Corridors of Death (24 page)

Nixon didn’t respond. The frankness which had made Milton like him so much was not manifesting itself now. He just went on with simple denials. If he was guilty, thought Milton, he was probably taking the right line. The A.C. had insisted on making the interview formal; there was a sergeant present with a shorthand notebook taking down every word. Nixon hadn’t asked for a solicitor, but he didn’t need one. He was giving nothing away. Conversely, he certainly wasn’t taking the right line if he was innocent. It was conceivable that a sufficiently articulate and open response to questions might at least have raised a few doubts in the A.C.’s.mind – enough to hold him back from arresting Nixon on the spot.

Amiss meanwhile had spent a long time sitting with Sanders. He was impressed by how Sanders, distressed though he clearly was, had risen above his ordeal. He had begun to work on some of the papers in his briefcase and he even found the heart to enquire how Question Time had gone. Reasonably well, it turned out. Officials were supposed to be invisible, but even such a well-established convention hadn’t survived the sight of one of them being carried out
in extremis
. There was also probably a feeling that poor old Harvey had been left at an unfair disadvantage. He had been let off lightly and the row over Wells’s sacking had been extremely half-hearted – apparently to Wells’s patent dissatisfaction. Even the P.M.’s Question Time had been subdued. Amiss had been struck by the fact that although Nixon had hurried out to see Parkinson as soon as he had finished, Wells hadn’t even bothered to enquire about him.

Amiss wasted some time trying to think of some way in which Wells might have murdered Parkinson. Poisoned chocolates sent through the post seemed as unlikely as doctored decanters. No. Nixon was going to be arrested and the resultant explosion of shit was going to finish off the government. Nixon hadn’t a chance. With a sexual scandal on top of his other motive, the fact that the evidence against him was purely circumstantial was unlikely to stop a jury finding him guilty.

Amiss’s mind went obsessively over and over the case he had built up against Parkinson. What were the flaws? In the murder of Sir Nicholas, only the same one that applied to any other suspect. He’d have had to take an immense risk. The killing of Gladys after such a long delay was a poser, whoever was responsible, but admittedly even more so if Parkinson had done it. There was a fair chance that nothing would ever have come to light about the Monday morning meeting. As against that, Parkinson’s motive for the original murder was now better than anyone else’s. Anyone might have killed Sir Nicholas for revenge, but only Parkinson could have done it for gain. Hadn’t he overstressed to Milton his conviction that his career was beyond rescue?

Amiss was pacing up and down the corridor. He saw Sanders shoot a sympathetic look at him. He sat down beside him again and resisted the temptation to confide his worries to him. Sanders suddenly gathered up his papers and shoved them back into his briefcase. He looked at Amiss.

‘They’re going to arrest Nixon, don’t you think?’

‘I’m afraid it looks like it, Douglas.’

‘I can’t really believe it. What are we supposed to do now? It’s a friend he needs, not two impotent bystanders. He hasn’t even got his Private Secretary. Where the hell is he?’

Amiss was taken aback, but comforted once again at finding that it was possible to rise to the top in the civil service and keep a heart.

‘Nixon sent him back to the office. He said he didn’t want to keep him hanging about all afternoon.’

At this further example of Nixon’s courtesy towards his staff even in his greatest hour of trial Sanders fell into a depressed silence. They had both been sitting there gazing at the wall for several minutes when the door of the room in which Nixon was being grilled opened, and Milton stepped out. He was expressionless.

‘Mr Nixon is accompanying us to the Yard to assist us further with our enquiries, sir,’ he said, addressing Sanders. ‘Could someone go to his room and retrieve his coat? Will you, Mr Amiss? And Mr Sanders, I should like your advice on how we can get out of this building without having to run the gauntlet of the press. I understand they’ve gathered in force outside.’

So that was that. As Amiss began the walk towards Nixon’s office he reflected that Nixon was now undeniably finished. Even if another murderer was found at a later stage, the very fact that Nixon had been for a time the prime suspect would lose him his seat as well as his ministerial office. His seat was marginal and there would always be enough people swayed by the belief that there was no smoke without fire to make them change their votes. There was no stopping the press. Whatever back exit Sanders found, some of the boys would be hovering round. They’d probably even manage to meet the deadline for the last edition of the evening paper.

He found Nixon’s coat without difficulty and began his trek back. He was still turning over in his mind the Parkinson theory. It was obvious that Milton’s instructions to search for a suicide note had yielded nothing. Whatever he’d done, Parkinson was too decent to kill himself and leave others to take the blame. The whole notion was a non-starter, and the sooner he came to terms with it the better. It was the height of arrogance to assume that because it was his theory it must be right. Why shouldn’t it be Nixon, anyway? Kindness and courtesy could mask viciousness; they could be no more than a façade. And what viciousness Nixon must have shown to do that to Parkinson. A shudder ran through Amiss as he thought of his last sight of the man. He had been terrified from the first moment he had seen him clasp his hand to his stomach and his face contort. It had taken only a moment. One minute he had been writing, the next…

Amiss stopped at the entrance to the corridor he was making for. He saw the small group awaiting him expectantly at the far end. He dropped Nixon’s coat, turned and ran.

A debate was in progress as he tumbled into the Officials’ Box. The Secretary of State for Energy was on his feet and was disconcerted by the noise which Amiss made as he pushed colleagues out of the way and scrabbled on the floor. Amiss didn’t hear the reproving tones of the Speaker as he called for silence nor the agitated voices of colleagues begging him to quieten down.

He found it lying under Parkinson’s seat. As he opened up the crumpled piece of paper he gave a whoop of delight that wrung further bleats of consternation from his colleagues. Ignoring them, he ran from the Box.

Thursday Evening

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39

‘And what did it say?’ Ann Milton asked Amiss, fascinated.

‘That after Sir Nicholas had told him on Friday that he was thinking of recommending him for the Under-Secretaryship, he realized how much promotion did matter to him after all. Then, at the meeting they had arranged for early Monday morning, Sir Nicholas laughed at him and said he’d see he stayed an Assistant Secretary for ever. After the IGGY meeting Sir Nicholas looked over at him and sneered. Parkinson stood trying to make conversation for several minutes and then went out looking for Sir Nicholas. He saw him disappearing into the lavatory, followed him in, saw he was alone, went back for the sculpture and hit him with it.’

‘And Gladys?’

‘He said he didn’t mean to kill her. He went up to find out if she remembered the Monday-morning meeting, because if she did he was going to tell Jim some story to explain it away. She didn’t say anything about it, but told him that Lady Clark and Nigel had just taken away those sculptures of Sir Nicholas’s that she didn’t like – those ones, she said, that looked just like the one she had seen him pick up outside the conference room on Monday morning.’

‘She didn’t make the connection at all?’

‘Hadn’t taken in the full story when we told her, I suppose.’

‘So he killed her on the spur of the moment?’

‘Yes, and took the diary for good measure. He suffered for his impulse, though. He thought about giving himself up but couldn’t face the thought of life imprisonment. He got hold of some arsenic – painful death, expiation of some sort – but he couldn’t nerve himself to take it. Then today his secretary told him that Jim had rung up to enquire about his movements on Monday morning and he concluded that it wouldn’t be long before he was arrested. That’s why he took the poison at lunch.’

‘But how could he possibly get all this down on paper?’

‘Oh, it wasn’t connected prose. Scribbled notes really. It was dreadful to read. The handwriting was shaky and he ended up scrawling “I’m sorry”.’

‘Why did he stay on for Question Time?’

‘Too ill to leave, I expect. Anyway the note implied that he was making a public statement of remorse by dying before an audience.’

‘The poor devil,’ said Ann. ‘He must have been in more than one kind of agony.’

‘I haven’t got too much sympathy, Ann,’ said Milton. ‘Harvey Nixon was in agony too, and if Robert hadn’t had that brainwave he’d probably have ended up serving a life sentence. Parkinson can’t have been thinking straight to write a suicide note that could so easily be missed.’

‘Well, of course he wasn’t thinking straight,’ said Amiss. ‘It’s my guess he was intending to hand the note to the attendant to give to Nixon, but the convulsions hit him before he expected them. At least you’ve got to admit that he atoned pretty comprehensively. He must have had a very tender conscience to put himself through that.’

‘Oh, I know you’re right, Robert. It’s just that I feel ill every time I think how close we came to missing it. Nixon and I both owe you an enormous debt.’

‘Nixon’s been very nice about it. Full of relief and gratitude. Sanders seemed very chuffed too, and not just about Nixon’s innocence, either. Parkinson’s suicide means the papers won’t get hold of the story of Sir Nicholas’s little japes, which is a load off Sanders’s mind. He’s also relieved at the discovery that his Private Secretary hasn’t gone mad.’

‘So were we all,’ laughed Milton. ‘When you dropped Nixon’s coat and scrammed like that there were raised eyebrows all round. I was the only one who nurtured the hope that you’d suddenly had an inspiration.’

‘What happened when he arrived back with the note?’ asked Ann.

‘He came running up shouting “I’ve found it, I’ve found it”. Had some difficulty in getting us to stop and listen. The A.C. was set on getting Nixon off to the Yard as quickly as possible. Two minutes later and he’d have had to throw himself under the front wheels of the car.’

‘What’s going to happen to Nixon now?’

‘I think he’ll probably have to hang on in his job for a while,’ said Amiss. ‘Otherwise it’ll look as if the P.M. thinks there was something shady about the whole business. Still, I don’t suppose he’ll mind that too much. He’s in a state of euphoria at the moment.’

‘But isn’t that newspaper going to blow the story of his visits to the call-girl?’

‘No, it’s not,’ said Milton. ‘She rang Gifford at the Yard this afternoon and said they’re killing it. Apparently the proprietor is a friend of hers.’ He’d been saving that, and he wasn’t disappointed in the reaction. They drank the lady’s health.

‘Well, it seems to be a happy ending all round – except for the Parkinsons. We’re even going to be able to go to Paris on Saturday,’ Ann beamed.

‘Lucky old you,’ said Amiss dispiritedly. ‘I’ve got the twin delights facing me of Sir Nicholas’s funeral tomorrow and Gladys’s on Saturday. It’s not fair that you’re escaping all that.’

‘I’m going to need that break,’ said Milton. ‘This has been the most intellectually exhausting case I’ve ever had. I’d have given up hope days ago if it hadn’t been for you.’

‘Come now, Jim. I spent a lot of the time muddying the waters with information that proved to be totally irrelevant.’

‘Well, yes, but even all the irrelevant information helped me personally. When the A.C. got over his embarrassment with Nixon he congratulated me warmly on having handled the case so well. He made much of the brilliant way I’d conducted the interviews and, as a bonus, the way my telephone call to Parkinson’s secretary had flushed him out. It was all very embarrassing really, taking the credit for your cleverness.’

‘Thanks, but I don’t think many of your colleagues would have thought of recruiting me. I wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help if it hadn’t been for that – and more specifically if you hadn’t agreed to that exchange-of-information clause. I knew it was a big risk for you – there’s enough in common between our working environments so I couldn’t fail to know it. That’s when I started to like you. I still don’t know how far you were throwing yourself on my mercy and how much of it was insidious manipulation, but it worked. If you hadn’t told me day by day the way the investigation was going, I’d never have given a second thought to the missing appointments diary when Phil started complaining about it.’

‘Oh, yes, Phil. That reminds me, did you know I met him at lunchtime today? Of course not, he won’t have told you – I didn’t leave my name.’

‘He told me all right, Jim,’ said Amiss, chuckling. ‘He sussed out who you were. Said some senior pig had been looking for me.’

‘How the hell did he know?’ said Milton in a hurt tone. ‘I take great pains to avoid looking like a policeman.’

‘Sorry, Jim. All I can tell you is that he claimed you smelled like one.’

When Ann had finished laughing at her discomfited husband she turned to Amiss, serious again. ‘But have you solved the real mystery of the whole affair – what Sir Nicholas was up to?’

‘Well, I haven’t worked out why he did what he did, but I’m morally certain that it was an elaborate way of committing suicide. Let’s go through the story now. You’re a psychologist of sorts. I knew him well enough. Jim’s a copper, as any fool can smell, and he’s met all the principals. There are all sorts of contradictions when you look at the people he hated and the ways he decided to get at them.’

40

‘Shall we take it chronologically?’ said Amiss. ‘I mean as far back as we can go. We know from Lady Clark that Sir Nicholas began to change character in his first few years in the civil service – mainly, it seems, as a result of various personal disappointments he suffered around then – having to give up politics, the various miscarriages and her illnesses. The first question is, was he fundamentally a nasty piece of work whose true nature asserted itself when times became hard? Or were the problems so distressing to him that they affected his mental balance?’