by Janet Neel
‘Press the button, uncle. Do it now!’
He knelt by Nigel Makin’s side while the electronic alarms started to whoop above his head. Makin had been coshed, the dent at the back of the skull would have told anyone that, but he was breathing. McLeish picked up the phone beside him and found himself talking to the Edgware Road desk sergeant, who confirmed McLeish’s good opinion of him by having followed meticulously the agreed procedure when the site alarms went off.
‘I’ll send the poor old tortoise on the night-shift here to open the gate. If he starts now he’ll just about meet the ambulance arriving.’
McLeish slammed the phone down, dived down the passage and took a careful minute to ensure that the nightwatchman understood his instructions exactly and was not too shaken to carry them out, before returning to Makin, who was breathing steadily. The office looked as if it had been hit by a typhoon – papers were everywhere and every drawer of the big filing cabinet was open. So, McLeish realized grimly, was the safe: wide open and innocent of everything but the petty-cash box and some keys. No sheaf of computer print-out, coffee-stained, was anywhere to be seen. And all this had happened in the forty minutes or so it had taken him to arrive.
He sat back on his heels, one part of his brain registering the distant noise of an ambulance in a hurry, and thought about that forty minutes, then reached for the phone urgently to put out an order to pull in Mickey Hamilton and to organize a warrant.
‘He was not a hundred yards away. I saw him myself,’ he said grimly to the detective sergeant who was the most senior officer Edgware Road could muster at that point. ‘I’d go myself, but I daren’t leave Makin in case he says something. But hurry, will you?’
He was shouting by now to get above the impressive amount of noise being made by the arriving ambulance, but he heard his colleague confirm that he was off now.
He knelt again by Makin, who appeared to be in much the same state as before, and indicated as much to the senior casualty officer who had come with the ambulance.
‘Nasty,’ the man observed dispassionately, checking for other, less obvious, injuries. ‘We’ll take him in – are you coming, Chief Inspector?’
‘Not if I can find a sensible constable to go with him,’ McLeish said, peering out of the window at the arriving might of Edgware Road. ‘Woolner!’ He pushed open the stiff window and shouted, and young Woolner, pale but evidently still keen, looked up hopefully. ‘Job for you. Stay right with this chap – Mr Makin – whatever they want to do at the hospital. I want every golden word noted down, and I’ll come by later and collect them. Don’t even leave him long enough to phone me, all right?’ He looked carefully at the young constable to see that he had understood.
‘I’ve got it, sir. I’ll just tell Sergeant Williams where I’ve gone.’
‘Right.’ McLeish mentally gave him points for keeping his head and remembering where the chain of command lay. ‘Got your notebook?’
‘Sir.’ The young man grinned, the blond hair, pale skin and bright blue eyes suddenly very much in contrast, and revealing a rather older and more sophisticated personality than McLeish had seen hitherto. ‘I used occasionally to forget it, but I’ve been in three years now!’
‘Have you now? Graduate entry?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So was I.’ McLeish nodded to him to follow the stretcher, and watched him walk away, noting him for future use.
He hesitated, torn between getting back to a police station and the attendant facilities and the need not to waste precious minutes in checking up on the whereabouts of anyone else who might have wanted to halt Nigel Makin’s investigations. He decided on the telephone in the next-door office, which meant also that he could be on site to meet the Forensic team when it arrived.
He got hold of Ian Michaels and sent him round to what he now thought of as Fort Vernon, ostensibly to break the news and enquire where Nigel Makin’s next of kin could most easily be found, but actually to establish who was there and what they had been doing. Neither Bill Vernon nor Sally lived there, but he knew Sally was staying there and he dispatched a spare sergeant to Bill’s Chelsea flat.
These works accomplished, he sat down and looked hopefully at the telephone. By now the party sent to arrest Hamilton should have found him and be reporting in. He sat, twitching with impatience, watched uneasily by a young policeman, posted on the doors to await the arrival of Forensic.
‘Francesca,’ McLeish said aloud, seriously rattling the young policeman whose given name was Francis.
‘Sir?’ he said, cautiously.
‘Constable, would you listen for the phone? I’ll find another one. I’m just along here. Call me if I’m needed.’
McLeish plunged into another office, then checked as he remembered Francesca would be out that evening. The recollection gave him time to reflect. Robert Vernon would either cancel the lunch they were having tomorrow, or he would keep the date; in the first case no harm could come, and in the second they might all learn something. He considered this line of reasoning and decided definitely that he was not prepared to see Francesca exposed even to the smallest danger. Whoever had coshed Makin was presumably close enough to the Vernon computer system to have removed data from it, and that put Robert Vernon along with his wife, his son and daughter, right in the frame. So he would let Francesca keep that date, but she would be accompanied every step of the way, even if it meant several budding detectives doing themselves a bit of good at the Savoy. For her protection he would tell her that Makin had been attacked and that Vernon – all the Vernons, indeed – were suspect unless and until Hamilton turned out to have done it. But he would not tell her she was being minded.
The phone in the next-door office rang sharply and he was there almost before the young constable had time to answer it. ‘You got him? Good. He say anything? All right, take him over to Edgware Road, will you? I’ll meet you there.’
McLeish didn’t try to hurry: there was no point. Hamilton had said nothing useful when arrested and all experience suggested that people either said something revealing at the moment they saw the arresting officer or else sweated out hours of questioning before anything emerged. Before taking off for Edgware Road, he made two more calls, explained to the incoming Forensic team what he wanted, and rang Edgware Road again to make sure they got a set of Mickey Hamilton’s fingerprints.
‘Why am I here?’ Mickey Hamilton was even paler than usual, either from fear or temper. ‘I’m free to leave the country, aren’t I? You can’t just arrest me. Do you have a warrant?’
McLeish considered him and indicated to the arresting officer that he would be glad of a word outside the interview room.
‘You just pulled him in? Didn’t tell him Makin was attacked?’
‘No, sir. He had his passport on him and he was packed to go.’
McLeish nodded. Mickey Hamilton had something on his mind, that much was obvious.
‘OK, let’s go back in. I’ll play it by ear. There’s a warrant on its way.’
He banged his way into the interview room and sat down opposite Mickey Hamilton.
‘Why am I here?’ Mickey demanded again.
‘You are here because Nigel Makin was violently attacked in the Underpass site offices in the last couple of hours. I was on my way to meet him and saw you turning into the caravan site.’
Mickey turned even paler if possible and gaped at McLeish. ‘Why would I want to attack Nigel Makin?’ he asked breathlessly, several seconds later.
‘I don’t know yet, but I will as soon as Makin comes round. You could save us all some time by telling me now. Was he on to the fiddle you were in?’ McLeish was watching the young man’s mouth as he spoke for the small twitch at the corner which indicated shock with the most controlled people, but he needn’t have bothered. Hamilton all but jumped out of his chair.
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ he said flatly, pushing himself back in his chair and folding his arms, and the two policemen took
in this unequivocal piece of body language with real exasperation.
‘Oh, come on, Mickey,’ McLeish snapped, ‘the lorry fiddle on the Barbican site and the second one here! I don’t yet know whether you were on site or off site somewhere, waiting for the steel, but the Vernon computer will help there. And Nigel Makin’s notes.’
‘You’ll have to prove anything you say,’ Mickey said doggedly, arms still tightly folded. ‘I didn’t know Nigel Makin had been hurt, but if he isn’t talking he’s badly hurt, and I’m not answering any questions without a solicitor here. I’d like to telephone. My uncle’s a Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh and I expect he’ll know someone here.’
McLeish opened his mouth to say he didn’t care if Mickey’s uncle was the Attorney General and closed it again, on reflection. If Mickey was a murderer, then how he was treated and how any statements were taken from him mattered very much, particularly with a family alert to all the niceties. He was under lock and key on McLeish’s own evidence, and that was where he was staying, be he nephew to all the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary.
‘Suit yourself,’ he said, pushing his chair back. ‘Ring your uncle by all means – the constable will bring you a telephone. Get yourself a brief. But none of it, so help me, will be any good to you if you’re involved in this.’
He collected Davidson and left, his mind going to the next stage.
‘Likely if his uncle practises in Edinburgh he’ll not know any lawyers in London,’ Davidson offered, with the West Coast contempt for Edinburgh.
McLeish grunted. ‘I’ve got other things to worry about. I sent what’s-his-name, Michaels, up to the Vernon place to find out where everyone was – he should be reporting in. Christ, it’s ten-thirty.’
‘Sir?’ Sergeant Michaels was at the door of his own office. ‘Mr Vernon and Miss Vernon were very distressed, and Mr Vernon was going to go to the hospital as soon as Mrs Vernon got back – she was out seeing a friend.’
‘You saw them both? What time did you get there – eight-thirty-five? Makin was attacked between seven and seven-forty. One of them could have got there and back in that time.’
‘The man-servant, Luigi, was there and says neither Mr Vernon nor Miss Vernon went out. Been there five years, saving up for his own restaurant,’ he added in parenthesis, consulting his notes. ‘And the house car was out of action, too – the driver had gone home early with it because he was putting it into a garage for some minor thing. Mr Vernon plans to go to the hospital later in a taxi – they’re CabCall subscribers. Mrs Vernon had been dropped off by the driver on his way home to do some shopping. At Harrods.’
‘Harrods isn’t still open at ten-thirty, is it? Where is she?’
‘I haven’t managed to have a word with her yet, sir, but Mr Vernon has spoken to her. She was having dinner with a friend apparently, and arrived there about eight-thirty.’
‘Well done, sergeant. Where was the dinner?’
‘Clarendon Road, sir, W11 – do you know it?’
‘I do indeed. What is it, ten minutes from the Underpass site? How did she get there from Harrods?’
‘I assume she used CabCall, sir. They’re all black taxis, but a lot of them work full-time on account business. Mrs Vernon doesn’t run a car, and the business doesn’t run one for her, so most places she wants to go to she goes by taxi, unless Mr Vernon’s driver is free.’
McLeish considered him. ‘You’ve been busy, sergeant.’
‘It’s a bit easier than it looks, sir. My brother-in-law drives for CabCall.’
‘Saves a lot of work. So, what do you reckon, Michaels?’
‘Was Mr Makin sitting down when he was attacked, sir?’
‘Probably.’
‘A lady could have done it, couldn’t she? Particularly one he knew and wasn’t frightened by.’
McLeish reluctantly examined the picture in his mind of Dorothy Vernon, dropping in on the offices to talk to Nigel Makin, leaning over his shoulder while he explained some of his findings, then felling him with a cosh.
‘The site gate wasn’t locked,’ he observed, aloud. ‘She could have got in.’
‘Taking a bit of a risk, sir?’
‘No, why? It’s her site. Short of being caught actually in the act, she’d hardly need to explain what she was doing there.’
‘I suppose that’s true. You’ll be wanting to talk to her yourself, then?’
‘I’ll have to. But thank you for your help. You doing the exams?’
‘Yes. I reckon I’m about ready, but it’s difficult to get the course work done.’
McLeish sympathized. Michaels was not a graduate and, though a good policeman, was one of the people who had difficulty absorbing the endless detail required to pass the exams for Inspector. Bruce Davidson, looking a trifle narrowly at Michaels, came in with the news that Nigel Makin had a fractured skull, was currently on the operating table, and young Woolner, got up in all the gear, was in attendance in the theatre itself.
‘Makin’s not going to say anything under anaesthetic, is he?’ McLeish asked, startled, and Davidson grinning said that DC Woolner had taken the line that he had been instructed to remain at his charge’s side and there he was going to stay, even if it involved standing through a major operation.
‘I suppose I was once twenty-three and that keen, but I’ve forgotten it all,’ McLeish said, holding his head. ‘No, never mind, I’ll go down there. Look, I want someone to babysit Francesca tomorrow – she’s having lunch with Robert Vernon. You won’t do, Bruce; she knows you. What about you, Michaels? I expect you’d like lunch at the Savoy, wouldn’t you? Take another officer with you – I’ll sign for it.’
Michaels opined, grinning, that there was going to be no shortage of volunteers for this particular task. What did Mr Vernon, or indeed Miss Wilson, look like? McLeish scrabbled in his file for a photograph of Robert Vernon, producing finally a file photo culled from a newspaper. He considered it critically. ‘Taken a few years ago, I’d say, but it’s good enough.’ He hesitated, then took out his wallet and carefully extracted the picture he had taken on their last day in Scotland: Francesca, grinning confidently into the camera, her hair blowing into her eyes. ‘And that’s Miss Wilson – I’d like the picture back.’
Michaels nodded, taking both pictures carefully and putting them in an envelope. ‘I’ll look forward to this,’ he said, not looking at McLeish. ‘Thank you, sir.’
At lunch-time the next day, Michaels felt less confident. The floor manager looked carefully at himself and his fellow sergeant and allocated them a small corner table near the kitchen. Michaels, looking past him, saw Robert Vernon being shown to a table in the window, a flurry of waiters in attendance, the head waiter pulling out a chair for Francesca and pressing a napkin upon her. ‘No,’ he said stolidly, ‘we’d like to be a bit closer to the window.’
The floor manager hesitated, and for a minute Michaels wondered if he was going to have to use his warrant card, but he gave way, ungracefully, and Michaels found himself with an excellent view of his charge. Good-looking girl he thought, now much tidier than in the photograph.
He watched her from behind his menu, noticing the way she was looking round the big room, openly considering the details of the décor. The photograph had got her right, though; this was a confident young woman who saw no necessity to pretend she ate at the Savoy all the time. She turned her head suddenly and looked at him like an animal suddenly sensing it was being watched, and he froze. He managed to get his mouth open to speak to his fellow sergeant, who was staring incredulously at the Savoy’s prices, and by the time he had managed to reassure him, Francesca’s attention was back with her host.
‘You heard about Nigel Makin?’ Vernon was saying. ‘They had to operate, you know, but they reckon he’s not in immediate danger. What does that mean, Francesca – did your boyfriend say?’
Relieved at having got the subject of John McLeish’s involvement with the case so quickly on the table, Francesca replied that it was appa
rently unlikely that Nigel Makin would die but no one knew quite when he would be fully conscious.
‘They lifted the piece of bone that was pressing on the brain, John says, but he still hasn’t come round,’ she said, looking appreciatively at the huge plate covered with beautiful thin slices of smoked salmon. ‘I’m sorry, it must be another worry for you.’
‘I’d not want to lose Nigel, that’s for sure,’ Robert Vernon agreed. ‘But even if he’s going to be all right – and he’s got the best where he is, I made sure of that – I may have to manage without him. It’s a bit much to expect him to stay after what that girl of mine’s done to him.’ He shook his head, sadly, squeezing lemon over his smoked salmon, and Francesca watched the stubby fingers compressing the wedge of fruit.
‘Sally almost told me in Scotland that she and Alan were having an affair,’ she said and stopped, realizing that her next projected sentence was going to land her in difficulties.
The burly man on the other side of the table glanced up at her. ‘What were you going to say?’
‘Well, I was going to ask if you would have minded all that much if she’d married him instead of Nigel, and then I realized I would sound like a policewoman. And a nosey one at that.’
‘You’re very like your dad.’ Robert Vernon was only mildly disconcerted. ‘He always told you the truth when you asked him.’ He attacked his smoked salmon with relish, while Francesca, embarrassed, fiddled with her lemon.
‘Give it here, girl, you’ll never get any out that way, these little squeezer things are no use – yes, Alberto, you know I need finger-bowls, just bring them, will you? Fraser wasn’t going to marry her, Francesca, it just wasn’t an option. Not the marrying sort, that one; didn’t want the responsibility.’
