[Inspector de Silva 06] - Passage From Nuala Page 17

  **

  The next stop was the ship’s radio office. He reached it a little before eight o’clock, and it was already humming with activity. When he showed his badge to the chief radio officer and explained his connection to William Petrie, the man nodded.

  ‘If you’ll wait here, sir, I’ll see if we still have any of Mr Pashley’s instructions. If the dispatches you’re interested in are only a few days old, they may still be here. We usually keep them for a while in case of any queries.’

  He returned from a back room with several pieces of paper. ‘These are all we have, sir. If you need to take them with you, I’d be obliged if you’d sign for them.’

  De Silva put his signature to the form the officer prepared and hurried back to their cabin. Jane looked up as he came in. ‘Did you have any luck?’

  ‘Yes, look at these.’

  They read the dispatches together.

  ‘You must go to William Petrie straight away,’ said Jane when they’d finished. ‘Every reference to Diana March or hint about her in the ones you found in her cabin has been removed. She obviously rewrote Pashley’s originals to suit her own ends.’

  ‘What, go now? He might not even have breakfasted.’

  The determined expression with which he was very familiar came over Jane’s face. ‘If he hasn’t, his eggs and bacon will have to wait. This is important.’

  The steward on duty at the entrance to Cabin Class didn’t recognise him, so for once, he had to show his badge. Petrie’s door was opened by his manservant.

  ‘Mr Petrie is not able to receive visitors at this hour, sir.’

  De Silva raised his voice to a carrying tone. ‘Please send my apologies for disturbing him, but it’s imperative that I see him without delay.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Petrie sounded irritable.

  ‘Your name, sir?’ asked the manservant.

  ‘Inspector de Silva.’

  ‘Oh, let him in.’

  Attired in a burgundy silk dressing gown with gold facings, William Petrie sat at a table laid up for breakfast. Fragrant steam rose from a silver coffee pot, cut-glass dishes held English marmalade and neat curls of butter. There was a rack of appetisingly browned toast.

  His fork hovering over a plate of bacon and eggs, Petrie scowled. ‘Drat it, de Silva. This is a bit early, isn’t it? Lady Caroline’s not even up yet. What’s so important that you need to see me at this hour?’

  Putting out of his mind the thought that he would have liked some of that coffee to fortify himself, de Silva embarked on the story of his recent findings, beginning with the photograph of Diana March and Delaney, and the most important find of all: the evidence that Diana March had been doctoring Charles Pashley’s newspaper articles.

  By the time he reached the end, Petrie had pushed away his half-eaten plate of eggs and bacon. He got up from his chair. ‘You certainly know how to spoil a perfectly good breakfast, de Silva. I’ll need to think about this. I’m still not convinced we can rule Canon Ryder out, whether he committed the crimes with or without the involvement of his sister.’

  When de Silva explained what he had learnt from Doctor Brady about Ryder’s prospects, Petrie gave a grudging nod. ‘I’ll take that into account.’ He called his manservant who had been out of the room. De Silva wondered how much he had overheard.

  ‘Order some fresh coffee for Inspector de Silva, and whatever else he’d like, then come and shave me and help me dress.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’

  A short while later, de Silva was savouring an excellent cup of coffee and munching marmalade on toast. He felt considerably more cheerful than he had when he arrived in Petrie’s stateroom, yet a sense of apprehension hadn’t left him. Was Petrie going to be difficult? What would be his strategy then?

  Petrie emerged from the bedroom, immaculate in navy blazer and fawn trousers. ‘Lady Caroline bids you good morning by the way,’ he said. ‘Very well, you’ve introduced enough doubt into my mind. We’d better talk to Mrs March.’ He rubbed a hand over his smooth chin, glowing from his shave. ‘I’ll have to think of the best way of approaching her. Can’t just go and bang on her door. I’d rather not cause a commotion.’

  He turned to his manservant. ‘Take a message asking if she’ll visit Lady Caroline this morning. We’ll hope that does the trick. If not, we’ll have to think of another way.’

  Conversation died as they waited. De Silva wished William Petrie was less circumspect. He would have preferred to catch their quarry off guard.

  When half an hour passed, and the servant didn’t return, Petrie frowned. ‘What’s keeping the man? De Silva, you’d better go and see what’s going on.’

  At the entrance to the corridor where Diana March’s stateroom was situated, the servant’s expression immediately revealed that all was not well.

  ‘Mrs March isn’t there, Inspector.’

  ‘Does anyone know where she is?’

  ‘Her maid may know something, sir. She’s been fetched to Mrs March’s stateroom. Will you come and speak to her?’

  The maid de Silva had run into the previous evening looked up with frightened eyes as he stepped inside. One of her cheeks was badly bruised.

  ‘What happened?’ asked de Silva with a frown. He had a nasty feeling he could guess.

  ‘She said I’d broken her earring, sir. One of the pearl ones. I said I hadn’t, but she said who did then, and what was I doing snooping around in her jewellery box? I said I didn’t know anything about that.’

  The girl started to cry. ‘She got really nasty and slapped me,’ she said shakily. ‘She said I was lying. It just came out, sir. I told her I’d seen you in the corridor when I was taking her dresses out to be pressed. Maybe you had something to do with it. She wanted to know what you looked like. When I told her, she sent me back to my quarters and told me not to show my face again until she sent for me.’

  ‘Are any of your mistress’s clothes missing?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. Shall I look?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  The maid wiped her eyes and went into the bedroom. She returned a few minutes later. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I expect you know her wardrobe pretty well.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Has anything at all gone missing recently?’

  The maid paused for a moment, thinking. ‘She lost a cloak and a pair of gloves a few days ago. I asked if I should look for them, but she told me not to bother. They’d probably turn up, and anyway, she didn’t much care for them.’

  ‘Can you remember exactly when that was?’

  ‘Three or four days. I’m not sure.’

  De Silva groaned silently. If that was what Diana March had used to cover herself up when she stabbed Delaney, the cloak and gloves were probably at the bottom of the sea by now. She’d probably had another disguise ready for when she left the stateroom this morning. She knew they were onto her, and they didn’t have long to find her.

  Chapter 30

  Occupied with organising the search, de Silva hardly noticed the ship’s exit from the canal into the Mediterranean Sea. The searchers combed cabins and storerooms, public rooms, and the crew’s quarters. Even the lifeboats had their tarpaulins lifted to make sure that Diana March hadn’t sought refuge in one of them.

  ‘What I’d like to know,’ said Petrie, ‘is how she managed to get to the storeroom to kill Delaney. I think I’ll have a word with Arthur Chiltern. We can’t keep him in the dark for ever. I suggest you speak to that steward Ahmad.’

  Arthur Chiltern thought he remembered his fiancée leaving the ballroom after dinner, saying she had a headache and wanted to rest for a while. ‘He thinks it was about midnight,’ said Petrie, ‘but he can’t remember precisely what time she came back. Naturally, the poor fellow was very cut up, so it was hard to get a lot of sense out of him. What did the steward have to say for himself?’

  ‘He swears she didn’t return to her stateroom that evening before she came back with Arthur Chiltern. I’m
afraid he wasn’t sure what time she left this morning. The old fellow admits he might have dozed for a bit.’

  ‘Most unfortunate.’

  ‘I also checked with the steward who was on duty in the ballroom lobby. He recalls that when she left for a while during the party, Mrs March collected a cloak. He particularly remembers it because the cloak had been left behind a few evenings previously, and they’d been waiting for someone to claim it. However, he doesn’t think she came back wearing it when she returned to the ballroom later.’

  ‘What’s the relevance?’

  De Silva explained about the missing cloak and gloves. ‘I believe that having arranged to meet Delaney in the storeroom, she used them to protect the rest of her clothing when she stabbed him. I expect they’re at the bottom of the sea by now,’ he finished.

  ‘How would she get to the storeroom unnoticed?’

  ‘There are a few stairways on deck that the crew use to go between Cabin Class and Tourist Class. They’re only roped off, and Diana March doesn’t seem the kind of woman who’d be afraid of taking a risk.’

  **

  ‘No sign of her,’ de Silva said wearily when he took a break to report to Jane and gulp down a glass of iced tea in the lounge.

  ‘I’m sure someone will spot her if she tries to leave the ship at Port Said.’

  ‘I hope so. But she’s a clever woman. If she’s managed to elude us on board, I wouldn’t like to guarantee that she won’t give us the slip when we dock. I hope these Port Said police know their job.’

  He thought of the bustle down in Third Class, by far the busiest area of the ship. Searches had been carried out there, and they had turned up nothing, but it would be easy to lie low in those crowded conditions. He wished they had more time. He ran a finger round inside his collar. It was humid, and all this rushing around made him sweat. The stench of engine oil was still in his nostrils from his forays into the bowels of the ship to find out if any progress had been made down there.

  As they went out on deck to see if the city had come into view, seagulls whirled in raucous flocks, a cascade of white in the electric blue sky. It seemed to de Silva that their cries mocked his efforts; he gave them a hostile glance. Not far away across the water, sunlight gleamed on the waterfront buildings of Port Said. Minarets stabbed the sky, and a maze of buildings stretched into the distance, some low, others many storeys high. De Silva knew that those buildings and the streets snaking through them would be crammed with inhabitants. It would be easy for someone to disappear in this Tower of Babel.

  ‘Good, I’ve found you.’ William Petrie appeared at their side. ‘The Port Said police have their instructions. They’ll arrest Mrs March – or Sarah Betts if that’s really her name – if she tries to leave the ship.’

  De Silva didn’t feel confident. There were many gangways to patrol, and people tended to merge into an amorphous stream of humanity. ‘I suggest we post men with binoculars above the gangways, sir.’

  ‘Good idea. I’ll speak to McDowell.’

  The plaintive call of a muezzin drifted across the water; the city shimmered in the heat. De Silva felt a tightening in the pit of his stomach as he heard the engines cut. There was a blast from the horn as the ship edged onto her moorings. Ropes secured her, and gangways rumbled out.

  De Silva saw an officer go ashore to greet a group of uniformed men. Presumably they were the police William Petrie had sent ahead for. After a short conversation, they fanned out to the bottoms of the gangways. He hoped there were going to be enough of them to do the job. It would take a little time for the port authority to send officials on board to clear the ship for disembarkation, then the fun would begin.

  Chapter 31

  Sarah Betts studied herself in the mirror above the basin in the cleaners’ room. Her face was bare of make-up, and an unflattering net plastered her hair to her head – Diana March no longer existed.

  She stretched to ease the ache from the round-shouldered posture she had adopted all day and swung her arms. No one had taken any notice of the drab cleaner dusting tables and sweeping floors in the crew’s quarters since dawn. She had kept her head down and avoided conversation. It wasn’t the first time that the lazy-minded assumptions people made about others had served her well.

  In the toilet cubicle, she removed her pinafore, put the nondescript brown coat over her dress and buttoned it to the throat. She peeled away the hairnet and replaced it with a shabby felt hat, then kicked off the flat, baggy shoes she wore. With sudden dismay, she looked at the ones she had planned to replace them with. She hadn’t thought about it before, but they were too obviously new and expensive. She looked again at the ones she had just discarded; they were so shabby, they might raise suspicion in another way.

  Feeling a twinge of annoyance, she opened the Gladstone bag. It contained her few possessions, including a forged passport and a small toilet bag that held, among other things, a nail file. She took off one shoe and scraped at it with the file, paying the most attention to the toe and the heel. That was better; she began to mete out the same treatment to the other shoe.

  When Charles Pashley joined the ship at Calcutta, she’d realised he might need to be dealt with, and insisted that she and Delaney made plans in case they came under suspicion. He’d gone ashore at Colombo and bought old clothes for them both. Back on the ship, he’d stolen a set of cleaner’s overalls.

  At first, he’d kept what they needed in his cabin, but over the next few days, she’d smuggled the bag holding the clothes she would wear into her stateroom and hidden it at the back of the cupboard where lifejackets were stored. Luckily, the description Delaney had given her of the crew areas had been good enough for her to find her way around without raising suspicion. She had also been able to find a place to stow away what she didn’t immediately want to wear.

  The nail file tucked away, she patted the bag. The purse inside contained all the money she had. With his boasting about how much that old fool Venetia de Vere had lavished on him, she’d expected there to be more in Delaney’s wallet. She’d left the ring – the monogram on it would have made it too recognisable. Anyway, it probably wasn’t worth much. Her real insurance lay elsewhere. Under her corset, she felt against her skin the cool pressure of the jewellery Arthur had given her. To avoid attracting attention, she would start by selling the least valuable pieces.

  She stuffed the clothes she didn’t need into the rubbish bin in the corner of the cubicle and drew a deep breath. Time to leave.

  At the top of the gangway, she paused to let a woman struggling with heavy luggage, a baby, and a toddler go ahead. Her clothes looked cheap, and her hair was greasy. Sarah hooked the Gladstone bag over one arm and smiled. ‘Please, let me help. Will your baby come to me?’

  ‘Oh, thank you, but are you sure? You have your own bag and he’s quite heavy.’

  Sarah smiled. ‘I can manage. He looks such a dear little chap.’

  The baby’s lower lip wobbled as his mother handed him over, but Sarah smiled at him and hummed a little tune, and he forgot to cry.

  ‘You’re good with him,’ said the woman, a smile softening her haggard face. ‘Do you have children of your own?’

  ‘Sadly not.’

  As they moved slowly down the gangway in the queue of passengers, Sarah Betts thought of Harry Delaney. She supposed they might have had children one day. After they’d dealt with Arthur Chiltern, and she was the grieving widow, she and Harry would have had enough money to live in any way they wanted. She felt a twinge of sadness. If only he hadn’t lost his nerve and endangered their plans, the future might have been very different.

  As things turned out, in the end, she’d had no choice but to kill Harry. The drinking had been getting worse, and then there were the drugs. He’d become a liability. One day, he would make a mistake and give them away.

  She’d been angry when he failed the first time at the simple task of spiking Pashley’s drink and stealing his cabin key. Harry had sulked and said it was
n’t his fault, but she’d made sure he didn’t dare let her down a second time. The next evening, he’d had Pashley’s key in his hand when she came to the storeroom, and Pashley was barely conscious when she reached his cabin.

  He too had left her no alternative. Arthur Chiltern had been far too big a prize to let a grubby journalist like Charles Pashley expose her past and ruin everything. Attempting to silence him with money, even if she’d had enough to try, would have been useless. What he gloried in was power over others. She smiled, recalling his vanity over the importance of his work. He’d liked to use words to destroy others. It was fitting that words had killed him.

  Resting her cheek against the baby’s damp, silky head, she observed the two policemen at the bottom of the gangway. She had to get past them. Her heartbeat quickened. She forced herself to listen to what the baby’s mother was saying; to smile and nod as if they were friends.

  One of the policemen held up his hand and stopped the family just ahead of them. He made a great business of studying their papers. Fool, she thought. The woman’s so plain. She couldn’t possibly be mistaken for me.

  It would be their turn next. Her fingernails found a plump fold in the baby’s chubby arm and pinched it hard.

  The baby let out a volley of screams, and the toddler clutched her mother’s skirt and started to cry. As the baby’s screams grew louder, he began to convulse. Scowling, the nearest policeman beckoned them forward. Sarah bowed her head and brought it close to the baby’s, as if she was trying to comfort him. The policeman threw the briefest of glances at her passport then let her through. The mother followed with the toddler.

  ‘I think he wants you,’ said Sarah, handing the baby back.

  People standing around them moved away until there was a space around the little party. ‘The baby must be ill,’ a woman muttered to her husband. ‘You don’t know where they’ve come from. Keep away.’