Murder on the Short List

by Peter Lovesey

“OK. Have it your way. Obsession.” I smiled, wanting to lighten the mood a bit.

  “You were the hotshot ball boy,” he said. “You deserved to win.”

  “I doubt it. Anyway, I was too absorbed in it all to see how the other kids shaped up.”

  “Believe me, you were the best. I couldn’t match you for speed or stillness. The need to be invisible he was always on about.”

  “I remember that.”

  “I believed I was as good as anyone, except you.” Eddie took a long sip of beer and was silent for some time.

  I waited. It was obvious some boyhood memory was troubling him.

  He cleared his throat nervously. “Something has been on my mind all these years. It’s a burden I can’t take with me when I go. I don’t have long, and I want to clear my conscience. You remember the match between the Russian and the Pole?”

  “Voronin and, er . . .?”

  “Stanski – the one who died. It should never have happened. You’re the one who should have died.”

  Staring at him, I played the last statement over in my head.

  He said, “You’ve got to remember the mental state we were in, totally committed to being best boy. It was crazy, but nothing else in the world mattered. I could tell you were better than I was, and you told me yourself that the Brigadier spoke to you after one of your matches on Ladies’ Day.”

  “Did I?” I said, amazed he still had such a clear recollection. “He didn’t say anything to me. It was obvious you were booked for the final. While you were on the squad, I stood no chance. It sounds like lunacy now, but I was so fired up I had to stop you.”

  “How?”

  “With poison.”

  “Now come on, Eddie. You’re not serious.”

  But his tone insisted he was. “If you remember, when we were in the first year, there was a sensational story in the papers about a man, a Bulgarian, who was murdered in London by a pellet the size of a pinhead that contained an almost unknown poison called ricin.”

  “Georgi Markov.”

  “Yes. We talked about it in chemistry with Blind Pugh. Remember?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “He said a gram of the stuff was enough to kill thirty-six thousand people and it attacked the red blood cells. It was obtained from the seeds or beans of the castor-oil plant, ricinus communis. They had to be ground up in a pestle and mortar because otherwise the hard seed-coat prevented absorption. Just a few seeds would be enough. Old Pugh told us all this in the belief that castor oil plants are tropical, but he was wrong. They’ve been grown in this country as border plants ever since Tudor times.”

  “You’re saying you got hold of some?”

  “From a local seedsman, and no health warning. I’m sorry if all this sounds callous. I felt driven at the time. I plotted how to do it, using this.”

  Eddie spread his palm and a small piece of metal lay across it. “I picked it out of a litter bin after Stanski threw it away. This is the sewing machine needle he found. My murder weapon.”

  I said with distaste, “You were responsible for that?”

  “It came from my mother’s machine. I ground the needle to a really fine point and made a gelatine capsule containing the poison and filled the eye of the needle with it.”

  “What were you going to do with it – stick it into my arm?”

  “No. Remember how we were drilled to return to the same spot just behind the tramlines beside the umpire’s chair? If you watch tennis, that place gets as worn as the serving area at the back of the court. The ballboys always return to the same spot. My plan was simple. Stick the needle into the turf with the sharp point upwards and you would kneel on it and inject the ricin into your bloodstream. I’m telling you this because I want the truth to come out before I die. I meant to kill you and it went wrong. Stanski dived at a difficult ball and his arm went straight down on the needle.”

  “But he went on to win the match.”

  “The effects take days to kick in, but there’s no antidote. Even if I’d confessed at the time, they couldn’t have saved him. It was unforgivable. I was obsessed and it’s preyed on my mind ever since.”

  “So all that stuff in the papers about Voronin being an assassin . . .”

  “Was rubbish. It was me. If you want to go to the police,” he said, “I don’t mind confessing everything I’ve told you. I just want the truth to be known before I go. I’m told I have six months at most.”

  I was silent, reflecting on what I’d heard, the conflicting motives that had driven a young boy to kill and a dying man to confess twenty years later.

  “Or you could wait until after I’ve gone. You say you’re a journalist. You could write it up and tell it in your own way.”

  He left me to make up my own mind.

  Eddie died in November.

  And you are the first after me to get the full story.

  A BLOW ON THE HEAD

  Almost there. Donna Culpepper looked ahead to her destination and her destiny, the top of Beachy Head, the great chalk headland that is the summit of the South Downs coast. She’d walked from where the taxi driver had left her. The stiff climb wasn’t easy on this gusty August afternoon, but her mind was made up. She was thirty-nine, with no intention of being forty. She’d made a disastrous marriage to a man who had deserted her after six weeks, robbed her of her money, her confidence, her dreams. Trying to put it all behind her, as friends kept urging, had not worked. Two years on, she was unwilling to try any longer.

  Other ways of ending it, like an overdose or cutting her wrists, were not right for Donna. Beachy Head was the place. As a child she’d stayed in Eastbourne with her Gran and they came here often, ‘for a blow on the Head’, as Gran put it, crunching the tiny grey shells of the path, her grey hair tugged by the wind, while jackdaws and herring-gulls swooped and soared, screaming in the clear air. From the top, five hundred feet up when you first saw the sea, you had a sudden sensation of height that made your spine tingle. There was just the rim of eroding turf and the hideous drop.

  On a good day you could see the Isle of Wight, Gran had said. Donna couldn’t see anything and stepped closer to the edge and Gran grabbed her and said it was dangerous. People came here to kill themselves.

  This interested Donna. Gran gave reluctant answers to her questions.

  “They jump off”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, dear.”

  “Yes, you do. Tell me, Gran.”

  “Some people are unhappy.”

  “What makes them unhappy?”

  “Lots of things.”

  “What things?”

  “Never mind, dear.”

  “But I do mind. Tell me what made those people unhappy.”

  “Grown-up things.”

  “Like making babies?”

  “No, no, no. Whoever put such ideas in your head?”

  “What, then?”

  “Sometimes they get unhappy because they lose the person they love.”

  “What’s love?”

  “Oh, dear. You’ve such a lot to learn. When you grow up you fall in love with someone and if you’re lucky you marry them.”

  “Is that why they jump off the cliff?’”

  Gran laughed. “No, you daft ha’porth, it’s the opposite, or I think it is. Let’s change the subject.”

  The trouble with grown-ups is that they always change the subject before they get to the point. For some years after this Donna thought falling in love was a physical act involving gravity. She could see that falling off Beachy Head was dangerous and would only be attempted by desperate people. She expected it was possible to get in love by falling from more sensible heights. She tried jumping off her bed a few times, but nothing happened. The kitchen table, which she tried only once, was no use either.

  She started getting sensuous dreams, though. She would leap off the cliff edge and float in the air like the skydivers she’d seen on television. If that was falling in love she could understand why there
was so much talk about it.

  Disillusion set in when she started school. Love turned out to be something else involving those gross, ungainly creatures, boys. After a few skirmishes with over-curious boys she decided love was not worth pursuing any longer. It didn’t come up to her dreams. This was a pity because other girls of her age expected less and got a more gradual initiation into the mysteries of sex.

  At seventeen the hormones would not be suppressed and Donna drank five vodkas and went to bed with a man of twenty-three. He said he was in love with her, but if that was love it was unsatisfactory. And in the several relationships she had in her twenties she never experienced anything to match those dreams of falling and flying. Most of her girlfriends found partners and moved in with them. Donna held off.

  In her mid-to-late thirties she began to feel deprived. One day she saw the Meeting Place page in a national paper. Somewhere out there was her ideal partner. She decided to take active steps to find him. She had money. Her Gran had died and left her everything, ninety thousand pounds. In the ad she described herself as independent, sensitive and cultured.

  And that was how she met Lionel Culpepper.

  He was charming, good-looking and better at sex than anyone she’d met. She told him about her Gran and her walks on Beachy Head and her dreams of flying. He said he had a pilot’s licence and offered to take her up in a small plane. She asked if he owned a plane and he said he would hire one. Thinking of her legacy she asked how much they cost and he thought he could buy a good one secondhand for ninety thousand pounds. They got married and opened a joint account. He went off one morning to look at a plane offered for sale in a magazine. That was the last she saw of her husband. When she checked the bank account it was empty. She had been married thirty-eight days.

  For a long time she worried about Lionel, thinking he’d had an accident. She reported him missing. Then a letter arrived from a solicitor. Cruelly formal in its wording, it stated that her husband, Lionel Culpepper, wanted a divorce. She was devastated. She hated him then and knew him for what he was. He would not get his divorce that easily.

  That was two years ago. Here she was, taking the route of so many who have sought to end their troubles by suicide. Some odd sense of completion, she supposed, was making her take those last steps to the highest point. Any part of the cliff edge would do.

  She saw a phone box ahead. Oddly situated, you would think, on a cliff top. The Samaritans had arranged for the phone to be here just in case any tormented soul decided to call them and talk. Donna walked past. A short way beyond was a well-placed wooden bench and she was grateful for that. She needed a moment to compose herself.

  She sat. It was just the usual seat you found in parks and along river banks all over the country. Not comfortable for long with its slatted seat and upright back, but welcome at the end of the stiff climb. And it did face the sea.

  In a moment she would launch herself. She wasn’t too scared. A small part of her still wanted the thrill of falling. For a few precious seconds she would be like those sky-divers appearing to fly. This was the way to go.

  Revived and resolute, Donna stood and checked to make sure no one was about. Perfect. She had the whole headland to herself . . .

  Well, then.

  What it was that drew her attention back to the bench she couldn’t say. At the edge of her vision she became aware of a small brass plaque screwed to the top rail. She read the inscription.

  * * *

  In memory of my beloved wife Donna Maria Culpepper, 1967-2004, who loved to walk here and enjoy this view.

  * * *

  A surreal moment. Donna swayed and had to reach out and clutch the bench. She sat again, rubbed her eyes, took a deep breath and looked a second time because she half wondered if her heightened state of mind had made her hallucinate.

  The words were just as she’d first read them. Her name in full. She’d never met anyone with the same name. It would be extraordinary if some other Donna Maria Culpepper had walked here and loved this view. The year of birth was right as well.

  Two things were definitely not Donna. She hadn’t died in 2004 and the way her rat of a husband had treated her made the word ‘beloved’ a sick joke.

  Was it possible, she asked herself now, still staring at the weird plaque, that Lionel had paid for the bench and put it here? Could he have heard from some mistaken source that she had died? Had he done this in a fit of conscience?

  No chance. Freed of that foolish infatuation she’d experienced when she met the man and married him, she knew him for what he was. Conscience didn’t trouble Lionel. He’d had the gall to ask for a divorce – through a solicitor and after weeks of silence. He was cowardly and callous.

  How could this bench be anything to do with Lionel, or with her?

  It was a mystery.

  Cold logic suggested there had been another Donna Maria Culpepper born in the same year who had died in 2004 and had this touching memorial placed here by her widowed husband, who was obviously more devoted and considerate than Lionel. And yet it required a series of coincidences for this to have happened: the same first names, surname, date of birth.

  She took another look. In the bottom right corner of the plaque was a detail she hadn’t noticed – the letters ‘L.C.’ – Lionel’s initials. This, surely, clinched it. The odds against were huge.

  She no longer felt suicidal. Anger had taken over. She was outraged by Lionel’s conduct. He shouldn’t have done this. She had come here in a wholly negative frame of mind. Now a new challenge galvanized her. She would get to the truth. She was recharged, determined to find an explanation.

  First she had to find him. After their break-up she’d had minimal contact, and that was through solicitors’ letters. She had no idea where he lived now.

  She walked down the path towards the town.

  The Parks and Recreations Department at Eastbourne Council said that about forty seats had been donated as memorials by members of the public. A helpful young woman showed her the records. The bench had been presented last spring. A man had come in with the plaque already inscribed. He’d particularly asked for a teak seat to be positioned at the top of Beachy Head. He’d paid in cash and left no name, though it was obvious he had to be a Mr Culpepper.

  Donna asked if he’d left his address or phone number and was told he had not. She took a sharp, impatient breath and explained about the shock she’d had. The clerical assistant was sympathetic and said it could only be an unfortunate duplication of names.

  While Donna was explaining why she thought it couldn’t be coincidence, an assistant at the next desk asked if they were talking about the seat at the top of Beachy Head. She said a few months ago she’d had someone else in, a woman, asking about the same seat and the man who presented it.

  “A woman? Did she say why?” Donna asked.

  “No, but she left her business card. I put it in the folder, just in case we found out any more.”

  The card had slipped to the bottom of the folder. Donna was given a pencil and paper to make a note of the name and phone number. Maggie Boswell-Jones, Starpart Film, TV and Theatrical Agency, Cecil Court, Off Charing Cross Road, London. There were phone, fax and e-mail numbers.

  Donna didn’t have her mobile with her. She hadn’t intended using it on this last day of her life. She used a public phone downstairs.

  The conversation was all very bizarre.

  “You’re Lionel’s wife? But you’re dead,” Maggie Boswell-Jones said. “You were killed in a flying accident.”

  “I promise you I wasn’t,” Donna said. “I’m who I say I am.”

  “How can you be? There’s a seat on Beachy Head with your name on it. Lionel put it there in your memory.”

  “He ran out on me in the second month of our marriage. May I ask why you were looking for him?”

  “Because he’s my boyfriend, darling, and he’s missing.”

  Donna felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. She knew Lionel was a
rat. Now she knew he was a two-timing rat. He’d walked out on her and started up with this woman. She made an effort to save her fury for Lionel.

  “How did you know about the seat?”

  “He took me up there specially. He wanted me to know that you were dead. I made it very clear to him that I don’t get involved with married guys. He spoke nicely of you.”

  “Look, can I come and see you?”

  “Is that necessary?”

  “I’m determined to find him. With your help I’m sure I can do it.”

  At the agency Donna recognised a man who stepped out of the lift. He was an actor she often saw in Coronation Street. In the waiting room upstairs there were framed movie posters. In a glass showcase were various awards, including what looked like an Oscar.

  Maggie appeared high-powered with her black fringe, tinted glasses and purple suit, but she turned out to be charming. Coffee and biscuits were ready on a low table in her office. They sat together on a black leather sofa. “I’ve been trying to understand what’s going on with Lionel ever since you phoned and I’m still at a loss,” Maggie said. “He’s such a bright guy. I can’t think how he got to believe you’d passed away.”

  “He made it up,” Donna said.

  “Oh, I don’t think so. He said the kindest things about you. I mean, why would he go to the trouble and expense of buying a seat for you?”

  “To fool you into believing I was dead and he was free to have an affair. Can’t you see that?”

  Maggie took a lot of convincing. Clearly she was still under Lionel’s spell. Just as Donna had believed him incapable of leaving her, so Maggie insisted he must have lost his memory in the flying accident.

  “There was no flying accident,” Donna said. “He talked about taking me in a plane, but it never happened. He took ninety thousand pounds from our account.”

  “Really? This shocks me.” The colour had drained from Maggie’s face. “I certainly need to find him because I lent him sixty grand to renovate a house he’d bought for us in the south of France.”

  “You’ll never see that money again,” Donna said. “He’s a conman. He befriends women like you and me and fleeces them. If you don’t mind me asking, how did you meet him? Was it through a newspaper?”