Seventy-Seven Clocks

∨ Seventy-Seven Clocks ∧

27

Guilty Parties

“Welcome back, Miss Gates,” said May wearily. “We had almost begun to miss you.”

Jerry wanted desperately to lie down and go to sleep. It was after midnight, and she ached like hell. A few minutes ago she had rung Gwen from the station pay phone, and the call had quickly disintegrated into a shouting match. The last thing she wanted now was an official interrogation as well as a parental one.

“Where’s Joseph?” she asked, her voice hardly rising above a croak.

“Your friend is next door,” said Bryant. “He’s all right, no thanks to you. Congratulations, we don’t often find you in the company of live people.”

“Can I have a cup of tea? I can’t talk.”

May eyed her suspiciously for a moment, then opened the door and spoke to someone. “You can have a shot of brandy in it,” he told her, “only because it’s Christmas. This had better be good. I was about to go home when they brought you in.”

May pulled out a chair for his partner. “Peggy Harmsworth was attacked in her family vault in Highgate Cemetery.”

“My God, is she dead?” Bryant asked.

“No, but she’s of little use to us as she is.”

“Why?”

“She appears to have taken a vacation from reality. They took her away tied to a stretcher, raving about the power of the moon.”

“What was she doing in a vault, for heaven’s sake?”

“I really have no idea, but guess what? This young lady was on hand to apprehend her murderer. In case you’re not keeping score, this is the third life-threatening experience Miss Gates has managed to witness. If you ever lose your job at the Savoy, you might consider becoming one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Miss Gates. The full gory details, please.”

Jerry tried to explain how she and Joseph had come to be there, but to do that she found herself having to backtrack to the blackmailing of Kaneto Miyagawa and the withdrawal of the Japanese consortium from the Savoy to make way for Peggy Harmsworth’s theatre society. Which meant explaining everything that had happened to her, including the assault in the theatre.

May looked angrier the more he heard. Bryant nodded every once in a while, suggesting that he had guessed as much already.

“So you deliberately withheld information from us.” Bryant sighed. “I thought you had more brains than this.”

“Mr Herrick has been quite taken aback by the events of the evening,” said May. “The poor bloke thought he was helping you by going along with your half-baked plans. Instead he spent his evening shut inside a crypt being mauled by a madwoman. Luckily one of the door bolts was out and it couldn’t swing completely shut, otherwise no one would have known he was inside. There’s a guard living on the premises, and he raised the alarm.”

“You should be pleased,” said Jerry hotly. “I caught your murderer. I saw him run out of the crypt seconds after he attacked Mrs Harmsworth.”

“You think he also murdered Max Jacob?” asked May. “Yes.”

“And Peter, William, and Bella Whitstable?”

“Well – yes.”

“What about kidnapping Daisy Whitstable? He did that as well?”

“Probably. Ask him.”

“He’s also the one who assaulted you at the theatre?”

“I suppose so.” Jerry faltered.

“You don’t sound too sure.”

“Well, he’s much taller than I remember. Different looking, thinner.”

“Good,” said May, draining his tea. “I thought for a minute you’d solved the entire investigation and we could all go home.”

His sarcastic tone bothered Jerry. It seemed out of character.

“You’re holding him in custody, aren’t you?” she asked. “You didn’t let him get away?”

“He couldn’t exactly run off,” replied May. “Seeing as both his legs were broken. He fell out of the van as it bounced down the embankment, where it finally came to rest on his head.”

“He’s not dead, is he?”

“Very.”

“Was he a member of the family?” Jerry asked nervously. “Was he a Whitstable?”

“No, he was a gentleman from India. A windowcleaner.”

“What?”

“You obviously didn’t read the side of Mr Denjhi’s van.”

“You mean he didn’t do it? But I saw him – ” Jerry was aghast.

“We won’t know what he did until the body has been blood-typed and fingerprinted, and his clothes have been sent to a forensic lab. There’s a bit of a queue these days. There are still several Whitstables in the line ahead of him. But there’s certainly no reason to assume that he has any connection with the other murders.”

“He has to be the one,” said Jerry desperately. “It said in the papers that the man who abducted the little girl was driving a white van. I saw him leave the crypt, we both did. It couldn’t have been anyone else.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

“No, not exactly. His head and shoulders were in shadow.”

“What I fail to understand,” said Bryant, “is what you were hoping to achieve by following Peggy Harmsworth. All right, you thought you could get your friend compensation for losing his job. There had to be an easier way of doing that, surely? The motorcycle isn’t registered in your name. Then there’s a charge of reckless driving. Do you have insurance?”

“No.”

“How about a licence?”

“No.”

“Foolish of me to ask. You really think you can screw us about, don’t you?”

Jerry shifted uncomfortably on her seat. “The man was trying to kill me.”

“What is it that keeps you coming back?” asked Bryant. “You always manage to be in the right place at the right time. Is it merely a ghoulish interest in police procedure, or were you planning to trap the killer by yourself?”

Jerry wanted to describe how she felt, but in the harsh light of the crime unit’s interview room, she knew her explanation would sound foolish.

May was watching her. “Tell me about your family, Jerry,” he said, sensing something unspoken between them.

“Family.” She shook her head, as if failing to recognize the word. “If you met them you’d understand. Gwen’s been following the whole thing in the papers. She really admires the Whitstables. My father’s company even worked for them once. They represent everything my parents aspire to, and I’m supposed to be like them. The Whitstables know what’s going on. Families like that always do. They’re just trying to protect themselves from something they don’t want to face.”

“And if the Whitstables are discredited, your parents won’t admire them any more,” concluded May. “They want to decide your career, but you won’t let them.”

Jerry didn’t answer. She could hear Gwen now. Look at my daughter. She was a problem child, but she has a business head on her shoulders – she has real family spirit.

She wanted to see the Whitstable family fall into disgrace. Then perhaps Gwen and Jack would be forced to put their faith in her, the daughter who had exposed them.

“You’ll be interviewed by the Met about your involvement in the accident that killed Mr Denjhi,” Bryant told her. “They’ll decide what to do with you, not us. But we can protect you to some extent by placing you under our supervision. For the record, I happen to agree with you. I think the Whitstables are deliberately hiding knowledge of something that is causing all this to happen. Daisy’s parents have already refused to let anyone interview her. Nobody will talk openly to us.”

“I could get you inside information,” said Jerry, sitting forward.

“Out of the question,” said Bryant.

“You said they won’t talk to you, but they might to me.”

“Go home, Jerry. Get some sleep.” Bryant rubbed his forehead wearily. “You’ll be contacted in due course. Until then, you do nothing, understand?”

They watched as the girl was escorted from the room. “Involving her would be taking a terrible risk,” warned May.

His partner waved the suggestion aside. “I have a feeling she’ll continue whether we sanction her or not.”

“It doesn’t look like we’re going to get any sleep tonight,” May warned.

Bryant wound his scarf pythonlike around his neck. There was no point in going off duty when the body of Peggy Harmsworth’s attacker waited in the morgue. “In a world like this, only the innocent can afford to sleep. Let’s go and wake Oswald Finch. Nobody rests while I’m up. Tell me about Peggy Harmsworth.”

“She was taken to the Royal Free Hospital, sedated, and placed under observation. She assaulted the ambulance men and bit one of the nurses. Screaming and laughing, suffering the effects of a hallucinogenic drug, they think.”

“At least someone’s having a merry Christmas.”

“That’s an extremely tasteless remark, Arthur. They’re pumping her stomach without knowing what she’s taken. That’s what this case needed on top of murder and kidnap – a madwoman in a cemetery.”

“Wait a minute…” Bryant’s eyes widened gleefully. “Of course! ‘Mad, I? Yes, very? But why? Mystery!’” he cried suddenly.

“What on earth are you on about?”

“Peggy’s another name for Margaret, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is. Why?”

“Don’t you see? She’s become Mad Margaret. An insane woman, creeping through a darkened graveyard. A character from Ruddigore. It’s Gilbert and Sullivan again.”

♦

As she was escorted back along the corridor, Jerry peered through the window of the next office and spotted Joseph. He lay curled up on a row of seats, wrapped in a heavy grey blanket with his huge boots sticking out of the end. His eyes were closed, his face framed by a corona of wild hair. He looked like Burne-Jones’s painting of Perseus, except he was covered in scratches and bruises, had a bloody nose, and was black.

She wanted to place her arms around him and kiss the curve of his bandaged neck, to be wrapped in his sleeping warmth. She wanted to tell him things she had never told any man. He would probably never want to speak to her again. She had done nothing but cause him trouble. It felt as if she had never given anyone reason to admire or even like her. Perhaps it was too late.

She stayed beyond the smeared glass for a moment more, then followed the officer out on to the freezing street.