Murder in All Patience
Chapter 1
Detective Sergeant Kathleen Doyle walked up the front steps of the modest house on Hay Street, accompanied by Officer Wilson. They were making a Notification Call, which was the unhappy task of delivering the bad news to the closest relatives of a person who’d lately been murdered.
In the usual course of things, Doyle investigated high-profile homicide cases for Scotland Yard’s CID, but—being as she was quite pregnant, at this point—her husband had insisted she retire from field-work, and since that selfsame husband was a Chief Inspector and out-ranked her, he’d won this round. Truth to tell, in the normal course of events she wouldn’t have minded slowing down a bit, save that there was something brewing, ’neath the ordinary day-to-day rhythm of their lives. She could feel it—feel the undercurrent, as though someone had pulled back a bow-string, and was waiting to let the arrow fly.
Which may have sounded fanciful, but was not; Doyle was what the Irish would call ‘fey’, and could truly sense such things—impending trouble, mainly. And in addition—or mayhap as part-and-parcel of this ability—she’d a very keen perceptive ability that allowed her to read people, and sense their emotions—even when they were trying to conceal them. Which was a very handy talent when it came to homicide cases, and half the reason she’d a stellar track-record of nicking the villains.
But since she was on the verge of another maternity leave, instead of being assigned to a specific homicide file she’d been filling-in where needed—working community outreach assignments and doing dull-as-ditchwater desk-work—which meant she was more than willing to go out into the field today, even if it meant this rather grim assignment. One of the regulars on Notification Detail was out with an illness, and Doyle had been asked to accompany Officer Wilson, since a Notification Call required two officers—standard practice, whenever the CID interacted with the public; you never knew when the notification process might turn-up a spot of trouble—not to mention that oftentimes the grieving relatives could cast some light on a pending case.
But nevertheless, Notification Detail was not for the faint of heart—which was why Officer Wilson had been happy to buttonhole Doyle so as to lend an assist. It took a special sort of person to deliver unwelcome information that would abruptly change someone’s life—and not for the better. The usual officers were trained in handling such things, and could capably steer the shell-shocked toward counseling and other public services, if needful.
Of course, Notification Detail was particularly difficult for someone like Doyle—who would have to steel herself against the wave of shock and grief that would emanate from the recipient—but since no one knew of her perceptive abilities save her husband, she’d agreed without demur and hoped she’d be able to be of some comfort. Theirs was a grim business, but they were fighting the good fight—even though the carnage sometimes seemed unending, and the odds impossible. In truth, this was the main reason Doyle was so reluctant to leave the field to go on maternity leave—she and Acton had a stellar record of crime-solving, and London was a safer place when they were out in the field together.
Not to mention she’d the sense that she’d best try to keep abreast of whatever-it-was that Acton was up to. Lately she’d discovered that the illustrious Chief Inspector was being blackmailed, and forking over large sums of money to a no-account Frenchman named Gerry Lestrade. Lestrade was a lower-echelon criminal, but more importantly he was brother to Philippe Savoie—one of their friends, and a higher-echelon criminal. Not that a Chief Inspector should have a higher-echelon criminal as a friend in the first place, but here we were, and it was not completely unexpected—Acton being who he was.
Shortly after her whirlwind marriage, Doyle had discovered that her wedded husband—a famous figure, and much-celebrated by the public—was something of a vigilante, in that he had no qualms manipulating evidence to gain the end result he desired. Even more shocking, Acton would arrange for the occasional murder, if he felt it was warranted—the man held a title that dated back to the Conquest, and came from a long line of noblemen who’d imposed their own notions of justice with an iron will.
Thoroughly alarmed by this discovery, Doyle—who was Irish-Catholic in the best tradition—had spent much of her marriage trying to coax her volatile husband onto a better, more law-abiding path. And she’d been largely successful, mainly because the man was devoted to his unlikely bride—that same iron will had, oddly enough, fixated on the fair Doyle, and this fixation gave her the power to beat-back his bloody-minded impulses. It was only a partial victory, though; he may not be wreaking havoc like he was wont, before they married, but she’d come to realize that he was always masterminding some project, nevertheless—something that he was hoping would go unnoticed by his bride.
And one of those projects seemed to involve allowing the likes of Gerry Lestrade to blackmail him. That Acton was allowing this strange situation to go forward went without saying—Doyle well-knew that her husband could make Lestrade sink from sight in the blink of an eye. In this instance, though, apparently it served his ends to meekly submit to the wretched man. But why? Acton was not one to knuckle-under—not to anyone—so something was afoot, and she’d best find out whatever-it-was; after all, it seemed her role was to try to save her husband from himself.
The logical assumption, of course, was that Acton was waiting for something to play out—it would explain why he was submitting to blackmail; he was patiently biding his time. And a further logical assumption was that it involved Savoie—Acton wanted to keep whatever-this-was from Lestrade’s older brother, since the notorious Philippe Savoie served as his partner in various questionable enterprises.
Although—on further reflection—this premise seemed somewhat unlikely to her; Acton was not a sentimental creature, who’d try to protect Savoie from the knowledge of his awful brother’s double-dealings. Instead, Acton was almost alarmingly ruthless—more so before he’d married her, of course, but at his core, Acton took no prisoners.
So; whatever-it-was, her trusty instinct was telling her she’d best sort it out; she’d a feeling that this one was a doozy. In the meantime, however, she’d best pay attention to the somber task before her—the bereaved family whose lives were about to be blown to smithereens.
Hard on this thought, Officer Wilson glanced at her before knocking on the door. “This one may not be too upset—the decedent was a second cousin, and they had to look hard to find a next-of-kin.”
“Got it,” said Doyle, relieved by the news. She’d been told the victim in this particular file had been killed during a drug-deal gone bad, which was somewhat unusual because such things usually happened in the poorer Boroughs, and this one took place in Richmond-Upon-Thames. But it did happen, sometimes; the person arranged to have a seedy dealer come meet them in the hope that no one from their own circle would find out about it, not realizing that seedy dealers weren’t going to play by their own circle’s rules.
Next-of-kin, however, lived in a more modest neighborhood, and the door was promptly opened by a man in his early forties, who’d been already informed to expect them.
“Mr. Cooperton?” Officer Wilson asked.
“Right; come in,” the man said, his manner brimful of curiosity. “What’s up?”
Bluff and burly—with a square-shaped head, thought Doyle, sizing him up. The pattern-card for a happy warrior, and the kind of man who always makes the police a bit nervous.
“Perhaps we should sit down,” Officer Wilson said in a practiced, sympathetic manner. “We have some unfortunate news.”
“All right,” the fellow replied, eying them as they settled into the sitting room chairs. “Do I need a lawyer?”
“No—we’re here to inform you that Mr. Hastings Brandt was killed two days ago.” The officer paused, and added with all sympathy, “I am so sorry for your loss.”
The man raised his brows in surprise. “Brandt in Brixton?” he asked, and then could not conceal a broad smile. “No—really?”
“You were not aware?”
“No—not that I’d have been told in the first place. Hardly knew the fellow—I think I met him once at a funeral.” Thinking about this, he chuckled.
Unable to contain herself, Doyle said with a hint of censure, “It does seem a shame; he wasn’t very old.”
“Right—younger than me, I think.” He shrugged his big shoulders, unrepentant. “You must think I’m cold-blooded, but I didn’t know him at all, and now that he’s dead I think it means more money for me.”
Naturally, this remark made Doyle’s detective-radar go off, and so she asked in a deceptively mild tone, “Oh? His death was a boon, then?”
Chuckling again, the man spread his palms. “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking. And the money’s not a sure thing, anyway; we were both related to Bradford Song—you know, that famous bloke from the news, who’s gone missing? If he winds up declared dead, both of us would have split the money.”
“You’re related to Bradford Song?” Doyle asked in surprise.
“Right—a distant cousin, which is lucky for me. His wife’s dead and they’d no children, so they’re beating the bushes to find heirs. From what I’ve been told, it may be a while, since he’s just missing—so far—and they can’t prove he’s dead.”
“I think it takes seven years for a missing person to be declared dead,” Officer Wilson offered with a small smile. “You’ll have to be patient.”
“Song may not inherit his wife’s fortune in the first place, though,” Doyle decided to point out—being as she was well-familiar with the Song case. “He tried to poison the poor woman; it wouldn’t be fair to allow him to inherit her money.”
“He’s not the one who killed her, though,” Cooperton countered. “At least, that’s how it was explained to me. The Forfeiture Rule only works against a murderer.”
“But it still doesn’t seem right—that he’d be the one to inherit,” Doyle insisted stubbornly.
With another broad smile, the man spread his hands. “Seems all right to me.”
They all chuckled, whilst Doyle assimilated this extraordinary coincidence, since she’d been hip-deep in the Song file from the very beginning. When they’d investigated the homicide, she and Acton had gone over the inheritance angle as a possible motive for Mrs. Song’s murder—the woman had a tidy fortune, and such things always made the CID lift its head. But they’d come to the conclusion that it was too much of a tangle-patch to be a motive for murder—it was not at all clear who would inherit her money, nor when, since her husband had gone missing. And, as it turned out, they’d been right; money hadn’t been the motive a’tall.
But still and all, it seemed mighty handy that one of the maybe-heirs had been killed himself, with this fellow not a’tall unhappy about it. Mayhap she should look into these two—
“I suppose I needn’t leave you the information on grief-counseling,” her fellow officer joked.
Oh-ho, thought Doyle; I think our Officer Wilson rather likes this fellow.
“Better to leave a bottle of champagne,” he laughed in return.
They took their leave, and as they returned to the field car, Doyle offered a bit dryly, “Well, that wasn’t so very hard, after all.”
“A ‘laughing heir’ for a change, the officer agreed, as she walked around to the driver’s side. “We see them, once in a while.”
Doyle nodded, as this was the term for a beneficiary who hadn’t known the decedent. But she continued uneasy about this latest development, and decided to ask, “How often is the laughin’ heir the perp?”
“Sometimes,” the officer noted, and then added with a smile. “But not this time, I think. He seems a nice fellow.”
“Agreed,” Doyle said, hiding a smile.
“A welcome relief; nice fellows are few and far between, in this business.”
“Amen to that,” Doyle agreed again.