Nine Lessons

by Nicola Upson

  ‘You’re right,’ Penrose agreed, both heartened and deflated by the reasoning. ‘Call her back, will you, and ask her if we can—’ The telephone rang and he snatched up the receiver. ‘Yes, I’ll take it. Put him through now.’ He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and spoke quietly to Fallowfield. ‘Things are looking up, Bill. It’s the clerk from Westbury’s chambers. Perhaps he’s come back early.’

  ‘Can’t wait to get some other vicious bastard off the hook, I suppose,’ muttered Fallowfield with feeling, but Penrose held up his hand; the voice on the line was faint and hesitant, entirely different from the brusque arrogance which had brushed his enquiry aside that morning.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Penrose?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘It’s Geoffrey Bradford, from Goldsmith Chambers. We spoke earlier.’

  ‘How can I help you, Mr Bradford? Has Mr Westbury returned unexpectedly?’

  ‘No.’ There was a pause at the other end, and it seemed to Penrose that the clerk was struggling to hold his emotions in check. Suddenly he knew what the next words were going to be, even before they were spoken. ‘No, he hasn’t returned,’ Bradford continued. ‘Someone from the Suffolk police has just telephoned. Mr Westbury was found dead in his hotel room this morning. He was murdered, but I’m afraid that’s all I know at the moment. I thought you’d want to be told straight away, though, just in case it has some bearing on what you wanted to speak with him about.’

  ‘The Suffolk police?’ Penrose repeated in surprise; somehow, he had imagined that Westbury would have taken his holiday somewhere further afield and considerably more exotic. ‘Where was he staying?’

  ‘At the Bath Hotel in Felixstowe. He goes there every. . . he went there every year, for the sea air and for the golfing.’

  ‘Did he go with anyone?’

  ‘No, always alone, although I believe he entertained friends and clients while he was there.’

  ‘Excuse me a moment, Mr Bradford.’ Penrose covered the receiver again and put Fallowfield out of his misery. ‘Westbury’s body’s just been found in the Bath Hotel in Felixstowe, and there’s no suspicion of an accident this time. Get onto the Suffolk force and tell them we’re on our way. Use that native Suffolk charm of yours and don’t take any arguments. If they show the slightest sign of wanting to keep this one to themselves, get me the Chief Constable straight away.’

  ‘Right-o, sir.’ Fallowfield left the room with a spring in his step, and Penrose wondered for the thousandth time at the peculiar nature of a job in which people were energised and motivated by violent death. ‘Mr Bradford,’ he said, returning to the telephone call, ‘I’m sure someone from Suffolk has already spoken to you at length and I’m sorry to ask you to repeat yourself, but do you have any idea who might have done this?’

  ‘They did ask, and I’ll tell you what I told them. Simon never shied away from publicity, as I’m sure you know, Chief Inspector—in fact, he lived for it. Quite possibly, he died for it. He made enemies within the profession among people who were genuinely outraged by his principles or simply jealous of his success, and almost without exception, every case that he took on had repercussions of one sort or another. Angry letters or threats from relatives who felt their loved ones had been denied justice by a few clever words. Strangers harassing him outside court because of the “sort” he defended. Women’s charities lobbying against him for his so-called collusion in assault and violent crime. He angered people, Chief Inspector, and he took the hostility in his stride. He always claimed that if no one was outraged he hadn’t done his job.’ Bradford paused, reflecting on what he had just said. ‘He never took any of the threats seriously, even though some of them were quite extreme. Usually, he just laughed them off.’

  And now it seemed that he had paid heavily for that, Penrose thought. ‘Do any of the threats stand out?’ he asked. ‘Anything that you felt was particularly dangerous, even if Mr Westbury didn’t agree?’

  ‘I was uneasy after the Marlowe verdict,’ Bradford admitted without any hesitation. ‘It attracted an unusual amount of publicity, even for a murder trial, and the victim’s brother wouldn’t leave Simon alone for weeks afterwards. He threatened to kill him for winning Marlowe his freedom and I don’t doubt that he meant it at the time. Whether or not he’d actually go through with it is a different matter.’

  Penrose didn’t need to ask for details. He remembered Albert Goulding only too well—his grief and horror at the manner of his sister’s death; the anger and disbelief when the jury acquitted the husband who had so obviously killed her. ‘Thank you, Mr Bradford,’ he said. ‘You must have a lot to attend to, so I won’t take up any more of your time, but I do appreciate your call. There’s a chance that Mr Westbury’s murder is connected to the business I wanted to discuss with him, and you’ve saved me a great deal of time by letting me know.’

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s any point in my asking what that business is?’

  ‘Not until I’m certain it’s relevant, but I’ll keep you informed. In the meantime, thank you again and please accept my sincerest condolences.’

  He put the phone down before the sincerity slipped, and went in search of Fallowfield. ‘We got there in the end, sir,’ the sergeant said from a borrowed desk in the control room. ‘I spoke to the DCS in Ipswich and he’s telephoned the Bath Hotel and told them to put everything on hold until you get there. Forensics have already been, apparently, but they’re going to leave Westbury’s body exactly as it was found until you say it can be removed. I can’t imagine that the DI in charge is going to be too happy about it—his name’s Alan Donovan and he’s a cocky bugger from what they say—but he’ll just have to put up with it. The car’s waiting downstairs for you.’

  ‘Thanks, Bill. Let’s get going.’

  ‘You don’t want me to go and see Giles Shorter’s housekeeper to save some time?’

  ‘No, I want you in Felixstowe, if only to win over DI Donovan with your natural tact and diplomacy. Giles Shorter’s not in a position to do anything but wait for us.’

  Penrose let Fallowfield drive and took advantage of the journey to mull over the events so far. ‘On the face of it, Stephen Laxborough and Simon Westbury couldn’t be more different,’ he said, thinking out loud. ‘With Laxborough, we’ve got no suspects at all, whereas Westbury can lay claim to a queue of people who’d happily string him up in return for all the rope he’s saved the government. And Giles Shorter is different again, even with the little we know about him. His murder—if it was a murder—was made to look like an accident, whereas the other two could hardly be more overt.’

  Fallowfield moved deftly in and out of the traffic, finding the fastest route out of the city without recourse to a map. ‘I know you and Mrs Christie don’t always see eye to eye, sir,’ he said out of nowhere, ‘but one of her latest was particularly interesting. There was a series of murders in that, too—led Poirot a merry old dance, it did.’

  ‘I expect he triumphed in the end,’ Penrose said with a heavy dose of sarcasm, ‘but are you going to tell me how that helps us?’

  ‘Well, only one of the killings had a real motive, you see. The rest were a smokescreen, chosen at random to throw the police off the scent and make them think it was all the work of a maniac. In the end, the solution boiled down to good old-fashioned greed, just like most of them do.’

  ‘So what are you saying? That someone is willing to kill a group of men who can all be linked by their past, just to cover up the one they really want to get rid of?’

  ‘Why not? It’s clever, and I think the person we’re looking for is clever.’

  ‘I won’t disagree with you there, but the rest of it sounds a bit fanciful to me, even by Mrs Christie’s standards. I can’t see Hilda Pryce working her way through a list of innocent ex-Kingsmen, all because she wants to get her hands on Laxborough’s house.’

  ‘No, neither can I. But I can see a casualty of Westbury’s work killing more than once to make it look l
ike the crimes are connected to King’s College, when actually they’re motivated by something else altogether—something far more recent and individual.’ Penrose thought about it, surprised by how credible Fallowfield’s scenario sounded. ‘Or perhaps the one genuine victim is further down the list—we’ve still to account for an awful lot of names, and three deaths might be just the beginning.’

  ‘If you’re trying to cheer me up, you should probably stop there.’

  Fallowfield smiled good-naturedly. ‘I was only running through some of the possible motives,’ he said, ‘and Mrs Christie’s model seemed a bit more likely than someone with a grudge against choral music.’

  They had left the sun far behind by the time they arrived on the outskirts of Felixstowe, and a gun-metal band of heavy cloud greeted them. It was as if the seasons had turned in the space of the journey, with a generous autumn giving way to winter as smoothly as they had crossed from one county to another. Penrose looked with fondness at the familiar seaside town, with its bustling streets and the cranes looming over the docks, guardians of a thriving port. It was exactly a year ago that he had last spent time here, looking after Wallis Simpson while she resided in Felixstowe to await her divorce. It was a strange few days, the only time other than the war that he had ever been truly conscious of history in the making, but looking back now he wondered if anyone involved could have predicted the momentous events which were still to come—the crisis over the abdication, the exile of Edward VIII, the outpouring of joy and relief with which the nation had chosen to mark the coronation of his brother. And the story wasn’t over yet, that much was obvious: only the other day, several newspapers had carried pictures of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor taking tea with Hitler, overlooking the Bavarian Alps at his picturesque home in Berchtesgaden. As Penrose opened his Times over breakfast and stared down at the woman he had grown to respect, if not like, the few days they had shared in this unassuming Suffolk town seemed more surreal than ever.

  A tree-covered stretch of coast, signposted Cobbold’s Point, jutted out ahead and the main road wound steadily to the left to avoid it. Fallowfield took a right-hand turn into a smaller street running parallel with the sea, and Penrose looked admiringly at the architecture, curious to discover which building was the Bath Hotel. The houses here were grand, distinctive and varied: cream villas in extensive grounds sat next to mock-Tudor facades and elaborate cupolas, and he wondered whose decision it had been to name at least two of them after bishops who had been burnt at the stake for their faith. By contrast, the building they were looking for was something of an anti-climax: the Bath Hotel was little bigger than a guest house, stunningly situated and attractive enough in a modest, bay-windowed kind of way, but undoubtedly the poor relation of the street. Once again, Penrose questioned why a successful barrister who could surely have his pick of holiday destinations would choose to stay here on a regular basis. The golf course must be something quite outstanding.

  Fallowfield drew up outside and parked behind a mortuary van, waiting patiently to perform its sombre task. Perhaps it was the pall that the vehicle cast over the street, but Penrose found it hard to recall a more depressing reality to a seemingly idyllic location. In the gaps between the houses, glimpses of a muddy, restless sea did little to lift the landscape and the ships on the horizon sat heavy in the water, dark and vaguely menacing. They left the car and walked over to the front steps, housed in an arch of white trellising which contrasted pleasantly with the welcoming red brick. Long before he had a chance to ring the bell, the door was opened by a man in his early thirties with sandy brown hair, a cheap, ill-fitting suit and an aggressively proprietorial air—compensating, Penrose guessed, for the fact that the most interesting case he had had in years was about to be snatched away from him. ‘Good of you to join us, sir,’ he said, with a faintly sarcastic emphasis on the last word.

  Penrose smiled pleasantly. ‘DI Donovan, isn’t it? Thank you for waiting. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Archie Penrose and this is Detective Sergeant Fallowfield. I believe your DCS has told you why we’re here.’ Donovan nodded and stepped back to allow them over the threshold. Penrose glanced round the entrance hall, which seemed to him so typical of a guest house from a bygone age that it might almost have been a stage set: dark wooden furniture and lace embroidery; potted ferns on stands; and, at the bottom of a wide staircase, a large dinner gong, polished to within an inch of its life. The register lay open on a table by the door and he saw Westbury’s name in the right-hand column, entered three days ago in a bold, flourishing hand. ‘What can you tell me so far?’ he asked, turning back to Donovan.

  ‘The victim was smothered in his bed. There’s bruising to one side of the head, so we’re assuming that the assailant incapacitated him with a blow of some sort, then pressed a pillow over his face. He obviously tried to resist, so the Doc reckons he was conscious immediately before death but too weak to put up much of a fight. Whoever did it seems to have got in and out through the window—the casement on the left was open, and there’s a fire escape within easy reach. Westbury’s door was locked, and only he and the hotelier had a key. There’s a decanter of whisky on the dressing table which has taken a real hammering—that might explain why someone could apparently climb into the room without disturbing him. And there are fingerprints all over the place, as you’d expect. It’s going to be a nightmare sifting through cleaners and past guests, but they might give us something.’

  The detective’s delivery was unexpectedly succinct, and Penrose was grateful for it. ‘Time of death?’

  ‘The pathologist says between midnight and 6 a.m., but we’re hoping to narrow that down a bit. The hotelier—a Mrs Marjorie Bessall—spoke to him as he was on his way up to bed, and that was just after eleven. They found him this morning when he didn’t come down to breakfast.’

  ‘What about the other guests?’

  ‘Two elderly sisters in the room next door—deaf as a post and didn’t hear a thing. Some newlyweds on the second floor, and a salesman who was only here for one night and left first thing. We’ll check him out, obviously, but the others are hardly prime suspect material.’

  ‘And who would you say was?’

  Donovan paused—surprised, Penrose guessed, to be asked an opinion. Most detectives were frosty and belligerent when they were asked to co-operate with Scotland Yard and he didn’t blame them for it: there was nothing worse than feeling undermined through no fault of your own. ‘Someone he’s upset through his work,’ he said cautiously. ‘His clerk as good as told me that himself. We’ve been looking into it while we were waiting for you to get here, and I’d say the place to start was with his last case. Apparently, there was a lot of trouble over it.’

  Penrose was suddenly aware of a woman hovering at the other end of the hallway. She stepped forward as soon as she saw that he had noticed her, and introduced herself as the hotel’s proprietor. ‘Shall I show you to Mr Westbury’s room?’ she asked, as if determined to hang on to normal procedure, regardless of the circumstances.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Bessall, that would be much appreciated.’

  Donovan stepped forward to follow, but Fallowfield intervened. ‘Perhaps I could ask you a few more questions, sir, while DCI Penrose has a look at the scene? It’ll save us a bit of time in the long run and then we can let you go about your business.’

  The detective had no choice but to comply with such a reasonable request, leaving Penrose free to examine the body in peace. He smiled gratefully at his sergeant and followed Marjorie Bessall to a room on the first floor at the back of the hotel. ‘He was in number three,’ she explained, ‘the same one as usual. It’s a family room, really, but he liked to have space to work. There’s a lovely big desk overlooking the sea, and we don’t have much call for family holidays once the colder weather sets in.’

  ‘Mr Westbury stayed with you regularly?’

  ‘Oh yes, he came every year—sometimes two or three times. He always said we looked after him better than an
yone.’ There was a warmth and a pride in her voice, reminiscent of the way in which Hilda Pryce spoke about her employer, and Penrose was interested to note that these men—no matter how aloof or ruthless they seemed in the wider world—could inspire such affection in the women who cared for them. ‘This is it,’ she said, stopping outside the door. ‘I won’t come in, if you don’t mind. It was such a shock to find him like that, and I’d rather try to remember him as he was.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll come down when I’ve finished, and there are a few more questions I’d like to ask you if that’s all right?’

  She nodded and left him to it. The door was slightly ajar, its handle still covered in the telltale grey dust of a police enquiry, and he pushed it wide open to view the room. As Mrs Bessall had explained, it was arranged to accommodate a family, with two double beds, plenty of storage space, and a comfortable sofa pulled up to the fireplace. The wallpaper was decorated with a heavy floral print—a peculiar hybrid of rose and poppy which had no counterpart in nature—and punctuated at regular intervals by a selection of hunting prints; their gentle, rural landscapes struck a jarring note in a room entirely dominated by its breathtaking views of the North Sea, vast and powerful beyond the window. For some reason the space felt familiar, but the harder he tried to tease the likeness from the back of his mind, the more stubbornly it eluded him.

  Simon Westbury’s bed was the one near the window, and even from the doorway Penrose could see that his body lay twisted and contorted beneath the sheets; if whisky had dulled his senses sufficiently to allow an intruder into the room, his final moments had been all too conscious and he seemed to have fought for his life, struggling for air with the same violent desperation as Stephen Laxborough. Westbury was a slight man, but the murder—again, like the crime at Hampstead—would have required a certain amount of strength. He walked over to the bed and looked down at the barrister’s face, framed by the soft white pillow in a parody of gentle rest. Westbury’s eyes—dull and filmy now—were half open, giving his face an expression of sly cunning which reminded Penrose of his manner in court whenever he scored a victory over the prosecution—but that was the only recognisable sign of the man he had known. In every other way, death had performed its customary trick, removing each spark of humanity—of spirit, for want of a better word—and intensifying the physical until what was left seemed artificial and out of place. The skin around Westbury’s nose and mouth was unnaturally pale from the pressure used by his killer, but elsewhere his face was livid with colour—the angry, purple bruising at the temple, the clusters of tiny red spots around his eyes where blood had leaked from the capillaries into the skin. His tongue was protruding slightly, and there were traces of blood and saliva on the pillow. It was ridiculous, Penrose thought, but what surprised him most about the man in front of him was the rich, auburn colour of his hair, and he realised that until now he had never seen Simon Westbury without the depersonalising prop of a barrister’s wig. His right arm was outstretched across the bed, his index finger slightly extended as if hammering home a point, and Penrose remembered how expressive those hands had been in front of a jury. But now the tables were turned and Westbury himself was the exhibit, useful only as far as his body proved the point for one side or the other.