The Crime Tsar (47 page)

He left the office leaving the still shaky Janet to deal with a news crew waiting outside. His instinct for self-protection stopped him thinking; he was grim and calm as he arrived home.

‘Where is she?'

Lucy, acknowledging the distance between them, said, ‘Upstairs. The doctor's here.'

Shackleton walked up the stairs. His control was extraordinary.

‘Doctor. Hello. I came as soon as I could.'

They completed the niceties, then the doctor, a woman in her midfifties whose hair had started off in a bun at eight o'clock that morning but was now a halo of greying wisps, said, ‘I'm so sorry, Mr Shackleton, rigor has started. It'll be distressing moving her. I've called the coroner's officer. Did you want a particular funeral director's to deal with it?'

He shook his head and composed himself to ask the next question.

‘What did she die of? Can you tell?'

The long, worn face gave nothing away.

‘I think it may have been her heart but of course there'll have to be an autopsy.'

‘Of course.'

They looked in silence at the ruined remains of Jenni Shackleton. The doctor bent down and adjusted the tablecloth, for modesty. A modesty Jenni'd never known in life. Diplomatically the doctor left Tom alone with his grief and went downstairs.

He didn't give the body another glance but went quickly into his room and picked up his leather uniform gloves. Pulling them on he hurried into Jenni's room and cleared every pill and powder into an Armani bag he found in her dressing table. Wiping every surface capable of holding fingerprints as he did so. He wiped and carefully replaced the gloves then picked up the bag, holding a tissue round the handle.

As he passed Jenni's body on his way to the stairs, he stopped. Looking down at the draped corpse he saw again the beautiful adoring girl who'd bewitched him. But there was no art could find the mind's construction in the face and that beauty that had so ensnared him had masked a madness that infected them both. He wanted to ask her who the man was she'd been with that night in the car. And why. Why he couldn't be enough.

He turned away, unwilling to examine himself for any emotion, certain he was feeling nothing. Holding the bag tightly shut he walked downstairs and put it in the hall by the front door then joined Lucy and the doctor in the kitchen. He wiped his hands on a tissue and dropped it in the pedal bin.

The necessary paperwork had been completed and the older woman was anxious to go. Death was only a small part of her day's work.

Lucy saw her out then returned to the kitchen awkwardly. Shackleton had withdrawn into himself and she knew she couldn't find anything to say that would reach him. Yet again Jenni had spoiled everything.

‘Lucy. I don't want to involve you in this but …'

He didn't remember ever saying before in his life: ‘I need your help.'

She nodded, grateful to be included.

‘The bag by the front door, would you …just keep it until this is over? Hide it. Can you do that? It's Jenni's – I just don't want… any unpleasantness. Do you understand? Lucy?'

Lucy went and fetched the bag. She resisted opening it. Shackleton knew if he flushed the drugs away in the house there was no
guarantee forensic wouldn't find some trace if the autopsy proved the doctor wrong. It was too risky to keep them in the house and too risky to try to dispose of them himself. There must be no possibility of proving he had ever known they existed. He didn't want to involve Lucy, but … he couldn't delay calling his deputy any longer, the official wheels had to start rolling.

‘Thank you, Lucy.'

He hesitated, he knew she wanted more, some sign that nothing had changed between them. He bent and kissed her on the cheek. It seemed to be enough. She squeezed his hand.

‘I'll call you,' he said.

Mercifully she took her cue and left, taking the bag. There was nothing to link him with the drugs. Nothing but the fragment of his thumb print inside the yellow-pill container he'd knocked over in his haste. The gloves had been too bulky to allow him to pick it up and refill it with the spilled contents.

He breathed deeply and made the next phone call.

The coroner himself arrived in his battered old Daimler behind the discreet van from which his men emerged. The same men who'd cleared Geoffrey Carter away.

He was an extraordinary sight, small and dapper with a red carnation in his buttonhole. His hair was boot-polish black and its extravagant waves were controlled with Gentlemen's Pomade. There was something charmingly Dickensian about his scrubbed cherubic face and immaculate clothes.

‘Tom. I'm so sorry.'

That word again.

‘It was good of you to come yourself, St John.'

‘Only proper, Tom, only proper.'

His Scottish accent was almost silenced by the voice of England's establishment.

‘Did Jenni have any history of heart problems?'

Tom heard the unintended irony of the question.

‘No. She was only forty-one. Forty-one in July.'

The coroner tutted his commiseration.

‘We'll get the autopsy done as quickly as possible. Jackson's the pathologist – do you know him? Top man. Oh … and I know it's not the ideal moment but congratulations on the job. Best man for it in my opinion.'

The two men with him gently eased Jenni's rigid limbs to place her in the zip-up cover, so like a large suit carrier, and took her out to the van on a stretcher.

To the coroner Shackleton looked bewildered, lost in his sadness. They had been a famous love match. He couldn't know how fast the man's mind was racing, covering every possibility, calculating the damage Jenni could cause in death.

He had called his deputy while waiting for the coroner. Vernon was shocked, upset. Shackleton found himself fascinated by the reactions of each person who was touched by the widening ripples of Jenni's dramatic exit. Vernon alerted the area commander and they would arrive shortly. Jenni would have loved the attention.

Tom knew what he had to do next but wanted time before he did it. There was no time. He picked up the phone and called the Home Secretary. It took nearly ten minutes to be put through to MacIntyre.

‘Yes, Tom. What can I do for you?'

Since last night the question begged a variety of unspoken replies.

‘Jenni, my wife. She died suddenly this morning.'

There was total silence from the Gnome, then, ‘I'm so sorry, Tom. What happened?'

‘Probably her heart. There'll have to be an autopsy of course.'

‘Of course.'

Another silence.

‘It's unfortunate timing, Tom.'

‘Yes.'

‘Who's the coroner?'

‘St John Clement.'

The Gnome seemed pleased.

‘Good man. Very sound.'

Tom heard: Good, he's one of ours.

‘I'll have a word with him. Obviously we want as little fuss as possible.'

‘Obviously.'

‘There wasn't anything else?' The question hung for a moment. ‘No … circumstances?'

How much did he trust the Gnome?

‘No. Nothing I know of.'

‘Good. It would be unfortunate if anything tarnished your appointment. I know the PM would find it onerous to have another …
problem … it's very important to him the Anti-Crime Coordinator doesn't come under inappropriate press scrutiny.'

‘Of course.'

‘And, Tom, you have my total support. I was very keen you should have this job. I think we'll work well together.'

‘I hope so.'

‘You'll let me know when the funeral is, won't you. I was very fond of Jenni, you know.'

‘Yes … she told me… It was one of the last things she said to me. How close you had been.'

The pause was just too long.

‘Well, keep me informed. Anything you need …'

The doorbell rang and the house filled with his senior officers. Every one expressed their sorrow. Shortly after, two other officers arrived, unmistakable Special Branch. MacIntyre had been busy. Tom assured them all there was no cause for anything more than sympathy. They reassured themselves there was no question of suspicious circumstances and, by two o'clock, he was alone.

For the first time in his life he was alone: no mother, no wife, no family. Family. He realised with a shock that her children didn't know their mother was dead.

Another five minutes of freedom, then he'd call them.

The autopsy report was straightforward and produced within thirty-six hours of her body being found. Jackson was, after all, a top man. Jenni had died from a spontaneous rupture of the pulmonary artery caused by a structural weakness probably present since birth. Natural causes.

The funeral was arranged for the following week, the Wednesday morning. Burial, not cremation.

Tom continued to work and was admired for his strength and professionalism. His children re-inhabited his life and dealt with their grief and the daily influx of sympathy cards noisily and openly. Lucy offered help but was politely rebuffed. Tom's daughters were going to care for their father – they would clean his house and cook his meals; Lucy's lover was now speaking on television and radio as caring husband, father and grandfather. The bosom of his family stifled him and excluded her.

Desperate, she called his mobile. It was six o'clock, he should be on his way home. He answered quickly. That three-syllabled ‘Hello'.

‘Tom, I'm sorry to disturb you, but I wanted to know you were all right. Could I see you? It would be good to have a talk … about, well, what's going to happen … Tom? … Tom?'

She could hear voices in the background, a cocktail party or reception. She felt her face burning as she realised she'd interrupted him, she'd done the wrong thing. The public man had nothing to do with the one she was phoning. He didn't say anything. She could hear his breathing.

‘Tom?'

Lucy panicked and rang off.

Shackleton wished everyone would go away, leave him to the empty house and his empty soul. He had felt nothing but was continually told by well-wishers that he would need time for mourning, when the funeral was over. When it really sank in. The loss. His great loss.

The press was sympathetic and soon the letters from lonely women, mostly written in green ink, began to appear in his office. Janet dealt with them, the ones who wanted to marry him, look after him, offer him comfort. Protected by her and his deputy he simply worked, unthinking and unfeeling, until the morning of his wife's interment.

St John Clement had seen the Home Secretary at his club on the evening of the autopsy. They met briefly on the imposing wooden staircase looked down on by past members of the great and the ostensibly good. Their conversation very quickly turned to Jenni Shackleton.

Clement's voice dropped to a low rumble.

‘Yes. Natural causes … but …'

‘But?'

The Gnome didn't want any buts.

‘There was something else. The state of the organs. Wear and tear more than one would expect in a body of that age. Certain signs. My usual feeling would be to hold a second autopsy. Toxicology reports. Further investigation.'

‘What's your suspicion, St John?'

The rubicund geniality gave way to an unexpected hardness.

‘Drugs. Legal and illegal. Over quite a period. Maybe not years but … habitual, I'd say.'

MacIntyre thought for a moment. Then he said, ‘Yes. Get Jackson to do another. But … let me have the result, eh? I don't think we need to let this go any further. We don't want to ruin Shackleton before he's had a chance to ruin himself, do we?'

Clement smiled his naughty-boy smile.

‘No. Of course not. Wouldn't look good, would it? Adding to the burden of the grieving widower. And after that fiasco with Carter …'

The two men were thoughtful for a moment.

‘Right ho, see you in the bar, Robbie.'

The coroner delivered the second autopsy report personally to the Gnome a couple of days later. No point in risking the discretion of a third party. He waited patiently while the Home Secretary read it.

‘Tranquillisers taken shortly before death, traces of heroin and cocaine and alcohol … some evidence of Ecstasy … Good God, was there nothing this woman didn't get up to?'

‘Very little, I'd say,' replied Clement. ‘She also had a very neat case of syphilis. Not too advanced. Probably had no idea there was anything wrong. Not so usual in this country. Lots of it in the Eastern Bloc. Galloping. Breakdown of social fabric, of course.

‘Oh, and there was evidence of severe damage to the rectum and anus. A small fistula, more a lesion really. Some infection. She must have been in quite a lot of pain. If Shackleton's responsible for both or either, I'd keep an eye on him. Whoever gave her those problems is a walking time bomb – someone definitely not to take home to your daughters.'

He missed the Gnome's expression as he produced a gold half-hunter and consulted it.

‘I'm always surprised at what beauty hides. Anyway, I must be off. You going to
Traviata
on Thursday? Kitty's looking forward to seeing Lizie again, wants to talk to her about wisteria or something …'

When he'd gone the Gnome re-read the report. Of all the words in it the only one that had any meaning for him was syphilis. Dirty, degrading, degenerate, all words that had the power to excite him, but disease wasn't one of them. The long-conquered loathing for his physical self came back like a smell. A combination of unpleasant odours that made up the hated stench of his body, his feet, his groin, armpits, hair, stale skin and breath. And now decaying flesh.

He had no doubt Jenni had contracted it from him. An extraordinary female he'd met on an official visit to Macedonia came back to him. She'd been a hanger-on with some Russian delegation, ostensibly there to calm feelings in the wake of Milosevic but actually to ensure the Trepeca Mine in Kosovo would be available to Serb protectors when the regime finally fell. A grubby girl, a memorable lay, but not worth what it was going to cost.