Corridors of Death (9 page)

‘How did she come to see Sir Nicholas, anyway?’

‘Miss Beckett sent her over to get his signature on something urgent. She told her to hang around and wait until the meeting was over.’

‘But you must have known she had gone there. Why didn’t you say so earlier?’

‘I didn’t know,’ said Julia in a wounded tone. ‘I wasn’t in the room when she was sent and she buggered off home afterwards, didn’t she? Gasman, remember?’

Amiss was opening his mouth to ask why one of the others hadn’t said something, when caution prevailed. He couldn’t afford to look too interested in the investigation. Besides, just because he was involved in trying to nab the murderer didn’t mean that anyone else’s minds would be running along the same track. To Julia, George and Bernard the death of Sir Nicholas was a drama, but they weren’t much interested in the details of the case. They were just enjoying speculating about how much fun it would be if the murderer turned out to be someone they knew. The Secretary of State, for instance. Or himself. They’d be able to dine out on that for weeks.

George and Bernard shambled back a couple of minutes later. Amiss wondered if he could trust them to give Sanders a proper welcome if he slipped out and phoned Mrs Milton again. No, he was being unnecessarily fussy. The news about Gladys could keep till she got back. But why wasn’t she back? Surely to God nothing could have happened to her? Christ, supposing she had seen something yesterday morning? Odds against, surely. Anyway, he couldn’t do anything now, since Sanders was just coming into the room.

Amiss and Sanders spent a pleasant half-hour talking over current work and organizing the next few days. Sir Nicholas wasn’t mentioned. Amiss wondered if Sanders knew about the events at the IGGY meeting and decided it wasn’t his job to tell him. The Secretary of State could fill him in if he wanted to. Or if he didn’t, Parkinson could. For Amiss to bring the matter up would smack of disloyalty to his old master, and prick though Sanders undoubtedly knew his predecessor to be, etiquette prevented any additional evidence of his misdemeanours being provided by his Private Secretary. Amiss tried to imagine the civil service without its etiquette – staffed by straightforward people who always spoke their minds. He couldn’t. You’d have to throw out the whole workforce and start again from the beginning.

‘I must confess to having cast covetous eyes on this room over the past few years,’ said Sanders. ‘It must have the best view in Whitehall.’ Leaving his chair he walked across the room to the window from which you could see as far as the City and beyond. ‘I hated my room, you know. The only things I could see from there were the windows of neighbouring sky-scrapers, and just enough of Big Ben to be tantalizing.’

He surveyed the scene with contentment. ‘I always liken it to…Jesus Christ!’

Elderly civil servants didn’t blaspheme. A sick feeling of fear overcame Amiss as he hurried to where Sanders was pointing. ‘Oh, no. Oh Jesus, no.’

There couldn’t be any doubt about whose was the body lying behind the sofa. Even though Gladys was lying on her face, Amiss couldn’t mistake the shabby coat, the scuffed shoes and the laddered stockings. And in a wave of nausea he recognized also the knife which was sticking out of her back as one of her favourite possessions, an elaborately wrought paper-knife he had brought her back from a recent holiday in North Africa.

Neither of them made any move towards the body. It had a very dead look. Sanders recovered himself first.

‘Who is it?’ he asked. ‘Gladys?’ for her shabbiness was so highly developed that even a slight acquaintanceship made her memorable.

‘Yes.’

‘She didn’t deserve this,’ said Sanders. ‘Nicholas did, but Gladys didn’t.’

‘You can say that again,’ said Amiss in a thick voice, as he stumbled over to the desk to phone the police.

14

Milton was along within ten minutes, accompanied by Sergeants Pike and Romford and a police doctor. Amiss sat in his office trying to recover himself and calm Julia, who was blaming herself for having left Gladys alone in the office.

‘You mustn’t think like that,’ he said miserably, trying in turn not to blame himself for not staying long enough with her that morning to find out what she’d seen. He would have been able to bundle her off to the police immediately and she’d have been safe.

It took a long time to comfort Julia. Tough-minded she might be, but however much Gladys had got on her nerves, she had been fond of her. She kept echoing Sander’s unexpected words. ‘She didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve it. He did.’

Amiss eventually turned Julia over to George and retreated to his own desk with his own black thoughts. It seemed like hours before the police doctor had finished, the stretcher had been carried away and Milton and his sergeants were left in possession of the inner office, which Sanders had thankfully yielded up. The police doctor had put the time of death at between 1.00 and 1.30, so the main job was once again the mechanical checking of alibis.

Milton decided that for the moment he couldn’t entertain the possibility that Gladys had been killed for any reason other than the obvious one. She must have seen something suspicious the previous morning. That meant another round of interviews with yesterday’s suspects was a matter of urgency.

His interview with Julia and the others produced the unexpected news that their last sight of Gladys was of her getting under the feet of Lady Clark and her son Nigel as they loaded up Sir Nicholas’s private possessions into a cardboard box.

‘Ring Lady Clark,’ he told Romford. ‘Explain what has happened, postpone my meeting with her until tomorrow and get from her a precise statement of her movements at lunch-time today. And talk to the son as well’

He called Amiss in and had a formal conversation with him which established his alibi beyond doubt. ‘I should be grateful, sir,’ he said, ‘if you would find out when I can have a word with the Secretary of State, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State and Mr Parkinson.’

Amiss scurried off, glad to have something to take his mind off his unreasonable guilt. Within a few minutes he had produced Richard Parkinson, who could offer no alibi for the critical period other than a phone call which he had taken in his office at 1.20. ‘I’m sorry, Superintendent,’ he said ruefully, ‘but today I seized the chance to have a sandwich in the office with the newspapers rather than go out. It seems to have been another of my bad decisions.’

Milton dismissed him with a few comforting words and found to his surprise that William Wells was now being ushered into his office. He felt a grim satisfaction that Wells was worried enough to make the concession of leaving his home territory for the convenience of the police. He was looking a lot less confident than he had earlier, and he seemed to diminish in size as he admitted that he had been alone in his office until he left at 1.15 for a late lunch. Could anyone testify that he had left at 1.15? Possibly his Private Secretary and one of the doormen.

Milton let him go and Amiss came in to explain that the Secretary of State was in his office at the House of Commons and would be at Milton’s disposal at any time during the next hour.

Milton debated sending a sergeant over to see Nixon and thought better of it. He wanted to get to know all his suspects as well as possible, and he might be able to spot a change of expression, some nuance that another might miss. He left Romford and Pike with a long list of instructions and walked quickly over to the Commons. At rush-hour it was foolish to take a car.

He bypassed the queues of tourists waiting to get into the House and identified himself to one of the policemen inside. Conducted swiftly and deferentially towards Nixon’s quarters, Milton had time to cast a quick look over the marble, the statues, the carved ceiling and the acres of space which made the lobby of the House magically redolent of history and power. He could understand how a place like this could exercise such a hold over its occupants. It wouldn’t be hard to feel part of a noble tradition, and it wouldn’t be long before you began to feel yourself a worthy descendant of the famous whose busts lay scattered about in the alcoves. How could you work in such an environment, with all its arcane customs conspiring to make you feel part of an élite, without eventually believing that that truly made you special? How did M.P.s, let alone ministers, keep any sense of what preoccupied the man-in-the-street? Milton didn’t know. He supposed they didn’t and never had. Why should they? Parliament had got on well enough without ever worrying about much that went on outside its own walls – except at election time. Maybe if you truly kept in touch with reality the sheer artificiality of the House would drive you mad.

He arrived at Nixon’s door and was ushered in by his escort. Even he, Milton noticed, seemed to have taken on the colour of the place. He was more like a butler than a policeman. Nixon greeted him warmly – almost like a friend – and Milton felt unnerved by the thought that he was here to upset him again. A man could hardly be expected to relish the experience of having his Father Confessor suddenly turn up accusing him by implication of fresh sins. He decided to go straight to the point.

‘I’m sorry to trouble you, sir, but we’ve had another murder.’

‘I know, Superintendent,’ said Nixon quietly. ‘An unfortunate woman has been found knifed. You are obviously bound to assume that there is a connection with yesterday’s events, and you want to know if I have an alibi.’

‘Exactly, sir,’ said Milton, thankful that Nixon hadn’t relapsed into politicianese. ‘Can you tell me what you were doing at lunchtime today?’

He saw a look of alarm cross Nixon’s face. ‘Until one o’clock I was in my office with Douglas Sanders, Sir Nicholas’s successor. From then onwards, I stayed alone for an hour, having given strict instructions that I wasn’t to be disturbed. You see, Superintendent, since yesterday I haven’t had any time at all to myself for private reflection. I had to decide what, if anything, I was going to do to try to retrieve my reputation after the events of yesterday morning. Specifically, I was considering whether it would be wise to confide to the Chancellor the role Sir Nicholas had played or whether I should simply brazen it out.’

‘It’s not strictly germane, sir, but could I ask what you decided?’

‘To let the whole thing drop. News of my incompetence will get back to the Prime Minister and will make it easier for me to resign at the next reshuffle. In the unlikely event of my being able to clear myself of the charge of bungling an important meeting, the Prime Minister would probably want to keep me on and I would find it very hard to resist any appeal he might make to my loyalty. You may find it hard to believe, Superintendent, in view of what I told you yesterday about my handling of my job, but he does value me as a Cabinet colleague. You see, I am one of the very few who have no further personal ambition. He can, therefore, rely on me to give him unqualified support on most issues. Many of my colleagues have a permanent eye on the main chance. It often leads them to take up unrealistic positions in Cabinet, leak accounts of arguments which show them in a good electoral light, and bargain for departmental gain with covert threats of resignation. However, the Prime Minister, with an election not far away, cannot afford to have anyone in the Cabinet who does not have the respect of influential people – so although I am clear on these other counts, the impossibility of my rapidly regaining the esteem of the Establishment means the P.M. will be delighted if I resign – which I shall do for trumped-up personal reasons.’

‘That, if I may say so, sir, is a courageous decision.’

‘Not really, Superintendent. You see, while you’re a minister you can’t bear the thought of being out of office. However severe the demands made on you, almost every hour of the day you get some fillips to your ego. You are surrounded by comfort and deference. You never have to make decisions about what you will do, where you will go or how to organize the practical side of life. Certainly, you are supposed to make major decisions. But if you have no ambitions to master your department, your civil servants will politely steer you towards the decision they favour. I suppose it’s like being a member of the Royal Family. There is room for individual initiative, but if you are content to go along with the system, it carries you along with it. You adopt your civil servants’ policies, speak their lines, perform when you’re told to perform and turn into a well-looked-after puppet. It’s only when you get a shock of the kind I experienced yesterday that you begin to question whether it’s a worthwhile occupation. I have decided that, for me, it isn’t.’

Milton pulled himself together. He was getting too much involved in this. He was here to check Nixon’s movements, not to take part in a discussion on his moment of truth. After all, he could be responsible for that pathetic corpse behind the sofa. ‘Thank you for telling me, sir, but I’m afraid I must go back to lunchtime today.’

‘Of course, Superintendent. I apologise for this flood of confidences. It’s just that it has been such a relief to talk frankly to someone for a change. What do you need to know?’

‘Did anyone see you during the hour you were alone in your office?’

‘No. And let me anticipate your next question. I could have left the room without being observed, since I have a door which leads out into the corridor. May I ask when the murder took place?’

‘Between one and one thirty, sir.’

‘And in the Permanent Secretary’s office next door to my room over there, I hear?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Milton unhappily.

‘Well, Superintendent, I can’t pretend that this isn’t frightening. I can only hope that at least one of your suspects – the one who killed her – is in the same position as myself.’

‘Some are, sir,’ said Milton unprofessionally, ‘but I should be grateful if you would keep that to yourself until you hear it from another source.’ As they shook hands warmly, Milton tried unsuccessfully to repress his hope that Nixon was simply what he seemed – an honest man caught in a web of circumstances beyond his control. He headed back to the department.