Page 7

A ARON HAD ONE LAST day off to fill. He might have gone to an art gallery, or a museum, but in fact he found himself heading over to Marylebone nick, in order to ask about the policeman who had supposedly taken advantage of Wildsmith.

‘Supposedly’ was an awkward word there. Aaron was well aware some of his colleagues profited from their positions. Accepting petty gifts, free food and drink, was a matter of routine; Aaron wouldn’t take more than a cup of tea himself, but didn’t comment when his colleagues accepted a packet of sausages or a bunch of flowers for the wife, for fear of being seen as a prig. He wasn’t aware of corruption on a larger scale in G Division, but he knew bribery was rampant in Soho, where the criminals had more money. He’d also heard of colleagues taking payment in kind from ladies of the night in return for looking the other way, which was a very euphemistic way to say extorting sexual services and not doing their job.

On Wildsmith’s telling, this Constable Sefton hadn’t even refrained from doing his job once he’d had his way. No wonder Wildsmith was so angry: he’d not just been trapped and abused, but also cheated.

If the graphologist’s account was accurate, of course. Aaron had a deep reluctance to believe it: being in the force with such men would feel like a stain on himself. But it didn’t do to flinch from painful truths, and if you decided that anyone who accused the police was lying, you had stepped onto a path that led to some very dark places.

So Aaron would check up on this Constable Sefton with an open mind, and see if the fellow had any question marks hanging over him. Perhaps that would help him decide whether he could trust a word the graphologist said.

He couldn’t decide that currently, and as a result thoughts of Wildsmith wouldn’t leave him. The way he switched between cockiness, outright aggression, and a sudden vulnerability that the prickliness was clearly protecting. The quickness to laugh, or to anger. The unfeasible claims. The wide, joyous smile.

Not the smile. That was definitely not Aaron’s affair.

He needed to reach a conclusion on Wildsmith for his own peace of mind, and whatever that conclusion might be, he also needed to stay away from him. That conversation in his dingy room had been too much: Aaron had been left speechless, deeply alarmed and, unfortunately, extremely aroused.

Bang like a barn door in the wind. The cocky little swine.

It had been a provocation only. He was sure of that, because an invitation would have been beyond reckless. But the provocation was enough to make any sensible man conclude he should keep away, and Aaron had meant to do exactly that until Wildsmith had turned up at his door.

He’d probably had to let the fellow in, but he didn’t know why he’d asked him to stay; he’d regretted it immediately. It wasn’t as though Wildsmith had wanted to be there. He’d left as quickly as was possible, and with that parting shot.

You’ve never caught me in a professional lie. Maybe Aaron should try to do just that. If he could work out what Wildsmith was and how he was doing it, maybe that would get the blasted man out of his head.

He found an acquaintance at Marylebone police station, one Inspector Cassell, and asked for a quiet word.

“Constable Sefton?” Cassell said. “That turd.”

“Oh.”

“Rotten to the core. Suspended from duty last month. Won’t be back if the DDI here has anything to say about it, but you know what a pain in the arse it is to deal with this sort of thing under the Chocolate Soldier.”

That was Sir William Horwood, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He’d gained the unaffectionate nickname as a military man who had survived a famously bizarre assassination attempt involving poisoned chocolates; among his many unlikeable characteristics was a flat refusal to believe accusations of police corruption or wrongdoing. It infuriated those who wanted the Met to be better, and also those who wanted it to look better. “What did Sefton do?” Aaron asked.

“Had his hand out. Now we’re having to look at all the men he was usually on duty with, the filthy bastard. Do you have something on him? I want to make the sort of example of him everyone else won’t forget in a hurry, and every little helps.”

Aaron gave him Wildsmith’s account, without a name. Cassell heard him out but shrugged his shoulders. “Sounds about right. We had a couple of similar complaints from street-walkers. No use to me, though.”

“It’s indecency on his part, and on my witness’s story, it’s clear incitement.”

“They always claim incitement. I’m not getting bogged down in a he-said-she-said with queers, or dragging in a hard-to-prove misconduct charge that he can use to muddy the waters.”

“What Sefton did was tantamount to assault.”

“It’s hardly assault if your chap signed up for it.”

Aaron felt his gut clench. “Under false pretences. And he paid dearly for it.”

“Shouldn’t have broken the law, then. I dare say he feels hard done by, but he got two months for soliciting when it might have been two years for gross indecency. The important thing is that we get Sefton dismissed from the Force, and we will, no matter what the Commissioner thinks. Why did this come to you?”

“In the course of another case. I said I’d look into it.”

“Well, he can bring a complaint if he wants to admit to an offence, but he did less time than he might have, and the man responsible is losing his position anyway. I’d say your fellow is best off keeping his mouth shut. In more ways than one.”

He laughed at his own witticism. Aaron’s neck muscles spasmed so hard they hurt, but he made himself smile too.

***

T HAT MEETING DIDN’T put him in a better mood. He told himself that Cassell was an honest man, a good copper, doing the right thing overall. Perhaps one in a hundred of their colleagues would find anything wrong in his casual dismissal of Wildsmith’s experience, and Aaron just had to live with that because it wasn’t going to change. The knowledge didn’t make their conversation easier to swallow.

It did, however, add one more tally mark on Wildsmith’s side of the ledger, even if having told the truth about his conviction didn’t make his graphological claims any more plausible. Notwithstanding, Aaron made the time to drop round to his cousin’s flat that evening and let him know that any attempt to bring suit for slander was doomed to fail.

“You must be joking, Ronnie,” Paul said. “You can’t be serious. You know this fellow lied about me.”

“He said your letter read like you’d just rolled out of bed with another woman. You admitted to me that you did exactly that.”

“But he didn’t know that!” Paul protested. “You said yourself it wasn’t possible for him to know. So he was making it up, and making things up about people is slander.”

“Not if you hit on the truth, it isn’t. Your complaint is that he accurately described something you did, and I really can’t help you with that.”

“Then what use is it having a policeman in the family?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Anyway, you’re missing the point,” Paul said. “This Blacksmith fellow—”

“Wildsmith.”

“He owes me damages for my reputation, and for spoiling my marriage. Babs’s people are well oiled, you know, and awfully well connected. It would have been a jolly good thing for me and instead I’ve been made a laughing stock through no fault of my own—”

“Oh, come off it,” Aaron said. “No fault?”

“She wouldn’t have known if it wasn’t for that little swine! And he can’t be allowed to go around making wild what-do-you-call-ems.”

“Statements of fact?”

“Accusations. Oh, come on, Ronnie, you’ll stand by me, won’t you?”

“In what way?” Aaron enquired.

“He made this absurd allegation with no way to back it up. If I bring suit and you help me out, we can teach the little devil a lesson about slandering his betters.”

Aaron had been offended when Wildsmith suggested he would lie on oath for his cousin. He wasn’t offended now, since he hadn’t expected or hoped for anything better, but he was annoyed. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. Don’t embarrass either of us by repeating it.”

Paul reddened. “Oh, that’s very fine, when your side’s been nothing but an embarrassment to the family for thirty years. I did think you might be able to look into a clear bit of sharp practice, or simply stand by your own blood when I’m being traduced by some wretched guttersnipe. I suppose breeding will out.”

That led to a frank exchange of views, during which Aaron reminded Paul about the laws governing perjury and his intent to see them applied given the chance. He left in a thoroughly bad temper, and all the more frustrated with his failure to understand how Wildsmith had done it. He had no objection to falling out with his family on principle, but he didn’t want to do it for the sake of a cheat.

He arranged to buy Hollis a drink the next day, to let him know what was what. It was a slightly embarrassing meeting at first, since Hollis had intended to do Aaron a favour, and Aaron didn’t want to seem unappreciative.

“The problem is, Wildsmith was right,” he explained. “My cousin simply hasn’t a leg to stand on in terms of a complaint, however the man got or guessed his information. And, between us, I wouldn’t help Paul stand on it anyway. He’s behaved like a swine and been found out, and if he doesn’t like it, that’s his hard luck.”

“Fair enough,” Hollis said amicably. “Well, I’m happy to leave it if you think best, though we can’t have these people perpetrating frauds left and right.”

“I don’t know that Wildsmith is a fraud,” Aaron said. “At least, not in the sense of rifling people’s pockets for letters or bribing the servants for information. To be honest, I’m beginning to wonder if there’s something in it.”

Hollis squinted at him. “Really?”

It didn’t seem entirely unreasonable, now Aaron was used to the idea, that handwriting might betray personality on a large scale—vanity, or cruelty, or some such—and he was sufficiently familiar with the way mediums worked to see how Wildsmith could magnify a few generalities into something that felt impressive. But then there was Paul’s indiscretion, or what he’d said of Molesworth—or even what he’d said of Aaron’s own hand...

He wasn’t going to think about what Wildsmith had said of his hand right now.

“He was unquestionably correct several times. Maybe he’s just damned acute, I don’t know. I tell you what, it would be blasted useful if it was true. One could present a graphologist with letters from all the suspects in a case and ask him to pick the culprit.”

“Ha! A judge might have something to say about that,” Hollis said. “Then again, I expect people said as much about fingerprints thirty years ago. Do you really think there’s something there?”

“Not to convict on. But if he could offer reliable insights, as part of the whole picture—”

“If. You know, Fowler, these people have the devil of a way of seeming plausible. You say he was right a lot, but I’ve seen mediums at work, and it’s amazing how the memory turns a few banalities, a lucky guess, and a bit of observation into miracle-working.”

“That’s undeniable. What we really need is a blind test,” Aaron said. “Make sure there are no clues for him to seize on at all and see what he comes up with.”

“How would you do that?”

Aaron had thought about this, possibly rather too much. “Give him writing from a lot of suspects in a case, and some from unrelated people too,” he said promptly. “Get him to say who he thought was guilty. But the thing is, we’d make it an unsolved case, one that was ongoing, with the man who gave them to him not involved in any way.”

“So he couldn’t read your face for the answer, or even suspicions,” Hollis said thoughtfully.

“Exactly. And mark the papers with numbers and somebody else has the key. So even if he found out what case it was, he still wouldn’t know who had written which paper. Get him to write his opinions down, so there’s no misremembering what he said. And lock his answers in a drawer, unread, until a culprit’s been identified, so there’s no possibility of his views influencing the investigation.”

“Yes, that would give you a very good idea of the value of graphology. A medium can fall back on The spirits aren’t talking to me or Someone at the seance is ruining the atmosphere or A ghost played a prank or suchlike, whereas with a Scientific Graphologist, surely he should be right or wrong, no excuses.” Hollis nodded slowly. “You’d need the right case, but I’d be very interested to see how that went.”

“So would I. I’ve been chewing over how the blighter does it for weeks. It would be good to confirm for sure he’s a fraud.”

“And handy if he turns out to be a genius. I wonder if he’d agree to the test?”

Aaron thought about Joel Wildsmith, who grew that moustache on purpose. “I think he might, if it was a challenge. If he didn’t, that would be telling in itself. Do you know, I’d blasted well give it a try, if I could find the right set-up.”

Hollis took a ruminative sip of beer. “If he failed, that would be pretty good evidence of making money by false pretences for the future, wouldn’t it? I might be able to help you with a case. Let me have a think.”

***

A ARON TOYED WITH THE idea of letting Wildsmith know about Paul immediately, and decided against it. Going to see him risked looking eager in some way he didn’t care to define, especially since he might be coming back if Hollis found a possible case to use as trial. Anyway, if Wildsmith had to worry a little longer, it would do him no harm and might cause him to reflect on the wisdom of making actionable claims about strangers.

He went back to work the next day, and was instantly presented with a case that drove the graphologist from his thoughts.

“Body in the canal,” he told Challice. She was looking rather drawn after yet another complaint of rape that had gone nowhere. He hated sexual offence cases: the shame and distress of the victims, the ugliness of the questions that had to be asked, and the frustrating difficulty of getting a conviction, still less a sentence that reflected the harm done.

DI Davis always put Challice on those cases. Aaron wondered if he realised how cruel that was. On darker days, he wondered if Davis knew it very well.

She deserved a bit of fresh air, he felt, which in this instance meant a corpse fished out of the Regent’s Canal. “Chap’s got a head wound so it needs looking into. Want to come with me?”

She beamed as though he’d asked her to dance. “I’d love to.”

The body was one Gerald Marks, going by a battered card-case in his pocket and a laundry mark. He was middle-aged, and looked decidedly shop-soiled, although a night in the Thames would do that to you. His coat had also seen better days, but he had a very nice gold watch in his fob pocket.

“Which is still there,” Aaron pointed out. “Wallet gone, watch left. If it was a robbery, it wasn’t an efficient one.”

The head wound was nasty, fracturing the back of the skull. “Could be a bludgeon, could be a paving stone. It was raining last night, so he could have slipped, and cracked his head. Not clear how he got into the canal, if that was the case.”

The sodden body lay on the towpath. They were both crouching by it in the mud, damply dusted by the relentless drizzle. The glamour of policing. Aaron looked around. “Maybe he tried to get up and fell in? I’ve seen people keep moving with worse injuries than this.”

“But his wallet has gone, all the same,” Challice said. “So, a robbery—or an accident, and a passer-by helped themselves to the wallet and shoved the body in?”

“Possible. Where was he found?” Aaron asked the uniformed constable who was hanging around, huddled under his rain-cape.

“Just where he lies, sir, only in the water. Close by the edge. A few of the boatmen fished him out with a hook.”

“Cause of injury?” Challice suggested, with a slight tang of disappointment. “When they wave those hooked sticks around, there’s a lot of force.”

“According to the chap who found him, ma’am, his head was already smashed,” the constable offered hopefully. Challice beamed at him. Clearly they both wanted a murder.

“We’ll need to have the coroner’s views on the head wound, and if he died from that or drowning,” Aaron said. “We’re not going to find any traces of his movements on the bank with all this rain and people fishing him out.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Not at all, Constable.” Aaron stood, wincing at the creak in his knees. “We’ll need a trawl done for witnesses, and the coroner’s report. Meanwhile, let’s find out a little more about Mr. Marks.”

The address on the business cards was close by, in Finsbury, a cramped dark building. There had been no keys on his person, but the building manager, who gave his name as Gillan, explained that he rented out his rooms as offices, and had spares.

“Mr. Marks dead,” he observed, searching through a drawer. “There’s a thing.”

“You don’t seem upset.”

Mr. Gillan shrugged. He was a skinny man who Aaron suspected bought gin before food, his grey complexion limned with red capillaries. “Didn’t see much of him. Didn’t want to. Not a line of work I like.”

“What did he do?”

“Stuck his nose into people’s business, that’s what,” Mr. Gillan said. “No offence. He was a private detective.”

“Was he indeed? Let’s have a look at his room, then.”

Marks’ office was on the first floor, but didn’t benefit from light or air, being a miserable dark space that was one dirty window away from being a broom cupboard. “Funny place to rent for a man with a nice gold watch,” Challice remarked as they looked around.

“Nothing wrong with my premises, miss,” Mr. Gillan said, the rebuke rather watered down by taking two goes at ‘premises’.

“It all needs a jolly good scrub,” Challice informed him severely.

“Excuse us, Mr. Gillan,” Aaron said, and waited for the landlord to withdraw. “Challice, look at this.”

He’d found a shelf of notebooks, identical cheap ones with thin ruled paper, each filled with the same handwriting and dated on the front. It crossed his mind, a fleeting thought, to wonder what Wildsmith might make of the hand.

“Marks’ records,” he said, pulling himself together. “This should be useful. If...” He went to the far end of the row, checked the book, started working backwards, frowned. “They’re all dated, but the last one I can find is three months ago. Have a look round for the recent ones, will you?”

They both looked. They went through the small room, the desk drawers, the piles and shelves and every scrap of space, and when they’d finished, Challice drew a long breath. “Nothing.”

“No notebook or any other record dated from the last three months.”

“Perhaps he hadn’t had any cases recently. Or perhaps—”

Their eyes met. Aaron said, “Let’s have another word with Mr. Gillan.”

The landlord had refreshed himself while they were engaged in the office: the smell of gin was pungent.

“Did Mr. Marks have many clients?” Aaron asked him.

“Not so I saw,” the landlord said without interest. “Not my affair.”

“Was he busy in the last few weeks?”

“Dunno. Well, he must have earned something because he paid his back rent and this month’s on time, no fuss, and that made a nice change.”

“He’d made money. Any idea from whom?”

“How should I know?”

“Have you a home address for him?”

Gillan found a ledger with the required information. As Aaron copied it down, Challice said, “Was he working here yesterday?”

“Nah, didn’t come in at all,” Gillan said. “Just last night.”

“He came here last night?” Aaron repeated. “What time?”

“I dunno. Midnight? Two?”

“Did you let him in?”

“Course not. He had keys.”

Aaron and Challice glanced at one another. “Did you see Mr. Marks come in yourself?”

Dogged questioning elicited that Mr. Gillan slept in a small cubbyhole to one side of the entrance hall. He had been vaguely roused last night by the front door opening, and someone going up to the first floor who must have been Mr. Marks because the other office was unoccupied. Mr. Gillan had not thought it necessary to get up and check. The individual had gone upstairs, stayed there for an unspecified time, and left, not troubling anyone on the way in or out.

“What did you think he was doing in the middle of the night?” Aaron enquired, and got only a shrug. Irritated, he added, “Do you not feel it your job to protect tenants from burglars?”

“What burglar? He had a front-door key, didn’t he?” Gillan said, taking offence. “Marks’s office was locked when we came up, wasn’t it? So what’s the problem?”

“A private detective with a nasty head wound in the canal,” Challice said, as they strode out of the stifling little building. “A new gold watch still on his person, and he’d been able to pay his rent recently. No keys on him, someone got into his office last night, and the records of his recent private detection are missing. Ooh .”

“Hold your horses,” Aaron said. “We’ll need a look at his home before we conclude the books are missing. And I’m not placing a lot of reliance on Gillan’s testimony. I wouldn’t like to put that fellow on the stand and have a defence brief demonstrate that he can’t tell last night from last month.”

“True,” Challice agreed, deflating slightly. “You don’t think he saw someone?”

“I’m reserving judgement till we see if Marks’s notebooks and office keys are safely at home.”

“Of course. But still...” she said with a tiny skip of excitement, and Aaron had to repress a smile. He remembered being a DC, feeling like that. It seemed rather a long time ago.

Mr. Marks had lived not far from his office, on Bunhill Row. The door was opened by a thin, tired woman. “Yes?”

“I’m Detective Sergeant Fowler, and this is Detective Constable Challice, ma’am.”

Her expression clamped instantly shut, though he’d seen that often enough not to draw conclusions. “What is it?”

“Is this the residence of Mr. Gerald Marks?”

“Yes.” She glanced between them. “He didn’t come in last night. Has something happened?”

Her name was Mrs. Trotter. She insisted on tea, reminding Aaron of Wildsmith’s almost resentful offer of the beverage, and waving away Challice’s attempts to make it, and then took off her apron and sat, hands wrung together, face pale.

Marks had been with her for ten years, she said. He was a good tenant but times had been tight over the last couple of years. “He was short a few times, but I trusted him. He paid me on time for this month, and my back rent, too. He always did when he could.”

“Had he a new case?” Aaron pressed. “A new client?”

“He didn’t talk to me about his work. A private detective must keep things private, he used to say, and quite right too.” She snapped her mouth shut illustratively.

“True. But unfortunately we do need to ask questions, so if you know anything—”

“Why?” she interrupted. “What happened to him? You said detectives. Was it—did someone—”

“We don’t know exactly what happened yet. It might well have been an accident, but we have to make sure.”

“Do you have any reason to suspect someone meant him harm?” Challice asked.

Mrs. Trotter drew back. “Well, he had a funny sort of business, didn’t he? That’s what he said. People hire you to ask questions other people don’t want asked.”

“Same as us,” Challice remarked, with a winning smile.

“Not on Mr. Marks’ saying,” Mrs. Trotter retorted. “He said there was plenty of questions the police didn’t want asked.”

“What sort of questions?” Aaron asked.

“ I don’t know. It wasn’t my business.”

She was clamming up; he could feel it. “Of course he couldn’t talk idly about his clients,” he said, trying to sound approving. “Sounds like he knew his stuff. What sort of cases did he mostly do? I tend to think of private detectives as mostly lost dogs and divorces, but perhaps that’s not fair.”

Mrs. Trotter bristled a little, as he’d intended. “Indeed it is not. Mr. Marks worked on some very serious matters. Miscarriages of justice, even.” She gave Aaron a significant look, which stung a touch. He hoped she had not recognised him from that dratted case in the papers; he still felt painfully self-conscious about the accusation.

“Really?” Challice chimed in. “Gosh, good for him. Was that recently?”

“No, it was not, or he wouldn’t have talked about it,” Mrs. Trotter said severely. “It was the case of poor Sammy Beech. If you know his name.”

It rang a bell, but Aaron couldn’t immediately place it. He had a feeling that admitting ignorance would be taken as an affront. “What was Mr. Marks’ involvement?”

“The family asked him to look into it, afterwards. They never believed what that man said of poor Sammy. Lot of lies,” she said with clear challenge.

Aaron wasn’t getting drawn into that. “I’d like to take a look at his room, if we may?”

Mrs. Trotter allowed it with a little reluctance. Marks had not lived with any more luxury than he’d died with; his room was sparse and worn, though clean, probably thanks to Mrs. Trotter. They didn’t find money, or jewellery, or fine clothes to make sense of that gold watch. They also didn’t find notebooks, papers, or anything relating to his work.

“So what do you think?” Challice asked as they made their way back to the station house.

“Right now, I don’t think anything. I want to know what the coroner has to say. I want to know who used his keys last night, and where he got the money before he died. And I want to find his notebooks. I think Mr. Marks has a great deal more to tell us yet.”