The Bell Ringers

by Henry Porter

  Shap sniffed. ‘Come on, Miss Lockhart, do you really expect us to believe this? The story about the two men is pure fantasy, isn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ she said quietly as an idea struck her. ‘Do you want to see the injury I received?’ She lifted up the trouser leg and showed them the cut on her ankle. They were unimpressed.

  ‘There was no other reason to explore that alley two days before the break-in,’ continued Shap. ‘You were finding a way of getting to his office unnoticed, weren’t you?’

  She met his eyes. ‘What possible motive could I have to attack a man I had not met until that morning?’

  ‘You tell us. Maybe it was Mr Eyam’s will,’ said Newsome.

  ‘I am the main beneficiary of Mr Eyam’s will. That is true, but the will’s authenticity can be established by simply looking into Mr Russell’s records and consulting his partner. It was witnessed by Mrs Spring, whom I’ve never met. As I told you, I have no need of money, inspector. I am not the kind of person who goes round forging wills. I still have a very well-paid job and considerable savings.’

  ‘The will is being examined now,’ said Shap.

  ‘You took it from my purse?’

  ‘Together with the letter that purports to be from your friend David Eyam. Tell us a little about that. It seems a strange document. Not the sort of letter you would want a friend to read after your death. It seems, well, so vague and . . .’

  ‘And whimsical? Yes, David was like that sometimes. To tell the truth I only read it once because it made me so sad to think of him gone. We had been friends for a very long time. Maybe he was a little drunk when he wrote it. I believe he was ill. There is a lot that is painful to me and still unexplained.’ Halliday had stopped rocking his chair and let his hands drop to his knees.

  ‘Quite so, Miss Lockhart,’ said Newsome. ‘What do you think he was trying to convey in that letter? It’s almost as if there was a coded message in it.’

  ‘It did seem a bit odd, I agree. I don’t know what you mean by a coded message, but then I haven’t had time to think about it.’

  ‘Because you spent all day on the road,’ said Shap. ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘I am sure you know, inspector. I went to Oxford to see a friend in college – my old college.’

  ‘Do you mind telling me who?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I do – it’s personal.’

  ‘Look, Miss Lockhart, unless we get your cooperation on these matters this will go very badly for you. We will learn the truth one way or another, I can assure you of that.’

  ‘What truth is it that you want? That I hit Hugh Russell over the head, but failing to kill him, inveigled him out to Dove Cottage the next day, having arranged with another man I’d never met before to have him gunned down just a few hundred yards from the cottage, so putting me at the scene of the crime? Is that what you believe? Is that really your theory?’ She looked from one face to the other. ‘Or are you holding me here on the pretext of the murder inquiry while you go through my phone, computer and personal belongings?’

  Newsome stretched and then locked his hands at the back of his head. ‘You seem anxious, Miss Lockhart.’

  ‘I’m not anxious, but I’m extremely angry at the way I’m being treated. Has it occurred to you that if I’d been in that car I would have been killed also? Does it matter to you that while you question me the real killers are getting away? The two men who attacked Hugh and me are clearly the prime suspects, yet you put no effort into finding out who they were. There is not one shred of evidence to say I killed my friend’s lawyer. You have nothing and you know it. You have no alternative but to let me go.’

  ‘You’re not going anywhere. Even if we didn’t have the film of you entering the building, we’d still know you’d been there. Your DNA and fingerprints have been found on the safe door and I am confident that we will find fibre evidence to match the clothes you were wearing that evening. We know that you left by the rear door and that you retraced your steps to the hotel by the Cut because we have film of that too. That is compelling evidence of your intentions that evening and the following day, Miss Lockhart. You will certainly spend the rest of tonight in the cells.’

  She looked at Wreston. ‘Then this interview is at an end,’ she said. ‘I read the code of practice while I was waiting. You have already failed to give me proper rest and nourishment. If I recollect rightly it says that, “Breaks from interviewing should be made at recognised meal-times or at times which take into account when the suspect last had a meal.”’

  ‘That’s at my discretion and if you refuse to answer questions an adverse inference may be drawn by a jury.’

  ‘By a jury! There won’t be a jury because you can’t charge me, and I very much doubt you have even enough to keep me here. But go ahead – ask your questions. I am not saying anything more until my chosen legal representative arrives. I am informing you that I am tired and that if you continue with this interview I will formally lodge a complaint about your oppressive behaviour.’

  Wreston woke from his trance. ‘I think my client is indicating that she needs rest. It is nearly two thirty. Under the guidelines, she has a right to reasonable treatment.’

  Newsome switched off the tape recorder. After forms were filled in and two tapes ejected from the machine the three policemen left without a word. A few minutes later she found herself in a cell with a sandwich, banana, milk chocolate wafer biscuit and a cup of tea.

  She slept fitfully for a few hours and woke early with thought of the book on the shelf and what it meant. If Eyam was alive, there were only two motives that might have caused him to leave England – straightforward evasion or a more sinuous and ultimately mystifying diversionary plan. As she lay on the foam mattress, a glimmer of daylight showing through the bottle-glass cell window, she decided it was more likely to be the second. If Eyam had intended to vanish for ever, it would have been simple for him to remain hidden and find a new life on his father’s fortune. But he had left clues that he was still alive, including a barely coded confession in the order of service for his own funeral, which might just as easily have been spotted by someone else – Kilmartin for instance – or any of Eden White’s more alert associates.

  The way to make sure that only she saw those lines in the song would have been to leave it at Dove Cottage or with Hugh Russell. But, no, he had put this clue in the most public forum possible. Why? There was no clear answer, at any rate none that she could readily find, huddled in a paper suit under this thin blue blanket with the dreadful smell of piss in the air. But she did keep on reminding herself of Eyam’s exceptional skills of manipulation, his foresight, the obsessive organisation of his affairs. Eyam was a planner, a list maker, a ticker-off of things done. None of this was an accident. If he was dropping these rash, schoolgirl hints about his secret, he wanted someone other than herself to become suspicious so they would start investigating his death, his whereabouts and his intentions. Perhaps he was laying a trail, setting up a diversion while evidence against Eden White and the government was published? If this was the case others must have known of the plan to fake his death before she had come anywhere near suspecting it. At least one person had been to the cottage while she was away and left the copy of The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor so she would see it. But why hadn’t he been more explicit in the tape? Maybe she’d missed some clues in it. She wouldn’t have another chance to hear it because the people who must now be looking at her computer and phone and drawing a precise picture of her life and associates would probably also find the tape in the car and subject it to the same kind of scrutiny.

  But the first priority was to get herself released. Nothing would be solved inside High Castle police station. She needed time, fresh air and a bit of quiet to think everything through and decide a course of action which it seemed to her must now completely detach itself from David Eyam – either the memory of him or the reality of his continued existence.

  At seven thirty a.m. they brought he
r tea and something that resembled a toasted sandwich, which was glued by melted cheese to the biodegradable box. She was allowed a shower, but no toothbrush or paste was available. At nine she was taken up from the cell and shown to a new interview room, which was slightly larger and equipped with two cameras. Wreston was there and she asked if there had been any word from her own lawyers. They replied no. After the formalities concerning the two interview tapes – one of which was sealed for the record – and a caution delivered by Newsome, he started the interview. He went back over everything exhaustively, picking holes in her story, finding significance in the slightest hesitation or inconsistency.

  Shap sat saying little. It was an hour before he asked, ‘When you were in the cottage after Mr Russell left, where was Mr Nock?’

  She groaned. ‘I’ve no idea. He went off for some kind of meeting – I don’t remember what he said. Next time I saw him was running down the drive after he discovered the car. He had a couple of dogs with him, which later disappeared.’

  ‘You say you had never met before that day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Or had contact with him?’

  ‘I had no knowledge of Mr Nock’s existence before I came to High Castle.’

  ‘But he was at Mr Eyam’s funeral.’

  ‘So were a lot of other people. I didn’t notice him.’

  ‘So what were you doing all that time?’

  ‘I told you last night.’

  Shap looked at some notes. ‘Using your phone and the computer in the house. Mr Eyam’s computer, right?’

  ‘Some of the time, yes.’

  ‘That’s odd because we’ve examined the computer and found no hard drive. How could you have been using it?’

  She looked at him coolly. ‘That’s because I removed the hard drive and destroyed it.’

  ‘Removed the hard drive?’

  There was no point lying. She was sure they would already have checked with the internet provider or looked at Eyam’s search engine records and learned that there was some traffic from Eyam’s account that afternoon. ‘By chance I found some things on that computer which I did not think worthy of David Eyam. I knew he could not have been responsible for them and I decided to destroy the evidence.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Pornography – illegal pornography.’

  ‘You’re talking about child porn?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You know that your action amounts to an offence. You were destroying evidence of criminality. What do you say to that?’

  ‘It is my computer now and David Eyam is dead. You can hardly prosecute him.’

  ‘Mr Eyam’s death does not excuse the destruction of the drive. Those images may have contained valuable evidence about victims and perpetrators of crimes who are still alive. Did that not occur to you?’

  She shook her head. ‘Are you questioning me over a computer hard drive, or a murder?’

  ‘For all we know the two may be related,’ said Shap.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said. ‘You know perfectly well they aren’t. Those images were planted on Eyam’s computer as part of a campaign of persecution, which he suffered after leaving his job in government. They were going to be used to prosecute a man who had become an embarrassment, or even a threat to the present government. He had no alternative but to leave the country.’

  ‘What proof do you have of any of this?’ asked Newsome.

  ‘Of course I don’t have proof.’

  ‘Then how are we meant to believe these allegations that you make so freely?’

  Just then there was a commotion at the door and a very large man in his late-fifties came in and stood looking at the three officers, his huge bulbous features registering civilised horror. ‘I am John Turvey and Miss Lockhart is my client,’ he said. He looked at Wreston. ‘Thank you, sir, for holding the fort. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like a consultation with my client in private.’

  ‘I mind very much,’ said Shap getting up. ‘I mind very much that you walked in on this interview.’

  Turvey looked at him from under his brow, then produced four or five newspapers, which he let fall onto the table. ‘And while we have that consultation perhaps you would care to look at these. My assistant has already highlighted the parts of the coverage that are designed to blacken my client’s name.’ Kate caught a glimpse of a couple of headlines – TOP US LAWYER IS MURDER SUPECT; TWO HELD AFTER ‘HIT’ IN RURAL PARADISE. The second was accompanied by a photograph of her taken as she was driven into the police station. ‘A letter has already been dispatched to your chief constable,’ growled Turvey.

  ‘We are not responsible for the media’s coverage,’ said Newsome.

  ‘But you are for the statements issued by a Superintendent Shap, which I assume is you.’ He looked thunderously at Shap. ‘These statements all but say my client is guilty. If she is guilty why has she not been charged?’

  ‘We are conducting an investigation into a very serious matter – the murder of Hugh Russell. You have no right to barge in here and start making accusations.’

  ‘Accusations?’ said Turvey. ‘This prejudicial coverage is a fact, just as the incomplete custody record for my client is a fact. Now please oblige me, superintendent.’

  At length they were shown into a room for their consultation and Turvey went over everything she had been asked about by the two officers. At the mention of the CCTV stills he left the room to make a phone call to instruct the members of what he called his team, which included a former Scotland Yard officer who had arrived in High Castle in the early hours.

  An hour later they went back to the interview room where Turvey sat with his hands folded across his stomach contemplating the two officers with a gaze of professional dismay. There was hardly a moment when he did not fill the room with disdain for the proceedings, and he amused himself by treating Halliday, whom he’d told her was an observer from Special Branch, as some kind of office junior who was there to open the window on request or fetch a jug of water. Turvey intervened only a few times, when Newsome made remarks about Kate’s character, but mostly he seemed to be content for the pair to exhaust themselves. The hard drive of the computer obsessed them because it was the only evidence of Kate’s criminality. Turvey had instructed her to play a straight bat, to hit every ball back to the bowler, as he put it, without flourish or feeling. She was certainly capable of looking after herself, but she was encouraged by the monumental steadfastness sitting beside her. They got nowhere on the computer or the child porn. At four they took a break and Kate was returned to the cells.

  When she was taken back an hour later Shap was holding a piece of paper and displaying some of his former swagger, but they had to wait for Turvey, who had used the break to have a sandwich with his team. He came back into the room hugging his briefcase to his chest. No sooner had he lowered himself to his chair – an action that was accompanied by a good deal of sighing – than Shap disclosed that he would show Kate an ID supplementary form filled in by her at the Bailey Hotel on the evening before Russell’s murder. ‘The form contains misinformation and in certain parts has been defaced.’

  Kate laughed. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘You do realise that this is a criminal matter,’ said Shap. ‘For a lawyer you display remarkably little respect for the law.’ He showed her the form. ‘Were you requested by the hotel management to comply with the law by filling in this form?’

  ‘Before you answer that question, Miss Lockhart,’ said Turvey, ‘I must ask these gentlemen the relevance of this to the inquiry into the murder of Hugh Russell.’

  ‘We suspect that Miss Lockhart was attempting to conceal information about herself because she knew that she would be involved in the matters we are investigating today – namely the murder of Hugh Russell.’

  ‘That’s absurd,’ she said quietly. ‘The hotel already had my passport and credit card details and mobile phone number. This form was superfluous and I treated it
as such.’

  ‘You had shown your passport,’ growled Turvey without looking at her. ‘Then there can be no question of relevance in the matter of Mr Russell’s murder. She was not hiding anything, and as far as I can see she complied with the law. The hotel was being officious, superintendent.’ He reached for his briefcase and fixed Shap with a look of dreadful black intensity. ‘Perhaps it is time for me to make my own disclosures. Your entire case against Miss Lockhart rests on some CCTV footage of the entrance to Mr Russell’s offices in Mortimer Street. Is that right? This footage comes from the town’s surveillance system, which is operated by the police. Is that also correct?’

  Neither of the officers reacted, but Halliday shifted in his chair and leaned forward, suspecting that Turvey was about to show his hand.

  ‘Your images come from the police street surveillance system. But these days there are many such cameras operating and not all of them belong to the police. In that vicinity there is also a system run by a bank, which covers the front of the premises and looks out across the street, as it happens, onto the entrance of number six: there is a high-definition camera fixed inside the transom of the bank’s front door. My associates have now been able to retrieve images from this camera that show two men entering Mr Russell’s office about twenty minutes before my client and then leaving in some hurry. They went in carrying nothing, but, as you will see, one of them is leaving holding a file and the other is clutching his face. He is clearly injured, a fact that tallies with my client’s account of what happened inside that building. We have checked with Mr Russell’s secretary and found no appointments for two men of their appearance. She does not recognise them as clients of the late Mr Russell. And his partner, Paul Spring, says that he has never seen these individuals before.’