‘Lloyd’s been living here since . . .’ Canning, who’d been waiting for him at the foot of the stairs, consulted his notebook, ‘April. Hardly ever had visitors, except for the priest from the RC church in Soho Square – Mrs Linder says he came about once a week. No relatives that she knows of, and she laughed when I asked about a girlfriend and said he wasn’t the sort . . . Then she said he wasn’t the other sort, either. Said she’d often wondered if he wasn’t a bit funny in the head, but he’d share his last crust with you and wouldn’t hurt a fly. Didn’t have a job, but paid his rent in good time . . . Always going on about some book he was writing. Told her he knew Ambrose Tynan.’
‘The famous writer?’ Stratton had read a couple of Tynan’s books – a lot of guff about attempts to take over Britain by sinister foreign powers who could harness dark forces for their dire purposes (but never, of course, succeeding) and some pretty hot stuff about rogering virgins on altar-tops and Satanic orgies and the like. At the time, he’d enjoyed them mainly because they were full of things one couldn’t have, such as nice food, wine and cigars. Not that he’d ever particularly enjoyed cigars, but that was probably because he’d never smoked a Hoya de Whatever it was – and nor, come to think of it, was he ever likely to. Tynan’s name tended to appear in the society columns of newspapers, along with a lot of oleaginous twaddle about witless baronets and neighing debutantes, and Stratton couldn’t imagine what possible connection he might have with somebody like Lloyd.
‘That’s the one,’ said Canning.
‘I suppose Lloyd might have written to him asking for advice or something,’ said Stratton.
‘I had the impression it was a bit more than that. Mrs L. said he’d gone to visit him.’
‘And fancied himself part of a secret brotherhood, no doubt.’ Stratton sighed, envisioning himself and Canning having to spend the week dealing with a procession of wild-eyed conspiracy theorists and crackpots. ‘Did she mention any family?’
‘Not so far as she knows.’
‘Visitors last night?’
Canning shook his head. ‘Mrs L. was at the pictures – A Kid for Two Farthings at the Tivoli. She doesn’t recommend it.’ Canning’s mouth twitched slightly. ‘Thinks Diana Dors is vulgar. Anyway, she went with her pal Mrs Heilbron and her husband, and afterwards to the Nellie Dean for a drink . . . It’s a regular date, apparently. I’ve got all the details.’
‘And later?’
‘Says no one came into the house between quarter past eleven – which is when she came in and went to bed – and half past six, when she got up. Says she’s a light sleeper and she’s on the ground floor – she heard one of the lodgers come in at a quarter to twelve—’
‘How did she know it was a lodger and not someone else?’
‘She got up and had a look. Bloke’s name is Wintle . . .’ Canning turned a page, ‘Christian name Harry. Youngish chap, out at work at the moment. Mrs L. says she doesn’t know where – he’s a painter and decorator and they go all over – but he comes back at lunchtime if he’s working near enough. And there’s another one she called “Old Mr Beauchamp”. He’s not been here the last few weeks – on the halls, apparently.’
‘Music halls?’ Stratton imagined some rouged and wizened horror, tottering night after night through a fifty-year-old routine.
‘That’s right. Well, what’s left of them, anyway. Tours around a bit. Then there’s her aunt who lives up at the top.’
‘Right-oh. I’ll go and see her. Tell Standish to let me know if Wintle arrives. Oh, and ask Mrs Linder if she knows whether Lloyd was left- or right-handed, would you?’
Mrs Linder’s aunt turned out to be a hunchbacked crone called Violet Hendry, clad in a musquash coat with a flowery pinny and several cardigans underneath, her extremities covered in fingerless gloves, and socks and slippers respectively, and her legs mottled red from sitting too close to the fire. Once they’d established that she’d heard nothing and seen nothing and that Mrs Linder was very good to her, she volunteered the information that poor Mr Lloyd was a very clever man who knew about things.
‘What sort of things?’ asked Stratton.
‘Eh?’ Mrs Hendry cupped her hand to her ear.
‘You said Mr Lloyd knew about things.’
‘He knew about the spirits,’ said Mrs Hendry. ‘The afterlife. Like my friend.’ She fumbled inside her clothes and handed Stratton a dog-eared pasteboard square. Why Remain in Doubt? he read. Madame Beatrice Worth, Famous Trance Medium. Seances and readings. Inspirational Messages by Post. Fees to Suit All. 361 Oxford Street, W1 (over hairdresser’s shop).
‘She’s marvellous. I’ve had such comfort since my husband passed on. She talks to the spirits, you see. Really talks to them – doesn’t make it up, like some. He understood all that, Mr Lloyd. Writing a book about it, he was. He said that one day . . .’ Mrs Hendry lowered her voice dramatically, ‘one day, what was in that book would change the world. You know,’ here she put a hand as dry and gnarled as a hen’s foot on his arm, ‘that’s probably why they killed him.’
‘Who’s “they”?’ asked Stratton.
‘Sorry, dear.’ Mrs Hendry cupped her hand to her ear again. When Stratton repeated the question, she peered suspiciously round the room as if there might be spies crouched behind the enamel kitchen unit or under the bed, and then whispered, ‘Unbelievers. They were against him.’
‘Did he tell you this?’
‘Yes. Enemies of truth, he called them. Beset on all sides, he was, like Our Lord. He said it was like the Bible – reviled and persecuted, he was. Reviled.’ Mrs Hendry repeated, looking at Stratton intensely, to make sure he was taking it in, ‘and persecuted. Aren’t you going to write it down?’
Feeling foolish, Stratton scribbled the words hastily in his notebook.
‘If you want to find out who killed him,’ said Mrs Hendry, ‘you look for his papers. Oh, yes.’ She nodded sagely. ‘You’ll find the answer there, all right.’
CHAPTER THREE
Heart sinking, Stratton returned to Lloyd’s room and waited while the photographer finished doing his stuff and Redfern made the room even dustier than it was before. Once they’d gone, and McNally had finished his work and was packing his bag, he said – not expecting much in the way of a response – ‘Is there anything you can tell me now?’
‘Well, it wasn’t the wound to the neck that killed him. Look.’
McNally having turned Lloyd’s head slightly, Stratton saw that the scissors, blades hardly bloodied, were lying on the rug. ‘Did you take them out?’ he asked, surprised.
‘They weren’t in – just wedged between his neck and the floor. We couldn’t see because of all that hair. The wound on the neck is hardly more than a scratch. Probably done just before, or just after, death. Accounts for the lack of blood.’
‘But there’s not much blood anywhere else, either.’
‘Puncture wounds – such as those on the chest – don’t bleed much, or at least not externally, and unless I’m very much mistaken’ – McNally’s face suggested that he thought this was most unlikely – ‘it was one of those that killed him. That is not, of course, an official diagnosis.’
‘Of course,’ murmured Stratton. ‘And the time of death?’
‘Hard to be sure. There’s not much meat on him, and the room’s not warm . . . Ten or twelve hours ago, maybe a bit more. That’s the best I can do.’
Stratton glanced at his watch. ‘Midnight?’
‘Or it could be earlier. Or later.’ McNally picked up his bag. ‘I’ll get him collected. All being well,’ he added, ‘I’ll be able to let you know my findings in the next couple of days.’
The body having been removed, PC Canning, who’d informed Stratton that Lloyd was, according to Mrs Linder, right-handed, stood in the centre of the room staring gloomily at the sagging bookshelves. ‘Blimey. Just look at this lot. Somebody else with too many ideas.’
‘You can say that again,’ said Stratton. ‘He was writing a book,
apparently. Told the woman upstairs it was going to change the world. She seems to think that was why he was killed.’
Canning shook his head. ‘God help us,’ he murmured.
‘Well,’ said Stratton, grimly, ‘it doesn’t look like any other bugger’s going to be much use. Unless that lodger . . .’
‘Wintle, sir.’
‘Unless Wintle knows something – but it doesn’t sound as if he’s going to be here for a bit, so let’s get cracking. You can start on the shelves and I’ll do the desk.’
Canning stared round the room. ‘I like a book myself, but this lot . . .’ He shook his head again. ‘I’m surprised the floor hasn’t caved in. He’s got a lot by Ambrose Tynan – I’ve read quite a few of them, too.’ He started pulling them off the shelves as he spoke. ‘Who Dines with the Devil. . . that was a good one . . . The Fourth Horseman, The Curse of Moloch. . . Tynan’s written in this one.’ Canning held out a book to Stratton, open at the title page on which was inscribed, in a dashing scrawl, To my dear friend Jeremy – May the courage and wisdom of the Timeless Ones, who order all things, be your guide, Blessings be upon you – Ambrose.
‘Sounds as if they were quite pally. What was that you said earlier about a secret brotherhood, sir?’
Stratton grimaced. ‘Let’s just get on with it, shall we?’
Lloyd’s desk yielded a heavy book, like a ledger, in which were copied hundreds of aphorisms, none attributed. In order to be what you are, you have to come out of what you are not, Stratton read, and Among thousands of men, one perchance strives for perfection; even among those who strive and are perfect, only one perchance knows Me in truth . . .
Some of them he recognised as biblical, but where the others might have come from, he had no idea. They were obviously meant to be inspirational or, he thought, to be sucked on like sweets, to offer comfort. ‘A real spiritual pick-and-mix.’
‘Spiritual junk shop, more like.’ Canning surveyed the room. ‘This is going to take all bloody day.’
After half an hour or so of fruitless pawing through the contents of the room, they heard a noise from downstairs, and a moment later PC Standish appeared in the doorway. ‘Someone come to see Mr Lloyd, sir. Padre.’
Relieved to abandon the airless chamber with its dusty clutter of scholarship, Stratton followed him down the stairs. The padre, whom Mrs Linder had ushered into her beaded and brocaded front parlour, turned out to be the visiting Catholic priest she’d mentioned to Canning. His church, popular with the female relatives of local Italian restaurateurs and coffee bar proprietors, was, Stratton recalled, dripping with gilt and crammed with garishly coloured statuettes. Elderly Father Shaw, small, gimlet-eyed, subfusc and drily unsentimental seemed, mercifully, to be the human opposite of the place of worship over which he presided. ‘I was concerned about Mr Lloyd, Inspector,’ he said, when Stratton asked the nature of his visit. ‘I wasn’t altogether sure that he was right in the head. I’ve frequently observed that overmuch lay interest in theological matters can be a prelude to insanity.’
This, thought Stratton, perking up a bit, was admirably frank. ‘What form did it take?’ he asked.
‘Wanting to lecture me on points of doctrine, most of the time.’ Father Shaw sighed. ‘He was writing a book, you see. Or so he said.’
‘So I gather. We haven’t found it yet.’
‘He talked about it a great deal. Kept it in a briefcase – always carried it with him. I’m sure you’ll find the case in his room.’ Father Shaw shook his head sadly. ‘To be honest, I shouldn’t be in the least surprised if it turns out to be nothing more than random jottings.’
‘He attended your church regularly, did he?’
‘Oh, no. He came two or three times to mass, once for confession.’
‘So . . .’
‘So why visit him? I suppose, Inspector . . .’ Father Shaw stopped and considered, concentrating as if about to negotiate a tricky set of stepping stones in a fast-moving river. ‘I felt . . . responsible.’
‘Oh? Why was that?’
‘Well, for one thing, he was a convert to the Faith. In his youth. It does,’ he added wryly, ‘have a certain attraction for the artistic temperament.’
‘Do you mean,’ asked Stratton, straight-faced, ‘that he liked the . . . er . . . millinery?’
Father Shaw’s mouth twitched. ‘I believe that is sometimes a factor, but not, I think, in this case. Lloyd was never vain of his appearance. Certainly, he took pleasure in the ceremonial side, but I think the attraction was more to do with the traditions of the Catholic Church – learning and art and so forth. He’d aspired to the priesthood – unusual for a convert, but not unknown – but unfortunately he was deemed unsuitable.’
‘Why was that?’
‘I imagine – and he did not tell me this so anything I say must, of necessity, be mere conjecture – that it was because his interest was largely, at least on the surface, to do with dogma and a great deal to do with self-aggrandisement. Not that he wasn’t a kind person, and he certainly wasn’t selfish or concerned with material wealth, but I cannot imagine there would have been much interest in the souls of others, no fineness of purpose or vocation – and certainly not for missionary work. He was too argumentative, Inspector. Unstable. Difficult. The fact is that from an early age he believed himself to be marked out for great things. He said the mark had been put upon him – the port wine stain, you know.’ Father Shaw tapped a finger to his left cheek. ‘It surprised me that he could regard such an affliction as an indication of divine favour, but there it is. His parents, I understand, believed him to have some talent for music – the piano – and encouraged him, but, despite their paying for him to study at a conservatoire in France, it came to nothing. He was very bitter about this, and expressed the view that his teachers’ lack of appreciation for his talents was occasioned by jealousy and spite. It was after this disappointment that he turned his attention to religion.’
‘And what happened after he was rejected for the priesthood?’
‘Some form of mental breakdown, apparently. He said little about it other than that he’d absconded from the sanatorium where he was being treated.’
‘Where did he go?’
‘I’m not sure. He told me he’d been taken in by people who’d cared for him, but not their names. He mentioned Ambrose Tynan,’ Father Shaw winced as if he’d bitten on a bad tooth, ‘the novelist. Said Tynan had helped him a great deal – giving him books, introducing him to like-minded people and so on . . . I’m not sure about the . . . degree . . . of friendship – to be honest, I thought he might have exaggerated it in order to make himself seem important, but I can’t say it was the sort of connection I’d have encouraged.’
‘Why not?’
Father Shaw pursed his lips. ‘Those books of his . . . Sensationalist nonsense.’
‘Did Lloyd go in for black magic and that sort of thing?’
‘Oh, no. But his interest was rather too . . . wide-ranging, shall we say. Lacking in coherence.’
‘I can’t imagine that many people would take Tynan’s books seriously,’ said Stratton, hoping to God that Lloyd hadn’t.
‘I don’t suppose so, but in poor Jeremy’s case . . .’ Father Shaw sighed heavily.
‘Easily influenced, was he?’
‘Yes, I’d say so. He wanted to find a meaning in everything, Inspector, and that was the sort of thing that attracted him. I told him that faith is – or ought to be – a simple matter.’ Father Shaw looked weary, and Stratton imagined that he must be recalling a series of long and exhausting wrangles over everything from the more obscure points of theological dogma to the meaning of life.
‘Did he mention any family?’
‘Estranged, I’m afraid. His parents had made little difficulty about his conversion, but they were adamantly opposed to his joining the priesthood. When his rejection was followed by nervous trouble, they – understandably, if inaccurately – blamed the Church. It was they who placed him in the s
anatorium. He didn’t contact them afterwards. This was, I believe, nine or ten years ago, and I learnt recently that both parents have since died.’
‘Who told you this?’
‘His aunt. I was most anxious that he should be reunited with his family and begged him for the name of a relative with whom I could correspond – neither of us knew at that point that the parents were dead. He refused to contact his aunt himself, but he gave me her address and I wrote to her.’
‘What was his response when you told him of his parents’ deaths?’
Father Shaw’s face was a drooping mixture of kindness and despondency that made Stratton think of a solitary raindrop making its slow way down a windowpane. ‘I never had the chance,’ he said. ‘I wrote to Mrs Prentice – Lloyd’s aunt – last week, and received the answer this morning. That’s why I came today. She was most concerned about him. The family solicitor had been trying to contact him to deliver a bequest from his parents, but to no avail, and Mrs Prentice asked me to pass on this information. I have the letter here.’ He reached into his jacket pocket and passed a square of lavender-coloured notepaper, folded in four, to Stratton. Opening it, he saw an address in Roehampton written in uncertain, arthritic handwriting in the top right-hand corner.
‘Thank you. We’ll contact her. However, as she won’t have seen her nephew for some years, I wonder if you might be able to provide identification . . . ?’
‘Of the body? Of course, Inspector. And I would welcome the opportunity to say a prayer, if I may.’
Seeing that the clergyman was about to rise, Stratton said, ‘Before you leave, can you tell me if Mr Lloyd had any enemies that you know of?’
‘Specifically, no. I’m afraid, when he spoke of enemies, I considered it to be a symptom of his rather, shall we say, inflated view of himself. Enemies of Truth, he called them. I should have questioned him more closely about them, but . . .’ Father Shaw’s eyes flicked momentarily upwards, ‘I did not take him entirely seriously. I should have been more vigilant, because one of these enemies caused his death, didn’t they, Inspector?’
A Willing Victim Page 2
