A Murder in Mayfair (11 page)

“No. The idea hadn't crossed my mind.”

“Because I think it's quite certain that he killed my mother. Nothing I've ever heard has suggested that there's any doubt about that whatsoever. Nothing.”

“I'm interested in myself only,” I said, “proving where I come from. I just want to talk to people who might help me. Your sister, for example.”

He waved his hand dismissively.

“Oh, Caroline comes and goes a lot. She's a fashion buyer, often out of the country. If she's ever stationary long enough to see you I'll let you know. But Caroline doesn't know anything that I don't know.”

“The housekeeper too—I'd like to talk to her.”

“Mrs. Gould. Mrs. Selena Gould.”

“You remember her?”

“Just the name. Nothing at all about her. She didn't figure much in our lives, I suppose.”

“I'm wondering about the American who did the color supplement piece on the case—wondering if he had any information that he didn't use, or which was cut by a subeditor.”

Matthew nodded. He knew about all the coverage.

“Elmore Hasselbank. We didn't cooperate, of course.”

“Naturally.”

“But he did a very thorough job. He had several of these razor-sharp researchers behind him.”

“Interesting. Maybe that's what I need.” We were interrupted by the sound of a large estate car drawing up at the back of the house. “I'd better go.”

“No—don't scuttle away. At least stay and say hello to the children and Janet.”

There wasn't much option anyway. In a matter of seconds three big and boisterous children, ranging from about nine to fourteen in age, had burst in and taken over the room, shouting things like “Daddy, it was absolutely awful!” “Daddy, that was the
worst
film I've ever seen” and “They wouldn't even show that film on Channel Five,” and so on. They were followed by a substantial lady, big-boned and getting plump, with a tolerant smile.

“Well, our children may not be the brightest in the world but at least they seem to be developing a critical sense. Oh!—”

She had caught sight of me. I think she wanted to look back inquiringly at her husband but was too polite to. Instead she came over and shook hands.

“Hello. We haven't met.”

“Colin Pinnock.”

“I rather thought so. I am glad you and Matthew have made contact. I think in his heart he wanted that. You will stay to dinner, won't you? We eat early because of the children.”

And stay to dinner I did, had a very happy time at the heart of a family, got to know the children and their mother, and felt safe and settled—more so than I had in years. The children, much to my surprise, noticed no resemblance between their father and me: he was Dad—known, accepted, loved, hardly noticed. I was someone else. Janet Martindale on the other hand was fascinated, looked surreptitiously from one of us to the other, as if making an inventory of similarities and differences, then smiling in embarrassment and forcing herself to look away. The dinner was splendid: pork chops with taste, vegetables with taste. I suspected part at least of the Hadleigh Grange estate was farmed organically. We talked about me, my upbringing, my work, the political situation. Nothing of interest came up about my particular preoccupation until the children had noisily got up and gone out to visit their friends in the village. Then Matthew said:

“You know, I've remembered a scrap of information about Lucy.”

“Oh?”

“I told you Caroline used to say Lucy wasn't really interested in us. What she often said after the murder was: ‘She was only interested in her professors.'”

“Her professors? Who on earth were they?”

“I think Lucy was only filling in with us before doing more work at university. What do they call it—postgraduate research, is it? Caroline used to say she never had any friends round to visit her in Upper Brook Street—no fellow Australians in Britain, no other young people. When she talked about herself
what she mainly went on about was ‘her professors,' and the work she was going to do with them.”

“I see,” I said carefully. “Do you think this is relevant?”

“Probably not. But if she didn't have any friends much here, wasn't too bothered about making any, and wasn't in with any expatriate Aussie set of people of her own age, then I did wonder what she did when she was forced to stay on here, without a job—she wouldn't have found it easy to get one, after what had happened—without money probably. It seemed to me possible that the people she might have turned to for help might have been ‘her professors.'”

I
am beginning to understand how people in Eastern Europe felt, in the days before glasnost, about the knock on the door in the middle of the night.

I am being neurotic. Actually it was about half past nine, because I'd just watched the BBC news. By now all the politicians were returning from their summer vacations and we were entering the run-up to title autumn party conference season. Politics was rearing its ugly but unavoidable head once more. And the conference season has become over the last few years the time when the newspaper moguls delight in embarrassing politicians—not, as a rule, about their politics, but about their private lives.

I jumped when the knock came. I was rereading
Great Expectations
and had got to the return of Magwitch. I would not have been surprised by the telephone ringing, because it had rung all the time since I became an MP, but I
was
surprised that anyone should call on me in person at that hour. I left the door on its chain and peered through the crack.

The man in the corridor outside was in plain clothes, but everything about him shouted policeman. He was approaching fifty, heavily built, with cold eyes and a set mouth. There is a particular sort of policeman—a small but appreciable minority—
who entered the force because they have rigid certainties, over tidy minds, and an idea that they have the right to force other people into a mold of their making. Over the years their blinkered confidence in themselves makes them cut corners, and subsequently in some cases slide toward the absolutely illegal. This one was tightly encased in a brown suit with a nondescript tie and brightly polished shoes. In the background, shadowed by the dim lighting in the corridor, was another, younger man. Nothing particular about him shouted policeman, but everything shouted stooge.

They flashed their cards at me in a way that was menacing rather than reassuring.

“Mr. Colin Pinnock? I'm DI Rawson and this is DC Miller. Could we come in?”

“Please” would clearly have been a sign of weakness. My stomach churned over in anticipation. This was the next stage.

“Please do. Come through.” My voice played no tricks because I consciously forced it not to. I was becoming experienced.

I unhooked the chain and opened the door wide. They both wiped their shoes on the mat, and then I led them through into the bright light, in which they looked no more comforting than in the dimness. I waved them to the sofa. DI Rawson sat with his knees neatly together, then took out a notebook and spoke by rote.

“Mr. Pinnock, we have reason to believe, based on information received—”

“From whom?”

“That need not concern you, sir. Based on information received, that you may have in your possession a collection of pornographic material of an illegal nature. Our information—”

“Your informant, did she tell you that I was a government minister?” I asked, trying not to sound pompous or bullying.

“As I said before, the source of the information is immaterial. We are aware that you are a member of the present government, and we are anxious to keep this whole thing low-key.”

I refrained with an effort from shifting uneasily in my chair. His tone belied his words. He said “the present government” in a way that announced that he wasn't one of those who thought New Labor betokened a new heaven and a new earth. And his stated anxiety to keep things low-key contained an undercurrent of threat that he could raise the key at the first opportunity.

“So you have no search warrant, but you'd like to go through my flat with my consent?” I hazarded.

“Well, sir, that would—”

“And do you know what, Inspector?” He was beginning to lose his bully's confidence, and said nothing. “I'd be willing to bet that you find something. I don't know where it will be, or what it will consist of, but I'd bet you'll find something.”

“You're not suggesting we've planted something, I hope?”

Guilty conscience that, I thought. Planting evidence was a horticultural activity he was not unused to.

“No, I'm not. But I am suggesting someone has.”

“Would you mind explaining yourself, sir?”

“Willingly.” I felt I was beginning to get on top of him. “I've already informed the House of Commons police that I believe I'm becoming the victim of some kind of campaign. A campaign of persecution designed at the very least to bring me ridicule, unfavorable publicity, maybe bring about my resignation. Goods have been planted on me so that I was suspected of shoplifting. Postcards have been sent with certain . . . insinuations.”

His expression was dubious, and he seemed to regain confidence.

“I see, sir. Is that all?”

“Obviously not, since you are here on this wild-goose chase.”

His skepticism mirrored that of the Commons policemen.

“You do realize that your story to the police at Westminster could be something in the nature of a preemptive strike, don't you, sir? I'm implying nothing, merely suggesting a possibility. You could have a collection of pornography, you could have the itch to shoplift—all sorts of people do—and you want to get this story, this pretty cock-and-bull story, in first, to protect yourself.”

And of course, from a policeman's point of view, he was right. Still, for someone who was merely suggesting a possibility, his mind seemed pretty made up.

“You seem to have come to your own conclusions already, Inspector,” I said sweetly. “When you've found this collection of pornography I'd like you—or your constable here, who may have a more open mind—to examine my front door for signs of illegal entry. Now I suggest you go about your business.”

Inspector Rawson didn't seem to like my telling him what to do, but he got up and his stooge followed his lead. Then they looked around them. Rawson made for the sideboard and began rummaging, but Miller seemed more uncertain.

“I suggest you try the guest bedroom,” I said, gesturing. “It's a room I hardly ever go into.”

It was a lucky guess. Within a couple of minutes Miller was shouting to his superior. I went along and stood in the doorway. The constable had yanked a large and ragged envelope from the top of the wardrobe and was laying it on the unmade bed. A collection of glossy magazines was spilling out of it. Rawson went over, his compact body showing every sign of excitement, and he began going through the assorted items, flicking through them and laying them out on the bed. I went over.

“A pretty miscellaneous lot,” I commented. “I seem to have varied tastes.”

And that was a truth he could not deny. From the covers
alone it was clear that there was straight porn, gay porn, pedophilic porn, porn for leather fetishists, and so on. Some of the magazines were crumpled and grubby, as if retrieved from litter bins on the streets. The covers suggested that as porn most of the magazines were at the soft end of the spectrum, and as Rawson flicked through them his obvious disappointment told me the covers didn't lie. He was changing gear, and was now intent on damage limitation.

“Well, Inspector?” I said.

Rawson went round the bed and had a whispered conversation with Miller—or rather told him what he had decided. He turned back to me, his face a mask.

“I don't think we need to trouble you further, sir,” he said.

“But
I
need to trouble
you
,” I insisted. “I would like these magazines tested for fingerprints.”

“That won't be necessary, sir. And it wouldn't prove anything.”

“It will prove that, if I've had any contact with them at all, I will have been wearing gloves. I think any court or any further investigation of me concerning other matters will find that pretty hard to imagine. It might also show who planted them here. Do you have the fingerprints of your informant? Can you get them? I want my door investigated, as I've suggested, and I demand to know the name of the person who lodged this information against me.”

Well, we argued it back and forth. Rawson conceded the door, and Miller was dispatched to look at it, coming back to agree that there were scratches that could suggest illegal entry. That led Rawson to concede the fingerprinting, and we all went down to the Pimlico station where I obligingly stuck my hand on the black pad. On the final point Rawson would concede not an inch: it was against all procedures to tell me the name of the false informant. Realizing that in this he was telling the truth, I had to give way.

Later, back in my flat with a celebratory drink, and flicking through the Yellow Pages to find someone who could change the lock on my door, I had a feeling of euphoria, almost of triumph: I had bested the inspector, whom I thought of as well over toward the fascist pig end of the police spectrum. And in the process I had also had the better of “her”—whoever she was. The police wouldn't be in a hurry to act on her information in future.

I phoned a twenty-four-hour locksmith service and arranged for someone to come early next morning. I put a dining chair up against the door and piled it with silver and cutlery: if anyone tried it again I wanted to be woken up. Then I had another drink, going over the details of my duel with the inspector with a view to profiting from my experience in future encounters. I went to bed feeling pretty good.