The Corpse of St James's

by Jeanne M. Dams

  ‘Sounds like hard work.’

  ‘It is, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Working at the palace, I mean. I’d actually like to get into the Royal Collection Department, but those jobs aren’t going begging, and I . . .’

  She made a futile little gesture and stopped speaking. Inspector Bradley leaned forward. ‘I thought you said you weren’t terribly concerned about losing your job if a scandal arose.’

  Jemima didn’t reply immediately. When she did, her voice had sunk once more to a whisper. ‘I said that wasn’t my chief concern, and it’s true. I do love my job, but . . . going to work there . . . leaving Melissa behind . . .’ She couldn’t continue.

  ‘We can come back later if you prefer,’ the inspector said quietly to Letty, but Jemima shook her head vigorously.

  ‘I think she’d rather get it over,’ said Letty. ‘If you’ll just give her a minute?’

  ‘Certainly. Mrs Martin, do you think you could take her to another room where she could wash her face and so on? Meanwhile, Mrs Higgins, perhaps you could tell us a few things about Melissa.’

  I would have liked to hear that, but the inspector plainly wanted Jemima to be chaperoned, and I was the obvious candidate.

  She refused my hand to help her up, and led the way to Letty’s small bathroom. ‘I’ll be all right,’ she said indistinctly. ‘It was just . . .’

  ‘I know. You think this is all your fault. It isn’t, you know.’

  ‘Yes, it is! If I hadn’t been so stubborn, hell-bent on that job and no other, if I’d stayed home with Melissa—’

  ‘Everything in the garden would have been rosy? You never had the slightest trouble with Melissa before you went to London? I find that hard to believe.’

  She dismissed my remarks with a shaky wave of her hand. ‘I don’t care if you believe it or not. Oh, we quarrelled. Mothers and daughters do. But there was never anything really serious until I went off and left her with Letty.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Melissa was a lot like you, wasn’t she?’

  ‘I . . . what do you mean, like me?’

  ‘I mean she was rebellious, strong-willed, intelligent . . . and passionate about beauty. Just like you.’

  She looked at me for a moment, stunned, and then sank to the floor and started to cry in earnest. This time I let her cry. She needed the release.

  When her sobs had abated, I handed her a facecloth wrung out in cold water, and a fistful of tissues.

  ‘I look frightful,’ she said when she had mopped up and looked in the mirror. That was a good sign.

  ‘Yes,’ I said frankly. ‘Your eyes are red and the lids are puffy and your nose looks like you’ve had a bad cold for a week. Better have some more cold water.’

  ‘I can’t tell if you’re trying to irritate me or make me laugh,’ she said shakily, and ran the water.

  ‘Either. Both. Anger is a more useful emotion than sorrow, you know. Up to a point, it sharpens your wits and gets the adrenalin going. You’re going to have to go back in there and face them, and you’ll need all the armour you can find.’

  ‘Yes.’ She dried her face and took a deep, shaky breath. ‘I haven’t made a very good showing so far, have I?’

  ‘A trifle spotty, perhaps.’ I looked her over. ‘You’ll do. Off we go.’

  Letty was talking when we got back. ‘As I’ve said, I was not . . . not admitted to Melissa’s private life. She kept it very private indeed. I made mistakes raising Jemima, interfered too much, tried to control too much. I thought the wiser course with Melissa was to give her a loose rein, let her make her own mistakes, work out the rebellion her own way.’ She stopped for a moment, gripping the arms of her chair. ‘I was wrong.’

  ‘Mum, it’s not your fault!’

  ‘Not my fault that she ran away several times, ran away and got herself in trouble, got herself killed in London . . .’

  I was about to make the same speech I’d given Jemima, but Inspector Bradley got in first.

  ‘You mustn’t blame yourself too much, Mrs Higgins. I have children of my own. Dealing with them is always a balancing act, and in the end, once they’ve reached a certain age, they make their own decisions. So you can’t give me the names of her friends?’

  ‘Only the few I’ve mentioned.’

  ‘We’ll try the school, then. Now, here’s the critical question, and I wanted to save it, Ms Higgins, until you were back with us. Can either of you think of anyone who might have wished Melissa harm?’

  The usual answer to that is a quick denial. Not this time. Letty and Jemima both thought hard.

  ‘Not in the sense you mean, Inspector,’ said Letty finally. ‘Melissa could get up people’s noses. She was rude to several of my neighbours, who understandably didn’t have much time for her. She didn’t care for school work, except for art, so she probably wasn’t popular with her teachers. But as to harming her . . . no.’

  Jemima nodded slowly. ‘Exactly. Most of the palace staff who met her disliked her. They made it quite clear to me that they thought her unruly and badly brought up. Actually, they don’t care for me, either. Same charges, I suppose.’

  ‘And your other friends in London?’

  ‘I have no friends, Inspector. In London or elsewhere.’

  Before I could process that bleak statement, Jonathan, who had been entirely silent until now, said, ‘You have one, Jemima.’

  NINETEEN

  Jemima looked at him in sheer astonishment. I’m afraid I did, too. I’d been certain that Jonathan didn’t particularly like Jemima, and stuck with her only through loyalty to Letty. Now the scales fell from my eyes.

  How could I have been so blind? He was in love with her! I wondered how far back it went. To when they were children, bickering, annoying each other? To the teen years, when Jemima had made her big mistake with Jonathan’s best friend? He’d scarcely seen her as an adult, or so he said. And yet his sentiment was unmistakable, once I’d stopped being stupid.

  I looked at him with my new understanding, and realized that he had no idea what he’d just revealed. He didn’t know, himself, about his feelings for Jemima. Bratty little sister who needed protecting, that was what he thought he was feeling.

  Inspector Bradley saw it, though, saw it quite clearly. She focused her attention on Jonathan.

  ‘How well do you know Ms Higgins, Mr Quinn? Or should I say Chief Inspector Quinn, sir?’

  Jonathan took a tight grip of the arms of his chair. ‘As you know, I am no longer with the Met, Inspector. Mr Quinn will do. As to Ms Higgins, I knew her very well at one time, as I imagine you also know. Her mother was a very close friend to my mother, and I always viewed Mrs Higgins as my aunt, though there is no actual family tie. Thus I thought of Jemima as my cousin.’

  He took a breath. ‘I have, however, seen very little of Jemima – Ms Higgins – since we were teenagers. I went away to school, then to Hendon, while she stayed in Brighton.’

  ‘Were you aware that she was working at Buckingham Palace?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Inspector Bradley cocked her head. ‘And how did you know that, sir?’

  ‘I have kept in touch with Mrs Higgins through the years.’

  ‘And how would you describe your relationship with Mrs Higgins?’ The inspector was a perfectly courteous pit bull.

  ‘I have very great affection for my Aunt Letty.’ The smile Jonathan produced was strained, but it was genuine.

  ‘I understand. Your own parents are dead, I believe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So would it be fair to say that Mrs Higgins has been something of a substitute mother?’

  ‘Very fair.’ He swallowed hard. This wasn’t easy for him.

  ‘And you, Mrs Higgins, view Mr Quinn as a son?’

  ‘The son I never had, Inspector. I’m very proud of him.’

  And, her tone and body language implied, I’ll fight you or anybody else who tries to harm him. In her own very different style, she was a pit bull, too.

  ‘I
’m sure you have every right to be. Very few men, or women, have ever won the George Cross.’ She stood. ‘I think that’s all for now. Thank you for your cooperation. Please let the police know of your whereabouts for the next few days, either our office or the Met. I’m sure we’ll have more questions as the investigation proceeds. We can see ourselves out.’

  Our collective sighs of relief when they left rivalled the huffs and puffs of the Big Bad Wolf.

  ‘It isn’t over,’ Alan warned. ‘Not by a long chalk. Inspector Bradley was just establishing the background, getting a feel for the people involved. You will have noticed, Jonathan, that she asked none of the vital questions.’

  ‘Where were we all on such-and-such a date, what were our relationships with Melissa . . . all that. Yes. The three of us are bound to be the most logical suspects. We’re all the family she had.’

  There it was again, that unconscious identification with the Higgins family, with Jemima. Surely he could see that, of the three of them, he was the very most likely suspect in the eyes of the police.

  I jumped in with both feet. ‘So, Jemima, where were you the night before the Investiture?’

  She had recovered enough of her spirit to glare at me. ‘Are you accusing me of murdering my own child?’

  ‘No. But you have to be prepared with your answer. Fumbling around sounds suspicious.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Alan, ‘it sounds normal. Most people can’t remember what they had for breakfast, much less what they were doing several days ago. But go ahead, Jemima.’

  ‘I don’t even have to think about it. It was the night before the Investiture, and I was behind with my work, because of the scene with Melissa that morning. I didn’t even go out for a meal, though I usually do in the evening. The food at the canteen isn’t bad, but the stress level in my job is pretty high. I need to get away when I can.’

  I shuddered and nodded vigorously. ‘I needed to get out of the palace as fast as I could that day, after the Investiture, and I wasn’t there much over an hour. The place gets to me. All that luxury, all that security . . .’

  ‘Dorothy.’ Alan reminded me that this wasn’t about me.

  ‘Well, anyway, so the last time you left the palace was . . .?’

  ‘Sometime the day before, I suppose; the Monday. As I say, I usually pop down to one pub or another after my work day’s finished, but there was nothing remarkable about that day, so I can’t swear to it.’

  ‘But you can swear to the day in question. You didn’t leave the palace at all, even for a moment? I’m sorry to belabour this, but you can be certain that Inspector Bradley will press you hard on the point.’

  ‘Only in the morning, for a few minutes, when Melissa rang me up and wanted me to meet her outside. I told you about that. I was never farther away than the Canada Gate, and I’m sure the guards noticed the row she and I had. We weren’t exactly keeping our voices down.’

  Her voice was getting shaky. I absolutely hated making her remember that day. Not that she could ever forget. To her dying day she would remember that her last words to her daughter had been spoken in anger. But it was time to change the focus.

  ‘Well, that seems clear enough. Letty, what about you?’

  ‘I spent most of the day fretting about Melissa, not getting much done. I’d pick up something and forget what I wanted to do with it. I wish now that I’d phoned Jemima. She would have told me that Melissa was in London, and I’d have stopped worrying. Mistakenly, as it turned out. But I didn’t phone, so I didn’t know, and I wasted the day.’

  ‘Did you go out at all?’

  ‘No. I wanted to be here when Melissa came back, to give her a piece of my mind.’

  This was a minefield of unhappy thoughts for her, too. That was the way with murder. There were far more victims than the one who lay dead. I shook my head. ‘Were the neighbours at home?’

  ‘I have no idea. My neighbours keep themselves to themselves. They don’t like Melissa. Didn’t.’

  ‘So they wouldn’t be able to say for certain that you were here all day.’

  ‘Probably not. Though my car was here, come to think of it. The Bells, the ones who live on that side –’ she pointed – ‘complain about my car all the time. They claim I park over the yellow line. As you saw when we arrived, there’s very little room, and there is absolutely nowhere else I can put my car. I do my best, but occasionally the Bells leave their rubbish bin jutting out, and my choice is to bang into it or park over the line.’

  It was clearly an old grievance, but reciting it took her mind off Melissa for a few seconds. It was useful.

  ‘Then we come to you, Jonathan. Where were you and what were you doing that day?’

  ‘And there we strike out, as you Americans might say. I was at home in my flat all day, fighting my nerves about the Investiture, along with my other demons. No one phoned, no one came to call. I have no alibi whatsoever.’

  TWENTY

  Well, that was what I had expected, but it was a blow, nonetheless. I tried to look on the bright side. ‘Well, I think that’s certainly in your favour. You’re a policeman. Yes, I know you’re retired, or sidelined by your injuries anyway, but you’re still a trained policeman. If you intended to commit a murder, you’d make sure you had a rock-solid alibi. So the very fact that you don’t have one . . .’

  Alan sighed. ‘You’ve been reading too many crime novels again, my dear. The perfect alibi is a virtual impossibility. Murderers, even when they’re as smart as Jonathan – which, thank heaven, they usually are not – have a very hard time coming up with them. They usually depend on someone else, someone who will lie his head off for his friend, or lover. And that kind nearly always break down, since liars are, by their very nature, unreliable. Dangle a strong enough incentive in front of the chap, and he – or it’s often she – will break down. Besides, it’s very difficult to tell a consistent lie. So a story like Jonathan’s is often the best recourse. He can’t prove he was in his flat all day, but equally, we can’t prove . . . that is, the police can’t prove he wasn’t, unless we can find someone who saw him elsewhere.’

  I didn’t care for the tone of this at all, and neither did Jemima and Letty.

  ‘You’re talking as if—’

  ‘You can’t believe that—’

  ‘But Alan! You don’t mean—’

  We all spoke at once. Alan held up a large hand. ‘No. I don’t believe Jonathan to be guilty. I’m reasoning the way the Met will. They don’t want to believe him guilty either. He’s one of their own, and don’t quibble about technicalities. But the fact is that he withheld important information from them, for days, and he is intimately acquainted with the victim’s mother and grandmother, if not with the victim herself. What are they to think?’

  We sat in gloomy silence.

  At last Jonathan spoke. ‘I’ve made a royal mess of things, haven’t I?’

  I giggled, inappropriately. ‘Sorry. It’s the strain, I suppose. I just thought . . . a royal mess . . . and it’s all centred around Buckingham Palace . . . sorry.’

  They all quite rightly ignored me. Jonathan gave a deep sigh. ‘In the end, I’m hoping forensic evidence will put me right out of it. Have you heard anything further about the complete autopsy?’

  ‘No. And I won’t.’

  I drew my head back. ‘You mean you’re not going to follow it up?’

  ‘I mean I won’t be allowed any access to information. Our actions in delaying the investigation have made me persona very much non grata with the Met. Not another particle of information will come my way, I assure you.’

  Letty drove us back to the station, and we went back to London, our tails between our legs.

  ‘Well, you’re not going to just give up!’ Lynn’s voice was indignant. Watson looked from her to me, decided she was no threat, and put his head back down on his paws. ‘For a start,’ she went on, ‘he can hardly walk! How could he—’

  ‘He has a good deal of upper body strength, Lynn,’
said Alan. ‘Anyone who uses a wheelchair regularly develops powerful muscles in the arms and chest. Sorry, Jonathan, but it’s true, isn’t it?’

  ‘Quite true,’ said Jonathan morosely. He picked up a convenient dictionary and held it steady in front of him, without a single tremor. ‘I could probably smother anyone I liked.’

  We were gathered in Lynn’s elegant living room that evening, drinks and nibbles in front of us. Jonathan had been ordered into the most comfortable chair and given cushions to support his legs. Alan and I sat on the couch in varied poses of despondency. Tom looked on, frowning, and Lynn gave a helpless shrug.

  ‘I don’t see what else we’re to do, Lynn.’ Alan took a healthy swig of his bourbon. ‘We’ve all been shown large “No Trespassing” signs. And with no access to official records, and a firm order to stay out of the investigation . . .’

  ‘Well,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘no one’s actually told us that, in so many words.’ The bourbon was beginning to ease my distress.

  ‘Surely you can read between the lines!’

  ‘I can, but . . . do you remember the movie A Man for All Seasons? About Thomas More?’

  ‘I saw the play. But what does that have to do with—’

  ‘Just wait. I loved that movie, and there’s one part that I especially remember. Someone’s told More about the decree or act or something that the King has drawn up, that he, More, is going to have to sign. Its intent is clear, and it would require More to violate his steadfast Catholic faith, but More, hoping to avoid infuriating Henry, says, “I know what it means. But what does it say?” Or something like that. He is hoping the letter of the law will give him an out. So do you see? You may feel bound by what you know the official police intend. But until they actually say it, I for one feel free to prod and pry wherever I like.’

  Reactions were entirely predictable. Alan sighed heavily, Jonathan bit his lip and looked embarrassed, Lynn and Tom lifted their glasses in salute.