THE PALE JANUARY sunlight glistened on the wet pavements, and fell weakly through the rain-grimed hall windows. Even the morning’s pots of boiling coffee had failed to erase the pungent smell of candle wax from the house. Ixora collected the mail from the hall table and sorted it as she headed for the kitchen. John emerged tucking his shirt in over his bandaged back. Although the wound was severe enough to require some stitches, he refused to call a doctor. He was anxious to see his run of bad luck through to its conclusion, and he was determined to do it without anyone else’s help.
He watched Ixora carefully cutting open her letters and setting the contents aside, and wondered if their life together would ever settle to an even keel. Since he had met her, he’d been threatened, shot at, stabbed twice, and accused of murder. And all because his wish had come true.
It was time to tackle the problem neither of them knew how to solve: raising the money to pay Mancuso.
‘I don’t understand it,’ said John. ‘They act like it’s not the money; it’s as if they’re holding a personal grudge. I’ve never borrowed before in my life. Threatening to kill me is something from an old gangster movie.’
‘There’s no point in trying to understand people like that,’ said Ixora, reading.
‘Maybe I could arrange a second mortgage on my house.’
‘No, John. You got yourself in debt because of me. I’ll find a way to get us out of it. The paintings will have to go, for a start. Didn’t you once tell me you knew someone at Sotheby’s?’
‘I went to school with him. I still have his number somewhere.’
‘I know they’re worth something. My mother told me she had them valued before she went to St Lucia. They must be worth a lot more now. Surely I’ll be able to get an advance on them.’
‘Ixora, the pictures are all you have left.’
‘No,’ she corrected, ‘you are all I have left. Leave it to me. We’ll have the money in time. We should even have enough left over to clear some of these bills.’ She fanned the letters in her hand. The writing on one of the envelopes looked familiar.
‘Who’s that one from?’ he asked, pointing.
‘Oh, just another final demand,’ she said hurriedly, tucking it to the bottom of the pile. ‘Take a look at this.’ Instead she waved two gilt-edged cards before his eyes. ‘We came back just in time. The tickets must have been here for at least a week.’
Two invitations to the premiere of Playing With Fire, to take place on Wednesday evening at 7.30 p.m. at the Odeon, Leicester Square, in the presence of the Duke and Duchess of York.
‘We have to go,’ said Ixora. ‘But what about paying back the money?’
‘I’ll call Mancuso and tell him I’m coming by the casino afterwards. It’s essential for you to be seen at the premiere. It’s bound to be televised, and you need the contacts. Call your agent right now. She has to let the palace representative know in advance if you’re going to be presented.’
Diana Morrison released a theatrical squeal that sounded like someone killing a pig. John heard it clear across the kitchen.
‘Daaarling,’ she was saying, ‘where on earth have you been? We’ve been going simply fraaantic with worry.’
‘I had some personal problems I had to sort out. I’m sorry, I know I should have called . . .’
‘No matter, you’re back now and that’s the main thing. You’re down for meeting Andy and Fergie at the premmy, of course. It’s the royal B-team, I know, but we have to look on the bright side. It could have been Princess Michael of Kent. Everyone’s going to be there. The distributors are too cheap to throw a decent party afterwards so we’re all going to throw buns at each other in Langan’s instead. Also, someone from Columbia Tri-Star has been frantically trying to get hold of you but I can’t remember who it was. Hold on.’
Ixora cupped her hand over the phone. ‘Sounds like I’ve got an audition,’ she said, raising her eyebrows at him.
‘Here it is. I can’t remember, dear – can you sing? No matter, they’re after a Look rather than a Voice. It’s a modern day remake of The Beggar’s Opera, and it occurred to me that you have the perfect hair for Lucy Lockit. They want you to read for the part of Samantha – that’s the update. Brett Michaels from Tri-Star will be there on Wednesday, so you can talk to him about it. Don’t hold your breath about the final cut of Fire by the way. We had the Cast and Crew screening while you were away. Everyone filed out looking as if they’d lost relatives in an air crash. You made it through half a dozen edits without losing your lines, although I can’t remember if they finally went with your voice, but Scott’s performance is mostly on the cutting room floor, which is just as well. You couldn’t get a more wooden performance from a roll-top desk. I must dash, good to have you back in the land of the living, see you at the bash.’ There was a sharp click and the line went dead.
‘She didn’t even ask me where I’d been,’ said Ixora. ‘Write down the number of your friend at Sotheby’s. I’ve got a lot of work to do before tomorrow.’
‘I hope I still have it.’ John rose from the table and went upstairs. As soon as he had left the room, Ixora shuffled back through the envelopes on the table and withdrew the one at the bottom. She had recognised the handwriting immediately. Turning it over, she tore open the flap.
John,
I must see you. It concerns your lady friend.
You are in terrible danger.
Please don’t ignore this. I couldn’t bear to see you hurt.
Call me at home daytime or at St Anne’s Church in Soho evenings.
Don’t show her this letter.
Helen
This was perfect. Everything would be solved in the space of a single evening. This time it would all work out. She would wear a dress of pure white silk. There would be no more red. Ever.
Hargreave turned back to Sullivan’s notes and began again from the top. It was 2.15 on Tuesday morning. Janice was still handling the night shift, so the house was empty. He had planned to work in the new operations room at Mornington Crescent, but the constant interruptions had broken his train of thought once too often.
Here in his study, he had been able to lay out all the available information about the case. A pair of IBM diskettes contained the accumulated forensic and medical evidence on the murders. Sullivan’s notebooks had been carefully annotated by Janice, who had worked on them in her free time. There were the psychiatric reports on Wingate and the transcripts of conversations with various witnesses and suspects. There was an electronic dossier culled from the LAN network which contained details of every known offender currently at large in the United Kingdom. There was also a terse but annoyingly vague note from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, a group appointed by the Home Secretary from the ranks of Chief Constables, concerning the urgency of apprehending a culprit, (any reasonably appropriate culprit, it implied) and publicly closing the case.
Somewhere here on the desk in front of him were the answers to all his questions. He felt that he now had the key which would unlock the case completely.
The key was Vincent Brady.
The evidence of the first case had been ignored in the headlong rush that had followed. Vincent Brady was West Indian, born in Antigua, resident in London for just three years. Friends said he’d left his homeland to escape the island’s oppressive attitude towards homosexuality. Statements from friends indicated that he was well adjusted, and intelligent beyond the limitations of his job. So barwork was filling in until – what? A career in photography? The camera equipment in his apartment was of high quality . . .
No. In the rush to link Brady into subsequent deaths, Sergeant Sullivan had assumed that photography was the link in three of the murders. His assumptions had subsequently remained unquestioned.
But suppose photography had played no part in it? Brady’s flat had not been broken into. He had admitted a friend. The chips of nail varnish indicated a woman. For once, sex was not a relevant factor. Assume she had come to kill him. Why? What had he done to hurt her? His movements during the days immediately prior to his murder had yielded no surprises, nothing of interest at all. So what about his pre-London past? He had asked Janice that question earlier tonight. Hopefully she was checking out the answer right now.
Time to look at it from another perspective. Hargreave laid out the files of the victims, omitting Sullivan’s, whose death he considered circumstantial. Brady. Feldman. Dominguez. Saunders. Howard. Five men with nothing but their fatal ends in common. Five religious artefacts immersed in water. Five extremely brutal deaths, all by impalement of some kind or other . . .
Hargreave tapped his teeth and looked from one photograph to the next. From somewhere in the garden came the scream of a cat, as human and as anguished as a baby’s. He was still watching the window when the clock in the hall chimed three.
Five men with nothing in common.
Four men with something – some one in common. Ixora De Corizo. Feldman had photographed her. Dominguez had dated her. Saunders had worshipped her. Howard had worked with her. But there was nothing to suggest that Vincent Brady had even heard of the damned woman.
Suppose he had. How many other elements would fit? The lingering, powerful aftershave at the crime scenes – could it have been a brand of perfume? Did she possess the sheer physical strength to kill someone? And what was her motive?
The jangling of the telephone made him start. Janice had known he would still be working.
‘Ian, I’ve got something which will interest you.’
‘God knows I need a break. What is it?’
‘Before he lived in England, Vincent Brady sold timeshare apartments in the West Indies. I’ve just been speaking with his former employer. While he was visiting St Lucia, he met Ixora De Corizo. By all accounts, he dated her for a couple of years.’
‘How long ago would this have been?’
‘Late seventies. They were both very young.’
‘So what happened?’
‘He suddenly ended the relationship.’
‘He realised he was gay.’
‘That’s what I’m thinking.’
‘Janice, you’re an angel.’
He was beginning to sense some underlying structure to the case. Five dead males, all involved in some capacity with one woman. A sixth, more involved than any of the others, who continued to survive. It was time he stopped thinking of John Chapel as a suspect, and started considering him as the motive.