02 Blue Murder (2 page)

“
I see.” Opening a desk
drawer, Hetheridge tucked the jewel box away with what he hoped was
seamless nonchalance. “No fault of yours, Mrs. Snell. Thank
you.”

Mrs. Snell’s eyes, huge behind her thick
magnifying lenses, showed too much white as she turned to Bhar,
vibrating disapproval. He gazed back innocently. Defeated by
Hetheridge’s dismissal and Bhar’s Teflon charm, Mrs. Snell exited
with stiff dignity, closing the door behind her.

“
So.” Bhar was still
beaming. “Alone in his office at half-eight. Lord
Hetheridge.”

At New Scotland Yard Hetheridge loathed the
use of his hereditary title, where it was only invoked as a form of
reverse snobbery. Still, he didn’t bother correcting Bhar. He knew
the detective sergeant didn’t call him “Lord Hetheridge” to provoke
him. On the contrary, Bhar committed most of his verbal sins for
the same reason a small boy, warned not to swear, shouts curses at
his schoolmates—for the simple thrill of transgressing.

“
Just clearing up.”
Hetheridge indicated his almost bare desk. “Answering emails and
finishing reports. Why did you burst in?”

“
Hoping to catch you asleep
at your desk.”

“
I do not sleep in this
office.” Hetheridge had made a career out of interviewing liars.
And made a surprisingly good liar himself, when it suited him. More
than once it had occurred to Hetheridge that if not for the triple
accident of birth, breeding and ethical indoctrination, he might
have climbed to the very top of the corporate crime ladder. God
knew a position of authority within New Scotland Yard required a
flexible interpretation of right and wrong, not to mention the
truth.

“
So you say. But I’ll keep
an eye out all the same.” Bhar dropped into one of the chairs
positioned opposite Hetheridge’s desk. “And what was in that silver
box? The one you stashed when you thought I wasn’t
looking?”

Hetheridge affected not to understand.

“
Won’t come clean? Fine,
I’ll guess. Snuff box? Pillbox? Face powder?” Bhar grinned. “No?
I’ve got it. It’s an engagement ring. You’re making an honest woman
of Mrs. Snell at last!”

Hetheridge studied Bhar. He’d served as the
junior officer’s guv for almost five years. At their first meeting,
Bhar was an absurdly confident, mouthy nerd, afflicted with
overlong hair, cheap suits and a weakness for beautiful, heartless
females. Now he’d matured into a justifiably confident, mouthy
detective with impeccable hair, well-tailored suits and a weakness
for beautiful, heartless females. He could still do with some
evolution, but on balance he’d changed for the better.

Can I say the same?
Hetheridge wondered.
Or
did turning sixty turn me soft?

Opening his desk drawer, Hetheridge withdrew
the jewel box. Bhar’s expression changed from joking to carefully
neutral. The man might be a habitual clown, but he was no fool.
Hetheridge didn’t open the box. When Bhar finally dared put out a
hand, Hetheridge nodded.

Bhar withdrew the antique ring from its
velvet lining. Turning it this way and that, he smiled as the
diamond and twin sapphires sparkled. “Talk about posh. When will
you ask her?”

“
Tomorrow. Or next year. Or
never.”

“
It’s a big step. I didn’t
reckon things were moving so fast.” Bhar returned the ring to its
jewel box. “Has Kate even cracked the seal on the
crypt?”

Hetheridge sat up ramrod-straight. “Is that
your way of asking if she’s spent the night with me?”

“
No!” Bhar
looked horrified. Then before he could stop himself, he emitted a
high-pitched cackle. “I
meant
, have you taken Kate to see
your family estate in Devon. Maybe it wasn’t the clearest reference
to a cobwebby old ancestral manse,” he gasped, beginning to choke
on his own laughter, “but for you to assume … assume …” He broke
off, eyes closed, shaking with mirth.

Hetheridge could do nothing but wait the
younger man out. Fortunately, he wasn’t the sort to turn pink from
embarrassment. The heat creeping up his throat was surely due to an
overstarched collar—courtesy of his old-fashioned manservant,
Harvey—not physiologic proof of internal discomfort.

“
Besides your stated
ambition to catch me sleeping rather than working,” Hetheridge
ground out as Bhar’s laughter subsided, “have you some other reason
for disturbing my peace?”

“
Murder.” Bhar’s eyes shone.
“Assuming we still handle that sort of thing, in between love
connections?”

Chapter Two

T
he
police constables charged with securing the scene at 14 Burnaby
Street, Chelsea, had performed their duties heroically, given the
challenges the townhouse contained. Those included fourteen male
university students, most intoxicated and two unable to stop
vomiting. Even less composed had been the sixteen females—crying,
texting, Tweeting and calling for Mum. Almost two hours later, most
of them still looked like first-week prossies, hair mussed and
mascara bleeding as they shivered in the late October
chill.

“
They must be freezing to
death out here,” Hetheridge told Bhar as two uniformed officers
dragged aside the plastic crime scene barriers to let their
vehicle—Hetheridge’s silver Lexus SC 430—through. “When did
Halloween costumes for young women become nothing but
lingerie?”

“
Right around the time
Halloween became my favorite holiday.” Bhar smiled at the line of
young women dressed in what appeared to be all of Victoria’s
secrets, including red satin teddies, black garter belts and
stiletto heels. “And I’ll have you know those girls are wearing
more than just lingerie. That one’s got devil horns. And that one?
Cat ears, see, and look at her bum! A cat’s tail. Proper costumes,
thank you very much.”

Hetheridge studied the males, dressed in
T-shirts, hoodies, jeans and trainers. One had a rubber gorilla
mask tucked beneath his arm; that was the most the male contingent
had done to mark the occasion. How had the younger female
generation let it come to this? The males milled about as slouchy
and shoddy as ever, whilst the young women tarted themselves up in
heavy makeup, camisoles and tap pants? Shouldn’t the females at
least demand a commensurate amount of nudity? A bit of beefcake to
balance the cleavage and bare thighs?

If I had a
daughter
, Hetheridge thought out of long
habit, then stopped. As a matter of fact, he did have a daughter,
courtesy of a long-ago liaison. Hetheridge and Jules Comfrey,
having met only four weeks ago, were still struggling to come to
terms with each another. And whether he liked to admit it or not,
Jules was undoubtedly the sort of girl who would attend a Halloween
party stark naked if she thought it might attract the right young
man. Thus, self-righteous thoughts about imaginary daughters now
went directly into the mental rubbish bin. Hetheridge had a real
daughter, and her behavior was no better than this crowd of
miserable, half-dressed girls.

“
Moving on,” Bhar sighed,
tearing his eyes away from the lingerie-costumed females to consult
his iPhone. “The officer in charge of the scene emailed me the
stats. First victim, Clive French. Twenty years old, Caucasian.
Resident of London, enrolled at University College. Second victim,
Trevor Parsons. Caucasian, twenty-two years old. Resident of
Manchester but enrolled at University College. Each vic was killed
by—” Bhar broke off, glancing at Hetheridge. “It’s true. An axe to
the head.” He snorted. “Talk about a Halloween bash.”

“
Please refrain from saying
that to the victims’ families.”

Bhar scrolled farther down the report.
“Thirty-nine party guests have been detained, including the
hostess, Emmeline Wardle. Her parents own the house.” Bhar pointed
at 14 Burnaby Street, three stories tall and black-shuttered,
before continuing. “Two males and three females did a runner and
were brought back. Detained just there.” Bhar indicated a small,
miserable group corralled by two women PCs. “One male was arrested
for attempting to flush his cocaine down the karzie. Another
snorted it all in one big line and was rushed to hospital. Expected
to live,” Bhar added with a shrug.

“
I presume all mobiles were
confiscated,” Hetheridge said. CCTV cameras were a boon to
modern-day police work, but mobile phones, with their cameras and
video recorders, were an ever-increasing detriment. It was devilish
hard to secure a scene when the myriad players—witnesses,
bystanders, perhaps even the murderer—could send unexpurgated bits
of the investigation out into cyberspace.

“
Mobiles collected,” Bhar
said. “It’s estimated no more than fifty calls went out. Efforts to
trace those calls will begin on the next business day.”

Hetheridge sighed. The next
business day was forty-eight hours in the future. And suppose even
one of those calls had been placed to the
Sun
or the
Daily Mirror
? In Hetheridge’s youth,
newspapers had felt a certain responsibility to Scotland Yard,
printing only details preapproved by the commissioner. But for
modern editors, nothing mattered but sales, circulation and the
worldwide scoop. If one of Emmeline Wardle’s guests sold the case’s
salient details to a tabloid, New Scotland Yard would soon be
flooded with pseudo-confessions from all the usual psychotics and
fame-seekers. Without a few key facts held back—details only the
actual killer could verify—it might take months to separate the
phony murderers from the real culprit.

Hetheridge eased his Lexus forward as
another police barrier was dragged aside. “What more do we have on
the victims?” he asked, but Bhar’s attention was elsewhere.

“
Will you look at that?
Typical.”

Glancing the way Bhar indicated, Hetheridge
saw a handful of dark-suited individuals, mostly male, kept at bay
by blue and white crime tape and two uniformed PCs. One was
shouting at a constable, stabbing his finger just centimeters from
her tight-lipped, impassive face. Others vented into their
handhelds, texting or phoning with furious intensity.

“
Family solicitors, I’ll
warrant,” Hetheridge said.

“
Arrived double-quick,
didn’t they? Don’t know why I’m surprised. This is Chelsea, innit?”
When irritated, Bhar sometimes forgot his adopted manner of
speaking—the Received Pronunciation favored by newsreaders and
actors. In those moments he fell back on the cadence of
Clerkenwell, where he’d been born. “Naturally the family lawyers
rush in to comfort the kiddies long before their blood relations
turn up.”

“
I’ll not say you’re wrong.”
Easing his vehicle into the narrow space between two panda cars,
Hetheridge ignored the police captain attempting to direct him with
exaggerated hand motions. “Just keep your opinions between your
ears and off your face. These people are accustomed to having every
social entity in their corner. If they sense disapproval from you,
they’ll turn to stone before you can cough up the first
apology.”

“
I know, guv. And I’m
ready.” Bhar produced his old-fashioned leather-bound notebook.
Flipping back the cover, he turned it so Hetheridge could read the
block-printed words inside.

DO NOT SCARE THE WHITE PEOPLE

“
Let the wrong pair of eyes
see that and you’ll be on report for racism.” Hetheridge was only
half-kidding. Generally speaking, he approved of the Met’s recent
efforts to change its deep-seated culture. But as a Caucasian male
of a certain age, he also knew the worst offenders had thus far
evaded detection. Outspoken jokesters like Bhar, on the other hand,
were frequently hauled in for sensitivity training.

“
Oh, it’s a goal of mine to
be branded an official racist,” Bhar snorted. “Just as yours seems
to be to grow more eccentric with every passing year. You do fancy
your uphill battles, don’t you, guv?”

Hetheridge raised an eyebrow.

“
C’mon. You had newly
promoted detectives queuing up to join your team. Most of them
white, male and highly recommended. Yet you chose me. And the
moment I show my mug at a crime scene,” Bhar grinned, “half the
posh types you’re meant to pacify get their backs up. I’m
detrimental to soothing the gentry, and that’s precisely what
Assistant Commissioner Deaver expects you to do. Appease the titled
and influential.”

“
Indeed. Though I daresay he
wouldn’t object if I occasionally saw justice done.” Opening his
car door, Hetheridge emerged into the cool, windy night. The scent
of wood smoke was overpowering, but not unpleasant. Someone on
Burnaby Street had recently enjoyed an autumn bonfire.

“
Good evening,” Hetheridge
called to the uniformed PC who’d sought to oversee his parking.
“Hetheridge here. Chief superintendent. You’re Kincaid, are you
not? Jolly good. Put me in the picture, won’t you?”

“
Double murder, sir,” the
constable said, removing his cap like a Victorian schoolboy called
to account. “Bloody mess of a scene, if you’ll excuse my saying so.
Mass hysterics amongst the guests. You’ll have your work cut out,
making sense of what that lot tells you.”

Nodding, Hetheridge started toward the
Georgian townhouse, DS Bhar on his right and PC Kincaid following
on his left. “The hostess’s name is Wardle, you say?”

“
Ms. Emmeline Wardle,”
Kincaid said. “Her father owns the house. Rupert Wardle. You may
have heard of him, sir. Made his fortune in frozen foods, he
did.”