Майкл Ридпат - Launch Code

‘Thanks, Brooke. I’ll take a look.’ He grinned at Toby. ‘One thing about living on a submarine. You learn how to take care of leaks.’

The doorbell rang, and Rickover started barking.

‘Sounds like you were right, Maya,’ said Bill. ‘Quiet, Ricky!’ He went out to the hall and they heard the murmur of a man’s voice asking if he could come in.

Bill led two men into the kitchen, Rickover inspecting their heels, and explained that it was Thanksgiving and his family were staying with him. One was a couple of years younger than Toby. He was slim and fair-haired; he wore a suit and tie, and he spoke with a slight northern accent. His accomplice was old enough to be his father and was in uniform, the paraphernalia of the modern policeman hanging off his large frame on a belt and stab-proof vest.

They introduced themselves as DC Atkinson and PC Easter.

‘Can I offer you guys a pancake?’ said Alice.

‘They are good,’ said Maya.

The younger policeman glanced at the pancakes and at Maya and seemed to like what he saw on both counts, but he shook his head.

‘I’m afraid we have some bad news,’ he said. ‘I believe you know a gentleman by the name of Sam Bowen?’ He directed the question to Bill.

‘Yes,’ said Bill. ‘Or at least we met him for the first time yesterday. He spent Thanksgiving with us. Why? Has he had an accident?’

That must be it, thought Toby. A head-on collision on one of those treacherous bends on Norfolk roads, some idiot overtaking when they shouldn’t. Maybe Sam was the idiot? That didn’t seem likely.

‘No, not an accident,’ said the young detective. ‘He was killed last night at the King William. Stabbed. We believe it was murder.’

Toby was stunned. They were all stunned, and showed it in different ways. Alice’s face was stricken with horror. Brooke looked as if she was about to cry. Megan’s jaw was open. Maya appeared confused. Only Bill seemed to take it coolly.

Sam seemed such an unlikely victim to Toby. Young, inoffensive. Toby remembered Sam talking about his girlfriend in Newcastle, his parents in Birmingham. Why would anyone want to kill him?

An answer sprang immediately to Toby’s mind: it couldn’t have been the conversation the day before, could it? Those questions about Bill and the Alexander Hamilton ? No. There would be a simpler reason, and the police would find it.

‘That’s awful, said Bill. ‘What can we tell you?’

‘Do you mind if we sit down?’ asked the detective.

‘Sure.’

He pulled out his notebook, and looked up as Lars walked in the front door.

‘What’s with the cops? They’re everywhere.’ He stopped short as he entered the kitchen. ‘What’s happened?’

‘The historian who came around yesterday has been murdered,’ said Bill.

It seemed to take a moment for the words to register, but they did eventually. ‘No shit,’ said Lars.

Bill told the policemen the bare bones of how Sam had come to see him for an hour or so the afternoon before, and how he had returned for dinner. The detective jotted it all down, and then went off to report to his superiors, requesting that nobody leave, and promising that he and his colleagues would be back to ask more detailed questions.

And they were, about an hour later. The police officer in charge was a detective inspector named Creswell, a round-faced woman with pink cheeks but shadowed eyes. She and a detective sergeant interviewed Bill in the living room. The rest of them were split up between two detective constables, DC Atkinson and an older man, from his accent a local, who set themselves up in the dining room and Bill’s study upstairs.

Alice was badly shaken. She fired off an email to her work saying it was unlikely she would be able to get there until that evening. Toby tried to draw her out on speculating what had happened to Sam and why, but she was having none of it. All she seemed to be worried about was getting back to London and her legal drafts.

After Bill emerged from the living room, Alice was called in.

Toby was sitting next to Justin at the kitchen table. He looked preoccupied, which was hardly surprising.

‘Man, this is the kind of thing you’d expect in Chicago, not in England,’ he said. ‘Or at least not in a tiny village.’

‘Have you been involved in a murder investigation before?’ Toby asked. He thought Chicago was supposed to be a violent town, but he didn’t really know what that meant.

‘No,’ said Justin. ‘To be fair, it all depends where you live in Chicago. Our neighbourhood is pretty safe.’

‘You would think Barnholt would be pretty safe.’

‘Brooke is not taking this well.’ She was currently being interviewed in the dining room. ‘She really liked that guy Sam. And his girlfriend was pregnant!’

‘Yeah,’ said Toby. ‘Poor guy. Poor her.’ He thought of how he would feel if Alice had been murdered just before they were married. It was too horrible to contemplate. And there was the pregnancy. Was that a good thing, that part of Sam would live on? Or a bad thing? Once again, too horrible to contemplate.

But it had happened.

‘I’m glad Alice is around,’ Justin said. ‘Brooke really looks up to her.’

‘They all do,’ said Toby.

‘She’s a strong woman,’ said Justin.

‘Yes,’ said Toby. ‘You must have known their mother?’

‘I did,’ said Justin. ‘I spent a lot of time with the Guth family when I was a kid. After Craig died, Bill acted like a kind of godfather to me. I told you Craig was my real father?’

Toby nodded.

‘They were both good to me, Bill and Donna. I discovered they helped pay for my college education, although they never admitted it. I never got on with my dad, or step-dad as he turned out to be. It wasn’t really his fault — we are just different. But Bill and Donna were always there for me. She was a strong woman too.’

‘I wish I had known her,’ said Toby. Apart from anything else, knowing her would have helped him to understand the Guth family. To understand his wife. ‘Was she anything like Alice?’

‘A bit. A lot less corporate. She was sort of a middle-aged hippie. Really kind, though. Like Bill.’

‘Alice misses her,’ said Toby.

‘So does Brooke. They all do.’

Brooke appeared, looking pale, her eyes red, and told Justin to take her place in the dining room with DC Atkinson.

Alice was still ensconced in the living room, when Toby was sent in after Justin.

DC Atkinson seemed keyed up, as well he might be. Toby imagined murder investigations were not a common occurrence in North Norfolk. But the police officer was calm and professional and meticulous in his questioning.

He started by asking Toby about the meeting with Sam Bowen. The detective was more concerned with the way Sam and Bill had behaved than the substance of the discussion; Toby said no more than that the historian was asking about an erroneous order to launch nuclear missiles from an American submarine on a patrol during the Cold War. Toby recounted that neither Bill nor Sam seemed nervous or antagonistic, although Bill refused to be specific about events which he considered still to be secret. Sam seemed to have expected that.

Then followed minute questioning about who had been where when during the day. Toby described the comings and goings at Thanksgiving dinner and during the football game on TV afterwards, finishing with how he stayed up late for his wife returning with the shopping from King’s Lynn. Here the questioning became very detailed, with Toby asked to account for Alice’s arrival to the minute, which he couldn’t quite do. ‘About half past eleven’ was the best he could manage.