A Quiet Kill (2 page)

High Commissioner Carruthers also had a disarming way of making even complete strangers feel genuinely comfortable in his presence. He was generally very well-liked in the diplomatic community and, almost as important, by his own staff. His wife, of course, was another story. Sharon Carruthers seemed to take great pride in rubbing people the wrong way. Rochon wondered idly if she had any friends at all, then swerved quickly as a pedestrian appeared out of the darkness.

He turned the windshield wipers to full speed, and his thoughts turned to his earlier conversation with the Operations Centre in Ottawa. Some wittering old fool asking if Paul thought the deputy minister should be disturbed in Vancouver even for such news; after all, the
DM
was
accompanying the minister at a very important conference, you know, and he hates to be bothered, especially for bad news . . . Rochon had hung up in frustration, leaving the old boy to his breakdown. Felt a bit bad about it now, of course, but honestly, if these are the guys you're supposed to call in a crisis . . .

This detective chief
inspector did not look at all like Morse, thought Annie Mallett, sorely disappointed. He was very tall, with a thin face and a hawkish nose. Annie thought that he seemed somewhat sad. Quite a good head of white hair, though, so that was something.

She sat primly if somewhat uncomfortably at the dining room table, kitty-corner to Hay, who was seated at the head. Annie had dusted and polished this table often enough, but never before had she been seated there. She found the experience somewhat unsettling.

This end of the table had become something of an impromptu interview room. Already papers were littered about, and a junior constable had fetched coffee from down the street. The detective chief inspector, Annie noted, took his black, no sugar. A young detective sergeant was seated across from her with a small book, ready to take notes. He was much better-looking than his boss. If only she were thirty years younger, she thought with a small sigh.

She had been very surprised to learn that the victim was Natalie Guévin. There had been nothing at all mysterious about Natalie, nor had she even been particularly beautiful—well, at least not in a traffic-stopping sort of way. A rather unremarkable woman, Annie reckoned, to be killed in a fit of romantic passion or perhaps murdered as a pawn in a game of international espionage . . .

“So, Miss Mallett,” the detective chief inspector broke into Annie's ruminations, “my name is Hay. I realize this is all rather upsetting. But can you tell me exactly where you were late this afternoon and this evening?” Hay leaned back, longing for a cigarette. The proliferation of stern No Smoking signs throughout the dining room served as an effective deterrent. He had understood from somewhere that Canadians in general were fanatical about not smoking. Anyway, he was situated close enough to the crime scene that he would run the risk of charges of contaminating evidence. Later, perhaps. He studied the peculiar-looking Annie Mallett, who had taken the time to apply a full makeup and might have spent the evening backcombing a mass of orange hair. She was staring intently at him and had adopted a jarringly coquettish manner.

Annie smoothed her skirt and thought very hard. “Well,” she began, “after work, at three o'clock, I took the number four bus to the shops, didn't I? There's lots of good pre-Christmas sales on now, your wife might like to know,” she said coyly. “I bought a bra”—here she coughed prettily—“and some sausage rolls from Marks & Spencer, didn't I? The cashier knows me—she can verify that,” added Annie in a confidential tone.

Hay nodded, sighing inwardly. It was going to be a long night.

By the time
the household staff was finished being interviewed, Hay had observed a good deal of the curious workings of a frustrated housemaid's mind, been subject to the sulks and tempers of an apparently unappreciated culinary
artiste
, and been treated by the butler-cum-chauffeur to a healthy dose of interesting but largely extraneous diplomatic gossip. He had learned little useful, except that all the live-ins claimed to have heard nothing at all unusual that evening. Hay found this peculiar. The living quarters were not all that far removed from the dining room, and the acoustics, in there at least, caused sound to echo and bounce alarmingly.

Three High Commission guards, two Canadians and a Scot, were interviewed, as was Sergeant Carpenter. The guards had neither seen nor heard anything unusual. It had been a relatively routine evening, except for the unusually high percentage of staff working late, doubtless due to the forthcoming visit of the Canadian foreign minister. No, staff departure times had not been logged: they never were. Arrivals and departures of visitors, however, were carefully monitored.

According to the guards, Mary Kellick had run shrieking into the guards' station at 9:25
PM
. One of the guards had found her some brandy in the Canadian Club downstairs, which calmed her a little. The others immediately proceeded to investigate and secure the scene, and one had contacted Sergeant Carpenter at his home at 9:28. He, in turn, had alerted the Deputy High Commissioner, Paul Rochon. Carpenter corroborated the sequence of events, adding that he believed Rochon to have then contacted the High Commissioner in Scotland as well as Foreign Affairs in Ottawa.

Running his hands through his thick hair, Hay heartily wished that police work were nearly as exciting as Annie Mallett seemed to think it was. He signaled that he would see the acting High Commissioner now. The small, nervous-looking man had been standing by the entrance for some time. Paul Rochon was deathly white over what Hay assumed to be a normal pallor. He wore thick spectacles and, with trembling hands, gratefully accepted a cup of coffee.

Rochon told Hay of his earlier conversation with the High Commissioner and of the actions he had taken. Hay inquired as to when the
RCMP
team was expected on the ground. “With any luck, sir, later this morning.” Hay realized with a start that it was already well past midnight. “Not, I mean,” continued Rochon, “that we don't trust
your
lot. It's just that it
is
the High Commission, and . . . the deceased . . . 
is
 . . . or was, er, Canadian. You know.”

“Yes, of course,” agreed Hay, although privately he didn't really agree at all. This was the High Commission, but it was still in London, so surely that gave him some sort of jurisdiction? He was not clear on the diplomatic niceties, despite his earlier upbraiding of Constable Brent, and decided to tread carefully. Anyway, it might be amusing to work with the Mounties for a while. Hay continued, “And you have been apprised of the identity of the victim?”

“Yes, the constable told me. I can't believe it. It must have been an intruder, a nutcase.”

Hay doubted that very much but asked, “Did you know Ms. Guévin well?”

“Not very, at least not socially, if you know what I mean. We've worked together for about eighteen months, after she came in from a posting in Bangkok. I've been here for two years myself. She was an excellent officer.”

“Married? Kids?”

“No. Divorced, I think. Never mentioned any kids.”

“Did she have any particular friends here at the High Commission?”

“Not really. But then, none of us do. This isn't like a lot of posts, where the local environment sort of forces you together in a false camaraderie, if you know what I mean. Here you can get out, make local friends, make a life for yourself without the local security service breathing down your neck.”

Detective Sergeant Richard Wilkins, who had been quietly taking interview notes, was pleased as always to be working with Detective Chief Inspector Hay, but found himself slightly out of his depth in this world of diplomacy. He was somewhat puzzled by the numerous references to the “High Commission.” Finally he asked, “Excuse me, Mr. Rochon, but, for clarification, can you please tell me why this is called a ‘High Commission'? I thought that diplomatic offices were ‘Embassies'?”

Rochon smiled and nodded. “Yes, a lot of people are confused by that. Diplomatic premises from one Commonwealth country located in another Commonwealth country are called High Commissions; non-Commonwealth countries have Embassies. So while Canada has High Commissions in London and, say, Canberra, it would have an Embassy in, for instance, the
US
or Germany.”

“Ah, okay, thanks.”

Hay continued, “So there was no one, then, who might have known her a bit better than anyone else?”

“Well, come to think of it . . . she was a bit chummy with the military attaché, Colonel Lahaie. They used to ride together. Horses, that is.” Rochon seemed to find horseback riding a somewhat frivolous pastime. “At Hyde Park, a couple of times a week, I think.”

Rochon rehearsed his whereabouts that evening. Working at home on the forthcoming ministerial visit. Too many distractions at the office to concentrate, even in the evenings. A few phone calls to the
UK
desk at Foreign Affairs in Ottawa. A take-away vindaloo around seven. Then the phone call from Carpenter, around nine-thirty.

“Finally, Mr. Rochon, can you think of anyone who might have a motive to kill Ms. Guévin?”

Rochon hesitated perhaps a fraction of a second too long and then said decisively, “No. No one at all.”

Forensics had helped
the coroner's team prepare the body for transport to the morgue, and Dr. Shelly, the forensic pathologist, was waiting patiently for Hay to finish his interviews. If one learned anything in forensics, it was patience—and perhaps an ability to discriminate between the important and the trivial. Soon Hay was listening intently as Shelly—who had been called by the coroner to attend the scene—related his initial findings. The time of death appeared to be between roughly seven and eight in the evening, according to the victim's core warmth and level of lividity, or pooling of blood in the body. Cause of death was massive blood loss resulting from a deep cut to the throat, apparently following a severe blow to the back of the head. Either the carotid artery or the jugular had been severed, given the large quantity of blood at the scene.

The attack, according to Shelly, appeared to have been carried out by someone who knew exactly what he, possibly she, was doing. There was no obvious evidence of sexual interference, but this would have to be confirmed at autopsy. No defensive wounds on the woman's hands. A wooden club of some type had been left on the scene and had been bagged for analysis. There was no knife in sight.

“So she was clobbered before she had a chance to cry out. That explains why no one seems to have heard anything. No struggle—just taken by surprise.”

“It looks that way. And even if the bashing she took didn't silence her, the knife did. Sliced straight through the vocal cords. By the way, the only way to achieve that sort of cut is if the attacker struck from behind. Of course we have further tests to run, but it seems pretty straightforward to me at this point.”

Hay winced and stood up. He had been parked behind the dining hall table for several hours now, and his knee was starting to ache. “Well, Wilkins,” he said quietly to his detective sergeant, “what do you think we have here?”

Watching as the woman's bagged body was wheeled into the corridor,
DS
Richard Wilkins could only shake his head and mutter, “I don't have any bloody idea, sir.”

 

The High Commissioner's “no press”
edict only remained in effect for about half an hour. Someone at Scotland Yard who owed a favor called a contact in a wire service, and soon the story was being reported in both Britain and Canada. The Canadian foreign affairs minister was surprised by the news at a press conference during the high-profile meeting in Vancouver. In front of the foreign press and observed by ministerial colleagues from around the globe, the minister was forced to admit that he had not heard about the murder on the premises of the High Commission in London. Shortly thereafter, a rather bewildered Operations Centre employee whose reaction time had not been quite up to snuff took early retirement.

Press activity around the High Commission was intense when Hay and Wilkins made their way back to the crime scene in the morning. They were both exhausted, having only managed a couple of hours' sleep, which only sharpened their annoyance with the mass of reporters spilling onto Grosvenor Square in front of the High Commission. The Canadians were expected soon; their flight was due at Heathrow at 7:30
AM
.

Elbowing their way through the insistent throng and tersely refusing comment, they were soon inside and re-entering the official dining room. They discovered that during the early morning hours, a proper interview room had been established in a different location. Hay didn't know to what purpose this room was formally used, but the overstuffed armchairs that had been pushed to one side evoked gentlemen and brandy and cigars. Even the coffee had come up in the world, now served from a large urn in china cups bearing, Hay supposed, the Canadian coat of arms.

“They should be here soon, Wilkins?”

“Yes, sir. They're being met by Rochon and Sergeant Carpenter, the liaison officer.”

Detective Sergeant Wilkins could honestly say that he loved his job. He had wanted to be a policeman since he was a small boy and had signed up at the earliest opportunity. His long-suffering girlfriend was less enthusiastic about his career choice but should have known what she was in for when she began flirting with him at that fateful dinner party three years ago.

“Mmm. Never worked with the Mounties before. Do you expect they wear those red tunics all the time?”

“Would make undercover work a sight difficult, wouldn't it?” Wilkins grinned.

“We need a good picture of this Guévin woman, Wilkins,” said Hay, shifting gears. “When we're finished briefing the team, I want you to nose out whatever you can about her—hobbies, career path, the lot. Check her appointment book and search her apartment and office again. See if you can track down the ex-husband. Always a good place to start.”