Morning light caught the spire of York Minster, bright and clear against ribbon-pink sky and mirrored in puddles of rain. No wind: the air lay still as a held breath. There were storms coming, they said, from the north. From home, MacAdams thought. And well they might, because his mood had blackened with every tick of the clock. Elsie had played a dealer’s hand.
“Got it.” Green stepped out of the bank, a plastic sleeve clutched in her hand. MacAdams slipped the identification card out. A bright photo, soft blond hair, pastel suitcoat. Elsie Randles—but of course, not Elsie Randles. The badge read Hannah Walker.
Andrews had spent the night on the phone to Calgary which, aided by time zone, had managed to finally track down the real Ms. Walker. Elsie and Jack’s aunt had returned to Canada after the death of her partner and had been living in a retirement community for the last seven years.
She didn’t own a home in York. And she sure as hell didn’t work as a bank teller. Elsie had been living two different lives.
“I can’t believe it,” Green was saying as they made their way back to York station. “I just can’t. Branch manager said she was the model employee. Smart. Efficient. Good manners. But I met her, and I’d have sworn she was a cheap slapper with a side of street tough.”
“What she is,” said MacAdams through his teeth, “is a damn genius.” It wasn’t merely that she played a part; Elsie did have sex clients (one of whom made for a useful alibi). Elsie also worked in a nice office at Lloyds, originally as a teller, and then later as a loan officer. He’d seen the mask slip when he surprised her in York. She had to decide which person to be on the spot, and the incongruity stayed with him...he just hadn’t known what it meant.
“But why?” Green asked. “I mean, why bother being both—why have the shitty Newcastle apartment and the shitty johns? Why not just steal your aunt’s identity and get on with it?”
“Because a tidy row house in Bootham requires more cash that she could turn either way,” MacAdams said, crossing the street against traffic. “About five thousand a month would help, though.”
“You’re saying she treated blackmail like her third job?”
“More likely she got the job at Lloyds to cover the blackmail.” MacAdams hadn’t given her enough credit by far. Elsie planned ahead. Acting the model employee (and possibly shagging around) meant she had climbed quickly—and learned fast. A bank could be a great place to hide and launder money; she may have made false accounts. “Gridley and Andrews are both working full time on the accounts and the bank managers are on alert. I want a better look at her early years. She’s definitely had a better education than she lets on.”
Green rolled her neck.
“So—let me just get this straight in my own damn head. She is the one on the receiving end of Sid’s money. And she launders it. But it doesn’t go back to Sid?”
“Not most of it, I think.”
“What, she gives him a cash allowance? This is just getting weirder.” Green stepped ahead and opened the station’s front door.
“Sid is terrible with money. Elsie wants to live comfortably. She pays her rent in cash, and probably paid his creditors for him.”
“So we know where the money went,” Green said as they wound their way toward the interrogation rooms. “But we still don’t know where it came from.”
“We don’t. But Elsie does. She must.”
MacAdams set his coffee on the table and peered through the two-way glass. Elsie looked a little worse for wear, having spent the night in a cell. She also, however, looked highly composed. What did Elsie want in life? For that matter, what did Lotte and Olivia want. Each of the sisters, in different ways, had traded security for holding on to Sid. Elsie certainly took risks, but for wholly other reasons. Elsie was after security itself. The house, the identities, the jobs were just eggs in different baskets. Elsie was a survivor.
“Green, I want you to do the interview.”
“Why me?” Green asked. “What about Fleet?”
For one thing, Fleet had yet to appear—or to answer any of MacAdams’ calls. But that wasn’t the only reason.
“Frankly?” MacAdams said, leaning against the windowsill. “Because she already knows her way around me. And because I think you’ll be far more proficient at bringing out the best of Ms. Hannah Walker.”
MacAdams watched through the glass as Green, sharp as usual in her blue wool suit, took the seat opposite Elsie.
“I think you know why we’re here today,” Green said, pushing the bank badge across the table. “Do you want to tell me about being Hannah?”
It was an interesting segue. And Elsie seemed to be considering.
“What do you want to know?”
“Well. I have an honest question. Why two identities? You have a job and impressive credentials. And a house. You must have enjoyed being Hannah. Surely.”
Elsie’s fingers curled around the ID badge. The steel-bearing eyes were just as cold and edgy as before, though the voice she now used was far smoother.
“Do you enjoy being Sheila Green?” she asked, the faint lines at her mouth appearing in half-smile.
“I do.”
“Then you realize it’s a stupid question.” Elsie tossed the badge back at her. Green kept her composure better than MacAdams expected, and merely folded the ID into her notebook.
“Are you suggesting that you think of Hannah Walker as your own identity?” she asked.
“It is my identity.”
“And not Elsie Smythe?”
“That’s mine, too.”
“You can’t have both,” Green insisted. Elsie laughed, and that was the same in either role she played, harsh and hard.
“Call one my stage name.”
Green leaned across the table, her chin thrust out and sharp.
“Let’s call it an alias. That’s what it is, isn’t it? Because you’re the smart one.” Green’s eyes flickered to the window, though MacAdams wouldn’t be able to give her a sign regardless. “You know we’ll sort it out in the end. That’s why you gave up the rouse. We’ll pick through your accounts, all your little transactions. We’ll discover that Sid transferred the five thousand pounds to you. So why not tell us where Sid was getting that money in the first place? Who did you have on the hook?”
MacAdams had a pretty good idea what Elsie would do if he said that. But right now, it was two fierce women facing each other over a sterile metal table. And he wasn’t really sure what to expect. Ultimately, Elsie eased up first.
“You’re trying to pin the blackmail on me,” she said slowly. “I won’t let you.”
“I didn’t say blackmail,” Green said. “I said money laundering. Smart people don’t blackmail. They just know how to hide it when someone else does.”
Elsie lifted her left hand, as though she held an imaginary cigarette—probably muscle memory. Her eyes fluttered slightly to the glass, where she must know MacAdams waited.
“Perhaps I discreetly managed some money. Cleaned it, let’s say. How should I know where Sid got it? It was all his idea, anyway. We had nothing to do with it.”
She had played the part perfectly, her face, now without makeup, pleading in a way that would have moved MacAdams had he not seen her other performances first. But this was Green’s show. And she was asking the questions.
“Elsie? What do you mean we?”
Behind the two-way glass, MacAdams was already rifling through the case notes. He heard Green enter behind him—felt it, almost, a rush of energy.
“Jack Turner. It has to be,” she said.
“Ahead of you,” MacAdams agreed. Elsie hadn’t given Green a name—she’d given total silence and refused to speak more, but that of itself was an admission. So far, the only people they hadn’t thrown under a bus were each other. “Dammit, where’s the manslaughter file?”
Green ducked under the table and looked beneath her own case notes.
“It was right here the day before yesterday. Fleet read it to me.” MacAdams shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. This is York station—they’ll have it. And just where the hell is Fleet, by the way?”
York CID offered considerably more space than Abington, and some half dozen spare sergeants and unattached detective constables. MacAdams seized upon a likely subject, still nursing a raspberry bun and coffee for breakfast.
“We’re looking for everything you have on this incident,” he said, passing him the file folder.
“Oh.” The DC dusted powdered sugar from his tie and sat up straighter. “This have to do with the Sid Randles case?”
“Yes. What I want, though, is everything on Elsie’s brother Jack Turner. I know he had a conviction and I’m missing half the case file. And get Fleet on the phone, would you?” MacAdams took another sweep of the room, to make sure he wasn’t tea-drinking in a corner. “I want that injunction against interviewing Turner lifted.”
“Yes sir. I’ll start pulling the files. The Turner case was five years ago, I think.”
The DC went off to retrieve things from the nearest printer. Green took the liberty of scrolling through the file on his desktop.
“Did you say you read the file?” she asked.
“Not beyond the basics; Fleet was with me in the interrogation.”
“Oh SHITE. Boss—look here.” Green pointed to a clipped photo of Douglas Haw, Jack’s arson and manslaughter victim. “Douglas had turned police informant!”
MacAdams stared over her shoulder.
“Informing on Jack Turner—”
“On the whole damn outfit, looks like. No wonder the Met police were all over this—they thought Douglas would help them bring down the ringleaders.” Green stepped back to let the DC back at his desk.
“Here you are, all the missing pieces,” he said, handing it over. “Douglas Haw, Jr. had been caught jacking a car in Hexham. He agreed to act as informer for a lighter sentence.”
“And he got torched for it, but it went down as manslaughter? How?” MacAdams demanded, “And where is Detective Fleet for God’s sake, we need him on this.”
“Sorry sir, he’s out for the day.”
MacAdams growled under his breath, shuffling the papers off to Green so he could dial Fleet’s mobile. It rang without going to voice mail. “Oh hell with him. Who among your lot can get us an interview with Jack Turner over in Full Sutton?”
“Boss!” Green’s eyes were switchbacking across the pages. “Oh damn.” She tugged him away from the row of desks (and listening ears).
“Look at this. Undercover operation, surveillance, people watching Jack’s house. I haven’t finished, but this looks like a big fucking deal. No way Fleet didn’t know about this.”
MacAdams picked up his phone to dial Andrews.
“Tell me something, Tommy. When I asked you to look up history of Jarvis Fleet before his arrival, did you keep a file?”
“I always keep a file, boss.”
“Good. Tell me exactly the timeline of his semiretirement to York.”
“Sure thing.” The ghost of typing echoed in MacAdams’ ear, and he held up a finger to encourage Green’s patience. “Five years ago, last August 13.”
That was a full three months after Turner had been tried and convicted. MacAdams tapped the phone against his cheek.
“Okay, okay, fine. Wait—while still with London Met, did he by chance work in York on an undercover case?” MacAdams asked. But he needn’t have. Green’s eyes had gone wide, and she held up a page from the new-printed file on the Jack Turner case. Above the indent of her fingernail, in a list of leading officers, one name stood out perfectly clear: Jarvis Fleet, Principal Investigator.
Jo hummed to herself.
The lights were still out at Ardemore House, but she’d made a little nest in the library. She’d relit the candles and brought in a few more but was presently curled under a blanket and reading by flashlight.
Gertrude Jekyll was, it turned out, a prolific writer. Thousands of articles, at least forty books, notebooks, and drawings—most of which were held by the Godalming Museum (now the envy of Roberta Wilkinson). Jo had two of her flower books open in her lap; it was probably where Ardemore got his “language of flowers” turn: lilies for purity, lavender for distrust, baby’s breath for everlasting love. She could memorize later; for now, she had a printout of Jekyll’s online biography; Gertrude’s brother was a friend of Robert Louis Stevenson; who borrowed the family name for his famous Jekyll & Hyde story.
Jo leaned back to stare at the (still ruined) ceiling. Gertrude had been a scientist, of a sort, herself—“allowed to flourish” in “manly” disciplines by an indulgent and understanding father. Jekyll, and not Jane Eyre after all.
Jo pushed the blanket aside and stood up. It was nearly noon, but outside the sky remained dark and forbidding. Tula had warned her of a storm coming; Jo tried to get signal enough to check the weather, but no dice. She replaced a guttering candle for a bit more light, and then brought out the glass tumblers from the China cabinet. They sat next to a decanter, big and thick and square—but too heavy to be bothered with. Whisky from the bottle was good enough. She lined them up on the mantel, beneath the portraits of William and Gwen, and poured a little whisky in each of four glasses. It was a family meeting, after all.
Jo stood before the fireplace and sipped her whisky.
“I don’t know what happened to Evelyn’s painting,” she said out loud. Her voice echoed oddly in the room. “But I think I know what happened to Evelyn.”
Predictably, the paintings said nothing. Jo’s gaze followed the severe lines of William’s aristocratic forehead, right down to his blue cravat, where the varnish had cracked. Gwen was more pleasant to look at, if slightly more hollow, too. Less fully there.
Sister wives; that had been the problem with Sid Randles, too. But this? Jo turned her attention to Gwen’s portrait.
“Was it your idea?” she asked. Did Gwen offer shelter, the way Jo’s own aunt had done? But what would William think? New to the aristocracy, the Ardemores had certainly taken to it—even to the point of having a garden fashioned by the famous Jekyll, for which Richard then took credit. Would he be content to let a “ruined” woman live in the house? She could imagine Gwen insisting, promising to help raise the child. Just as Sue had helped raise Jo.
Except there was no baby. And no Evelyn, either. The Ardemores left town and didn’t come back. Jo swirled her whisky, making “legs” of amber liquid in the glass. Jo’s uncle Aiden and her grandfather pretended her mother was as good as dead when she left England.
What if Evelyn, however; died in fact? During childbirth, maybe, tragically, because she was afraid to call a midwife and out her own secret. Gwen, heartbroken twice over.
Sid Randles had been right about at least one thing. People don’t just up sticks and move, never to return. Not unless something bad has happened.
Sid, the sly fox. Jo lifted her glass in a silent toast. Something bad happened to him, certainly. To his whole family, from the sound of it. Jo shifted her gaze to William once more. She’d begun to see Roberta’s side of things. Promises broken, families left in hock. She hadn’t liked Sid, but whatever he’d got himself into—and it was probably a lot—he hadn’t deserved to end up facedown on her rug.
Of course, murder in your home was also “something bad.” But Jo didn’t feel like packing up and leaving, and it wasn’t just that New York and Chicago didn’t have anything for her. She’d only come to terms with it two nights ago, sobbing right here, in the library—and only because Gwilym said it first. Jo might not be very good at peopleing, but she was sure as shit tired of being alone. She’d come all the way to Abington to find—something. Someone. Evelyn Davies. Her own father. Herself.
Jo didn’t see the lightning, but the thunder clap echoed like the boom of too-near fireworks. She covered her ears, grimacing at the reverberation as fat raindrops began slapping against the windows. Outside, the gravel lane changed from white to dark gray. The wind was picking up, too; if she didn’t leave now, she might be stuck there a long while—
Three sharp bangs sounded from the hall. Jo knew it was the door knocker, but it scared her anyway. Maybe Tula had come in the truck to rescue her? She slid the bolt and pulled the heavy door open to find a very wet mackintosh, broad brimmed hat, and a detective’s badge held at arm’s length.
“Detective Fleet?” she asked. He smiled under his brush mustache.
“Hello, Ms. Jones, may I come in?”
“What are we looking for?” Green asked. She was standing guard as MacAdams rifled through papers on Fleet’s desk. The firearms and forensics division shared the lower floor with secure storage for search and seizure, which had worked very much to their benefit. Fleet had only a single office mate, who was presently not...present.
“He lied. He told me he didn’t know Turner, that he hadn’t been part of the case.” MacAdams accidentally overturned a framed photo of Fleet in full RAF uniform. Is that why Fleet had prickled when MacAdams said Turner was also a veteran? He picked it up and shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense, Sheila. Why would he lie?”
“Embarrassment?” Green asked. “He essentially testified on Jack Turner’s behalf.”
MacAdams furrowed his brow further (if possible). According to the case details, Douglas helped the police against an organized syndicate operating out of London. He fingered Turner as the point of contact—not a big player yet, but a lot more committed and climbing the syndicate ladder. Follow Turner, find bigger fish to fry. Unfortunately for Douglas, Jack Turner got the wind up. He knew exactly what he was doing, too. Facing a murder charge, he should have been sent away for the max sentence or singing like a canary for a plea bargain. Neither happened. Instead, he got a reduced charge, a reduced sentence...
“It doesn’t make sense,” Green continued, coming fully into the office. “Fleet ends up being a witness for the guy he was supposed to catch, right? Says he saw Jack try and save Douglas, that it had meant to be a scare, not a murder. Bang, reduced to manslaughter. It’s the worst kind of shame because on one hand, not to witness would make him a crooked cop. But standing up for Smythe lost him his chance at a win for Met police, and I can bet they forced him into retirement because of it.”
“Okay, I hear you.” MacAdams replaced the military photo on the desk. Fleet seemed to have been retired out early more than once... “But answer me this—why here? He’s got no family here, Green. In fact, the only connection he has to the place is one fucked up case and Jack Turner, himself down the road in HMS Full Sutton Prison. There has to be a reason. The man had a flat in London somewhere, he must have. Would you trade that for a rented ’70s row house in Stamford Bridge?”
“He lives in a rental?”
Green’s question threw him off. But yes, Fleet had said as much—the rent was cheap for the size. A sudden, numbing prickle ran through MacAdams, collarbone to clavicle.
“Oh my God. He’s broke.”
“A single white man retired from both the service and the Metropolitan Police? He can’t be,” Green said. And then, it hit her, too. “Ah shit. He’s broke—because someone’s been taking his money?”
“Pardon me? Can I, eh, help you two? This is a restricted area.”
MacAdams saw the man some three seconds before he spoke—and had already reached for his identification. Fleet’s office mate. He hoped his own officiousness would cover Green’s nervous leap to one side when she saw him a moment later.
“DCI MacAdams and this is DS Green, Abington CID. We’ve been working with Jarvis Fleet on the Sid Randles murder.”
“Ah yes! The German derringer!” The man rocked slightly on his feet, clearly pleased by the remembrance of such a gun.
“We were pursuing inquiries into Elsie Randles,” MacAdams went on. “DCI Jarvis Fleet led the case against her brother, didn’t he? Jack Turner?”
“Something like that, the great bloody ponce.” The man reached a hand forward. “I’m Franklin, by the way.”
MacAdams warmed to Franklin with alacrity.
“Still with the Met back then, wasn’t he?” he asked, shaking his hand. “Still behaves as though he might be, yet.”
MacAdams couldn’t watch both Green’s expression and Franklin’s at once, but he hoped she had cottoned on to his strategy. Meanwhile, Franklin’s well-worn face creased into derisive mirth.
“Aye, I don’t doubt that.”
MacAdams surveyed Fleet’s desk again.
“And of course, the military bearing,” he said, pointing to the photo. “You know he left the RAF for the police?”
“God. Don’t I.” Franklin sat at the desk opposite and made a see? gesture with both hands. “I’m a captive audience. Have been since they moved him down here, a supposedly temporary arrangement.”
A grudge-bearing office mate was just what they needed. But MacAdams didn’t want to make a wrong step. In his mind, a cursed rolodex was flipping back and forth: Sid, Elsie—Elsie, Jack—Jack, Fleet. Connections. Where were the bloody connections?
“Jack Turner was in the service, too,” he mused, and could see Green suddenly fumbling through Jack’s file out of the corner of his eye. “Did Fleet know him by chance? I mean before all of—this.”
Franklin shook his head.
“Can’t say. I’ll tell you what, though. The case was a bloody cock-up. They should never let military witness for military.”
Well. There was one connection made for him...
“You don’t think Fleet should have testified because of the bias?” MacAdams asked.
“I’m not saying he should have kept mum—don’t get me wrong. We’ve enough bother from barristers claiming falsified evidence—and the papers are only happy to repeat it.”
“Bent cops.” The words came out of MacAdams own mouth, but in his head, it had been Elsie and Jack in stereo. “You’re saying if he hadn’t testified, the force would have been accused of hiding evidence?”
Franklin had been halfway to a sip of cold coffee. Now he paused.
“Hard to say, I suppose. It would just be Turner’s word against a Scotland Yard DCI.” He shrugged. “Pointless, anyhow. Turner got fifteen years when the average life sentence is what, twenty-five at most? That’s the worst of it. Fleet loses a chance to bring down organized crime, and the only gain is a man like Jack serving some years fewer. Travesty. He had to have had a bias.”
MacAdams had finally turned his eye on Green. He could tell by the pursed line of her mouth that the contents were under pressure.
“Served under Clapham,” she said quietly.
Which meant, of course, also under Jarvis Fleet. MacAdams’ scalp prickled. Would that be enough to induce a rule-minded, stiff-backed man like Fleet to shield a potential murderer? Unlikely as hell.
“Blackmail,” MacAdams said, clearing his throat. “We think Sid had extorted money from his killer—five thousand pounds to be exact—to then wire back to Elsie.”
“And you think Jack Turner might have been Sid’s target?” Franklin asked, mercifully getting the wrong end of the stick. “He’d have a hard time shooting him from his prison cell in Full Sutton, I think. Especially with a little tiny firearm. Have you seen it?”
“We haven’t located the murder weapon,” Green reminded him, but Franklin just shook his head.
“I mean ours.” He was already standing. “It’s worth seeing. So rare you would have to order ammunition from a specialty dealer in Germany or make your own.”
MacAdams and Green followed Franklin down the hall; search and seizure was double access, keycard and pin. He left them at the steel door to fetch the lanyard.
“This looks very, very bad,” Green whispered.
MacAdams agreed but waved his hand for silence as Franklin rounded the corner. The two of them stepped dutifully away while he punched in the codes, and soon they entered a large storeroom of movable shelves.
“Archives are over there. Search and seizure this way.” He made a left and they proceeded down a virtual weapons gallery, from shivs and switchblades to firearms and one pair of what MacAdams assumed to be nunchucks. At the end of one steel case, Franklin retrieved a cardboard box.
“Thing of beauty,” he said, unwrapping the derringer.
“James Bond,” MacAdams said, as he had the first time he’d seen the photograph.
“Funny you say that.” Franklin handed the weapon to MacAdams. “Spy movies. Always supposed to be hiding in plain sight, but they never are! Driving an Aston Martin, you’re not exactly blending in.”
“So the derringer is an Aston Martin,” Green asked. MacAdams shook his head.
“No. It’s—it’s—” He felt the cool weight in his palm. Small. Tidy. Easily hidden in a pocket, up a sleeve. An Aston Martin was pretentious, loud, statement making. The gun was not any of those things. Rare, yes. And possibly easy to identify, too, if you knew what you were looking for. But that wasn’t the point slowly taking shape in MacAdams’ head. “Why would anyone use a gun like this?”
“Stealth, I assume,” Franklin offered. “Small enough to hide. In a crowd, who would know where the shot had come from?”
But that wasn’t at all what MacAdams meant. He closed his fingers around the handle, then placed the weapon back on the shelf—a shelf right there in York station, scarcely ten yards from Fleet’s office. A murderer might choose a specific gun for all sorts of reasons. But a man in a hurry and under pressure would choose for only one: practical accessibility. A man is blackmailed; he doesn’t know by whom; he doesn’t want to take chances...
“Franklin, this gun goes to forensics. Now.”
“I beg your pardon?”
MacAdams felt the sickening churn of his insides as several ideas locked into place at once.
“We didn’t find the murder weapon,” he said, his throat dry and constricted. “Because we had it all along.”