by Ali Carter
‘Drat and damnation,’ I said. ‘It can’t be the orb! There was absolutely no time for him to hide it in the hedge. I was by his side up until the forensics people turned up, and I could see that he didn’t have it with him.’
‘Well, Henry might not be your man. Are you sure it’s not more the case that you want him to be the murderer, Susie?’ Toby’s tone was gentle, and I knew he had my best interests at heart when he said this. But still…
‘Henry is responsible, Toby. I just know he is.’ I could feel my face twitch with strain as I stared across the table. ‘There’s more.’
‘Go on then,’ said Toby.
‘I have Henry’s bag—’
Toby interrupted, ‘You—’
But I wouldn’t let him continue. ‘Don’t ask, that’s not the important bit. In his bag I found a notebook, which had a record of a martial arts class at one two five Devonshire Place in it. I don’t have it with me but we can Google the number.’
Toby immediately began typing on his laptop.
‘Got it!’ he exclaimed.
His hand shot down to his pocket, grabbed his mobile phone, typed the number in to it, placed it on the desk and pressed the loudspeaker button.
‘One hundred and twenty-five Devonshire Place. Fumiko speaking.’
‘Hello,’ said Toby, ‘I have a friend who recommended your class and I was wondering if I could sign up for the same one he attends?’
‘Yah of course. Name of him.’
Toby replied emphasising each syllable of Henry’s full name, ‘Hen Ry Dun Stan Sher Bet.’
There was a long pause.
‘Hello?’ said Toby.
‘Yah, ’enry come six o’clock for Dim Mak class.’
‘Thank you, I’ll be back in touch soon.’
Toby ended the call without waiting for Fumiko’s goodbye.
We stared at each other, Toby’s eyes unflickering. ‘If Henry attented a Dim Mak class he’d know exactly how to end Lord Greengrass’s life with one strong blow to the old man’s chest. Evidence of this is what we need, Susie.’
We sat there for a while, and then I came up with another idea.
I pointed at Toby’s pinboard. ‘Is that Alexander’s X-ray?’
Toby turned and looked at what I was pointing to. He chuckled. ‘No, that’s not Lord Greengrass, it’s just an exposed bit of film I like the look of.’
‘Oh.’ I felt foolish. ‘I was just wondering if there is anything showing on the X-ray which would help us prove Henry is involved.’
In the manner of Rodin’s The Thinker, Toby rested his head on his right hand and gnawed at his knuckles. I could hear his foot, the left one I’m sure, ever so slightly tapping the floor.
Preying on my mind was Asquintha being interrogated for something I was now certain she hadn’t done, and it wasn’t long before my impatience got the better of me. ‘Come on Toby, we need to find something. I know we can work this out if we think hard enough.’
He snapped out of his reverie, got up and marched swiftly down the long, pristine white corridor, with me trotting along behind.
‘The boys will be on their lunchbreak. We have to be quick or they’ll want to know what we are doing,’ he whispered.
We’d stopped in front of a door. It looked exactly like the one opposite, and every door that we’d passed and would go on to pass if we kept walking. Toby fished out a bunch of keys, loosened one and put it in the keyhole. The door swung open into a stark, white lab with a massive bit of equipment on a low table. Toby flicked a switch on at the wall and the whole machine lit up with the colour of an electric flycatcher. He handed me his keys.
‘Lock the door will you, while I put some of those on.’ He nodded towards a box of Nitrile gloves.
Toby fiddled with the gloves for an inordinate amount of time.
‘You see that plan chest over there?’
‘Yup.’
‘Open up the top drawer for me please, Susie.’
We crossed the room together and our closeness made me think of words like trust and dependency. I was rather enjoying myself.
Very carefully, as I held the draw open, Toby sifted through various acetates as he checked the reference information, and then he lifted out an X-ray.
‘This is the original image of Lord Greengrass’s chest.’
He placed the X-ray on the flat surface of the machine and pulled the lid back down. I realised that the machine was in fact an enormous microscope and, when Toby indicated that I should come closer to inspect the image, the intensity of light enabled us to see every last detail of the X-ray.
Toby was not nearly as engrossed as I was. He was preoccupied, shuffling his hand around under the machine. It wasn’t long before he produced what looked very like a pair of binoculars. ‘These, Susie, may just help us; there’s a tiny chance that the actual film might show something that isn’t currently coming through on our computerised image in Lord Greengrass’s archived file,’ Toby explained.
He pulled the end covers off them, opened up a glass cabinet behind the machine and took out what he referred to as an ‘astronomer’s mono zoom’. He screwed it on to the end of the binocular points and, leaning over the machine, held them up to his eyes and peered down at the X-ray.
Without lifting his head he called out, ‘There are some callipers hanging on the wall behind you; please will you pass them to me.’
He took them from me, and, very carefully, began stretching them out, measuring individual short distances on the X-ray.
I tried to see what he was studying so intently, but then I realised that his head was raised. ‘We may very well have got ourselves some concrete evidence.’ His matter-of-fact tone belied the enormity of his words.
‘Really?’ I asked excitedly.
‘Yes, there may be knuckle imprints on Lord Greengrass’s pectoral casing. They are extremely faint but as I’ve magnified from a life-size image, I calculate it shows the first two knuckles of a right hand as being 3.46 centimetres apart. Let’s get out of here – we need to leave everything how we found it.’
Within sixty seconds we’d covered our tracks and were safely back in Toby’s office.
‘We should have found this earlier, Susie. But at least we know now, and it’s all thanks to you.’
I smiled at the compliment.
‘Now all we need to do is get Henry’s knuckle spans.’ It sounded so easy, I thought as I spoke. I had completely forgotten about my previous theory of the orb from the statue.
‘Inspector Grey is not going to go all the way to Brighton unless his team are absolutely sure Henry Dunstan-Sherbet’s the murderer.’
‘Then we must prove that Asquintha and Ronnie are innocent,’ I said. Then, ‘I have no idea how we can do this.’
Argh. In frustration I stuffed my hands into my pockets.
Bingo!
I pulled out a grubby suede glove; the one I had found caught under the connecting door. ‘This is Asquintha’s glove!’
‘Are you sure it’s hers?’
I drew his attention to the fact that there was a nametape with ‘Asquintha Cornfield’ sewn inside the wrist band.
The glove was an extremely snug fit on my hand, which meant Asquintha’s knuckle span was a little smaller than mine.
Toby produced a lump of soft Plasticine from his desk draw. I giggled, ‘What have you got that for?’
‘Feels nice, Susie. I like to mould it from time to time when I’m bored of work.’
He squished it into a rectangular lump and put it on the table.
‘Stand up, clench your fist and push it into the Plasticine, will you?’
I took the glove off my right hand and carefully made an impression of my fist.
‘Damn. I’m just going to get those callipers.’
Seconds later and Toby was back, measuring my imprint in the clay.
‘Well, Asquintha’s not the murderer, we can be sure of that.’ The measurements were wrong.
I felt reliev
ed.
‘Let’s visit Ronnie before we call the inspector,’ said Toby. ‘But we need to be quick as I have meetings this afternoon that I can’t be late for.’
Toby took his corduroy coat from the back of his chair and put it on.
‘Here,’ he handed me the Plasticine, ‘you keep hold of this, and put these callipers in your handbag.’
‘I don’t have my bag with me.’
Toby bent beneath his desk and popped back up holding a green canvas shoulder bag. I took it from him and placed the Plasticine in one half and the callipers and diary in the other.
‘The charitable donation!’
‘What’s that, Susie?’ said Toby, looking across at me from the driving seat as we headed to Spire.
‘Alexander must have given money to Gonville and Caius College in order that Henry could get a place to study medicine at Cambridge.’
‘You don’t think Henry’s clever enough?’
‘Well, Ben joked that Henry didn’t have the brains he was born with. And even Diana seems to agree that Lord Greengrass paid the planners to pass his application for the new housing estate, and so it’s not a massive stretch that if he made a substantial amount of money then he would secure his illegitimate son a place at university…’ I trailed off as I thought of the injustice of such corrupt behaviour.
‘Let’s wait and prove it first.’ Toby’s level-headedness frustrated me but I knew he was right.
As Toby parked the car right outside the pub, a tiny little bit of me wished we could rewind back to the previous evening. I did enjoy his company, and I hadn’t met a man who’d I’d instantly felt so at ease with for a long time. If I had now solved the case, it would mean the end of us gallivanting about, and that would be a pity.
‘I have a plan,’ said Toby. ‘I suggest we go in, order drinks, sit at a table and wait for Ronnie to deliver them.’
‘Yes…okay,’ I said, a bit dubiously.
‘I’d rather you don’t know the rest. You just improvise.’
The Dorset Horn was empty. Ronnie was standing behind the bar and he looked pleased to see us. ‘Hello again,’ he said to me, and nodded at Toby. ‘What can I get for you?’
Toby turned to me and raised his eyebrows.
‘A lime and soda for me please.’
‘And I’ll have the same,’ said Toby, handing Ronnie a note.
Ronnie rang it up on the till and passed back some change. ‘Coming right up, I’ll bring them over.’
Toby chose a table against the wall, tucked away and small enough for us to have a private conversation.
‘Let’s have that Plasticine.’ Toby held out his hand.
I handed it over.
He moulded it into a rectangle and placed it on the table between us.
Ronnie arrived with the drinks. ‘What’s that you got there?’ he asked, as if on cue, as he stared at the lump on the table.
‘Oh that? It’s a silly game Susie and I’ve got going. She’s bet me a tenner she can make a deeper imprint with one push. I’ve told her it’s the best of three.’
‘It’s been my party piece for years,’ I improvised. ‘I can beat any man.’
‘That’s why I’ve had to do the best of three,’ said Toby.
‘You soft, office types,’ Ronnie exclaimed. ‘Hefting those barrels down in the cellar is what you need.’
Toby frowned at the Plasticine and muttered, ‘You may be right. Do you have a technique I can steal?’
‘You two! Do I get the tenner if I beat her?’ said Ronnie as he shuffled into position. The solid table didn’t even quiver under the quite considerable force of him pushing his right bunched fist downwards.
‘That puts me at the bottom of the pile, I can tell,’ said Toby. ‘It’s a mighty arm you’ve got there.’
I realised we’d backed ourselves into a corner and it was now going to be hard to get a measurement without Ronnie wondering what we were up to. We couldn’t possibly risk moving the Plasticine for fear of distorting the result. Ronnie’s innocence could be a matter of a millimetre here or there.
But sometimes one just has to think a benevolent force is watching, as at that moment somebody stuck their head round the pub door and announced that some of the sheep from Beckenstale Manor had got out and were in the beer garden.
Ronnie turned to go and deal with the errant ewes, calling to me over his shoulder, ‘Next time you’re in here, young lady, we’ll do this proper, and I’ll take your tenner from you.’
Toby and I gave nervous laughs. We really hadn’t thought it through sufficiently, and only got by on a wing and a prayer.
Discreetly, I passed the callipers over to Toby.
‘Can you go and make sure that Ronnie is distracted for a minute or two while I measure his fist imprint? Team work, and all that,’ he said.
‘Do you need a hand with the sheep?’ I called loudly to Ronnie as I headed outside.
Luckily, the sheep were predictably tiresome; they darted this way and that as we tried to persuade them to go back to where they had come from.
Then Ronnie said, ‘Little bleeders! I’d better call the shepherd.’
I swear the upward curve to the mouths of the sheep looked as if they were laughing at us. ‘No!’ I squeaked, anxious to stop Ronnie going back into the bar.
He gave me an odd look and much to my relief he pulled an ancient Nokia from his trouser pocket, and pressed a couple of buttons. As he waited for someone to pick up he told me the sheep were little beggars and that there was a small renegade group that made it their life’s business to get into the beer garden. His call was answered then as he said, ‘They’re here again, I’ll close the gate so they can’t get out but I’m not helping you put them in the trailer, I’ve had my fill,’ I saw Toby beckon me from the other side of the picket fence. ‘I need to get back to work,’ he called.
I nodded bye to Ronnie and dashed to the car.
‘It’s not him,’ whispered Toby as I got in.
‘It’s Henry, I know it is,’ I said. ‘Let’s go to Inspector Grey.’ I blew on my fingers: they were absolutely frozen, me having been running about outside without the benefit of a jacket. ‘I think we should get your car first, I can’t be sure I won’t be called away at any point today.’
We drove along in silence, and then as we parked in the staff bit of the hospital car park, Toby said in a mollifying manner, ‘Have you got any photographs of your work, I’d love to see some.’
I unlocked my mobile and picked out some pictures of my work.
‘Recognise this?’ It was a painting of the Seven Sisters.
‘Dover,’ he said, jokily.
‘That’s right,’ I answered, knowing full well he knew it wasn’t.
‘What about your pet portraits, Pet Detective?’
‘Here’s the latest one, a blue-eyed Jack Russell called Sky.’
‘No wonder you’re in demand,’ he said. ‘I think it’s time to call Inspector Grey.’
‘Susie Mahl, I wish you’d pack up your things and head back off to Sussex. Some might say that you are interfering where you shouldn’t be. Everyone – and I mean everyone – I’ve taken a statement from mentions having spoken to you previous to my interviewing them.’
I hadn’t imagined Inspector Grey would have been anything other than thrilled with our news. How naïve of me.
We had gone to Toby’s office, and I had telephoned the inspector, who had asked whether we could come to the police station for 2pm.
Toby had entered Inspector Grey’s office first, and it was only after they had shaken hands across his desk that Inspector Grey had looked at me and blurted out this greeting.
Toby and I caught each other’s eye, and then Toby said, ‘I’m sorry we’ve surprised you, but really Susie has excelled herself.’
Inspector Grey snorted in what I could only think was contempt as he stood behind his desk, leaning on both fists. He was too small to intimidate either of us but he did his best. ‘And why m
ight that be?’ he boomed. He looked rather peeved.
I was just trying to work out the best and most succinct way of explaining everything when the inspector added, ‘Fancy yourself as a detective do you? It’s not for amateurs. And as for this,’ he looked at me sternly as he held up the Globus Cruciger which Toby and I had both seen on his desk, ‘your red herring had my team searching for hours for something which we later discovered in the parish council notes has in fact been missing for a whole eighteen months. It was a complete blind alley, and an utter waste of valuable police resources, when the orb was very likely kicked around the graveyard by local vandals over a year before the murder.’
Whoops!
The weight of the stone caused a great thud as Inspector Grey impatiently stamped it back down on his desk.
Toby came to the rescue. ‘We’re here to tell you that key evidence has been discovered through a six percent magnification of the chest X-ray.’
‘Very well then, go on.’
I opened my mouth to speak but then I saw the inspector staring at Toby, waiting for him to continue and so I shut it again.
‘In an early diary of Lord Greengrass’s – not part of the evidence that was bagged that morning – Susie discovered a detailed account of an affair he had with Violet Dunstan-Sherbet, mother of Henry Dunstan-Sherbet. Lord Greengrass recorded the whole incident, describing in detail the moment Violet’s son discovered them.’
I put the diary on the table.
‘And you think this has something to do with a murder many years later? That seems to stretch credulity,’ said Inspector Grey as if we were fools.
Toby was undeterred. ‘Violet Dunstan-Sherbet’s infidelity could well have made for an unhappy environment for an only son to grow up in, and as she comes from one of England’s oldest Catholic families, divorce would never have been permitted.’
‘I fail to see what this could have to do with Lord Greengrass’s murder?’
I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. ‘Having spent time with Henry, I can say there is a strange streak in him. And I’m sure the incident described in the diary when he was a teenager very probably led him to believe he was not his father’s son – by that I mean Violet’s husband’s son. Plus, I have been told that Henry felt his birth father did wrong by him by never publicly acknowledging paternity.’ My opinion was pouring out in a bit of a muddle but it didn’t stop me continuing. ‘I’m sure Henry believed Lord Greengrass was his father, and of course a sizeable charitable donation that Lord Greengrass made to the Cambridge university medical department that Henry attended, but which Lord Greengrass had no other link with that we can find, is indicative of a relationship between them.’