The Path of the Bullet

by M C Jacques

  “That’s the idea, Mr Fothergill. Now, please relax, and have some more coffee. Explain slowly, and in your own time.”

  At once, Fothergill appeared less excitable and more at ease. “Right. Well, over the past eighteen months or so, a number of the RWM staff here have reported to me, nothing in writing as of yet, that Sarah, Sarah Millar, visits some parts of the museum outside of her, shall we say, working hours.”

  McKay’s silence indicated to Fothergill that he knew more ought to follow.

  “By that I mean, in the evening, and even during the night. A number of the maintenance chaps have seen a person, and they think that it might have been Sarah, hanging around exhibits in just about every part of the museum. You see, the maintenance and restoration chaps often have to work late before special exhibitions or air shows, you know. And she, Sarah, does know the museum backwards. She organises the tours and such like.”

  “So what exactly, if anything, have you done about this?”

  “Well what do you think? What could I have done? Nothing! Sarah Millar is the dream head of PR – a queen of enterprise! She’s absolutely brilliant. The last person I need to upset at this juncture – with all the pressure I’m under from London to keep on increasing the rate of visitors – is Sarah Millar, thank you very much!”

  “And does she?”

  “Does she what?”

  “Does Ms Millar thank you very much for your silence about her apparently unusual habits during the nocturnal hours?”

  Fothergill jumped up and waved the index finger of his right hand at McKay. “Now, just you listen here, McKay. If you think that…”

  “All I’m trying to find out, Mr Fothergill, is whether or not your brilliant colleague, Sarah Millar, realises that you know about her ‘out of normal hours’ visits to the museum?”

  “Not that I am aware.” Fothergill sat himself down again and snatched a sip of coffee. “Not that I am aware, Mr McKay.”

  “Right. Well, thanks for bringing this to my notice from the outset. I appreciate it. And it won’t go any further. Rest assured. I suppose,” McKay bridled an unannounced yawn from bolting, “that now, I ought to have a word with Jill Prestons and then, possibly, with the intriguing Sarah Millar.”

  “I don’t want her upset and I don’t want her work here to be affected. I hope that’s clear.” That being said, and having cleared his throat, Fothergill was unable to bridle his expression of delight that their discussion was over so soon. He leapt sprightly to his feet and ushered McKay into the corridor. “It’s the door adjacent, just across there. Knock first, Mr McKay, or you might catch her in the middle of her leg, hip or boob exercises!”

  10

  Interviewing Jill Prestons in her office…

  Being just a little uncertain of exactly how to take Fothergill’s closing injunction, McKay did indeed give the door signed ‘Museum Manager’ a good old rap and then waited. It was only a matter of seconds before a rather shrill ‘Come in’ pierced the thinly beech-veneered door.

  Jill Prestons was standing in front of a tall, grey filing cabinet as McKay entered her office. Immediately struck by her fulsome, rather broad-limbed physique, McKay noticed that her hair appeared to retain most of its original reddish hue. The ivory buttons on her ridiculously tight, white, silk-looking blouse strained to hold in the contents of her ivory bra, which was flirtingly visible through the thinly spread blouse’s material. And the remarkably short, dark navy skirt bound around her cambered thighs could be worn only by a woman on a mission, he thought. She strode across her office – her outer garments straining and stretching as she did so – and held out her hand.

  “You must be Mark McKay. Pleased to meet you.”

  McKay was astonished to find that he was looking almost directly into Jill Prestons’ thorn-brown eyes. She was wearing slight heels, but that would still make her around five feet eight inches tall, he reasoned. “Nice to meet you too, Miss Prestons?”

  “Well, I suppose that will do. But you can call me Jill, if you feel able to. Not Jilly, as Matt does all too often! It’s not an official investigation, after all, is it, Mr McKay?”

  “It’s official as far as your museum is concerned, Jill,” stated McKay, dealing with both her queries at once.

  “Anyway, please sit down, Mark, if I may call you that.” McKay smiled and nodded as he descended onto a round-backed and rather comfortable seat made from some speckled, pale-brown fabric.

  “I really don’t know if I’m able to help you very much. I spoke to that chap Burrows, you know, from the local CID, about three times. I didn’t know Sergeant Smith from Adam and, to be perfectly blunt, I don’t really care that much if someone took a pot shot at some rude old fart who was – according to a number of my staff who served him on that afternoon – as pissed as a newt, in any case! He tried to touch up Tina, one of the waitresses, you know! Sergeant Smut was not a well-liked man! Even Matt detested him. No, that’s too strong.” She lowered her voice a little and her head lilted towards McKay. “Matt is really only worried about Smith’s death because his killer has not yet been caught and might be here, amongst us! That’s my take on it, anyway.”

  “You’ve certainly convinced me that you didn’t like him!” McKay spoke wryly, sporting a grin; he did not wish to check the gushing candour of his interviewee. “And it’s odds on,” McKay continued calmly, “I’d say, that Sergeant Smith’s assassin is here and is amongst you, just as your boss, Mr Fothergill suspects!”

  After staring blankly at McKay for a number of seconds, she finally summoned a response. “Well, as I said, I didn’t know him; I only knew of him. Everyone here knows of him, actually… well, almost everyone. But I’ve no doubt you’ll discover that for yourself, Mark. So, there’s really no point in me forcing the point, is there? But no, I certainly didn’t like what I heard about him. He seemed to be a liability, to me. I mean, what if he’d started touching up one of the schoolgirl visitors? We have dozens and dozens through here each and every day. The teachers don’t supervise them all the time, you know! And there are lots of dark, secluded corners in this place, ask Sa…”

  “Ask Sarah Millar?”

  The Museum Manager coughed ever so faintly and straightened both sides of her blouse’s collar with a swift, delicate movement belying her gender. “Well… yes, if you like; she does seem to spend a fair amount of her own time… er…” Her face stiffened. “Well, wandering around the place, I suppose. But don’t misunderstand me; I like Sarah and she’s quite the best at her work – she keeps the turnstiles turning, you know. Keeps us all gainfully employed.”

  Yes. She does. At all hours, day and night, thought McKay as he eyed the Manager ruefully. “Have you ever quarrelled with her seriously? You and Ms Millar, I mean.”

  “Ever quarrelled with her? Well, yes, of course I have. A least, we’ve had a few professional disagreements. When she wanted funds for her to attend some British Council UK Cultural Exhibition in Cairo, was it? And then again – well, something very similar at least, in Tripoli of all places – I mean, well, the number of visitors the museum gets from Egypt and Libya combined wouldn’t merit…” She strove to recall the details. “Well, I think it was around £6,500 per exhibition, by the time you’ve factored in flights, hotels and, of course, the dreaded expense claims. But that is very much the exception to the rule. Firstly and lastly, we are professional females in a male-heavy and heavy-male environment. As such, we get on very well, thank you very much!”

  Mark smiled gently; a signal to confirm that he understood what she meant perfectly well. “Do you and Ms Millar socialise together much, Jill?” He watched her closely.

  After an ever so slight tightening of her eyes, the Manager replied thoughtfully. “Not as such. Well, just occasionally, when I go swimming in Cambridge, we hook up in a bar near the Grafton Centre for a vino. Not very often. Once or twice, twice actually, we’ve popped into t
hat Pan Asiatic Turkish place. I remember the name because, when I first heard it, Pan Asiatic, I thought that it sounded more like a travel agent or an airline! Anyway, it’s just off Mill Street; is it called St Michael’s Road?”

  “It could well be.”

  “She has her own set of friends. None of us meet them and only, well, only very occasionally do we hear about them. She has brought a couple of them here and showed them around the museum, but she kept them to herself, if you catch my drift. Matt made a joke of it because they were both from the Middle East, from Saudi Arabia maybe; yes, I think so. They were neighbours. Well, so she said at the time – and I’ve no reason at all to doubt her – and they probably live in that large house with her on Mill Street; it’s full of students and asylum seekers, so I hear.”

  “From whom?”

  “Ah, well, Sarah is quite, well, very friendly with Tina Aspland, a full-timer in the Take-Off Snack Bar – that’s the one that serves light snacks and lighter meals just as you come in. Good coffee, too. Matt thought of the name; well, he thought of all the names, come to mention it. It’s well-named, though, isn’t it? It’s called Take-Off, you see, because it’s right there as you commence your trip around the museum, just after you’ve entered through the shop. Great for those who’ve driven a long way, too! Well, anyway, back to the point. Tina has been over to Sarah’s place once or twice and has noticed the type – well, you know what I mean – the sort of neighbour she has. She’s well paid here – Sarah, that is – so I suppose that she’s just saving up to buy her own place. Tina says that her flat is quite small, compact, you know. She is one of those people who just loves fixing on to worthy causes.” She eyed McKay’s expression sharply. For the first time in their encounter the woman appeared to be ever so slightly on edge about something.

  “Are you certain that there’s nothing more? I get the feeling that there may be something else you’d like to tell me about Sarah Millar, but that you feel inhibited.”

  Eyeing McKay directly, she remained thoughtful, a little pensive, but silent. He was impressed by her facial candour.

  “Anyway, what you have told me will all be very helpful, Jill. Here’s my card, if you decide that you are able to tell me the rest!” She examined the card and looked at the flipside.

  “Your mobile. Give me your mobile number.” A sudden abruptness of manner had emerged in her which had not been in evidence up to this point. McKay wrote it carefully on the rear of his card and handed it back to the once more silent woman.

  “Goodbye, Jill”. He closed the door and paused just long enough to hear Jill Prestons lift her office telephone and demand to be put through to Sarah Millar at once. How clumsy that seemed to him – or was it simply intentional?

  Stepping outside onto the spacious concourse – the large hangar to his left, the shop and Take-Off Café to his right – McKay began to collate his impressions from his first encounter with Jill Prestons. She was that breed of woman, he surmised, who always had to be centre stage; inexhaustibly attractive to men, rapacious, too, and it would not have surprised him to learn that she was, in fact, at liberty once more, following a lucrative divorce from victim number three. ‘That’s my girl!’ he could hear her bright blue-rinse mother congratulating her, arms outstretched in full celebratory flow. She was also the type of woman who is never seen to grow old – she fades, she dies; the second act happening only slightly later than the first.

  On his way out through the broad doorway of the administration building, Mark quickly cast an eye over the impressive array of buildings about him. ‘Six whopping great hangars! An American Military Museum all to its self, and the Warfare on Land Exhibition Hall! That’ll keep you going for a while!’ Mountfitchet had said. And he was right, too! He then noticed the hour; it was a quarter to twelve, and he considered it would be a good time for him to speak to Tina Aspland and any available colleagues in the Take-Off Snack Bar before it became too busy – after all, coaches were still only just drawing in through the main gates. He also wanted to sample their coffee and email an old friend ‘across the pond’ in the process. And rightly or wrongly, McKay decided not to bear down upon Ms Sarah Millar… not for the time being, at any rate.

  11

  Chatting with Tina Aspland in the Take-Off Snack Bar…

  Through the large glass-panelled door, McKay could see the self-service counter quite clearly. Behind the counter, the Snack Bar having been open only for fifteen minutes or so, two girls, young women perhaps, were seizing a few minutes to exchange some chat about the weekend, or the previous evening’s entertainment. One was slim and straight, with long light-brown hair. The other girl – which must surely be the one Mountfitchet had described as ‘a girl and a half’, thought McKay, as he strolled across the floor towards them – was slim, too, but with a projected chest. They both quietened and looked McKay up and down, almost in perfect synchronisation. Their subject correspondingly felt that, for some reason, his tweeds and brogues had made him, and his age, thoroughly conspicuous all of a sudden.

  “Good morning, ladies. I am Mark McKay.”

  “I thought it was him,” sparked the shorter, more projected girl. “I’m Chelsea. This is Tina. Would you like a coffee? Matt says it’s to be on the house. And anything you’d like to eat!” She smiled easily at McKay whilst sustaining confident, unbroken eye contact.

  “Thank you very much, Chelsea. Er, one small Americano with milk would hit the spot. So, you are on first name terms with the Museum Director, then! You must be in his good books!” McKay issued an assuring smile as he spoke.

  “She is!” chirped in Tina, who was promptly elbowed by a giggly Chelsea, reddening as she rapidly turned away to make McKay’s coffee, the machine rumbling and rattling as it ground the Colombian beans.

  “Find yourself a seat, Mr McKay, and I’ll bring it over. You’re spoiled for choice – for the moment, that is!” Her eyelashes flickered skywards. “The coaches haven’t arrived yet! We’ve got seven coming today! You won’t be able to swing a Tiger Moth round in here in the afternoon!”

  “Thanks, Tina.” McKay grinned broadly as he walked over the shiny plastic flooring, recent mop streaks still shimmering as late morning light skimmed across them.

  The giggles and punctuated splutters continued. A few minutes later, however, a generous Americano arrived at McKay’s table, along with a slightly more composed Tina Aspland. “Tina. A quick chat, if that’s okay, about your colleagues and friends here at the museum. Take a seat. I won’t bite, I promise!”

  Tina sat tentatively down, glancing back over her left shoulder towards the counter as she did so. All of a sudden, devoid of her peer, McKay noted, the girl looked decidedly younger and more vulnerable. “Is it about that old soldier fellow who was shot?” She shuffled around slightly, as she spoke, adopting a sideways posture.

  “Yes it is. Sort of. But it’s really about the person who did it. Because that person is still free. I need you to tell me all that you know about what happened, and anything that you’ve heard has, or even may have happened – anything which you didn’t feel able to tell Inspector Burrows. It will be confidential, I promise you. I’m on the museum’s side. We must catch whoever did this, Tina. Do you see that?” The girl nodded slowly. Her demeanour had become quite sallow and she peered at the floor vacantly.

  McKay allowed a silence to ensue for a minute or two. In the distance, the grinding of coffee could be heard faintly and a hum of one or two visitors’ voices – possibly those who had travelled many miles and would relish a tea or coffee to help propel their ‘take-off’ around the miles of exhibits within the museum’s huge campus.

  “There’s just one thing.” The girl’s statutory gaze remained floorwards. “And it probably isn’t anything at all…”

  “Go on. It’s okay.”

  “Oh dear, I’m not sure; I mean I don’t want to get no one into trouble. We’re all so close ‘ere
, we are! We’re like family and Mr Fothergill expects us all to be loyal to one another.”

  “Of course he does. And we should be loyal. But we shouldn’t be loyal to anything or anyone that might harm the museum itself, or someone here – a friend, colleague or a visitor, for example. That will only ruin the museum in the end. People will be too afraid to visit. No visitors means no snack bar. That means no work!” On hearing his words, the nervous girl’s eyes shot up and met McKay’s.

  “Look. All I can say is that there’s been some close scrapes around ‘ere. In the museum. All sorts of things, there’s been. Too many. That’s all I can say, that is.”

  “Okay, Tina. I’m not going to ask you who you might think is to blame, but it wouldn’t be too disloyal of you to tell me what these close scrapes were exactly, would it? What’s been happening?”

  “Suppose that’ll be all right. There’s bin a few, there ‘as. First, someone tried cutting away at the steps going up to Concorde. It’s high up and if Graham Locke ‘adn’t’ve noticed it, it could’ve killed someone, that could! And then there was a chain weakened that ‘eld up that Skytrain, yeah, the Douglas Skytrain, hanging up there in the American place. If that’d crashed down on a group of kids, it’d be the end of them, that would!”

  McKay was taking notes. “Anything else, Tina? Could you tell me anything about the afternoon or evening of the day Sergeant Smith was shot?”

  Her expression became noticeably starker in an instant and she sighed, rolling her eyes as she did. “Well, I suppose you’ll find out from someone, sometime.” And then she clammed up.

  McKay issued a faint smile. “It’s okay. Whatever you tell me will go no further unless it is directly connected with the murder itself.” The girl shuddered at the mere possibility that what she was about to tell could even be remotely concerned with such an act.