Murder on the Cathedral Express (The Ralph Chalmers Mysteries Book 9) Read online

  “I presume Devon is okay?”

  “Just about, Professor. I expect that you’ll be wanting to get on the road in case that snow comes back. The forecast looks fine for the next two days, but you can never be sure.”

  Ralph glanced at his watch. It was five minutes past eleven. Katie would be waiting in the car. The Inspector caught his glance and stood up.

  “Thanks for coming in, Professor Chalmers. Merry Christmas to you and Miss Eggleton; and drive safely, sir. You are, after all, our key witness.” They both laughed.

  Outside Katie waved as he ran down the steps.

  “Perfect timing Ralph. Now that’s all settled let’s get on our way. I’m looking forward to a nice quiet Christmas.”

  Ralph mulled over his conversation with Linham as they drove down the A3 and headed for the motorway. A quiet Christmas? Not likely, he thought to himself as he adjusted the rear-view mirror. If Katie knew that he was now a suspect in a murder enquiry she would flip. He would save the details of his interview with Linham until later. Somehow he hoped it would not sound so bleak once they were sitting around a log fire in their cottage.

  Soon they were on the M3 and headed away from the congestion on the M25. He pushed the revs up to 3,000 as the speedometer hovered around 80. Beethoven’s second piano concerto wafted through the speakers and helped to smooth the frustration from the morning’s interview with Inspector Linham as Katie, feet in their usual position on the dashboard, dozed off in the seat beside him. She only awakened when he turned off the M5 towards Tiverton.

  “I must have been more tired than I thought, Ralph. Are you okay? We can always stop if you need a break. Or I could take over the driving for a while.” She knew there was not a snowball’s chance in hell that he’d let her, or anyone else for that matter, behind the wheel of his beloved vintage Jag, but at least she had offered.

  “No I’m fine,” he said and mustered a weak smile. “If the roads are clear we should get there before dark. Where did Doctor Tulle say she would leave the key? Under the flower pot as usual?” Samantha Tulle was the retired village doctor. They had worked out a nice arrangement whereby she rented out the cottage from them when they didn’t need it and vacated it when they wanted to come down. So far it had worked out quite well for everyone.

  “Yes, the usual place. Of course everyone in the county must know it’s there by now. She said she’ll be back at the end of January. She’s arranged for Mrs Jones to go in and put the water heater on and make sure that the fire is set. She’s got in some ready sawn logs so you won’t have to do your ‘Dangerous Dan McGrew’ act or whatever. This weekend I want us to relax and just enjoy ourselves.”

  Ralph cringed as Katie started to recite bits from the poem The Shooting of Dan McGrew.

  A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;

  The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;

  Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat dangerous Dan McGrew,

  And watching his luck was his light-of-love, the lady that’s known as Lou.

  It was a favourite of hers and what amazed him was that she could recite the whole thing from memory. He could see that he was going to have to up his game if he wanted to match Katie this weekend.

  They parked the car in the old barn. Some time back it had been the scene of a scuffle with two Turkish men before the police came and arrested them. Now it seemed like another lifetime. The fire soon roared in the inglenook fireplace as Katie put some ready meals, in the microwave.

  “I hope you don’t mind, Ralph, but tonight it’s just going to be a quick meal and a bit of just putting our feet up and chilling out before bed. I can’t wait to sink into that feather mattress and pull up the duvet.”

  “Me too,” said Ralph as he prodded the logs and made the sparks fly up the chimney.

  “Actually, this isn’t bad,” Ralph commented as they ate their supper in front of the fire.

  “”I have a friend who buys nothing but these ready meals. She puts them in her own baking dishes and disposes of the packaging. Her husband thinks he’s married a gourmet cook. I think I might try that. I wonder if they do entire Christmas dinners all ready and waiting to pop in the microwave.”

  Ralph just grunted. Between the rather stressful visit with Inspector Linham that morning and the five hour drive, he had to admit that he was exhausted. When he looked at the clock over the mantle and saw that it was almost ten he made a move to get up.

  “I know what you mean,” Katie said. “I’m ready for bed myself. All that dozing in the car has made me sleepy,” she added before he could say it first.

  Outside, lurking in the dark woods, a red fox watched the fiery needles soar towards the starlit sky before he moved on. As Ralph turned off the bedside lamp he wondered if he should get up early and have a run before breakfast. He turned and saw that Katie was fast asleep.

  ***

  The next two days saw them riding, sailing and enjoying all the treats that accompany Christmas and Boxing Day. Katie had managed to get invited to ride out with the local hunt. The diehard hunting brigade had poo-pooed drag hunting as an American affectation, but it seemed to be catching on now that live hunting had been banned. In fact, the whole affair was much more fun, since it eliminated all that standing around while the hounds tried to pick up a scent. It had proved especially popular with the foxes and stags.

  There had been plenty of time to talk over his interview with Inspector Linham. Katie’s view was predictable. Namely, that he should forget all about it as and leave the police to do their job. Although he agreed there was little he could do, for Ralph it was not that clear cut. He was convinced that whoever killed the two judges must be connected in some way to the art business, but it was an area he knew little about. He knew that Katie had a colleague at UCL whose husband owned a small fine-art gallery in Kensington and managed to persuade her to call her friend.

  After what seemed to him like a marathon conversation, she eventually hung up.

  “It’s no good looking at me like that, Ralph. You’re the one who insisted I call her. I couldn’t very well just say ‘hi, it’s Katie. Tell me everything you know about your husband’s business in thirty seconds or less’.”

  “Okay, okay, I get the point. But what did she say?”

  “She explained how the Turner Prize works. But you knew that already. She said that it’s a very cut-throat business. The people who want to get recognised either find themselves a sponsor or someone spots them and offers to put their work on display. You know, free champagne and soft lighting with the big sell underpinning the whole thing. As you can imagine, a lot of it’s the usual smoke and mirrors.”

  “But did she have any idea why someone would want to murder two of the judges?”

  “I couldn’t just ask her outright about that, Ralph. She’d think I’d flipped. You’re obsessed with it because you happen to have been there. Other people lead normal lives.” He could see that Katie was getting a bit exasperated.

  “Sorry. So did she say if there’s big money involved?”

  “Well, it does sound very competitive. Galleries like Whitechapel had shown artists such as Jackson Pollock and Sophie Castle that turned out to be big money. And there’s Focal Point at Southend. It’s the centre for contemporary art in Essex. Then she said there was one called Artangel where they recently showed a grainy TV picture of an urban fox, you know the sort that scavenge around the waste bins at night. The fox was shown sitting in a chair in a living room.”

  “Sounds about right. And people buy that stuff. They either have a lot more money than sense, or else they’re just bored out of their minds.”

  “I suppose that some people might say the same thing about the art deco pieces you buy. Anyway, she said that modern and contemporary art is the big thing at the moment. The Chinese and the oil-rich Arabs are buying it up like it’s going out of style. She also mentioned that there’s a lot of interest in exhibitions at the Chisenh
ale Gallery near Bethnal Green as well as at the Barbican. Oh, and she said something about that poor boy who’s in a coma. She knew all about his work. She said it was very controversial.”

  “He was the one touted to win the Turner Prize,” Ralph said.

  “That’s right. My friend said that he had used some sort of video and software technique to bring famous paintings, to life. Sort of like a Disney animation, but a lot more sophisticated. She said that she knows his father, Leon, I think she said his name was. Anyhow, evidently he’s a big player in the art world.”

  “Yes. Inspector Linham mentioned that he’d had a complete breakdown when his son nearly got killed the night of the Turner prize announcement,” Ralph said.

  “That’s what she said. He was devastated. I guess everyone expected his work to become the next big thing; you know, software firms clamouring to get the licensing rights and all that. She said his father had sunk a lot of money into his son’s project.”

  “Didn’t she say anything about the judges?” Ralph asked.

  “Only that she knew that man, Giddings. You know, the one you tried to help at Surbiton. Actually she said that her husband knew him. He’d done some work on an exhibition that Goldsmiths College put on in Germany at some place called Weissen. I think she said it was an art college in Berlin. Oh, and some company or gallery or something there called LoBe.”

  “So money could well be the motive for those murders,” Ralph said.

  “How? I’m not sure I’m following your logic, Ralph.”

  “You know, the rights to the software that drives the animation. It sounds like there’s potential for big money out of that sort of technology.”

  “But how would killing those judges do that? You said you thought it was about revenge.”

  “Not any more. I’m now convinced that this has to do with money. In fact I’m starting to think that someone wants to make it look like a revenge killing to divert attention from the fact that what they really want is to get hold of the process that that James Riggs had invented. If it’s as unique as your friend suggested then it could be worth millions.”

  “But I still don’t see the connection. The competition was over. What purpose would it serve to kill the judges afterwards?”

  “What if some big firm bribed those judges not to vote for Riggs. Don’t you see? If he thought his project was a lost cause, that would put them in a pretty strong position to move in and offer young Riggs a knock down offer. Then they’d sell it off to some American film company and make a fortune.”

  “But I still don’t see how that explains the murders, Mr Holmes.”

  “Think about it. Suppose one of the judges came clean and told the authorities what they’d done. Obviously they couldn’t risk that. The judges had to be silenced or they might give the game away.”

  “Ralph are you seriously suggesting that an acclaimed academic or a woman who has been honoured with the title of Dame would be open to bribes?”

  “Just look at history. No one’s beyond a bribe.”

  “Ralph Chalmers that’s an awful thing to say. l tell you a few snippets from my chat with a girlfriend and you’re already building a case. Anyhow, this is meant to be our holiday, not some murder mystery excursion.”

  “You’re right. Let’s go for a walk along the cliffs before we close the place up and head back to London.”

  ___________________

  Chapter 6

  Gypsy Hill campus was swarming with people as Ralph walked up the steep pathway to his office in Kenry House. A new semester always invited a burst of enthusiasm from both staff and students. It was a new year and all the issues that students had wrestled with on the run up to Christmas were now, for them, a thing of the past. He pushed his way through the noisy groups who huddled together outside the lecture halls chattering about new relationships and how their parents had fussed over their drinking and if they were eating healthy food and had they got enough money. What always struck him was how the students laughed about their parents’ concerns. Maybe it was their way of showing their friends that someone really cared about them. I must be getting sentimental, he muttered to himself. More likely they’ll be out clubbing at the weekend and calling home for more money.

  Janice was waiting already at her desk when he went in.

  “Good morning, Professor Chalmers. Happy New Year.”

  “Happy New Year, Janice. I hope you had a nice holiday.”

  It was a ritual. He knew that Janice and her husband had spent the weekend making a fuss of their only daughter, a bright young woman who was now a successful lawyer specialising in commercial law.

  “How’s your daughter? Did she get down for the weekend?”

  “Yes thank you, Professor Chalmers. We had a marvellous time.”

  Janice was ‘old school’. She would never dream of asking him what she would see as personal questions. So the ritual was complete. He settled down behind his desk to go through the usual batch of internal emails. Janice put his tea down on a side table.

  “I thought you might like to try some biscuits. It’s a new recipe. I’ll put them here for you.”

  “Thanks, Janice. That’s very kind of you.”

  He knew that Janice prided herself on her home baking. No doubt she had brought in a large tin of her biscuits to distribute amongst the other secretaries in the Business School.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Janice said, “but there was a message from Dean Granger’s secretary. She said that the Dean would like you to see him around 10.” She closed the door quietly and left him to his work.

  Ralph knew that he had been summoned. It was the way that Janice had slipped in the words ‘would like’ to what he knew was an edict from Granger. He dealt with the pages of emails quickly. Over the years he had adopted a rule. Read the sender’s name. If it was from a colleague who he knew would spoil his day given half a chance, he pressed ‘delete’ without even reading the message. So far it had worked. to reduce his stress levels and no one need be the wiser.

  ***

  “Dean Granger is waiting for you, Professor Chalmers.”

  Margaret seemed in a good mood. The break from having to deal with Rupert Granger’s tantrums and disgruntled staff members must have done her good, he thought.

  “Come in, Ralph. Have a seat. Margaret’s just getting some coffee. Good holiday?”

  “It was nice to get away. How about you?”

  “Good. The usual. You know, too much food and too much holiday cheer. Anyhow, it’s back to business as usual. I saw that bit in the paper about that business at Surbiton Station just before Christmas. Tragic way to go. Poisoned, they said. Probable suicide. Paper said you tried to help save the man. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about.”

  Ralph had not seen the papers, but then he and Katie had been out of circulation down in the West Country. He was slightly surprised that it had been reported as a poisoning and wondered how the press had got hold of his name. He had little interest in Granger’s private life, and he suspected that the feeling was mutual. At least, after twenty years, time had mellowed their earlier combative relationship.

  Margaret came in and put the coffee on a side table.

  “Thanks Margaret, just leave it there.”

  Granger walked over and poured Ralph a cup. Ralph had seen this scene played out a hundred times over the course of his relationship with the Dean. It was pretty obvious that Granger wanted a big favour from him this time. He did not have to wait long to find out what it was.

  “Look Ralph, we’re in a bit of a mess. I know you’ve dealt with those people over in the Art and Design Faculty in the past. It seems that there’s an internal meeting this Wednesday over at Knights Park; part of the University disciplinary process. I know you’ve handled this sort of thing before, so I’d like you to be the Business School rep on this one.” Granger walked over and stood by the window and sipped his coffee.

  Ralph was familiar with the process. He had sat
in on more than a few over the years. The rules permitted the person under review to request that a representative from another faculty be present during the procedure. What he couldn’t figure out was why Granger was making such a thing of it. Why not send him the request through normal HR channels?

  “You need to play this very carefully, Ralph. It’s a tricky one and could cause a lot of trouble if we don’t put the lid on it.”

  “I thought you said it was a Disciplinary? I’d at least like to know who’s involved and what it’s about.”

  The first thought that flashed through Ralph’s mind was that some silly bugger had got himself mixed up with one of his female students. It wouldn’t be the first time, or the last, he mused. Or, perhaps one of the tutors made a racist or sexist remark during a lecture. The field was wide open. While he mulled over the possibilities, he noticed that Granger had opened a file.

  “HR’s put all the details in here. I’ve spoken to the VC and his main worry is that someone might leak this to the press. They’d have a field day with this sort of thing. You know how they love it when they think they can dig up some dirt on the University. In any event, the VC is concerned that it could have wider implications for the University. The person involved is a Professor Gregg Barnes. He teaches Art and Design. He’s been in the Faculty for 25 years in one capacity or another. It has been brought to the attention of his Dean that he’s been doing work for a third party and being paid quite large sums for his efforts.”

  Ralph knew that it was almost custom and practice for staff to engage in what was called ‘outside work’. Most Deans accepted that staff had interests beyond their role at the University. He knew that If possible the first step was to see if you could contract to do the work through the University and get paid through its internal accounting system. That way you were covered by the University insurance policy, and it also gave the Institution some kudos. If that was not possible, then the Dean had discretion to okay the activity. But Ralph was aware that some staff had set up and ran businesses or were active partners in professional practices. The whole area was a minefield that relied on people’s sense of propriety and honesty. How likely it was that the University would turn a blind eye depended on how well you were connected to the power group in the University, and your place in the food chain.