Murder At Midnight Page 16

  “You could still be all nice and cosy and respectable with a cold blooded fucking murderer,” Scott shot back. “How can you defend a slime like that?”

  “There’s just no reasoning with you when you’ve been drinking like this,” Violet snapped. “This has all been a terrible mistake. Philip will be exonerated, you’ll see.”

  “Not in a trillion light years, he won’t.” Then sensing she was about to hang up in his ear added. “What about Lisa? Don’t you think she deserves to have her destroyer brought to justice?”

  “You’re far too wrapped up in the Craig case,” Violet retorted. “You’re obsessed with Lisa. It’s unhealthy. Why it’s almost as if she’s taken possession of your spirit.”

  While Ben was more direct in his condemnation. “Get a grip man, and stay sober. It’s like you’ve let some dead broad fuck with your brain.”

  He had been seeing Meg, and she told him about the episode in the back seat of Scott’s car. “It was really scary,” she said. “But exciting too. I felt like I’d been taken over by a force stronger than myself. I was desperate to get laid. I can never remember being that aroused before. But then it all went terribly wrong, when I snapped out of it…”

  It took Greg, however, to deliver the ultimatum that he heeded. “If you don’t report for work tomorrow, consider yourself fired.”

  There was a backlog on his computer that it took him days to deal with. Greg had been writing the articles on Mitford’s arrest––he refused to entrust them to anyone else–– and now it fell to Scott to follow through with updates.

  The coverage of the startling new development in the Craig case was lurid, with no holds barred. Greg, who never made any secret of his dislike for Mitford, had been quite merciless.

  “A young woman was brutally murdered for reasons of greed and corruption,” he stated. “Wealth and privilege should not stand in the way of justice.”

  But would they, Scott pondered? He was enraged at the idea of Mitford getting away with Lisa’s murder, as he had done for twenty years. He pledged that if he did, he would blow the bastard away himself. But either way, Lisa would be avenged.

  * * * *

  Scott watched in alarm, as the pendulum of public opinion, which had once condemned Mitford for his part in the contaminated Romney building, now swung back in the opposite direction. This was mainly due to his efforts in cleaning up the site, and generous financial support to those impacted by it. Mitford had gone into full damage control mode, and made sure that the media knew about it.

  There had been a huge interest when he was first arrested for the murder of Lisa Craig. The Morning Herald sold out three days in a row, and just couldn’t seem to print enough copies. Greg was jubilant and cranked out more of the same. But now that the shock waves were beginning to dispel, doubts as to Mitford’s guilt began to surface.

  This was largely due to the efforts of the Evening Standard. Which wasn’t surprising, as Mitford was one of its owners––albeit a “silent” one. Rebecca Childs, their star reporter had taken up the cause.

  “To suggest that a man of Philip Mitford’s character,” she wrote––listing the many charities that he supported, and all his public service awards––“had wilfully murdered one of his employees to keep her quiet about contamination on a building site is preposterous. For as rumours about this were already common in the industry, Lisa shooting her mouth off about it, wouldn’t have made much difference!”

  “Damn the woman,” Greg cursed, and countered Rebecca’s arguments with another blistering indictment of the wealthy realtor. So it went, as the media war over Mitford’s guilt or innocence raged on.

  Meanwhile, Mitford had been released on a million-dollar bail. Slater and the Crown Prosecutor had done their level best to keep him locked up. They argued that with Mitford’s resources he could easily leave the country and never return. But despite this bail had been granted. Mitford’s many connections––and who’s to say the Judge wasn’t one of them––and his crack legal team, the very best that money could buy, were difficult to beat.

  “He’s going to walk, Neil,” Scott predicted. “I don’t mean take off for the Caribbean or some other luxury hideaway, just stick around for the trial, and be found not guilty.”

  Slater nodded. “But we just have to hope that justice will prevail.”

  * * * *

  There had been a body found in Stanley Park. The victim was a homeless man. Foul play was not suspected. An empty bottle of cheap wine lay by his side.

  “God, what a way to end up,” Scott shuddered. The April morning glowed golden; the Shakespeare Garden brimmed with roses.

  Slater nodded, appalled by Scott’s appearance, his bloodshot eyes and trembling hands. So the rumours about his out-of-control drinking were true.

  “Let’s go and have some breakfast?” he suggested. “You look as if you haven’t been looking after yourself too well.”

  “Yeah, I know, I’ve been drinking again. It’s just all the fuckin stress of the Craig case.” He took a final look at the body of the old wino. “If I don’t pull my socks up, I might meet with the same fate.”

  A trial date for Mitford had been set for the following January. “But you know the way things are now,” Slater admitted. “Charges could be dropped at anytime.” For the Crown Prosecutor’s office was doubtful that it had enough evidence to get a conviction. Had, in fact, been reluctant to proceed with the case at all.

  “If we go ahead with the trial and he’s acquitted,” Slater continued. “He can never be tried again for the same crime.”

  “It’s risky,” Scott agreed.

  At the Pavilion Café, they lingered for a while over tea. “How is Violet holding up?” Slater asked. He felt genuinely sorry for Scott’s aunt, and the horrible time she’d been through following Mitford’s arrest.

  “Keeping busy as usual. She spends most of her time at Granny’s Attic.”

  “Any sign of a rift between her and Mitford?”

  Scott shook his head. “Oh it’s been a strain on them right enough. It could hardly be otherwise. But she’s still steadfast in her belief that he’s innocent.”

  Afterwards, they strolled for a while along the seawall, enjoying the full ocean views. Jaye’s apartment was not far from here, and Slater wondered if she would be up for a little afternoon delight?

  * * * *

  “How is Philip?” Scott helped Violet unpack a shipment from a recent estate sale. Granny’s Attic had closed for the day, and they were working well into the evening.

  “As if you care,” she snorted. “You’d like to see him burn in hell.”

  “Look, I’m really sorry about how all this turned out. For you, I mean.”

  “Philip is my husband, and what you do against him, affects me as well.”

  “Well I didn’t influence Garrick Boyd into writing that letter,” Scott argued.

  “No, but you were delighted when he did,” Violet accused. “You’ve never liked Philip. You took great pleasure in digging around and uncovering all that scandal about the toxic Romney building, then splashing it all over the scandal sheet you work for.”

  She had never looked more indignant. Her wild hair stood up on end as if static with electricity.

  “Look this is getting us nowhere fast,” Scott said, his tone conciliatory. “Let’s just drop it.”

  But Violet was not about to oblige. “You think he did it, don’t you? Murdered the Craig girl, and then Boyd?”

  “He’s not been charged with Boyd’s death,” Scott corrected, dodging the directness of the question.

  “No, but you believe that he did it, don’t you?”

  Violet was clearly scrapping for an argument, and not about to let him avoid it.

  Scott wiped the packing excelsior off a pair of Chelsea vases, and admitted that he did. “Yes, I think Mitford killed Lisa Craig to shut her up, then killed Garrick Boyd for the same reason.”

  Violet looked about ready to burst into tears. �
��You know I feel I’m being disloyal to Philip having you around like this. We need the supportive energy from people who believe in his innocence, and not that kind of negative crap.”

  Scott couldn’t blame her. In her position, he would doubtless feel the same way. “Call me if you need me.” He gave her a brief peck on the cheek. Then he said goodbye to Gemma, who had been sleeping by the door, and left.

  When he returned from work the following evening, a flowering hibiscus plant sat by his door––yet another addition to his sizeable collection––his apartment was beginning to look like a greenhouse.

  Look after yourself, Scott, Violet had written on the card. This is a difficult time for all of us. Sometimes we say things we don’t mean. Hopefully, it will soon be over. She added a P.S. in block capitals: PLEASE DON’T DRINK!

  But Scott wasn’t the only loved one in her life with a drinking problem. Mitford had been hitting the bottle hard, while swallowing down sleeping pills and anti-depressant drugs as well.

  “Easy on those, dear,” Violet cautioned, alarmed at the way his health was deteriorating. When he first got out on bail, he had kept active with a business as usual attitude. He seemed tenser than usual––which was to be expected––but determined to soldier on. Never, at any time, did he express any misgivings about his upcoming trial. “I am innocent, and it will be thrown out of court,” he predicted with the utmost certainty.

  But now, as a humid summer drew languidly to a close, Philip changed. He withdrew from her, was constantly on edge, and his eyes wore a hunted expression.

  Violet could trace this metamorphosis back to a hot August evening when they attended a performance at Bard on the Beach, a theatre under the stars.

  Philip had slipped out during the intermission to make a telephone call. When he returned he appeared badly shaken up, his face ashen.

  “What’s the matter, dear?” Violet whispered.

  But he shook his head and refused to respond.

  Then several weeks later, during a bad drinking bout, he confided that he’d seen Lisa Craig. “She was walking along by the edge of the water,” he explained, in a voice scarcely above a whisper. “I’d know her anywhere, with that long red hair and green cloak.”

  “It must have been someone who looked like her,” Violet suggested. “Maybe one of the actresses? It’s the kind of thing they’d wear. Because of the strain you’ve been under, it gave you a start.”

  But Philip shook his head and refused to be consoled. “It’s not the only time she’s appeared to me,” he admitted. “It’s happened several times since.”

  He had seen her a couple of times hovering by the gates of his Shaughnessy mansion, and once, drifting by the Mitford Realty office. “It’s got me spooked, Violet. It’s uncanny.”

  “Lisa Craig is dead,” Violet stated in a no-nonsense manner. “And there is no such thing as ghosts.” She made a pot of strong coffee and stood over Mitford while he drank it. “So you’re either imagining these sightings because you’re under a great strain, or it’s someone playing a cruel joke at your expense. And hoping,” she added, ”to spook you out.” In which case, she thought angrily, they are succeeding.

  Yet Philip, while calmer, was still not convinced. “But who could be behind something like that?”

  My nephew, Violet thought, without hesitation. And that girl from the Herald who dressed up as Lisa, and was almost murdered herself. But aloud, she replied that it could be just about anyone who held a grudge. “You know, over a business deal, or whatever.”

  Mitford nodded, but looked unconvinced.

  “However, even if there was such a thing as ghosts,” she tried to reassure him. “You would have no reason to fear the spectre of Lisa Craig.”

  “Look, let’s just get away for a while?” Philip suggested. “You’re probably right about me being stressed out and seeing things. I think we could both use a break.”

  What he didn’t tell Violet was that by so doing, he would be breaking one of the conditions of his bail.

  * * * *

  “I have a very good idea what you’re up to, and it had better stop,” Violet caught Scott just as he was preparing for bed; his mouth still foamy with toothpaste.

  “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” he insisted. There was a firmness in his voice that couldn’t be ignored. After all, she had known him since he was a very small boy, and knew when he was lying.

  Despite her own better judgement she found herself blurting out about Philip being “haunted” by a Lisa lookalike. “I felt sure it was you and Meg up to your old tricks again.”

  “Not this time.” Besides Meg had been far too busy screwing around with Ben to take the time out, he thought bitterly. But whoever was doing it, had a great idea. They were trying to spook Mitford out of his mind, until he was a sorry shaking mass that would confess his crime. He wondered who it could be?

  “So how is Philip holding up?” he asked, scratching Flynn’s ear as he purred against his hand.

  But Violet was not about to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how shook up her husband was. “We’ll be going away for a while,” she volunteered, and then hung up.

  But just a cotton pickin minute, Scott thought. Wasn’t it a condition of Mitford’s parole that he not leave the city?

  “You’re damned right it is, and even that was hard won,” Slater complained. “Why, is the bird about to fly the coop?”

  Scott repeated what Violet had said, feeling uncomfortably like a Judas. She would never forgive him for betraying her trust like this, and neither she should. But if Mitford was preparing to leave town, taking into account his heightened state of anxiety due to the Lisa sightings, he would likely never return. And Lisa was entitled to justice. She had been waiting twenty years for it.

  “We’re already watching him,” Slater confided. “But I’ll step up the surveillance. Oh and thank you Scott. I appreciate the tip.”

  Scott knew this was the kind of break Slater had been hoping for. If they could nab Mitford leaving the city, he would be tossed back in jail for breaking the terms of his bail. He had a luxury yacht moored at the Mosquito Creek Marina, and Scott had a hunch that’s where he would make for.

  He was right. The problem was that Violet found out about the terms of his bail, and talked him out of going.

  * * * *

  Mitford’s trial began as scheduled on a bitterly cold Monday in January. There had been a renewed interest from the press over the Christmas Season, and speculation as to how it would go? The popular consensus appeared to be for acquittal.

  “The Crown doesn’t have sufficient evidence to make the charges stick,” opined Rebecca Childs of the Evening Standard, while the Morning Herald took the opposing view. “The allegations in Boyd’s letter, and the testimony of Vinny Watts, who practically witnessed the crime, is as conclusive as it gets.”

  Mitford looked relaxed and as immaculate as ever. The only indication of his nervousness, and the ordeal he’d been through, a slight twitch at the corner of his left eye.

  “It’s going badly for the Crown, he’s going to walk,” predicted Slater. He had met Scott for a drink at the Purple Onion, the latter sticking to orange juice throughout.

  They had both attended the trial, and watched as Mitford’s expensive legal eagles trashed and cast doubt on every shred of evidence against him.

  In fact, their whole line of defence was that there was no evidence. Who could believe, they questioned, the letter of a blackmailer whom Mitford had fired, or the false memory of a criminal like Vinny Watts? They hinted that he had been schooled in what to say.

  The faces of the jury, however, remained inscrutable, as witnesses for both sides paraded before them.

  “It’s going to take a miracle to convict the bastard,” agreed Scott. But he won’t escape justice; I can bloody well guarantee it.

  The following day the trial ended. Now all that remained was the final arguments from both sides.

 
Slater slumped at his desk watching with unseeing eyes the snowflakes tumbling past his window. That Mitford would walk was almost a foregone conclusion. Then they could never try him again, regardless of how damning any new evidence might be. He was going to get away with the murder of Lisa Craig.

  His intercom buzzed. There was someone asking to see him. Her name was Molly Varrow, and she claimed to have vital knowledge in the Craig case. “Show her in.” Slater straightened his tie. My God, could this be the miracle that Scott had hoped for?

  A hefty woman, with cropped black hair, and pale eyes, her mother had been Mitford’s housekeeper at the time of Lisa Craig’s murder. He returned that night with blood on his clothes. She was suspicious and reported it to the police. They did nothing. A short time later a car killed her.

  “I’m sure it was murder,” stated Molly. “But I couldn’t prove it. So I got out of town fast and changed my name. I didn’t want to be Mitford’s next victim.” She told Slater that she had been working behind the scenes to bring him to justice. “I found out about the toxic Romney site and tipped off Scott Preston, anonymously.”

  It took Slater several minutes to process the importance of this new evidence. It proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Len Barthrop had been in the pay of Mitford. He would have him arrested immediately.

  Molly had been watching the trial with interest from her home in Toronto. She hoped that they would have enough evidence to convict him. But when she saw how badly it was going, decided to come forward.

  “It’s time that Mitford was made to pay for my mother’s death, and for Lisa Craig’s,” she said.

  “And don’t forget Garrick Boyd,” Slater added grimly. “Although we don’t have enough to charge him on that one yet.”

  Mitford’s defence, predictably, argued against the introduction of new evidence at this stage in the proceedings. But fortunately, the Judge overruled them.

  Molly made a good witness. She stated the facts clearly and with excellent recall. And she did not allow the defence attorney’s repeated attempts to discredit her testimony ruffle her feathers.

  Mitford looked as if a lightning bolt had struck him. However, he kept his composure and merely shook his head from time to time, to indicate how ridiculous it all was.