The letter stated that the ground-floor flat at No. 22 Regent’s Park Terrace was worth £720,000; the first-floor flat was worth £795,000, and Adam Adams’s top-floor flat was worth £750,000. The letter’s author, Miss Catherine McGinley, went to great lengths to explain that the property was worth a lot more should it remain as three separate units. She stated that the combined value of the property, should it be sold as a single house, was around £2,000,000.
So the £750,000 value on Adam Adams’s flat did tend to fit in very neatly with Castle’s theory. The document itself also seemed to prove, at least in part, the contents of Judy Siddons’s statement.
When the photographer had finished shooting the corpse from every conceivable angle, Dr. Taylor sought permission from DS Irvine to move the body. He couldn’t examine it properly in its current position. As the SOC team still had a lot of work to do on the study carpet, it was agreed the corpse would be moved out into the hallway, hands and feet sealed in plastic bags to protect valuable bits of evidence. They placed the body, facedown, on a plastic sheet. The photographer took the opportunity to shoot the knife and the acute angle at which it had entered the body. Photographer’s work completed, the fingerprint chap dusted the handle of the protruding knife with his magic brush.
Kennedy was happy to see the corpse leave the room he was working in. He continued his examination of the desk. Along the left-hand side of the desk were a few bottles of Palladone, an earthenware pot with several pens, pencils, and magic markers. There was no diary, no journal, nor incriminating, or even revealing, notes of any kind, in fact.
At the centre of the desk, on top of the roll-top section, was a silver-framed photograph of Judy Siddons and Adam Adams. Both had wineglasses raised to the camera and both, Kennedy noted from the rosiness of cheeks and noses, were clearly quite inebriated. To the right of the photo was a green-glass-shaded desk lamp, which was still lit and illuminated Kennedy’s examination.
Kennedy went through the desk drawers. In one drawer he found a file full of documents, which obviously related to Adams’s work. Adam Adams worked as an engineer for Rail Track. His papers were mostly reports about steel strengths and endurance. The bulk (forty percent) of the file was expense sheets for his travels; none of these had been filled in.
In another drawer, Kennedy found several Formula One magazines, and in yet another drawer, which Kennedy unlocked with a key he found in the first drawer, he discovered about two dozen vintage Playboy magazines.
In a semisecret compartment, located just under the roll top, Kennedy found a ten-by-eight envelope that contained one piece of very incriminating evidence: a will, dated just five days earlier. In the will, Adams left all his worldly possessions, including the deed to the top-floor flat, to a certain Ms. Judy Siddons!
Strike two for Superintendent Thomas Castle.
In the corner of the room, to the right of the desk, was a Sony television, with an extremely compact DVD player placed underneath. Beneath that was a faux-wooden stand containing about three-dozen DVDs of various popular modem films, all filed neatly and alphabetically.
The room contained neither stereo system nor computer. The wall adjoining the desk wall housed a fireplace under a large countryside painting. Two easy chairs were positioned so the occupants could enjoy the soothing and comforting painting and the heat of a two-bar electric fire, cleverly fitted in the original hearth. The telltale dust shadows of the previous work of art on the wall testified that the painting was clearly a new addition to Adams’s collection. Against the final wall was a rather large, dark-wood antique unit, the location for various bottles of alcoholic liquid refreshments and several matching cut-glass tumblers, all stored behind smoked-glass doors. Either side of the unit was guarded by matching tall, modern floor lamps.
Kennedy, followed closely by Castle, ventured into the hallway to examine the body. The fingerprint chap had just finished his work.
“Any prints?” Kennedy enquired, without moving his eyes from the body.
“Yes sir, a very clean set, in fact,” the young police officer announced confidently, kneeling down again close to the body. “See,” he said, pointing to the end of the wooden butt closest to the blade and the blunt edge of the knife, “there... that’s a perfect thumbprint. And there, just there, to the left of the butt, that’s a perfect, sharp forefinger print... and then down...” he continued, pointing to his gently applied lycopodium powder, which had attached itself to the residue of human oils in the shapes of friction ridges of a fingerprint, “on the butt, the remaining three fingerprints.”
Kennedy noted the same and rose from the body, returning to the study and the position where the body had originally been discovered. He appeared to be looking closely at the azure paint on the wall just behind where Adams had been found. He located what he’d been looking for — a single shallow groove running down the wall from a height of about four and a half feet and stopping mysteriously eighteen inches from the floor. Kennedy took a step back from the wall and stared at it for a minute or so.
“Okay, sir,” he announced to Castle, “we’re done here; we can head back to North Bridge House now.”
“But...” Castle protested, visibly shocked, “aren’t you going to wait for Branson to return so you can arrest him and Judy Siddons? They’re so cocky about it. If you ask me, I’d bet he’ll turn up again at eight sharp.”
“No need, sir.” Kennedy replied, nodding goodbye to Irvine.
“No need, sir? What’s come over you, Kennedy? Are you going to force me to stay here and finish the case myself by arresting Siddons and Branson for murder?” Castle hissed.
One point in Castle’s favour, Kennedy thought, was that he clearly (and professionally) didn’t intend to show him up in front of Irvine and the rest of the team.
Kennedy returned the gesture by taking hold of Castle’s elbow and guiding him back into the hallway, where he said quietly, “No sir, I wouldn’t bother, if I were you. There’s really no need, no murder has been committed here. Adam Adams clearly committed suicide.”
Castle was about to protest when Kennedy added, “Tell you what, sir. You give me two minutes to confirm something with Dr. Taylor, brief DS Irvine, and then we’ll head back to North Bridge House and I’ll explain everything on the way.”
3
About three minutes later, when Kennedy rejoined Castle, the superintendent’s jaw was still hovering just a couple of inches from the floor.
“Okay, Adam Adams,” Kennedy began, as he led his superior down the grey carpeted stairs. “As I see it, Adams was a bitter and twisted man and he committed suicide. He staged his suicide as a murder to get his own back on a man he felt stole his girlfriend.”
“Oh Christy, please! Have you taken leave of your senses? Yes, yes, of course I can see someone being jealous over losing a girlfriend. But for a man to then go and kill himself just to get revenge on the new boyfriend, well, that’s just preposterous. If you ask me, that’s just stretching the imagination a wee bit too far, even for you, Detective Inspector.”
Oops, Kennedy thought, he must be really annoyed with me; he only refers to me as “Detective Inspector” when he’s extremely pissed off.
“What if Mr. Adams knew he had only a matter of months to live anyway? What would you think then, sir?”
Castle stopped in his tracks. They were just about to cross the road to the Blue Design Building, the home of Camden Town Records. From there they would cross Regent’s Park Road and then into North Bridge House, the headquarters of Camden Town CID. Kennedy looked Castle straight in the eyes and said: “Adam Adams was dying of cancer, sir. Remember Ms. Siddons said Mr. Adams was shying off dates with her claiming he was ill, and he was disappearing for periods for ‘treatment’?”