Chapter Ten
London
AMBROSE STOOD IN THE COLD RAIN ON THE GLISTENING pavement. Traffic on Lambeth Palace Road, just outside the south entrance to St. Thomas’s Hospital, was heavy. He was waiting for Inspector Ross Sutherland to appear. The man was a good ten minutes late and Congreve, who had spent the last four hours sitting by the comatose Mrs. Purvis’s bedside in a dreary wing of St. Thomas’s Hospital, was not in the sunniest of moods. He was about to step from the curb and hail a taxicab when the dark-green Mini Cooper appeared, careening around the corner at a high rate of speed and skidding to a stop one foot from the curb.
Sutherland club-raced the thing weekends out at Goodwood and Aintree and the car still had a large number 8 stuck to the side of the door. Ambrose had never in his life imagined owning a car, but he thought of buying one at that very moment. A dark blue Bentley Saloon, prewar, with walnut picnic trays that folded down in the rear. Yes. It would look lovely parked in the gravel drive at Heart’s Ease. He could motor out to Sunningdale for his Saturday foursome or to Henley on Sundays, pack a basket, a chilled bottle of good—
The numbered passenger door flew open and Congreve bent himself down and over, contorting his comfortably large corpus so that it miraculously folded inside the rolling deathtrap. His umbrella was another matter. It refused to collapse without a Herculean effort and snapped shut only after a pinched thumb and a few well-chosen words from its owner. Only then did Ambrose pull the door shut, find what comfort he could by adjusting the rake of the barebones racing seat, and acknowledge Ross Sutherland’s presence behind the wheel.
“He stoops to conquer,” Ambrose said with a wry smile, strapping himself in. He’d learned long ago that complaining to Sutherland about his beloved Mini was air he could save for more fruitful use elsewhere. Ross murmured something vaguely apologetic, noisily engaged first gear, and accelerated at an astounding rate of speed until he was able to insert the damnable machine into an invisible hole in the stream of traffic humming along Lambeth Road. Congreve ran his fingers through his damp thatch of chestnut hair, heaved a sigh of relief at getting out of the rain, and pulled his briar pipe from an inside pocket of his sodden tweeds.
“Sorry I’m late, sir,” Sutherland said, eyeing his superior out of the corner of his eye. “A holy fuss at the Yard and I couldn’t duck out until quarter past.”
“Late? Really? I hadn’t noticed.” Congreve was packing his bowl with Peterson’s Irish. His voice was flat. “I assumed I was early.”
“Well,” Sutherland said, shifting gears, his bright tone suggesting a change of mood and subject as well, “how is dear Mrs. Purvis getting along, sir?”
“Expected to recover fully, thank God.”
“What are the doctors saying, sir?”
“The bullet nicked her heart.”
“Good lord.”
“Left ventricle. She was extremely lucky. A centimeter northeast and she’d be bound for glory.”
“I’m so—sorry, Chief. I know how fond of her you are. Whoever did this—”
“Bastards.”
“Plural?”
“I may be wrong.”
Sutherland knew better than to even chance a reply to that one. Congreve was seldom wrong, but never in doubt. After ten minutes in heavy South East London traffic, they were making quite good time motoring south along the Albert Embankment. The clouds had lifted, forming a clearly defined purplish grey line beneath which lay a band of orange sky. The sun had dipped below the visible horizon and the Thames was bathed in a red glow, a long black barge chugging slowly downstream toward Greenwich. Eventually Congreve said, “Next turning. That’s it, right here. Moreton Street. It’s a shortcut.”
A few minutes later they pulled to a stop in front of Henry Bulling’s former home at Number 12, Milk Street. Large puddles of standing water dotted the street and the downpour had eased, replaced by a vaporous rain, cold and invasive. The house itself was a halfheartedly mock Tudor wedged between an ugly rash of modern bungalows and two-story boxes of variegated flesh-toned brick. Ambrose had been subconsciously hoping the Bulling residence would surprise him with a cheery, pleasant facade. It did not.
He still felt a twinge of guilt at his good fortune in the matter of Aunt Augusta’s will.
“Do you have the key?” Ambrose asked as they mounted the wooden steps. A few soggy copies of the Times and the Daily Mirror lay against the entrance. Congreve noted that the most recent edition was five days prior. Who had canceled service?
“Aye, here you are, sir,” Sutherland said, putting his murder bag down on the peeling floorboards and fishing the marked evidence envelope containing the key out of his pocket. Sutherland, sans the pleasant Highland burr, was a dead spit for an American. A former Royal Navy aviator, Hawke’s wingman during the first Gulf War in fact, Ross had the fresh crew-cut looks and brisk bonhomie one generally associates with England’s cousins across the sea. He’d turned into a fine copper, however, and the two men had notched a few successes together. Most recently, they had succeeded in identifying the murderer of Alex Hawke’s bride, the late Victoria Sweet. That foul murder, a grotesque act of vengeance, had occurred on the steps of the chapel as the beautiful bride had emerged into the sunlight. It still rankled, it still hurt.
Ambrose and Ross had cracked the case, true enough, but it was Ross Sutherland, along with Stokely Jones, who had brought the man to summary justice on a remote island in the Florida Keys.
Congreve and his colleague had retained Yard offices in Victoria Street, but both were on semipermanent loan from Scotland Yard, enlisted in the service of Alex Hawke on an as-needed basis. It seemed to Congreve that Hawke needed him constantly, as the boy was always getting into the middle of one scrape or another.
Ambrose, along with the Hawke family retainer, Pelham Grenville, had practically raised the child since the murder of his parents by drug pirates in the Caribbean. The boy had been just seven years old when he witnessed the murder. Congreve would never admit to it, even to himself, but his feelings toward young Hawke since their first meeting could reasonably be described as paternal.
Ross inserted the key into the lock and swung the seamed and weathered oak door inward. He paused and looked over his shoulder before crossing the threshold. Long shadows of purple dusk fell over the quiet street. The only sound was a chattering of starlings. Stunted beeches stood on the bare soaked ground in front of a few houses. If there were neighbors here on Milk Street, they were all hidden away inside, electric fires burning in the grate, huddled round the supper table or the telly.
“You didn’t sign that key out, did you?” Congreve asked Ross, switching on his powerful torch, and swinging it into the gloom of the front hall as he stepped inside.
“No worries, Chief. I just borrowed the key from Evidence.”
“Good lad,” Ambrose murmured his approval, glad as always to keep the Yard at arm’s length in these situations.
Congreve stepped inside and flared his nostrils, processing the myriad odors of the place. Tobacco, primarily (Henry smoked like a fiend) and pungent old carpet, seldom if ever hoovered. Dusty furniture and draperies, boiled beef and cabbage and Brussels sprouts from the back of the house where the kitchen would be. There’d been a cat at one point, perhaps several, and possibly a canary if the moldy scent of soggy Hartz Mountain seed was any indication.
Nothing surprising, really. No coppery scent of blood at any rate. No odd gases or poisonous chemicals.
There was one thing. A scent most startling to his finely attuned olfactory organ, a very faint trace of some expensive perfume. Odd. A female visitor? Yes. Sophisticated, and of sufficient means to afford les parfums Chanel. It was the new one, he thought, not the one he loved, No. 5. No. Allure. That was it. So she was younger rather than older, fashionable, and well-heeled, to boot. Henry? She must have had the wrong house.