Murder in a Good Cause (25 page)

“What's what?” said Harriet. “And would you stop being so goddamn mysterious?”

“I just had an idea, and it could have been a very stupid idea, but I thought I'd try it out. I mean, suppose the house where Walker said they kept all the stolen goods wasn't in the suburbs at all but in the city? You know any big houses in the city that are surrounded by enough land that they sound and smell as if they're in the suburbs?”

“Clara's?” said Harriet. “That's a hell of a long shot.”

“So? It would give a connection between Carlos and Nikki. Anyway, Walker says the guy that Nikki described is Carlos, all right. And he identified your interior shots of Clara's house with the house in the suburbs where they kept all the stolen property.”

“I don't believe it,” said Harriet firmly. “Clara would never have anything to do with something like that.”

“The person who ran the operation wasn't a woman. Walker met
him
several times. When they asked him about it a minute ago, he said, more or less, ‘Don't be stupid. He was a guy, just a kid.' She wasn't even there most of the time, Harriet. She probably knew nothing about it. But I'll tell you who did.”

“The gardener,” said Dubinsky. “He's the only one who was there all the time. And you could call him a kid.”

“Come on. Let's go have a word with Paul the gardener. We'll drop you off on the way.”

“Oh, no, you don't. I have to go over to Clara's house, anyway, to pick up some things for Nikki. She called me just before you did. Said she couldn't reach anyone there, or at her sister's.”

“That's because they're all here,” said Sanders. “Stewing.”

The house was emptier than any house Harriet had ever been in, devoid of any trace of life. Much emptier than when she had taken possession of it to photograph it. “I'm going up to Nikki's room to get her things,” she said firmly. She didn't like feeling spooked by atmospheres.

Dubinsky had taken Lucas with him to look for the gardener in his flat above the garage, since Lucas appeared to be less intimidated by the prospect of having to cope with dogs than Collins was. Sanders looked around the front hall, told Collins to keep an eye on things on the ground floor, and headed toward Harriet and the stairs. “I'll come with you,” he said. “We need to find the housekeeper.”

Harriet emerged from Veronika's room with a suitcase filled with nightwear and other necessaries just as Sanders was descending from Bettl's room. “You find her?”

“She's gone,” he said. “Didn't leave so much as a hairpin or a blond hairnet behind. Probably in Germany by now.” He shrugged. “Get what you were looking for?”

Harriet nodded, but her reply was cut short by the sound of Lucas running up the stairs.

“The sergeant would like you to come over to the gardener's flat, sir. If you don't mind.”

“Right behind you, Lucas,” he said. As he headed out the kitchen door, something suddenly occurred to him. “And what did you do with the dogs, Lucas? Hypnotize them?”

“Not a dog on the property, sir, as far as I can see.” Dubinsky was standing in the middle of a pleasantly shabby, immaculately clean room. One corner held a spotless kitchen; another, a bed, stripped down to its mattress. There was a table pushed against the wall next to a window; on it sat a typewriter and some books. Sanders picked up the top one:
Obras
de Miguel de Unamuno was stamped on the cover. He flipped through it idly, not understanding a word. “This was sitting on top of that book,” said Dubinsky, holding out a standard business envelope with “Inspector Sanders” typed on the outside.

The envelope was not sealed; when he lifted the flap, two sheets of paper slid out. “A lot to say for himself,” said Sanders, and began to read:

Tuesday, September 17

My dear Inspector,

It is clear to me that you have been moving closer and closer to us. If you are reading this, you have discovered my apartment. Therefore, as a courtesy, I write this to you before leaving the country, because I fear that I have left you no physical evidence of what has happened; for that you will have to go to the address listed below, where, if you are quick enough, you will find enough to satisfy even you. For I perceive that you are a careful—indeed, a fastidious—man in these matters. Not like some of the policemen in my country, who do not worry about small matters like evidence if your name is Basque.

I sincerely grieve for the death of Doña Clara. She was a great lady, and a very gracious one when in good temper. She reminded me very much of my own mother. I would never have harmed her, nor permitted my associates to harm her. If she was not murdered by the housekeeper, Bettl, then she was poisoned by her daughters or her nephew. Any one of them would have killed for a few pesetas, not to speak of Doña Clara's fortune. All I know is that her death came at a very awkward time for us.

We had a beautiful scheme, Manu and I. I do not expect you, as a policeman, to appreciate it, but I do expect you, as a human being, to understand that in theory we intended as little harm as possible. We would steal from the rich and well-insured, store the fruits of our labours safely in the house of Doña Clara, sell them at our leisure, and take the money back home. Without touching anyone. That is always the problem, is it not? In theory. In practice, we needed to consort with criminals in order to steal efficiently and to dispose of our goods at a sufficient profit. I am not sure if I chose badly or if bad choice is inherent in the activity. Through Doña Clara's thieving household, I found someone to dispose of expensive works of art. But through that person, I was encumbered with Carlos, who is a madman, and Don, who is a coward.

I knew they were not honourable men, but I had not expected them to be unprofessional, so unprofessional that in a crisis they would kill. Carlos for amusement, Don to save himself. It was Don who killed Mrs. Wilkinson with a blow on the head, using a statue of a Viking warrior. When Carlos shot her, she was already near death. Or so Manu tells me, and he is observant and truthful. Carlos shot one policeman; Don killed the other with a blow on the head. Don told me it was an accident. That is difficult to believe. The tragedy is that had I been there, I would have been able to control him, I think, but having drugged the entire household so that we could get the last shipment out, I found it necessary to drink some of that coffee myself. Otherwise, you would have been very suspicious. And with those actions they have destroyed our hope of raising enough money to help fund a significant political resistance in our own country. A futile hope, in all events, you will say. But I am young enough to believe that such things may be. If not now, later.

This morning we rescued what remained of the last consignment of goods. Doña Clara's daughter had discovered our simple hiding place, although I do not think she knows who we are. I sent Carlos to keep her away from home—women seem to find him enchanting, strangely enough—while we moved it. Now I have misgivings about what has happened to her. Carlos asked for help to deal with her, and it occurred to me that he intended to keep her from the house by removing her permanently. I went myself to the museum, hoping to avert another death. She took fright when she saw me and ran before I could get to her.

Now there is no time to do anything but leave. You have Don already, Manu tells me. You are welcome to him. If you do not find Carlos at his apartment, look for him in Arizona. I do not know what his mother called him, but he has passports in the name of Ramirez and Ugalde, and also Garcia, first name Carlos always. As for me, I am tired of gardening. I shall locate Manu and return to university. You will forgive me if I do not tell you where.
Euzkadi ta Askatasuna,
Inspector.

Yours faithfully,
Ixtebe Etxebarrieta (Paul Esteban)

(or as Don knows me, the buru, the boss)

P.S. Manu has never killed anyone in his life; he is a brave but essentially peaceful man. Although he is not fond of the Guardia Civil. I sincerely trust that by the time you receive this letter, he will be far from Canada. And the dogs are at the kennel; you will find the receipt on Doña Clara's desk.

The letter was neatly typed, including the signature. “Son of a bitch,” said Sanders. “There's nerve for you. What does that mean?” he said, turning to Lucas and pointing to the words at the end.

“Hey, I don't speak Basque,” said Lucas, taking the letter and reading it. “Oh, it's the name of the political party—ETA,” he said, grinning as he came to the end. “It means something like ‘Country and Freedom.' He's an
etarra
. Member of the party.” He handed the letter over to Dubinsky and looked in the envelope. “Sir, there's another slip of paper in here.” He pulled it out and whistled.

“What's on it?” asked Sanders.

“A couple of addresses: on Palmerston and on Acacia Crescent.”

Sanders snatched the paper from him and glanced rapidly at it. “Come on. Back to headquarters. You can finish that in the car,” he said to Dubinsky. “Let Lucas drive.”

Sanders blew into the room like a hurricane. “I need warrants—now. Get someone onto it.”

“For what?” asked Collins innocently, reaching out his hand for the slip with the addresses on it. “This one is Carlos Ramirez's flat, you know. We've already sent someone over there.”

“Someone isn't enough,” snapped Sanders. “Anyway, the bulk of the stuff is probably at the other address.”

Lucas slowed to a moderate pace as they approached the building on Acacia Crescent; he pulled up some distance away and stopped. “You want to wait here until Sergeant Dubinsky arrives, sir?” he asked.

“No. He won't be long,” said Sanders with more assurance than he felt. “And it may already be too late.” He opened the car door and looked carefully around him before striding up to the high-rise on the south side of the street. Not a bad sort of place to live, he reflected. Not as homely as some, better kept than most, and close enough to Bathurst and Eglinton that you could walk to restaurants. Art theft was prospering these days. As they stood by the entrance waiting for the superintendent, Sanders peered through the glass into the lobby and revised his estimate of profits by a few hundred thousands. All those green trees, heavy pieces of furniture, and fountains lurking in there didn't come cheap.

Sanders paused in front of the door of the apartment on the seventeenth floor and listened. Inside he could hear music playing—tasteful, delicate music—and soft, muffled footsteps. It would seem that luck was with them. Their bird had not flown. Sanders raised his hand and knocked, firmly, definitively. An official knock. A knock that any pimp or pickpocket in the world would recognize.

The music was turned down. The footsteps moved closer, and the door opened on a chain. “Well, well, well. Inspector. You tracked me down to my little hideaway. How very clever of you.” The door closed, there was a rattle of a chain being taken off, and the door opened once again.

“I had some help,” said Sanders as Frank Whitelaw stood to one side to let the two men pass.

This was an even different Whitelaw, affable and charming, wearing an embroidered silk smoking jacket over a cream-coloured silk shirt. Behind him the apartment glowed richly in the September sun. The Oriental rugs made Sanders want to give his shoes a wipe; the furniture looked like the antiques they don't turn out in factories and then pepper with fake wormholes, and on the flat white walls was a collection of paintings that might just be real. Lucas stood quietly by the door; Sanders walked in and across the room and then stationed himself in front of a richly swirling landscape with horses whose sweat he could almost smell and whose laboured breathing seemed to ring in his ears.

“Impressive,” he said flatly.

“Isn't it?” said Whitelaw, smiling. “A Géricault. But not a great one. It's a rather tentative study he did for something else during one of his better periods. I'm fond of it, though, in spite of its lack of finish. Quite extraordinary power and motion, wouldn't you say?”

Sanders grunted something that could be taken for appreciation. On the opposite wall, he noticed two rectangular white spaces, surrounded by the dust marks, the marks left by paintings after they been taken down. “And what was here?” he asked. “A couple of Rembrandts?”

Whitelaw smiled faintly. “Not at all. Just some of those Victorian landscapes that are two a penny at any gallery. I thought they might do for here, but they didn't work. I'm still looking for replacements.”

“What did you do with them?” asked Sanders, genuinely curious. What did one do with a two-a-penny Victorian landscape that wasn't up to snuff? Put it out on Thursday with the trash?

“Oh, I shipped them to New York. They should be able to get me a thousand or two each for them. I mean, they weren't Constables, but they were decently done.” This time his smile was dismissive and end-of-conversation-like. “Now what can I do for you gentlemen?”

“Just a few questions,” said Sanders amicably, glancing at his watch. “Nice apartment you have here.” He looked down the hall as he spoke; there was room for at least two huge bedrooms down there.

“Not a bad little place,” Whitelaw said. “Adequate for a bachelor existence.” With a restrained wave of the hand, he indicated the modest proportions of his dwelling.

The time had come to alter the mood. “Why the secrecy?” asked Sanders, his voice suddenly probing, suspicious. Any moment now the sweat should be breaking out on Whitelaw's forehead.

But Whitelaw's brow remained smooth and unsullied. He shrugged his shoulders and continued, with a gentle smile, “Clara expected me to live in the house, you know. She liked to have people right there under her nose. The little flat on Woodlawn was a compromise. Within walking distance, but off the property. Still, one has to have a place of one's own, you know. Not just a room. A real place. One has, uh, possessions. Investments.”