A Certain Justice (17 page)

He added, more sharply: “You’d better get into the office, Terry, and start the day. No point in holding up the work. If the police want us all out when they arrive, no doubt they’ll say so.”

“More likely to want us all here for questioning. Look, shall I make a cup of tea? You look as if you could do with it. Christ! Murder, and in Chambers.”

He put his hand on the banister and looked up the stairs with a horrified, half-curious fascination.

Harry said, “Yes, make some tea. Mr. Langton will need something when he arrives. Better make it fresh for him, though.”

Neither of them heard the approaching footsteps. The door opened and Valerie Caldwell, the Chambers secretary, closed it behind her and leaned against it. Her eyes settled first on Harry’s face and then on Terry’s with what seemed like questioning deliberation. None of them spoke. It seemed to Harry that the moment was frozen in time: Terry with his hand on the banister; himself staring in horrified dismay, like a schoolboy caught out in some juvenile mischief. He knew with an appalling certainty that nothing needed to be said. He watched while the blood drained from her face and it changed, grew old and unfamiliar, as if he were watching the very act of dying. He could take no more.

He said: “You tell her. Make that tea. I’m going upstairs.”

Harry had no idea where precisely he was going or what he was going to do. He only knew that he had to get away from them. But he had barely reached the landing before he heard a soft thud and heard Terry’s voice.

“Give me a hand, Mr, Naughton. She’s fainted.”

He came down and together they lifted Valerie into the reception room and lowered her onto the sofa. Terry put his hand on the back of her neck and forced her head down between her knees. After about half a minute, which seemed much longer, she gave a little moan.

Terry, who seemed to have taken control, said: “She’ll do now. Better get a glass of water for her, Mr. Naughton, and then I’ll make that tea — good and sweet.”

But before either of them could move they heard the sound of the front door closing and, looking up, saw Hubert Langton standing in the doorway. Before he could speak, Harry took his arm and gently led him across the hall and into the conference room. Surprised into acquiescence, Langton was as docile as a child. Harry closed the door and spoke the words which he had already mentally rehearsed.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I have something very shocking to tell you. It’s Miss Aldridge. When I arrived this morning her housekeeper rang to say that she hadn’t been home last night. Both doors of her room here were locked but I’ve got the spare key. I’m afraid that she’s dead, sir. It looks like murder.”

Mr. Langton didn’t reply. His face was a mask betraying nothing. Then he said: “I’d better look. Have you rung the police?”

“Not yet, sir. I knew you were on your way so I thought it would be better to wait. I’ve telephoned Mr. Laud and he said he’d come immediately.”

Harry followed Mr. Langton up the stairs. The Head of Chambers held on to the banisters but his feet were steady. He waited calmly, his face still expressionless, while Harry took the key from his pocket and unlocked the doors, then held them open.

For a second, as the key turned, he had been seized with an irrational conviction that it would all prove to be a mistake, that the blood-bloated head had been a sick fantasy and that the room would be empty. But the reality was even more horrible than on the first sight. He dared not look at Mr. Langton’s face. Then he heard him speak. His voice was calm, but it was the voice of an old man.

“This is an abomination, Harry.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And this is how you found her?”

“Not quite, Mr. Langton. She was facing the desk. I touched the chair, inadvertently really, and she swung round.”

“Have you told anyone else — Terry, Valerie — about the blood and the wig?”

“No, sir, just that I found her dead. I did say it looked like murder. Oh, and I did tell Terry that there was fresh blood. That’s all I told him.”

“That was sensible of you. Keep the details to yourself. The media will make a meal of this if it gets out.”

“It’s bound to get out sooner or later, Mr. Langton.”

“Then let it be later. I’ll ring the police now.” He moved towards the desk telephone, then said: “Better do it from my room. The less we touch in here the better. I’ll take charge of the key.”

Harry handed it over. Langton turned out the light and locked both doors. Watching him, Harry thought that the old man was taking the shock more calmly than he had dared to hope. This was the Head of Chambers he remembered: authoritative, calm, taking control. But then he looked at his companion’s face and knew with a rush of pity what this calmness was costing him.

He said: “What shall I do about the rest of the staff, sir? And then there are the members of Chambers. Mr. Ulrick always comes in early on Thursday if he’s in London. They’ll want to get to their rooms.”

“I’ve no intention of preventing them. If the police want Chambers closed for the day, that will be for them to decide. Perhaps you’d come with me while I telephone, then you’d better stay on the door. Tell the staff as they arrive as little as possible. Try to keep them calm. Ask any members of Chambers to have the goodness to see me immediately in my room.”

“Yes sir. There’s Mrs. Buckley, the housekeeper. She’ll be fussing. And then there’s the daughter. Someone will have to tell her.”

“Oh yes, the daughter. I’d forgotten about the daughter. We’ll leave that to the police and to Mr. Laud. He knows the family.”

Harry said: “Miss Aldridge was due at Snaresbrook Crown Court at ten. She was expecting the case to end by this afternoon.”

“Her junior will have to cope. It’s Mr. Fleming, isn’t it? Ring him at home. You’d better tell him that Miss Aldridge has been found dead in her room, but say as little as possible.”

They were in Mr. Langton’s room now. Hubert stood for a moment with his hand hovering on the telephone. He said with a kind of wonder: “I’ve never had to do this before. Dialling 999 hardly seems appropriate. I’d better try the Commissioner’s office — or there is someone I know at the Yard, not well, but we have met. It may not be for him, but if it isn’t, he’ll know what has to be done. He’s got a name that’s easy to remember — Adam Dalgliesh.”

T
he appointment for Detective Inspectors Kate Miskin and Piers Tarrant to take their qualifying test at the West London shooting range had been made for eight o’clock. Anticipating some difficulty in parking, Kate set out from her Thames-side flat at seven and arrived at seven-forty-five. She had completed the preliminaries, handed over her pink card showing the record of her previous shoots, and had made the required declaration that she hadn’t taken alcohol in the last twenty-four hours and wasn’t on any prescribed drugs, before she heard the sound of a lift and Piers Tarrant came unhurriedly through the door precisely on time. They greeted each other briefly but there was no conversation. It was unusual for Piers to be silent for long, but Kate had noticed on their practice shoot a month earlier that he had said nothing throughout the whole shoot except to congratulate her briefly at the end. She approved of his silence; talking was not encouraged. The shooting gallery wasn’t the place for chatter or badinage. There was always about it the heightened atmosphere of incipient danger, of serious men engaged in a serious purpose. The officers of Commander Dalgliesh’s squad shot at West London by special arrangement. The gallery was normally used only by officers on royal-and personal-protection duties. More than one life could depend on the speed of their reactions.

Kate was apt to judge her male colleagues by their behaviour when shooting. Massingham could never bear to be outscored by her and seldom was. The qualifying shoot was not intended to be competitive; officers were supposed to be concerned only with their own achievement. But Massingham had never been able to resist a quick glance at her score and had made no attempt at generosity if she outscored him. To him success at the shooting range had been an affirmation of masculinity. He had been brought up with guns and had found it intolerable that a woman, and one with Kate’s urban background, could handle a weapon effectively. Daniel Aaron, on the other hand, had seen the practice shoots as a necessary part of the job and had cared little whether he scored higher than Kate provided he qualified. Piers Tarrant, who had succeeded him three months earlier, had already shown himself a better shot than either of his predecessors. She had yet to learn how much that mattered to him, how important it was that she could still outscore him.

It was one of many things which she had not yet learned about him. Admittedly they had only worked together for three months and no major case had broken, but she still found him puzzling. He had come to Dalgliesh’s team from the Arts and Antiques Squad set up to investigate the theft of stolen works of art. It was generally considered an élite squad but Tarrant had apparently asked for a transfer. She knew something about him. Policing was a job in which it was difficult to safeguard personal privacy. Gossip and rumour soon provided what reticence hoped to keep private. She knew that he was twenty-seven, unmarried, and lived in a flat in the City from which he cycled to New Scotland Yard, saying that he had more than enough of cars in the job without using one to get to work. He was rumoured to be knowledgeable about the Wren churches in the City. He took policing light-heartedly, more casually than Kate’s dedication sometimes found appropriate. She was intrigued, too, by his occasional swings of mood between a gently cynical amusement and, as now, a self-contained quietude which had none of the depressing contagion of moodiness but had the effect of making him unapproachable.

She stood at the door of the authorized firearms officer’s glass-fronted office and watched Piers as he completed the preliminaries, assessing him as if she were seeing him for the first time. He wasn’t tall, less than six feet, but although he walked lightly there was a streetwise toughness about the shoulders and long arms which made him look like a boxer. His mouth was well shaped, sensitive and humorous. Even when set firm, as now, it suggested an inner, barely contained amusement. There was the faintest suggestion of the comedian about the slightly pudgy nose and deep-set eyes under slanting eyebrows. His mid-brown hair was strong, an undisciplined strand falling across his forehead. He was less handsome than Daniel, but she had been aware from their first meeting that he was one of the most sexually attractive officers with whom she had ever worked. It had been an unwelcome realization, but she had no intention of letting it become a problem. Kate believed in keeping her sexual and professional lives separate. She had seen too many careers, too many marriages, too many lives messed up to go down that dangerously seductive path.

A month after he joined the squad, on impulse, she had asked: “Why the police?” It was unlike her to force a confidence, but he had answered without resentment.

“Why not?”

“Come off it, Piers! Oxford degree in theology? You’re not the typical copper.”

“Do I have to be? Do you have to be? What is the typical copper anyway? Me? You? AD? Max Trimlett?”

“We know about Trimlett. A foul-mouthed sexist bastard. Trimlett likes power and thought joining the police was the easiest way to get it. He certainly hasn’t the intelligence to get it any other way. He should have been chucked out after that last complaint. We’re not talking about DC Trimlett, we’re talking about you. But if you don’t like the question, that’s OK. It’s your life. I’d no right to ask.”

“Think of the alternatives. Teaching? Not with today’s young. If I’m going to be bashed by louts, I’d rather be bashed by an adult lout when I can do some bashing back. The law? Over-crowded. Medicine? Ten years’ hard labour and at the end you sit handing out prescriptions to a surgery of dispirited neurotics. Anyway I’m too squeamish. I don’t mind dead bodies, I just don’t fancy watching them die. The City? Precarious and I can’t add up. The Civil Service? Boring and respectable, and anyway they probably wouldn’t have me. Any suggestions?”

“You could try male modelling.”

She thought she might have gone too far, but he had answered: “Not photogenic enough. What about you? Why did you join?”

It was a fair question, and she could have answered: To get away from that flat on the seventh floor of Ellison Fairweather Buildings. My own money. Independence. The chance of pulling myself out of poverty and mess. To get away from the smell of urine and failure. The need to do a job which offered opportunities, and which I believe is one worth doing. For the security of order and hierarchy. Instead she said: “To earn an honest living.”

“Ah, that’s how we all begin. Maybe even Trimlett.”

The instructor checked that they were to fire not Glocks but the six-shot .38-calibre Smith and Wessons, issued them earmuffs, their weapons and the first bullets for hand-loading, holster and ammunition pouch and jet-loader, then watched from his window as they went through to the shooting gallery, where his colleague was waiting. Still without speaking, they cleaned their weapons with a four-by-two rag and loaded the first six bullets into the chambers by hand.

The authorized firearms officer said: “Right, ma’am? Right, sir? Seventy-round classifying shoot from three metres to twenty-five, two-second exposure.”

They fitted the earmuffs and joined him on the three-metre line, standing one on each side of him. Against the dark-pink wall was the row of eleven target figures, stark black, forward-crouching, guns in hand, with a white line encircling the central visible mass which was the target area. The figures were reversed to show only the blank white backs. The AFO barked out his command, the crouching figures swung back into view. The air crackled with gunfire. Despite the earmuffs that first explosion of sound always surprised Kate by its reverberating loudness.

When the first six rounds had been fired they moved forward to inspect the targets, sticking white circles on each hole. Kate saw with satisfaction that hers were nicely grouped in the centre of the visible target area. She always wanted to achieve a neat, concentric pattern and had occasionally come close to it. Glancing across at Piers busy with his white markers, she saw that he had done well.