Murder by the Book (30 page)

‘Well … Gideon Martin is dead.'

She thrust her head towards him and opened her eyes wide. ‘Dead?' She looked disbelieving.

He took a long swallow of the beer and told her about discovering Martin in the dining room. ‘He fled, but we chased him up the stairs and on to the roof. He … he was either still drunk or exhausted. I don't think he deliberately …' He shrugged. ‘He lost his footing or tripped. Anyway, he fell from the roof. Jeff said he must have died instantly.'

Maria heard him out in silence, then said in a small voice, ‘Martin was an evil man, Donald, but even so …'

He pulled her to him, inhaling her perfume; she had just had a bath and smelled divine. ‘I know, I know. I'm sorry.'

She looked up at him. ‘But I thought you said that Jeff was going to surround the place with his men?' She shrugged. ‘So how did Martin get into the building?'

He stroked her hair. ‘We think he went straight there from seeing you. Apparently there was a period between two and three when no one was at reception. He'd attended a Crime Club dinner a while back as a guest, so he knew where we usually dined. He concealed himself in the room. It was only by chance … a hunch … that I decided to check.'

‘It's horrible, horrible!' She lodged her head against his chest. ‘I think he was a little crazy, yes? To kill all those people …'

They sat side by side for a long time, held each other and quietly talked.

T
he following morning Maria rang the hospital from her flat, and Langham watched her clutching the phone to her ear. ‘Maria Dupré here. I was wondering …'

She listened to what the sister said, and Langham noted the whitening of her knuckles on the receiver. He sat up, suddenly tense.

‘Ah,
oui
… Yes, yes. Oh. Oh, I see.'

The torture was unbearable. He tried to attract her attention with a quizzical expression, but she waved him away as she concentrated.

At last she replaced the receiver and turned to him. ‘Charles passed a bad night. There was some internal bleeding, which has now stopped. Sister said that he is stable again, but not able to see visitors.'

He crossed the room and held her. ‘We had been going to visit last night, before all the brouhaha at the Albemarle.'

‘Well, we could not have gone anyway, Donald. Oh, I so want to see the old man.'

Langham smiled. ‘His nibs,' he said fondly.

She looked into his eyes. ‘I have just a little work to do at the agency this morning. Perhaps you could come over with me, I could get the work out of the way, and then we could go for a tea, no?'

‘That sounds like a capital idea.'

Fifteen minutes later they were in Charles's office. Langham lodged himself in a leather armchair and watched Maria make the first of several phone calls.

At one point she swivelled her seat away from the desk and pointed at him. ‘By the way,' she said playfully, ‘I've told my father all about you.'

‘That sounds ominous.'

‘And he would like to meet you.'

‘The official vetting, hm?'

She smiled. ‘He's pleased that I have found someone “solid and dependable”, as he said. He even wants to read one of your books.'

He scowled. ‘Well, that might put the mockers on things.'

She looked at him. ‘“The mockers”? What is “the mockers”?'

He was about to begin an explanation when the phone rang. Maria turned back to the desk and picked up the receiver.

‘Ah,
oui
… I mean, yes. Yes, we do represent him. His phone number? But as a matter of fact he is here in the office as we speak.'

Langham sat up, wondering who the caller might be.

Maria listened, frowning, and twirled a strand of hair around her forefinger. At last she said, ‘Very well, I will tell him …' and replaced the receiver.

‘For me?' he asked.

‘A policeman called Brady, from the Highgate station. They want to question you.'

‘Question me? Did they say what about?'

She shook her head. ‘No. He just said, “Please tell Mr Langham that we'll be around in ten minutes”.'

Highgate … Was it a coincidence that he had been in Highgate to see Justin Fellowes on Tuesday evening?

‘I wonder what on earth they want?' He kept his fears to himself and sipped his coffee. ‘I suspect it's Jeff Mallory, wanting to follow up something connected to last night.'

Maria changed the subject, telling him about her father's preferred reading – which ran to Sartre and Camus – and he tried to make the appropriate responses while wondering why the Highgate constabulary wanted to question him.

Five minutes later a loud knocking sounded at the front door, and Maria hurried to answer it. Langham followed her.

She escorted a small, pale-faced man in his fifties into the outer office, accompanied by a uniformed constable. ‘Mr Langham? I'm Inspector Brady from Highgate station. I'd like to question you about your movements on Tuesday evening.'

Langham smiled, despite a sense of growing unease, and gestured to the inner office. ‘Very well, perhaps …'

‘I'd like you to accompany me to the station, sir, if it's all the same.'

‘Is that absolutely necessary, Inspector?'

‘I'd prefer it if you would accompany me of your own accord, sir.'

He glanced across at Maria, who was standing with her fingers to her throat and looking worried. ‘I'd better go,' he said.

‘Donald …'

He smiled at her and followed Brady from the office. A black unmarked police car, engine running, was waiting in the street. Langham sat in the back next to the uniformed constable while Brady took the passenger seat beside the driver.

‘Do you mind telling me what this is about?' he asked as they set off.

‘When we arrive at the station, sir,' Brady said non-committally.

Langham sat back and closed his eyes. He recalled Maria's expression of concern as he left and smiled to himself.

In due course the car drove around the back of Highgate police station and Langham was escorted down a blue-painted corridor to a tiny interrogation room. He was left sitting on a hard chair for five minutes before Inspector Brady slipped into the room, accompanied by a uniformed constable and a stenographer who sat on a chair in the corner, notebook poised on her lap.

‘I would like you to account for your movements between seven o'clock on Tuesday evening and midnight of the same,' Brady began.

His worst fears were confirmed. ‘Very well … On Tuesday evening I was on my way back from Berkshire with friends, who dropped me off at Highgate a little before seven. I immediately called at the house of the writer Justin Fellowes.'

‘And how long did you spend in his company?' Brady asked. He leaned forward, clasping his hands on the tabletop.

Langham thought about it. ‘Perhaps ten, fifteen minutes. Certainly no more.'

‘And what did you discuss while you were there?'

He took a breath. ‘I went there to warn him to be careful about … Look, if you liaise with Detective Inspector Mallory of Scotland Yard, he'll gladly bring you up to date with the details of—'

Brady said, ‘We are in contact with Scotland Yard, sir, and we would like your full cooperation in this matter.'

Langham gave his best smile. ‘And I assure you that you have it, Inspector. If you would tell me why I'm being questioned … Is Justin—?'

‘If you would allow me to ask the questions, sir. Now … You said you warned Justin Fellowes “to be careful”. And what was his reaction to your warning?'

‘He took it seriously. He said he had a little work to finish, and then he'd spend some time with a relative down in Dorset.'

‘And how was Mr Fellowes when you left him?'

‘Ah … sombre, I suppose. Reflective.' He gestured. ‘Look here, can you tell me what's happened?'

Brady ignored the plea. ‘Am I correct in thinking, sir, that you knew and had contact recently with Charles Elder and Nigel Lassiter?'

Langham gestured. ‘Of course. Charles is my agent and Lassiter was a friend and colleague. If you're in contact with Scotland Yard, then you'll know I discovered Nigel Lassiter's body—'

Brady stared at him, his gaze intimidating. ‘Would you say that that's something of a coincidence?'

Langham replied, ‘What, Inspector, is a coincidence?'

‘Your discovering Nigel Lassiter's body,' Brady said, ‘and the events of Tuesday night.'

He knew, then, what had happened in Highgate. Numbed, he said, ‘What “events”? Look, I think that if you liaise with Detective Inspector Jeff Mallory of Scotland Yard, all this can be cleared up in a jiffy. Last night I was with—'

He was interrupted by the sudden sound of voices outside the interrogation room. The voices rose in volume, too muffled for him to make out individual words. Brady cursed under his breath and was moving to the door when it opened and a flustered constable appeared. He muttered something to the inspector, who slipped from the room.

Langham heard the altercation resume, this time in lowered tones. He looked at the constable, who was standing to attention and staring at the wall, expressionless.

‘Does this happen often?' Langham quipped. The constable elected not to reply. He noticed the stenographer correct her quick smile and consult her notes.

The door opened and Inspector Brady returned. He nodded tersely to Langham. ‘That will be all now, sir.'

‘I can go?'

Brady indicated the door with an ironic gesture.

Langham stood, nodded sarcastically to the inspector and stepped from the room.

Jeff Mallory was striding up and down the corridor, his bulk filling the confined space. ‘I came over as soon as I heard you'd been taken in.'

He planted a firm hand in the middle of Langham's back and escorted him along the corridor.

‘What the hell's going on?' Langham asked.

Mallory hesitated, then said, ‘Donald, Justin Fellowes was stabbed in the heart with a silver stiletto – the award he won a few years ago. Forensics thinks he was killed on Tuesday evening between seven, when you left him, and midnight. His housekeeper had Wednesday off, and only found the body first thing this morning.'

‘My word.' Langham stepped out into the sunlight, light-headed. ‘I told him. I told him to get away.'

In his mind's eye, Langham saw Justin Fellowes gesture to his typewriter. ‘He said he had just one more chapter to finish, then he'd leave London.' He stopped and looked at the detective. ‘But why did Brady haul me in, after what happened last night …?' He gestured back at the station.

Mallory shook his head. ‘Brady has some half-cocked theory that there was more than one killer. He thought it suspicious that you were at the scene of a couple of the incidents.'

Langham stared at Mallory, aghast. ‘
You
don't think …?'

Mallory laughed and clapped Langham on the back. ‘Christ, no. I've known you … how long, Donald? Twenty years? Come on, I'll drive you home.'

‘The agency in Pimlico, if you don't mind, Jeff. I think I'll take Maria out to dinner tonight to celebrate my release.'

L
angham awoke early the following morning and lay on the settee, blinking up at the ornate moulding on the ceiling of the sitting room. He thought back over the dinner last night and, later, the long kiss they had shared before Maria had pulled away and slipped into her room. It occurred to him that he was perhaps the luckiest man on the planet.

The telephone shrilled insistently from across the room, and before Langham could get up and answer it, Maria hurried into the room and picked up the receiver. She listened for a moment, then turned to him and said, ‘Donald, for you. It is Jeff Mallory.'

He swore, wondering what Jeff wanted. He swung himself from the settee, pulled on his trousers and shirt, hurried across the room and kissed Maria on the lips.

He picked up the receiver. ‘Donald here.'

‘Don. We nabbed Kenny Wilson late last night, and first thing this morning I had him identify Gideon Martin's corpse …' Mallory paused.

‘Go on.'

‘Well, Wilson swears the body isn't the same person who set him up with Charles Elder and photographed the pair. Also, according to Amelia Hampstead, when her dog attacked her assailant the other day it bit his hand and drew blood. But Gideon Martin's hands are uninjured.'

Langham's stomach flipped. ‘I see …'

‘So it pretty well looks as though Gideon Martin wasn't the killer,' Mallory said. ‘I have Kenny Wilson with an artist as I speak, giving him a description of the blackmailer. It's a long shot, but if it is anyone in the scribbling trade … Look, would you mind coming along to the Yard and taking a quick shufty?'

‘Not at all. When will the impression be ready?'

‘Any minute now.'

‘Right, I'll grab some breakfast and be right over.'

He put the phone down and turned to Maria. She was perched on the edge of the settee, biting her lip. ‘Donald?'

Dazed, he relayed what Jeff had told him. Maria seemed to deflate. ‘But … but I thought it was all over, Donald. All the killing, finished with!'

He took her in his arms and kissed her brow. ‘I'll get a quick cup of tea and some toast, then I'd better be off.'

It was just after nine o'clock when he pulled up on the Embankment and parked outside the ornate Victorian pile of Scotland Yard. He hurried into the building and told a desk sergeant that he had an appointment with Detective Inspector Mallory. Two minutes later Mallory emerged from a lift across the foyer, looking tired and dishevelled.

‘You look all in, Jeff.'

‘I've been up most of the night.' They entered the lift and ascended to the second floor, then stepped out and turned right along a narrow corridor bustling with plainclothes officers and secretaries.