They parted on amicable terms, and Carmichael made his way outside thoughtfully. James had not been quite what he had expected, and he had the feeling the man knew exactly why he had come and was not disturbed by the suspicion in the least. Whether that was because James had great faith in his own abilities, or because he was truly innocent, remained to be seen.
James did not immediately return to his office once Carmichael had gone. Instead he plunged his hands deep into his pockets and strolled over to stare aimlessly out of the window. Vivian, working at the computer at her desk, eyed him, but said nothing. The silence
stretched between them, broken only by the soft clack of the computer keyboard.
James swung away from the window abruptly, turning on the balls of his feet, and wandered back across the room, his lips pursed in a soundless whistle, his eyes apparently fixed on the ceiling molding. At the desk, Vivian cast him a single sardonic look before returning her gaze to her monitor. She continued to steadily ignore him as he turned again and came to stand at the edge of her desk, staring down at her. She worked on for a few moments, and then asked, without looking up, “Was there something you wanted?”
James shook his head in the manner of a parent sadly disappointed in his offspring. “Ah, Viv,” he said. “Wouldn’t you be upset to see me sent to prison?”
“I would certainly find it inconvenient,” she replied, swiveling away from the computer to turn her attention to the printer. “Did you expect to be arrested anytime soon?”
“You’re heartless,” declared James. “Couldn’t you see that the good chief inspector thinks I may have made off with the Haverford jewels and shot poor Sergeant Gibbons into the bargain?”
“It did seem a likely reason for him to have come,” Vivian replied, unperturbed.
While James watched, she took the printed pages from their tray, inspected them briefly, and then swiveled back to meet his eyes at last.
“Here are the reports you wanted from Ukraine,” she said, holding out the papers.
“Oh, very well,” said James, snatching the papers from her. “I’ll stop being dramatic and go back to work. But, mind, I’m no longer saving that Golconda diamond brooch for you.”
A smile just touched the corner of Vivian’s lips. “Just as well,” she said as he strode back into his office. “It’s the Colombian emeralds I really fancy.”
When he returned to the Yard, Carmichael was annoyed to find Constable Lemmy still absent. If it had been Gibbons—or, really, any of his more recent assistants—who was so late, he would have been
ringing around to find out what had happened to them, but as it was Lemmy, he simply assumed the boy had slept in on a Sunday.
So he was greatly surprised, as he settled at his desk to run a background check on Colin James, to see Lemmy appear in the doorway, looking as if he had been at his desk all along.
“Hullo, sir,” he said. “I thought you’d want to know: I’ve found the footage of Sergeant Gibbons at Waterloo.”
Carmichael immediately felt both guilty and irritated. Guilty, because he had done the constable an injustice, and irritated because he had been inveigled into misjudging Lemmy by the young man’s own past performance. It was all, however, superseded by the constable’s news.
“That’s very good, lad,” he said, managing to put some real warmth in his tone.
“I’ve got it all queued up for you downstairs,” continued Lemmy. “I thought you’d want to see for yourself.”
That, thought Carmichael, was a massive understatement.
“So I do,” he said, rising. “Have you sorted out who he was following?”
“No, sir, not yet,” replied Lemmy, leading the way down the hall. “I did just have a look, but I couldn’t make it out right away and I thought you’d want to know at once.”
Carmichael certainly could not fault this logic, and he gave Lemmy a sharp glance, wondering if his incompetent constable had somehow been magically transformed during the night.
The CCTV footage was, as always, blurry and hard to make out, at least for Carmichael. To the Yard’s video analyst, it appeared as clear as day, or so he seemed to indicate.
“There’s our lad,” he said, setting the video in motion.
Carmichael squinted. Several people were emerging from the station doors and heading off in various directions. Among those who moved out of the camera frame to the left was a young man, well wrapped up against the cold with a thick scarf and heavy coat, who strode along in a purposeful manner, his hands buried in his pockets. Carmichael recognized him more by his stride than anything else.
“And then here,” said Lemmy, moving over to a second screen, “here he is getting into the taxi.”
The angle of the camera at the taxi queue was not as good, but Gibbons could be made out entering the frame, bending to speak to the driver, and then climbing into the taxi.
“So who was in the first taxi in the queue?” asked Carmichael.
“It’s hard to make out,” said Lemmy, fiddling with the controls. “There’s not a clear shot. Here, see that bloke in the pea jacket and cap? You can just see him here—” He ran the film forward in slow motion, showing a dark figure, visible briefly between a pillar and the other pedestrians. “And then here he is again, getting into the taxi, but he came from the other direction, so there’s no shot of his face.”
“Once we trace Sergeant Gibbons’s path back through the station,” put in the video analyst, “we’ll probably have a better picture of the fellow. After all, he should be in almost every shot the sergeant is in—can’t be that hard to pick him out.”
Carmichael was to remember those words later with grim humor.
Tea with the Burdalls
G
ibbons was surprised when he woke on Sunday to feel—for the first time since he had been shot—the faint stirrings of hunger. He had not previously considered whether he was hungry or not, and it only now occurred to him that with nothing to eat since Tuesday lunch, it was odd he had not been hungry before. But he was actually eager for the chicken soup they brought him, though he was rather annoyed to discover coffee was not part of a liquid diet, as defined by the hospital nutritionist.
“I’d kill for a coffee,” he confided to John, the young man who brought the soup.
“Sorry,” he replied. “I can’t give you any.”
“Why not?” demanded Gibbons. “Coffee is a liquid, after all. And I’m on a liquid diet.”
“It’s not an approved liquid,” he said. “I can only give you what’s on the list, and coffee’s not there.”
Gibbons could clearly see John was bent on being obdurate.
“What about tea?” Gibbons asked. “Much nicer than coffee, really. Soothing.”
The young man shook his head. “No caffeine,” he said firmly. “I’m sorry, mate, but that’s how it has to be.”
And with that, he departed.
“It’s un-British,” Gibbons complained later to Nurse Pipp. “Tea is the national beverage of England.”
“Is it?” she asked dryly. “I thought that was beer. And you can’t have any of that, either.”
Nor would she agree to bring him any interim liquids when he asked for something about midmorning.
“We’ve got to reintroduce your system slowly to the idea of digestion,” she explained. “If we go too fast, well, you’d be amazed at how sick you can be.”
“I can’t see that a mug of broth could hurt anything,” he answered.
“Well, I can,” she replied. “You leave the nursing to me and concentrate on your detective work.”
But Gibbons was tired of the detective work. He had spent all morning pouring over the facsimile of his notebook, but had not managed to elucidate anything further from it and he was in consequence feeling frustrated.
“You’re getting fretful,” said Nurse Pipp. “You probably need a bit of a rest—you’ve been up all morning.”
That made Gibbons determined to stay awake, but after she had left he did indeed drop off. He was awakened by the arrival of lunch, which turned out to be a cup of fruit juice and a container of custard.
“That’ll stick to your ribs,” said John, which Gibbons took as his idea of a joke.
But he was eager for anything to eat at that point, which was why he found it so unaccountable that the custard seemed to repulse him. He was puzzling over this phenomenon when Bethancourt and Cerberus appeared.
“Hullo,” said Bethancourt cheerfully. “How are you? Nurse Pipp seems to think you’re progressing very nicely.”
“I suppose,” said Gibbons, still dubiously regarding the custard.
“What the devil is that?” asked Bethancourt, peering down into the plastic cup.
“It’s custard,” replied Gibbons. “Anybody could see that it’s custard.”
Bethancourt picked up the plastic spoon and poked at the mixture dubiously.
“This?” he said, watching it resist gravity as he lifted the spoon and the fat globule of custard persisted in clinging to it. “I don’t know what it is, but believe me, it’s not custard. I’m not entirely sure it’s edible.”
Although Gibbons had loathed the stuff, he was perversely annoyed by this criticism of it.
“Of course it’s custard,” he snapped. “Nurse Pipp would hardly have lied to me about that. There would be no point.”
“There would if she were trying to poison you,” retorted Bethancourt, dropping the spoon. “If they want you to eat custard, I will go and fetch some for you. Hell, I’ll make it myself—it’s not that difficult.”
Gibbons, with his mouth open to snap back, paused, somehow touched by the idea of Bethancourt actually taking the trouble to cook for him.
“Can you really make custard?” he asked.
Bethancourt looked indignant. “Of course I can,” he replied. “I’m not a gourmet chef, but I can do the basics.”
“Well,” admitted Gibbons, “this stuff isn’t very appetizing. In fact, I don’t feel hungry at all now.”
“I’ll bring you back some proper custard tonight,” promised Bethancourt.
“Thanks,” said Gibbons. “So what are you up to today?”
“Ah, you made me forget with all your talk about custard,” said Bethancourt, slapping his forehead. “I’ve found out where you went after lunch on Tuesday!”
Gibbons stared at him. “You have?” he demanded. “Phillip, that’s wonderful! How did—I mean, where—oh, bother, I can’t think where to start.”
Bethancourt beamed at him. “You went up to see the Burdalls,” he announced. “I thought of it last night and rang them this morning to confirm. They couldn’t remember your name right off, but they described you well enough, and said you turned up at about three and spoke to them for about half an hour.”
“Then these notes here must refer to the conversation I had with them,” said Gibbons excitedly, pushing aside the hated custard and pulling the facsimile sheets back onto his lap. “Here—this bit. ‘Bs’ must mean ‘Burdalls,’ don’t you think?”
“It would make sense,” agreed Bethancourt. “The previous notes were made after your lunch with James, weren’t they?”
“That’s right.” Gibbons frowned down at the page. “This, where I’ve written
j fake
—I thought earlier today that might have meant the jewelry was fake. But that doesn’t make sense.”
Something he had read came back to Bethancourt as he peered over his friend’s shoulder. “There was some fake jewelry,” he said. “At least, there was at one time.”
Gibbons looked up at him. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“I came across it when James took me to see the Haverford house,” said Bethancourt. “I was looking at some of the old account books from Evony St. Michel’s time, and there was an entry in one of them for a payment made to have replicas made of some of her jewelry. I don’t know why the Burdalls would have brought it up, though. If they even knew.”
“They might have known,” said Gibbons, considering. “Nicky Burdall was close to Miranda Haverford.”
“I can ask,” said Bethancourt. “What about the rest of this?”
“Well, the only thing I’ve come up with this morning is the fact that I normally use
‘NC’
to mean ‘natural causes,’” said Gibbons, “which is certainly what Miranda Haverford died of. It even makes some sense in the context of the rest of the notes—I was clearly trying not to let my mind revert back into the old homicide investigation channels.”
“It does make sense,” agreed Bethancourt. “But you’ve underscored it rather emphatically. Doesn’t that rather suggest that there was something that made you think of murder?”
“Well, on this other page—” Gibbons paused, searching it out from the pile. “Yes, here—we took this to mean that I thought the Colemans were here principally for the inheritance, rather than from any family feeling. And if there had been any suspicious circumstances
regarding Miranda Haverford’s death, well, they would look a bit fishy, wouldn’t they?”
“But there weren’t any, correct?” asked Bethancourt. “Suspicious circumstances, I mean.”
Gibbons shook his head. “No, it was definitely natural causes. A heart attack in her sleep, I believe.”
“Still,” said Bethancourt thoughtfully, picking up the previous page and studying it, “if the Burdalls had said anything against the Colemans, it might have made you think of how convenient Miranda’s death was for them. Which in turn might have made you write a note like this, to remind yourself in no uncertain terms that they couldn’t have murdered her because she died of old age.”
He looked up to see how this logic sat with Gibbons, and found his friend nodding his head.
“You may be right,” he said. “Did the Burdalls say anything to you about the Colemans?”
Bethancourt thought back. “Nothing very much,” he said. “Only that they weren’t sure if the Colemans had turned up when they did because Miranda wanted to have a look at them or if they had come off their own bat.”
“Well, there’s something I hadn’t thought of,” said Gibbons. “I was assuming they had come on their own.”
“They say not,” said Bethancourt. “Rob Coleman claimed Miranda had written to him, asking him to visit. No doubt she was curious as to who her heirs were. I mean, if I had a fortune in jewelry and proposed leaving it to distant relatives I’d never met, well, I’d want to see who it was going to.”
“Curiosity is only human nature,” agreed Gibbons. “Let me see that page again.”
Bethancourt handed it over, remarking, “There’s still a bit of it we haven’t figured out yet.”
“I know,” sighed Gibbons. “WC, for example. Or who I wanted to run a background check on. And I really don’t think it was some man named Wilbur Carson in the States.”
“I never said his name was Wilbur Carson,” said Bethancourt with dignity.
Gibbons only grinned at him. Which made Bethancourt grin back, elated that Gibbons was feeling well enough to jest. He had never consciously thought of what life would be like without his friend, but the relief that washed over him now proved that his subconscious at least had dreaded it.
“I’ll remember that,” he said, “and ask the Burdalls about it. They’re trying to remember exactly what they said to you—I told them I’d be by shortly.”
“Carmichael’s going to want to talk to them, too,” Gibbons warned him.
“Oh,” said Bethancourt, who had not thought of this. “Of course he will. Er, you don’t mind if I go along now, do you? No harm in it, really, since I’ve already spoken to them. Or do you think the chief inspector will be cross with me?”
“He probably will be, but he’ll get over it,” said Gibbons. “You found the Burdalls, after all. Go on—go now before I ring him.”
“Thanks, Jack,” said Bethancourt, collecting his dog. “I rather want to follow this up. And,” he added as he headed for the door, “I won’t forget the custard. I’ll make some up directly I’ve talked with the Burdalls.”
It was Bethancourt that deserved the thanks, reflected Gibbons, watching his friend disappear out the door. It was quite a feat, having filled in part of his missing day.
Nicky and Dylan were just arriving home when Bethancourt arrived at the house in Southgate. They both looked delighted to see him.
“You’re back,” said Nicky. “I didn’t expect that—you’re the first one that’s come back.”
“You must like Gran’s tea,” observed Dylan. “You’ve shown up at teatime twice now.”
“Have I?” said Bethancourt, checking his watch. “So I have. Well, I do like your grandmother’s tea. And not only have I come back, but shortly you’ll be able to add to your collection, Nicky.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “I will? Who’s coming next?”
“A detective chief inspector from Scotland Yard,” Bethancourt told her, and smiled when her eyes lit up.
“Oh, that’s a good one,” she said. “The other one was only a sergeant. But,” she added, “he was awfully nice.”
“I liked him,” put in Dylan firmly. “He wasn’t half as stuffy as the regular police.”
“No,” agreed Bethancourt. “Jack’s not stuffy at all.”
“Well, come along in,” said Nicky, leading the way toward the front door. “We’ll let Grandma Nicky know you’ve come. She’ll be glad you’ve brought Cerberus again.”
The elderly lady was indeed pleased. She buried her frail hands in the borzoi’s fur while Bethancourt again took the seat to her left and watched the reenactment of the teatime ritual.
The Burdalls were excited to learn they were being of actual help in the case, and did their best to remember exactly what had been said in their conversation with Gibbons. Here Nicky and Dylan were of great help, prompting their elders.
“We might have mentioned the fake jewelry,” said Mrs. Burdall, looking to her son for confirmation.
“You did, Gran,” said Nicky. “Sergeant Gibbons asked if we had ever seen any of the jewelry.”
“Oh, yes, I remember now,” said Mrs. Burdall. “And of course, both Neil and I have been to some of the exhibitions, and I even remember Miranda wearing some of it a very long time ago. But we haven’t seen any of the pieces in some time now, although Miranda did occasionally wear some of the faux pearls.”
“There were other costume pieces as well,” put in Neil. “There was a copy of the amethyst and diamond brooch, and another of an emerald and diamond necklace.”
“And the earrings,” said Nicky. “Don’t forget the ruby earrings.” She sighed. “Aunt Miranda said I could have those when I grew up.”
“I’m sorry, Nicky,” said her grandfather.
Bethancourt was surprised. “She left the ruby earrings to you?” he asked.
Mrs. Burdall laughed. “Not the real ones—those went with the
rest of the collection. But Miranda had promised some of the copy pieces to a few of her friends.”