The Saint Valentine's Day Murders (8 page)

Amiss was beginning to feel distinctly uneasy. He stayed silent.

‘We have eliminated Mr Sloan because of his heart condition.’

Amiss couldn’t quarrel with that. Poor old Sloan couldn’t walk ten yards without difficulty.

‘We are therefore looking at the remaining six for someone with a grudge. You wouldn’t, I suppose, dispute that Mr Underhill had no possible motive to ruin his own seminar. Or that he is happy in this job?’

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ said Amiss hopelessly.

‘And would you also agree that Mr Collins’s recent promotion also rules him out motive-wise?’

Amiss wasn’t so sure that Charlie didn’t still have it in for PD, but he wasn’t about to rat on him. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘That leaves four of you. Your three colleagues may have some resentment about poor promotion chances. You yourself have made no secret of your dissatisfaction with PD.’

Amiss was nettled. ‘I think I’ve been very restrained about it really.’

‘We know you complained to Personnel Division.’

‘That was ages ago. I’ve settled down. Anyway, I’ll be going back to the civil service within six months. Why should I screw things up now?’

‘I thought you’d say that,’ said Lorre smugly. ‘And it might have counted for something if we hadn’t had additional evidence against you.’

‘In addition,’ Greenstreet chimed in, ‘to the fact that you concealed your practical joke on Mr Short.’

That again? ‘Let’s not argue about that now. What’s the additional evidence?’

‘You were seen at 1:00 a.m. walking down a corridor in Block H towards the exit door, wearing your overcoat.’

‘I wasn’t walking towards the exit door, you idiot,’ yelled Amiss. ‘I was going to the bathroom which is directly opposite it to get rid of some of the beer I’d been drinking all evening!’

‘Wearing an overcoat?’

‘Certainly wearing an overcoat. I didn’t have a dressing gown.’

‘Ah, ha!’ said Greenstreet. ‘The block is centrally heated. Why didn’t you just wear your pyjamas?’

‘I don’t wear pyjamas. I sleep naked.’

This obviously shocked them more than his earlier revelation about drunkenness. Lorre recovered himself first.

‘Well, why did you leave the bar for ten minutes at 9:15?’

‘Because I had left my briefcase, containing the book I was reading, in the seminar room. I told you that before.’

‘Your explanations are all very glib, Mr Amiss, but they don’t convince us. The other people with opportunity and possible motive – people with no record of irresponsible behaviour – have all been very frank with us.’

‘What about whoever tipped you off about the PD practical jokes? Wasn’t that an attempt to point the finger at Tiny? Doesn’t that look suspicious?’

‘I am not prepared to discuss that with you. We shall be reporting to Mr Shipton now. I suggest you return to your office and wait to hear from him.’

As Amiss sat brooding at his desk he kicked himself for not having put up a better fight. He had annoyed them, patronized them and shouted at them. Of course they wanted him to be the villain of the piece: he was the one everyone would choose. And paltry as the whole thing was, and however leaky the case against him, it was going to make things very difficult here if it became known that he was the main suspect. Perhaps Shipton would suggest he sloped quietly back to the Department? That would look great on his career record: secondment aborted in suspicious circumstances.

When Shipton rang and asked him to come in, he walked slowly up the corridor trying to nerve himself for conflict. He wasn’t surprised to see Shipton looking more animated than usual.

‘Sit down, Robert. I’ve had the report from Security. They seem very convinced you’re at the bottom of this.’

Amiss’s heart sank. He might have known Shipton would want to go along with them. It would make life easier.

‘You mean you believe them?’ he said hopelessly.

‘Of course I don’t believe them!’ roared Shipton indignantly. ‘What do you take me for? I wouldn’t believe those imbeciles if they told me Peter Sutcliffe was the Yorkshire Ripper.’

Amiss looked at him. The folds of flesh were fairly quivering. ‘You mean you’ve told them to go on working on it?’

‘I most certainly have not. I’ve told them they’re a pair of bloody fools who’ve been wasting our time. Do you know they haven’t even tried to find out who sent them the anonymous letter about Tiny’s jokes? I’ve had enough. We’ll have to let the whole thing drop. I’ve told them to clear off back where they belong and check the spoons. Evidence for the prosecution: “He claims not to wear pyjamas and doesn’t like working in PD.” If that’s evidence, they should be accusing me. Get on with your work and forget all about it. I’ll make sure no one hears about their report.’

He waved Amiss towards the door and settled himself back comfortably. As Amiss turned to thank him, he saw his eyes were already closing.

12

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17 December

Amiss fretted in the departure lounge. It had been stupid of him to suggest meeting Rachel in a restaurant rather than picking her up at her flat. He’d be more than an hour late, whatever happened now. Could he ring the restaurant and leave a message? No. His fragile French would never stand the strain. Hell. She’d have left the embassy by now and her bloody phone was out of order again. Why didn’t the frogs spend some of their ill-gotten gains from immoral arms sales on getting their stinking telecommunications right?

He bought himself another drink and tried to immerse himself in the novel he had just bought from the airline bookstall, but he had only got to page ten when a sepulchral voice announced the imminent departure of the Paris plane. Draining his glass, he began to hurry towards the departure gates. As he did so, he caught a glimpse ahead of a familiar-looking figure. After a momentary shock he realized he must be seeing things. If any of his staff decided to go abroad, it would be talked about for weeks. He was becoming obsessed with these people. This was a weekend for spiritual refreshment, not speculating on hallucinations.

By the time he reached the restaurant in Montparnasse, he was almost an hour and a half late. She was sitting in a corner, her feet propped on the chair opposite, reading with concentration. In front of her was a half empty carafe of red wine. He rushed over and apologized volubly. She looked at him with amusement.

‘Good grief, Robert. Anyone would think I might accuse you of being late on purpose. Pull yourself together. You sound like a henpecked husband trying to blame British Rail for his night on the tiles.’

‘Oh, God. I do, don’t I?’ He bent down, kissed her and handed his overcoat to a hovering waiter. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sitting down. ‘It’s catching. After last night’s Annual Dinner Dance I expect all women to be unforgiving.’

‘Take things gently. Have some wine and choose something to eat. Then when you’ve calmed down you can tell me all about the dinner dance. It sounds promising.’

Amiss gazed at her lovingly. After the sights of the previous night the effect was pleasant: short brown hair neither permed nor dyed; thin intelligent face not over-made up; clothes chosen neither to depress nor stun; unpretentious black glasses.

‘You’re looking particularly beautiful tonight, darling.’

‘Nonsense, Robert. I’m looking the same as I always do. You’re obviously suffering from overreaction to your colleagues’ wives. Now shut up for a minute and concentrate on the menu.’

Amiss felt rather dashed. It wasn’t often he made pretty speeches, and it wasn’t pleasant to have them ruled out of order.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bite your head off. It’s just that you’re carrying a whiff of suburbia with you. I’m surprised you’re not bearing a placatory bunch of flowers.’

Amiss cheered up. That was another nice thing about Rachel. She didn’t mind apologizing. He addressed himself seriously to the matter of food and ordered greedily.

‘I don’t know if I come to Paris so often because of you or the food.’

‘That’s more like the old Robert,’ she said approvingly. ‘Now, what’s the matter with you? Tell me the latest.’

‘Not yet. I can’t do it justice till I’ve recovered from the trip and lined my stomach. You tell me about what you’ve been doing since your last letter.’

As ever, Rachel did the job entertainingly. Amiss munched on his endive salad, grappled happily with his
boeuf en croûte
, drank copiously of the house wine and delighted in the tales of diplomatic cock-ups and bureaucratic hassles. He almost choked over her account of the latest battle with the French PTT. It was a relief to be reminded that he didn’t work in a uniquely silly outfit.

She timed her last story to finish as the coffee and cognac arrived. ‘Your turn.’

‘Are you sure you really want to hear?’

‘Darling Robert,’ said Rachel, whose most enthusiastic endearment this was, ‘I’ve got too involved with this circus for you to start going coy on me now. You keep saying it’s boring, but it seems pretty action-packed to me. What’s happened since Lorre and Greenstreet departed in confusion?’

‘Nothing much till last night. Shipton put the fear of God into Security. They wrote a formal letter to him – circulated to all the staff – saying that the enquiries had proved totally inconclusive.’

‘So Shipton is no longer despised. You’ve found hidden depths in him.’

‘Not half. Really, you know, not all these people are as bad as they seem on the surface.’

‘Of course they’re not. You judged them too harshly in the beginning because you were suffering from culture-shock. You’ve led such a sheltered life. You knew nothing about how ordinary people live.’

Amiss felt injured. ‘That’s not true, Rachel. You know it’s not. I come from a very ordinary background.’

‘Spare me that shit about coming from the working classes. Your parents are as middle-class in their attitudes as mine – even if they don’t have as much money.’

‘Oh, all right. It’s my automatic defence against allegations of privilege. Not that I admit that there’s much in common between the household of a northern solicitor’s clerk and that of a Jewish intellectual.’

She looked fixedly at him until he giggled out loud. ‘OK, OK, I’m talking like a schmuck.’

‘Well stop it and tell me what’s been happening.’

‘Things have been pretty good, really. Everyone was very relieved when the manhunt was called off. There seems to be a tacit gentleman’s agreement to forget about Twillerton, and the plus point is that no one’s playing any more practical jokes. And Tiny’s being very nice to me.’

‘So what was last night like?’

‘Awful. Well, I admit I went to it apprehensively. All the married men had been griping about it for days, claiming they would never go if their wives didn’t insist. Endless complaints about the expense of new dresses, the difficulties of finding babysitters, the cost of wives’ train tickets, the problems of getting home. You can guess the sort of thing.’

‘I can. But they came anyway?’

‘Everyone except Melissa. I was surprised that Bill turned up. Apparently he never had before. But then he had to look after his mother until she died last year. He’s branching out a bit now.’

‘Where was it held?’

‘In the largest conference room. BCC actually have four of these occasions every year to accommodate all staff and spouses. There must have been four or five hundred at ours alone.’

‘It doesn’t sound like a very festive venue.’

‘They did try with Christmas decorations, but it was hardly the Talk of the Town. PD had two tables. I presided at one, Horace at the next.’

‘Where was Shipton?’

‘At a table for higher ranks.’

‘Was there a band?’

‘No. They used to have one in past years, but the recession’s put an end to that. There were a lot of moans about that – hardly reasonable when you consider the whole thing was free. We had a disco with a DJ who specializes in catering for the over-forties, with an unrivalled collection of James Last records. You know the sort of thing – Bach, the Beatles, country and western, rock and roll, all brought down to the lowest common denominator and scored for quick step, waltz, fox trot – whatever you like.’

She sniggered. ‘You must have been in your element.’

‘Absolutely. I was the only one at the table who couldn’t dance properly, having been brought up on the Do It Yourself method. Except for Bill, of course. That’s another thing he doesn’t like doing.’

‘Don’t keep me in suspense. What were the wives like?’

‘Dreadful. Oh, not so much individually as collectively.’

‘Come on. Do this in an orderly manner. Start with Henry’s wife. I bet I know what she looked like – podgy and crimplene-clad.’

‘That’s our Edna all right. Though I have to say she’s more fat than podgy. She was at my right hand during the meal. I was the young squire, you understand, and the placing was organized according to seniority.’

‘Conversation?’

‘Weather, grandchildren and television programmes.’

‘Fair enough. Now the wife of the mean one.’

‘Tony.’

‘Yes, of course. My guess is rather dolled-up. There must be some reason why he’s so preoccupied with money.’

‘Right again. Gloria’s hairdo must have cost buckets – all streaks and elaborate curls. She was on my other side. Conversation: a three-piece suite she’s got her eye on; the job she’s sick of; Tony’s promotion chances. She’s sure he’s being pessimistic’

‘Is he?’

‘No. He’s OK at this level, but he doesn’t have any of the qualities or qualifications that BCC want nowadays.’

‘Poor devil. Right. What’s his name? – Graham. The boring one. Presumably a dowdy wife.’

‘Nope. You’re fallible after all. Val’s quite a smart piece with a sharp tongue. Conversation: funny stories about the customers at the bar she works at in the evening – all malicious.’

‘Who’s left? Of course – Tiny. How could I forget him? No guesses this time except that his wife is probably a bit of all right.’