Murder at the Nineteenth (Lambert and Hook Detective series Book 1)

by J M Gregson

  ‘Certainly motive may be important — eventually. But it’s a long step from motive to proof. Never start with motive, lad. Start with facts. No one can escape facts. Facts are the framework. If you get enough of them, the final fact becomes obvious, and the final fact is the solution. Where, when and how come before why. In this case we know exactly where, exactly when and exactly how, and we’re not much nearer. But before we worry about why, we need more facts. Who, for instance. How many people could have been in the right place at the right time with the right weapon? That’s the next set of facts we want.’

  ‘Well done, Sergeant Gradgrind,’ said Lambert quietly to Hook’s back: the start told him his colleague had not heard him enter.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Hook evenly, his knowledge of Dickens as scanty as Constable Spencer’s but his calm as impenetrable as any sphinx’s. Spencer was glad to have his avuncular instruction suspended in the Superintendent’s presence, but he wondered if he would ever fathom the mysteries of this eccentric double act.

  Lambert walked round the huge oak table to the spot where he had found the body some ten hours earlier. The fingerprint experts had long concluded their work; the measurements from all parts of the room to the body had been taken; the results of the photographer’s work were probably already printed. He looked down at the chalk outline on the parquet floor which was the caricatured reminder of death: it was slightly smudged in two places where last night’s traffic had been careless. Someone’s agenda paper, overlooked when the meeting broke up, still lay upon the table. Lambert saw that the owner had doodled with a ball-pen through one of the meeting’s more boring items — had doodled in fact a revolver, he noted with interest. It pointed like a bad joke at the outline on the floor. Psychiatrists might read something into that. Well, the fingerprint men would tell him soon enough who had sketched that revolver, but he expected nothing significant there. It would be an incompetent murderer who spread Freudian detritus behind him, and any other sign of incompetence in this business was distressingly absent so far.

  As Lambert turned back to the expectant faces of his colleagues, there was a sound of sudden movement in the office next door, then an urgent yell from the car park. Despite his bulk, Hook reacted fastest. He led the trio through the hastily unlocked front doors. David Parsons leant far out of his office window, shouting still and straining to see beyond the wall of the changing-room to the reserved spaces neatly marked for the cars of club officials.

  The late Chairman’s Rolls-Royce stood still alone in its glory. But both its doors swung open and its boot lid reared towards the azure sky. Of the perpetrator of this violation, there was no trace visible. A hundred yards away, where the golf club’s private lane joined the public road, a car engine roared invisibly into the distance. The foot on that urgent accelerator might be that of a tardy commuter, or that of a fleeing murderer.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Had the car been examined?’ Lambert knew the answer even as he asked the question.

  ‘No, sir,’ said Hook.

  ‘Fingerprinted?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  As Lambert stalked back ill-temperedly to the clubhouse entrance, Parsons leaned still from his window.

  ‘I suppose I shouldn’t have shouted,’ he said, ‘but it was instinctive.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘Nothing at all. You can’t from here. And of course you’d locked the front doors.’ It sounded like an accusation.

  ‘What alerted you, then?’

  Parsons thought for a moment. ‘Noises. Nothing very definite.’

  ‘Voices?’

  ‘Nothing so precise. Footsteps perhaps. Someone moving around Mr Shepherd’s car. I opened the window to listen and heard them opening the boot. That’s when I shouted.’

  ‘Them?’

  Parsons shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know. Maybe just he or she. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. You may have disturbed them before they got what they wanted.’ Or they may have got clean away with vital evidence, thought Lambert sourly. He turned to find Hook and Spencer following him warily, like hunters behind a wounded tiger.

  ‘Doors haven’t been forced,’ said Hook, ‘nor the boot. Whoever it was had a key.’

  ‘Thus showing the proper respect for a Rolls-Royce,’ said Lambert grimly. In a happier situation he would have expected such an observation from Hook.

  He went inside and rang CID on Parson’s phone, recalling the fingerprint duo to cover the car. ‘We won’t touch anything else until you’ve had your fling,’ he said. ‘We surprised whoever it was, so it’s just possible you may get a few interesting dabs somewhere. We know the two front doors and the boot were unlocked and opened, and there may be others inside.’

  He put down the phone and shook his head moodily. In truth, it was no one’s fault but his. Had he demanded a bigger team, some of the men would have examined the car at the outset. Had he asked for the terrapin hut so often used as a murder room, it would no doubt have been set up in the car park and the Rolls would automatically have been under surveillance. In fact, he still felt the permanent team for this investigation should be as small as possible — basically himself and Hook — with other resources brought in as necessary.

  He went into the Committee Room now. The Telecom men, with their usual efficiency on these occasions, were completing the installation of the temporary line. They glanced from time to time at the chalk outline on the floor and spoke in the hushed tones people normally reserve for churches. As they finished testing and left, Hook, who had plainly been waiting to report in private, came and stood by Lambert as he peered at the empty safe.

  ‘Young Spencer’s keeping an eye on the car for the moment,’ he said, ‘though it’s probably just locking the stable door after the horse has departed with the evidence.’ Lambert grunted and waited: Hook wouldn’t have needed privacy to convey this.

  ‘Your Steward and his wife seem to be in the clear. They were both behind the bar after the end of the Committee meeting, Edwards serving and his wife tidying up ready to close. We can check that in due course with the Committee members, but that very fact means it’s certain to be true. One of their youngsters was in their own flat adjacent to the bar and the two of them chased him off to bed and settled him down upstairs as soon as they shut the bar. Unless we presume as unlikely family conspiracy involving the children as well, they seem to be in the clear.’

  ‘Vic discovered the murder with me and then we went and told his wife,’ said Lambert. ‘Unless they’re both in the Olivier class as actors, their reactions were those of innocent people.’ He had never thought the Edwardses were involved, but his training meant they had to be eliminated with painstaking care. Hook’s report gave him the tiny surge of satisfaction which action always brought; at least the investigation was under way and the focus being narrowed, however obviously.

  There was a soft tap at the heavy oak door and David Parsons came into the room. If there was any pique at having to ask entry to realms which he normally controlled, there was no trace of it in his demeanour. ‘The list of the Committee you asked for,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse my scrawl, but my girl isn’t in until ten today and I thought you’d like it quickly.’

  ‘And confidentially,’ said Lambert. He took the sheet from the Secretary; in fact, the writing was neat, unhurried and clear. ‘Thank you, David. Do sit down for a moment. Was there anyone else apart from the Edwardses who was in the clubhouse after your meeting last night?’

  ‘I’ve already thought about that,’ said Parsons. ‘No one else that I know of. The bar was empty apart from us, because Vic only stayed open after our meeting in case we wanted a quick one. Only the front door of the clubhouse was open. I suppose someone could have been hiding somewhere, in the locker-rooms or the snooker-room or the ladies’ lounge, quietly waiting his chance.’

  ‘Unlikely,’ said Lambert. ‘Vic Edwards says he checked everywhere as he locked up just be
fore your meeting finished. Unless we see him as an accomplice to some person unknown, it looks as if the possibilities are confined to your list.’ He glanced at the two sheets of neat handwriting, then smiled into the calm, watchful face opposite him.

  ‘This is just the kind of detail I wanted, David. Compiled with your usual efficiency and despatch.’ He waited; they exchanged half-smiles and the Secretary prepared to rise and leave. ‘There is just one embarrassing omission.’ He paused to watch Parsons’s interrogative look: he had anticipated this moment. ‘You were present at that meeting yourself, David, so I must have the same details for you as for all the others.’

  ‘Sorry. Guilty until proved innocent, I suppose!’ With a grim little smile, Parsons took back the paper and began to write.

  ‘Unless someone is helpful enough to offer us a confession, we shall proceed by elimination,’ said Lambert lightly but firmly. ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t like to be overlooked, David.’ The Secretary was not five feet away from him; he watched his hands carefully as he wrote. They did not tremble, as he had half-hoped, and the writing in the neat black script was indistinguishable from the previous entries. Indeed, Parsons as he stood to go looked in better control of himself, less grey and shaken, than he had an hour previously. An innocent and diligent worker revived by the restoration of his daily tasks, by his usefulness in assisting the police in this appalling business? Or a murderer elated by the early bafflement of those same police? Lambert shook himself free of such profitless speculation. ‘God preserve me from amateur psychology!’ he muttered.

  ‘And so say all of us,’ said Hook with feeling. ‘If you could add the professionals as well, you could make that the daily prayer of every police force in the country!’

  But Lambert was already busy with the material Parsons had brought in; he passed the sheet to Bert Hook as he completed his perusal.

  Somewhere within the listed names their murderer lurked; these dull statistics masked a hate strong enough to erupt into the violent killing of a defenceless man. It was an unlikely context for a killer, probably something Hook was trying to express when he concluded his perusal with the lame thought, ‘These are your friends, sir.’

  ‘Hardly that,’ said Lambert, a little defensively. Thirty years of training and experience made him shy away from any suggestion of personal involvement in an investigation. ‘I know them all, of course. None of them well. I won’t discuss them with you at the moment: your own first impressions of them, unclouded by your Superintendent’s prejudices, will be interesting.’ He ignored his Sergeant’s obvious disappointment. ‘Better photocopy this. One for you, one for the fingerprint boys, one for the file. That’s all for the moment.’

  He sat down and prepared to ring each person on the list. He would have liked to visit them, so as to watch their reactions to the news of the murder, but there was no time for that now. He got work numbers from David Parsons for those who had already left home. All of them except Bill Birch already knew of the killing. Lambert remembered too late that Mary Hartford, the Lady Captain, was Matron of the local small hospital. Although Shepherd’s body would have been taken to Wycombe Hospital with a post-mortem ordered, her ambulancemen had collected the body. A few calls to fellow Committee members, contacts with the Steward this morning; the grapevine of information in a small community was one of its most efficient growths. He was left wishing he had woken his suspects in the still of the night, weary as he had been. It would have been valuable to study the impact of the death upon each of them at that most vulnerable of hours.

  He concluded each call with ‘We shall be collecting your fingerprints some time today. Please don’t leave the area without ringing this number to let us know your movements.’ If he hoped to rattle his listeners, he was unsuccessful. There was nervous laughter, the little jokes about South America he had heard a hundred times, even cool distaste, but nothing that was not a perfectly normal reaction from people involved in a murder investigation for the first time in their lives. There was also the same unusual factor he had noticed in those receiving the news of the Chairman’s death on the previous night. Even now, from Committee members who had had time to condition and civilize their first, raw reactions to the Chairman’s murder, there was shock, even fear, but no regret.

  From one of them he could get no reply. He went back to the Secretary’s office, where David Parsons was dictating letters to the part-time typist who had just arrived. ‘No reply from Debbie Hall,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said the Secretary, ‘but she knows. She came in here not very long ago looking as white as a sheet. She’s having a lesson with Alastair now. I persuaded her to go ahead with it.’ Lambert nodded and wandered through the changing-rooms to view the fair Debbie. It was no hardship. Indeed, he wondered wryly whether he would have moved so readily to check the presence of a male member of the Committee in the same circumstances.

  At the back of the clubhouse he walked into a different world. The sun was climbing a cloudless heaven and the club flag, now at half-mast, scarcely moved as he strolled to the putting green and looked out over the course. Sixty yards away on the other side of the river, Debbie Hall was well into her lesson with Alistair McBrain. Lambert watched appreciatively as the golden-haired Debbie, in white sleeveless top and light pink trousers, sliced a ball away into the light rough between the first and eighteenth fairways which served as a teaching area. Alistair, dour, professional and sixty-three, adjusted the position of her left leg in a way which might have been dangerous for a man without the insurance of his years and expertise. Debbie waggled her hips from side to side as she had been taught to do and settled into the new stance, movements which caused unhealthy excitement in a fourball of visitors on the first tee behind her.

  This time she dispatched the ball straight, then held the club at the zenith of her follow-through, in the pose beloved of golfers the world over after a good shot. As she turned to set up another practice ball, she saw Lambert and gave him a wave of greeting that was almost casual. A little piece of bravado to protest her innocence and free conscience? It was possible, but Debbie was a good mover in any case, as was frequently remarked in the male section of the club. And like many women who attracted considerable attention from men, she had developed an unruffled exterior from her youth.

  Behind his Superintendent, Bert Hook coughed with conscious discretion, and was rewarded by a little start as that worthy’s contemplation of the scene was interrupted. In a mere sergeant it might almost have been guilt. ‘Phone for you, sir. Dr Burgess with the post-mortem results.’

  Lambert stole a last look at the course in its late spring glory before he turned reluctantly back indoors. He indicated the fair Debbie to Hook. ‘You’ll be happy to hear Miss Hall is a member of the Committee and will thus need assiduous investigation,’ he said. They watched her hit one more shot, sighing together as her blonde hair flashed briefly in the morning sun. ‘“Much have I travelled in the realms of gold,”’ said Lambert appreciatively as they turned their backs dutifully on the scene.

  ‘Indeed, sir?’ said Hook.

  ‘Keats,’ said Lambert, anxious as ever to educate his staff.

  ‘Does she really, sir?’ said Hook impassively. He marched ahead of his Chief: it would never do for his leader to see his smile of satisfaction at setting up a superintendent as a straight man.

  The panelled Committee Room felt claustrophobic after the brilliant light outside. After the tiniest hesitation and a rueful smile at his sensitivity, Lambert settled himself into the chair James Shepherd had occupied until he became ‘the deceased’. The pathologist had waited long enough to be impatient.

  ‘Time of death between nine and eleven on 28th May. Cause of death insertion of sharp instrument to a depth of seven inches. A sharp, slightly downward blow, almost certainly by someone facing the deceased, piercing the left ventricle. Wound commensurate with knife, probably military in origin, found at the scene of the crime. Analyses of blood from that knife and the corps
e confirm this. Nothing for you in the stomach contents. A normal meal and a little alcohol consumed an hour or two before death.’

  There was nothing here for Lambert. Just a list of details which would be proof against a defence counsel probing for police carelessness. For once he could be more precise about the time of death than the medics; he already had it down as between 9.45 and 10.30. Hopefully he put the one question he had been waiting to pose. ‘Could a woman have inflicted the death-wound?’ His suspects might be reduced here from five to three at a stroke.

  ‘Oh yes. No great strength needed with anything as sharp and heavy as that knife.’ The pathologist’s tones had the slight smugness of one who knew he was not making life easy for the listener.

  Without hope, Lambert asked the only other question he had thought of. ‘Just the one wound, and that instantly fatal. Does that imply specialist knowledge of armed combat?’ There was a pause; from long experience, he could see in his mind’s eye Dr Burgess pursing his lips as he weighed the thought.

  ‘It’s possible; an interesting thought. But a bit of medical knowledge would do as well or better. And it could easily have been a lucky strike by someone with no knowledge. I’d have to say so in court. That was a deadly weapon to have lying around. If it was, of course.’

  That thought had already occurred to Lambert. ‘Would you send it back here when your examination’s complete?’ he said. ‘We’ll take good care of it.’

  ‘Wanting to play ghoulish psychological games with your suspects, John?’ said Burgess. ‘You senior CID men make us sawbones seem sensitive souls at times.’ He hesitated, then spoke reluctantly, like one loath to give the help he was about to volunteer. ‘There’s one other thing about the murder weapon that will gladden your avenging heart. The dabs boys say there’s one print, on the extreme end of the handle. By the end of the day, you’ll know whether it belongs to one of your precious Committee!’