‘Yes, he shot him in order to assist you, Inspector.’
‘I don’t remember calling for help.’
‘Nor would you have needed it,’ said Leeming. ‘I’ve never met the man yet who could get the better of you in a brawl, sir — not if the fight was on equal terms.’
‘In this case, they were very unequal, Sergeant. I had an unwanted marksman prowling along the side of the field. His finger was too quick on the trigger.’
‘The charge will never stick in court,’ warned Sir Marcus.
‘Which charge — the murder or the assault?’
‘You can drop the second one right now, Inspector. I’m sure that there’s been a misunderstanding. When my nephew first made the accusation, I wanted to dismiss it as a piece of frivolous invention. You, however,’ he went on, ‘have convinced me that this young woman might have sustained a few injuries but they would surely be the result of an unfortunate accident. Mr Tunnadine will make amends.’
‘The lady will not be bought off,’ said Leeming, staunchly.
‘All I’m suggesting is that she receives adequate compensation.’
‘How can you compensate a woman who has been robbed of her beauty?’ asked Colbeck. ‘Her front teeth were knocked out and she may never be able to see properly through one eye again. That’s not what I would call an unfortunate accident, Sir Marcus. Lucinda Graham has been deprived of her living.’
‘And what kind of living was that?’
‘She was Mr Tunnadine’s mistress.’
‘That’s a foul calumny, sir!’ roared Sir Marcus. ‘Do you think I’d let any man of doubtful character marry my daughter? Clive Tunnadine is a man of high moral standards — in fact, his father was a bishop. If some woman of questionable virtue tried to lead him astray,’ he said, ‘then I’m not surprised that he lashed out.’
‘We have an address, Sir Marcus. He is the registered owner of the house.’
‘He owns a large number of houses. It’s a major source of his wealth.’
‘This house has particular significance.’
‘Yes,’ retorted the other, ‘it contains a conniving young woman who probably sought to extract money from him and was — quite rightly — slapped down.’
‘I can see that you’ll hear no criticism of Mr Tunnadine,’ said Colbeck, levelly. ‘I admire your loyalty, Sir Marcus, but I’m bound to bewail your judgement. We’ll trouble you no further. All that we ask is that you tell us where we can find the gentleman so that we can make an arrest.’
Sir Marcus folded his arms and looked away as if refusing to cooperate with them. The detectives waited patiently. Realising that he could put himself in trouble, the old man eventually yielded up an answer.’
‘I can give you an address, Inspector, but he’s not at home.’
‘How do you know that, Sir Marcus?’
‘I sent a courier there not an hour ago because I was desperate to see him. One of the servants said that Tunnadine had left London and that the date of his return was uncertain.’ He gave a thin smile. ‘I’m sorry to rob you of the pleasure of what I’d describe as an unnecessary arrest. It appears that Mr Tunnadine is unavailable.’
Clive Tunnadine lay on a slab in the dank room that served as a temporary morgue at the police station in Crewe. Tiny pieces of white plaster had started to peel off the ceiling and drop down like unseasonal snowflakes. The windowpane was cracked. The smell of damp was pervasive. There were steep undulations in the paved surface of the floor. Beneath his shroud, Tunnadine was happily unaware of the shortcomings of his accommodation.
Twenty yards away, in another room, Alban Kee was giving his report of the incident that led to his employer’s death. The details were taken down laboriously by Sergeant Dean, a policeman in his late thirties with an ill-fitting uniform and a husky voice.
‘What happened then, sir?’ he asked.
‘The fellow got back into the trap and drove off.’
‘What about the man who fired the shot?’
‘He had a horse nearby,’ said Kee.
‘Are you able to describe him?’
‘He was too far away for me to get a good look at him.’
In fact, Cullen had been close enough to the private detective to knock him unconscious but Kee was not going to admit that he’d been taken by surprise. In his version of events, he’d been hiding in the ditch on the other side of the field, waiting to leap to Tunnadine’s assistance. Unpropitious circumstances, he claimed, prevented him from doing anything more than firing a shot after the departing kidnappers.
‘Why didn’t you pursue them?’ asked the sergeant.
‘What chance would I have against the two of them?’
‘You told me that you were armed.’
‘I felt that my first duty was to Mr Tunnadine,’ said Kee, piously. ‘I ran across to him in the hope that I could stem the blood and get him to a doctor but it was in vain. The shot was fatal. The bullet was lodged in his heart.’
He paused as if expecting a compliment for the way he’d behaved. Kee was also troubled by the persistent ache at the back of his skull. A large lump marked the spot where he was struck but he didn’t want to draw attention by putting a hand to it. The sergeant went through his notes and corrected a few spelling mistakes before looking up.
‘You’ve given a concise and accurate report, sir,’ he said, ‘and that very rarely happens when people have witnessed a murder. They tend to be far too upset to remember all the details.’
‘Nothing upsets me, Sergeant. I was in the Metropolitan Police for many years. I always keep my senses about me. In your position,’ boasted Kee, ‘I wouldn’t just sit around and question a witness. I’d be out looking for the killer.’
‘My men have already done that, sir.’
‘Oh — I didn’t realise.’
‘As soon as you arrived with the body,’ recalled the sergeant, ‘and gave me a brief account of what had occurred, I sent four of my constables to the railway station. As you so rightly pointed out, the fastest way to leave Crewe was by train.’
‘After what happened, they certainly wouldn’t stay here.’
‘You were preoccupied for a while with moving the corpse and talking to the undertaker so you were unaware that one of my men returned from the station. It’s not far away.’
Kee was on his feet. ‘What did they find out?’
‘They found what they always find — that Crewe is a busy junction with masses of people swirling around on the different platforms. Further to what you told me, I had them searching for two men in the company of two young women, one of whom was … very comely.’
‘Did they see anyone matching the description I gave you?’
‘No, sir,’ replied the sergeant with a melancholy smile. ‘They looked high and low but it was all to no avail. What we will be able to establish in due course is where they hired the horse and the trap, but that’s of little help. Like you, I’ve no doubt that the four of them fled by train. Unfortunately,’ he concluded, ‘we have no idea which direction they took.’
Lucinda Graham was overwhelmed by the kindness they’d shown to her. While others had turned her away, Dolly Wrenson had taken her in and George Vaughan had shown the same concern for her. The two women had been friends for years but saw each other infrequently. When they did so, they always compared the situations in which they found themselves. Dolly talked about the promising young artist with whom she’d fallen in love and made light of their relatively straitened living quarters. Yet she never envied Lucinda when she heard about the rich politician who kept her in luxury. Dolly could enjoy the company of her lover all day and all night. Lucinda was at the beck and call of a man who would arrive at the house without warning and expect her to meet his needs instantly. No amount of money would coax Dolly into such an arrangement, especially as she’d now learnt of Tunnadine’s fits of rage.
‘Why did you stay so long with a fiend like that?’ asked Dolly.
‘I suppose that I enjoyed the benefits too much.’