was consuming brandy when it was not yet eleven in the morning.

  ‘Lord Riley?’ One of the girls—Clara he thought, but it was hard to be sure, they looked so similar—said.

  ‘Oh my dears!’ Lady Glover threw up her hands, narrowly avoiding drenching herself with brandy. Riley took the glass from her and placed it on a side table. ‘The most terrible thing has happened.’

  Riley shared another look with Salter as the girls absorbed the news with widened eyes. They fell sobbing upon their mother and Riley knew he would get nothing useful from any of them that day. He wondered if he ought to summon their doctor to prescribe sedatives. Where the devil was Norman? If ever a man’s calming influence was required…

  As though lured home by the nature of Riley’s thoughts, Norman Glover appeared in the doorway at that precise moment, still clutching his hat in his hands.

  ‘What the devil is all this racket…oh, Lord Riley.’

  Norman Glover’s evening clothes looked damp and dishevelled. Most likely he had been playing cards all night. Either that or games of a more intimate nature. A good looking young man, popular with both sexes, his disinclination to undertake gainful employment had been a constant source of dispute between father and son. Well, Riley thought, he had unexpectedly become head of the household and would presumably gain control of his father’s hard-earned blunt. Hopefully Sir Robert, an organised and pedantic man, would have had the foresight to place restrictions upon its expenditure to prevent Norman from running through it and leaving his mother and sisters destitute.

  There were no obvious signs of blood on Norman’s clothing, but that didn’t necessarily imply innocence. His father had been attacked from behind and the knife had not been withdrawn, minimising the amount of blood that escaped from the dying man’s back.

  ‘Oh, Norman my dear! It’s too terrible.’ His mother abandoned her daughters and held out both arms to her son.

  ‘I say, what’s going on?’

  ‘It’s Papa,’ one of the girls said simply, having regained her composure with disconcerting speed. ‘Someone has killed him.’

  ‘Killed?’ Riley watched Norman’s reaction closely, feeling relieved when he looked totally baffled. If he had previous knowledge of the crime then he should consider a career in Drury Lane. But there again, if he was the guilty party he’d had time to
practise his reaction. The prospect of an appointment with the hangman would be enough to bring out the Hamlet in the most unlikely of people. ‘What are you talking about, Denise? He’ll be at chambers. When is he not?’

  ‘No, idiot, that’s what Lord Riley came to tell us.’ The girl brushed tears from her cheeks. ‘Someone killed him this morning.’

  ‘Good God!’ Norman sank into the nearest chair and looked as though he too would benefit from a tot of brandy. Another one. At close quarters, Riley could smell alcohol on his breath. Norman dropped his head into his hands and shook it from side to side. ‘I don’t believe it. Why? Who?’ He glanced up at Riley, as though expecting answers. ‘What the devil are we supposed to do now?’

  ‘Firstly,’ Riley said briskly, ‘you need to take care of the ladies. They are all in shock. I would suggest summoning your doctor and having him prescribe sedatives.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. That’s what I shall do.’ He walked to the far side of the room, presumably expecting Riley to follow him. Riley duly obliged. ‘What happened?’ he asked in an undertone.

  ‘He was attacked as he arrived at chambers, as far as we can tell. Some cowardly bastard attacked him from behind. He would not have seen it coming, and he had no chance to defend himself.’

  ‘The fool!’ Riley was surprised by the passion behind Norman’s outburst. ‘How many times did I tell him that it was dangerous to prosecute criminals? They have no ethics and blamed him rather than their unlawful activities when they were found guilty. He would have done better to follow Lord Isaac’s example and defend the rogues…well, those who could afford to pay for a decent defence. But oh no. Father was passionate about keeping us all safe by removing dangerous criminals from the streets.’ Norman hunched his shoulders, looking suddenly vulnerable and close to tears, which surprised Riley. ‘And look where it’s got him.’

  ‘You assume then, that a disgruntled criminal is responsible?’