A Particular Eye for Villainy: (Inspector Ben Ross 4) (10 page)

My scrutiny of the surroundings had not gone unnoticed.

‘It is a comfortable room but rather small for the purpose,’ Tapley remarked. ‘I share it with a colleague. He is out of Town at the moment and won’t interrupt us.’

He indicated with a graceful sweep of his hand that I should be seated. I sank down into one of the leather chairs. He, however, remained standing. This put me at something of a disadvantage, as he towered over me. Tapley the barrister, I thought sourly, knew all the courtroom tricks.

‘Sherry, Inspector?’

‘Thank you, sir, but we are not permitted,’ I said. And you know that, don’t you? I nearly snarled.

‘Of course.’ He walked to the window and stood, with his hands clasped behind his back, looking out.

‘You were able to carry the sad news to your family?’ I prompted him, determined he should not manipulate me like a marionette on strings.

He turned to walk back towards me. ‘Indeed, yes, that is to say, I told my wife. She was very upset, naturally. I have left it to her to inform Flora, my niece.’ He took a seat at last in the armchair facing me.

‘I would be glad,’ I said politely, ‘of any and all details concerning your late cousin that you can give me.’

He inclined his head. ‘I shall do so, even though it will cost me some pain and embarrassment.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘We are both of us toilers in the cause of upholding the law, Inspector. We both know that the most respected citizens, and the most respectable of families, may harbour secrets they would not wished revealed to public knowledge. We both know that when murder occurs, thorough enquiries follow. They will, one hopes, lead to someone being charged with the crime. They will also bring secrets to the surface, wished or unwished. The thorough preparation needed to prosecute or defend such a charge in a court of law also makes of some wretch’s life an open book.’

He’d had ample time to prepare this pretty speech. I read his implication as easily as he meant me to do. I replied, as I knew he hoped:

‘Secrets must, indeed, be revealed to the investigating officers. But they are of interest only when they have a bearing on the particular crime. What’s necessary must be made public. What is not of public interest, has no bearing on the crime, well, that needn’t become known to all and sundry.’

I fancied he looked relieved. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Inspector.’

I was sorry to damage his confidence. ‘But I should remind you that the gentlemen of the press have quite another agenda. One can’t keep everything from them, at least not easily. What they do with the knowledge is beyond my powers to control.’

‘I am aware of that,’ he replied bitterly. ‘However, I don’t expect you to control the press, Ross. It’ll be up to me to try to do that. I realise I might not be successful.’

‘The press can also be very helpful to us in this kind of affair,’ I warned him. ‘Had I not been able to put the report of the finding of a body in the evening papers here in London, you would not have seen it, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation now. Further references to the case may jog the memory of someone, somewhere, who may come forward with valuable information. On the other hand, we don’t want the worst kind of sensational journalism or we’ll get inundated with wild stories and claims. We will try to keep anything personal and embarrassing to the family out of it. But if we want the press’s help, we have to offer something in return. It’s a matter of treading a fine line, Mr Tapley.’

He nodded, took a deep breath, and placed the tips of his long, slender fingers together. ‘You appear to me – you won’t take offence at what I say, I hope – to have a more subtle nature than most police officers. I have, in my time, had to deal with some deeply unimaginative ones – and some out-and-out blockheads. You are obviously not in that category. I know you will treat anything I tell you with sensitivity.’ He paused. ‘Are you going to write any of this down?’ He raised one dark eyebrow a little quizzically.

I felt myself flush. ‘With your permission, I will make a few notes, Mr Tapley. It will save me having to return to you again unnecessarily.’

I fished out my notebook and pencil and sat ready.

I felt myself flush once more and hoped it wasn’t visible or that he’d put it down to being seated near the fire. I reflected again that Tapley had a barrister’s nimble mental footwork and I’d have to be ever alert to keep ahead of him. So far, he seemed to be keeping marginally ahead of me.

‘And that, therefore, Tom was a full ten years older than I. For that reason we were not close as boys. I was a squalling infant when he already fancied himself quite a fellow. By the time I was ten years old, Tom was out in the wide world. But Tom’s childhood was greatly affected by the death of my uncle, his father, when Tom was seven. After that he was brought up by his devoted mother. He was educated at home, because she had decided he was too delicate to go away to school . . .’

Jonathan Tapley paused before adding, with what might have been either dry humour or resentment: ‘Nobody thought I was too delicate to be sent away from home at a young age to cope as best I could with the rigours of a public school education!’

‘At ten years of age,’ I said with some asperity, ‘I was working down a coal mine.’

I had, at last, wrong-footed my companion. He looked startled. ‘Were you, indeed?’ He stared at me long and hard. ‘My cousin Tom had a far easier life than either of us, then. How, may I ask, did you escape the coal mine for the police force?’

‘Then your benefactor has been well repaid.’

Dr Martin had sadly not lived long enough to see his prodigy become a police inspector, or to see me marry his daughter. Perhaps the last was just as well.

Tapley was continuing his story. ‘Tom stayed at home, cosseted by his mamma and a bevy of aunts and other assorted spinster ladies. There is a portrait showing him to be an attractive child. He found it easy to please all the womenfolk who surrounded him. He had an excellent brain and would, if encouraged, have made a first-class scholar. As it was, he turned out a dilettante, dabbling in literature, the arts, the natural sciences: any subject that took his fancy at the moment and for the moment.’

‘In his lodgings, where he died,’ I told him, ‘he had quite a library.’

‘Poor Tom,’ said his cousin. ‘He did love books even if he skimped the tasks set him by his long-suffering tutor. But he did learn one skill from his upbringing, Ross, and learned it well. He discovered how to play on the soft natures of older women. He adopted the attitude that there would always be a female presence to look after him. Of course, as he grew older, the ladies he’d known in childhood either died or dropped out of his life. His mother passed away when he was in his late twenties. But he always seemed to find another to take her place.’

As he had found Mrs Jameson and, before her, the landlady in Southampton who had written so warmly recommending him.

‘At the time, it was dealt with quickly, efficiently and privately. It was in the interest of both families and of the college, to say nothing of the wretched youngsters themselves. Tom was barely eighteen at the time and terrified out of his wits at the danger he found himself in. But it didn’t frighten him into lifelong celibacy. Other later encounters had to be hushed up. It was obvious that, while Tom saw women as providers of home comforts, those did not include that of the shared bedchamber. His personal preference, in that respect, was for his own sex.’

‘I see,’ I said aloud. ‘But yet your cousin married?’

‘Yes. His experience at Oxford had, at least, taught Tom the importance of discretion. Our society displays a remarkable degree of hypocrisy, Ross. You can’t be unaware of that! What is known of, but never spoken of, is largely left undisturbed. But public knowledge, scandal, is greatly to be feared. It brings swift retribution. I don’t know what your private view of the subject is, Inspector. I do however know that you, as I am, are required to uphold the law. I personally feel the law is too harsh. Tom could no more help his nature than any other man. But, like others of his persuasion, he was obliged to live a double life with an ever-present fear of one day finding himself breaking rocks on Dartmoor.

Jonathan Tapley actually smiled. ‘To the astonishment of us all, this union proved very happy and even, most unexpectedly, bore fruit. A daughter was born later in the year, almost nine months to the day. Her name is Flora and she’s now nineteen years of age. Tom, once he got over the surprise, was quite the proudest father I ever saw.

‘Sadly, his wife died when Flora was only three. Doctors had told my wife and me we must resign ourselves to never having a child of our own. We offered to take Flora into our household and bring her up. Tom was grateful. My wife and I were overjoyed. It is not too strong a word. To us, it was a gift from above. Flora’s presence has transformed our lives, Inspector. No natural daughter born to us could be more dear.’

He fell silent and I could find nothing to say. To hear and see this self-assured, rather pompous stuffed shirt of a man reveal his humanity and his vulnerability was deeply moving.

‘So,’ I said, ‘the “niece” of whom you spoke earlier is, in fact, what? A young cousin once removed?’

It also blurred her relationship to her father, your cousin Thomas, and any stories that might be circulating, I thought. Introduced to the world as your ‘niece’, no one would automatically think of Tom and the whispers about him.

‘So, you see, it was all neatly arranged . . .’ Tapley was saying, ‘except in one respect. As Flora grew older and showed signs of growing into a very pretty and charming young lady, we had to give some thought to her future. She was ten when my wife and I decided something must be done to ensure no unpleasantness cast a shadow over it. Ten is still a child. But the years fly by, and all too soon she’d be going out into the world. We hoped she would meet a very suitable young man and marry happily.’ He fell silent again and seemed to be waiting for me to identify the problem aloud, although it was obvious enough.

‘If there should be a scandal concerning her father, or if his name should become known as a frequenter of certain circles, and if it came out that she was his daughter, her prospects would be blighted,’ I said. ‘Good families cherish their reputations. They flee public notoriety. Passing her off as your niece might be interpreted by some as an attempt to mislead. There would be no good marriage for Miss Flora.’

Your own good name, I thought, might also have a shadow over it.