Authors: Barbara Cleverly
She paused in the shrubbery, as Mrs Colonel Belton apparently had, to hitch up her stockings and straighten her hat. If Lily had had a Balkan Sobranie available in a dolly bag, she’d have lit it. And taken a couple of nerve-calming puffs while considering her options.
Mountfitchet apparently was not a man to risk an appearance on the streets of Mayfair in his underpinnings. With no sign then, as now, of pursuit, the entirely innocent woman who’d used up so much police time and so many police handkerchiefs had made the mistake of trying to jump into the admiral’s cab. Out of the frying pan and into the line of fire. Poor woman. An encounter with Mountfitchet followed seconds later by one with Fenian gunmen? No wonder she’d been emotional. No wonder she’d stuffed her fingers in her ears, shut her eyes and screamed. And then gone underground.
Sandilands, in his lies, seemed, in fact, to have stumbled on the truth.
Mrs Belton was no more than a neglected army wife seeking cash and excitement. One of the hundreds of lonely and desperate women stepping out under the bright lights of the streets of London. Lily, out on her beat, had shared a park bench and an intimate conversation with many such. She’d heard confidences so raw, so devastating, they could only have been whispered into the receptive ear of a stranger who would listen and not condemn. The dangerous life of a London prostitute was no mystery to Lily.
Mrs Belton was clearly leading a dubious life that could only end in disaster, but she was no Morrigan.
And yet Morrigan had been here.
Someone had fired the last decisive bullet from the pavement a few feet from where she was standing now. Lily retraced Mrs Colonel Belton’s steps through the shrubbery and on to the pavement edge.
With unnerving coincidence, a taxicab screeched and swayed to a halt in front of her.
The door opened. Joe got out, bowing and smiling.
‘Still searching for your bag, Wentworth? Let me help. I think I may have a clue. Do get in.’ He called to the driver. ‘Change of plan, cabby … another one. Take us to St George’s Hospital, will you?’ He was trying for unconcern but feared he betrayed his tension as he asked: ‘Successful raid mounted, I take it, Wentworth … judging by the jaunty angle of your hat?’
‘Very successful, sir.’
‘And now you’re going to reassure me that you came into no direct contact with the dubious owner of the premises in front of which I find you skulking? That nothing … untoward occurred?’
‘Oh, plenty of untoward, sir. Lashings of it. Threats of a deviant sexual nature, blackmail and violence amounting to actual bodily harm all occurred. I’m afraid the gentleman has grounds for complaint against the forces of law and order, but somehow I don’t think he’ll fancy standing up in court to tell exactly how his privacy was invaded.’
She was smiling as she spoke but Joe was horrified. ‘Tell me you’re all right, for goodness’ sake, Wentworth!’ he croaked.
‘Tickety boo, sir. I came out as intact as ever I was when I went in.’
Joe sighed. ‘Here we go again! Very well – you got there …?’
* * *
‘So, you see, she’s not your Morrigan, sir.’ Wentworth gave him a sideways look, uneasy with Joe’s silence. ‘But I think you already knew that. You weren’t lying to the Dedhams, were you? And why are we coming to the hospital? The cabby really has regained consciousness – is that it?’
‘Notes of some of his communications with members of his family have started to come through. We’re in the neighbourhood … I thought we might check on him ourselves. If we should be lucky enough to find him compos mentis I should like to shake his hand. Ah, here we are.’
The matron welcomed them herself and had them conducted to the private room that had been allocated to Percy Jenner. ‘There’s a constable on duty and his daughter’s sitting with him,’ she’d told them.
‘But he’s asleep! How can he possibly be taking notes? This amounts to dereliction of duty,’ Joe hissed. He prepared to poke the gently snoring constable in the ribs, but found his arm being restrained by the young girl at the cabby’s bedside.
‘Please don’t bother him, sir. He’s done double time. His relief didn’t turn up and I was here anyway so I says just you have a quiet kip in that chair over there and I’ll stand watch. I’m Percy’s daughter, sir. The eldest. Clara. I’ve been taking notes. Sent ’em on to the super … what’s ’is name … Hopkirk. Didn’t they get them?’
Percy Jenner’s daughter was a pretty girl of about sixteen and if she had her father’s presence of mind she would be a good girl to leave in charge, Joe thought. He calmed himself.
‘Thank you, Clara. Well done. Commander Sandilands. And this is my assistant, Constable Wentworth. We did indeed receive your messages. Glad to hear your pa is doing better. Anything more to report?’
‘Same as ever. “Lucid intervals” is what the doctor says he’s having. Good sign, they think. But his brain’s swollen, or something … can brains swell, sir? Anyhow, they don’t want him using it for a bit. He needs to be asleep most of the time. I think they’re giving him something to keep him under. Not natural to be unconscious all this time, is it?’
‘Has he spoken? Does he remember what happened to him?’
‘Oh, yes, sir. It’s all down here in my notebook. Constable Mills copied it in his own hand to present to the super.’ She offered up her notepad. ‘Shall I read it out? It’s in shorthand. Not very good shorthand, but I can read it back all right. I’m taking a secretarial training. It’s all here with dates and times. He came to the first time yesterday when Ma was with him and started muttering. Family stuff you wouldn’t want to be bothered with. Said he was sorry for the trouble. Now – this morning with just me here, he asked: “Is she okay – the girl? Did they shoot her too?” He was out of his skin with worry. Twitching with it. Memory coming back … I said as no, she was all right and not to fret …’
‘Just the right thing to say, Clara, and quite true. Carry on.’
‘He said who’d done it. Irish. He went on about Fenians. I couldn’t spell the words he used even in shorthand, but I had a go. Those two blokes, sir, he said they’d shot the admiral and the policeman and the butler but he didn’t know what they’d done to the lady passenger.’ She consulted her notes and went on more hesitantly: ‘And then he said … um … maybe he was rambling a bit … he said: had they got the third man?’
‘Look again, Clara. Are you sure he said “man”?’
‘Yes. And
third
. As though there were three villains. But it only mentioned two in the papers. So I thought he must be confused. I asked him, “Dad, who else was shooting?” “Dunno, Clara,” he says. And then he says: “Bigger gun – Browning.” Dad would know about guns. “Who was it shooting, Dad?” I asked him again. ‘‘Burlington Bertie from Bow,” he says. Then he laughs and starts singing the song. Rambling a bit, I thought. Next he grunts out a few more words that don’t make much sense but I took ’em down straight … just as he said. Then Dad coughs and sinks from sight again. What shall I do now?’
‘More of the same, Clara. That’s excellent work! Look, stay on watch, will you? I’ll go and telephone for the con-stable’s replacement. You might like to stir him up a bit in a few minutes. Give him time to straighten his collar. He’ll want to look a bit sharper when the super comes roaring in. Just one more thing …’ He took his own notebook and a pencil from his pocket and passed them to Lily. ‘The constable is an adept at shorthand too,’ he said genially. ‘Just get your heads together, will you, and work out word for word that bit about the third gunman. It’s important.’
Lily scribbled as Clara showed and read out her shorthand. Suddenly she exclaimed and raised her pencil from the page, staring at the words she’d just written down.
‘You all right, miss? Aw, you’ve gone and broken your point! Here, borrow mine.’
The telephone was ringing on Joe’s desk as they entered his office. He hurried to answer.
‘Sir! Yes, sir. Just got back. All as we supposed. Message delivered just as we discussed. By the way – I was invited to attend the admiral’s funeral … I wondered if you … of course. Yes. Norfolk … Just inside a week … It will have to be … I’ve got this in hand, sir.’ He made polite retreating noises and put down the telephone.
‘Well, that was quite an afternoon, Wentworth. One way or another. Bit of a facer. Clears up questions I had, confirms some outrageous suspicions and presents us with a diplomatic minefield to tiptoe through.’ Joe pointed to the telephone. ‘My every move monitored, you see. Actions guided. Outcome decided by committee. Now, Wentworth, the words we have to exchange are to stay within these walls and between us. Do you understand?’
‘No, I don’t. All you want to know is who shot the admiral. Hopkirk will want to know. Bacchus has probably worked it out already.’
‘Your faith in Bacchus is beginning to make me uneasy, Wentworth. Leave the men to me to brief. They will hear what I want them to hear.’
The girl’s puzzlement was turning into truculence. ‘But what I found out in Mountfitchet’s lair throws light on the Russian aspect of this case. It shows us that it’s simply not there. It severs the connection. Hopkirk will—’
‘Listen. We had already eliminated the taxi girl.’ Joe steeled himself to deliver the disappointment. ‘Routine police work. Chappel called in a few favours on his old patch – excellent stuff – and we came up with Mrs Braithwaite. Not her real name. She keeps an annexe next to the Pinks Hotel with a useful rear entrance. High-class operation. Never one to give trouble. The calibre of the customers seems to render it immune to the prying eyes of the law. Indeed, some of their number
are
the prying eyes of the law. The lady was persuaded by someone more influential than Hopkirk to look in her books and verify the existence of Mr Mountfitchet’s visitor on the night in question. All is as you supposed, Wentworth. As, indeed, you have actually demonstrated by your intervention. You heard me tell the admiral’s family that she had been eliminated from our inquiries. You also heard me say the inquiry was concluded. No need for further investigation. I thought I’d made that clear.’
Joe was trying to be discouraging; he feared he was being bombastic and annoying.
To his surprise, she smiled at him and the smile was broad and free from any trace of irony. ‘Good old Inspector Chappel! Well done, that copper! Routine police work, as you say, sir. Glad to hear bread and butter bobbying is getting results!’
‘But you’re thinking – I know
I
am – that it would have been even better to have heard it before you opened negotiations with Mr Mountfitchet.’
‘Oh, I quite enjoyed it, sir. Stimulating. But I’m still puzzled. I thought you were looking for a
civil
motive for the killing. Are you now saying you’re happy to accept a political one? When it’s obvious that at the bottom of all this there’s a possibility that someone hired the Irishmen to do the killing for quite other reasons? That someone hired known Fenians deliberately, following the previous attacks on military men, to send everybody down the wrong trail? Well, it worked. And our villain stayed at the scene long enough to fire the decisive bullet when it looked as though his schemes were going wrong. It wasn’t an exotic goddess of terror we should have been looking for.’ She looked him in the eye as she delivered her thunderbolt. ‘It was a home-grown family member.’
Joe flinched and slowly nodded. He looked at the notebook she produced and passed across the desk to him. He looked at the last page. ‘Burlington Bertie? What are we to infer from that?’
‘I think you’ve already done your inferring, sir. And you’re as unhappy with it as I am. We’re each waiting for the other to go first.’
‘Yes. Well, it’s a concise image – for someone hanging on to consciousness. The cabby did well. Again! It’s a clear picture in two words of the man we’re looking for. A swaggering figure in top hat and tails. Everyone knows the music hall act. Everyone can sing the song. A man a little the worse for wear after a boozy night out. A toper staggering home down the street would be just part of the scenery in that area. You wouldn’t look at him twice.’
Lily took the book from him and began to read. ‘The cabby’s exact words were: “… pissed as a newt, he was. Couldn’t walk straight. But he could shoot straight all right.” And Dr Spilsbury confirms that. Single shot, right through the heart. So, a man, not drunk but unsteady on his feet.’ Her voice faltered. ‘I couldn’t help it, sir … the image of Sebastian Marland came to mind.’ She fell silent, colouring with embarrassment. ‘Oh, sorry, sir. When I say it out loud I can hear how ridiculous it sounds. I’ve gone and done it now, haven’t I? I must look a complete idiot. Um … I think I’d better make myself scarce. It’s been a long day. Sorry … I really will remove myself from the premises now.’
‘Stay!’ Joe spoke automatically. He got up, went to the door, locked it, and put the key in his pocket. Apologetically, he smiled and said: ‘I’ve seen you move, Wentworth. You could outrun me as well as out-think me, so I take no chances. You won’t leave this room until you’ve signed the forms I put before you last evening. You’re into something way above your head … my fault entirely … but you must trust me to do the right thing as far as your career is concerned! I was just speaking to the Home Secretary…or being spoken to … for the umpteenth time today. I suppose you’d better hear what transpired this morning while you were out playing hopscotch!’