Murder in Hampstead

by Sabina Manea

  ‘Lucia, are you suggesting the Professor is Clytemnestra?’ asked Virginia with an impressed look on her face.

  ‘It could be a long shot, but there’s no such thing as a coincidence, as the inspector is probably sick of hearing me say.’

  ‘So unusual.’ Nina picked up the brooch gingerly and turned it over. The underside was matt gold, which made the masterfully engraved inscription all the more striking. ‘This must be Belarusian. My language skills are somewhat rusty.’ She strained to make sense of the words.

  ‘How come you speak it?’ asked Carliss.

  ‘I read Russian at university. The two are not identical, of course, but there are sufficient similarities between them. I believe the writing says: “For services rendered”.’ The delicate object sat innocently in Nina’s outstretched palm. ‘I think we can extrapolate what sort of services they might be. The code name speaks for itself.’

  ‘The scheming murderess with the mind of a man,’ said the policeman.

  ‘I wouldn’t have guessed you were a fan of ancient Greek tragedy, Inspector.’

  ‘We’re not all PC Plod, you know. Though I never guessed an evening seeing the Oresteia at the National Theatre would ever be directly relevant to my work. But this doesn’t mean anything for our case. We’ve got no proof that Glover knew the Professor was the one who got his lady friend killed.’

  ‘True, but it makes for a damn good motive, don’t you think?’ replied Lucia. ‘His fiancée was killed by a double agent. That’s not something he would have easily forgotten, even though it was nearly forty years ago. He turns up at Beatrice Hall and sees the brooch – once, twice, until he twigs, like we did, that it’s not a mere adornment. He puts two and two together and realizes the woman he’s been hunting all this time has been right under his nose all along.’

  ‘Slow down, Miss Marple. This is all fanciful. It’s hardly going to wash in the interview room.’

  Lucia knew he was right, not that it alleviated her frustration.

  ‘And Adam? Are you saying Glover was responsible for his death as well?’ continued the inspector. ‘From where I’m standing, the story’s getting more fantastical by the minute.’

  ‘Perhaps Adam found out about the Professor’s and Glover’s shared past. Don’t forget he was a forensic accountant, albeit an unemployed one – uncovering secrets would have been his bread and butter,’ added Nina.

  ‘You lot are making my head spin. The bottom line is, I can’t arrest a man on what you’ve brought me so far,’ protested Carliss.

  Virginia tapped her foot impatiently. ‘Pleasant as this may be, I’m going to have to leave you to your deliberations. We’re going out to dinner, and I’ve got to drag your father out of the British Library first. He’s writing yet another book on medieval churches, as if the world hasn’t got plenty already.’

  They said their various goodbyes, with Carliss the unfortunate recipient of a crushing handshake, and the depleted team sat back down despondently.

  ‘Look, I’m not saying you’re wrong. We just need to get our hands on some real evidence before I can move forward,’ said the detective conciliatorily.

  Lucia was at that very moment harbouring a niggling doubt. As she reviewed the tableau of the tea party where the Professor had met her end, a particular detail grated. She strained to recall what the inspector had recounted of his first visit to Dr Glover’s office. It would come to her, she was sure. For the moment, the more urgent preoccupation lay elsewhere. ‘Can we see Adam’s post-mortem report?’ It was worth a shot, Lucia reasoned, though she knew Carliss was well within his rights to refuse.

  To her surprise, he yielded straightaway. ‘I’ve contravened just about everything, so why not?’ He threw his arms up in the air despairingly and handed them his phone. He stood up and went to look out of the window. Behind him, the women huddled closely together, scrolling through the pages.

  ‘What are you hoping to find?’ he finally asked, exasperated. ‘I’ve gone through that report with a fine-tooth comb.’

  ‘Nothing in particular. I just want to make sure we haven’t missed any important details.’ The writing was tiny, and Lucia struggled to follow. ‘Hang on, what’s this?’

  Carliss stared at the paragraph in question. ‘It just refers back to the contents of his pockets, for completeness. They were empty, apart from one item. Here – “small straw doll – see photo below.” It will have been bagged up and checked in at the station. Just one of those random things, I suppose.’

  He took possession of the phone and was about to replace it in his pocket when Nina interrupted. ‘Let me have a closer look at that picture.’

  To anyone else’s eyes, the item would have appeared unremarkable – a tiny, weaved doll in some sort of national dress, the kind that littered souvenir shops at popular holiday destinations all over the world. It had a jolly little face, with round green eyes and bright red lips, topped with a white flower headdress.

  To Nina, the toy clearly meant much more. She peered more closely at the screen, examining the tightly bound skirt and fingerless hands. ‘It’s flax, not straw. It looks like a traditional Belarusian liaĺka – a doll given to young children as an amulet for good luck.’

  She magnified the picture until she could make out the spindly writing embroidered on the apron and read out the single word: “Emilia”.

  Chapter 32

  The three exchanged incredulous looks.

  DCI Carliss broke the silence. ‘I think we need to crank it up a notch, see where she’s come from. We’ve got woefully little on the woman.’ He got up abruptly and went to retrieve his overcoat. ‘I’m going back to the station. I’ll let you know when I’ve got more.’

  As soon as he was out of earshot, Lucia turned to her friend. ‘He feels bad for not taking a closer look at her past earlier. It’s that schoolgirl charm – men can’t help but fall for it.’

  For the next few days, life settled into a false semblance of normality. With Beatrice Hall irredeemably out of bounds, Lucia was at a loss. She had no other work lined up – the investigation had swallowed up her entire existence. There was no word from Margaret, who had solemnly promised – and duly failed – to get in touch over the proposed rehaul of the Walkers’ residence.

  At Nina’s insistence, Lucia was put up in the Chanlers’ spare room in Belgravia while the two friends struggled to make sense of the recent tragedies. To cheer them up, Walter had suggested a trip up north to Lexington Hall. They were busy packing up the car when Lucia’s phone rang.

  ‘I’m sorry for going AWOL. We’ve been working day and night to get to the bottom of this. Can I come over?’ Carliss’s voice sounded half adrenaline, half fatigue.

  As Lucia apologetically explained the change of plan, Walter turned to his wife with a knowing smile. ‘I know what you’re like, darling. You two go ahead and catch your murderer, I’ll be just fine drinking whisky in front of the fire with your father.’

  With Walter on the road, the women went back into the house and waited for the bell to ring. It didn’t take long. Nina opened the door to an exceptionally dishevelled detective, even by his standards. The three-day stubble and dark circles under his eyes, coupled with the state of his clothes, strongly suggested he had been surviving on black coffee and might not have left the office at all.

  ‘You look in dire need of a square meal and a bath. Can I tempt you, Inspector? You look about the same size as Walter. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to lend you something clean to wear,’ offered Nina.

  ‘Thanks, but I’m fine.’

  Lucia could see he wasn’t fine at all – he was tormented by what might have been the avoidable death of Adam Corcoran, and it pained her. ‘Tell us everything, from the beginning.’ She led him gently to the sofa.

  He had his rucksack with him, the one that only got aired when there was serious business at play. Out of it emerged a folder with painstakingly labelled tabs. He opened it at the first page and began. ‘I had this sit
ting on my desk all along and didn’t give it a second thought. Tell me what you see – or rather, what strikes you.’ It was a copy of Emilia’s passport.

  ‘Vera Emilia Poole. She uses her second name then – not unheard of. Born on the 21st of December 1982 in Brest.’ Lucia paused to think. ‘I suppose that’s not unusual. Her parents must have travelled a lot, or they could have been living in France at the time.’

  She was about to carry on when the policeman interrupted her. He had a haunted look on his face. ‘And there’s the error, staring us right in the face. My error. She was born in Brest, Belarus, not Brest, France. I stared at this wretched page until the words were a blur, and then I remembered something I learned at school a long time ago. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.’

  ‘The end of Russia’s First World War,’ said Nina.

  ‘From then on, I didn’t stop until I tracked her down. The poor DS that got lumbered with me at the station really did draw the short straw – it’s been a hell of a time. It turns out that Richard and Christine Poole weren’t her real parents. She’s adopted.’

  ‘From Belarus, sure,’ Lucia interjected. ‘But what’s this got to do with the Professor?’

  ‘Oh, it gets better.’ Carliss turned the page. ‘Her entry in the Adopted Children Register confirms her country of birth. There’s only one orphanage in Brest where she could have come from, so we roped in a translator and got to work. A hell of a lot of phone calls later, she finds out it closed in 1992, so we’re back to square one. Cue some more prodding, lateral thinking, hours of waiting, you name it, we did it, and bingo – we get sent Emilia’s papers from the Brest city archive.’ He stopped for a moment to catch his breath and wipe beads of sweat from his forehead.

  ‘I’ll get you a glass of water,’ said Nina. ‘And slow down – I don’t want you on my conscience.’

  Oblivious to the dark humour, Carliss gulped the water down in one go and clutched his well-thumbed folder. ‘Born Vera Emilia Polyakova to Nadzeya Polyakova. Father unknown. The child was registered in the orphanage records when she was five weeks old. After that, nothing, until the adoption – the first, or attempted adoption, I should say, by someone called Olga Galina, in February 1983. I can’t find any trace of the reason it fell through. The second adoption, later that year, was by Richard and Christine Poole, who took the baby back to the UK with them – and thus Emilia Poole was born.’

  ‘But who is Olga Galina?’ asked Lucia. ‘The name means nothing.’

  ‘I haven’t got as far as that. The DS and I ran out of steam,’ admitted the inspector. ‘I was hoping you two can help.’

  Nina ran to fetch her laptop. They sat in a circle on the floor and got to work. Hours passed in a frenzied haze. Bottles of wine were consumed, a takeaway meal was hastily eaten and the light streaming in grew dimmer and dimmer. The screen started hurting their eyes before they noticed it was dark and switched on the sumptuous chandelier. That Olga Galina happened to be the name of a famous Russian opera singer did little to help the search.

  As the clock on the mantelpiece struck one, they were on the verge of calling it a night, when Nina gave a shrill cry. ‘Look at this.’

  The black and white photograph showed a group of people awkwardly clumped together against the background of a sprawling blackboard covered in equations. Allowing for minimal variations by gender, they were dressed in stern dark suits and boxy dresses. The Cyrillic writing at the bottom was faded to only just short of illegible.

  ‘Faculty of Applied Mathematics, Belarus State University, 1981,’ read out Nina. ‘And look at the first name on the list – Dr Olga Galina.’

  The first person from the left was a woman in her late thirties or early forties, whose light attire stood out in the sea of gloomy blacks and dark greys. As the picture was magnified, they were able to make out a dark butterfly-shaped brooch on her lapel. Though forty years younger, the face was unmistakably that of the woman known as Professor Alla Kiseleva – the almond-shaped eyes framed by a wavy bob, the high cheekbones, the faintly disdainful expression on her lips. It matched the photo on the unmarked file that Nina had dug up. Lucia sat back and shuddered at the magnitude of their discovery.

  ‘Tell me I’m not hallucinating. It’s her, isn’t it?’ said Carliss, as if he no longer trusted his own judgement.

  ‘It’s definitely her,’ muttered Nina.

  ‘If the Professor is Olga Galina, did Emilia know that her employer nearly became her adoptive mother? And if Emilia did know, was that worth killing for?’ wondered Lucia out loud.

  ‘It certainly was, Lulu. The conditions in those Belarus orphanages were infernal – starving children confined to their cots, widespread abuse…’ Nina stopped, unable to continue, and her eyes welled up.

  ‘You were there?’ asked Carliss in amazement.

  ‘Yes, as an exchange student – unfortunately, nothing has changed for those poor things since the 1980s. That sort of start to her life, it can’t but leave marks.’ Nina emptied her glass and started clearing the debris that had accumulated around them.

  Lucia pictured Emilia’s implacable face, her cold detachment – it all made sense. In the whirlwind of the revelation, they had forgotten one thing. ‘If Adam had the doll, he could have found Emilia out, confronted her perhaps. He needed to be eliminated.’ She knew full well what the stumbling block would be.

  The policeman, despite his exhaustion, didn’t wait long to point it out. ‘We’re back to the same problem we’ve had before – plenty of motive, not a shred of solid evidence.’

  ‘There has to be something,’ reasoned Lucia. ‘She must have gone wrong somewhere, like she did with the champagne coupe. Oh, that was brilliant – though the execution wasn’t quite perfect.’ She racked her brains. ‘What else was taken into evidence when your people first searched Beatrice Hall?’

  ‘You mean, after the Professor’s… after Olga’s death? Oh, I don’t even know what to call the woman anymore.’ He frowned. ‘The crockery and cutlery used for the party. I released them soon after they tested negative for poison – there’s only so long we can keep rotting food before it becomes a health and safety hazard.’ He rubbed his reddened eyes. ‘Oh, and the tin of 1080, obviously.’

  Lucia perked up. ‘Did they find anything on the tin?’

  ‘Nothing of interest, otherwise we would have known. Only the housekeeper’s fingerprints, from whenever she used it last.’

  ‘We need to look at it again. If any physical evidence was left behind, that’s where it’ll be.’ Lucia rose to her feet with fresh determination. She was too tired to remember that it was now the middle of the night.

  ‘Well, it’s not going to happen now, that’s for sure. We can go down to the station nice and early in the morning, but I think we’re clutching at straws. Everything has been processed within an inch of its life,’ replied Carliss.

  ‘Let’s go to bed. You can sleep here if you like, Inspector, or I can call you a cab.’

  ‘Thanks, Nina, I’ll head home. I could do with a hot shower before I face tomorrow’s entertainment.’ He stood up wearily.

  Lucia didn’t want to think what would happen if there was nothing to be found in the evidence room. Two unexplained deaths, no arrests and a cunning killer who may well get away unscathed. That wasn’t good police work.

  Chapter 33

  Being a Saturday, Kentish Town Station was conveniently understaffed. The inspector escorted Lucia and Nina into his office and ordered them to stay put. It didn’t take long to dig out the tin of sodium fluoroacetate, which he deposited on his desk.

  ‘Here it is. Put some gloves on first.’ He gestured to a box next to his computer.

  Lucia lifted the tin up to the light and looked carefully all the way around the outside. The metal rim at the bottom had rusted slightly – it had probably been sitting in a damp patch when it used to live under the kitchen sink. She edged the lid open with her fingernails and looked inside. The tin was around two-thirds full. So far, s
o disappointing.

  ‘Have you got a torch?’

  The detective dutifully opened a drawer and fished one out.

  The bright light bounced off the interior walls of the tin, until it focused on a spot that broke the otherwise uninterrupted stretch of shiny silver metal.

  ‘What do you think this is?’ Lucia said to the policeman.

  Carliss peered in. ‘I can’t tell. Looks like a tiny smudge.’

  ‘Was it mentioned in the report?’

  ‘I can’t remember off the top of my head. I’ll have to check.’ He sat down at his computer, tapping away until he pulled up the document. ‘Here it is. Description of the tin, contents, prints… No mention of a smudge.’

  Lucia’s heart was pounding in her chest. She couldn’t allow herself to believe they might have made a breakthrough at last. ‘Can you send the tin back for testing?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I’d better. Strange that they missed it. However, there was no reason to pay much attention to the inside of the tin, beyond testing the contents. All the prints were on the outside, as you would expect. We won’t know before Monday at the earliest. I exhausted all my goodwill when I pushed for Adam’s overnight PM.’

  ‘In that case, I suggest we all go home and sleep it off,’ said Nina. ‘We’re of no use to anyone in this state.’

  Lucia knew she was right – they needed a break. Nina dragged her friend back to Lygon Place and suggested a shopping trip, a cinema outing – anything to take their mind off the case – but was rebutted. Lucia acted as if she was in a trance, watching back-to-back films and waiting for news.

  On the Monday, just as the two friends were about to sit down to an early lunch, Lucia’s phone rang ominously.

  ‘The results are back. It’s foundation.’ The detective sounded deflated.