commitment that there was little room left for brooding on his grief. Policing a city as large and turbulent as London was well beyond the limited resources allocated to the task. Crime flowed through the capital with the force and inevitability of the River Thames. Nothing could stop it. The most that could be achieved was to divert a small proportion of it into tributaries where it could be contained and, even then, success was only ever temporary. Puffing on his cigar, Tallis looked at the list of serious crimes perpetrated in the previous twenty-four hours. It was daunting. Many of them could be dealt with by uniformed constables but some called for the specialist assistance of the Detective Department.
Before he could begin to assign his men to deal with specific cases, however, there was a tap on the door. It opened to allow Robert Colbeck to step in, looking as suave as ever. Tallis was flabbergasted.
‘How did you get here this early, Inspector?’ he asked.
‘It involved some personal discomfort, sir,’ said Colbeck, smoothly. ‘I took a milk train to York, inveigled my way into the guard’s van of a goods train to Peterborough then picked up an express to King’s Cross. I intend to return by more direct means.’
‘Have you identified the killer yet?’
‘We have two main suspects in mind. It’s our belief that they may have been acting together.’
‘Give me the details.’
Unlike Leeming, the inspector was never intimidated by Tallis. He was able to give a clear, succinct, well- presented account of what they’d been doing since the sergeant had delivered his more garbled report. Tallis was impressed by his thoroughness but he had doubts that Adam Tarleton was involved.
‘He’s not the sort of man to kill anyone,’ he asserted.
‘He may not have done it himself, sir,’ said Colbeck, ‘but he could be capable of hiring someone else to commit the murder.’
‘You believe that he suborned Bruntcliffe?’
‘We are coming around to that view.’
‘I can see that this fellow might have had a strong enough motive. If the colonel sent him to prison, Bruntcliffe could have wreaked his revenge by killing the person the colonel loved most. What I can’t see is a motive for Adam.’
‘Do you remember how he conducted himself at the inquest?’
‘Only too clearly,’ said Tallis, disapprovingly. ‘He didn’t look like a son who’d just lost a stepfather by suicide. There was no sense of genuine bereavement.’
‘We felt the same, Superintendent,’ said Colbeck. ‘While his sister was suffering agonies, he behaved as if he had no connection with the deceased. All that interests him is the money he stands to inherit. When we met him at the house yesterday, he hadn’t even put on appropriate mourning wear.’
‘That’s unforgivable.’
‘He admitted quite freely that he resented the colonel and had never acknowledged him as a father. By the same token, he must have borne a grudge against his mother for foisting her second husband on him. From what I can gather, Mrs Tarleton sought to retain his affection by providing him with money. But as we’re aware,’ said Colbeck, ‘that source of income ceased. How would a parasite like Adam Tarleton react when he could no longer sponge off his mother?’
‘He’d be very angry – even vengeful.’
‘There’s your motive, sir.’
Tallis scratched his head. ‘I wonder.’
‘The only way to get the money he felt was his due was to kill his mother in such a way that suspicion fell on the colonel. The stratagem worked. Most people still believe that he killed his wife.’
‘I know and it’s monstrously unjust.’
‘Yet it’s shared by people like the rector. He’s an intelligent man who wouldn’t simply follow the herd. The problem,’ Colbeck went on, ‘is that he exerts such influence in the village and its environs. He has a hold on people’s minds.’
‘That’s why we must trumpet the colonel’s innocence,’ said Tallis, tugging the cigar from his mouth, ‘and there’s only one way to do that.’ He shot Colbeck a shrewd look. ‘How convinced are you that Adam is the real killer?’
‘To be frank,’ admitted Colbeck, ‘I’m only partially convinced, even though he lied about not seeing Bruntcliffe for years. On his own, he might baulk at the idea of murder. Given assistance, however, it might be a different matter. That’s where Bruntcliffe comes in.’
‘But he was locked up in Northallerton.’
‘And he was visited there by Adam Tarleton.’
‘That may be,’ said Tallis, ‘but they could hardly have hatched a murder plot together. Prison visits are closely supervised. He and this Bruntcliffe wouldn’t have been alone for a second.’
‘Then they could have waited until Bruntcliffe’s release.’
‘Is there any evidence that Adam was in Yorkshire at that time? And where did the discharged prisoner go when they let him out? How would he have known that the colonel’s wife would be walking to Northallerton on that particular day? Where would Bruntcliffe have acquired those two cartridges found with the dead body? No,’ decided Tallis, ‘there are too many imponderables here, Inspector. All that you have at the moment is a series of coloured marbles. You need to find the thread that will link them together in a pearl necklace.’
‘I’d prefer to see it as a hangman’s noose, Superintendent.’
Tallis smiled grimly. He was grateful that Colbeck had taken such trouble to report to him in person but disappointed that no incontrovertible proof had been found. As he sat there in the swirling cigar smoke, he wondered if he should return to Yorkshire with the inspector. He was sorely tempted. Colbeck tried to stifle the notion.
‘Sergeant Leeming and I are very grateful for the freedom you’ve granted us to pursue this investigation,’ he said. ‘Had you been there, we’d have been hampered by the need to defer to you at every stage.’
Tallis glared. ‘Are you telling me that I’d be in the way?’
‘We work better when you’re not looking over our shoulders, sir,’ said Colbeck, easily. ‘It’s the same for anyone. I’m sure that you work more effectively when you’re not under continual scrutiny.’
‘There’s something in that.’
‘Then stay in London and rule the roost here, Superintendent.’
‘I’ll give you the weekend,’ warned Tallis. ‘If you’ve made no real advance by Monday, I may well join you to lend my assistance.’
‘You might be able to assist us right now, Superintendent,’ said Colbeck, dismayed to hear that he’d been given only two days to solve a complex case. ‘It’s this business about the colonel’s regular visits to Doncaster. Can you suggest why he went there? Nobody else can.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you.’
‘Did the colonel make no mention of it in his letters?’
‘No, Inspector, our correspondence usually took the form of reminiscences about our time in the army. I can’t recall a single reference to Doncaster.’
‘Can you explain why he’d want to keep his visits so secret?’
Tallis was annoyed. ‘I know what’s behind that question,’ he said, irritably, ‘and I find it impertinent. When a married man disappears from time to time, the obvious assumption is that he’s going off for an illicit assignation.’
‘That’s not an assumption that I made, sir,’ said Colbeck.
‘Well, it’s one that other people will make and I want to tell you why it’s both unkind and untrue. This, mark you,’ he went on, ‘must go no further than this room.’
‘You have my word of honour, Superintendent.’
‘Whatever else took the colonel to Doncaster, it was definitely not a woman. When we saw action together in India, I escaped with minor injuries but the colonel was less fortunate. A bullet ricocheted and wounded him in the groin. The damage was permanent. That’s why the colonel and his wife never had children of their own,’ he said, pointedly, ‘and why he’d never be led astray by a female.’
Eve Doel was still crushed beneath the combined weight of grief and remorse. Back in the house where she’d been brought up, she found it curiously empty and deeply upsetting. Wherever she looked, she saw reminders of
