“How could all of you fail to notice a leather jacket on a coat rack if the leather jacket is hanging there alone?”
The ten employees who were gathered in the bar shifted about, looked sheepish, or appeared regretful. But no one could shed any light on the jacket or how it had come to be there. They came in to work through the back door, not through the front, they told him. They left the same way. So they wouldn't have even seen the coat rack in the course of their normal workdays. Besides, things often got left behind at the Black Angel Hotel: umbrellas, walking sticks, rain gear, rucksacks, maps. Everything ended up in lost property, and until things got there, no one paid them much mind.
Lynley decided on a full frontal approach. Were they acquainted with the Britton family? he wanted to know. Would they recognise Julian Britton if they saw him?
The proprietor spoke for everyone. “We all know the Brittons at the Black Angel.”
“Did any of you see Julian on Tuesday night?”
But no one had.
Lynley dismissed them. He asked for a bag in which to stow the jacket, and while one was being fetched for him, he walked to the window, watched the rain fall, and thought about Tideswell, the Black Angel, and the crime.
He himself had seen that Tideswell abutted the eastern edge of Calder Moor, and the killer—vastly more familiar with the White Peak than Lynley—would have known that as well. So in possession of a jacket with an incriminating hole that would have told the tale of the crime in short order had it been found on the scene, he had to be rid of it as soon as possible. What could have been easier than stopping at the Black Angel Hotel on his way home from Calder Moor, knowing, as an habitué of the bar, that coats and jackets accumulated for whole seasons before anyone thought to have a look at them.
But could Julian Britton have managed to hang up the leather jacket in the entrance without being seen by anyone inside? It was possible, Lynley thought. Risky as the devil, but possible.
And at this point Lynley was willing to accept that which was possible. It kept that which was probable out of his thoughts.
Barbara leaned forward in her chair, saying, “You know him? Matthew King-Ryder. You know him?” and trying to keep the excitement from her voice.
“Terry,” Vi murmured.
Her eyelids were getting heavy. But Barbara pressed the young woman anyway, against the rising protestations of Shelly Platt. “Terry knew Matthew King-Ryder? How?”
“Music” Vi said.
Barbara felt immediately deflated. Damn, she thought. Terry Cole, the Chandler music, and Matthew King-Ryder. There was nothing new in this. They were nowhere again.
Then Vi said, “Found it in the Albert Hall, did Terry.”
Barbara's eyebrows knotted. “The Albert Hall? Terry found the music there?”
“Under a seat.”
Barbara was gobsmacked. She tried to get her mind round what Vi Nevin was telling her even as Vi continued to tell her.
In the course of his job as card boy, Terry put cards regularly in South Kensington phone boxes. He always did this work at night, since there was less likelihood of finding himself on the receiving end of police aggro after dark. He'd been on his regular rounds in the neighbourhood of Queen's Gate, when the phone in one of the boxes rang.
“On the corner of Elvaston Place and one of the mewses, this was,” Vi said.
For a lark, Terry answered to hear a male voice say, “The package is in the Albert Hall. Circle Q, Row 7, Seat 19,” after which the line went dead.
The mysterious nature of the call piqued Terry's interest. The word package—with its intimations of either a money drop, a drug drop, or a dead letter box—clinched the deal. Since he was so close to Kensington Gore, where the Royal Albert Hall overlooked the south border of Hyde Park, Terry went to investigate. A concert audience was just leaving, so the Hall was open. He tracked down the seat high in one of the balconies and found a package of music beneath it.
The Chandler music, Barbara thought. But what the bloody hell was it doing there?
He thought at first that he'd been sent off on a fool's errand intended for whatever fool was supposed to answer that phone on the corner of Elvaston Place. And when he'd met up with Vi to collect a fresh batch of phone box cards, he'd told her about his brief adventure.
“I thought there might be money to be made,” Vi told Barbara. “So did Nikki when we told her about it.”
Shelly dropped Vis hand abruptly, saying, “I don't want to hear nothing about that bitch.”
To which Vi replied, “Come on, Shell. She's dead.”