Murder in Misdirection

by Anne Cleeland

  “You’ve been to Wexton?” Williams asked with some surprise.

  “Yes—in connection with the corruption case,” Doyle answered vaguely. In truth, she’d gone on an off-the-record visit with Solonik, whilst he was being held there. She’d been hoping to ferret out the Russian’s evil plans, but instead, she’d walked—

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  like an idiot—straight into a trap, which went to show you that she should keep her off-the-record activities to a bare minimum.

  “One of the Wexton Prison matrons was a player in the corruption rig,” Williams explained, for Mathis’ benefit. “She was at Trestles, that night.”

  “I remember her,” Mathis noted in a neutral tone. “She fell

  ill.”

  Since Doyle was convinced that Mathis had poisoned the woman, she hurriedly turned the subject. “And the DCS was exposed as a blackleg that very night—the miserable gombeen.”

  “A lot of drama,” Mathis agreed, in a monumental understatement. “Not what we’re used to, there.”

  “And I argued with you about tactics, Mathis,” Williams reminded her, teasing. “I don’t think you’re used to that, either.”

  “Not at all,” the girl agreed evenly, and dished out eggs and bacon without further comment.

  Oh-ho, thought Doyle, smiling to herself. It’s smitten, she is—or as smitten as she allows herself to be. It’s like a soap opera, around here, what with Howard after Mary, and Gabriel after Munoz, and Mathis—well, Mathis was not exactly after Williams, but the girl wouldn’t protest if the man made a move, not that it seemed likely to happen. Idly, she watched them, as Williams listened to Emile’s chatter, and Mathis walked over to replace the boy’s rucksack on the closet hook, and hang up his jacket.

  Wait—there it was; the boy’s jacket. Doyle stared, as Mathis casually closed the closet door, and returned to the sink. Doyle was certain that Emile had lost the jacket at the confirmation reception, but now it had re-appeared, coming back from Emile’s prison visit. So—whatever it was they were smuggling had made another round trip.

  “When do you start school?” Williams asked Emile, with the air of someone hoping that it was sooner rather than later.

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  “Next month,” the boy pronounced importantly. “I will wear a uniform, and there are rabbits, in a cage.”

  Mathis looked up from doing the wash-up. “Oh—Lady Acton, Mr. Savoie asked if you would see to it that Emile has all the required inoculations.”

  Doyle looked up in surprise. “I thought Emile already had his shots.”

  “Mr. Savoie mentioned that he needed them; I’ve no idea, either way.” Mathis dried her hands, and then checked the messages on her mobile. “I’ll have to get back to the lab.”

  “Well, thank you, Lizzie. When’s your next visit to the prison?” Mainly, Doyle was thinking about the next round of smuggling.

  “I don’t believe there is anything scheduled,” Mathis replied in a neutral tone, and Doyle’s scalp prickled.

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  The final act was slated for tomorrow, and then all accounts would be settled.

  D oyle could barely contain her impatience as she waited for Williams to leave, and nearly pushed him out the door when he showed an inclination to linger—probably

  was angling for another beer—but she’d some sleuthing to do, and best get it done before Reynolds came back. After closing the entry door, she pulled Emile’s jacket from the closet, and carefully examined it; checking the seams until she saw what she was looking for. Doyle’s mother had taught her to sew a fine seam, and a small section of the jacket’s inner lining had been hastily tacked.

  Squeezing, she systematically went over the garment, and concluded that whatever it was, it had been taken out at the prison, which only made sense; something was going in, not coming out. What was surprising, though, was that the tacked seam area measured two inches, at most. Not a mobile phone, then? Cigarettes would fit, but it was hard to believe that Acton had gone to all this trouble for cigarettes, and she was certain that the smuggling operation was Acton’s—there was a plot afoot.

  Thoughtfully, she re-hung the jacket, and considered what was best to do. Acton was up to something—faith, the day Acton was not up to something should be declared a national holiday. He was in a good mood about whatever-it-was, and she’d the impression that he was crossing swords with someone—she knew the signs, by now—and that he was winning, which was not a surprise.

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  And—according to Mathis’ last remark—no further prison visits were planned, so presumably the smuggling of small objects into the prison was at an end. Savoie was still there, though—he’d been held for an unusually long time without being charged. Savoie, who had the crooked guards at Wexton Prison in his back pocket, and was promising Emile that they’d go home, soon.

  The most logical conclusion—when you added it all up— was that a prison break was planned, and indeed, Acton had admitted as much. The puzzling thing was that if the mechanisms for a prison break were being put in place, Savoie would presumably have to flee the country, but it seemed clear that Savoie was going nowhere. He’d enrolled Emile in school, here in London, and now he was fussing about his inoculations.

  Doyle’s scalp prickled, and she turned her gaze toward the boy, who was standing at the window and watching the scene below, with his hands and forehead pressed against the glass. “Emile,” she asked. “Remember when you told me you got a shot? When was this?”

  He lifted his head to look at her. “I needed to have a shot to go to St. Petersburg. It pinched, but I didn’t cry.” He looked down below again. “But then I didn’t even go.”

  Doyle walked over, and stood beside him, as they gazed out the windows. “Do you remember what the doctor’s name was?”

  The boy shook his head, and then breathed on the glass, creating a circle of moisture. “No—it wasn’t a doctor, it was a guard at the prison. He took my picture, too, for the important papers.”

  Doyle stared at the top of the boy’s head, completely flummoxed. “Your Papa was goin’ to take you to St. Petersburg?” Perhaps Savoie was indeed departing these shores—although it seemed very strange that the notorious Frenchman would choose to go to St. Petersburg—one would imagine that the

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  Russian underworld would not appreciate the likes of Philippe Savoie lurking about, trying to muscle in on their territory.

  Smiling, the boy shook his head, and turned to look up at her, amused that she was so perplexed. “No, no, no—the lady was going to take me. The lady who is your friend—yours and Papa’s. She was going to take me to meet Papa in St. Petersburg, but it had to be a secret, and I mustn’t say.” He paused, then added fairly, “I don’t think it needs to be a secret anymore, since I’m not going.”

  The puzzle didn’t seem to be getting any clearer, and so Doyle guessed, “Was the lady named Tasza? Was she tall, with blonde hair?”

  The boy laughed at the absurdity of this. “No—it was the old lady; the babushka.”

  Suddenly, the puzzle pieces began to fall into place, and with a sense of relief, Doyle remarked in a casual tone, “Oh— that’s right; the lady who was at Trestles, that night when we were all there.”

  The boy nodded, and returned his scrutiny to the scene below them. “I played with the toy animals,” he remembered.

  “Yes—that’s right. Are you sure it was the same lady, who was helping with your shot at the prison? I thought she was very sick.”

  He sucked on his finger for a moment, before tracing in the wet image on the window. “Yes—it was her. Her hair is white, now.” He giggled. “She called me Jonathan—she didn’t know that was my old name, not my new one. She had a cane, and she let me hold it.”

  Doyle nodded, and said no more. So; one mystery solved; So
lonik’s evil sister—the boy’s aunt—must have resurfaced to try to seize the boy, and this move had no doubt resulted in her winding up under the rubble at Holy Trinity. There was not the smallest chance that Savoie was going to relinquish Emile to

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  her—even though she was probably the only person with a legal claim to the boy—and Acton had been happy to assist in a little misdirection murder, to ensure the boy’s future.

  This thought gave her pause, though, since Acton was not the type of man who would be over-concerned with someone else’s loose-end child. More likely he needed Savoie’s cooperation in whatever scheme was currently going forward, and this was the best way to guarantee it. Strange, though, that he’d gone to such lengths; if Mrs. Barayev had suddenly died at her nursing home, it wouldn’t have been much of a surprise, after all. There was no need, one would think, to go to the trouble of disguising her identity, and paying off a charwoman to disappear back to the other side of the world.

  The concierge buzzed to say that Reynolds was below, and so Doyle decided that she’d postpone thinking about this niggling loose end; why had Acton staged such an elaborate misdirection murder, for someone he could murder in a much more plain-vanilla fashion? Mayhap he was showing off, or something. Or turning the tables—Acton was the grand master at turning the tables.

  Emile immediately began debriefing Reynolds about his prison visit, and the servant—upon beholding the boy racing about the kitchen in his excitement—decided that a walk to the park might be just the thing. Doyle shot the man a grateful look as the two made their way out the entry door, Emile describing the prison’s barbed-wire-topped walls with ghoulish relish.

  The sudden silence was a welcome relief, after such a ragged day, and Doyle decided that she’d very much like to behold her wayward husband, if for no other reason than to try to test out her theories.

  “Come home?” she texted, then added, “Not in labor,” just so he didn’t panic. She’d the sense, despite his calm façade, that he was worried about the upcoming blessed event.

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  “On my way, have some news,” he replied, and with a fond smile, she brushed her thumb across the screen. A doting man, he was, and she loved him, despite his many and troubling faults. After all, his many and troubling faults seemed to be rooted, lately, in his outsized devotion to his unlikely bride—it was one of those paradonces, or whatever you called them; he was constantly masterminding some scheme to supposedly better her life, and she was constantly telling him that he needn’t—all she needed was his fine self. The poor man had fixated on the wrong girl; mayhap if she started acting like a demanding shrew, he’d have less time to stir up trouble amongst the citizenry.

  Blowing out a resigned breath, she put her mobile away, and acknowledged something she’d truthfully realized long ago—Acton was not about to stop his masterminding; he enjoyed it too much. He wasn’t exactly what you’d call a normal man, and all his various schemings helped him to feel that he was in control—that he could control the uncontrollable, as if there were such a thing. If he had a true faith, then perhaps he wouldn’t feel the need, but he didn’t have a true faith—few people did, it seemed—and so she should help him with his need-to-be-in-control issues, as best she could.

  She’d been hoping that the happy rhythm of their life together might soothe him enough to tone it down, but apparently, she’d been too optimistic about the depth of the problem. Faith, it was a little disquieting to realize that he’d had Mrs. Barayev murdered just as he was preparing for his confirmation—really didn’t speak very well for the holy catechism, when all was said and done.

  I’ll keep trying, she thought; I’m the only one who can, and I’ve got to think about that whole hellfire scenario—although Acton would probably give them a run for their money, down there.

  With a sigh, she settled in to wait.

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  It was extraordinary news, and he still wasn’t certain he believed it.

  A short while later, her husband came through the door, bearing a latté generously topped with whipped cream. “To tempt your appetite,” he suggested, as he leaned to

  kiss her. “You didn’t eat much, at lunch.”

  “Done,” she said readily, and started sipping. “We’ve got the blessed place to ourselves; Emile was jumpin’ about like a jackdaw, and so Reynolds went to run him ragged in the park.”

  “A good strategy,” Acton agreed, as he made his way toward the kitchen. “I confess I do not recall having half as much energy.”

  She had a glimpse, for a moment, of a lonely little boy, immersing himself in books to escape the reality of his terrible parents, and she suddenly decided she wasn’t going to give him the third degree about whatever was going forward at Wexton Prison. I’m truly not very brave, despite what everyone thinks, she thought, and I’m afraid if I have it out with him about the smuggling—and the murder of Mrs. Barayev—it will wind up as somehow being a call-to-action for me to fix the situation, and I’m in no shape for a call-to-action, just now.

  Acton pulled the orange juice bottle out of the fridge, and then loosened his tie, as he sank down beside her on the sofa.

  “What’s your news?” she asked with interest. “It’s a simmerin’ brew, you are.”

  For once, Acton seemed uncertain as to what he wanted to say, and he contemplated the orange juice bottle for a moment. “I don’t like to impose upon you—you know that.”

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  Teasing, she asked, “Is this about sex? Text Reynolds then, and tell him to take the long way home, again.”

  Smiling, he tilted his head. “Unfortunately, not. I’ve come across something of interest, and so I’ve invited a visitor over. He has a fantastic story, and I’m not certain I believe it.”

  “Then I stand ready to help,” she said lightly. Acton needed a truth-detector, then, to sort out whatever-it-was.

  He met her eyes with all sincerity. “I’m sorry, Kathleen, but I think it is necessary.”

  But she wouldn’t hear any apologies. “Whist, husband; this used to be our stock-in-trade, back when we were doin’ field-work together, and clearin’ out the villains like so much brushwood.” She smiled fondly, and leaned in against his arm. “Those were the days, weren’t they? ‘Terrified’ was my middle name, back then—I was that nervous around you.”

  He smiled. “And mine was ‘frustrated’.”

  Laughing, she teased, “That’s as may be, but look how well it’s all turned out.”

  “It will be even better,” he assured her.

  This seemed a golden opportunity to bring up the Acton-improvement topic, and so she gently reminded him, “Life is an unendin’ series of unplanned surprises, my friend, both pleasant and unpleasant. There’s truly not a lot you can do about it.”

  But Acton—being Acton—was not about to admit to such a thing. “I must disagree; a bit of planning can tilt the field immeasurably.”

  With a smile, she lifted her head to look at him. “Is that so? Well, good luck to you—I can think of a few fields that tilted in the wrong direction, right off the top o’ my head. Greyfriars Bridge comes to mind. And a certain detective trainee.” Running her hand up his arm, she offered, “I appreciate the attempt, Michael—truly I do, but you can’t try to control the uncontrollable. You’ll only go down to certain defeat.”

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  He rested his head against the top of hers. “Nonetheless, I can tilt the field.”

  With a mental sigh, she decided that she’d beaten her wings enough today, and so said no more.

  Her husband lifted his arm to look at his watch. “Our visitor should be arriving, soon.”

  “Sounds a bit ominous,” she ventured, wondering why he was being so mysterious.

  He gazed into the fireplace for a moment. “I don’t think he’s
a threat of any kind, but I cannot be certain.”

  “Is he in the database?”

  “No,” Acton replied slowly. “He is not.”

  Straightening up, she declared, “Well then; that’s why you need me, and my apt-ness. What’s the case?”

  “There is no case.” He hesitated. “I think I’d rather not say anything more; it may be best if you listen in to our conversation, and draw your own conclusions.”