Murder in Kentish Town: an elegant mystery set in Bohemian London

by Sabina Manea

  Lucia and Carliss stood outside the narrow, racing green door, and Lucia had a flashback of the body lying in the bath upstairs. She shuddered, not out of squeamishness, but to shake out any remaining doubt. She was doggedly determined that they would get to the bottom of this horror.

  ‘That’s odd. The door’s open,’ said Carliss. He stepped ahead of Lucia and put a hand lightly on her arm, just enough to indicate that he was going in first. ‘Stay right behind me.’

  The door was open just a crack. He pushed it and walked in, trying not to make too much noise. Lucia followed silently.

  ‘Hello? Anyone here?’ Carliss’s voice echoed off the walls. He turned to Lucia. ‘It’s probably just the cleaner, and she forgot to shut the door behind her.’

  ‘Yeah, that would make sense,’ said Lucia, sounding as unconvinced as the DCI was. Her pulse was through the roof. This wasn’t a mere accident, a matter of the door being forgotten open by Ana, the cleaner. Lucia could see Carliss too was on edge. He’d only said what he did to reassure her.

  They progressed tentatively through to the sitting room. It was empty, just as it had been left on the day Trinh and Lucia found the dead body upstairs. The surfaces had gathered a visible layer of dust, a sign that Ana hadn’t been in attendance for some time. No reason she should ever come back here, pondered Lucia.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Carliss turned his head sharply towards the door to the sitting room. ‘Something scuttling about.’

  Lucia hadn’t heard anything, but she kept up with the policeman, who stormed through to the hallway and into the kitchen.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Carliss stopped dead in his tracks.

  In a corner of the kitchen lurked Darius Major, looking like a cornered animal.

  ‘Come on, out with it,’ barked Carliss. ‘And don’t even bloody think about trying to do a runner. I’ll handcuff you to the fridge door if I have to.’

  Lucia knew neither of them carried handcuffs, but Darius Major wasn’t party to that information.

  The threat worked. Darius’s eyes, huge with panic, stared wildly at the two detectives. He didn’t look like he was planning to go anywhere.

  ‘Let’s have a seat through there, shall we? And you can tell us all about it.’ Carliss frogmarched him to the sitting room, where Darius crawled right into a corner of the sofa. He looked even more dishevelled than usual, with his clothes so dirty that they must have been dodging the washing machine for at least a week. Lucia was relieved she wasn’t sitting very close to him. He must have smelled quite bad.

  ‘How did you get in? And what are you doing here?’ Carliss had settled into a chair right in front of Darius, ready to conduct a very unpleasant line of questioning.

  ‘I’ve got a key,’ replied Darius.

  Lucia wasn’t sure if he was intoxicated or if his Southern drawl was simply more pronounced under pressure.

  ‘How did you get it? From Genevieve?’ asked Carliss incredulously.

  ‘No, not exactly. I swiped her key one evening at the salon and copied it. I could see she had a spare on her keyring, so she only complained of having mislaid it; she didn’t change the locks or anything. I left it lying around in my flat afterwards, so it looked like she’d just dropped it when she was here. She didn’t suspect a thing.’

  ‘Why did you want to get into her house?’ asked Lucia.

  ‘I don’t know. To keep an eye on her. To see how she lived. Maybe to tell her how I felt. I just couldn’t get her out of my head, you know. Such a beautiful soul. I guess I wanted to save her from her dreary life. With me, she could have really been herself. With that guy, Edoardo, it was just for show. They weren’t a good match.’

  Darius stared at the ceiling wistfully. For the first time since Lucia and Carliss had met him, he looked like he was genuinely grieving. Maybe he was clear-headed after all, mused Lucia. Maybe, in his own disturbed way, he had loved Genevieve. But what would a love like that morph into if it wasn’t reciprocated?

  ‘So, you were stalking Genevieve Taylor and broke into her property?’ Carliss really wasn’t mincing his words. Darius’s sob story had clearly not impressed him in the slightest. ‘What about the day she died? Were you here then?’

  ‘Yes. I lied to you, I know. But I never expected I’d be found out.’

  ‘I think you’ll find you’re underestimating us, Mr Major,’ retorted Carliss sharply.

  ‘I see that now. I didn’t actually go into the house though. I was standing outside, waiting to see if Genevieve was going to come out. I wanted to talk to her. Tell her we needed to be together.’

  ‘What time was this? And what happened?’ asked Lucia.

  ‘I was here just before six. I waited for about half an hour. Then the front door opened, and Marie came out.’

  ‘And what?’ asked Carliss.

  ‘I walked up to her and demanded to know what she was doing at Genevieve’s house. She said it was none of my business, that she could ask me the same thing. Then she just stomped off and refused point blank to say anything. I followed her for a bit down the street and then gave up. I went home after that.’

  ‘But you cooked up your alibis together, didn’t you?’ cut in Lucia.

  ‘When we heard we were going to be spoken to by the police about her death, we panicked. As soon as we found out when it was that she died, we knew we’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m not a killer, and neither’s Marie. She can be unstable, but she wouldn’t hurt a fly. She was just angry, she said. Wanted to tell Genevieve to her face to stay the hell away from me. This love triangle we had going, it was a powerful thing. A fatal attraction.’

  Darius Major had slipped into his customary melodrama and looked like he was rather enjoying playing the lead in his own show, thought Lucia. ‘Fatal attraction’ was an unfortunate choice of words, in any case.

  ‘So, you agreed together to lie to the police, to say you spent the whole evening at your flat, is that right, Mr Major?’ asked Carliss pointedly.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Darius Major laconically.

  DCI Carliss sighed loudly and crossed his arms on his chest. The expression of disapproval said it all.

  * * *

  ‘I can’t believe you let him go, just like that!’ barked Lucia.

  Darius Major had scuttled off as fast as his legs could carry him. Carliss stood up from the chair and rolled his shoulders back and forth a couple of times, stretching. He was purposefully avoiding eye contact with Lucia.

  ‘Well?’ She was furious and saw no reason why she should be hiding it.

  ‘Well, what?’

  ‘He’s lied to us about his alibi. He wasn’t with Marie on the night of Genevieve’s death. Not just that, but he admitted he was lurking outside her house that evening. He stole her key and copied it. He’s been stalking her and letting himself into her home. That’s enough to charge him with something. Need I go on?’

  She paced around the room, nervously chewing on a fingernail.

  ‘You’re right. He’s fucked up on plenty of fronts. But what are we going to achieve if we charge him now?’ The DCI fixed Lucia with a stubborn look. ‘If he’s done her in, we need a lot more than that to charge him with murder. And isn’t that the big prize?’

  Lucia thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I suppose.’

  For once, she had to admit that it was her superior who was playing the smarter long game. The role reversal was irritating her, if only from a competitive point of view.

  She said, ‘I suppose we haven’t got much on Darius at the moment. He didn’t leave any prints at Genevieve’s house, though that doesn’t necessarily rule him out. He might be loopy when it suits him to look that way, but he doesn’t strike me as daft. He could have been wearing gloves. So what are you thinking?’

  ‘I’m thinking, let him walk. Let him think he’s off the hook for now. We keep a close eye on the slippery bastard and see what he gets up to. If he’s responsible for Genevieve’s death, he’s likely to slip
up sooner or later. And we’ll be straight in there to round him up when he does.’

  ‘What if he takes off? He could go back to the US, and then we’re left with nothing.’ She didn’t want to give up so easily.

  ‘We put his name on a watch list, so he can’t leave the country.’

  Lucia nodded in reluctant agreement. The inspector was clearly minded to take a leaf out of her book when it came to unconventional police work. Since she didn’t have any better ideas, it was definitely worth a shot.

  Chapter 26

  That evening, once they were rid of Darius Major, Lucia and Carliss unanimously declared their intention to head down the nearest boozer to let off some steam.

  Carliss took a thirsty swig of his pint of London Pride and scrunched up his nose in disgust. ‘This tastes like absolute piss.’

  The pub they’d gone for was a non-descript refurb of an earlier, more traditional establishment that Lucia had remembered from its heyday. There wasn’t much left of the original, and the end result was more cheap chain hotel than drinking hole. Still, they had been desperate for some relief, and alcohol was alcohol, after all, even though the pints were weak and watery.

  Lucia was drinking a passable house white that was going down fairly easily. She said, ‘The plot is certainly thickening. What I don’t get is this: what’s Edoardo’s game?’

  ‘Does he have a game?’ replied the policeman wearily. ‘He’s just the boyfriend. Hasn’t done anything of note, as far as I can tell.’

  ‘That’s precisely it. We have information on the others, but little on him.’

  ‘That’s because he’s not sneaking around lying, like the rest of them,’ retorted Carliss tetchily. ‘Come on. No point making things even more tangled than they already are.’

  Lucia decided she’d said enough and pretended to ignore his last comment. Dealing with Darius Major had evidently sapped the last of the policeman’s energy, and he wasn’t in the mood for discussing the case objectively. Perhaps it was better to reset the brain over the weekend and get a fresh start on Monday, she thought. There was something about Edoardo da Carrara that she just couldn’t put out of her mind. It was unlike her not to remember details, but she was conscious that tiredness was getting the better of her. She’d been drinking too much and sleeping too little since the start of the investigation, and it was starting to affect her short-term memory. It would come back, she reassured herself, if it really was something of significance.

  ‘I’ve got a little plan. And you’re coming with me,’ Lucia said to the inspector. ‘We’re going to keep a beady eye on Edoardo for a few hours, see what he’s up to. Besides, you could do with a spot of fieldwork. You’ve been either cooped up in the office or chain-smoking down the alleyway. Don’t think I haven’t clocked you.’

  ‘Guilty, Your Honour.’ Carliss grinned as he downed the rest of his pint in one go. ‘Mayfair doesn’t sound that bad. Nice and early Monday morning then?’

  ‘Not that early. I bet these rich types don’t get out of bed at the crack of dawn. I’ll see you at the station, and we can make our way to his neck of the woods.’

  * * *

  The frontage of the CASATA offices on Hertford Street seemed impervious to the metropolitan grime. Perfectly shaped greenery adorned the windowsills, and the brass plate at the entrance had been assiduously polished. Lucia and Carliss walked past once, just to reassure themselves that they were at the right address. They had already identified a convenient place from where they could keep watch: an unexceptional chain restaurant with outdoor tables and heaters where they could slowly make their way through a coffee or two. They were prepared to wait for as long as it took, and mercifully the weather was dry.

  Two drinks in, Lucia craned her neck and touched the inspector lightly on the arm. ‘Look. I’m pretty sure that’s our man.’

  ‘You’re right. Let’s make a move,’ replied Carliss as he gestured for the bill.

  Edoardo da Carrara was walking in the opposite direction from the detectives, wrapped in a smart trench coat and looking like a man on a mission. Lucia and Carliss followed discreetly, taking care to stay sufficiently far behind him so as not to be noticed. They took a couple of turnings until they ended up in Trebeck Street, where Edoardo abruptly stopped outside an impressive, double-fronted Georgian edifice with a bright red door and a number of buzzers on the side.

  ‘It’s a block of flats,’ whispered Carliss. ‘I wonder what he’s up to.’

  Edoardo rang one of the bells and was promptly let in.

  ‘What now?’ asked Lucia.

  ‘Not much more we can do,’ answered the policeman.

  ‘Shall we wait around until he comes out?’

  ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m freezing from sitting outside for so long. That heater wasn’t doing a very good job. I know, why don’t you work your legal magic and check out Land Registry to see who owns this place?’ said Carliss with a satisfied nod.

  ‘What, go through every single flat?’

  ‘Start with the freehold to the whole property, and we can take it from there.’

  ‘Alright, boss. On it as soon as we’re back at the station. That way we can open up all the title deeds on a bigger screen than my phone. We’ll get to the bottom of this,’ said Lucia, impressed by the inspector’s initiative.

  * * *

  At Kentish Town police station, Lucia looked up from her computer and caught Carliss’s eye. ‘Come have a look at this.’

  The inspector grabbed a chair and settled himself by her side.

  Lucia said, ‘I checked out the freehold of 30 Trebeck Street and the seven flats in the building. See here? The freehold is owned by a holding company registered in the Cayman Islands, and every one of the flats is owned by a different company registered in the same sort of offshore jurisdiction – British Virgin Islands, Belize, you name it, it’s there.’

  ‘Typical,’ muttered Carliss as he scanned through the documents.

  Lucia continued, ‘I can’t easily get any information about who’s behind the various entities. That’s not surprising. People part with a lot of money to hide their ownership of these outfits. That’s why they’re registered offshore. We might be able to find out something from the local regulators, but keeping confidences is how they attract capital to these places, so the chances are slim. I’m not giving up though. Let me do some more digging.’

  ‘Alright, Lucia. I know you can get to the bottom of this.’

  As always, she did have a plan. She thought of Virginia Lexington and all the strings that the former diplomat could pull. That source of knowledge was definitely an avenue worth pursuing.

  Lucia glanced at her watch and realised it was gone eight in the evening. They’d lost track of time. Just as she was about to suggest they should call it a day and grab a quick pint down the pub, the DCI’s phone rang angrily on his desk.

  ‘Hello, DCI Carliss speaking.’ His brow knotted as he listened. Lucia could tell this was bad. ‘Yeah, OK. We’re on our way.’ He hung up, put the phone in his pocket and looked up at her. ‘We need to get a move on. We’ve got two more bodies on our hands.’

  Chapter 27

  Parliament Hill, the location of Darius Major’s flat, was dark and eerily quiet. The contrast with the scene inside couldn’t be starker.

  Armed with blue disposable gloves, Lucia and Carliss stood in the doorway to the bedroom. The spectacle that unfolded before them was unreal in its goriness.

  ‘A neighbour heard gunshots and called 999. Both dead. Looks like murder-suicide,’ said Carliss as he suppressed a wince.

  Lucia willed herself to keep looking at the bloodied mess on the bed. Bullets straight through the temple, one apiece. Two lifeless bodies. What had happened here, she wondered. How did it come to this?

  ‘We’d only just spoken to him yesterday. I can’t believe he’s lying here dead,’ said Carliss. ‘The gun’s his. Illegal, of course. Shouldn’t surprise me though. If you’ve got enough ca
sh and the right channels, the Albanians will sell you a bloody Uzi if you fancy it. We haven’t got the manpower to go after the big guys, and so it goes on and on.’

  Lucia circled around the bed, taking in the scene.

  ‘Spot anything, eagle eyes?’ asked the inspector.

  ‘Not immediately,’ Lucia said. ‘Looks like a convincing murder-suicide at first sight. Left temple for her, right temple for him. They’re both right-handed. I remember that from the interview transcript. I like asking these niggly little questions; you never know when you might need to refer back to the answers. So, Darius shooting Marie and then topping himself makes sense,’ she added.

  ‘The question is, why do it? What’s come over him?’ asked the inspector.

  ‘That’s another mystery we’ve got on our plate,’ replied Lucia cryptically.

  Something bothered her about the death scene. Actually, it wasn’t really the death scene as such. It was the fact that the two people who had mutually covered up their respective whereabouts on the evening of Genevieve Taylor’s demise should turn up dead, simultaneously.

  Darius Major and Marie Cassel had been eccentric in life, of that there was no doubt, but it didn’t follow why he should grab his gun and end it all, out of the blue. Lucia had gone over the conversations she’d had with Darius a thousand times in her mind. She tried to spot any signs that she might have missed, any indication that he was set on this destructive course of action. In all, she felt somehow responsible. She, who prided herself on reading people like open books, could have missed that Darius Major was both homicidal and suicidal at the same time. But if she’d shared these thoughts with DCI Carliss, he would have told her not to be silly. Nobody could have seen this coming.

  ‘There’s something playing on your mind, Lucia. Go on, spit it out,’ said Carliss. He had been watching her for a good few minutes. She was bottling it up, and it wasn’t doing her any good.