by M. J. Trow
‘And what do you base that on?’ the DS asked.
‘Limited medical experience,’ James told him, wiping the wiper blades with a damp chamois leather.
‘How do you mean?’
James paused. He’d already spoken to that cute little WPC, the one with the doe eyes, who could nevertheless probably break a felon’s arm with a few neat moves. And here he was again. He’d never been interviewed by detectives before; he didn’t know the routine – ask the same thing over and over again, check for discrepancies, identify inconsistencies.
‘I was a medical student,’ he said. ‘King’s, London. I did my surgical at St George’s and somehow the magic went out of it.’
‘Really?’ Gamage narrowed his eyes. ‘You didn’t fancy the private practice, the obscene salary?’
James narrowed his. ‘Oh, I did,’ he said. ‘I just didn’t fancy the forty-eight-hour shifts and the shit pay as a junior houseman. Above all, I got not to like being around dead people.’ Somehow he didn’t think this man would appreciate the added fact that he fell in love. He didn’t seem the romantic type.
Gamage saw his opening. ‘And yet, here you are, what they used to call first finder.’
‘It happens,’ James shrugged, looking around him for the polish.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ Gamage snipped. ‘Murder doesn’t just happen, Mr Brereton; somebody makes it happen.’
James looked at the man again. What he had taken for a rather curmudgeonly copper turned out to be Sophocles. ‘Right,’ he said.
‘How come you found him?’ The DS was nothing if not persistent.
‘I had just dropped Mr Maxwell off ...’
‘Maxwell?’
‘Yes, you know, he’s ...’
‘Oh, I know who Mr Maxwell is. He found Colonel Hale-ffinch’s body, didn’t he? And then, bugger me, he’s nearby when you find Elliot Schwarzenegger’s. Coincidence, eh?’
‘It happens,’ James said again.
‘And Maxwell was with you at the time?’
‘Yes. Yes, he was. He had just arrived and was going through to the breakfast room. He is engaged to talk to the guests and he ...’
‘Wait a minute. He is paid to talk to people?’ Gamage’s face was a picture.
‘Well ... not just talk, of course. He tells them about the house, the history ... anyway, he was going there and I was going to the office with my mileage log and Mrs Schwarzenegger came out. She was clearly worried, because she couldn’t find her husband. We offered to go and look for him.’
‘Kind of you,’ Gamage muttered. ‘And successful, too.’
‘I’d rather have found him alive,’ James said, huffing on a bit of fly poo and then scraping it off with his thumbnail.
‘No doubt,’ Gamage nodded. ‘Tell me, do you still have links with ... St George’s, was it? Any hospital?’
‘Other than the one where my kids were born, no. What are you getting at?’
‘Oh, access to medical cabinets, strychnine, that sort of thing.’
‘Don’t be ludicrous,’ James said, putting his cloth down. ‘There are strict rules for access like that.’
‘You were a medical man,’ Gamage went on. ‘You know people. It’s all the old boys’ act, isn’t it? “Turn a blind eye, George, while I help myself” – that sort of thing.’
‘I don’t like your attitude, sergeant,’ James said.
‘And I don’t give a flying fuck what you don’t like,’ Gamage squared up to him. ‘I’m conducting a murder enquiry. And you’re not exactly being helpful.’
‘For the record, then,’ James folded his arms. ‘I do not now, nor have I ever, had access to the sort of poisons you’re referring to. I do not know either of the deceased personally – in fact, I’d never set eyes on Mr Schwarzenegger until I found the body. I had to ask Mr Maxwell what he looked like.’
‘So you won’t mind taking a polygraph test, then?’ Gamage asked.
James blinked. ‘A polygraph? What is this? Chicago PD? Even if they have one in Leighford, which I frankly doubt, they are not admissible, are they? In a court of law, I mean?’
‘Maybe not,’ Gamage hedged. ‘But they’re all part of a policeman’s arsenal. They sort out the sheep from the goats.’
‘And which am I, sergeant?’
Gamage chuckled. ‘Oh, you’re a fucking goat, old son; no doubt about it.’
‘Well,’ James threw his cloth into the bucket, ‘you know where you can stick your polygraph, don’t you?’
‘Don’t turn your back on me,’ Gamage snarled. ‘This interview isn’t over.’ He grabbed James’s sleeve, but the chauffeur was faster, and he swung back, lashing out with a perfectly timed right hook. Gamage rocked backwards, then bounced off the doorframe and sprawled on the tarmac.
James stood over him. ‘It is now,’ he said.
Flo was sitting reading yesterday’s Washington Post on a tablet when Hall and Maxwell joined her in the library. Elliot had always told her that it was too difficult to read papers online, but she was finding it very easy, as it turned out. She was finding a lot of the stuff Elliot told her wasn’t for her was easy. She had ordered her own breakfast, for example. After more years than she could remember of eggs over easy and links, she found that the breakfast of her dreams was indeed a short stack with maple syrup and bacon on the side, extra crispy. She had seen it once, in a hotel in Tampa, but Elliot had told her she wouldn’t like it. She looked up when she heard the door go and put the tablet aside.
‘Gentlemen,’ she said, and folded her hands calmly in her lap.
‘Mrs Schwarzenegger,’ Hall began but she stopped him.
‘Call me Flo, please. I feel somehow that Mrs Schwarzenegger is someone I was, not who I am, if you know what I mean.’
Hall glanced at Maxwell, who shrugged. He was rather pleased with the little woman who appeared to be hatching as he watched. He had seen dragonflies hatch from their larvae on the grasses around their little pond in Columbine and this was similar – something potentially spectacular was emerging. She had even changed her hair.
Hall sat opposite her and Maxwell sat alongside; the settees in the library were ample and he could sit slightly sideways so he could watch her and Henry.
‘Are you going to film this?’ she asked, still perfectly calm.
‘No,’ Hall said. ‘This is just an informal chat, Mrs ... Flo. If we need something more formal, we will ask you to come down to the police station.’
‘I see,’ she said. ‘So, you’ll record it, right? On one of those machines with two tapes and all.’
Hall chuckled. Maxwell looked up sharply. It wasn’t a chuckle as other people would know it, but Maxwell had heard it once or twice before and knew it for what it was. Written down, it would be something like ‘Heh heh heh’. Taken overall, it could be quite scary, but Flo didn’t seem to notice.
‘No, indeed, Flo,’ Hall said. ‘No need for that. Mr Maxwell here has perfect recall, anyway, don’t you, Mr Maxwell?’
Maxwell did a Nolan nod, which was a movement of the head which could, afterwards, be construed as almost anything, dependent on circumstances.
‘Okay, then.’ Flo still wasn’t sure. ‘But if you try to put words into my mouth ...’
‘I won't do that,’ Hall assured her. ‘I just want to ask you if your husband ...’
‘My dead husband, would that be?’ Flo asked, rather disconcertingly.
‘Um ... yes. I didn’t realise you had another.’
‘Yes, I have,’ she said. ‘I was married when I was seventeen, to a boy I met at Camp. But it didn’t last. My parents got him annulled. But he’s the love of my life, always said so.’ She turned huge, blank eyes on Maxwell and he made a mental note to find out what medication she was on. ‘I’m going to look for him on Facebook, Max. Perhaps you can help me with that later.’
‘Yes, Max,’ Henry said solemnly. ‘Perhaps you can help Flo with that later.’
‘Honoured,’ Maxwell smiled. He would get H
enry back later for this, if it took a lifetime.
‘Then my second husband, he died.’
Hall said. ‘What happened?’
Flo looked at him with a frown. ‘Well ... he was murdered, wasn’t he? Isn’t that what we’re talking about?’
Hall started. ‘I see. Of course. I’m sorry, I ...’ he baulked at saying he had expected a longer list.
Maxwell thought it was time this went a bit smoother. ‘Let’s assume, Flo, shall we, that when Mr Hall says “your husband” that he means Elliot? Would that work for you?’
She considered it for a moment, then nodded. ‘Okay.’
Maxwell extended his hand to Hall, who gathered his thoughts and continued. ‘Did your husband have any enemies?’
‘Any number.’
If Hall was expecting details, he was disappointed. After a pause, he asked, ‘In business. Private life? Family?’
‘Yes.’
Maxwell hid a smile with a yawn. ‘Sorry. Late night.’
‘In business?’ Hall tried again.
‘Everybody he dealt with hated him in the end. He was a cheeseparing skinflint who cheated anyone he thought he could get one over. Which was nearly everybody.’
‘I see.’ That cut the field, but not by much. ‘Private life?’
‘If you mean our private life, again, I have to tell you, Mr Hall, it was practically everyone he met. Elliot had an abrasive nature, Max will tell you that, won't you, Max?’
Maxwell turned to face Hall. ‘Elliot had a fairly tenacious way with a conversation,’ he said. ‘I would imagine if drink had been taken, things might get tricky.’
Flo put a claw-like hand on Maxwell’s knee and patted it. ‘What he said,’ she said, nodding.
‘And finally, family?’ Hall said.
‘No family left. What there was, they cleared out one by one. It was easier than spending Thanksgivings and Christmases and birthdays and whatnot with Elliot.’ Suddenly, she leaned forward and looked sharply at Hall. Both men saw a glimpse of the sassy girl who fell in love at Camp, who was still inside, despite many years of being rubbed away on the sandpaper that was Elliot. ‘But why do you want to know this? None of the people who hated Elliot are here.’ She sat back, thinking. ‘Well, quite a few people here had started steering clear, but even Elliot hadn’t been here enough to have anyone hate him. And that old feller, the one who died before, who Elliot found, he was worse, if anything. I never thought I’d live to see the day when there were two the same in one room.’
‘That’s a fair comment,’ Maxwell said. ‘Why do you want to know this, Henry? DCI Hall, I mean to say.’
‘It helps to know the victim if we know who loved or hated him,’ Hall said, thinking quickly. In fact, he had hoped that Flo would give herself away, would turn out to be the killer of her husband at least and they could stamp it ‘Case Closed’ and file it.
‘Well,’ Flo said, patting her hair in its new do. She turned to Maxwell and gestured to it, miming, ‘you like?’ He nodded and put his thumb up and she continued. ‘It’s simple. I didn’t love Elliot, and it was my job, I suppose. He wore me down over the years and yes, I suppose, sometimes we did something I liked, but only Elliot’s version. I’ve enjoyed being in this old house, but Elliot booked it by mistake. He thought it was a golf holiday. But it was too late to cancel and he was too cheap to lose the deposit, so here we are. But I wouldn’t poison him; I wouldn’t know how. You don’t poison people because they are irritating and untidy and can’t find their ass with both hands, even when there are clear instructions.’ She sighed. ‘And now, here I am, a widow past my prime ...’ she paused while Maxwell and Hall filled the silence with generalised mutters. ‘... all alone in a foreign country. The embassy have been on the phone and they are making arrangements to fly Elliot back when you’re done with him. I won’t wait. I’ve got reservations in Edinburgh...’ she pronounced it, predictably, Edinboro ‘... and I don’t want to be late.’ Again, she turned terrifying eyes to Henry. ‘ I can, go, can’t I?’
Hall nodded. ‘Can you leave it a day or two ...?’
‘Oh, we don’t leave for three days. We’ve got the fancy dress dinner first, and a day trip to Oxford.’ She turned to Maxwell. ‘I guess you’ll be leading that, huh, Max?’ She patted his leg again and he started to fret. Oxford? He shuddered internally; the Cambridge man in him would rather gouge out his own eyes.
Hall was first to find his words. ‘The trip may have to be put off, Flo,’ he said. ‘But we’ll keep in touch.’
The woman picked up the tablet again and switched it on as if she had been doing it every day of her life. ‘Okay,’ she said, looking down and immediately glazing over.
The men stood. ‘Well, good morning, then, Flo,’ Maxwell said.
‘Yes.’ Hall thought that sounded a bit blunt. ‘Sorry for your loss.’
But if ever a man wasted his breath, that man was Henry Hall.
‘What the fuck, Gamage?’ Jacquie Carpenter-Maxwell could mix it with the worst of them when she had to. Years in blue had taught her language that would make a navvy blush and her toleration of fools had reached, as her husband would say, an absolute nadir.
‘Just doing my job, Ma’am,’ the sergeant said.
‘Long before our time, Gamage,’ she sat down unbidden in front of him, ‘people used to fall downstairs in police stations. It was something to do with building design, I expect. But it doesn’t happen now. Does it?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He looked the picture of innocence.
Jacquie’s in-house grass, the doe-eyed Penny Pooley, had already filled her in on Gamage’s ignominious fall from grace, or, more accurately, fall out of the garage. The Inspector was delighted to see evidence of that in the red swelling on the sergeant’s jawline. ‘Your needling of James Brereton,’ she said flatly.
Gamage’s jaw dropped. ‘Needling?’ His voice became surprisingly squeaky when he was all but speechless. ‘He assaulted me! I didn’t touch him.’
‘Only because you were out cold. Let’s ignore the assault for a moment. You’re a police officer; you’re supposed to know how to defend yourself. You know – gym sessions.’
‘Ignore the assault?’ Gamage was squeaking for England again. ‘You can’t!’
‘I don’t intend to.’
‘Anyway, he snuck up on me. When my back was turned.’
‘Bollocks!’ Jacquie growled. ‘That explains the bruise delivered from the front, does it?’
No answer.
‘I’ve just come from Interview Two,’ Jacquie said, leaning back in the chair and hooking one knee over the other. ‘And I’ve heard Mr Brereton’s account and I believe it. I’ve heard of clutching at straws, Gamage, but that was ridiculous. The man used to be a medical student, so he must have killed a man with poison.’ She threw her arms wide.
‘Perfectly plausible.’ Gamage held his own. ‘Any idea how many murderous doctors there have been?’
Jacquie had a pretty good idea and if she didn’t, her encyclopaedic husband could have filled her in, but that wasn’t the point. ‘Harold Shipman he ain’t,’ she said. ‘What’s his motive? How did he get the strychnine? How did he administer it? It’s more likely that one of the Hale-ffinch dogs, the ones that didn’t rip out Colonel Roddy’s throat, slipped Schwarzenegger the poison.’
‘Now you’re just being stupid,’ Gamage whined.
The silence that followed could have stripped paint. Jacquie stood up. ‘The bad news for you, Detective Sergeant,’ she said, ‘is that I have, of this morning, been transferred to the Hale-ffinch case, which means that I am now your line manager. The Brereton assault will be processed in due course, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope for the George medal on that score. In the meantime, you are confined to desk duties. You will not interview any more witnesses in either investigation; neither will you set foot on Hale-ffinch property. Do I make myself clear?’
‘I’ll go over your head,’ Gamage warned he
r.
‘You do that, Neilly baby,’ she smiled. ‘I’m having lunch with the Chief Constable tomorrow – I’ll send him your best regards, shall I? No,’ she held out her hand, ‘don’t get up.’
Chapter Twelve
A
fter what he supposed had to be called the interview with Flo, Maxwell was at a loose end. Henry Hall had kindly put another patrol car at his disposal for taking the boys home, but one look at their enraptured faces as they rode round the paddock and both men knew that would never work. Hall’s boys had never been horsey, for which he thanked his lucky stars, doing a quick assessment of the probable cost of the gear and multiplying it up, but they had had their little obsessions as they had grown and it was not worth the aggravation to try and stop them enjoying it. Lofts the length and breadth of the country groaning with skateboards, keyboards and empty lizard habitats were testament to that.
‘I’m sorry, Max,’ Henry said. ‘I am grateful, though. She wouldn’t have said anything without you there. How are you going to get home?’
Maxwell looked wryly at the two beaming boys. ‘Never?’ he said.
‘They are having a good time,’ Hall agreed.
‘I’ll give them the day,’ Maxwell said. ‘I’ve got things to do around the place and I’ve got my room to relax in if conversing gets too much. It’s not as though I am being paid by the hour. I’ll get a taxi if I have to. Or Mrs Plocker is dying to see her beloved on horseback – she’ll probably come to get us, if I ask.’
‘What is the kid’s name?’ Hall liked to dot his eyes and cross his teas.
‘I think I may have known once,’ Maxwell admitted. ‘But it’s a bit of extraneous information I had to throw out, to make room for more important stuff.’
‘You know his mother’s name, though?’
‘Probably.’
Hall looked at Maxwell, trying for the millionth time to work him out. It had taken him a while to realise he wasn’t a total arsehole; but that didn’t mean he knew what made him tick. There was not going to be any more information on that score he could tell, so he just waggled his fingers at Nolan, who bravely went one handed on the reins in reply, then strolled off back up to the house, his car and the peace of the nick.
