Corridors of Death

by Ruth Dudley Edwards

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Amiss, but something has come up about Sir Nicholas which you should be able to answer. Would you mind staying for a moment?’

  Milton’s mind wasn’t on what Amiss was saying. All he could think of was what the next news from the hospital would be. Surely they had got Parkinson in time? He couldn’t be dying. Hadn’t he suffered enough in his life not to deserve an appalling death like this? But then so had Gladys. This murderer probably didn’t know or care about the kind of people he killed. He must be a savage. Gladys’s death was mercifully quick, at least. Only a fiend would kill with arsenic.

  He looked up dully at Amiss, who seemed to be talking about a missing appointments diary. It wasn’t like Robert to witter on like this when there was something so much more urgent going on. His telephone rang.

  ‘It’s Pike, sir. I’ve had a couple of people at work checking alibis and Jenkins, Nigel Clark and Stafford are in the clear. They couldn’t have seen Parkinson today. I can’t get hold of Lady Clark and I’m still double-checking on Wells’s movements.’

  Milton closed his eyes and thought. Amiss hadn’t started talking again. Shaw was out as well. That left two people who might have murdered Parkinson, unless of course someone had found a way of getting the poison to him indirectly or at an earlier date. Why? Why? Why? What could Parkinson possibly have known that would have made him a danger now? He was no Gladys, too confused to make sense of anything he had seen or heard. He was a trained scientist, for God’s sake. But maybe he had been keeping quiet for a reason? Was it conceivable that that open relaxed man had been indulging in blackmail? If so, of whom? Wells? Fruitless. Wells didn’t have either money or power. Nixon? He had some indirect power over Parkinson’s career, and a little money. Lady Clark? She had money.

  Pike rang again. ‘Lady Clark and Mr Wells are in the clear also, sir, as far as today is concerned.’

  He looked up at Amiss. ‘I’m sorry, Robert. I can’t talk to you now. I’ve got to see Nixon. He’s not going to be able to explain his way out of this one, if I’m any judge. Apart from anything else, we’ve discovered that Sir Nicholas knew he was mixed up with a call-girl.’

  ‘You’ve got to listen to me first, Jim.’

  The phone rang again. This time it was from the hospital. Milton listened for a moment and hung up. ‘Parkinson’s dead, Robert.’

  ‘But he can’t be,’ cried Amiss. ‘I was sure he was the ­murderer.’

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Amiss’s argument was that the key to Gladys’s murder lay in resolving the question of who had had an early Monday morning appointment with Sir Nicholas. Although Milton felt it was rather academic now, he had pulled himself together and accepted that, since Amiss wasn’t a fool, he should do him the courtesy of listening. There was no harm in letting Nixon sweat for a few minutes longer. He followed and approved of the line of reasoning that had led Amiss to that conclusion.

  Amiss had been able to check on Wells and Nixon easily. There was no problem in consulting their diaries and having a brief tangential chat with their staff. Nixon had unquestionably arrived back in London on the shuttle half an hour before the IGGY meeting. Wells had met his Private Secretary more than an hour before IGGY to go obsessively over the brief with him. Parkinson had been more of a problem. His secretary was extremely unapproachable and guarded her secrets jealously. Amiss couldn’t think of any way of finding out about Parkinson’s early-morning movements without looking suspiciously nosey. He had had a brainwave which he was now embarrassed about. He excused himself in advance by a sheepish admission that he had let his enthusiasm run away with him.

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I rang up his secretary—I knew he was out of the room—imitated your voice, gave your name, and said I was doing a routine check of the early-morning movements of everyone concerned in the case.’

  Milton pulled himself back from the brink of rage. This was his ally, after all, whose enthusiasm had up until now been of incomparable value to the enquiry.

  ‘And she said …?’

  ‘That while there was nothing in his diary for Monday morning other than the IGGY meeting, he had been in unusually early. His coat was on the rack when she got in at 8.45. She didn’t know where he’d been, but he had come back a few minutes later.’

  ‘You’re not trying to tell me that on the basis of this you concluded that he was a murderer?’

  ‘Of course not. It wasn’t enough in itself. But it tied in with something that Sanders consulted me about this morning which gave Parkinson a real and urgent motive for murdering Sir Nicholas.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He was in line for the Under Secretaryship of a new division which needed a scientist-cum-administrator. Sanders wanted to know what I thought of him. He said he’d just been talking to the Personnel people about it and they were waiting for a recommendation from the Permanent Secretary. Sanders was well-disposed. Thought Parkinson hadn’t had a fair deal from Sir Nicholas.’

  ‘Would Parkinson have known he was in the running?’

  ‘Not in the normal course of events. But Sanders said Sir Nicholas had known about it last Friday. Isn’t it highly possible that he made an appointment with Parkinson for Monday morning to tell him he wouldn’t recommend him?’

  Milton tried to cast his mind back a few hours. Yes. Had he heard about this then he would have followed it up with alacrity. The big thing in Parkinson’s favour all along had been his lack of an urgent motive. Knowing Sir Nicholas, there was every reason to believe that he would have wanted to raise Parkinson’s hopes over the weekend, only to dash them on Monday morning. But that, as he told Amiss, was now entirely and eternally hypothetical, since both principals in the supposed conversations were unable to confirm it.

  ‘Could he have committed suicide? Or intended just to make himself ill in order to draw suspicion away from himself?’

  ‘You’ve had a taste of what arsenic poisoning does to someone, Robert. Do you really think it’s likely anyone would commit suicide that way? And he was a scientist, don’t forget. He wouldn’t have given himself a fatal dose if he wanted to make himself ill. He’d have calculated it carefully. No. I’m afraid that while your theory would have seemed plausible this morning, it’s not a runner now. Apart from anything else, can you explain why he should have committed suicide?’

  ‘No,’ said Amiss unhappily. ‘But just for the sake of it, will you have someone check through his things here and in the office for a suicide note?’

  ‘All right, Robert. I’ll do that now. Will you tell Nixon I’ll want him in a couple of minutes?’

  The Assistant Commissioner burst through the door as Milton finished his call. It took a few minutes to bring him up-to-date about Nixon’s possible new motive, the elimination of Alfred Shaw and the fact that, with the exception of Nixon, none of the suspects had had any contact with Parkinson that day.

  ‘And you haven’t arrested him yet?’ he asked incredulously.

  ‘I’m not one hundred per cent certain, sir. I was just going to question him again.’

  ‘If you had questioned him earlier today Parkinson might be alive now. What possible reason can you have for holding back? Don’t you realize that we’re already likely to be accused of incompetence? We don’t want a charge of giving special treatment to a government minister levelled against us as well.’

  ‘There are three things worrying me, sir. First, why should Nixon have wanted to kill Parkinson? I can’t think of a motive which will hold water. Second, why would he have been so incredibly stupid as to poison him over lunch and make himself the Number One suspect? …’

  ‘Blackmail and bravado,’ said the A.C. crisply. ‘What’s the third?’

  Milton tip-toed on egg-shells in putting forward Amiss’s theory as if it were a long-shot of his own. He had difficulty in looking the A.C. in th
e eye as he mentioned having made a phone call to Parkinson’s secretary. He concluded by mentioning he had organized a hunt for a suicide note.

  ‘Rubbish,’ said the A.C. ‘You’ve been letting your imagination work overtime. Parkinson’s been murdered by the same person who showed himself ready to take massive risks with his earlier killings. Let’s get the bastard in and break him.’

  Before you go back to the Yard and break me, thought Milton. He went out to find Nixon.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Nixon could do nothing except sit there and deny everything. No, Sir Nicholas hadn’t said anything to him about Sally. He might have intended to, but Nixon had avoided him after the meeting. No, he hadn’t murdered him. No, he hadn’t murdered Gladys. No, he hadn’t been blackmailed by Parkinson. Nor had Parkinson told him he knew anything about the earlier murders. No, he hadn’t poisoned Parkinson. All he had done was buy him lunch out of the kindness of his heart.

  Milton remained silent throughout the questioning. The A.C. had begun politely enough, but his patience was wearing thin by the end of half an hour of asking the same questions and getting the same answers. When the interim pathology report came through with the news that Parkinson had died from a dose of arsenic large enough to kill a horse, taken along with his lunch, the A.C. began to shout.

  Nixon didn’t respond. The frankness which had made Milton like him so much was not manifesting itself now. He just went on with simple denials. If he was guilty, thought Milton, he was probably taking the right line. The A.C. had insisted on making the interview formal; there was a sergeant present with a shorthand notebook taking down every word. Nixon hadn’t asked for a solicitor, but he didn’t need one. He was giving nothing away. Conversely, he certainly wasn’t taking the right line if he was innocent. It was conceivable that a sufficiently articulate and open response to questions might at least have raised a few doubts in the A.C.’s mind—enough to hold him back from arresting Nixon on the spot.

  Amiss, meanwhile, had spent a long time sitting with Sanders. He was impressed by how Sanders, distressed though he clearly was, had risen above his ordeal. He had begun to work on some of the papers in his briefcase, and he even found the heart to enquire how Question Time had gone. Reasonably well, it turned out. Officials were supposed to be invisible, but even such a well-established convention hadn’t survived the sight of one of them being carried out in extremis. There was also probably a feeling that poor old Harvey had been left at an unfair disadvantage. He had been let off lightly, and the row over Wells’s sacking had been extremely half-hearted—apparently to Wells’s patent dissatisfaction. Even the P.M.’s Question Time had been subdued. Amiss had been struck by the fact that, although Nixon had hurried out to see Parkinson as soon as he had finished, Wells hadn’t even bothered to enquire about him.

  Amiss wasted some time trying to think of some way in which Wells might have murdered Parkinson. Poisoned chocolates sent through the post seemed as unlikely as doctored decanters. No, Nixon was going to be arrested and the resultant explosion of shit was going to finish off the government. Nixon hadn’t a chance. With a sexual scandal on top of his other motive, the fact that the evidence against him was purely circumstantial was unlikely to stop a jury finding him guilty.

  Amiss’s mind went obsessively over and over the case he had built up against Parkinson. What were the flaws? In the murder of Sir Nicholas, only the same one that applied to any other suspect. He’d have had to take an immense risk. The killing of Gladys after such a long delay was a poser, whoever was responsible, but admittedly even more so if Parkinson had done it. There was a fair chance that nothing would ever have come to light about the Monday morning meeting. As against that, Parkinson’s motive for the original murder was now better than anyone else’s. Any of them might have killed Sir Nicholas for revenge, but only Parkinson could have done it for gain. Hadn’t he overstressed to Milton his conviction that his career was beyond rescue?

  Amiss was pacing up and down the corridor. He saw Sanders shoot him a sympathetic look. He sat down beside him again and resisted the temptation to confide his worries. Sanders suddenly gathered up his papers and shoved them back into his briefcase. He looked at Amiss.

  ‘They’re going to arrest Nixon, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’m afraid it looks like it, Douglas.’

  ‘I can’t really believe it. What are we supposed to do now? It’s a friend he needs, not two impotent bystanders. He hasn’t even got his Private Secretary. Where the hell is he?’

  Amiss was taken aback, but comforted once again at finding that it was possible to rise to the top in the civil service and keep a heart.

  ‘Nixon sent him back to the office. He said he didn’t want to keep him hanging about all afternoon.’

  At this further example of Nixon’s courtesy towards his staff, even in his greatest hour of trial, Sanders fell into a depressed silence. They had both been sitting there gazing at the wall for several minutes when the door of the room in which Nixon was being grilled opened, and Milton stepped out. He was expressionless.

  ‘Mr Nixon is accompanying us to the Yard to assist us further with our enquiries, sir,’ he said, addressing Sanders. ‘Could someone go to his room and retrieve his coat? Will you, Mr Amiss? And Mr Sanders, I should like your advice on how we can get out of this building without having to run the gauntlet of the press. I understand they’ve gathered in force outside.’

  So that was that. As Amiss began the walk towards Nixon’s office he reflected that Nixon was now undeniably finished. Even if another murderer was found at a later stage, the very fact that Nixon had been for a time the prime suspect would lose him his seat as well as his ministerial office. His seat was marginal, and there would always be enough people swayed by the belief that there was ‘no smoke without fire’ to make them change their votes. There was no stopping the press. Whatever back exit Sanders found, some of the boys would be hovering round. They’d probably even manage to meet the deadline for the last edition of the evening paper.

  Amiss found Nixon’s coat without difficulty and began his trek back. He was still turning over in his mind the Parkinson theory. It was obvious that Milton’s instructions to search for a suicide note had yielded nothing. Whatever he’d done, Parkinson was too decent to kill himself and leave others to take the blame. The whole notion was a non-starter, and the sooner he came to terms with it the better. It was the height of arrogance to assume that because it was his theory it must be right. Why shouldn’t it be Nixon, anyway? Kindness and courtesy could mask viciousness; they could be no more than a façade. And what viciousness Nixon must have shown to do that to Parkinson. A shudder ran through Amiss as he thought of his last sight of the man. He had been terrified from the first moment he had seen him clasp his hand to his stomach and his face contort. It had taken only a moment. One minute he had been writing, the next …

  Amiss stopped at the entrance to the corridor he was making for. He saw the small group awaiting him expectantly at the far end. He dropped Nixon’s coat, turned and ran.

  A debate was in progress as he tumbled into the Officials’ Box. The Secretary of State for Energy was on his feet and was disconcerted by the noise which Amiss made as he pushed colleagues out of the way and scrabbled on the floor. Amiss didn’t hear the reproving tones of the Speaker as he called for silence, nor the agitated voices of colleagues begging him to quieten down.

  He found it lying under Parkinson’s seat. As he opened up the crumpled piece of paper he gave a whoop of delight that wrung further bleats of consternation from his colleagues. Ignoring them, he ran from the Box.

  Thursday Evening

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  ‘And what did it say?’ Ann Milton asked Amiss, fascinated.

  ‘That after Sir Nicholas had told him on Friday that he was thinking of recommending him for the Under-Secretaryship, he realized how much pro
motion did matter to him after all. Then, at the meeting they had arranged for early Monday morning, Sir Nicholas laughed at him and said he’d see he stayed an Assistant Secretary for ever. After the IGGY meeting, Sir Nicholas looked over at him and sneered. Parkinson stood trying to make conversation for several minutes and then went out looking for him. He saw Sir Nicholas disappearing into the lavatory, followed him in, saw he was alone, went back for the sculpture and hit him with it.’

  ‘And Gladys?’

  ‘He said he didn’t mean to kill her. He went up to find out if she remembered the Monday-morning meeting, because if she did he was going to tell Jim some story to explain it away. She didn’t say anything about it, but told him that Lady Clark and Nigel had just taken away those sculptures of Sir Nicholas’s that she didn’t like—those ones, she said, that looked just like the one she had seen him pick up outside the conference room on Monday morning.’

  ‘She didn’t make the connection at all?’

  ‘Hadn’t taken in the full story when we told her, I suppose.’

  ‘So he killed her on the spur of the moment?’

  ‘Yes, and took the diary for good measure. He suffered for his impulse, though. He thought about giving himself up but couldn’t face the thought of life imprisonment. He got hold of some arsenic—painful death, expiation of some sort—but he couldn’t nerve himself to take it. Then today his secretary told him that Jim had rung up to enquire about his movements on Monday morning and he concluded that it wouldn’t be long before he was arrested. That’s why he took the poison at lunch.’