Under Attack Read online

  Keedy felt that he’d already got Armitage’s measure so he didn’t spend long talking to him. Breaking away with a token apology, he headed for the dining room and was just in time to see Adrian Donohoe leaving it. The latter made no attempt to disguise the fact that he wasn’t pleased to meet the detective again. When asked for a few minutes of his time, he agreed reluctantly. The two of them adjourned to the lounge and were soon sinking into leather armchairs. Keedy began by asking about his father’s habit of booking a room at the hotel without always using it.

  ‘That’s news to me, Sergeant,’ said the other.

  ‘Does it surprise you?’

  ‘Yes, it does.’

  ‘It seems so cavalier to me. Why pay for accommodation then walk away from it? Businessmen surely expect their money’s worth. In this case, the cost of the room was just thrown away without a second thought.’

  ‘I doubt that. My father was very scrupulous about money.’

  ‘Have you any idea where he might have gone?’

  ‘No, but I’m sure he had a good reason for going there. The simplest explanation is that he was at the offices in Barnes he shared with Norris Sprake. Time didn’t exist for my father. He worked all hours – occasionally, for days on end. If he was engaged on a particular project, he’d have been in Barnes.’

  ‘Then why didn’t Mr Sprake suggest the same thing?’ asked Keedy. ‘When we pressed him on the subject, he had no idea of your father’s whereabouts away from this hotel. Had his partner been using their office overnight, Mr Sprake would surely have been aware of it.’

  ‘You would have thought so.’

  ‘Then why wasn’t he?’

  ‘Only Mr Sprake could answer that.’

  ‘Do you intend to contact him while you’re in London?’

  ‘I’ve already telephoned him, Sergeant,’ replied the other. ‘I’m seeing him this afternoon. We need to discuss my father’s business affairs.’

  ‘Have you ever been to Mr Sprake’s mansion?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘It’s quite palatial.’

  ‘Then it reflects the success of the company.’

  ‘Are you interested in property development, sir?’

  ‘I’m interested in any enterprise with a good return on one’s investment.’

  ‘Does that mean you’d like to take your father’s place in Barnes?’

  ‘That’s irrelevant,’ said Adrian, sharply. ‘My major concern is to sweep up the unholy mess left behind after my father’s sudden death. It will involve a huge amount of time and effort. Before that, of course, there’s the funeral to arrange.’

  ‘As soon as the body can be released, we’ll let you know, sir.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Keedy regarded him with mingled curiosity and dislike. There was still no sign of regret or suffering in the other man. Had his own father been murdered, Keedy knew that he’d be devastated and would devote his time to consoling his mother. Adrian Donohoe was different. Instead of being distraught, he was irritated by the mountain of work and reorganisation that loomed in front of him. If it ever took place, mourning his father was a reaction that had been postponed. Keedy glanced across the lounge and saw one of the guests opening a newspaper. The detective’s haze flicked back to his companion.

  ‘What did you think of the press coverage, sir?’

  ‘I haven’t looked at any newspapers,’ said Adrian.

  ‘But your father’s untimely death is the main story in most of them,’ said Keedy. ‘I should have thought you’d be interested to see how they described him.’

  ‘Why?’ asked the other with disdain. ‘I’ve been reading newspaper articles about my father all my life. In my younger days, I used to cut them out and put them in a scrapbook. Then I had a career of my own to worry about. There’s nothing anyone can tell me about my father that I don’t know from personal experience. The only time I’ll pick up a newspaper is when the killer has been identified and caught.’

  ‘We hope that you won’t have too long to wait, sir.’

  ‘Why are you here, Sergeant?’ demanded the other, bluntly. ‘Pestering me will get you nowhere. Shouldn’t you be out looking for the killer?’

  ‘This visit is all part of that process, sir.’

  ‘I fail to see how.’

  ‘Well, to start with,’ said Keedy, fixing him with a stare, ‘I didn’t come simply to meet you again. The fact that you stayed here last night was an incidental bonus. What really brought me was the need to interview the Devonian Hotel itself. When he was not in Birmingham,’ said Keedy, ‘this was your father’s alternative home. He was a familiar figure. The hotel staff is discreet but watchful. Without realising it, they’ll have seen things that may have had a bearing on the crime. Whoever killed your father probably knew – and may even have frequented – this hotel. That’s why I’m not leaving until I’ve spoken to almost everyone who works here. Their collective memories of your father’s visits here will be interesting and may yield some vital facts. I’m sorry that you feel pestered, sir,’ he went on. ‘If you think that a quiet chat in this lounge is a case of harassment, wait until the press descend on you – and they certainly will. You’ll feel absolutely beleaguered then.’

  Rising to his feet, Keedy swept out of the room. He didn’t see the look of dismay he’d just put on Adrian Donohoe’s face nor hear the angry expletive that dropped from the man’s lips.

  Clifford Burge took up his post immediately. Having been briefed by the head of the new department, he went back to his lodging, changed into more appropriate clothing and headed for Stepney. He wore a cap pulled down over his forehead and, though it was creased and dirtied by age, he resolved that nobody would snatch it away from him. Burge first went to the spot where he’d been given an unexpected shower. It was in a narrow lane cluttered with refuse of all sorts. He located the house he was after. One of the few that actually had a decent garden attached to it, it also boasted a small shed. It was from the top of it that he’d been soaked to the skin. Though he doubted if his attacker actually lived in the house, he walked around to the front of it and knocked at the door. It was owned by an elderly couple. Hearing that he was a detective, they asked for help from the persecution they suffered from local gangs. Children trespassed with impunity on their garden, they moaned, and trampled down anything they tried to grow. All items of value had long ago been stolen from the shed.

  Promising to address their concerns, Burge warned them that it might take time. He then went off to find the two policemen who’d arrived on the scene of the fight between the Stepney Warriors and the Evil Spirits. Having read their report of the incident, he asked for more detail. They were unhappy at being supplanted, as they saw it, by a single detective and sceptical about his chances of success. He slowly broke down their resistance to him. When Burge admitted that he’d had his hat stolen, they guffawed.

  ‘You were lucky,’ said one of them. ‘If it was only your hat they took, it must have been the Warriors. If it had been the Spirits, they’d have cut off your bollocks and kept them in a jar of pickled onions.’

  ‘How often are you here?’ asked Marmion.

  ‘Five days a week, at least, and the occasional Saturday.’

  ‘So you kept the company functioning while Mr Donohoe was away.’

  ‘We were in constant touch by letter or telephone,’ said Sprake. ‘I’d never make a major decision without first consulting him.’

  ‘Did you ever disagree over a contract?’

  The other man smiled. ‘We did little else. It’s the essence of partnership.’

  When he’d first heard about the office in Barnes, Marmion had envisaged something on the scale of his own – small, stuffy and without enough natural light. What he was now standing in was an office with the kind of space and facilities well beyond those he had at Scotland Yard. Norris Sprake occupied the largest of the rooms on the ground floor of a rambling Victorian house. As the inspector had arrived, he
saw the old man being helped out of the car by his chauffeur and put into a wheelchair. He was then taken into the building and manoeuvred into the high-backed seat behind the desk. The chauffeur discharged his duties with an almost filial care, moving his employer from one chair to another as if handling a fragile vase. He was a tall, elegant, lithe man in his forties with a swarthy complexion. His movements were graceful and unhurried.

  ‘Your chauffeur would make an excellent nurse,’ observed Marmion.

  ‘Oh, he’s much more than a chauffeur, believe me. He looks after me in every way. I don’t know what I’d do without Jean-Louis.’

  ‘Is he French?’

  ‘French mother, English father. He was born in Marseilles but brought up in Scotland. When the war broke out, he was tempted to join up but he felt that his first loyalty was to me. Jean-Louis has become my legs.’

  ‘What does he do while he’s waiting until you need him?’

  ‘He works in the office next door. His secretarial skills are more than adequate and, of course, when we purchased property in France, his fluency in the language was a boon. Gilbert always preferred a female secretary,’ explained Sprake, ‘but I could never find one strong enough to manhandle me.’

  ‘Mr Donohoe, presumably, worked upstairs.’

  ‘Yes, feel free to look at his office, Inspector. Hattie – Miss Kane, that is – will get you tea or coffee, if you wish. She’s been his secretary ever since we moved in here. Gilbert enticed her all the way from Birmingham.’

  ‘Then I’d certainly like to meet her, sir. Who else is up there?’

  ‘Roy Vernon, one of our associates. Another one, Malcolm Brant, is down here with us. They had a great admiration for Gilbert. He was their icon,’ said Sprake with a laugh, ‘whereas I don’t even qualify as a statuette.’

  ‘I’ll speak to them all, if I may – the chauffeur included.’

  ‘I was told that you had a reputation for thoroughness.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Marmion, ‘where did you hear that?’

  ‘It pays to have spies in my game, Inspector.’

  ‘Do those spies of yours know who killed your partner?’

  ‘Alas, no – they have their limitations.’

  The office was a merger between the functional and the decorative. Wooden filing cabinets stood against one wall but there were framed seascapes above each of them. The bookshelves in the opposite wall were well stocked and punctuated by photographs and examples of exotic glassware. The largest photograph was on the desk itself, angled so that Sprake could always see it when he looked up. Standing behind the old man, Marmion could see that a younger version of his host was on the deck of a yacht in broad sunshine. Clearly able to stand without difficulty, he had his arm around a plump middle-aged woman.

  ‘That’s my wife,’ he told Marmion, ‘on the Gloriana.’

  But the inspector paid no attention to her. His interest was directed at a man in the background. Looking as if he was a member of the crew was the distinctive figure of Jean-Louis Peebles, the chauffeur.

  The ordeal of walking the beat with her had to be endured. Though she feared the worst, Alice was pleasantly surprised. Instead of crowing all over her, Iris Goodliffe was nervous and tentative. Thrilled to be invited out at last, she began to have doubts.

  ‘I don’t know what to wear, Alice,’ she said.

  ‘Whatever you put on, you’ll always look smart.’

  ‘Yes, but is that what he wants? Look at it from Douglas’s point of view. Will he want me to put on what I usually do of an evening or does he want something more … well, interesting?’

  ‘He’s not expecting a fashion show, Iris.’

  ‘All my dresses are so dull and ordinary.’

  ‘He likes you for what you are rather than what you wear.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Alice, encouragingly. ‘PC Beckett has only ever seen you in police uniform and that’s hardly the most flattering outfit for a woman.’ She tugged her jacket. ‘Anything is an improvement on this.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Cheer up, Iris. You’re going to have a treat.’

  ‘I feel so unprepared.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve been waiting for this moment ever since I met you. Make the most of it.’

  ‘It’s true,’ said Iris, rallying. ‘I’m fed up with being a wallflower. Whenever I went to a dance, it was the pretty girls who always got asked on to the floor. I was left high and dry …’ Her voice trailed away.

  ‘That’s not the case here,’ said Alice, firmly. ‘PC Beckett likes you and that’s all that you need to worry about. Just don’t expect too much, that would be my advice. These are early days. You need to find out what sort of person he really is.’

  ‘Douglas is a man – that’s all I want.’

  ‘Yes, but what sort of man?’

  Iris was hurt. ‘Don’t you like him?’

  ‘I don’t know him well enough to like or dislike. We’ve never even had a conversation. He seems friendly enough and I’m sure that the two of you will have an enjoyable time together.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll notice?’

  ‘Notice what?’

  ‘Well, that I’m very … inexperienced.’

  ‘He just wants the pleasure of your company, Iris.’

  ‘I don’t want to scare him away.’

  Before she could ask for more advice, she saw a car draw up at the kerb just ahead of them. Keedy leapt out of the passenger seat and came across to Alice, planting a kiss on her cheek. Iris immediately strode on a dozen paces so that they had a brief moment alone together.

  ‘I can’t stop,’ said Keedy. ‘I knew which beat you were on so I asked my driver to make a slight detour in the hope that we’d see you.’

  ‘It’s a lovely surprise, Joe. I’m just grateful that Gale Force isn’t here. If she saw you kissing me in public, she’d haul me over the coals.’

  ‘Sorry I haven’t been in touch.’

  ‘I understand, Joe.’

  ‘I’d hoped we might have a moment together last night but you weren’t there.’

  Alice was taken aback. ‘You went to the house?’

  ‘Yes, I threw a couple of stones up at your window as usual. When I saw the light go on in the landlady’s bedroom, I made myself scarce.’

  ‘I went home for the night.’

  ‘So your father told me. Still having to comfort your mother?’

  Alice nodded. Instead of telling him that she’d been the one in need of solace, she let him think that she’d been there solely to talk about the disappearance of her brother. Her mind was in turmoil. Desperate to raise the issue that had been plaguing her so much, she knew that it was neither the time nor place. Alice was about to make a suggestion when he made it for her.

  ‘Let’s try again tonight.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ she said, ‘and you won’t need to throw anything up at my window. I’ll be sitting beside it.’

  ‘Good. See you later.’

  He kissed her again, ran back to the car and got in. As it sped away, Iris walked back to her friend with a sentimental smile on her face.

  ‘That was so romantic, Alice. He’d obviously gone out of his way to snatch a few seconds with you.’ She put a hand to her throat. ‘Do you think that Douglas would do that kind of thing for me?’

  Marmion first talked to the two associate members of the company. Roy Vernon was a solemn, sturdy man in his thirties who spoke of Gilbert Donohoe in hushed tones. He claimed to have learnt far more from the Birmingham entrepreneur than he had from Sprake. He was unable to suggest why Donohoe had paid for a hotel room that he didn’t actually use. Malcolm Brant was a short, thin, intense man in his late twenties with a nervous twitch that made his spectacles slide down his nose and need readjustment. He spoke with great admiration for the dead man, insisting that Donohoe had no enemies in the business world.

  ‘The murder was a random attack by
someone after his wallet,’ he argued.

  ‘He didn’t need to kill Mr Donohoe in order to rob him. A threat of violence would have been enough. Also, thieves are not in the habit of carrying a leather strap with them in order to garrotte their victims. That’s what this one did, according to the post-mortem report,’ said Marmion, levelly. ‘He deliberately went out with murder on his mind.’

  Brant gasped. ‘I didn’t realise it was premeditated.’

  ‘Somebody must have had Mr Donohoe under observation during his visits to London. Having bided his time, he chose the moment to strike.’

  ‘Yes, yes, Inspector. I can see now that I was wrong.’

  Marmion’s third visit was to the office occupied by Harriet Kane. Given the fact that her employer had been murdered, the inspector was surprised that she was even there. After such a close working relationship with the man, he expected that the secretary would be overcome by grief. His supposition was partially correct. When he tapped on the door, there was no invitation for him to enter. As he discovered, the door was locked. Certain that she was inside the room, he knocked harder.

  ‘One moment,’ said a quavering voice.

  In fact, it was over a minute before the door was opened. Harriet Kane had obviously been crying. She was a big, bosomy, ungainly woman in her forties with unprepossessing features and grey hair brushed back fiercely into a bun. Patently, she scorned the use of cosmetics. When he introduced himself, there was a momentary look of alarm as if she thought she was somehow in trouble. Before questioning her, Marmion took time to put her at ease. She slowly relaxed. Harriet sat down behind her desk and he took the only other chair. The office was spacious and meticulously tidy, if too soulless for his taste.

  ‘I’m surprised to see you here, Miss Kane,’ he began.

  ‘I didn’t want to come. I’ve worked for Mr Donohoe for many years. When I heard what happened to him, I was appalled. I couldn’t stop crying. I just wanted to be left alone to … think about him.’

  ‘What changed your mind?’

  ‘Mr Donohoe’s son got in touch with me. He’s coming here this afternoon and wants me to help him. I have keys to everything in the office next door, including the safe. There’s also a combination, of course. I memorised that.’