“I’m rather hoping you’ll have something for me. I find myself involved with one or two dubious characters presently strutting the London stage. You know me—I always perform better when I know the other players’ lines.”
Joe put his questions, listened to the answers and made notes. Finally he could detain Cyril no longer and, promising the usual exchange of information should things resolve themselves, as Cyril always delicately put it, he rang off. He sat on for a few minutes reviewing the case he was building until the unease of the records department staff filtered through his concern.
With a brittle smile, a lady clerk brought him yet another cup of tea and a sergeant asked him politely but pointedly if there was anything else they could possibly supply. They didn’t expect and didn’t welcome the sight of an Assistant Commissioner down here in their dingy but busy space, commandeering a desk and a telephone, rolling up his shirt-sleeves and setting to work. Especially this Assistant Commissioner. Sandilands was a new broom and they said he missed nothing. “Watch it! He’s going through the departments like a dose of liver salts. All fizz and pop and we’re told we’ll all feel better for it in the morning. But watch you don’t end up down the pan. You heard what he did to Flying Squad!” the sergeant had muttered to his fellow officer.
They were watching him out of the corners of their eyes as they sorted, stamped and filed, demonstrating a quiet efficiency. Acknowledging their discomfort, Joe got to his feet, gathered up his things and apologised for his intrusion.
The sergeant had expected peremptory formality. Disarmed by Joe’s smiling thanks for the staff’s assistance, he hurried to hand him his jacket and asked, with some relief: “Did you get what you were looking for, sir?” His interest sounded more than polite—it was a genuine enquiry and he was waiting for a reply.
He deserved one. Joe had not failed to notice the intelligent anticipation with which the officer had accepted the irregular tasks Joe had set him once the wider objective had been sketched out. One of the files he’d thought to hand to Joe had been outside the prescribed area and had turned up a vital piece of information. It would certainly have been missed had not the Assistant Commissioner been sitting, an anxious and demanding physical presence, amongst the troops.
Joe found himself answering with less than his usual reserve. “Oh, I got it, all right. It’s all here. Wrapped up neatly in closed and separate files. No reason for anyone to re-open them and connect them; the information I needed is spread across county boundaries and three decades. Trouble is, Sarge, instead of the one dead woman I was chasing after, I find I’ve got two on my hands. Now—I have to ask myself: do we leave these files closed, look the other way and let sleeping ladies lie?”
“Not you, sir. Not you.” The young man’s voice took on a tone of almost fatherly concern for his superior officer as he added, “You just finish your tea, sir, while I get these signed out and you can take them away with you. We’ll hang on to the flimsies. Oh, and good luck with the ladies, Commissioner.”
OF COURSE, WHAT you did was send at least an inspector, at best a superintendent, up to Cambridge to confront the Chief Constable. Having first cleared the delicate matter with the Commissioner himself.
Joe tried out a possible brief for his most senior and most trusted man, Ralph Cottingham: “Introduce yourself to the county force, Ralph, and tell them you’ve been sent to pick up and take over a case of theirs which is officially closed. A ‘death by misadventure’ three months back that no one has questioned. Until the Assistant Commissioner received an anonymous letter last week suggesting that closer scrutiny by a more alert force is required. While you’re at it, you’d like to rake up a twenty-five-year-old possible theft for which no complaint was ever made and, for good measure, a further and unassociated pre-war suicide. If they will be so good as to make the usual formal application for assistance, the Metropolitan Police will be pleased to offer their expertise in re-opening the cases.”
No. It wouldn’t do. It couldn’t be attempted by anyone but a complete idiot who was maniacally sure of his ground. Joe recognised himself and silently volunteered. He recognised also the impossibility of ever getting the Commissioner’s blessing in the matter. He wouldn’t even seek it.
Provincial constabularies were not so reluctant to ask for help from the city as the public seemed to think and were often relieved to shunt their more complex cases on to a force with more extensive forensic enquiry resources and manpower. Not least important—a force providing a wider selection of scapegoats to carry the blame if all went arse over tip. MET CALLED IN TO SOLVE SLAYING was a headline that brought excitement and a certain perverse status, not shame, in these days of banner headlines. But three closed cases having this in common—they all had taken place on Truelove’s family estate—amounted to a non-starter. No one would think of harassing a man of Truelove’s position by digging up the tidily buried past. Writs for disinterment, actual or figurative, would not be contemplated, particularly those requested by an Assistant Commissioner who was acquiring a reputation of being something of a trouble-maker. A reputation wilfully exaggerated by the men of high status and low principles who’d crossed his path. Joe was without authority and on his own.
Perhaps not quite alone. He looked at his desk calendar. Today was Wednesday. Two days before he was expected down in Surrey. Time enough. He took a card from his pocket and picked up his phone.
“Hunnyton? Back in harness already? Good man! I’m ringing to tell you I got the portraits which, as we speak, are crossing London in the new owner’s briefcase.”
He listened to the chortles and congratulations and found himself being drawn into a richly embroidered account of the sale-room dramas. Tentatively, he put forward his own plans for the coming two days, adding quietly, “I thought—while I’m over in Suffolk—I might pay a visit to the grave of Phoebe Pilgrim. It’s the twenty-fifth anniversary of her death this summer—1908, wasn’t it? She was sixteen years old when she drowned herself in the moat. I wondered if you’d like to come with me. After all, she was known to you. Went to the same village school. Worked for the same master.”
There was a very long silence over the line and then: “You’ll be needing somewhere to stay. Can you get aboard the five-thirty train from King’s Cross? Get a taxi at Cambridge station—don’t think of walking—it’s too far from the centre. I’ll book you a room in the Garden House—it’s a hotel down by the river. Quiet at this time of year. I’ll see you in the bar at nine o’clock.”
Joe was only surprised he hadn’t added, “What took you so long?”
Ralph Cottingham was the next to hear from Joe. The Super agreed readily—seemed even keen—to deputise for him for a couple of days. And why not? Joe would have been the first to proclaim that Ralph would have made a much more careful and committed Assistant Commissioner than himself. “One more thing, Ralph. If you wouldn’t mind … I’d like you to put the screws on this firm of solicitors.” Joe read out a fashionable London address and gave precise instructions for information he wanted Ralph to relay. “I’ll get in touch with you—I can’t be quite sure where on earth I’ll be this weekend. I’ll try to avoid annoying Julia.”
He grabbed from his cupboard a suitcase he kept to hand at all times, packed and ready for a weekend. After a moment’s hesitation, he picked up what his men called his “murder bag” with his other hand and made for the door. If he took a staff car he’d just make it to King’s Cross.