Trick of the Mind

by Cassandra Chan

  “Old man,” he muttered. “Can’t do without sleep anymore. Useless, that’s what you are. Bloody useless.”

  He tramped into his office and found both files shoved to one side of his desk, where he vaguely remembered placing them when he had begun to feel another moment reading in his chair would put him to sleep. Had he ever gone back to them? He wasn’t entirely sure, but he was beginning to suspect not.

  Heaving a great sigh, he pulled out his desk chair and settled himself in it, drawing O’Leary’s report toward him. It would be by far the shorter of the two and with any luck he could be done with it quickly.

  “On Tuesday, at approximately five thirty P.M.,” O’Leary had written, “Detective Sergeant Jack Gibbons rang my office phone to ask if I would be free to have a pint with him after work. This was not an unusual occurrence, although I had not seen him since he began working with the Arts Theft Division some two or three weeks ago. In reply to his invitation, I said I was planning to leave the office at about six and would like to join him for a drink, but that I could not stay long as I had a date at seven thirty. Accordingly, I rang him when I was done for the day and we met in the lobby, proceeding across the street to the Feathers Pub …”

  “Bloody long-winded,” muttered Carmichael under his breath, and quite unfairly. Reports were supposed to be crammed with as much detail as the detective could remember in case an apparently irrelevant point later proved significant, and all detective candidates were trained in this style of writing. Carmichael sighed and slogged through a thorough description of the Feathers, of O’Leary’s impressions of the patrons that night, of what he and Gibbons had ordered, and of their brief conversation with the bartender while their orders were being filled.

  Having got them seated at a table near the bar, the cleanliness of which was meticulously described, O’Leary at last passed on to his estimation of Gibbons’s mood: perfectly normal. Here Carmichael removed his reading glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose for a moment.

  “I then asked him,” continued O’Leary, “how he liked Arts Theft after working Homicide for so long. He replied that he found it very interesting, but very different. He went on to explain that it was not just the work that was different—he had expected that—but the atmosphere of the office and the attitudes of the detectives were also quite different to that of Homicide. He said the air at Arts Theft was at once lighter, but also more rarified, that it was altogether a more cerebral atmosphere than Homicide. We continued discussing these differences for a little time, though I do not remember exactly what was said. I received the impression from DS Gibbons that although he was enjoying learning something new at Arts Theft, he also missed investigating murders and did not think Arts Theft was the niche for him.”

  “Thank God,” muttered Carmichael, and turned the page.

  “In the course of this discussion,” O’Leary went on, “DS Gibbons, prompted by questions from me, told me something about the case he was working on, a large jewelry theft from a private home in Southgate. What struck me at the time was the amount of knowledge DS Gibbons was supposed to acquire about the jewels themselves.”

  Here O’Leary dutifully recorded all he remembered Gibbons telling him about gemstones in general and the Haverford jewelry in particular, which to O’Leary’s credit was enough to fill a page and a half. Grumbling, Carmichael worked his way through the rudiments of gemology, a subject that interested him not at all.

  Having dealt with the odd discrepancies between investigating murders and jewel heists, O’Leary moved on to what he had told Gibbons about his own case.

  Carmichael had not paid much attention to the Pennycook murder, principally because it struck him as so very out of character for Gibbons to meddle on another man’s patch. If he had had a thought about the case, he would have rung O’Leary with it, not gone haring off to investigate on his own.

  But now it occurred to him that anything might contribute a piece to the puzzle that was a criminal investigation; it was perfectly possible that some facet of the Pennycook murder had given Gibbons a new angle on his own case.

  So he read on with interest, although here O’Leary was less precise than he had been earlier, owing to being unsure what points he might have skipped over in the course of conversation.

  Albert Pennycook had been found dead in his pawnshop in East Street a week ago last Wednesday. The chief suspect was Frank Pennycook, the murdered man’s nephew and heir, who seemed to be the sole person who gained from his uncle’s death. But Pennycook had been found with a bashed-in skull, and Frank had never in his forty years shown any sign of violent tendencies; to the contrary, he was known to be a physically timid man. That left, as O’Leary had mentioned yesterday, old grudges, which he and Hollings were ferreting out and investigating.

  It seemed to Carmichael a very ordinary kind of murder, Albert Pennycook being a person leading a reprehensible life that had finally caught up with him. He could not see, on the face of it, anything that might have inspired Gibbons to solve a jewel robbery.

  “I remarked on the coincidence,” continued O’Leary, “of my investigating the murder of a well-known fence while DS Gibbons was investigating the theft of a valuable jewel collection. DS Gibbons laughed in reply to this and asked me if I had happened on any nineteenth-century alexandrite necklaces in the pawnshop.”

  “The devil,” swore Carmichael, suddenly sitting up and paying attention. “How could I have missed that?” he muttered, turning back a page. “Where the hell is that shop—there it is. Bloody hell.”

  He stared at the words “pawnshop in East Street” in disbelief at his own dull-wittedness. East Street, in the heart of Walworth. East Street, just round the corner from where Gibbons had been shot.

  But what was the connection between the two cases, other than that they both had been discussed in a pub by two detective sergeants? Alfred Pennycook could not have had anything to do with the Haverford robbery; he had been dead for more than a week when the jewelry had been stolen.

  Carmichael leaned back in his chair, his eyes fixed on the middle distance, and reached into his desk drawer for a cigar, which he proceeded to roll back and forth between his fingers. If Pennycook could not have been involved in the actual robbery, might he still have had something to do with the planning of it before his death? Could he have been killed for backing out of the plan to steal it?

  Carmichael stuck the unlit cigar in his mouth and seized the phone, speed-dialing Inspector Hollings’s mobile.

  But Hollings, when he answered, seemed largely puzzled by Carmichael’s sudden interest in the Pennycook case.

  “But we looked into that yesterday,” he protested. “As soon as I heard O’Leary had been telling Gibbons about the case, I looked for a connection. I sent you an e-mail about it.”

  Carmichael scowled, but since Hollings could not see it, he was not intimidated.

  “I must have missed it,” lied Carmichael.

  “Well, it was mostly negative,” Hollings told him. “It’s true Pennycook was a big player in things like the Haverford robbery at one time—between his bouts in prison, that is. But he’d been out of that high-end sort of business for years, ever since his health started to fail. The shop in Walworth was nothing like any of his old storefronts—it’s just a pawnshop. Mind you, I’m not saying that no stolen goods ever pass through there, just that they don’t include million-pound jewelry collections. The odd gold wedding ring is more like it.”

  “And this nephew of Pennycook’s?” asked Carmichael.

  Hollings snorted. “Frank Pennycook hasn’t got the gumption to involve himself in anything like that. There’s some evidence he tried to go into the family business in his youth, but he was convicted of grand larceny some fifteen years ago, and ever since he got out of prison he’s stayed on the straight and narrow. He hasn’t collected so much as a speeding ticket in the last ten years.”

  It seemed Pennycook was a dead end, and yet Carmichael still disliked the co
incidence. He rang off, leaving Hollings to get on with his own investigation, and thoughtfully lit his cigar. He opened the Pennycook case file, laying it beside O’Leary’s report, and leafed through it, picking out the salient points. Pennycook had been at his shop with his nephew on the day of his death, and they had closed the place together as usual at six. Pennycook had gone home to his supper, but afterward informed his wife that he had to return to the shop that evening for an appointment. She had not bothered to ask with whom, knowing from long experience that no answer would be forthcoming. According to her testimony, he had set out at about 8:30 and had rung her when he had reached the shop to reassure her that he had arrived safely.

  She had expected him back around ten, but had not begun to worry unduly until 10:30 or so, at which point she had rung the shop, but received no answer. She had waited another twenty minutes for him to return, and then had called on her nephew to go and look for his uncle.

  Frank Pennycook affirmed that he had received such a call at about 10:50 and had proceeded back to the shop, looking for his uncle along the way. He reached the place without sighting him, however, and let himself in by the back door. The lights inside were on, and he found his uncle lying on the floor of the little office in the proverbial pool of blood. He had felt quite faint and had had to go sit down and recover himself before ringing the paramedics. (“Very likely he was clearing out anything he didn’t want the police to see,” Hollings had noted.)

  The working theory was that whoever Pennycook had gone to meet had killed him, but no one seemed to know who that might have been. An alternative theory had either Frank or Pennycook’s wife committing the murder, as they both had keys to the shop’s back door.

  Carmichael pushed the file aside and smoked meditatively for several minutes. As experienced a detective as he was, he found it impossible to create any kind of reasonable scenario in which the Pennycook and Haverford cases were related, particularly if he accepted as given that Gibbons would not have interfered in someone else’s case.

  Carmichael examined that assumption carefully. It was just possible, he admitted to himself, that Gibbons might have had an idea so out of the ordinary that he had been reluctant to pass it on without first checking it out. That would not be at all out of character; Carmichael had known his sergeant to produce quite unique views many times before. And if he had shared such an idea with anyone, Carmichael strongly suspected it would have been with Bethancourt, whom Gibbons had rung and left a message for.

  Which reminded him that he had never finished O’Leary’s report.

  “We joked about our cases being related for a bit,” continued O’Leary, “and then DS Gibbons asked where in Walworth Pennycook’s pawnshop was. When I told him it was on East Street off Walworth Road, he looked concerned and mentioned that his cousin lived very near there. I was surprised to hear it, since that part of Walworth is a notoriously bad neighborhood, and I asked DS Gibbons how he had come to let her move in there. He replied that it was all done before he heard about it, and he had not had much luck in persuading her to move. He seemed to feel a little guilty about this, and I gathered that he had been asked by his mother to see this cousin settled, but it had occurred last fall while he was in the Cotswolds, and he had rather shirked his family duty in preference to his official ones. We then discussed how awkward balancing personal and professional lives could be, at which point I remembered my personal life was waiting, and told him I had to go. DS Gibbons said I should go ahead, that he would just finish his pint while he decided what to pick up for dinner. We said good-bye quite cheerfully, and he seemed to me to be in much the same mood as when we had sat down. Nor did I at any time during the conversation feel he was particularly struck by anything I or he said.”

  Carmichael was willing to bet those last pronouns had been struggled over, and probably changed more than once, and he wished (not for the first time) that he had had recourse to a computer and word processor back when he had first been a detective sergeant and laboriously writing out reports.

  He leaned back in his chair, sipping at coffee gone cold, and tried to put himself in Gibbons’s place. There he was, a smart, ambitious young officer, his head full of a lot of new information about jewelry and jewel thieves, having a pleasant pint after work and chatting about somebody else’s murder case. What might have struck him? And had Gibbons really been giving much thought to the Pennycook case, or did his mind revert back to his own case as soon as it had the chance, just like Carmichael’s always did? Could something O’Leary had told him about the Pennycook murder have illuminated some aspect of the Haverford case for him? But then why would he have gone to Walworth?

  Carmichael sighed and shook his head. The best thing, really, would be to have Gibbons read O’Leary’s version of events and see if whatever he had thought of that night would recur to his mind. But Carmichael, remembering his sergeant’s pale face and dazed expression that morning, was not sanguine about the outcome of such an experiment. Still, he decided, it would do no harm to drop a copy off at the hospital on his way home that night, and Gibbons could look at it whenever he was feeling better.

  And that reminded him of another unpleasant chore he had been avoiding. Sighing mightily, he shrugged back into his coat and left the office.

  After his lunch with Colin James, Bethancourt felt he would be a much better informed and more knowledgeable shopper the next time he went to buy jewelry for Marla. He was also feeling considerably more cynical toward the human race than he normally did, owing to various stories James had told over the meal; apparently in the investigator’s experience there was absolutely nothing people would not do where fine jewels or high-end art were concerned.

  The lunch had been otherwise excellent. Morgan M was a restaurant in Camden Town whose cuisine had a well-deserved reputation, and Bethancourt enjoyed himself heartlessly, with hardly a thought for poor Gibbons on a restricted diet in his hospital bed.

  As they made their way out, ushered on their way by beaming smiles from the wait staff, Bethancourt reached for his cigarette case and asked, “Do you mind my asking if there’s any particular reason you chose north London for lunch today?”

  James smiled lazily. “Possibly it was because this place is not far from the Colemans’ flat,” he answered. “Although I was no doubt influenced by the very high recommendation a friend of mine gave the restaurant.”

  “No doubt,” said Bethancourt, amused. He paused as they emerged onto the street to light his cigarette and then said, “I would be very interested to meet the Colemans.”

  “Do you know, I’m not at all surprised to hear that,” said James. He glanced sideways at his companion. “Planning to act as Sergeant Gibbons’s eyes and ears while he’s sidelined?” he asked.

  “As best I can,” replied Bethancourt.

  “Then let us take a little postprandial stroll in that direction,” said James, indicating the way with a wave of his hand.

  Bethancourt went willingly, pleased that James had evidently decided to help him. He put that down to a mutual interest in jewels and food, and the positive impression Gibbons himself had apparently made on the man. In addition, Bethancourt sensed James rather enjoyed demonstrating his expertise and, robbed of one apprentice, was not displeased to have found another.

  They walked toward the canal until they came to a row of Victorian warehouses, long since converted into flats.

  “Here we are,” said James. He shot back his cuff to check his watch. “Right on time,” he added, reaching out to ring the bell. “The Colemans are on the second floor—it’s a furnished flat. They initially stayed at the Dorchester when they first arrived, but found this place after a fortnight or so. Landlord has no complaints of them thus far.”

  “How long have they been here?” asked Bethancourt, following James into the building.

  “Four months. The lift’s over here.”

  The lift was still of a size to transport large loads, but the once-utilitarian interior ha
d been completely refurbished to reflect the building’s rise in fortunes with glossy paneling and thick carpet. The usual wooden guard gate had been replaced by an ornate grille, which slid silently closed when James punched the second-floor button and opened again on a mahogany door. There was the sound of a soft chime and in another moment the door slid back.

  Standing just beyond it was a young man with curly dark hair and bright brown eyes. He was smiling in welcome and, indeed, looked uncommonly pleased to see them.

  “Mr. James!” he exclaimed, reaching to shake the investigator’s hand. “Do come in. And who’s this you’ve brought to see us?”

  He had the too-perfect British accent of someone not native to the UK, but Bethancourt could not place the original, underlying accent. In any case, Coleman sounded absolutely delighted to find he had an extra guest, and held out his hand almost eagerly to Bethancourt while James performed introductions.

  “My colleague, Phillip Bethancourt,” he said. “This is Rob Coleman, Miss Haverford’s great-nephew.”

  “How do you do,” said Bethancourt, rather lamely in the face of Coleman’s enthusiasm.

  “Brilliant, thanks,” said Coleman, closing the door behind them. “This way, please. Can I offer you a coffee? My wife’s just brewing a fresh pot.”

  The loft was furnished in the very latest in modern design, everything sleek and clean-lined. In one angle of the huge space was a sitting-room arrangement where a slender young woman was just setting down a tray on the glass-topped coffee table. Bethancourt, who was uncommonly fond of coffee tables, eyed it covetously, but then had his attention redirected to their hostess.

  “My wife, Lia,” Coleman was saying. “This is a colleague of Mr. James’s, dear—Phillip Bethancourt.”

  Bethancourt reached to shake her hand while she smiled and welcomed him. Lia Coleman’s smile was more reserved than her husband’s, though Bethancourt did not count that against her as he had never encountered a more beaming expression than that of Rob Coleman. For the rest, she was a very attractive brunette with straight, shining hair cut at the level of her shoulder blades and, in contrast, a very pale complexion. She was a little above average height, all her curves gone to slimness, and showed a natural grace as she sat and began to pour out.