Gilded Edge, The (31 page)

Dante’s Inferno was smoking. Philly Jacket and Kenny Block had broken out the cigars. The two detectives had purloined a couple of Montecristo No. 2s from the Supe’s office. The senior officer in the room, Mac, took no part in the crime and just tamped and fired up his pipe. Vince breathed easy and innocently with a stick of Wrigley’s spearmint chewing gum. A bottle of whiskey had been cracked open, and chipped teacups now brimmed with the murky amber liquid. The only thing that wasn’t happening was a game of cards. No doubt that would come later. But the mood, on the surface, was celebratory.

To Philly Jacket and Kenny Block, it was cut and dried. Dominic Saxmore-Blaine did it: case – or cases – closed. Two birds with one stone. More gold stars for their clear-up rate. Commendations from the Chief of Police. A rock solid, copper-bottomed, take-it-to-the-bank, done-and-dusted deal. A clear-up of the twenty-four carat, no-questions-asked variety.

But all the time Block and Jacket were locking down the case with laudatory appraisals, Mac was looking intently over at Vince. Eventually he asked: ‘You don’t look convinced, what’s up?’

The young detective was seated on his usual sagging pile of boxes, feet planted firmly on the floor, elbows on his knees, chin cupped on his knuckles, once again striking a Rodin-like pose. Mac, Philly and Kenny sat around the warm glow of the half full/half empty (depending on points of view and dispositions) bottle of Bushmills that sat magnetically in the middle of their makeshift table composed of eight stacked boxes.

Philly and Kenny looked round suspiciously at Vince, and Philly asked abrasively: ‘What’s not to like, Treadwell?’

Vince straightened up and told him. ‘It’s wrong.’

Kenny pulled a face like a bad smell. ‘
Wrong?’

‘I can’t disagree with the psychology behind Dominic murdering Beresford,’ said Vince. ‘Beresford had turned him into a killer, twisted his mind so out of shape that there was no coming back. And if you think you’ve killed twice, and know for sure you’ve killed once, a third stiff’s not gonna make a whole lot of difference.’

‘Isn’t that just what we’re saying?’ said Philly Jacket, after a quick eyeball consultation with Kenny Block.

‘Exactly,’ Vince replied. ‘Psychologically it all makes sense. And motivation-wise, sure. Who wouldn’t want to kill the man who had played that kind of joke on you, and turned you into a monster? But, logically, there are still too many anomalies for me.’

A unified groan went up from Block and Jacket. As far as they were concerned, Vince Treadwell was ‘at it’ again, looking a chocolate gift-horse in the mouth.

Vince continued. ‘The two murders committed on the same night are too different,’ he said, slowly climbing to his feet. ‘You’ve got a frenzied, bloody attack with a hammer, then a cool calm assassination with a gun.’ He began to leisurely circle the table, cutting through the dead air and the smoke that hung heavy in the room like atmospheric movie mist. ‘The gun at Beresford’s house, how did Dominic get hold of it? He confessed to dropping the weapon after he killed Bernie Korshank. So how did he get it again? Did little Dominic Saxmore-Blaine, all of eight and a half stone, really overpower the fourteen-stone army man who was now holding it? Did he find the gun in a drawer? Was it even the same gun used in the fake killing of the big Russian? And we still have the problem of the body being moved. Maybe Beresford wasn’t moved very far, he was probably killed in the room we found him in, but, all the same, he
was
moved. Which makes it puzzling why you would bother unless you wanted to provide a distraction, to draw attention away from something? Dominic Saxmore-Blaine, the tearful frenzied killer, thinking like a cool, dispassionate assassin who is concerned about distracting the police. I just don’t see it.’

Philly Block said: ‘The little bastard killed Marcy Jones with a hammer, Treadwell. I don’t suspect that was noted in his Oxford half-term report either.’

His partner backed him up on this supposition: ‘Anyone who could do that is capable of anything. His mind was twisted. He was boozed up and flying on pills, he could have picked Beresford up and thrown him through the French windows for all we know.’

‘Then why didn’t Dominic tell us that?’Vince stopped pacing as if to give emphasis to his main point. He searched for an answer on the men’s faces. None came, so he continued. ‘After all, Dominic told us everything else. Think about his written confession: this was a man who liked to write, a student of English literature; probably had a novel in him if things had turned out differently. Lots and lots of pages spent on describing the murder of Bernie Korshank giving the performance of his life as the Big Russian in the Imperial Hotel. And on the murder of Marcy Jones, who got equal billing. Lots and lots of detail about both those murders, telling us how he did it and why. And yet when it comes to the killing of Beresford . . .’ Vince gave an unconvinced shake of his head, and a weighty note of incredulity took up residence in his voice, ‘his hero, his commander in chief, and also the author of all his woes and ultimately his death. All he got was a couple of sketchy sentences, with no detail about the gun and how Dominic got it. No detail about how he killed him, what room he killed him in, how many shots he fired into him. Or if he moved the body or not. No detail there. Nothing.’

In the silence that dropped like an atom bomb into the room, Vince slowly glanced around at the men seated about the table. Even with his lips wrapped around the stem of his pipe, Vince could see that Mac wore an almost imperceptible smile. Maybe it was worn more around the eyes than the mouth, but it was clear to Vince that the old stager was liking what he hearing. As for the other two, they didn’t like hearing it, not one little bit. They could now see their neat little parcel with the bow on top getting unpicked and torn apart, and there was seemingly nothing they could do about it.

Vince continued: ‘Dominic couldn’t go into detail about the facts of Beresford’s murder, because he didn’t
know
about the facts of the murder. And if Beresford had told him it was all a big joke, and that was the motive for Dominic killing him, then why hasn’t Dominic mentioned it? Why hasn’t he written down that the killing of Marcy Jones was a big fat waste of time, because it was all a big fat joke from start to finish?’

Vince couldn’t help but note how the pacifying pipe protruding from Mac’s mouth could no longer contain the broad smile that had spread across his face with each damning premise that Vince had laid out.

Meanwhile, Kenny Block had both consternation and anger struggling for supremacy on his face, with anger clearly gaining the upper hand, since he looked as if he wanted to put his fist right through the table. But the table was made of cardboard boxes stuffed with old files, and with a bottle of good whiskey sitting precariously on it, the venting of his rage was stymied.

But Vince could see that Philly Jacket was thinking good and hard, and this soon led to a bright-eyed and confident synthesis when he offered: ‘I know why. With all the booze, the pills, the dope, Dominic Saxmore-Blaine was obviously totally off his fucking nut by the time he got around to writing that confession. And maybe, just maybe, it was easier for him to believe it was all true. Because the truth was too hard for him to swallow: that he was just the butt of Beresford’s sick joke. Like you say, Treadwell, Beresford was the little shrimp’s hero, and now he had become the man’s joke. It was all too painful to take. So he made it sound better: he wrote how he wanted it to be. How he wanted to be seen. He made it up, like a true writer.’

‘So the lie became Dominic Saxmore-Blaine’s reality?’ asked Vince.

‘Exactly!’

‘Sounds good to me, Philly,’ said Kenny Block.

Philly was on a roll. ‘Maybe Dominic just believed it all anyway, like a true schizoid. Maybe he killed Beresford because he challenged his new twisted reality. It’s obvious that Dominic Saxmore-Blaine was a schizophrenic psycho. End of story.’

Kenny Block picked up the bottle of Bushmills and brimmed Philly Jacket’s cup. They raised and chinked their mugs, and then puffed contentedly on their Montecristos.

Mac looked up at Vince, still smiling.
Your call
.

Vince gave an impressed-seeming nod of his head. Then he said, with some deliberation, ‘Given the exacting and pernicious hold Beresford had over Dominic, that’s a scenario that had already crossed my mind. And it certainly works, Philly.’

Kenny Block, full of pride for his partner, who was still too glowing to respond, said, ‘Bollocks! Say what you think, Treadwell!’

‘I’m just not buying it.’

‘Ha!’ exclaimed Kenny Block. ‘You should be glad Dominic Saxmore-Blaine did it! It frees the sister up, if you know what I mean.’

Philly and Kenny exchanged furtive knowing glances that suggested the point had been long thought out and discussed, and they had been dying to make it to the young detective.

Vince stopped lounging against the wall and tensed up. Mac stopped smiling.

‘What do I care about the sister?’

Kenny Block stood up. ‘Come on, Treadwell, everyone knows you fancy yourself as a bit of a ladies’ man. This’ll get the posh bint off the hook and out of the nuthouse so you can have your wicked way with her, give her one right up—’

‘Vincent!’ shouted Mac, who was now also on his feet, along with Philly Jacket. The two corner men were now in the ring, Mac pulling Vince off Kenny, whilst Philly was doing likewise with restraining Kenny. The contenders had each other around the throats – to stop each other from talking, presumably. As riled as they both were, and as much as they would like to, they still had enough sense to know that trading blows would have been unacceptable. So a good cathartic grapple was called for. And it seemed as if Kenny Block had won, because Vince had let go of his throat and raised his hands in surrender. He choked out, ‘Keh, keh, keh, Kenny! Geh, geh, geh, get off me!’

Kenny released his grip and Vince wheeled away from him with a big grin on his face. And, on getting some wind back in his lungs, he belted out: ‘I’ve got it! Dominic must have known we’d get around to him sooner or later. Deep down he knew he was cooked. So the deathbed confession, it don’t get much better than that, it has coppers lighting up cigars and cracking open the Bushmills. He knew he was going to kill himself, knew he wouldn’t make the distance. That’s because he knew he couldn’t live with what he’d done. So why not take the blame for Beresford’s murder too? He was protecting his sister! He was taking the rap for her because his confession would, as you so eloquently put it, Philly, get her out the nuthouse.’Vince glared at his two tormentors, and added, ‘So I could give her one, you pair of mugs!’

Mac, Block and Jacket were standing with their mouths slightly agape. Not at what they’d heard from Vince, although it did seem to trump the previous argument. It was because of what they saw, and Vince hadn’t yet – because he had his back to the Chief Superintendent who had just walked through the door. Markham had never lowered himself sufficiently to enter the basement of the Inferno before. But it wasn’t his new surroundings he was looking so disapprovingly at – it was Vince.

‘Hoist by your own petard, Treadwell.’

‘It would seem that way, sir,’ said Vince, who even now, and try as he might, was still unable to dislodge the note of irony in his voice. ‘But as usual, sir, all is not quite as it seems.’

He was standing in Markham’s office, gazing at the painting of the Queen again. Any feelings of warmth he might have held towards the woman had long gone, due to over-familiarity and a sense of impending doom every time he clapped eyes on her enigmatic smile.

‘It seldom is with you, Treadwell. It seldom is.’

Vince had a rejoinder to this already lined up, but it would undoubtedly be the finish of him. Its sheer breadth and depth of drollness made him want to crack up when he thought about it, and it saddened him to think that it would never see the light of day. But it couldn’t, it mustn’t, so to stop him thinking about it he fixed on the most boring item in the room – and there was so much choice! Markham was sitting at his desk, and Vince noticed that his chair looked new. He’d heard Markham had problems with chairs, always changing them, could never get the right fit, up and down with ants in his pants. Rumour was that he had piles. At this precise moment, Vince couldn’t help but hope that rumour was true. This new chair was grey, padded, modern, and it seemed to ergonomically accommodate the Chief’s lanky frame nicely. Vince had seen these plush office babies before: you could adjust the height, they had a 360-degree swivel action to them, and they also rocked back and forth. As office chairs went, they looked like a lot of fun. But with Markham’s size 14s planted firmly on the ground, the Chief Supe was hardly getting a wobble out of it, and therefore certainly not having fun.

‘There’s always a flashy little shout line where you are concerned, Treadwell, and
all is not as it seems
would seem to be it, in this instance. Only it’s very much as it seems, this time. As I’m sure Mac informed you, I’ve been to visit, as you so eloquently describe it, the “nuthouse”.’

Not before time, thought Vince. But he said, ‘Again, sir, you would have to have been there for the first part of the debate with my colleagues to understand the, uh . . . the language I employed.’

‘I got the drift, Treadwell.’

‘How is Miss Saxmore-Blaine, sir?’

Markham, whose eyes seemed to constantly miss the mark when addressing Vince, as though he was too unpleasant a proposition to look squarely in the eye, hit the target this time, and he fixed his authoritative glare on him. ‘As well as can be expected. I also found out that you were out with Miss Saxmore-Blaine at a supper club.’

‘She said this?’

‘Hardly matters where the information comes from, Treadwell.’

‘Well, it sort of does, because it’s not true. Sir.’

‘You deny fraternizing with her?’

Vince said, ‘Yes, sir.’Vince thought,
mind your own business, you stiff
—