“Café? It burned down over the weekend. Electrical fire, I heard.”
Finn was pleased Tito had come through, just like he’d promised. No more deportations instead of paying wages.
But she was really going to miss those espressos.
The Case of the Smoking Knife
by Paul Charles
Paul Charles had a successful career in the music business before writing his first novel in 1996. The book featured Inspector Christy Kennedy, who starred in nine more novels, the latest 2008’s A Pleasure to Do Death With You. Kennedy’s run continues in short stories such as this locked-room tale. The author’s most recent novel is St. Ernan’s Blues.
1
As mysterious deaths go, this one was unique; unique for three reasons, really.
First off, the resultant investigation was fresh, so fresh, in fact, that the victim’s blood was a darker shade of crimson and still tacky when Detective Inspector Christy Kennedy and Superintendent Thomas Castle arrived at No. 22 Regent’s Park Terrace. The second reason was that the very same superintendent had chosen to accompany Kennedy on this particular investigation. The third reason was the fact that the victim had apparently met his maker in a room locked from the inside.
The deceased, a single, fifty-four-year-old man, occupied the top-floor flat in the address listed above, which rested on the borders of Camden Town and Regent’s Park. He was called Adam Adams — Kennedy liked such names if only because they were immediately very easy names to remember. Names the Ulster detective could put together with a face on a first meeting and remember for the rest of his life.
Mr. Adams, however, would never have the pleasure of meeting Christy Kennedy. A fact quite extraordinary in itself because Mr. Adam Adams would occupy Kennedy’s every thought from this first sorry meeting until the detective and his effective Camden Town CID team had solved the mystery of his very recent demise.
In Kennedy’s book this was quite possibly the perfect case. He already had a witness, be it only a witness to the audio, in the shape of Ms. Judy Siddons. Ms. Siddons, in turn, had very conveniently, albeit unintentionally, handed Kennedy a prime suspect in the shape of Mr. Darren Branson.
But wasn’t it all just a wee bit too cushy, Kennedy thought, to be able to solve the mystery within a matter of minutes of arriving at the scene? On paper, at least, things couldn’t get very much better. Not only that, but if he was so inclined — which he wasn’t — he was also going to enjoy a chance to showcase his expertise in front of his superior. The very same Superintendent Castle had been in Kennedy’s office for their weekly cup of tea and catch-up on various professional matters. That particular week, their main topic of conversation was the increase in street crime, particularly in the Camden Town area. The superintendent laid the blame squarely at the cold, but clean, doorstep of Number 10. “What do the PM and his cronies expect to happen when they force us — with all these cuts — to take our officers off the streets? Sir Robert would turn in his grave. He surely would, Christy.”
Kennedy wasn’t so sure it was quite as simple as that, and he was about to say so when his phone rang with news, potentially, of another of those crimes they’d been discussing. This one, in fact, was almost right on their well-trodden doorstep. Castle didn’t really surprise Kennedy by wanting to accompany him to visit the scene of the reported crime — its close proximity being the single most important factor.
Within a matter of minutes, they were outside 22 Regent’s Park Terrace, the hundred-year-old attached house very close to North Bridge House — the home of Camden Town CID. Kennedy looked at all the For Sale signs in the neighbourhood and wondered how all the police activity and discovery of a dead body might impact the local house prices.
Kennedy and Castle were immediately introduced to the principal witness — Jean Siddons. Ms. Siddons looked like the kind of single, glamorous, mid-fortyish woman you’d meet at a wedding reception and wonder why she was still single. Up close she looked as striking as she would have looked from a distance, blowing wide apart another of Kennedy’s quaint theories.
Not a blond hair of her dated Farrah Fawcett-Majors hairstyle appeared out of place. This was a major feat when you considered the fact that the original concept worked only because you were led to believe that each and every hair was, in fact, out of place.
Ms. Siddons’s makeup expertly transformed (Kennedy imagined) a plain-looking face into quite a stunning one. She had the kind of look and figure that out-of-work actors (and Superintendent Castle) positively drooled over. The secret of such ladies’ success was their ability to compartmentalise their sexual charms and favours. Ms. Siddons was wearing a pair of ice-blue, figure-hugging bell-bottom trousers. Kennedy wondered if people who still wore figure-hugging bell-bottoms these days were trying to hide chunky ankles. The detective also noted that Castle’s stares concentrated on Ms. Siddons’s ample bosom, which was only partially concealed beneath a low-cut, white, sleeveless top.
Kennedy also wondered if his superior was so distracted by this vision that he was unable to concentrate on the witness’s information. “Let’s go back to the beginning, shall we?” he began, proving that at least one of them wanted to spend some time collating all the details available.
“They were always at it, always arguing. Every time Darren met Adam on the stairs, Adam would start mouthing off. With only the three of us living in the house, it was getting pretty unbearable, I can tell you.”
“Let’s try going a wee bit further back than that, shall we? What were they generally arguing over when they met on the stairs?” Kennedy continued, the fingers of his right hand slowly flexing of their own accord.
“Why, me, of course,” she replied simply. “They were always arguing over me.”
Judy Siddons spoke in a voice that exactly matched her demeanour. She spoke perfect Queen’s English with just the slightest hint of a French accent, which made her sound very sensual. Castle had, Kennedy never doubted, picked up on this point at least.
“You?” Kennedy asked.
“You find it so hard to believe two men would argue over me?” Ms. Siddons offered immediately, as her (and Castle’s) eyebrows rose, respectively, in disbelief and sympathy.
“No. No. Not at all.” Kennedy stuttered, playing for time. “I mean, I was just a little taken aback that you were prepared to be so honest about it.”
Castle started to say something but at the last moment didn’t, pausing only to shoot Kennedy a “Be careful!” stare.
“What is there not to be honest about?” she replied, with a wry smile. “But here, I can tell you the whole thing from the beginning. It’s not even that it’s a big secret or anything — you could have found all this out for yourselves elsewhere.
“I bought this flat about eleven years ago. The market was a bit high at the time, in point of fact — if I’d been as lucky as Adam and managed to buy it five years earlier I’d have made a killing. But right after I bought mine, the property market slowed down a little and then hit the big slump that it hasn’t really fully recovered from. As I say, Adam was already upstairs when I moved in. We pretty much ignored each other for the first four or five years.”
This time it was Castle who shot Ms. Siddons a look of disbelief.
“It can happen, you know,” Ms. Siddons offered, resuming her narrative as she played with a stray curl. “You can move into new accommodation and immediately become the outsider. Apart from which, you already have your own group of friends you’re preoccupied with, so it’s not so much you can’t, it’s more that you don’t even try to make a connection. But before you know it, a considerable period of time has passed. In this case, we’re talking about four years or so.”