Charters and Caldicott (12 page)

‘Perhaps
you
did it, Gregory,' said Charters. ‘Accomplices do fall out.'

‘She wasn't my accomplice. She was my wife.'

‘Sorry about that. I didn't know,' Charters mumbled.

One of Darrell's dogs ambled into sight along the river-bank. Judging his master to be not far behind, Caldicott called urgently, ‘Look here, Gregory, we can't go on bawling at one another across the river like this. Isn't there somewhere we can talk?'

‘The gun museum. At eleven.' Gregory turned and walked away.

‘Eleven? That's cutting it a bit fine,' said Charters.

‘I say!' Caldicott shouted after Gregory. ‘You couldn't make it a bit earlier, could you? We have some rather urgent business in Town.' But Gregory was out of earshot.

Charters and Caldicott communicated the change of plan to Margaret and delegated her to tell their host, with appropriate excuses, while they changed into their cricket-watching clothes and packed their cases.

‘Josh has gone shooting. I've left him a note,' said Margaret when they joined her in front of the house where she was supervising the loading of the luggage into the Jaguar.

‘That's the ticket. Saves embarrassment all round,' said Charters.

‘The clock on the belfry strikes eleven. Should I come with you?'

‘Better not,' said Caldicott. ‘You might inhibit him. You can be looking up trains.'

‘Yes, sir.'

Charters and Caldicott came across St Clair on their way to the gun room. He greeted them from the stone bench where he was sitting peeling yet another apple with his Swiss Army knife. ‘Forever eating, that fellow,' Charters muttered. ‘Case of tapeworm there, I shouldn't wonder.'

The walls of the museum were lined with guns of all kinds, ages and sizes. Revolvers, duelling pistols, muskets nestled next to military and sporting rifles. Yet more exhibits were laid out in glass display cases.

‘Bloodthirsty hobby, collecting all this stuff together,' said Charters as they wandered round the room. ‘Give me triangular stamps any day.'

‘Everything clean, bright and lightly oiled, you'll notice. There must be enough hardware here to slaughter a regiment.'

Charters consulted his watch. ‘It's gone eleven. Where's Gregory?'

Caldicott, exploring further afield, spotted one exhibit they had overlooked. He called to Charters and together they hurried across to where Gregory lay, half-hidden by one of the display cases, blood oozing onto the floor from a wound in his chest.

‘Shot?' Caldicott asked.

‘Knifed, I'd say.'

‘A knife! In this place!' Caldicott stared round in disbelief at the arsenal of guns surrounding them. ‘Now there's a case of coals to Newcastle, if ever I saw one.'

Once again, Inspector Snow followed the Club porter up the stairs and into the library. The solitary occupant put down his newspaper and rose from his armchair to greet him.

‘Inspector Snow, good of you to spare me your valuable time,' said Venables, the clubman.

The likelihood of finding bodies in the Club billiards room being, on the face of it, remote, Charters and Caldicott met there for a game of restorative snooker and a breather from the relentless attentions of the police. The game was not going Caldicott's way. When a hiss of sharply indrawn breath distracted him as he was about to pot yellow, he turned to Charters in irritation.

‘Do you mind, old boy?'

‘I didn't utter a sound. It's the radiators.'

‘Sorry.' Caldicott re-applied himself to the shot and again was stopped by a gasp. Turning, he discovered that Inspector Snow had joined them and was taking a critical interest in his game.

‘Go for the pink, Mr Caldicott. Then you'll be in line to pot that red there, which should bring you up to the black.'

‘I'm aware of that, Inspector. I was just considering my options.'

‘Inspector, I don't wish to appear rude, but have you been elected a member of this Club?' aid Charters, bristling with annoyance.

‘Come along, Mr Charters, you know why I'm here.'

‘That poor devil Gregory, I suppose. We've already been closely questioned by the Buckinghamshire constabulary, you know.'

‘Yes, I do know. They tell me that what seemed to concern you most was missing a cricket match at the Oval.'

‘Lord's, actually,' said Caldicott.

‘Don't let me interrupt your game of snooker, Mr Caldicott.'

‘I concede, Charters,' said Caldicott, laying down his cue. ‘Look here, Inspector, I hope we're not creating an impression of callousness, but after all we didn't know the man from Adam and it was only our bad luck that we chanced to be the ones to find him.'

Snow began absent-mindedly to retrieve the snooker balls and replace them in their positions. ‘Oh, chance, was it? So you hadn't gone to the gun museum to meet him?'

‘Why should you think that?' Charters asked, bluffing boldly.

‘Well, you see, Mr Charters, you have your luggage loaded in the car in ample time to catch the 11.18 to Marylebone – you're anxious to get to the Oval, or Lord's, it doesn't matter which – yet you then go wandering off to the gun museum when there isn't another train until 2.40.'

‘Yes, and the next one after that isn't until five, as we have good reason to know,' said Charters bitterly.

‘All the more reason for catching the earlier train. That yellow please.' Caldicott obligingly rolled the yellow ball down the table to Snow.

‘Look here, Inspector, this murder, if murder it was, took place far outside the province of the Metropolitan Police. Now, unless you've been brought into the case...'

‘Black, Mr Charters,' Snow interrupted. Charters shoved the ball viciously towards him. ‘Let's say I brought myself into it. As soon as I'd heard you'd found another body.'

‘You're not suggesting
we
had anything to do with these deaths?' Charters demanded.

‘You're one of my common denominators. I'll put it that way.'

‘One of them? Are there others?' Charters asked.

‘Oh, yes. You know Gregory came from Hong Kong?' 

‘Did he, by Jove,' said Caldicott.

‘Interpol have a file on him. Petty drug-runner, porn merchant, part-time pimp. I imagine that's why Mr Josh Darrell gave him a roof over his head when he turned up there. He'd have plenty of use for Gregory's type of services – you know the company he keeps.'

‘Do we not!' said Caldicott feelingly, the memory of his fellow guests still nightmarishly vivid.

‘Hardly your style, I would have thought.'

‘Yes, well, we were taken there by a friend,' said Charters. ‘I can tell you, it's the last time I spend a weekend with an unknown quantity.'

‘You won't be spending any more weekends away in the near future, gentlemen, will you? No holidays abroad, for instance?'

‘We don't take holidays abroad, Inspector, we've been abroad.'

‘That red,' said Snow. When Caldicott had rolled it to him he completed the frame, moved it into its exact position and crouched down to check it at eye level. Satisfied, he removed the frame from the balls and wiped the chalk off his hands with his handkerchief. ‘Just let me know if you
do
decide to take off anywhere, won't you? Washroom's down the stairs, isn't it?'

Snow's departure was more than welcome but Charters hastily redirected him. ‘There's a nearer one this way, Inspector. Down the back staircase and through the kitchens.'

‘Thanks,' said Snow drily, moving towards the green baize door. ‘Sorry to be an embarrassment, gentlemen, but if you
will
get mixed up in all these murders.'

‘Let him know if we go away?' said Charters, as Snow followed his directions into the nether regions of the Club. ‘That's tantamount to warning us that anything we say may be taken down and used in evidence! I don't like this, Caldicott. He quite clearly suspects that we know far more about Gregory than we've admitted.'

‘Probably. I'll tell you something he
doesn't
suspect, though, Charters – the existence of the flat at Thamesview.'

‘How do you make that out?'

‘He spoke of Gregory having been given a roof over his head at Darrell's place. Evidently he and Helen Appleyard – Mrs Gregory – kept their little hideaway to themselves.'

‘What's that to us?'

‘Well, don't you see, Charters? With Gregory out of the way, and the police still in blissful ignorance of the place, there's no reason why we shouldn't go round to Thamesview now and have a thorough nose round.'

'What? Before lunch?'

‘Well, after lunch.'

They took up their cues again. ‘My break, I believe,' said Charters.

'You won't let me interrupt you at all, Mr Grimes,' said Snow, his shadow falling across the newspaper Grimes was using to help him fill in his football pools.

‘'Scuse me, Inspector, slack period.'

‘Good. We can have one of our little chats. Anyone been up to thirty-six of late?'

‘Only Mr Caldicott himself.'

‘And?'

‘And Mr Charters.'

‘And?'

Grimes smirked. ‘Well,
you
know, Inspector.'

‘No, I don't know.'

‘That Mrs Mottram once or twice. And that's all, to my knowledge. Of course, if you'd like me to keep a special look-out style of thing.'

‘I don't pay for information, you know, Mr Grimes. You're supposed to give it to me for nothing. If you don't, it's called withholding evidence and you get arrested for it.'

‘I've got nothing else to tell you, Inspector. Honest to God, I kid you not.'

‘Good. I prefer to be kidded not.' Snow produced a batch of photographs from his briefcase and showed Grimes a wedding picture of Helen Appleyard. ‘Now, we all know who this is, don't we?'

‘The dead girl, Jenny Beevers as she was known.'

‘What do you mean “as she was known”?'

‘Well, it's who everybody
said
she was style of thing, Isn't it?'

‘You have reason to believe it wasn't Jenny Beevers?'

‘Not for me to say, Inspector Snow. I know nothing about her in any shape or form whatsoever.'

‘You've never heard Mr Caldicott casting doubt on it being Jenny Beevers?'

‘Oh, he wouldn't, sir. Not to me. Not to staff. He's not what you'd call a big confider, see?'

‘All right, Mr Grimes, what about this fellow?' Snow showed Grimes a wedding snap of Helen Appleyard and Gregory arm-in-arm. ‘Ever seen him before?'

‘Never.'

‘Yes you have. He's on page one of that newspaper you've got there.'

‘I only read the sports pages, sir. Never look at the front page – I mean to say, it's only bad news, isn't it?'

‘It is for him. Has he ever been here?'

‘Not to my knowledge.'

‘Never asked to see Mr Caldicott?'

‘No.'

‘And you didn't slip him the spare key to Mr Caldicott's flat? Or leave this grille unlocked so he could help himself?'

‘More that my job's worth, Inspector Snow.'

‘Your job isn't worth fivepence at the present moment in time, Mr Grimes. You're a liar, aren't you?'

‘I don't have to stand here and take that from you, Inspector.'

‘Yes, you do. You work here.'

‘I swear to God I've never set eyes on that man in that picture.'

‘I didn't say you had. I said you were a liar. As to what you're lying about, we'll find out sooner or later.' Snow put the photographs away and looked at his hands. ‘Just chuck me one of those tissues, will you?'

‘Do you want me to mention to Mr Caldicott you called round,' Grimes asked as Snow carefully wiped his hands.

‘You'll do whatever suits you best, won't you?' said Snow, throwing down the dirty tissue and leaving. Grimes scowled, picked it up and put it in his waste-paper basket.

The sign opposite the lift said, ‘Thamesview South Block Nos. 100-200' and an arrow pointed down a long, featureless corridor. ‘Soulless establishment, isn't it,' said Charters as they followed the arrow. ‘Like a Swedish clinic.'

‘You pays your money and you gets your privacy. Very much a port of call for ships that pass in the night, I believe. Here we are.'

They went into a tiny service flat, just a bed-sitter with doors leading off to a kitchenette and bathroom. It obviously hadn't been tidied since Helen Appleyard went out for the last time. The bed was unmade, clothes were strewn carelessly about and an open suitcase stood on top of the wardrobe. Looking around, Caldicott found underwear hanging, on the shower rail in the bathroom and unwashed crockery in the kitchenette. ‘Exactly as she must have left it,' said Charters, wrinkling his nose. ‘You'd have thought someone would have been in with a vacuum cleaner.'

‘Only if she'd opted to shell out for maid service. As evidently she hadn't. Which suggests, Charters, there's something in this room that Helen Appleyard and Gregory wouldn't have wanted anyone else to see.'

Charters tried the door of the wardrobe. ‘Locked. What do you suppose we're looking for, exactly?'

‘Hard to say until we find it. The Hong Kong connection, as the thriller writers would have it.'

‘She might at least have emptied her ashtrays.' Charters picked up a full one with disgust. About to empty it into the waste-paper basket, he stopped short and stared. ‘There's your Hong Kong connection, Caldicott,' he said, pointing into the basket. A long spiral of fresh apple peel lay in the bottom.

‘St Clair?'

‘And his Swiss Army knife.'

A loud creak came from behind them. They turned as the wardrobe door swung open gently to reveal St Clair, half­eaten apple in one hand and knife in the other, standing inside it. Gravely, St Clair clicked his heels.