‘So I don’t suppose he has a police record.’
‘Would do if he’d been convicted. Wasn’t, so probably not.’
‘Still . . . I think the people at St Cuthbert’s suspect something.’ I told her about the palace tour, and the reluctance of anyone at the college to talk about it.
Jane’s snort was eloquent.
‘In any case, the police need to know about all this. Is there someone you know, someone maybe who taught at one of the schools where Andrew got into trouble, who would be willing to talk to Chief Superintendent Carstairs, who’s in charge of the case?’
‘Dozens. Want me to call ’em?’
‘Please. That could be the greatest help. When Alan gets home I’ll ask him the best way to proceed. And I’ll try to figure out something useful I can do to move things forward. But Jane, meanwhile, what on earth am I to talk about with Jonathan?’
‘Can’t help you there. Talking’s not my strong point. Good listener, though. Send him over here if you want. Dogs’ll be good for him.’
They would be if he liked dogs. I always lose count of how many Jane has, but when they’re at their liveliest, they appear to number in the dozens. And for Jonathan, a man with limited physical resources . . .
I decided not to worry about it. Jane would cope. She specializes in coping.
I went back home to my list.
I’d actually cleared up some of it, just by talking to Jane. I sat and chewed my pen for a while, and then decided to give it a rest. My brain wasn’t functioning any more. I wished Alan would come home, so I could talk everything over with him, once Jonathan was safely out of earshot. I picked up a book I was in the middle of reading, and put it down again after a minute or two. I couldn’t concentrate on the plot. I wandered out to the kitchen, and was immediately surrounded by fur persons, assuming that when a human is in the kitchen, it’s time to eat. I got snacks for them and for me, went to the TV, decided that, as usual, there was nothing I cared to watch, and resumed what I do best: fretting.
I suppose it wasn’t actually very long until I heard Alan’s car, though it seemed like hours. A routine had already been established: he dropped Jonathan at the door and then put the car in our minute garage while I helped our guest in. Alan followed in a moment with a couple of suitcases. Both men were looking very tired, but I thought Jonathan looked perhaps slightly less overwrought than when he’d left after lunch.
‘Right,’ I said when they had dropped into chairs in the parlour. ‘Something to eat, or drink, or just bed?’
‘Bed for me,’ said Jonathan. ‘For someone who’s let Alan do all the work, I’m whacked.’
‘We stopped on the road,’ Alan said. ‘Ghastly sandwiches, and mine is still sitting like a lump of lead. I’m ready for bed, too, love.’
‘Good. Me, too. I’ll lock up; you two go on up.’ I gave Alan a look I hoped he could interpret. Not the bedtime look we sometimes exchange, mind you, but I need to talk to you, so don’t fall asleep.
Either it worked, or Alan simply read my mind, because he was just getting into his pyjamas when I got to the bedroom and shut the door on the animals.
I jerked my head in the direction of Jonathan’s room.
‘If he isn’t asleep already, he soon will be,’ said Alan very quietly. ‘And he has a white noise machine that we brought along. Very soothing, he says.’
‘Well, then.’ I plopped onto the bed, fully dressed. ‘Let me tell you what I learned from Jane tonight.’
I summarized the story in very low tones. ‘And Jane’s going to phone some people she thinks will be willing to talk to Carstairs. Do you think he’ll pay attention?’
Alan considered. ‘Yes, I think he will. I wasn’t able to talk to him today, but I left a message, and he’ll consider it. He might not have listened to you, with little more than suspicion, but if several people, independently, tell the same story, yes, he’ll listen. He won’t actually talk to them himself, but he’ll send someone. He’s a fair man, Dorothy, but in a very difficult situation.’
‘Hmph!’ I said, in my best imitation of Jane.
‘And,’ Alan went on, ignoring me, ‘once he’s digested what these people have to say, I suspect there are a few other enquiries he’ll want to put in train.’
‘Like where the gentleman with the various names was on the night Melissa died.’
‘That, of course. But how about, was anyone resembling Melissa seen near his flat between now and last July? And particularly, where was he and what was he doing on the day in February when we know Melissa ran off to London?’
TWENTY-NINE
Next morning we discussed it a bit further. ‘And then they could follow up with DNA . . . oh, good morning, Jonathan. Sleep well, I hope?’
It wasn’t my imagination. He was looking better. Rested, and far less strained. He was even walking a little better. And that reminded me. ‘I forgot to ask before. What are you going to do about your physiotherapy while you’re here? I wouldn’t think you’d want to drop it.’
‘No. I hadn’t thought about it, either, but this morning I was pretty stiff until I got myself moving a bit. I suppose I’d better phone my doctor and see if he can set up something with someone in the neighbourhood.’
That was the most he’d said the whole time he’d been here, and furthermore he was taking some initiative. I felt like cheering, but instead I asked if he preferred muesli or corn flakes.
His appointment with Dr Miller was right after breakfast, so Alan drove him over, and I went back to my list. Was there anything I could do at this point, anything the police couldn’t do quicker and better?
Well, not on the list, there wasn’t. But I thought perhaps a conversation with Jemima might be useful. That meant going to London again. I sighed. Johnson, I thought rebelliously, never had to deal with rail travel or modern traffic.
I thought about calling to set up a time and place to meet Jemima, but there was little point until I knew Alan’s schedule for the day. Given that one of us had to be with Jonathan all the time, my freedom of movement was curtailed.
When I’m frustrated, I clean house. The kitchen was sparkling and the parlour was getting there by the time the two men walked in the door.
Alan knows my habits. He looked around and raised his eyebrows. ‘And what are your plans for the day, love?’
‘Well, that sort of depends on yours.’ I gave Jonathan a sideways look. ‘I have some shopping I really need to do in London, but if that’s inconvenient for you today . . .’
‘Not a bit. Jonathan and I thought we’d go for a drive and do a spot of sightseeing, as it’s such a lovely day. We might be gone the whole day, actually. Can you believe this lad’s never seen Stonehenge?’
It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. Stonehenge is nearly a hundred miles away, by English standards a very long distance indeed. ‘Then we’ll hope the traffic is kind, and I’ll expect you when I see you.’ I also hoped they’d find something to talk about for that whole time, but men seem to be able to sustain long periods of silence without feeling uncomfortable. In any case, it was Alan’s problem, not mine. ‘If you’ll wait a moment or two, you can drop me at the station.’
I’d phone Jemima from the train. It would be nearly lunchtime when I got to Victoria Station. Maybe we could have a nice lunch and a talk.
Her phone rang and rang and finally went to voicemail. Drat. She was probably doing something important and had it turned off. I left a message and tried to concentrate on the newspaper someone had left on the seat.
Three attempts later, I’d accepted the fact that she wasn’t going to answer. Well, now what? I could hardly go to the palace and ask to speak to one of the staff.
Could I?
Nothing else occurred to me as I made my way through the heavy foot traffic in the station, buffeted on all sides by tourists who were rolling heavy luggage, trying to figure out where they were going, and conferring about it in at least four languages I could recognize and many m
ore I couldn’t. I was swept by the tide out on to Buckingham Palace Road headed towards the palace. I gave a mental shrug and answered an anxious query from the timid little Japanese lady waiting beside me at the traffic light. ‘Straight ahead about three blocks, on the left. You can’t miss it, really. Or just follow me. I’m going that way.’
When we neared the palace, I pointed out the Royal Standard flying over the roof, indicating that the Queen was in residence. My Japanese lady was thrilled and went into a rapid explanation to the rest of her party, then asked where they could get tickets to tour the palace. I was sorry to tell her that it was never open when the Queen was there, only in late summer and early autumn when she took off for Balmoral. They were disappointed, but I pointed them in the direction of Wellington Barracks, where they might, if they were lucky, make it in time to see the Guards muster.
They fluttered off, full of thanks, and I approached the visitor’s entrance in a glow of self-esteem.
Five minutes later the glow had vanished entirely. No, madam, there was no way to get a message to a member of the household. It was impossible to check to see if a given employee was working that day. Perhaps I could telephone her mobile? Oh, well, in that case . . . so very sorry, madam . . . perhaps later . . .
I was back in Buckingham Palace Road, listening to the approach of the band, trying to fight my way out of the crowd, with no place to go.
I plodded drearily back to Victoria Station, bought a sandwich at a kiosk and a cup of coffee at a different one, and consumed them leaning against a pillar (Victoria Station doesn’t feature seating for the travelling public) and pondering the futility of life in general.
This would never do. I pushed myself away from the pillar, dropped my cup and sandwich wrapper on the floor (Victoria doesn’t have trash cans, either, presumably because they would be such handy places to stash bombs), and found a chocolate croissant at yet another kiosk. Low blood sugar, after all, is an impediment to productive thought, and besides I hadn’t had my chocolate fix for the day.
All the indulgence improved my mood slightly, but it didn’t seem to speed up my brain. I couldn’t think of anything to do. Without hope, I tried Jemima again. No answer.
Well, Tom and Lynn were nearby and might have some ideas to jump-start my feeble mind. I looked up their number on my phone (really, these gadgets can come in handy), and called it.
No answer; voicemail.
Was everyone I knew away from their phones? Didn’t they know I was trying urgently to reach them? What’s the point of having mobile phones if you don’t leave them turned on?
After a few moments of such useless fulminating I made a decision. I needed to sit down in comfort. There was the good old Grosvenor just through a door. I could sit in the lobby and compose my mind, and if I could think of absolutely nothing useful to do, I could admit defeat, go back into the station, and catch the next train home.
The lobby is really rather splendid. Lots of wasted space, with a lovely staircase, made wide enough to accommodate the huge hoop skirts popular among the gentry when the place was built, and a magnificent crystal chandelier. The place was busy, but not really noisy; the carpets and draperies took care of that. I found a lovely soft chair in a corner where I could sit and think in peace.
And finally, finally, I had an idea. I suppose it was the opulence of my surroundings that triggered it. There was one person I was pretty sure of finding in. He had a business to run, and even though I’d lunched early, it was certainly, indisputably, afternoon.
I headed for the Underground and Sloane Square Station, hoping I could remember exactly where Bert’s shop was.
Actually, I might have had a little trouble finding it, if it had not been for the police car outside.
What on earth?
I crossed the street and tried to peer in the window, but a very polite constable stopped me. ‘I’m sorry, madam, the shop is closed. Move along, please.’
‘But Bert . . . I mean Mr Hathaway, is a friend of mine.’ That was stretching the truth quite a bit, but in a good cause, I thought, if it got me some information. ‘What’s happened? Is he hurt?’
‘I have no information, madam, Now, if you would please—’
‘Constable.’ It was my Victoria Regina voice again. I seemed to be using that quite a lot lately. ‘My husband, Alan Nesbitt, was Chief Constable of Belleshire before you were born, young man. I am aware of police procedure, and of the fact that I am hampering nothing by asking you some questions. I repeat, I have an interest in the welfare of Mr Hathaway. Now, what has happened here?’
He looked around unhappily, but there was no superior officer in sight of whom he could seek advice. ‘I understand there’s been a burglary. Place is a bit of a mess. Really, ma’am, I can’t let you go inside.’
‘I realize that. I might destroy evidence. But there’s no reason on earth why I can’t just look.’
And I moved once more to the window and tried to peer in.
‘Don’t touch the window, ma’am!’
‘No. But it’s awfully dark in there, isn’t it? May I borrow your torch?’
The London bobby, rather sadly, no longer carries one of those huge flashlights that used to double as an effective weapon in case of need. Now they’re issued much smaller, more efficient ones. The poor man sighed and handed me his. I shone it through the window on an appalling scene.
The beautiful rug in the middle of the floor was virtually covered in shards of china and glass. The delicate piecrust table I remembered had been overturned and broken to splinters. I moved the light around and saw that the mantel was bare. No Staffordshire dog. I assumed its shards were among the others on the rug.
‘Madam!’ The constable’s voice was low, but urgent. I straightened and handed his flashlight back a millisecond before a man came out of the passageway beside the shop. The man, though in plain clothes, was unmistakably a policeman.
I approached him before he could do more than glare at me. ‘My name is Dorothy Martin; my husband is retired Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt of Belleshire. You may have heard of him. I presume you are the officer in charge of this crime scene?’
‘Yes, I—’
‘I am a friend of Robert Hathaway, the man who owns this shop and lives above it. I have been unable to learn from this young man anything about what has happened here, but I am very concerned about Mr Hathaway. What can you tell me about him?’
‘More to the point, what can you tell me?’ asked the man, pulling out his warrant card. I didn’t recognize the name, but I saw with some dismay that he was a superintendent. That meant something serious was going on.
‘I? I just got here, and I’ve been trying to pull some information out of someone about my friend Mr Hathaway! Is he hurt? What’s going on?’
‘You’re sure you don’t already know?’
‘Sir! Are you deaf, or simply unable to believe anything you’re told? I do not know anything about what has happened here, and it begins to appear that I never will! If you will let me pass, I will go upstairs to Mr Hathaway’s flat and see for myself.’
He moved slightly to bar my way. ‘I doubt you’d learn much up there. We didn’t. The flat has been virtually destroyed, as has the shop, and Mr Hathaway is not here.’
THIRTY
‘So I took my courage in both hands and went to see Mr Carstairs,’ I told Alan much later. Jonathan, exhausted by his day out, had gone to bed as soon as they’d got home, and Alan and I were sitting in the garden with drinks in our hands and contented pets all around us. ‘I wasn’t sure how long it might take the news to filter up – do things filter up? – anyway, to reach him, and I thought he ought to make the connection right away – that Melissa’s father had apparently been attacked, or at least his home and shop had been, and that he was missing.’
Alan chuckled quietly. ‘I’m sure he was suitably grateful.’
‘He was just as stuffy as I’d expected, at first. Implied that I’d been poking around where I
had no business—’
‘Which you had been.’
‘Which I had been.’ I conceded. ‘But when I told him that Jemima wasn’t answering her phone, either, he began to pay attention. He can get answers out of the palace, and when he found out that she wasn’t there, hadn’t been all day, hadn’t been given time off, and was in fact AWOL, he was even more interested. He even admitted I’d been of some use. It hurt him to say it, though.’
‘But he did let you go back and look at the crime scene.’
‘Under very strict supervision, let me tell you! The SOCOs had done all their work already, but even so I had to wear gloves and bootees, and could walk only around the perimeter, where I couldn’t step on much. Alan, it was . . . frightening.’ I took a short pull at my glass. ‘The destruction was so violent. The paintings were cut to shreds, and that nice little Staffordshire dog had been smashed to pieces no bigger than that.’ I indicated about half my little fingernail. ‘I could only tell what it was because a bit of the chain was still recognizable. And some of the mess on the rug had been ground underfoot to powder. I think the rug itself may be a total loss. It looked as though it had been cut right through in places by the glass fragments. Even the walls had chunks of plaster knocked out where things had been thrown against them. I can’t imagine that a bomb could have done more damage.’
‘But no blood stains,’ said Alan thoughtfully.
‘I sure didn’t see any, and I looked, believe me. Even upstairs, though the flat was absolutely trashed, I couldn’t see any sign that Bert or anyone else had been injured. So what the heck could have happened?’
‘You don’t have any theories?’
‘I do, but I’d rather hear yours. You’re the expert.’
‘I’m the professional,’ he corrected. ‘You’ve done some pretty expert work yourself, from time to time. However. From your description, it sounds like sheer anger and hatred at work. Not just random vandalism, destruction for kicks, but passionate fury. My guess, and remember it is just that, an uninformed guess, would be that someone who hates Bert Higgins with a white-hot hatred came there intending to kill him. Higgins was out, or escaped when he saw his enemy, and when the person couldn’t destroy the man, he – or she – destroyed his world.’
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