The Saltwater Murder Read online

  But before she could reply, Posie saw Sergeant Rainbird approaching from along the plush-carpeted corridor directly opposite Amyas Lyle’s office. He looked flustered and excited, like he’d been the one drinking brandy, not providing it.

  Rainbird was trailed by a man in a cheap-looking pinstripe; grey, fifty-ish, slightly built with watery blue eyes which roved quickly from Inspector Lovelace to Posie, and back again, as if sensing a trap. Presumably this was the Head Clerk, George. The most noticeable thing about George was a fob-watch which glimmered on a thick gold chain hanging from his pocket.

  Both Rainbird and the Head Clerk came to an abrupt stop. Surprisingly, it was the Head Clerk who spoke first, jutting his chin out indignantly:

  ‘Who’s this, Chief Inspector? I thought you said we was keepin’ people out. Is this the press? A lady journalist?’ The outrage in his voice was barely concealed, and Posie knew him from that single look. She had met plenty of men like this before, men who felt women should be tied to the hearth and home, and Posie felt a flash of anger towards the man, meeting his affronted stare full-on.

  Lovelace smiled. Posie knew this was just what he liked. A bit of non-conformity to shake things up a bit. ‘Not the press, no. Miss Parker here is an associate of mine, George. Indispensable, as it happens.’

  The rheumy eyes opened wider as they scanned Posie’s less-than-immaculate appearance, but before the Head Clerk could speak again the Inspector cut in: ‘What are you looking so happy about, Sergeant?’

  Rainbird grinned. ‘I’ve just taken a telephone call, sir, from the Deputy Head of these Chambers, a Mr Pickle, also a KC. He sounds very upset, sir. He’s on his way back here from Eastbourne; he wants to help. Mr Pickle said he’ll come in and see you later. In the meantime, he wanted to tell us about some thefts in these offices. Mr Lyle recently told all his staff that they should make their own arrangements for protecting their personal belongings: seems that even the main office safe was compromised. Mr Pickle told me that Mr Lyle commissioned a top carpenter to make a hidey-hole for him in a bookshelf in his office. He used the best marquetry man in London. Chances are high that the keys to Mr Lyle’s flat and other personal items were placed in that secret bookshelf before he sat down and died.’

  ‘Before he sat down and was murdered you mean, Sergeant. Get your statements correct, man. You’d be hauled up on that in Court, if you were giving evidence. As an Inspector I mean. If you ever do make Inspector, that is. Which is looking highly unlikely at present…’

  Rainbird flushed an unbecoming shade of beetroot red. ‘That’s what I meant, sir.’

  Lovelace raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, this secret bookcase sounds interesting. Let’s have a look, eh?’ He indicated the Head Clerk should come too.

  He put his arm out to stop Posie as she started to move. ‘No. Not you, Posie. I don’t want you in there. It’s a bally mess. You’ve had enough fuel for nightmares to last you a lifetime already. I’m not going to add to that fire. Wait here.’

  It was a command, not a polite request. So Posie stared at the honeycomb shelves again and waited in sullen silence.

  ****

  Two

  Minutes later the four of them stood grouped on a tiny landing five flights up, as Rainbird noisily rattled and jangled the key in the door to Amyas Lyle’s flat. Inspector Lovelace hopped from foot to foot, visibly impatient. He kept checking his wristwatch and tugging at his shirt collar which, when you paid attention, really did look impossibly white and tight, like it had been starched properly. For once.

  ‘Good job we found something in that secret compartment downstairs, eh?’ he muttered sarcastically to no-one in particular. ‘These keys and a coin-purse! What a haul!’

  At last the door swung open. Heat spilled out from the flat, and Inspector Lovelace shouldered his way in, beckoning the others to follow. The place was very small and stuffy and with four of them crushed into it Posie had the uncomfortable Alice-in-Wonderland sensation of having just entered a doll’s house. Dust motes danced in the bright sunlight.

  One long corridor ran on ahead of them, with windows all along one side looking out over Old Square.

  Off this corridor to their right were five small, dimly-lit rooms in a row: a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom with an immaculate single bed, a dressing room and a study. There was no living room, and while heavy mahogany furniture was squeezed into all the rooms, the place felt bare regardless. There was not a single book or letter or framed photograph in sight. Nothing which spoke of Amyas Lyle himself, let alone the fact that he had a family, children, a life away from the law.

  ‘Place feels like an hotel,’ muttered the Inspector, opening up a window and taking deep gulps of the London air as if he were drinking ice-cold water after hours in a desert. ‘Or a Club. It’s not a permanent home.’

  While Rainbird and Lovelace started to search the kitchen, opening drawers and cupboards, Posie turned to the Head Clerk who was hovering unsurely behind them all in the corridor.

  ‘Did Mr Lyle spend much time up here in this flat, George? Or was it just somewhere to sleep on an occasional basis?’

  The Head Clerk flashed unhappy eyes over at the Inspector who was coming out of the kitchen, begging him to place the questions, rather than Posie.

  Lovelace clicked his tongue impatiently. ‘Answer her question, man, if you please.’

  The Head Clerk coughed. ‘Mr Lyle had a family house at Eaton Square, Miss, with his wife and sons. In Chelsea. But if truth be told – and I’m sure you’ll find out in the end – he never really spent time there. He was almost always here in Chambers.’

  Posie looked about her with fresh eyes while a search of the bedroom was conducted.

  ‘Nothing doing here,’ declared Lovelace quickly. ‘Let’s try the study next, shall we?’

  Amyas Lyle’s desk dominated the small room, the green-glass reading lamp placed carefully on a leather-tooled writing blotter. A bottle of ink and a fountain-pen stood at the ready but there were no papers or letters or any documents to be seen anywhere. Lovelace sat down gingerly in the dead man’s chair.

  The Inspector rifled through the drawers. He looked up after a couple of minutes holding onto a small piece of paper. ‘I haven’t found a Will. But…’

  He looked up at Sergeant Rainbird, thrusting the slip of paper towards him. ‘This looks promising: it’s a docket for legal work done, for preparing a Will. Undated. The firm is Pring and Proudfoot on Bedford Row. Can you telephone them and tell them to bring a copy of the murder victim’s most recent Will to us?’

  Posie stood and watched as Lovelace then pulled out scrap-books from the desk. ‘And these look interesting.’

  One scrap-book was about Amyas Lyle’s legal successes, and a second contained newspaper stories from 1924, British and international in their coverage. Lovelace frowned unhappily at some of the news cuttings as he glanced at them but he slammed the book shut after just a couple of minutes, biting at his lip in a worried way.

  ‘Nothing much here. Seems our murder victim hasn’t left anything behind to tell us who he really was. I can’t get a sense of the man.’

  Posie agreed. She was staring around her at the study. It gave her the shivers. She found it a truly depressing place with its dark hues and solid, claustrophobic wood; the only light coming in from a small skylight overhead.

  She scanned the walls, depressingly similar to those in Amyas’ main study in the Chambers below: legal tomes in matching greens and golds lining the walls in row upon row of endless, unattainable chunks of wisdom and learning. All of these books were now useless to Amyas Lyle. Suddenly two ideas came to her, fully-formed. And Posie was at once certain of the truth of both of them.

  Posie turned to face the Head Clerk, the gold of his watch gleaming dully in the dark room. He played with the thick chain in his fingers, feeling its weight over and over. Posie felt suddenly angry. What exactly was this man doing here, a party to the police investigation?

  She apprec
iated that Inspector Lovelace and Sergeant Rainbird had seen a shocking thing this morning and were clearly a little out of sorts, but it seemed to her that they were giving the Head Clerk too much licence. She jumped right in:

  ‘Would you say you got on well with Mr Lyle, George?’

  George had clearly not been expecting any questions of the sort. The Inspector looked up suddenly, confusion playing on his face. George blustered:

  ‘Of course, I’m very sorry about what has befallen the Master. Mighty sorry indeed. I never thought I’d see the day…’

  ‘You didn’t answer my question, George.’ Posie shook her head. ‘Even a tramp out on the street would be sorry about what has befallen Mr Lyle, but you had the experience of working with him, day in, day out. So tell me: did you two get on well?’

  George swallowed and gripped his watch. ‘I wouldn’t say well, Miss. But I wouldn’t say the Master got on particularly well with anyone, Miss.’

  There was more here. Posie knew it, and George knew she knew it. And now she wouldn’t let it go. ‘There’s something else though, isn’t there, George?’

  Rainbird and Lovelace were now staring over at her as if she had lost her mind.

  ‘You’d had an altercation with Mr Lyle, hadn’t you? An argument, recently?’

  ‘How on earth would you know that?’ George turned puce, and he was breathing in short, snippy little bursts. ‘The devil take you, you wretched…’

  ‘Now, none of that, man.’ Lovelace was standing up, having closed all the drawers in the desk hurriedly. ‘What argument are you talking about, Posie? George, was this some trifling work matter?’

  George shook his head, purse-lipped, panic in his eyes. ‘It was a mere misunderstanding, sir. A personal clash. It makes no difference to anything we’re dealing with now. Believe me.’

  Posie laughed in sheer disbelief, turning to address Lovelace. ‘I have no proof, Chief Inspector. But I think that Mr Lyle may have sacked George as the Head Clerk. Probably very recently. I’m sure there was some paperwork terminating George’s employment lying about and George, on discovering Mr Lyle’s death early this morning, has now burnt it, thinking no-one will ever be any the wiser. With Mr Lyle out of the way and their argument literally gone up in smoke George probably thought he could continue to work as Head Clerk, for whoever comes in as a replacement for Amyas.’

  Lovelace was gripping the edges of the desk, narrowing his eyes in displeasure. ‘Is this true, man?’

  The Head Clerk shook his head vigorously. ‘Poppycock! I’ve worked with Mr Lyle ever since he was a mere nipper, when he came here straight from University as a pupil barrister. We’ve worked together the best part of fifteen years and our working relationship was fine. Why should Mr Lyle want me to leave now? As she says, this associate of yours has no proof of anything!’

  ‘That’s quite correct,’ Posie said sweetly. ‘But your time was up. Like it is now.’

  She then motioned to the door, catching Lovelace’s eye. ‘I think that Sergeant Rainbird should escort George downstairs until you are finished here. I don’t think George has anything more to add here, sir.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  After the two men had left, George indignantly protesting his innocence all the way down the corridor, Lovelace sat down heavily.

  He leant back, twining his fingers behind his head, eyeing Posie keenly. ‘Care to enlighten me? Because now you’ve mentioned it I’d say you’re absolutely right. That man was guilty as hell about something…’

  Posie shrugged. ‘Call it a hunch. Something was being burnt in the grate downstairs in the Clerks’ Room when I arrived, and George was behaving shiftily. Something was up with him. I put two and two together and made five. George was most probably the Chambers’ thief.’

  ‘A thief?’

  ‘There had been stealing in the Chambers, hadn’t there? People were beginning to hide their valuables, and even, in the case of Amyas, bringing in specialist carpenters to create secret safe places. My guess is that Amyas had realised that George was the thief, and had called him up on it. Maybe he caught him in the act? He probably sacked George, but got the man to continue working on through this holiday, as a punishment. Perhaps in return for Amyas not involving the police…’

  ‘I say! But what put you on to it?’

  Posie grimaced. ‘That awful gold watch. Thieves are usually very good at displaying the fruits of their labours for everyone to see. But you don’t need me to tell you that, sir, do you? I’ll bet if your lads do a search of George’s desk, or even his home, you’ll find something there to incriminate him.’

  The Inspector laughed knowingly. ‘Well, we’ll deal with our man George in due course. It’s not urgent. I think he’s a rogue but I don’t think he’s our killer, or even the author of these strange notes to Mr Lyle… if there are any other notes. If George wasn’t lying about that.’ Lovelace sighed, exasperated.

  ‘But search me, I just haven’t a clue as to where to look.’

  ‘Oh, but I have, sir.’ And this was the second idea which had come to her. ‘Old dogs, sir. Old tricks.’

  Posie went over to one of the study walls, where the books ran on in their green rows. She started at the top, tapping, listening for a hollow sound. Five rows down she stopped and turned:

  ‘Here, sir. Doesn’t it make sense that Amyas would get that skilful carpenter to come and build a secret compartment up here too? For storing away truly private things?’

  The Inspector was on his feet now, bounding furiously across the room, all his senses alert, and within a few seconds of tentative clicking and pushing at the fifth row of books, they succeeded. A whole drawer with an artificial front of book-spines sprang out on new, freshly-oiled runners. It was exquisite work, and nobody – unless they had been forewarned and were looking very, very hard – would have been able to find the hidden drawer. It was large, perhaps two-foot-wide, and at least a foot deep, and it contained two black folders, each stuffed full of paperwork. Underneath them was a vivid red Christmas-edition Peek Frean’s biscuit tin.

  ‘By Gad!’ exclaimed the Inspector, as he started to lift everything out. ‘You’ve done it, Posie! It should be you entering for those Inspector’s exams, not Rainbird! Now we might get some clue as to what our fella was really like, and why it is he’s been murdered!’

  They placed the scarlet Christmas biscuit tin on the desk top, and each took a black folder eagerly in their hands. But before she opened her folder, Posie blurted out a question she had been meaning to ask Lovelace all morning:

  ‘Why are you so hard on Sergeant Rainbird, sir? You’re constantly nagging at him at the moment. Is it because he isn’t Binny?’

  She was referring to the ever-capable Sergeant Binny, who had been a favourite of almost everyone, the Inspector included. Binny had died in the line of duty the previous year, and was sorely missed. But before Lovelace could answer, something had fluttered out from the black folder Posie was holding, falling to the floor. And as the Inspector bent to retrieve it, he stopped quite still, startled.

  Posie looked over, intrigued, and saw that it was a photograph of a girl. From an age ago, maybe almost twenty years before, when women still dressed in white like romantic, floaty innocents, like princesses in castles who needed rescuing by gallant knights; before the Great War had come and stamped brutally across all those foolish, impractical ideals.

  ‘Who’s that? Is she important?’

  ‘You tell me.’ Lovelace thrust the image at Posie and she took in the pale, broad straw hat, a white high-necked blouse, froths of lace, a wide smile.

  A schoolgirl.

  The Inspector coughed delicately. ‘I think she was the one our murder victim couldn’t forget. Couldn’t let go of.’

  The photograph was at once familiar and yet horribly out of context. For Posie found her own face was smiling back up at her.

  ****

  Three

  ‘You thought Amyas Lyle never gave you a second though
t, didn’t you? When you stood him up that time in Cambridge. But you thought wrong,’ said the Inspector heavily, as if the weight of his words were almost painful to him. ‘Doesn’t it mean something that this is the only photograph in this flat so far?’

  ‘I gave this to my brother Richard when he was in his final year at Public School. Beats me how Amyas got hold of it.’

  Lovelace shrugged. ‘He stole it? Paid for it? Who cares, does it matter now?’ He was pointing at the same black folder the photograph had come from. ‘Come on, then. Let’s both of us look at this one together.’

  And Posie turned the pages with a trembling hand, a growing sense of dread.

  Inside, on page after page, carefully cut out and glued in, were magazine photos and newspaper clippings from the last few years, ever since Posie had become famous. Since she had founded her Detective Agency in Bloomsbury, the Grape Street Bureau.

  There were at least a hundred cuttings. And every single one was about Posie.

  Beside her, Lovelace whistled. ‘By Jove.’

  Posie swallowed nervously, remembering Amyas’ words of the day before: ‘I have followed you, too, Miss Parker.’

  She hadn’t thought in a million years that he had meant it so literally. Had this simply been a lonely man’s hobby? A harmless fancy? Or was this some kind of crazed obsession? For here were her professional successes, her triumphs, her best cases. The ones which had brought her publicity, and money.

  But here too were her personal mistakes. A catalogue of bad choices of men on display, taunting her even now. Here she was photographed in the first year of her Detective Agency with her work partner, the easy-on-the-eye Len Irving, with whom she had enjoyed a few weeks of passion before he had chosen a girl elsewhere.

  And then, page after excruciating page showed her photographed with her ex-fiancé, the ill-fated, handsome explorer Alaric Boynton-Dale. Posie felt a sudden piercing stab of futile sadness. Those last cuttings of Posie and Alaric together were from just before Christmas, from a case Posie had worked on in Venice eight months ago. A successful case, but a tragic one, too.