Four Thousand Days, page 20
‘Would you like to look?’ Hinchinbrooke leaned sideways and back at a perilous angle and turned the eyepieces round so Margaret could peer down them.
She wasn’t ready for what she saw. It was a fairyland of cubes and hexagons, rainbow colours and rocks like diamonds. It seemed to her untutored eye that every one was different. The light from below gave each one a halo of its own. ‘Arnold, it’s beautiful,’ she said. It seemed ungrateful to ask a question. ‘Can you tell where it’s from?’
‘Ooh, place of origin can be tricky,’ Hinchinbrooke said, sitting up straight and turning the binocular back in his direction. ‘You’d really have to ask the geology lot. It’s coastal, though.’ He peered closer, catching his eyebrow ridge a nasty one on a lens rim. ‘Ow. Yes, tiny bits of shell residue. If I had larger mag, probably diatoms in there as well. If I had to guess …’
Margaret held her breath.
‘I’d say South-East England, but I wouldn’t die in a ditch over it.’
But Emma Barker had died in a ditch, or something like it and Margaret couldn’t let it go. ‘Anything else?’ she asked.
‘Such as?’ In Hinchinbrooke’s experience, it helped to know what a client expected; especially if said client was paying for his expertise – which, by the way, Margaret Murray wasn’t.
‘I don’t know,’ the archaeologist said. ‘I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but, well … stone, marble, lead at a pinch.’
Hinchinbrooke went back to the microscope. ‘There is a way of testing for lead,’ he said, ‘but that would mean the paper would be tested to destruction, which I assume you wouldn’t want. Hmm …’ he breathed carefully through his mouth as he swapped the slides over and looked them over one by one. ‘Stone. Well, if it’s sandstone, it would be indistinguishable, of course. Marble would need to be damaged to leave a trace and that would be a powder … nothing like that here.’
He picked up the final glass slide. ‘Let’s see what this one can tell us. Last one lucky, as we physicists say.’
‘Do you?’ Margaret asked. ‘Why?’
Hinchinbrooke shrugged. ‘I have no idea. But it can be a bit of a boring discipline, physics, if I’m honest with you, Margaret. These little witticisms make the day go by.’
She tried hard to see the wit in ‘last one lucky’ but failed. He suddenly jabbed her sharply in the ribs and she almost fell off her stool.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Excitement. I don’t know if you were expecting this at all, were you?’
‘What?’ Margaret felt a little testy. She had almost died of shock when he suddenly poked her like that.
‘Wood,’ he said. ‘Here. See for yourself.’ He did his leaning back trick and she leaned over rather gingerly to peer down the microscope again. The rainbow of sand filled her vision again.
‘What am I looking at?’ she asked.
‘Squiggly brown things.’ Hinchinbrooke used the technical term. The Botany department would have been proud.
‘Ah, yes.’ She looked up and focused on his face with difficulty. She really didn’t know how people did this day in, day out. ‘Any idea what sort of wood?’
Hinchinbrooke laughed. ‘The impossible, Dr Murray,’ he said, ‘I have just done. Miracles take a little longer.’
‘That’s funny,’ she said, but she wasn’t laughing. ‘A girl who is now dead said that to someone shortly before she was murdered. Apparently, according to my police informant, she said “miracles do happen”.’
He didn’t know why, but Hinchinbrooke felt the hairs on the back of his neck crawling. And not just because this woman had a police informant. He, the stoic physicist. He, who did not believe in the supernatural at all. He cleared his throat and stuck to what he knew – or thought he knew.
‘It’s a soft wood, certainly,’ he said. ‘Very degraded, though. The cell walls are broken, some of it seems to have been eroded away. Probably by the sand, if they were wrapped together. But if I were to stick my neck out, going by the length of the fibres and the tiny bit of remaining pigment … did you notice the cells were different colours?’
She shook her head.
‘Well, you’d need an expert, as I say, but at a guess, I would say olive wood. Does that help?’
‘Right, gentlemen.’ Inspector Athelgar Blunt called his people to order in the smoke-filled ante-room next to Lost Property. ‘Time for morning prayers.’ He scanned the room, looking at the careworn faces he had looked at now for the best part of six years. ‘We are particularly honoured this morning to have with us Temporary Detective Constable Crawford.’
There were mutterings and murmurings all round and somebody banged the table. Crawford felt a little uncomfortable in his serge suit and, as the tallest man in the room, even sitting down, he was not likely to blend in.
‘Right.’ Blunt flicked open a ledger on the desk in front of him. ‘Gleeson. Katharine Docks?’
‘Still observing, guv,’ the detective said. ‘We’re on to three bargees now, so the problem’s growing.’
‘Bluebottles helpful as usual?’
‘What would we do without them, guv?’ Gleeson rolled his eyes and everybody except Crawford guffawed. He’d always assumed that the River Police actually were helpful. He told himself quietly that he had a lot to learn.
‘Winter.’ Blunt swivelled his chair to talk to the man on his left. ‘Immoral earnings down the Elephant?’
‘It’s pretty much what we thought, guv,’ he said. ‘Widespread south of the river. Bishop of Southwark wasn’t interested, though, even when I mentioned a certain member of his flock being involved.’
‘Maybe it’s time to feel his backwards collar,’ Blunt suggested. ‘Take a cohort or two of uniform; be seen to be seen. Nothing puts pressure on the bloke at the top like an ostentatious police presence. Biddulph, any joy in the Anthropometry department?’ Blunt looked pleased with himself; with the possible exception of Crawford, he was the only man in the room who could pronounce that word.
‘Well.’ Biddulph had a Gladstone bag in his lap, bulging with notes. ‘From the various tarts’ descriptions, I’m looking for a tall bloke with a gammy left leg, who at the same time has the ability to leg it over rooftops and squeeze through gratings. He’s got the large ear lobes of a sex maniac, the long hooter of a fraudster and is given to solitary vices – hence his blindness.’
‘Any sign of him in Anthropometry?’ Blunt had to ask, just to say the word again.
‘Nothing, guv.’
‘Thought not,’ the inspector sighed. ‘Time they closed that bloody place down.’
‘Oh, have a heart, guv,’ Biddulph pleaded. ‘Sergeant McIndoe down there’s got a great line in toasted teacakes.’
More guffaws. Then things got serious.
‘So, Crawford. The University College murder.’
‘Murders, guv,’ the rookie corrected him.
‘Come again?’
‘There are actually two linked with University College, and probably a third – from King’s.’
There was a silence.
‘What we don’t do in morning prayers, Temporary Detective Constable,’ Blunt said, ‘is to speculate. We merely report progress. Notice that Detectives Gleeson, Winter and Biddulph didn’t give us their airy-fairy thoughts on their respective cases, merely the current situation regarding them. Now, bearing in mind that no one in this room except you and me know the ins and outs of this particular case, try again.’
Crawford looked at the others. All eyes were trained on him and he could already feel the tightness of his old tunic collar and the chafing of his helmet rim as he contemplated the rest of his career back in the horse troughs. ‘Dr Norman Minton was bludgeoned to death in his study at the college,’ he said, ‘week ago Tuesday. The murder weapon was almost certainly a statuette found lying on his desk.’
‘What about the man in the frame?’ Blunt asked.
‘There is the possibility—’ Crawford began.
‘We deal in probabilities here, lad,’ the inspector told him, ‘which, with the weight and gravitas of years of police experience, become certainties. The probable is Professor Walter Inkester. You were present at my interview with him. What do you make of him?’
‘An innocent man, in my view,’ Crawford said.
Blunt sighed and pushed his chair back from the desk. ‘Winter,’ he said. ‘Flick that curtain aside, would you?’
The detective obliged and a green baize-covered wall appeared, fluttering with notes written in Blunt’s hand. He got to his feet and picked up the silver-crowned tipstaff that was his badge of rank twenty years ago and pointed at the name in the centre. ‘Norman Minton,’ he said. ‘Lecturer in archaeology at University College. That’s a glorified teacher to you and me, gents. And we’ve all got memories of old teachers we’d like to brain, haven’t we?’
Guffaws all round.
‘But, ruling out the student body, snowflakes who wouldn’t have the bottle for anything bloody, who wants Minton dead, eh? As that great Roman policeman Marcus Tullius Cicero used to say, “Cui bono?” “Who benefits?”’ Blunt’s tipstaff flashed across the wall. ‘This bloke. Walter Inkester, lecturer in zoology at the same college. What’s his motive, I hear you ask? Tell ’em, Crawford.’
‘The dead man was having an affair with Inkester’s wife.’
There were ‘aye ayes’ and whistles in all directions.
‘So, it’s the oldest motive in the book,’ Blunt said. ‘Revenge. It’s best served cold and delivered by a rather sharp statuette of Mercury.’
He paused for effect.
‘So, all this’ – Blunt waved his tipstaff across the wall – ‘is just so much rubbish.’ And he tore them all down. ‘Winter, put those in the bin, will you?’
Crawford’s heart sank. It had taken him hours to collate that wall, each piece of paper carefully worked out with relevant evidence, from Helen Richardson to Emma Barker to Norman Minton. There were the scraps of Latin he had gleaned from Margaret Murray, maps of Hampton-on-Sea, lists of physical evidence like the cyanide phial from Storey’s Yard, the wooden box from the same place and the paper wrapping that had once contained whatever really lay at the heart of this mystery. All of it had just been consigned to the litter bin.
‘So, Temporary Detective Constable.’ Blunt sat down again. ‘There’s a little lesson for you. How not to present a case at morning prayers. Now, unless you want to accompany Winter here to the Bishop of Southwark’s palace, just to make the ecclesiastical gentleman a little nervous, I’d get myself over to Inkester’s if I were you. If the college has any sense, they’ll have fired him by now and he’ll be starting to let things slip. If he so much as farts, I want to know about it. Do we understand each other, Temporary Detective Constable?’
Margaret Murray was usually getting ready for the public lectures on a Friday afternoon, but somehow, for once, a cup of tea and a slice of Victoria was more important. She slipped into one of the rear booths at the Jeremy Bentham and sat there, fingers to her eyes, waiting for Thomas to work his magic. She felt rather than heard someone slip into the seat opposite and, heaving a sigh, moved her hands, opened her eyes and had to smother a small scream.
‘Inspector Reid! What … whatever happened?’
‘I would love to say I walked into a door,’ Reid said, ‘but I know you wouldn’t believe me. After your little soirée on Tuesday night, I’m afraid I was set upon by brigands. Or something like that, anyway.’ He smiled and immediately regretted it as his swollen eye crinkled painfully. ‘Ow. I keep forgetting.’
‘It happened on Tuesday and you still look like this?’ Margaret was appalled. ‘How many of them were there, for heaven’s sake?’
‘Twelve. Tell her twelve, Inspector Reid.’ Thomas was at the table, with a tray. ‘It sounds better that way.’
‘Thomas!’ Margaret was aghast all over again. ‘It wasn’t you, was it? I would never have let you meet if I had known.’
Thomas was sporting a black eye almost as colourful as Reid’s. But other than that, he seemed moderately unscathed. ‘It wasn’t me!’ He was horrified. ‘Let me put this tray down. I still …’ He winced as he bent to his task. ‘My damage is a bit more hidden,’ he explained to a confused Margaret.
‘But none the worse for that,’ Reid said, patting his arm kindly. ‘How are … they?’
‘Still a bit twingey, Mr Reid, thank you for asking.’
Margaret decided not to delve. ‘But … what happened?’
‘Nothing we couldn’t cope with, Prof,’ Thomas came in quickly. ‘Just a bit of rough and tumble. Between us, we saw him off, didn’t we, Mr Reid?’
Reid nodded, with some care. ‘A roughneck, Margaret, nothing more. Tom here nicked him, we think, on the arm. Lucky not to be killed – his knives were all over the road and it was touch and go who got there first.’
Thomas looked modest. ‘As you say, Mr Reid. Just luck.’
Margaret looked from one battered face to another. As she got her eye in, she could see more bruises. Hidden in his facial hair, Reid was sporting a split lip and Thomas had the beginnings of a fine cauliflower ear. Both men had sundry grazes and Reid had two fingers taped together.
‘Have you been to the hospital?’ she asked. ‘Just to be sure.’
‘Nah.’ Tom was dismissive. ‘It was just—’
‘A bit of rough and tumble. Yes, you said. But neither of you are as young as you were.’ She looked from one outraged face to another. ‘Well, you’re not. It’s silly to take risks.’
Reid leaned in and proffered his bruised eye to Margaret. ‘See this,’ he said, lisping slightly because of his lip. ‘See the yellow? Well, it’s healing, that means. Tom’s is the same. So, really, Margaret, stop worrying.’
‘Do you know who it was?’ she wanted to know.
‘He wore a scarf right up to here.’ Tom put his hand just under his eyes.
‘And he had no distinguishing features,’ Reid chimed in. ‘Average height, average weight. Aren’t they always?’
‘Age?’
They both shrugged.
‘Average. I see.’ Margaret had heard this description before, and recently. ‘All right, you two. I can see that I’m not going to get anywhere with you. Let’s pour this tea before it’s stewed out of all recognition.’ She glanced at the tray. ‘I see you have already brought two cups, Thomas. Very forward-thinking.’
‘Well, I seen him come in.’ Thomas, always the perfect host, thought of everything. ‘D’you want another slice?’ He gestured to the sponge. ‘Or just two plates?’
‘Good heavens, Thomas,’ Margaret said. ‘I may be a little concerned, but not enough to share my Victoria sponge. Inspector Reid, would you like the same or something different?’
‘Something that doesn’t need chewing?’ Reid suggested.
‘Custard tart, on its way.’ Thomas bustled off, as far as he could bustle just then.
‘You didn’t come to see me eat cake,’ Margaret said to Reid.
‘No, that’s true.’ He stirred his tea.
‘Or to let me see your battle scars?’
‘Also true.’
‘So, why …?’
Reid smiled on one side of his face only. ‘I just came to make sure you were all right. You were … upset, on Tuesday.’
‘It’s Friday now,’ she pointed out.
‘Yes. So, this is how my week has been. Tuesday night; beaten almost senseless. As you pointed out, I am not as young as I was. Wednesday; stayed in bed, having been beaten almost senseless the day before. Beef tea through a straw and little else. I think the Tambour House Hotel is still rather shocked – they don’t have beaten-senseless guests as a rule. Still, they were very kind. Thursday; walking about, but only just. And that brings us to Friday.’
Margaret made a lot of counting sugar lumps into her tea. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last. ‘I have been rather worrying at it. I thought perhaps … well, I thought perhaps you were angry.’
He patted her hand, using the one of his with all the functioning fingers. ‘We’ve all been under a lot of strain,’ he murmured.
‘Some good news, though,’ she said. ‘Angela Friend and Constable Crawford are engaged to be married.’
Reid would have raised his eyebrows under normal circumstances, but chose not to this time. ‘That is good news. Long engagement planned?’ He knew how it worked for policemen. The pay was never that good, but keeping a wife on it in the early years was next to impossible.
‘Short. Angela is a Friend.’
‘Yes, I know.’ Reid was puzzled. He had heard of Margaret’s ‘gang’, but even so.
‘No, I mean a Friend, as in the Scouring Powder.’
This time, Reid’s eyebrows shot up and dang the consequences. ‘Oh, I see. I hope he doesn’t leave the police, though. Good instincts, that lad has.’
Margaret sighed. ‘Angela is leaving academe, though,’ she said. ‘She came to see me this morning. Her mind is made up, I’m afraid. She is looking forward to being a policeman’s wife and mother of a policeman’s children.’
‘Oh.’ Reid was broadminded, but this was a facer. ‘I didn’t know.’
A waitress brought Reid’s custard tart and placed it in front of him with a bob. He smiled his thanks and she dimpled away.
Margaret frowned. ‘No, Inspector, Angela is not as friendly as all that, as far as I know. She just wants what she wants; I can’t argue with that. Her companions from her house are putting on a surprise party tomorrow evening. We’re invited.’
‘That’s very civil of them.’ Reid was more pleased than he let show.
‘Isn’t it? It’s at Piers Gibbs’s house. I haven’t been there, but I know where it is. Rather grand, as I understand it.’ She chuckled. ‘Probably a little less grand than it was, since Benjamin Crouch has been living there. But if they wipe the grease off, I am sure it will be lovely.’
‘Do we have a time?’ Reid asked.
‘Seven for seven thirty,’ she said.
‘Well, how about this?’ Reid said. ‘You come to the Tambour House Hotel for a very early supper, we’ll call in on someone I think you’d like to meet and then we can go on to this party and be fashionably late?’
