Embarrassment of Corpses, An (17 page)

“As soon as we get the court records, we'll be able to draw up a list of suspects. Right now, I want to get what remains of that jury into protective custody as soon as I can. Do you have Dworkin's address? Ollie?”

But Oliver wasn't listening. His features had assumed a configuration rather similar to those of the recently departed waiter, like a startled haddock.

“I think I may be able to get the names of the jurors more quickly,” he said slowly.

“How?”

“Harry Random kept notes on everything that happened to him during his life. He had the most extensive personal filing system—I know, I was looking through it earlier this week. I'm sure I saw a file marked ‘jury duty.' It would be like him to have recorded everyone's name, age, appearance—who knows, even their birth signs!”

Mallard produced his wallet and plucked out five twenty-pound notes. “Look, I have to go to the Yard. Take a cab and get out to Barnes as quickly as you can. And you'd better hope the newly domesticated Lorina hasn't thrown away those files. I'll send over a car to bring you back. Call me as soon as you get the names.”

***

Half an hour later, Oliver was hammering on the door of the Random home in Barnes. After a long wait, a window opened above the front door. Oliver could just make out the silhouette of a head.

“Who is it?” called a woman's voice sternly.

“Lorina? It's me, Oliver.”

“Oliver?” There was a pause, then a chuckle. “This is so sudden. Are we eloping?”

“Look, I'm sorry to disturb you so late,” he hissed, “but I need to see your father's files. Very urgently.”

“Well, you certainly know how to sweep a girl off her feet, my Romeo,” Lorina said. “I'll be right down.”

A minute later, a light came on in the entrance hall and Lorina opened the front door, clutching Satan, the cat, like a baby. She was wearing an oversize white T-shirt, which had fallen down over one shoulder, and apparently little else. Dworkin would have approved. Oliver, who didn't need to be, was reminded anyway of how much he had always liked her shoulders. And her feet.

“I'm very sorry, Lorina,” he said again, stepping across the threshold without waiting for an invitation. “It's very important.” He set down the ferret's traveling case.

“Last time you brought roses,” she said ruefully as he ran past her and headed for Sir Harry's study. She closed the front door and followed.

“So what's so urgent?” she asked, yawning. He was crouched over the filing cabinet that he knew contained Random's personal files. The light was harsh to her sleepy eyes.

“We need this information to stop Harry's murderer from killing again,” he told her.

“Murderer?” she faltered. She dropped the cat and sat down on an upright chairs. “Daddy was murdered?”

Oliver spun around, clutching the desk to keep his balance. “Oh my dear Lord,” he moaned softly, seeing her dark eyes fill with tears. “You didn't know, did you? I completely forgot.”

“You said it was an accident,” she reminded him, clasping her hands in her lap and lowering her head. A tear splashed onto her wrist.

“The police thought it
was
an accident then,” he said, choosing to conceal his own opinions at the time. He scuttled across the floor on his knees, causing Satan to leap aside, and without seeking permission, slid his arms around her waist. Lorina fell into the embrace, resting her cheek on the top of his head. “But now we know it's murder,” Oliver continued quietly, his face pressed against her sternum. “Your father was killed because he was on a jury. Back at the Old Bailey about two years ago. He's not the only victim.”

She cried for about half a minute without moving. Then she sniffed loudly and pulled herself away. “I'm okay,” she said, wiping her eyes with the neckline of the T-shirt. “Thanks for the hug, Ollie. It was nice.”

“Is Ambrose staying here? He should hear this, too.”

“He didn't want to stay in Daddy's house. He'll be back for the funeral on Monday. I suppose I should have guessed Daddy's death was more than an accident, what with that gloomy Scotland Yard detective showing up during the week, asking all kinds of questions about Daddy's life.”

“I should have told you. I'm very sorry,” Oliver admitted. “But there were reasons why we didn't want the public to know about the murders.”

“We?” she queried.

“I'm helping Uncle Tim. That's why I'm here.” He glanced nervously at the files, as if they might have evaporated while he was comforting her. “Are you sure you're okay? I really need to find this information. It could save somebody's life.”

She nodded, sniffing again and looking round the room in vain for a box of tissues. Oliver scurried back to the cabinet and pulled out a buff file from the hanger marked “jury duty.” He dropped it onto the desk and switched on the table lamp, throwing himself onto Harry's upholstered work chair. Lorina stood up and came over, resting a hand lightly on his shoulder. Satan mewed softly, but was ignored.

“You're very clever to be assisting Scotland Yard,” she whispered, watching him flick through the pages of notes in her father's handwriting. He was concentrating so intently on the words in front of him that he didn't notice her finger idly twisting the strands of fair hair that fell over his collar.

“Ollie, we had some nice times together, didn't we?” she asked.

“Oh, sure. Ah, here it is. A list of his fellow jurors. I was certain Harry's obsession with details wouldn't let me down.”

Lorina perched on the desk, very close to the papers, twisting her neck and pretending to read the scrawled notes with him. She sat on her hands, keeping her knees slightly bent, as if aware that even the best-toned thigh does not look its best when pressed down on a flat surface.

“I forget how good-looking you are, in your own way,” she continued idly, perhaps aware she didn't have his full attention. “You still think I'm attractive don't you, Ollie?”

“More than ever,” he said distractedly, his gallantry on autopilot. Lorina smiled and placed her feet on the edge of his chair, burrowing her toes under his leg. He reached suddenly for the telephone on the desk and pressed the number of Mallard's private line at Scotland Yard. Mallard answered immediately.

“I've got the list,” Oliver said excitedly.

“Does Harry have a fax machine?”

Oliver covered the mouthpiece and turned to Lorina. “Do you have a fax?” he asked. She shook her head and slid off the desk, which briefly caused her loose T-shirt to ride up to her hips. Oliver pretended not to notice.

“No, I'll have to read you the names,” he said to Mallard. “Here they are, with some other information from Harry's notes to help you pinpoint the right people. Nettie Clapper, Vanessa Parmenter we know about. Agnes Day, old age pensioner from Hounslow. Ingmar Twist, accountant, lived in Chiswick. Mark Sandys-Penza we have already. Boy, Harry didn't like him.”

“Get on with it.”

“Sorry. Edmund Tradescant, marketing executive from Twickenham. Archibald Brock, we have. Spiller Bude, unemployed, South Ealing. Arthur Dworkin, unemployed—well, he was then. Rogers Fossick, sales assistant, Kingston. And Concepta Carter-Wallace, housewife, also from Chiswick.”

“That's only eleven.”

“Harry was the twelfth.”

“No Gordon Paper?”

“No Gordon Paper,” Oliver confirmed. “You were right to treat him as an aberration.”

“So ignoring Paper, five jurors are dead. We known about Dworkin. That leaves us six to find—Agnes Day, Ingmar Twist, Edmund Tradescant, Spiller Bude, Rogers Fossick, and Concepta Carter-Wallace.”

“Correct.”

“Why does Edmund Tradescant sound familiar? Never mind. We'll track them down. I wonder which is the Virgo. I don't suppose Harry noted their birth signs as well, did he?”

“No such luck.”

“Ah well. Okay, bundle up that file and give it to Sergeant Welkin when he turns up. He'll drive you home then bring it on to me.”

“Don't you want me to come back with Welkin?”

“No, get some sleep. We have to make sure the rest of the jury is protected. I'll call you later. By the way, who was on trial?”

Oliver lifted the exploring cat off the file and consulted the notes again.

“It was a man called Angus Burbage.”

“Really?” Mallard whistled. “That's a famous one. He was convicted for trying to blow up a police station. Well, Burbage is certainly a likely candidate for the murderer, although I would have thought twelve simultaneous letter bombs would be more in his line, though. Why the zodiac stuff?”

“Style? Gamesmanship?” Oliver suggested. “But wouldn't Burbage still be in prison after only two years?”

“I'll find out. Although you'd be amazed at what you can arrange while you're doing time. Good night.”

Oliver hung up and turned to Lorina, who was leaning against the door jamb, absent-mindedly biting the ends of her fingers. She had turned off the room's main light.

“Thanks, Lorina. And sorry again.”

She waved the apology away as if it were no more than an impertinent gnat. “I remember the Angus Burbage case,” she said. “I suppose you'll be looking at it again.”

“I don't know. Now we've sorted out the puzzle, I don't expect to be involved as much.”

Lorina threw her head back and stared at the ceiling. In the shaded light of the table lamp, she looked cornered, vulnerable. “Daddy and I used to have tremendous rows about Angus Burbage. He though Burbage should be shot, I thought he was a freedom fighter for the oppressed. That was in my militant period.”

“I recall your opinions vividly.”

“Nobody has to know, do they? I mean, it won't come up again?” she asked anxiously.

“Why should it?”

“No reason. I was rather immature in those days, and I don't want to be reminded, what with my job and everything.”

Oliver stood up and gathered the papers, without looking at her. It was true that, during their college romance, Lorina's only diplomatic skill had been a useful ability to disguise herself as an unmade bed. “I didn't think you were immature,” he said kindly. “You were strongly committed to a political viewpoint, and I admired that. However, I happened not to agree with you. I didn't agree with Harry, either.”

“Are you leaving?” Lorina asked, after a pause. She had moved into the room again.

“There's a rather forbidding policeman, who always reminds me of my great-uncle Henry, about to arrive to pick up these papers. I hope that's all right with you, I should have asked.”

“Of course. But then what are you going to do?”

“I'm going home to get some sleep. It's been a very long day for me and the ferret.”

They were standing shoulder to shoulder at the desk, neither looking at the other. He could smell the cream she had used on her face earlier that evening, feel the warmth of her arm through his shirt.

“You could stay,” she said quietly.

Oliver tapped the stack of papers noisily on the desktop to straighten them. “That's kind of you, but I don't want to trouble you to make up the guest room,” he said brightly. “It won't take me long to get home this time of night. Not with a policeman driving.”

Lorina nodded. The guest room was not what she had meant. Oliver knew it too, but he had learned that feigned misunderstanding, while initially cruel, is often the cleanest way out of an awkward situation. The only casualty was Lorina's opinion of his perceptiveness, never high anyway.

They both heard the car pull up outside. Oliver was at the front door before Sergeant Welkin could use the knocker. He handed Welkin the file, recovered the ferret, kissed Lorina demurely on the cheek, and was gone.

***

“Mr. Fingerhood—not even my husband has seen me naked. In fact, and I say this as a matter of pride,
I
have never seen myself naked.”

One of the advantages of lying in a closed coffin, thought Mallard, is that you don't have to risk injury by suppressing the overwhelming urge to laugh at your fellow actors—although he also admitted that bursting a blood vessel on cue in this production might be rewarded with a round of applause or, God forbid, another hug from his current director, Humfrey Fingerhood.

“But Mrs. Codling, I wouldn't ask you to do it if it wasn't artistically valid,” Humfrey's voice pleaded. “This…is Shakespeare!”

Another advantage of lying in a closed coffin is that you have an opportunity to think. It was rather peaceful, in fact, after the harried days of the zodiac murders (that had now become the “Burbage Jury Murders”). Mallard hoped he would not have to make his entrance too soon.

“There will be people in the audience who know me,” boomed Mrs. Codling. “I think I speak for Mrs. Godditz and Miss Birdee when I say that we have little desire to parade in our birthday suits in front of members of the Theydon Bois Rotary Club.”

All the surviving jury members had been successfully located and given police protection. For some reason, finding Angus Burbage in the prison system was more of a challenge, but Effie was on the case, and Mallard felt entitled to a few hours of free time. So after Sunday lunch with the patient Phoebe, he had managed to avoid missing his third
Macbeth
rehearsal in a row and was waiting patiently for the climax of the scene where Macbeth visits the witches in their lair, transformed in Humfrey's production into the catacombs of a Transylvanian castle. As the ghost of Banquo, blood-baltered according to the text, Mallard was to explode from the plywood casket soaked in gore. Humfrey had even suggested Mallard use scuba equipment until the moment of his appearance, so the coffin could be filled to the brim with red dye, but he had been persuaded—as much by the theater's cleaning staff as by the actors—that a simple make-up job would be effective enough.