Embarrassment of Corpses, An (20 page)

The handcuffs were snapped on his wrists before he had time to register that it was Effie who had been leaning nonchalantly against the wall around the corner, waiting for him.

“How did you guess what I'd do?” he asked despondently, after she had read him his rights. “Was it pure luck? Or did you spot my double-bluff?”

Effie grinned. “Clifford, what I spotted was your double butt. Sticking out from the alcove. You could lose a little weight, you know. Try eating more fruit.”

Burbage went quietly.

***

“I wouldn't lie to you, Mr. Mallard. Integrity is my middle name.”

“But how often do we use our middle names?” said Mallard impatiently, with an ironic glance at the computer printout of Cliff Burbage's criminal record. The two men had been sitting in the interview room for more than two hours, but so far, the thickset son of the late urban terrorist had said nothing about the murders. He didn't seem to know that any murders had even taken place. Burbage claimed to have panicked on seeing Welkin—whose tibia had snapped under the avalanche of fruit—because he was operating an illegal stall while on probation for handling stolen property. Finding himself under suspicion of a string of more serious crimes, he came clean about all his current petty larcenies, to which, Mallard reminded him, he had just added several more, including assaulting a police officer with a melon.

“Would you call that a deadly weapon, Cliff, or a blunt instrument?” Mallard asked.

“Do me a favor…”

“No, you do me the favors, son,” Mallard riposted angrily. “You tell me what you know about the murders of Sir Hargreaves Random, Nettie Clapper, Mark Sandys-Penza, Gordon Paper, Vanessa Parmenter, and Archibald Brock, and the attempted murder of Edmund Tradescant.”

Burbage looked scared. “I told you, I don't know nothing about no murders,” he breathed. “I never even heard of them people, 'cept for the first. Didn't he write them snooty kids' books? You have to believe me, Mr. Mallard. I'm as honest as the day is long”

“Yes, but the days are getting shorter, aren't they?” muttered Mallard. He flipped on the VCR, which he'd wheeled down to the interview room, and froze the picture as Angus Burbage's face appeared.

“Your father knew those people,” Mallard said. “He knew them very well.”

“Dad's dead. He died in the nick. Didn't you know?”

“Yes, I knew. So did he plan the murders and get you to carry them out? Or was it all your idea?”

Cliff was staring at the screen. “I remember that time Dad was on the telly,” he said reflectively. “I had no bleeding idea what he was talking about.”

“Your dad did a lot for you,” Mallard persisted. “He went to prison for you. He tried to kill people for you. Why shouldn't you kill people for him?”

The other man broke his eyes from the television and looked down at the floor. “I don't know why he did those things, Mr. Mallard,” he grumbled. “I didn't ask him to. I didn't understand what it was all about at the time, and I still don't. I wish he'd left it alone. So the cops did me over—no offense, sir, but they did. That's the way it is sometimes. If you play the game, you gotta know the rules.”

Not the way I play, thought Mallard, no matter how much I'm tempted, no matter how much I want to beat a confession out of this whining mouth-breather.

“He didn't understand,” Burbage was saying. “He thought the world was different. Look where it got him. He never even got to see his grandchild.”

Mallard turned off the monitor. “Tell me about your father,” he prompted quietly.

Burbage continued to study the carpet without answering. Then he looked up at Mallard, his eyes glistening.

“Dad would have done anything for me. Just like I'd do anything for my nipper. Dad always stuck by me, never threw me out like a lot of me mates' dads did when they got into trouble. But I was too stupid to see what he was getting at. Eventually I got so far in that I dragged him down with me. He couldn't dump me, so he got to be like me. Only more so—I couldn't plant a bomb, couldn't even make a bomb.” He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of one hand. “Can I have a cigarette?” he asked.

Mallard slid a packet across the table. Burbage took a cigarette and lit it, drawing the smoke deeply into his lungs. It reappeared with a long sigh.

“The irony is, Mr. Mallard, my dad risked everything and lost because he thought he saw an injustice—his son getting beaten up for a job he didn't do. But there was no injustice. I was actually guilty of that job, and the coppers knew it all along, though they couldn't prove it. I never told my dad that, not even in his last days. But I deserved what I got in that interview room.”

“No you didn't,” Mallard said quietly. “Guilty or innocent, you should not have been beaten while you were in police custody. Your father was right about that.”

Burbage stared at Mallard. “Don't know what planet you're living on, guv,” he said wryly. A chill struck Mallard, a physical sensation in his stomach that almost threw him from the chair. The dawning realization that Cliff Burbage was telling the truth. This man was no murderer. He was the sempiternal victim.

The door opened, and Moldwarp's woeful face came into view. Mallard signaled him to wait. He scribbled the dates and times of the zodiac murders on a piece of paper and slid it toward the suspect.

“Cliff, I want you to tell me where you were at these times, starting with last Monday morning at six o'clock.” Just over a week since Harry was found, reflected Mallard. It's a long time in murder, too.

In the corridor outside, Moldwarp almost sobbed out the news that a search of Cliff Burbage's flat had revealed nothing.

“He has a lock-up garage, too,” sighed the lugubrious detective, as if confirming the start of Armageddon. “We found several items that we think will interest the local police—not to mention said items' original owners—but nothing to connect him to the murders.”

Mallard took in the information stoically. “We can hold him for a while because of the assault on Sergeant Welkin. He also assaulted some members of the public when he was trying to get away from Sergeant Strongitharm. Who would have thought Effie would have that effect on the youth of Britain?” He watched Moldwarp carefully after this quip, because he had never seen the detective sergeant smile. He was disappointed yet again.

Back in the interview room, Cliff Burbage wanted to talk.

“I was working my stall every day last week,” he said. “Oh, apart from Thursday lunchtime.”

The Sagittarius. Could Cliff have been in the vicinity of a Piccadilly Circus rooftop? Or would he have an obviously concocted alibi?

“I had an appointment in Streatham,” Burbage continued. “I was there from ten until about one o'clock.”

“Who was this appointment with?” asked Mallard, still hoping the story could be challenged.

Burbage grinned. “My probation officer,” he said.

***

“Effie, I believe you have a date with Oliver tonight,” Mallard remarked casually, catching the policewoman at her desk as she was preparing to go off duty. Effie smiled to herself, continuing to rub Germolene onto her skinned hands.

“I said I'd have dinner with Oliver,” she replied. “Is this to remind me to get your favorite nephew home by ten o'clock?”

“I don't mean to pry into your personal life, I'm sure,” said Mallard stiffly, although Effie knew very well that he was lying. “But if you see Ollie, ask him to give me a call tomorrow.”

“No luck with Clifford, then?” she deduced. “After all my hard work?”

“Your hard work is appreciated, as always, Sergeant Strongitharm. But I think Cliff Burbage is innocent of the zodiac murders.”

“I could have told you that,” she said casually, tossing the tin of antiseptic into a drawer and gathering the personal items that were scattered around her desk top.

“How, pray tell?”

“We've always agreed the killer is smart. Cliff isn't. And we've seen the killer on videotape, riding a motorbike around Grosvenor Square. As we said at the time, it could have been a man or a woman. But whatever the sex, it certainly wasn't anyone of Cliff Burbage's ample build.”

“Back to square one tomorrow, then,” said Mallard blandly.

Effie paused, her open handbag on her lap, and looked soberly at her boss.

“No, Superintendent Mallard. We're way past square one and don't you ever forget it! The murders ended on Saturday. The intended victims are all safe. We've solved the puzzle—now we just have to find the person who set it. And this guy makes mistakes, remember. He is not the perfect murderer. For once,
we're
in control of the game.”

Mallard held her gaze, enjoying the solemnity in her ice-blue eyes, the hue of the copper sulphate solution he used to make with his chemistry set, fifty years ago, just because he liked the color. He'd always liked that color. Even without her dimpling smile, and with the planes of her face set harshly to emphasize that she expected him to take her seriously, Effie was lovely. And that hair! If he were unmarried and thirty years younger—it was a conjecture, not a regret, Mallard respected the difference—but if he were…well, he'd be Oliver. And Oliver, thank the Lord, seemed to be making progress with this remarkable woman.

“Thanks, Eff, I needed that,” he said warmly. “Have fun tonight.”

He chose not to tell her about the meeting he had just concluded with his superiors, and the message they delivered.

***

“How do I look?” Oliver asked anxiously. “Does this shirt go with this jacket?”

“It's only dinner with the girl, for goodness sake,” Susie Beamish sighed over her cheeseburger. “The shirt's fine.”

Ben Motley had brought in the takeaway meal from Burger King for himself, but a ravenous Susie had pounced on him and offered to swap half his food for a helping of bread-and-butter pudding. After he had accepted, she smugly revealed that the dessert was at Raisin D'Etre, and to get it, he would have to give her a lift to work.

“Although, I don't know why I'm bothering to turn up,” she had sighed.

“Business is bad?” Ben asked sympathetically.

“Raisins are no longer current,” she lamented.

Ben reluctantly agreed to drive her to Pimlico, noting that he had to be back at the house by ten o'clock to photograph a world-famous diva, who wanted to put her Motley portrait in the programs of all the world's opera houses. Throughout the negotiations, Oliver had bobbed in and out of the kitchen more often than a Pavarotti curtain call. He had so far asked them to check on the accuracy of his parting (moderate), the quantity of aftershave he had applied (sufficient), the visibility of an incipient pimple on his chin (below the threshold of perception), and the accuracy of his parting again (deteriorating).

“It's not as if this is your first date,” said Susie through a mouthful of burger, “although it's been a while since I saw you with a woman. I was even thinking of taking pity on you myself.” She chose to ignore Oliver's look of exaggerated terror but rewarded Ben's guffaw by pouring sugar onto his french fries. He let her, knowing that passive acceptance would get her to stop sooner. Instead, he stood up and put his well-muscled arm around Oliver's shoulders and compressed him heartily.

“You're missing the whole point, Susie,” he said. “Oliver's understandably nervous because of the lady in question, the divine Effie. What I wouldn't give to be in his shoes!” He punched Oliver playfully in the upper arm and went back to the table.

“Yes, Ben, that reminds me,” said Oliver humbly, rubbing his unremarkable biceps. “I want to thank you for not moving in on Effie when you had the chance. I don't think I could have taken the competition.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Well, you have so much success with the opposite, er, sex,” Oliver said, somewhat abashed. “But I notice that you left the way clear for me with Effie.”

Ben smiled, even though he was eating a sugared fry. “Oliver, my interest in Effie was purely photographic. There wouldn't be any point in competing with you for her affections.”

“Why not?” Oliver asked testily. “What's wrong with Effie?”

Ben looked at Susie, who looked back with a similarly puzzled expression. “Effie's potty about you,” he said, with surprise. “I could tell immediately when I first saw you two together at Kew Gardens.”

“She hardly spoke to me that evening.”

“Exactly. A woman doesn't play that hard to get with a man unless she really wants him to notice her. So go ahead, Olls, sweep her off her feet.”

“Well, she has been a lot friendlier,” Oliver said thoughtfully.

“Ollie, let me assure you,” said Susie, laying down her food and addressing him seriously. “Effie's got the major hots for you. The pheromones were coming in waves the other lunchtime. We girls can always tell.”

The doorbell rang. Oliver started, stared open-mouthed at each of his friends, ran a hand through his floppy hair, and darted from the kitchen.

“Think he bought it?” muttered Ben.

“Of course. We were brilliant,” said Susie. “A few raised expectations, founded or otherwise, will at least get him out of the starting gate.”

The kitchen door swung open again and Geoffrey Angelwine stormed into the room, flung his briefcase onto a counter, and collapsed into an empty chair. A disappointed Oliver hovered by the door.

“And on top of everything else, I forgot to take my keys this morning,” Geoffrey complained.

“Have a good day at the office, dear?” asked Susie brightly. Geoffrey glared at her.

“I have had the worst day of my life, and it's all the fault of that bloody ferret,” he said. “I had to explain to Mr. Hoo, Mr. Watt,
and
Mr. Eidenau that the firm and one of its major clients are being sued for five million pounds by a litigious art student. How was I to know those toy Finsburys were only for publicity purposes until the lawsuit is settled? And today, the manager of the bookshop called to complain that I released a live wolverine on her premises. I don't even know what a wolverine is.”