by HRF Keating
The relief on Charity’s face was too evident to miss. But Harriet made a point of seeming not to notice.
‘Oh, yes, there is one other thing I meant to ask,’ she said. ‘How did you come to know that Robert had been taken to the Masterton in the first place?’
‘I heard from a man called Matthew Jessop,’ Charity answered. ‘He’s Rob’s best friend, and he rang me. He actually said he thought I shouldn’t go up there and see him, though he never said why. But, of course, I started out as soon as he’d rung off.’
‘Good for you,’ Harriet said.
‘Glad you think so. But is there anything else you want to know?’
Harriet rose to her feet.
‘No. No, I don’t think there is.’
She thought for a moment. Got all I could have hoped for? I suppose so.
‘Right. Well, thanks for your help. And, if anything you’ve forgotten comes back to you, here’s my card with a phone number.’
Descending the stairs, Harriet felt she had been left with a good deal to think about. Curious little mysteries. Why had Charity, who had seemed to be a nice, open creature, hesitated before saying how it had come about that she knew Tonelle? All right, she had accounted for it by saying the Masterton specialised in sports injuries. But then she had left it at that. Not a word about what particular injury she had suffered, or how it had come about that the Masterton rather than a clinic in London had treated her. Nothing criminal in that, of course. But odd. Odd.
And then, too, what she told me about Roughouse was somehow not quite right. She had implied she was fully in his confidence, an ear for his pillow talk. But she had also said he was cagey about much of his day-to-day activities. Was that really true? Were there things she didn’t want, or didn’t for some reason dare, to tell me about? Does she know more than she let me believe? Can it be, in fact, that someone … that someone’s already threatened her into silence?
All right, I did learn from her that there’s a small inner group of old boys from the Zeal School who call themselves — was that really right? — the Cobbles. And does Charity actually know more about them than that curious name? Did her Rob confide something to her, but swear her to secrecy by the same sort of schoolboy rules she told me the group goes by? And does she feel, with Robert after all alive, she owes him her silence?
Something worth pursuing there? Though I implied to Charity that I’d learnt everything I wanted to, that’s by no means in fact the case.
Chapter Eight
Outside, Harriet used her toy-mobile to summon Bolshy from Roughouse’s Chelsea service flat. She had been in two minds about whether it had been sensible to give Bolshy his task. Will he, she asked herself now, have carried it out as sloppily as when he was asked to do nothing more difficult than find some details of Roughouse’s everyday existence?
But, she shrugged, I have to make use of such help as, thanks to the ACC, I’ve been given. And in fact, even if I get a search warrant, there’s not likely to be much to learn at somewhere as impersonal as a service flat. Roughouse’s bank, his solicitor’s office, even the headquarters of the Innovation Party will probably be better sources of information. But they will be sources for me to tackle, or perhaps, by phone, reliable old Happy Hapgood. Still, Bolshy had to be found something to do.
As she waited for him to come, she thought for a moment of exploring the street next to Daley Thompson House where the man who had come to that sudden halt had vanished. Did he stop like that because it was me he saw there looking up at this building? But why should he have? Yet what is it that makes me feel there is something. Something about him which makes me curious?
But, no. No will-of-the wisps. This is as good a time as any to go over in my mind once again everything Charity Nyambura said. Was there something I missed when she was talking about the Masterton? I feel there was. But no, damn it, can’t even think at this minute. I’ll get back to it in the end, but not by puzzling away now.
She crossed the road and looked through the high railings of the big playground gardens opposite.
Take a stroll there? No, might miss Bolshy, and God knows whether he’d wait here if I did. So, just have a peek down that little street after all?
Looking across, she saw it was called Colville Houses. Colville Houses. The mere curiousness of that as a street name — somehow not one conventionally right for any city street — finally decided her. She crossed back and looked along its short length. A row of small newish houses on one side, probably built after wartime bomb damage, and, opposite, tall and narrow much older ones, to judge from the uniform appearance of their brightly painted fronts let out as cheap flats. So not at all the kind of street an expensively dressed man was likely to have business in. Unless there was a prostitute somewhere there.
She walked up to the top — it was a cul-de-sac — looked all round, and, since there was nothing at all to see, made her way back.
But this definitely was another puzzle, the butter-yellow linen suit, the just glimpsed silky-looking tie, the polished tan shoes. In this unlikely setting?
It may mean nothing, of course. London full of unexplained oddities. But … but all the oddities that I’ve noticed here have at least been connected — if this last of them only remotely — with the unexplained attack on Robert Roughouse.
And there’s yet another puzzle, she thought now. Matthew Jessop, that friendly man, when he’d rung to tell Charity that her Rob was injured and in the Masterton Clinic, had said she ought not to visit him. And no explanation. Why? Knowing, as he must do that they are a couple, he can’t but have realised she would want to go to him straightaway. It’s not as if he had said there was no point in visiting when a phone inquiry would tell her all there was to be learnt. No, he had just said she shouldn’t go. That, and no more.
Worthwhile, as soon as Bolshy’s picked me up, nipping back to that pretty little house and having another word with Matthew Jessop? I think so. A few carefully put questions, face-to-face, may lead me somewhere. A stone not to be left unturned.
She used her toy-like memento of Graham to make sure Jessop was still at home. But no go. A recorded voice. Matthew Jessop is not in at present. If you want to leave a message, speak after the tone.
All right, already off filming somewhere, I imagine. He seems to do that almost every day. But if he’s not there in — what’s it? — Rutland Place, he’s not. Another little oddity to keep in mind.
A car came to a brakes-squealing halt just in front of her. Bolshy, the cock-a-hoop fast driver.
She opened the door, got in. For once not much of a smell of cheroots. He must have had a window open, nice afternoon as it is.
At once she embarked on some sharp questioning about Roughouse’s Chelsea flat. To her surprise, Bolshy emerged with a degree of credit.
‘Doorman at the block didn’t know next to nothing. Seems old Roughers don’t even eat in the flat. Goes to what that doorman called his sodding club.’
‘And is that all you found out, DS?’
‘Matter o’ fact, it ain’t.’
He gave her a quick look, blue-grey eyes at once flicking away.
‘I do know my way around,’ he said. ‘Guessed a doorman like that feller was bound to be a bit dodgy, so told him pretty quick I’d sussed out his little ways and he’d better turn the old blind eye to what it’d do him no harm not to know. Next thing I was inside the flat. Quick look at a fancy-looking address book on the desk. Just a lot of names, though I did spot a solicitor and a bank manager. In my notebook for you.’
‘Good work, DS, though I’d have preferred not to hear that you entered illegally.’
‘Suit yourself, ma’am. But that’s not all I found in there.’ Harriet sighed.
‘So, what else?’
‘Lot o’ locked file cases labelled Innovation Party. Went through ’em all.’
‘Locked files, DS?’
‘Yeah, not bad locks either. But I done better.’
‘All right. What
did you find in them then?’
‘Not a bleeding thing. Lot o’ bollocks every page, ask me.’
Ask him or not, Harriet said to herself, can I trust him? All right, he’s no doubt got a nose for anything dodgy. But he’s also perfectly capable of polishing up evidence for his own ends. If I accept what he’s telling me, he’ll hope to be let off making more inquiries, hope I’ll assume the Innovation Party is eliminated from the inquiry. Look at the way he told me only what he thought would satisfy me about Charity Nyambura. It was barely a tenth of what I learnt myself.
No, he’s done something of a good job at the Chelsea flat, even if he went further beyond the rules and regs than I like to think about. But as to trusting him, I can’t. I won’t.
*
Back at Waterloo Gardens in the business-like surroundings of the Incident Room, she found its full, if meagre, team of DCs active under Happy Hapgood’s directions. The results of the inquiries at Gralethorpe which might still produce a description of someone seen running from the scene had all been filed and cross-filed. And more, Happy had waiting for her the early forensic report on the mortar-like machine that had sent the purple egg flying to within a foot of Robert Roughouse’s head. In her office, devouring the close-typed pages she learnt that the contraption had probably been constructed, to judge by its workmanship, by a skilled craftsman. It was, too, clearly a one-off, designed for that one occasion it had been used. And no identifiable traces of the person who had fired it had been found.
A hired killer then who had looked ahead even against the eventuality of his having to abandon his machine. A real professional. The implications began to slot themselves into place in her mind. For some reason somebody, or some people, with plenty of money must have thought it necessary to get rid of Robert Roughouse. Not, for heaven’s sake, as a potential Master of Foxhounds, and not, surely, even as head of the Innovation Party. But, after somehow learning he was to speak in out-of-the-way Gralethorpe — information more or less freely available — they must have seized that opportunity to have him killed and make it look like the work of some Animal Rights extremists. It was a scheme which, but for that single-minded, armigerous old fool Percival Pidgeon, could well have left not the least trace.
No, it’s plain now, if it wasn’t totally so before, that this is an affair of real importance. Think of the large sum involved in having the hitman make the device and its cunning little explosive egg. All right, that may look now as if it’s beyond the resources of any Animal Rights activists, but had the person who fired that shot been able to take the device away with them, no one would ever have known how elaborately it had been constructed. But, thanks again to Percival Flappant Ears, they had been forced to leave it behind for us to find and the forensics people to analyse.
But should I go to the ACC and say I think the case is now a matter for Special Branch, however much the handling of it might restore my reputation? Show him I’m not the woman I was when I learnt about — about Graham’s death, and Malcolm, so terribly —
A sharp tap on the door.
‘Come in.’
An oddly anonymous-looking man stepped inside, grey sports jacket and dark trousers, plain blue tie on plain blue shirt.
Clearly, from his merely being here on his own, in the heart of Birchester’s main police station, he must be a police officer. Yet I’m certain he’s nobody I’ve ever seen. Unless that oddly blank face of his has made me forget.
‘Detective Superintendent Martens?’
‘My office. My name.’
‘Good evening, ma’am. DI Peters, Special Branch. From London.’
What’s this? I’m just thinking Roughouse’s death may after all be a matter for the secret ways of Special Branch and in steps none other than an SB officer.
‘I’m up here seeing your ACC (Crime). He’s been in touch with us about the attack on Robert Roughouse. He was concerned that political matters, possibly to do with the Innovation Party, were at the back of it.’
So who’s been trying to show cocky Detective Superintendent Martens that, though she may have been right about the Animal Rights people, she’s way behind in seeing that the case does have political implications? And, yes, galling that I’ve only just worked that out myself.
‘And he’s sent you to tell me that the SB is taking over? Well, I suppose that’s probably for the best. You’ve got the knowledge, and the resources.’
DI Peters unexpectedly grinned. A sudden gleam on the po-face.
‘That’s true, ma’am, we have got the knowledge. Knowledge about the Innovation Party. And it’s this. They’re a nice lot of old buffers — some young, of course, and some female — who are going to be about as effective in politics as any other here-today, gone-tomorrow outfit. Haven’t got the funds, haven’t got any real backing.’
Well, well. So Bolshy’s forage through those locked files in Roughouse’s flat got it right. Lot o’ bollocks, every page.
‘You mean, the party’s not likely to have been involved in any way in the attack on Roughouse?’
‘We don’t think so, ma’am, not for a moment. You know, we always take an interest in any new outfit like the Innovation Party. Put someone inside, see what they’re really up to. And it turns out that nine times out of ten — probably ninety-nine out of a hundred — they’re just pretending they’re for real. They’re having a nice little time, all on their own.’
‘I see. Well, I don’t mind telling you I’d just arrived at the same conclusion as my ACC, though he didn’t actually say to me he was getting in touch with you. Right, it turns out we were both wrong. I’m in good company, it seems.’
DI Peters offered no comment.
‘There is one other thing,’ Harriet said in face of that discreet silence. ‘How shall I put it? Yes. Do you know whether any other body, besides the Innovation Party, may have an interest in Roughouse?’
‘There’s a fairly simple answer to that. As far as I know, no group with any serious activity in mind is likely to be interested in him. He’s a nice well-meaning chap, from all I hear, and a brave one. But in any political context he’s a lightweight. Blown this way and that at any puff of anything.’
‘Thank you for telling me, DI.’
‘So, ma’am,’ he said with a tiny hint of a smile still on his firmly blank face, ‘looks like I’m leaving you with a mystery motive.’
*
Sitting staring at the door that DI Peters had closed behind him on his way back to London, Harriet felt she had more than a little new to think about. A mystery motive. DI Peters couldn’t have got it more right. If it wasn’t an Animal Rights maniac who had all but killed Robert Roughouse, and if there’s no faction inside the Innovation Party with plans that go beyond the unwritten rules of British political life, then why on earth did an assassination attempt take place at all? But it did. It happened. And from that moment onwards it’s been all mystery and murk.
But something still to do, and at once.
Lips set in an inflexible line, she rang the Masterton’s guardian dragon.
‘No, Superintendent,’ Mrs Fishlock said in answer to a carefully worded inquiry, ‘Mr Roughouse has, of course, undergone the operation on his head. But he has still to recover consciousness. However, I can tell you that our medical staff are well pleased with their work and have informed me that the patient’s condition remains stable. And now let me add this: I am, as you scarcely seem to have recognised, a very busy woman. I have innumerable important duties. I cannot spend the whole of my time answering all these inquiries about Mr Roughouse, wherever they come from.’
‘It’s no concern of mine however many inquiries you have,’ Harriet snapped, returning blow for blow. ‘But, when Mr Roughouse is at all able to talk, will you see that I am informed immediately? It is essential that I interview him, however briefly, at whatever hour of the day or night, as soon as he’s fit to be spoken to.’
A silence at the far end. Broken eventually.
‘Ve
ry well, Superintendent. But I must warn you that any interview you have must depend on the medical staff advising me that it will not adversely affect the patient. Is that understood?’
‘Of course.’
Harriet put down the phone before another fiery puff of dragon’s breath could reach her. She turned with a sigh to writing up her mandatory Policy File, the hour-to-hour record of her own thoughts and ideas. Always a mistake to leave it till later. Scribbling away with a snatched-up ballpoint, she set down her certainty that the attack on Roughouse had been the work of a professional hitman and not of any Animal Rights militant nor of any rogue group within the harmless Innovation Party.
Her reasoning was promptly confirmed when a message came in from New Scotland Yard. There was, it said, no reason at present to believe that any of the Animal Rights activists kept under regular surveillance were involved in the Gralethorpe incident, nor had their undercover officers had any hint of extreme action being planned.
At last she locked the Policy File safely away and set off for home.
*
It was only as she stood at her front door, fishing in her bag for her key, that the question she had last been reminded of by the pink copy of the Financial Times on Matthew Jessop’s hall-table came back, full-blown, into her mind. The question John, very likely wondering at this moment if this was going to be another get-your-own supper evening, would in all probability have an instant answer to.
She found the key, opened the door.
As soon as she caught the look of mild relief on John’s face she dived into the kitchen and snatched up her blue-and-red heavy-duty apron. Then she went back and, before anything intervened, blurted out her question.
‘Up with a tent for not quite a blonde, east not zero leads to dug-out?’
John blinked only once.
‘Eleven across, I think it was. Last Saturday. But why do you want to know? You’re the one who makes a point of never so much as looking at a crossword.’
She grinned.
‘It’s police business, something to please a possibly useful contact. Nice girl called Tonelle, the receptionist at the Masterton Clinic.’
