Caroline Graham - Death in Disguise

‘Tell me what happened.’

‘I woke up wanting the loo. I put a robe on and I’d just started to open the door when I saw ... him ...’

‘Andrew Carter?’

‘Christopher.’

‘Whereabouts??’

‘Kneeling by the keyhole of Tim’s room. His lips were very close. He said, “This is Arno. I’ve got your supper.” His voice was so different. It was uncanny. He didn’t have a tray or anything but he had this terrible iron bar that he propped up against the wall. And when Tim opened the door, Christopher made a grab, pulled him outside and ... and started to hit him with it. I should have gone for help ... I know I should. But I was so frightened . I just went inside again. I didn’t even ring the police. I’m sorry ... so sorry ...’

‘We were on our way in any case by then, Mrs Gamelin.’

‘Oh - is that true?’

‘Quite true.’

‘Then I don’t feel so ... I heard glass breaking. Is he all right? Tim?’

There was a deeply awkward pause. Heather went across to Felicity and said, ‘Why don’t I make you a nice cup of Acorna? With plenty of honey.’

Troy wondered if that was the boiled sludge offered to him the night of the murder. If so it was more likely to finish Felicity off than revive her. And that would never do because they’d need her for the trial. What a marvellous piece of luck! And she was telling the truth, it had shown on Carter’s face though he’d been quick to collect himself. A nice little caution now, a neat arrest and they’d be home and dry. The chief had got up, was about to say something, but before he could do so May spoke up again.

‘What you said earlier about the Master’s death makes me wonder if I should have been more explicit at my first interview.’

‘In what respect, Miss Cuttle?’

‘Well of course I did see everything, you know.’ The ground opened around Barnaby’s feet. I am not hearing this, he observed silently, and there’s an end to it.

‘It’s all in my statement.’ The only one he had hardly bothered to go over, recalling it as a load of supernatural claptrap, signifying nothing. ‘A silver dart? Flying overhead?’

Oh Jesus! Oh bloody hell. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Cry of course. What else? With another life gone. The chief inspector had a sudden searing sense of shame. He recalled Joyce’s fierce accusation that he never listened and his own earlier attempts to stop Troy exploring the con-man theory. It seemed no one could be right but himself. Fortunately the sergeant had gone ahead anyway but if he had not ...

My arteries are hardening, thought Barnaby. And I don’t like it. He realised May was addressing him.

‘I’m afraid I felt at the time,’ she said, ‘that you were simply not ready for more detailed esoteric knowledge. But perhaps I was mistaken.’

Yes, perhaps you were, you dozy old bat, thought Troy, noting his chief’s look of crumbling devastation. The sergeant’s reaction was not entirely sympathetic. He had been on the receiving end of the instruction always to keep an open mind too often not to feel a sting of satisfaction. There was also the undeniable fact that this discovery slightly eased Troy’s own guilt. His sole defence, should Barnaby notice the fifteen-minute discrepancy between the time logged for the Blackpool information and his sergeant’s phone call to Arbury Crescent, would have been of the truculent ‘How was I to know?’ nature. Which was of course no defence at all. Now there’d been a pre-emptive strike. For if the chief had been more attentive to May Cuttle’s statement not only the boy, but also a great deal of time and money would have been saved as well.

The caution was completed. Troy buttoned his jacket and moved forwards, prepared for trouble. But there was none and five minutes later all three men were in the car and on the way to the station.

Troy drove. Barnaby sat in the back, Andrew Carter sullenly at his side. He had vehemently denied Felicity’s story, saying that she’d probably been hallucinating. Anyone could see she was brain-damaged by years of booze and drugs.

‘We’ll test the bar for prints.’

‘Test away. I’ve already told you I made a grab at it when we were on the roof. Plus I carried it down to my room the time before.’

‘If that’s all you did, that’s all they’ll find.’

Barnaby watched Carter’s face as he spoke. All he saw was a smirk of bravado. The man leaned back, crossing one leg high at right angles across the other knee. As he tugged at his sneakered foot the soft hide of his jacket hitched up and Barnaby saw the glowing circle of light on his wrist.

‘Where d’you get that?’

‘Present. My nearly-but-not-quite fiancée.’

‘She’s had a lucky escape.’

‘Me, too. She was as neurotic as hell. Always rapping on about her inner life. Can I smoke?’

‘Not at the moment. Tell me - just as a matter of interest - did you know she was living at the Windhorse before you arrived?’

Carter paused as if mulling over the possible consequences of a truthful reply, then said: ‘Yes. My uncle wrote to me. He recognised her.’

‘From an engraving in the Buddhist scriptures no doubt?’

‘It’s no crime to look out for a rich wife. If it was, half the male population would be inside tomorrow.’

‘You ever been inside?’

‘Of course not.’

‘You said you were “working” the arcades. That’s thieves’ cant.’

‘A slip of the tongue.’

But in the weeks leading up to the trial more and more information on both the Carters came to light. Faced with facts that made his previous protestations frankly untenable, Andrew Carter, on the hottest legal advice the sale of his watch could buy, decided to plead guilty to the murder of Andrew Craigie.

Filling in the background, he admitted that his uncle, after watching a television programme from America showing an overweight guru with a fleet of Rollers supplied by adoring underlings, had visited his old sparring partner in Albany prison and sold him the idea that they should pool resources and set up just such an establishment in this country. This they had done and much was made at the trial of the deliberate annexation of Carter’s contribution after his death, leaving the accused, as lawful next of kin, virtually destitute.

Andrew Carter - thin, hollow in cheek and eye - touchingly, perjuringly, described how, on the night of the murder, he had finally been driven to reveal his true identity and begged for even a small amount of money to set against the share that was rightfully and morally his, but all to no avail. Craigie, he told the court, just laughed in his face.

Defence counsel, the brilliant Gerard Malloy-Malloy, in a dazzling closing speech, dwelt at length on the character of the deceased confidence trickster. He revealed such a string of heartless swindling farragos and deceits that the wonder in everyone’s mind was not that someone had killed Craigie, but why on earth it hadn’t been accomplished years ago.

Carter’s plea of ‘Not Guilty’ to the murder of Timothy Justin Riley was upheld. Felicity’s history of instability and drug-dependence, plus the fact that she had taken a sleeping draught a bare hour before supposedly seeing Carter lure Riley from his room, made her appear an unreliable witness. Counsel reduced her to tearful hesitancies in no time. All the smeary mass of prints proved was that both men had handled the bar.

Evidence was offered as to the dangerously aggressive and violent behaviour of Riley. He had caused the death of the accused’s uncle and had also made an attempt on the life of the accused which was only foiled by the quickest thinking. (Here the piece of metal was produced.)

No one but Andrew Carter ever knew the real reason why Tim had to die. Troy had hit on it whilst tossing ideas about, but the supposition had been one of many not to be pursued. The fact was that, caught up unwillingly in the rush down to May, Tim had indeed been distressed at being separated from his beloved Master and was making his way back when the knife had been thrown. He had seen the action, looked back, seen the murderer. And been seen in his turn.