As he rose to address the wedding guests, flanked by a sergeant and a constable, he realized that this was the most distinguished company he had ever been part of, and that he was attending on the first blue-blooded murder of his career. He knew what they were thinking, most of these guests. And while Willoughby Nash had been politeness itself, Inspector Albert Cooper did not expect all the rest to be as well behaved. He had scarcely finished his opening sentence when he was interrupted by a choleric-looking gentleman in military uniform.
‘Nash,’ spluttered the man with the medals, ‘this is preposter ous. Can’t you get us a proper policeman, for God’s sake? We can’t have an incident like this looked into by some babe in arms in uniform, it’s absurd.’
Nash was about to rise to his feet when the Inspector waved him down. ‘I can’t help looking whatever age you think I am, any more than you can help looking whatever age I think you are, sir,’ he said, before he was interrupted.
‘Impertinent young pup!’ roared the red jacket. ‘Nash, can’t you do something? I have some influence with the Lord Lieutenant. We need a proper policeman here, for heaven’s sake. I for one am not going to co-operate until we do. I suggest we take a vote.’
Inspector Cooper had already sent for reinforcements but he was not going to tell his audience here that. Not yet at any rate. Once more he made a gesture to Willoughby Nash to remain in his chair. He motioned to his sergeant and his constable to take up their positions on either side of the military gentleman.
‘General,’ he said firmly, ‘we have had enough of your comments. For everybody here this has been a terrible day, for many, no doubt, the worst day of their lives. You are now making things worse. If you utter one more word, you will be arrested. You are obstructing the police in their inquiries, a most serious offence. The County Jail in Norwich has accommodated all sorts of distinguished prisoners over the years. What a tragedy it would be if such a distinguished career were to end in those circumstances.’ Cooper realized that it might be time for an olive branch. Sending distinguished former generals off for a spell in the cells might not look good on his record. ‘I understand, of course, General,’ he went on, ‘that you, like everybody else, must be very upset by what has gone on here. And I have already sent a request for reinforcements. My superior officer, Detective Chief Inspector Weir, should be with us later this afternoon. You will be pleased to hear, General, that he is a lot older than me.’
Inspector Cooper waited for any reaction and then pressed on with his plans. Two tables at the front would be taken over by the constabulary and one at the back. After people were interviewed they would be free to go provided they left an address where they could be contacted. The police would be maintaining a presence at Brympton Hall for some days, if people remembered something that slipped their mind during the first interview.
Who sat next to you in the church? Who else was in your pew? Who was in front of you? Who was behind you? Who was sitting in the pew across the nave? Did you see anybody acting suspiciously?
Some of the wedding guests whispered quietly among themselves. Some closed their eyes and prayed or tried to fall asleep. Outside the sun still shone on the Brympton gardens. Water spouted erratically from the Brympton fountain and a peacock in full glory took possession of the gravel walk nearest to the house.
Who were you talking to during the champagne session in the garden? How far along the east front of the house were you standing? Who was standing close to you?
The hosts, Willoughby and Georgina Nash, could not believe what was happening. Surely this must all be a dream. Their daughter’s new father-in-law couldn’t be lying on their grand carpet with blood dripping from his head. Surely his brother wasn’t sitting in what appeared to be a catatonic trance, refusing to speak, the gun but recently removed from his hand. These weren’t real policemen licking their pens and writing everything down in their notebooks. Were they?
Going into the Long Gallery, who was in front of you? Who was behind you? Who else was sitting at your table? How far up the room was your table? Do you remember seeing anybody or anything suspicious?
The shadows were lying across the gardens when the last guest departed. Randolph Colville had been removed to the morgue for a post-mortem report. Cosmo Colville still refused to speak to anybody and was taken away to spend the night in the local jail. The bride and groom had to change their plans and booked themselves into a local hotel where they partook of an indifferent supper and slept on a lumpy bed. Inspector Albert Cooper looked forward to collating all the interviews about people’s whereabouts into a single document which would virtually be a seating plan for the church and the Long Gallery. His superior officer still had not appeared. Chief Inspector Weir was not known for speed of movement either mental or physical. Maybe he wouldn’t appear at all on this day.
‘I tell you one thing, Tom,’ Cooper said to his sergeant as they set off for the nearest town of Aylsham.
‘What’s that, sir?’ said Tom.
‘I hope that bloke with the gun starts talking soon.’
‘Why is that, sir?’
‘Well, I don’t think he did it, if you see what I mean. Nobody who’s just killed somebody is going to sit there holding on to the bloody weapon, even if it is his brother, are they?’
‘You could have a point there, sir. But why do you hope he starts talking?’
‘Think about it, Tom. You know what the Chief is like. Here’s a corpse. Here’s a man with a gun in his hand. The man with the gun won’t speak. Man must be guilty. Nearly certain to get a conviction with those attendant circumstances. “The sentence of this court upon you is that you be taken from hence to the place from which you came,”’ Albert Cooper had heard these words over half a dozen times in court and they still chilled him to the bone, ‘“and thence to a place of execution, and you be there hanged by the neck until you be dead and your body shall be buried in the precincts of the prison in which you shall have last been confined, and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul.” Our silent friend, Tom, could be pushing up the daisies within a month.’
Georgina Nash slept badly in her enormous bedroom at Brympton Hall that night. Beside her, husband Willoughby was snoring with the same metronomic regularity that had measured out his nights for the past twenty years. Something was nagging at the back of Georgina’s mind. When she thought about the day’s events they all bundled themselves into a couple of moments of horror. It was something somebody had said to her that she thought must be important. But who? And when? And where? She began running through in her mind the guests who had come to the wedding on this fateful day. Nothing worked. Shortly before dawn Georgina Nash fell asleep.
2
The office was hidden away in a corner of an enormous warehouse on the banks of the Thames at Shadwell Basin in the East End of London. It was about twenty feet square with shelves covering virtually every wall. The man who worked here didn’t like cleaners coming in, so there were spiders’ webs hanging off the walls, dust lying thickly on the shelves and mice scampering about the floor, feasting occasionally on the rich liquids that fell there. To his left, on the far side of the wall of his office, the high warehouse was filled with barrels of every description. Above him were six floors devoted to Bordeaux, burgundy, champagne, port, Madeira and vin ordinaire. Stretching out a few feet above his head was a bizarre collection of wine bottles: magnums and Marie Jeannes and double magnums of four bottles from Bordeaux; Jeroboams worth six bottles and Imperiales worth eight; from Burgundy and Champagne came even larger versions, a Salmanazar equivalent to twelve bottles, a Balthazar worth sixteen and a Nebuchadnezzar worth twenty bottles. For some unaccountable reason, the man knew that people would almost always believe that wine contained in these monstrous vessels was the real thing. He did not intend to disabuse them. Other shelves were filled with nameless barrels and a surprising variety of other ingredients ranging from dried gooseberries to turnip juice.