Diplomatically, she refrained from making a rejoinder, since she and her husband did not necessarily share the same views on this subject. To Doyle, the integrity of the justice system was hugely important, since without it, a frustrated public could take law enforcement into their own hands with even more disastrous results. Acton, on the other hand, tended to be a take-matters-into-his-own-hands sort of person, if he felt the price of justice was too dear, or too disruptive.
Much struck, she paused and examined this particular line of thought. It was rather a surprise, all in all, that Acton was willing to turn this unholy corruption mess over to the ACC; it was not as though he hadn’t singlehandedly cleared out entire swaths of London’s underworld in the past, and surely the present situation wasn’t much different.
As they descended the stairs, she tried to come up with a reason why her renegade husband was acting against his usual inclinations; for some reason, he was exposing all the blacklegs and allowing the justice system to handle the corruption scandal, even though the public was certain to lose faith, and the whole miserable process was wearing him down to a thread.
Hitting upon a possible reason, she asked in a casual tone, “Will they be wantin’ to promote you, d’you think? They could use you to restore the public’s trust.” Although Acton could certainly have been promoted into the CID brass well before this, he had always been content to remain in the field, as a Senior Investigating Officer. It was just as well; he was not one to suffer fools, was Acton, and diplomacy was definitely not his strong suit. Not to mention if he were promoted, he’d probably have less opportunity to conduct his questionable activities. On the other hand, perhaps having more power would actually be helpful to his questionable activities, and with this in mind, she listened carefully to his response.
“They have broached the subject, but I’ve asked that I not be considered. I plan to spend less time at work.” He paused, there in the dim stairwell, to turn and place a gentle hand on the small bump of her abdomen. “I want to make certain that you are not subject to any further unpleasantness.”
“Unpleasantness” apparently being a diplomatic way to describe being shot, poisoned, and blackmailed—although to be fair, the blackmailing attempt was a paltry one, and easily outfoxed by the fair Doyle. She smiled, to show that there were no hard feelings. “Whist, husband; never had a nicer time, my hand on my heart.”
“You mustn’t be upset—not in your condition.” He bent his head, and moved his hand fondly over her belly.
Covering his hand with her own, she shook her head slightly. “I think you’ve forgotten who you’re married to, Michael—bein’ upset is my natural state.”
He met her eyes, a gleam lurking within his own. “Nevertheless.” He turned and tucked her hand into his arm so they could continue their descent side-by-side, even though there really wasn’t enough room. Affectionately, Doyle leaned to rest her head on her husband’s arm for a moment, and firmly ignored the prickling of her scalp.
4
“Any luck?” Doyle asked, as Acton pulled the Range Rover up to Holy Trinity Clinic.
Acton rang off from his call. “Not answering; he is probably in surgery.”
“Shall we call his practice, to find out whether he’s even here, today?” If Doyle remembered aright, McGonigal did his charity work in the afternoons, after he’d first taken care of his paying customers. It went without saying that Acton was well-aware of this, yet he’d willingly taken the time to make this side-trip, otherwise known as a wild goose chase. Working hard to pull the wool over her eyes, he was, but she was working just as hard to winkle out his secrets, and it remained to be seen who’d prevail.
“Let’s go into the office, first,” Acton decided, as he set the gearshift. “I’d like to ask for a list of personnel, so that no one is overlooked.”
Doyle nodded, willing to go along. It went without saying that Acton had no intention of actually solving this strange case, but perhaps she could get a glimmering of why this would be.
No one answered their knock at the office door, and so Doyle showed Acton around to the grated back door, where the workers and volunteers checked in. Almost immediately upon hearing Acton’s knock, the door swung open, and they were faced with a very agitated middle-aged man. “Oh—oh, who are you?”
“Police,” said Acton, holding up his warrant card.
His face reddening, the man gaped at them for a moment. “Oh—I see. Who called you?”
Doyle stared back at the man with a surprise that was equal to his own, as he was emanating all kinds of distress upon beholding a brace of detectives on his doorstep. It would be too much to hope for if he was their perpetrator—nothing was ever this easy—but nevertheless, she focused on him like a laser beam; for whatever reason, this fellow didn’t want to spend the morning with Scotland Yard’s finest, nosing about.
“I am Chief Inspector Acton, and this is Detective Sergeant Doyle,” Acton began. “We are here to investigate a murder.”
“He’s in there,” the man conceded, backing away to open the door wide, and indicating an interior office with a jerk of his head. “I don’t know how long he’s been like this—I just came in, myself.”
Doyle lowered her gaze to the office floor behind him, and then blinked in surprise. Clearly visible through the interior doorway was the body of a man, lying face-down in a congealed pool of blood. She was too astonished to respond for a moment, but Acton stepped forward, cool as glass, and cast her a look that she interpreted to mean that she was to say as little as possible. This was not a hardship, as she was having trouble mustering up a coherent thought.
“Identify yourself, please.” For the second time in an hour, Acton crouched to carefully scrutinize a corpse.
“Jason Rowan. I work here, in the records department.”
“And who is the victim?” Acton pulled his mobile, and listened to Rowan’s response as he scrolled up the CID’s number.
“He’s Charles Traynor. He works in records, too.” He paused. “Or he did, I guess.”
Not very torn up about this murder, thought Doyle, and knew that Acton had noted it too.
“Who were you expecting, when you answered the door?” Acton asked.
“No one,” the man replied quickly. “I was just going to ring up the police.”
Doyle brushed her hair from her forehead, in the signal they used when she wanted to let Acton know that the man was lying.
After calling in the homicide, Acton rang off, and asked, “Tell me, Mr. Rowan, when was the last time you saw the victim alive?” With a gesture, he indicated to Doyle that he’d like a pair of gloves from her field kit.
“Last night. We left around the same time, at closing. When I came in this morning—” the man shrugged, “—here he was.”
Having gotten over her initial surprise, Doyle began a check-down of the preliminary factors that could be determined without a forensics lab. That the man had been killed in place seemed evident; there was blood spatter on the wall, and a tell-tale circle of blood on the carpet beneath his head. Two bullets to the back of the head was the apparent cause of death, which meant the murder was execution-style. The killer was a professional, then—that, or he may have been someone who wanted to catch the victim by surprise. There was no indication that there’d been an altercation, and no signs of forced entry.
As she pulled out her occurrence book, she glanced around the small-sized room, which featured a series of dilapidated metal filing cabinets, lined up along the wall. Aside from the body on the floor, nothing seemed out of place, and there were no signs of a search—not a robbery, then.
Carefully, Acton slid a hand into the victim’s back pocket, and pulled his wallet, flipping through the cards therein. “Is this office closed today?”
Rowan shifted his feet. “No. We’re open. We’re closed on Sundays, only.”
“Who else works here?”
“No one, right now. We’re looking to hire a part-time secreta
ry.”
Doyle brushed her hair off her forehead.
Acton leaned back on his heels, and regarded the other man for a long moment. “Tell me about the records in this room.” The sound of car doors slamming could be heard from the parking lot.
Nervously, Rowan glanced up toward the door, and Doyle stiffened, stepping over to block the doorway—hard to imagine that the man would try to make a run for it, but that was the impression she got.
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Acton softly. “And if you touch my sergeant, I will kill you.”
Swallowing, the man decided not to test whether Acton was bluffing—which he wasn’t—and instead, lifted his chin in a show of righteous anger. “I don’t know why you’re being so nasty; it’s not like I killed him. And there’s nothing here anyone cares about—only old patient records.”
Yet again, Doyle brushed her hair off her forehead.
“Sir?” PC Shandera, from the earlier crime scene, knocked on the door jamb. “I’m here with a response team—we don’t have any SOCOs as yet; we’re a little short on personnel.”
“Poor man; you’re busy as a fishwife at Lent,” Doyle remarked.
But the PC was staring past her, at Rowan. “Why—why, hello, Dr. Mayne.”
With a curse, Rowan whirled, crossed his arms before his face, and leapt through the window, the glass shattering onto the pavement outside, as Shandera vaulted over the window sill after him, in hot pursuit.
5
Whilst Acton spoke to the Met’s Desk Sergeant on his phone, Doyle thumbed through the files in one of the filing cabinets, trying to sense if there was anything special about them—sometimes, her intuitive abilities came to the fore when she handled material objects. Thus far, however, nothing leapt out; the folders seemed to be garden-variety files for patients who’d been served by the clinic. Since a majority of the patients were maternity cases, most of the files were slim and abbreviated, detailing routine births.
Acton rang off, and she asked, “Did they nick ʼim?”
“Yes, he’s in custody. They’ll start with obstruction of justice, and work from there.”
She glanced up at him, sensing his abstraction as he watched the SOCOs for a few moments, his chin resting on his chest. With a finger holding her place, she offered, “He may have fled the scene like a guilty crook, Michael, but when he said he didn’t kill him, he was tellin’ the truth.”
“No, not the killer,” Acton agreed absently.
Although she didn’t like to interrupt his train of thought, she thought it best to add, “I don’t think he is truly a doctor. When he said that he worked in the records department, it was true.”
Acton lifted his head. “No; not a medical doctor. PC Shandera knows him as a guest instructor at the Crime Academy—a forensic psychologist. We are checking into his credentials now.”
Surprised, Doyle stared at him. “Well, there’s a crackin’ wrinkle. Hard to believe he’s a records clerk, in his spare time.”
“Yes, it certainly is.” Acton checked his watch. “I’m afraid I have a meeting I cannot miss, and I would ask that you accompany me back to headquarters.”
“We’re a little shorthanded, here,” she ventured, knowing it was hopeless—he didn’t much like this latest turn of events, and wanted her well-away, in case there were any more window-leapings in the offing.
Gently, he reached over to close the file drawer for her. “Come along, Sergeant.”
“Aye, then.” With a resigned air, she peeled off her gloves and decided she could hardly blame him; they’d already suspected that Holy Trinity was a nest of vipers, and now—with any luck—they might be able to prove it.
Acton gave final instructions to the Evidence Officer, and then was silent, as he walked out to the car with Doyle. After he saw her settled into the passenger seat, she eyed him as he came around to the driver’s side. “I have two questions.”
With a small smile, he slid in, and started the car. “Let’s hear them, then.”
“I’d like to know your thoughts on this latest murder, and I’d like to know why you aren’t sharin’ those thoughts with your support officer, here.”
He glanced over at her in amusement, before looking over his shoulder as he backed out. “I think it’s rather obvious what happened, here, and I would be very surprised if my support officer hasn’t come to the same conclusion.”
Acknowledging the truth of this, she promptly put her own suspicions into words. “It must be connected to the corruption scandal, somehow. I’ll bet my teeth these two were purging incriminating records—and I imagine our victim took a gander at the records, and decided to engage in a little blackmail on the side. Unfortunately, he tried to blackmail the wrong people, and paid the price for his sins. This would also explain why our Mr. Rowan—or whatever his name is—was so very shaken up; he knew it was not a random crime, and wasn’t about to call in the police.”
But as usual, her husband was a step ahead of her. “Did you notice any evidence of purging?”
Staring at the road ahead, she frowned. “No. No paper shredders—although maybe they didn’t want to destroy the records, just move them somewhere else, to avoid any inconvenient subpoenas that might get themselves served.” She glanced over at him. “I have to say that they looked like ordinary patient records to me, but when Mr. Rowan—or Dr. Mayne—said they were ordinary records, it wasn’t true.”
“No, I very much doubt they are ordinary records. And recall that the victim returned to his job site after hours, accompanied by his killer.”
She’d forgotten this detail, which went to show you why she was a DS, and he was a much-decorated DCI. “Oh—oh, I suppose that means that the killer—a blackmail victim, perhaps—forced this fellow to open the files and then killed him, after removing the blackmailing material.” She paused. “And that would also mean that whatever-it-was that the killer wanted removed from the files is no longer there—although we may be able to cross check; there must be a patient list, somewhere in their computer system. Hard to believe they’d keep everythin’ in hard copy, only.”
“I would not be surprised,” he said slowly, “if all corresponding computer entries have also been erased.”
“Oh—well, that’s very thorough of the killer, but I suppose if you’re goin’ to the trouble of killin’ people to avoid bein’ blackmailed, you’d best be thorough about it.”
She looked over to him, as he still seemed a bit distracted, and prompted, “I suppose that’s why it was necessary to force the victim back into the office—otherwise the killer would just break in, pry open the file cabinet, and find it for himself. He wanted all trace of whatever-it-is removed, and he needed the victim to log in to the computer.” But—as she followed this logic—this course of events seemed to make little sense, and she frowned. “Then why would the killer kill the victim on site? It’s a big, crackin’ red flag that there’s somethin’ fishy in the records. Why didn’t he get his file, have Traynor erase whatever-it-was, and then kill Traynor elsewhere, so no connection would be made?”
But Acton had a ready answer. “I believe there is something in the records that the killer wanted the CID to see.”
With a frustrated puff, she blew a tendril of hair off her face, and dropped her head back against the headrest with a plunk. “This is too complicated, Michael; it’s a simple creature, I am.”
He smiled. “There is nothing remotely simple about you.”
“You’ll not lead me off-topic, my friend. Spell it out, if you please.”
But as was his usual, Acton preferred to lead her to his theory. “What was the corruption scandal? How did it work?”
She scowled at the car’s ceiling. “The blacklegs were forcing immigrant women into prostitution by threats.”
“And?”
The penny dropped, and she turned to him. “They were doin’ a bit o’ blackmailin’ too—like blackmailin’ the government officials who’d indulged in said prostitution. Mother a
’ mercy, Michael; the records must contain the blackmail information.”
“In some form,” he agreed. “Perhaps encoded. I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Struck with a sudden thought, she sat up. “I wonder if the records can tell us what happened to Elena? Oh, Michael—let’s call in, and have someone look under ‘Munoz’, quick-like.”
“An excellent idea.”
At his words, she paused in the act of pulling out her mobile, her scalp prickling like a live thing, and slowly turned to stare at him, open-mouthed.
He glanced at her in surprise. “What is it, Kathleen?”
“Do you know—” she swallowed, almost unable to get the words out, “Michael, do you know where Elena is?”
“No,” he assured her in perfect truth, taking her hand to clasp it in his. “I do not know where Elena is.”
“Oh—oh, sorry; whoa, for a moment, I had my wires crossed.”
She laughed to cover her confusion, but was absolutely certain that he knew something; she’d had a brief glimpse of it, something big, and having to do with Elena. After a moment of trying to come to grips with this alarming bit of insight, she decided to cast a lure, so as to gauge his reaction. “I wonder if there is a connection—perhaps one of Munoz’s relatives decided to kill this fellow, Traynor. They looked like the sort of people who would say ‘off with their heads’ without a second’s hesitation. And then the body was left on site, because it was an honor killin’.”
“A vengeful relative wouldn’t have wanted to erase the record. It would be more likely if the motivating factor was blackmail.”
Doyle listened to his response, and decided she was being fanciful; there was no connection to Munoz, here, and even if there were, Acton certainly wouldn’t be hiding it from her. He knew she was miserable on Munoz’s behalf, and the last thing he wanted was for his wife to be made miserable—or more miserable than she’d already been made.
Looking out the window, she mused, “Then it must have been a professional, hired by the blackmail victim to kill the blackmailer, and wipe the records. That makes sense; the scene was clean, with two shots to the back of the head—all the earmarks of a professional hit. But he left the body there because he wanted us to find the incriminatin’ records, even if he didn’t want us to find him.” She knit her brows, considering this paradox. “Mayhap it’s an honorable hit man, if there is such a thing.”
Murder in All Honour: A Doyle and Acton Mystery (Doyle and Acton Scotland Yard Mysteries) Page 3