LITMIR.BIZ

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painstakingly typing out a report with his two forefingers, she whispered, ‘What’s up?’

      She nodded at the portly, prosperous-looking man with a neat moustache who was being ushered very civilly into Jennings’s private office by Sergeant O’Grady.

      ‘Dunno,’ Rodney said vaguely. ‘Some bigwig not happy about some poison-pen letters or something.’

      Trudy sighed.

      Knowing that pumping him for further information would be useless, since Rodney tended to be able to deal with only one thing at a time, Trudy sauntered casually towards the DI’s slightly open door, a file in hand for camouflage.

      Much to her chagrin, after her recent stint of roughhousing with the purse-snatcher, DI Jennings had promptly assigned her to Records and filing work. Now, opening the filing-cabinet drawer nearest to Jennings’s office (and pretending to search diligently for the right spot to deposit the file), she let her ears flap unashamedly.

      Inside the office, Sir Marcus Deering, slightly red-faced and breathing a touch heavily, slapped a piece of paper down onto the desk and snapped, ‘There!’ He took a long, shaky breath. ‘Just you read that and then tell me I’m overreacting,’ he challenged.

      Jennings, at not quite forty years of age, made vaguely appeasing sounds. A slender man with thinning fair hair and a nose just big enough to make him feel self-conscious about it, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

      When Sir Marcus Deering had first telephoned to say he would be calling in and expected to see someone senior, he’d known he’d have to be careful. Naturally, his superiors would expect him to treat the man with kid gloves. The businessman’s charitable donations to many local good causes (including the police widows and orphans fund) were very well known. As was the fact that he sat on several boards where his influence spread further than just the Town Hall.

      Also, Jennings had no doubt at all that he was a fellow Mason.

      Mindful of all this, he cleared his throat carefully and read the green-inked missive in front of him.

       YOU HAVE FAILED TO DO THE RIGHT THING. YOU WERE WARNED THAT YOU ONLY HAD ONE MORE CHANCE. NOW YOUR SON WILL DIE. HE WILL DIE AT EXACTLY TWELVE NOON TOMORROW. PERHAPS THEN YOU WILL DO THE RIGHT THING.

      Over his right shoulder, Sergeant O’Grady gave a slight sigh. A slightly chubby man with a sandy quiff that tended to flop over his forehead, the Sergeant, at forty-one, had long since given up on any hopes of gaining further promotion. Not that it worried him much. He’d been at the station for years and had it running just as he liked it.

      Now he pursed his lips. When the Inspector had told him a local dignitary had been receiving poison-pen letters he hadn’t been expecting this. The usual run-of-the-mill stuff tended to accuse the recipients of sexual misbehaviour. More rarely, they included death threats – but nothing this precise. In fact, to Mike O’Grady’s mind, there was something uncannily odd about the specific threat. What kind of madman actually told you when he intended to strike?

      ‘I can see that you would find this very distressing, sir,’ DI Jennings began diplomatically. ‘But first, let me assure you that nearly all anonymous letters are the work of cranks, and any threats made in them are very seldom carried out. What’s more, they’re usually written by women (rather than men) who either have delusions of grandeur or whopping great inferiority complexes. On the whole, they tend to be a rather sorry, pathetic bunch.’

      Sir Marcus, who was nervously fiddling with his hat – a nice homburg in dark grey – snorted impatiently. ‘Do you think I’m not aware of all that, man? That’s why, when I first started getting these blasted things, I just ignored them. Threw the first one in the bin, where it belonged. But when they kept on coming, all saying the same blessed thing, I started saving them – just in case. But this is the first one that’s threatened my son, damn it! That’s going too far.’

      Jennings slowly sat up a little straighter in his chair. ‘You’ve had others, you say, sir? I don’t suppose you brought…’ He broke off as Sir Marcus grunted and pulled a few sheets of paper from his pocket.

      ‘Yes. Here, read them. All identical, as you can see, except for these last two.’

      ‘Hmmm… yes. I can see why they’d make you feel uneasy, Sir Marcus,’ the DI conceded. ‘Do you have any idea who might have sent them?’

      ‘Not a clue,’ Sir Marcus shot back shortly. ‘And don’t think I haven’t wondered. This last month or so, I’ve done little else.’

      ‘Anybody you had cause to sack recently?’ Jennings persisted. ‘You’re bound to have a disgruntled employee or two in the offing, so to speak?’

      ‘Bound to,’ Sir Marcus said offhandedly. ‘But I doubt it would run to this, do you?’

      Jennings sighed. ‘Perhaps not, sir,’ he agreed, although secretly he wasn’t so sure. Folk did odd things when they got their dander up. ‘What about your domestic staff, sir?’

      ‘No, no. Been with me years, all of them,’ the millionaire said dismissively. ‘Well, the cook and my butler, certainly. The housemaids seem to come and go… leave all that sort of thing to my wife.’

      ‘Hmmm. And do you, er…’ Jennings paused, trying to find a tactful way to put the next question. ‘Do you have any idea what our anonymous letter writer means when they urge you to do the right thing?’

      Sir Marcus wavered. Again, he thought about the fire. And again he dismissed it. It was so long ago now, and it definitely hadn’t been his fault. ‘Er, no. That’s what’s so frustrating. Why can’t this bloody person just say what they mean in straightforward language? Usually these anonymous letters have no trouble doing that, do they?’

      And Jennings was forced to agree that Sir Marcus had a point. Your run-of-the-mill nasty letter usually spelt out, in very colourful language indeed sometimes, exactly what was on the writer’s mind.

      ‘It’s this blasted threat to Anthony that’s really thrown me,’ Sir Marcus admitted with a heavy sigh. ‘The boy just laughs it off, of course, but I’m not so sure.’ He leaned forward slightly in his chair and fixed the Inspector with a fierce eye. ‘Isn’t it the job of the police to protect citizens when their lives are being threatened?’

      And there it was, Jennings thought, biting back a groan. Ever since he’d read the letter, he’d just known this would be coming. And of course there was no getting around it. He’d have to waste a certain number of man hours on it.

      ‘Yes, sir, of course it is,’ he said soothingly. ‘And you can be assured that, come noon tomorrow, Sergeant O’Grady here will be at your house, and will have your son under observation at all times.’

      ‘Yes, well… so I should jolly well hope,’ Sir Marcus said, a little more mollified now as he leant back in his chair. ‘I’ve told Anthony I want him in the house, and although he kicked up a bit of a fuss about it, he’s agreed. Mind you, he says he can take care of himself, and I dare say he can, but, well, when you’re dealing with someone a bit cracked, as this blasted idiot obviously is, you never can tell, can you? I dare say Anthony could acquit himself well if it came to a brawl or a bout of fisticuffs,’ his father boasted proudly, ‘but what if the maniac has a knife? Or worse, a gun?’

      ‘I think that’s highly unlikely, Sir Marcus,’ Jennings reassured him promptly. But secretly, he had to wonder. A lot of men had brought their service revolvers back with them from the war. They weren’t supposed to, of course, but they did. So it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that the letter writer had the wherewithal to follow up on his threat to kill Sir Marcus’s son.

      ‘That’s as may be. But until we find out who’s been writing these damn letters, how can we be sure?’ Sir Marcus demanded fretfully. ‘It may well turn out to be some demented old woman who gets a kick out of scaring people, or some weedy little clerk in one of my back offices with a Napoleon complex or bearing a grudge of some kind. But then again it might not! Damn

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