Herring in the Smoke

by L. C. Tyler

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘You met and argued and you killed him.’

  ‘Killed him? No, of course not. He never showed up. Waited in the bar for ages. I was quite cross after all the effort I’d gone to, phoning him twice in one day. Typical of Roger Vane, I thought. Nasty inconsiderate child. But I was wrong, because it wasn’t Roger Vane at all. And the only reason he hadn’t shown up was because he was dead. Perfectly reasonable, when you think about it.’

  ‘You said two or three of the old boys had offered to kill Vane for you,’ I said. ‘So did that include Ogilvie or Davies?’

  ‘I hate to point this out,’ said Ethelred, ‘but in five minutes both of them could be here.’

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Were you expecting another visitor?’ asked Tuesday. ‘Because there’s somebody outside who says he’s going to sue you – and I’m quoting him now – for every effing penny you’ve got.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Elsie

  I told Tim to sit on my desk and put Lord Davies in Tim’s chair. I offered Davies coffee but he didn’t seem to hear me, possibly because Tim was partially blocking his view of me. The room was getting quite warm, I noticed, and Tim’s elbow was digging into my shoulder. Ethelred had nowhere to put his legs and was uncomfortably hunched up. Cynthia was regretting sitting next to Slide, who was giving off an odour of old and well-loved tweed. Margery was sitting bolt upright and enjoying every minute. Her expression suggested that she was wondering if there was still some way in which she might, even at this late hour, incriminate herself.

  ‘Now, introductions,’ I said briskly. ‘Lord Davies, this is Ethelred—’

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  ‘And this is Doctor Jonathan Slide.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Good afternoon, Jonathan.’

  ‘Nice to see you, Davies,’ said Slide. ‘It’s been a while. You missed the thirtieth anniversary dinner for your year. Great fun. Your pal Rutherford was hospitalised. Almost died. Or maybe he did die. My memory’s not what it was.’

  ‘And this is Cynthia, Roger Vane’s niece. And her mother. And this is Tim, Roger’s former partner. And I’m Elsie Thirkettle, leading London literary agent. Well, I think that covers that.’

  ‘And have you sent the same libellous letter to everyone here?’ demanded Davies.

  ‘No, you’re all here for different reasons. I’ve accused only some of you of murder.’

  ‘And why are you accusing me? I’ve already told Ethelred I had nothing to do with it. I was in London. I’m not sure how you propose to avoid legal action, Miss Thirkettle – what you say next had better be good.’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘It’s obviously up to you which of us you sue, but Ethelred told me quite clearly that you lied about the CCTV cameras. He also said it was perfectly possible for you to get out of your office undetected, drive down to Chichester, kill Vane – or Johnston as we now know him to be – and get back in time for your conference call. That was his view. And I’d probably go along with it, at least in part.’

  ‘Which part?’

  ‘The safe and legal part.’

  ‘Would it help if I said that the police had already cleared me?’ said Davies.

  ‘Have they?’ I asked.

  ‘I have been subjected to DNA testing, fingerprinting, fibre analysis and an hour-long grilling on my movements. The police have, however, confirmed that they cannot find me or my car on CCTV anywhere near the scene of the crime. They will shortly confirm that there is also no trace of my DNA anywhere near the site and no trace of the victim’s DNA on my clothes. And I know that because I never stirred outside the office building all night. But you are presumably going to challenge all of this scientific evidence on the basis of a hunch that I might have had time to drive to Chichester and back?’

  ‘Which you did have,’ I said.

  ‘Think carefully before you say that again.’

  ‘It’s more Ethelred saying it,’ I said. ‘You might like to note that for legal purposes. But I think you’ll find it’s true. Ethelred also says that you sold pornography to minors.’

  Slide nodded. ‘It was really a pastiche of the Earl of Rochester. I confiscated the copies that the third-formers bought, of course – slightly too sophisticated for them. The fourth-formers were doing the Stuarts, so in some ways it was quite educational.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ said Davies. ‘I’ve already phoned my solicitor. You probably know him. Will Ogilvie. As soon as I can get to see him, I intend to start a libel action against you, Ms Thirkettle, and anyone else who has repeated these lies.’

  ‘Three o’clock,’ said Ethelred, as if he’d warned me before that that might happen.

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Mr William Ogilvie,’ said Tuesday. ‘Is he the last?’

  ‘No, there will be one more,’ growled Davies. ‘I’ve already phoned him.’

  ‘Shall I fetch more chairs?’ asked Tuesday.

  ‘No, I’ll stand,’ said Ogilvie, glancing round the room. ‘No introductions needed. I think I know everybody. Good to see you all. I’ve got a bit of a bombshell for one of you, I’m afraid, but I’ll wait my turn to speak. If there’s any chance of coffee in the meantime, I’d love some. And … is it me or is it really hot and … er … slightly stuffy in here?’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Elsie

  ‘So, have I missed anything exciting?’ asked Ogilvie, as I wrenched open the window.

  ‘Vane wasn’t Vane; he was Roy Johnston,’ I said. ‘Johnston was trying to nick Vane’s money by impersonating Vane. Cynthia helped him and blackmailed him into giving her a sizeable cut.’

  ‘So did I,’ said Margery. ‘We were both in on the blackmail. Let’s be clear about that.’

  ‘Noted,’ I said. ‘For the record, she also had an affair with Roger Vane.’

  ‘No, she didn’t,’ said Cynthia.

  ‘Just a small one, perhaps,’ Margery said. ‘Would you all like me to tell you about it?’

  ‘No,’ said Cynthia. ‘They wouldn’t.’

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘Dr Slide told Johnston he’d like to kill him but, to be fair, actually meant the threat for Vane. Later he told him he knew everything, meaning the past twenty years had been tough, but which Johnston interpreted as meaning something else. This enticed Johnston out of his hotel to his death. Those are the headlines. Now for the news where you are. A certain lawyer was seen in a Chichester car park at the right time and had a motive in that Vane knew he had done a bit of car theft in his youth and he didn’t want that to get back to the constituency. So, you’re a prime suspect, Mr Ogilvie. The weather is expected to remain cold with rainy intervals. Over to you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ogilvie. ‘I’ve heard worse summings up in court. But I must challenge you on one point. The Sussex police have been more efficient than you imply. I too have been interviewed, swabbed, fingerprinted and my clothes brushed for evidence. I won’t say I enjoyed it, but it has given me greater empathy with some of my clients than I had previously. I was indeed in Chichester car park; but like Lord Davies – and we have already had the opportunity to compare notes – I am not expecting to be told that I have been caught on CCTV in the centre of town or that there is any evidence to connect me with an alleyway just off East Street. I never had strong views on DNA in the past, but now I think it’s rather useful. So, I agree I was closer to the action than Lord Davies, but not close enough to do any damage.’

  ‘Same here,’ said Slide. ‘Fingerprints. Swabs. The lot. Nothing to connect me with anything, apparently. Thank God for technology, I say.’

  ‘So, it couldn’t have been any of you …’ I said.

  ‘I haven’t been fingerprinted,’ said Margery, holding up her hand. ‘Or any of the other things.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Davies, looking at me. ‘It was none of us. And since my solicitor is now here, I can begin legal action against you, on my behalf and Dr
Slide’s and indeed Mr Ogilvie’s, if he wishes. I intend to instruct the best barrister we can find – don’t worry about paying, Jonathan, this will be my treat. And we will take you, Ms Thirkettle, for every penny you have. As for Miss Cynthia Vane, who you say was complicit in Johnston’s chicanery, she has fraudulently obtained money from Roger Vane’s bank account. I think the police may have something to say about that.’

  ‘Thanks for mentioning that, Elsie,’ said Cynthia.

  ‘And thank you so much, Cynthia, for snitching on us to Roy Johnston,’ I said.

  ‘Right,’ said Davies. ‘Where do we begin, Will? How long will it take to issue writs?’

  Ogilvie frowned. ‘Speaking as your lawyer, I would not advise you to do anything,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Davies.

  ‘Let us consider,’ said Ogilvie. ‘Nobody here has committed a crime.’

  ‘Cynthia has,’ said Davies. ‘Theft and blackmail. And her mother seems to have aided and abetted her.’

  ‘So I did,’ said Margery. ‘Both of those things.’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ said Ogilvie. ‘I’ll come to all of that in a moment. But first we should each consider how much of this we wish to come out. Your involvement in the publication of the poem, for example. Or your previous relationship with Roger Vane, coincidentally linked to the place in which he was killed. The gutter press would enjoy reporting every detail. And Jonathan has a great deal in his past …’

  ‘Gosh, yes,’ said Slide. ‘An enormous amount. My, I did have fun.’

  ‘As to my own role in borrowing the deputy head’s car … well, I’m not sure how much I want to be an MP anyway. If that comes out, then it comes out. It’s not as though I was ever charged with anything, though explaining the cover up may be awkward. I’ll talk it through with my constituency chairman and stand down if he wants me to stand down. But you can count me out of any legal action and my advice would be to let it go.’

  ‘And the charges against Cynthia Vane?’ asked Davies. ‘Surely they can’t be ignored?’

  I noticed Tim nod at this point. A little harsh but Cynthia had no reason to expect our loyalty and, hell, it was his million she’d stolen.

  ‘Ah yes … that was my bombshell, I’m afraid. I have an apology to make – to Cynthia and to all of you really.’

  He paused and flashed a glance at Tim.

  ‘Go on,’ said Tim.

  ‘Well, it’s like this. Cynthia came to see me and I told her that Roger had made a new will. She was cut out and Tim got everything. And that was how I remembered it – indeed that was the will I drafted for Roger before he went to Thailand. I recalled every detail. Or almost every detail.’

  ‘But?’ said Tim.

  ‘But he never signed it. When I got it out of store, I noticed the signature was missing. Then I remembered. He’d said he’d sign it when he got back. It was only a delay of a fortnight. Neither of us imagined that he wouldn’t be coming back. So, the only valid will is his earlier one. Now he’s dead again, the money’s Cynthia’s. I’ll have to check what the legal position is if you attempt to steal your own money. I don’t think it happens that often.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Margery. ‘I won’t need to cancel Mr Hepplewhite. And Cynthia doesn’t need to go to prison of course.’

  ‘But Roger intended me to have the money …’ said Tim. ‘The drafting of the new will makes that clear.’

  ‘He did intend you to have the money. Briefly. Less so perhaps after the events in Thailand. We’ll never know. Maybe if you got a good lawyer he could make something of it. I’d refer them to Waghorn vs Waghorn in the first instance.’

  ‘Will that help my case?’ asked Tim.

  ‘No,’ said Ogilvie. ‘Sadly not.’

  ‘So,’ said Cynthia, ‘there was no need for me to do any deal with Johnston, because the money was always mine?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No need to help him prove he was Roger Vane?’

  ‘Not from your point of view.’

  ‘So, he should have ended up going back to Australia with nothing – as he would if left to his own devices – rather than being murdered in an alleyway?’

  ‘That too is true. I think it’s called tragic irony when that happens.’

  ‘And we have all consequently wasted a great deal of time and effort having to prove our innocence?’ demanded Davies.

  ‘I’m not saying everyone hasn’t been inconvenienced to some extent,’ said Ogilvie.

  ‘All because of your incompetence?’ asked Cynthia. ‘We should be suing you.’

  Ogilvie pursed his lips. ‘I would be careful with your precise wording. I told you Roger had changed his will, as indeed he had. I also said that I wasn’t sure how you could be prosecuted for stealing your own money. But the good thing about the law is that there are always two ways of looking at everything. It was still your intention to defraud the estate of Roger Norton Vane. Morally it was your money but legally it was yours only once the will was proved – another will, a signed one this time, might theoretically have come to light. A moderately clever prosecution lawyer might still make a case against you. But – and this is the good news – only if there is some evidence that you were planning to perpetrate a fraud. At the moment the police will obviously be aware that Johnston transferred money to you. But, unless anyone here cares to tell the police what we now know, there is no proof that Johnston even consulted you before doing so. It could have been simply because he felt guilty at his own deception … that he wanted to make some sort of reparation to the family. So, let us all think very, very carefully. Almost everyone of us has a certain amount to lose if the police are given more evidence than they actually deserve … and, Margery, you will be delighted to learn that I include you in this warning. So, my advice to everyone is that we should allow the authorities to conclude their investigations and not interfere any further in any way. Unless one of us knows otherwise, none of us killed Roger Vane.’

  ‘That’s good advice, as ever,’ said Davies. ‘There has been more than enough interference already. And that is why I have made a formal complaint to the West Sussex Police about your conduct, Miss Thirkettle. I am not without influence. I have spoken to their commissioner. I must warn you that he is sending one of their top men to sort this out.’ He checked his watch. ‘I think you’ll find he should be here any minute.’

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘I have no idea how you can fit anyone else into this room,’ said Tuesday, ‘but since he’s a policeman I can’t very well keep him out.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Joe. ‘I am indeed one of their top men – thank you for saying so, Lord Davies. And I think I can finally sort this out for you. No, don’t get up, Ethelred, I’ll just perch on the other corner of the desk. Are you sitting comfortably? No, I didn’t think you were. Well, I’ll begin anyway, and I’ll start by telling you the name of the murderer. I think you’ll all find it pretty obvious, when you consider the evidence.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Elsie

  ‘The murderer,’ said Joe, ‘was Wayne Flood.’

  ‘Who?’ said Tim.

  ‘Who?’ said Ogilvie.

  ‘Who?’ said Davies.

  ‘What?’ said Ethelred, by way of elegant variation, I suppose.

  ‘Well, I’m glad I’m not the only one who has no idea what’s going on,’ said Margery.

  ‘Not an Old Cordwainer, I think,’ said Slide. ‘You don’t mean Tristram Flood-Jones, the banker, I suppose? No, he’s in prison already. Rate fixing. Can’t be him.’

  ‘Wayne Flood?’ asked Cynthia. ‘You said we would find it obvious but clearly none of us has even heard of Wayne Flood. It’s hardly fair to expect us to have guessed it was him when we don’t have a clue who he is.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Joe. ‘It is entirely fair, as I shall demonstrate. Indeed, it could have been nobody else, and you should all be ashamed of yourselves for not spotting it.’

&nbs
p; ‘But you’ve never mentioned his name before,’ said Ethelred.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Joe. ‘I haven’t. But before I explain why it had to be him, I’d like to say a few words on the subject of murder in real life.’

  ‘That sounds like a chapter in its own right,’ said Ethelred.

  ‘Could be,’ said Joe. ‘You never know.’

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Elsie

  ‘The problem with crime fiction,’ said Joe, ‘not that I read a lot of it, is that the murder victim is very often a mere cypher – a largely anonymous character whose only function is to act as the central point of the investigation, which is the real subject of the book.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t read much crime fiction?’ said Cynthia.

  ‘Well, maybe a bit,’ said Joe. ‘The point is that in real life, the victim is nothing of the sort and the pain and hurt don’t end with the catching of the murderer. Real murder devastates lives – not just the victim but the victim’s family, the victim’s friends, the victim’s community. And the hurt lasts as long as they last. They try to dull the pain with logic and meaning. One of the things that people who are caught up in a murder say to me all the time is that they hope that the death of their loved one will mean that no other child, no other young woman, no other human being ever has to suffer again in the same way. And they don’t just say it to me. They say it to the papers, they say it on television. They set up funds and foundations. They want to know the reason why their loved one died. They want to take that information and apply logic to it. They want to come up with a formula that proves nobody will die that way again. They want to be able to learn from it. They want us to learn from it.

  ‘The problem is that most real-life murders are messy and illogical. There isn’t a reason for them. There’s nothing to learn except that it’s easier to kill another human being than you ever imagined. A kid says something to another kid in a nightclub that is misheard and the next thing you know the second kid has got ten of his mates together and they beat the shit out of the first kid and leave him dying by the side of the road, right by the CCTV, which has picked up the whole thing. That’s murder. No motive. No plan. Just a minute and a half of opportunity and an arrest the following morning. We’ve got a farmer’s wife over by Bognor – let her husband have it with both barrels from his shotgun. She said she regretted it as soon as she fired the first barrel, but she’d started so she thought she might as well finish. Most murders are pretty much unplanned. Most murders are regretted almost at once.