Death in Leamington (11 page)

Hunter noted that, given his wife’s obvious distress in the room next door, dealing with the press seemed to be surprisingly high on Sir William’s agenda. For the moment he put this down to the career politician in him.

Before Hunter left the crime scene to return to the station, he decided to take a few minutes to visit the other half of the Flyte family in No. 5, the house next door. But he soon discovered from their housekeeper that Lady Mary was away on a honeymoon cruise with her new husband and that her daughters were staying with friends overnight. The girls were expected to return later in the day. He discovered that they had planned to attend the same concert as Hunter that afternoon, although of course his own attendance at that event was now impossible.

He had not been in Lady Mary’s house before, but he catalogued with pleasure the Empire period furniture, Persian carpets and paintings that decorated the hall. He also noticed that Lady Mary had the
right
period lanterns in contrast to the ugly Florentine lamps in Sir William’s house next door.
More than enough proof of her superior taste
he thought. Although he must formally treat them as possible suspects until he confirmed their movements, he felt he knew them well enough to discount immediately any involvement in these dreadful events. He decided not to try to contact them further during the morning, but wait until they returned.

He thanked the housekeeper and walked down the steps to the pavement, opening the little gate that led to the steps to the basement flat below. He descended the steps and then rang the bell and saw an eye staring at him through the uncovered spyhole. Immediately the door opened a few inches and he was greeted by his friend Eddie’s worried face. Eddie removed the chain and invited him in, apparently relieved to see him

‘Sorry, I thought it might have been the press again. Come in, Gus.’

‘Thank you, Eddie, I won’t stay long.’

He entered the hallway and Eddie led him into the kitchen, offering him a cup of tea, which Hunter declined.

‘So Eddie, how are you doing? This must have been a huge shock for both of you.’

‘Yes, it’s been insane; we’ve certainly had better days. Alice is fine though, I guess she’s getting used to this sort of gruesome stuff with the forensics, although having it happen on your doorstep is a bit weird to say the least. She’s already gone over to the hospital to get ready for the autopsy. As for Carrie, fortunately she didn’t see too much. She’s in her bedroom, probably Instagramming it as we speak.’ Hunter frowned; social media had its drawbacks in this sort of situation.

‘And you, Eddie, how are you doing?’ He looked at his friend, who was unshaven, dishevelled and pale, his red eyes suggesting he could do with a good night’s sleep.

‘I’ll admit I’m still shaking, Gus. I feel a bit of a wuss now. I’m afraid I was a bit hung over this morning after a late night. I was still in bed when it happened. The first I knew about the whole thing was when I heard Alice shouting for help from the street. I woke my friend Hugh, who was sleeping on the couch, and we both ran up the outside steps to find out what was going on. I thought she was being attacked or something, but realised at once when I got up the steps that she was trying to save this guy’s life. We dragged him up on to the doorstep of No. 6 and she told me to check his breathing and pulse and apply pressure to the knife wound until the ambulance arrived. She thought he’d been mugged.’

‘You did exactly the right thing; it could have saved his life.’

‘I have to admit I was struggling to remember my old Red Cross training, but Alice was amazing; she knew exactly what to do, told me to shout if I needed help and then ran off down to the street corner with Hugh to where those guys had been knocked off their scooter. I was concentrating so hard on what she told me to do that the weird thing is I didn’t hear anything until suddenly my face was covered well, covered with all sorts of foul stuff when his head exploded. God, the bullet must have been so close to hitting me as well. Then I saw Lady Flyte’s face when she opened the door… her face… she said something to him and then screamed before she fainted. I think that’s why I’m still shaking.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry you had to go through that kind of horrific experience. I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this; it appears there was a double murder attempt on the same person at the same time. Is there anything you can tell me about him or the attackers for that matter?’

‘No, not really. I had seen him a couple of times recently out late walking his dogs; Alice can’t remember seeing him at all. I assumed he was a houseguest of Sir William’s; so many people come and go from that house. He looked Iranian, maybe, clearly very wealthy given his suit and the gold rings on his fingers.’

‘Apparently he’s a Parsi rather than Iranian – from Sri Lanka – there’s a small but wealthy population of them around Colombo. He’s Sir William’s wife’s grandfather. Of course, she’s in shock at the moment; my officers are with her right now.’

‘Oh my God, he was her grandfather. I had no idea, that’s dreadful. She was talking to him in her own language so I couldn’t understand a word, no wonder she screamed and fainted. God, how is she?’

‘Well, still in severe distress as you’d expect and probably not helped by the fact that there are police all over her house, reporters with TV cameras and crowds outside given the connection to Sir William.’

‘Yes, one of the reporters phoned our number earlier. A young woman. But I didn’t tell her anything and put down the phone as soon as I realised who she was.’

‘That’s probably Lucy Fleming. She’s OK but best not to speak to any of them; leave that to us. Eddie, did you happen to notice anything about the assailants?’

‘No nothing, I didn’t really get a good look at them. Alice already told your officers that she thinks she saw them the previous evening in the park while she was out running, but she can’t be sure. Hugh has a theory also that he saw them in the car park last night, we were out drinking late I’m afraid – Penny was with us so she’ll know. How’s she doing by the way? She’s a good kid.’

‘She’s doing just fine. OK Eddie, well that’s all for now, let me leave you in peace, thank you again for all you and Alice did, you were both terrific in the circumstances. Look after your family, they need you to be strong now. I’ll get one of the lads to come and take a more detailed statement later, but let me know if you or Alice think of anything more or get bothered again by those reporters.’

‘So I suppose we won’t see you tonight, I’m in two minds whether to just cancel?’

‘No, I’ll definitely have to give tonight a miss. Let me know if you’re still going though and I’ll see if I can pop in just to say hello.’

Hunter noticed a photograph on the mantelpiece.

‘My, is that Alice?’ he asked, pointing to the picture of a young, long-haired girl sitting cross-legged on a beach in cargo pants and black vest top, carefully tending her little baby. She was smiling up at the camera; behind her there was a row of surfers holding their boards.

‘Yes, that was before we were married, just after Carrie arrived. We were winging it then, happy new parents.’

‘She could have been a model, couldn’t she? You’re a lucky man, Eddie,’ Hunter said, looking again at the pretty eager face staring back at the photographer.

Hunter turned to go but noticed the audio equipment Eddie was working with on the kitchen table.

‘By the way, I was going to ask you this evening but I guess I won’t have a chance now. I realise this might not be top of your mind either but didn’t you have that big interview with the video company yesterday? How did the pitch go?’

‘Not good. It seems like a long time ago now. I don’t think Alice is too pleased with me about that, either. They were obviously looking for something else entirely. I did push myself. You know when something’s outside your comfort zone, and you’re living on the edge a bit. I thought I had the brief nailed, but I obviously got it wrong. After this, I think I might as well take up kite-flying instead.’ Hunter laughed.

‘Oh no Eddie, please don’t give up. I know a lot about music and although your style isn’t exactly my thing, I know that you’ve got talent. You mustn’t give up yet; maybe I could help you work on the composition?’

‘Has Alice been working on you as well?’

‘Well, maybe a little. Just a hint, look at what Elgar was doing in his Nimrod variation. He wrote about something that happened,
not
about the
man
, most people don’t see that, they think it’s a portrait. When you know that, it lets you get underneath the whole piece, there’s something in there you could emulate.’

Augustus Jaeger to Edward Elgar

*

It was now about 10.30am. The housekeeper brought morning coffee to Arthur Troyte in the beautifully furnished formal drawing room of the Lansdowne Circus villa, around a mile from the incidents in Clarendon Square. Like No. 6, this house also once had a famous resident, commemorated by another blue plaque. Nathaniel Hawthorne, ancestor of Arthur and the author of
The Scarlet Letter,
stayed here for several years with his family.

The house itself was a William Thomas designed, two-storey stucco villa, with a pretty garden and balconies, looking out onto the central circus. Thomas was trained by Pugin but went bankrupt trying to develop housing in Leamington too quickly. In 1843, he emigrated and left England for Toronto. He went on to design many famous gothic-revival buildings across Ontario. The circular road called Lansdowne Circus was constructed in the 1830s; it had eight pairs of semi-detached villas, each in a Regency style, grouped around a private central garden. The land was leased by a Squire Willes for two thousand years. The villas and another unusual gothic house at one end of the circus are largely pristine, one of the lesser-known but practically perfect architectural gems in our delightful Leamington town.

Troyte had spent a couple of hours unpacking and settling in. In complete contrast to his own modernist house in Ann Arbor, he realised this house had breeding. Although neither grand nor particularly spacious, it was a very pleasant size, in a quiet backwater away from the town centre. He had been admiring the detailing of the marble fireplaces, cornices and mouldings that decorated most of the main rooms. As well as the architectural details, he was of course also fascinated by the house’s connection to his literary ancestor, a completely unexpected coincidence. The peace of the circus, however, had been broken ever since he arrived. Indeed, Leamington seemed a much livelier place than he had ever expected; there had been sirens sounding in far off streets all morning and a police helicopter circling overhead. Worryingly, he had still heard nothing at all from his friend Arish, whose mobile number was just going to voicemail.

This was all beginning to concern him a little. Although it had been twenty-five years since they had last met, he was very eager to see his old friend again. He was sure Arish must be busy with the moving arrangements in some way or another but he was very surprised not to have heard anything from him. The housekeeper had called Sir William Flyte’s house a couple of times on his behalf, but nobody was answering the phone there either. He was beginning to think that he ought to stretch his legs and walk over to the address in Clarendon Square himself to find out what had happened. He consulted the housekeeper, it did not sound like a great distance to walk.

Along with his coffee, the housekeeper brought him an unstamped letter that had just been put through the letterbox, addressed to him personally in beautifully crafted handwriting. Maybe this was a message from Arish. Arthur opened the envelope immediately. Inside he found an equally carefully handwritten invitation, on a fine vintage
carte de visite
with elegant gold edging.

Troyte was puzzled. He was a somewhat vain man with an over-inflated view of his rapidly waning attractiveness to women. He was balding, had poor skin and still suffered somewhat from the embarrassing physical complaint that had bothered him in his younger days. He had been a widower for a number of years, but he was also wealthy, with little to spend his considerable wealth on, now that his children were all married. But he certainly wasn’t expecting an invitation from an admirer.

After his second wife died, the absence of a visible partner had the potential to cause him some difficulties in his chosen career. For a period there were even rumours about him being gay. He had felt his masculinity somewhat under threat. That, combined with his underlying homophobia, a hangover from student encounters, had driven him to set out on a determined campaign to take advantage of his new found freedom. He had used a variety of escorts in public for female company at outward facing and company events and to fulfil the conventions of his professional persona. In private, he increasingly used recreational drugs and indulged in ever wilder opportunistic sexual encounters. He was both manipulative and smart, satisfying his sex drive by running through all the usual suspects of divorcees, frustrated married women and a selection of vulnerable, young, single women from the office. He was therefore more than intrigued by this invitation and started to rack his brains to remember who, from a long list of female acquaintances, had a name beginning with
P
who would be inclined to add three kisses and more importantly who would know his whereabouts and be currently present in Europe.

‘
P
… who on earth could that be?’ he said aloud to the housekeeper, trying to give the impression to her that he had a whole crowd of lady friends who might be addressing him so.

The housekeeper was already wise to his nature after a couple of inappropriate touches and told him in a no-nonsense and slightly uninterested way that the Holly Hotel was just around the corner; he could be there in a couple of minutes. She further suggested that he could easily continue on to Sir William’s house afterwards to investigate what was delaying Mr Nariman (rather than continuing to bother her around the house). Accepting this advice, Troyte asked the housekeeper to prepare lunch for him and put it in the fridge with some champagne. Secretly he wanted to be prepared in case this mysterious acquaintance turned out to be an attractive woman and a return invitation to lunch was accepted.