Barry Maitland: Chelsea Mansions

Brock shrugged. ‘Well, the main thing is that you’re alive and reasonably okay. I’d have hated to have to tell your mother that I’d got you killed on our first encounter.’

John smiled. ‘She’d have said it was only to be expected. But there was a skull, Brock… Kathy, don’t you believe me?’

She shrugged. ‘We’ll get a thorough forensic search made. If there was anything there we’ll find traces.’

On the way out Brock said, ‘It’s amazing what the human mind comes up with under extreme stress.’

They decided to wait until the next day to interview Beaumont and his team. There had been four of them on the plane-Toby and Deb, and the two men, Garry and Jacko. There was no sign of the two other women members of their staff, Julie the cook and Destiny the maid, and Brock ordered a search for them. From the bomb squad they learned that the cardboard box had contained nails and a lump of clay, the ‘bomb’ no more than a dummy, presumably intended to delay any possible searchers.

Brock arranged for the luggage on the plane to be taken to Queen Anne’s Gate and a room cleared for the contents to be laid out and thoroughly searched. Apart from clothes and toiletries, they found a number of those things that people might take with them when leaving for an uncertain future from which they don’t expect to be coming back any time soon. They all had photographs of family and friends; Deb had an embroidered sampler that looked quite old, a locket of what looked like baby’s hair, a collection of letters‚ and a can of mace; Garry and Jacko had both taken pistols and ammunition, and Toby his swordstick. They were all carrying a great assortment of medications.

Of more pressing interest was a pouch in Toby’s luggage containing fifteen pages of typed notes with bank account details, access codes and balances, together with two copies of a DVD of Freddie Clarke’s interrogation, uncut and almost three hours long.

And in the middle of Toby’s suitcase, packed between the neatly folded tropical suit, shirts and regimental tie, was a striped plastic beach bag containing one human skull, the bones of two hands and pieces of perished black fabric.

‘Oh,’ Brock said.

Sharpe called him in the following morning. ‘This reads like some kind of bizarre crime novel,’ Sharpe said, tapping his report. ‘You sure you hadn’t been drinking when you wrote it?’

‘Unfortunately not,’ Brock said.

‘Amazing. And he really is your son?’

‘It seems so.’

‘Good grief.’ Sharpe gave a rumbling laugh. ‘Well, I should congratulate you. I’ll have to buy you a cigar.’ He seemed to find the situation highly amusing. ‘So, a very satisfactory result all round…’

That’s what Toby Beaumont said, Brock thought.

‘… Marta Moszynski persuaded or forced Hadden-Vane to organise the killing of this embarrassing offspring of her dead husband, and Beaumont killed Mikhail Moszynski in a quite unrelated act of retaliation for the Russian’s threatening behaviour.’

‘Mm.’ Brock nodded doubtfully.

‘Come on, Brock, it may not be exactly what you expected, but it’s an excellent result. No grand conspiracy, no involvement of the FSB. The Foreign Office and MI5 will be delighted. They’ve been keeping a very close eye on us, demanding daily updates. I’ll pass your report by them before we go public on anything.’

‘It’s only a preliminary report, sir. We’ll start interviewing Beaumont and his crew this morning, and I’ve ordered a forensic search of the hotel. There are many other details that need following up.’

‘Fair enough, but the main thing is that the documents and DVD you found should allow the fraud boys to track down the money. I’m sure everyone’s going to be very happy to hear that.’

‘Beaumont was probably able to squeeze other information out of Freddie Clarke. He’d certainly found out how to requisition the company helicopter and jet.’

‘Yes. Waterboarding is a horrifying experience, I understand. I imagine Clarke would have told them anything they wanted to know. Is he still alive, do you think?’

‘Well, he certainly boarded that Athens flight. My guess is that Toby would have left him access to enough of Moszynski’s cash to keep him quiet for a long time.’

Sharpe nodded. ‘The only jarring element is these damn bones in Beaumont’s suitcase. What the hell is that all about?’

‘We don’t know. I’ll be interested to hear his explanation.’

‘Yes, well, until we do find out I think we might take that out of the report.’

Garry and Jacko refused to speak. Deb said only that she had nothing to add to whatever Toby said.

‘Toby has confessed to us that he murdered Mikhail Moszynski,’ Brock said. ‘That puts you in the position of an accessory, Deb, liable to the same punishment as him. You’ve just spent one night in gaol, and it’s going to be like that for the rest of your life. Do you really owe him that much? He’s told us his version, now we’d like to hear yours.’

She flushed slightly and said, ‘Toby speaks for all of us, Chief Inspector. I have nothing more to say.’

Toby himself was quite willing to talk. He sat there facing Brock, looking defiant.

‘Well, you kept your nerve, Brock, I’ll grant you that, but you put your son in jeopardy. You gambled with his life. How do you feel about that?’

‘I did what you did, Toby,’ Brock said.

‘Oh no, not the same at all. I gave my son a chance at glory, you just didn’t care.’

‘Glory? Not much glory in all this, is there? You stab an unarmed man to death, try to take off with his cash, and end up putting your three loyal companions in gaol for the rest of their lives.’

Toby flared, his face turning puce. ‘They had nothing to do with this. I did it alone. They are innocent!’

‘They were in the plane with you, and now they refuse to talk-they say you speak for them. Only one way a jury’s going to interpret that. They were after the cash, just like you.’

‘I couldn’t leave them behind, with no future…’

‘Well, they certainly haven’t got one now.’

‘Perhaps… perhaps if I agreed to cooperate fully with you, you might be more sympathetic to their position.’

‘I don’t think you’ve got much to negotiate with, but you can start by telling us about the skull and bones in your luggage.’

‘Ha!’ Toby sat back with a grim smile, his composure returning. ‘I thought that would set the cat among the pigeons. You’ve probably been wondering about that all night, eh?’

Brock folded his arms and stared at him. ‘Let’s have it then.’

‘My grandfather was an officer in the Fourth Army in the First Battle of the Somme, in the First World War. In July 1916 his company was involved in a frontal attack on the German lines, from which he was the only survivor. He was never quite the same after that. When he next returned home on leave, my grandmother came into the dining room one day and found a centrepiece on the dining table comprising a human head and pair of severed hands. She summoned my grandfather and asked him what it meant, and he explained that it was a souvenir he had brought home from the front, comprising the remaining body parts of a young German infantryman he’d killed.’

He paused. He was enjoying himself, Brock thought, enjoying the looks on their faces. ‘What happened?’ he asked.

‘Grandma instructed their butler to dispose of the remains, and called the family doctor. Grandpa ended up being treated for shell shock at Craiglockhart Hospital in Scotland, and the butler buried the remains in the cellar. This became a family legend, as you can imagine, passed on from generation to generation of children under the covers after lights-out. According to the legend, the ghost of the dead German still haunts number eight, Chelsea Mansions.’ Toby gave them a toothy grin.