“That was … interesting,” Jayne said when we were once again standing on the pavement in front of R & R Richardson and Associates. “I’m glad we’ve solved the case without getting ourselves in any sort of a pickle.”
“Solved it? I’m not so sure. Alistair Denhaugh wasn’t the only guest at the wedding.” Once again, I phoned Pippa.
“What is it now?” she said.
“I’ve had a thought. When I left your wedding reception, Paul was in the lobby of the hotel. He was sitting not far from the front doors, which is a highly public place. We chatted briefly. I took my leave, he stayed. We assumed he was waiting for Alistair, but it’s entirely possible he wanted to talk to someone else.”
“Who?”
“I have an idea, but it’s only a guess at the moment.”
“You always say you never guess,” said Jayne, listening in.
I ignored her. “The hotel would have CCTV coverage of the lobby, and mostly likely the corridors by the meeting and banqueting rooms as well. It’s not been a week since Saturday evening, so they should still have the tapes. Check it. See who Paul met with. Other than me.”
“As much as I hate to admit it, that is a good idea, Gemma.”
“If you see the person I suspect, I want to know. You’ll know who that is.”
When Jayne and I got in from meeting with Pippa, while Jayne and Andy had a joyful reunion, and Donald tried to tell everyone about his exciting day, I took Dad, closely followed by Horace, and Ryan into the conservatory and closed the door. The conservatory is at the back of the house, with wide windows and doors opening onto a small terrace, surrounded by a low stone wall with two steps leading down to the garden. A scattering of yellow leaves covered the grass, and the large iron pots, which my mother fills with plants in the summer, had been emptied and cleaned in preparation for winter.
I told Ryan and my father what I’d been up to and what we’d discovered.
“I don’t know your mother’s cousin all that well, but I’m surprised he would put himself in a position to be blackmailed like that.” Dad turned away from the windows. “Putting a bribe down in writing?”
“People act in panic,” Ryan said. “All they want is for the problem to go away as quickly as possible. But, as we know, blackmail rarely ends with one payment. Once they have their hooks into you, they don’t let go.”
“True. Admittedly, there’s rarely a limit to the things we’ll do for our children,” Dad said with a fond smile at me. “You and your sister might have given Anne and me a few sleepless nights over the years, but we never had to consider going to such extremes.”
“Only because we were never found out,” I said.
Ryan laughed. “I can believe that.”
“Sadly,” Dad said, “it would appear Alistair’s efforts to protect Lawrence from his own folly were a waste of time. The lad’s academic career proved to be less than stellar.”
“In this case,” I said, “the original blackmailer, the teacher, appears to have been satisfied with one payment. As far as we know, at any rate. The letter remained unused for eight years, but then a new blackmailer appeared on the scene. Paul had possession of the letter, but we have to consider he was acting for someone else, willingly or otherwise. Pippa suspects what we might call ‘unfriendly governments’ are hoping to sabotage Alistair’s reputation and thus throw a spanner into the delicate negotiations going on over the Australian freighter business.”
“I heard about that situation on the news,” Ryan said, “International tensions are increasing, and more and more countries getting involved to their own ends, but what does any of it have to do with your cousin? Or Pippa, come to think of it.”
I explained about Alistair and what I suspected about Pippa’s involvement.
Ryan let out a long breath. “Wow! I figured Pippa’s at a way higher pay grade than she lets on, but I had no idea how much higher.”
“Remember your Sherlock,” I said. “In the Canon, Mycroft Holmes is described as ‘the most indispensable man in the country.’ I wouldn’t go quite that far, but Pippa does have her role.”
“Which is never to be discussed outside this room,” Dad said.
“Okay,” Ryan said. “Back to the immediate matter. I have two questions. One, I’d be interested in knowing how your Paul came into possession of that letter.”
“He’s not my Paul,” I said, “and I’d like to know that too, but it’s possible we’ll never find out.”
“Second question, how would these unfriendly governments know to contact Paul, if that’s what happened?”
“Again, I can’t say, but it would appear Paul owed money to people he shouldn’t. His shop clerks told me unidentified men of an unsavory appearance paid a couple of calls on Paul, and they didn’t seem to be interested in the buying or selling of books. Paul might have mentioned something about it to them, trying to convince them he’d soon have their money, and they passed the word on. But that’s all speculation. I’m out of it now. Pippa told me to end my involvement, and I am happy to do so.”
“Shall we join the others?” Dad said.
“Can you give us a few minutes, please,” Ryan said.
Dad smiled. “Of course.” He called to Horace, and they left us alone.
At nine PM, we were gathered in the formal dining room at Stanhope Gardens. The table was covered in the remains of Indian takeaway, and I was eying the last spoonful of lamb korma and half a naan, wondering if I could possibly fit it in. Before I could make up my mind, Andy said, “Anyone want the last of that?” We chorused, “Help yourself,” and the temptation disappeared.
Earlier, over predinner drinks in the library, we’d been entertained by an incredibly boring recitation of the joys of fishing in Derbyshire. Not just the fishing but the eating of the fish, as prepared by the chefs at the hotel, was discussed in great detail. Jayne was smiling adoringly at Andy, clearly delighted he’d had such a great time. I might have similarly been smiling at Ryan. He and my dad got on extremely well, and I was pleased about that. My parents had never approved of Paul.
Only proving, once and for all, they were wiser than I.
Speaking of adoring, Horace hadn’t moved from his place by Dad’s side since he got home. Dad’s free hand rested on top of the dog’s head, occasionally providing a light scratch between the ears.
Once talk of the intense battles to land the fish and the details of the cooking methods later used to prepare them wound down, Donald leapt in to relate the details of his day in the company of the London Sherlockians. We were all shifting restlessly, everyone searching for a polite way to change the conversation when Mum’s phone rang to tell her the food delivery had arrived.
Dinner over, Mum put aside her napkin, rose to her feet, and reached for the empty bowls. Jayne and Andy leapt to their feet. Jayne said, “Let us do the clearing up, please. You’ve made us so welcome here.”
Horace’s ears pricked up, he barked, and a moment later the doorbell rang. Mum and Dad exchanged glances. “Late for a caller.”
“I’ll get it,” Dad said.
I heard the front door open, followed by my sister’s voice and the sound of her heels on the tiles in the hallway. A few seconds later, Pippa came into the room, carrying a laptop. “The gang’s all here, I see.”
Donald rose to his feet and gallantly offered Pippa his chair.
“Drink, love?” Mum asked.
“No, thank you. I won’t stay long. I have something to show Gemma.” She put the laptop on the table in front of me. “Donald, please sit. I’ll stand.”
“Can we all see what you have?” Ryan asked.
She hesitated and then said, “I don’t see why not. The footage I’m about to show you was captured in a public place.” She opened the lid and typed in her password. It might have only been a coincidence that she placed her body in such a position I couldn’t see the movement of her fingers across the keyboard. “There’s nothing else on this computer, Gemma. Don’t bother trying to hack in if my back is turned. This one is wiped clean every night.”
“Perish the thought,” I said. “I assume this is CCTV footage from the wedding dinner venue. You found it quickly.”
“Not difficult,” Pippa said, “nor time consuming when I knew the location and the precise time frame we’re interested in. The police had it anyway. I got this from them.”
“In England, people can just ask the police to show them evidence?” Andy asked. “And they get it?”
“I can,” Pippa said.
Andy opened his mouth to reply, but Jayne said, “Don’t ask.”
“I can never help but speculate,” Donald said, “as to what Sherlock Holmes would have done had he had access to this plethora of data and images. Would it have helped or hindered his intensive observation of—”
“I’d be delighted to hear your thoughts, Donald,” Mum said. “But perhaps that’s a topic for another occasion. It’s late and Pippa must be anxious to get home.”
“I’m starting the tape at 9:40,” Pippa said. My friends and family gathered in a tight circle behind my chair, and we watched the jerky, grainy, black-and-white footage on the laptop.
“That looks like the lobby of the hotel where Pippa had her wedding dinner,” Donald said.
“So it is,” Pippa replied.
The camera was mounted high on the wall opposite the reception desk. It showed the desk, part of the lobby, the front door. At that time on a Saturday night, numerous people walked across the screen. The doorman opened doors; the night clerk went into a back room and came out again, someone stopped at the reception desk to ask a question. I felt a pang of sadness, grief for what might have been, as a clearly recognizable Paul Erikson entered the frame, coming in from the street.
Ryan, standing next to me, put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a tight squeeze. I turned and smiled up at him. Never mind what might have been. What I had now was all I wanted.
“At quarter to ten, Paul enters the hotel,” Pippa said. “He takes a seat in the lobby. He pretends to be reading his book, but he’s clearly anxious and waiting for a particular person or persons.” Pippa pressed keys, and the image jerked forward as people began rushing about and the clock in the bottom corner ticked rapidly as in a movie indicating the passage of time. “I’ve seen the intervening footage. No one approaches him, and he appears to pay no attention to anyone in particular until … now.”
A woman came on-screen. Not just any woman. Me.
“That’s Gemma,” Andy and Donald said at the same time.
“Did that coat really look that bad from the rear?” I asked.
“No,” Ryan said.
“No,” Jayne said.
I peered closer. I watched Paul stand up. I watched myself come to a sudden halt. He put the book in the pocket of his raincoat. We spoke. He faced the camera, my back was to it. “Can you zoom in on Paul’s face?” I asked.
Pippa stopped it, backed the tape up, and did so. The image got grainer. Paul’s lips moved. He spoke to me, but occasionally his eyes darted over my shoulder.
“I must have been extremely tired,” I said. “I failed to notice at the time. He’s watching for something to happen behind me.”
“Yes, he is,” Pippa said. “What I find significant is that you are not the focus of his attention.”
Somehow, that made me feel better. Paul hadn’t been lying in wait, hoping to see me again, desperately wanting to spend time with me. Maybe even hoping I’d love him again. He’d been at my sister’s wedding venue to see someone else. And likely for nefarious purposes.
Pippa pulled the image back. On-screen, I walked away from Paul. The doorman opened the door for me, and I disappeared into the rainy London night. Pippa hit fast-forward again. I saw a few people I recognized as wedding guests leave. No one so much as glanced at Paul. His leg twitched nervously. He didn’t take the book out again.
“At 10:17, he moves.” On-screen, Paul leapt to his feet, as alert as Horace when he hears Dad’s key in the door. He walked out of view of the camera, and Pippa said, “I’m switching to the camera watching the hallway.”
I saw the corridor outside the banquet room, leading to the loos and the kitchens. A man dressed in a suit, jacket off, tie askew, came out of a side door, hesitated, checked both directions, clearly looking for the men’s room. Something caught his attention, his head swiveled, and a moment later Paul came into view. Paul stopped in front of him. The two men spoke.
“Not who I was expecting,” I said.
“You thought Genevieve,” Pippa said.
“I did.”
We couldn’t hear a word, and I couldn’t read their lips, but it was obvious they were not having a polite, casual conversation. Lawrence Denhaugh faced the camera. His expression tightened, his shoulders straightened, his hands formed fists at his side. Eventually, he threw up his hands, turned, and walked rapidly away. Paul hesitated and then also turned, and he headed back toward the lobby.
The image froze on Paul’s face. He was not smiling.
“Lawrence Denhaugh,” Pippa said, “then went into the men’s loo. We do not have footage from there.”
“Glad to hear it,” Andy mumbled.
“He emerged more than five minutes later and returned to the dining room. I’m trying to put a trace on his phone to determine if he placed a call while in the loo, but that sometimes proves to be difficult.”
“Even for you?” I couldn’t resist saying.
She did not dignify that comment with a reply, so I continued. “It’s likely, possible even, he was attempting to compose himself before rejoining his parents.”
“About ten minutes later, he and Alistair and Genevieve leave the reception, gather their coats, and leave the hotel. The doorman hailed a cab for them, and they got in together. As for Paul, he walked straight out after the encounter with Lawrence. The police are attempting to trace his movements after he left the hotel, but that is a good deal more difficult. The streets were crowded, and the rain disrupts the images.”
“He probably went straight to the shop,” I said. “Leaving us with the question of who followed him there. Lawrence after seeing his parents home?”
“The police can find no evidence of Lawrence and Paul meeting again. Lawrence has been questioned about what they discussed. He claims he and Paul are casual acquaintances. Paul asked him for money and he refused. He says he has no idea why Paul would have accosted him at the hotel at that time of night, other than it must have been a coincidence. Paul saw him and took advantage of the opportunity. The police have no reason, as of yet, to bring Lawrence in for further questioning.”
“Where is this Lawrence now?” Ryan asked.
“Unknown. He is not under suspicion, therefore not under surveillance. I believe the letter Gemma found, and the fact that Paul approached him at the wedding, now places Lawrence very much under suspicion.”
“Have you told the police this?” Ryan asked.
“Not until I determine definitively it is not a matter of national security. I have attempted to contact Lawrence, but he’s not answering his phone. Not to me at any rate, but I don’t read too much into that. Many people these days don’t answer numbers they don’t recognize.”
“I saw him Sunday when I left the bookshop in the police car,” I said. “He was on the pavement, on the other side of the Strand, close to Trafalgar Square. I assumed—that horrid word again—he was either part of the demonstration going on there or he wanted to be an observer for some reason.”
“What time was this?” Ryan asked.
“One o’clock, maybe? Shortly thereafter. We got to the shop at noon. Found Paul, called 999, waited for the authorities to arrive, and Patel sent us to wait for her at the station.”
“Paul died long before you arrived, you said.”
“That’s definitive,” Pippa said. “While asking for the CCTV footage, I also requested a copy of the autopsy results. Paul Erikson died sometime between midnight and three AM. He had not eaten for several hours, but he was, to put it mildly, plastered.”
“Meaning drunk,” I said.
“Yes. He’d consumed a substantial part of a bottle of whiskey in the hours before his death. He was strangled, most likely by a scarf or similar length of cloth. The police have searched extensively for whatever was used, but no sign of it. It’s likely in the river, burned, or otherwise disposed of by now. People watch far too much telly these days. They know all about forensic evidence and the like.”
“They think they know,” my dad said. “Not always the same thing.”
“Point taken,” Pippa said. “Paul’s body showed no signs of resistance. He was asleep or more likely passed out when he was attacked, too slow to react, unable to fight back.”
I took a deep breath. Ryan’s hand rested on my shoulder. My mother laid her hand lightly on mine.
“When Gemma saw Lawrence in the vicinity of the store at one o’clock,” Ryan said, “he can’t have been coming from killing Paul.”
“It’s not a myth,” Dad said, “that amateur criminals often return to the scene of the crime. They want to either reassure themselves that what happened, happened, or they want to enjoy the fallout.”
Pippa looked at the faces watching her. “If Lawrence Denhaugh did kill, accidentally or otherwise, Paul Erikson, that’s a matter for Scotland Yard.”
“Surely, you can’t strangle someone accidentally,” Donald said.
“I’m being generous,” Pippa said. “If Lawrence followed Paul to the shop and inadvertently witnessed anything that might provide evidence as to what happened, that is also a matter for the police. These tapes show nothing other than two men talking. Proof of nothing. Gemma thinks she saw Lawrence—”
“I saw him,” I said.
“If you say you did, you did,” Pippa said. “The police, however, need more evidence than your word, and even if he was in the vicinity of the bookshop at one o’clock in the afternoon, that proves nothing. Donald was there at that time.”
“I was,” Donald confirmed, “but—”
“Simply making a point, Donald,” Pippa said. “The death of Paul Erikson is a police matter. If, however, it can be determined that third parties are involved in an attempt to take advantage of the blackmailable material for subversive reasons, then the matter remains under the auspices of … other agencies.”
“Huh?” Donald said.
“What does all that mean?” Andy asked.
“It means,” my mother said, “we are not to discuss this with anyone outside of the police, in the event they have further questions about the death of Paul. I have to say, Pippa dear, I’m surprised you’ve shared this much with all of us.”
“As is her annoying way, Gemma has managed to place herself directly in the center of a matter that should have absolutely nothing to do with her.”
“What can I say,” I said. “Trouble finds me.”
“And don’t I know it,” Ryan said.
“Rather than beating about the bush,” I said, “you’ve told my friends if they blab, I’ll be in trouble.”
“I never beat about the bush.” My sister shut the laptop.
“Would you like me to have a quiet word with the officers in charge?” Dad asked. “I can ask if they’ve come across any reason to suspect this third-party involvement. Rumors circulating in the underworld, for example.”
“That would be helpful, thank you. Silos do exist and not everything is shared with me. Now, I must take my leave. I have to travel to Yorkshire tonight. I fear I’m going to have a difficult conversation with Alistair.”
“The first train doesn’t leave until quarter to six in the morning,” Donald said in an attempt to be helpful.
“I do not intend to travel by train,” Pippa said. “Fortunately, the lawns at Garfield Hall are expansive enough for a helicopter to land. Good night, all. Gemma, you may walk me to the door.”
“I may, may I?” I said.
“This is all way, way over my head,” Andy said. “I’m just a cook trying to enjoy his vacation. Jayne, honey, do you know what’s going on?”
“Enough to be totally confused,” Jayne replied.
Mum stifled a fake yawn. “Andy, dear. You haven’t had the chance to tell me about your restaurant. Gemma says it’s one of the best in your town.”
“I say it is the best,” I said, as I left the dining room after my sister.
Pippa opened the front door. Outside, a black car was parked at the curb. The streetlight above shone down on it, revealing one person in the driver’s seat.
Pippa stared into the night and spoke to me. “Two lines, at least, of investigation are open here. If you interfere in a national security matter, I’ll have you thrown in jail. I’ve been known to lose keys to jail cells.”
“Of that I have no doubt. But the other line?”
“If Lawrence killed your Paul—”
“He wasn’t my Paul.”
“If Lawrence was involved over nothing more than a shady piece of blackmail, you’re free, as far as I’m concerned, to poke your nose in as much as you like. In that regard, I’ll let you know what, if anything, I find out when I arrive at Garfield Hall.”
“Thank you.”
I watched her walk down the steps. She got into the back seat of the black car and it drove away.