Moriarty Returns a Letter (17 page)

“Well, all right, then,” she said. “I don’t know why, but for some reason I was just thinking that if Darla Rennie ever managed to swim back up from the murky depths the first thing she would do is try to look you up.”

“Well,” said Reggie. “She … she did in fact ask Wembley to contact me.”

“I knew it!” Laura actually jumped up out of her chair.

“But only for legal representation.”

“Oh, sure. Is that her standard line?”

“I said no, of course,” said Reggie quickly. “And I persuaded her to confess. To everything except killing the fisherman in Canvey. She’s denying that, for all the good it will do her.”

“Are we sure that charge will stick?”

“Her fingerprints are on the murder weapon, and plunging a kitchen knife into a troublesome but unsuspecting male is an M.O. she’s used before.”

“But why,” said Laura, “would Darla Rennie admit to all the murderous rot she did with the Black Cabs—and then deny killing this fisherman in Canvey?”

“I don’t know,” said Reggie.

“Perhaps she didn’t do that last thing?” said Laura.

Reggie shrugged. Emphatically. He sat back in his chair and said, “Not our problem.”

“That’s certainly true,” said Laura.

“She claims an alibi,” said Reggie. “She says that she was in fact at the Marylebone Grand Hotel at the time the murder occurred. But she has no corroboration. The hotel has CCTV, and Hotel Security turned the tapes over to the Yard. They couldn’t find her on the video. It’s not a perfect system; there are some blind spots. But even so—”

“What was she supposedly doing at the hotel?”

“Visiting the exhibit, she says.”

“Or stalking us,” said Laura.

“She had no way of knowing we were there. So if she was at the hotel, it was for some other reason. But as I said, there’s nothing to indicate that is where she was when the crime was committed.”

“Hmm,” said Laura, and she sat back down. Then she said:

“Well, then. From a travel perspective, this is actually good news. If it was Darla Rennie who was hiding our itinerary under floorboards, and she’s now in custody and will remain so, then we no longer need to worry about a crazed stalker. We can go back to my original travel bookings.”

Reggie nodded. “I’ll have Lois cancel what she set up through the Marylebone Grand manager.”

“Let’s celebrate,” said Laura. She opened the bag of mini-burgers, took one of the little sandwiches out, and began to unfold its bright red-and-white wrapper.

Reggie was staring at her.

“What?” said Laura. “I’ve seen you eat much worse things. We’re British, for God’s sake. Just wait until you get to my aunt’s castle, if you want see a meat dish that’s truly stomach curdling.”

“It’s not what you’re eating,” said Reggie. “I’m trying to remember where I’ve seen those wrappers before.”

“At the hotel, of course,” said Laura. “That’s where I got them. They’re just for the exhibit; I’ve never seen one anywhere else.”

“Yes,” said Reggie. “But I have. At the murder scene in Canvey.”

Laura stopped eating. She looked at the wrapper, and then at Reggie.

“The hamburger wrappers at the dead fisherman’s house are like this?”

“Yes,” said Reggie.

“The hamburger wrappers that have Darla Rennie’s fingerprints on them?”

“Yes.”

Laura stopped eating. She sighed. She put her burger wrapper back in the bag. She put the bag of burgers back on the desk. She stared at them for a moment, and then she said:

“Do you know what that means?”

“No,” said Reggie, not quite honestly. He actually did have a suspicion what it might mean, but he didn’t want to go there.

Laura went there anyway:

“Does Forensics have a time of death for the poor fisherman?” she said.

Reggie nodded. “The body was discovered at six in the evening, and Forensics put the time of death as one to two hours before that.”

Laura considered that, and then said:

“Darla Rennie can’t have done it then, can she?”

“How do you mean?”

“These little burgers and their unique wrappers went on sale at the hotel exhibit just when we arrived, at four in the afternoon. They were never available before that—see, there’s even a date on the wrappers. But it takes almost an hour and a half to get from Marylebone to the far end of Canvey Island. So if the time of death was between four and five, then Darla Rennie could not have done it—she would still have been en route from the hotel. She could not have got to the house before five-thirty.”

“Hmm,” said Reggie. “At the earliest, given she can’t drive worth a damn, and buses take longer. But if she was at the hotel, why didn’t we see her?”

“We might have missed her while we were in the exhibit room, hanging the letters,” said Laura. “If you had a white board, I could draw it out for you. I know you’re not good at itineraries.”

“No need, I get it. But if she brought her sandwiches to the house after the fisherman was killed, then she must surely have discovered the body.”

“Perhaps she did discover it—and then just fled?”

“So she claims,” said Reggie. Then he cleared his throat and sat back to think about it for a moment.

“You realize,” he said, “that you are suggesting a forensic alibi for Darla Rennie?”

“I don’t think the problem is me suggesting it. I think the problem is that it’s right there in front of us.”

“So what do you want to do?” said Reggie

“What we must,” said Laura. “We have no choice, do we?”

“There’s always a choice,” said Reggie. “We can choose to keep silent, and in all likelihood, she’ll be convicted of the fisherman’s killing as well as the others.”

“Well, yes, but that means she’ll be convicted of a crime that you and I know she didn’t do.”

“That’s true,” said Reggie. “But keep in mind the sort of crimes she did commit. What she tried to do to you before. And keep in mind that now that I’ve refused to represent her in court, she’s likely to be even more annoyed.”

“Well, none of that really matters, does it?” said Laura. “If we know something that proves her innocent of this one—regardless of all the other bad things she did do—we have to say, don’t we?”

Reggie did not respond to that. He knew the proper answer. He knew what should be done.

He just didn’t want to do it.

“I don’t like the risk,” he said. “The possibility she might get out and hurt … someone else.”

“Well, who are you thinking she would be likely to—”

Laura stopped. She peered closely at Reggie. He tried to avoid eye contact.

Laura knew what that meant.

“Make the call,” she said. “We’re not putting this on me.”

Reggie nodded. He picked up the phone and was about to ring Inspector Wembley at Scotland Yard.

And then, before Reggie put the call through, Laura put a hand on his arm.

“They won’t just let her loose, will they?” she said. “Just because she didn’t do this one thing? They’ll hold her for all the other things that she did do?”

“Well,” said Reggie. “They will certainly charge her with her other crimes.”

“Good,” said Laura. “And she won’t just get out on bail?”

Reggie hesitated.

“She won’t just get out on bail?” said Laura, again.

“No,” said Reggie. “Well … not likely, anyway, given the severity of her crimes. And they will always deny bail if the accused is considered a danger to herself or others.”

“Good,” said Laura.

“But then, when I spoke to her at the station, she seemed—well—quite lucid. Nondelusional. Reasonable, even. Almost … persuasive.”

“You’re not saying she will be released?”

“No, not at all. I mean, if the mental health professionals in the National Institute of Health, and the justices of the Crown Court, and the barristers in the Crown Prosecution Service are all doing their job properly—they won’t let her out.”

Laura pondered the likelihood of that level of competence from all the officials in all those institutions, and many or most of them being men, in dealing with Darla Rennie. And then she said:

“Oh, bloody hell. We have to tell Wembley her alibi anyway, and that’s all there is to it. So make the call. We’ll use the changed itinerary, just as a precaution, and I’m going to go home and finish packing before I change my mind.”

Reggie made the call.

17

At midmorning on Saturday, in front of Laura’s house in Chelsea, in air that was crisp and clear, Reggie looked one last time into the boot of the Jaguar. In his opinion, everything necessary for the trip was now packed tightly inside.

There was not a lot of storage space in this aerodynamic and completely impractical vehicle, and it occurred to Reggie that his changing life circumstances might soon demand a change in daily transportation.

But for the moment, they would make do with what they had: One large suitcase for Laura, pushed as far back into the boot as possible, which wasn’t far. One medium suitcase for Laura, squeezed in between the larger suitcase and the wiring of the rear taillight, just barely. One duffel bag for Reggie, mashed in on top of and around the edges of the others.

A small day case for Laura was tucked in behind the passenger seat. The only thing remaining was Reggie’s briefcase.

Reggie remembered the hearing that had been moved to Tuesday. Before stashing the briefcase into the boot, he sat down in the driver’s seat, with the briefcase in his lap, and he opened it to make sure he had what he’d need.

Laura put a hand on his arm.

“You promised. You said not one moment of our trip would be waylaid by law chambers activities.”

“I know,” said Reggie. “But it’s just a small brief—and I won’t touch the bloody thing, I won’t even take it out to look at it, until our trip is over and we are in the car and on our way back.”

“Well, I’m not riding with you if you’re going to be reading a legal pleading while you drive.”

“Of course not,” said Reggie. “I’ll be in the passenger seat.”

“So you’re saying that I will get to drive your lovely XJS all the way back, through the twisty curvy country roads of Dartmoor?”

“Yes.”

“With the top down?”

“Subject to weather conditions, yes.”

“And at speeds that I deem manageable, no matter how terrified you get?”

“Subject to regulations enforced by the local constabulary, yes.”

“All right, then,” said Laura. “You have a deal.”

Reggie tucked the briefing document securely into its compartment, and was about to close the briefcase—then Laura stopped him.

“What’s this?” she said.

Reggie looked. There was one document in his briefcase—old and yellowed—that should not have been there.

“Oh, bloody hell,” he said. “I forgot I had it. When we were bringing the letters back from the hotel, I had to pick this one up off the street. I was going to just toss the thing, but then Lois told me the woman from the hotel called this morning just to find out if we’d got it safely back into the archives.”

“It’s historical, Reggie; of course you can’t toss it. And Rafferty would get positively violent. Just keep it in there, and we’ll return it when we get back.”

“Fair enough,” said Reggie. He closed the briefcase and got out to stuff it into the boot of the car. He shut the boot lid twice to make sure it had latched—and now they were ready.

Reggie got in on the driver’s side.

“I told you it would all fit,” said Laura.

“And you were right,” said Reggie.

The Jaguar started on the very first try, and they pulled out into the road.

18

In the criminal evaluation wing of the National Institute of Health, Dr. Miner pondered the brain mapping of the highest profile case he had seen in his twenty years at the institute.

He had two sets of images taped on the wall—one taken of the young woman when her schizophrenia had first been diagnosed two years ago and one taken just in the last few days, six months after the trauma of her falling into the Thames River from the Tower Bridge.

The protocols did not allow for using brain images as a conclusive diagnostic tool for a behavioral condition, certainly not for purposes of sentencing. But there was already an image available from her care under a previous physician, taken just to eliminate the possibility of a tumor or identifiable physical brain trauma. And a current image had been taken to assess whether she had sustained any injuries in the recent fall from the Tower Bridge.

From a certain angle, and in a certain light, it seemed to Dr. Miner that perhaps blood flow within regions of the woman’s brain had changed. Was this significant? He didn’t know. And if it was a significant change, was it good or bad? He knew of documented instances of brain trauma having a negative effect on a person’s later behavior.

But he had never heard of one where it worked in reverse.

Was it possible? Could the impact of the fall, or the prolonged effects of near drowning in the cold river, have somehow unblocked a blood vessel to a critical area? Could some abnormal mass of tissue have been destroyed, allowing the recovery and healthy growth of the normal area?

She was still on her meds, of course. But aside from that, was there an identifiable, provable, physiological change in the young woman’s brain that would evolve her from the delusional schizophrenic that she had been to the calm, collected, bright, and completely normal woman that she now appeared to be? If so, it would be a first. Treatment for the disease was always lifelong.

Dr. Miner’s job was to evaluate her for purposes of either incarceration or confinement to a mental facility. But at the moment, that wasn’t the first thing on his mind.

He was beginning to think of the journal article he would write about her, and where he would submit it, and the awards and recognition he would win.

He could be on talk shows. He could be sitting across from Oprah, discussing the nature of free will, the difference between good and evil, and how they related to the physiology of the brain. It would be great fun.

Of course, the young woman’s future was at stake. There was also that.

And possibly also the well-being of people who might encounter her in the future, should she be released.