No Human Enemy (Suzie Mountford Mysteries) (17 page)

The PC looked all of fourteen and must have had good intuitive powers because he obviously scented that his arrival was inconvenient. If he had not, Suzie quickly put him right. ‘Stay by the back door, don’t let anyone in or out without speaking to me. Go.’

Biswell murmured a ‘Right ma’am,’ and backed away as though he had just lit a fuse to a block of guncotton. Didn’t like calling her ma’am either.

Suzie slewed back to Tovey. ‘Your wife, Kath, went wrong?’

He nodded, eyes not meeting hers. ‘Mr John came back changed you know. And Mrs weren’t the same, Isabel. Not straightaway, mind. Took time. Ten years or so before her problem began to take root.’ Like the butler before him Tovey lifted his cupped hand to his mouth, brought up his arm and made a drinking motion. ‘Kids all grew up together, played together, ’til the boys went off to school. Off to their boarding schools, public schools. Though somehow I didn’t think it proper. Not right.’

Unhealthy relationship,
John Lees-Duncan had said, and she didn’t really understand what he was referring to.

Suzie, guessing part of it, again wondered how much she’d got right so far: the three Lees-Duncan children born across the Great War years – 1914/18 – and Dulcie, the gardener’s daughter, growing up with them. An unhealthy relationship, two people had appeared to claim. The Lees-Duncan family undermined by some flaw in the mother. The gardener’s wife departs, leaving her stolid, calm husband to bring up Dulcimer, who in the end escapes from a largely unexplained family chaos, making her way into a religious order using her friend’s name (presumably providing a forged legal document demanding the nuns never contact the parents).

It was all too complicated? Not nearly enough information to piece the entire story together and, for that matter, did it have any relevance to the case in hand?

Suzie shrugged in her mind. Michael Lees-Duncan was somehow there, in a nunnery, when both he and Dulcie were killed, but Michael died from a knife, not from enemy action.

‘Can I not ask you about the children? I mean the Lees-Duncan children and your…?’ she began, knowing Tovey would try to dodge the question.

‘No,’ shaking his head.

‘I mean just how they got on. Growing up. The usual…’

‘I’m not answering any more questions.’ Irritated: she could feel true anger just below the surface. ‘I’ve told you.’ He stretched, looked at the ceiling then said he wanted to see to his evening meal. ‘When you live by the soil, miss, you become dependent on it. It’s part of you and you become part of it. We all return there one way or another. I can’t get worked up about that girl dying because, as far as I’m concerned, she died long ago.’ He pulled a wry face and stood up. ‘Long before she left here I’d ceased to see her as the child I’d helped conceive. Certainly she was her mother’s daughter. But…’ he shook his head again, an act almost of despair, ‘by the time she left, I couldn’t recognise her.’

It was about as much as Suzie was going to get tonight. She told him she’d need more time to talk with him; she’d need him to come to London, and he laughed as if she was asking him to trek across the Sahara with her; so she once more said he’d have to identify Dulcimer Tovey; she’d be asking John Lees-Duncan to identify Michael. ‘It’ll be necessary,’ she said.

Tovey nodded. ‘When will this have to be, then?’

‘Tomorrow, if I can organise it.’ In her head she was telling herself that it would be better in London; in a proper interview room, after he had seen the body. Seeing bodies was often a good jolt to the system. ‘I’ll send someone over shortly. When I’ve arranged transport. Nobody’s going to put you under arrest or anything. You’ve done nothing wrong, but you must assist us, Mr Tovey. You may prefer to have your legal adviser with you.’

‘What, like Mr John and that pompous little beagle who runs round with him – Baldwin? Legal representative? He couldn’t represent a Belisha beacon.’

She made a mental note of his telephone number written on the white circle at the base of the instrument, then walked away from the cottage across the walled garden, striding with a high carriage in the dusk that she could almost hear as well as smell; the uniformed PC – Biswell was it? – trotting along behind, and Dennis Free almost plucking at her sleeve, asking her how she was going to organise the interrogations of Lees-Duncan and Willow. She pulled away roughly. ‘Shut up, Dennis. We’re going to do this in London. We’re going home: “Back to the shack where the black-eyed Susans grow.”’ He didn’t have a clue; had never heard that old song.

She started talking almost before they were inside the drawing room, through the French windows. ‘Right. Mr Lees-Duncan, we’re leaving now, but I’ll telephone you later. You are required to formally identify your son, Michael, in London tomorrow. We will arrange transport and after the identification you will attend an interview, either at a police station, or at New Scotland Yard. Miss Lees-Duncan, the same applies. I shall require you to accompany your father. You can, of course, have legal representation – both of you – if you so wish, but we do not anticipate any charges, unless you resist my instructions. This is a police requirement. Thank you.’

Her team followed her outside, with the Gloucester constables trailing, looking dubious. The butler nodded respectfully to her in the hall.

‘You leaving, madam?’

‘Regrettably, yes, Sturgis.’

‘Anything I can do, madam?’

‘Make sure they’re ready tomorrow. They’ll be driven to London.’

‘Very good, madam. Nothing trivial, I trust.’

She was aware of his right shoulder moving and a hand coming up. ‘Perhaps these will be of use, madam. Young Mr Michael and young Mr Gerald.’ He thrust two small photographs into her hand.

She gave him a little smile, smirk really. ‘Thank you, Sturgis,’ she said. They were dated pictures, around 1938 she guessed, but Michael was recognisable so she reckoned that Gerald would be as well.

Outside, their feet on the gravel in front of the house, she told the two PCs and the WPC that they could fit only one officer in the Railton, Dennis driving, but she’d see to it that the Gloucester nick would send transport back for the other two. Biswell elected to go with them. The remaining officers walked towards the main entrance to the drive, down the little avenue of trees, heads down, looking unused and unwanted.

‘They’ll be in the pub as soon as we’re out of sight,’ Dennis said, and Biswell, sounding a shade shocked, said they wouldn’t because PC Sangster was teetotal and a Methodist preacher an’ all.

Dennis chuckled. ‘All drink should be thrown into the river,’ he said, putting on a parsonical voice. ‘Now, hymn number 28, “Let us gather by the river”.’

Biswell asked how he could get himself transferred to the Reserve Squad at Scotland Yard.

‘Drop enough clangers and the posting’ll come through automatically,’ Suzie told him.

When they reached the nick, Dennis asked if he should go back and pick up the Gloucester boys (his description).

‘Let them wait,’ Suzie told him. Then she instructed him to liaise with the duty sergeant and find a hotel for tonight. ‘Nothing simple,’ she added. ‘I want something elaborate.’

‘And organise their transport at the same time?’ Dennis queried.

‘Of course,’ Suzie straight-faced, as though she’d remembered it.

‘We spending the night here?’ Shirley Cox sounded as though she’d just woken up, hadn’t been listening.

‘Give Dennis a hand, Shirl. I’m going to phone Billy, then the chief.’

Inside she spent a few minutes with DI ‘Waiting’ Gaimes who agonised for a while about which office she should use.

‘If I can be of any help…’ he said, almost cryptically, before leaving her in his office, then returning to see if she’d like tea and biscuits.

She rang the Squad’s offices on the fourth floor of New Scotland Yard and got Billy Mulligan. They always had someone on duty and it was usually Billy whose marital status was a bit dodgy at the best of times. Billy often slept in the little bedroom off Tommy’s office. She pictured him there now, seated at Tommy’s desk playing with the model guillotine the chief had brought back from the Paris Exhibition in 1937, the walls decorated with original front pages from
The Police Review
and
The Police Gazette,
also an original wanted poster for Crippen and Ethel Le Neve.

‘What’s going on, ma’am?’ Billy asked from the comfort of Tommy’s captain’s chair.

‘Precious little.’ She sounded clipped and prickly, realised it and tried to calm down. ‘I need two cars here in the morning, about ten’ll do. Here in Gloucester.’

‘Send me a couple of loaves and two small fishes and I’ll do lunch for everyone at the Yard.’ Billy always made heavy weather out of transport.

‘Come on, Bill, it can’t be
that
difficult.’

‘Not more’n usual. And for an encore I’ll nip over St Mary’s Paddington and make their dead patients do the Post Horn Gallop.’

‘Just organise the transport, Billy. They’re prospective clients: John Lees-Duncan, his daughter and the head gardener, Tovey. Lees-Duncans know and they’re all in the frame. Don’t ask me how but they are.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Good. Ten o’clock at The Manor, Lees-Duncan’s gaff, and have those bodies from the convent nice and laid out ready for their families to have a butcher’s.’

‘Ah.’ The light dawned. ‘Of course, ma’am.’

‘You talked to the chief?’

‘He asked if I’d talked to you.’

‘We’re staying here overnight. I’ll let you know where as soon as Dennis’s organised it.’

‘Doubt if Dennis could organise the proverbial boozy party in a distillery, beggin’ your presence, ma’am.’

‘He has my confidence as well. Back tomorrow, Billy.’

‘Oh, your brother’s been looking for you.’

‘The Royal Marine?’

‘You’ve only got one, haven’t you?’

‘What’s he want?’

‘Bed for the night, I think.’

‘Ah.’ Suzie grinned to herself. Young James was on the loose in London, she thought. ‘If he rings back tell him, yes. He’s got a key and I won’t be back until tomorrow, lateish.’

There was a knock at the door and a young WPC came in with a tray – tea and biscuits. Dennis hovered in the background.

‘Got us rooms. New Inn, Northgate Street: used to be an inn for pilgrims.’

‘That’s us all right, pilgrims. You fix the pick-up?’

‘What pick-up?’

‘The boy and girl in blue from here.’

Dennis frowned, said he’d do it now, and she phoned the Lees-Duncans, got Sturgis who fawned a lot but said he’d make sure they were all ready by ten. He also promised to advise Tovey. Then she tried The Royal Victoria in Sheffield. They rang Tommy Livermore’s room but he didn’t pick up, so she called the nick. They said he was in an important conference, which was code for interrogation so she told them her name and rank saying this was equally important. The WPC who was manning the telephone told her to hold, then returned and said Mr Livermore would be with her in a minute.

Suzie sipped the tea and ate a biscuit. There were two small sugar lumps in the saucer and, even though she’d given up sugar and sweets, she took a lump, put it between her teeth and sucked a dribble of tea through it, feeling the sugar dissolve as she sucked, the sweetness exploding in her mouth. She thought of Tommy then, suddenly, he was there at the end of the line.

‘Suze, heart, what a lovely surprise.’

‘Tommy.’ She gave it her best erotic breathy delivery: two notes, up and down, rising and falling.

‘Heart. What’s new?’

She gave him a brief summary of the hints and evasions of the Lees-Duncan and Tovey families; of the identification of the masquerading nun and everything that went with it, the gardener’s daughter using the Lees-Duncan name and the suspicions she had.

‘Take ’em down the Tombs and sweat ’em.’ Tommy did his atrocious New York accent. It was their old joke. B-movie thrillers often had cops taking suspects, ‘down the Tombs’ – the New York City prison (you could get buried there) – to be interrogated.

‘It’s what I am doing, darling. Gonna give ’em the toid degree.’ The third degree was interrogation with physical encouragement – again spoken of freely in Hollywood movies. ‘One question, though. Just to make sure I’m not dreaming.’

‘Shoot.’

‘Someone told us that Michael Lees-Duncan was in Mexico while his brother lived in Scotland.’

‘Yes.’

‘Who?’

‘Who told us?

‘Attila the Nun, wasn’t it? No, her sidekick. Novice Mistress. Eunice. Sister Eunice.’

Winnie had two brothers, one of whom lives abroad, somewhere. In Mexico I think, Michael Lees-Duncan. The other – Gerald – last heard of somewhere in Scotland. That’s how things stood in 1940 anyway.

‘That’s how I remember it.’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Because John Lees-Duncan says both his sons walked out on him in 1939, and he didn’t know where they were from that day. Says a friend saw Michael in New York later in ’39, and he glimpsed Gerald in London in ’42. That was it.’

‘So where did Sister Eunice get her gen?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Only one answer.’

‘Quite. Listen, heart, send me your interim report when you’ve written it up. And copies of the pretty pictures you had done, plus the one you got from Attila the Nun.’

‘Roger. How’re you doing?’

‘A hundred and one suspects, plus a DS whom Woolly had on attachment here, having a look round, browsing. Bloke called Mungo.’

‘Not Dave Mungo?’

‘You know him?’

‘Met him briefly when I was doing that work last year. With Curry Shepherd and the secret squirrels.’

‘Maybe you should be doing the work here, heart. What did you know of him?’

‘Too smooth; smooth as creamed potatoes…’

‘… or a baby’s top lip. Unless you blunder into something among the Lees-Duncans of this world you’ve still got a mountain of work to do – the holy sisters at the convent, then their place in Farnborough, and…’ an afterthought, ‘have you seen that other girl’s parents yet? The cleric? Sister, Novice Bridget Mary. Harding was the name. Better get on and do that.’