“Nothing much,” I said. “Forget it.”
I had wanted to ask Sergeant Murray for more details about my mother’s demise, but I wasn’t going to ask his boss. I didn’t want to give the chief inspector the pleasure of refusing to answer, as I was certain he would.
“We need to ask you some more questions,” he said.
I hoped the questions weren’t about bundles of cash in a missing rucksack.
“What about?” I said. “Can’t it wait until after I’ve finished work?”
“No,” he said with no apology.
“Sorry, Luca,” I said. “Can you and Betsy set things up?”
“No problem,” Luca said.
The policemen and I wandered down away from the grandstand to a quieter area.
“Now, Chief Inspector,” I said, “how can I help you today?”
“Did your father tell you which hotel he was staying at in London?” he said.
“No,” I replied truthfully, “he did not.”
“We have been unable to find any hotel where someone called Grady or Talbot checked in,” he said.
“He told me that he’d only recently arrived from Australia, but not exactly when. Perhaps he arrived that morning and came straight to the Ascot races.”
“No, sir,” said the chief inspector. “British Airways have confirmed that he arrived from Australia on one of their flights, but that was the previous week.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but the first time he contacted me was on the day he died.”
“According to the airline, when he arrived at Heathrow, he had a piece of hold luggage with him,” the chief inspector said. “We have been unable to trace it. Did he give you anything? A luggage receipt, for example?”
“No,” I said, “I’m afraid not. He gave me nothing.”
Why, I wondered, didn’t I just tell them I had the luggage? And the money, and the other things. There was something that stopped me from doing so. Maybe it was a hope that my father was not, in fact, a murderer as everyone seemed to think, and the only chance I might ever have of finding out was somehow connected with the dubious contents of that rucksack. Or perhaps it was just down to my natural aversion towards policemen in general and Detective Chief Inspector Llewellyn in particular.
“Do you have any further recollection of the person who attacked you?” he asked.
“Not really,” I said. “But I am sure he was a white man, aged somewhere in his mid to late thirties, wearing a charcoal-gray hoodie and a dark scarf. And he wore army boots.”
“How about his trousers?” the chief inspector asked.
“Blue jeans,” I said.
“A distinctive belt or buckle?” he said.
“Sorry, I didn’t see.”
“Any distinguishing marks, scars or so forth?”
“None that I could see,” I said, again truthfully. “I think he had fairish hair.”
“How could you tell if his hood was up?” asked the chief inspector.
“Thinking back, I believe I could see it under the hood.”
“Long or short?” he said.
“Short,” I said with certainty. “It stood upright on his head.”
“Mmm,” he said. “You didn’t say that on Tuesday night.”
“I hadn’t remembered on Tuesday night,” I said. Or seen it, I thought.
“Could you do an e-fit for us?” he asked.
“An ‘e-fit’?”
“A computer-made image of the killer,” he explained.
“So he did actually kill my father?” I said somewhat sarcastically. “The post-mortem results are in, are they?”
“Yes,” he said. “According to the pathologist, your father died from two stab wounds to his abdomen, one on each side of his navel. They were angled upwards, penetrating the diaphragm and puncturing both his lungs. It was a very professional job.” To my ears, it sounded like the chief inspector almost admired the technique employed. There was certainly no sorrow in his voice that it had resulted in the loss of my parent. To him, I suppose, a murderous villain had got his just desserts after thirty-six years on the run.
“So what happens now?” I asked.
“About what?”
“My father,” I said. “Can there be a funeral? And how about any family he may have in Australia? Have they been informed?”
“I understand the Melbourne police have been to his home address,” he said. “They found no one there. It seems your father lived alone, under the name of Alan Grady.”
“But he told me he had two daughters from a previous marriage,” I said. “Has anyone told them?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” he said. His tone indicated that he didn’t consider it in the least important. And he might have been right. According to my father, even he hadn’t seen my sisters for fifteen years. They could be anywhere.
“How about the funeral?” I asked.
“That will be up to the coroner,” he said. “The inquest will be opened on Monday. You should have received a summons to attend by now.”
I thought about the pile of unopened letters on my hall table. The opening of my mail, or rather the lack of it, was another of my failings. On a par with failing to eat properly, or at all.
“Why do they need to summons me?” I said.
“For identification purposes,” he said. “You are the deceased’s next of kin.”
So I was, I thought. How strange to be next of kin when, for all my life, I hadn’t even known that I had any kin, other than my aged grandparents.
“But isn’t it a bit soon to hold an inquest?” I said.
“It will only be opened for formal identification of the deceased and then it will be adjourned to a later date,” the chief inspector said. “The coroner may issue a certificate for burial. But that will be up to him.”
Formal identification could be interesting, I thought. Talbot, Grady, or Van Buren, Willem.
“As next of kin, is it my job to organize the funeral?” I asked.
“Up to you,” he said. “It’s usual but not compulsory.”
“Right,” I said. I looked at my watch. “Is there anything else?”
“Not for now, Mr. Talbot,” said the chief inspector. “But don’t go anywhere.”
“Is that an official request?” I asked.
“You know, there’s something about you I don’t like,” he said.
“Perhaps you just don’t like bookmakers,” I said back.
“You are so right,” he said. “But there’s something else about you.” He jabbed his finger in my chest.
I thought he was trying to intimidate me, or perhaps he was hoping to provoke me into saying something I would regret. So I simply smiled at him.
“I can’t say I’m very fond of you either, Chief Inspector,” I said, staring him in the eye. “But I don’t suppose it will cloud the professional dealings between us, now will it?”
It certainly would, I thought. At least, it would on my side.
He didn’t answer the question but turned on his heel and started to walk away. But he only went three paces before turning and coming back.
“Don’t pick a fight with me, Mr. Talbot,” he said, his face about six inches from mine. “Because you’ll lose.”
I decided that silence here was the best policy.
Eventually, he turned again and walked off.
“Be careful, Mr. Talbot,” the detective sergeant said to me in a more friendly tone. “He doesn’t like to be crossed.”
“He started it,” I said in my defense.
“Just take the warning,” he said seriously.
“I will,” I said. “Thank you, Sergeant.”
“And I’d also watch my back, if I were you,” he said.
“Surely Chief Inspector Llewellyn is not that malicious?” I said jokingly.
“No, not quite,” he said with a smile. “But I was really thinking about the man who killed your father. You were a witness to that, don’t forget. I just wouldn’t walk down any dark alleys alone at night, that’s all. Witnesses to murders are an endangered species.” The smile had left his face. He was deadly serious.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” I said again. “I’ll take that warning too.”