by Roger Keevil
“Me?” The astonishment was evident in Perry’s voice. “What, you mean …? Oh, well, of course I haven’t told my colleagues here that you called me in to take a look at Dee. You asked me not to say anything.”
“Not what I’m referring to, Dr. Neal, and I think you know it. I suppose we could call that some sort of cover-up, but it’s certainly not worth worrying about. But you were more worried about other matters. Your visit to the library to examine the Prime Minister’s body, for example.”
“But … I didn’t … I mean …” Perry tailed off helplessly under the inspector’s implacable gaze.
“You gave yourself away, Doctor,” continued Constable. “You were a little too ready with the information when I asked you if you had seen Mrs. Ronson’s body. No, you replied, however curious you might have been when you were first told. But there was just the tiniest pause before you came out with your denial. And when you examined Mrs. Nye, you gave your opinion that the death had only occurred a matter of minutes earlier … ‘this time’. Unlike the previous time you had examined a body, when it had been clear that the Prime Minister had been dead for some hours. So I think your curiosity overcame any other scruples. Although there is, of course, another more sinister explanation. Might you have wanted to check the scene of Mrs. Ronson’s murder to make sure that you hadn’t left any tell-tale evidence? And when we called you in to take a look at Mrs. Nye, was that fortuitous for you as it gave you the opportunity to do the same thing?”
“Yes. All right. I did leave my room and go down to the library,” admitted Perry. “But it was completely innocent. Well, perhaps not … more a case of plain human curiosity. I couldn’t believe what Inspector Deare had told me. I had to see for myself. So I stole downstairs while she was in telling one of the others, but then I came back up again more or less straight away. In fact, I was lucky not to be seen, because she was just coming out of Benny’s room. But that’s all that happened. I didn’t have any need to clear away incriminating evidence. Why on earth would I have wanted to kill Dee or Doris?”
“I’m afraid we’re back to the matter of a cover-up, sir,” said Constable. “You paid a visit to the church in Dammett Worthy on your way here, and we know about the conversations you had there, both with the vicar and with Mrs. Ronson. Piecing together the various scraps, it seems there was a case involving one of your patients, some years ago, where there was a death which could have been avoided if only you had taken other measures. But the potential scandal was covered up. It sounds as if this has continued to prey upon your mind. It also sounds as if, somehow, the details of the case became known to Mrs. Ronson, and might have been on the verge of becoming public. The Prime Minister couldn’t risk leaving in place a Health Minister with such a question mark over his head. She might even have discussed the legal implications with her Justice Secretary. So, you see, any suspicions about yourself can be completely justified. And who better than a doctor to choose the particular method used - an injection - to bring about the death of Deborah Nye?”
Chapter 16
“Is this actually getting us anywhere, inspector?” Benjamin Fitt jumped to his feet and came forward to challenge the detective. “You’re telling us all these things about people’s backgrounds and stuff, giving away things which some of us probably thought were nobody’s business but their own, and all this with a tabloid hack in the room who is probably rubbing his hands together at all the tasty copy he’s going to get out of it. That book deal he talked about is going to be worth a mint. And you don’t seem to be getting any closer to telling us who murdered Doris and Dee.”
“All in good time, Mr. Fitt,” responded Andy Constable. He checked his watch. “I think it’s important that these facts should be gone over, and I’m not quite up against my deadline yet. And as for the matter of Mr. Daly, I think I’ll be advising him to tread carefully in respect of the information that he reveals, particularly as we might be considering charges of impeding a police investigation and wasting police time if he steps over the line.”
“Message received and understood, Mr. Constable,” said Jim. “But I suspect we’ll probably be having a little chat anyway when this is all over.”
“I think you can count on it, Mr. Daly,” said Constable. He turned back to Benny. “But in the meantime, let us carry on with our consideration of people’s possible motives. And since you put yourself forward, Mr. Fitt, let’s focus the spotlight on you.”
“Focus away, inspector,” replied Benny defiantly. “You won’t find anything in my past career that’s going to worry me. I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve done. My life is an open book.”
“Maybe not quite that open, Mr. Fitt,” demurred Constable. “Oh, I’m sure your parliamentary career, and your work in the trade unions before that, will bear the closest scrutiny.”
“Well then?”
“But it’s before that, in your younger years, that I suspect something has come back to haunt you. And it’s not even the worst of secrets. You gave me a brief résumé of your life, but you skated over the matter of your up-bringing. ‘I got out’, you told me. But what you didn’t mention was what you left behind. Except that you couldn’t leave your past behind completely. And it’s perhaps, for you, the most unfortunate of coincidences that the fellow M.P. you chose as your parliamentary assistant represents the constituency in which you grew up. Did you put him in place because of some sort of misplaced nostalgia about the old days?” A snort from Benny. “Well, perhaps not. You didn’t display much nostalgia about them when you were speaking to me. But it appears that there was something to cause you concern, if what was overheard by several people is to be believed. For instance, when you were leaving the Dammett Well, the landlord Mr. Porter witnessed an exchange between Mrs. Ronson and yourself which mentioned that assistant of yours and his constituency. A remarkable coincidence regarding the name of a lady living there who had come for him for help. There was a mention of close family relationships, and a determination to go over the matter in detail later. And this was after an initial conversation in the car on the way to the Inn, when Mr. Grade had heard much the same thing, speaking of the need to be above reproach. Which implies, of course, that reproaches were in order. So, Mr. Fitt, what conclusions am I to draw from the fact that one of Mr. Daly’s press colleagues promised him ‘the mother of all revelations’? Was that significant wording?”
There was a prolonged pause. “I never had a dad, you know,” said Benny. He seemed far away. “Not that that was anything unusual on our estate. But most of the other boys had mothers who treated them like little princes. They had nothing, but they gave them everything. Not mine. She … she was too busy with what she called my new uncles. She didn’t care if they … well, you don’t need to know what it was like in our house. But if you knew, you wouldn’t wonder why I got out. And I made up my mind I’d stay out. I was never going back, and I was never going to see … that woman again. And then, suddenly, there I am in the government. I’m on the news. And she saw her chance to cash in. She got in touch, wanting this, wanting that. I said I’d have nothing to do with her. She said I’d better, otherwise she’d be on to the papers with stories about how I was a tearaway as a kid, got up to all sorts. And it was all nothing … only stuff that all boys do, nothing serious, nothing criminal. But she started to put the whispers about. That could have been the end of me.”
“And someone in that situation might have lashed out at the women who held his fate in their hands,” suggested Constable softly.
“Which meant I killed Doris?” Benny gave a faint but pitying smile. “And that just goes to show you don’t know a thing about her. And to be honest, neither did I. When I got called in last night, I was expecting the worst. I thought I was going to have my cards handed to me double quick. And she sat me down, told me what she had been told, and asked if I had anything to say. So I explained. The whole thing, chapter and verse, right from the beginning. I’d never been able to do that before, to anyone. I
t was a release. And she sat there for a minute, and then she came round the desk, put her arm around my shoulder, and said we would get me through it together. I couldn’t believe it. She said she’d put her own enquiries in place, and once she had the facts, woe betide anyone who tried to get at me. They’d have to go through her first.” Benny’s voice began to shake, and he pulled out a handkerchief. “God, that woman was a real diamond.” He took a deep breath, wiped his eyes, and drew himself up in his seat. “So, kill her, Mr. Constable? I’d rather have killed anyone who tried.”
“I think I’ll choose not to hear that last statement, Mr. Fitt,” said Constable. “The last thing I need is any further complication in this case.”
“But couldn’t that have meant he might have killed Dee?” pointed out Milo Grade. “Shouldn’t you take him seriously? I mean, he might have killed her because he found out she’d murdered the Prime Minister. Although goodness knows why she would.”
“Oh, there’s a case to be made against Mrs. Nye, Mr. Grade. Not necessarily concerning the lady herself, but we’ve heard hints that her husband, who has considerable financial dealings at a high level, may not have been entirely ethical in all of them. Any suggestion of fraud in such elevated circles would be a very serious problem. There was a great deal of talk of fraud around the dinner table last night, and there would be nobody better placed to suppress any investigation than the wife of an accused person, if that wife happened to be the Justice Secretary. And no prime minister could continue to support the head of the legal system with such doubts hanging over her. But if the suggestion is that Mrs. Nye murdered this Prime Minister to protect herself, and then committed suicide in a fit of remorse, I have to tell you that the facts do not support such a theory, any more than they would support a suggestion of Mr. Fitt’s involvement in Mrs. Nye’s death.”
“All your theories so far don’t appear to be doing us much good,” remarked Milo waspishly.
“Oh, never fear, Mr. Grade,” replied Constable. “I have others. So, then, let me turn to you yourself.”
“And what am I supposed to have done?” scoffed Milo. “Come on, let’s hear what you’ve got to say about me.”
“More a case of what you haven’t done, Mr. Grade,” responded the inspector. “In fact, it’s almost the old ‘the dog ate my homework’ situation, which for an Education Secretary is very dangerous territory.”
Milo blinked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You were kind enough to tell me something about your background, sir. How you studied at university … Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, I think you said …” Constable ignored the small murmur of surprise from one corner of the room. “And with a grounding in these subjects, it’s almost obligatory for a young man with ambition to take the first step on the road to a political career. First, as you explained, you were employed as a research assistant to an M.P., then you progressed to becoming an M.P. yourself, and now you find yourself with a seat around the Cabinet table. A very impressive career – almost textbook, one might say. But the only fly in the ointment is that the textbooks involved might not have been the right ones.”
“This is meaningless,” declared Milo. “It’s all bluff.”
“So it is, sir,” said Constable. “But, unfortunately for you, not on my part. Because, as luck would have it, you came up against someone this weekend who could expose your bluff. Someone who recognised you from your university, but who certainly wouldn’t have recognised your description of your studies. I have to be very grateful to Mr. Knightly for being in the right place at the right time. Because while he was on a hotel management course, one of the ‘Foodies’, as he described them, he saw you among the students on an engineering course. You were, in fact, one of the ‘Spannermen’. And Spannermen, I’m guessing, do not generally emerge from their educational establishment with a First in P.P.E. So when you applied for that original job on an M.P.‘s staff, it wasn’t actually a case of the dog having eaten your homework, but the fact that there was no homework in the first place. Your qualifications were taken on trust, but they had been entirely fabricated.”
“This is ridiculous,” blustered Milo. “Even Doctor Johnson never finished his degree.”
“That may be so, Mr. Grade, but as far as I’m aware, he never lied about it.”
“You’re guessing,” retorted Milo. “You haven’t a scrap of evidence. And how does this give me any reason to go around killing people?”
“You’re right, Mr. Grade,” said Constable. “A great deal of this is guesswork. But I can’t tell you how many people have killed for motives far more trivial than these. You might well, for instance, have feared that, in the welter of revelations which seemed to be taking place, your secret had become known to the Prime Minister. You could have heard her in conversation with Mr. Knightly. I think, in the light of one of her remarks over dinner, you had every right to fear exposure and an end to your career. In any event, the question of school examination results was up for discussion. And so, as with so many of your colleagues here, a potential motive certainly exists.”
Constable paused for several moments and took a pace or two up and down, as if marshalling his thoughts. “There’s another way in which Mr. Knightly’s evidence has been crucial in this investigation,” he resumed, “but in this instance, it was not related to where he was and who he recognised, but rather the reverse.”
“Sorry, inspector,” said Phil, “but I don’t understand. I think I’ve told you all I know.”
“Forgive me, Mr. Knightly,” said Constable. “I’m not explaining myself very well. I asked you if you knew any of those present in your hotel, and you said, personally, no. None of them had been here before, and you’d been on duty here ever since the establishment opened. Except, of course, that wasn’t completely correct. You mentioned an absence over a weekend – your birthday, I think you said.”
“Yes. I’d almost forgotten that. But it was only a couple of days.”
“Quite enough to make a difference, sir. And as it happens, those couple of days were very important. Because, of course, even in your absence, the register continues to record the guests staying here. And that register was found in Mrs. Ronson’s possession when we examined her room. Why, I wondered. I’m still not sure. But Sergeant Copper made a very interesting discovery when he went through it.” Constable’s gaze swept around the room. “The fact is, one of you had stayed here before. Almost exactly a year ago. It so happens, Mr. Knightly, that that visit coincided with your birthday, which is why you didn’t recognise the hotel’s former guest. Who had, I assume, come here to celebrate a special occasion at the same date. Her and her husband’s anniversary. Am I right, Mrs. Hayste?”
Marion looked momentarily disconcerted, but then her face cleared. “Do you know, Mr. Constable, you’re absolutely right. We did come here for a little break over our anniversary weekend. But we often go away for weekends, so it must have slipped my mind. There’s surely nothing strange in that.” She attempted a light laugh.
“Indeed not, Mrs. Hayste. Except that you told me that you’d never been here before. A simple lapse of memory? Perhaps. Although I would have thought that a weekend spent in the luxurious surroundings of His Lordship’s Room, as the register shows, would have stuck in your mind. And you were almost too eager to point out that you had never been inside the room, currently occupied by Dr. Neal. I’m afraid that we were initially slightly misled by your flustered reaction, and the fact that there was a concealed communicating door between your room and his, and we began to draw an incorrect conclusion.”
“What’s that you say?” Perry Neal gave the inspector an enquiring look. “What, you mean that you thought Marion and I …?” He gave a ‘tcha’ of annoyance. “For goodness sake, man, I’m old enough to be her father.”
“But, as I say,” continued Constable, declining to be diverted, “that supposition was incorrect. But if that wasn’t the cause of Mrs. Hayste’s unease, then
what was? And once we began to put together the different pieces of the jigsaw, a picture began to emerge. There were the various overheard remarks. Mr. Knightly walked in on a heated conversation between Mrs. Hayste and Mrs. Nye, purportedly on the subject of one of her areas of ministerial responsibility. ‘Marion and drugs’ – those were the words used to me. The question of the use of drugs in prisons – or was it perhaps more a case of drugs being allowed to get into prisons through inefficiencies in the regime? Mrs. Ronson spoke of ‘watering down’ – so was it simple inefficiency, or was there a hint of corruption? But why should a minister be open to such a thing? Let me offer a wild speculation. Could it be that the person who was supposed to be the gamekeeper was in fact one of the poachers? A user? Perhaps with access to a hypodermic syringe? A syringe which was subsequently used as a murder weapon? I don’t suppose, Mrs. Hayste, that you’d care to raise the sleeves of the dress you’re wearing so that we may take a closer look at your arms?”
Marion remained seated and silent, absolutely still save for a slight tremor in her hands. Her blue eyes, with their black dilated pupils, were fixed on the inspector’s face.
After a few moments’ pause, Constable resumed. “And we mustn’t, of course, forget the other murder weapon – the one which was used to kill Mrs. Ronson. A knife taken from the desk of the hotel manager, Mr. Knightly. But Mr. Knightly’s office is tucked away behind hidden doorways, and not obviously accessible. Except, of course, to one who knows the secrets of the servants’ staircases and the concealed entrances. Someone who would know how to move about the building without encountering the other guests.
“So, to recap, we have a guest who denies having visited the hotel before. Why would she do that? We have a minister whose performance of her duties is failing to find favour not only with her departmental superior, but also her ultimate boss, the Prime Minister. Is dismissal the least of her worries, or is she facing something worse? And in her agitated state, does she seek to protect herself by removing the two people who threaten her? And does she use the means which she happens to have at her immediate disposal? A syringe from which we have obtained a clear and conclusive set of fingerprints.” Constable waited. There was a very long silence, which none of those in the room seemed disposed to break. Eventually, the inspector spoke again. “Well, Mrs. Hayste? Is there anything you wish to say?”
