Ник Сайнт - Purrfectly Deadly

Chapter Four

Bright and early the next morning, Inspector Darian Watley frowned as he went over the evidence he’d gathered so far in the murder of Sir Geoffrey Buckley. He didn’t have all that much to go on, he admitted ruefully. The crime scene had been squeaky clean, the safe revealing only Sir Buckley’s prints and not even this McCabre woman’s. The blow to the head he’d received had been the cause of death, all right, but of course there was no sign of the murder weapon. According to the coroner what they were looking for was a club of some kind. A heavy blunt object. Either that or someone possessing extraordinary strength.

Which was one of the reasons it was doubtful Henrietta McCabre was the culprit. She was of slight build and didn’t possess the physical strength to kill a man with a single blow. No, whoever was responsible was probably a powerfully built male. That didn’t mean she couldn’t be an accomplice. His initial theory was that she’d somehow smuggled an associate into the shop, who’d done the dirty work and who’d absconded with the money and whatever other valuables Buckley kept locked up in his safe. At which point she’d called the police herself, so as not to draw suspicion to herself.

But then why had she left a million pounds in the store till?

He leaned forward in his chair and went over the CCTV footage his constable had collected. Going backward, it started with McCabre arriving at the store, then traced her movements back along the path she’d traveled until she disappeared from sight for half an hour. Coincidentally or not, she’d traveled to a part of London where no cameras could follow her. The theory was that she’d met someone there, for the cameras had picked her up again half an hour prior to her arrival at the underpass, coming from the store.

He quickly tracked other footage of cameras around the auspicious area, and to his surprise saw that a motorcycle arrived around the same time McCabre did and left again when she did. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

She’d gone there to meet this mysterious motorcycle man.

He peered at the screen and started. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

He quickly tapped a key and printed the image of Motorcycle Man. It wouldn’t surprise him if he were implicated in the Buckley murder as well.

Of course, this presented him with a dilemma. Both McCabre and Motorcycle Man had an obvious alibi for the murder. And the most baffling thing of all: even though Buckley Antiques was covered by a camera from across the street, no one had entered or left the building around the time of the murder. He’d scrolled through the footage up until the time the police arrived, and the murderer was never seen leaving the premises.

Furthermore, there was no back entrance, nor a window through which the killer could have escaped. They’d checked with the inhabitants of the house sharing the back wall: there was no way to go from one to the other. They’d also checked the apartment above the store, but even there they hadn’t found any manner of egress, not even along the roof of the building. It was, in other words, a real mystery how the killer had left.

He went over the footage captured around the time of the murder again. The only customer who’d been in the store was a young doctor, but she’d left at three forty-five. They’d interviewed her, and she hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. And as Watley scrolled through the footage, he saw Buckley appearing at the door, bidding his final customer goodbye and even helping her carry her packages to her car, which was parked out in front. Then Buckley had retreated into the store, closed the door, and that had been the last time anyone had seen him alive. So whoever the murderer was, he or she had to have been inside, perhaps hiding? But they’d gone over the footage of the past twenty-four hours and everyone who’d entered the store had been seen leaving it at some point. No exception.

The only lead he had was the suspicious behavior of Henrietta McCabre and her meeting with Motorcycle Man. Those two could perhaps shed some light on the murder, as he was willing to bet they were both involved, as well as a third person, the one who’d actually perpetrated the murder.

All he had to do was find out why McCabre had gone to that meet.

And since he didn’t like wasting time, he decided to pay her a visit right now. Rattle the cage a bit. And just when he was shrugging into his overcoat, his phone went, and he picked it up, barking, “Watley.”

“Inspector Darian Watley?” a gruff voice sounded at the other end.

“Yes.”

“I understand you’re in charge of the Buckley murder investigation?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Chief Whitehouse. Happy Bays Police Department.”

Watley frowned. “Who? What?”

“Whitehouse. I’m chief of police in Happy Bays.” There was a slight pause, then the man went on, “A small town on Long Island. The States.”

Reluctantly he sat down again. “What can I do for you, Chief Whitehouse?” he asked, wondering what this was all about.

“I used to work for you guys at Scotland Yard about, oh, ten years ago? I worked under Thaddeus Yaffle at the time. Specialist Operations.”

“Yaffle retired three years ago.”

“I know. Good man, Thaddeus. You could always count on him to help you out in a pickle. My wife and I used to join him and his wife at your mother’s dinner parties back in the day. And great parties they were.”

Watley was starting to wonder if this Whitehouse would ever get to the point. “I wouldn’t know. I never went to my mother’s dinner parties.”

“Met your dad once or twice. Great man, your dad. Great commissioner.”

“Dad retired five years ago.”

“Pity. He was always ready to help out a man in a pickle.”

This obsession with pickles was starting to irk Darian. “And do you? Find yourself in a pickle, Chief Whitehouse?”

“Not me personally, but my niece does.”

“And who is your niece?”

“Henrietta McCabre. My daughter tells me she’s a suspect.”

Watley raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Henrietta McCabre is your niece?”

“That’s right. A very sweet-natured young woman. Absolutely incapable of murder. Or any other mischief for that matter. Which is why I’m calling.”

If there was one thing Watley hated, it was outsiders butting into his investigation, and that included chiefs of police of small American towns. “Look here, Chief…” he began therefore, his tone not too friendly.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Whitehouse grumbled. “Butt out. I’d say exactly the same thing if I were in your position, Watley. But the fact of the matter is that I promised Harry I’d look after her. My sister and her husband died a couple of years ago, and her only other relatives are in Scotland and the States. And I hate to see Harry in a pickle like this.”

“Well, that’s entirely up to her now, isn’t it? Nothing I can do about it,” Watley returned. He was getting more and more annoyed. This Little Orphan Annie story might work on other people, but to him it reeked of manipulation.

“I’m going to ask you straight out, Watley. Is my niece a suspect?”

“I’m sorry, but as the investigation is still ongoing, I really don’t see how I can disclose anything at this point, not even to a friend of my father.”

“I see,” said the man thoughtfully. “Then let me put it this way, Inspector. If anything were to happen to my niece, anything at all, I will personally come over there to make sure that the ones responsible will see justice served.”

Watley gawked at the phone for a moment. Was this guy for real? “Are you threatening me?” he asked, his voice taking on a steely tone.