uncomfortable.”
– GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
CHAPTER 3
THE THAMES
IN THE TINY sleeping quarters of the boat Morvoren, beneath the sheet of polythene that substituted for the missing part of the coach roof, the captain was preparing to abandon ship. His suitcase lay open on the bunk, and various items of apparel were strewn about on every flat surface, awaiting consideration by their distracted owner, who seemed inclined to fill up his case with books instead of clothing.
Rowan Rover looked reproachfully at his selection of summer trousers as if holding the garments personally responsible for their unfashionable condition. His late employment in tropical Sri Lanka had left him with a superfluity of lightweight trousers, which, given the few weeks’ wear per annum allowed by the English climate, threatened to outlast the millennium. They had been purchased at that unfortunate period in the history of couture when flared trousers were in fashion, and the ridiculousness of this bygone splendor no doubt contributed to their dogged indestructibility. He could have consigned them to the rubbish bin, and invested in more elegantly tailored apparel, but since financially and philosophically he could not bring himself to dispose of usable clothing, he had attempted to improve their appearance by narrowing the trouser legs himself, an act he undertook with more zeal than skill. Thus, he occasionally appeared to have one leg thicker than the other.
The trousers were in need of other types of alteration as well, because, as the years wore on, his girth increased, causing the trousers’ zippers to slip inexorably out of a securely closed position. After one disastrous attempt at trouser-widening, resulting in the complete destruction of the garment, he had given up the prospect of further do-it-yourself tailoring, and he now relied on safety pins inserted in the fly below the desired level of the zipper to protect him from embarrassing moments. He liked to think that no one noticed these little economies.
Rowan Rover selected two pairs of trousers, tan and black, and folded them carefully at the bottom of the suitcase, tossing on top of them as many shirts and undergarments as would fit without disturbing his cache of books: a British Heritage guidebook of Britain, a road atlas, a volume of English folklore, and a pocket encyclopedia of true crime.
The Murder Mystery Tour of Southern England would begin tomorrow, September 5, when he was scheduled to meet his charges-and the coach and driver-at Gatwick. The weather promised to be perfect. The English summer had been unseasonably warm (if this be global warming, make the most of it, he thought, paraphrasing an early American patriot), and current forecasts promised sunshine and balmy breezes for the next few weeks. Hence the need for his tropical wardrobe. In case the weather forecast was as inaccurate as usual, he would take sweaters.
He glanced at the list of people signed up for the tour: a dozen Americans, mostly from the West Coast, and one Scotswoman named MacPherson, from Edinburgh. It was the third name on the list that gave him pause: Susan.
His encounter with Mr. Kosminski (whom he still thought of as The Businessman) on the Ripper tour last March had faded in his memory to the insubstantiality of a bad dream. He had mentioned it to no one.
He remembered sitting in the Aldgate pub, making polite after-tour chitchat with the American, thinking he was about to be invited to lecture at some university, when, in the middle of his sip of Scotch, the man had plumped out his request: that Rowan Rover should murder his niece on the September mystery tour.
Rowan’s initial reply had been a coughing fit, as a swallow of Glenlivet took a wrong turn down his throat in the tension of the moment.
Aaron Kosminski smiled, while endeavoring to look concerned. “Can I get you a glass of water?” he asked pleasantly.
Rowan Rover shook his head, unable to trust his throat to produce words. He took several deep breaths, interspersed with more coughs, before he managed to wheeze out a reply. “Sorry. I must have misunderstood you. Were you talking about one of those murder weekends with actors, by any chance? I don’t do those.”
“I don’t blame you,” said Kosminski. “They always struck me as rather undignified.” He glanced around to make sure that Rowan’s coughing fit had not attracted any undue attention. Satisfied on this point, he continued, “I was, in fact, proposing that you should-how shall I put it?-practice what you preach. Confirm your morbid and childish fascination with murder most foul. Why don’t you give it a try? See what it’s like. It could give you all kinds of insight in your chosen profession.”
Rowan Rover stared at the man in amazement. He was the calmest and most reasonable of persuaders. Just so must the New York killer David Berkowitz have explained to the police about his neighbor’s dog, Sam, who told him to go out and shoot people. Kosminski had the serenity of Edmund Kemper, apologizing for accidentally touching the breast of the kidnapped woman he would murder an hour later. Rowan had met loonies before, but never one so cheerfully secure in his delusions.
As if reading his thoughts, Aaron Kosminski, still smiling, shook his head. “I assure you that I am quite sane,” he said. “After all, psychotics go out and commit their own murders, don’t they? They don’t hire people to do it for them. What I am suggesting to you is a simple business proposition, made to someone of good reputation-finances aside-who has no motive for causing the death of a total stranger from another country. That seems straightforward enough.”
Rowan Rover hazarded another sip of his Scotch. “You want me to kill your niece.”
Kosminski fingered his butter-soft leather gloves with a thoughtful expression. “Perhaps I could rephrase it. My niece Susan will embark on your murder tour of England this fall, and I would like her, while on this tour, to have a fatal accident, which shall be viewed by the police and all concerned as a regrettable but wholly unavoidable mishap. In return for your orchestrating this event, I am prepared to pay you the sum of fifty thousand dollars, whatever that happens to be in pounds at the time of the transaction.”
Rowan Rover blinked. “Why do you want to kill your niece?”
Kosminski sighed. “It is apparent, Mr. Rover, that you have never met my niece. But apart from aesthetics, the answer is the usual one: money. Dear Susan, her personal failings aside, has inherited the family money from her doting, but misguided grandfather. My father, a shrewd businessman, but with a dangerous flaw of sentimentality.”
“No family resemblance there, then,” said Rowan cheerfully.
Kosminski ignored the interruption. “Rather than sensibly investing this money into the family business, my niece Susan has decided to-as she puts it-retire.”
“How old is she?”
Kosminski’s frown deepened. “Thirty-six.”
“I see. So she has a good bit of time in which to frivol away the family fortunes.”
“We rather hope not, Mr. Rover,” said Kosminski with a piercing stare. “That is where you come in.”
Rowan squirmed under the businessman’s earnest stare. “Pardon my curiosity,” he said timidly, “but why bring me into this? Surely as an American you have access to any amount of professional assassins.”
Kosminski sighed. “Not in Minneapolis,” he said, in the tone of one who is loath to admit his hometown’s inadequacies. “Besides, hit men usually use guns, making it all too obvious that a murder has been committed. That would mean an investigation. What we want is an unfortunate accident. And the farther from home the better.”
“Preferably in rural England, I take it.”
“Precisely. When Susan announced that she wanted to waste yet more of her inheritance on this frivolous mystery tour, I came over to make inquiries. A background check on the proposed guide indicated that you might be eminently suitable for our purposes, and that the offer of a large sum of cash might be most welcome.”