come back from dropping the kids at her sister’s for our quarterly sex night!”
That gave me pause, despite my worries. “Quarterly? Are you joking?”
“You are a bachelor. After 15 years of marriage, don’t you think I’m grateful for whatever scraps float my way? Haven’t you noticed that my left hand and forearm are twice the size of my right? But you’re off the topic. You and your mates owe a debt of gratitude to my improvisational brilliance. If £100,000 was the going rate, these envelopes, whatever’s in them, are worth a thousand times their weight in gold.”
Sir Steven Barnes, Weathersby’s lawyer, had, not surprisingly, been less than cooperative. Brian had politely asked him for the use of the lost-luggage key referred to in Weathersby’s will; Sir Steven had merely smiled in sad amusement and, regretfully, declined.
Brian, expecting no more, had merely informed Barnes that a Section 1 warrant was in the works, and that once it arrived, he would be back to take possession of the key. Then, leaving Sir Steven’s office, Brian had concealed himself in a convenient alcove down the hall, and waited.
Five minutes later, Sir Steven had come to his office door with a balding, middle-aged man whom Brian recognized as his clerk. After a brief, muttered conversation, the man set off down the hall, with Brian sauntering discreetly behind.
At Euston Station, as expected, Barnes’ clerk made a beeline for the left-luggage area. Extracting a key from his pinstriped pocket, he opened a locker, extracted a bundle of padded envelopes, and turned to encounter Brian and DC Goodspeed, warrant cards out.
“We’ll take those, thank you very much,” said Brian, extracting the bundle from the clerk’s suddenly-nerveless fingers.
“You can’t do that! That’s privileged material!”
Brian raised one bushy eyebrow. “Are you Lord Southampton’s solicitor?”
“No, but...”
“Are you in fact a solicitor at all?”
“No, I’m Sir Steven’s clerk. But...”
Brian shoved a copy of the Section 1 warrant into the man’s nerveless fingers. “In that case, I’m confiscating these envelopes in the Crown’s name. They’re evidence in a murder investigation.”
Now they sat on my desk, mute but ominous. I sorted through the addressees. Lady Jane Plantagenet. Lady Sarah St. John Barlowe. Catherine Seagrave. All wives of various Hastewicke Gentlemen. The fourth envelope was addressed to Sir Lewis Trilby, chair of the board of directors of the Magwitch Project, Bob Lestrange’s charitable foundation. Another, larger envelope was addressed to Cyrian O’Toole, the Sun’s gleefully malignant society column. John had been more vindictive than I had supposed.
As Brian looked on, I unfolded my clasp-knife, pulled a random envelope from the stack – that addressed to Catherine Seagrave – and disemboweled it. A jewel-case fell out; it contained a disc labeled “The Hastewicke Gentlemen in Las Vegas, 2005 – Roger.”
“I’ll do the honours,” said Brian, popping the disc into his CD-ROM drive.
The first image that appeared was a wide view of the sitting-room of a suite – couch, table, chairs, entertainment system, mini-bar – identical to the one I had occupied in Las Vegas. In the lower left-hand corner of the screen was the door; after a few seconds it opened, and Roger Seagrave, the Hastewicke Gentlemen’s greyhound-elegant right wing, entered, with a... companion on his arm. After a few moments of preliminary groping and face-sucking, they made their way to the couch, and... suffice to say that even I, a policeman of more than 20 years’ experience, who long ago thought he’d seen it all, obviously hadn’t. “Shitting ‘ell,” was all I could croak.
I can’t remember the last time I had last spent such an excruciating 20 minutes. It was about as enjoyable as a prostate exam from Andre the Giant. When the last guttural shriek of passion had died away, the computer screen mercifully
That gave me pause, despite my worries. “Quarterly? Are you joking?”
“You are a bachelor. After 15 years of marriage, don’t you think I’m grateful for whatever scraps float my way? Haven’t you noticed that my left hand and forearm are twice the size of my right? But you’re off the topic. You and your mates owe a debt of gratitude to my improvisational brilliance. If £100,000 was the going rate, these envelopes, whatever’s in them, are worth a thousand times their weight in gold.”
Sir Steven Barnes, Weathersby’s lawyer, had, not surprisingly, been less than cooperative. Brian had politely asked him for the use of the lost-luggage key referred to in Weathersby’s will; Sir Steven had merely smiled in sad amusement and, regretfully, declined.
Brian, expecting no more, had merely informed Barnes that a Section 1 warrant was in the works, and that once it arrived, he would be back to take possession of the key. Then, leaving Sir Steven’s office, Brian had concealed himself in a convenient alcove down the hall, and waited.
Five minutes later, Sir Steven had come to his office door with a balding, middle-aged man whom Brian recognized as his clerk. After a brief, muttered conversation, the man set off down the hall, with Brian sauntering discreetly behind.
At Euston Station, as expected, Barnes’ clerk made a beeline for the left-luggage area. Extracting a key from his pinstriped pocket, he opened a locker, extracted a bundle of padded envelopes, and turned to encounter Brian and DC Goodspeed, warrant cards out.
“We’ll take those, thank you very much,” said Brian, extracting the bundle from the clerk’s suddenly-nerveless fingers.
“You can’t do that! That’s privileged material!”
Brian raised one bushy eyebrow. “Are you Lord Southampton’s solicitor?”
“No, but...”
“Are you in fact a solicitor at all?”
“No, I’m Sir Steven’s clerk. But...”
Brian shoved a copy of the Section 1 warrant into the man’s nerveless fingers. “In that case, I’m confiscating these envelopes in the Crown’s name. They’re evidence in a murder investigation.”
Now they sat on my desk, mute but ominous. I sorted through the addressees. Lady Jane Plantagenet. Lady Sarah St. John Barlowe. Catherine Seagrave. All wives of various Hastewicke Gentlemen. The fourth envelope was addressed to Sir Lewis Trilby, chair of the board of directors of the Magwitch Project, Bob Lestrange’s charitable foundation. Another, larger envelope was addressed to Cyrian O’Toole, the Sun’s gleefully malignant society column. John had been more vindictive than I had supposed.
As Brian looked on, I unfolded my clasp-knife, pulled a random envelope from the stack – that addressed to Catherine Seagrave – and disemboweled it. A jewel-case fell out; it contained a disc labeled “The Hastewicke Gentlemen in Las Vegas, 2005 – Roger.”
“I’ll do the honours,” said Brian, popping the disc into his CD-ROM drive.
The first image that appeared was a wide view of the sitting-room of a suite – couch, table, chairs, entertainment system, mini-bar – identical to the one I had occupied in Las Vegas. In the lower left-hand corner of the screen was the door; after a few seconds it opened, and Roger Seagrave, the Hastewicke Gentlemen’s greyhound-elegant right wing, entered, with a... companion on his arm. After a few moments of preliminary groping and face-sucking, they made their way to the couch, and... suffice to say that even I, a policeman of more than 20 years’ experience, who long ago thought he’d seen it all, obviously hadn’t. “Shitting ‘ell,” was all I could croak.
I can’t remember the last time I had last spent such an excruciating 20 minutes. It was about as enjoyable as a prostate exam from Andre the Giant. When the last guttural shriek of passion had died away, the computer screen mercifully
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