A Meeting of Minds

by Clare Curzon

  He began to refuse, but she reached towards him and seemed about to teeter. Her free hand locked about his wrist. ‘I want you to come in,’ she repeated.

  It wasn’t her usual voice, much deeper-throated, and it struck a chord in him. She was acting out a role, but he didn’t t instantly recognize what play it came from. Her hidden hand came into sight and held a bottle of Cointreau, half full. ‘Come with me,’ she commanded.

  It wasn’t what she said but the precarious state she was in that made him follow. She led him into the drawing-room. ‘A little liqueur after your lunch. You went out with those people next door,’ she accused. Her face was blotched and her hand shook as she fumbled in the glass cabinet. ‘You like to party, don’t you?’

  She pulled out a tumbler, almost let it slip from her fingers but managed to pour a few inches into it.

  That was far too much, and he didn’t like that sticky sweet stuff anyway. He found himself tongue-tied, helpless, and that too seemed vaguely familiar. He had been here before, or somewhere eerily like it.

  He moved away, the glass in his hand, looking for somewhere to put it, but turned at a soft susurration. She was shedding her dress. It slid, whispering, to the floor, and she had nothing else on. An old woman. She raised her arms imperiously. They were thin and the skin hung limply off. ‘You know what to do,’ she told him.

  Then he saw why it all seemed familiar. ‘Mrs Robinson,’ he muttered. She smiled at his recognition and slithered on to the sofa, the crimson silk of her dress grotesquely caught about one ankle.

  He’d seen The Graduate on the stage over a year ago, with Marty, and the promise of a celebrity in the nude had drawn a full house. It was well done, but the flash of flesh had been only a snack. The feast offered now was obscene and prolonged. Orgiastic. He pushed his tumbler towards the table and blundered from the room. He heard the glass fall and shatter as he gained the door.

  He ran full tilt down the front stairs and through to the rear, heart pumping, stomach churning. He stopped at the stairs to his own flat and hung on to the newel post to regain his balance. The whole passageway was lurching. Over by Wormsley’s door someone had dumped a black sack of rubbish. Or maybe the man had been too idle to take it to the refuse bins.

  Clinging on while vomit hit the back of his throat and he bit his lips to hold the bitter stream back, he saw the sack move, try to heave itself erect, slide back and collapse into the shape of a man.

  Then it was impossible to stem it any more. His stomach contents, lumpily undigested, pumped out over his chin and chest, soaking his jacket, plopping to the polished wood blocks of the floor. He couldn’t breathe for the stench of his bile.

  Dizzy, he tore off his jacket and dropped it away, wiped his face with his shirtsleeve and swept the back of one hand across his eyes to clear the involuntary tears. ‘God, no! No!’ But he didn’t know what it was he repulsed: the odious woman, the humiliation, fear of the half-dead thing on the floor by Wormsley’s door. Or worse: the nightmare return of the life he’d recklessly taken years before – Miriam, his father’s wife, resurrected in another body, and the film running through again and again, the same frames and the same self-loathing, so that he knew he would never be free of it.

  He felt his way to the stairs and sat there, shaking. Just once he thought there came a low rattling sound from the sack-shape of the man he knew was dying, but he couldn’t respond for a moment, had to hold himself together to go across.

  There was no memory of getting to his feet or moving, but suddenly he was there, staring down at the stickily smeared red skull and the twisted spectacles hanging from one bloodied ear. The centre parting of the floppy, dark hair was a crimson line alongside the crushed skull. The face under it was Wormsley’s, but such as he’d never before seen it, never wanted to see it again, but always would in haunting nightmare.

  He screamed for Marty. Then he knew that was no use and began staggering again into the front hall, up the stairs, shouting for Max.

  ‘Don’t let Rosemary see,’ he begged when the man came.

  ‘What? Where?’

  Neil pointed downwards. ‘By the back door. It’s Wormsely He’s been shot or coshed or something.’

  Despite his warning Z ran past him, close on Max’s heels. When he turned to follow he dully registered Vanessa’s closed door and that under her arm the girl had a zipper bag with red cross markings on it.

  Max was kneeling by the curled-up body, speaking urgently into his cell phone. ‘Neil, keep away,’ Rosemary ordered. He started to apologize about being sick but no one was listening. The other two had moved the body, laying it out flat, and Max was working on his heart while Rosemary’s face was pressed against the injured man’s, with only a doubled handkerchief between.

  There was nothing for him to do. Not even a trolley to wheel anyone away on. It left him ashamed.

  They went on, counting and pressing and blowing until Max said, ‘Is there any point?’

  Rosemary looked at her watch and sat back on her heels. ‘No,’ she said firmly when he offered to get something to cover the body. ‘We have to leave everything just as it is. I’d like you to take Neil back upstairs with you. I’ll wait here until they come.’

  She called Max back as he followed Neil through to the front hall. ‘Don’t let him wash. Or drink. Just keep him sitting absolutely still, touching nothing.’

  He looked startled. ‘You surely don’t think Neil …’

  ‘For his own safety, because Salmon may jump to conclusions. We have to tell him about Wormsley spying on Chisholm. He could think it was motive enough; and Neil having been drinking. Let’s hope there are tests which can eliminate him and save us time. But, until we find the weapon …’

  ‘Rosebud, you frighten me. Your tortuous mind …’ He shook his head and went after the young man.

  Nauseated by the stench of vomit in the enclosed space, Z stood motionless, her eyes scanning the walls and floor of the passageway. At that instant the timer clicked off and all lights went out. In the darkness she was left wondering who had last turned them on, and at which of the three switches in the linked system.

  As her eyes adjusted to the glimmer of evening sky from the tall window she was able to pick out shapes: the dark huddle of the body against the luminous gloss of the door to Wormsley’s flat, still fast locked against his imagined enemies. His elaborate precautions hadn’t saved him. Perhaps the complicated security system had even delayed his escape from the killer. It looked as though he had just come home; but he never reached sanctuary.

  Across by the stairs, a smaller dark shape was Neil’s discarded jacket. Had he thrown it down, going to attack the other man? She thought not. That jacket was the source of the sour smell. Neil too hadn’t made it home in time.

  From her front windows the others watched the ambulance arrive first and the paramedics being let in. They stayed no more than five minutes before driving off to another emergency. It seemed a long time before the police turned up, but actually only seven minutes. Then there were two patrol cars with flashing lights, each with a pair of uniformed constables, and on their tail the detective sergeant Neil remembered from before. Finally came a second unmarked car driven by the senior officer called Salmon. His loud, rough voice reached them through the closed windows. ‘This is getting to be a habit with Z.’

  ‘She’s one of them,’ Neil said hoarsely, piecing things together at last. ‘Max, why didn’t anyone tell me?’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Alone in the semi-dark Zyczynski was more concerned with the living than the newly dead. Wormsley had always been something of an enigma, but Neil was different. She was beginning to understand what lay under the flippant surface. He had known drama enough in his young life and it had left him vulnerable.

  Tonight how much had he seen, or done, to upset him so? How had he spent the time between leaving her apartment and raising the alarm? Had he rushed for help only because he knew he’d left personal traces at t
he scene of the killing? Would he otherwise have let himself in to his own apartment and laid low, abandoning the body to grow cold and be discovered later by someone else?

  And with Chisholm away, who would that have been? – probably Beattie, coming out next morning to let Frank Perrin in for his coffee and cake. The shock would have been awful for her: a second of her selected companions murdered within a week.

  Oh, why didn’t somebody come, bringing a torch, and save her from all these futile speculations?

  When the first blue revolving lights showed through the window she undid the door with a handkerchief held between fingers and lock. They were paramedics. She let them in, explaining, ‘You’ll need flashlights. I don’t want the switches here touched until SOCO arrives.’

  They took one look and knew they weren’t needed. ‘We should wait for a doctor to confirm death really,’ said the male paramedic, ‘but there’s another call we should answer. Do you want us to stay with you, or …’

  ‘You go. I’m fine,’ she told them.

  There followed another wait while she became over-conscious of being half-dressed. She assumed Max had his hands full with Neil Raynes or he might have thought to fling a bathrobe down for her. She felt her way through the swing doors to the front hall and called. His head appeared over the gallery railing, and she told him what she needed.

  ‘Right,’ he said and the required cover-up landed beside her. ‘You OK otherwise?’

  ‘Yes; get back to Neil. I think the cavalry have just arrived and they’re pawing the ground outside.’

  He waved and disappeared. She hoped he’d think to get some clothes on himself before she had to bring visitors up.

  DI Salmon fumed at being kept outside, but Beaumont was there to witness if he breached the secure crime scene. First in were the SOCO’s team in their white coveralls. After a quick survey they brought in the angle lights, cables and generator, then set about photographing from detail to general. The fingerprint men started dusting the light switches, the door handles and the bunch of keys lying on the wood-block floor and still attached by a silver chair to Wormsley’s belt.

  ‘What’s that gadget on the door?’ Salmon demanded, peering over the shoulder of one stooping expert. ‘Electronic entry system,’ the man told him. Cards are out, these days. Thumbprints are the in-ID. Next generation works on an analysis of the eye’s iris, but we haven’t seen that in use locally yet.’

  Salmon scowled. ‘You mean that, to gain entry, we’ve gotta stick the body’s thumb …’

  ‘Correct. Can you give me bit of space, sir? Your shadow’s in my light.’

  ‘Shall we go upstairs?’ Z suggested. The DI squinted up towards Chisholm’s door and didn’t fancy the spillage on the lower steps.

  ‘Through this way.’ She indicated the swing door that led towards the front of the house.

  ‘Who was sick?’ he demanded, following her. He expected her to admit to it.

  ‘Young Neil Raynes. He’s waiting up in my apartment. I’ve not had a chance to question him yet.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’ He called back over his shoulder to the experts, ‘Let me know at once when the doctor arrives. We might get something more out of him than confirmation of death.’

  ‘Professor Littlejohn will want to see the body in situ,’ she warned him.

  ‘Not necessary. He hasn’t been notified.’

  Z forbore to argue the point. The Boss would have seen to that. Both men would be turning up shortly, whatever might have been exercising them elsewhere.

  Everything looked seemly in her apartment. There was a strong scent of brewing coffee, but no sign of cups yet. Z introduced the two men who rose to meet them.

  ‘So what made you attack him?’ Salmon started off. Shake the scrotes, was his motto. It wasn’t that he necessarily expected this one to be the killer.

  Neil had had time to get his mind together and he recognized a bully ‘He wouldn’t have been worth it,’ he said shortly. ‘I came down from here and there he was, on the floor. It shook me for a moment and my lunch came up. I thought he made an odd sort of noise, but I was covered in mess and had to throw my jacket off. When I went across I couldn’t find a pulse. He wasn’t breathing. What I heard must have been his lungs emptying.’

  ‘So you’re a pathology expert?’ The DI’s tone was scathing.

  ‘I’m a hospital porter. I’ve heard similar things before.’

  ‘You didn’t apply resuscitation?’

  ‘I’m trained to yell for help before I try anything myself.’

  ‘So while help was coming, what did you do to the apparent dead body?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing,’ the DI repeated, as if it were a crime.

  ‘I looked at my watch,’ Neil suddenly remembered. ‘That’s what the crash team do when they give up working on a patient. It was 16.12.’

  ‘Make a note of that,’ Salmon snarled at Z. He turned back to the young man. ‘Did you see anyone else, hear anyone leaving? Was there a car parked outside?’

  ‘Nothing and no one. As soon as Rosemary and Max arrived I came back up here.’

  ‘And you’d been in here before?’

  Neil seemed to think for a moment, then said, ‘We’d been out to lunch together. I just came up to carry some stuff in that Max had bought. He’d gone to park his car round by the old stables. Then I left, straight after.’

  Salmon switched his attention to Max. ‘So you’d have been outside the rear entrance at the time Wormsley was coming in. Was there anyone with him?’

  ‘I didn’t see him or any other person. Mine was the only car, and I parked at the far side of the garages. I walked back to the front of the building where Ro …where Z had left the outer door on the latch for me.’

  Salmon’s cell phone played two bars of the Skye Boat Song. He snatched it out from an inner pocket and grunted, ‘Yes?’

  Beaumont informed him that Professor Littlejohn had arrived and that the car pulling up outside was Superintendent Yeadings’s Rover.

  The DI made an exasperated sound. ‘Beaumont, find some way to get into Wormsley’s garage and feel whether the car’s engine is warm. Make a note and give the time. Tell the guv’nor I’m on my way down.’

  It was getting crowded in the confined space by the entrance to Flat 5. The pathologist, familiar with the ways of the SOCO, asked civilly if they had reached a stage he could interrupt.

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Gowan. ‘You’ve pipped the duty surgeon at the post.’

  ‘Splendid,’ Littlejohn said, as if promised a treat. ‘You can ring through and cancel him. I’ll perform the double duty. Let’s see now. Yes, definitely expired, and the time is precisely 17.02.’

  There was a little easing around the back door as Beaumont left and Yeadings came in, to be joined by Salmon popping out like the Demon King through the utility room’s swing door. The superintendent nodded. ‘Another death, I understand. Carry on, DI Salmon. Do we know how many people are at present inside the house? I suggest you post a constable at the front door and have this area taped off at once.’

  It was another three hours before activity petered out to leave a single uniformed man on duty and all residents briefly interviewed. Chisholm’s absence – particularly in view of his having been ‘spied on’ by the dead man – had struck Salmon as distinctly suspicious, the more so since Neil claimed not to have an address where he might be reached.

  ‘You mean you have no idea at all?’ the DI insisted, his voice rising to a cartoon squeak. ‘Have you had some lovers’ spat or something?’

  Z groaned under her breath at the man’s crassness. Max could barely believe his ears, and observed Yeadings turn his back to examine a framed abstract print on Rosemary’s sitting-room wall. Neil retreated into a dignified silence.

  The next apartment being that of the first murder victim’s mother, Salmon was with difficulty persuaded against instant interrogation. ‘The lady is elderly,’ Yeadings pointed out. ‘I’ll
just look in to see everything’s as it should be with her, and you can have a word with her tomorrow.’

  With that Salmon had to be content, but in interviewing the other residents with Beaumont in tow, he banned Z as an interested party. It was left to her to visit them all after he had left, and smooth the ruffled feathers.

  She wasn’t surprised to find Major Phillips in Miss Barnes’s flat, dispensing comfort and Chivas Regal. By now they had gathered what Z’s official function was and declared themselves reassured to have her living on the premises. ‘Not that I’ve managed to prevent any of this mayhem,’ she told Max afterwards. ‘In fact I guess I’m lucky not to have been one of three fatalities. It looks so far as though Paul Wormsley was struck down with a blunt instrument, just as I was three days back.’

  They found Beattie a trifle tearful. ‘I’m not frightened,’ she said, declining Z’s offer of a bed for the night. ‘I’m just awf’ly disappointed. This was meant to be sech a peaceful, friendly place, and look a’ it now!’

  Frank Perrin, who dropped in after a phone call from Zyczynski, restored her good humour, and finally saw her to bed with a beaker of hot chocolate; but before he left he did a man-sized job with a bucket of scalding water and disinfectant, so that Neil, walked back home by Max, found no embarrassing reminders of his abject failure.

  ‘Will you be all right alone?’ Max asked.

  ‘Never better,’ the young man ground out bitterly.

  ‘Tomorrow I have to get back to London. I wish it wasn’t necessary, but there’s no let out. It’ll be pretty chaotic here, police everywhere. If you can extend your sick leave you could make it easier for the others.’

  ‘Rosemary’ll be working?’

  ‘She’s determined, once you’ve both been to get your stitches out. I’ll drive you there. You can share a cab back.’

  ‘I’d forgotten that. Anyway, Beattie’s got her man-friend to look after her.’

  ‘There’s still Mrs Winter to keep an eye on.’