Corridors of Death Read online

  ‘Well, sir. I am extremely grateful to you for being so frank with me. I must be getting on now. I have several more interviews ahead of me.’

  ‘Goodbye. And remember, take up golf. It alters your perspective. Or are you anxious to be a Chief Superintendent?’

  ‘I’ll be lucky to stay a superintendent if I don’t get this case sorted out soon,’ said Milton and they exchanged smiles of understanding as he hurried off to find some lunch.

  Chapter Ten

  Amiss had felt light-headed as he walked into his office shortly after 9.00 that morning. He put it down to lack of sleep, excitement and a glorious sense of freedom from the demands of Sir Nicholas. Working for Douglas Sanders was going to be a doddle. It wasn’t just that he would be pleasant to his Private Secretary; he was known to be considerate about all his personal staff. Amiss looked forward to a future in which the office would run smoothly without his having to cajole, charm, inject team spirit and rally the troops ceaselessly to forestall the riot he always feared on the days when Sir Nicholas was in an offensive (bad) rather than distant (par) or patronizing (good) mood. They would even be able to get rid of the Greek typeface which Sir Nicholas had demanded for the golfball machine. Amiss had often wondered if the sod deliberately inserted Greek words into almost everything he wrote primarily because he knew they would annoy the recipients or because he took pleasure in the knowledge that they compelled Julia to change the golfball several times in the course of typing even one page. Amiss shuddered at the recollection of the rows that used to ensue every time Julia got a letter wrong. Nothing snapped Sir Nicholas’s cobweb-like patience so quickly as a misplaced omega. He could hear running through his memory the thrice-weekly tirade about cretins, universal illiteracy and typists who couldn’t read, let alone type.

  Only Julia was in the office, and Amiss could see that she was in good spirits. There was no crap about that kid. She wouldn’t pretend to be sorry about Sir Nicholas. She had already gone home on the previous evening by the time Amiss had got back to the office, so she was all set for a pleasurable chat about the good news. Her first words didn’t disappoint.

  ‘The old bastard had it coming. Any idea who did it? I’d like to get up a collection for him.’

  ‘You can put me down for a fiver.’

  ‘So it wasn’t you, was it? No. I suppose if you were ever going to do it, you’d have done it the time he made you cancel your holiday to go with him on that tour of Glasgow recycling works.’

  They fell to discussing the details of the murder, and Julia sighed contentedly as Amiss rehashed the details which had appeared in his morning newspaper.

  ‘I’m only sorry it was so quick. I’d have preferred him to die of slow poisoning.’

  ‘Ssshh,’ hissed Amiss warningly, as Gladys came stumbling in, plastic bags crammed with provisions from the supermarket, destined for reprocessing that evening into a meal for her unpleasant husband. Nose dripping, tightly belted coat setting off her thick hips and covering only partially the uneven crimplene hemline of her most unattractive dress, apologies and complaints tumbling from her in confused and overlapping sentences which betrayed not the slightest connection between brain and mouth (unless it was, as Sir Nicholas had been wont to point out—usually to her—that there was none of the former to be connected to the latter), Gladys was ready to give her best in the service of Her Majesty’s Government.

  Amiss gave her his commiserating look—for Gladys’s lot was too miserable at work or home to make encouragement more than an insult—and watched her absently as she divested herself of her top coverings, lamented over the torn lining, dropped one bag of shopping with cries of alarm, knocked her leg painfully on the corner of her desk, and settled down ready for her daily work of making a hash of the appointments diary and the logging of the endless flow of papers. It was Gladys’s malign fate to have been landed in the most fraught office in the building while being wholly unable to cope with its demands.

  Amazing as it seemed, she hadn’t heard the news. She had had Monday afternoon off to wait for the gasman—who, of course (Gladys’s ill-luck being constant), hadn’t turned up. And Gladys never listened to or read the news. She watched seamy soap operas and read romantic novels as an antidote to the dreary awfulness of her life. It took several minutes before he and Julia could stop her disjointed wails about the gas board and get the story of the murder through to her.

  Gladys went faint and had to be revived with a cup of coffee. Amiss felt he couldn’t stand it any more when she began to produce pious sentiments about the tragedy of it all and the blow it must be to his poor wife and son. If anyone should have been dancing on Sir Nicholas’s grave it was Lady Clark, but then, Amiss supposed, anyone who could be fond of a husband like hers was hardly likely to be a harsh critic. When she started on the generosity of Sir Nicholas in giving her a box of chocolates the previous Christmas, Amiss decided it was time to leave before a second murder was done.

  ‘Look after Gladys, Julia,’ he said. ‘Sanders won’t be moving up here until this afternoon, so I’ll have to go down and spend a few hours in his office this morning. Ask George to stand in for me when he gets in.’

  ‘What about a drink at lunchtime?’ asked Julia. ‘Seems to me we’ve got something to celebrate.’

  ‘Shut up,’ hissed Amiss savagely, fearful of the effect of such heartlessness on Gladys. But there was no danger there. Gladys was still maundering on about ‘cut off in his prime’. ‘Why not? We’ve all had a shock and a communal drink will help to steady our nerves. Have the office manned on a rota system. See you in the Cardinal at 1.00.’

  He picked up a batch of papers and escaped.

  Chapter Eleven

  He found himself a spare desk in Sander’s outer office and dealt with the urgent paper work. Sanders called him in at 10.30 to take notes at the regular Tuesday morning Deputy Secretaries’ meeting, which he was now chairing in place of Sir Nicholas. There were perfunctory expressions of shock and regret from the four Dep. Secs present. They were all too intelligent to put up more than an adequate pretence of being personally bereaved, but they certainly weren’t going to let their hair down in front of a junior colleague. (That they might do later—probably seeking each other out individually on pretexts and settling down to a series of cosy reminiscences. In all likelihood, there would be an informal competition to compose the best barbed epitaph.)

  It was a relaxed and pleasant hour. Sanders was helpful, constructive, and understanding about the problems caused by new legislation, under-staffing and all those other obstacles to achievement which Sir Nicholas had always discounted as feeble excuses. Only last week there had been a fraught ten minutes over the brief which Blows had sent in on a Monday morning, apparently the work of a palsied typewriter afflicted with quavering capitals and sticking letters. Sir Nicholas had held it up between finger and thumb and had ignored the information that Blows had had to write it—and type it with two fingers—over the weekend. He had almost succeeded in making the serene and accomplished Miss Beckett lose her temper by his open contempt for her wetness in allowing her subordinates to produce such messy work, garnished with the implication that as a woman she should at least be capable of overseeing the typing. It had been one of those meetings which left Sir Nicholas in excellent spirits and his colleagues sick with fury. None of that with Sanders, Amiss was happy to note. This was going to be a doddle.

  Amiss was back at his desk shortly after 11.30, ready to get down to what he had already decided was his main business of the day. If he was going to be a grass, he might as well be a super-grass.

  His first phone call, on a trumped-up excuse, was to a chatty man in the plastics recycling division. It was easy enough to manoeuvre Latham into talking about the people he knew who had been at the IGGY meeting. Latham had nothing to add to what Amiss already knew about Archibald Stafford, but he also knew Alfred Shaw pretty well.
Amiss was thankful that he didn’t need to appear inquisitive. Latham loved gossiping too much to need prompting.

  ‘… so I don’t suppose Alf will be too sorry about what’s happened. There was no love lost between him and Clark.’

  ‘But they didn’t know each other well, did they?’

  ‘No. It was just Clark’s habit of calling him “Alf”—and sometimes “Sid”—in that sneery way he had when he found himself in company with those he deemed proles. Otherwise it was just a matter of the odd clash at meetings. We kept Alf away from Clark as much as possible, and he was quite happy dealing with us instead.’

  That would be good news for Milton tonight, thought Amiss as he put the phone down. He wouldn’t want more motives. His next call—to the Private Secretary to Gerald Hunter, Secretary of State for Energy—was also encouragingly negative. It was obvious that Hunter would have had difficulty in recognizing Sir Nicholas if he met him in the street. Amiss couldn’t think of anyone who could tell him anything about Norman Grewe, Chairman of Industrial Electronics Ltd, but he was pretty sure he could be ruled out. He couldn’t think of any occasion other than the odd formal business dinner where they could have met. Grewe was a recent recruit to IGGY and wouldn’t have seen Sir Nicholas there more than twice.

  Amiss decided to give up on Grewe. He had only one suspect left to investigate—Martin Jenkins, the President of the Fitters’ Union. He doubted if there would be anything positive here either. Clark wouldn’t have any dealings with Jenkins in the normal course of events. Amiss had had to give a lot of thought to fabricating an adequate excuse to ring the department’s trades union adviser, but it was a risk worth taking. Cronin was as gregarious and gossipy as Latham and liked nothing better than passing on discreditable bits of information about those people on whom he fawned professionally.

  Cronin was in. That was a piece of luck. He spent most of his time hanging round trades union headquarters looking for juicy bits of scandal (and useful birds to pull. Eligible bachelor—he had no trouble. He was even a challenge—at the first dinner together, she always heard how his heart was broken ten years ago and he could never love again. That also provided a useful get-out when a more tempting prospect came in sight. The place was littered with women who had succumbed. This was his idea of keeping in touch with the grass roots.). He was delighted to hear from Amiss—so delighted that there was no danger of his doubting his reason for ringing up. They got the pretext over with quickly—Cronin giving Amiss the figure that was already staring up at him from a memorandum on his desk. Amiss fed him a few harmless bits of inside information on the happenings of the previous day, and the conversation came round to the trades unionists present.

  ‘At least they’ll be in the clear,’ he said. ‘Sir Nicholas never had much time for them.’

  ‘I’m not so sure of that,’ said a gleeful voice. ‘It’ll be fun if the police get to know about Jenkins and Sir Nicholas’s missus.’

  ‘What?’ yelled Amiss, temporarily off his guard.

  ‘Didn’t you know? It’s been the talk of the Fitters’ headquarters for ages. A life-long socialist bachelor falling for a classy piece like that? Dynamite.’

  Amiss knew perfectly well that Cronin was capable of making a scandal out of the sight of two people chatting at a dinner party, so he couldn’t take this at face value.

  ‘You’re having me on.’

  Cronin was piqued.

  ‘I am not. They’ve been seen lunching together several times and Jenkins’s secretary says they’re always ringing each other up.’

  ‘Well, stone the crows!’ Amiss doubted no longer. Cronin’s way with secretaries was legendary. He knew that the hand that controls the telephone has access to one hell of a lot of gossip. It was amazing how pathetically people trusted their secretaries. There were very few invulnerable to Cronin’s seedy charm, and the drinks he lavished on any likely source.

  ‘I suppose the police will get onto it eventually,’ said Cronin hopefully.

  Yes, you shit, thought Amiss. There’s nothing you’d like better than seeing your avowed friend Jenkins embarrassed.

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ he said. ‘They didn’t look to me as if they had much of a clue about anything. But then, I only saw them for a few minutes. They may have TUC moles for all I know. Anyway, thanks for your help with the Extrusion stats. I knew you’d be able to help. See you.’

  Amiss wondered if Cronin would ensure that the Yard got to know about Jenkins and Lady Clark and concluded that he wouldn’t. He would be too terrified of being spotted as the source and having his access to future scandal jeopardized. Did this come under the heading of urgent information of the kind Milton would need immediately? He thought so. The negative report on Alf Shaw could wait until the evening, but he’d better get a message about Jenkins through to Milton by the channels they had set up on their way to the tube the previous night.

  He couldn’t get away without a chat with one of Sanders’s staff, so it was almost 1.00—time for him to be off to the Cardinal—when he finally found an empty room with a telephone. He dialled the number he had been given and asked for Mrs Milton.

  Tuesday Afternoon

  Chapter Twelve

  Milton had grabbed a hasty lunch in a pub frequented by civil servants from neighbouring offices. He found himself compulsively eavesdropping on their chat about work and people—especially once he had overheard several disparaging references to Sir Nicholas. He had time for quiet reflection only on his walk back to the Yard, and during that time he concluded that the postcard was probably a hoax. After all, the Yard received dozens of anonymous missives every day accusing anyone of anything. It would be credulous to believe this one. Still, he would have to go through the motions with Lady Clark and Martin Jenkins, though he would have to go very carefully. They would have every right to lodge an official complaint if they were interrogated closely on their private lives on the strength of an unsubstantiated allegation. Milton knew Jenkins’s reputation as a hard man, and Lady Clark would have the protection of her new status as grief-stricken widow.

  It was ten to two when he reached his office. Romford was waiting with details of new appointments he had made and confirmation of double- and treble-checked alibis; the list of possible murderers from IGGY still remained at eight. He had a message asking Milton to ring his wife urgently at a Soho restaurant. Knowing that when Ann said urgent she meant urgent, Milton told Romford to hold Archibald Stafford for a few minutes and rang the restaurant. Fortunately the staff knew Ann well. She did most of her business entertaining there. She was on within a minute.

  ‘Darling, your young man has been on to me already. He rang just before one. I liked him. He identified himself as Deep Throat.’

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Milton.

  ‘Just “Tell Jim the word is that Jenkins and Lady C. have been having it off.”’

  Milton thanked Ann and rang off. Since he couldn’t admit to a source, he wouldn’t be able to use this information directly, but it would certainly make him easier in his mind while taking the necessary risks with the errant pair. He sighed. He didn’t really enjoy playing the heavy policeman, especially when it involved prying into intimate relationships. Still, he wasn’t being paid to have finer feelings. He would harden his heart before he saw Lady Clark at six. Now he had better focus on Archibald Stafford and his imminent departure from the Plastics Conversion Company.

  Stafford was every envious little person’s idea of a prosperous man. From his hand-made shoes to his elegant hair he was spotless, faultlessly groomed and sweet-smelling—Colour-Supplement Man made flesh. He carried a hand-tooled leather executive case with brass trimmings, and Milton made a private bet with himself that his car boasted a television set and a cocktail cabinet. He tried not to dislike him.

  It wasn’t too hard. The first few routine minutes showed Stafford to be quit
e simply a nice man. Milton thought that he probably dressed like a prat because he thought it necessary to impress. There wasn’t any difficulty in getting the story of the government grant out of him. It was just a matter of well-placed questions about his professional relations with Sir Nicholas and the closeness of the links between his company and the department.

  Not that this frankness meant anything, necessarily. Stafford might be nice, but he was clearly sensible as well, and had no reason to doubt that the police would hear about the circumstances of the grant from some civil servant or other. He didn’t, of course, know what Amiss had known about the importance of Sir Nicholas’s role in the affair, but he admitted his suspicions.

  ‘I did wonder, Superintendent, if Nicholas had been entirely frank with me. He assured me frequently that he was taking a personal interest in getting the grant approved, yet he never gave me any word of warning of what was going to happen. If I had had any foreknowledge I could have made a proper case for myself. I had been concentrating on making a case for the company.’

  ‘Did you tax him with this?’

  ‘I rang him at the weekend and asked him why he had said nothing. He was very stiff. Talked about departmental confidentiality and made me feel as if I had been improperly trying to pull strings. That was a distortion and I felt very sore about it. I never tried to misuse my friendship with Nicholas. He claimed to have a high opinion of my managerial talents and I reasonably assumed that he would pass this on.’

  ‘Did you have a row?’

  ‘Nicholas wasn’t the sort of man you could have a real row with. He just went stiffer and stiffer and more and more pompous and ended the conversation by saying he wished to express his regrets at my misfortune and hoped that when I had had time to get over it we could have lunch again.’