The Malcontenta bak-2

by Barry Maitland

  Kathy shook her head, ‘So Tanner knew everything, all along the line. What a farce! I led you straight into it, Brock. I just don’t know what to say.’

  He shrugged. ‘Such is life. If we both end up selling hamburgers at the gates of Stanhope Clinic, so be it. We’ll probably make a fortune. The thing I’m more interested in is who killed Rose and Petrou. Tanner wasn’t smarter than us, just better informed. I wonder how much better informed he is about Parsons? Let’s hope there’s something, in there’ — he nodded at the envelope Kathy had brought back from Penny — ‘because I still can’t see it.’

  ‘It has to be Beamish-Newell’ Kathy surprised him with her sudden vehemence. ‘We’ve been going round and round this,’ she went on, ‘but in the end he’s the only one who fits. He told us all those lies about his movements when Petrou was killed, he was on the spot when Rose was killed and, as Gabriele said, he’s ruthless in getting what he wants.’

  ‘What motive?’

  ‘He’s a closet gay. Petrou tried blackmailing him, having been pointed in the right direction by Gabriele. He murdered Petrou, and then Rose discovered something from Parsons that would incriminate Beamish-Newell, and he had to kill her too.’

  ‘Come on, Kathy,’ Brock objected. ‘These days you don’t kill people who threaten to reveal you’re bisexual. All right, Dowling — a young lad just starting out in the police force — might be intimidated by a bully like Tanner, but Beamish-Newell would never have been panicked by Petrou. He’d have told him to get lost.’

  ‘Maybe he was blackmailing other people too — the goats, important people who would have been embarrassed to appear in the tabloids wearing what Petrou died in.’

  Brock shook his head, unconvinced. ‘They’d pay up, buy him off. He’d have accepted, I’m sure. Murder’s far too risky.’

  ‘Perhaps it depends how greedy he was.’

  They sat a while longer in front of the hissing gas fire, talking over the possibilities, until Brock offered to show her to her room. Although she’d grown used to sleeping under a duvet in her own bed, the crisp white sheets were freshly laundered and tucked in tight, the way a nurse would have done it, and Kathy fell quickly into a deep sleep. By the time Brock started roaming around in the kitchen next morning, she had already showered and made a pot of coffee, and was working in the study on Penny’s material.

  ‘While you get on with that,’ Brock told her over a bowl of cornflakes, ‘I think I’d better go up to the Yard and snoop around. Try to find out discreetly how we’re placed before I make an official entrance.’

  It was late morning before he returned, looking preoccupied and carrying a bulging briefcase.

  ‘How did it go?’ Kathy said, and had to make do with the muttered reply, ‘Don’t ask.’

  He took off his jacket and tie and cast an eye over the paperwork sorted into piles on the bench. He grunted abstractedly, hands deep in his pockets, and Kathy had the impression his mind wasn’t taking anything in.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked. ‘I mean, even more wrong than we thought?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head. ‘Look at this.’

  He turned to the armchair where he’d thrown his briefcase and pulled out a small brown-paper parcel. It had been neatly wrapped and just as carefully opened. ‘Security thought it was a bomb.’

  He spread the brown paper open and showed her the paperback book inside. The pages were dog-eared and yellowing with age. Its title was Meaning in the Visual Arts, and the author Erwin Panovsky. Brock opened the cover and pulled out a folded sheet of plain white paper, on which there were a few lines of handwriting. He handed it to her without a word, and she read,

  Dear David,

  Chapter 7 is for you.

  Forgive me.

  Forgive those who helped me, please, please, for my sake3. Remember me. I too was in Arcady.

  G.

  Puzzled, Kathy picked up the book and turned to chapter 7, an essay on a group of paintings and their common theme, entitled ‘Et in Arcadia Ego’. She looked up at Brock for an explanation.

  ‘One of the patients who was at the clinic, both when Petrou died and when I was there, was Grace Carrington.’

  Kathy nodded, remembering the name.

  ‘Because of that, I befriended her. We talked about paintings, about the subject of that essay. She was suffering from cancer. She said she was going to die.’

  ‘You want to find out what happened to her.’

  He nodded heavily. ‘Yes.’

  He phoned Stanhope Clinic, but they would only tell him that she had checked out on 2.7 March, which was two days after Rose was murdered. They refused to give him her home address.

  ‘I think she said her home was in Essex. The postmark on the parcel is Chingford. I’ve been trying to remember her husband’s name, but I can’t.’

  ‘Winston,’ Kathy said.

  ‘Yes! How the hell did you know that?’

  ‘It’s here, on the flyleaf.’ She showed him the book. ‘Almost faded away; “With love from Winston, Christmas 1968”.’

  Brock took a deep breath, then reached for the first volume of an old set of Greater London telephone directories on the shelf above the bench. There was only one entry for ‘W. amp; G. Carrington’ in Chingford.

  ‘Well,’ Kathy said, ‘can I come? Or would you rather go on your own?’

  ‘Please do,’ he said, if you don’t mind taking a break from that.’

  They found the house without difficulty. The street was quiet, private, with spring blossoms beginning to flower from decorative shrubs and trees.

  A man in early middle-age answered the door, wearing an open-neck shirt, sweater, jeans and trainers.

  ‘Mr Carrington?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I wonder if I might speak to your wife?’ Brock’s voice, never loud, was now almost inaudible.

  The man seemed to brace himself a little. ‘No, I’m afraid you can’t. What do you want her for?’

  ‘We’re police officers. It’s concerning the murder that took place at Stanhope Clinic a couple of weeks ago. Your wife was a patient there at the time. We just wanted to ask her a couple of things.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid you can’t.’ The muscles around his mouth were taut, so that an involuntary smile seemed to cross his face. ‘She died last weekend.’

  Brock just stared at him. After a moment Kathy broke the silence. ‘We did understand that she was ill. We didn’t realize it was quite so … critical.’

  ‘Yes.’ Winston Carrington cleared his throat with a dry little cough and rubbed his mouth. ‘Yes,’ he repeated.

  ‘It must have been a terrible shock for you.’

  He nodded and began to speak very rapidly. ‘She’d been on remission for some while and had been doing remarkably well, but we knew it couldn’t last. She phoned on the Tuesday, that’s the week before last, and said she was starting to feel ill again and wanted to come home, so I went down to Stanhope the next day to pick her up. All that following week she went downhill very quickly. The doctor had arranged for her to go into hospital last Sunday, but in the event she didn’t make it. She had a bad night on the Friday, and I phoned the doctor the following morning. She was dead by the time he arrived.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Kathy said and looked at Brock uncertainly. He still didn’t seem able to speak.

  ‘The funeral was on Wednesday,’ Carrington added.

  ‘I don’t suppose she said anything to you about what happened at the clinic in the few days before she came home?’

  He shook his head. ‘That was the last thing on her mind.’

  ‘Of course. Well, we won’t disturb you further,’ Kathy said, again looking at Brock for a lead.

  Suddenly he spoke, his voice very low. ‘What was the official cause of death?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Carrington looked startled.

  ‘The official cause of death — of your wife, for our records.’

  ‘Oh,
I see … It said coronary failure on the death certificate, I think.’

  ‘Was there an autopsy?’

  ‘No, no. It was expected, you see. It just came much quicker than we had thought. Which was a blessing, really — she was in pain.’

  Brock nodded and made as if to go, then stopped and turned back. ‘Did she leave letters to be sent to people after she died?’

  ‘Yes, she did. After she passed away I found letters she’d written to us — that is, the boys and me.’ He hung his head and hesitated a moment. ‘Also, half a dozen letters and packages she wanted me to post to friends and relatives and so on after the funeral. I sent them off on Wednesday. I didn’t take a note of the names. Why?’

  Brock shook his head. ‘Her will,’ he said. ‘Was there anything unexpected about that?’

  Carrington was beginning to look exasperated. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘I was thinking of the clinic, Mr Carrington. A legacy to someone connected with the clinic? Or a donation to the place, perhaps?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. I don’t quite see what you’re implying.’

  Brock shook his head again. ‘Nothing, really. It doesn’t matter. We just have to make sure there are no loose ends.’

  As they came back down the drive, a car pulled up at the kerb. A woman got out and gave a little wave towards the front door. She reached back into the car for something, and as they passed her they could make out the golden crust of a home-made pie.

  They drove back in silence. Dusk was falling as they turned into Warren Lane and trudged back to Brock’s front door. He climbed straight back up to the study, still wearing his outdoor coat, sat on the stool at the bench and picked up the letter that had been inside the book.

  ‘It’s a suicide note, Kathy,’ he said heavily.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She died on Saturday morning, while we were driving up from Rome.’

  Kathy suddenly recalled his toast to absent friends in the cafe at Orvieto.

  ‘We talked about forgiveness. She said it must be hard for us, the police, not being able to forgive the guilty people we have to catch. I said, on the contrary, that was what kept us sane. I think I was just being glib.’

  He sighed and lowered his head on to his hands, rubbed his forehead and eyes. ‘Dear God, why should she ask my forgiveness?’

  ‘What about those who helped me?’ Kathy said.

  ‘Well …’ He spread his hands in a gesture that might have been assent or despair. ‘She needed all the help she could get.’

  ‘Brock, you remember I told you I visited Jerry Hamblin last week, the greengrocer? He told me that his partner, Errol, had been very upset last year because his mother died of cancer. He said Beamish-Newell had been very kind to her, visiting her and giving her medicine. Helping her.’

  Brock stared at her, stunned. ‘Helping her to die, you mean?’

  ‘Errol started his affair with Petrou after that,’ Kathy continued. ‘It would be natural for him to talk to his lover about what had happened. Then Petrou would really have had something on Beamish-Newell. Remember that Beamish-Newell went to see Errol the day that Petrou died, perhaps to find out how much Petrou really knew.’

  ‘Grace must have thought that was the reason I was at Stanhope in the first place — to nail Beamish-Newell,’ Brock said. ‘When she first suspected I was the police, she was very angry. Beamish-Newell had probably already told her he would help her when things got bad, and she thought I was there to trap him, to stop him. It was only when I convinced her it was the Petrou killing I was interested in that she talked to me again.’

  ‘It’s a motive, Brock. If he was helping good people to go through a difficult death, Petrou’s life must have seemed pretty worthless by comparison.’

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you this much: I’ve been through all this’ — she waved her hand at the papers on the bench — ‘and there’s no way that Parsons did it.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  Kathy nodded. ‘I’m hungry too. We haven’t eaten since breakfast. I know you’re used to all this fasting, but I wouldn’t mind a bite. Let me buy you dinner, and then I’ll explain what I mean about Parsons.’

  He smiled at her chiding. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. There are a few places we could get a take-away from in the High Street.’

  ‘Right. I’ll go and get something.’

  He shook his head, ‘No. If Tanner’s out there looking for you, I’d rather not give him any opportunities. I’ll phone and get them to deliver. What do you want? Pizza?’

  While they waited for the food, Kathy outlined what she had made of the documentation that Penny had provided. ‘That pile is the transcripts of interviews with Parsons since the time he was brought in to Division on the evening of Monday 1 April, through to last Sunday, the 7th. I can understand Tanner’s frustration. Parsons has said almost nothing. The transcripts are practically monologues. Look.’

  She picked out a sample for Brock to read.

  DCI TANNER: You’re going to have to let go, Geoffrey. What’s done is done. It has to be brought out into the open. You’re going to crack up if you don’t let it out.

  (PARSONS coughs)

  DCI TANNER: What? … I said you’re strung up like a fiddle.

  You have to talk to us … I want you to begin with what Rose was going to tell Mr Brock. What was it that was so terrible that you had to kill her? Had you confessed to her that you had killed Alex Petrou? Is that it? And she was going to tell Brock?… Have a drink of water, Geoffrey, for God’s sake … Oh fuck, get a fucking towel, Bill. He’s dropped the water all over his fucking pants.

  Brock grunted. ‘Parsons sounds as if he’s in bad shape.’

  ‘Yes, that comes out all the way through, how tense he is, how they’re afraid he’s going to snap. They get a doctor in to look at him on three occasions as recorded here.’

  ‘Does he say anything at all?’

  ‘He responds a couple of times to references to Laura Beamish-Newell, who is his sister, incidentally. Here.’

  DCI TANNER: Your sister’s been charging up and down like a cat on hot bricks on your behalf, Geoffrey, but she isn’t going to be able to do anything to help you until you start talking to us.

  PARSONS: She knows…

  DCI TANNER: She knows what?

  PARSONS: She won’t let you …

  DCI TANNER: She can’t begin to help you until you begin to help yourself.

  PARSONS: She’ll stop it. She won’t let you do anything.

  ‘It sounds as if he’s reverting to childhood,’ Brock said. ‘My big sister won’t let you hurt me.’

  ‘Or maybe, She knows who really did it, and she’ll stop this if it goes too far.’

  ‘Why not stop it straight away?’

  ‘Because she’s also trying to protect the person who did it — her husband.’

  Brock scratched his beard. ‘You said you knew Parsons didn’t do it. How can you be sure from this stuff?’

  ‘Read this.’ Kathy pulled out another sheet and handed it to Brock. ‘This is from the last interview from last Sunday.’

  DCI TANNER: Well now, Geoffrey, you’re really going to have to do better than that. We’ve found the rest of the rope you used to strangle Petrou with. We found it in a place that points only to you. Do you remember? Do you want to tell us about it?

  (PARSONS mumbles)

  DCI TANNER: Did I detect an answer there? Do you have something to tell us at last, Geoffrey?.. Well, let me remind you where you hid it. In your tool chest, in the stable block, under the work-bench. Remember? The locked tool chest, with your initials on it, with your old green sweater inside on top of the tools, and with a piece of the identical rope coiled up between the sweater and the tools, and bearing hair and skin particles that belong to you, and a cut end that matches the end of the rope that Petrou was hanging from. What do you say?

  PARSONS: No … No.


  ‘Very convenient of him to leave it in such an incriminating place,’ Brock murmured.

  ‘Yes, except he didn’t leave it there.’

  ‘Presumably the search teams looked there when you were investigating Petrou’s death.’

  ‘No, they didn’t. I remember that Dowling came to ask me about it. It was locked and had Parsons’ initials on it. We had no search warrant, and I told him to leave it until we could ask Parsons’ permission. We never got around to it.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I had a little private peek anyway. I was curious. There might have been a blade that matched the serrations on the end of the rope in the temple, or some duplicate keys to the temple — who knows? At that stage we were desperate for real clues. But there was nothing except his jumper and some very old tools that didn’t look as if they’d been out of the box in years. So — the rope has been planted.’

  ‘Very interesting. What do you suggest we do?’

  ‘It means I have something to trade with Tanner,’ Kathy said. ‘I can save his case for him if he’ll drop any unpleasant plans he has for us.’

  Brock thought, then shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. It’s going to seem unbelievably convenient that you now happen to have remembered some uncorroborated evidence in order to save your bacon. And it’s going to mean revealing Penny’s role in supplying you with these documents.’

  Kathy sighed. ‘Yes, you’re right. What, then?’

  ‘We have to carry on. The only evidence that’s going to count now is the confession of the real murderer.’

  ‘Well, let’s get on with it, then.’

  ‘Now? They’ll all be in their beds by the time we get there.’

  ‘I put off going to see Beamish-Newell once before and found the next morning that I was too late. I think I’d like to go now.’

  23

  It was almost 10 p.m. when they came over the stone bridge and turned on to the gravel drive leading to Stanhope Clinic. It was a clear, cold night, and the lights of the house glimmered brightly across the black meadow. Kathy drove slowly past the car park and along the lane which curved beyond the staff cottages, thinking that the Director might be at home by that hour. His cottage was in darkness, however, its brick walls drained of colour under the faint moonlight. She turned at the end of the lane and returned to the car park. As she and Brock walked towards the house, she pointed to a window on the main floor. That’s his study, isn’t it? The one with the light?’