Murder by Numbers

by Eric Brown

  ‘We should meet Jeff and pool everything we’ve found. He needs to know about Benedict. It’s imperative we trace the actor. If he isn’t actively involved, then he might have information we need to know.’

  ‘I’ll see you at the office,’ Ralph said. ‘I’m meeting a chap tonight about getting a jerrycan of petrol. Wish me luck. How about a cuppa while you’re here?’

  ‘I’d better not, thanks all the same. I want to get back to Maria. I think we’ll go out for a meal – I feel like getting well and truly sloshed tonight.’

  ‘Have one for me while you’re at it,’ Ralph said, and climbed from the car.

  Langham started up and headed for Bermondsey.

  That evening, over a lasagne and Sicilian wine at a tiny bistro on Greek Street, Langham discussed the details of the case with Maria.

  He mentioned Edgar Benedict, and her eyes widened. ‘And the odd thing,’ he went on before she could speak, ‘is that Fenton and Benedict knew each other. We found a photograph at his lodgings showing the actor together with Fenton before the war at Winterfield.’ He considered mentioning that Maria featured in the same photograph, but stopped himself.

  She reached across the table and clutched his hand. ‘But I knew this Edgar Benedict, Donald! He was a regular guest at my father’s parties, and I met him once at Winterfield.’

  ‘Do you know how close Benedict and Fenton were?’

  ‘Oh, they were best friends, Donald. As thick as thieves. They even agreed politically – they were closet Mosleyites.’

  ‘I like the sound of Fenton less and less,’ he said. ‘Ralph has a hare-brained theory that Benedict might be doing Fenton’s posthumous dirty work.’

  Maria laughed. ‘Well, I wouldn’t put it past him. Benedict was an awful man.’

  Langham lowered his glass. ‘What?’

  ‘He really was a vile character. Why are you looking so surprised, Donald?’

  ‘It’s strange,’ he said. ‘You talk to people about a third party and you form an impression about them. From what Kersh and Benedict’s landlady said about the actor, I rather built up the picture of a quiet, reserved English gentlemen.’

  Maria blew in mock disgust. ‘Don’t you believe it, Donald! Benedict was vain and egotistical, and he treated women appallingly. Some people even say,’ she went on, leaning close to him and lowering her voice, ‘that Edgar Benedict had a hand in the death of his second wife.’

  He stared at her. ‘But she suffered a brain haemorrhage,’ he said.

  Maria shook her head. ‘No, she didn’t. She died while on holiday in Jersey. She fell to her death from a clifftop. Only some people say that she was pushed. Benedict was having an affair at the time, you see, and the marriage was turning sour.’

  ‘Well I never!’ he said. He shook his head. ‘But no. However awful he might have been, it’s too much to think he’d willingly kill for his old friend, isn’t it?’

  Maria rocked her head. ‘Human beings are very, very strange, Donald. You should know that by now.’

  He raised his glass in acknowledgement, drained it, and ordered a second bottle from the passing waiter.

  FOURTEEN

  The alarm went off at eight, drilling into nebulous dreams that vanished as Langham blinked himself awake. He sat on the side of the bed and held his head in his hands. He had a thudding headache and a raging thirst. He found his dressing gown, moved to the bathroom and splashed his face with ice cold water. He returned to the bedroom feeling a little better and lay down next to Maria.

  He groaned.

  She reached out and stroked his cheek.

  ‘I should never have ordered that second bottle.’

  She propped herself up on one elbow. From the humorous skew of her lips, he knew she was about to mock him. ‘Donald, does your mouth feel “as dry as a camel’s crotch after a three-week trek through the Sahara”?’ It was a line he’d used in his first novel, which Maria had thought hilariously bad.

  ‘Worse,’ he said. ‘It feels like a camel’s crotch after three months in the desert.’

  ‘My poor darling,’ she said, stroking his cheek. ‘What are you doing today?’

  ‘If I survive,’ he said, ‘I’ll catch up with Jeff Mallory and go through the case with him.’

  A tap sounded at the door and Pamela called out, ‘Don, the phone.’

  He pulled a surprised face at Maria. ‘I wonder who that might be?’

  He moved to the sitting room, and Pamela indicated the telephone next to the sofa. He slumped down and took up the receiver. ‘Langham here.’

  ‘Don, it’s Jeff.’

  ‘Speak of the devil. I was just saying to Maria that we need to—’

  Mallory interrupted. ‘Can you get yourself down to the Tivoli Mansions quick sharp?’

  Langham swore. ‘The Goudges?’

  ‘How did you guess? I’ll see you there.’ Mallory rang off.

  He returned to the bedroom, massaging the back of his neck and recalling the Goudges, sitting side by side on the chaise longue, shocked by the sympathy card that had just arrived.

  ‘Donald?’ Maria reached out a hand.

  ‘That was Jeff. I think the Goudges …’

  She looked shocked. ‘What?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  ‘But you think—?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Look here, I’d better be off.’

  He dressed quickly, then took Maria’s hand and kissed her fingers. ‘I don’t want you going out today, OK? Just to be on the safe side. Have a quiet day indoors, all right?’

  ‘I intended to get some reading done anyway.’

  He pecked her cheek and hurried from the bedroom.

  Pamela appeared in the doorway to the kitchen with a plate of toast. ‘Would you like—?’

  ‘No time,’ he said, pulling on his overcoat. ‘Must fly. Oh – would you be a dear and ring Ralph? Tell him to meet me at the Tivoli Mansions as soon as he can.’

  ‘Tivoli Mansions,’ she said. ‘Will do.’

  He ran out to the Rover, drove over Tower Bridge at speed and headed west. The traffic was light. It had rained during the night and the streets glistened in the early-morning sunlight. As he made his way down the King’s Road, his progress hampered by a dawdling Co-Op milk float, he found himself considering the imperious Hermione Goudge and her put-upon husband. He could not stop himself from wondering how the killer had gone about his business.

  Three police cars, Mallory’s Humber and a navy-blue forensics van were pulled up outside the mansion. A bobby patrolled the pavement and another stood sentry before the revolving door.

  Langham gave his name and said that Detective Inspector Mallory was expecting him.

  ‘In you go. The inspector’s in the foyer.’

  He pushed through the revolving door and found Jeff sitting on a settee in reception. He was leaning forward with his head in his hands. When he looked up at Langham, his eyes were bloodshot and his blonde thatch dishevelled.

  ‘I had a man stationed outside all night,’ the detective said, ‘and the bloody concierge didn’t see a damned thing.’

  Langham nodded, feeling queasy. ‘Ralph and I gave them the hard word and left around midday. They’d just received a sympathy card. They said they’d make arrangements to leave that afternoon.’

  ‘I had a man phone them around two o’clock, suggesting they get out ASAP. George said he’d tried to book a room in a hotel they used in Hampshire, but it was full that evening. He said they’d leave first thing in the morning, so to reassure the couple I had a constable stationed outside the place from four o’clock.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Mallory sighed and climbed to his feet. ‘Been in the force for over twenty years,’ he said, leading the way to the lift, ‘and I’ve never seen anything like this. We’re not dealing with your run-of-the-mill killer, Don. This one’s a psychopath.’

  They rode the lift to the third floor, and Mallory led the way along the corrido
r to apartment twelve.

  The door stood open. A forensics officer came out, carrying a plastic specimen bag. ‘We’ve dusted, photographed and gathered all we need, sir. Over to you.’

  Mallory led the way down the hallway to the sitting room. ‘They were found at eight thirty this morning by the cleaner,’ he said. ‘Watch your step: that’s hers.’ He pointed to a pool of vomit on the parquet threshold of the sitting room, and Langham did a quickstep around it.

  He looked across the room and saw the bodies. ‘My God …’

  The Goudges had been stripped naked and arranged side by side on the chaise longue, their throats cut from ear to ear. The blood had dried on their chests, like black bibs, contrasting starkly with their abundant white flesh.

  ‘The surgeon estimates they were killed between six o’clock and midnight yesterday,’ Mallory said. ‘They evidently knew the killer; there’s no evidence of forced entry. They either opened a bottle of wine, or the killer brought one, which he or she laced with a sedative. They were unconscious when the killer did that to them.’

  Langham saw two empty wine glasses on a coffee table. ‘A third glass?’

  ‘As with Doctor Bryce, there’s evidence that the killer joined them in a drink, then washed up the glass and replaced it in the kitchen.’

  Langham stepped closer to the corpses, but not too close. ‘I suppose that’s a small mercy,’ he said. ‘So they weren’t aware of what was happening, and didn’t feel anything?’

  ‘Apparently not. They were dead to the world.’ Mallory caught himself and grimaced.

  ‘But what kind of person would have …?’

  ‘Some sick bastard with a hell of a grudge, is who.’

  Langham pointed to a small occasional table beside the chaise longue.

  The killer had undressed the couple, then taken great care to fold the discarded garments and place them in a neat pile on the table, exhibiting a fastidious attention to domestic detail that pointed up the savagery of the slaughter.

  ‘I know,’ Mallory said. ‘As I said, we’re dealing with a psychopath. And an abnormally tidy psychopath, at that.’

  Langham moved to the window and stared out. As if on cue, a dark cloud obscured the bright winter sunlight and the heavens opened, drenching the streets. Pedestrians hurried for cover, happily oblivious of the scene of carnage in the exclusive third-floor apartment.

  ‘But if you had a bobby outside from four, and the surgeon said they were killed between six and midnight …’ Langham looked at the detective. ‘You think your man nipped off for a quick cuppa?’

  ‘He swears blind he never left his post, except once when he came into the foyer out of the rain and had a natter with the concierge – but neither of them saw a thing.’

  ‘You think he’s lying?’

  ‘My sergeant swears he’s trustworthy. But it would’ve only taken a second for someone to have slipped past them if he was hobnobbing with the concierge. There’s an alternative scenario, of course. The killer didn’t come in from outside.’

  ‘Meaning he or she was already in the building?’

  ‘There’s nowhere they could have hidden for long without being noticed by someone, the concierge or the residents. But how about this – the killer was already living here, in one of the apartments. They’d been renting it for a while, all the time planning the murders. I have someone checking the other apartments and their occupants.’

  ‘How many are there? Occupants, I mean.’

  ‘According to the concierge, twelve apartments and twenty residents. Well, eighteen now.’

  Langham turned from the window and looked around the room. His gaze settled on Maxwell Fenton’s portrait of Hermione Goudge, painted when she was much younger, and almost pretty.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he said.

  Mallory turned. ‘What?’

  Langham gestured to the painting, and the three lateral slashes scored across the canvas.

  Mallory said, ‘Identical to the canvases back at Winterfield.’

  ‘Which begs the question,’ Langham said, ‘who defaced the Winterfield paintings? Fenton or the killer? The slashes in those canvases appeared to have been done recently.’

  Mallory gestured to the portrait. ‘Copycat vandalism?’ he suggested. ‘Which would make sense as the killer seems to be doing Fenton’s sick bidding.’

  Langham stared at Hermione’s smiling face, and he was struck by the unbearable sadness of the young woman’s blithe ignorance of the fate awaiting her many years in the future.

  He heard footsteps from along the corridor, and Ralph walked into the room. He stopped in his tracks when he saw the bodies. ‘Strewth! The bobby downstairs said it wasn’t a pretty sight. He wasn’t lying, was he?’

  Langham recounted the salient details and Ralph listened in silence, stroking his straggling ginger moustache.

  ‘Same modus op as the Bryce hanging,’ he said. ‘Quiet drink with someone known, victims don’t suspect a thing, then Bob’s your uncle and they’re dead.’

  He looked from Mallory to Langham. ‘You brought Jeff up to speed on the gen from yesterday?’

  ‘What was that?’ Mallory asked.

  Langham told the South African about their interview with Gittings the butler, their meeting with Mr Kersh at the theatrical agency, then their inquiries at the Forest Hill boarding house run by Miss Wardley.

  ‘So Fenton hired his old actor friend Benedict for purposes unknown,’ Mallory said. ‘But why use the name of Smith when booking Benedict?’

  ‘Why go through the agency at all?’ Langham pointed out. ‘Ralph wondered if Benedict might be carrying out Fenton’s last wishes.’

  ‘We need to find this Benedict character,’ Mallory said, ‘and pronto.’

  Langham remembered the photographs he’d taken from the guest house and removed the one of Edgar Benedict from his overcoat pocket. ‘This is Benedict in his late fifties.’

  He passed it to Mallory, who looked at the actor and grunted. ‘Doesn’t look like your usual murder suspect, does he?’

  Langham glanced across the room at the ivory-handled telephone on a table in the corner. ‘If you don’t mind, I just want a quick word with Maria.’

  He crossed to the telephone table and sat down, wondering how he might tell Maria about what had happened without alarming her. He considered, briefly, not phoning at all, but realized that he wanted to hear the reassuring sound of her voice.

  He got through to Pamela’s Bermondsey number and Maria herself answered.

  ‘Donald?’

  ‘Maria – I just wanted to make sure. What I said earlier, about not going out. Promise me you won’t move a muscle till I get back?’

  ‘Of course, Donald. As I said, I’m reading today. Pamela has just popped out for some bread for lunch. Donald, the Goudges?’

  He drew a breath. ‘I’m sorry, Maria.’

  She exclaimed, then said, ‘They’re dead?’

  ‘Maria …’

  ‘How …?’ she began.

  ‘Later, OK?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Look, I’d better get off. I love you.’

  ‘Love you, too, Donald. Bye.’

  He replaced the receiver and rejoined Mallory and Ralph.

  ‘I was just telling Jeff,’ Ralph said, ‘I was motoring past the Lyric and what did I see? Ruddy Holly Beckwith’s name up in lights, is what. Plain as day for the world and his wife to see.’

  Mallory said, ‘I had a word with her yesterday, told her to make herself scarce. She agreed to move from her current lodging house to a friend’s place, but she didn’t say she was appearing in a bloody play. I thought it was still in rehearsal.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Ralph said. ‘But the opening night’s the day after tomorrow.’

  Langham said, ‘We could pop along and try to get her to pull out of the production.’

  ‘Could you? And if she doesn’t take heed, I’ll drop by and make her see sense.’

  Ralph stared ac
ross the room at the corpses. ‘I just hope we can do a better job than we did with the Goudges.’

  A uniformed constable appeared at the end of the hallway. ‘Inspector, Detective Sergeant Venables would like a word.’

  Mallory led the way from the apartment, and a plainclothes officer hailed him from along the corridor and gestured towards an open door.

  ‘I think we might have something here, sir.’

  FIFTEEN

  The apartment was smaller than that of the Goudges – not enjoying a prime corner position – and the sitting room looked out into an alleyway at the back of the building. It was minimally equipped with utility furnishings and possessed all the individuality of an anonymous hotel room. Langham made out not a single personal belonging in either the sitting room or the adjacent bedroom.

  ‘The apartment was let to a certain Miss Hilary Shaw two weeks ago, on a six-month lease,’ Detective Sergeant Venables said, referring to his notebook. ‘I’ve checked with the letting agency, and all the business transactions were done either over the phone or by post. Miss Shaw gave her previous address as being in Bournemouth, but I’ve looked it up and it doesn’t exist.’

  Mallory nodded. ‘This looks promising.’

  Venables said, ‘According to neighbours, Miss Shaw was rarely in residence. In fact, she was seen only once or twice over the course of the past fortnight. Only one person spoke to her – Miss Etheridge, a retired librarian from apartment eight. A constable is bringing her along now, sir.’

  ‘Good work,’ Mallory said. ‘I take it no one heard or saw anything last night?’

  ‘I’ve spoken to every resident in the mansion, sir, and no one noticed anything suspicious.’

  ‘Not that they would,’ Mallory said. ‘If this Miss Shaw was the killer, all she needed to do was lie low until the corridor was quiet, knock on the Goudges’ door, and in she goes. She probably made a date to see them in advance.’ He looked at Langham. ‘The Goudges didn’t mention anything about meeting anyone for drinks yesterday, did they?’

  ‘No, not a thing.’

  ‘I wonder if the concierge or the constable saw anyone leave the building last night,’ Mallory mused. ‘When I’ve seen Miss Etheridge, Venables, get them up here, would you?’