Malice in London (18 page)

“Of course.”

“We received an anonymous phone call a couple of days ago accusing Mansfield of having a financial interest in Dockside—of being in a conflict-of-interest position, in effect. I’d be interested in hearing your reaction.”

She shook her head in disgust. “I wouldn’t put anything past him, but I find it difficult to believe that even he could be that stupid.”

“That was my initial reaction as well, but Mansfield seems to be taking the whole thing quite seriously. I think he believes that Adrian Turner made the call for political reasons.”

“That’s impossible! Adrian would never do anything like that.”

“How can you be certain?”

“I—I just know, that’s all.” There was something in her voice.

“I don’t know quite how to put this, Mrs. Brighton, but there was a second call, possibly from a different person. The caller suggested that you and Adrian Turner have been seen together lately.”

“Seen together? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The suggestion was, I think, that you and Turner are having an affair.”

Her eyes flashed angrily. “It was Mansfield, wasn’t it?”

“It’s possible.”

“That pompous little prig!”

“There isn’t actually any hard evidence that he made the call.”

“Who else would stoop to using such tactics?” she asked, the question obviously intended to be rhetorical.

“All right, let’s assume for the moment that it
was
Mansfield who made the call. Do you have any explanation for why he might do such a thing?”

She appeared to consider this for a moment. “Petty spitefulness,” she suggested unconvincingly.

Powell had the impression she was holding something back.

She brushed a strand of hair from her face. “I mean, if Mansfield thought that Adrian had accused him of wrongdoing, he was probably just trying to get back at him.”

Powell was still not satisfied. Time to cut to the chase, he thought. His eyes met hers. “
Have
you been seeing Adrian Turner, Mrs. Brighton?”

“That’s my business, don’t you think?” Her gaze was unwavering. Before Powell could reply, she continued in a measured voice, “If you must know, yes, I’ve seen quite a lot of Adrian recently. However, the reason has to do with politics, not romance—if that is what you were thinking. A short time after Richard was killed, Adrian contacted me. He wanted to talk about ways of healing the rift that had developed within the party over Dockside. It was too soon—I mean politics was the last thing on my mind, but he persisted. I eventually agreed to see him about a week ago at his office. We’ve met a couple of times since at my flat.”

“I’m a bit puzzled, Mrs. Brighton. Why would Turner want to meet with you to discuss an issue about which he and your late husband disagreed so strongly?”

“For the good of the party. He knows I have some influence and there is an election coming up in two years. If we don’t get our act together, the only beneficiaries will be Charles Mansfield and his gang of bandits.”

“What was the upshot of these meetings?”

She raised an eyebrow. “If I tell you, will it go beyond here?”

“Not if it has no bearing on the case.”

“All right. I agreed to lend my support to Adrian’s bid for mayor and to try to bring along as many of Richard’s supporters on the council as I can. And, in case you’re wondering, Chief Superintendent, I
did
think about what my husband would have wanted.”

“And what might that be, Mrs. Brighton?”

“To do whatever it takes to keep the Conservatives from winning.”

“I’ve been told that your husband had political ambitions beyond Southwark Council …”

She stared at her hands, which were folded in her lap. “Richard had a certain quality, call it charisma, leadership ability, whatever you like. He was young, quick on his feet, and not unattractive, which seems to be a prerequisite in politics these days. To answer your implied question, Chief Superintendent, I think he could have gone as far as he wanted.” She looked up at him.

Now for the tricky bits, he thought. “Just one or two more questions, Mrs. Brighton, and I’ll let you get back to your shop. I have to ask you something that may be upsetting, so please don’t take it personally.”

“I’m a big girl, Chief Superintendent.”

“I mentioned before the importance of exploring any
possible association between your husband and Clive Morton. We’ve learned that Morton was a heavy user of cocaine; is there any possibility that your husband was in any way involved with drugs?”

“Absolutely none,” she replied without hesitation. “One or two glasses of wine with dinner was the extent of Richard’s dependence on drugs.”

Powell nodded. “One last question, Mrs. Brighton: If your husband was confronted by a thief or thieves on the night in question, do you think he would have tried to run away?”

She thought about this for a moment. “It would depend on the circumstances, wouldn’t it? I don’t know … If I had to guess, I’d say he would probably have stood his ground and tried to talk his way out of it.” She smiled sadly. “He was a politician, after all.”

As Powell walked back to Sloane Square tube station, he reflected on his conversation with Helen Brighton. He was disappointed, having hoped for more, unaware that he now had everything he needed.

Powell spent the next morning dodging Merriman, who had been sending him a steady stream of increasingly belligerent e-mail messages demanding to know how he was getting on with his assignment. He had been tasked by Merriman to contribute to the Assistant Commissioner’s blueprint for the future of the Metropolitan Police Service by writing the section on “Administrative Streamlining and Client Service Enhancement in the New Millennium.” As he read the latest message, he felt like puking. He tried not to think about the close call he had had earlier that morning when he had nearly been trapped by the AC in the library on the twelfth floor, only managing to elude detection by hiding behind one of the reading desks. Turning off his computer, he decided that it might be prudent under the circumstances to fall back to a more secure position. He left messages for Black and Evans to meet him for lunch at the Fitzrovia and then sneaked out of the building by way of the underground car park.

The sky was a hazy gray dome with a faint hint of sun, so he decided to take his chances and walk. Through Queen Anne’s Gate with its early-eighteenth-century houses, mellowed dark brick, black iron railings, and painted doors; across Birdcage Walk into the Horse Guards Road—which separated the green jewel of St. James’ Park, sparkling with flowers and its lake filled with exotic ducks—from the austere backside of Whitehall; then across the processional sweep of the Mall into Waterloo Place under the watchful eye of the Duke of York (who it is said was placed on his high granite pillar one hundred and twenty-four feet above the pavement to put him beyond the reach of his creditors). Before proceeding into Lower Regent Street, Powell paused to light a cigarette and to compare notes with Captain Scott, with whom he felt a certain kinship.

Twenty minutes later, he was safely ensconced in the Fitzrovia Tavern chatting with Celia Cross about Jill Burroughs.

“You can’t imagine what a load off my mind it was to see ’er face, Mr. Powell,” Celia said.

Powell took a blissful sip of beer. “Believe me, I know what you mean. The poor girl feels terrible about the way things turned out.”

Celia drew herself up to full height behind the bar. “Well, it wasn’t ’er fault, was it? It was that toffee-nosed boyfriend of ’ers. She won’t be sorry to see the back of ’im, I reckon.”

“Did she say when she was leaving?”

“She was trying to book the first available flight to
Toronto.” The publican paused thoughtfully. “I’d ’ave her back in a minute, but I suppose it’s the best thing really. She’s seen a bit of the world, ’ad a bit of a fling, but there’s no place like ’ome I always say.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Powell responded, raising his glass.

He was interrupted by a familiar voice. “You’re incorrigible, sir.”

He turned to see the smiling face of Sarah Evans, with Black filling the doorway behind her. “We were wondering what happened to you,” she remarked.

He sighed heavily. “It’s a harrowing tale, Evans. Perhaps I’ll tell you about it some day.”

“Merriman is looking for you, by the way.”

“Really? I wonder why he doesn’t just send me an e-mail.” He turned to Celia. “Would you mind if we used the Writer’s Bar? We’d prefer not to be disturbed.”

She winked knowingly. “Say no more, Mr. Powell. I’ll bring you down some sandwiches.”

They ordered their drinks and then made their way downstairs to the dark-paneled room where Powell had interviewed Simon Snavely, the drug-addled Phantom of the Fitzrovia.

When they were settled, Powell turned to Detective-Sergeant Black. “Why don’t you start, Bill?”

“Well, sir, a couple of things. First off, I talked to Samantha Jones again—Morton’s dinner companion the evening he was killed—to try to narrow down the timing. Apparently, Morton received a phone call at the restaurant sometime between eleven and eleven-thirty. She says she doesn’t know who it was. They left together
a short time later, and she says she never saw him again.”

“That would only be an hour or so before Morton was murdered, perhaps considerably less than that,” Powell observed.

“Yes, sir. And Covent Garden isn’t that far from Leicester Court.”

“It looks like someone called him to arrange a meeting later that night,” Evans piped in. “A meeting from which Morton never returned,” she added melodramatically.

“It had to be someone he knew.”

Evans frowned. “Sir?”

“Who else would call him at eleven o’clock at night when he was on the job, as it were?”

“I’ve covered the ground between the restaurant and Leicester Court,” Black continued. “I’ve asked everybody I can think of along the way who might have seen him. Nothing, I’m afraid, sir.”

Powell grunted.

“There’s something else, sir. I took the liberty of having a little chat with Simon Snavely. I bumped into him on my way to his flat. He was busking ouside King’s Cross Station, reading some of his—” he grimaced “—er, verse. Based on your description, I knew it was him.”

“Did you toss a penny in his hat?”

“I didn’t want to encourage him, sir. Anyway, it’s been bothering me, sir. Snavely was here on the Saturday evening Morton was giving your friend Jill a hard time. We know he has a yen for her and has a drug problem, which no doubt affects his judgment—maybe
he took offense at Morton’s carrying-on and confronted him the following Monday night.”

“Then bashed him on the head and slit his throat? Rather an extreme reaction, don’t you think?”

“
Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure
,” Black pronounced solemnly.

“Not that I would presume to disagree with Lord Byron,” Powell rejoined, “but I think we had better take this a step at a time. What was the gist of your conversation with Snavely?”

“I asked him about his whereabouts on the night in question, but he said he couldn’t remember. He seemed a bit edgy and he was obviously high on something. He started babbling on about his rights, so I gave it up.”

“He does have a prior for selling cocaine,” Powell remarked to no one in particular. “Perhaps Morton was a customer of his.”

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” Evans blurted out. “Snavely has no known connection with Richard Brighton.”

Powell looked at her. “You raise a good point, Evans.”

She shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

“Unless, of course, there
is
no connection between the two murders,” he mused.

This caught Evans’s attention. “What about Sir Reggie …?”

“There is no way he can be absolutely certain that the same weapon was used in both attacks. He’s offered us an opinion that must be weighed together with all of the
other evidence. We have to at least consider the possibility that he’s wrong.”

The seconds stretched out tautly as they all considered the implications of this scenario. If the two murders were in fact committed by different villains, the situation could well be hopeless, particularly if the crimes fell into the random violence category, as suspected initially in Brighton’s case. “I don’t know about you two,” Powell said eventually, “but my brain is starting to hurt.” He drained his pint and then lit a cigarette, exhaling a vast cloud of smoke into the air above his colleagues. Evans looked annoyed. “What about you, Evans? You were going to tell me something yesterday in the Back Hall.”

“Er, yes, sir. I had another visit with Tess Morgan.” Evans described the community activist’s reaction to the mention of Clive Morton’s name and her subsequent visit to Tess’s daughter’s school. “I rang Ms. Morgan first thing this morning to confirm the headmistress’s statement.” She paused, looking very serious.

“Yes, Evans?”

“She admitted that her daughter, Rachel, had a drug problem. She used to hang out with her mates in Soho, and on one occasion she ended up at a party at Clive Morton’s flat. Ms. Morgan wouldn’t go into details, but I gather it was a pretty horrendous experience for the girl. Tess wanted to bring a complaint against him, but Rachel wouldn’t cooperate. She didn’t want to get her friends in trouble, apparently.”

“So there is at least one person we can connect with
both Richard Brighton and Clive Morton,” Powell observed carefully. “And she had good reason to hate them both.”

Evans nodded bleakly.

Powell started off by summarizing the results of his various interviews with Charles Mansfield and Adrian Turner. “Mansfield seems convinced that it was Turner who placed that first call accusing him of having his finger in the Dockside pie. The intent, one presumes, was to damage him politically. However, it doesn’t stand up when you look at it. Why tip the police off to something that may or may not involve an actual crime, when you could take it to a rival politician, or directly to the council, for maximum political impact? Whether the story turned out to be true or not wouldn’t really matter at the end of the day—the seeds of doubt would have been planted. In fact, reporting an unsubstantiated allegation to us is probably the best way to ensure that the story
doesn’t
get out; after all, we’re hardly going to blab it to the press. Strangely enough, this does not seem to have occurred to Mansfield.”