Bombing in Belgravia (A Cozy Mystery) (Cassie Coburn Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  Bombing in Belgravia

  Cassie Coburn Mystery #2

  Samanatha Silver

  Blueberry Books Press

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Also by Samanatha Silver

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  I grabbed my buzzing phone off my nightstand, looked at the time, and groaned. One forty-six in the morning. Who in their right mind could possibly be calling me at this hour?

  “Hurro?” I mumbled into the receiver unenthusiastically.

  “’Allo, Cassie? There is a liver here I want you to look at,” the voice on the other end said in a strong French accent. Of course. Only Violet Despuis would think that calling me in the middle of the night to look at a liver was an acceptable thing to do.

  “Violet, it’s the middle of the night.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I’m sleeping.”

  “This is far more interesting.”

  “It can wait until morning,” I replied, closing my eyes and pressing the big red button on my screen to end the call. I put the phone back down on the nightstand and closed my eyes, ready to go back to sleep, when it buzzed to life again.

  I sighed and stared at the ceiling. There really was no getting away from this, was there?

  “It cannot wait until morning,” Violet said as way of greeting when I picked up the phone again. “I need to know now.”

  “Need to know what?”

  “If this person was killed in an explosion, or poisoned.”

  “What?”

  “I need to know if this person was killed in an explosion, or if they were poisoned first.”

  “I heard you, I just can’t believe that’s the sentence I just heard.”

  “Well, it is. Now get up and come here.”

  “Fine,” I muttered, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and carefully getting out of bed so as to not disturb Biscuit, the little orange cat I’d taken in after his previous owner had been murdered. He looked so peaceful and warm, sleeping curled up in a little ball on top of my blanket. I wished I was still sleeping as well, but I was sure that Violet wasn’t going to give up until I arrived at her crime scene.

  Violet Despuis was… well, I wasn’t quite sure what she was. She didn’t work for the police, although she often helped them solve cases. She wasn’t a traditional private investigator, but I supposed that must have been the closest thing to a job title that she had. She was French, she was eccentric, and she was an absolute genius.

  I had run into Violet at a police station after my bike was stolen a month earlier. She had been investigating a series of poisonings, and decided to have me tag along with her after realizing I was suffering from depression. I’d just moved to London after an accident ended my promising career as a surgeon before it had even begun, in an attempt to get out of the depressive funk I’d been in for the previous ten months.

  And now, instead of standing in a San Francisco operating room, fixing a soccer player’s torn Achilles tendon, I was making my way through the streets of London just before three in the morning at the request of a woman I was fairly certain was certifiably insane, just to look at a liver.

  * * *

  Even though Sloane Square was only one tube station away from me on the Circle and District lines, unfortunately neither one of them had night services yet—the last train on both lines was just before one in the morning, and they would start again around four thirty—so I hailed a cab and five minutes later found myself at the address Violet had texted to me.

  I still would have found the place even without the address. As the taxi made its way down Bourne Street, the brick walls of the row houses along the street were lit up in a cacophony of red and blue lights. Crowds of curious locals poked their heads out of windows to find out what was going on, while the more energetic among them made their way down the street toward where the action was.

  I paid the cabbie and walked along with the others toward the gathering crowd. Bobbies in uniform lined a string of yellow police tape that blocked off an entire section of the street. As I pushed my way toward the front, I saw what had happened.

  It looked like a whole house had exploded. Brown bricks were scattered across the road, mingled with white rendering that had come from the bottom of the house. A car parked in front of what had previously been a house had its windshield and passenger side window shattered, the rest of it covered in brick dust. The splintered remains of a black door had been blown so far that they were now leaning against the house on the other side of the street.

  Police officers were putting up barriers to prevent the public from seeing anything. I suddenly spotted Violet and called out to her.

  “Violet! Hey!” I said, waving a hand. She looked up and spotted me, then motioned me over. Of course, she looked like she’d just woken up after a nice, long rest. She wore skinny jeans and an oversized black and white striped shirt that hung off one shoulder, with a nice scarf wrapped around her long, brown hair that was tied back into a ponytail. I looked around for a second, and then ducked under the police ropetape.

  “Excuse me, miss, you can’t be over here,” a policeman told me, but the next thing I knew Violet was next to me.

  “She is with me. I have invited her,” Violet said.

  “Well she still can’t be here,” the man replied. “The fact that you’re here is a travesty by itself.”

  “The fact that you are a grown man who believes a few strands of fuzz comprises a moustache is a travesty, but you do not see me preventing you from doing your work because of it,” Violet snapped back, taking me by the arm and leading me past the man as he ran his finger over his upper lip anxiously.

  “I am glad you came,” Violet told me. “You must come and see this.”

  “What happened?” I asked as I looked at the carnage all around us.

  “It was a gas explosion,” Violet replied. “There are three victims. One is at the hospital, the other two are dead.” We made our way past the first body, that of a man in his late twenties, maybe early thirties. He’d had black hair in life, and what I could see of his skin that wasn’t covered in burns was olive-colored. One of his arms was missing. A medical examiner, a short man with graying hair, leaned over the body, while the flash of the police photographer’s camera pierced the dark night at steady intervals.

  Violet led me deeper into the heart of the explosion, toward the house.

  “Why do you want me to look at a liver if this was just a gas explosion?” I asked Violet.

  “Exactly,” was all she replied, and I shook my head, confused. We gingerly walked up the steps into what had formerly been a beautiful home—Belgravia was one of the most expensive neighborhoods in London—and made our way into what had formerly been a living room.

  Half a television was still mounted on the wall, wires protruding from the broken glass where the explosion had destroyed it. A leather couch covered in dust on the other side was where we found the body, lying prone. Her hair was as dark as the other man’s,
her skin the same color. The woman’s dark eyes looked blankly at the ceiling. Her knees were curled up to her chest, as if she knew the explosion was coming and had gone into the fetal position to protect herself.

  Violet walked up to the body and motioned me over. I made my way to her and had a look.

  All around the body were shards of glass; I noticed that the coffee table in front of the couch was missing the glass top.

  When I looked down at the body, it was obvious the glass had done a lot of damage. The girl’s abdomen was sliced open.

  “Have a look at the liver,” Violet told me, handing me a pair of latex gloves. I slipped them on and crouched down next to the body.

  As soon as I glanced at the liver, I knew what Violet was looking at. Instead of being a rust-like red color, it was a deep yellow-orange color. I looked up at Violet and raised my eyebrows.

  “Are there any regular reasons why a presumably healthy young woman would have a yellow liver?” Violet asked. “I must admit, there may be a regular explanation for this,” she continued.

  I shook my head. “No. Not that I can think of.”

  “Can you smell anything strange?” Violet asked. I leaned tentatively in toward the body and sniffed. The only thing I could smell was the brick dust, and natural gas. I leaned back and shook my head no.

  “There is a smell there. It is difficult to notice through the other smells of the accident, but there is a garlic smell there.”

  “Garlic,” I said to myself softly, thinking back through years and years of learning everything I could about medicine and the human body. Suddenly, it came to me. “Arsenic!” I exclaimed. “You think she was poisoned with arsenic.”

  “I do not think. I am certain of it. The scent of garlic confirms. If we were to look at the lining of the stomach, I expect it would be inflamed. But we do not need to do that. For now, we continue on the assumption that this woman did not die in a gas explosion. This woman was dead before it took place.”

  Chapter 2

  “That’s some pretty terrible luck, then,” I said to Violet as I looked down at the victim. “To be poisoned and then blown up.”

  “It is not bad luck if the explosion was done to cover up the poisoning.”

  I looked at Violet, shocked. “Do you really think that’s what happened?”

  Violet shrugged. “I do not know anything. All I know for certain is that this girl was dead before the explosion, and likely not from natural causes. We have a theory; we theorize that the explosion was not an accident either. Now we find evidence to prove or disprove it.”

  I had to admit, despite the total lack of sleep and the fact that it was the middle of the night, I was curious. I followed Violet as she made her way toward a tall, authoritative looking woman in a dark blue shirt sporting a London fire brigade logo. She was speaking with another firefighter, and when she was finished she turned to us.

  “Ah, Violet,” she greeted warmly. “I’m glad to see you working on this case.” She smiled at me and held out a hand.

  “Laurie Summers. I’m the chief investigator here with the fire department.”

  “Cassie Coburn,” I replied. “I’m a friend of Violet’s, and, uh, I guess her walking medical encyclopedia and sounding board,” I continued, earning a smile from the woman. Before she could reply though, Violet interrupted.

  “So it is not an accidental explosion then?” Violet asked. “You say you are glad I am here. That means there is foul play involved.”

  “Oh yes, I think so,” Laurie told us, motioning for us to follow her. “I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but I’m reasonably certain,” she said as she headed deeper into the house, into what obviously used to be the kitchen. “This here used to be an oven,” she said, motioning to a lump of metal and plastic that was still reasonably identifiable, all things considered. “A gas oven, specifically.”

  Grunting, Laurie moved the oven aside, then motioned for us to look at the pipe fitting against the wall. It was a short piece of black tubing, with a gold tip that was covered in dust from the explosion.

  “We found this like this,” Laurie said.

  “Ah,” Violet nodded, and I tried to think about what it meant.

  “So… the tubing is disconnected from the oven, and if it had been connected during the explosion, it wouldn’t have come apart?” I attempted.

  “Exactement!” Violet exclaimed happily.

  “That’s correct,” Laurie confirmed, nodding. “There’s only one thing I don’t understand though; it’s why the woman on the sofa didn’t smell the leak. For there to have been enough gas to cause an explosion of this size, she must have smelt it. My best guess is she was having a nap.”

  “That one I can answer for you,” Violet replied. “She was already dead. The woman on the sofa was killed before the explosion.”

  Laurie’s mouth dropped open. “Seriously? Well yeah, I guess that’s as good a reason as any to be unable to smell the leak.”

  “What is it that triggered the blast?” Violet asked.

  “Our best guess right now is that the other victim entered the home and flicked the light switch. The spark caused the large amount of natural gas inside the home to ignite, hence the explosion.”

  “So the second victim knew the first victim well enough to simply enter the home on his own,” Violet muttered, almost to herself.

  “Of course, all of this is totally off the record,” Laurie said. “I won’t have a full report out for at least a week, in all likelihood. I also don’t know whether there are any fingerprints on the tubing yet. I’m hoping we’ll find some.”

  “Of course,” Violet replied. “As you say. But as you know, I do not need official reports. I simply need the truth.”

  “Don’t we all,” Laurie replied, giving us a quick wave as Violet and I headed toward an official looking policeman.

  “She seems nice,” I said to Violet as we walked through the rubble.

  “She is not only nice, she is good at her job. I am always happy when Laurie Summers is in charge of arson investigations. It always saves me time, as I do not need to do the fire brigade’s job as well as the police’s job.”

  I smiled to myself as we approached one of those very policemen. Violet had a very high opinion of herself; from all I had seen, she had every right to, but it was still a little bit strange to hear her brag so casually of her skills.

  The policeman Violet was approaching, however, obviously didn’t have the same opinion of her. I wasn’t surprised. DCI Williams at the Paddington Green station seemed to be one of the few members of the Metropolitan Police Force who could actually stand Violet. This man was short and stout; he reminded me of the Fat Controller from Thomas the Tank Engine, only more scowly.

  “Violet Despuis. Has no one told you this is a crime scene? What are you doing behind the yellow tape?”

  “I’m investigating a murder, Inspector Chase.”

  “No, we, the police, are investigating a murder. You are a member of the public who isn’t welcome here.”

  “Really? Can you tell me how the primary murder victim was killed?” Violet asked, and the man looked at her like she was a crazy person.

  “Look around, how do you think?” he asked, motioning with his hands at the wreckage that surrounded us.

  “So the police still believe the woman was killed in the explosion?”

  “Of course she was,” the man replied, getting visibly angry now. “Stop wasting my time.”

  “It is not me who is wasting your time,” Violet replied. “If you look at the dead woman’s liver, you will notice she was poisoned, most likely by arsenic, and was dead before the explosion took place. In fact, I believe the explosion was a clumsy attempt at hiding the murder.”

  The inspector’s mouth dropped open for a split second before he took control of himself once more and closed it. “Stay here,” he barked at us as he made his way to one of the crime scene investigators, with whom he had a few words, before the investiga
tor moved toward the woman’s body. He returned to the inspector a moment later, ashen faced and obviously abashed.

  “Fine. You can stay. But don’t touch anything,” he admonished when he returned, around five minutes later. It seemed that the pathologist had missed the detail of the woman already being dead the first time he had looked her over.

  “Oh yes, it is my first time at a crime scene, I really have no idea what I am doing,” Violet replied, rolling her eyes. “Now, who are the victims?” she asked.

  “The man in the hospital is Andrew Greenhouse. His wife says he was coming home from a late night at work; he lives about ten minutes from here. It looks like he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The two dead victims, we’re not sure yet.”

  “Well, who does the house belong to?” The inspector shifted from foot to foot. Even I could tell he was visibly uncomfortable with where this conversation was going.

  “A man called Lee Yang Lin,” he replied.

  Violet looked up. “Leo Lin?” she asked. “The UK’s ambassador to Taiwan?”

  The inspector nodded glumly.

  “How can you possibly know that?” I said, mostly stunned. I came from the part of America with the greatest links to Asia, and yet I had absolutely no idea who the American ambassador to Taiwan was.

  “It’s my job to know these things,” Violet replied. “Lin has two children, both attending the London School of Economics. Twins,” she said, looking toward where the police officers were laying a sheet over the man.

  “You can see why I don’t want you involved in this case,” the inspector said to Violet. “It’s far too sensitive a situation.”

  “Yes, I will simply explain to the ambassador that his children’s murder could have been solved far more quickly and efficiently than by a police force who didn’t even realize his daughter had been poisoned, but that due to the sensitivity of the case, his children’s murderer will remain free.”

  The inspector’s face turned such a deep red that I began to wish there was an ambulance nearby in case his head actually exploded.