Off the Rails

∨ Off the Rails ∧

35

Conspiracy to Murder

Kershaw welcomed Bryant and May into his autopsy room as if ushering mistresses into a box at the Royal Opera House. It was obvious that Giles was going the way of the Unit’s previous incumbent, who had begun as a normal medical student only to become a social outcast, reeking of body fluids and avoided by women. Enthusiasm for the job was all well and good, but too much enthusiasm gave people the creeps. Kershaw was virtually dancing around them in excitement, and that was when Bryant realised the pathologist knew how Matthew Hillingdon had died.

“Come on, then, out with it,” he said wearily. “I’m old and tired. I could die at any minute. I don’t have time for pleasantries. If you know what killed him, just say so.”

“I might have an idea,” Kershaw teased. “And it’s all thanks to you and your filthy habits.”

When Bryant frowned, his forehead wrinkled alarmingly. Right now he frowned so hard that it looked like his face might fall off. “I don’t have any filthy habits. Everyone else makes too big a fuss about cleanliness. We need a few germs to keep us healthy. Wipe that grin off your face, and show some respect for the dead while you’re at it.”

“I’m sorry. Rosa keeps warning me about that. I examined the boy, Matthew Hillingdon. Do you want to see?”

“Not particularly.” TV coroners always seemed to have bodies lying about on tables, slit open from sternum to pelvic bone. In reality, Bryant found that their real-life counterparts kept death filed away under lock and key, to be drawn out only in the most pressing circumstances.

“Oh, very well.” Kershaw sounded disappointed at being denied a chance to poke about with his retractable antenna. “He’s an asthma sufferer, dodgy lungs, liver’s a little enlarged, otherwise in good health. There were no unusual external marks on the body, so my first thought was alcohol poisoning.”

“That was Dan’s prognosis.”

“Yes, I spoke to Dan. It seems the boy was alone in the underground station. There were no other tracks, except where you managed to walk all over the crime scene, of course. The obvious conclusion is that he went down there in a state of confusion, perhaps thinking he was heading toward the surface. That fits with alcohol poisoning, as the breath-rate drops and dizziness sets in. Hypoglycemia leads to seizures, stupor turns to coma, blue skin colour, irregular heartbeat. Victims choke on their own vomit or their hearts simply stop. Binge drinkers can ingest a fatal dose before the effects catch up with them. I wondered if that was the case here.”

“According to the girlfriend, he usually texted her only when he was too drunk to speak, so we can assume he’d been hammering the booze that night.”

“I was thinking perhaps he had knocked back a bottle and thrown it aside somewhere in the station, but Dan didn’t turn up anything. Still, the thought was planted, you know? So I made a list of other kinds of poisons that could have had the same effect.”

“I can’t wait to hear how I fit into this,” muttered Bryant.

“Simple. I could smell something else on the boy apart from alcohol, and remembered your horrible old pipe. Tobacco. Nicotiana tabacum. Simple, but incredibly effective. Hillingdon has all the signs: excess saliva, muscular paralysis, diaphoresis – ”

“What’s that?” asked May.

“Excessive sweating. His shirt was creased across his back as if it had been ironed into place.”

“Only one thing wrong with your diagnosis. Hillingdon wasn’t a smoker.”

“He didn’t need to be. The stuff used to be readily available as an insecticide until its lethal properties were recognised. It’s easy to make a tea out of rolling tobacco. There are plenty of recipes for it on the Internet because dope growers use it to kill mites on marijuana plants. He’d have suffered dizzy spells, confusion, tachycardia, low blood pressure, with worsening symptoms leading to coma and death. The stuff’s all over his face and the collar of his shirt. I think it’s possible that somebody sprayed him with it. You could empty out a perfume sampler, like the ones they give you in department stores, and fill it up.”

“Gloria Taylor sprayed perfume samples on customers at Selfridges.”

“Then I’d say you might have found your link.”

“Are you definite about the cause of death?”

“One hundred percent.”

“Well, you reached a solution without having to show me the inside of his colon, for which I thank you,” said Bryant. “Although I’m not sure this brings us any closer to finding a culprit. How easy is it to transfer?”

“Liquid tobacco? Pretty easy, but it also washes off. The smell’s harder to get rid of. Do you have any suspects in mind?”

“That’s the trouble,” said Bryant glumly. “We have half a dozen of ‘em. Nikos Nicolau is apparently studying biochemistry, but he also suffers from claustrophobia. Every suspect also has a reason not to be a suspect. I think this time I might need to employ modern crime detection techniques.”

“A victory for the scientific community,” Kershaw said with a laugh. “John, you should be pleased.”

“I’m relieved,” May replied. “I’ve banned Arthur from trying to wrap up the investigation by using esoteric means.”

“Did you mean that?” asked Bryant after they had thanked Kershaw and taken their leave. “You really want me to play it by the book this time?”

“Yes, I do,” said May with determination. “And I don’t mean the book of witchcraft, or the ancient myths of England, I mean the Police Operational Handbook, 784 pages of sound, solid common sense. You want the Unit to survive, don’t you? Well, that’s how we’ll do it.”

It was time to return to the house in Mecklenburgh Square, where they could break the news of Matthew Hillingdon’s death and commence the property search. That was when Banbury’s call came in.

“The partial from the sticker,” he said, “we’ve got a match. It’s Toby Brooke.”

“No.”

“Don’t tell me no. I’ve got the results on the screen in front of me. As I said, it’s a partial, but enough to bring him in.”

♦

All the housemates were advised of their rights, and were ordered to be present on the premises. If they hadn’t taken the detectives seriously before, they would have to now.

Bryant was thinking about the tobacco in the ashtray, and Ruby Cates admitting that she was the only smoker.

“You know those old Agatha Christie whodunnits where you get the butler, the chorus girl, the aunt and the lord into the library, then Poirot goes through their motives before accusing one of them?” he said to May as they walked. “I feel like him, except for one small detail. I’m certain it’s not Toby.”

“You just don’t want to believe it’s him because you feel a kinship with working-class kids,” said May.

“It probably is his thumbprint; I just don’t think he’s the type to commit murder. He seems scared of his own shadow. If the sticker was on one of the bags or had been picked up from the bar and left lying about the house, any of the others could have touched it. The trouble is, I haven’t the faintest idea how they could have murdered Hillingdon. Out of the five, only Theo Fontvieille has an alibi that clearly checks out. Meera found at least eight witnesses who saw him at the Buddha Bar, and at the end of the evening his Porsche was still outside the club with the keys locked inside it. Of course, Ruby Cates has her leg in a cast, which pretty much rules her out. There’s no way she could have fled from the scene of a crime. Have you seen how long it takes her to get up a flight of stairs?”

“What about the others?”

“Renfield tracked down the callers who spoke to Nikos Nicolau via video link, and they’re willing to swear that it looked as if he was calling from his bedroom. They could see his bed and posters in the background. Plus, we have the log showing the exact time he made the calls. The waitress at Wagamama doesn’t remember serving Rajan Sangeeta, so his movements remain unsubstantiated, and Toby Brooke’s account of his whereabouts is particularly dubious, but that sort of rules in his favour. He’s a bright lad; I’m sure he could come up with a decent alibi if he wanted to.”

“Why shouldn’t it be a woman?” May wondered. “Neither of the deaths required any strength or dexterity – just a shove and a spray. Suppose Ruby Cates’s leg has healed and she can take her cast off? We know that she’s strong.”

“I was thinking more about visibility. She could have kept the thing on, but someone would have recalled a pretty girl with her leg in a cast.”

“And perhaps it’s time to add Cassie Field to our list of suspects.”

“Why? Good heavens, we’ve enough already.”

“It turns out that Ms Field has a history of secret anarchy. She’s the girl who threw yellow paint over the Minister for Agriculture last year. Janice received a call from Leslie Faraday at the Home Office. He knows we interviewed her. Cassie’s got a very impressive arrest file. That’s why she came up with the anarchists’ symbol for the bar. She used to meet there with her urban warrior pals.”

“But you’re forgetting – she has an alibi. She was seen at the Buddha Bar, then half an hour later she arrived at the Karma Bar and spent the rest of the evening there, with the exception of a ten-minute break a little after midnight when she went out for a cigarette. The station’s not far from the bar, but to get there and back she’d have to be a marathon runner.”

“So we have to bring in Toby Brooke.”

“Do we? I’d rather keep an eye on him for a while. Can we do that?”

“If he makes a run for it we’ll be blamed.”

“I’ll make sure he stays put,” Bryant promised.

“I spoke to Renfield a few minutes ago. He blew his cover and was forced to have a very strange conversation with Brooke. It seems the lad started to admit his guilt about something, then ran off.”

“Sounds like he’s close to confessing.”

“Perhaps, but I want to do this the traditional way, with a formal interview. Go into Brooke’s background and wear him down by sheer persistence. We have to interview them all again anyway, so we’ll make it part of that process. The others shouldn’t know what we have on him. Meanwhile we take the house apart, try to establish a link between Taylor and Hillingdon.”

“I’m going to leave this to you, then,” said Bryant. “You’ve always said I have no understanding of the young. I remember interviewing those horrible schoolchildren who saw the Highwayman committing murder* and I still get chills down my spine when I think of them.

≡ See Ten Second Staircase.

There’s something wrong with today’s youth; they have faces as blank as Victorian dolls and the morals of Balkan gangsters.”

They had reached the house. May rang the ground-floor bell. A lopsided thumping sounded in the hall, and Ruby Cates opened the door. It must be tiring for her, getting about with that leg, thought Bryant.

“Both of you at the same time?” she enquired, raising an eyebrow. “This must be serious. You’d better come in.”

As Bryant had joked, the group were gathered around the edges of the sitting room, although they failed to resemble any of Miss Christie’s characters. Most affected boredom, a pose adopted to mask apprehension.

May decided to seize the bull by the horns. “I must inform you that Matthew Hillingdon has been found dead in a disused tunnel beneath King’s Cross,” he began. “His next of kin have been notified, and – ” But suddenly everyone was talking at once. Only Toby raised his hand.

“How did he die?”

“We’re not at liberty to discuss the finer points of the case. But I can tell you we believe he was murdered. Furthermore, you’ll appreciate that as you were among the last to see him alive, we need to conduct certain examinations that may shed light on – ”

“You suspect us!” said Rajan Sangeeta, genuinely outraged for once.

“We have to explore every avenue of enquiry, and that starts with searching your rooms.”

“You can’t do that without a warrant.”

“Actually, we can if we suspect that there’s evidence on the premises. I’d prefer your permission to act, but it’s not a legal requirement. I’m afraid that’s just the start. I’ll need to impound all electronic communication devices, including phones, laptops, PCs and so on, so I’ll need all your passwords.”

“We need them for our work,” protested Ruby. She sounded numb.

“I appreciate that, so we’ll be supplying you with alternative access to computers, and I can confirm you’ll be able to request specific study documents, which we’ll copy onto a separate hard drive exclusively for your use.”

“That’s a bit over the top,” said Theo. “It could throw my studies off-track.”

“Christ, Matt’s dead and all you can think about is your bloody schedules?” Toby complained.

“It’s all right for you, poor boy, you’re going to fail anyway,” Theo barked back. He turned to the detectives. “What can we do to get through this as quickly and painlessly as possible?”

“Our forensic team will be arriving in a few minutes to begin conducting searches of your rooms,” said May. “You can take what you need, provided it’s under supervision from a member of the Unit. We’ll detail all property removed from the site, and make sure it’s returned to you as soon as we can. If anyone has any concerns or objections – ”

“I don’t want you searching my room,” Nikos blurted. Everyone turned to look at him.

“I’m afraid you have no choice in the matter,” May told him. “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. There are a few further things I want to bring up. Our assistant, Detective Sergeant Longbright, will need to update each of your statements, concerning your whereabouts on Tuesday night, with further names and addresses of everyone who can confirm your location.”

“Why should we help you?” asked Theo. “I mean, if you already have the powers you need?”

“A fair question, but I’d like to think you would want to do it for Matthew Hillingdon, to help us for his sake. We have no motive for his death. We need to find out who he was with that night. I’m sure I don’t need to warn you about obstructing the due process of what is now an official investigation. Miss Cates, I understand you and Mr Fontvieille had a falling-out – ”

“Have you been following us? Who the hell do you think you are?”

“We’re a specialist investigatory unit under the control of the Home Office, and you are civilians. Trust me, you don’t want to fall into the hands of the Metropolitan Police. What did the two of you argue about?”

“We need to borrow some money to pay the rent and electricity,” said Ruby. “I asked Theo to cover the bills and he refused. I just thought he should agree to help us through a rough patch.”

“It’s a matter of principle,” said Fontvieille. “If we can’t manage our bills now, how can we be expected to construct and run entire social environments that might one day involve millions of pounds? Think it through, Ruby.”

“Anyway, I borrowed the money from Toby,” Ruby replied, coldly.

“Ah, yes, you’re quite well off at the moment, is that right?” May checked his notes.

“An aunt died and left me some money,” Toby muttered. The lie was so blatant that it hung in the air, a balloon of a falsehood waiting to be punctured.

“Well, you can give our detective sergeant all the details on that. Mr Fontvieille, I understand you used to date Cassie Field, the manager of the Karma Bar, is that true?”

“It’s common knowledge,” replied Theo airily.

“Not to me, it’s not,” Ruby snapped back.

“What does it matter? It was, like, a whole eight months ago.”

The temperature in the room was heating fast, but in this case May knew that a confrontational atmosphere could pay off; the housemates were becoming upset and dropping their guard.

“We see that two of you have had trouble with the police in the past,” May continued. “Mr Fontvieille, assault; Mr Nicolau, sexual harassment, was it?”

“I got into a fight outside a nightclub in Richmond,” said Fontvieille. “Fairly normal behaviour for a Thames Valley boy, wouldn’t you say?”

“And you, Mr Nicolau?”

“He was caught upskirting,” said Sangeeta.

“A load of us were doing it at the time,” Nicolau admitted. “Kind of embarrassing to think about now.”

“Is this a youngsters’ term I’m not familiar with?” asked Bryant, bewildered.

“It’s the rather grubby little practise of holding a camera under a girl’s skirt in public places, when she’s on a tube escalator for instance, then posting the shot on the Internet,” May translated.

“Oh, charming.” Bryant grimaced. “Is there nowhere a lady is safe these days?”

“Where did they find you two?” asked Theo. “You’re like something out of a display case at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Incredible. If this is going to take ages, do you mind if we order in pizzas?”

“You’re not taking this very seriously, are you?” There was a thread of danger in Bryant’s voice. “You don’t seem to appreciate that all five of you are under suspicion of conspiracy to murder. That is, an agreement between two or more persons to commit an illegal, wrongful act by sinister design, to use a rather archaic definition.”

The overheated room exploded into fits of bad feeling and sour temper, like a series of slightly disappointing fireworks going off. There were indignant complaints and toothless threats, declarations of rights and talk of lawsuits. It was the perfect time for Longbright, Banbury and Renfield to arrive.

Soon all doors had been flung open, all drawers emptied, cupboards cleared, computers unplugged, belongings tagged and bagged, and the fight had gone out of the five students, who watched forlornly as their lives were dissected before them. It appeared the quintet had finally realised that this was no longer a mere inconvenience, but something much darker and more devastating in its consequences.