Diana's Altar Page 13

  “The game? I wish I’d played my hand half as well as you have, Risby! I’ll say it while I can, shall I? Home, James! Oh, and don’t speak of this list to anyone, will you? Not even to the super.”

  Joe couldn’t imagine why he’d said that, but Risby seemed to take it in his stride.

  “Understood, sir.”

  Chapter 13

  “Sandilands, come in!” Hunnyton welcomed him into his office at the station with his usual good humour. “Where on earth have you been? Calls for you have been stacking up all morning. I feel like your secretary. ‘I’ll be sure to ask him to return your call, sir, just as soon as he gets back from wherever the hell it is he went.’”

  “You’re sacked! You should know that I’m always with the home secretary to colleagues, at the barber’s to my friends. You’d be a bloody useless secretary.”

  Still under the effects of a bottle of burgundy, Joe found himself grinning back in great good humour at the superintendent. He remembered his sister once crossly commenting that the more Joe drank, the jollier he became, and he resolved to reach for a little restraint. He dumped his briefcase on the floor and sat on the hard chair on the opposite side of the desk. “Now then, Hunnyton! Cards on table. I’ve just been to lunch with Pertinax. Much to report. I thought it more tactful to wait until you’d had a go at him. No wish to queer your pitch. So. You first. How did you get on yesterday?”

  Just for a moment, the blue eyes across the desk glowed with the fierce flame of a Bunsen burner and Joe sat back in his seat, fearing a scorching outburst.

  In the disconcerting way he had, Hunnyton gave a softer than expected response. “No danger. It was never my pitch. I didn’t even get as far as the Manor of Mystery. I told my senior officer—the chief constable of the county—of my intentions. We keep each other informed of what we’re planning out here in the sticks in our old-fashioned way.” The reproof was unmistakable. “He was horrified. No way was I to contemplate trampling about Madingley enquiring into the death of a servant of the household. Surely I had better things to do? These things happened. He understood—and perhaps you’ll wonder, as I did, how he caught on so quickly—that all the paperwork was in order. Death certificate duly signed by a reputable medical practitioner who was present at the death. A burst duodenal ulcer, if he remembered rightly. Where was the problem in all this? It was dashed unpleasant and couldn’t have happened more inconveniently for Sir Gregory, who was entertaining a selection of luminaries at the time. A minor royal, two knights and a bishop were all named for me. Straight up. I didn’t need to ask. God-awful party that must have been!”

  “So, are we supposed to think they were the ones being entertained by the ladies—the ones Adelaide heard laughing?”

  “Well, they weren’t there to play chess, though with that lineup they could have stepped their way through a game, I suppose. My mind boggles!”

  “Pertinax was not aware, then, that he’d attracted the attention of the local force in the matter of Mrs. Denton’s death? Ah! I thought he seemed very relaxed. Or perhaps assumes he has blanket protection from the county chief of police? But this is a problem, Hunnyton. You’re implying—no, dash it!—you’re accusing the senior officer of the county of partiality—no, dash it again—of cover-up and possible corruption. Of being in Pertinax’s pocket. Serious stuff, Superintendent! What steps do you propose to take?”

  Hunnyton shrugged his shoulders. “You tell me, mate! You’ve been fighting corruption in the force for years. I can see you’re not exactly surprised to hear we have a sniff of it in Cambridge. I’ve never found myself in this position before. Arnold Baxter (knighthood pending in the New Year’s Honours List) is the highest authority as far as I’m concerned. Where else can I take my complaint? It begins to sound a bit feeble even to my ears when I replay it. Can I risk my career kicking shins, calling foul, tooting whistles? I’d be out on my ear before the end of the day. You know how it works. Everything done by rank.”

  The superintendent got to his feet and walked to the notice board. He took down Joe’s cartoon and handed it to him. “Cheeky bugger! Trenchard and his new assistant commissioner seem to be working well together. Sweetness and harmony at the Met, it would seem. These are your ideas, aren’t they, Joe? Higher standards, education, cleansing of the stables? Well I approve of running a tight ship. But it’s not like that out here in the sticks. Here, no one steps out of line.”

  “Rubbish, man! You must. And I’ll tell you how to do it. You report your chief constable for obstruction in the fulfilment of your duty along with suspicion of conspiracy to divert the course of justice, and you do it on a command from me. You give the information to me, your superior and associate at the Met. I, in turn, judge that there are reasonable grounds for complaint and pass it up to Lord Trenchard who has a word in the ear of our overlord, the home secretary, who consults the foreign secretary and Military Intelligence. They mutter together mentioning the name of Operation Imperator and the need for kid gloves and then the whole nasty business gets kicked back to me. I’m the representative of the Plod with his eyes and ears and feet on the ground and a pair of handcuffs in his back pocket. I’ll tell you—my brief is stark. Comically simple, in fact. It’s to find out what Pertinax is up to and, if I judge his activities to be counter to the interests and well-being of the people of Britain, make sure he disappears. But not before handing MI5 a useful list of his friends and associates. I think we can short-circuit a week’s bureaucratic paper-shuffling and start our list right now. The first name on it will be . . .”

  “Bloody old Baxter!” His chuckle fading, Hunnyton settled back at his desk again and added more soberly, “Sounds good to me, but, Joe . . . Let’s have a care. Let’s play them at their own game. If you start jumping out of the bushes shouting, ‘Gotcher!’ and waving arrest warrants they’ll just retreat, covering their traces and start up again when we’re looking the other way. I recommend we keep it all quiet and wait for a better moment. Relations with the top brass are a bit delicate at the moment.”

  He frowned and, in response to Joe’s raised eyebrow, said carefully, “I’ve had some pretty iffy responses from him lately—just run-of-the-mill requests for permissions and warrants but odd enough to give concern. Whenever possible I avoid consulting him. But I have it in hand. So, please tell me you won’t go hauling old Baxter off his golf course and accusing him of some dire crime.”

  He waited for Joe’s response.

  “Very well. I’ll put it in writing if you wish.” Surprisingly, the offer was not waved away.

  Hunnyton’s next comment showed equal caution. “If I read their mind-set aright, they think they’ve got the measure of me: just a minion. At Baxter’s beck and call.”

  “They? Who are they? Are you in possession of something so useful as a cast list? A roll call of elected members of this vile club?”

  “You know I’m not. He? They? Pertinax and whoever is supporting him. We both know one man can’t run the kind of enterprise we’re contemplating without the usual lieutenants and squads of foot soldiers. He’ll be the capstone on the pyramid. It’s never the emperor himself who pours a dose from a poison bottle. He has hands, feet and trigger fingers at his disposal.”

  “So—they have you stuck on a page in their specimen book with a pin through your middle. Lictor Cantabrigiensis corruptibilis, or some such, I expect you’re labelled,” he said with casual invention and a suspicion that he was slurring his words. “Can you see yourself parading through the streets, bundle of rods and axe over your shoulder, supporting the forces of law and order? But freelancing for a price?”

  “Lictor, would you say? Nothing so grand! I’d have put me a little lower on the public order scale . . . Vigil venalis? Night watchman cum fireman? ‘I’ve got the buckets. I’ll put your fire out, guv, but it’ll cost you. Ten denarii be okay?’ How about that?”

  Joe sensed it again. The irritability and s
corn that ran just below the surface of Hunnyton’s bland civility. A true friend would have taken more lightly the throw-away remark of a slightly drunken colleague and not returned it waspishly, corrected in red ink. Joe knew he could be annoying and decided to avoid provoking the man further until the day came when he was obliged to confront him. With fists? Guns? The full weight of the Law? Joe had no idea but he knew that the day would come.

  “What about me? Do you see me pinned up on the opposite page?” Joe said cheerfully. “I must say—Pertinax gave no indication that he thought I was visiting for anything other than personal and social reasons.”

  “He wouldn’t. But don’t deceive yourself—he’s aware. They’re just waiting to see which way you jump. How much you know. They can’t possibly be certain. Today’s lunch would have been an exploratory affair. Pertinax is clever. He’ll have found out much of what he wants to know about you even though you thought you were eating, drinking and topping his funny stories. If you’re lucky he’ll have decided you don’t fit his collection and he’ll be working on the best way of getting you out of his orbit. Squashing you under his heel? Bribery? A call to a friend in Westminster? But—this Imperator business? Ha, hum! Sounds serious to me.” His twitching moustache, achieving a level of cynical amusement Douglas Fairbanks would have envied, gave the lie to his words. “Oh, a touch Boy’s Own Paper starring Daredevil. But that’s what they’re like, our security services. Or what I suspect they’re like. Can’t say I’ve met many of the high and mighty you bump up against . . . the leaders of the nation you find yourself playing Figaro to. Dashing here, dashing there, whenever they snap their fingers. Perhaps you’ll tell me one day whether you actually do keep a cut-throat razor at the ready in your back pocket.” He gave a mock grimace. “Awfully glad you’re in my corner! Your other ‘Special’ friends, I think, are probably too rough to be allowed to play games with a deuce Cambridge boy like me.” He gave Joe a long, speculative look. “I’m concluding that you shouldn’t have told me all this, Sandilands, and you’ll probably regret it when the effects of the burgundy or whatever it was he plied you with have worn off.”

  “Quite right. Regretting it already. If you weren’t a pre-sworn-in policeman I’d have to make you sign the Official Secrets Act. I may do that anyway. I said our two enquiries might at some point flow together. They have, Hunnyton. You and your Cambridge bobbies are in this up to your necks. I merely went out to lunch with Pertinax today. That’s it. That’s all. Just lunch. We spread our peacock tails, trying to outdo each other, as you’ve guessed. You’d have been nauseated to hear the talk. I asked no intrusive personal questions. He can’t have suspected he was undergoing a covert interrogation because he simply wasn’t! I let him bilk me out of two hundred quid so now he thinks I’m ensnared . . . engaged . . . interested. I certainly find myself invited to join him in various dubious activities. But real detective work was done this day! By one of your force: PC Risby. He went backstage dressed up as my chauffeur and got some valuable information out of the ladies in the kitchen.”

  Hunnyton listened to Joe’s tale, making the occasional note. He whistled in satisfaction, Joe thought, when he mentioned the previous death on the estate. “I don’t need to look that up. Jeremy Newcombe, thirteenth of August,” he said. “I dealt with the case. Death by misadventure. Thought there was something a bit wrong there but, again, it was plausible. Just. And Chief Baxter was tut-tutting and breathing down my neck. We’d had a series of killings of ladies of the night—on Midsummer Common—and that took priority.”

  “Can you remember the details? Of how Jeremy the footman died? Apparently it occurred out in the woods on the estate to the north of the house. And that’s odd in itself. Footmen don’t wander far from home in their buckled kid shoes as a rule.”

  “They do if they’re having it off with a maiden from the village under a Harvest Moon,” Hunnyton explained. “It looked like a clear case of mistaken identity. One of the keepers—there were three of them working as a team—took young Newcombe for a wild boar.”

  “You thought that wasn’t suspicious?” Joe blinked.

  “Funnily enough, when I heard the men’s story it didn’t even cross my mind. Pertinax fancies himself as one of those landlords who is concerned about ancient English breeds. He has deer wandering about all over the place, a few foxhounds, Old Spot Gloucester pigs, Herefordshire cattle, you know the sort of thing. He keeps a home farm so dinky you expect to catch sight of Marie Antoinette wending her way from milking parlour to dairy with a milk yoke across her shoulders. Money down the drain!” The estate steward that Hunnyton had been in earlier days shuddered at the extravagance.

  “He also has some square miles of old oak woodland. What better than to re-stock it with some traditional wild boar to mop up the acorns? He nipped off to northern France and came back with some evil old buggers and let them loose. After a nasty scene when one got out and killed a couple of pet dogs on the green in Dry Drayton—right next to the village school—he was persuaded to put up some stouter fencing and cull the herd. It became a sport for the weekenders. Those guests with strong stomachs. They go off at dawn after the boar with dogs. Finish the beast off with a rifle shot if it’s lucky, knife through the throat if it’s not. They butcher it there and then with the full primitive mumbo jumbo, spray of juniper stuck in its mouth, a prayer in ancient English for its valiant soul recited over its twitching body. They send the liver straight off to the kitchens. It’s then served up in thin slices with brandy and mustard and cream on a chafing dish for breakfast.”

  “Sounds delicious,” Joe said. “Just so long as it wasn’t young Newcombe’s liver they carved out by mistake.”

  Hunnyton grunted. “Damn nearly was! According to their story, a boar had been wounded by a shot the day before and had made off into the woods. Well, you can’t leave an injured creature lurking out there. It might attack a guest. So a team of experts was sent out to finish it off. A few minutes into the woods they saw it. Low shadowy shape grunting and squealing behind a tuffet of thick brambles. They shot at it and ran to check their target. Newcombe was lying dead with his trousers round his ankles and a girl was running away screaming in terror.”

  “Ah. All too plausible.” Joe said. “I can see that. Tell me, Hunnyton, did anyone ever trace the girl and check her story?”

  Hunnyton gave a bitter smile. “I checked the scene myself. Not much to learn. Tidying up had been done. No sign of a girl’s footprints though it had been a dry August so I wasn’t at first suspicious. There was, however, an incontrovertible piece of evidence of a female presence at the scene. A pair of knickers. All the women of the household were accounted for. This was clearly someone from outside the estate. Now what was I supposed to do? Go round the village knocking on doors looking for the owner of the abandoned undergarments?”

  “Like Prince Charming’s equerries? ‘Pardon me, Mrs. Goodbody, but does this item fit any of your daughters, by any chance?’ I can quite see why that would be awkward. I’m sure Adelaide would ask, ‘No helpful label?’”

  “A label. Local Woolworth’s. A hundred pairs sold that year, sixty of them pink as these were. But, Sandilands, there was something odd that didn’t register with me at the time. They still had ironed crease marks in them. There was no sign of wear. No helpful material to be found on the fabric to interest forensics and, in view of the recent presumed activity, one might have expected it. With hindsight I give myself a rap on the knuckles.”

  “Clearly a plant. So we’ll chalk that up as a possible murder. Poor chap. I wonder what his offence was. So dire it called for a bullet.”

  “Three bullets were fired. One from each gun.”

  “So that none of the shooters knew which one of them made the lethal shot?”

  “Right. One lucky shot to the head did it. I dug the two remaining ones out of trees. Had all the rifles examined.”

  “Execution-style killing,
are you implying?”

  “Yes, I’d say so. Though there were no signs of restraint on his arms or legs. Take someone out to the woods and shoot him, away from prying eyes. We’ve seen that often enough in the war but the cover stories were never so elaborate and entertaining, the motives never so complex.”

  “Thinking of labels, Hunnyton . . .”

  “Ah yes! Some luck on that front. Fenwicks was very helpful. They brought to the phone the assistant who’d made the sale. She remembered the dress. Thought how well it suited the woman who bought it. Her description chimes with what Adelaide gave us of Mrs. Denton. Paid for by cheque. Bank, for once, helpful. It hadn’t yet gone out of her account.”

  “Her account? Whose, Hunnyton?”

  “Mrs. Clarice Denton, if you can believe it. All open and above board. Knightsbridge branch of Hampton’s Bank. I’m trying to get a warrant to have a sight of her full account, but in view of the boss’s decision on the case I’m not sure I can.”

  “Leave that to me. I know I can. I’ll get my superintendent at the Yard to oil it out of them.”

  “While we’re tying up ends, here’s another bit of confirmation,” Hunnyton said, reaching for a file on his desk. “Remember the bottles of fluid Adelaide managed to bring away with her from Madingley? Just as she diagnosed. The lab confirms: arsenic. Useless to us as evidence, of course. I had to tell them to dispose of the stuff. The telephone call the butler made to the hospital seeking help—a pretence. No calls are on record. No accidents on the Huntingdon Road. So we know we’re looking at murder, but an unprovable murder. What steps would the Met like me to take?” His smile was bland, unreadable.

  “None. For the moment. Mrs. Clarice Denton’s body has been cremated. The servants, I was told, were holding a wake or some such ceremony to mark her passing as I was sipping coffee on the terrace with his lordship. You can officially let it go. I’ll give written confirmation of that—I know you like to keep a clean sheet. But—I have no intention of laying Mrs. Denton to rest until I understand her story and know why she died. Her killer will answer to me.”