Corridors of Death (19 page)

ALFRED SHAW

Sir N.

Motive: Didn’t like Sir N. calling him “Sid”. Or maybe Sir N. had given him a duff tip on the St Léger.

Opportunity: Yes. The only reason he’s on the list.

Pro: Nothing.

Con: Everything.

Action: Interview him. Perhaps some totally unsuspected motive.

Gladys

Motive: The same and only reason anyone would do for Gladys: self-protection.

Opportunity: Negligible. A public figure, never off T.V. In through the window, maybe, or in a false beard with a forged security pass.

Pro: Nothing.

Con: Everything.

Action: As above.

Milton started a fresh sheet of paper for the last in the alphabet. He was glad that this one was his favourite suspect.

WILLIAM WELLS

Sir N.

Motive: Made to look silly and lost his moment of glory at IGGY. Wife alerted to his affair. Sir N’s lie about the £20 million would probably lose him his job and his seat in due course. Game, set and match.

Opportunity: Yes.

Pro: Known to have a bad temper.

Con: Fancies himself shrewd. Would have had to have lost control completely to risk his future for revenge.

Action: Grill him again. He’s been secretive.

Gladys

Motive: Certainly. And they knew each other by sight.

Opportunity: Fine. Same corridor.

Pro: Obvious. And he’d be good at self-justification. How could he serve his electorate from behind bars?

Con: As many of the above, but no more.

Action: Grilling.

Milton rested his pen for a moment, and read through what he had written. He was about ready to rule out Shaw, Stafford, Jenkins and Lady Clark. The first two he had always thought very long shots for Gladys’s murder, and even Stafford’s slightly enhanced motive for murdering Sir Nicholas couldn’t make up for the difficulty he would have in finding the unfortunate witness. Still, he would have to go through the motions of interviewing him again, as he would have to go through the motions with Shaw. He wasn’t again going to be caught neglecting routine. He would initiate the security check the following morning and, later, send C.I.D. constables around the building with photographs of Shaw and Stafford to check that no one had seen them on Tuesday. All the other actions would go ahead, including upsetting Lady Clark, though he was morally certain that she couldn’t have connived at Gladys’s murder. The cowardly stabbing of an innocent bystander to cover up an all too understandable hot-blooded murder? Indefensible, in every sense of the word. So Nigel was probably out too.

He was back to the three favourite suspects again – Nixon, Parkinson and Wells. At least he now had in Wells a front runner. It should be possible to convince the Assistant Commissioner that Wells’s motive was now so strong that there was hope of breaking him. Today’s new evidence should at least win him another twenty-four hours on the case.

Thursday Morning

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30

‘You don’t sound very optimistic, darling. Shall I cancel the Paris tickets?’

‘Put the pessimistic tone down to an overdraft on the sleep account. You know I need eight hours at least one night in three. No, hold the tickets till this evening. You never know, someone may present me with a pukka clue today. A bloodstained footprint might do the trick.’

‘You’d probably find all your suspects were wearing the same size official-issue shoes. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you anyway. See you in the Star of India tonight. I’m looking forward to meeting your mole. How will I recognize him if you’re not there?’

‘He’ll be cowering in the darkest corner swigging gin. Briefcase under chair.’

Milton stuffed his scribblings of the early morning into an inside pocket and followed Ann out of the front door. The sunshine made him feel unreasonably buoyant. He was suddenly ready to take them all on. The murderer must be feeling extremely twitchy; the right sort of pressure applied at the right time and with the right force might break him down. Surely he had enough on Wells to reduce him to a gibbering wreck. He would find that a pleasure even on a less salubrious day. Yes, definitely the weather for illuminating the dark corners of the killer’s soul.

His first nasty shock of the day was the news that the morning meeting would be held in the Commissioner’s office. He tried to look nonchalant about this when Romford told him, but as he delivered his orders for the day half his mind was grappling with the implications of this upgrading of the investigation. It had unpleasant connotations of worry on high.

The Commissioner was wearing that grave look which was so appropriate when he made public statements about the rising crime rate. He waved his minions to their chairs and began unpromisingly.

‘The Home Secretary tells me that the Prime Minister is gravely worried that this murder is still unsolved.’

Milton opened his mouth to protest that he’d only had two and half days on it. He caught a warning look on the Assistant Commissioner’s face and shut it again.

‘I have told him that I am entirely satisfied that this investigation has been given its due priority, and that I do not propose to neglect the other urgent work of the police force simply because a couple of politicians have found themselves mixed up in a murder case.’

Milton’s relief must have shown. The Commissioner directed a glare at him. ‘And now, Superintendent, I should be grateful for some indication that I was correct in taking up this attitude. Would you please explain to me exactly how far you have got and what steps you propose to take to bring this case to a speedy conclusion?’

Thank you for nothing
, thought Milton unfairly. How the hell was he supposed to get on with his work if he was always having to justify himself to his superiors? Still, he supposed he should be grateful to the old man for standing up for his subordinates. He could have given in meekly and promised to send in some bigger guns. Milton had no doubt that this was precisely what he would do if he wasn’t satisfied by the report he got now. He blessed his industry of the night before and got out his notes.

As he went through his analysis he was pleased to note that the Commissioner was growing aghast as the Assistant Commissioner grew smug. That could only mean that Milton was reinforcing the accounts the A.C. had been giving of the complexity of the case and the energy going into it. He permitted himself a few flourishes and dramatic pauses towards the end.

‘Heavens above, Sir Nicholas must have been out of his mind.’ The Commissioner’s foulest blasphemy. ‘What was he trying to do? Provoke the whole lot of them to murder him?’

Wait until he hears later today about the postcard
, thought Milton to himself.
If he thinks it’s a rich brew now
…

They talked around it for several minutes. The general conclusion was the one Milton had already reached. Either Sir Nicholas had reached such a point of rage and despair that he was trying to hurt everyone, or, even more incredible, he was actually trying to incite one or more people to attack him. The brass favoured the more conservative view, and Milton went along with them. Until the handwriting boys had followed up his superhuman hunch, he would have to.

‘There’s no doubt about its being murder, I suppose,’ said the Commissioner, disconcertingly like a man clutching at straws. ‘He couldn’t have found some ingenious way of dropping the sculpture on his own head?’

‘No, sir. And besides, that wouldn’t explain the murder of Mrs Bradley.’

‘That could have been an unconnected event,’ said the A.C. brightly.

‘We have of course not ignored such a possibility, sir, but her husband is in the clear and we can’t find any reason for anyone else who knew her well to have wanted to kill her. She had no money and apparently no involvements outside her home and office. I really think we must suppose, at least for the moment, that she became a target when she chanced upon an altercation after the Monday morning meeting.’

‘We know he had a row with his son. Isn’t it reasonable to suppose that that was what she heard? And aren’t you wrong therefore to make him a class-two suspect?’

‘Not when there is ample evidence that Jenkins, Stafford, Nixon and Wells also had reason and opportunity for a showdown.’

‘All right, Jim,’ said the Commissioner.
Christian name again
. His sigh of relief went unnoticed. He was going to be let get on with this on his own. ‘I really can’t find much to criticize about your handling of the case, although I’m a little perturbed about the delay in finding out where Nigel Clark worked.’ Milton blessed his own adroitness over the private detective’s receipt. The case records were ambiguous about when it was found. ‘Still, one can’t avoid occasional lapses, and your skill in handling the suspects is undeniable. Carry on as you suggest. I’ll hold off the politicians for another few days.’

Milton felt a warm glow as he left the room. Maybe he’d get a promotion out of this yet. He hoped it would be at the expense of William Wells. He didn’t like sending people he liked off to prison.

‘You’ve got fifteen minutes before Stafford arrives, sir,’ said Romford. ‘There’s been an urgent call for you from someone who refuses to give his name. Said he’d ring back about now.’

Amiss again
? He just had time to instruct that someone be despatched to Kensington for Sir Nicholas’s manuscript before the phone rang.

A secretary established his identity, and then he was through to the editor of a Sunday newspaper – one of those specializing in victimization in the name of public morality. Leaving the worthwhile scandals of corruption or misuse of power to its less prosperous competitors, it preferred to ruin the lives of those guilty only of sexual indiscretion. Milton bit back on his disgust and began the conversation on a polite note.

It got harder to maintain as the nasty, evil-minded little hypocrite’s story unfolded. The voice purred on about the public’s right to know, concern for our national security, sympathy for the fine job the police force was doing in upholding law and order, anxiety to see justice done – the clichés piling up in proportion to the stature of the unfortunate who was in for the old mud-slinging treatment. The figure in the pillory was Harvey Nixon.

The bare essentials were straightforward enough. One of the
Enquirer’s
staff, Susan Taylor by name, had received a handprinted note suggesting that she might fruitfully occupy herself by finding out where Nixon usually went on Sunday evenings. Miss Taylor was a hard-working and ambitious reporter, the editor claimed, committing herself to ensuring that our leaders conducted themselves at all times with the integrity which the public rightly expected from its representatives. This Milton translated to himself. The unscrupulous bitch wanted to rise in her profession by sniffing out signs of sexual unorthodoxy among senior politicians in a shaky government.

So dedicated was she, her editor smarmed on, that she gave up her Sunday nights for several weeks to following Nixon to an address which proved to be that of a well set up call-girl. Further researches indicated that other regular clients included two judges, three M.P.s and a handful of senior civil servants. The lady specialized in Establishment figures.

‘None of them was acting illegally,’ said Milton.

‘Ah, but she also went in for Embassy clients, not all of them from friendly countries.’

Milton looked at his telephone incredulously. He wasn’t going to be landed with a re-run of the Keeler affair, was he?

‘Mr Nixon isn’t by any stretch of the imagination a defence risk, sir.’

‘That would be for the government to decide when the story broke.’

‘You mean that you were going to print this story and ruin Nixon without any solid reason to suppose he was doing anything worse than visiting a call-girl? He’s a divorced man, dammit, with virtually no time to himself.’

‘There’s no need to take that tone, Superintendent. I have been weighing up the case for and against.’

And I know which way you’d like to come down, you nasty little shit
, thought Milton. He was feeling sick.

‘Why didn’t you inform me of this before?’ he asked aggressively. ‘You must have known it might be relevant to our enquiries.’

‘I didn’t know about it until last night, when Miss Taylor returned from a much-needed holiday. I believe in giving my reporters a lot of freedom to follow up promising leads without always running to me for approval.’

‘I want to see that tip-off note immediately.’

‘I’m sorry, Superintendent, Miss Taylor didn’t think it was worth preserving. She destroyed it weeks ago. All she can say about it is that it had a Westminster postmark.’

31

With a perfunctory expression of gratitude, Milton slammed the phone down. Romford came in to say that Stafford had arrived and was told to hold him for a couple of minutes.
Think it through
. The odds were that the anonymous note showed the fine Italian hand of Sir Nicholas again, though he’d probably never be able to prove it. Assuming it did, how could he have known about the Sunday-evening peccadilloes? Unless Nixon had been dreadfully incautious, there were two obvious ways: either there had been some trailing done or one of the other clients had gossiped. Which, in turn, meant the prostitute talked to client A about client B. Unlikely; these girls knew the value of discretion.

He summoned Romford and told him to have the call-girl interrogated – no time to do it himself. All he wanted were dates and times of Nixon’s visits and the names of her other clients. He looked at his watch. Ten fifteen. The news about Wells and the newspaper article should be around the department by now. Romford was instructed to make appointments with Wells, Nixon and Lady Clark – preferably in that order. He reminded Milton that he would not be free until he had seen both Stafford and Shaw, who had indicated that his patience was running out. Milton hesitated. He couldn’t face putting Shaw off again, but it would be absurd to waste his time today on such an unlikely prospect. He had been getting obsessional about seeing all the suspects himself. One of his inspectors or sergeants could stand in for him.