The Reckless Engineer (9 page)

This sounds important, sodium carbonate
, Jeremy made a mental note.

‘How about you Mr. McAllen? Do you have a pool?’

‘We have an indoor pool because the winters in Aberdeen are bitterly cold. And yes, I have mine treated the same way. My men do it for me.’

‘I can see that you have a lovely landscaped garden. I’m told that you also have a large patch of vegetables in the backyard, Mrs. Connor.’

‘Much of the grounds are for grazing for my horses, but I do have some vegetable patches. Johnny looks after the garden and the vegetable patches.’

‘How about you, Mr. McAllen, do you have green fingers?’

‘I have two acres of land where we grow vegetables and fruit, such as carrots and strawberries. My men look after it, but Leana and I like to do some work in it for relaxation when we have some time.’

‘Where do you order the fertilizer, Mrs. Connor? Do you know what fertilizer you use?’

‘I don’t know much about that. Johnny places the orders with Hannah, and then they pick it up in the pickup.’

‘My men do all that also. I think they use nitrogen something,’ McAllen volunteered.

‘Well, despite having an abundance of ammonia nitrate, do you know what I found in your barn? Potassium ferrocyanide.’

Potassium ferrocyanide. They are fishing for information on its presence and accessibility. The active ingredient here is cyanide. Cyanide poisoning!

‘I think they mix it up for better effect. I always ask them to use natural compost, but it takes such a long time to make enough. I don’t think they use much of it though,’ Caitlin answered.

‘I gather you manufacture equipment used in oil and gas mining. Do you use something like a welding torch or a propane torch for our manufacturing processes? I found one in Jack Connor’s lab.’

‘My men do. We manufacture electromechanical equipment and machinery for the oil and gas industry. All our labs have propane torches, and some, the mechanical ones, have oxy-fuel welding torches,’ McAllen advised.

Edwards paused and nodded, exchanging a glance with Hansen.

‘Do you like chocolates, Mrs. Connor? What chocolates do you like?’

‘Well, Thornton’s chocolates are okay for daily use, but I get mine on mail order from a couple of fine handmade Belgian chocolate shops in London. Leonidas and Cavalier chocolates. I’ve got everybody addicted to them. So I get a regular order of a dozen boxes of each make every month, which Hannah stores in the larder in the basement next to the wine.’

‘Leonidas, Cavalier, and Thornton’s. Have any of these boxes gone missing lately?’

‘I honestly don’t know, Inspector. I never keep track of the food. Hannah looks after the larder and if any of the food is low on stocks she orders more.’

‘We are going to need to interview your household staff at some point, Mrs. Connor.’ He nodded at Hansen to make a note to do so.

‘Have you seen this before, Mrs. Connor, Mr. McAllen? Or something like it?’ Edwards pushed the trays to a side and put a small-lidded vial in a cellophane bag on the coffee table, then sat back and looked at the Caitlin and McAllen searchingly.

Jeremy got up from his perch and stole forward to get a better look. It was the kind of thing you might find in any old pharmacy or laboratory.

Both of them were shaking their heads. Harry had warned them that this question was sure to arise.

After a few minutes of silence Edwards picked up the vial and his papers.

‘Well, that’s all the questions I have for now. I need the details of your private investigators, Blackmoon. I should also like you to come into the station tomorrow morning, Mr. McAllen, and speak to an artist who will draw an impression of your disappearing private eye. We shall try to track him down.’

McAllen looked harangued by the request, but nodded as Edwards and WPC Hansen got up.

‘If ye come into the board room with me, Inspector Eddie, I shall give ye copies of the documents, the Blackmoon business cards, and any other papers ye want.’

Magnus held up his right hand to Edwards who was by now standing, clearly asking for a hand up from his comfortable seat. Edwards, taken aback by the request, obliged anyway by taking Magnus’ hand and pulling him forward and up into a standing position, but not before getting precariously close to being pulled down instead.

‘And I should like to talk to you about releasing Jack on police bail, Inspector.’ Harry got up as well.

‘That is
not
going to happen today, Mr. Stavers, but I shall consider it after we will have sifted through the results from our search of the BlackGold offices, likely the day after tomorrow.’ Edwards pursed his lips and shook his head.

‘This way, this way, Inspector Eddie.’

Magnus pointed the officers toward the door, and led a startled Edwards out by his elbow with friendly enthusiasm.

Caitlin, Douglas McAllen, and Harry sat back and with sighs of relief. They all listened quietly to the sounds of the officers in the hall and then of the cars driving off.

Turning back from the window to which he had returned to watch the officers’ departure, Jeremy finally broke the silence.

‘Michelle died from seizure, multiple organ failure, and probably cardiac arrest from cyanide poisoning. Almost pure cyanide can be made from reacting treated Potassium ferrocyanide with sodium carbonate by heating the mixture with an intense heat source like a propane torch. They believe the poison had been stored in that vial and administered with food, likely chocolates,’ he deduced out loud, stunning his audience into another long silence.

And almost everybody living in this mansion had a motive and the means to do it
.

CHAPTER 12

Monday, October 18 — Three Days Later

‘I left my car parked in the airport parking lot. So that’s where we are heading first. Could you follow me in my car from there to the limousine company? We can return the limo and then head over to Mum’s place from there.’

The Chrysler Executive hummed a sleepy song as Peter maneuverer it through the Monday morning traffic heading towards Southampton.

‘Sounds like a plan, Peter.’ Jeremy nodded. ‘Thanks for driving me. I didn’t really want to be stuck in the house by myself. I have to get Jack four weeks of leave and sort out some work matters for him at Marine. My appointment with Alan Walters, Jack’s manager—actually he was
my
former manager also—is at three in the afternoon. Alan has his hands full with a lot of distraught engineers this morning, having had news of Michelle’s murder splashed all over the front pages this weekend. Harry has somehow managed to keep your dad’s involvement out of the news so far.’

‘Dad is lucky to have him.’ Peter nodded.

After a sullen breakfast, Douglas McAllen and Magnus Laird had headed out to keep the appointment with Edwards about their mythical disappearing private eye. Caitlin had headed over to BlackGold, instructing Peter to look after Jeremy for the day. She needed to be there early to set some anxious BlackGold engineers’ minds at rest and to direct them to put the offices back in order, she had explained.

‘I am sorry all this is disturbing your A-levels, Peter.’

‘I finished my A-levels and the SATs. I scored straight A’s. I have an offer of admission from Yale to read Civil and Petroleum Engineering. Actually I was due to fly out to start my freshman year last month, but Grandpa McAllen has written to Mum that he’s withholding all our funding because of Dad’s mix-up with this bloody Michelle. I have had to postpone the start date to next semester at least.’

‘Really? I forgot, you are eighteen now. Congratulations, Peter. Well done. I’m sorry this matter has delayed your studies.’

‘It isn’t just a delay. It was going to
stop
my studies because we cannot afford to pay the tuition and the maintenance without Grandpa McAllen. Mum has saved Marc’s allowance over the years because Marc went to Catholic state school while I went to private school with Gillian. I asked Mum to let me borrow some of Marc’s savings, but Mum wouldn’t hear of it. Mum and I were thinking of applying to UK universities for a grant next year, but even UK universities—well, all the good ones—charge full tuition now,’ he said with great agitation. ‘But now everything is back on track again, I think. I shall be going to Yale in January now,’ he said with little conviction.

Jeremy nodded. They drove on in silence for a while.
I should let his anger and agitation subside and diffuse
.

‘Dad’s a grown man, but he was acting like a bloody teenager about that slut. We didn’t know what had got into him. He used to coach me on my A-level courses back in the good old days, if you remember. Then he just stopped coming home till very late, and some nights, not at all. We thought he was staying with you and, after you left Marine, with one of his other mates. Mum, however, did say that he was on to another affair. She said all the signs were there again whenever he came to pick up and drop off Marc. Mum could read Dad like a book.’

Jeremy knew that Marianne was Jack’s high-school sweetheart, his girl-next-door. She had grown up with him since childhood and had been married to him for eight years. The children and something more deep down seemed to keep him deeply tied to her.

‘If he were preoccupied before, he practically went into a zone of his own since Michelle announced she was having his kid,’ Peter was continuing. ‘Even when Mum and I told him that Grandpa McAllen was going to stop all our funding, he didn’t care. All he wanted was that slut and her kid. Dad had loved me most all my life and suddenly he was all excited about that slut’s kid. We were sure she was brainwashing him to cut us out of his life.’

Jeremy remained quiet, sympathetically nodding his head. He had seen Michelle’s effect on Jack at Marine and how she took full advantage of it. He also knew how close Jack was to Peter. He could not imagine Jack abandoning his son, but then he had also been taken by surprise at how Jack had abandoned Sally, not only personally but also professionally.

‘I don’t understand how Dad can be so bloody reckless.’

Peter had stepped hard on the accelerator in his agitation. It took a few minutes of silence for him to realize he was over the speed limit and slow down.

‘Dad was lying to everybody that he had finished with her. I actually drove over to Marine last Wednesday to meet him after work. Dad had stopped coming to see us since Mum confronted him about Michelle and our funding, you see. So Mum suggested that I catch him alone and try to speak to him about the university funding.’

Last Wednesday? That was the night of the murder, or the night before it. And Peter clearly hated the murder victim with a vehemence that Jeremy had not anticipated. This was an interesting development.

‘But I saw Michelle getting into his car at Marine, and I followed them. He drove her to Morrisons to do her shopping, and then to her house. I waited around for hours to confront him and then I walked up to Michelle’s door in the rain to knock on the door and ask him what the hell he was doing. We had had a long dry summer and suddenly it rained cats and dogs that day, as if predicting something awful was about to happen. I saw them through the window . . . I was so disgusted. I came back to Mum’s for the night. I didn’t want to face Caitlin at home.’

Gosh, so Jack had been at the scene of the crime on the night of the murder, or the night before the murder if in fact Michelle was murdered the next day. And so had Peter. Wow!

They drove on in silence.

‘So you want to read civil engineering, ha?’

‘Tentatively. Grandpa McAllen’s paying the tuition and maintenance and he needs civil and petroleum engineers for his company. What I really I want is to go to medical school here and stay close to Marc, Gillian, Mum, and Dad. I secretly applied to medical schools last year, and I have an offer from the UCL medical college in London. Only Mum knows about it. I was actually going to speak to Dad and Grandpa McAllen about it when this upheaval happened. It’s all up in the air now, all touch and go. I have written to UCL asking for one year deferred admission to buy myself some time, and they have agreed.’

Wow again. The kid was bright like his parents and had great ambitions and, yes, he was going to need Grandpa McAllen on his side to chase his dreams. And he, too, had badly needed Michelle and her child out of his way.

‘Taking a gap year off is a very good idea, Peter,’ Jeremy applauded. ‘Give your dad and grandpa some time to sort out this mess. Douglas McAllen has mentioned he wants to support your education whatever happens, so I’d pick a good time and talk to him if I were you, about the offer from the medical school as well. I shall have a word with Jack when things calm down.’

‘Grandpa won’t pay for medical school. I know that. That’s why Mum asked me to ask Dad directly.’

They drove on pensively for a while, listening to the purr of the Chrysler.

‘We’re nearly there,’ Peter announced, rolling down his window. ‘Can you smell the sea?’

It smelled all the same to Jeremy. But he was a Cambridge boy, born and brought up amongst the dreaming spires on a misty flat inland through which a river ran. The Connors and the McAllens were creatures of the sea. They played on its waves, lived and loved on its shores, and sensed the moods of the sea like seals. Their lives ebbed and flowed with it. They made powerful machines to harness its immense powers and hidden treasures to make their fortunes from it. Their tempers and passions ran as deep and as powerful as the sea, and when they stormed and raged there was nothing that could stop the destruction they wreaked like tidal waves.

Low overhead flights roared past above them as they turned into the airport car park.

‘Dad bought the Audi for me. It’s identical to his. He bought the two cars together at the same time and gave me this one when I first got my license,’ Peter said lovingly.

The Audi A6 was a pleasant and familiar drive. Actually Jeremy and Jack had picked out three cars of the model together, brand new, about three years ago, two for Jack and one for himself. Peter had just passed his license exam, Jack had announced proudly, and he needed a car for Peter to drive Marc and himself around, especially so that Jack would see more of the boys. Jack had left Peter’s car at the dealership until Christmas and had had it delivered to Peter and Marc as a surprise Christmas gift with a big ribbon on its bonnet.

Jeremy parked the Audi about fifty yards away from the main entrance of Imperial Limousines and quickly walked around to the boot of the car. There it was, hidden under several empty sacks of jute thrown over a couple of flattened cardboard boxes, Caitlin’s laptop, and next to it two flat boxes full of £50 and £20 notes. He quickly hid the laptop under his Jacket and slid back into the passenger seat. No sooner Jeremy had slipped the laptop into his case and inconspicuously placed the case back on the floor of the car behind the driver’s seat than Peter reappeared, having concluded his business with the limousine firm.

‘Right.’ Peter sank into the driver’s seat and ignited the engine. ‘Mum’s making lunch for us. After lunch I shall drop you at Marine about three p.m. and pick up Marc from school. Give me a ring when you will have finished your business. I shall pick you up and we can head back home.’

‘Sounds like a plan, Peter.’ Jeremy nodded, noticing that Peter thought of Jack’s place as his home and the former Mrs. Marianne Connor’s residence as “Mum’s place”.