Graham Thomas - Malice in London

MALICE IN THE HIGHLANDS

A story that carries you along, set in beautiful countryvividly and realistically brought to life. You read itand are there!

A NNE P ERRY

Malice in the Highlands is the perfect choice for readers nostalgic for the good old-fashioned British village mystery.

Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

MALICE IN CORNWALL

The Cornish mists and sea swirl constantly in the background of Malice in Cornwall, a murder mystery that can also be read as a travel book. Graham Thomas certainly knows how to exploit the air of romance, mystery, and danger that still hovers over Cornwall.

S USAN A LLEN T OTH , Author of England for All Seasons

MALICE ON THE MOORS

Steeped in moor atmosphere, Thomass novel is a traditional police procedural in the classic British sense.

The Snooper

By Graham Thomas
Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group:

MALICE IN THE HIGHLANDS
MALICE IN CORNWALL
MALICE ON THE MOORS
MALICE IN LONDON

A Fawcett Book
Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group
Copyright 2000 by Gordon Kosakoski

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Fawcett Books and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.randomhouse.com/BB/

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-91752

eISBN: 978-0-307-55772-8

v3.1

For Aunt Hedi

From the cities of nine
Days night whose towers will catch
In the religious wind
Like stalks of tall, dry straw

D YLAN T HOMAS

Authors Prologue, Collected Poems 19341952

The river looked like tar, sludging along, full of filth, she fancied as she hurried along the quay. She was searching for her dog, Hamish, a terrier of indeterminate lineage who had a predilection for the well-bred cats that infested the Bermondsey docks these days. It was a raw night in March and the damp in the air was palpable, a thick congealing mist that seeped through the fabric of her raincoat into her aching joints. She paused to catch her breath, gathering her collar tightly around her in a vain attempt to keep out the chill.

She glanced nervously about. There was not another soul in sight. Behind her loomed the gothic silhouette of Tower Bridge, its presence more felt than seen in the fog. Up ahead she could see the reassuring glow of the row of shops and restaurants below a block of converted warehouse flats. She scolded herself for being so nervy. Nowadays you were unlikely to encounter anybody more sinister than a stockbroker on the docks and, besides, who would be interested in bothering an old woman? Still, she thought, she had better collect her dog and get home before she caught her death.

Haaamish! she called out in a quavering voice. There was no response, so she continued on her way, her footsteps sounding hollowly on the pavement. She picked up her pace slightly as she passed a dark, boarded-off construction site. Eventually, she found herself in front of a derelict warehouse, one of the few remaining vestiges of the Thamess commercial past that had not yet succumbed to the property developers. Just ahead was St. Saviours Dock, a narrow tidal inlet off the river. The channel was crossed by a footbridge and was lined on the far side by smart flats with pink and blue balconies. She shivered convulsively. At that moment she wanted nothing more than to cross over the footbridge and nip back home to put the kettle on.

She looked up at the dripping brickwork of the old Butlers Wharf warehouse with its rusted iron doors and stairways and gaping black windows. Her Harry had worked on these docks after the war in the heyday when London was still the largest port in the world and thousands of ships of all types and sizes crowded the six-mile stretch of river downstream from the Tower, carrying exotic cargoes from the far-flung outposts of the Empire. There were times, particularly after a fresh rain, when she could smell the faint perfume of cinnamon and cloves that still permeated the timbers of the old buildings. She gave an involuntary sigh. Everything had changed in the Sixties when the container ships all moved to Tilbury and Harry went on the dole. Mustnt wallow in it, she told herself, but it was hard to accept the gentrification of her old neighborhood.

Where is that naughty dog? she said aloud, getting truly cross now. Shed give him a proper scolding when he came back. Maybe hed chased a cat into the old warehouse

Her train of thought was interrupted by a faint whimpering sound. Hamish? she called out doubtfully. She strained to listen, but all she could hear was the river lapping against the pilings and the sound of her own breathing. She frowned. Perhaps it had been a rat.

Without knowing why exactly, she walked over to the concrete parapet and peered over. An iron ladder descended to the river; the pitted wall was stained with streaks of rust. She stared into the black, oily water and shuddered. The Thames had supposedly been cleaned up to the point where even a few foolhardy fish had ventured back, but she reckoned it would still kill you if you fell in. She was about to turn away when she suddenly froze.

There was a commotion at the base of the ladder. She stared, uncomprehending, as a hand rose slowly from the water and grasped the bottom rung. Then a head appeared and another arm, fingers splayed, stretching toward her. She could see the face now, festooned with strands of hair like seaweed, its mouth contorted into a silent scream. Before she could react, the body slipped back and disappeared beneath the surface of the water like a half-remembered dream.

From the window of his study, Powell surveyed the wasteland of his back garden and speculated once again about what Marion would say when she returned from Canada at the end of summer. The list of chores he should have done but didnt, and the things he could still do but probably wouldnt, encroached on his mental landscape like so many weeds. He had dutifully read Marions voluminous instructions, a sort of horticultural la recherche du temps perdu:

Apply manure and fertilizer, plant onion sets and shallots, warm up soil with cloches [cloches?], start sowing vegetables without protection [was this wise?], sow early kitchen crops in cold frames, plant new strawberries, chit [?] seed potatoes, fertilize fruit bushes if needed [how in heavens name was he to judge this?], plant gladioli bulbs, sow hardy annuals [exactly which hardy annuals were not specified, so he felt that he could hardly be held accountable for not doing this], feed and mulch beds and borders, take chrysanthemum cuttings, start off begonia tubers, and pot up chrysanthemum cuttings started earlier [ha!].

And that was just the first page covering early spring.

Powell appreciated an attractive garden as much as the next personhe was simply content to leave the mechanics to those, like his wife, who had the aptitude for it. He had once read somewhere that in spring a true gardener thinks of birds and plump buds and cannot wait to start propagating. He could at least relate to that sentiment.