The Art of Murder

‘Is everything …?’

Sonia ignored him and slapped her husband’s face hard. His head rocked from the blow, but he simply stared straight ahead.

‘Mrs Thomson!’

The nurse ran over and grabbed Sonia’s arm just as she was about to hit Archibald again. ‘Please, Mrs Thomson!’

Another male nurse appeared in the doorway, then strode in. Between them they turned Sonia away from her husband’s blank stare, helping her to leave the room. They had almost reached the door when they heard a sound from behind.

‘Tumbril.’

Sonia froze and the men tightened their grip.

‘No. Please!’ she cried. ‘Please stop! My husband spoke to me.’

The nurses looked at each other.

‘Please? He said something.’ Sonia pulled away, turning back towards Archibald.

‘Tumbril,’ he said quietly. His lips moved, but his face remained frozen, staring straight ahead. The nurses took Sonia’s arms again, lightly now. They too seemed to be transfixed by the sight of the patient speaking.

‘Tumbril,’ Archibald repeated, his face a blank mask. ‘TUMBRIL!’ The sound reverberated about the walls of the room, a deafening roar now. The three onlookers stared, petrified and powerless, as Archibald fell forward on to the tiled floor, his forehead hitting the hard surface with a dull thud.

Dr Braithwaite was yelling something incoherent as he ran into the room, a warder a step behind him. ‘Out of the way!’ he shouted, pushing them aside. He crouched down beside Archibald and, with the help of the warder, slowly turned him over on to his back. Sonia made a strange sound in her throat as though she were choking. The two nurses had let her go and taken a step back.

Dr Braithwaite checked Archibald’s pulse and pulled up one eyelid. He let out a heavy sigh and his body seemed to sag. Standing, he walked over to Sonia. ‘I’m afraid your husband is dead.’

‘NO!’ she cried. ‘No!

That’s not … NO!’ She threw herself to the floor huddled next to her husband’s body. Then she leaned back, pulling his bloodied head towards her breast and cradling it, sobbing and rocking. The others stood by in silence until Braithwaite crouched down, helped the widow gently to her feet and guided her from the room.

Chapter 52

Brick Lane, Stepney, Thursday 29 January, 2.05 p.m.

Pendragon sat in the swivel chair at the back of the darkened Media Room, the monitor casting a pallid blue haze all around. Apart from a scattering of red power lights, this was the only illumination. He sat back, resting his head against the back of the leather chair, and for a few moments ran through in his mind the first section of The Inner Mounting Flame, one of his favourite pieces of music.

An incongruous thought came to him. He was transported back twenty-six years into his rented flat in Oxford. He had graduated that summer. Now it was late autumn and he still had not decided what he was going to do with his life, but he had just suffered the greatest trauma he had yet known. He had discovered that Cheryl, his girlfriend of two years, had been sleeping with his best friend at college, Gareth.

It was 7 a.m. when Cheryl turned up at the flat they had shared. He had been up half the night waiting for her. He had opened the front door, saying nothing. When she tried to speak, he put a finger to his lips and pointed to a chair in the living-room. Then, with his mind in a numb, nowhere land, he had paced over to the record player, put on The Inner Mounting Flame, sat in another chair directly facing Cheryl, and insisted they both stay and sit and listen to the whole side of the LP. The moment the last notes died away, he had stood up, put the record in its sleeve and ignored Cheryl when she called his name. Still silent, he had walked into the bedroom, placed the record in his case of albums and picked up his two bags. Reappearing in the lounge with the sum of his possessions, he walked past her, through the door and out on to the pavement.

Now he sat up, lifted his head and saw the light from the blue monitor dominating the room. A single word had popped into his head — Eberswalde. Eberswalde … the town a few miles from Berlin. He had heard that name years ago. Yes, it was all coming back. Eberswalde … His uncle Sid had been a corporal in the 1st Armoured Division. He had been stationed in Germany in the late 1950s. Uncle Sid was always regaling Jack with stories from his halcyon days in the army. One of his favourites had been about the time he almost went AWOL because of a debauched weekend spent in the town of Eberswalde. There was never an army base in Eberswalde.

A cold chill ran down Pendragon’s spine. He jumped up from the chair, yanked open the door of the Media Room and dashed into the hall. He strode towards his office. He could see it was empty and ran on to the Briefing Room. That too was empty. Retracing his steps, he went over to the main desk where Rosalind Mackleby was on duty. ‘Sergeant, have you seen Turner?’

‘Here, sir.’

Pendragon spun round to see Jez walking towards him munching a ham sandwich. ‘Spot of late lunch,’ he added, holding up the other half still in the packet.

‘Turner … the film from the party at Berrick and Price? Can you get it — right now?’

‘Sure. But …’

‘Now!’

Pendragon was in one of the two chairs in front of the monitors in the Media Room staring anxiously at the machines when Turner came in with the DVD in his hand, his mouth crammed with bread and meat. He sat down and slid the disk into a slot in the front of one of the machines, on a rack perpendicular with the control desk. ‘Give us a sec,’ he said, and tapped at a couple of buttons. ‘So, what’s this about then, guv?’ he asked, swivelling round to face the monitors.

‘Take it to about ten minutes in,’ Pendragon replied, grim-faced.

Turner touched the ‘Fast-forward’ button and the images on the monitor became a blur. He pushed ‘Stop’ then ‘Play’, and on the screen they could both see the gathering at the gallery over a week earlier, just before the first murder. The camera moved around the room.

‘Go forward about sixty seconds.’

The sergeant depressed the control and the film rolled on, slower than the first time. When he pressed ‘Stop’ the picture froze, showing a small group of people talking. There were Kingsley Berrick and Noel Thursk, side-on to the camera. Between them, with her back to the camera, was Gemma Locke in her low-cut, black cocktail dress.

‘Okay,’ Pendragon said. ‘Can you zoom in?’

‘Yeah. Which bit of the picture?’

‘Gemma Locke.’

Turner nudged a control and the image on the screen slowly expanded. He moved a toggle and the image shifted to the left as it grew bigger.

‘Stop!’ Pendragon said.

The entire screen was now taken up with the head and shoulders of Gemma Locke.

‘Okay, Turner, nudge the film forward. She’s starting to look to her left.’ The film moved on a few frames at a time.

‘Stop! Can you enhance that image?’

‘Yes.’

A horizontal line shimmied down the screen and in its wake left a picture that was twice as clear as the original. Pendragon moved his face close to the monitor. He could just about see a dark mark on Gemma Locke’s neck. ‘Close in there,’ he said, pointing to a spot on the screen. ‘And can you make it any clearer?’

‘I’ll try.’

The picture shifted once more. The horizontal line again moved down the screen, leaving an enhanced still image of Gemma Locke’s neck. In the centre of the image was a faint scar approximating a circle and a narrow