The Reckoning (24 page)

‘And the first was that these murders were somehow associated with the court martial simply because one of the victims, Oswald Gibson, had referred to it in his diary. He said there was no proof that either Drummond or Singleton had ever been present at the trial, or that Sir Horace Canning had put his signature to the sentence; no evidence, either, that the woman who turned up in Oxford had any connection to the case. All of which happens to be true, unfortunately. We did get the Oxford police to ask Mrs Singleton if she knew her husband had sat on a court-martial board, but apparently she didn't. They may have been close, but he never told her that.'

Billy paused.

‘Go on. Don't stop there.' A grin had appeared on the chief super's face.

‘He said that as far as he could see, the only reason we'd come up with this explanation was because a former colleague of ours had suggested it – a man who had resigned his position at the Yard many years before . . .'

‘. . . and whose credentials as an investigator must surely now be called into question.'

Chubb let out a guffaw.

Lost for words, Madden could only stare at him. But then he, too, burst out laughing. ‘Well, he's right, isn't he?'

‘Now don't you start.' The chief super shook an admonishing finger. ‘This isn't a joke. I asked Cradock then how he could
explain the theft of the record. Surely he didn't think it was a coincidence? Do you know what he came back with?'

Charlie struck a pose.

‘
Theft
, Mr Chubb? I've already been informed that according to the director of the Public Record Office, those papers have simply gone missing. He contests your interpretation of the facts. He maintains there is no evidence to suggest that the cupboard containing the records was ever broken into. So unless you can present me with proof to the contrary, I strongly urge you to abandon this line of enquiry and return to your search for a killer who is not only armed and dangerous, but very likely disturbed in his mind.'

The chief super shook his head in despair.

‘He was kind enough to remind me then – in case it had slipped my mind – that there would be a royal wedding at Westminster Abbey in a week or so, and the last thing people wanted to read about in their newspapers was some sordid account of a court martial that had taken place many years ago and, given its unhappy outcome, was hardly likely to chime with the country's mood.'

‘“Chime with the country's mood . . .” He actually said that?'

‘Those were his very words.' Chubb groaned. ‘And they wonder why coppers take to the bottle.'

A few minutes later, waiting in the lobby downstairs for his taxi to arrive, Madden was still chuckling.

‘I'd forgotten what a card Charlie is. I'm sorry we lost touch. I must ask Helen to invite him down for a weekend when this is over. They'll get on well.'

‘Mr Sinclair could show him his roses. Charlie thinks you made those up.'

Billy was pleased to see his old chief in better spirits. They
had spoken several times on the phone and he knew that Madden's anxiety hadn't diminished in the days that had passed since their meeting with Edward Gibson.

About to leave, Madden paused by the entrance.

‘You mentioned something about going down to Richmond?'

‘That's right, sir. I want to talk to this friend of Hazel Ballard's. Miss Dauncey is her name. Amanda Dauncey.'

‘Would you mind if I came with you?'

‘To
Richmond
? Of course not.' Billy smiled. ‘There's nothing I'd like more. But are you sure you want to? Chances are it'll come to nothing.'

‘Never mind that. But can you fix to see her on Monday morning? I'm due back at St John's Wood after lunch. I promised Aunt Maud I'd be there.'

‘I'll do my best.' Billy saw Madden's taxi drawing up in the courtyard outside. ‘Before you go, there's something I want to show you,' he said. ‘It's a picture of Ballard lent us by Miss Selby.'

He drew the photograph from his file. Madden took it over to the porter's desk where a lamp was burning. He held it to the light.

‘That's Jim Ballard all right.' It was a while before he spoke. ‘I remember him well. He looks so young there. But he aged quickly. They all did. I remember how worn and tired he seemed at the trial. He had that look you sometimes see in the eyes of old men – that emptiness – as though they've reached the end of the road.'

He shook his head sadly.

‘Is that his wife with him?'

Billy nodded. ‘You can see she thought the world of him. You can tell by the look on her face.' He squinted at the snapshot. ‘According to Miss Selby, she was already planning how they were going to live after the war. She was going to set him up in his own studio: she was sure he was going to be a great
artist one day. Poor woman – it must have seemed like the end of her life, too, when he was shot.'

Madden's reply was slow in coming. He continued to gaze at the photo. Finally, with a sigh, he handed it back.

‘But it wasn't, was it?'

20

A
BOUT TO LEAVE FOR
the day – he had his finger on the lift button – Lenny Loomis heard the phone on his desk ring. Office hours at Apollo Investments were nine till half-past five. It was ten minutes past the hour now, but with his boss, Sir Percival Blount, away, he had planned to slip off early that Friday afternoon. Blount was in the United States. He had crossed the Atlantic on the
Queen Mary
six weeks earlier on a combined business and holiday trip, and Lenny had got used to having his time as his own. But now he hesitated. There was just a chance it might be his employer calling from New York, and if he found his personal assistant had left the office early there'd be hell to pay.

With a scowl Lenny returned to his desk. He picked up the phone.

‘Loomis speaking.'

‘Raikes here. There's a young lady standing in front of me says she's got something for Sir Percival. Can I send her up?'

Lenny looked at his watch. He didn't want to be delayed. He had plans that evening. He was supposed to be meeting some pals at the Feathers for a drink, after which they were off to the Hammersmith Palais to see what they could pick up in the way of female companionship.

‘Can't you just sign for it?'

‘She says she has to deliver it to you in person.'

Raikes was the commissionaire. An old soldier with a chestful of medals, he'd never troubled to hide his contempt for Lenny after he'd discovered that he had spent the war in the Ordnance Corps as a quartermaster; or his disapproval of Lenny's elevation to the post of personal assistant to the chairman of Apollo, which he reckoned Lenny had somehow fiddled.

‘Ask her who she works for.' Lenny looked at his watch again. He clicked his tongue with impatience.

There was a pause. He could hear the mutter of voices.

‘She's from Mecklin Brothers. She says Lord Ackroyd gave her strict orders to put the letter in your hands.'

‘He mentioned me by name?' Lenny didn't believe it. He'd never met Lord Ackroyd, though he knew who he was all right: head of Mecklin's and one of the City's leading merchant bankers; and probably a pal of Sir Percival's as well.

Again he heard muttering.

‘She says no, not by name. She was told to give it to his personal assistant, into his hands.'

‘All right, send her up.'

There was no getting round it. Lenny knew he couldn't afford to put a foot wrong. He'd only been in the job three months and still wasn't sure whether Sir Percival meant to keep him on as his PA. His predecessor had been fired without ceremony after ballsing up arrangements for a board of directors meeting – or so the story went – and Lenny had found himself plucked out of the obscurity of the clerks' department and sent upstairs to the chairman's wood-panelled office to be interviewed for the post.

‘I'm told you've got your wits about you.'

It was the first time Lenny had met the big cheese in person. Heavy-set, balding and with the cold, blue gaze of a man accustomed to having his own way (and trampling on anyone who
tried to prevent it), Sir Percival had taken his time, running his eyes over Lenny, examining him from top to toe.

‘And that you don't need to be told things twice.'

Lenny had felt like an insect under a microscope.

‘If that's not the case, I'll find out soon enough – and so will you.'

It hadn't taken him long to realize that what people said about Sir Percival was true: he was a bastard. Impossible to please, he offered neither praise nor thanks. Lenny had quickly been given to understand that his only reason for existing was to keep his employer's business life running smoothly. Human contact didn't enter into it. Most of the time Sir Percival looked right through him. But Lenny had refused to be thrown by his churlish manner. He'd started off life selling fruit from a barrow in Stepney and had dealt with enough rough characters in his time – hard men who wouldn't let you sell so much as an apple on their patch – not to be put off by scare tactics. Now that he'd got his foot in the door, he meant to keep it there. A year or two as Sir Percival Blount's PA was just the sort of entry he needed for his curriculum vitae. After that he'd be on his way. And when he quit Apollo, which he would, he'd take pleasure in giving the mean-spirited old sod a royal two-fingered salute.

He heard the lift arrive and saw the doors open. A woman stepped out. She wore a brown overcoat that matched the colour of her hair and had a large Manila envelope in her hands. She looked about her.

‘Over here,' Lenny called out. He wondered why she hadn't seen him standing there behind his desk outside the door to Sir Percival's office. It wasn't as though there was anyone else in the reception area, just a couple of chairs and a sofa on either side of a low table with some magazines spread out on it.

She crossed the room without haste to his desk and handed him the envelope. It was addressed to Sir Percival by name and
bore the words PERSONAL and BY HAND printed in large capitals.

‘Will you see that he gets it?' she asked.

Lenny had assumed she'd be younger. As a rule, running errands was a job for the newest recruit to the typing pool. But she was thirty if she was a day, he reckoned, and sure of herself too, judging by the way she glanced about her, taking everything in.

‘Do I need to sign for it?'

He tried to catch her eye, but she had turned to look at the nearly life-sized photograph of Sir Percival mounted on the wall above one of the chairs in the reception area. He'd been snapped sitting with his hands folded behind a highly polished table staring back at the camera with no trace of a smile on his ugly mug.

‘Is that him?' she asked.

‘I beg your pardon.'

It was her cool self-assurance that got Lenny's goat. She wasn't behaving like a messenger should, and when she did finally look at him, he got a nasty shock. There was something disturbing about her gaze. She had taken him in all right – he felt he'd been weighed and measured in a moment – but also dismissed; judged to be of no account.

‘Sir Percival?' She nodded towards the photo. ‘Your boss? Is that him?'

Lenny took his time replying. He was trying to compose himself.

‘Yes, that's him,' he said, finally. ‘And I asked you if I needed to sign for this?'

He tapped the letter.

‘Nobody said so.' She shrugged. ‘I was supposed to put it in your hands.'

‘Not in Sir Percival's?'

‘I was told he was in New York.' She was looking around her again.

‘By Lord Ackroyd?'

‘Not him personally. By his secretary.'

‘What's her name?'

‘I'm sorry . . .'

‘Lord Ackroyd's secretary – what's her name?'

Lenny had managed to startle her, at least, and now he gave the woman a hard stare, hoping it would further unsettle her. But she simply shrugged.

‘I don't know . . . she didn't say . . . She just gave me the letter and told me what to do. I've only just started working there.' She glanced at her wristwatch. ‘Look, I've got to go. Will you see he gets it?'

Without waiting for a reply, she turned and headed off in the direction of the lift. Lenny wasn't surprised when she didn't stop to press the button, but took the stairs instead. She'd done whatever it was she came to do. She didn't want to answer any more questions.

He weighed the letter in his hand. It was light. He had half a mind to break the wax seal and find out what was inside, but the word PERSONAL deterred him. What he could do, though, was ring Lord Ackroyd's secretary on Monday and find out if she knew anything about it. He had a feeling she wouldn't.

He wished that he'd asked the woman what
her
name was, but she had skipped off before he had the chance.

One thing was certain, though. She was a wrong 'un. He could spot them a mile off. It went back to the days when he'd been flogging fruit off his barrow.

Lips pursed, Lenny slipped the letter into the top drawer of his desk. He spoke his next thought aloud.

‘Yes, but what are you up to, sweetheart? What's your game?'

PART TWO

21

‘S
O YOU PLAN TO
move her this afternoon, do you?'

Helen glanced at her husband.

‘I take it everything's arranged? The troops have their orders?'

‘Everyone's standing by.' Madden smiled. ‘The spare room's been prepared. Most of Maud's things have been moved there. The rewiring in the rest of the house has been completed. There's only her room to be done now, and it'll start as soon as she's settled. But it rather depends on how she reacts. She didn't take kindly on Friday to the idea of being moved. According to Alice, she came over all queer.'