There was a flurry of voices
“That him?”
“Think that’s him.”
“They all look the bloody same.”
Three men, one in plainclothes, a light-coloured suit, and two soldiers, all with kerchiefs tied round their faces.
“What’s he doing?”
“Covering over his shit.”
“Whole place is a shithole.”
The first soldier held the light close to Mbutu’s face as he sat.
“You the one who found the white woman and her daughter?” asked the plainclothes one.
“Who wants to know?”
“You can cut that out, shit-boy,” snarled a soldier.
The other laughed.
They had a hand under each armpit and were hoisting him to his feet.
“You’re to come with us,” said the plainclothes one.
“Right, you heard the man.”
They marched him back through the human mass, walking so swiftly his tired legs kept giving out under him.
“And they said you were fast,” scoffed one soldier.
More laughter.
“For a coon.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll shut your bloody mouth ‘til asked.”
The plainclothes man was carrying the lamp.
“Up here,” he said.
There were only a few tents in the camp. This one, a large sturdy structure behind the fire pits, contained sacks of grain. There were no staff around. The walking turned into a drag, the toes of Mbutu’s boots scuffing along in the dirt.
The plainclothes man nodded. The two soldiers manhandled Mbutu up against the central supporting post, as solid as a ship’s mast. One worked quickly with some rope to tie his hands behind it.
Ominously, the plainclothes one removed his bowler, his jacket and started rolling up his sleeves.
Please, if this is a place of God, show mercy.
“Right, we want to know what you know,” he said.
“Know?”
“The Sutton woman has told us everything.”
It is a lie, the Sutton woman cannot talk.
“Where did you go? What did you see?”
“I don’t—”
In a sudden whirl, the man’s fist landed square in Mbutu’s face, splitting his nose open, sending excruciating, electrifying pain shooting up into his brain.
Mbutu collapsed, sliding down the post to the floor, slumping in an awkward pile.
The man casually went to a trestle table, upon which had been set a bowl of water and a towel. He carefully and theatrically washed his hands.
“Right,” he told the soldiers. “Pick him up.”
I can hardly see, hardly stand.
He took his time.
“Again. What do you know?”
The blood dripped from Mbutu’s nostrils and choked in the back of his throat. He had barely had a chance to open his mouth when the knuckles connected with him again.
Chapter Forty
“Please, sit,” said Lady Verity and indicated for them to take the settee. She placed herself on a high-backed chair, the coffee table a buffer between them.
“You knew Leonard?” she ventured, her voice tremulous.
Her use of the past tense suggested that she had already learned of his fate.
“He was my CO,” said Finch.
“Captain Finch … yes, yes, Captain Finch. He spoke very highly of you.”
“I was with him up until the retreat … the redeployment. Then, in Cape Town. On leave. The police called me in to identify the—”
He checked himself.
“It’s all right, Captain …”
She pulled an embroidered lace handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed an eye. She seemed to stiffen, correcting herself, not wishing to betray anything.
“Major Cox,” she added, “was a liaison for the Nurses’ Initiative. A very helpful man.”
“He was a good man, yes,” echoed Finch, trying not to sound too insincere.
Lady Verity eyed Annie.
“New South Wales, you say?”
“Yes.”
“You know we lived in Victoria for two years. Melbourne. Wonderful city.”
Finch noted her use of ‘we’. Matrimonial solidarity.
She regarded Annie further.
“You look familiar.”
“I came here to the house, about a month ago. Tea.”
She scrunched her face in willed recollection.
“Cape Town Military Hospital. The Australians. How could I forget?”
Annie was not sure how this was meant.
“You’re all doing a splendid job,” Lady Verity added, affecting the tone of officialdom.
“Thank you.”
She returned to Finch.
“But Captain, might I ask why—?”
“Why we are here?”
She eyed them further. No matter the last-minute sprucing up, their clothing and boots were dirty. There was a rip at the hem of Annie’s skirt. Finch had lost some buttons from his tunic front. He was still conscious that they smelled.
“Lady Verity, we have some explaining to do and I suspect not much time in which to do it.”
“I see.”
“But if it’s not too much of an imposition at this difficult moment, might I turn this around and ask what you know of Major Cox’s death?”
The word upset her. She tried to stop her voice from cracking. She picked at an imaginary thread on her skirt.
“I don’t understand.”
“What exactly do you know? What were you told of the circumstances?”
“If any information is required of me, I shall be communicating it to the police myself,” she scolded.
Finch thought for a moment of Ans Du Plessis.
“Lady Verity, I’ll not beat about the bush. Lives are at stake here.”
It seemed to strike a chord. Lady Verity rose, hastened to the door, opened it, checked there was no one on the landing, then closed it again.
She returned to her seat but this time kept her voice low.
“Please, you cannot come here like this making wild and fantastical accusations.”
“I’m accusing no one.”
She regained her detached air.
“This is a time for grief, for reflection on a life cruelly lost,” she declared, falsely sanctimonious. “Major Cox has a wife, you know, a family …”
It seemed to Finch a rather tardy, rather hollow consideration.
“But if you are really that insistent on knowing, I was informed of Major Cox’s passing by one of our committee members. He said that Leonard … Major Cox … had been killed … murdered … while taking a hansom cab to his lodgings.”
“That is correct.”
“An opportunist, some thug trying to steal money, they thought. But I then read in the newspaper it was one of his peers, this Kilfoyle, who had been arrested.”
“That is correct.”
“I had heard the name Kilfoyle before … Leonard … Major Cox … said that …”
She returned to her handkerchief. A fissure in the facade.
“I’m sorry, you must forgive me.”
“Not at all,” soothed Annie.
“It’s just, for such a kind man, a soldier. To meet his end like this …”
She fought it valiantly but began to crumple. Finch afforded her the dignity of composing herself.
“Lady Verity, I assure you, we are absolutely not intent on causing you further distress.”
“Then why—?”
He gave a theatrical cough.
“May I speak frankly?”
He could see that she feared a revelation. Her eyes darted here and there then settled on Annie.
“Nurse Jones knows all that I do,” said Finch.
“Oh.”
“In Cape Town … the police … I was placed in charge of repatriating Major Cox’s effects. Included within were some personal items th
at—”
“Personal items?”
“Correspondence … letters.”
“Do you have them?” she cut across.
“No.”
There was a glimmer of fear.
“Then who does?”
“I’m not sure,” he confessed. “They were stolen from my person.”
“Stolen? Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. And rather artfully.”
Her voice cracked again.
“By … by whom?”
Finch shrugged.
Lady Verity got up and walked to the window. She stood and gazed down to the street, moist-eyed. She remained that way while Finch sketched out the details of what he knew and what was permissible to share – but he mostly spoke about the letters, not the intimate details of them but enough to suggest that he was familiar with their contents.
“You had no business reading them,” she snapped. “Whoever this woman may be, such things are a private matter.”
Finch explained that he had had no idea of the identity of ‘V’ until the final telegram. He had not meant to pry. He had, he said, and stretching the truth a little, peeked at the letters because they had been passed to him in confidence with the express wish that he evaluate whether they should be forwarded to Cox’s family.
“I am a doctor,” he added. “The sanctity of privileged information is my stock in trade.”
Her tone softened.
“I see,” she said.
She came back over and sat down. Her hands were shaking.
“There is also this …”
He undid the engraved Zeiss watch and handed it to her. She turned it over and stroked the inscription.
“No matter the scrupulous secrecy, I’m afraid you were always going to give yourself away,” said Finch. “The last item of correspondence. A telegram. You signed with your Christian name …”
“It’s all right, Captain,” she sighed. “You no longer need to press your point.”
She lowered her head and gazed at the watch’s words, caressing them. Eventually her voice came, painfully, sadly. She even affected a little ironic laugh.
“I’m afraid I’ve been a bit of a fool, haven’t I?”
She handed the watch back, but Finch gestured that she keep it. She smiled her thanks and nodded at a porcelain water jug on the drinks cabinet.
“Please, would you mind?”
Annie went over, poured some into a nearby whisky tumbler – fine, ornate crystal – and handed it to her. She looked up.
“You say that what is said here is confidential?”
They nodded. She sipped her water then dabbed her handkerchief in it, patting at her throat and neck.
Said Finch: “We need to know if there’s anything that has happened recently that may have led to Major Cox’s death—”
“Why on earth should I tell you?”
“… and that if you have any suspicions at all, can shed any light, then please make this information known to the police … to the detective leading the investigation, Inspector Brookman.”
“And compromise myself?”
“Brookman is a fair man. I’m sure there are ways of guaranteeing anonymity.”
She exhaled a sarcastic hiss.
“I doubt it.”
Then paused for a moment, mulling it over.
“No one is judging you, Lady Verity,” stressed Finch.
“Come, come, Captain. Everybody will be judging me.”
“I know this can’t be easy,” he said.
She blushed and dabbed at her neck with her wet handkerchief again.
“Very well. I met Major Cox … Leonard … about six months ago,” she said, rather terse. “As you have deduced, and there’s no point in hiding it, yes, we became friends – more than friends. You see, my husband and I are married but have lived separate lives for some years. I married young – 18. He was already established in his career. In his 30s … To be a ministerial wife, foreign postings, beautiful homes, it can turn a girl’s head.”
Annie thought for a moment of her own ex-fiancé Edward.
“As a ministerial wife I have certain responsibilities … duties. What I didn’t appreciate was that, as part of those duties, I was expected to accept when my husband sought …”
She hesitated over the word.
“… ‘relations’ elsewhere. He has a mistress in Cape Town, you know. Will be staying with her tonight. The Cabinet is in late session. Of course, if any of this got out … Leonard … this whole beastly business … it would be I who was cast as the scarlet woman.”
Annie reached over to lay her hand on Lady Verity’s.
She drew breath and continued.
“I can’t deny that when I first met Leonard he presented something of a thrill. War Office function. The first man to approach me, to pursue me in 30 years. Can you imagine? Before I got trapped in this …”
“It’s okay,” soothed Annie.
“… suffocated by this blasted Imperial charade.”
She released Annie’s grip to wipe her eyes.
“It was meant to be a bit of fun, but feelings changed, developed—”
“Lady Verity,” Finch interrupted. “I know from the tenor of your letters, your final telegram, that there was a panic, an urgency … that you felt that someone was on to you …”
“We wished to avoid discovery, naturally.”
“Pardon me, but it seems to me to be about something more.”
Her eyes had been locked on his but flickered away for a moment.
“You see,” he said, “I do not believe that Cox was killed randomly at all.”
She bit a knuckle.
“Might I ask if you’ve read the newspaper today?” Finch added.
She threw a quizzical look.
“I looked at the Argus and the Gazette at breakfast, yes.”
“Not the late editions?”
She shook her head.
He produced the page he had ripped from the Argus, laid it on the coffee table between them and spun it round to face her. She picked it up with the care of an archivist handling a literary relic, and took a minute to ponder the news of Kilfoyle’s death.
“Are we supposed to feel sympathy for this man?”
“Lady Verity, I’m not sure that Kilfoyle murdered Major Cox at all. I think he was set up. I think someone got to Kilfoyle before he could demonstrate his innocence. It certainly deflects from Major Cox’s death being about something … more.”
“More …?”
All of a sudden she looked scared.
“That is what I have been trying to determine.”
“You think blackmail?”
It was a likely assumption, but again Brookman’s voice echoed in his head.
“Possibly. Has anyone approached you in the last day or two?”
She ignored him, she was talking to herself now.
“It would ruin him, ruin us. No, they couldn’t possibly—”
“They? Who’s ‘they’?”
Her eyes pleaded with him.
“Captain Finch. Please, be a friend to Leonard in death as you were in life. Leave him be.”
“Lady Verity, it is not my wish to play the amateur sleuth. Far from it. With some vigour I have been trying to contact Inspector Brookman. Unfortunately I have been in transit to the Front. We were in Paarl this afternoon when I read the news of Kilfolye’s death. What with the theft of the letters, I decided to head straight to you.”
“Thank you.”
“But on our way here someone followed us, started shooting at us.”
“Shooting? Are you sure?”
“Someone tried to kill us all right,” said Annie. “We gave him the slip in the vineyard. Square, stocky fellow … red hair—”
At this description, Lady Verity stood up.
“You must go! Go now! It’s not safe.”
She hurried to her bureau, reached underneath, felt around and pulled free a small brown letter envelope. She
came back and pressed it into Finch’s hand.
“What is it?”
“Please … Go …!”
She ushered them to the door. Satisfied that the coast was clear, she then hustled them along the landing. Though carpeted, the wood creaked heavily. They went through glass French doors and onto a balcony overlooking the rear garden, with an iron spiral staircase that led down to the patio. The lawns stretched off into the darkness.
“This time of night, with my husband gone, there are just two men, posted out the front—”
A male voice came from behind them.
“Ma’am? … Ma’am? … Is everything all right.”
“Fine, Paul!” she bellowed.
She turned to Finch and Annie.
“Go now! FAST! Your lives are in danger.”
Finch held the envelope.
She put her hands to his, cupped them and curled his fingers round it.
“I’m afraid you are right, Captain. This is about something of great consequence. Something I feel in my conscience I ought to make known.”
Her eyes darted back and forth. Now he understood. She was being watched.
“By your own staff?” Finch whispered.
She nodded. There were footsteps on the landing. She turned.
“It’s all right, Paul. Just getting some air.”
She spun back to face Finch again.
“God speed.”
Annie was already halfway down the steps.
“Captain. Come on!”
Lady Verity hesitated over something, then said it.
“Moriarty … You must find Moriarty.”
The man called Paul was almost upon them.
“Lady Verity … ma’am?” he called again.
“Really, I have to go,” she said.
And with that she went back inside.
Chapter Forty-One
The pain was like nothing Mbutu had ever experienced. His nose was broken, no question about that. Though he could not raise his hands to check, he sensed the bridge had been shattered. Mashed cartilage had pulped up underneath.
He tried to open his mouth. His jaw clicked awkwardly on the left side. With his tongue, through the metallic-tasting pool, he probed around and felt several upper teeth loose. Two or three had been broken, their edges ragged and sharp. He tried to spit out the fragments, but his effort was pathetic, just a long viscous drool.
However, the greater agony came in his neck where it had been jarred back and forth by the blows, an electric jolt shooting up behind his left ear.
No Ordinary Killing Page 27