Murder in Hampstead: a classic whodunnit in a contemporary setting

by Sabina Manea

  Lucia let herself in – Adam had thankfully entrusted her with a key, so she could come and go as she liked, without owing an explanation – and headed straight down to the kitchen. She half hoped she might bump into Mrs Byrne, although she would have preferred the interlude of a solitary cup of tea first. Her wish was granted. She couldn’t resist checking under the sink. The unexceptional selection of cleaning products matched what she had expected to find. Once she had had her few minutes of peace, she wondered where the housekeeper might be. A sudden clatter of what sounded like metal on metal interrupted the solitude. It was coming from the direction of the back garden. Aside from the tea party, Lucia realised she had never seen Mrs Byrne out of the semi-obscurity of the house.

  The French doors in the drawing room were wide open, just like they had been on that day. The garden was large for London, although at least a third of it was paved. Scrawny weeds had shot up in between the worn-down slabs, comfortable in the knowledge that they would not be disturbed. The lawn was hay-like, having evidently lost a fair few battles with the sun. Despite the maturity of the plants, the borders were straggly and unkempt, a mixture of neglected long-timers and accidental growth. At the bottom of the garden, Mrs Byrne was busy hacking away at a patch of unsuspecting dahlias, now withered to a crisp, that would have happily provided a final taste of summer had they been regularly deadheaded. Adam must have been trying to save himself a few pennies on the gardening. At the rate the housekeeper was going, the costs of remedying the carnage stood to overtake any savings made.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Byrne. Do you want a hand with that?’

  The woman jumped, as if she had just been caught in a compromising situation. ‘Lucia. Hello, love, I didn’t see you there. I’m alright, thanks. Been doing this for years. Nice to see you. You’ve been busy, I take it.’

  Lucia sensed Mrs Byrne welcomed the interruption.

  ‘Yes, it’s not too bad. It’s the wallpaper that’s giving me the most trouble. Layers and layers of it, all on top of each other. That’s how things were done, before these new-fangled steamers we’ve got now.’

  Mrs Byrne’s huffing and puffing was somewhat out of proportion to the light task in hand. ‘Oh, I’m done in. I’ve been at this garden all day.’ Given the time allegedly expended, the progress on the ground was fairly light. ‘Why don’t I take a break? I’m gasping for a cuppa, and I bet you are too.’

  ‘I’d love one, Mrs Byrne.’ Lucia was determined to drink as much tea as was necessary to shake down her prey.

  After a good ten minutes, the housekeeper returned, weighed down with mugs. ‘No harm in sitting ourselves down for a moment or two.’

  They went over to the wrought iron table, which Lucia assumed – indeed hoped – must have been wiped down since it housed the food and drink for the party. The chairs must have been expensive when bought, but the padding had worn down, and they were now downright uncomfortable, like most of the furniture in the house.

  ‘That’s better.’ The housekeeper took a noisy mouthful of the brew and sighed, wallowing pleasantly in her minor martyrdom. ‘I’m too old for this backbreaking work. Adam won’t get a gardener in. Says we can’t afford such luxuries now… now that she’s gone.’

  There it was again – the guilt and, judging by the almost imperceptible tremor in her voice, a touch of fear.

  ‘You must really miss her. You were with her for so long.’ Lucia’s tone was sympathetic, undemanding. With the right nudge, she was optimistic that Mrs Byrne would open up.

  Mrs Byrne paused, stumped for words. She searched for the appropriate response, as she didn’t seem to miss the Professor at all. ‘Yes. I have been here an awfully long time. I’ve given my best years to this place – to her. It’s strange now that she’s gone.’ Since she could not think of anything substantive to contribute, she was repeating herself.

  Lucia tried a different route in. ‘You’ve done a wonderful job. And all on your own.’

  Her companion’s expression shifted to coy. ‘Hmm, yes. It’s a big old house.’ She paused, unsure whether to carry on. Lucia looked out admiringly onto the garden. ‘It was a lot easier when I had Connor to help me.’ There, she’d said it. Her eyes welled up. She shook her head. ‘Pesky hay fever. You’d think it would be over by now. I bet it’s the pollution. All these huge cars everyone drives nowadays.’

  Lucia didn’t want to lose her now, but knew she had to stay put. It was important to maintain an air of non-committed interest – any further probing, and Mrs Byrne would have got spooked.

  Sure enough, the tactic worked. ‘Connor was my son, you see.’

  At this point, Lucia calculated that some light, direct questioning would be appropriate.

  ‘Did he work for the Professor too?’

  ‘He did.’ Mrs Byrne’s expression darkened, but she was too far down the line to put a halt to her involuntary confession. ‘Until she let him go, that is. Oh, I don’t know why I’m bringing this up now. It feels good to talk to someone about it, you know. Ever since that woman died, it’s been police here, there, and everywhere, asking me about the food, the drink, where I made it, where I put it, what the guests were doing. Nobody asked about me. Nobody cared how I felt.’

  Lucia thought the housekeeper was doing incredibly well not to cry but realised that over time, the sadness had been insidiously replaced with animosity. Mrs Byrne had no tears left to mourn for her son.

  ‘I do, Mrs Byrne. I care how you feel. And I want to listen.’

  By this point, Mrs Byrne wouldn’t have noticed anything that came from Lucia. She was absolutely determined to get matters off her chest. ‘Poor boy. He didn’t have a father, you see – Michael died when he was little. Connor was ever so good with his hands, and such a gentle lad. Ever since he could walk, he was always following me around, doing what I was doing, wanting to help. He knew it was just the two of us. It wasn’t his fault he started drinking, his father had been the same. I tried so hard to get him to stop, and he was getting better, said he hadn’t touched a drop in weeks. And then the Professor goes and gives him the boot.’

  So much anger, hidden deep down inside for so long. Lucia felt genuine regret for prizing this knowledge out of Mrs Byrne, but it had to be done.

  ‘She said she’d had enough of seeing him stumble around, blind-drunk. She couldn’t trust him, she said. And just like that, my boy was gone.’ Mrs Byrne fixed Lucia with blazing eyes. ‘The next time I saw him was when they fished him out of Camden Lock. I had to identify the body. It’s all that woman’s doing. She killed my son.’

  It had taken extraordinary strength to reach the end of her speech. The housekeeper sat back in her chair, drained.

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve been through. Connor was very lucky to have a mother like you.’

  Mrs Byrne smiled a little. She must have rehearsed this story dozens of times in her head, but it was no less painful. She returned to her tea. ‘He was a good boy, my Connor. Fixed everything around the house, and never once answered back. But that wasn’t good enough for her ladyship in the end. Just not good enough.’

  There was solace to be found in the Professor’s demise. The story gave the housekeeper a conceivable motive.

  Hand in hand with absolution came embarrassment. ‘Look at me sitting here feeling sorry for myself. What’s done is done. You can’t hold a grudge against the dead.’ Mrs Byrne definitely looked like she could. ‘Didn’t mean to be so glum, child. Don’t let me hold you any longer. Those flowers need seeing to.’ She trotted off back to the defenceless dahlias.

  Lucia took the mugs back into the house. Much had been achieved. It was time to give Carliss a call.

  ‘Hi, Lucia. I’m down at the station. Do you mind coming here? I’m not quite done yet.’

  Chapter 16

  Kentish Town Police Station had all the attributes of the average public institution – ample late Victorian frontage, engraved round-arched entrance and late twentieth-century add
itions that Richard Norman Shaw would have frowned upon. The only indulgence was the spindly palm tree guarding the steps up to the door, which lent an air of dissonant frivolity to an otherwise perfectly functional construction. Lucia presented herself at the front counter and asked for DCI Carliss.

  ‘I’ve never been inside a police station,’ she remarked.

  ‘You haven’t missed much. They’re all the same. For reasons I won’t bore you with, my team’s only been here a short while. At least this place looks nice on the outside. Inside, it’s all flimsy partitions and false ceilings. The view isn’t particularly thrilling either.’

  Carliss’s office looked precisely as billed. His desk was scrupulously tidy and devoid of any personal items. No framed certificates marked the bare walls. The public sector had enthusiastically adopted the paper-free edict and obeyed it religiously, if his room was anything to go by.

  They sat across from each other, separated by the desk. Carliss was uncharacteristically quiet. Lucia decided she would go first.

  ‘I’ve had a very productive day.’

  ‘I bet you had.’ He sounded fed up, like he had run out of steam.

  ‘I paid a visit to the forensic accountants. Our boy Adam is out of a job. They sacked him for erratic behaviour, which tallies with his drinking. That would explain the money worries.’

  The inspector perked up a little. Perhaps his day had been dull in comparison. ‘That’s good. I don’t mean for him. It confirms his motive. He was in dire need of cash. Don’t tell me how you found out. I get the feeling that, with you, some things are best kept under wraps.’

  Lucia wasn’t certain whether or not he was joking but resolved to act as if he did. ‘Nothing fruity, don’t worry. Just made friends with the receptionist. You’d be amazed what you can find out, if only you dare ask.’

  ‘So far I like him for it. In any case, never mind he’s got motive, we don’t even know how the poison got into the Professor’s system. For now, at least, it’s all moot.’

  It all fell into place. He was angry with her for not sharing how the Professor had been killed. She hadn’t realised that holding on to this piece of information had affected him so much. It was high time she put things right. ‘I haven’t told you yet because I wasn’t sure myself. Now I am.’

  He listened keenly as she expounded her theory. When she was done, he leaned back in his chair, his face coloured by surprise and relief. ‘And you’re sure of this?’

  ‘As sure as I can be without actually having witnessed the event. I’ve run a test, and it works.’

  Now that bridges had been mended, Lucia recounted her get-together with Mrs Byrne. ‘Heart-breaking stuff,’ she concluded. ‘Mrs Byrne isn’t exactly highly qualified, so she stayed on. She blames her employer for her son’s death, that much is clear. That’s arguably motive. But why now? Why not kill her at any point after Connor died?’

  DCI Carliss considered this latest revelation. ‘You know what they say – revenge is a dish best served cold. Maybe the poor woman just couldn’t take any more and snapped. Or maybe she was more calculated than that and waited until the ideal opportunity presented itself.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You don’t sound like you buy it.’

  ‘Not entirely. It doesn’t quite fit. Mrs Byrne doesn’t strike me as the calculating type. She can certainly hold a grudge, we know that, but if she were to take any action, it would be, as you say, because she can’t bear the pain any longer. That would lead her to commit a violent, unplanned act – hitting the Professor over the head, stabbing her with a kitchen knife – which she would then go to great lengths to cover up.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Now you don’t sound convinced.’

  ‘I don’t think we should rule her out just yet. In my professional experience, a mother blaming someone for her child’s death doesn’t herself know what she’s capable of.’

  The telephone on the desk interrupted them with a metallic screech. ‘Carliss. Yes. PC Harding.’ He got Lucia’s attention with a flick of the eyelids. ‘OK. Thanks. Make sure you stay on his tail tomorrow, and the day after, until we get something on him.’

  ‘Nothing on Danny then?’ Lucia was convinced they were wasting their time. With no CCTV or witnesses, it would be nigh on impossible to prove he was responsible for vandalising her van.

  ‘Nothing as yet. Danny arrived for his job just after eight this morning. A flat on Flask Walk. He left on his own at four and drove to the builders’ merchant in Colindale, then went home to Rhyl Street. Something’s telling me not to give up. Call it instinct, or experience.’

  ‘It’s your call. I honestly don’t care about the van. It’s easy enough to fix.’ They both knew this was a futile protest. Despite her stubbornness, Lucia was flattered that someone should want to look out for her. She had been on her own for so long that she had forgotten how to rely on others. She didn’t want to ever depend on another person if she could help it. But there was an undeniable feeling of contentment in knowing that he cared.

  The inspector raised an eyebrow. Lucia sensed he wasn’t at ease – the confusing soup of motives and hidden feelings thrown up by the Professor’s death was evidently perplexing him. He scoured through his encyclopaedic notebook. ‘I’ve heard back from my people in the Home Office.’

  Lucia piped up. ‘Oh, yes. And?’

  ‘Nothing. From what they’ve got sight of, there’s no trace of Professor Alla Kiseleva in Russia. Beyond what we know already through the standard police channels, she’s got no ascertainable past in her home country.’

  This was regrettable. They had harboured high hopes of finding something new. Lucia wondered whether there was another channel that might yield better results. She had relatively unfettered access to it, although she held back from employing it unless strictly necessary. The current situation most definitely called for it.

  ‘Slippery character indeed.’ She looked around his bare office. ‘Not one for interior design, then?’

  ‘Not at work. I like to keep my personal taste private. Work is just where I go to – well – do work. It doesn’t need to be cosy. I’m calling it a day. Drink?’

  ‘Not tonight, thanks. I need to sleep off all this excitement.’ Lucia knew full well she wouldn’t sleep but felt a duty to at least try.

  ‘Alright then. I’m off to the depths of East London tomorrow to check up on Emilia Poole. I’ll keep you posted,’ said the policeman.

  Lucia recalled Emilia’s symmetrical face and wondered what Detective Chief Inspector Carliss would make of her.

  Chapter 17

  East London was, as far as DCI David Carliss was concerned, a different country. Just as he was acutely conscious of crossing the Thames to travel south, the world that lay beyond the A1 was to be approached with heightened caution. Upper Street was the second last bastion of North London gentility, if the enclave of De Beauvoir Town was to be – rather generously, he thought – categorised as the last. Once you crossed the A10, all bets were off. He heartened himself that Hackney and Shoreditch had been subjected to an intensive programme of gentrification, as evidenced by the upscale farmers’ markets and attentively curated outfits that filled the Evening Standard. This led him to wonder how Emilia Poole could afford to live there. He finished his coffee and checked the address again. He took an old-fashioned approach to navigation, preferring to avoid street view maps – he viewed them as tantamount to cheating, or at the very least conducive to unnecessary prejudices.

  The forgiving temperatures of mid-September had given way to the inescapable decline into low-lit melancholy that would not lift until the middle of spring. The pavement was pockmarked by a light drizzle, and the city looked in its element. The sultriness that other European capitals wore so well didn’t suit London. The natural habitat of Bethnal Green tube station was largely in line with expectations – sanitized chain cafes, down-at-heel neighbourhood businesses and self-consciously hip pubs. The address was a slim, grubby d
oorway beside a phone unlocking shop. There were three buzzers – how three flats could fit in the allocated space was unfathomable. No doubt C was a crow’s nest perched on top of the building and invisible from the road, the kind that would be uninhabitable in temperatures above twenty degrees. Emilia’s flat was B.

  ‘Come on in.’ Her voice was more high-pitched than he had imagined – he barely remembered her from the tea party. He climbed up the stairs and tried not to breathe in too deeply. The amalgamation of stale cooking odours and old carpet nearly made him retch. The door inscribed with B was wide open. He knocked out of generic politeness, walked in and shut it behind him.

  Compared with the dinginess of the communal area, the flat was spotlessly clean. It was adequately furnished, but there was no question of the place being anything other than digs. Emilia sat on the low sofa, hands crossed in her lap.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Poole. Detective Chief Inspector David Carliss of the Metropolitan Police.’

  ‘Good morning, Inspector. Won’t you please sit down? And can I offer you a drink?’ She gestured to a dining chair that had been placed opposite her for this purpose.

  His memory was jolted. Together with Lucia’s depiction, he had now formed a clear image of her. Her fair hair, neatly scraped back, was naturally blonde – not the Scandinavian variety, but a richer, golden shade of a less recurrent kind. The bareness of her face accentuated her earnest brown eyes. The presentation had the disconcerting effect of an open book. For all his preparation, Carliss found himself at a loss where to start.