Death in the City, page 18
She stamped her foot slightly. ‘Oh, I don’t doubt you personally,’ she said. ‘But I am very much puzzled by what you say. I don’t see how my father’s cruise can have any conceivable interest for the police.’
I had come without any clear idea of what to say to her. Something in her manner made me want to question her more sharply than I had intended, and to give purpose to my visit I decided to produce an edited version of the Southwark Bridge case, suggesting that a body found in the Thames might just possibly be her father’s. Since I knew that the body was not that of Andrew Stavanger, this may seem heartless as I set it down, but I also knew that Mrs Carolan had shown so little interest in her father’s whereabouts over several months that whatever I said would not be likely greatly to upset her, particularly as what I proposed to say would soon be proved wrong.
‘Some months ago,’ I said, ‘early in June, to be precise, very soon after your father’s last known appearance in his office, the body of a man of about his age and build was found in the Thames. That body has not yet been identified, and for reasons which I need not now go into the case came to my department. When Miss Macdonald’s story was brought to us it seemed remotely possible that the unidentified body might be that of Mr Andrew Stavanger. That is why I have come to see you.’
Rather than appearing in any way distressed, she seemed suddenly somewhat relieved. ‘It can’t possibly be my father,’ she said. ‘But surely the matter can be settled easily enough by letting someone who knows my father see a photograph of the body?’
‘Indeed. That is precisely what has brought me here. You are your father’s next of kin, and the best possible source of identification. I shall be most grateful if you would look at the photographs I have with me. I must warn you that they are pictures of a dead man, and may be distressing to you.’
‘I’m not squeamish. And since I know that they can’t be photographs of my father, I don’t at all mind looking at them. If that’s all you want, let’s get on with it.’
I took the photographs from my briefcase and handed them to her. She began to look at them without much interest. ‘I can tell you quite definitely that this is not my father,’ she said. Suddenly she looked at one of the photographs more closely, and swayed a little. ‘But . . . but . . .’
I still don’t know why I said what I did. ‘Was it hot in Rome?’ I asked.
*
The effect was electrical. All trace of swaying gone, she took three brisk steps to a lovely eighteenth-century bureau that stood under the Cezanne, opened a drawer, and turned to face me with a small black automatic pistol pointed at my middle. ‘I don’t know who the hell you are,’ she said. ‘You may be on our side, but I’m taking no chances.’
‘It seems to me that you’re taking an appalling risk,’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘Suppose you actually fired that thing – your servants will come rushing in, and you’ll have a horrible amount of explaining to do.’
‘I haven’t got any resident servants,’ she said scornfully. ‘The explaining is a matter for you. And if I don’t like the explanation I shall certainly shoot you.’
‘Worse and worse. A dead body needs a great deal of explaining.’
‘Not at all. I shall say that you tried to rape me and that I fired in self-defence. Everybody will believe me.’
‘I take it that you have a firearms certificate?’
She laughed. ‘You can take it as you like, Mister or Colonel, or whoever you are. All that matters is that I’ve got the gun. Now tell me who sent you here.’
The pistol was unwavering. I tried not to look at it, but to look at her eyes instead. She was undoubtedly an attractive woman, and highly intelligent. Her eyes did not tell me much, but I thought she was more puzzled than frightened. ‘If you shoot me, you will never know why I came,’ I said. ‘And that might have a serious effect on your plans.’ As I talked, I edged a little nearer to her.
She was standing by the bureau under the Cezanne, facing the door. My back was to the door, so I had no chance of making a dash for it, and trusting that when it came to the point she would not, in fact, fire at me. There was a window to my right, looking onto the street, but as the drawing room was on the first floor it did not offer much hope of escape, even if I could get it open. Nevertheless, I thought the window might help. I looked away from her for a moment, and called out, ‘What’s that bloody man doing at the window?’
For a fraction of a second she took her eyes off me to look at the window, and in that split second I flung myself forward in a rugby tackle. As I got my left arm round her knees I grabbed her wrist with my right hand, and turned the pistol away from both of us. It went off as she fell, but the bullet went harmlessly into the wall, chipping the frame of the Cezanne, but fortunately missing the canvas. She was only a slip of a woman, a nice figure and no weight. She bit my ear and drew blood, in return for which I slapped her face. I had to twist her arm to make her drop the pistol, and as it fell on the carpet I picked it up, handling it by the end of the barrel. ‘It will be safer with me,’ I said. I stood up, and looked down at her huddled on the floor. My ear was bleeding quite severely, and a few drops of blood fell on the carpet before I could get my handkerchief to it. ‘I’m sorry about your carpet,’ I said, ‘but it is wholly your own fault.’
She looked at me venomously, but made no attempt to get up. A suspicion which had begun to form in my mind as I listened to her speaking became a certainty. ‘Perhaps you will tell us why you use the telephone in your father’s flat when you have a perfectly good phone in your own house,’ I said.
That really did startle her. ‘How much do you know?’ she asked.
‘Practically everything. Except that I am still waiting for you to identify the man whose photograph you looked at.’
‘Do you mean that you don’t know?’
I said nothing. Unhappily she put the right interpretation on my silence, and began to recover her nerve. She got up from the floor, patted her skirt distastefully, and sat on what I took to be a fine example of a Chippendale chair, using its elegance to display her own elegant legs. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, ‘but I’ll make a bargain with you. If you clear out now and don’t come back, I’ll say nothing of this whole incident. You can’t stay here for ever. If you don’t go now, I shall scream and scream and accuse you of attempting to rape me. And you’ll go to prison for a long time. I hope you enjoy it.’
‘You’re forgetting the pistol,’ I said.
‘But you have the pistol. I shall say you threatened me with it.’
‘Yes, I do have the pistol. What you’re forgetting is that it has your fingerprints on it – mine are only on the barrel. It won’t do, Mrs Carolan. You see, I really do belong to the police, and there are a great many questions that my superiors will wish to ask you. We know about your curious visits to your father’s flat, and they require explanation. You clearly recognised the dead man in the photographs. He has been dead for some five months, and medical evidence in the case suggests strongly that he was murdered. Why have you not come forward with the information you undoubtedly possess? I am satisfied that the man is not your father, but I am far from satisfied that your father is alive. There are many other things, which I won’t go into now. But you will understand that I must ask you to accompany me to New Scotland Yard.’
‘Are you daring to arrest me?’
‘No, Mrs Carolan, I am not arresting you – whether or not you are ultimately arrested will depend on the explanations you can give. You are prominent in public life, and you know very well that the police are entitled to look to all citizens for help in dealing with crime, or suspected crime. I ask you to accompany me voluntarily to New Scotland Yard. If you refuse, I shall have no alternative but to arrest you, and that will mean most damaging publicity for your husband.’
‘You don’t offer much alternative. Do you want me to come now?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Well, can I have a wash and get a few things?’
I was determined not to let her out of my sight. ‘There will be ample toilet facilities at New Scotland Yard, and anything you wish to send for can be collected for you,’ I said.
‘Very well. But you are going to pay heavily for all this.’
We went out of the house together. Never have I prayed so ardently for a taxi, and never have I been more thankful to see one. I opened the cab door for her, told the driver to take us to New Scotland Yard and got in with her.
*
Until that moment I don’t think Mrs Carolan really believed that I had anything to do with the police, and I’m sure that this helped considerably in getting her to come with me: she was intensely curious about me, and wanted to find out what I was up to. When she found that we were actually going to Scotland Yard she was much subdued.
If she was subdued, I was intensely nervous. The short trip from Millbank to New Scotland Yard took only a few minutes, and I had no clear idea of what I was going to do. I had called on Mrs Carolan expecting the interview to be short and purely a matter of routine – now I was taking the wife of a Cabinet Minister into custody on a charge that I couldn’t even formulate. The one thought in my mind was that somehow she had got to be kept out of the way for the next forty-eight hours, and not allowed to communicate with anybody.
When we got to New Scotland Yard I decided to behave with the utmost formality. One of my main difficulties was the fact that I knew scarcely any of the regular police. Fortunately the duty officer at the reception desk was a man I had met several times on visits to Seddon, and he accepted that my business was urgent. He sent for a woman police officer to take Mrs Carolan into a waiting room. ‘This lady is to be treated with every consideration,’ I said, ‘but she is on no account to be left alone, and she is not to be allowed to use a telephone without further instructions.’
With Mrs Carolan out of the way for the moment I could rally my own forces. It was getting on for eight o’clock, a bad time, but it was imperative to get hold of Seddon and Sir Edmund Pusey. I rang Seddon, and was thankful to find him at home. He promised to come to his office at once. Pusey, it turned out, had gone off to a big dinner in the City. I wrote a note asking him to drop whatever he was doing and to join Seddon and me at New Scotland Yard forthwith. A constable was sent off in a car to deliver the note and to bring Sir Edmund back.
*
Seddon arrived first, and we went up to his room. I gave him a hurried account of the evening’s adventures and he agreed that Mrs Carolan ought to be held. ‘But it’s going to be hellish difficult,’ he said. ‘If we arrest her she’ll have to appear before a magistrate in the morning, and then the balloon will go up. And what can we charge her with?’
‘Attempted murder of me, if necessary. I’ve got the pistol with her fingerprints on it, and there’s a bullet embedded in the wall of her drawing room. But I don’t want her to make a public appearance in court. We’ve still next to no idea of what she’s mixed up in, and the publicity she’ll get from appearing in court will alert everyone else concerned.’
‘Sure, but if we don’t arrest her, technically she’s free to go off at any time.’
‘We could hold her under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.’
Seddon drew in his breath. ‘Holding the wife of a Cabinet Minister under the Prevention of Terrorism Act would be a grave business, Peter.’
‘This is a grave business,’ I said.
*
Our discussion was interrupted by the arrival of Sir Edmund Pusey, wearing a dinner jacket. ‘We hadn’t even got through the soup,’ he said. ‘What on earth are you up to now?’
I told my story again. However maddening some of his other characteristics can be, Sir Edmund always redeems himself by his utter loyalty to those he calls his people. He asked no questions, and made no comment on my story. ‘There’s only one thing to do,’ he said, ‘and we must do it at once. We must see the Prime Minister.’
*
The Prime Minister was also at a dinner, at which he was due to make a speech, but a little thing like that didn’t worry Sir Edmund Pusey. Within minutes he was on the phone to Sir Gervase Datchet, the secretary of the Prime Minister’s private office, at his home, and within half an hour a plan of campaign had been set in motion. The Prime Minister was to have his dinner and make his speech, but he would then plead a slight indisposition and return to Downing Street. There, at ten thirty, he would be ready to receive us. That left a bit of time in hand, and we had Mrs Carolan brought up to Seddon’s room. While we were waiting for her I asked Seddon to take particular note of her speaking voice. ‘I’m sure she’s the woman we heard talking on the phone in Andrew Stavanger’s flat,’ I said.
Mrs Carolan had recovered all her old jauntiness. ‘I wish to prefer a charge of rape against this man,’ she said, pointing at me. Then she noticed Sir Edmund’s dinner jacket. ‘Who are you?’ she asked rudely. ‘I feel that I’m living in a complete madhouse.’
Sir Edmund bowed politely. ‘I am Sir Edmund Pusey, formerly of the Diplomatic Service, now of the Home Office,’ he said. ‘Your allegations against Colonel Blair will, of course, be gone into if you insist, but my advice would be that in your own interests you should not pursue them. Colonel Blair is an officer of my department, and he called to see you in connection with the disappearance of your father, which we are investigating. Certain evidence suggests that you have been using your father’s flat to make telephone calls of a distinctly curious nature. It would be helpful to yourself as well as to us if you would explain them.’
‘Is there anything wrong in a daughter going to her father’s flat while he is away on a cruise?’
‘Ah, so you admit to going there?’
She saw the danger of her own question. ‘I admit nothing – I was asking a purely hypothetical question. You have no right to question me like this. I demand the presence of my solicitor.’
‘I have every right to ask questions – you are not compelled to answer them. But surely you understand that it would be better for everybody if the mystery of your father’s disappearance were cleared up informally without invoking other legal processes?’
‘Am I under arrest?’
‘No.’
‘Then I wish to go home.’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Carolan, but I’m afraid that it’s not possible at the moment. You will be well looked after here.’
‘What powers have you got to hold me like this?’
‘You may be satisfied that we have powers.’
We got no further with Kate Carolan. She refused to say anything at all, and after a few minutes of futile and one-sided conversation on our part, the woman police officer took her away. ‘Phew!’ said Sir Edmund. ‘What a formidable woman! It’s all very well to say that we have power to hold her, but I’m not at all sure that we have. Perhaps we should all be looking forward to dignified retirement. We’ll just have to see what the PM feels about things.’
‘I think you’re right, Peter,’ Seddon said. ‘I don’t know that swearing to a voice is very good evidence, but I’d be prepared to say that she’s the woman we heard in the flat.’
Absurd as it was I was slightly relieved that the rape charge appeared to have been dropped. I gave the pistol to Seddon for the fingerprints to be examined and recorded.
*
Mr Vespasian Smith has observed (some may feel that he has observed it rather too often) that if a child born Smith has wise parents they will provide an uncommon given name to modify the Smith. By this standard his own parents showed exceptional wisdom, for the ‘Vespasian’ was an undoubted asset in his political career. True, an Opposition newspaper some years back had published a photograph of what purported to be his birth certificate with the V standing for plain Victor instead of the memorable Vespasian, and it was alleged that Victor had become Vespasian only when Mr Smith became president of the Oxford Union and wanted publicity. But Mr Smith was not an able income tax lawyer – his profession before he became a Minister – for nothing, and the facts in the matter were subject to such a variety of interpretations that the precise origin of his Imperial Roman name remained obscure. The coalition over which he now presided was an uneasy one – probably all coalitions are – but although he had many political enemies he had succeeded so far in holding together a difficult team with remarkable skill.
He received us in one of the smaller rooms at No 10 Downing Street, accompanied only by Sir Gervase Datchet. Sir Edmund, of course, he knew by reputation, and he began affably enough, ‘Well, Pusey, what on earth do you mean by snatching a man away from his dinner?’
Pusey was equally amiable. ‘At least, sir, you were able to finish your dinner. I wasn’t allowed to get beyond the soup.’
‘And what’s it all about?’ said the PM.
‘Do you wish these proceedings minuted?’ Sir Gervase asked.
‘If the Prime Minister agrees, I think it would be better for our whole conversation to remain un-minuted,’ Sir Edmund put in. ‘What we have to say is confidential in the highest degree – for the Prime Minister’s ear alone.’
‘Do you wish me to withdraw?’
Sir Edmund looked at the PM. ‘I shall be happy to have Sir Gervase with us – I know that we can rely on his discretion. But it is a matter for you.’
‘You’re damnably mysterious. Of course Gervase must stay. Let’s get on with it.’
