The Corpse of St James's (28 page)

‘Madam!' The constable's voice was low, but urgent. I straightened and handed his flashlight back a millisecond before a man came out of the passageway beside the shop. The man, though in plain clothes, was unmistakably a policeman.

I approached him before he could do more than glare at me. ‘My name is Dorothy Martin; my husband is retired Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt of Belleshire. You may have heard of him. I presume you are the officer in charge of this crime scene?'

‘Yes, I—'

‘I am a friend of Robert Hathaway, the man who owns this shop and lives above it. I have been unable to learn from this young man anything about what has happened here, but I am very concerned about Mr Hathaway. What can you tell me about him?'

‘More to the point, what can
you
tell
me
?' asked the man, pulling out his warrant card. I didn't recognize the name, but I saw with some dismay that he was a superintendent. That meant something serious was going on.

‘I? I just got here, and I've been trying to pull
some
information out of
someone
about my friend Mr Hathaway! Is he hurt? What's going on?'

‘You're sure you don't already know?'

‘Sir! Are you deaf, or simply unable to believe anything you're told? I do not know anything about what has happened here, and it begins to appear that I never will! If you will let me pass, I will go upstairs to Mr Hathaway's flat and see for myself.'

He moved slightly to bar my way. ‘I doubt you'd learn much up there. We didn't. The flat has been virtually destroyed, as has the shop, and Mr Hathaway is not here.'

‘S
o I took my courage in both hands and went to see Mr Carstairs,' I told Alan much later. Jonathan, exhausted by his day out, had gone to bed as soon as they'd got home, and Alan and I were sitting in the garden with drinks in our hands and contented pets all around us. ‘I wasn't sure how long it might take the news to filter up – do things filter up? – anyway, to reach him, and I thought he ought to make the connection right away – that Melissa's father had apparently been attacked, or at least his home and shop had been, and that he was missing.'

Alan chuckled quietly. ‘I'm sure he was suitably grateful.'

‘He was just as stuffy as I'd expected, at first. Implied that I'd been poking around where I had no business—'

‘Which you had been.'

‘Which I had been.' I conceded. ‘But when I told him that Jemima wasn't answering her phone, either, he began to pay attention. He can get answers out of the palace, and when he found out that she wasn't there, hadn't been all day, hadn't been given time off, and was in fact AWOL, he was even more interested. He even admitted I'd been of some use. It hurt him to say it, though.'

‘But he did let you go back and look at the crime scene.'

‘Under very strict supervision, let me tell you! The SOCOs had done all their work already, but even so I had to wear gloves and bootees, and could walk only around the perimeter, where I couldn't step on much. Alan, it was . . . frightening.' I took a short pull at my glass. ‘The destruction was so violent. The paintings were cut to shreds, and that nice little Staffordshire dog had been smashed to pieces no bigger than
that
.' I indicated about half my little fingernail. ‘I could only tell what it was because a bit of the chain was still recognizable. And some of the mess on the rug had been ground underfoot to powder. I think the rug itself may be a total loss. It looked as though it had been cut right through in places by the glass fragments. Even the walls had chunks of plaster knocked out where things had been thrown against them. I can't imagine that a bomb could have done more damage.'

‘But no blood stains,' said Alan thoughtfully.

‘I sure didn't see any, and I looked, believe me. Even upstairs, though the flat was absolutely trashed, I couldn't see any sign that Bert or anyone else had been injured. So what the heck could have happened?'

‘You don't have any theories?'

‘I do, but I'd rather hear yours. You're the expert.'

‘I'm the professional,' he corrected. ‘You've done some pretty expert work yourself, from time to time. However. From your description, it sounds like sheer anger and hatred at work. Not just random vandalism, destruction for kicks, but passionate fury. My guess, and remember it is just that, an uninformed guess, would be that someone who hates Bert Higgins with a white-hot hatred came there intending to kill him. Higgins was out, or escaped when he saw his enemy, and when the person couldn't destroy the man, he – or she – destroyed his world.'

‘He, or she.' I swallowed a little more bourbon. ‘And I saw nothing that a woman couldn't have done. A woman on a rampage. Alan, do you think Jemima has that kind of rage inside her?'

Alan sighed. ‘Almost anyone is capable of blind, senseless fury, given the right, or I suppose the wrong, stimulus. I haven't seen that sort of temperament in Jemima, but consider what she's been through recently.'

‘And at just the wrong time, too, when she thought her life was beginning to get better. Alan, I don't
want
it to be her! But if she thought Robert killed Melissa . . . oh, I wish they could find her.'

For Jemima was still missing, and so was Robert.

‘There's one bit of silver lining, love,' said Alan, putting his glass down. ‘Jonathan couldn't possibly be involved, and that casts even more doubt on his guilt in the murder. He just might be off the hook entirely. I'll make some phone calls in the morning. And on that note, let's go to bed. I could sleep for a week.'

I got up early the next day, little as I wanted to, to look after Jonathan. He seemed to have slept well, and he ate the large breakfast I put in front of him, which was a good sign. Then I was able to keep him talking, until his counselling session, about his trip to Stonehenge.

‘It really is the most amazing place, isn't it? One has seen pictures, but the reality still astonishes.'

‘Exactly like the Grand Canyon,' I agreed. ‘You think you know what to expect, and then you stand on the edge and say, “But I didn't know it was like
that
!”'

‘I've not been to the Grand Canyon. Nor to any part of America, come to that. I'd like to go sometime, spend a week or two and see the sights.'

‘My dear young man! How big do you think the country is? You couldn't “see the sights” in Indiana in a week or two, and it's one of the smaller states. A lifetime or two wouldn't suffice! I lived there for over sixty years and only skimmed the surface.' We went on bickering happily until Alan came down. I wanted badly to ask if he'd had any luck with his phone calls, but I couldn't, not in front of Jonathan.

‘Beautiful day, you two,' he said, pouring himself some coffee. ‘Dorothy, I thought you might care to come with me when I take Jonathan to see Dr Miller. There are some skirts in the M and S window that I think would look rather fetching on you.'

Had Jonathan known us better, he would have spotted the utter inanity of that remark. If Alan had noticed women's clothing in a shop window, it was certainly for the first time in our marriage. He notices my hats, because they tend to be noticeable, but as long as I'm clean and dressed neatly, he thinks I'm beautiful. Which is quite endearing, actually. I managed to turn my flabbergasted giggle into a cough, agreed that a little shopping would be lovely, and got out of the room before Jonathan could notice my reaction.

‘So what did you find out?' I asked, the moment we had dropped Jonathan at the doctor's office.

‘Let me find a place to park first, love.' The High Street was, as usual, packed with cars, so Alan had to find a car park.

‘We might almost as well have gone back home,' I said as I extricated myself from the car.

‘Sorry we're so close to the other chap. It's the only space I could see. And if Jonathan had seen us going in the direction of home, he might have wondered about my shopping story.'

‘Just out of curiosity, are there skirts in the Marks and Sparks window?'

‘I hope so. If not, they'll have changed them since yesterday. Right?'

I was free to giggle as much as I wanted as we walked back towards the High Street shops.

On this beautiful day, Sherebury presented as near to an ideal English scene as any tourist brochure could desire. Hanging baskets of flowers graced the fronts of pubs and cafés and the occasional lamp post. Shop windows sparkled in the sun. The half-timbering of the Town Hall shopping arcade contrasted beautifully with its slate roof, and over all the great grey spire of the Cathedral towered benignly.

True, many of the store fronts were jarringly modern, but there were so many people on the streets it was possible to ignore the acres of plate glass. I was doing that when Alan took my arm and pulled me to a halt. ‘Marks and Spencer,' he said, and added, triumphantly, ‘Skirts.'

‘Mmm. They'd look good on almost anyone age eighteen and size zero. But let's stand here and look at them while you tell me. I'm dying by inches.'

‘The first thing,' he began, ticking off points on his fingers, ‘is that Jonathan is no longer under serious suspicion. Yesterday's incident at Bert's shop, and the continued absence of Bert and Jemima, have put a different complexion on the case.'

‘Oh, Alan! I'm so glad!'

He held up a warning hand. ‘I haven't told him yet, because he might want to go home, and his little respite here seems to be doing him good. I think he ought to continue seeing this bloke. Depending on how you feel about his staying on.'

‘You know I'd love to have him stay, but it should be his choice, Alan. Now that he has a choice.'

‘Yes. But I intend to urge him a bit, because he's not totally exonerated yet, and so long as he's here with us, he can't get into more trouble.'

‘All right, I'll apply a little gentle pressure, too. But Alan, it's getting harder and harder to talk to him without referring to the case.'

‘That's another thing I wanted to tell you. Yesterday he brought it up himself.'

‘How on earth did you get all the way to Stonehenge?' I interrupted.

‘The traffic wasn't bad until near Salisbury. So we stopped at a pub for a bite to eat, negotiated the crush in Salisbury, and headed north. We had a good deal of time to talk, and after a bit had pretty well exhausted the changing landscape and the weather. As he seemed to be in reasonably good spirits, I decided to let him choose the next topic, and he wanted to talk about you.'

‘Me!'

‘He thinks you're marvellous, you know. He went on and on about it. I was getting quite jealous.'

‘And rightly so. But what did he say about the case?'

‘Wanted to know if you'd made any progress in solving it. So I told him what you'd learned about Mr Welles/Jarvis.'

‘And how did he react?'

‘As one might expect. Interest mixed with mild excitement mixed with sorrow. We were discussing the death of his cousin, after all. Well, his adopted cousin, I suppose one might say.'

‘And the daughter of the woman he's in love with. But Alan, did you say Jemima is still missing?'

‘She was, first thing this morning. No answer on her mobile, and it isn't taking messages any more. “Mailbox full.” Apparently, the people at the palace are quite annoyed, because there's some sort of diplomatic reception or state visit or something of the kind this evening, and they're short-handed without her.'

‘They've tried Letty?'

‘They've tried everything. Carstairs was rather more forthcoming than I expected. He told me they've put a watch on the ports, ship and air and the Eurostar.'

‘Goodness! That's the treatment they give the really high-profile stuff, serial killers and bank robbers and terrorists.'

‘Carstairs is taking this very seriously indeed. The profile is rising with every moment that a palace staffer is missing, and he's under a lot of pressure.'

‘Yes, well, every time royalty is even tangentially involved, there's pressure. Not nearly as bad as that incident when they found the body at Sandringham, but bad enough.'

‘And not just from the royal end. There's the chance, you see, that Jemima is responsible for all the trouble, after all, or that Bert is, or that they're both innocent but in danger from the real killer, who might be Welles/Jarvis or someone else they haven't even spotted yet. Incidentally, Jarvis also seems to be among the missing.'

‘Stop!' I raised my hands to my head, hatless in the fine weather. One or two passers-by glanced at me, and I lowered my voice. ‘Alan, this just keeps on getting worse. The more we find out, the less we know, and now everyone we could talk to has vanished.'

‘Not quite everyone.' He nodded his head in the direction of Dr Miller's office.

‘Jonathan? Do you think we should? Dr Miller said . . .'

‘Yes, but things have changed, meanwhile. I'm going to speak to the doctor for a moment when we go to fetch Jonathan. I'd like his opinion about Jonathan staying here, and about discussing the case, since he's now nearly above suspicion.' He turned his attention to the shop window. ‘I do actually think those skirts are attractive.'

‘Which only proves you still have all the proper male impulses. I'm not getting into mutton dressed as lamb, thank you. Let's go have a coffee.'

Jonathan was looking quite cheerful when we picked him up, better, really, than at any time since the Investiture. Alan stayed behind to chat with Dr Miller, and Jonathan cocked his head as we walked out of the office together, Jonathan spurning my arm and using his cane as little as possible. ‘Checking up on the baby's progress?' he asked with a grin.

‘Something like that. Judging strictly by appearances, I'd say you're feeling something like a thousand per cent better.'