Death in Leamington (19 page)

‘Yes, in Malvern with about a hundred other people. Mind you, I suppose it wouldn’t be that hard finding hit men to do us a favour in that town,’ she laughed to try and defuse the formality of the situation. ‘There’s a lot of that sort of stuff goes on in Malvern, you know. A girl can get a Malvern man to do almost anything for a show of leg.’

‘OK, OK I get the message,’ he was silent for a moment, considering further what to ask her next.

‘So did you find out anything more about those men with the knife?’ she asked him, breaking the silence.

‘We’re still pursuing those enquiries,’ he replied without giving anything away, thoughtfully shaking his head. ‘Had you seen them or any other strangers hanging around the house at all recently, anything suspicious?’ She shook her head.

‘And did you know this Mr Nariman, at all?’

‘No, I did not know him at all; in fact I didn’t know that he was staying there. Of course I suppose it would have been more than a bit embarrassing for my father to have to introduce us, you understand, with us living next door, skeletons in the cupboard so to speak.’

‘Yes I can see the difficulty. There’s one last thing I need to ask. When I went to use the bathroom just now I noticed that one of your mother’s rifles was missing from the guncase on the landing.’

‘Really?’ she paused. ‘Well yes, she probably did take a hunting rifle with her. They had a few days at a Scottish castle that her friend owns before flying to the Med.’

‘OK, it’s just that we haven’t found the murder weapon yet and we have to look at all possibilities.’

‘Oh my God? How exciting, mother’s ancient rifle is an assassin’s weapon of choice. Will we be having one of those group sessions in the breakfast room, you know where everything is finally revealed and we find out that the butler did it and which murder weapon he used?’

*

As Hunter left Lady Mary’s house, he saw Eddie, Alice and Carrie coming up the steps from their flat with their bicycles. Alice and Carrie were both wearing pretty pinafore-style dresses and Eddie had made the effort to dress up in imitation of an Edwardian gentleman.

‘We’re going on a Snark hunt, beyond the ocean right to the source of the river, Mr Hunter!’ said Carrie in her best-behaved, prim and proper voice. ‘Do you want to come with us?’

‘Carrie, you shouldn’t bother the inspector, he’s very busy,’ warned Alice.

‘Well, do you at least know what a Snark looks like?’ asked Carrie, ignoring her mother’s warnings. ‘Daddy won’t let on at all.’

‘Well, Miss Carice, I have to admit I’ve never actually met one. I tend to deal only in sharks and alligators round here, and I’m certainly up to my neck in them. But from what I’ve heard they are all meagre and hollow and crisp to taste, with a habit of rising late and taking breakfast during five o’clock tea!’

Carrie giggled, clapping her hands in delight. ‘More!’

‘Well I have also heard that they have a fondness for bathing machines as well as an inordinate amount of ambition. So I wish you well in your hunting, young lady, your expedition sounds quite delightful. Let me know if you find any, so that maybe I can join in with you the next time. Have fun, but beware of the Bandersnatch!’

‘Dad, what’s a Bandersnatch?’ asked Carrie, excited to hear about this new danger.

‘It’s just a fig-mint,’ said Eddie, amused at seeing the softer side of Hunter for once. He wondered what had brought this on. ‘Nothing to worry about, come on now you two or we’ll all be late!’

*

Eddie led off on his old Sunbeam and they cycled down the road toward the riverside park. When they reached the boat centre they couldn’t agree at first on whether to hire kayaks or one of the traditional rowing skiffs. Eddie said that the kayaks would be just the thing for hunting Snarks in the reed beds, but Alice persuaded him that the skiff might be just a little more appropriate for two ladies dressed up in their Sunday best.

They hired the skiff for two hours and progressed up the river slowly, zigzagging back and forth, skirting the banks, looking up every creek, skimming through the dangling willow branches. Alice had made a vegetarian picnic, which they munched on happily, whilst Eddie rowed and Carrie dangled her fingers in the wake behind the boat. When Carrie was distracted feeding the ducks, Eddie bent over and planted a kiss on Alice’s lips.

‘You look beautiful in that dress,’ he said.

*

Two compliments in a day
, she was beginning to feel spoiled by Eddie’s attention. She stared at his face, searching for confirmation of the sincerity of his intentions. She was suddenly feeling very happy again. Despite all his flaws, there was no denying that Eddie was both a darling and beautiful. But her need for love was more than physical; it was about an amalgamation with another person’s thoughts and behaviours. And in Carrie they had certainly also given the world something new and wonderful: a legacy.

At birth, a child receives its genes from its parents but more importantly as it is growing up it develops something of each parent’s personality, good or bad. Lately she had begun to feel the anxiety of age as she approached forty. Despite all her achievements, was she really happy? Sometimes she just wanted the world to slow down so that they could enjoy the moment, like today, like there and now in that boat on that river, with her beloved husband and her beautiful daughter, in the calm and the peacefulness. It was a picture of love, not romantic love, but something much deeper, agape love, a love of being. These were mixed up thoughts but ones that made her feel glad to be alive. She felt ever so fortunate to have both of them to herself for once, after all their free time was so limited.

Strangely, the memory of her teenage sweetheart, Sebastian, came back into her mind for the second time that weekend. They used to walk along this riverbank together as teenagers, holding hands, telling each other stories about the mundane things of life as well as their dreams. Now that had been romantic love, innocent love, intense with the first flush of passion and discovery. She had taken a long time to recover from his death, cried for weeks in private and sometimes in public. She still had a frozen image of him in her mind that would never grow up, forever nineteen. In contrast, her image of Eddie had evolved and constantly changed, so that she could not quite remember what he looked like when they had first met but the intricacies of their relationship continued to grow. She realised her memory of Sebastian was an idealised sort of love, a sweetheart, a teenage crush, not the realism of real life. If he were still alive, there was a chance that they would not have gotten on at all anymore. And if they’d married, they would more than likely have split up by now.

She thought how strange it would be to meet him again, not just an old flame, but one preserved now in aspic. What would they have to talk about? Old friends, places they had been, but all without a point, without any consequence or outcome or possible future. It probably would not be that long a conversation, unlike those with his sisters with whom she could quite happily talk for hours. She looked across again at Eddie, now concentrating hard, looking over his shoulder as they rounded a little island in the river. Yes, although imperfect he was real and worth the effort. She hadn’t chosen so badly.

*

Suddenly there was a shout and a whelp and a bark and a splash. Carrie spotted the diving board in the reed banks.

‘Look, a real bathing machine.’ she shouted. ‘We must be close!’

They rounded the corner and spotted a man and a dog in the river, paddling furiously toward the bank.

‘It’s Jack and Dan,’ shouted Eddie laughing at the spectacle.

‘Mummy, why is Uncle Jack swimming without any costume on?’

‘Don’t look, Carrie,’ said Alice, realising that he really was naked. She covered Carrie’s eyes with her hands. ‘Brrr, it must be freezing, silly man.’

Jack pulled himself onto the riverbank, trying desperately to reach his clothing before the ladies looked round again. Dan was pulling at his trousers with his teeth, making it more difficult for him to get dressed, so that he fell into the rushes with a roar.

‘Have you seen a Snark?’ called Carrie from the boat, almost splitting her sides with laughter at Mad Jack’s antics and the sight of his bare bottom in the reeds.

‘Not as far as I can tell,’ he replied reluctantly.

*

Back in the office, I was showing Hunter the various coded messages I had received that morning. I was somewhat annoyed that he’d been to see Julia by himself.

‘You’re right, it’s a code of some sort,’ said Hunter decisively when he showed up just before eleven.
No kidding, Sherlock
I thought. ‘Probably just a simple substitution code, it shouldn’t be too difficult to crack, but there’s not enough material here for a decent frequency analysis, we need something longer or a key to decode it,’ he added.

‘My cousin works at Codehunters in Banbury, he’s been working on their
Hobbits of the Shire
online game. I wondered if he could help. He’s into all that sort of stuff, elf language and things. I hope you don’t mind, Sir?’

‘Go on,’ he said, cautiously.

‘He thinks the flags might denote the end of each word, but like you he said he can’t get to specific letters from the amount of material we have.’

‘
Well it’s strictly against procedure, but nevertheless quite a good idea,’ said Hunter. ‘Who is this Troyte that the emails came from anyway? Is he the friend of Nariman from the station by any chance?’
Damn
, I realised that I had still overlooked assigning one of the team to track him down, despite Hunter’s exhortations yesterday.

‘Sorry Sir, I still haven’t had the chance to follow up on that one yet, but yes it could be. He lives in Michigan according to his email address. Isn’t Pearl Taylor from there too?’

‘Troyte, Detroit, De-Troyte, I wonder,’ he said, the cogs in his brain almost visibly whirring. ‘We’d better find him as quickly as we can,’ he added.

*

After making some basic enquiries I found out that there was no one called Troyte staying in any of the local hotels, but that there was a Mr Troyte who was scheduled to speak that day at an architect’s symposium at the Compton Verney gallery. I contacted them immediately and they gave me some more details. The man was already there and was about to start his lecture. Given Hunter’s instructions, I considered asking one of the local rural PCs to go along to see if there is anything unusual to report, but decided against it. Sitting through a talk on architecture probably wouldn’t go down very well with the local uniformed lads. Instead I gave strict instructions to the gallery receptionist to let me know as soon as he had finished his talk so that I could speak with him on the phone, a decision I would later bitterly regret.

*

In the gallery’s imposing Adam Hall, Arthur Troyte stood up to make his presentation to the assembled US-UK architects’ convention. He was conscious that the attention of the whole room was upon him. He was not used to such events, and had only accepted the invitation at the insistence of his old friend. The venue had slightly overawed him, a beautiful eighteenth century Georgian mansion set in Capability Brown parkland, deep in the Warwickshire countryside. It had been the home first of the Verney and then the Willoughby de Broke family for almost 500 years but had fallen into ruin during the last century. It had recently been transformed from a derelict mansion into a gallery of international standing. He had still not heard any news from his friend and half-expected to see him when he arrived at the venue. Without his support, this lecture seemed like a big mistake.

Troyte was feeling more and more troubled by the soreness he felt below his groin and hoped he had not caught a dose of anything, given his total memory loss from the day before. He wondered if he should have cancelled the talk altogether, but the organisers had sent round a car to collect him and he had scrambled to get ready in time when the driver rang the doorbell that morning. The driver told him about the terrible murder the day before, that spurred all the police activity Troyte had heard, but of course without a name he had not made the connection to his friend.

He took a deep breath and clicked the button to bring up the first slide of his PowerPoint presentation. His chosen theme was the architecture of Eliel and Eero Saarinen and their influence on city planning in the Midwest – the first couple of slides seemed to go fine and he felt himself relaxing into the task, even beginning to enjoy himself a little, with a little joke or two. The bit where he began to explain how as a young student he had persuaded the great Eero Saarinen to reinstate Jorn Utzon’s designs for the Sydney Opera House was probably a little bit of a stretch.

‘You must remember they did not know him as I did,’ he said, but why not boast – as Barnum (never) said, ‘There’s a sucker born every minute’.

He became a little more concerned however, when the polite mirth at his little jokes began to turn first into an awkward silence, followed by ominous mumblings. By the end of his sixth slide, ripples of laughter moved throughout the crowded room. Arthur put down his paper notes and reading glasses and turned to look at the projector screen. Instead of his carefully prepared slides, the screen was now full of several near-naked dancing girls, performing what could only be described as physically challenging activities on the screen behind him. In addition, the carefully worked words of his script were spinning and reforming randomly into a whole series of increasingly profane words. At the bottom of the screen, large plump ‘stick men’ in the shape of red letter ‘A’s, were bouncing up and down, some waving flags while they danced. This was followed by slides showing two middle-aged men photographed in increasingly compromising positions. As Troyte recognised his image on the screen his heart began to race and his mind searched for some logical explanation for the inexplicable images before him. The terrifying effect on Troyte was so absolute that his face lost all colour and he began to feel the onset of pains in his chest, collapsing on the floor, gasping for breath.