The Raven's Eye Read online

  PRAISE FOR BARRY MAITLAND’S

  BROCK AND KOLLA SERIES

  ‘There is no doubt about it, if you are a serious lover of crime fiction, ensure Maitland’s Brock and Kolla series takes pride of place in your collection.’—Weekend Australian

  ‘Barry Maitland is one of Australia’s finest crime writers.’—The Sunday Tasmanian

  ‘Comparable to the psychological crime novelists, such as Ruth Rendell . . . tight plots, great dialogue, very atmospheric.’—Sydney Morning Herald

  ‘Maitland is a consummate plotter, steadily complicating an already complex narrative while artfully managing the relationships of his characters.’—The Age

  ‘Perfect for a night at home severing red herrings from clues, sorting outright lies from half-truths and separating suspicious felons from felonious suspects.’—Herald Sun

  ‘A leading practitioner of the detective writers’ craft.’—Canberra Times

  ‘Maitland does a masterly job keeping so many balls in the air while sustaining an atmosphere of genuine intrigue, suspense and, ultimately, dread. He is right up there with Ruth Rendell.’—Australian Book Review

  ‘Forget the stamps, start collecting Maitlands now.’—Morning Star

  ‘Maitland gets better and better, and Brock and Kolla are an impressive team who deserve to become household names.’—Publishing News

  ‘Maitland stacks his characters in interesting piles, and lets his mystery burn busily and bright.’—Courier-Mail

  BARRY MAITLAND is the author of the acclaimed Brock and Kolla series of crime mystery novels set in London, where Barry grew up after his family moved there from Paisley in Scotland where he was born. He studied architecture at Cambridge University and worked as an architect in the UK before taking a PhD in urban design at the University of Sheffield, where he also taught and wrote a number of books on architecture and urban design. In 1984 he moved to Australia to head the architecture school at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales, and held that position until 2000.

  The first Brock and Kolla novel, The Marx Sisters, was published in Australia and the UK in 1994, and subsequently in the USA and in translation in a number of other countries, including Germany, Italy, France and Japan. It was shortlisted for the UK Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey Award for best new fiction, and featured the central two characters of the series, Detective Chief Inspector David Brock, and his younger colleague, Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla. The sequel, The Malcontenta, was first published in 1995 and was joint winner of the inaugural Ned Kelly Award for best crime fiction by an Australian author.The books have been described as whydunits as much as whodunits, concerned with the devious histories and motivations of their characters. Barry’s background in architecture drew him to the structured character of the mystery novel, and his books are notable for their ingenious plots as well as for their atmospheric settings, each in a different intriguing corner of London. In 2008 he published Bright Air, his first novel set in Australia.

  Barry Maitland now writes fiction full time, and lives in the Hunter Valley.The full list of his books follows: The Marx Sisters, The Malcontenta, All My Enemies, The Chalon Heads, Silvermeadow, Babel, The Verge Practice, No Trace, Spider Trap, Bright Air, Dark Mirror, Chelsea Mansions and The Raven’s Eye.

  BARRY

  MAITLAND

  THE

  RAVEN'S

  EYE

  The characters in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  First published in 2013

  Copyright © Barry Maitland 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-publication details are available

  from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74331 350 3

  eISBN 978 1 74343 157 3

  Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  To Margaret

  With special thanks to all those who helped me with this book, especially my wife Margaret, Dr Tim Lyons, Lyn Tranter, Keith Kahla, Ali Lavau and the team at Allen & Unwin, and the unknown lady on the Regent’s Canal who inspired my interest in narrowboats.

  Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking,

  Fancy upon fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—

  What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

  Meant in croaking ‘Nevermore’.

  Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Raven’

  Contents

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  34

  1

  A dank white fog hung over the canal and spread out through the bare branches of the trees that lined its banks to blanket the tall terraces of houses beyond and creep away down the side streets.

  DI Kathy Kolla and DS Mickey Schaeffer paused for a moment on the bridge, taking in the scene below: the dark boats moored along the towpath like a line of ghostly coffins fading into the gloom; the pulse of lights from an ambulance on the street beyond the trees; the huddle of figures beside one of the boats, their voices muffled by the fog. Kathy and Schaeffer made their way to the stone steps and went carefully down to the quay, where they were met by a Paddington CID detective, DC Judd. He was apologetic. ‘False alarm it seems. Accidental death. No need to bother you lot.’

  Kathy glanced at a middle-aged man in a tracksuit sitting hunched on a bench further along the towpath with a uniformed police officer and an ambulance man bending over him.

  ‘Bloke from the next boat, Howard Stapleton, made a triple-nine call at six twenty this morning to report finding the body of Vicky Hawke in her boat here on the Ha’penny Bridge reach of the canal. Ms Hawke lived alone apparently. No suspicious circumstances.’

  Judd led the way to the stern of the second boat of the line, on whose dark green flank the name Grace was painted in ornate gold and scarlet letters.

  ‘There’s been a small crime wave along the canal recently,’ Judd explained as they stepped aboard. ‘Burglaries, muggings, a stabbing, a couple of arson attacks, and we’ve been under pressure to do something about it, so when the report came in of a suspicious death someone pressed the panic button and called Homicide. Watch your head.’

  They ducked through the doorway and descended a short flight of steps into a low-ceilinged living s
pace sparsely furnished with a built-in couch and a threadbare armchair.

  ‘Narrow, isn’t it?’

  Judd nodded. ‘That’s why they’re called narrowboats. Just two metres wide, maybe twenty long.’

  The claustrophobic effect was exaggerated by the fact that the upper part of the side walls, punctured by a few small windows, tilted inward.

  Kathy sniffed the air and coughed, tasting acrid fumes.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what did it. Pathologist’s with her now.’

  They moved on down the boat, through a confined galley, past a tightly planned bathroom and closet, and came to the bedroom at the bow, where the forensic pathologist was packing up his bag at the end of a bed on which a young woman in a nightdress was curled up as if fast asleep. The three detectives squeezed into the confined space and stared down at her, taking in the bright pink complexion, the impression of deep untroubled rest. Kathy introduced herself and Mickey: ‘Homicide and Serious Crime.’

  The pathologist gave her his card. ‘Not likely to be of interest to you, I think. She passed away peacefully in her sleep some time in the early hours. I believe tests will confirm carbon-monoxide poisoning.’

  ‘She looks so healthy,’ Kathy said.

  ‘That’s what carbon monoxide does, turns the haemoglobin cherry red.’

  She would be in her mid-twenties, Kathy guessed, a plain face with a slight frown of concentration that made her look studious. Her body appeared unblemished apart from a sticking plaster on her right hand. On a small shelf beside the bed lay a pair of glasses and a book, David Foster Wallace, The Pale King.

  ‘Not as common as it used to be,’ the doctor went on. ‘Modern cars with their catalytic converters don’t produce much carbon monoxide any more, so the old way with a hosepipe from the exhaust isn’t so effective. Unlike that old beast.’ He nodded over his shoulder at a squat little stove in the corner of the room with a metal flue up to the ceiling.

  ‘Diesel,’ Judd said, pointing out the black smears made by gases leaking from joints in the flue. ‘She closed all the windows and blocked off the ventilators to keep the cold out, left the heater on and took some sleeping pills.’ He indicated an empty foil and glass of water.

  ‘Suicide?’

  ‘Nothing to suggest it,’ the doctor said. ‘Careless or incompetent, I’d say.’

  The face on the pillow didn’t strike Kathy as either, but how could she know?

  Judd shrugged. ‘No note.’ His phone rang and he listened for a moment. ‘Yeah, yeah, okay, boss.’ He rammed it back in his pocket and muttered, ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Problems?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m wanted.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Kathy said. ‘We’ll follow up here.’

  ‘Thanks, I’d appreciate it. I’ve called for a photographer and more uniforms to door-knock. I didn’t ask for SOCOs, given the FP’s assessment.’

  ‘Right. Give me your number.’ She took a note of it and he left with the pathologist. Kathy put on latex gloves and went back through the boat, opening cupboards, the bathroom cabinet, kitchen drawers. The woman seemed to have few possessions, all of them neatly stowed away, surfaces clean. Kathy saw only one thing that wasn’t strictly utilitarian, a framed print on the wall of a rather sinister-looking black bird. She felt as if she were intruding on a completely unfamiliar life. What sort of people lived like this, nomads afloat in the heart of the city? She had encountered the Regent’s Canal on another case, a missing girl whose mother had drowned in the canal further east from here, but this was the first time she’d been inside a canal boat. There was something of the submarine about it, the long tube low in the water, something surreptitious and stealthy.

  When they reached the stern door again, Kathy turned to Mickey, who was thumbing through a copy of the previous day’s paper, the Guardian. ‘She got the crossword out. Not dumb then.’

  ‘Where’s her handbag?’ Kathy asked. ‘Her phone, laptop? Take another look, Mickey, while I speak to the neighbour.’

  ‘Sure.’

  On the way out she checked the lock, seeing no sign of tampering, then manoeuvred around the tiller and stepped down onto the towpath, again noticing the elaborate lettering on the boat. It seemed to evoke the spirit of old-fashioned fairgrounds and circuses, of antique gypsy caravans setting off along dusty highways. From here the Regent’s Canal led eastward to the Thames and west to the Grand Union Canal, which continued north to the Midlands, and from there to a thousand branches into the most remote corners of the country, and Kathy felt a momentary pang of envy for the life of freedom which that curlicued name promised.

  The uniformed PC was still with the witness, and they had been joined by a woman wearing a padded jacket against the damp chill. Kathy went over to them, showing them her police ID.

  The woman constable said, ‘PC Watts, ma’am. Mr Stapleton here was the one who found Ms Hawke.’

  He didn’t look well, face pale, a large dressing on his forehead.

  ‘You’re hurt, Mr Stapleton?’

  ‘It’s nothing. Bumped my head on the doorframe coming out of Vicky’s boat. Not looking. In shock, you see, after finding her.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He was trembling, and the other woman put an arm around his shoulder and said, ‘I’m Molly Stapleton, his wife.’

  ‘It’s cold,’ Kathy said. ‘Go back to your boat and get warm. I’ll come and see you in a moment. Maybe make your husband a cup of tea, Molly?’

  As they turned to go Kathy drew the constable aside. ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘Not much. He’s pretty shaken up. I tried to get him to go back to his boat, but he insisted on waiting to speak to you. I asked him for details of the dead woman’s family, but he doesn’t know.’

  The name on the Stapletons’ boat was Roaming Free, and on its roof were a small herb garden, a stack of sawn logs, a pair of solar panels and a TV aerial. Kathy knocked on the rear door and went down into a snug living room. Howard Stapleton was sitting in one of the plump armchairs, his wife visible over a counter in the galley at the far end of the room, and beyond that Kathy could make out a bay set up as a small office, with a computer and printer. The boat was filled with possessions—pictures hanging on the freshly varnished timber walls, floral curtains bunched around the portholes, china ornaments on shelves, magazines in racks, flowers in small vases—as if all the creature comforts of a family home had been crammed into the confined space. In its cheerful busyness it made Vicky Hawke’s boat seem even more spartan and threadbare.

  Stapleton made to rise to his feet, but when Kathy told him not to get up he sank back into the cushions with a sigh. His chair was facing a blazing wood-fired stove with a stainless-steel flue.

  ‘You’ll have a cup of tea, Inspector?’ Molly Stapleton called from the galley. Her accent was Yorkshire, voice brisk.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Howard’s not very well. The ambulance man said he may be concussed.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ her husband grunted, though his face looked as grey as his hair. ‘Stupid mistake.’

  ‘Do you feel well enough to tell me what happened this morning?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. I got up as usual at six for my run with Vicky—we’ve been doing that for a few weeks now. She’s usually limbering up on the towpath when I emerge, but not this morning. I tapped on her window but got no response. I couldn’t see in, and I noticed that the windows were steamed up.’

  He paused and took a deep breath as his wife came out of the galley with a tray of mugs. His speech was fastidious, almost pedantic. A retired headmaster? Solicitor?

  ‘Um, anyway, I went to her stern door and knocked, still nothing, so I opened it to make sure she was all right.’

  ‘The door was unlocked?’

  ‘No, no. Vicky had given me a key.’

  Kathy saw Molly’s hand hesitate for a moment as she raised her mug.

  ‘For emergencies,’ Howard added. ‘We’re a pretty suppor
tive community, we narrowboaters, look out for each other.’

  The explanation was too insistent, and Kathy noticed a frown pass briefly across Molly’s face. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, I opened the door to call to her, but immediately the smell hit me, the fumes. It was awful. I called out and panicked a bit when there was no reply. So I held a handkerchief to my face and ran down the length of the boat looking for her and found her in the bedroom. I threw the bow doors open and made to lift her outside, but as soon as I touched her and felt how cold she was, I knew . . .’ He stared at his feet. ‘Dear God,’ he said, and Kathy saw a glimmer of a tear in his eye. There was the shock, of course, and the bump on the head, but still, she wondered if there was something more personal going on here.

  His wife was keeping very still, head bowed, and Kathy said, ‘How long have you two known Vicky, Molly?’

  She looked up. ‘We came here . . .’ she thought a moment, ‘eight weeks ago, and Vicky arrived a few days later. Being moored right next to us we got to know each other straight away. Pleasant girl, new to boating, wasn’t she, Howard? Her boat’s old though, a bit of a tub.’

  ‘Yes, inexperienced. I think the dealer took advantage of her. Apparently she didn’t have a lot of cash to throw around.’

  ‘And were you aware of problems with the heater?’

  ‘Only that it was an old model and a bit smelly at times. I did help her give it a clean a few weeks back. Wouldn’t have said it was dangerous, exactly.’

  ‘But she’d closed the ventilators and windows in the boat.’

  ‘Yes, I’d warned her about that. But she said she felt the cold keenly.’

  With each new personal insight from her husband into their neighbour, Molly Stapleton’s frown deepened.

  ‘What sort of a person was she?’ Kathy asked, and they both spoke at once.

  ‘Moody,’ said Molly.

  ‘Bubbly,’ said Howard.

  Their eyes met for a moment in surprise, then Molly turned to Kathy. ‘I thought she was a rather serious-minded and determined young woman.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Howard objected, ‘but also full of . . . vitality, you know? Effervescent.’