Murder by the Book (22 page)

Savagne turned his watery eyes on Maria and smiled. ‘Your words, my dear, are always a consolation.'

‘This time, Monsieur Savagne, I think you will be consoled by more than just my words.' And so saying she withdrew the parcel from behind her back and presented it to Monsieur Savagne.

He blinked. ‘A present? My dear, but how thoughtful.'

A small crowd had gathered, individuals smiling with complicity as they watched Savagne unwrap the parcel.

The paper fell to the floor and the statuette, an exquisitely-wrought Madonna and child, perhaps six inches tall, stood on the little man's palm. Tears filled his eyes as he looked from the figure to Maria. ‘But … but … my dear Maria – I am overwhelmed.' He clutched the statuette to his chest. ‘But how … why …?'

Her father said, ‘It was Maria's idea. When she heard that Martin had designs on the piece, she thought that something must be done. I have contacts in Paris who will be more than happy to show the statuette.'

M Savagne planted kisses on Maria's cheeks, weeping freely now as he reiterated his gratitude and amazement.

Maria felt herself choke at his response, and beamed at her father.

The grey-haired lady – Maria recognized her as a French fellow from one of the Oxford colleges – chipped in with, ‘I always thought Martin a disreputable specimen. I don't suppose you've heard the latest?'

‘The latest?' Maria echoed.

‘Well,' said the woman in lowered tones, ‘Martin was seen at the Garrick the other evening, accosting a senior editor at Faber and threatening to shoot the poor man. The police were called in, but apparently no arrests were made. Martin was blind drunk, by all accounts.'

Savagne sighed. ‘Ah, but I should not revel in his crazy troubles!' he said, eyes twinkling.

Maria smiled and sipped her wine. She only hoped that Martin's crazy behaviour had not been occasioned by the scene at her flat the other evening.

She recalled the slap she had landed on his shocked face.

Men!
she thought.

Then she considered Donald and amended her stricture:
some
men …

The conversation at dinner was polite and inconsequential – her father was linguistically brilliant, as ever, on a variety of subjects – and Maria found herself musing that perhaps it was just as well Donald had not accompanied her tonight. He would have hated so formal and privileged a gathering. She wondered what he was doing now. It was eight thirty. Seated solidly in his armchair beneath his standard lamp, perhaps, reading a crime novel?

The thought warmed her.

She ate without really tasting the food (later, when describing the evening to Donald, she would be unable to say exactly what was on the menu) and listened politely to Savagne and Celia Legrande, a soprano taking the London opera world by storm. She stared at the diva's large face; something about the woman's silver hair and pendulous jowls reminded her of Charles, and she felt a sudden wave of sorrow sweep over her.

After port and coffee the guests left the dining room and circulated around the house. Maria found herself discussing the contemporary novel with an earnest young man on a scholarship at Cambridge; her attention wandered, and she wished she was discussing mystery novels with Donald instead.

It was almost eleven when she decided that she'd had enough. She had a daunting day ahead of her at the office tomorrow, contacting clients with the news of Charles's hospitalization, and attempting to run the business single-handedly without Charles around to guide her. The very idea made her want to weep.

She went in search of her father, to say goodbye, and found him in the library. He took her arm and steered her towards the window; a million stars were out above the heath, and the window was open to admit the scent of honeysuckle.

He said, ‘I was watching you earlier, Maria. Are you quite yourself?'

She smiled at the question. She had decided that she would not tell her father, on his birthday, of the attack on Charles; that news could wait. Instead, she had far better tidings.

‘Out with it, Maria! You have something to tell me?'

She could feel a smile spreading across her face, and she thought that she must have looked inane.

Her father's wise blue eyes twinkled. ‘His name?'

‘Is it
that
obvious?'

‘Either you have fallen in love, Maria, or … but there is no “or”. It must be love, no?'

She nodded. ‘His name is Donald Langham and he's a writer and he's tall and quiet and handsome and …' She gestured at the inadequacy of words to express the magic of how she felt.

‘And his feelings towards you?'

‘I think the same,' she murmured.

Her father stooped and kissed her cheek. ‘I'm happy, Maria. You must bring him to meet me. What does he write?'

She described his books, saying they were honest and solid and dependable … and realized that she was describing the writer as much as his work.

‘Mysteries? Well, I'd like to read one. Bring the best, before you bring the man, hm?'

She promised that she would, kissed her father goodbye and took a taxi home.

O
n Monday morning Langham woke late and breakfasted alone, contrasting the meal with the one he'd shared with Maria yesterday. He contemplated the weekend, the attempt on Charles's life and his time with Maria, and he experienced despair at Charles's condition and elation when he thought about Maria Dupré.

At ten he rang the hospital, spoke briefly to the duty sister and learned that there had been no change: Charles was alive but unconscious. He thanked her and said he'd ring again later. He got through to Maria at the agency and told her the news, then chatted about nothing in particular for ten minutes before ringing off with the excuse that he must get some work done.

He tried to settle down at his desk and read some notes, but found it impossible. He had the outline of a novel half completed – the heist story he'd told Maria about yesterday – and he wanted to finish it so that he could submit a chapter and outline to his editor at Harrington. When he started to read what he'd written, however, the plot seemed contrived, the characters flat and lifeless. And, superimposed on the scenes he'd dreamed up so far, he saw alternate images of Charles and Maria. He decided to set the work aside and come back to it when he was feeling more able to concentrate.

He was making himself a pot of Earl Grey when the phone rang.

‘I've just heard about your agent,' Jeff Mallory said. ‘Detective Inspector Bryce up at Bury St Edmunds gave me the details of the incident. He said you'd been doing some investigative work of your own concerning the blackmailer.'

‘That's right.'

‘I thought you said you left the detective work to Sam Brooke?'

‘Guilty as charged.'

‘Bryce mentioned some photos of tyre tracks you'd taken.'

‘Along with the blackmailer's boot print.'

‘Right … Look, are you terribly busy right now? Could you possibly pop up to the Yard and see me?'

‘I'm doing nothing, and I'd welcome the diversion.'

‘Excellent. Tell you what, how about lunch at Antonio's café around the corner? Cheap but cheerful. Say twelve thirty?'

‘I'll see you there.'

Thirty minutes later he drove into the city and found a parking place on the Embankment.

Antonio's was, as Mallory had said, cheap but cheerful, a small café packed with rickety tables and decorated with posters advertising Italian holiday destinations. Their speciality, according to a chalked-up menu board hanging over the counter, was spaghetti on toast, a combination Langham thought revolting. Charles would have railed eloquently at the concatenation of carbohydrates.

Mallory hurried in just as Langham was seating himself at a window table. The big man joined him, discarded his overcoat, loosened his tie and dumped a heavy cardboard folder on the table.

Antonio himself approached, smiling at Mallory. ‘The usual, Inspector?'

‘With coffee today. Don?'

Langham said, ‘I'll just have tea … and a toasted teacake.'

‘
Un momento
.'

Langham indicated Mallory's folder, full to bursting. ‘I'm afraid I can't match that.' He laid the envelope containing the photographs of the foot- and tyre-prints on the table.

Mallory looked across at Langham, his expression stony. ‘I've been landed four cases, Don, on account of the possibility that they
might
be linked – and because the illiterates at the Yard still think of me as a scribbler.'

A cold sensation lodged itself in Langham's gut. ‘Linked?'

‘The Elder case, the Gervaise Cartwright murder, then there's the apparent suicide of Max Sidley, and I don't know if you heard about it a couple of weeks ago: a writer chappie threw himself under a train in Kent.'

‘Frankie Pearson. I was at his memorial service last Friday.'

‘That's the chap.'

‘And you say they might be linked? But I thought Sidley and Pearson were suicides?'

‘I'm looking into the possibility that they weren't.' Mallory leaned back as Antonio arrived with his order – spaghetti on toast. The spaghetti looked watery and the toast underdone. Langham accepted his teacake with gratitude, thankful he'd foregone the speciality of the house.

Mallory tucked in. ‘Anyway,' he said through a mouthful, ‘we haven't concluded yet that there is a link, or that Sidley and Pearson weren't suicides. We're keeping an open mind, though it does look a bit odd – three deaths and an attempted murder in the scribbling business all in the space of a couple of weeks.' He pointed his fork at Langham's envelope. ‘Those the pictures?'

Langham slipped the six prints on to the tabletop, recalling the bemusement of the farmer when he'd taken the photographs, and Maria's subsequent amusement.

From his folder, Mallory extracted a couple of glossy photographs showing the motorcycle tracks in the lane behind Charles's mansion. He arranged them side by side and Langham nodded. ‘They're identical.'

‘That's what I wanted, Don. Good work.' He indicated Langham with his fork. ‘And if you and that filly of yours hadn't interrupted the gunman on Saturday, Elder might be stone cold dead now.'

Langham regarded his under-toasted teacake. ‘It's still touch and go as to whether he'll pull through.'

Mallory chewed pensively. ‘All four men were known to each other, all were in the trade, and all were members of the London Crime Writers' Association.' He laughed with little humour. ‘The press'll have a field day when this one breaks.'

Langham bit into his teacake, which was stale and tasteless. The tea, at least, was passable.

Mallory went on: ‘All we have so far is what you've found out – the fact that the blackmailer rides a Triumph Thunderbird, wears size ten boots and smokes Camel cigarettes.'

‘I take it you've questioned Kenny Wilson, the rent-boy who Charles—'

He was halted by the expression on Mallory's face. ‘I wanted to haul him in, of course, but the little bugger's done a runner. Broken the terms of his bail and scarpered. He's the only person who's seen the blackmailer – I wanted to get an artist's impression from him.'

Langham sipped his tea, recalling the fear on the boy's face at their only meeting. He felt sorry for Kenny Wilson.

Mallory finished his spaghetti on toast.

Langham said, ‘Do you think the killer is someone in the scribbling business?'

‘Early days yet,' Mallory replied. ‘If there's one thing I've learned in this job, it's don't jump to conclusions. The “suicides” might turn out to be just that. I'll keep you posted. Oh, can I take one of the snaps?'

‘Help yourself.'

Mallory slid the photo into his folder. ‘How's it going with the little French number?'

‘Early days, to borrow your phrase.'

‘Good luck with that, Don.' He left a half crown on the table. ‘Right, back to the bloody grindstone. Some of us have to work for a living.' He winked at Langham as he stood and struggled into his overcoat. ‘I'll be in touch.'

Langham watched the detective ease his bulk through the door and stride along the street, then sat back and finished his tea.

He watched the other patrons of the café: workmen bolting down beans on toast, old dears chatting over tea and biscuits, office workers abstractedly eating sandwiches while browsing the daily papers. He considered Mallory's ‘Some of us have to work for a living' and thought that, on the whole, he was fortunate to be relatively successful at his profession.

He left the café and drove back to Notting Hill, promising himself that when he returned he'd phone Maria at the agency to see how she was getting on.

In the event, the phone was ringing when he let himself into the flat. He hurried to the study, hoping to hear Maria on the other end but fearing a call from the hospital.

‘Donald Langham?' a woman's voice enquired, high-pitched and anxious.

He sat down. ‘Yes?'

‘I'm sorry to bother you. We have met. I'm Caroline Lassiter. You know my husband, Nigel.'

‘Caroline. Of course. I saw Nigel just last week.'

‘I'm sorry to bother you – I know you must be busy, if you're anything like Nigel …'

She paused, and Langham said, ‘That's perfectly all right. How can I help?'

‘Well …' Caroline Lassiter sounded not only hesitant but unsure. ‘I know this might sound unusual … I think Nigel told you something about going down to Kent on Saturday to see a solicitor about a cottage he'd been left in a will?'

‘That's right.' Langham stared at the flower-patterned wallpaper, wondering where this might be leading.

‘Well, he took the car early on Saturday morning, saying he'd be back in time for lunch.'