Murder by the Book (14 page)

He steeled himself and said, ‘I hope you don't mind my saying, but you're looking rather wonderful tonight.'

She favoured him with a half-smile. ‘And if you don't mind my saying, my dear boy, as Charles would say, you're looking like something the cat has dragged around.' She reached out and rearranged his collar, then plucked a shred of golden tobacco from his sleeve. ‘This overcoat has seen better days, Donald.'

The sergeant cleared his throat, caught their attention and pointed with a biro pen to a door that had just opened along the corridor.

A stooped, greying man in his sixties stepped out, impeccably attired in a grey suit and homburg. He was carrying a briefcase and a cane, a distant expression on his thin face as if absorbed still with the intricacies of his client's case.

Maria stood quickly. ‘Mr Winstanley? Maria Dupré. We spoke earlier.'

Winstanley raised his homburg. ‘Enchanted.' He shook Langham by the hand as Maria introduced him.

‘How is Charles?' Maria asked.

‘Forgive me one moment. Sergeant, might I bother you for a room where we might conduct our business in private?'

The sergeant showed them to a tiny, tiled room with two chairs and a desk, and obligingly fetched a third chair. ‘Under the circumstances,' Winstanley began as they settled themselves, ‘Mr Elder is bearing up remarkably well. He was arrested at noon on a charge of having perpetrated an act of gross indecency, and it seems on the evidence of the photographs now in police possession to be a pretty incontrovertible charge. Mr Elder will appear before a magistrate at eleven in the morning, if you would care to be present. My educated guess, and I must stress that this is only a guess, is that he will be granted bail, but that really depends on the magistrate himself. If we get a petty-minded stickler, then I might be wrong.'

‘Do you have any idea how much bail might be?' Langham asked.

Winstanley gestured with an elegant hand. ‘Again, this is an educated guess, but I would say in the region of two hundred and fifty pounds. A banker's draft would suffice, deposited at the court in order to secure Charles's release.' He looked from Maria to Langham. ‘You could raise this amount?'

Langham glanced at Maria and said, ‘Between us, certainly.'

‘Very good.' Winstanley paused, then said, ‘One more thing. Mr Elder mentioned the fact that he was being blackmailed. This might – and I stress
might
– have a bearing on proceedings when the case comes to trial. His defence will certainly bring up the matter, which might engender a more sympathetic attitude from members of the jury. It is certainly a card his defence will play. Now, Mr Elder told me about two letters sent by the blackmailer.'

Maria nodded. ‘He kept them under lock and key in his office.'

‘And I understand you have access to the premises, Miss Dupré? In which case I'll arrange for the police to meet you there later this evening and collect the letters.'

‘We'll go there straight away,' Maria said. ‘Do you know when Charles will come to trial?'

‘That is usually two to three months after the initial hearing,' Winstanley said.

Langham asked the question he would rather have avoided. ‘And if he is jailed, do you know how long the term might be?'

‘Again, to a certain extent I think it depends on the judge, but I would guess at between a year and eighteen months. Now, I'll talk to the sergeant about collecting the letters.'

Maria linked an arm through Langham's as they left the station, and she shivered as they hurried down the steps. ‘Donald, a year to eighteen months …?'

He considered what Winstanley had said and wondered if Charles would survive that long in jail.

‘I just hope he's granted bail,' Maria said. ‘At least then he will have a little freedom before …'

He patted her arm. ‘We'll make it the best couple of months he's ever had, Maria.'

‘One big party, no?' She tried to invest the words with levity, but Langham detected the despair that underlay them.

They arrived back at the car and Langham drove west to Pimlico. On the way he asked, ‘Have you eaten tonight?'

She shook her head. ‘I was about to make something when Mr Winstanley rang.'

‘What say we go out for something when the police have collected the letters?'

‘That will be nice. I will drink an entire bottle of wine, I think.' She laughed. ‘I have never felt like murdering someone, Donald, but if I could get my hands on the person who …'

Langham smiled. ‘You'd have to stand in line behind me.'

He pulled into the quiet tree-lined street and parked across the road from the agency. Maria ran up the steps before him and unlocked the door. She did the same with the door to the outer office, reached out to switch on the light, then halted in her tracks.

‘Oh,' she said.

‘What?' Langham began, a yard behind her.

The French window at the far end of the room stood open six inches, admitting the warm evening breeze.

She turned and looked at him. ‘Surely Charles would not have left them like this?'

Langham hurried across the room and was about to reach out for the handle. He stopped, his hand in mid-air. The small pane of glass beside the handle bore jagged fangs of glass.

‘Donald?'

‘Someone broke in,' he said. ‘Try not to touch anything. There might be prints.'

He elbowed the door further open and looked out. The windows gave on to a raised patio, and steps from the patio led down to a long, lawned garden. At the far end of the garden was a high brick wall, and beyond that a quiet back street.

Maria swore in French and hurried over to a picture on the wall. She swung it aside and said, ‘They haven't touched the safe.'

‘Do you keep any loose cash lying around?'

She shook her head. ‘And there's not that much in the safe. Why would anyone …?'

She stopped suddenly and pointed to the door leading to Charles's office. The white gloss paint was splintered, raw timber showing where the lock had been forced.

Langham pushed open the door with his forearm. Maria was beside him, a hand to her lips.

Papers littered the floor in foolscap drifts as if a madman had been let loose. Langham picked his way through the mess, careful not to stand on the books that had been pulled from the shelves, and approached the desk. The top drawers on each side of the kneehole had been forced and hung open.

He knelt and peered into the top right drawer, where Charles had left the blackmail letters. There was no sign now of the long manila envelopes.

‘Donald?' Maria stood beside him, pulling her bottom lip with a quick, worried gesture.

‘The blackmailer,' he said. ‘He came for the letters …'

Maria swallowed, clearly fighting the urge to cry. ‘I don't feel safe, Donald. The blackmailer, he might be anyone, anywhere …'

He held her. ‘He's got what he wanted. He won't be back.'

‘It's just the thought of him being in
control
, Donald, and we are so powerless …' She pulled away from him. ‘Would you like a drink?'

‘Actually, I'd love a cup of tea.'

‘You English and your tea,' she said. ‘I need a brandy.'

She fetched a bottle of Courvoisier from Charles's flat and made Langham a strong Earl Grey. Langham found a phone book and got through to an emergency glazier.

They sat on the settee in the outer office and drank for a while in silence.

‘I don't like looking ahead like this,' he said at last, ‘but it must be a relief to Charles to know that you'll be here to run the agency while he's …'

She pressed a finger to his lips. ‘Please, don't say the word. I get angry when I think about it. But yes, I'll run the agency and when he comes out everything will be back to normal.
Voila!
'

‘Have you told your father about what's been happening?'

‘I have told no one, not even Papa. We are close, but I thought it best to keep quiet.'

‘Because he doesn't like the idea of his daughter working for a …?'

She pulled a scandalized expression. ‘Of course not! My father is a man of the world, no? He is civilized and tolerant. It is the idea of his only daughter working as a
literary agent
that causes him distress! He would rather I was in politics.' She pulled a sour face. ‘But politics in France is a game for cut-throats and robbers—'

‘I'm sure your father would be delighted to hear that!'

She laughed. ‘Why do you think he got away from all that and became the cultural attaché here in London? Ah, the door.'

She leapt to her feet and hurried down the stairs to answer the doorbell. A minute later he heard gruff male voices, then footsteps approaching the outer office.

Maria appeared with a plainclothes detective and a uniformed constable. She introduced Langham to the detective, Evans – a big northerner in a crumpled suit and a battered trilby.

‘I was due to collect some letters for use in evidence in the Elder case,' he said. ‘But Miss Dupré informs me that there's been a break-in?'

He showed Detective Evans the smashed French window and the forced inner door. The detective stood over the desk, peering down at the open drawers.

‘And you say this is where Mr Elder kept the letters? So the theory is, the blackmailer breaks in, finds the letters and makes off with them?'

Maria said sharply, ‘Do you have an alternative suggestion?'

‘I'm merely trying to establish the facts, Miss.' Detective Evans looked from Maria to Langham. ‘I'll take a brief statement from each of you, if you don't mind.'

‘You'll be sending fingerprint experts out?' Langham asked.

Evans frowned. ‘As busy as we are at the moment, and for this kind of crime? I doubt it, Mr Langham. It'd be a waste of time, in my opinion. The thief wouldn't have been foolish enough not to wear gloves, would he?'

Langham conceded the point, and for the next fifteen minutes they gave an account of their discovery of the break-in, which Evans took down with laborious exactitude. While their statements were being taken, the uniformed constable let the glazier in. By the time Evans was ready to go, the glazier had installed a new pane of glass and presented Maria with the bill. Langham showed the detective and the constable to the door.

Five minutes later they stood alone in the outer office, Maria staring aghast at the sheet of paper. ‘Ten shillings and sixpence for a
tiny
piece of glass?' she said.

Langham smiled at her horror. He eased the bill from her fingers. ‘I'll take care of that,' he said. ‘Come on, let's go for dinner. I know a nice little Italian place around the corner.'

M
aria gave Langham a kiss on each cheek, French fashion, thanked him for a wonderful evening and slipped out of the car. She ran up the steps to her apartment as if moving on a stairway of clouds, then turned and waved goodbye at the top.

She let herself into her rooms and leaned against the door, smiling inanely to herself.

The meal had been perfect. Donald had insisted that they talk about things other than Charles's predicament and the break-in, and had even opened up and talked a little about himself. She had asked him about Madagascar and his scar, and he had described the skirmish in which he'd received the wound. ‘To be honest I didn't notice it at the time – and that had nothing to do with bravery. I thought it was an insect bite. I didn't realize I was bleeding till the shooting stopped.'

But for the most part she had talked about herself. Donald had the writer's ability to draw one out of oneself, and to listen with interest to every word she spoke. She told him about her mother, a shadowy figure she hardly remembered, who had died of cancer when she was four. She'd described being brought up by a series of nannies, some more loving than others, and the constant affection and support of her father. The one regret of her childhood was that he had not been around as much as she'd wanted.

Donald had asked her why she had remained in England, and she had answered truthfully that, by the end of the war, she considered it home. She had friends in the capital, and her father had decided to remain there. It made sense to make London her base. Then Charles had offered her the job and for a while life had seemed perfect.

She wondered if her dissatisfaction of late had been less to do with her job and more to do with the fact that she had no one with whom to share her life.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the chime of the doorbell. She hurried down the stairs to the front door, her heart hammering.

She should have known that it would not be Donald. Pressing himself upon her like this would be a very un-English – a very un-Donald – thing to do, but nevertheless a part of her hoped that she would find him standing on the doorstep, a little sheepish, when she opened the door.

A man
was
standing on the step when she answered the summons, but it was not Donald.

Gideon Martin pushed past her, reeking of drink, and characteristically did not catch her furious glare.

‘Gideon!' she began, fearful he'd discovered that it was she who had bid against him the other day.

He took the stairs to her rooms two at a time. Maria followed. By the time she caught up with him he was striding up and down the length of the front room as if it were a stage and he the principal actor.

‘Who is he?' he demanded.

She felt an immediate wave of relief. His presence was the result of jealousy, then, not rage.

She stood her ground, staring at him. ‘Who is who?'

He reached the far end of the room and turned dramatically. He swayed, tipsily, and his eyes burned at her. ‘Don't try to deny it, Maria. I saw you get out of his car. I saw you … saw you kiss him. Who is he?'