Page 126 of Marble Hall Murders

‘I think I did notice a watch when we first met. It was a Rolex.’

‘That’s very well observed. It was a vintage Rolex Explorer, to be precise, released in 1953. Stainless steel with a leather strap. A very nice piece, worth about fifteen thousand pounds. It belonged to Kenneth Rivers and he left it to Eliot in his will.’

‘Why is the watch relevant?’ I asked.

‘Eliot was wearing it at the party,’ Blakeney replied. ‘We have several guests who are quite certain they saw it on his wrist – and according to Gillian, he never took it off. But here’s the thing. When his body was discovered, the watch was gone.’

‘That’s awful,’ I said. ‘Someone saw him lying there and they took it.’

‘That was our immediate assumption. A random pedestrian passes a man who has just been knocked down, notices his expensive watch and nicks it. It’s sick, but it’s not such a strange thing to happen in the middle of London. But we were wrong. Because we found the watch.’

He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a clear plastic evidence bag, sealed at the top. He held it up and I could see the watch quite clearly, coiled up like a snake. I recognised it at once. He’d been wearing it when we met Elaine at Causton Books.

‘So where did you find it?’

His deep brown eyes settled on me. ‘It was in your flat.’

Alexandra Palace

‘Who found it?’ I asked.

‘I’m not sure that’s relevant,’ Blakeney replied.

‘Well, where was it?’

‘In the drawer beside your bed.’

‘Is that why you offered to clean up my flat? So you could search it? Is that even legal?’

We were no longer in the house. Blakeney’s declaration had shocked me so much that I’d felt a physical need to get out. I would have preferred to go on my own, but I had to know more and when he’d suggested coming with me, I hadn’t complained. I’d turned into Alice down the rabbit hole, but instead of white rabbits and playing cards, I’d been sucked into a nightmare landscape – more Hieronymus Bosch than Lewis Carroll. It was impossible for Eliot’s watch to have been found in my bedroom. It was impossible for a scrap of his bloodstained jacket to have wedged itself into the dented grille of my MG. Both of these things had happened.

And here I was, walking round the grounds of Alexandra Palace with a police officer who had been friendly enough thelast time we’d met but who now seemed determined to put me in jail. I had no-one to turn to. My sister couldn’t help. Should I be calling a lawyer? I needed fresh air and sunshine to clear my head.

Alexandra Palace. Ally Pally to anyone who lived nearby. It had been built on a hilltop overlooking London and opened to the public in 1873 – ‘The Palace of the People’. It had burned down sixteen days later. It was rebuilt, burned down a second time in 1980 and was now something of a white elephant, although a handsome one with a theatre and an ice rink. In a way, it reminded me of my career. That had repeatedly burned down too.

We were walking through the grounds. The sky was clear and I could see all the way to south London, almost as if I was in a plane. The park was still busy. We passed a group of teenagers, about a dozen of them, playing football with piled-up clothes used as goalposts. A couple came the other way, pushing a pram. A man threw a ball for his dog. Here and there, people sat on the grass, enjoying the late-afternoon warmth. I was surrounded by the normal world but completely separated from it.

‘If that’s what you think, I’m disappointed, Susan.’ Blakeney had taken his time to reply to my last point. ‘If I’d wanted to search your flat, I’d have got a warrant. I was just trying to help you. But if you really are going to suggest I acted illegally, then I’ll have to remind you that you had been informed of the reason we entered the premises and if you look at Section Nineteen of the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act, you’ll find – and I quote – that “the constable may seize anything which is on the premises if he has reasonable groundsfor believing that it is evidence in relation to an offence which he is investigating”.’

‘Why onlyhe?’ I growled.

‘Good point. But this was 1984.’

I wanted to be angry with him but couldn’t. ‘Just tell me,’ I said. ‘If you believed I ran Eliot over because he insulted me and then stole his watch and hid it in my bedroom, you’d already have arrested me. What do you think is going on?’

We walked on in silence. I glanced at a father flying a kite with his children and not for the first time, I thought of Mary Poppins. I could see Blakeney struggling with himself, deciding how much to tell me. The sun was dipping and suddenly I felt a strange sense of peace. I trusted him. He was like one of those Edwardian heroes created by Erskine Childers or John Buchan, dragged into an adventure without quite wanting to be there.

‘I’m not sure what I believe,’ he began at last. ‘For what it’s worth, my DS thinks I must have a soft spot for you or something, and I won’t even start with DC Wardlaw. We have motive, timing, opportunity and solid evidence, and there is absolutely no way that you and I should be walking in a park together. It may not mean very much to you, especially after what you just said, but I’m putting my neck on the line for you and if it does turn out that you ran over Eliot Crace, I’ll be saying goodbye to my career.’

I didn’t know how to respond. It had never occurred to me that he’d been defending me, even putting his own prospects at risk. He was a decent man and I was beginning to wish I’d handled this conversation differently.

‘So let me tell you why I’m sticking up for you.

‘First of all, this sort of crime is vanishingly rare. There was a kids’ writer who got drugged and suffocated by her partner – it was a nasty story – a while ago, and there’s always Christopher Marlowe, I suppose, but, by and large, famous authors don’t get murdered. Can you name another? We’re none of us used to handling this sort of situation.

‘And then you need look at what modern police officers have to deal with—’

I was about to interrupt, but he stopped me.

---