The Cézanne Chase (7 page)

“Perhaps we can arrange something.” Llewellyn felt her enthusiasm. He looked past her toward Fraser, who had come into the study.

“I promised something to eat, and Fraser is telling us he's ready. I hope it's not too warm on the roof, but there's usually a breeze.”

C
larence Boggs's death had shocked the tight-knit neighborhood in the town of Ockley where for seven years he had been known as an outgoing, amiable sort, and who had recently been seen doting on his precocious granddaughter. A Mrs. Jacobson could not stop effusing, “Such a love, he was. And so good to all the children.” Others had expressed similar sentiments over the loss of their friend. There was disbelief that he had died in such a bizarre way, yet his elderly sedan with its crushed grille and fender stood as silent testimony. After it had been picked clean of every possible clue it had been brought back and parked in the gravel drive alongside his modest home. Several other cars were now parked beside it, and a young policeman stood by the steps leading to the front door. Inside, Jack Oxby had set up a temporary field office. Ann Browley and Nigel Jones had joined him, and they were now seated around Clarence Boggs's dining room table.

Ann was going through a period of anger, trying vainly to hide the fact that she was personally distressed by Boggs's murder and the destruction of the Cézanne paintings. But Oxby had discovered that Ann's feelings never interfered with her ability to be objective as she worked a case. He was amused by a charming dash of superiority she occasionally displayed, a trait undoubtedly inherited from her socially well-placed mother, who could not become reconciled to Ann's becoming a “police person.” She made an entry in her notebook, then looked up at Oxby. “Are we here to talk about the murder of Mr. Boggs or of Mr. Cézanne?”

“We are investigating the murder of Clarence Boggs, Annie, but you have a good point. Perhaps the psychiatrists will say there's been a second murder. Are you all set, Jonesy?”

“I have to start by saying it was a fiendishly clever way to kill someone. Though it took a bit of luck.”

Nigel Jones was tall and extremely thin, and everything about him
seemed to come to a point. His nose was sharply pointed, as was his chin, and even his hairline had a sharply pronounced widow's peak. He spoke deliberately and precisely, and had a keen and, at times, dark sense of humor. Nigel Jones had degrees in general medicine, pharmacology, and chemistry. This breadth of formal education was topped with an insatiable curiosity. He was one of a scant few in Scotland Yard's Lambeth forensic labs who were called on to gather evidence at the scene of a crime and also work up the evidence in the laboratory.

Ann asked, “What's so awfully clever about poisoning someone?”

“It wasn't an ordinary poison. Certainly not one delivered in an ordinary way.”

“Let's start at the beginning, shall we?” Oxby said and began to read from the notes he had put in front of him. “Boggs left his home at approximately 6:45 A.M. on Tuesday the nineteenth, drove to the newsdealer where he bought a copy of the
Sporting Life
, stopped nearby for a container of coffee, returned to his car where he read the racing charts, circled his bets for the day, and drank his coffee, all of which was his usual morning routine, or so we've been told. He then drove east on Reigate Road, and about a mile outside of Ockley his car slowed and veered sharply to the left where it struck a stone wall headon. Boggs was seen getting out of the car and walking, staggering, approximately fifteen feet, then collapsing to the ground. A motorist traveling behind Boggs witnessed all this, pulled off the road, examined Boggs, and stated that he could see no signs of life. He drove on to a telephone and notified the police.

Oxby placed a single typed page on the table. “This is a copy of the local police report. It states that a Constable Wagner was first on the scene and confirmed that Boggs was dead; that an ambulance arrived at 7:27 a.m. and removed the body to All Souls Hospital in Reigate.”

Oxby looked up to Jones. “We know what happened, suppose you tell us how it happened.”

Nigel Jones had listened carefully, his body stiff, as if he were sitting at attention.

“Mr. Boggs got a fatal dose of what is called DFP. Its chemical name is diisopropyl fluorophosphate and is in the cyanide chemical group. It is viciously toxic and classified as a nerve gas by the military. Some variants of the chemical are formulated in low concentrations as insecticides and used primarily in agricultural applications. A derivative is also used in the treatment of certain eye disorders.” He turned the page. “Mr.
Boggs breathed the vapors in the confinement of his automobile—the windows were closed. Immediately upon inhalation he suffered severe visual disorientation, due to an extreme contraction of pupil known as miosis. Also severe pain and profuse sweating. At the same time his pulse slowed, his blood pressure dropped precipitously. Within the first minute he involuntarily defecated and urinated. His instincts—that's all that was functioning at this point—allowed him to open the door, then stagger from the car. He managed four or five steps perhaps, then collapsed. I estimate he was dead several steps before falling.”

The forensic specialist placed a small cardboard box on the table. “DFP vapors were released from this crude but ingenious device. You'll recognize this as a common facial-tissue box. But what we found inside was anything but ordinary. On the bottom is a babyfood jar, and in the jar an ounce or two of a clear liquid. Stretched over it is a piece of ordinary plastic wrap, secured with an elastic. Next is a simply constructed wooden frame that holds a juice strainer directly over the jar. In the strainer is a plastic spoon, and you'll note that the handle's been snapped off.” Jonesy took an eye dropper and squeezed a filmy liquid into the spoon. “This whole affair was put beneath the driver's seat in the victim's car. Once Boggs started up and the car moved,” he shook the box gently, “the liquid in the spoon spilled onto the plastic stretched over the jar beneath it. Just as you see it happening now.”

Oxby and Ann watched the drops fall onto the plastic, forming a small puddle. The plastic dissolved, and the liquid fell directly into the solution in the babyfood jar. There was a chemical eruption, and a steamlike cloud rose up over the table. Oxby immediately turned away and Ann covered her face.

“Nothing to fear,” Jones smiled, “quite harmless. But sufficient to demonstrate how Mr. Boggs was killed. It's very clear that when he stopped for his morning coffee, someone opened the door to his car and placed this under the driver's seat. It can be done in about fifteen seconds. I know, because I tried, and found the trick is placing the bowl of the spoon in the strainer, then filling it with mercuric chloride. I estimate that Boggs began to inhale the fumes ninety seconds after he had finished his coffee and got out onto Reigate Road. I've already told you what happened next.”

Ann took the box, removed each element, and placed them on the table in front of her. “Everything here can be bought in a supermarket. Even I could put it together.”

“You won't find diisopropyl fluorophosphate in garden supplies,” Jones replied. “In fact you won't find DFP anywhere except from a very few chemical specialists.”

“How difficult would it be to make the stuff?” Oxby asked.

Jones smiled, aware that Oxby was not deterred by the near impossible. “DFP isn't a benign chemical that one makes by mixing together the contents from a bottle marked A and one marked B.”

“Suppose I know something about chemistry or was a chemical warfare officer in the military.” Oxby gave Jones a hard glance, “Do I need a fully equipped laboratory to put it together?”

“If you knew what you were doing, no,” Jones said. “You'd need a few basic lab appliances, perhaps six or eight items. I'd have to check into that.”

“Do check on that,” Oxby repeated, jotting another note. “Now if I don't put it together myself, where can I buy it?”

“From a distributor of chemicals or, more likely, a pharmaceutical provider. As I mentioned, a dilute solution is used for certain eye disorders. Glaucoma, especially. In full strength it is put up in vials of one gram, each one packed in a doubly sealed canister.”

“How many grams were used to kill Boggs?”

“I'd guess sixty grams, about two ounces.” Jones rubbed his nose contemplatively. “Expensive stuff.”

“How expensive?”

“Sixty grams would cost about three thousand pounds if purchased through regular sources.”

Oxby made a low whistle. “Someone buying sixty vials would cause a stir, I'd guess. What's more curious is why anyone would go to the bother. There are easier and cheaper ways to kill someone.”

“Not as certain as DFP,” Jones added.

“I'm told that Mr. Boggs had some rather serious gambling debts,” Oxby said. “If his creditors had reached the end of their patience, they resorted to a strange form of punishment.”

“Nothing surprises me anymore.” Nigel Jones stood and stretched his long body. “We found nothing else in or on the car except for a few nearly indecipherable fingerprints, which we've sent on to C3 for analysis and look-up.” He shoved the box and its contents to the center of the table. “This contraption gives us a slight glimpse into the mind of the person who conceived the entire affair, but as Ann rightly observes, anyone could assemble it. Question is, why choose
such a sophisticated chemical? Showing off, perhaps? The important matter to wrestle with is the di-isopropyl fluorophosphate and determine how it got into the hands of the murderer. We'll put together a list of the pharmaceutical and chemical companies that sell the compound, and I assure you it will be a very short list.”

Oxby nodded. “He didn't have much family. A daughter nearby. I'll look in on her.” He made some final notes, then looked up.“Jonesy tells us that DFP is hard to come by, and that means there aren't many sources for it. I want you to work together on this. Annie, you concentrate on the continent and let Jonesy check into sources in the UK. But get on it quickly. We need some fast answers.”

D
eder Aukrust banked his fee of nearly $21,000, holding on to $2,000 for new clothes and travel expenses. He rented a car in the name of Charles Metzger, and by noon on the day after he had been on board the
Sepera
he drove directly south from London to a bleak little inn named the Morningstar near the tiny village of Thursley. That night he drank heavily, ruminating about the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg and the burning briefcase that camouflaged his artful performance in the National Gallery. He grimaced at his failure to bring himself to full climax with Astrid on the night following their visit to the Pinkster Gallery, consoling himself by blaming her, repeating over and over that she was a “cold bitch not worth a good fuck.” His emotions, magnified by alcohol's mischievous way of expanding reality, replayed in his mind. He again watched as he put the box of poison beneath Boggs's car seat, then his imagination played out Clarence Boggs's final, tortuous moments. It was the middle of the night when he finally fell onto his bed, mumbling incoherently about memories of his mother.

It was noon the following day before Aukrust came out of a troubled sleep. The day was cool and cloudy, and for most of the afternoon he walked the paths that curled through fields outside the little town and past a golf course. That evening he ordered a bowl of beef soup and a roll that he didn't finish, then went to his room and planned the next day.

From Thursley he drove east to Reigate and squeezed his rented car into a spot on the High Street near the heart of the shopping district and close to a cluster of stores consisting of a florist, a dressmaker specializing in wedding gowns, and a photographer's studio with the name Shelbourne on the window. It was mid-afternoon. He walked past the florist, then the dressmaker, and paused at the photographer's shop, where he found a handwritten sign on the door explaining that
Shelbourne had been unexpectedly called away and would reopen on Monday at noon. “Pinkster's done his job and got the photographer out of town,” he mused to himself. There was a slot in the door for customers to drop their exposed film when the store was closed. Same-Day Film Developing, a sign read. A display window was filled with samples of Shelbourne's photographs. A few were portraits, but most were commercial assignments. Aukrust peered beyond the photographs into the shop where a film-processing machine took up a third of the space, the balance given over to cameras, lenses, film, and the usual assortment of photographic accessories. Curtains pulled to the side revealed a portrait studio.

He continued past three clothing stores to a narrow lane, which led to an alley that ran behind all the shops. A delivery van went past him, kicking up a spray of fine dust before parking behind the florist shop. Two men were unloading panels of plasterboard from a truck behind an empty shop in the process of renovation. Each shop in the alley had a rear entrance, two or three rubbish bins; behind one was a small flower garden. Aukrust continued on to the back of Shelbourne's shop and up four steps to a loading platform and a steel door. Ten feet to the right of the door was a window that had been painted black, in which was an exhaust fan, and behind which, Aukrust computed, was Shelbourne's darkroom. He tried the door. The handle turned easily, but the door was secured by a single-dead-bolt lock about twelve inches above the latch. There was no evidence of an alarm, only an innocuous sign: NO ENTRY—PLEASE USE FRONT ENTRANCE.

He returned to his car and searched the trunk for the tire changing kit. Mixed in with the jack were two fifteen-inch lengths of steel, which when fitted together served to pry off the hubcap and leverage the jack that raised up the car. He put the tools next to his medicine kit, locked the car, and went for a walk through the town. He made two stops. The first was the Royal Oak pub, where he spent forty-five minutes and had a sandwich and a pint of ale. At his second stop he bought a newspaper, which informed him that the sun would set in the London area at 6:18. He returned to the car at 5:30, and for the next hour he watched as one by one the shops emptied of customers, lights went off, doors were locked.