“I don’t see that I’ll have cause to. As of right now, there’s no case. Can you come up to Edinburgh next weekend?”
“I’ll try.” Helen sounded reassured and sent a kissing sound over the phone as they bid each other a tender good night.
A long-distance relationship wasn’t easy, but Rex was determined to make it work. Perhaps Helen could be persuaded to make a permanent move. Phoebe’s words had unsettled him. He hoped Helen cared enough to make the sacrifice. And then he asked himself if he could turn his back on Edinburgh.
Ten
At his chambers on Monday, Rex conducted an informal interview with the former clerk of court, Andrew Doyle, an obliging and mannerly old gentleman with a precise Scottish enunciation, in spite of his quavering voice.
“I miss the old place,” he said, his hands resting on the engraved silver knob of his walking cane. He looked about him at the fastidious décor, file folders neatly stacked on cabinets, books arranged in their proper order on the shelves, the desk itself devoid of clutter, while still bearing the accoutrements of an office not yet gone paper-free.
Two framed photographs sufficed to grace Rex’s workspace, a portrait of Helen and a picture of his son Campbell in cap and gown, holding up his scrolled degree in marine science from Jacksonville University in Florida.
“Retirement is not what it’s cracked up to be, you know,” Doyle warbled, shaking his nubby skull mapped with blue veins. “Dog-walking and gardening, for the most part. But my wife’s happy to have me at home. Gordon Murgatroyd would likely have stayed on the bench if Lords Commissioners of Justiciary didn’t have to retire at seventy. He took his position very seriously, as he should. You said you wanted to pick my brains in his regard. Well, pick away, Mr. Graves. I have all the time in the world.”
Rex first offered his guest tea, which Doyle accepted. “The truth of the matter is his daughter is not convinced he died of natural causes,” he told his visitor, “although there’s no hard evidence to prove otherwise; only a set of unusual circumstances. But I agreed to look into it, and, naturally, I’m relying on your discretion.”
“Naturally.” Doyle had sat attentively during Rex’s explanation, sipping tea from his cup beneath a clipped white moustache. “Well, now,” he said. “His Lordship had been living in Kent all these years with little contact with me or anyone else, as far as I know. Not sure how I can help.”
“According to his daughter, he became something of a recluse,” Rex agreed. “I lost touch with him myself, I regret to say, other than sending a card and brief news at Christmas. He maintained a regular correspondence with very few people. I can only conclude that his murder, if such it was, is linked to his old life here. I’m left considering contentious cases at court. Someone he sentenced who might have held a grudge.”
“Contentious, not so much,” Doyle answered deliberately. “Controversial, perhaps. The Pruitt case readily comes to mind. Do you remember that one?”
Rex’s heart went still. The investigation came back once again to Richard Pruitt. “Indeed I do. He was connected to a murder almost on our doorstep.”
“Skinner’s Close. Sinister name, I always thought.” Doyle nodded to himself. “Of course, many of those names hark back to back-alley occupations: Fleshmarket Close, Surgeon’s Close, and what have you. Aye, Pruitt’s story was flimsy to say the least, and he looked like someone people could conceive of stalking a schoolgirl. Still, the jury must have had their doubts to come back with a ‘not guilty and don’t do it again’ verdict.” The old man chuckled knowingly. “It was one of Lord Murgatroyd’s last cases. Don’t see Pruitt murdering the judge, though, do you? Where would be the motive?”
“Do you recall him sending the judge a stamp?”
Doyle nodded. “I do. I personally thought Pruitt owed him more than a postage stamp. His Lordship should rightly have thrown the book at him in the public’s opinion, but he could admonish the witnesses, even expert witnesses, with a withering look and all but get the jury to return the verdict he wanted.”
Rex recalled that look very well. An image of the red-and-white-robed judge huddled in his chair and glowering beneath his bench wig flashed upon him as though it were yesterday.
“How aboot cases where the verdict crushed the accused?” he quizzed Andrew Doyle.
“Well, now, what judge does not have his share of outraged inmates? I imagine many of them eat, drink, and dream revenge. Judges do get murdered, but you’d think in the case of an old man they’d just let nature take its course.”
“As perhaps it did.” Rex sighed. He was probably wasting his time. “Aye, well, if you do remember anyone who threatened him in any significant way, perhaps you could let me know.”
“I shall.” Doyle deposited his cup and saucer on the desk. He paused in thought and lifted a bony finger. “Off the cuff, you could look into Don MacDonald and Scott Priest. Lord Murgatroyd sent MacDonald down for life for stabbing his shrew of a wife. MacDonald raised his fist at him from the dock. Priest shot two security guards in that Princes Street bank robbery in the late eighties, not fatally, I might add, and got life as well. Hurled insults at His Lordship as he was led away. But he’ll still be in prison, as well. So, unless either of them got a released cell mate or outside contact to go down to Canterbury to murder the judge … However, Dick Whitely, who planted that bomb at Parliament House; remember him? He’d be oot by now.”
“I applaud your memory,” Rex said, smiling at the old clerk and yet daunted by the task ahead of him. He would have to go through the judge’s cases and see which felons had been released in the past year or so. It could prove to be not only a tedious but futile process of elimination. He thanked Doyle and suggested they meet for lunch the following week, when Rex had a less packed schedule.
Conducting a private case on top of his court ones could hardly have fallen at a worse time. However, he would not be satisfied until he had, to the best of his ability, fulfilled his promise to Phoebe and his personal obligation to her father. To achieve this end, he would have to take her request for his help at face value.
He would start with Richard Pruitt, who’d had as much contact with the judge as anyone outside his home in the latter years. It was quite possible Gordon Murgatroyd had confided in the man who owed him his freedom.
Rex discovered that Pruitt’s number was ex-directory and he was obliged to ring Phoebe. She finally located the number in her father’s address book and asked Rex if he was getting anywhere.
He told her about his meeting with Andrew Doyle, who had given him the names of men who had, in their view at least, received harsh sentences from her father and might have plotted and executed revenge, even if through a third party. He asked in return if she had filed a police report for the missing items, and she said that she had. He assured her he would be back in touch as soon as he had anything concrete.
When he called Richard Pruitt’s number, he received a recorded message and left one of his own. An hour went by, and then two more as he worked on court briefs. Quite possibly, the once-accused child murderer wanted to be left alone, and just when Rex had convinced himself that this was the case, his mobile phone rang and he saw Pruitt’s number on the display.
“Thank you for returning my call, Mr. Pruitt.”
“When you said it was concerning Gordon Murgatroyd, I just had to ring you back. I was devastated to hear the news, though at his age it’s hardly surprising, is it?” Pruitt had a reedy and not altogether pleasant voice.
“Indeed. I won’t take up too much of your time. It concerns a stamp in his collection. His daughter said it was from you.”
“What of it, Mr. Graves?” Pruitt asked amiably enough.
“Nothing in or of itself, probably. I’m looking into a personal matter for her.”
Pruitt gave a sigh of resignation over the phone. “You said in your message you were a QC and were acquainted
with Judge Murgatroyd. I expect you know I was on trial for the stabbing of a young girl.”
“It’s not my intention or business to retry you in my own mind,” Rex assured him. “A jury already passed judgement.”
“I found her face-down in the close and tried to render assistance,” Pruitt volunteered nonetheless. “That’s how her blood got on me. A passer-by dialled police, said he’d seen me dumping her body. That was a lie, and they never located that particular witness. I had an alibi. I’d been at a pub and was heading home. It wasn’t my usual local, and it was dark in there. I paid cash and no one remembered me. Another witness said I was behaving suspiciously. I was just trying to cover the poor lass up. It was cold that night. I didn’t realize at first she was dead. A jury of fifteen acquitted me.”
“The verdict was ‘not proven,’” Rex qualified.
“That is correct,” Pruitt conceded over the phone. “But Judge Murgatroyd was presiding and he let it be known that he thought the case against me was spurious. When I found out he was a collector of stamps, I sent him one from the States with the scales of Justice on it as a mark of gratitude and of my esteem. He thanked me, even though the stamp wasn’t anything much, and said it was a wonderful addition to his collection. We kept in touch by letter and I gave him tips, being a professional stamp dealer.”
“Did anyone know you were in contact with him?” Rex asked.
“Not from me.”
“Was the girl’s killer ever caught? I don’t recall any recurrences.”
“April Showers was her name. Pretty name, I always thought, though rather poignant in the event: short-lived, like April showers … No, the real culprit was not caught, but I pursued my own line of inquiry to aid in my defence, and I continued after the trial in the hope of restoring my reputation. I had to close up shop, you know, and now I work mostly online where most people don’t know of my past. To this day I live under a cloud of suspicion.”
Rex thought the man sounded sincere, but criminals were often good at deluding others and sometimes themselves. “Did anything come up in your own investigations?”
“Shortly after my trial a man went to prison for housebreaking. A thirteen-year-old girl was living at the residence, but he said he went in solely to steal valuables. She found him in her room with a knife and pushed a panic button. Her father came to her rescue. She was unharmed, but had a narrow escape, if you ask me.”
“Stouthrief,” Rex said, giving the Scottish legal term for armed burglary. “What was the man’s name?”
“Dan Sutter. He was recently released from Shotts Prison. I’ve kept tabs on him to see if he’d get up to his old tricks. I hired a private investigator. I think Judge Murgatroyd believed he was up to more than just stealing, and that’s why he gave him ten years, when no charges could be brought against him for attempted assault on a minor.”
“That’s a bit unorthodox,” Rex remarked; even by Gordon Murgatroyd’s standards, he thought.
“He had his own way of meting oot justice,” Pruitt opined. “It may have made him a lot of enemies, but I admired him for it. Not many people have the strength of their convictions the way he had.”
“Mr. Pruitt,” Rex said, glancing at his watch. “Can you meet me late this afternoon? I’d like to discuss with you further.”
“With pleasure. Can you come to my home? I live at Ramsay Garden. I don’t venture oot much.”
“I can be there by six.”
Pruitt gave him his flat number and told him he would show him what he had on Sutter. Rex was still pensively holding the silent phone to his chin when Alistair entered his office bearing two cups and saucers. His friend never drank tea from less than the best bone china.
“I saw your door was open and thought you might be in need.” Alistair spoke with a more Etonian than Scottish accent, having been educated in England, although Rex fondly suspected it was something of an affectation. His friend was rarely serious, unless he was prosecuting, and even then he was prone to a brand of irony that often had the back of the courtroom in a joyous uproar, forcing the judge to restore order.
Alistair set the cups down on the desk, nudging aside the crockery from Rex’s previous visit, and folded his long form into the vacated chair. “Wasn’t that old Doyle I saw earlier on?”
“Aye. He kindly came in upon my request.” Rex proceeded to fill Alistair in on developments in his private case.
“I met Phoebe Wells one time,” his colleague mused aloud. “She’s quite stylish, as I recall, but not really your sort.”
“Helen is my sort.”
“Well, I wish you’d just hurry up and marry the woman. You know how I love weddings.”
Rex gazed at his friend in mild frustration. “Alistair, this is a serious matter I’m dealing with. I didn’t ask for it, but there it is.”
“I’d go with you to Pruitt’s house, but I have a fencing match.” Alistair cut a fine figure, not only in his fine Savile Row suits, but also in his white fencing attire, especially when he pulled off his meshed helmet to reveal his Byronic locks and precision-cut sideburns.
“I doubt Richard Pruitt will pose a threat.” Rex recalled a slightly built, even effeminate, man at the time of his trial. “He swears blind he’s innocent.”
Alistair gave a derisive laugh. “Don’t they all?”
Eleven
Perched above the treetops on a hill of black volcanic rock rising above Princes Street, Ramsay Garden boasted enviable views and a central location by Edinburgh Castle. Town planner Patrick Geddes, who as a botanist had discovered chlorophyll in plants, had expanded on the original Scots Baronial design in the late nineteenth century, and nowadays the landmark cluster of red-roofed town homes, replete with whimsical towers, balconies, and half-timbered white gables, could fetch upwards of half a million pounds sterling apiece.
Rex had not been back here since visiting an old friend and erstwhile professor at the university, whose oriel window in the main reception room had looked upon the esplanade of the castle. They had sat at the window on long summer nights enjoying the stirring sound of bagpipes from the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo as men in kilts and bearskins marched in unison beneath the flood lights. Rex concluded Pruitt must be a highly successful stamp dealer to be able to afford a flat on prestigious Castlehill in spite of the adversity that had befallen him, justifiably or otherwise.
He parked his Mini Cooper in the residents’ courtyard and crossed to Pruitt’s block, burrowing his hands in the pockets of his camel hair coat. The weather had turned chilly with the onset of evening.
Finding the number he was looking for, he rang the bell and was immediately buzzed through to an internal stone stairway leading to a small terrace and a front door. It opened before he could knock and Pruitt, in a blue pullover and jeans, greeted him with a shake of the hand.
“Find the place all right?” he asked, ushering Rex inside a flat full of nooks and alcoves.
“Aye. I had a friend who lived around the corner. Redecorating, I see,” Rex commented upon noticing pictures missing from the wall in the hallway, which left behind hooks and ghostly shapes amid the framed glass cases of what Rex assumed were rare postage stamps, some of them crinkled and bearing smudged markings.
“Just switching some stuff around. You know how it is.” Pruitt showed him into the sitting room where one entire wall exhibited anthropological artefacts of warlike aspect, deadly spears and painted masks among them, from remote parts of the world. The man was obviously an avid and diverse collector.
“Where are these from?” Rex asked. “My friend collected such pieces.”
“Indonesia, New Guinea … Wherever I can find them.”
The remaining walls, of pale pearlescent grey crowned with crisp white moulding, gave the space a sophisticated and airy feel and offset the choice antiques to perfection. Rex could not but notice that his host looke
d out of place in it, his dress not as dapper as the décor, aside from the rings on his fingers, and he appeared to have put on weight since his arrest many years before.
Pruitt invited him to take the window seat, even though the shades were drawn over the view, and offered him whisky. Rex willingly accepted, saying a dram would warm him up nicely.
“Aye, winter will be upon us before we know it,” Pruitt said cheerily as he left the room.
Rex removed his coat and tartan scarf and placed them beside him. Pruitt returned shortly with the drinks on a tray. The gemstones on his pinkies drew Rex’s attention back to his fingers, thick and red as raw sausages. After serving him, Pruitt sat down on a striped silk Regency chair, separated from his guest by a midnight blue rug. The recessed lights in the ceiling were set low, the flat peacefully quiet and comfortably heated.
Rex took a generous sip of his single malt. “How is the stamp business these days?” he asked, commencing the topic of conversation he was here to pursue.
“Up and down,” Pruitt said. “A lot of foreign buyers.”
“I don’t know if I mentioned it on the phone, but one of the judge’s albums went missing from his daughter’s house. Not the one with your stamp in it. A new collection he had begun.”
Pruitt started in surprise at the mention of his stamp. “Oh, aye. Glad it’s still there. And how is the legal business these days?” he countered.
“Up and down,” Rex replied, and they both drank.
“Must be satisfying to help put criminals away,” Pruitt said, “And then be able to go home to dinner.”
“I can live with it so long as I’m convinced they’re guilty. Which wasn’t the case with you,” Rex hastened to add. “You were going to fill me in on your suspect in the April Showers murder in Skinner’s Close,” he prompted.
“Found in Skinner’s Close, not murdered there.”
“Right. You said you found the body. I don’t think the police ever discovered the actual scene of the crime, did they?”
Judgment of Murder Page 5
