Chapter Text
Aziraphale and the Serpent, unseen, stayed behind as three strong men rolled a stone across the door, lest wild beasts or wicked men disturb the body before the Sabbath passed and the women could return to prepare it for its final rest. “I cannot do this anymore,” sobbed the Angel. “For my heart fails me.” But the Serpent wrapped the Angel closely in his coils and hissed: “Shh, shh, leave the curssing of thiss crime to me; that iss my right, as it iss your right to weep, and your heart shall not fail.”
The Book of the Angel Aziraphale, trans. A.Z. Fell, Oxford University Press, 1939
“The first people who spotted it thought somebody’d dropped a guy,” said the constable on duty. “It wasn’t until the bargemen started coming through with a bit of light that anybody realized it was a body, and it’s not like you can run a telephone line to a barge, so it was half an hour after that the police were notified. It was trying to come off, and we’d have lost him completely, if those boys with the dinghy hadn’t gone to brace him, before we even knew he was there.”
“And no fault of yours, if you had,” Sergeant Frank Abbot assured him, feeling a bit out of place assuring someone so much solider and more policemanlike than he was, but doing his best to convey that the assurances merely flowed through him, from the more authoritative source of Inspector Lamb and the Yard. He was afraid that he only sounded pompous, and completely unaware that he sounded cocksure and sarcastic. “We were lucky such public spirited lads were here to act so quickly. And you and your men have managed to keep traffic flowing well enough. Where will they be bringing it to shore?”
The constable directing him to the foot of the bridge, whence there would be no hope of bringing the body up without it being snapped by the newspapermen beginning to circle the area, vulturelike, Abbot picked his way down, mindful of his shoes and feeling, not precisely put-upon, but unfortunate. He’d been getting dressed when he’d gotten the call - he came in by Westminister Bridge anyway, got a body there, be a good chap and take it in on your way, save us some steps? An “us” that patently did not include him, but that was the fate of youth, after all, and no doubt when he was a bit more senior he’d be happy enough to inconvenience his future counterparts; but the fact was he’d been out late at a firework party and had needed more time over his coffee cups, which this inconsiderate corpse was denying him. And there won’t be anything in it for the Yard anyway, he thought, arriving as the boat tied up. The body lay in the bottom with a tarp over it, making less of a mound than he’d expected. Not been long in the water, then; all to the good. “What have we got here, then?” He asked. “Suicide?”
“Not a hope,” said the policeman tying up the boat. “Take a look for yourself. Oi, up there, you lot, make way for the gurney! How’s a fellow to do his job for tripping over you!” This last directed to the reporters, who were distinctly in the way of the ambulance crew.
A second constable lifted the corner of the tarp, keeping his body between it and the flashbulbs, though at this angle and distance they wouldn’t have gotten much anyway. The corpse lay face down in the bottom, his short leather motoring jacket not nearly sopping wet enough to have been properly submerged, but sufficiently damp that the blood on the shoulders and collar still appeared bright red and sloppy. The constable lifted the tarp a bit further, to reveal dark curly hair clustering thickly around the red hole at the base of the skull. Frank swore softly.
“You’ve got that right,” said the constable, lowering the tarp again. “Bullet went straight through, so not much of his face left above his mouth. Must be one of those Bohemian types - his beard is still whole. Pure dumb luck he got caught on the buttress instead of going into the river properly.”
Frank swore again. “Which buttress was it?” Up the steps he went again, to confer with the constable and arrange for the area from which the body had been dumped, if not actually murdered, to be cleared for inspection - for all the good that would do after gawkers had trampled all over the sidewalk and leaned against the railing doing heaven knows what to any evidence.
By the time he got out of the call box after arranging for the crime scene unit to come out, and taken his orders from Inspector Lamb, the body had been loaded onto the ambulance amid much flashing of bulbs, and he loaded himself into it too, ignoring all the questions shouted after him. “No, I can’t tell you the time of death before I’ve even gotten him to the exam room,” said the doctor in attendance, when the doors were safely shut and the vehicle underway. “Nor am I such a fool as to commit myself to cause, though likely you’ll think it looks plain enough and likely you’ll be right.”
“I wouldn’t dream of asking you to draw conclusions before your examination,” said Frank soothingly. “I just want something to get on with. Time is of the essence and all that. All right if I turn out his pockets? Whoever did him in would be a fool not to take anything that would identify him, but sometimes people are fools and they might have missed something.”
“Go ahead. You’re not going to affect anything important after a night hanging off the buttress.”
“You think he went in last night, then?” Frank began respectfully, but systematically, going through the pockets.
“Until I find something to show otherwise. It’s consistent with the state of rigor and if you’re going to kill somebody with a gun, Guy Fawkes is the night to do it, all those fireworks going off. Stands to reason he went off the bridge after dark, in any case; maybe even during the fireworks display, when anybody who chanced to look down from the sky would be dazzled. Good lord, is that notecase full?”
Frank ruffled through the damp bills as best he could. “Almost ten pounds full, yes, and I’ll tell you something else. This is an old case, but it’s a good one. All his clothes are. If he’s a bohemian type, as per the beard, he’s one who comes from money.”
The doctor shook his head sadly. “Fell in with bad company.”
“Or played too high in the markets and ten pounds is the last of his fortune. This address book’ll need to dry a bit before we can mine it, if the ink hasn’t run, but - aha, we are in luck! Perfectly legible motorbike registration made out to - well, almost perfectly - R or maybe H Joshua Fell, at an address in Soho. That gives us a place to start, anyhow.”
And start there they did, he and Inspector Lamb finding the address without difficulty. Soho on a weekday morning was a very different place from the Soho of restaurants and theaters Frank was used to, relatively quiet with most of the residents either safely at work, or safely returned from it and settling down for a day’s sleep, and most of the businesses shuttered until a more profitable time of opening. “This can’t be the right place,” said Frank, rhetorically. “Who lives in a bookshop?”
“Who runs a bookshop in Soho, for that matter?” Inspector Lamb retorted. “But there’s the sign - A.Z. Fell and Co. And for a clincher, there’s the motorbike, obstructing the footpath for long enough to get a ticket.”
The bookshop, like the clothes, had seen better days but was bearing up bravely. It would have been a good site for some livelier trade, perhaps a restaurant or tobacconist’s, on a corner with expanses of leaded glass giving onto both streets, neighbor to a print shop on one street and a baker’s on the other, its back toward a smallish theater across a narrow courtyard, with plenty of modest flats ranging from well-kept to rundown above the businesses on all hands. No light shone within or above the bookshop itself, and the blinds were drawn. Frank tried the door, rang the bell, and inspected the posted hours beside the “closed” sign, which had - in common with the posted hours of many another bookshop of this kind that he had attempted to patronize - the virtue of neatness and the vice of complete incomprehensibility.
“Motorbike seems to be pretty well-kept,” said Inspector Lamb - a big man and a solid one, whose presence radiated “policeman” in a way which the slender, flaxen-haired Sergeant Abbot could never hope to achieve. “Not that I know anything much about them. The PC on the beat last night ticketed it at 10:17 P.M. We’ll have to get it dusted, on the chance that the murderer drove it back here after doing the deed, though with it obstructing the path like that I don’t like our chances of finding anythingthat’s any good to us. As for the shop, let’s look around a bit, see if there’s a back or side entrance that shows signs of life.”
No new entrances appeared, but signs of life they found in the person of a grizzled old man in a dirty macintosh, clearing the remains of what must have been a dangerously merry bonfire in the court between the bookshop and the theater, overlooked by a number of windows, all boasting gay curtains and a relative absence of grime. “I say, sir,” Frank accosted the man, “what can you tell us about the residents and owners of this bookshop?”
The old man paused the erratic motions of his broom, glared first at Frank, then at Lamb, from under the brim of his disreputable cap, spat the last quarter inch of a cigarette into the ashes, and said, in an accent which, while not recognizably Scots, was not definitively anything else, either: “Not a damn thing.”
“Can you tell us who owns the building, then?”
“Not me, so’s nae business of mine.” He pulled a pack of rolling papers out of one macintosh pocket, a wad of tobacco out of another, and began to roll a new cigarette.
“Do you live around here?”
“So what if I do? S’nae crime, is it?”
“No, sir, it’s not, but crime has been done. We’re policemen. A man who lived here met with foul play last night and we’re in the middle of an investigation.”
“Foul play?” Beneath the layer of stubble and grime, the man turned pale. “Who’s been playing foul with Mr Fell?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out. So you do know the residents here?”
He backed away, shaking his head. “Not a thing,” he said. “Not a word.” He dropped the broom and sprinted, with surprising speed, for a small door squeezed in next to the door of the printer’s, which presumably led to the flats above, and vanished, the sound of his pounding feet indicating that he was running pell-mell up a set of sturdy, but uncarpeted, stairs. He was also yelling something, but it sounded more like “Jezebel” than anything else, which couldn’t be the case.
“Should I follow him?” Frank asked.
“Keep an eye on the door. He knew nothing about it himself, but he’s gone for advice, and we’ll see who comes back with him.”
They did not have long to wait before the door to the flats opened again to admit onto the street a small wizened woman, her head wrapped in a scarf over curlers and her elfin body in a sateen kimono of an astonishing pink color, embroidered with frayed dragons and birds in even more astonishing colors. Her purple mules minced over the pavement more quickly than seemed probable, till she stood at the foot of the steps with her arms crossed, peering up at them appraisingly. “Excuse me,” she said, in a voice a little too precise to be entirely natural, “are you gentlemen the ones who upset Sergeant Shadwell?”
“I’m afraid we are, ma’am,” said Frank. “We didn’t mean to, but we’re on rather upsetting business. Are you acquainted with the residents here?”
“I could ask the same of you.”
Frank produced his identification, and she leaned forward and tilted her head, for all the world like one of the sparrows flying back and forth from the street, to inspect both his and the Inspector’s badges with a frown. “Did he call you?”
“He can’t call anybody,” said the Inspector. “He’s dead. Murdered.”
He said this to elicit a reaction, and he succeeded, though not perhaps in the way he’d expected. The woman’s eyes flew open wide, but her expression was not so much of shock as of flat disbelief. “Nonsense! Nobody’d kill Mr Fell!”
“And yet, they did,” said Lamb, bearing down hard and, Frank couldn’t help feeling, a bit cruelly; but kindness was not always the lot of policemen. “Dumped off of Westminster Bridge. You’ll no doubt read all about it in the afternoon papers. Nothing left of his face but the beard.”
“Mr Fell doesn’t have a - oh!” Disbelief gave way to comprehension, and then to horror. “Oh! You don’t mean Mr Fell, you mean - the Lamb? Somebody killed the Lamb?”
“A corpse dumped in the vicinity of Westminster Bridge was carrying a motorbike registration for a Mr R or H Joshua Fell at this address,” said Frank, stepping in to cover the Inspector’s momentary discomfiture at hearing his own name in this context. “Who did you think we meant?”
The old woman wrapped herself in her own arms and shivered - not surprisingly, for the morning was chill and the kimono could not have been particularly warm. “That’s his baby brother,” she said. “Not Mr Fell at all. He’ll be ever so upset, but you won’t find him here, not till this afternoon at earliest and maybe not till tomorrow.”
“Oh? Where is he?” Inspector Lamb asked.
“No idea.” The woman visibly pulled herself together. “He was in the War, you see, and he doesn’t like the fireworks, so he just - isn’t here for the Fifth of November. The Lamb must have put this down as a, what do you call it, an address of convenience when he registered the bike. He goes abroad a lot.’
“Has he any other relations in town?”
“They have other relations. Whether they’re in town or not I couldn’t say, but I daresay they’ll have some servant or other can put you in touch if they’re not. They’ll be in the directory. Mr Gabriel Fell, I think lives in Kensington, and the sister they call Mickey, which must be short for something, but I couldn’t tell you what, or her married name, if you put a gun to my head, nor we wouldn’t know if we passed each other on the street.”
Frank dug the scant nuggets of information out of this dense verbal matrix and wrote them down. “Right, and your name, ma’am?”
“Marjorie Potts, dearie, J-O-R-I-E and with two T’s. I’m not ashamed of it.” Her color was looking better now. “Their father’s up north somewhere, in an Abbey, but he’s poorly and you’d do better to talk to the brother or sister if you can. But if they’re not in town they’ll be up north, I expect.”
“Gabriel Fell, in Kensington,” said Inspector Lamb.
“Yes. That part of the family’s ever so posh. Oh, that poor dear boy! And poor Mr Fell!”
They left Mrs Potts dabbing her eyes, to locate the nearest callbox, where the Inspector asked for an address to be looked up, and for a discreet watch to be kept on the shop, with notice made of any comings and goings. He listened for some time, long after he finished taking down the address, and hung up with a wry smile on his face. “Not the first time they’ve had an eye on that street,” he said complacently. “They knew Mrs Potts when I mentioned her, by that name and another. What did you think of those flats above the printer’s?”
“Nice and neat. If my sister wanted to play at being Bohemian, she could choose a worse place than that to do it in.”
“Oh, now, there’s where your wrong! That’s a disorderly house, that is, and Mrs Potts is known on the streets as Madam Tracy. Not but what it isn’t a fairly orderly disorderly house, as such places go, calls by appointment and so forth. And right next door is a bookshop with one brother in Kensington and one in the Thames, and himself nowhere to be found.”
“They won’t be any too pleased to see us in Kensington if we’re dragging the family’s black sheep into the light of day,” said Frank.
“Nobody’s ever pleased to see us, and that’s the sad truth. But murder will out and spare nobody’s feelings, so it’s Kensington for us. Your sort of folks, they’ll be, so I hope you can make yourself useful.”
Frank drove, reviewing Mrs Potts’s conversation in his mind, hoping to make himself useful without seeming overeager. This was his first real investigation, under Lamb, and the man seemed skeptical of him and his public school background, which rather put his back up, but it didn’t do to show it. “So nobody’d kill Mr Fell. But who would kill the Lamb? Not quite the same idea, is it?”
“It might only be the difference between the one she knows, and the one she’s met.”
“You’d have to know someone fairly well to call them The Lamb, begging your pardon.”
“Not if that’s what his brother calls him. An older brother can outgrow a nickname, but the youngest never will.”
“I suppose. Why would nobody kill Mr Fell, I wonder? She believed that, at least in that moment. Didn’t even pause to reject the idea - just, he can’t be murdered, nobody would kill him. Like I might say, the Inspector can’t be inside a chocolate box.”
“I can’t imagine a circumstance in which you’d be called to say any such thing. Nobody did kill that Mr Fell, so happen she’s right.”
“Nobody killed that Mr Fell, that we know of. We don’t know where he is.”
“No more we do. Fleeing the fireworks - or fleeing the country for fratricide - or going out with the tide like his brother was supposed to? We’ll find out. It’s what we’re for.”
The address in North Kensington was clearly striving mightily to keep up with its neighbors. The door was answered by a footman rather than a housemaid, who first insisted frostily that no one was at home, but upon seeing badges and being informed that the police were anxious to communicate with the family of R (or H) Joshua Fell, thawed sufficiently to explain that the only Fells presently in residence were closeted with their governess, and that Mr and Mrs Fell had attended the annual Firework Masquerade at Mrs Hostmassif’s home, after which, as was their custom, they had remained there to sleep, Mrs Hostmassif being Mr Gabriel Fell’s sister and the two households being accustomed to accommodating each other in these ways. This address having been obtained, and the footman’s pious hope that Mr Joshua Fell’s difficulties would be swiftly resolved having been deflected by the wall of police discretion, Frank proceeded to Richmond, where the house they wanted succeeded better at keeping up without appearing to try so hard.
They found themselves expected, for the footman had immediately telephoned to warn his counterpart in the other home. A starched and stately housemaid showed them to a small drawing room done up primarily in white and cream, full of streamlined furniture and smelling only slightly of tobacco and alcohol. Though there was no fire in the grate, the room was moderately warm, the house being equipped with steam heat. Soon they were joined by a yawning, strikingly beautiful young woman whose stylish morning frock of white merino set off her dark brown skin as if daring anyone to comment upon it, who introduced herself as Uriel Ligur, Mrs Hostmassif’s personal secretary, and begged their indulgence while her mistress and her mistress’s brother prepared to come down. “The party last night didn’t break up until past three,” she explained, in an accent as refined as Frank’s own,“and we are all at sixes and sevens this morning.” As if to emphasize the family’s disarray, she moved a cushion an eighth of an inch before gesturing them to take a seat. “Please make yourselves comfortable. I hope your business is not too serious?”
“Very serious indeed, I’m afraid, Miss Ligur,” said Inspector Lamb, taking her at her word and appropriating the most comfortable-looking of the chairs, apparently oblivious to the fact that he looked as out of place as a whale in an ice rink. Frank took a sleeker, less comfortable chair to his right, and settled in at once, feeling more like an awkward visitor than like a policeman. “Are you acquainted with your mistress’s youngest brother, Mr H or R Joshua Fell?” Lamb asked.
Miss Ligur’s eyebrows went up. “I don’t suppose I’ve exchanged more than a dozen word with him over the telephone. Why do you put his name like that - H or R?”
“He has not been capable of communicating with us, and the ink on his motorcycle registration was rather blurred, so that the first initial is difficult to make out. Can you tell us which it is supposed to be?”
They were interrupted at this juncture by the advent of refreshments, which someone apparently considered necessary even for a visit from the police. Frank was pleased to see they included an angular coffee pot and an assortment of pastries as well as the teapot. Miss Ligur saw to their serving herself and dismissed the maid before responding to the question. “His full name is Raziel Joshua Fell, but he prefers his middle name.”
“Raziel?” Inspector Lamb made no attempt to hide his surprise. “I see why he went by Joshua. It’s an unusual name, too, but at least it sounds like a name.”
“Raziel’s vaguely familiar,” said Frank Abbot. “Isn’t it - that’s an angel of some sort?”
Miss Ligur favored him with a cool and gracious smile. “An angel of knowledge, yes sir, chiefly known through an apocryphal book of the Bible. Naming children after angels is a tradition in the Fell family.”
“I see,” said Frank. “Is it a quaint coincidence that she has hired a secretary also named for an angel? Or are you a family connection?” He gave her his most winning smile.
Miss Ligur sipped her tea, declining to be won. “My parents were from highly religious families. I believe my mother was fed up with having to distinguish among all the Marys, Elizabeths, and Annes on both sides, and determined to name me according to theme, yet so distinctly as to forbid confusion. I have always felt fortunate not to be named Hepzibah.”
At this juncture, they were joined by two men and a woman, all well-dressed but bearing the signs around their eyes and mouths of a late night and an abrupt awakening. “Good morning,” said the woman, in the brisk, no-nonsense tones suitable to the lady of the house addressing tradesmen. “So sorry to have kept you waiting. I’m Joshua’s sister, Michaela Hostmassif, and this is my brother, Gabriel, and our cousin Sandalphon, who is also our solicitor.”
Mrs Hostmassif was a tall, imposing woman of middle years and erect posture, emphasized by her style of dress and by the smooth upsweep of her brown hair. Mr Gabriel Fell was a dark-haired, square-jawed man like the hero of an adventure serial, with eyes of a startling violet color, who seemed to tower even over the Inspector. Standing behind both, Sandalphon Fell appeared, by contrast, both short and squat, more the type of a prizefighter than a solicitor, and his eyes looked bruised from lack of sleep , though his dress was, if anything, a shade too impeccable for the hour of the day. Hungover, Frank thought, and absolutely delighted to be hauled out of bed at this hour, but not about to let the side down. They’ve assumed defensive positions.
Gabriel Fell accepted a cup of coffee from Miss Ligur and seated himself in the center of the sofa, with Mrs Hostmassif taking her place on his right and Sandalphon on his left. “So, what’s the trouble?” His voice fairly boomed, with a surprising trace of American accent, and his face assumed a concerned look that Frank could easily believe he practiced in the mirror. “Is the Lamb in trouble? Joshua, I mean - we’ve always called him the Lamb. He’s a little wild but I hope you’ll believe me that there’s no harm in him.”
“I hope I will, too,” said Inspector Lamb. “When did you last see your brother?”
“Yesterday afternoon,” said Gabriel, promptly. “It must have been, oh, four o’clock, was it, Sandy?”
“Yes.” Sandalphon’s voice was low and careful; very much a solicitor’s voice. “He wouldn’t stay to tea. Nothing would do but he had to go tearing back to London on his motorbike.”
“Back to London? Where were you?”
The question was directed at Sandalphon, but Gabriel answered. “Auldmon Abbey. Our place in Lancashire. Sandy and I had some business up there, and The L - Joshua’d run up for a visit. We were afraid we’d be late for the party - and so we were, we missed dinner - and he wouldn’t wait to motor down with us. What exactly has happened, Inspector? Is he - does he need an alibi? For what?”
Inspector Lamb shifted his attention to Mrs Hostmassif. “And you, ma’am? When did you see him?”
“Goodness, not for the last six months. He’s been abroad.”
“But you expected him at your party?”
“Not above half. I sent him an invitation when I heard he’d returned to town, but it would depend on his mood whether he showed up or not, even if he hadn’t driven to Lancashire and back during the day. What exactly is wrong, Inspector? You’re frightening me.” She didn’t sound frightened; more impatient. Possibly Sandalphon wasn’t the only one in the room with a hangover.
“The matter’s grave enough.,” said Inspector Lamb, locking eyes with Gabriel and leaving it to Frank to observe the reactions of the others. “I’m afraid a body was pulled from the Thames this morning, with a motorcycle registration for R. Joshua Fell on it, and we need someone to come in and view the body, to confirm that it’s actually him.”
“What?” Mrs Hostmassif gasped, and Miss Ligur, standing unobtrusively behind her, laid both hands gently on her shoulders. “But that’s - no! No, I don’t believe it! He was robbed, or - no!”
Sandalphon Fell remained silent, though his eyelids twitched and he laid a hand on Gabriel’s arm. Gabriel’s face seemed momentarily frozen. He swallowed. “Oh. Oh, I see.”
The two policemen waited.
“This is - well. This is completely unexpected, and yet -“ The American element in his voice grew stronger, flattening out his words. “I always said - well, not always, just since he dropped out of Oxford and - I said he’d come to a bad end and a part of me has been braced for it, but I thought - he’d be beaten to death by Brownshirts in Berlin or knifed by an Apache in Paris or, or - he kept such bad company - but - er - drowning in the Thames? That’s so, so unlike him.”
“He didn’t drown,” said Lamb. Mrs Hostmassif made a strangled noise; Uriel stood like a statue, with downcast eyes; Gabriel and Sandalphon only stared. “It’s not a pretty sight, but we need a firm identification. It’s the only way to move forward. And if, as Mrs Hostmassif suggests, he was robbed by this man we’ve pulled out, the sooner you know that the sooner you can go looking for him.”
“We won’t have to look far. We have another brother - he owns a bookshop - Joshua’d go there if he were in trouble.”
“We’ve been to the bookshop already this morning,” said Frank. “No sign of anybody. Was this other brother at the party last night?”
“No, but he wouldn’t have been.” Mrs Hostmassif spoke with almost no inflection, staring past Frank’s head at something, apparently, a very long way off. “Sunshine never comes to parties and he won’t even stay in town on Bonfire Night. A friend of his has a place in the country somewhere that he runs off to. Can’t stand the fireworks, he says, all the bangs and the smell, puts him right back in the War, though if he’s going to be afraid of something it would make a lot more sense to fear the way his friend drives. I’ve tried to get him to stay and tough it out, prove to himself there’s no danger, but Sunshine - well, he won’t. Why am I talking about him? Gabriel, you need to go - go tell them it isn’t him -“
Miss Ligur put a teacup into her employer’s hand, and she drank deeply.
“I’ve seen dead bodies before,” said Sandalphon. “I can go.”
“No,” said Gabriel, shaking off his hand and standing up, straightening his jacket like one bracing himself to march into danger. “It’s my responsibility. I’ll go. You see if you can get hold of Crawly’s man, find out where it is he runs off to with Sunshine. I think Joshua’s been there a time or two. He might have gone with them this year.”
“Better give us the number and let us take care of that,” said Lamb, leveling his gaze at Sandalphon.
“I don’t have the information on me, but it’s a Mayfair exchange, in the name of Anthony J Crowley, and the man’s name is Erich, I believe. Here’s my card in case you need any help with him.” Sandalphon’s mouth did something that might be intended as a smile. “I’m good at getting servants to talk.”
“Mickey, go back to bed. There’s nothing you can do.” Gabriel Fell drank off his coffee in one long pull, set the cup down, and squared his shoulders. “Let’s go. My car’s in the mews behind -”
“It would be better if you rode with us, sir,” said Frank. “I undertake to bring you back in a timely manner, and it’s an unmarked car. You needn’t fear what the neighbors think.”
This statement caused both Gabriel and Sandalphon to turn quietly stony gazes upon him. “Are you implying that you suspect my client will flee if allowed to use his own transportation?” Sandalphon’s solicitor’s voice got, if possible, even drier.
“Certainly not,” said Inspector Lamb. “But we can get through quite a lot of business in the car on the way.”
“And what business do you suppose -“
“Just go!” Mrs Hostmassif snapped. “You’re not in charge this time, Bolt! The police are! You have to do things their way, not yours, and the sooner you do the sooner you’ll fail to identify the corpse as Joshua and they can get on with things!”
Anger flickered over Gabriel’s face; then he composed his features into something less real but more socially acceptable and turned to his sister. “Okay, Mickey. You’re right. Okay? Miss Ligur, see she gets back to bed.”
“She doesn’t work for you,” snarled Mrs Hostmassif. “Good day, gentlemen.”
“Thank you for the tea,” said Inspector Lamb, and they withdrew in as good order as they could manage.
“I apologize for my sister,” said Gabriel Fell, as they descended the front stairs to the car. “She’s normally solid as the Rock of Gibraltar, but of course your news is a shock on top of very little sleep.”
“Don’t fret about it, sir,” said Inspector Lamb genially. “These interviews are never easy, but they’re a walk in the park for us compared to the people receiving the news. Here we are, sir. Frank’ll be driver and we’ll sit in the back so we can talk easy-like.” They shut the doors and Frank started the car. “This Sunshine brother of yours, that doesn’t like the Fifth of November -“
“Yeah, Aziraphale.” Gabriel’s voice did not modulate itself for the small space of the car, so that Frank heard him easily over the engine. He sounded amused and indulgent. “Our poor little Sunshine.”
“I don’t remember an angel named Azifferel.”
Gabriel, incongruously, chuckled. “Azifferel, that’s a good one! A-Zir-A-Fail. It's from a book, lots of pretty pictures and fancy writing and so on, called The Book of the Angel Aziraphale. It’s what they call Apocrypha. Looks like part of the Bible, but isn’t.”
“Miss Ligur explained the family naming tradition to us. She said Joshua’s first name also came from Apocrypha.”
“Yeah, Sunshine and Joshua’s mother loved that book, and I guess after naming Aziraphale for one bogus Scripture it made sense, to her, to name the Lamb after another one. She was peculiar like that.”
“So she was your father’s second wife?”
“That’s right. Mickey and Raffles and I had our own mother, broke her neck hunting when we were small. And then our stepmother never quite recovered from having Joshua. Died two years later trying to have a sister, who also didn’t make it. After that the Old Man gave up on marrying. Just as well. He wasn’t young when he started.”
“So there’s five of you, in two sets?”
“Yes, only it’s four now. Raffles - Raphael - died in the influenza after the War. The Old Man’s back at the Abbey. Hasn’t set foot out of the house in years. Sandy’s father’s a doctor, looks after him. This’ll probably kill him - if it is Joshua. If it’s not he doesn’t need to know a thing about it. You said this body we’re off to see wasn’t drowned. What am I in for?”
“Shot. In the head. I’m afraid there’s not much face left to look at.”
Frank glanced up in the rear view in time to catch the grimace that crossed Fell’s face. “Well. If it’s him, I’ll manage. And if it’s not, so much the better.”
“Yes, let’s hope that both of your brothers are in the country, safe and sound.”
“Hm. I don’t know that being at Crawly’s place counts as ‘safe’ exactly, but it’s a lot better than being in the river.”
“Oh? “
“Yes, Inspector, oh. Not that I have accusations to make against my brother’s friend, only - he got the name ‘Crawly’ in school for a reason. Charity boy, always in trouble, but he got his hooks into Sunshine back then and he’s never let go. These days he’s a solicitor, does very well for himself - a little too well if you know what I mean - and makes my flesh creep, but I don’t know anything actually against him. You know the type. A little too flash to be respectable but nothing wrong that anybody can define. Joshua fairly worships Sunshine and Sunshine’s round Crawly’s finger and there’s nothing I can do about it. But this time, I hope they’ve all hared off together to whatever hole-in-the-wall it is that doesn’t have fireworks on Guy Fawkes’ Day.”
“Well, we’ll know soon.”
“ Um. Look here, Inspector, I don’t want to leave you with the wrong impression of my little brothers. They were a bit spoiled, but at heart they’re both sound as bells. Joshua’s having a lot of trouble settling down and taking on his responsibilities for the family, but if we can get him married to the right sort he’ll be fine. Sunshine’s stubborn and a little too loyal to old school friends for his own good, but he manages our Soho properties well enough, even if that bookshop of his is a joke.”
“Your Soho properties? He doesn’t own the shop, then?”
“No, not yet. When the Old Man kicks off they’ll be his and Joshua’s but for now he has an allowance and an inheritance from his mother’s people, and we get the rents. I was afraid property management’d be too much for him, he’s so softhearted, but he does well enough with me making the big decisions for him. I’ve had to make him raise the rents twice since the Crash, and he’s never had any trouble with the tenants, never been so much as late with the payments.”
Mrs Potts’s disorderly house must be doing well in these hard times, thought Frank. Wonder if this fellow knows where his rents come from. “Here we are,” he said, pulling up to the morgue. “Shall I put the car away and meet you inside?”
“You do that, Frank, and on the way put your head in on the crime scene boys, see if they can say one way or another whether he was killed on the bridge or not, and ask if they’ve sent anybody to dust the bike yet.”
So Frank drove off, and Inspector Lamb took Gabriel Fell into the morgue, where the attendant greeted them and showed them to the room where the corpse waited under a sheet. “Now, sir, I’ll warn you, the head isn’t a pretty sight, and not much identifiable there, either. I know you probably think you’ve seen worse in the War, but there’s no telling how it’ll take people. Are there any distinguishing marks your brother had, that might spare you the ordeal of the face?”
“Yeah, actually,” said Gabriel, his eyes fixed on the odd shape of the sheet at the head of the table. “He was born with birthmarks on both hands and feet. Sunshine used to call them his stigmata.”
“Ah. Then I’m sorry.” The attendant twitched the sheet away from one hand, slender and passive on the metal table, palm up, fingers curled. In the center of the ashen palm was a livid mark, round and irregularly rayed, like a hole wicking blood along the lines of the hand.
Gabriel turned a bit green. “That’s, it’s not usually so -“
“In life it would have been less obvious because the skin would have been less pale.” The attendant covered the hand again. “The one on the other is harder to see because that hand trailed in the water and there’s a fair amount of lividity. Would you care to see the similar marks on the feet, or are you satisfied?”
“I’m - I’m satisfied.” Gabriel cleared his throat. “The, the wound. In the head. It - he wouldn’t have had time to feel anything, right? They say a head shot’s the quickest thing. He wouldn’t have suffered?”
“Not at all,” lied the morgue attendant smoothly, as he always lied to relatives making identifications. Those who died by violence suffered as they did it, but it did the living no good to dwell upon that. “We’ll need to do an autopsy, but the nature of the wound and the condition of the rest of the body is such that we don’t expect any surprises.”
“Come along out of here, sir,” said Inspector Lamb, taking his elbow. “A cup of tea and a sit-down’s what you need.”
Gabriel followed, swallowing and squaring his jaw. “What about his things?”
“They’ve been collected and are being examined for evidence. They’ll be returned to you as soon as we’re sure we’re done with them, but there’s some possibility of needing to show something at the inquest.” Or, eventually, a trial. It could be a long time, if ever, before the effects were returned.
“Inquest. Oh, God.”
By the time Lamb settled Gabriel in the office set aside for interviewing the bereaved, Abbot returned, already bearing tea. Good man, Abbot; young, but shaping up nicely, if one could keep his fancy education and tendency to over-cleverness in check. Lamb met him at the door to relieve him of the mug and ask, in a voice lower than the bereaved was likely to hear: “Well?”
“Crowley’s in the directory, all right, but there’s no answer at his flat and his office number will only say he’s not expected until tomorrow. The crime scene boys say there’s nothing to say one way or another about the bridge,” replied Abbot, in similar tones. “No expelled cartridge, but that was a faint hope, anyway, the way people’d been tramping all over the place. If it was ever there it’s even odds it’s been kicked half a mile down the gutter, or into the river. And no blood, but I’m afraid that’s no help either. I had a good look at the wound, and it seemed to me, if you pointed down to the river and said: ‘Look, there, a mermaid’ or something, to get somebody to lean over the rail and look down, you could put a bullet about where that bullet was put, and the blood’d land on you and in the water without necessarily splashing the rail.”
Mermaids! Were all public school types so fanciful? “The medical chappies’ll be able to tell us all about the blood. The corpse has Joshua’s birthmarks, so at least we’re not back at square one. Come along and take notes.”
They were prepared to wait until Gabriel had finished the mug of tea, but he pulled himself together after only a sip or two, sat up straighter, and asked: “So. What’s next?”
“Next, I’m afraid we’ll have to ask a lot of impertinent questions. It’s the only way to find out where we are, you see. Are you aware of anyone who wished your brother harm?”
Gabriel shook his head. “No one. Nobody could! At least, not anybody I ever met. Somebody could have robbed him, couldn’t they?”
“Gunshots in the back of the head are rare in robbery, and his notecase had almost ten pounds in it. Did he often carry that type of money?”
“I think so? He liked to pay cash for things. If we didn’t know where his money went we couldn’t lecture him about it.” He set down the tea with an air of resolution. “Look, Sandy may not like this, but it’s murder and nothing I can say can harm him now, so I’ll come clean with you. He was a good boy, himself, but he was naive and it got him into bad company.”
“Such as?”
“Nobody I ever met personally. But he was a sucker for a sob story and he made no distinctions. A beggar was as good as a lord, to him.”
“Soft touch, then?”
“I’ll say!” Again, that incongruous chuckle, followed by a sad headshake. “And not just beggars. Organizations. Causes. He’d go to, well, not to put too fine a point upon it he’d go to Communist meetings, had friends in the Party. I don’t think he ever joined. Wandered around Europe giving alms to one-legged soldiers, never mind what side they were on. Pacifist rallies, contributing to strike funds, things like that.”
“So he was political.”
“I wouldn’t say that. He was very tender toward the poor and downtrodden, which is good, of course. I give to charities myself. But he didn’t think much of most charities, said there was no use in Lord and Lady So-and-So providing prayerbooks for orphans when what orphans needed was a society that didn’t kill off their parents. Used to go out looking for what he called ‘the root of the problem.’”
Lamb could hear the quotation marks. Abbot’s pencil danced across the page of his notebook, setting down pothooks and scribbles that the girls in the typing room would reconstitute into words, but without the illuminating layers of gesture and tone. “You think he might have found someone at the root of a problem and they resented his interference?”
Gabriel shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe he realized someone was cheating him. Or disputed the Party line. He was a soft touch but he was also a lord’s son. People like that see people like us as their natural enemies.”
“Do you know the names of any organizations whose meetings he attended?”
“I never really paid attention. I was waiting for him to grow out of it, you know?”
“What about women?”
“That’s not the sort of thing he’d talk about with me. Lord knows I tried to introduce him to suitable girls often enough, but he’d either dodge them or put them off, talking about one of his hobbyhorses. You can’t land the right sort of girl by telling her that property is theft! I expect he had a girlfriend or three around Europe, of the sort he wouldn’t introduce to the rest of us. Sunshine’ll know. He might know some of the organizations, too. They were thick as thieves.”
“I see.” Inspector Lamb was growing mighty eager to talk to this“Sunshine,” but one thing at a time. “So, you’re not aware of any recent quarrels with anybody, for any cause?”
“No!” A bit too eager, that no. “He’s got a temper, but he wasn’t the sort of person you quarreled with. Once he disrupted a church fete, calling everybody hypocrites for worrying about altar cloths and backbiting each other when people were starving in the next town over, and it was all very public and embarrassing, but that’s not the kind of thing people shoot each other in the head over, is it?”
“You’d be surprised,” Lamb assured him. “But by and large, you’re right. Can you think of anybody who might have benefited from your brother’s death?”
“Benefited?” Gabriel barked a laugh, than frowned. “The motorbike may be the only thing he owns, apart from what he stood up in.”
“What about family properties, invested capital, that sort of thing?”
“You’ll have to talk to Sandy about all that. He’ll have it at his fingers ends. I know he sat Joshua down and made him write a will before he left for Europe the first time, but I think that was ‘Everything of which I die possessed to my favorite brother Aziraphale.’ “ He grimaced. “I suppose that means Sunshine owns a motorbike now. As if this needed to be any more like some bizarre dream! I think I’d like to wake up. Are we almost done?”
“Almost, and then we’ll take you home and bother Sandy for awhile,” Lamb assured him. “Can you think of any reason why Joshua might have been on Westminster Bridge?”
Gabriel started. “Westminster Bridge? N-no. Is that - he was found there?”
“Looks like he fell or was dumped off the bridge and landed on a buttress instead of going into the water.” Lamb watched his face; but everything about its movements was too large and practiced-looking to be revealing, all the lines on his face deep and simple, as if he only had a small range of expressions available to him. “It may or may not be the murder scene. To the best of your knowledge, did he ride the motorbike about town, or did he also use other means of transportation?”
“I don’t really know anything about his habits in London. I spend most of my time in Lancashire, either in Milltown or at the Abbey, and Joshua spends - spent - most of his time anywhere but there. He’s a grown man. Was a. Grown. I had other things to do than keep track of him.”
“Naturally. Now, if I understand correctly, the bookshop property belongs to the family. Do any of you besides Aziraphale have the keys?”
“Somewhere? I think? I might have them at my house, or maybe Mickey hangs onto them, since she’s in town so much more. Why would you need keys to the bookshop?”
“If Aziraphale doesn’t turn up soon we’ll need to impose on the goodwill and cooperation of the family to let us in.”
“But that - you think he might have been killed at the bookshop?”
“I didn’t say that. The purpose of investigation is to eliminate as many of possibilities as we can, till we get down to the right one. In pursuit of which - let’s get you home so we can go over the same ground with other members of your family and you can have some peace to recover in.”
