Fall of Angels

by Barbara Cleverly

  “Yes, I know it’s an irregularity, but—”

  “Never mind that! How did you account for it? Did you cover yourself with a good story for the forensics boys?” MacFarlane demanded.

  “I entered it as a suspected sample of the victim’s prints, sir. Attempting to link her with a presence on college premises. I’ve asked them to print out what they have and compare them with any prints they can lift from the metal clasp and frame or shiny leather surface of the bag found with the body. They’ll find that they have, not the girl’s prints on the glass, but two unrecorded sets. If one of these then proves to be identical with prints on her bag, then we’ve got him!”

  “How soon can they get back to us?”

  “They wouldn’t commit themselves to a particular time, but they hope for tomorrow.”

  “What are your expectations?”

  “Not much. Don’t get excited, sir. The dean has a very strong motive, either for a premeditated or spur-of-the-moment killing. He had good reason to fear that the girl was about to wreck his domestic life and possibly his professional career with her blackmail demands. He seemed to me not the violent, quick-tempered type at all, but he is quite capable of planning ahead to the extent of involving his manservant as his strong pair of hands. Dooley is an ex-soldier, a man inured to killing. He could have done it for the right incentive. Money probably. And the foolish dean would have dug himself deeper into a pit of death and blackmail.”

  “Yes, blackmail,” MacFarlane frowned. “Seems to be a lot of it about. You say the dean was puzzled by the light, even frivolous, demand the girl made? Granting permission for the trumpet performance? I’m with the dean on this! It’s ludicrous! That’s not what tarts do. They work for cash in hand, not musical favours. And they have their code—not of honour, but survival. They don’t piss off a good regular client. I’m more puzzled than he is! How about you, Redfyre? Making sense of it, are you?”

  “More sense than the dean, I think. I had tea with my aunt yesterday, and this was quite illuminating . . .”

  MacFarlane mulled over what now sounded even to Redfyre’s ears a far-fetched piece of female intrigue. “Mischief,” he concluded. “Can’t you have a strong word with these wimmin, Inspector? I can see what they’re up to. They’ve targeted Barnabas. Why? Easy pickings? A more approachable master than most—Henningham, you say, doesn’t seem actively to dislike females, and even has some sort of relationship going with a local schoolmarm, one of their own group, in fact. Their group—they don’t have a name for themselves? Am I getting this right, Redfyre? But these shenanigans represent an expression of some sort of special hatred. And they’re not letting go until they’ve achieved their end. Can we calculate what this end might be?”

  “It’s hardly the overnight granting of suffrage to all over twenty-one—that’s still well below the horizon. It’s small, their goal, but achievable. A carefully calculated victory. And it’s the first of a series.”

  “The breach in the dam?”

  “Think ahead, sir. If this comes to a boil, and with Scrivener, their honorary member (or their victim?) stoking the fires, the town might react. In a predictable way. The chief himself seems to have noticed what’s going on. Sneaky thought—has he, too, had inside information? Has he been approached and alarmed by some wild-eyed Cassandra foreseeing doom? Ultimately, the college will find itself the subject of public suspicion and scorn. To polish up its image it could well take a bold step of proving to the world that it has been maligned. Its only way to reinstate itself as far as I can see would be to open its doors and its lecture rooms to women. This would no doubt be welcomed in the press as a bold and forward-looking gesture. The dean had a taste of that warm praise when he was undeservedly assumed to be responsible for the granting of the concert licence. He had the nerve to confess that he rather basked in the glory.”

  MacFarlane was hearing him out in silence. “So? Are you ever going to come clean, Inspector, and tell us where your loyalty lies?”

  “Very well. I’m a suffragist, sir. Veering to the Millicent Fawcett rather than the Emmeline Pankhurst. I have very simple thoughts on the matter. Women are the equal of men. Always have been. It has just not been acknowledged yet in thought or in law. I’m also an officer of the peace and I cannot tolerate the abuse of the law by either sex to achieve even a worthy end.”

  “Well now we know where we are. I’ve got my eye on you, lad.”

  Redfyre concluded his account of his talk with his aunt by saying, lamely, to an openly scathing audience: “So, I’m adding to the list of suspects a shadowy presence who is targeting these ladies for their beliefs and the energetic way in which they are carrying out their suffragist crusade. He first made himself known to them in the late summer by means of a poison-pen letter. His latest communication is the holly wreath, with a message that can be interpreted as unfinished business with Miss Proudfoot.”

  “Mmm . . . it’s hard to put cuffs on a shadowy presence, Redfyre. Firm up or give up on this.”

  “Right, sir. Oh, there is just one more thing arising from investigations yesterday. Were you aware of the presence in the city of a man with a dubious history . . . well, dubious to me. The older brother of the Miss Stretton who is a friend of all three victims. He found himself fighting on the German side in the war . . .” Redfyre filled in the unpleasant details and concluded, “I wondered whether anyone had thought to inform the authorities of this man’s presence on our patch?”

  He could tell by MacFarlane’s hardening expression and suddenly abstracted gaze that someone had.

  “We have been notified. Yes. He resumed domicile rights—all perfectly legal and acceptable. We are advised no action and no surveillance of any sort is necessary in the case of Mr. Aethelwulf Stretton. I do hope this man is not your shadowy presence, Redfyre. You’d be wasting your time chasing him.”

  “No, sir. There is one obvious drawback to a suspicion of Wulfie Stretton as our strangler. He has no right hand.”

  “I beg your pardon!”

  Redfyre grinned. “Oberstleutnant Stretton tells me he never actually came to grips with the British army. Pretty early on in the proceedings, the Uhlan lancers he was serving with were engaging a French cavalry unit the old-fashioned way—with sabres. Caught up in a skirmish in eastern France, Wulfie had his sword hand lopped off by a French dragoon. He was lucky not to bleed to death or to contract a disease. He survived, but was clearly not available for further fighting. With his native language being English and knowing some French, he was diverted to intelligence service behind the lines. He interrogated mostly English prisoners. Lord knows what shifty business he became involved with! His story is that he worked as a double agent. Double? Triple? Just a plain self-seeking blackguard, I’d guess! But his story was strong enough for HM’s gov and the military to accept and promote it.”

  MacFarlane broke his silence to comment shrewdly, “There must be more to it than a forgiving government smoothing the path of a prodigal son whose father is on his last legs. What’s he not telling you, Redfyre?”

  “As you say, sir. I pressed him further.”

  “Two professional interrogators going head-to-head! I’d like to have been a fly on the wall!”

  “As luck would have it, I had him at a slight disadvantage!”

  Redfyre decided to squash his elation and save it for later. He’d deal with the facts first. “He hinted that he’d come upon information of a delicate nature during his sessions with certain English officers being held captive. In a threatening situation, these men had been seduced by the friendliness of a man speaking their language—a man of their class, a fellow soldier. Indiscretion on their part is understandable, though not to be condoned. Released and repatriated, these ex-prisoners of war are now occupying influential positions in the government and the military, and either acknowledge a debt of gratitude to Stretton or are obvious subjects for blackmai
l. In addition to this stick, there is a carrot. Stretton, with the luck of the Devil’s own, is now a very rich man. The Prussian family who took him on with their own warlike sons saw their own boys killed off one by one, and Wulfie was the only survivor of the group. They focused all their parental attention and generosity on him. Recently dead, they bequeathed him their extensive properties and wealth. He has translated himself back into a desirable British citizen.”

  “Desirable? Says who?”

  “Desirable in that the authorities prefer to see him over here, putting his wealth to good use. And keeping his mouth shut. In a safe place where closure—permanent closure, should it come to that—can be ensured.”

  “Good Lord!” MacFarlane’s voice was faint but admiring. “He wasn’t persuaded by a sense of honour to his adoptive parents to stay over there? Why’s he back here bothering us in Cambridge? He could go anywhere. South of France. South America.”

  “Ah! This story has a romantic ending, I’m afraid! I mentioned that he was at a disadvantage during the interview. The man’s in love.”

  Redfyre weathered the cold disbelief directed at him by two pairs of eyes.

  “He’s suffering from brain fever and overexcitement, the treacherous benevolence towards one’s fellow man that leads one to say, ‘These drinks are on me!’ Or, ‘What do you want to know? Fire away!’”

  The disbelief was intensifying. Neither MacFarlane nor Thoday gave a sign that they had ever experienced the euphoria that comes with the state of being in love. Redfyre sighed and struggled on. “Stretton’s sister, who devotedly kept him in communication over the years, told him her best friend, a trumpet player, was undertaking a concert tour of the cities of northern Germany, accompanying Christopher Coote, the organist. Yes, Juno Proudfoot. She was scheduled to perform at Dresden in the summer, and Earwig encouraged her brother to travel there, go to a concert and meet her. And swap family gossip, no doubt. News from home . . . They must have found a lot to talk about and remember.”

  MacFarlane groaned and muttered.

  “A smasher like Miss Juno—she wouldn’t be needing nostalgia to attract his interest,” Thoday said. “Question is—why would she notice him above all the other stage-door Johnnies, especially with his past?”

  “As you say, Sarge. Juno is a taking little thing and has many admirers. Wulfie is unattached. Good-looking, if you don’t mind the duelling scars and the broken nose. He’s rich, romantically inclined, and indulges in the generous gesture.” Redfyre sighed, remembering the expensive flower vase from ‘A’ of the outstretched arms. “Why are girls so easily taken in?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” MacFarlane said doubtfully. “It sounds to me as though the lass has her head screwed on the right way. I hope she wrings every last German mark out of the shit. Redfyre, is this leading anywhere?”

  The appearance of a large evidence box delivered to their table in the inspectors’ room made MacFarlane’s eyes gleam where the accounts of female hysteria and male emotion had not raised a spark. His favoured suspect remained the undergraduate Thomas Tyrrell, and he welcomed the appearance from the labs of a plaster cast taken from the sandy surface of the pipe repair works on the common, a few strides away from the sanctuary of the Bensons’ front door. He reminded his small team that Tyrrell’s own bike was not involved. Punctured and the tyres clean of all trace of the bright orange builder’s material, it could be discounted.

  Not so the jilted student himself, however.

  “We can’t comb the whole of Cambridge for a tyre with this stuff caught in its grooves, so let’s narrow the search area down a bit,” MacFarlane suggested. “Go to the map, Thoday, and talk us through the lad’s itinerary, subsequent to the push off she gave him in the pub.”

  Thoday obliged, with a minimum of commentary to move the end of his pen representing Tyrrell from the Trinity Street pub down to the Market Place. There it circled about confusedly and, finally coming to a decision, it took off again, returning to Trinity Street and Barnabas College. There, Tyrrell engaged the suffering master’s sketchy attention for ten minutes and came out again—in and out, as logged by the porter. “And he says he went straight home,” Thonday concluded.

  “Suppose he helped himself to another bike? I like the idea that Louise was pursued. We have two accounts that verify that and from men with conflicting views of the lady, so probably worth hearing. Waggle your pen about a bit, Thoday, and show us where he might have come across a bike in the environs of Barnabas.”

  “Um . . . Sometimes you come across them leaning against the railings outside on the street. Here. Inside? Dunno, sir. Do they have bike stores? Could he have been bold enough to just walk into a college bike store?”

  “He’s bold.”

  “Yes, sir. Would you like me to—”

  “Right after the meeting, if you wouldn’t mind. And here—take this with you, just in case.”

  He passed him a small specimen jar containing sand with the colour and consistency of orange sherbet.

  “Chances are, with that degree of fineness, it will have worked its way up into the grooves and still be there. It won’t have been cleaned out because our lad would never have noticed in the dark what he was cycling through. Be sure to take gloves, Thoday. And take a copy of the tyre pattern while we’ve got it here on display.”

  “I already did, sir. It’s a Dunlop, like ninety-nine out of every hundred bikes in Cambridge. I had it looked at by Bert himself of Bert’s Bikes in the City Road. The only thing he could tell me was that it was hardly worn—nearly brand-new.”

  “Right. Hang on a tick! Let’s make no mistakes at this juncture, shall we? Mistakes of a ‘Police Raid Private Premises’ nature. I’ll ring the college and tell them you’re coming.”

  He emerged from five minutes of conversation with a satisfied smile. “Nice to have a bit of good news when we need it. The college has officially ‘gone down’ for holiday. The master himself won’t be breathing down your neck, at least! He’s still recuperating, of course, from the effects of his nasty inhalation. And doctor’s orders send him off into the Washlands to shoot at geese ‘at dawn or under the moon.’ Pinkfeet, whitefronts or some such poor bastards just winging their way in from Siberia. Sounds like an unhealthy spot for man and bird, if you ask me. The master could well land himself with a dead goose for his table and a case of pneumonia. Ugh! But that’s where we are. The domestic bursar who spoke to me just now, bless him, seemed sane enough and pretty dismissive of all that holiday nonsense. He remains on duty, and if you have a problem, you’re to chuck it in his lap. Well, there you go! Do your worst, lad. The porter will sign you in and out. Blimey! It’s easier to get in and out of Pentonville Jail!”

  He rumbled on. “Next exhibit? That suffragette scarf. Results of examination.” He read and summarised: “Everything we might expect. Horse and human hairs . . . soil profile consistent with the Epsom Downs . . . Aha! Ox blood, not human! Gotcha, Redfyre! If the scarf exists, it’s still out there somewhere.

  “And the smelling-salts inhaler?” He hunted around in the box. “Funny! Not here. I hope this hasn’t gone missing . . .”

  “No sir, there’s a covering letter from the labs. They have it and are retaining it for the moment. Here we go . . . Too many fingerprints for any to stand out. Too blurred. Solid silver. So of course it has hallmarks. Identified as a London stamp and date. Manufacturer’s mark identifies it as an objet de vertu supplied by Messieurs Asprey of London, New Bond Street, some fifty years ago. Also engraved on there—and we missed this in our concern to keep our mitts off the lethal item—initials! CR. No use at all! CR was probably very pleased to be given this, but it could have been handed down to someone with completely different initials. Or sold off, most probably. No one uses these much nowadays, apart from a few elderly ladies who are fixed in their invalid ways. And, being of silver, it’d be worth a few quid if you melted it down. The
writer of the report, a Doctor Philips, requests an interview with the investigating officer in private, sir. Well, what do we make of that?”

  “Probably wants to make you an offer for it on the quiet. Go along, Redfyre, and ask him. When you’re up to scratch with your notes.”

  The porter didn’t exactly smile on seeing him, but he was not unhelpful, Thoday noted. A touch of the seasonal spirit filtering through? Thoday put it down to the relief of seeing the backs of those pesky undergraduates.

  The porter produced his gate book and, creaking with condescension, offered it up to the police for a second viewing. There they were: the entry and departure of Thomas Tyrrell last Friday evening. Purpose of visit: unscheduled interview with the master. Just as Redfyre had reported.

  “Tell me, sir—did Mr. Tyrrell arrive on foot or on a bicycle?”

  “On foot, of course. No bikes allowed in the front court past this gate.”

  “And can you confirm that he was still on foot when he left?”

  A look of disbelief crept over the granite features. “I just said, officer. Came in without, left without.”

  “If your young gentlemen arrive seeking entry but are in possession of a bicycle, what is their procedure?”

  “They take it to the bike shed, park it and come and declare themselves. Those who don’t hop straight over the wall.”

  “I’d like to see the bike shed, if I may.”

  “If you like. Nip down Barnabas Passage over there.” He pointed to a small entrance that Thoday hadn’t even noticed. “Twenty yards down on the left. It’s open.”

  For a bike shed, it was remarkably well ordered and clean. Hardly a shed. Not at all the tatty corrugated iron roof, wooden walls and earth floor ankle-deep in fag ends that he remembered from his school days. The walls were of stone, en suite with the rest of the college building, the floor paved; above his head was a whitewashed ceiling. A converted stable block? Many of the slots were empty, indicating that some cycles had been taken home on the train. About fifty remained. Ah. A problem they had not anticipated. Nevertheless, Thoday was going to set about it. He first marked for future reference, with a chalk mark, each bike that he passed in review and noted the number of its stall.