Visibility by Boris Starling Read Free Book Online Page A

aspects of his job that Herbert found objectionable. Autopsies were fairly vile; most murderers were hardly charm personified; and there was thenagging sense that, however well he did his job, it would never be enough, because he was primarily trying to find culprits of crimes already committed rather than stopping future offenses.
    As far as Herbert was concerned, however, all these paled into insignificance when set against the one thing he truly hated having to do: breaking the news of a murder to the victim’s family.
    There was no easy way; the only easy way was not to do it in the first place.
    One had to judge pretty much instantaneously the type of people one was dealing with: those who needed soft-soaping and a long lead-in to the dreadful news, or those who appreciated it when one spoke plainly and got straight to the point. Even when one got it right, of course, one still had to deal with the initial blast of shock and anger, as often as not directed straight at the messenger himself.
    Herbert could have sent Elkington, of course—if the man really wanted to join the Murder Squad, then this was where his apprenticeship started—but that would have been to shirk his own duty.
    So instead he had sent Elkington up to Max’s home in Highgate—43 Cholmeley Crescent—with instructions to secure the place and see if he could find anything which might pertain to the murder. Herbert would join him there when he had finished with Sir James and Lady Clarissa.
    They lived in Edwardes Square, a tall, thin house with a pub on one side and rather pretty communal gardens across the road. As a detective, Herbert was not in uniform, but Sir James knew there was trouble the moment he opened the door; his antennae for dangerhad doubtless been honed to perfection by years in the corridors of power.
    “Yes?” he said, eyebrows curling up on themselves in suspicion.
    Herbert introduced himself and asked if he could come in.
    Sir James paused for half a beat—Herbert wondered whether he was going to ask him to use the tradesmen’s entrance—before taking a pace backwards and allowing Herbert through.
    They went straight into the study; no offer of tea, no sign of Lady Clarissa, and no small talk about the fog. A straight talker, Herbert decided.
    “I’m afraid your son Max was found dead last night,” Herbert said.
    Sir James’ head jerked back a fraction, and that was the extent of his shock. He had not been a mandarin for nothing, Herbert thought.
    “How?” he asked.
    “Drowned. In the Long Water. We’re treating it as murder.”
    “No one would have wanted to murder Max.”
    “You don’t know if he had any enemies, undesirable friends, anything like that?”
    “Max was a scientist, Inspector, not a criminal.” Sir James tapped his fingers against the desktop. “He’ll have to be buried immediately, of course.”
    “Sir James, I can appreciate your anxiety, but please understand that, while the case remains open, your son—your son’s body, I should say—is evidence, and therefore must be treated …”
    “Listen to me, Inspector. My wife is very ill. She has, at most, a couple of months to live; more likelyweeks, perhaps even days. I have to look after her twenty-four hours a day. I am not going to let her go to her grave with her son still in a mortuary. Do you understand?”
    Parents should never outlive their children, Herbert thought; it was not in the natural order of things. “I am doing all I can to find your son’s killer, Sir James.”
    “That is as may be, Inspector; but your department are not, are they?”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “They send me an inspector.” Sir James rolled the word out of the side of his mouth, as though it were a bad smell. “A single inspector; no one higher. I would imagine there are plenty of victims who get better treatment than this. Is my son less important than them?”
    All men were equal below the turf, Herbert thought.
    “Sir James, if you are unhappy with my