Department 18 [04] A Plague of Echoes

by Maynard Sims

  Tyler frowned. “I don’t think that would be appropriate,” she said.

  “Ms. Talbot is a qualified psychologist,” Bailey said.

  A hesitant tap at the door interrupted further conversation. It opened and the desk sergeant poked his head into the room. “Excuse me, ma’am. Mrs. Middleton’s solicitor’s here.”

  “Okay,” Tyler said. “Thanks, Andy. I’ll be right along.” She turned her attention back to Bailey, McKinley and Jane. “I have to deal with this.”

  “I’d still like to speak with Mrs. Middleton,” Jane said.

  “I’ll give it some thought. You’re welcome to wait in reception.” She got to her feet, went to the door and opened it, ushering them out of her office.

  Fiona Meredith was the junior partner in Sangster and Meredith, an old, established company of solicitors based in Holborn. Fiona was thirty-two and presented herself well. Sharply dressed in an immaculately cut, grey flannel suit, her auburn hair pinned into a tidy French pleat, she gave the impression of a very capable, upwardly mobile woman. Ambition played a huge part in her life and she could foresee a day when it would be her name and her name alone, engraved on the brass plaque at the entrance to their offices. Rufus Sangster was now in his seventies and making retirement noises. Fiona Meredith was doing nothing to dissuade him.

  This case should catapult her into the public eye, albeit through the dubious headlines on the daily red-tops. A means to an end, she thought as she stood at the reception desk, waiting to be escorted in to see her client.

  “Ms. Meredith?” a woman’s voice broke through into her reverie. Instinctively she stuck out her hand.

  The woman shook it, reading the young woman and allowing Fiona Meredith to read her. “I’m Detective Inspector Tyler. You’re here to see Mrs. Middleton,” she said.

  “Indeed,” Fiona said, picking up her briefcase from where she’d left it, on the floor, leaning against the reception desk. There was something in Tyler’s expression that unsettled her. A challenge? Possibly. Whatever it was Fiona Meredith decided to assert her authority. “I’ll see my client alone,” she said.

  “As is your right, and, of course, the right of your client. You are aware though that Mrs. Middleton stands accused of a very serious and violent assault.”

  “I’m fully aware of that, but I really don’t think that an eighty-two-year-old woman poses much of a threat, do you, Inspector?”

  “Tell that to Simon Crozier, the man she stabbed with a ten-inch carving knife.”

  “Allegedly,” Fiona shot back.

  Bailey, McKinley and Jane had followed Tyler out into the reception area and stood watching the exchange.

  Fiona noticed them for the first time “Are these your witnesses?” she asked.

  “These are Mr. Crozier’s work colleagues. And sitting over there are Mr. and Mrs. Middleton, Mae’s son and daughter-in-law. Have you met?”

  Fiona reacted as if she’d been stung. She glanced back sharply over her shoulder, saw the couple sitting there and rushed over to them. “I must apologize. You spoke to Mr. Sangster earlier. I’m Fiona Meredith, Mr. Sangster’s partner. He asked me to come along because of my experience in cases like this.”

  “So you’ve dealt with lots of elderly women who stab people in the street?” Howard Middleton said.

  “Allegedly stabbed,” Fiona said, ignoring the sarcasm and resting a comforting hand on Middleton’s shoulder. “I’m going to see your mother now. I’m sure we can clear up this misunderstanding.”

  Middleton turned his head slowly and stared down disdainfully at Fiona’s hand. “I called Rufus because he’s been my family’s solicitor for years. He was drunk when I spoke to him. What was it? Too many pink gins at lunchtime?”

  “I’m sure you’re mistaken,” Fiona said, silently cursing Sangster and his love of the bottle.

  “Bollocks,” Middleton said. “I know him too well. Better than you it seems. Now get in there and sort this mess out. I want to take my mother home.”

  “Yes, yes of course,” Fiona said and signaled to Tyler that she was ready to proceed.

  Carol Middleton sat forward in her seat. “Howard, there’s really no need to speak to her like that. I’m sure she’ll be doing her best.”

  “Shut up, Carol,” Middleton said, wheeling on her. “Just shut up. If you’d let me put her in that nursing home when I suggested it, we wouldn’t be sitting here now. And sort out that bloody cardigan. You look like you’ve just got out of bed.”

  Carol Middleton folded in on herself and started to cry again, silently for fear of offending her husband.

  “What a nice man,” Jane said quietly to Bailey.

  “The Middle-English Male at his finest,” Bailey said just as quietly, and just as ironically.

  McKinley was watching Tyler lead Fiona Meredith through to the interview room. When the door closed behind them he went across to the Middletons and sat down next to them.

  Middleton glared at him. “Can I help you?”

  “Oh, yes,” McKinley said, smiling. “I’m sure you can.”

  “Would you mind taking me back to Whitehall?” Trudy said.

  Carter kept his eyes on the road. “Haven’t you had enough for one day?”

  Trudy yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. “Yes, but I was in the middle of something when I got the news about Simon. I need to finish it before I call it a night.”

  “Yeah, so was I,” Carter said sullenly. “Whitehall it is then,” He signaled he was taking a left to bring them down to the Embankment.

  “So is it all back on with you and Jane?” Trudy asked.

  “God, is it that obvious?”

  “Only to those who work with you…and the rest of the Department. There was talk of a sweepstake, but I nipped it in the bud.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. And of course, you arrived at the hospital in the same car, which rather suggests you were spending the evening together,” she added with a smile.

  “I could have picked her up on the way for all you know.”

  “Only she isn’t on your way. You come in from different parts of London. You would have had to make a massive detour.”

  “So now you’re Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Just interested, that’s all. And I care about you both. Really I do.”

  “So no chance of a private life then?”

  “No. You’re working with some very gifted psychics, Robert. And then there are those of us with no gifts except the power of observation, so no, not a hope in hell.”

  Carter sighed resignedly. “Well, to answer your original question as to whether or not it’s back on with Jane, I’ll answer you candidly. I haven’t got a bloody clue. That woman is a complete mystery to me.”

  “I see,” Trudy said. “But would you like it to be back on?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think Jane’s wasted on David Talbot, and I think you two are bloody good together, but don’t you dare tell her I said that.”

  “Thank you for being honest, and I won’t say a word.”

  “So how did you swing it this evening? Where are David and the girls?”

  “He’s taken them down to see his parents in Dorset. I asked Jane to come for a drink and one thing led…well…you know how these things work.”

  “Yes, I do. Promise me you won’t hurt her, Rob. She’s nowhere near as tough as she seems.”

  “Yes, I know, Trudy. Believe me, I do,” Carter said. “We’re here.”

  “Just drop me off at the gate,” Trudy said, reaching across and squeezing his hand.

  “Don’t work too hard.”

  “I won’t. Thanks for the lift.” She pecked him on the cheek and got out of the car.

  “Trudy,” he said before she closed the door. “Thanks. It’s good to kn
ow you’re on our side. And I promise. I won’t hurt her.”

  “I know, Rob. I’m rooting for you both. Remember that.”

  Trudy waited until Carter’s taillights disappeared into the distance and then turned, flashed her ID card at the security guard on the gate and walked through.

  The building was nearly deserted. Most of the offices were empty except for the cleaning staff, who were busy dusting desks and vacuuming floors. She took the lift up to her office and switched on the light. Her computer was still on. She hit some keys and logged into Crozier’s private network. Two more keystrokes and a document appeared on the screen. Sitting down in front of the computer, she pulled open the bottom drawer of her desk and took out a packet of salt-and-vinegar crisps. Dinner. Perching her glasses on the bridge of her nose, she started to read.

  Doc 1148: Private and Confidential. Report into the disappearance of Alvar Liscombe, 14th April 1965.

  “Right, Simon,” she said softly, scrolling down the page. “Now why would you be raking up such ancient history?”

  Chapter Three

  Susan Tyler showed Fiona Meredith into the interview room, and the young woman scanned the room quickly. There was no one-way glass set into the wall, but she immediately spotted the camera in the corner by the ceiling, its red light blinking.

  “I’ll have that switched off,” Tyler said, following the solicitor’s line of sight.

  “Yes, you will,” Fiona said. Only then did she look at the elderly woman sitting at the wooden table, still dressed in the tweed coat that covered an expensive cerise twinset.

  As she watched the two women who had just entered the room, Mae Middleton played with the string of large cultured pearls at her throat, rolling the beads between her fingers. She looked every one of her eighty-two years—rail, rheumy-eyed, white hair tightly permed.

  “Who’s looking after my cat?” she asked in a querulous voice. “Who’s taking care of Barney?”

  “Don’t worry, Mae,” Fiona said, pulling out a chair on the opposite side of the table and sitting down. “Barney’s going to be just fine.”

  “I’ll leave you to it then,” Tyler said to Fiona.

  “And the camera?”

  “I’ll attend to it. When the red light goes out it’s off.” Tyler walked from the room, closing the door behind her. In the anteroom she went across to the recording equipment and switched off the camera feed. The audio link she left running. They wouldn’t be able to use the tape in court but what it captured might just speed up the investigation, and Tyler needed a quick result on this one. The Home Office had already been on the phone demanding just that.

  She circumnavigated the reception area, went straight back to her office and pressed a button on her intercom. “Andy, send Jim Barnes along to Interview Room 2. Tell him to wait in the anteroom and let me know immediately the solicitor finishes with Mrs. Middleton.”

  “Will do, ma’am.”

  Tyler pulled her bag up from the floor and started to rummage through it. Her fingers closed around a cigarette packet. Flipping the lid she pulled out a cigarette-shaped plastic tube, stuck it between her lips and started to suck. The tip of the tube glowed red, smokelike water vapor eddied out from around the fake plastic filter and the atomized nicotine hit the back of her throat, making her cough. Taking the electronic cigarette out of her mouth, she tossed it onto her desk, watching it roll to the edge and drop to the carpeted floor. “Bloody thing,” she said when the coughing subsided. “No substitute at all.”

  “And what makes you think I’m going to talk to you?” Howard Middleton said to McKinley.

  “Because you want justice for your mother, and you don’t think you’re going to get it from the police.”

  “Mae’s harmless,” Carol Middleton said. “I can’t believe she’s done what they say she’s done.”

  “That’s enough, Carol. Keep your mouth shut,” Middleton said. “Our solicitor will deal with these people.”

  “Only your solicitor seems to have palmed you off on his assistant,” Bailey said. He’d come to join them, placing himself next to Carol.

  “That’s right,” Carol said, emboldened by Bailey’s presence. “Rufus Sangster’s an old drunk. He should have given up law a long time ago.”

  “Carol,” Middleton said warningly.

  “But it’s true, Howard. You were saying as much on the way over here.”

  Middleton flushed. “So who are you people?” he said to McKinley.

  “We work for the man your mother assaulted,” McKinley said.

  “Then why would you want to help her?”

  Jane came across and sat down next to McKinley. “We just want to get to the truth,” she said. “At the moment none of this makes much sense. Apparently your mother targeted Simon Crozier specifically; just stepped out in front of him and plunged a kitchen knife into his stomach. You live in Highgate Village. How did she end up on the South Bank?”

  Middleton dry-washed his face with his hands. “You people,” he said. “You can’t begin to imagine what it’s like living with someone who suffers from dementia. My wife does her best with Mother, but it’s a full-time job, and Carol has a very busy life, what with the church and her various charity committees.”

  “So you’re saying that this…attack is another manifestation of your mother’s dementia.”

  “It has to be,” Middleton said. “What other explanation could there be?”

  “Possession is one,” Bailey said. “I can think of a few others.”

  “Possession?” Carol said. “What do you mean?”

  “Demonic possession,” Bailey said.

  “Like The Exorcist?”

  “A little less extreme perhaps, but essentially, yes.”

  “You’re not listening to this claptrap, are you?” Middleton said to his wife, exasperation in his voice. “Haven’t we got enough to worry about without these idiots spouting all this supernatural crap? Mother had an episode. End of story. She’s had them before; I’m sure she’ll keep having them until the day she dies.”

  “Howard! Don’t say such things,” Carol said. “I believe there’s more than this life. It’s as Father Connolly says, ‘There is much more to life than the purely physical.’”

  “Give me strength!” Middleton said. “What with my mother and her delusions and you with yours, I’m surprised it’s not me in custody for knifing someone. I’d start with bloody Father Connolly and his Bible bashers. You’ve never been the same since he came to the parish. Who invited him here anyway?” He turned to McKinley, opened his mouth to speak, then changed his mind and turned to address Bailey instead. “I’ll thank you to keep your bloody fairy stories to yourself. As you can see, my wife is very impressionable.”

  Bailey ignored him and instead spoke directly to Carol. “Does your mother-in-law go to church with you?”

  “Every Sunday, while Howard plays golf. She can’t be left, you see. I genuinely believe she takes comfort from Father Connolly’s services. And Patrick… Father Connolly has such patience with Mae. He gives her an awful lot of his time. A true Christian, that man. I know he hasn’t been with us long but he’s made a huge difference to Mae’s quality of life.”

  “You’ll be asking him to exorcise her next,” Middleton sneered. “Just make sure he does it when I’m out on the green.”

  Further conversation stalled as a young PC rushed into the reception area, threw open the door leading to Tyler’s office and hurried through.

  Tyler looked up from the file she was reading as the door to her office burst open and a breathless and white-faced Jim Barnes ran in.

  “You’d better come quickly, ma’am. Something’s going on in Interview Room 2,” he said breathlessly.

  Tyler frowned. “What do you mean, something’s going on?”

  “Noises. Crashing about. A scream.”
<
br />   “And you didn’t investigate?”

  “I couldn’t get in there. The door’s locked, or jammed. I tried.”

  Tyler pushed herself out of her executive chair. Now what? she thought. God, how I hate the evening shift.

  “Andy, I need your assistance,” she said to the desk sergeant as she ran through reception with Barnes leading the way.

  Andy Foster was behind them in seconds and the three of them took the corridor leading to the interview room.

  “What the hell was all that about?” Middleton said, getting to his feet.

  McKinley grabbed his arm to restrain him. “I’d sit down if I were you, and let the police handle it, whatever it is.”

  “It’s my mother in there,” Middleton said, yanking his arm away. “If something’s happened to her, I swear I’ll sue the Metropolitan Police for every penny it has.”

  “It could be her heart,” Carol said. “She has angina attacks.”

  “Let’s just wait and see, shall we?” Jane said calmly. “I’m sure Inspector Tyler has things in hand. She seems very competent.”

  At that moment the very competent Susan Tyler was struggling with the door handle, trying to gain access to Interview Room 2 but, like PC Barnes had said, the door was either locked or jammed. There were no noises coming from inside, not even the murmur of conversation.

  “Ms. Meredith, Mae,” she called. “Would one of you please open this door? It appears to be locked.”

  There was nothing but silence from the room.

  She called again and listened hard.

  This time there was something. It sounded like a low crooning, a song without words.

  “Ms. Meredith!”

  No response.

  “Andy, Jim, break it down.”

  The men put their shoulders to the door and it flew inwards with the sound of splintering wood.

  Tyler stepped into the room.

  Mae Middleton still sat at the table, but this time she looked serene. She was humming a gentle lullaby as she stroked what looked like a cat curled in her lap.

  “It’s all right, Barney, you’re safe now,” she said between verses. Looking up at Tyler she smiled beatifically. “Everything’s better now. Barney’s come home.”