Settling himself down into a satisfying self-pity mode, Horatio thought next about her attitude towards his potential girlfriends, such as there had been. She had got on very well with Leila, but no one else. She’d positively frozen all the others out with her blatant vetting procedure. Liz had been sat down on their first meeting and virtually interrogated about how much her father earned! He wondered whether, were things to work out with Cleopatra, she might get on with her? They would be poles apart politically, of course. He resolved not to introduce, or even mention, Cleo until he was certain it was safe.
The next message was from Cleo, apologising for not being able to see him tonight. Could he make Monday? Of course he could but … damn. Marty was still demanding ‘all the gory details’ from Friday night.
It was still quite early when the taxi reached the outskirts of Ibworth. Horatio asked to be dropped off, deciding, despite his asthma, to walk the last quarter of a kilometre or so to the Rectory. It was a beautifully clear and sunny May day.
Almost as soon as the taxi pulled away, he regretted his decision. It felt like an exceptionally high pollen count. He would walk slowly. Across the fields, Horatio could make out a classically pretty Hampshire village. Church, pub, high street, pond, green, Euro-Lottery booth, the lot. The sign they had passed announced that the village was twinned with Rannoch in Scotland, Obvirsk in Slovakia and La Grenche in Wallonia.
Suddenly an auto swung around the bend ahead.
It was going fast. Well over the Union speed limit.
And it was heading straight at him.
Horatio, never an athlete at the best of times, had time only to fling himself into the hedge. Even as he leapt clear the auto’s wing mirror hit his elbow.
The auto shot around the next bend and was gone.
Lying panting on the verge Horatio slowly came back out of shock. His elbow started to hurt. No expert on autos, he thought it was a grade 2. Definitely petrol and he doubted it had speed-governors. He hadn’t had time to see the plates or the driver’s face.
His elbow throbbing powerfully, he sat up to suck on his inhaler and feel very sorry for himself. Tears welled up. Horatio hated pain.
The auto had been going far too fast down a narrow country lane. Had anything been coming in the opposite direction there would certainly have been a fatal crash. As it was he was bloody lucky not to have been run down.
Still sitting on the verge, he paged Basingstoke police station with a complaint about a speeding greyish grade 2 petrol having caused him A.B.H. He knew they wouldn’t do anything, it just made him feel better. Only when he was well rested several minutes later did he get up, brush the grass and earth stains off his trousers and make his way towards Ibworth, rubbing his aching elbow as he walked.
A short way further on was The Free Fox. He could see it across a field, around the next bend. The name on the sign had been altered, presumably after the Country Sports Directive. Originally it had been The Horse & Hounds. With thousands of foxes gassed, trapped, electrocuted and shot by farmers every year, it was in the days when they were hunted (often rather incompetently) that they had actually been most free. Horatio enjoyed paradoxes like that. Since the ban on the wearing of fur thirty-five years ago, the mink had become so prevalent and destructive of rural wildlife that the Agriculture Commission had even been forced last year to subsidise an industry which turned their pelts into fur coats. For export only, of course.
The Rectory drive was, as the Admiral had said, almost opposite the pub. The house itself was a solid, dark red Queen Anne affair. He walked up the drive, still holding his elbow, past some purple rhododendron bushes on the right. The door had ‘1708’ above it, fashioned in yellow brick. He rang the bell. As he waited for an answer, he took another pull of Salbutamol.
If the old boy didn’t have a housekeeper, he thought, a nonagenarian might take some time to get there, so he waited patiently in front of the door, which was ajar. After a minute or so he composed himself and pushed it open. He called ‘Hullo?’ inside. Then he waited.
Nothing.
Louder now: ‘Hullo, Admiral Ratcliffe, sir?’
Still nothing.
Next, almost at a shout, he called: ‘Hullo, is there anyone at home? It’s Horatio Lestoq here from The Times.’ Perhaps the old boy had forgotten and gone out?
He pushed the door wider, to reveal a panelled hall. It was quite dark inside. There was an antique bronze naval gun shell with walking sticks and umbrellas standing in it. A muddy pair of green napoleons was standing next door to it. Otherwise the room was empty. A staircase on the right led to a landing. Horatio stepped forward, called again, and decided to walk into the large room first on the left.
As he crossed the threshold he saw the body.
CHAPTER 5
10.40 SUNDAY 2 MAY
The custody suite door opened and a policeman came in to handcuff him and lead him upstairs. From the stares of other police on the way, Horatio assumed they had mistaken him for the contract killer the Macedonian mafia were believed to have hired in Basingstoke. It had been in all the papers last week. Even after an hour in a cell though, Horatio hardly felt he could look like an Albanian hitman. The rest of the gaol was probably full of the usual collection of muggers, drunks, anglers and petty thieves.
He was left alone in the interview room.
He knew they wouldn’t come in immediately, but would let the anxiety and pressure build up. They’d tried the same thing at Paddington Green over Leila. He just wouldn’t let it. There was nothing to look at and no window. Just a copy of the Suspects’ Charter on the wall behind him.
Eventually three men came in, the first of whom was a large, red-faced officer who introduced himself as Detective Chief Inspector Raymond Snell from the C.I.D. So London had taken the case out of Hampshire’s hands.
Snell looked as if he wore a wig. Horatio thought he recognised him. Was he the flic off CourtroomChannel 44?
He was very routine in his first questions, matter-of-fact even, but Horatio could tell that he was more interested in the case than he cared to show. He probably thought it would help his cable career to nail the killer of a distinguished sailor.
Horatio told him everything he knew, except for the blotting paper, which would have been construed as withholding evidence. It soon became clear they had already heard his conversations with Commissioner Percival and the Admiral off his pager. Was that legal, he wondered, without a warrant? Horatio explained that he had wanted to interview the Admiral in his capacity as a former Aachen Scrutineer, which Weaning would confirm.
If he was about to commit murder, Horatio pointed out, he would hardly inform his boss that he was going to the scene beforehand. When asked who he thought might have ‘dunnit’, he mentioned the grey grade 2 which he said could well have been the getaway auto. He said he had reported it immediately afterwards. Then he showed them the bruise on his elbow, which was changing to a purply yellow and throbbing painfully. A junior detective left the room to check out details of missing and stolen autos.
‘Get some satellite shots of the area,’ Snell ordered the retreating figure. ‘Did you do this for the money, Dr Lestoq?’ Snell obviously preferred the direct approach. It doubtless made better cable.
‘What money?’
‘The money, a tidy sum I must say’ – amazing, thought Horatio, that the police really do always speak in clichés, just like in their caricatures – ‘which the Admiral left you in his will.’
‘His will? No. You must be mistaken. I’d never met him or spoken to him before yesterday.’
‘Can you prove that?’
‘Listen to my pager.’
‘We have. By the way, do you usually record your private conversations?’
‘When I’m working on a story, always. It’ll show you that I’ve never spoken to him before.’
‘We’ve already checked your pager thoroughly, Dr Lestoq,’ said Snell. ‘In the conversation Admiral Ratcliffe actually asks you …’ �
�� he turned to a page in a folder marked ‘Transcripts’ – ‘“I was wondering how long you would take to get in touch, Horatio … Haven’t you anything to tell me before that? … Don’t you know who I am? … And that’s all I am to you?”, et cetera, et cetera. So you see, although you do not admit knowing him on the tape, Admiral Ratcliffe certainly thought he knew you. It sounds as if he thought you ought to know him too. Plus a cursory initial investigation of the Rectory has already turned up these.’ He tossed three large red leather scrapbooks across to Horatio, who opened them.
Inside were pasted newspaper cuttings. Almost every article and book review Horatio had ever written. All in chronological order. They started with his Isis contributions of ten years ago.
‘Still deny knowing him?’
Horatio nodded, dumbfounded.
‘You stand to inherit half of everything he had. Until, of course,’ Snell put on his ‘nasty cop’ voice, ‘we stick you with this murder.’
Horatio’s mind turned turtle. He had got so far in his thoughts over the past hour to realise that the Admiral’s death on the morning of his visit was no coincidence. Someone knew he would be going there at that time. Either his pager or the Admiral’s phone must be tapped. But to be framed as comprehensively as this …
‘When did you first meet Admiral Ratcliffe?’
‘I’ve never met him. Alive, that is.’
‘When did you first speak to him?’
‘Yesterday morning.’
‘When did you first know of his existence?’
‘The day before that – Friday.’
‘Friday 30 April,’ said the Chief Inspector slowly, for the video record.
‘Yes. Listen, when was the will dated?’ Horatio’s mind was clouding over. He must not let it.
‘I’m asking the questions.’ Snell allowed a short silence to show his audience who was in control, then: ‘11 April 2016.’
Horatio made a quick calculation.
‘I was about three months old then. Are you sure it hasn’t been tampered with?’
‘Certain. This is an exact copy of the original, not some printout. You’ve been a major beneficiary in Admiral Ratcliffe’s will for twenty-eight years. It all fits in very nicely. I’m thinking aloud here …’ Horatio immediately recognised Snell’s trademark, his catchphrase from the programme. It was the moment his fans loved and endlessly imitated. He was being interrogated by none other than Inspector ‘I’m thinking aloud here’ Snell of the Yard. ‘You’re, er, financially disadvantaged …’
‘The word you’re groping for is poor. Hard up.’
‘Since you put it that way, yes. We could tell that from the look of you, even if our investigations hadn’t shown you defaulting on your Atlantic Gas bills. Do you deny being in difficulties?’
‘No. But that doesn’t make me a murderer.’ Horatio could indulge in cliché catchphrases too: ‘I demand to see my lawyer.’ It sounded impressive, even though he hadn’t got one. He wondered which of his university contemporaries would do the least bad job of defending him. Or should he call Dick at Zetland & Dunbar?
‘Not under Legal Directive 14/714 you can’t. Preliminary police interrogation takes place without notaries being present so long as the full discussions are videoed.’ The Chief Inspector jerked his thumb behind him and up to the corner of the ceiling. ‘Say cheese.’ Horatio glanced up and grimaced at the tiny camera there.
‘Why, might I ask, if I committed this crime, did I then call the police. Twice?’
‘You heard our sirens. You were covering yourself.’
‘You mean to say you were on your way already? It was not me who called you first? Who did then?’
‘I’m hardly likely to tell you that.’
‘Can your sirens be heard on the tape of my call?’
‘No, just your heavy breathing, which may have been designed to mask them when they were in the distance.’ A film of blood-red anger descended over Horatio’s eyes.
‘Look, I’m asthmatic! I’d just walked to the house on foot. I was bloody nearly run over! I get hay fever and it’s a high count today. Plus,’ he was getting angry and was almost out of breath again, ‘plus I had just discovered a dead body for Christ’s sake!’
‘Calm down Dr Lestoq. We’re running tests on the background noise on the tape right now.’
‘And I’d already rung you to tell you about the car.’
‘A diversionary tactic, perhaps, to transfer suspicion onto an imaginary person and waste our time.’
‘It sounds to me,’ said Horatio, trying to think logically, ‘that the murderer called you himself.’
‘Or herself,’ said Snell. Yes, thought Horatio, the Chief Inspector really was playing to his overwhelmingly female Channel 44 audience all right.
‘Or herself, knowing me to be on my way there. In order to set me up.’
‘The call was not from an auto-phone, if you mean the alleged petrol-auto driver.’
‘What do you mean, “alleged”? How did I get this “alleged” bruise, then, I’d like to know?’ He was tired. It was aching. He was scared.
‘The Admiral might have put up a fight.’
‘The murderer, if he was trying to frame me, would hardly be likely to call from his auto-phone, would he?’ Horatio found it hard to avoid sarcasm when dealing with this man. ‘He’d have used a watch-phone or a vid-phone with the vid switched off to give you as few tracking possibilities as possible.’
‘We believe it was a vid-phone with the screen switched off. And we’re working on the voice patterns now. We’ll have a profile soon.’ Snell paused for full effect. ‘Listen’ – the Chief Inspector’s voice took on a sympathetic tone so bogus Horatio nearly laughed out loud – ‘are you sure you wouldn’t like to confess? The case is open and shut. Motive, opportunity, method. All there. All we need is the murder weapon and you’re …’ he drew his finger across his neck, ‘kaputt! And we think we’ve got that too. The caller was probably a neighbour who’ll come forward once it’s announced that you’re under arrest. You know you could’ – Horatio couldn’t believe the Inspector was about to mouth that ultimate police cliché – ‘save yourself and everyone else a lot of bother if you were to confess now.’
At least the idiot had let him know that the caller had been anonymous.
Horatio, never much of an optimist, felt utter despair. To have been brought from the height of human happiness – waking up with a naked Cleo in his bed yesterday morning – to this. It was the very unfairness of it all which made him swear not only to get out of this, but to destroy whoever was behind it all.
The prospect of being tried under the new Legal Directive appalled him. The old English common law had at least provided a duty solicitor, impartial barristers and judges, as well as a jury. Under the Union system, judges were appointed by the Justice Ministry, usually more for obedience or to fill the various gender and minority quotas than for knowledge of the law. Prosecutors were often ambitious politicians out to make names for themselves. Judges put questions themselves and then interpreted the ‘spirit’ of the law rather than sticking to its letter. Justice was a lottery and, as with the Euro-Lottery, the state usually won.
‘Thank you, Dr Lestoq. You are going downstairs now. In the next half-hour, assuming Pathology comes back with a report of asphyxiation rather than heart failure …’
‘He was ninety-one for God’s sake!’
‘We’re quite aware of his age. We’re also aware of the fact that someone phoned us two minutes before we caught you to say that he was being smothered with a sofa cushion. As I was saying, assuming the lab reports asphyxiation, I’ll be charging you with the murder of Admiral Michael Ratcliffe.’ He rolled the ‘R’s, clearly enjoying the theatre of it all. Horatio suspected that the video of the interview would be played at his trial and the Chief Inspector was probably setting himself up for a CourtroomChannel 44 Trial Special. There’d be interviews, in-depth profiles, performance fees. Snell might be able to get
his own show out of it, or a lucrative advertising contract: ‘Buy this tasteful fawn Detective’s Raincoat, as worn by Snell of the Yard.’
Back in his custody suite, Horatio went over the interview again in his mind, trying to apply some logic to what he’d heard.
What had Snell asked about when first he’d heard of Ratcliffe? That was surely the day he ought to have cast his mind back to. Not the events of Saturday at all, but of the day before. Last Friday. May Day Eve. 30 April.
The day of his discovery.
PART II
CHAPTER 6
09.35 FRIDAY 30 APRIL
The tram deposited Horatio outside the Federal Records Office, a series of large, low, pentagonal buildings of beige brick overlooking the Thames at Kew. He estimated it at about eighty years old. Horatio knew the complex well, both from his research for his thesis and from his many journalistic forays there, providing the historical context to current news stories. He was perversely fond of the ugly old info-factory.
It was here that he had won his journalistic spurs back in January 2042. Using the Fifty Year Rule, he had discovered that in December 1991 the then British Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, had struck a clever if cynical deal with Klaus Kinkel, his German opposite number. Hurd had promised British recognition of Croatia and Slovenia in return for German acquiescence in a British opt-out from the Social Chapter of the Treaty of European Union which they were then negotiating at Maastricht.
Horatio had long suspected that the recognition of the two breakaway Yugoslav republics exactly a month after the Social Chapter opt-out had been no coincidence. He was looking forward to next January, when the 1995 papers might, unless they were very well weeded, reveal that Hurd had assumed all along that the Social Chapter would be gradually infiltrated into British law by the back door anyhow, via the use of the Euro-Court. The same court that finally freed Ian Huntley.
The Aachen Memorandum Page 4
