Some By Fire dcp-6 Page 16

  "Bright red." Ah, well, she still had six years to go purple.

  "Was there anything else?" I wondered.

  "Not really," Mrs. Holmes replied. "We drifted apart after that. I knew I had to work hard, and I didn't want to let my parents down. I know it's corny, but they made sacrifices to send me to university, and I wasn't as gifted as Melissa. I thought she wasted her talents, and to be honest, I grew to dislike her."

  "Did she and this Kingston become a couple?" Dave asked.

  "For a while," Mrs. Holmes answered, 'and then…" She covered her face with her hands and began to laugh uncontrollably. "Oh my goodness!" she exclaimed as she recovered. "I don't know if I should tell you…"

  Her laughter was infectious. "If you don't," I said, smiling, 'we'll just have to arrest you and take you to the station to make a statement."

  She blew her nose on a tissue and concealed it somewhere in the folds of her skirt. "It was awful," she declared, but her expression said otherwise.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "We went to a party at Nick Kingston's flat. It must have been after Christmas, because I'd taken my father's car back down there after the holiday. It was a Morris Minor, and he said I'd have more use for it than him. After that, I was invited to a lot more parties, because I was good for a lift. I remember! It was to watch a moon landing, that was it! Apollo 13, the one that had problems. We were all interested, history was being made, but Kingston knew everything about it. He was a complete show-off. Would you like some more tea?"

  We would. She refilled our cups and I invited her to continue.

  "Kingston was awful to Melissa. They'd seen a lot of each other up to then, but I could see he was deliberately ignoring her and chasing another girl. Melissa took her revenge by latching on to poor Mo."

  "Mo?"

  That smile came back, but wistful this time. "That's right, short for Mobo Dlamini. He was from Swaziland, that's in South Africa, and a lovely person. His father or grandfather was the king, and he came over here to study law."

  "Could you spell it, please?" Dave asked, and noted it down.

  "I went home just as it was breaking dawn," Mrs. Holmes continued, 'but Melissa didn't come with me. I heard her and Mo arrive much later. Their giggles and antics woke me up. About lunchtime I had my revenge. There was a knock at the door and who should I find there but Melissa's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Youngman. They pushed past me and marched up to her room. Can you imagine their reactions? Not only was their darling daughter in bed with a man, but he was a black man. It was awful. I heard most of it and Mo told me the rest. They stormed out and drove away, and I don't think she saw them again. I gave Mo some aspirin and some breakfast and took him home."

  "This was early 1970?" I asked.

  "Yes."

  "Melissa's mother died of an overdose in August of that year," I said.

  "Oh no," Janet Holmes sighed. "The poor woman."

  "Melissa sounds a right little charmer," Dave declared. "I'm not surprised you disliked her."

  "What happened to them all?" I asked.

  She took a deep breath and thought for a few seconds. "That was the end of our friendship, if you could call it that. I moved out and concentrated on my studies. Melissa didn't do the second year and I haven't heard a whisper of her until now. Mo joined a firm of solicitors in London and married an English girl. We kept in touch until I left university, but I don't know what happened to him."

  "And Kingston?" I prompted.

  She hesitated before shaking her head and saying: "I don't know."

  My tea was cold but I finished it off. Putting the cup down I said:

  "You wouldn't happen to have any photographs, would you?"

  Our lucky streak stayed with us. She sat upright, stretching her spine to its full extent, and said: "Why didn't I think of that? Of course I have, somewhere."

  "We'd be grateful if you could find them."

  She said it would take a few minutes, but she knew where they should be if we didn't mind waiting. We passed the time by having another scone each and I studied the cross-section of the beastie above the fireplace. Seeing one of them down the pan would ruin your morning.

  It took a little longer than we expected, and she had a smudge of dust on her nose when she returned, explaining that they were in the loft and she rarely went up there. "Here we are," she said, laying an album on the table. It said "Essex' on the cover in ornate lettering.

  There were only four that were relevant to our inquiry. Melissa, Mo and Mrs. Holmes, or Miss Wilson as she was then, were in self-conscious poses with several other young people in the various stages of inebriation. "Which one is you?" I'd asked after she'd pointed to Melissa on three of them.

  "There," she said, 'and there," indicating a slim girl with long straight hair.

  "You look like Julie Felix," I said.

  She blushed and said: "I did a reasonable impersonation of her with the guitar, when pressed."

  "And that must be Mo."

  "A brilliant deduction, my dear Watson," she replied. He was the only black person in the photographs.

  "Elementary, Holmes," I said, on cue, and she gave me a wistful smile, as if I'd stumbled into a private joke that she hadn't heard for a long time.

  The pictures weren't the great breakthrough we'd hoped they might be.

  They were small, two and a quarter inches square at a guess, and black and white. The quality was excellent, but the poses were informal and not much use for identification purposes.

  "Can we borrow these?" I asked.

  "Yes, of course."

  "Is Kingston in any?" Dave wondered.

  "No. He took them, but would never let anybody else handle his precious camera. It was the same as the first men on the moon used, he claimed. Another of his boasts. He did us all a set of contact prints, but would charge us for enlargements, if we wanted them. He wasn't famous for his generosity, just the opposite. Photography was one of his hobbies."

  "Along with witchcraft," Dave suggested.

  "Yes, and keep-fit and rock climbing. He was into everything. He was an interesting person, in a way, but weird with it. And slimy. I didn't like him, either." She laughed again and said: "I'm awful, aren't I?"

  I assured her she wasn't and thanked her for everything. We placed our cups on the tray and I held the door for her as we walked through into the kitchen. Outside, there was a table on the lawn, with one chair against it, and the grass had been half-cut and then abandoned. "Do you know where Melissa is?" Mrs. Holmes asked.

  "We believe she's in the United States," I replied.

  "I've always thought I'd read about her one day," she said. "She was a remarkable girl, but after that episode with her parents I decided she was heartless, capable of anything. Nothing Melissa did would surprise me."

  "You've dust on your nose," I said, smiling.

  "A talented lady," Dave commented as we rejoined the Al.

  "Mmm. And capable of anything, it would appear."

  "Who?"

  "Melissa."

  "I meant Mrs. Holmes."

  "Yes, she's a clever woman."

  "And nice, too."

  "What are you getting at?" I asked.

  "Nothing, but you could do worse."

  "She can't cook," I replied.

  "I suspect she was being modest, and that's what takeaways are for."

  "She's not my type."

  "No? I bet that when we've had these photos enlarged you just happen to return the originals personally."

  "I might. The camera was a Hasselblad, by the way," I said.

  "I know. And the moon men left theirs at the Sea of Tranquillity.

  Shall we go fetch it tomorrow?"

  "Good idea."

  We went to London instead. I'd wanted Dave to have a day down there to meet Graham and the team and compare notes. Our loose agreement was that we'd concentrate on the fire and they would resurrect the files on the other deaths that had accumulated on J.J. Fox's path to
fortune.

  When we'd arrived back at the office I'd rung the SFO and Graham had quickly discovered that Mo Dlamini lived in Southwark, south London, and had carved himself a reputation as a worker for civil liberties.

  Nicholas Kingston was harder to pin down. I decided we'd both go; meet them mob-handed. Dave could drive us there while I snoozed.

  Taking the car into town was a mistake. I'd timed it so we'd arrive about ten o'clock, but every hour is rush hour in London, and people were killing for parking places. We eventually muscled into a space and I took Dave into the hallowed halls of the Serious Fraud Office. A quick phone call told me that Mo Dlamini would be in his office most of the day and I left Dave discussing tactics with his new friends, Graham and Piers.

  There was a tube train waiting at the platform, but I didn't know which way it was heading. I jumped on and risked it. At the next station I got off and looked for the down line. I'm just a country bumpkin at heart. Southwark is just across the river, according to the map, but it still took me nearly an hour to find his office. It was in a purpose-built Community and Resources centre, with graffiti on the walls next to posters about needle sharing and benefit cheats. Thursday was basketball, and two teams of youths were charging about in a huge gymnasium and getting nowhere, in spite of all having the proper gear.

  Looking the part is all. Their shouts and the shrieks of rubber against wooden floor were deafening. I watched them for a few seconds with the door ajar and decided he wouldn't be in there. A woman with two toddlers asked me where the toilets were. I'd noticed them when I came in, so I pointed and said: "At the end." If in doubt, ask a policeman. There were several other doors off the corridor, some padlocked, some open. One led to a kitchen where a youth with a shaved head and a bolt through his neck was mopping the floor. "Where's Mr.

  Dlamini's office?" I asked.

  "Who?" he replied.

  "Mo Dlamini."

  "Dunno."

  "Thanks."

  Fortunately for me a human being came round the corner, wearing a dog collar, and he told me that Mo's office was the last on the left. I knocked and a voice shouted:

  "Come in!"

  Everybody in this case is older than I expected. Not old, exactly, but more mature. In their prime. About my age. I imagined everybody as if frozen at the age they were in the seventies, before twenty-three years of striving to earn a living had taken their toll. Mo Dlamini's hair was seriously greying, but he was as big as he'd looked on the photos and the expression was just as open and confident. He was a lighter colour than I thought he'd be, and his features were soft, almost European. He shook my hand vigorously and introduced me to his son, Ainsley.

  Ainsley was leaning on the wall because it was easier for him than contorting his frame into one of the little stacking chairs.

  Including his hair he must have been nearly seven feet tall and was built like a clothes prop. "Hi, Ainsley," I said, peering at the discreet logo on the left breast of his dazzling white T-shirt as we exchanged handshakes. It said calvin bolloCKs, and I warmed to him immediately.

  "Sit down, Inspector Priest," Dlamini invited, 'and tell us what we can do for you. You're a long way from Yorkshire so it must be important."

  "Thanks." I coiled myself into the chair he gestured towards and took a quick glance at my surroundings. It wasn't exactly the office of a hot-shot lawyer, with its transport cafe Formica table, bare walls and tiled floor. I decided that this was where he held his surgeries. The heavyweight bookcases, VDUs, coffee percolator and secretarial staff were elsewhere. I looked at Ainsley then back at Dlamini and said:

  "Some of the stuff I want to discuss is of a confidential nature…"

  I left it hanging and they both took the hint.

  "I'll see how the basketball's going," Ainsley said, launching himself towards the door. "Pleasure to meet you, Inspector."

  "Likewise, Ainsley," I replied. "Nothing personal."

  "Ring your mum," his father shouted after him, followed by, "Kids, who'd have 'em?"

  "He's a big lad," I observed.

  "Big? I work the first three days of the week just to feed him. So what's this all about?"

  I dived straight in. "I'd like you to cast your mind back to 1970 if you can, Mr. Dlamini. Can you remember where you were then?" '1970? Jesus," he replied. "First of all, it's Mo. Everybody calls me Mo."

  "And I'm Charlie." I told him.

  "Right. Let me see… in 1970 I was gaining work experience on company law with a firm of solicitors in Colchester, Essex. Do you need any more than that?"

  "No, that's fine. Do you remember going to a party in April of that year? It might be helpful if I tell you that the party coincided with the Apollo 13 moon mission, which was the one that nearly ended in disaster."

  The corner of his mouth twitched, but I couldn't tell if it was a stifled smile or embarrassment or something else. He tried to speak, hesitated, and tried again. "Party?" he mumbled, his thoughts miles and years away.

  "Apollo 13," I prompted.

  "Yes, I remember," he admitted, struggling to appear impassive.

  "Can you remember anybody else who was there?"

  He thought about it, but all he could remember was that he was a lawyer. "No," he replied, shaking his head.

  "Maybe I can jog your memory. Did you meet a young lady called Melissa Youngman there? She was quite distinctive-looking. Had dyed red hair."

  The description was unnecessary because he was already holding his head in his hands. He pulled at his hair in a parody of despair and cried:

  "A lawyer! My kingdom for a lawyer!" When he recovered from the shock he said: "What's she doing? Kiss 'n' telling?"

  "Not that I know of," I replied. "Her name keeps cropping up in our investigations and they brought us to you. What can you tell us about her?"

  "God!" he croaked, grinning at the memories. "If this gets out I'm finished. What can I tell you about her? Nothing, Charlie. Nothing at all."

  "Didn't you have an affair with her?"

  "An affair! We had one night of rampant lust and that was it.

  She left me gasping for release, trying to beat the door down to escape. I never went out with her or anything because I stayed well away. That's all."

  "I believe you were interrupted," I said.

  He suddenly looked grave. "You know about that?" he replied. "God, that was awful. Her parents came marching in. It was very unpleasant.

  I tried to be reasonable, said I loved her, we were engaged and stuff like that, but she didn't give a toss. She called them names. And her language… it was fucking this and fucking that… to her parents. Not a night or a young lady I choose to remember, Charlie. Thanks a bunch for reminding me."

  "It had to be done. So how did you meet her? Were you introduced?"

  "Yeah. This so-called friend introduced me to her. I think she had been his girlfriend and he wanted rid of her. She looked interesting and she was bright, very bright. We both had a bit — a lot too much to drink, and that was that."

  "What was this friend called?"

  After a long pause he said: "No. I've told you enough for the moment.

  You tell me a bit more about the reason for all this."

  "Fair enough," I replied. I told him about the fire five years later, and the girl with purple hair that we thought was Melissa Youngman. If she'd put Duncan Roberts up to the fire, who was she working for? It was enough to convince him.

  "OK," he replied. "The person who introduced us was called Kingston.

  Nick Kingston. He lectured in psychology."

  Kingston rides again, I thought. "How did you meet him?"

  Mo sat back in the chair, which was invisible under his bulk, and folded his arms. He raised a knee and pressed it against the table, which moved away from him so he had to put his foot back on the floor.

  "Let me tell you about my background," he began. "You have, here before you, a member of the royal family of Swaziland. Now, before you are overwhelmed with respe
ct and deference let me tell you that my grandfather, the king, had two hundred wives, of whom my grandmother was about number one hundred and seventy. He died in 1983 after ruling for fifty-two years, which made him the longest-serving monarch ever. I was a bright child, so I was sent to England for my education and was expected to take up a position in government after I'd qualified." He held his arms wide and proclaimed: "I could have been Prime Minister by now!"

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "Usual story. I fell in love with a white girl in the office. Couldn't really see her baring her breasts at the annual Reed Dance, so we settled here. She was a bit of a radical; espoused what our enemies call left-wing causes, as if that were an insult, and here we are." He waved a hand at the walls. "Business is good, as you can see."

  "That's interesting," I told him, because it was. "You have a colourful background."

  "But what's it got to do with Kingston? I'll tell you. King Sobhuza, my grandpa, was a very wise man. He embraced modern technology, where possible, but strove to maintain traditional values. Witch doctors the ones who cast spells on people and dabbled in the black arts were outlawed, but the more benign ones are still tolerated and even encouraged. For instance the iNyanga are herbalists, and the iSangona are foreseers of the future. I wanted to explore the psychology of traditional medicine and started attending Kingston's lectures. I'd approached him and he said it was OK, which I thought was very kind of him. Unfortunately, as I got to know him better, I changed my mind. He was more interested in the witch doctors than I was. He was forever asking me about their powers and the type of things they could do. He believed in astral travel and all sorts of oddball stuff, and thought they had the key to it and the knowledge would be lost forever if someone, namely him, didn't write it down. He saw me as his key to that knowledge."

  "Was this after the party?" I asked.

  "Yeah, I suppose so. I was starting to have doubts about him by then, though."

  "In what way?"

  "I realised he was strange. He was into keep-fit and martial arts, things like that. Yoga. He didn't feel pain. He could snuff out a candle with his fingers, very slowly. It was his party trick. And the same with cold. Christmas Day he used to join the swimmers in the sea at Southend or somewhere. I tell you, Charlie, Nick Kingston is a weird cookie."