Riley Rochester Investigates
Death of a Debutante
Copyright © Wendy Soliman 2017
ISBN: 9781483599427
Edited by Perry Iles
Cover design by Jane Dixon-Smith
This e-Book is a work of fiction. While references may be made to actual places or events, the names, characters, incidents, and locations contained are from the author’s imagination and are not a resemblance of actual living or dead persons, business, or events. Any similarities are coincidental.
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The Author – Wendy Soliman
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Author's Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
About the Author
Author’s Note
In October 1829 the new headquarters of the Metropolitan Police was set up at 4 Whitehall Place. A grand five-storey building with a public entrance that opened onto Great Scotland Yard, the name is still connected with one of the finest police services in the world.
The attempted assassination of Queen Victoria in 1842 led to the establishment of the first detective department, with eight gentlemen detectives, dressed smartly, free to roam the streets of London as they saw fit.
By 1869 the department was better organised, and boasted one superintendent, three chief inspectors, three inspectors and more than two hundred officers in all. Shortly afterwards it was decided to establish detective offices in local divisions, and the experienced officers of Scotland Yard were often called to the provinces to lead investigations into more serious crimes.
None of the chief inspectors, to the best of my knowledge, was named Danforth. He is a product of my imagination, as is Riley Rochester. However, the resentment and suspicion the detective department in general was obliged to withstand in its early years is a matter of fact.
Chapter One
London: Summer 1870
The full-length windows at one end of Riley Rochester’s reception room were flung wide in the optimistic hope that a little air might permeate the house. The cloying heat of a summer’s day in London guaranteed frayed tempers and flying fists, adding to his uniformed colleagues’ workload. Riley’s experience told him that countless thirsts would be quenched in the dim ale-houses of Whitechapel to the east. Long-suffering wives and the denizens of the whorehouses near the docks would have a lot to put up with tonight. With the thick drape curtains tied back and the lighter muslin nets swaying in the beginnings of a breeze, Riley considered himself fortunate. As an unmarried man he could return home at the end of an arduous day, strip down to shirtsleeves without fear of giving offence, and savour the rich dinners served to him by his manservant, the inappropriately named Stout.
While Stout matched Riley’s height of six feet, he outweighed him by a good three stone, every ounce of which was made up of solid muscle. His perpetually fierce expression did little to diminish the aura of menace that he exuded without conscious thought. He was not a man one would wish to encounter in a dark alley, nor would one be foolish enough to challenge him were that situation to arise. Stout was a man of few words, fixed opinions and absolute discretion. He was fiercely loyal to Riley, dedicated to his service and the most ferocious gatekeeper known to man. Several of Riley’s contemporaries, envious of Stout’s myriad talents and unswerving loyalty, had tried to entice him away from Riley’s employ, thus far without success.
Riley toyed with the stem of his wineglass, glad of a respite from duties that seemed infinitely more onerous at the height of a heatwave. The Detective Department’s headquarters at Whitehall Place was now commonly referred to as Scotland Yard, given that the public entrance to the building was situated on that street. Although the department was now almost thirty years in the formation, only the previous year had its effectiveness been acknowledged within the corridors of power. Many within the Metropolitan Police had reasons of their own for wanting to see it fail, but it had survived all attacks upon its integrity more or less unscathed. It now boasted its own superintendent, three chief inspectors and a handful of divisional inspectors, one of whom was Riley. The department’s success meant that local divisions of detective officers were being formed across the country, and part of Riley’s duties included attending those local offices when a policeman with his rank and experience was required to lend a hand in solving especially heinous crimes.
As the younger son of a marquess, Riley had been required to prove his detection skills many times over in order to earn the respect of the men under his command. More effort had been required from him, he knew, than from officers from more proletarian backgrounds. His uniformed colleagues remained suspicious and resentful, the older hands failing to understand the need for elitism within the department. His own connections were equally critical of his chosen profession, accusing him of lowering his own and his family’s standards. They failed to grasp, or chose not to believe, that times were changing.
The days of the old guard of gentleman detectives were coming to an end. No longer were high ranking police officers free to roam London as they saw fit. The cementing of the Detective Department into the city’s social and criminal landscape brought with it a more established hierarchy of rank, as well as a greater degree of accountability and the beginnings of a system of records on the criminal underclasses. The police force was becoming a stronger entity, its roots finding not only the cracks in London’s underworld but also those that existed within the higher echelons of society, where planners and masterminds often dwelt, hidden and protected by rank and reputation. The son of a marquess would know how to approach such people, how to deal with them in matters of great sensitivity and how, where necessary, to bring them to book.
Against such a background, the appointment of Danforth as Riley’s superior had not made Riley’s life any easier. Danforth resented Riley’s title and connections, seeming to think he had used his influence rather than intellect to rise to his position within the department. It was early days but Riley had an uneasy feeling that he would never manage to convince a man who, for some reason, seemed annoyed by Riley’s success rate. Danforth wanted to see Riley fail, but was quick to take credit for his successes. Sighing, Riley picked up his glass and moved back to the open window. Looking out over the rooftops of London, the spires of the churches and the cranes of the more distant docks, he took another sip of his excellent burgundy, trying not to feel guilty about the mountain of paperwork he had left Jack Salter, his sergeant, to struggle through.
Riley
watched the sky change colour, from the dusty steel-grey heat of the day to a mixture of high cloud and orange skies to the west as the sun dropped below the black silhouette of London’s jagged horizon. It was Riley’s first evening to himself in over a week. He and Salter had just solved an especially baffling series of jewel thefts from the homes of the well-connected, and had managed to restore most of the stolen items to their owners. It had been gruelling work—and the intrusive questions he had been obliged to ask hadn’t endeared him to all of the victims. For that reason and others, he felt he had earned this brief respite.
He toyed with the idea of making an impromptu appearance at one of the events he had been invited to attend that evening. A single man was always in demand and could attend functions at short notice without giving offence. He glanced without much enthusiasm at the invitations lining his mantelpiece and dismissed the idea. He was bound to encounter his mother wherever he showed his face. She lived in London permanently now, and had the uncanny knack of seeming to know where he planned to be before he knew it himself. The prospect of dressing up in evening wear in such relentless heat and putting up with the equally relentless drone of London’s elite at play failed to compete with the notion of a good book that had nothing to do with crime, followed by an early night.
‘I must be getting old,’ he muttered, draining his glass and reaching for the decanter. He caught sight of his image in the ornate full-length mirror at the other end of the room. Dark hair, slightly dishevelled since it was unadulterated by the application of Rowlands Macassar Oil that supposedly kept a gentleman’s hair and whiskers bright, fell across blue-grey eyes. Close up, Riley knew that those eyes revealed thinly-veiled amusement and a permanent hint of cynicism. In Riley’s line of work, experiencing the horrific nature of criminal undertakings daily, one didn’t survive without becoming a cynic.
Amusement, Riley had found through a process of trial and error, was the best defence against the constant web of lies thrown at him. He struggled to recall the last occasion upon which a suspect had voluntarily spoken the truth without severe and at times not particularly ethical interrogation at the hands of Jack Salter and some of his more enthusiastic constables. Riley’s upbringing and background had imbued him with an innate sense of fair play that had infuriated many a low-ranking constable seeking to obtain justice by more direct methods. Riley soon realised that it would be impossible to overcome the old ways unless he earned the respect and loyalty of Jack Salter. It proved to be a particularly arduous task but if Riley succeeded that respect would pass vicariously into the lower ranks. So he had kept at it and Salter’s loyalty was now unquestionable. He had a good team behind him, but the process of building it accounted for the strands of grey in his hair and the cynical expression in his eyes.
He sighed inwardly at the sound of the door knocker. It was gone nine in the evening. This couldn’t be a social call.
‘Chief Inspector Danforth, my lord,’ Stout said impassively from the open doorway.
Damn! ‘Chief Inspector.’ Riley put his napkin aside and stood, aware that something of great magnitude must have occurred to bring Danforth to his door in person. The two men shook hands. ‘Take a seat,’ Riley gestured to an overstuffed couch at the side of the room near the fireplace. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’
This was the first time Danforth had graced Riley’s town house in Sloane Street with his presence. He stood in the centre of the one reception room that ran the length of the ground floor and acted as drawing room, dining parlour and library combined. Since Riley had neither the time nor inclination to entertain, and because his bachelor status excused him from such obligations, the room was more than adequate for his purposes.
Although Danforth was Riley’s superior, he stood awkwardly in the large room, turning his hat through his fingers as if he was the underling forced to call on his master. Riley, sensing Danforth’s discomfort, watched as his gaze took in the good quality furniture, the elaborate marble fireplace and modern decorations. Modest by his family’s standards, Riley’s townhouse would still be considerably larger and more salubrious than Danforth’s own middle-class home in Clerkenwell. Danforth’s forthright views upon Clerkenwell’s reputation as Little Italy—his views upon immigrants in general for that matter—were well known within the Detective Department. A married man struggling to feed and educate eight young children, Danforth probably had many reasons to resent Riley’s elegant and spacious accommodation. In the stifling evening heat, Riley didn’t have the energy to care.
‘Damned weather.’ Danforth ran a finger beneath his collar, agitating the spare folds of flushed skin that hung over it. ‘Can’t cope with this heat.’ He threw himself onto the couch, perspiration shining on his bald pate. ‘Wish it would rain.’
‘A glass for the chief inspector, Stout,’ Riley said, waiting for Danforth to get to the point.
‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ Danforth replied, waving a hand towards Stout. ‘No time for socialising. Nor have you, Rochester. You’ll be going out immediately.’
Riley had already surmised that much for himself. ‘Tell me, sir,’ he requested, in no mood for the man’s attempts to exert his authority.
‘There’s been a death. A suspicious death.’ Riley wasn’t surprised to hear it. Deaths in a city the size of London were commonplace, and he knew the heat would bring a few extra bodies to the banks of the Thames by morning. But why he was required to investigate it in person was less certain. The duty inspector and his team could surely deal with it easily enough. ‘One of your lot.’ Danforth’s nose twitched, as though the recently renewed sewage system in the nearby river had failed to do its job.
‘Ah.’
‘Needs careful handling.’ He shook his head, setting his fleshy neck wobbling as he mopped his brow with a large handkerchief. He looked around Riley’s room, his face mirroring envy and disdain in roughly equal measure. ‘Shouldn’t be that way. All murders should be treated the same, but we both know that’s not the way it works. The ruling classes demand preferential treatment, even when they’re dead, apparently. All eyes will be on us with this one, Rochester, and the department’s enemies will be ready to jump all over us if we ruffle the wrong feathers, don’t you see?’
Riley did see, all too clearly. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. If he solved the case quickly, then those who resented the aristocracy would complain about the same preferential treatment that Danforth appeared to resent. If he didn’t solve it, his enemies would see it as the aristocracy, with Riley’s collusion, closing ranks to protect one of their own. Either way, London’s gentry would view Riley with suspicion, resenting his interference in their smooth and comfortable lives—except those close to the victim, of course, which is where he knew he would find his best starting point. The whole business would be a fine balancing act between the blunt forces of the law and the delicate sensibilities of London’s elite. That, presumably, was why Danforth was handing this case to Riley, hoping to see him fail.
‘Who has died?’ Riley asked.
‘Haven’t the foggiest idea. That’s your job. All I can tell you is that we’ve had a report from Lord Ashton’s residence of a sudden death.’
Riley glanced at the mantelpiece. An invitation to Lady Ashton’s soiree that evening sat upon it. It was the one he would have been least likely to accept, had he decided to venture out at all. Lord Ashton was overbearing and Riley didn’t find his company congenial. Just as well, he thought. Being present at the scene of a suspicious death would do little for his career prospects and give the chief inspector ammunition to use against him, casting doubt upon his judgement and integrity. In other words, he would be criticised for permitting a murder to take place in a house where he happened to be a guest.
‘Very well. I shall attend the scene immediately.’
Danforth nodded. ‘Salter is already there, as are some uniformed constables, keeping the scene intact. The police doctor has been summon
ed to examine the victim.’
‘Very well.’
‘I don’t need to tell you how important this is, do I, Rochester?’
Riley didn’t ask why Danforth was bothering to labour the point. He knew the answer already. Danforth never wasted an opportunity to exert his authority over a man he resented simply because he had been born into a position of privilege. Riley didn’t have to work in order to survive, that much was true, but neither was he amusing himself by dabbling at a career to satisfy some inner conscience. Whatever Riley undertook, he did with commitment and precision. He relished the cerebral challenge, the independence from his family and any excuse to distance himself from his well-meaning yet persistent mother. A mother who was determined to see him married, even though her elder son, the current marquess, was already married and diligently producing the next generation of Rochesters.
‘You do not, sir.’
‘Very well then,’ Danforth looked at the ornate cornice-work that decorated Riley’s ceiling with undisguised contempt. ‘I assume you’re familiar with Ashton’s address.’
‘I am.’
‘Then get yourself round there and keep me informed every step of the way. If there’s anything I need to know I expect to hear it from you first. Are we clear? The commissioner is taking a personal interest in this case.’
Riley watched as the chief inspector heaved himself to his feet, huffing and puffing as he took his leave. For a moment he felt sorry for him, strutting about in his buttoned up suit, sweating in the heat and pretending not to be intimidated by the superior class of a junior officer. But Riley suspected that Danforth wanted him to fail, if only because it would see criticism heaped upon him by his peers. An observer would have seen the amused twinkle in Riley’s blue-grey eyes turn to a bleaker expression of cynicism.
‘Do you need a hansom?’ Stout asked, returning to the drawing room after showing Danforth out.
Death of a Debutante (Riley Rochester Investigates Book 1) Page 1