The Saint Valentine's Day Murders (7 page)

‘And, Robert, while Horace is telephoning Security I’d like you to draw up a time-table of the incidents. Oh, and provide them with a staff list and mark the names of those who were at Twillerton.’

Amiss nodded obediently and led Horace back to his office. He hoped this business would be sorted out quickly. Horace was looking ghastly and all the PD staff seemed subdued and jumpy.

He had just finished his notes when Shipton rang through to announce the arrival of the investigators. ‘You and Horace can brief them, Robert. I’ve got a lot to do. They’re using Room 510.’

Amiss collected Horace and went along to 510. His first reaction was one of disappointment. Whatever he had expected, it hadn’t been the shifty-looking little Smithers or the large and benign Cook. As a team they bore a disconcerting likeness to Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet, though it rapidly became apparent that for once Lorre was in command.

Lorre studied Amiss’s papers and passed them over to Greenstreet without comment. Horace, sitting at the head of the leather and teak conference table, quivered with impatience as Greenstreet slowly read through the material, his lips moving in synchronization with his eyes. When he eventually looked up, Horace broke into impassioned speech. ‘It must have been those young technicians. Our people are all mature and they’d all been looking forward to the weekend.’

Lorre was having none of it. ‘We’re not interested in opinions at this stage, Mr Underhill. All we want from you are facts. We intend to interview everyone who was at Twillerton last weekend and take statements.’

Poor chap, thought Amiss compassionately. He must be a frustrated policeman, banished for ever from Arcadia by the misfortune of being only five feet four.

‘Yes, yes. Of course. But you will keep me closely in touch with your investigation, won’t you? You’ll need advice on how to handle my people. I don’t want them upset.’

Lorre raised his hand in a silencing gesture. ‘You must understand, Mr Underhill, that our findings have to be kept confidential until we are in a position to make a report. At this moment in time I regret to say that everyone – do I make myself clear? –
everyone –
in PD is under suspicion until proved innocent.’

‘Except Mr Shipton,’ said Greenstreet helpfully.

‘Of course except Mr Shipton.’

‘And the clerical assistant and the typist,’ said Greenstreet, who had been studying the staff list carefully.

Amiss noticed Lorre’s hand twitch as if it ached to land a blow on his moronic colleague’s fleshier parts – but he confined himself to a quick grinding of teeth. ‘Now, Mr Underhill. If Mr Amiss will leave us, we will take an account of your movements on the night of the outrages.’

Amiss melted silently away, but not before he had observed Horace’s near-catatonia at the suggestion that he might himself have fouled up his seminar.

Summoned for his interview half an hour later, Amiss was amused to see that by now the furniture had been rearranged to more forbidding effect. There were now only three chairs in evidence. Lorre and Greenstreet shared one end of the table and the lonely chair at the far end was intended for the interviewee. No blinding lamp, alas. Amiss felt tolerantly disposed towards them. This case must be rather fun compared to their usual work. As far as he knew, Security usually had a pretty dull time organizing rosters for the guarding of BCC property and investigating petty theft. Why shouldn’t they play Special Branch when the occasion presented itself?

He had to admit they were thorough. They led him efficiently through all his movements between arrival and departure and asked detailed questions about who had been in his company throughout the evening. As he finished, Greenstreet passed his notes over to Lorre, who scanned them quickly and nodded.

‘Thank you, Mr Amiss,’ said Greenstreet with a beam. ‘You have been most helpful. We shall be coming back to you next week when we have completed our preliminary interviews…’

‘Assuming we have not already identified the culprit,’ broke in Lorre darkly.

‘Oh, yes, indeed. Assuming we have not already identified the culprit. Then we will want to look for motives and consider the… er… psych-ol-og-i-cal dimension.’ He smiled proudly and the interrogation was at an end.

Amiss’s weekend with Rachel was a much-needed break. Although Lorre and Greenstreet had disappeared to Twillerton after two days in PD, they had left behind them an edgy staff who talked little and laughed less.

He was surprised to be called to Room 510 at 9:15 on Monday morning. They must have worked fast – presumably they got double time for the weekend.

He smiled brightly at them. ‘Did you enjoy yourselves at Twillerton?’ Then, recognizing from Lorre’s face that that had been the wrong thing to say: ‘I mean, did you have a productive time?’ That wasn’t successful either. Lorre glowered at him.

‘We got the job done, Mr Amiss.’

‘You mean you’ve… identified the culprit?’

‘Let us say,’ said Lorre, placing the tips of his fingers together, ‘that we have considerably narrowed the field of suspects and are therefore closer to reaching a conclusion as to the perpetrator of…’

‘The outrages?’

Lorre nodded grimly.

‘Oh, well done,’ said Amiss heartily. Christ, Lorre was looking affronted again. ‘How can I help you?’

Lorre leaned over the table and looked at him keenly. ‘Acting on information received, we are now pursuing a new line of investigation.’

Amiss kept his face straight and tried to look encouraging. ‘And that is…?’

‘The sequence of practical jokes that has occurred over recent months in PD.’

‘Oh, surely they’re entirely irrelevant. They were all quite harmless.’

‘That is for us to decide, Mr Amiss. Now, we know that you were a victim of several of them. We want facts. What happened and when?’

Amiss found himself dithering. How the hell could he protect Tiny without pleading the Fifth Amendment? He stalled.

‘They were all so trivial. It’s hard to remember them.’

‘Try, Mr Amiss.’

Amiss stumblingly cited three or four of the most harmless. Lorre looked unimpressed.

‘You can do better than that, I’m sure.’

‘Perhaps it would be better if I went away and thought about it? Then I can write down what I remember.’

‘Good idea,’ said Greenstreet, clearly delighted to have his note-taking cut down.

Amiss thankfully got up to go. This would give him time to cook up an agreed story with Tiny. ‘Just a moment,’ said Lorre. ‘We want to see Mr Short next. Kindly ask him to come here immediately. And Mr Amiss – no collusion. We shall be keeping Mr Short with us until your list is available.’

Shit
, thought Amiss, stamping back to his office in frustration. They knew already. Who the hell had tipped them off? Now he was well and truly trapped. Presumably they’d get it all out of Tiny. And if not out of him, there would surely be plenty of others anxious to help. He’d have to come clean himself now. Otherwise he’d be seen to be obstructing them.

After passing the message to a worried-looking Tiny, he retired to his own office to begin his absurd list. He had made the decision to omit anything these clowns might regard as criminal damage to BCC property. His brief notes with approximate dates came to a page, which he put in an envelope and gave to Cathy to take along to 510. When he heard Tiny’s voice again, he called him into his office and explained what had happened. Tiny looked astounded.

‘But they told me they’d had a lot of useful information from you and of course I thought you’d spilled the beans.’

‘Bastards. I never mentioned you.’

‘Oh, Christ,’ wailed Tiny. ‘What was I supposed to think? Why should you cover up for me? I told them everything I could remember about any jokes I or anyone else has ever played here.’

Amiss groaned. ‘I’ll have to plead absence of mind, I suppose.’

‘Well, if you didn’t tell them, who did?’

‘If we knew that,’ said Amiss, ‘we’d probably know who’s responsible for the whole Twillerton mess.’

11

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It was two days before Amiss was called to 510 again – two days during which relations among members of his staff had fallen to an all-time low. No one was prepared to talk about what he had told Security, and as no one was thinking about anything else it made normal intercourse almost impossible.

His interview started inauspiciously. Lorre was looking triumphant and Greenstreet unnaturally grave. Neither of them did more than nod a perfunctory greeting.

Lorre opened on a challenging note. ‘Would you please explain to us why you omitted to tell us about the following occurrences? First, the placing of jelly in your briefcase.’

Amiss had already decided to stick to his guns. If he admitted he’d been trying to protect Tiny they probably wouldn’t believe him and would seek some darker motive. Anyway the whole business was so idiotic he couldn’t feel conscience-stricken about telling a few white lies. His mind flashed back to Milton and the contrast between their two moral dilemmas almost made him laugh aloud. As it was, he snorted slightly and then, seeing Lorre’s face, wished he hadn’t. ‘I forgot.’

‘And the upended pot plant?’

‘I forgot that too.’

‘And you will say the same, no doubt, about the drawing pins on your chair and the dirty postcard?’

Amiss felt self-righteous. Those two he had genuinely forgotten. ‘Yes. Them as well.’

Lorre looked over at Greenstreet, who shook his head solemnly, shuffled his tidy pile of papers and selected a reference card. ‘You are a graduate in History, Mr Amiss?’

Amiss was bewildered. ‘Yes.’

‘In other words, you have had an education which trained you to remember large numbers of facts?’

‘No it didn’t,’ replied Amiss peevishly. ‘It taught me to sift evidence and distinguish the important from the unimportant. That’s probably why I don’t have an encyclopaedic memory for japes and wheezes.’

‘There’s no need to be aggressive, Mr Amiss. I always understood history was about facts, but then I haven’t had your advantages.’

Amiss winced. Another fucker with an inferiority complex.

Lorre maintained the initiative. ‘Let us approach this from another angle. Did you form any opinion as to who was responsible for these outrages?’

‘The PD ones? Here in the office?’

‘Yes.’

He couldn’t pretend ignorance here. Any imbecile, even a university graduate, couldn’t have avoided guessing what everyone else knew. ‘I wasn’t sure, but I thought it was probably Tiny Short.’

‘Did you take the matter up with him?’

‘No.’

‘Or with your superior officer?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I didn’t want to cause ill-will among my staff. I was unpopular enough as it was. Anyway, I didn’t really mind the jokes. They were all pretty harmless.’

‘And why were you unpopular, Mr Amiss?’

Amiss was beginning to feel cross. ‘Because they had all your affection for people with more advantages than themselves.’

‘There’s no need to get nasty, Mr Amiss.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m just fed up with questions I don’t see the point of.’

‘You’ll see the point all in good time,’ said Lorre. ‘We have established that you failed to act as a responsible manager and put an end to all this carry-on.’

‘It is certainly possible to see it that way.’

‘So you did nothing at all about it?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Why are you lying to us, Mr Amiss?’ asked Greenstreet conversationally. ‘We know about the obscene publication you sent Mr Short.’

Oh, no
. How could he have forgotten about that? And how the hell had they found out he did it? They must have traced his cheque.

He looked at them wearily. ‘You’re not going to believe this, but I really didn’t remember it.’

‘You’re quite right,’ crowed Lorre. ‘We’re not going to believe it.’

‘When you asked for a list, I was concentrating on the ones that were played on me. I completely forgot the only one I’d played myself.’

He could see they weren’t impressed. ‘Look. It was months ago and I was drunk at the time.’

Greenstreet looked shocked.

‘Well, not exactly drunk, but pretty high. I spent a boozy evening with a friend and was telling him about the practical jokes. He showed me an advertisement for a publication called
Guys Only
. It seemed funny at the time to order a copy to be sent to Tiny at the office. I never heard that it arrived and it went right out of my mind.’

‘Why did it seem funny to send obscene material through the mails?’

‘It wasn’t obscene. It was a catalogue of pouffy underwear. Tiny is aggressively heterosexual.’

‘We have different ideas about humour,’ said Lorre.

‘Christ, we’re not here to discover if we share a bloody sense of humour, are we? You haven’t mentioned Twillerton yet. I thought that was what you were supposed to be investigating.’

‘Would you kindly remain here for a moment while Mr Cook and I consult in the corridor?’

Amiss recovered his temper while they were out. After all, they couldn’t help being a pair of bloody idiots landed with a job beyond their slender intellectual resources. He even managed a conciliatory smile as they re-entered and resumed their chairs.

‘Let us explain to you, Mr Amiss,’ said Lorre, ‘why we have given so much attention to recent events in PD. For reasons that won’t concern you, we have been able to rule out as suspects the entire staff at Twillerton and all the technicians.’

‘So it’s down to PD.’

‘PD and Mr Charles Collins.’

‘So?’

‘You’ll recall the sneezing powder in the breakfast sugar. Because of the short period in which the dining room was unlocked in the evening after the tables had been laid, we have been able to eliminate those PD personnel who have consistent alibis for the period 9:00-10:00. We are left with seven names: Mr Collins, Messrs Underhill and Sloan from PD1, and, from PD2, Messrs Farson, Illingworth, Thomas and yourself.’