by Alan Judd
Yes, he thought, after a few hours, with a convoy of armed response vehicles, helicopters, dogs and a stand-off ending with the shooting of a gardener who turned up carrying a fork. Charles had seen enough of police overkill. Anyway, he’d been pretty sure the killer would not have hung around waiting to be caught. It looked too much like a contract killing for that.
‘You might also have contaminated or destroyed forensic evidence,’ continued the inspector. ‘We’ll have to ask you to show us exactly where you went and we’ll need to take your fingerprints, DNA and samples of clothing. In order to eliminate you from our inquiries.’
Or include me if you possibly can and it looks like an easy conviction, he thought.
‘Did you see anything suspicious?’ asked the younger one. ‘Anything strike you?’
This was more like it. ‘Nothing at all except that the door was open. There were tyre tracks on the drive but I guess there always are on beach pebbles. I didn’t see anyone driving away. There were vehicles in Bodiam, a bit of movement around the castle car park and the pub, but I don’t remember passing any on this lane.’ Especially not motorbikes, he nearly added. The contract killings he’d known of had been two-wheel jobs. But they’d all used pistols rather than sawn-off shotguns which, judging by the upper-body devastation, was the case here. ‘No doubt you’ll work out time of death from the body, but the grandfather clock in the hall might give you a rough idea. It’s stopped at twenty past one.’
‘You mean it was caught in the blast?’
‘I don’t think so, I didn’t notice any damage. It’s probably a thirty-hour clock and he would probably have wound it yesterday morning, but not today. Assuming he wound it in the mornings, that is. So as it’s stopped at twenty past one that might suggest that he was killed between winding it first thing yesterday morning and failing to wind it first thing this morning. But your forensics will be more precise than that.’
‘Unless it wasn’t going at all.’
‘Possibly, but he used to be meticulous about that sort of thing. His clocks would have worked. He liked mechanical things.’ And gadgets of all sorts, he thought, recalling Viktor’s mingled delight and frustration with the ingenious but far from faultless concealed cameras and recording devices Charles occasionally issued him with. The electronic revolution had been a particular pleasure and he used to enjoy taunting Charles for his ignorance.
‘D’you know anything about Dr Klein’s lifestyle?’ asked the inspector. ‘What he did with his time, what sort of reputation he had with neighbours or in the village?’
‘I don’t. Judging by the books and magazines in the office upstairs, he maintained his scientific interests. Three expensive-looking computers, too. He used to be keen on chess.’ He did not add that one computer was still on and that he had touched it to see what was on screen, finding a chess game. Possibly with his brother. They could discover that for themselves.
‘Spent some time up there, did you?’ asked the man.
‘Enough to make sure there were no assassins behind the curtains. Blinds, actually, in that room.’ He paused as they scribbled. Their mingled interest and resentment were palpable. ‘No photographs, though. No indications of family.’ He couldn’t remember how many children had resulted from Viktor’s marriage and liaisons. Plainly, he hadn’t wanted to advertise them in his new life. ‘But it’s clear he continued to enjoy classical music, particularly choral. Also flora and fauna, especially birds. Apart from those, the few paintings are copies of landscapes and seascapes. No portraits. Smoked cigarettes and cigars, as you can see.’ He nodded at the ashtrays on the table and mantelpiece. ‘A bit of a loner, perhaps, but not a hermit.’
The inspector stopped taking notes. ‘Kind of you to give us your impressions, Mr Thoroughgood, but we have to judge by the evidence.’
He smiled, which he could see irritated her. ‘My inferences – which is what I call them – are evidence-based. But you’re right: I shouldn’t romanticise or incorporate what I knew of him from years ago. You must draw your own conclusions.’
Her pale blue eyes were flat, lacking depth or expression. ‘We will need to speak to you again. We’ll want a more formal statement. We might also need to speak to your wife, who you say is at the cottage you’re renting.’
‘Who is at the cottage we’re renting.’
‘We’d also like to walk you round the house so you can show us where you went, if we can fix that with the forensics team.’
‘Just to eliminate you from our inquiries,’ added the man, with an attempt at menace.
It took time to fix. Charles stood in the doorway and was reprimanded by a man in white overalls when he put a foot into the hall. There were more police and vehicles now, including a senior uniformed officer who stared disapprovingly at him while listening to the inspector. Eventually the officer nodded, more white overalls were unloaded from the van and the younger detective brought some over to Charles.
‘We can tour the house if we all wear these. Trouble is, we’ll have to wait till they’ve finished with the first few steps of the stairs. Covered in bits.’
‘There are other stairs off the kitchen.’
‘Two lots of stairs?’
‘Servants’ stairs.’
They put on their thin but voluminous white suits in silence. Charles led them around the tangle of lights and wires in the hall. Three more white suits were kneeling over the corpse, concealing all but Viktor’s splayed legs and hands. He remembered those hands from long ago, deftly disarming the booby-trapped Russian arms cache by the Suffolk coast. Viktor’s slippers were leather-soled, probably Church’s. Neither the young student he had first known nor, later, the young KGB officer, had such tastes. Viktor must have changed as he had prospered, firstly under communism, then under the cronyism that replaced it. But not everything about him had changed, judging by what Michael Dunton had said. His appetite for women was what had first brought him and Charles into professional association, when Viktor’s rule-breaking made him a target for recruitment. His appetite had lasted, apparently. Neither had any conception of where that first dance would lead; certainly not to this.
Charles showed them how far he went into each room, indicating anything he might have touched, including the computer. ‘No sign of theft. No hasty searching or ransacking.’
‘We don’t know nothing’s missing,’ said the inspector.
‘True, but if anything is missing the murderer must have known exactly where to find it. He didn’t need to search.’
The younger one made a note, the inspector said nothing. Only in the study room did their expressions betray interest. ‘Jesus,’ said the man, gazing at the bank of screens and computers.
A smaller room opening off was panelled with oak and furnished with bookshelves, a leather-topped desk and a wooden swivel chair, in contrast to the high-tech study.
‘Lot of computer analysis for us here,’ said the man, after glancing without interest at the scientific journals and well-worn leather address book on the desk.
Charles pointed at the address book. ‘Worth looking at that, isn’t it?’ It might include Viktor’s Office contact number, unless he kept that on his phone. That would lead them to the truth about him, if they weren’t briefed first.
‘We’ll bag everything up,’ said the inspector. ‘Examine everything.’ They went back to the study, staring at the screens and keyboards.
Charles unzipped the front of his suit. They looked at him as if he were about to pull a gun. ‘Just ringing my wife again.’ There was still a pleasing novelty about the phrase. He dangled the phone between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Letting her know how things are going, how long I’m likely to be, find out when we’re due out for dinner. Okay?’ Sarah already knew what had happened because he’d rung her immediately after ringing the police.
‘We may need to examine that phone,’ the inspector said when he’d finished. ‘And your car before you go.’
He proffered the phone. �
��Take it.’
‘Just give us the number for the time being.’
‘Not much of a call history. It’s my work phone. I haven’t had it long.’
‘What is your work?’
‘I’m the head of the secret service. Chief of MI6.’
She stared. ‘Perhaps you’d like to show us which other rooms you went in, sir.’
When they had finished the tour, his white suit was bagged and numbered and they followed him out to Sarah’s car. He held out the keys. ‘D’you want to search it?’
‘Just open up, sir, if you don’t mind.’
‘Sawn-off shotguns in the boot?’
This time the inspector almost smiled but her assistant cocked his head on one side. ‘If you don’t mind my asking, sir, what makes you think it was a sawn-off shotgun that did it?’
Obliteration of face, disintegration of head, wide-open throat and ravaged shoulders suggest a close-range blast of lead or metal rather than bullets, he could have said. No pistol would do that sort of damage, nor an AK47 unless held and squirted like a hose for some time. A full-length shotgun would have produced a more concentrated blast.
‘I watch too many films.’
They conducted a cursory search of the Golf and spent rather more time examining its tyres. ‘Nearside front’s a bit worn,’ said the man.
‘Thank you. I’ll tell her.’
There was further delay while they moved the police vehicles blocking him in. The inspector repeated that they would want to talk to him again, adding, ‘I must ask you not to discuss this incident with anyone else including your wife who we might want to interview later.’
‘Of course not,’ he lied.
He waved goodbye to the young constable in charge of the blue-and-white tape and drove back through Bodiam, past the castle and over the restored steam-train line to Tenterden. He drove slowly through the clear evening with a fading blue sky and high white puffy clouds. The car park by the castle was emptying, except for a couple of families lingering by the moat. He was trying to recall Auden’s poem about Icarus plunging earthwards while a ship sails by, someone opens a window, someone else eats. Whatever happens, the lives of others go on. But without Viktor now. How could they have got to him? Someone must have access to Office systems, or access to someone who did. And the only people with an interest in killing Viktor were surely his former employers. They would have done it if they could – Putin had enacted a law during his first presidency legitimising the assassination of any who had offended the state – but they didn’t know Viktor was here. They couldn’t, surely. Nor did anyone else in MI6 now, apart from him. Only the members of COFE had access to that address, and perhaps one or two who worked for them. Meanwhile, Viktor, like Icarus, was falling and falling inside Charles’s head, while the lives of others went on.
7
They were late for the Wheelers’ dinner. Sarah’s car was low on fuel and there wasn’t time to fill up. Charles wasn’t sure there’d be enough fuel to get back to the hotel and to a filling station in the morning. He had suggested they refill before leaving London but she hadn’t stopped. She sensed he was suppressing criticism, which was almost as irritating as if he had kept on about it. Neither felt like going to a dinner party, each sensed they were unreasonable, neither wanted to say anything about it. They walked up the path to the Old Court House in silence.
‘Not carrying, are you?’ Jeremy Wheeler asked in a whisper, keeping Charles in the hall while Wendy showed Sarah in.
Charles hadn’t heard the old euphemism for years. Before he could reply, Jeremy slapped him on the shoulder and grinned.
‘Just wondered whether your new status involved self-protection in these hazardous times. Didn’t really think you were likely to be armed. How’s it going? Feet under the desk yet?’
‘One of them. Enjoying your new status?’
‘Should’ve done it years ago. So refreshing to be able to do something for people instead of messing around playing spy games. Something grown-up at last. Glad I’ve left all that behind.’ Jeremy’s gift for gratuitous offence had not lessened with the years. Nor was it inhibited by any recollection of how hard he had striven to stay in the Office. He had put himself forward as chief before becoming a casualty of the reorganisation, failed, then resigned to stand for a safe seat in a by-election. ‘Not sure the way government’s going is to my taste. Never was one for compromise, as you know. Main task for now is to stop them cutting more than they have already. Unless of course I’m invited onto the ministerial ladder. Getting on the ISC to keep you lot in order is a start. Could happen, could well happen.’ He nodded as if agreeing with something Charles had said. ‘Frank Heathfield had political ambitions, too, did you know that? Somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan, of course. Never got a seat, so never got to the first rung. Too late now. You’d heard, had you?’
‘Heard what?’
‘Dead, found dead, at his home in Hampshire. Heart attack, I suppose. Not surprised. Did well to last as long as he did. Heavy smoker, of course.’
Charles remembered that Jeremy was always uncomfortable about death until he found a way to blame the victim. ‘How did you hear?’
‘One of the perks of being on the ISC. Plenty to read. You’d know too if you’d checked your office computer recently.’ He patted Charles’s shoulder again. ‘Come and be introduced.’
Being late, they felt obliged to be effusive. They were introduced to a couple who turned out not to be a couple, the headmistress of a local private school and the widowed chairman of Jeremy’s constituency party. Charles took to the headmistress, who had a round, good-natured face and seemed anxious to put people at their ease by taking an interest in anything that interested them. The constituency chairman, a short square man, began telling Sarah about his achievements as a county councillor. The others, who were a couple, comprised a tall man with a paunch who turned out to be the senior partner of the estate agency dealing with Jeremy’s cottage, and his wife, a thin and anxious-looking woman who seemed content to say nothing. Wendy Wheeler appeared between intervals in the kitchen, managing a couple of sentences each time before disappearing without waiting for the answer. She had darkened her hair since Charles had last met her and this, with bright red lipstick and her taut, tanned face, made her look slightly overdone. But she was attractive and every time he met her he had to remind himself that there was no reason why Jeremy should not have an attractive wife.
Through long habit of not talking about what he did, he found himself asking the headmistress about the charitable status of private schools. His thoughts, though, were on Frank Heathfield. Frank had been on his mind because of the connection with Peter Tew and his interrogation. He had always liked him for his cheerful and unpretentious practicality. There was little of Genghis Khan about him, despite what Jeremy said. Matthew Abrahams had died over a year ago, and now Frank. That left Charles as the sole survivor of the Tew investigation, apart from Peter himself. Even Viktor, whose information had provoked it, was gone. Charles was becoming history.
He felt he ought to rescue Sarah but the headmistress was asking about their new house. He could guess from the angle of Sarah’s head the feigned attentiveness that overlaid her exasperation and boredom as she endured the monologue. He caught a phrase about the old rate support grant compared with the iniquities of the new system. It was the other couple, Rodney and Elspeth, who came to the rescue by describing to Jeremy and – intermittently – Wendy the adventures of their journey.
‘We would have come along the lane through Bodiam but it was closed by the police so we had to go all the way back and come down the A229 where there was an accident which held us up for ages. Police everywhere tonight.’
Everyone agreed that everyone drove too fast on the A229. It crossed the county border and the constituency chairman described the difficulty he had had in negotiating a speed limit on part of it. Charles said nothing about why the lane to Bodiam might be closed. Police would now be ‘com
bing’ – as the press would inevitably put it – the area for clues. They wouldn’t find anything, if the killing was what he thought.
‘Maybe it’s because of the body they’ve found,’ said Elspeth, her small tinkling voice cutting across the chairman in a rush of words as if released under pressure.
Jeremy’s eyebrows arched. ‘A body in Bodiam?’
‘Yes, at the house at the Sandhurst end of the lane. You can’t really see it from the road, the old rectory I think it was, at least it looked like it on the South East news.’ Wide-eyed, she darted looks at everyone as if fearing attack.
‘The house of the mad scientist,’ said Rodney. ‘German or Polish or whatever. No idea whether he’s actually mad or not but he’s definitely foreign. We handled the sale a few years ago. Polite man, very polite. Lives on his own.’
Wendy paused in the act of handing round nibbles. Jeremy’s eyebrows arched again. ‘Dr Klein? We know him.’ He looked at his wife. ‘We know him well. It really is him, is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Elspeth. ‘They just said a body—’
‘Murder or suicide?’
‘– with gunshot wounds.’
Jeremy turned to Charles. ‘Never a dull moment in this constituency, you see. Well, he wasn’t quite in it but not far out. Would have been under the old boundaries.’
The chairman described the redrawing of the boundaries. Rodney talked about a farmer who had shot himself the year before. Wendy disappeared again into the kitchen. Charles was aware of Sarah looking at him. If he said nothing and it later came out not only that he had known the man they called Dr Klein but that he had found the body, it would look as if he was hiding something. Which he was, of course. But if he said something it might provoke awkward questions. Better that than more awkward questions later.
‘I knew him too,’ he said. ‘In fact, I called on him this afternoon. I found the body and rang the police.’
Wendy reappeared from the kitchen. ‘You found him? You actually saw him?’
