Blood Royal Page 4

  It appeared to be a life-sized wax dummy, the sort of thing he’d seen at Madame Tussaud’s. As his eyes focused he realized that there was something on the man’s lap.

  A head. The head of a woman.

  He heard a drip.

  Dark liquid was dripping off the chair the figure was sitting on.

  Blood.

  6

  Westminster Abbey

  Rotten luck, Dutton thought. He would have preferred getting chopped up by a serial killer than falling into the hands of Inspector Bram Archer of the Metropolitan Police—Scotland Yard—Homicide Division.

  Archer was in the crypt examining the body—and the head in its lap—and had posted Dutton on a bench in an anteroom with one of the Abbey guards who had come running when Dutton began screaming. It was past two in the morning and the guard, an elderly pensioner doing light duty after retiring from a clerical job with the Ministry of Housing, was nodding off beside Dutton.

  Dutton tried to think of all the reasons Archer hated him and it really boiled down to one: a story Dutton wrote when he was still a respectable award-winning journalist, an exposé on excessive force in arrests involving minorities. He reported a case in which Archer had broken both arms of a nineteen-year-old small-time Jamaican drug dealer. Something to do with the guy spitting on Archer.

  Dutton was trying to think of other reasons the homicide detective would have to hate him when Archer’s partner came out of the crypt area.

  Dutton smiled with false cheer at Sergeant Lois Kramer. Kramer was a well-nourished blonde with a healthy bustline and a lovely well-rounded ass. “Good to see you, Lois. How are things?”

  “We’re going to hang you on this one, you rotten, slimy son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Lois—”

  “I’m surprised you can remember my name. You kissed up to me to get information, then dumped me.”

  “I—”

  “I turned down a date with a real man to meet you, only to spend the evening twiddling my thumbs in a pub because you never showed up.” She leaned down so they were face-to-face. “And what really pisses me off is the guy I stood up won the lottery and married some tart I can’t stand.”

  “That was two years ago.”

  “And how many times have you called me since then? Archer’s going to burn your ass on this one and I want to be around to throw jet fuel on the fire.”

  Archer came out of the room, looking smugger than Dutton had ever seen him. The police inspector was short, about five-seven, but he was barrel-shaped and had about the same girth as height. Built like an artillery shell, he was probably the meanest little bastard on the school grounds when he was a kid. He had grown up to be a mean big bastard.

  Archer wanted to get in his face, too, and came close enough to breathe down at him. Dutton kept his features neutral, still wondering if there was any way he would be able to weasel out of charges of illegally entering the Abbey. Not to mention finding a dead body—or two.

  “I’m going to squeeze your balls,” Archer said, grinning and cracking his knuckles as he spoke. “I’m going to put them in the opening of a cell and slam the door shut. Permanently.”

  The sound of the big fists having their knuckles popped gave Dutton an uneasy feeling in his groin and gut.

  “Archer … Archer”—he wanted so badly to tell the jerk what he thought of him, but worked to keep a civil tongue—“you know I didn’t have anything to do with—”

  Archer cracked a knuckle and the sound echoed in Dutton’s empty stomach.

  “Dartmoor.” Archer grinned, his fat lips smacking with pleasure at the thought of Dutton being locked up in the prison. The man’s face was almost cherubic, with its flushed cheeks and red-wine bulbous nose. “What d’you think?” he asked his partner. “You think this smart-ass reporter for the filthiest rag in London will like Dartmoor? How long do you think it’ll take before he’s some ape’s sex toy?”

  Lois leered down at Dutton. “I’ll send you some vaginal cream. You’re going to need it.”

  “Fuck you. Both of you.”

  The guard stirred enough to look up at Dutton with tired eyes and shake his head. “Not smart.”

  Dutton shrugged, cocky. “My editor will have me out of custody in an hour.” In a pig’s eye, he thought.

  “No, not this time.” Archer’s voice went lower and Dutton could feel the heat of his rage and his foul dragon’s breath. “There’s a reprimand in my personnel jacket because of you. I’ll retire a grade lower, and every month when I get five hundred less than I deserve, I’ll think about you, getting your ass poked at Dartmoor—if you live long enough. I’ll put out the word that you have a snitch jacket.”

  “You have nothing on me, it’s not against the law to chase a story.”

  “I’ve got a dead body back there dressed up for a costume ball. And someone else separated from their head. Two people have been murdered,” he almost whispered, “and all I hear from you is that you were following a lead and fell into the lap of a corpse. But I don’t hear the name of the person you claim gave you the tip.”

  Dutton had been agonizing over that dilemma. If he coughed up Howler’s name, he would betray a source. He had been down that road before. Not that Howler’s life wasn’t in jeopardy already—when he got his hands on Howler, he’d strangle him. Besides, no matter what he did, Archer would burn him. If he was going to get himself untangled from this mess, he would need some leverage. The identity of his source was leverage. When the news media got wind of the gruesome twosome at Westminster Abbey, he hoped there would be enough pressure on Scotland Yard to find the killer that Archer would be forced to deal with him for information.

  “I can’t give you the source. You’ll just have to trust me.”

  Archer howled with laughter until he started choking. When he got his breath back, he said, “What’s the matter, Dutton, afraid you’ll get someone else killed because of your stupidity?”

  “Archer, to me you’re nothing more than a pile of air in this world, heavy air, a stinking pile of heavy air.”

  Archer cracked a knuckle with a big pop. “That’ll be your neck someday,” he whispered. Then, in a louder voice, “Your refusal to cooperate in a murder investigation leads me to believe you are lying about the reason you came here and that you are involved in the murders of two people. I’m going to—”

  “Inspector, Sergeant, can I see you for a moment?” It was Nulty, the scene-of-crime tech in charge of gathering evidence.

  “Watch him,” Archer told the night watchman. Archer and Kramer followed the forensics tech back to where the body was. Other crime scene technicians were checking the area for prints and using a micro-scanner to check for tiny bits of evidence. A medical technician was examining the head on the tomb when they entered the crypt. The body was sitting passively on the throne chair, the woman’s head still in its lap.

  “It’s a man, late fifties maybe, a woman about the same age,” the medical tech told him.

  Archer snorted. “You don’t need a medical license to figure that out. You have an estimate as to time of death?”

  “That’s for the pathologist. This is what I wanted you to check out. Put this on.” The medical tech handed Archer a plastic surgeon’s glove used in handling evidence. Archer stretched the glove over his fat fingers.

  “Feel here,” the tech told him, touching the dead man, “under the chin.”

  “Why?”

  “You want to know time of death? This will give you a clue.”

  Archer grimaced. He hated corpses. Not a poetic sort of aversion, life lost, love lost, but hated them because they reminded him of his own mortality. But he didn’t like to show a weakness to anyone for anything and he dutifully pressed under the man’s chin. “It’s hard.”

  “It’s frozen,” the tech corrected.

  Archer felt farther under the chin. “What do you mean, frozen?”

  “Frozen as in meat freezer, frozen like your mother stored kippers in July.”
>
  It wasn’t registering with Archer and he swung around and glared at Kramer. “What the hell’s he talking about?”

  “You’re telling us that this guy’s been iced?” Kramer asked.

  “Been and still partly is. Same with his lap mate.”

  “It’s not cold enough outside or inside to freeze someone,” Archer said.

  “You need a detective’s license to tell that?” the medical tech chortled.

  “Bodies that have been frozen? What the hell did Dutton do? Kill them by sticking them in a freezer?”

  “This will play hell on time of death,” the medical tech said. “You may end up being given the month of death rather than an hour or day.”

  “What about the rest of the bloke’s body?”

  “Thawing.”

  “Why would someone keep a bloody body frozen?”

  No one had an answer.

  On the way out of the room, Kramer said, “You know there’s no way that Dutton—”

  “He’s caught red-handed.”

  “He was covering a story.”

  “That’s what he said, but where’s his source?”

  “You know why he won’t give up his source.”

  “He’s been caught with two frozen stiffs and won’t tell us who did it. As far as I’m concerned, that makes him the number one suspect.” Archer cracked three knuckles on his left hand in quick sequence. It registered like machine gun fire in the little room. “I’ll make the bastard tell us how this bloke got iced.”

  * * *

  ARCHER AND KRAMER CAME into the anteroom where they had left Dutton and the elderly guard. Archer’s hands were clenched into big fists as if he meant to use them.

  The pensioner was sitting alone on the bench.

  “Where the bloody hell is Dutton?” Archer asked.

  The old man nodded sleepily at a door marked MEN across the corridor. “He’s spending a penny.”

  Archer stared at the restroom door, an ugly suspicion forming in his mind.

  “Is there a window in there?”

  7

  Heathrow Airport

  As Marlowe waited on the exit ramp, a tall, very thin young man about thirty or so was admitted into the area. He offered a handshake.

  “Philip Hall, Miss James, I’m an associate of Anthony Trent.”

  Hall gave a warm, firm handshake. If Marlowe had had to guess Philip Hall’s occupation prior to his introduction, with his pin-striped, dark-vested wool suit, old-fashioned bowler hat, and long black umbrella, she would have guessed he was a young Foreign Office official fresh from the Crimea with Churchill … apparently he was a young attorney who wasn’t afraid to capture the grace of another era in his dress and manners. Or maybe that was how attorneys dressed in London.

  “I’ve been permitted back by airport security to give you moral support as you wade through the news hounds from hell. For reasons that are inexplicable, Britain produces the most vicious newspeople on the planet. Right now there are probably fifty or sixty of the wild animals waiting to attack.”

  “I’ve faced reporters before, but never an army of them. I was considering borrowing a flight attendant’s uniform and sneaking out with the crew.”

  “Never get by our tabloid reporters, they have X-ray vision. Trent’s suggestion is that you simply smile and say absolutely nothing. Even a ‘no comment’ reply is interpreted by the press in any manner they want to use it.”

  “Fine.” Marlowe suspected Hall had been sent to make sure she didn’t give a news conference. She wasn’t the type to try her cases in the media, but she didn’t blame Trent. He didn’t know her and the case being defended truly was the shot heard around the world.

  “We’ll get your luggage and be on our way. I have a car waiting outside. Trent has called an emergency meeting of the team at his chambers. Would you mind terribly if we dropped by before I left you at the hotel? Not jet-lagged after the Concorde flight, are you? Rather sensational crossing the puddle in a couple of hours, isn’t it?”

  She had started the trip in Los Angeles on a regular jet, and no, she wasn’t jet-lagged, she was too excited to be groggy. She sensed Hall was gentlemanly enough to be uncomfortable at whisking her off to an “emergency meeting” before she even had a chance to freshen up at her hotel. “I take it Mr. Trent wants to see what sort of horror the princess has hired before I’m let off a leash in London.”

  Hall blushed with guilt and Marlowe instantly felt bad that she had exposed the truth. She took his arm. “Shall we meet the Fourth Estate?”

  As they stepped into the terminal Marlowe blinked under the assault of camera lights and a barrage of shouted questions. Security officers flanked her and Hall as they walked down a center aisle roped off from the newspeople. Being the focus of the attention of literally a mob armed with cameras, microphones, and questions was disconcerting. She had never faced a news conference of more than five or six reporters, most of whom were reasonably well mannered. These truly were hounds from news hell.

  She started to whisper to Hall about how intimidating it was but instantly shut her trap, realizing that some of the microphones might have a long range.

  Someone suddenly shot in front of her, startling her, a shabbily dressed man with long greasy hair and a scraggly three-day beard. He shoved a mike in her face.

  “You and the princess both killed husbands—will you use the tactics from your own murder trial to defend the princess?” he shouted.

  Her mouth dropped and she almost stumbled into him. Hall grabbed her arm and pulled her past the intruder as a security officer shouldered the man aside.

  They were separated from the newspeople and going down the escalator before either spoke.

  “I must apologize for that rudeness. Elliot Smithers of Burn, one of the trashiest tabloids in Britain.”

  Marlowe pushed a lock of hair off of her forehead. Her knees were wobbly, but she kept her face stoic. “I’ve heard it before.” Her voice was hard, but her insides were mush. She’d heard it before but never as a brutal attack.

  Safe behind tinted glass in the limo, Marlowe relaxed back in the car seat and scratched the tip of her nose. “I’ve been dying to do that since I stepped off the plane. What a nightmare it must be for celebrities, to constantly be in a fishbowl with every move monitored by the news media.”

  “Absolutely horrid. One would have to really be enthralled with a need for attention to appreciate such an invasion of privacy. There is some belief that the princess’s mental processes were affected by the constant hounding of the press, especially tabloid reporters like Smithers who can be very vicious about it.”

  “You mentioned going to Mr. Trent’s chambers. I take it that’s his offices? We use the word chambers in reference to a judge’s office.”

  “Quite right, chambers are a barrister’s office. A meeting’s been set up with members of the defense team.”

  “I hope the papers aren’t calling it a ‘dream team.’”

  Hall smiled. “Not yet, but I suppose they will turn to that phrase when there are less monumental details to report. The hiring of you by the princess is the current feeding frenzy.”

  Hall blushed a little at his comment. A very nice young man, she thought, and at the same time feeling old at thinking of a man only a few years younger than her as “young.”

  “Philip, are you a solicitor or a barrister?”

  He smiled. “American lawyers are always so curious about the distinction. Your attorneys are licensed in all matters.”

  “True, but other than small-town lawyers who tend to do everything, American lawyers separate somewhat along the same lines. We have lawyers who do transactional-type work, contracts, wills, that sort of thing, and trial attorneys whose arena is the courtroom.”

  “I am a barrister. Trent, of course, as lead counsel, is also a barrister. As you probably know, he’s one of the most respected attorneys in Britain.”

  She had never spoken to Trent, nor heard of him until the
story about the killing hit the news and stayed there. That the princess had hired one of the leading attorneys in her own country wasn’t a surprise. Marlowe had been hired directly by the princess, though an American friend of the princess made all of the arrangements. Other than a telephone conversation in which the princess confirmed that she wished to employ her as part of the defense team, Marlowe had not spoken to anyone directly connected to the case.

  It was strange that she was hired by the princess when the woman already had attorneys working for her—but that was just one card in a crazy deck. The fact that the princess reached across the Atlantic to hire an American lawyer when Britain had outstanding attorneys, and had chosen one who had some notoriety in her own right, were also wild cards.

  “Our office is taking care of the arrangements to have you appear ad hoc in the matter,” Hall said.

  Ad hoc was a legal principle that gave judges the right to permit attorneys not licensed in their jurisdiction to appear before their courts. Thus a California judge could permit a New York attorney to practice before a California court for the limited purpose of representing a particular client. Usually, the out-of-state lawyer had to associate a local attorney in the matter. In this case, an attorney licensed in one country was requesting the right to appear as trial counsel in an entirely different country.

  “It’s a bit unusual,” Hall said, “but since you are an attorney from a common-law country with similar procedures and rules of evidence, we believe no serious obstacle will be raised. The fact that Anthony Trent will be lead counsel will clinch it, of course.”

  Marlowe let the “lead counsel” remark pass. She intended to cooperate fully with Trent and the princess’s other British lawyers, but she had made it clear in her brief conversation with the princess that she would only come aboard if she had the last say on the defense. Marlowe was not a team player. Teams were committees and her feeling about committees was summed up by someone’s observation that a giraffe was a horse designed by a committee—or was it a camel?