Brigade: The Further Adventures of Inspector Lestrade (14 page)

‘I believe there was a Brown in my … in Alex’s troop in the Eleventh, Inspector. But it is a common enough name.’

‘Indeed, ma’am.’ Lestrade’s face fell.

‘But let me give you two more names, Inspector. Men who can help you more than I – Seth Bond and “Poppy” Vansittart. And now … leave me alone with my memories.’

‘Of course, ma’am. One last thing. Do you own a ship – or a boat – called
Ora Rosa
? Or do you know anyone who does?’

Mrs Douglas shook her head. And Lestrade closed the door.

Fatima’s

The black reaper clanked and rattled its way across the hill, moving inexorably from left to right, over the field of gold. There were shouts from the men, black dots in the distance, walking alongside the horses, checking strap and chain. And the dogs wheeled and yapped around the huge machine, driving obliquely against the jut of the hill.

Nearly a mile away, resting on the five-barred gate in the early morning sun, sat Inspector Sholto Lestrade. He was already in his shirt sleeves, for the day promised to be long and hot. He watched the reapers for a while, but every so often would check the road, left and right, for something more important.

Something More Important arrived after a few minutes, in a phaeton, drawn by two lathered horses.

‘Bandicoot.’ Lestrade took the driver’s hand and helped him down. ‘Thank you for coming. What news?’

‘Well, Letitia is having problems with her dress apparently. And we haven’t had all the replies yet.’

‘Banders, delighted though I am that your nuptials are drawing on apace, I do have more pressing business.’

‘Of course, Sholto, sorry. You asked me to find these two. Seth Bond and Poppy Vansittart. Well it wasn’t easy. I don’t understand why you can’t use the resources of the Yard for this.’

‘Let’s just say I am rather “persona non regatta” at the moment. I’m on my own, Harry. My sergeant has gone down with something again. So I have to use rather unorthodox measures.’

Rather hurt to be considered an unorthodox measure, Bandicoot quickly recovered nevertheless his sangfroid.

‘Seth Bond is no problem. He lives in a village called Southam, not far from here. Retired labourer was all I could glean. Oh, that’s rather good, isn’t it? Glean?’

Lestrade ignored the levity. ‘And Vansittart?’

‘Ah, yes, that’s more difficult. He’s dead.’

‘When?’

Bandicoot, Lestrade was intrigued to notice, was using his old pocket book for the storage of information. Old habits die hard, even to a policeman of Bandicoot’s limitations.

‘Er … fourteenth of April, eighteen eighty-six. In Paris.’

‘Paris?’ Lestrade threw up his hands in exasperation. ‘All right. Bond it is. I’ll start with him. Look, Bandicoot, I need hardly say how grateful I am for this information. Especially from a man about to tie the knot. I appreciate it.’

‘How will you get to Southam?’ asked Bandicoot.

‘I’ll hitch a ride, I suppose.’

‘Nonsense, Sholto. I’m not tying the knot as you put it for ten days yet. Climb up.’

‘I thought you’d never offer,’ and the phaeton whirred away down the road.

‘What have you got?’ Bandicoot asked. ‘Isn’t that how we used to do it? Sound each other out. You, Forbes, Dew, myself.’

Lestrade chuckled. ‘What made you leave the Force, Harry? Given time, you’d have made an average copper.’

‘Nice of you to say so, Sholto.’ The blond man grinned. ‘I don’t know really. I think it was the Struwwelpeter business. When you’ve killed someone … Anyway, I met Letitia and I realised there was more to life than pounding the beat.’

‘So they tell me,’ said Lestrade.

‘Then there’s London. I mean, it’s marvellous to come up to town for the theatre and so on, but working there day in, day out … And in this heat! How do you stand it?’

‘At least you’re never alone in the Strand,’ commented Lestrade. Bandicoot could not argue with that and accepted the inspector’s cigar.

‘Talking of which – Is Dr Watson still writing about you in that journal?’

‘Currently, no. But I fear it will only be a matter of time. You asked me what we’ve got. Well, chew on this.’

Bandicoot removed the cigar from his mouth, expecting Lestrade to place something between his lips. He realised his error without appearing too much of an idiot and took up the reins again.

‘Four murders. All the victims elderly men. Cause of death in three cases, poisoning. Poisons various. Cause of death in the fourth case, suffocation. Two of them formerly soldiers of the Eleventh Hussars; rode in the Charge of the Light Brigade.’

‘Gosh,’ Bandicoot was impressed.

‘No definite enemies. No obvious motive. All I have is the means. There is no geographical pattern. These corpses have turned up all over the place. But the murderer knows his poisons. That much we do know.’

‘Why the suffocation in one case?’ asked Bandicoot.

Lestrade shrugged. ‘Even your Great Detective would be baffled by that one, I suspect.’

Bandicoot snorted. ‘I must admit I was impressed by the late Mr Holmes.’

But as Lestrade knew, it didn’t take much to impress Bandicoot.

‘I’ve been given no end of leads,’ Lestrade went on. ‘I’ve been passed from pillar to post. And so far, nowhere.’

‘Except that you’ve been suspended.’

‘How did you know that?’ Lestrade was incredulous.

‘No, Sholto. I’d like to claim it was a flash of the old Bandicoot inspiration.’

Lestrade racked his brain to think of an earlier instance of this supposed phenomenon. He could not. ‘But in fact, I read it in
The Times
this morning.’

Bandicoot fished about in the boot at his feet and produced a crumpled newspaper. Lestrade found it at the bottom of column three, the sixth page.

‘
Yard Man Suspended. Suspected Attack on Royal Personage
,’ he read aloud, and ploughed on silently through the rest.

‘It says here I attacked the Kaiser.
Inspector Sholto Lefade
– I don’t know whether to be outraged or relieved they got my name wrong -
was apprehended with his hands around the throat of His Imperial Majesty at Sandringham on the
… This is libel, Bandicoot. Not only libel, but sheer bloody nonsense.’

‘One thing is certain, Sholto,’ said Bandicoot, optimistically. ‘Somebody up there doesn’t like you. Doesn’t it say you’re supposed to answer charges?’

‘Yes, next month. Why didn’t Frost get a message to me? He knows where I am. And what is the matter with Charlo, with all his devotion to duty?’

‘I never understood the workings of the Yard, Sholto. Even the plumbing mystified me.’

And the phaeton wheeled into Southam.

They found Seth Bond in the churchyard, dozing against a buttress, his scythe beside him. A stocky man, with white wispy whiskers, battered derby hat and the traditional leggings of the agricultural labourer. His pipe had slipped from his mouth and lay quietly burning a hole in his waistcoat as he snored. Lestrade kicked him with just enough force to impress upon him the need for urgency in stamping out the minor conflagration growing on his chest.

‘Thank’ee, sir. Everything’s so tinder dry, it is. We’ll have some bad fires this year, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard,’ Lestrade said by way of introduction and stamped hard on Bandicoot’s foot as the younger man called out in surprise at the lie he had just heard. ‘This is Constable Bandicoot.’

Bond looked up at the golden-headed man blotting out the sun. ‘You’re a fair cop, guv,’ he said and allowed the policemen to help him to his feet. ‘You don’t mind if I carry on? The vicar wants this churchyard cleared by night. Says yer can’t see the stones proper. Besides, I shall be lyin’ ’ere meself one of these days. I ’ope as ’ow somebody’ll be doin’ this for me. ’Ow can I ’elp you gentlemen?’

‘Cast your mind back,’ said Lestrade, ‘to your days with the Eleventh Hussars.’

‘Ah, great days, they was,’ beamed Bond, ‘if yer didn’t mind the cholera and the flies,’ and he swung with extraordinary gusto for a man of his age into the yellowed churchyard grass. Lestrade sneezed several times in quick succession. Townie, thought Bond, and carried on swinging.

‘When did you join the regiment?’ managed Lestrade.

‘Oh, it must have been … yes, eighteen-forty. The year the old Queen married.’

‘Which troop?’

‘F Troop. ‘Til I was promoted sergeant-major of C Troop.’ He straightened himself with the pride of it. ‘That was after the Charge, of course.’

‘Balaclava?’ Lestrade checked.

‘That’s right, sir. Now there was a battle! I remember old Bill Lamb …’

‘Who?’ Lestrade snapped.

‘Bill Lamb,’ Bond repeated, somewhat taken aback. ‘Funny, ’e were a shepherd before ’e enlisted. And became one again, I believe. I thought ’e’d lost ’is eyes in the Valley of Death, to be sure.’

Lestrade held the scythe arm. ‘His eyes?’

Bond nodded.

‘Did your Bill Lamb have a cut across his forehead, narrowly missing both eyes?’

‘’E did, sir. A damned Roosian did that for him. So much blood on ’is face, yer couldn’t see. Neither could Bill. ’E was stumblin’ around the field, calling out “Englishman, Englishman.” Must have been a bit light headed.’

Lestrade let the scythe arm go, and looked at Bandicoot. He spun to Bond again. ‘What about these names – Joseph Towers?’

Bond grinned. ‘Yes, ’e were with us. I remember old Joe.’

‘Bill Bentley?’

‘Sergeant, ’e were. Family man. Always talkin’ about his wife and kid.’

‘Richard Brown?’

‘Oh, yes, A do-gooder ’e was. Always lickin’ around the officers. ’E were the colonel’s orderly. I never liked ’im.’

‘Jim Hodges?’

‘Hodges? Oh, ar, I remember now. Wild man ’e was. Always given to jokes and that. ’E once crep’ into the tent of one of the officers an’ spent all night sewing the legs of his overalls together. ’Course, ’e was put on a charge for that.’

‘The Charge of the Light Brigade?’ chimed in Bandicoot. Bond and Lestrade looked at him.

‘Mr Bond, you have made my day.’ Lestrade shook the labourer’s hand. ‘Take care of yourself. Come on, Bandicoot,’ and the ex-constable dashed after the pending ex-inspector.

‘It’s falling into place, Bandicoot,’ Lestrade said as they reached the lychgate. ‘There’s the common pattern. Not
two
former members of the Eleventh, but all five of them.’

‘A sort of red-trousered league?’ mused Bandicoot. Lestrade ignored him.

‘The question is, why? And why did Nimrod Frost send me to Mawnan to find the corpse of Bill Lamb? Come on, Bandicoot. You can go to the theatre and I’m going home. It’s time Assistant Commissioner Frost came a little cleaner than he is at the moment.’

Hot town. Summer in the city. Lestrade and Bandicoot got off the train at Paddington and made their way to the Yard. While Bandicoot waited in the hansom, the inspector entered the building by the back stairs under the shadow of the gateway.

‘I’m sorry, Inspector.’ Sergeant Dixon was firmer than Lestrade had ever known him. ‘Mr Frost won’t see you, sir. I ’ave my orders. Now, you’re not goin’ to make a try for the lift are you, sir? You see, in this ’eat, I’d ’ate to ’ave to give chase. Cruel, ain’t it. And as for that bleedin’ river! I remember the Great Stink of ’fifty-eight but it couldn’t ’old a candle to this. Them archaeologists blokes keep findin’ bits of old iron in the mud at low tide and doin’ their nuts about ’em. Reckon they’re from the Bronze Age, or something.

‘You’re changing the subject, Dixon. I have to see His Nims now.’

‘Inspector Lestrade. Look at it from my position, sir. I’m a married man, four kids, two years orf me pension. I shouldn’t even be talking to you, sir. Not at the moment. You know ’ow it is.’

Lestrade stood back from the desk. ‘Yes, Sergeant, I know how it is,’ and he strode to the door.

‘Thank you, sir. And mind ’ow you go.’

Bandicoot had bought a morning paper from a street vendor and was eagerly perusing the shares and city news page when Lestrade returned.

‘No joy?’ he asked. Lestrade shook his head. He was about to climb into the hansom when the headline caught his eye.
Goron In London. Head of Surete On Flying Visit.

‘Bandicoot. It’s a long shot, but it could pay off. Where do you stay when you’re in town?’

‘The Grand, of course.’

‘Of course. Well, get me a room too. Don’t worry, I’ll charge it to expenses. And use the name Athelney Jones. I’d like to see his face when Frost queries
that
bill! I’ll join you there later. There’s another question I have for Sergeant Dixon.’

As he rounded the corner, a hoarse whisper crackled in his ear. It was Hector Charlo in the shadows, beckoning to Lestrade to join him.