Injury Time (19 page)

In the event, the actual delivery of his daughter's birthday present turned out to be a little more problematical than Henry had expected. It transpired that Lucy, while working in Paris during the day, had her evenings bespoken by a young man called Jules.

‘You'll love him, Daddy, when you meet him.'

‘Good,' said Lucy's father, who had met a great many of Lucy's admirers in his time. It emerged, though, that his meeting with Jules was not to be quite yet.

‘Your birthday present …' said Henry firmly, ‘on which your mother has been labouring for weeks, is here at my hotel and I am going home on Thursday evening.'

‘Daddy, what about my coming to your hotel for breakfast? I'm not busy at breakfast time.'

Henry said sternly that he was glad to hear it and would expect her at seven o'clock the next morning and not a moment later because he had a busy day ahead of him.

‘Alors, demain, à sept heures, Papa,'
said Lucy sweetly, and went to get ready for Jules.

Henry on his part also had the next day to prepare for. He and Smeaton, Carmichael and Bullock foregathered briefly in the hotel bar after getting their marching orders for the next day.

Bullock, anxious to maintain his standing as the youngest—and therefore the most vigorous—of the candidates and to demonstrate the qualities of leadership said to be sought by all appointments boards proposed they all had a night on the tiles together.

‘No use wasting a stag night in Paris, now is there?'

Smeaton, whose academic qualifications were impeccable and in his own view quite unassailable too, agreed to join him. ‘What about you two others?'

It was well known to them all that Henry Molland had started with the company as a grease monkey and thus had only ever had ‘hands on' experience—moreover, he had no ‘alphabet soup' after his name either. He was therefore no challenge to a high-flyer like Smeaton who could afford to be magnanimous.

‘You'd better count me out anyway,' murmured Carmichael. ‘I thought I'd just run over a few figures for tomorrow over dinner in my room.'

Carmichael was the workaholic of the quartet and in any case thought zeal ought to be a prerequirement of the promotion fast lane.

‘What about you then, Molland?' challenged Bullock. ‘Or do you want a quiet evening with a good balance sheet, too?'

‘A quiet evening with a good menu will suit me very well,' returned Henry equably. He certainly wasn't going to waste it working, belonging as he did to the school of thought that held that Rudyard Kipling's poem ‘If' had a lot to answer for and Dr Samuel Smiles' books on ‘Self-Help' even more.

Besides, the hotel had a stately dining-room that was a cross between the Palace of Versailles and the old Euston station, which he had every intention of exploring.

‘It's no good your thinking the Board will be eating there, too, Molland,' said Bullock maliciously. ‘They've all been invited to a reception at the British Embassy to do with this Trade Fair.'

‘I know that,' said Henry. ‘I shouldn't be dining here otherwise.'

He was glad, though, that he was. As well as being built on classical lines the hotel dining-room had a memorable
carte
to match it. He telephoned Mary, assured her of the safe arrival of himself and Lucy's new nightdress, and then settled down to a good meal and an early night.

Seven o'clock the next morning found him rested, bathed, shaved and dressed—and waiting in the foyer of the hotel.

‘Daddy, darling …'

Suddenly he was being kissed by a very elegant young lady indeed. He squared his shoulders and led the way into the dining-room. They were, in fact, the first arrivals and were led to a window table.

‘I've got lots to tell you …' began Lucy. And so she had although Henry noticed that nearly all of it seemed to include a mention of Jules' name. Lovesick, though, Henry was happy to observe, Lucy wasn't. Croissants were waved away in favour of a proper English breakfast.

‘The French don't understand morning food,' she declared, agreeing to the waiter's offer of more toast. There was never any shortage of waiters when Lucy ate.

The dining-room filled up as they talked and talked. Out of the corner of his eye Henry saw the members of the selection board trickle in and then Carmichael—looking drawn. A long while after that Bullock came in—looking like a man who has had a night on the tiles—and addressed himself to a pot of coffee. He waved away a basket of croissants in quite a different manner from Lucy.

Of Smeaton there was no sign.

‘Darling, that was lovely but I must go or I'll be late …' Lucy started to push back her chair. At least three waiters decided she needed help with this operation and rushed forward. She thanked them with great charm and Henry got up to go with her to the door.

‘Your mother will never forgive either of us if we forget this,' said Henry, handing over a parcel wrapped in tissue paper.

‘Oh, my goodness, no.' Lucy stood still in the middle of the dining-room while she unwrapped it. As the tissue paper fell away the most exquisite of hand-smocked nightdresses was revealed to the entire dining-room. His daughter reached up and kissed Henry on the cheek and then swept out, nightdress and all.

The young Turks never stood a chance.

HER INDOORS

‘I'm afraid that all we've got to go on in the way of clues is in here, Sloan.' Superintendent Leeyes picked up the neatly parcelled book on his desk and handed it across to Detective Inspector Sloan. ‘And that's not much.'

‘Yes, sir,' said Sloan, taking the book from his superior officer with some reluctance.

‘I read it all through myself yesterday,' said Leeyes loftily. ‘Very well written, I thought, if that's any help.'

The book felt well bound anyway, by the feel of it, and was rather heavy. Sloan said, ‘Thank you, sir,' aloud—and rather more under his breath.

‘The Assistant Chief Constable says that nevertheless everything you'll need is there and he should know.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Educated chap, the ACC,' sniffed the Superintendent, who disapproved of the man himself and of his classical education in equal parts. ‘All the background you'll ever possibly need is there, too.'

‘I'm sure,' echoed Sloan dutifully. He was really too busy to enter into even the spirit of this sort of assignment let alone the reality. ‘You say, sir, that we don't even know the lady's name?'

‘Not her Christian name. That's why—strictly for the purposes of this inquiry alone—we're calling her Mrs P. We only know her husband's and her son's names for certain—and her daughter's, of course, though the daughter's name doesn't get mentioned any more after what happened … and I for one am not surprised about that.'

‘Portrait turned to the wall?' suggested Sloan delicately. ‘You could say that, Sloan. In a manner of speaking, anyway. Not that that helps us with the mother's name.'

‘Mrs P's age, sir? Is that known?'

‘I reckon we could have what you might call an educated guess at that, Sloan.'

Detective Inspector Sloan got out his notebook. A guess was better than nothing.

‘Mr P' pronounced the Superintendent weightily, ‘was a doddering old fool and tedious with it.'

‘So she killed him?' asked Sloan, anxious to get on with another case.

‘Certainly not, Sloan. He was killed by their daughter's boyfriend.'

‘Mrs P might have been younger than her husband, then?' suggested Sloan, his train of thought going off at a tangent to another scenario that included toy-boys and gigolos.

‘Well, she might,' conceded Leeyes, ‘but remember she did have a grown-up son.' He grunted. ‘Actually now I come to think about it, the son seemed to me to have been about the only one in the whole set-up who behaved like a grown-up.'

Sloan sighed. ‘That'll be a great help, that will, sir.' Juvenile behaviour in those old enough to know better was a perennial cross that all policemen had to learn to bear with what grace they could.

‘Even though he was nearly as free with his advice as his father, and that's saying something.'

Detective Inspector Sloan was beginning to feel quite some sympathy towards the unidentified Mrs P.

‘Even,' rumbled on Leeyes, ‘his sister thought he was getting like a preacher.'

‘Pointing morals?'

‘Saying one thing and doing another,' said Leeyes tartly.

‘Ah.'

‘Mind you, Mrs P can't have been all that young, Sloan, because the son must have been—well, say early twenties like his sister's boyfriend.'

‘The boyfriend who murdered Mr P?' Sloan tried to get at least one thing clear in his mind.

The Superintendent raised an admonitory hand. ‘I don't think we can use the word murder in connection with that particular death, Sloan. It wouldn't be wise. Not just yet.'

‘No? But, sir, I thought the old man was stabbed or something?'

‘So he was, Sloan, but the killer just lunged at the curtain. We don't know for certain—that is, a clever lawyer would be able to cast plenty of doubt around—that the killer knew Mr P would be standing there on the other side of it at the exact time that the curtain was stabbed. There's no real evidence, you see.'

‘So the friend just went around stabbing at curtains, then, did he?'

‘Well, he was a bit of a funny lad,' admitted Leeyes enigmatically. ‘There's a family history there that people have gone into a lot …'

‘The Crown Prosecution Service wouldn't have liked that.' Daniel M'Naghten may have been long dead and gone but he and his Rules on criminal insanity still cast their shadow over the successful prosecution of the mentally unbalanced who came to judgement.

‘The Crown Prosecution didn't like any of it,' said Superintendent Leeyes, adding vigorously: ‘and as far as I'm concerned, Sloan, you can drop the word “service” in connection with anything to do with them. They may be a lot of odd things but service they most definitely aren't.'

‘Yes, sir.' Detective Inspector Sloan kept his peace and let this particular bee circle round in the Superintendent's bonnet without comment.

‘Not that the son's friend is our concern anyway.' Superintendent Leeyes straightened his shoulders.

‘No?'

‘No. He was in enough trouble on his own account and he's already had more written about him than practically any other man alive.' The Superintendent waved his finger. ‘Just you remember that it's the character of Mrs P that the Assistant Chief Constable wanted my—wants your opinion on—your opinion as a working detective, that is.'

‘I see, sir.' Detective Inspector Sloan was only too happy to try to get back to the point even if this was the oddest job that had come his way in many a long year in the Calleshire Police Force. ‘So,' he said patiently, ‘we do know that she was the wife of an old man and the mother of a young one and therefore roughly middle-aged?'

‘Yes,' admitted Leeyes grudgingly. ‘I don't think that that can be other than right.' The Superintendent would, they both knew, have faulted Sloan's reasoning if he possibly could have done from sheer force of habit.

‘But I take it, sir, that we do know quite a lot about her husband before he was murd—killed?'

‘Not really. Except that he was keen on amateur dramatics—bit of an actor himself in his youth and something of a critic, otherwise …'

Sloan waited.

‘Otherwise, we only really know him by how he behaved and by what he said,' amplified Superintendent Leeyes carefully.

‘When you come to think of it, sir, I dare say that's the only way anyone ever knows anyone else anyway.'

‘Very possibly, Sloan.' The Superintendent ignored this tempting philosophical by-way and said: ‘It's all down in that book though.'

Sloan stared at the fat tome. He'd never have time to wade through all that. Hoping that there were no feminists within earshot he asked: ‘What was Mr P's occupation?' The feminists, he knew, would argue that Mrs P shouldn't be assessed on the nature of her husband's way of earning his livelihood but he would have to make a start somewhere or he'd be here all night …

‘That,' harrumphed Leeyes, ‘seems to have been disputed. Civil servant probably but the daughter's boyfriend insisted he was only a fishmonger.'

‘Going to marry above her station, sir, was she?' divined Sloan without difficulty. Presumably Mrs P would have been pleased about that.

‘Not if Mr P could help it,' said Leeyes firmly. ‘You just read the case up in that book, Sloan, and see for yourself how shockingly Mr P mucked up his daughter's love life, poor girl.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Mind you, I'd have had doubts myself about her boyfriend as a future son-in-law so I dare say Mr P had, too. A right mixed-up kiddo if you ask me …'

‘You don't think, sir, do you, that someone at the station here with family therapy experience would do better than me at this assignment? Or,' he added, since the Superintendent was more than something of a misogynist, ‘even a woman? Woman Police Sergeant Perkins is very good at domestics.'

Superintendent Leeyes' response was unusually oblique. ‘Now, Sloan, don't be put off by the size of that book. I tell you it's mostly background, and you won't have to read it all. Just the relevant bits. After all, the kid's only fourteen.'

‘What kid?'

‘Never you mind,' said Leeyes severely. ‘Just you concentrate on finding out all you can about Mrs P like the Assistant Chief wants.'

‘Via her husband and son?'

‘There isn't anyone else—that we know about, that is.'

Detective Inspector Sloan toyed with the delicious temptation of saying to the Superintendent that if the Assistant Chief Constable wanted a miracle then he, Sloan, would have to go back home for his wand; but he thought better of it. There was, after all, not only his pension to think of but his hard-won reputation as a working detective to consider.