by Blake Banner
I said, “Let me see if I have this straight, Major. You are telling us that Sally Cameron was not only having an affair with Charles Gordon Sr., but also with his son, at the same time.”
“Devil of a thing, hey? Well I didn’t know what to tell the poor chap. I mean, I am a man of the world in that I have traveled just about everywhere on the globe, but tended to keep my nose clean where women were concerned, if you follow.”
My mind reeled for a moment at the choice of metaphor, but I tried to ignore it and thought about this new angle. The major kept talking.
“Of course, he didn’t go looking for it. He never did. But from what he told me, she sought him out.”
Dehan was observing him through arrowed eyes. “How?”
The major suppressed a schoolboy laugh. “Went to his room while the old man was snoring! Spirited girl, but a bit naughty.”
“So he came to you to discuss this because he was worried.”
“Yes. Well, he would be, wouldn’t he?”
“What was it, exactly, that he was worried about?” Before he could answer, she preempted him. “I mean, Major, I can see that there are several aspects to that situation that would be worrying, but what I am asking you is, precisely, what was the thing that was worrying him the most?”
He stared at her for a moment, like he was replaying her question in his head. Then he blinked and said, “Well, what his father would do if he found out. I mean, Charles Sr. is, um…”
He hesitated, so I said, “A cruel, vindictive man?”
He held my eye for a long moment, then said, “Yes. Yes, precisely that. A cruel, vindictive man.”
SIXTEEN
Dehan pushed the door closed after the major. We were alone in the silent dining room. She stood facing the closed door a moment and then turned and started pacing slowly around the room in her red scarlet dress and bare feet, with her fingers laced behind her neck.
“The more information we get,” she said, “The further we are from an answer. We need some kind of fixed point: something we can say, ‘This is a cert!’ So I am going to say for now that Pam did not kill her son. With this crowd of crazies you can’t be sure, Stone…” She stopped walking and turned to face me, with her fingers still laced behind her head. She seemed to be very far away, at the other end of the long table. “But for now I am going to take that as a fixed point. OK?”
I nodded. “OK.”
She turned and carried on walking. “So, who had motive? Bee seems to have no apparent motive, and on the face of it, neither does the major. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
She reached the end of the room and started pacing back. “Armstrong has reason to hate Gordon Sr., but other than hating the whole Gordon family, seems to have no special grudge against Jr.” She stopped, eyed me a moment. “Dr. Cameron, on the other hand, has a very powerful motive.”
“He has?”
She started walking again. “Sure. Relations between Sally and the Doc are strained to breaking point. She is ready to give him his marching orders. They are bad enough that they are having rows in public, and where before she was just having an affair on the side, now she is seriously thinking of giving Ian the boot. They row and out of sheer spite she tells him, not only is she screwing the old man, she’s getting her leg over with Junior too.”
“I am horrified at your language, Dehan. I should never have brought you to this primal place.”
“More than that, how about this? Her plan is not to force a divorce between Gordon Sr. and Pam, it is to marry Gordon Jr. and become part of the family.”
I shook my head. “Mmmnyahh…”
“Mnyah why?”
“If she is hitting the hay with Dad, she cannot possibly expect to be welcomed into the family with open arms by him if she then declares she intends to marry his son.”
She extended her left arm and pointed her finger at me like a gun. “Wrong, Stone, if she intended to continue sleeping with Dad after the marriage. That level of humiliation would have been right up Gordon Sr.’s street. But either way, if she was planning to marry Junior and told Cameron about it, that gives him a motive, which he did not have before.”
“Granted.”
“And we know he was in the area at the time, and he has no alibi.”
“Also granted.”
She stopped walking and put both hands on the back of the chair opposite me. “Now, let’s get a little darker: Gordon Sr. likes to dish it out, but he doesn’t look to me like the kind of man who likes to take it. So, while he thinks it’s a gas to humiliate his son by seducing his fiancée, when his son hits the sack with the woman he is planning to marry, I figure that could make him real mad. Mad enough to kill.”
I nodded. “It’s possible.”
“It’s more than possible. And note where he was when Cameron came in and started shouting at him. Right outside the study, where his son was locked in, doing his accounts, within the window for the time of death.”
I did a lot of nodding, then said, “All good, solid reasoning.”
“But?”
“No buts, just two questions: one, how did he do it? And two: what is the connection between this murder and the murder of his grandfather forty years ago?”
“Same answer to both.” She spread her hands. “I don’t know.”
I stood. “Let’s get him in here and ask him.”
I went to the door, opened it and leaned out.
“Mr. Gordon, could we talk to you for a moment?
He stared at me, like an ancient, giant Nordic king. Beside him, still sitting on the arm of his chair, was Sally, watching me with hard, calculating eyes. I wondered for a moment at the woman who had been sleeping with the man who sat dead across the hall with half his head blown away, yet showing no emotion on her face but caution. She held my eye a moment, then Gordon stood, sighed and strode unsteadily across the room to join me.
Dehan closed the door as he grunted and lowered himself into the chair at the head of the table. “Couldn’t some of this have waited till the morning? Sally is exhausted, and frankly, so am I.”
“No.”
I sat. Dehan remained standing, leaning against the wall. He looked at her sourly, then turned away.
“I need to know everything about your relationship with Sally Cameron.”
He didn’t look at me. He just stared sullenly at the table. “Go to hell.”
“I can’t hold a gun to your head, Mr. Gordon. I can’t even point one at you from the fireplace. It’s your choice. But what I can and will do is inform the cops when they get here that after asking me to investigate, as soon as we touched on the subject of your affair with Sally Cameron, you clammed up and told me to go to hell. If you want to draw attention to your affair, that is certainly the way to do it.”
He grunted again and was then silent for a while. Finally, he said, “It’s not relevant.”
I shook my head. “No. I decide that. Or you can go to hell and get somebody else to investigate.”
He fiddled with his thumbs for a bit, then said, “Fine. So I’m screwing Sally. So what?”
I turned to Dehan. “Let’s go pack and get some sleep. We’ll catch the first ferry once the storm stops and make a statement at the police station at John O’Groats.”
“OK!” He snarled it at the table top.
I leaned down and put my face close to his. “Listen to me, Gordon. You are not doing me a favor. I’m doing you one, you understand? All I want is to have my honeymoon with my wife. Now, if you want me to get your sorry ass out of this mess, you had better come clean and tell me what the hell is going on, because I do not intend to get prosecuted by the British cops for concealing or suppressing evidence. So if you want my help, start talking. I want to know everything about your relationship with Sally Cameron.”
He watched me carefully.
I sat. “And just remember, I have been talking to other people who have been watching and observing you both. I’ll know if you hold b
ack.” I pointed at the door. “And one more attempt to bullshit me and me and my wife go through that door.”
He heaved another big sigh.
“Things have not been good between me and Pamela for some time.”
Dehan snapped, “Try forty years.”
He glanced at her, but other than that, showed no sign of having heard. “After my father died I discovered… Somebody told me… that Pamela had been my father’s lover. It embittered me. She was already pregnant with my son…”
He faltered.
I stared at him. “Son of a gun,” I said. “You don’t know, do you? You were never sure, and you couldn’t bring yourself to do the paternity test. It probably wouldn’t have been conclusive anyway. So instead you spent his whole life abusing and humiliating him for his mother and your father’s sins.”
He didn’t answer. He stared at the wall across the room for a long moment, then blinked and looked back at his thumbs. “When the boy was born, I raised him as my own, though he may well have been my half-brother, as well as my stepson. It was nauseating. I began to have affairs. Whether Pamela did or not, I neither know nor care. And yes.” He looked at me with hard, resentful eyes. “On the rare occasions when Charles entered into a sentimental relationship with some insipid female, I would make a point of seducing her. It was my small act of vengeance against my father and my wife.”
He stood, crossed the room to the sideboard and poured himself a large whiskey. He sipped it and spoke without turning.
“But all that changed when I met Sally. I can honestly say that every relationship I have had since Pamela has been an act of cruelty and revenge.” Now he turned, glanced at Dehan and then looked at me, as though he expected me to understand. “Sally was different. With Sally—it may sound adolescent and naïve—but with Sally I began to heal. I began to believe that it is possible to love and trust. She is not like other women.”
“You fell in love with her.”
He looked sullen and his face darkened. “You can mock if you want.”
“I’m not mocking, Gordon. The only bitter cynic in this room is you. So you fell in love, good for you. What else?”
He frowned at me. “Nothing else. We had discussed it and agreed that she would tell Ian and I would tell Pam, then we would both divorce our spouses and marry.”
I scanned his face and he scanned mine back. He looked like he was trying to understand what I was getting at. If it was an act, it was a good one. I said, “Where did that leave Pam and Ian?”
He shrugged. “Pam would get alimony and some kind of settlement, and Ian would continue as doctor in the village. I think the man is an insufferable prig, but I harbor no ill will toward him. I have no desire to see him bankrupt or broken.”
I waited a moment, watching him carefully. Then I asked, “Was Sally seeing anybody else?”
He looked startled, then laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just told you we were going to get married.”
“Like your son and his fiancée?”
He scowled at me. “What’s your point?”
“That just because people are engaged to be married, it doesn’t mean they don’t screw around.”
“Sally is not like that.”
“So she wasn’t screwing your son?”
He threw back his head and roared with laughter. “That’s your theory?” He laughed again. “You’re clutching at straws.” He gestured at me, then at Dehan. “This? This is New York’s finest? Give me a break!”
I glanced at Dehan. She shrugged with her eyebrows. I sat back in my chair. “Just a couple more questions.”
“I hope they’re a bit more intelligent than the last one, Detective Stone.”
“What were you doing in the broom cupboard?”
He went very still. “What?”
“When Cameron turned up to tell you what he thought of you, you had been doing something in the broom cupboard. What?”
He didn’t answer for a very long moment. Then he looked up at me and narrowed his eyes. “If you must know, Brown told me you had asked to look inside. I was curious to see what you had been looking for.”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Yes, of course, some kind of secret door. I wondered if you had found one, but on inspecting all those shelves, as you must have done, it was clear there was no secret door there.” He sighed again. “Anything else, Stone?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“What? I am beginning to think I would have been better off allowing chaos and mayhem to reign. At least I might have got some sleep.”
“Tell me about your will.”
“My will?”
The answer surprised me, as did the expression on his face. It was hard to fathom. “Yes, Mr. Gordon, your will. Who else’s will would I be asking you about?”
He made a face, shrugged, shook his head. “It might make sense to ask about Charles’ will. After all, he is the one who has been murdered. I would have thought the pertinent question would be who benefits from his death, not mine.”
“I was under the impression,” I said, “that he had no wealth of his own. That your wealth would one day be his wealth.”
He shrugged again. “I have no idea what he had. I really wasn’t interested. I let him use the castle as an hotel. He made something from that. It entertained me to have guests.”
“Was he your heir?”
“For the moment, yes. Him and Pam. But obviously, in view of my upcoming marriage to Sally, it was in my mind to change my will. I hadn’t decided on the details yet.”
“Is Bee a beneficiary?”
“She receives something. Why? Why these questions about my will?”
I stood, stretched my back and heard the vertebrae crack. I took a few paces away, staring unseeing at the room around me. I was aware of something nagging at my mind, but each time I tried to grasp it, it dispersed like mist. Then I heard myself ask, as though the question had come from somewhere else, “What, exactly, is your fortune, Mr. Gordon?”
“What is this impertinence?”
I turned to face him. He was scowling at me.
“It’s a very simple question. What is your fortune? What do you own? This castle? The island? Is there more in Boston? Mainland Britain? What about stocks and shares? What is your income? How rich are you, and what is the nature of your wealth?”
He stood. “You’re going too damned far, Stone! I said I’d pay you anything you ask to clear up Charles’ murder, not to go prying into my private, personal affairs! It’s none of your damned business what my fortune is or what I’m worth!”
I shrugged. “Suit yourself. Either way, I know who killed your son, and your father. And I know how.”
Dehan stared at me wide-eyed, mirroring Gordon’s face across the table. His eyes bulged and so did his cheeks, erupting in a sudden expostulation, “You’re bluffing!”
I shook my head. “Makes no difference to me. Sounds like the storm is easing off. Tomorrow or the day after, we’ll be on our way to enjoy the rest of our honeymoon somewhere a little less remote and stressful. And you can sit there and tell the Scottish police to go to hell. But I guarantee, they will be asking the very same questions as me. You know why? Because I will have put them into their heads before I leave.”
He sneered at me, but without much conviction. “Forty years people have been trying to solve that murder, and now you’re going to come along and…”
I smiled. “It’s what we do.” I turned to Dehan. “Come on, Dehan, let’s go get some sleep.”
“Wait!” He became serious. “You really know who killed my son, and my father?”
I nodded. “Yes. I know who and I know how.”
“And you can prove it?”
I sighed. “If you help me, yes.”
“Tell me who, and how!”
I shook my head. “We do it my way. First you tell me about your money…”
He sighed, rubbed his face and said, “Fine, I’ll have to contact my solicitor
when the storm blows over, to bring… everything. He’ll have to come over…”
“How long will that take?”
“Not long, he’s just over the water. You’ll have to know… the details… I suppose.” He stared at me hard. “But I am counting on you to keep this strictly confidential! That’s the deal!”
SEVENTEEN
Sally stood, but the others remained seated. They all stared. Then Sally half rushed across the room, staring at Gordon with anxious eyes, saying, “Oh, Charles! Come and sit down. What you must be going through!”
She led him back across the room to a chair and sat him down. I glanced at Ian. There was real hatred in his eyes as he watched them. I took a deep breath and spoke.
“We’re pretty much done here.”
Armstrong looked offended. “Ye haven’t spoke t’me! Ye haven’t got mah point of view!”
I nodded at him. “That’s because I don’t need it, Armstrong.” I looked back at the others. “We now have statements from everybody who was at the house at the time of Charles’ murder. We hope to be able to contact the police on the mainland tomorrow, and they can take over from there.” I smiled at Dehan. “And we can get back to our honeymoon.” I looked back at the assembled faces. “I should tell you, however, that we have been able to establish who murdered Charles tonight, who murdered his grandfather almost forty years ago, and how it was done.”
There was a collective gasp from those assembled except Cameron, to my right and slightly behind me, who looked at me with contempt and sneered, “You have got to be kidding!”
I ignored him and watched the major get unsteadily to his feet. He was frowning hard. He spoke above a rising murmur of voices. “Are you serious? But…” He shook his head. “That’s fantastic. I hope you’re not… How could you possibly…?”
Armstrong, sitting beside Cameron, raised his voice rose above the others. “He couldn’t, tha’s how! Ut’s no possible. He’s bluffing!”
Sally was speaking urgently to Gordon. Gordon was shaking his head, answering under his breath. Cameron was on his feet, approaching me. “If you know who done it, tell us! I say ye’re full o’ bullshit!”