by Nicola Upson
skin, presumably in a desperate struggle for air. One hand remained clenched at his chest, the other reached towards the door, fingers outstretched and palm upwards, as if begging for a little more time.
The expensive but well-worn Persian rug on which Aubrey had collapsed had been caught up in his convulsions, and Penrose stepped carefully over its rucks and past several books and a small card table which had been knocked to the floor. The force of his struggle with death must have been quite incredible: he was a strong man, tall and heavily built and, even now, his limbs seemed to strain towards life, but he had not been able to withstand whatever had invaded his body. Kneeling at his shoulder, Penrose put his hand lightly against Aubrey’s cheek. His skin was cold to the touch, unnaturally so for someone in whom life had only very recently been extinguished, and there was a brownish, salivary substance about his nose which mixed with the vomit around his mouth and ran in narrow lines down his face and onto the carpet.
The stench of urine and diarrhoea was unmistakable. Even to Penrose, who had encountered the effects of poison many times, it was sickening, almost intolerably so, and just for a second he had to turn away. Looking back, he was struck by how the squalid physicality of Aubrey’s death was made all the more humiliating by the bizarre state of his dress: the false armour might hint at the nobility of a soldier fallen in battle, but there was no dignity here; for all man’s emotional and spiritual aspirations, Penrose thought with sadness, it was invariably the body that decided his fate in the end.
‘Jesus bloody Christ,’ said Fallowfield from the doorway. ‘That’s ruined our chances of finding anything out from him, Sir.’
It was hardly something that Penrose needed to have spelt out for him and his sergeant had put it a little more bluntly than was tactful, but he shared the sentiment. If he had only insisted on speaking to Aubrey at the interval, he might still be alive; at worst, they would have a clearer understanding of what – if anything –
linked this violent, messy death with the less agonising but no less theatrical murder of a young girl in a railway carriage. ‘Go back 138
downstairs and call the team in,’ he said. ‘I don’t want the telephone in here touched until it’s been dusted. Make it clear I want the works and they’re to be here immediately. And it must be Spilsbury.’
‘I’ll send a car to his house right away, Sir.’
‘No, it’s Saturday night – he’ll be at the Savoy Theatre. Get someone to nip up the road – it’ll be quicker. Then have the whole place sealed off. Ask anyone who’s here to stay until I’ve spoken to them, but on no account is anyone else to be let in through either entrance. Make that clear to the fellow at stage door until our lot get here. We’ll need Aubrey’s home address and a next of kin – can you sort that out?’
‘Of course, Sir. Was he married, do you know?’
‘Yes, I believe he was, but I remember Josephine saying something once about it not being a particularly happy marriage. We’ll go and see his wife as soon as we’ve finished here. Did you see Miss Beaumont on your way up? She found his body.’
‘Yes, Sir, she’s still down there with Miss Tey and another lady –
and your cousins, of course. They’re looking after her, but she’s in a terrible state. I can’t say I’m surprised,’ he said, looking down at the body. ‘I gather they were friends.’
‘Yes, they were. Will you take them somewhere more comfortable and get them a drink? I’ll be down to see them as soon as I can. If they’d rather go across the road to Number 66, that’s fine, but I don’t want them to be left alone.’
‘I’ll tell them, Sir. Just one thing before I go, though – we found that couple outside, and it was definitely White they got the tickets off. Fits the description to a tee.’
‘Then keep that idiot Bravo out of my sight for his own sake, and have a car go over the area. White might still be nearby if he’s had anything to do with this.’
‘Right, Sir, and don’t worry about Miss Tey and her friends – I’ll see they’re all right.’
‘Thanks, Bill, I appreciate it, but come back up here as quickly as you can.’
Fallowfield went downstairs with his usual calm efficiency and 139
Penrose was left alone. The building was extraordinarily quiet and he took advantage of the silence to absorb every detail of the scene. As soon as Scotland Yard arrived en masse, the operation moved into a different phase with recognised procedures, and something was lost in the relentless progress of it all; not the humanity of the victim – he hoped that was always paramount –
but what he could best describe as the personality of the crime.
This was the closest he would get to the act which he was trying to unravel, and these minutes alone with the victim were rare and precious. It was vital to make the most of them.
He had expected Aubrey’s office to have something of the atmosphere of a gentleman’s club about it, but he was wrong. The remnant of many a savoured cigarette hung in the air and the furniture – an assortment of mahogany, oak and leather – could easily have been transported to White’s or Boodle’s, but that was where the similarity ended. In fact, there were a number of unexpectedly feminine touches to the room: vases of flowers – irises, he noted with interest – were dotted around the shelves and on the mantelpiece, and soft, pale colours had been chosen for the walls and cushions. Clearly, Aubrey had spent a good deal of time here: even without the disarray caused by his death, the room was untidy and littered with books – unpretentious editions of plays and novels, most of which looked well-read – and photograph albums containing informal pictures of actors and actresses next to their professional stage portraits. Two large windows – their curtains still tied back – stretched down to the floor, suggesting that, in the daytime, this was a light and airy space.
Penrose walked over to the huge oak desk which dominated the side of the room nearest the windows, and knew as surely as if her blood were still on it that he was looking at the weapon which had killed Elspeth Simmons. Just to the right of a leather blotter, which took up most of the desk’s surface, lay a bayonet of simple design, its polished blade contrasting starkly with the dark wood of the furniture. Although shockingly out of context here, the weapon was a familiar sight to him: knife bayonets like this had been common issue in the war as an infantryman’s most impor-140
tant close combat weapon. They were a crucial part of life in the trenches – just as crucial, in fact, as the rectangular brass tin that had been placed next to the knife, something less deadly, perhaps, but no less evocative to anyone who had lived through those times. It was a tobacco tin, a Christmas present sent out to the troops each year of the war to boost their morale. He remembered his own, received during the Christmas of 1915; he still had it –
everyone did, if they had returned safely, because there was something inexplicably precious about a small piece of English metal that had not been fashioned to kill. An identical tin was the only thing of Jack’s that he had been able to give to Josephine after her lover’s death. The tin in front of him now was particularly battered and worn. Its hinged lid was open and he could see a cream card with a red crest at the bottom – good wishes for a victorious new year from the Princess Mary and friends at home – but what interested him more was not standard issue. On top of the card lay a flower head, an iris, which had evidently been preserved for some time. It was fragile and drained of all its colour, but unmistakably the same variety that had been found with Elspeth’s body.
The shape of the leaves, closed tightly around the flower, mirrored almost precisely the form of the bayonet. They lay parallel, and the direction of the twin blades led his eyes beyond the desk towards a single photograph, not in an album like the others but placed alone on a bookshelf. The woman framed in silver had a pleasant face, but she lacked the glamour and self-consciousness that united the actresses pictured elsewhere in the room; it was certainly no one he recognised. Was she Aubrey’s wife, or someone else
who had been important in his life? And was he reading too much into the flower and knife by imagining that they pointed towards her? They might easily have been casually placed, but somehow he doubted it.
The other items on and around the desk were less incongruous.
A crystal tumbler containing half an inch or so of whisky stood at one corner, the corresponding bottle having been consigned –
empty – to a nearby waste paper basket, where it nestled amongst some torn-up envelopes. Next to a well-used ashtray, the tele-141
phone receiver dangled uselessly off its hook, but it had obviously been put to good service recently because the blotting paper was covered in half a dozen numbers and initials. Penrose copied them down, then put on his gloves and gently opened the top middle drawer of the desk. It was full of headed note paper, and the drawers to left and right contained a similar assortment of stationery, but the lower levels seemed more revealing. The first one he came to was full of bills and accounts, the second of contracts for those employed in Aubrey’s two theatres; they would have to be gone through in detail, but it was personal documents that he hoped to find now, anything that might give more substance to an idea forming in his head as to the link between Elspeth Simmons and Bernard Aubrey. Is that what Aubrey wanted to talk to him about?
He began to give up hope as he turned up pile upon pile of business correspondence, then, in the very last drawer, he unearthed something more promising – a collection of letters, all addressed to Aubrey in the same distinctive hand and, judging by the lack of any postmark, all privately delivered. Starting at the top of the heap, he worked his way through them with increasing astonishment: the letters were not what he was looking for, but they certainly offered another line of enquiry. So absorbed was he that Fallowfield had been standing quietly at his side for a couple of minutes, looking at the weapon and the flower, before Penrose even noticed he was there.
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Sir?’
‘A narrow blade, about nine inches long and as sharp as hell – I think it fits the bill perfectly, don’t you? But what on earth is it doing here?’
‘You don’t think he did it then?’
‘No, try as I might, I really can’t see Bernard Aubrey sneaking into a railway carriage with this to kill a young girl. Particularly if she was his daughter.’
‘His daughter? How do you know that?’
‘I don’t, but at the moment I’m trying to think of logical connec-tions between the two deaths other than the Richard of Bordeaux link – but we’ll come to that in a minute. Let’s think about it: we 142
know that Elspeth was passed over unofficially between colleagues during the war, so we need to find out from Alice Simmons if Aubrey knew or served with her husband.’
‘Aubrey was a tunneller, Sir, I know that much because Miss Beaumont was just talking about it. That’s why he went upstairs to change: he could never bear to be underground, not even in his own theatre, because he’d had such a dreadful war. We could ask Frank Simmons if they knew each other – Walter Simmons would probably have talked more about his friends and the war to his brother than his wife, and it’d be quicker than waiting for Mrs Simmons to get here from Berwick.’
‘True, but I’d rather not let Frank Simmons know anything about the way we’re thinking at the moment. No, we’ll talk to her alone as soon as she gets here. I’d also like her to take a look at Aubrey’s handwriting: if he sent the letters to Walter each year –
and let’s face it, he was wealthy enough to send the money – she might recognise it from the one she saw. The claustrophobia’s interesting, though. I wonder how many people knew about that?’
‘It didn’t seem to be any great secret, at least not among the theatre lot. But even if he does turn out to be her father, I don’t see why that should get them both killed.’
‘Don’t you? Aubrey was Hedley White’s boss, so the chances are he’ll have heard about Elspeth. Perhaps he even met her and realised who she was. What if he wanted to acknowledge her and get to know her better? That won’t have gone down well with Frank Simmons if he thought he was losing his niece. It seemed to me this afternoon that the whole family has lived in constant fear of Elspeth’s being taken away from them. That’s only natural if the adoption was illegal – they built all that love on very shaky foundations, but who knows what they’d do to protect it? And then there’s White, of course. Aubrey might not have approved of his daughter dating the stage hand. I agree that the motivation is much stronger for his killing Aubrey than Elspeth, but there’s a very fine line between love and ownership, and jealousy can distort where it falls. He wouldn’t be the first person to kill his girl rather than lose her to another life.’
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‘No, I don’t suppose he would, and we know he was hanging about here tonight.’
‘Yes, both he and Frank Simmons were here just before the show.’
‘But Simmons couldn’t get up here, whereas White could. No one would think twice about seeing him anywhere in this theatre, even on his night off.’
‘Don’t forget – Simmons said something about having a mate on stage door who helped him collect his memorabilia. He wouldn’t admit it, of course, but the man on tonight might have turned a blind eye if there was something in it for him.’
‘Tell me again what he said to you, Sir.’
‘Aubrey? He said there was something he wanted to tell me, but the way he said it implied that if he’d talked sooner Elspeth might not have died. It was something like “I’ve got to live with the fact that I’ve waited until now.”’ Archie paused. ‘Of course, if I’m right about the connection, I suppose we can’t rule out suicide.
Josephine said he was upset when she told him who’d been killed and I assumed that was because he felt sorry for Hedley, but it could have been much more than that. If you spend all those years wanting to get to know your child, then have the chance so violently snatched from you, that’s bad enough – but if you know you could have saved her, that might prove impossible to live with. It’s a terrible way to do it, though. Look at his body, Bill: what must those last moments have been like?’
‘You can’t imagine, can you, but I think we can rule suicide out.’
Penrose looked at him questioningly. ‘Miss Beaumont says that the door was locked when she got up here – from the outside.’
‘What? I noticed the key on the outside but I just assumed that Aubrey had used it to get in and not bothered to take it out of the lock.’
‘She says not, Sir. She says she knocked a few times and got no answer, so she unlocked the door herself and found him there on the floor.’
‘What else did she say, Bill?’
‘That he hadn’t made himself very popular lately. Apparently 144
there’s been lots of bickering about contracts and tours and who gets what part. Lots of people seem to have held a grudge against him: he’d fallen out with John Terry particularly badly, and – this fits in well with your theory, Sir – she’d heard he’d been furious with Hedley White about something earlier today, although she didn’t know what. She’d had arguments with him herself lately, too – she was very honest about that.’
‘That’s probably what she meant about his not deserving what he got: he’d made himself unpopular but it shouldn’t have gone this far. Did she mention anyone called McCracken?’
‘Yes, Sir, Esme McCracken – she’s the stage manager. Apparently they have some sort of tradition at the end of the play where three of the cast make a toast, and Miss McCracken has to arrange things. Sounds like another excuse for a drink to me, but Miss Beaumont said it was different today because Aubrey was involved and it got nasty.’
‘She saw it or just heard about it?’
‘Saw it, Sir. It happens just before they all take their bows so she was waiting in the wings.’
Penrose listened intently while Fallowfield recounted Lydia’s impression of events backstage. ‘And you say McCracken ge
ts all this stuff ready?’
‘Her or White, Sir – whoever’s on duty. Why did you ask about her?’
Penrose pointed towards the bunch of letters that he had found in Aubrey’s desk. ‘Those are all from her. From what I can work out, she sees herself as a bit of a playwright. They start off very politely, asking Aubrey if he’d read her work and consider putting it on. Clearly he must have ignored her, because they soon lose their courtesy and start criticising all the work he stages and questioning his judgement. She has a very high opinion of her own talent and not much time for anybody else’s, and she’s particularly vitriolic about Richard of Bordeaux and the money it’s making –
she accuses Aubrey of having no artistic soul, only a commercial one. It’s a wonder he didn’t get rid of her: I’m not sure I’d keep someone on the payroll if they sent me this kind of thing on a reg-145
ular basis. It’s obsessive, to say the least.’ He handed the letters over. ‘They were written over a three-month period, and the latest one’s dated today. She loses it completely at the end, throws in a bit of abuse, then says that Aubrey would be wise to take her more seriously. That could be just a rather extreme way of letting him know he’s missing out on the theatrical event of the decade, or it could be a threat – and judging by what’s happened tonight, I’m inclined to read it as the latter.’
‘Blimey,’ said Fallowfield, glancing through the pile. ‘I see what you mean. She’s got to be up there with White and Simmons.’
‘Yes, particularly after what you’ve just told me about the drinks session after work. I’d put money on his having drunk whatever killed him then.’
‘Me too, Sir. I had a quick look backstage and it’s all still there, the decanter and glass I mean. I’ve put young Armstrong down there until the rest of the team get here to pack it all up. He’s a good lad – always does what he’s told. It’s a pity we didn’t have him outside while White was flogging theatre seats.’
