‘IT WAS STARING ME in the face all the time, but I never saw it. I didn’t want to. It’s the only way I can explain it. I was drawn to the man. I admired him. I still do.’
Madden stared into the fire that was burning in the chief inspector’s grate. Sinclair watched him closely. Catching Billy’s eye, he saw he was about to speak and he held up his hand. Wait!
‘He was the one with everything to lose, not Rex Garner, but somehow I managed to blind myself to the fact. I never could understand why Garner should have killed the girl. Even if he’d been in a rage over the way she had behaved the previous evening—carrying on that way at the dinner table—it still wasn’t enough to provoke him into murder; or so I thought. And on top of that there was something that maid, Annie Potter, told Lily Poole that ought to have aroused my suspicions.’
‘What was that, John?’ The chief inspector was unable to obey his admonition.
Madden met his gaze.
‘She told Lily that Garner and his wife had arrived at the house in Kent on the Friday, as had Wing and Miss Blake. But that evening nothing untoward happened. Dinner went off without incident. It was only on the following evening, when Jessup came down from London, that Portia put on her act with the pendant. And of course it was directed at Richard, as he very well knew, not at Garner, because it was Jessup who had given it to her.’
‘How you know that, sir?’ Billy couldn’t contain himself any longer.
‘I don’t,’ Madden said bluntly. ‘Most of what I’m telling you is guesswork. I’m simply reading between the lines. You don’t have to accept it as fact, Billy.’
They had gathered at the chief inspector’s cottage following Madden’s return earlier that day from Petersfield. He had rung Helen the night before to tell her what occurred, but although he had suggested that she might like to join them as soon as Billy came down from London, she had decided it would be better if the three of them met on their own.
‘Properly speaking this is police business.’
No less shocked than Madden had been by the tragic end of a man whose worth she had never questioned, brief though their acquaintance had been, she told her husband she would rather hear the full story from him when they were on their own.
Consequently, when Billy arrived in his car soon after four o’clock, Madden had taken him down to Sinclair’s cottage at once. One look at Billy’s face had been enough to tell him that his erstwhile protégé was far from happy.
‘The chief super’s getting it in the neck,’ he told Madden. ‘Both Cradock and the commissioner are saying this would never have happened if he hadn’t allowed you such a free hand with the inquiry.’
‘An inquiry no one at the Yard was inclined to take up,’ Madden reminded him.
‘They’re all saying you should have informed us the moment you realised that Jessup had been our man all along.’
‘I was far from certain, Billy. It was only a suspicion. And what I’m going to say to you now is in confidence. Mr Sinclair already knows and accepts that.’
They had found the chief inspector, fully recovered now from his attack of gout, impatiently awaiting their arrival, and after both had declined the cup of tea he offered them, they had all three settled down in front of the fire.
‘Jessup told me he met Portia with Wing at a party that summer. He intimated it was a casual encounter, but I suspect it was a meeting Stanley Wing took pains to engineer. Jessup had been engaged for some months, but he hadn’t seen much of his fiancée, who lived in America. Wing guessed correctly that he might be ready for a last fling before settling down to marriage, and if so, Portia Blake would have seemed ideally cast for the role: beautiful, and quite clearly available. She was privy to the scheme, too, I’m convinced. That business of showing off his jade jewellery was hogwash, just as Richard supposed, though he didn’t know yet what was behind it: that all along Wing had him in his sights. We spent a lot of time wondering whether Wing was bent on making Rex Garner pay for that business with the Chinese woman in Hong Kong when he had got him out of trouble and was never rewarded for his pains. But we should have realised—I should have realised—that it was Jessup he really hated. It was Richard who had put an end to his connection with the company, who started him on the downward spiral that would lead to him falling foul of the Triads and ending up in prison. And he knew just how vulnerable Jessup was.’
‘Vulnerable?’ Sinclair was paying close attention.
‘Richard was in the process of pulling Jessup’s back from the brink. His father had run the company into the ground, but thanks to Saul Temple’s decision to invest in the firm he was managing to put things right. I don’t believe his engagement to Temple’s daughter had anything to do with the deal: he wasn’t that sort of man. But he must have known that if he became involved in a sexual scandal—one that would certainly have made headlines in the press given his name and position—there was no telling how it would end. Not only could it have led to his engagement being broken off, it would very likely have put an end to the partnership he was establishing with Temple’s investment group. It could have spelt the end of Jessup’s.’
‘Even so . . .’ Sinclair was frowning. ‘Could that have prompted him to go so far as to kill the girl?’
Madden was silent. His gaze had gone back to the fire. He stared into the flickering flames.
‘Mrs Castleton is as good a judge of men as I’ve ever met. She told me he had a core of steel inside him. She intended it as a compliment, and she was right. But it meant that in the last resort there was nothing he would shrink from, and once I began to think about this case in a different way, what she had said chimed with something that had bothered me earlier about the notion that Garner had murdered the girl in a fit of anger. It simply didn’t fit the facts. If indeed Norris wasn’t the murderer, then whatever happened in that hut must have happened in a very short space of time: minutes only. They would have had to have had a fight, she and Garner; he would have needed time to work himself up into a rage. It seemed to me that whoever killed Portia had decided in advance to commit the act, and that seemed to point to Wing initially. It was something he seemed capable of. But what reason did he have to kill her? I couldn’t think of one, and later, when it became clear that the murderer had not only taken the pendant she was wearing but probably also the photographs, I was forced to return to our original theory: that she’d been killed by someone she’d been involved with, who seemed to be Garner. But it wasn’t he who she went to meet in the wood that day. It was Jessup, and by that time, though she didn’t know it, she had already made her fatal mistake.’
‘What was that?’ Billy asked.
‘She’d decided to tackle him on her own. Up till then Wing had been pulling the strings. I’m sure he’d already been in touch with Richard. He would have told him that he was aware of the affair and might even have mentioned the photographs that had been taken of the two of them together. We’ll never know for certain what he wanted: money, perhaps—he had to pay off Portia—but more likely reinstatement as a consultant to the company. It was his entrée into circles that were otherwise closed to him. But he would have applied the pressure gradually: he would have allowed Jessup time to see that his position was hopeless and that his best option was to give in to Wing’s demands. Portia ruined all that. She had decided to act independently. It’s clear that the performance she gave at that dinner playing with the pendant was her own idea. It was her signal to Jessup that he was dealing with her now. Wing was furious. Mrs Castleton heard him berating Portia afterwards in her room. But she carried on with her plan nevertheless and met Jessup alone the following day with the idea of showing him the pictures. She thought they were her trump card.’
‘What did she want out of him, do you think—money?’
‘That, of course.’ Madden shrugged. ‘But possibly even more. Audrey Cooper told me she had once tried to frighten one of the men she got involved with by telling him he had made her pregnant. Did she try the same trick on Jessup? Did she perhaps imagine she could force him into marrying her? We’ll never know now. Miss Cooper didn’t give her high marks for intelligence: she told her she was losing touch with reality. But the thought of the damage Portia could do to him if she went public was probably enough to doom her in Jessup’s eyes. He saw with absolute clarity what the stakes were and knew there was only one way to deal with the danger. His chauffeur, Lennox, told me a story the other night of how Jessup had killed a civilian with his own hands during the war, a Dutch Fascist. It was necessary; the man had been about to betray them to the Germans. But he did it in an instant. He didn’t hesitate. He broke his neck. How many men do you know who could do that? I know I couldn’t.’
‘Yes . . . yes, but he returned to London after lunch that day.’ Billy dragged them back to the issue he was wrestling with. ‘Mrs Castleton had to send for him after Portia’s body was discovered.’
‘He went back, yes, but we don’t know what time he arrived. The porter in the Albany who took Mrs Castleton’s message was never questioned. Jessup had to wait until after lunch for his date with Portia. Heaven knows what time he got back to London. But thanks to the arrest of Norris, none of the guests’ alibis was checked, and his subsequent confession must have seemed like a godsend to Richard. He knew what a tightrope he was walking. If his connection with Portia Blake was revealed, he would have been high on the list of suspects.’
‘How did he keep it secret, though?’ This time it was the chief inspector who posed the question.
‘Ironically, I think it was Wing who helped there. The room they were photographed in together looked like a tart’s bedroom, and may have been used for that same purpose before. I mean as a place where couples could be snapped without their knowing it. It was a world Wing was familiar with, or so I imagine, the sort of thing he was quite capable of arranging, and no doubt Portia went along with the idea. And I expect Jessup was more than happy to meet her in a place where they wouldn’t be spotted. It might even have added spice to the sense of illicit adventure. But my point is the last thing Wing wanted was for their brief affair to attract any attention. It would defeat the whole idea of catching Jessup in a trap of his own making. I’m sure he impressed on Portia the need to keep it to herself, which is why he was so angry over the act she put on later.’
‘And after Miss Blake was murdered Wing went to her room to try to recover the negatives of the photographs, but found they weren’t there.’ Sinclair grunted. ‘Do you think he witnessed the murder?’ He cocked an eye at Madden. ‘Did he know that Jessup was the killer?’
‘It’s highly likely. He already knew he couldn’t trust Portia any longer, not after her display at dinner the night before. He was probably keeping an eye on her and may well have followed her out of the house when she went to meet Jessup. But if he did witness the murder, it’s no surprise he didn’t report it to the police. What benefit would that have been to him? He wanted to use the fact to his advantage. But when Norris confessed to the murder he must have seen that his chance had slipped by. Now he would have to find some other way of putting the screws on his victim. All he could do for the time being was go back to Hong Kong and think things over—and in the meantime get another pendant made similar to the one Jessup had taken from the girl’s body.’
‘He knew it was Jessup who’d given it to her?’ Billy was intent on getting all the facts straight in his mind.
‘Portia would have told him that. It was probably Jessup’s farewell gift to her when he ended their affair. And it’s more than likely he bought it in Hong Kong—perhaps as a present for his fiancée. Wing might even have known the shop it came from. He could easily have got them to make another like it. But then the war came and everything changed. Caught between the Japanese occupiers and his Triad friends, Wing’s life began to fall apart. One can only imagine the bitterness he must have felt towards Jessup. He probably saw him as the author of his misfortunes. And even when he finally came out of prison, his problems were far from over. The Triads had marked him down for execution. He needed to get away from Hong Kong; he needed to disappear; above all he needed money.’
‘And there was only one source he could go to for it?’ The chief inspector rubbed his hands together. He was warming to the tale. ‘Somehow he had to make Miss Blake’s killer pay for what he’d done.’
‘It would seem so.’ Madden frowned. ‘But all he had by way of ammunition at that stage was the false pendant he’d had made, and all he could do with that was send it to Derry along with a note suggesting there’d been more to the murder than met the eye. He was hoping the police would re-open the case so that he could begin to put pressure on Jessup again. But when there was no sign of that he sent a second letter to the News of the World saying essentially the same thing—that there’d been a miscarriage of justice—and that had the desired result. The police were finally forced to admit they were reviewing the original investigation.’
‘We hadn’t much option at that stage,’ Billy agreed. ‘The press were breathing down our necks.’
‘What Wing failed to anticipate was that almost at once the investigation began to focus on the wrong man—Rex Garner.’ Madden shook his head. ‘That was my fault—or rather Jessup’s doing. It was he who told me that story about Portia performing with the pendant at dinner, how she dangled it in front of Garner’s eyes and seemed to be taunting him. That’s what put us on the wrong track.’
‘What about Garner, sir? If he wasn’t mixed up in this business at all, how did he come to be murdered?’
Madden was slow in answering. Finally he shrugged.
‘In the end he had only himself to blame,’ he said. ‘It began when he saw that photograph you and Grace showed him of Portia and the man in the bed. It wasn’t him, as we know, it was Jessup, and he either knew that—knew that Jessup had had an affair with her in the past—or he guessed it.’
‘You mean he himself was never involved with Miss Blake?’
‘Oh, I think he was,’ Madden responded forcefully. ‘That’s to say he’d had the same sort of casual fling with her that Jessup had. He probably gave her name to Richard. As Miss Cooper said, the men were passing her around. He might even have done it at Wing’s behest. They were all bumping into each other at parties that summer. We’ll never get to the bottom of that. But having given a false alibi to the police at the time of Portia’s murder, Garner knew he might be in difficulties, and when you showed him that photo he saw he could at least derive some benefit from it. You thought his reaction was strange, didn’t you?’
Billy nodded.
‘Joe reckoned it was because he knew it was him in the bed, but I didn’t agree. It looked to me as though he were thinking of something else.’
‘And you were right. He got in touch with Jessup right away. They had dinner at Richard’s club the following night. We’ll never know exactly what passed between them. But I suspect Garner told his old friend what he knew, or had guessed, and asked for money in return for keeping his mouth shut. He was broke, as we know. You’ll recall that Jessup’s account of their conversation was rather different. He told me Garner was ready to call it quits: that he was going to make a statement to you the following morning in the presence of a solicitor.’
‘And an hour or so later Garner himself was topped.’ Billy’s gaze had hardened. ‘I’m beginning to get a nasty feeling,’ he said.
Madden grunted. ‘I’m afraid it was Jessup who killed him, not Wing, and you may be able to prove that, for your own satisfaction at least. I believe he told Garner he would pay him what he wanted and then got Lennox to drive him home. He knew he could slip out of his club by the back door, the tradesmen’s entrance. It was kept locked at night, but I expect Jessup knew where the key was kept. He could have walked up to Shepherd Market. It wouldn’t have taken him more than twenty minutes. All he had to do was rouse Garner, who hadn’t even gone to bed, as it turned out, and was far too drunk to have put up much of a struggle.’
Madden quelled a shudder.
‘Jessup couldn’t trust him any longer, you see. Once the blackmail started it would go on. The same was true of Wing. He had to die, too. After he killed Miss Cooper it was Jessup to whom he sent that spare set of prints: care of his club, most likely, and by hand. His blackmail scheme was a lot stronger now that he had the negatives in his hands. But he had to move fast. The Triads were hot on his trail. The fragment of the photograph you found in Garner’s grate was from one of the prints. Jessup must have left it there to incriminate Rex.’
Sinclair stirred. He’d been silent for some time.
‘You say that can be proved?’
‘The evidence would be circumstantial.’ Madden shrugged. ‘It has to do with that length of flex we talked about which was used to strangle Garner and then hang him. It never seemed likely to me that the killer just happened to find what he needed in Rex’s basement. I think Jessup brought it with him from his club. They’ve got workmen in building a new cloakroom downstairs. It seems they’re careless with their tools; they leave things lying around. I heard one of the porters say so. A piece of flex that long is bound to have been missed. If the workmen are questioned, I expect they’ll confirm the theft.’
He saw Billy shake his head.
‘Is that what put you onto Jessup, sir? You told me yesterday you’d only just twigged to him being the man in the photos. Was it hearing what that porter said?’
Madden nodded. Billy saw the sadness in his eyes.
‘We were having dinner together, Richard and I. He’d been telling me how guilty he felt about Garner, how he felt he’d let him down. I think now that he was longing to tell me the truth. He’d been able to cope with the murder of Portia Blake—in his mind, I mean. Perhaps he’d found some way to justify it to himself. But killing a man who’d been his closest friend in boyhood was more than he could stomach. Perhaps he was already thinking of ending it all. The discovery of Wing’s body with the negatives on it merely hastened the process.’
‘Do you think he arranged for Wing to be killed?’ Again it was Sinclair who put the question.
‘I’m sure he did, though with the help of that Chinese business man, Lin Jie. I don’t imagine Jessup had any direct contact with the Triads, but Lin certainly did, and both of them had good reason to want Wing out of the way. As far as I know Jessup and Wing didn’t meet, but they must have spoken on the phone after Jessup received the photographs. Wing would have made his demands then. Since there was no prospect of his ever being linked to the firm again, I imagine what he wanted was money, and a good deal of it. That and safe passage out of the country, which he knew Jessup could arrange through the company’s shipping contacts. I expect they were due to meet at the docks, where Jessup would hand over the money. It’s possible that Wing promised to give him the negatives in exchange, but I doubt Jessup trusted him to do it. He knew Wing would probably keep back one or two as insurance. He staked his hopes on the Triad killers disposing of Wing’s body and anything he might have had on him, which would include the negatives. It was all he could do. He was already very close to falling off that tightrope.’
A log crackled in the fire and part of it rolled out of the grate onto the hearth. Madden was on his feet before Sinclair could move. The other two watched as he replaced the burning log and added a fresh one to the blaze.
Billy had been thinking. ‘I still don’t see why he took his life—Jessup, I mean.’
He hesitated when he saw the look in Madden’s eye.
‘You’re not going to say he fell into that quarry by accident, are you, sir?’
‘As far as anyone knows that’s exactly what he did.’ Madden’s altered tone signalled a change in the atmosphere. ‘Both Lennox and I saw a mark made in the mud that could have been where he slipped. Richard always said it was dangerous to leave that area unfenced. He wouldn’t allow his children anywhere near it. I’ll be appearing at the inquest in Petersfield next week, as you know, and if asked my opinion I’ll say I believe it was a tragic accident.’
‘I don’t know, sir . . .’ Billy flushed. ‘That doesn’t seem right to me. Ten years ago a man was hanged for a murder he didn’t commit. I understand you might want to protect Richard Jessup’s name. But what about Owen Norris? What about his name?’
Madden was slow in answering. Watching him, the younger man saw it was only with difficulty that he brought himself to reply.
‘I’ve no good answer to that, Billy. All I can say is I won’t be party to any attempt to lay Miss Blake’s murder at Richard Jessup’s door, nor Garner’s if it comes to that. You’ll have to prove it for yourself.’
He met the other’s gaze.
‘Remember, everything I’ve said to you has been in confidence, and I won’t repeat it elsewhere. Of course you’re free to make your own inquiries and deductions, but before you and Charlie Chubb decide whether you want to take this further, ask yourselves what you’ll achieve by it. You can’t prove that Jessup committed either of those murders: you can only show he had a brief relationship before he got married with a young woman who later fell victim to a man who was subsequently convicted of her murder and hanged.’
‘What about Garner, though, sir? There’s that length of flex to consider.’ Billy wasn’t ready yet to give in.
‘Circumstantial, as I said. You’ll need more than that to make a case.’
‘How about the fingerprints left on the bannisters? I’m willing to bet they’ll turn out to be Jessup’s.’
‘I expect they will. But as any barrister would point out, the two men were friends of long standing. What could be more likely than for Jessup’s prints to be found in Garner’s house? As for Wing’s decapitation, in order to prove that Richard had any hand in setting that up you would need Lin Jie’s cooperation, and I very much doubt you’ll get it. He’ll say he has no connection whatsoever with the Triads and doesn’t know what you’re talking about.’
Billy was at a loss. He had never come into conflict before with his old mentor, the man who had taught him his trade and whom he respected above all others. Nor did he appreciate the look of sympathetic understanding which the chief inspector was casting his way just then.
‘What do you think, sir?’ He turned to Sinclair.
The chief inspector considered his reply.
‘All this has come about because I asked John to look into the matter on my behalf.’ He spoke after a long pause. ‘He’s been good enough to share his conclusions with us, though he wasn’t obliged to. And as he says, he can offer next to no proof of what he has said: it’s simply how he interprets the facts. In the circumstances I feel it only right to leave any final decision to him.’
Frustrated, Billy turned back to Madden.
‘Well, if we couldn’t have got a conviction against him, why did he go and top himself?’
Madden lifted his gaze from the fire.
‘If you want my opinion—and that’s all it is—because in the last resort he couldn’t live with himself any longer. Even before I guessed the truth I sensed there was something eating away at him. And as I said before, he saw things with frightening clarity. Once he learned that Wing’s body had been recovered with the negatives on it he knew that the police would launch a new investigation into Portia Blake’s murder, one that might result in him being brought to trial. It wasn’t just to protect his own reputation that he’d killed the girl. She was threatening to destroy everything he valued: not only his company, but his marriage to a woman he was deeply in love with. The same danger hung over him now; only it was worse. Even if the police couldn’t mount a successful prosecution, a murder trial would do terrible damage, both to him and to the people he loved, including his children. It would leave a smear on the name of Jessup and everyone connected to it that would last for years, perhaps forever. There was only one remedy, and he was ready to accept it.’
Madden looked Billy in the eye.
‘He did what had to be done.’