Kith and Kin Read online

  Henry tapped on the door to the nursery suite and Nanny opened it a crack and peered through.

  ‘You’re very late,’ she said. ‘Five minutes. No more.’

  Henry slipped through the playroom, past the rocking horse and doll’s house and steam engines, and tapped on Melissa’s door. It was already standing half open and he could see his niece propped up against her pillows with a book leaning against her raised knees. She was almost asleep.

  Gently, Henry eased the book aside (Alice in Wonderland – again) and set it down on her bedside table. She roused a little. ‘Hello, Uncle Henry.’

  ‘Hello, Melissa.’ He bent and kissed her forehead, stroking the soft brown hair aside. ‘You go to sleep now,’ he told her. ‘I’ll arrange with your mother for us both to go out Christmas shopping soon. Would you like that?’

  She nodded sleepily and then turned on her side. He watched her for a moment or two as her breathing slowed and settled and she drifted away. He knew he should not have favourites and he did love George and Cyril with an intensity that took him by surprise, but Melissa had a special place in his heart.

  Nanny appeared in the doorway and beckoned sternly. ‘The young need their sleep,’ she said. She yawned and added, ‘And so do the old.’

  ‘You aren’t old,’ Henry told her. ‘Nowhere near old.’

  He had learned the line from Mickey and discovered that there were certain people even he could please by using it. Such social play did not come easily or naturally.

  ‘Get on with you. Now, do you have your diary with you?’

  ‘I do.’

  She indicated the calendar hanging above her worktable. ‘Well, if you’ve promised to go shopping, you need to know when Melissa is available. This is the party season, you know.’

  Henry dutifully noted days when Melissa might be free and then he made his way back down the stairs and wondered if he could legitimately sneak away. After all, he’d done the things he’d come here for.

  He paused for a moment, eavesdropping on the conversations in the hall.

  His brother-in-law, apparently more sober than Henry had thought, was mid-debate.

  ‘I don’t like what I’m seeing over there, that’s the long and the short of it. There’ll be trouble, you mark my words.’

  ‘Your words or your wife’s words?’ The tone was jeering and the words distinctly slurred.

  ‘And what do you mean by that?’

  ‘A man should trust … trust his own judgement. Women and business … like teaching a dog to walk on its hind legs. Funny and all that, but no value to it.’

  A burst of laughter drowned out Albert’s reply. Henry wondered whether he should go down or stay put. He knew that Albert actually set great store by Cynthia’s common sense but that neither of them made great public display of the fact.

  He descended a few steps more, picking up the threads of the conversation now that the laughing party had passed on.

  ‘Risk isn’t everything,’ Albert was saying. ‘I’ve lost enough to know that I like my investments to be safe.’

  Henry didn’t catch the very slurred response, but he gathered it was insulting. Albert had reddened and now looked positively furious. Henry wandered over and touched his brother-in-law on the arm. ‘Just the man,’ he said. ‘I was hoping for a word before I go.’

  Albert glared at him and then looked relieved at the interruption. He excused himself and strode off towards his study. Henry followed him.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he asked, closing the door gently behind him. If the blue salon was strictly in the latest style, Albert’s study was stuck firmly in the Edwardian era. Leather and wood and deep red walls, a little discoloured now by the inevitable soot from the open fire.

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s all fine. I just need a moment to gather my thoughts. Men like that …’

  ‘You were discussing Germany?’ Henry guessed.

  ‘No, but I might as well have been. You know I gave up on my idea of investing there?’

  Henry nodded. ‘You dislike the rise of the nationalists,’ he said. ‘Think it will be bad for business. But not Germany this time?’

  Albert sighed. ‘No. Truth is, Henry, I’ve been offered shares in an up-and-coming company, General Securities. Man by the name of Clarence Hatry, reckons he has plans for something he wants to call “United Steel”. He seems to think he can pull off some major commodities mergers in the USA and the promise, as always, is for quick profits for investors.’

  ‘And the man you were arguing with?’

  ‘Oh, he’s one of Henry Paulet’s mob. Paulet is Marquess of Winchester and he’s chairman of Hatry’s investment company.’

  ‘And you’re dubious.’

  ‘Drink?’ Albert poured two measures of whiskey without waiting for a response and handed Henry a glass. ‘I said I’d think about it, then I had some digging done.’ He paused and grinned. ‘Cynthia had some digging done. I’m always too ready to jump, old man, and she’s always there, ready with the reins. Anyway, it seems this Hatry fella, he’s ploughed three major concerns into bankruptcy in the States and each time he’s come up smelling of roses and left a trail of other poor fellas in the you-know-what. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, what a man like that might do next? So, you see, I’m being Mr Cautious this time. Mr Watch and Wait.’

  Henry sipped his drink. ‘That sounds sensible to me.’

  ‘Sensible be damned. I’m a dead loss at being sensible. Or I was, until I married your sister and the children came along. These days, I have to admit, I like the quiet life. The risks are tempting but I’m not as keen to suffer the losses. And I don’t trust the man.’

  Henry wondered whether he meant Hatry or Paulet, or the one he’d been arguing with.

  ‘And I’ve been watching the American markets. You ask me, Henry, they are overstretching, overinvesting – and overstating their expectations. What goes up, Henry, it’s going to come down sometime. Like a ton of bricks, and I don’t want to be one of those it lands on.’

  Henry could hear Cynthia’s advice clearly in her husband’s words but he was wise enough not to comment on it. Albert seemed eager to change the subject.

  ‘And what about you, old man? Is the policeman’s lot still not a happy one?’

  ‘It’s been a damned cold one this week,’ Henry said with feeling. ‘Two bodies fetched up on the flats just out of a village called Upchurch. And it rained like someone had pulled the plug on some celestial bath tub.’

  Albert settled down in one of the wing chairs set beside the fire and gestured to Henry to take the other. ‘So,’ he said, his earlier fit of pique now forgotten. ‘What can you tell me that I won’t be reading in the morning papers?’

  Henry and Albert were still deep in conversation when the clock struck half past ten and a quiet knock at the door interrupted their flow.

  ‘Probably Cynthia come to tell us we should be mingling,’ Albert said resignedly, though he sounded more sanguine about his guests now, ready to rejoin the fray.

  Instead, when the door opened, Sergeant Mickey Hitchens stood there, looking apologetic.

  ‘Mickey, my good fellow! Come along in and share some of this rather good whiskey. My dear brother-in-law is failing to keep his end up. He’s still on his first glass.’

  ‘Second,’ Henry corrected him, though he’d not yet touched it. ‘What is it, Mickey?’

  ‘Murder,’ Mickey said, shutting the door gently and declining the offer of a drink. ‘I’ve got a car waiting for us outside.’

  Albert seemed to sober up in an instant, a trick Henry had witnessed a number of times and still not worked out. ‘Go on, Henry. I’ll make your apologies to Cynthia. To do with this Kent thing, is it?’

  ‘We don’t know yet,’ Mickey told him. He turned to Henry. ‘They came to fetch me from home. DCI Prothero is already at the scene.’

  Henry raised an eyebrow. If Prothero was already there, why did they need him? He followed Mickey across the vestibule an
d collected his coat. Someone must have pre-warned the maid because she was already at the door, waiting for him.

  ‘What’s going on, Mickey?’ Henry asked as they hurried down the steps to the waiting car. ‘If Prothero is already there …’

  ‘Him and the police surgeon,’ Mickey said. ‘Man called Grigor Vardanyan, we took him in a few years back, if you remember, kiting and receiving.’

  Henry nodded. ‘Small, ferrety. Armenian, I think?’

  ‘That’ll be him. Well, someone beat the life out of him and laid him out on the foreshore, just above the tideline. Constable spotted him on a routine patrol and called it in. Prothero was on the board so he went down. When he saw who it was, he figured we might be interested.’

  ‘He was one of Josiah Bailey’s men,’ Henry said. ‘If I remember, he worked for the father and then the son.’

  ‘And now he’s dead, only this time it sounds more like Bailey’s style to me. Bailey junior, that is. The father had a bit more subtlety and discretion about him when it came to disposing of the dead.’

  We must look a strange sight, Henry thought. They were close to St Paul’s and the streets were busy. Onlookers hung over the railings to peer down at them. He himself was still in evening dress, his heavy coat fastened tight and collar turned up over the bow tie. Prothero, as always, the gentleman in appearance. Smartly clad and with a soft voice Henry could never recall having heard raised. His polished shoes were not fit for the mud – neither were Henry’s. Only Mickey, fetched from home, had been able to pull on an old pair of oiled leather boots.

  The police surgeon, it seemed, had been entertaining dinner guests and Henry was interested to spot a bright red paisley waistcoat beneath his jacket and overcoat.

  Constables kept the gathering of onlookers under control as they stared down at the police and at the body. A constable held a blanket to block the view, but the onlookers simply shifted a few feet along and stared down again. The foreshore was a popular spot with mudlarks, Henry knew. Unusual in that a section of shingle beach was left high and dry in all but the spring tides.

  He took a step back and surveyed the scene, Prothero coming over to join him.

  ‘Every finger on both his hands is broken. Not just broken, smashed beyond repair.’

  ‘He was known as a card-sharp and for playing three-card Monte. I can’t think of a more apt warning. Or punishment. Except this has gone far beyond that.’

  Prothero nodded. ‘Whatever they wanted to know, he would have told them long before they inflicted the worst of the damage. When they finished with his hands, they smashed his wrists and then worked their way up his arms. It’s a vicious act, Henry.’

  ‘When did Grigor last get out of gaol?’

  ‘According to our records, just over a month ago. I hadn’t realized he was even back in London.’

  Henry nodded. He had described Grigor as a ferret when speaking to Mickey and that was true; he had both the appearance – narrow, sharp and nervy – and the swiftness. Henry would be willing to bet that just about every detective in the central office had arrested or warned off or received information from the dead man at some point or other.

  ‘He was so bent he had to screw his hat on,’ Prothero commented. ‘But I’d have said he was harmless and relatively blameless as these things go. Never violent and never troublesome in that way.’

  ‘Bailey,’ Henry said.

  ‘I’d put money on it. But what the heck did Josiah Bailey want to know so badly?’

  Henry sighed. ‘You said already that whatever Grigor knew he would have told straight off. Bailey did the rest for sport. Just because he could. When the old man was still around he kept some control over his son. But now …’

  ‘Rumour is the father’s dead already.’

  ‘I’ve heard that too, and Bailey’s hold on his territories is not what it was. The question is, who is ready to move in and how bad is it going to get as Bailey tries to keep them out?’

  ‘Two – and we have to assume three – of Bailey’s associates dead in as many days. What if Bailey didn’t do this to Grigor? What if someone is sending a message?’

  ‘I’d rather go with the first option,’ Henry said heavily. ‘Otherwise we are all in deeper trouble.’

  Henry and Mickey accompanied the body back to St Mary’s Hospital, the police surgeon having privileges there. They saw him laid out on the mortuary slab and, under better light, made a closer assessment of the injuries.

  Gaspard, the police surgeon, would not be carrying out the post-mortem. He had living patients to see in the morning so that task would pass to someone else – St Mary’s being one of the major centres for the teaching of forensic science, there would be no shortage of candidates for the job.

  ‘In my view, this was the killing blow,’ Gaspard said, turning the head and indicating a deep depression in the back of the skull. ‘But I doubt he’d have known much about it by then. The pain would have been considerable. I don’t think he’d have been fully conscious by the time the killing blow was administered.’

  ‘I’m thinking a blackjack,’ Mickey said, looking at Grigor’s hands. ‘I’ve seen injuries similar to this enough times.’

  ‘Then I bow to your superior knowledge,’ Gaspard said, unable to keep the distaste from his voice – though whether it was distaste at the injuries or at a non-medical man, a mere police sergeant, claiming better knowledge than himself was something of a moot point.

  ‘Now, if you gentlemen have finished with me, I’d like to get a couple of hours’ sleep before I make my rounds in the morning.’

  Henry thanked him and Gaspard scurried away.

  ‘I heard what you said to Prothero,’ Mickey said. ‘You really think we may have the start of a turf war on our hands.’

  ‘As do you,’ Henry said. ‘As do many of our colleagues. They’d just prefer not to give voice to the possibility.’

  ‘Not talking about something don’t make it go away,’ Mickey said stoutly. ‘How’s Cynthia, by the way? And the kiddies?’

  ‘All well. I only saw Melissa. Georgie was asleep and Cyril is away until the end of next week.’ They switched out the lights and followed Gaspard up the stairs. The mortuary assistant let them out. ‘And what is troubling you?’

  Henry, not always the most perceptive of men, was sensitive enough to his sergeant’s moods to have noted something more than the tension usual when attending a crime scene.

  Mickey nodded. ‘When I left you yesterday I chose to walk back home. I had the sense of being followed. Of being observed. I played all the tricks I knew but could catch no one doing either.’

  He described to Henry how he thought he had seen a figure dart down an alleyway. ‘And now I think of it, I’m sure it was a child.’

  ‘Children are often used as lookouts, as couriers, as tails,’ Henry observed. ‘No one takes much notice of children in the street. They are as invisible as spies.’

  He paused in his steps and looked at Mickey. ‘You are bothered by this?’

  ‘I’m bothered by not knowing for certain whether there was anybody, and not knowing for certain what it means if there was. I’ve told Belle to keep her eyes open, and the neighbours and the local constables too. If there’s anyone about that shouldn’t be, I’ll get to hear of it.’

  ELEVEN

  While Henry had been at Cynthia’s party Bailey’s men had been tasked with finding Dalla Beaney and the first place they thought of looking was the encampment in Ash Tree Lane in Gillingham.

  A convoy of three vehicles had left the city and driven out in the dark. Parked a distance away and then disgorged their passengers. A dozen of Bailey’s hard men, armed and determined and arrogant enough to believe that they could win out against the camp full of gypsies and travellers and fighters.

  They came in from three sides, the camp being roughly triangular in shape, and the dogs were barking before they breached the perimeter fence. Men had appeared before they had reached the first vans. They had
been in the encampment far less than a minute before they were challenged.

  ‘Who are you and what business have you here?’

  The man who spoke had clearly not been disturbed from sleep; he was fully dressed and appeared to be unarmed but was, as one whispered comment had it, ‘the size of a brick shithouse’.

  Clem hushed him. Bailey had put him in charge and he was not prepared to be intimidated.

  The others with the challenger were more wiry but just as determined. Clem stepped forward and in the firelight the gun in his hand could be clearly seen but the big man, though he glanced at it, did not seem intimidated.

  ‘We’re looking for Dalla Beaney. Our boss wants a word with her. We’ve no business with anyone else.’

  To Clem’s surprise, the big man laughed. ‘You tell your boss he’d best get himself one of those spiritualist fellas, then. That’s the only way he’ll talk to Dalla.’

  Clem was surprised enough by the laughter to be shocked into asking what the man meant and his question was greeted with more laughter.

  ‘Are you the best that could be found? Thick as pig shit. I mean the woman is dead, has been this last five years. Tuberculosis and a bad winter took her.’

  ‘And how do we know you’re telling the truth?’

  There was an almost imperceptible shift in both mood and position among the big man and his companions and, now his eyes were getting used to the dark, Clem could see that others had joined them and that the men who had come with Clem, but entered the camp from the other side, were now held fast. Clem, undaunted, still had his gun and he took several steps forward. ‘Gypsies always lie,’ he said.

  The big man seemed to take no offence. Seemingly still undaunted by the weapon pointed at him, he nodded slowly. ‘To outsiders. But not about the dead. No need to lie about the dead. The woman died five years past.’