IMPERFECTION by Ray Clark (e novels to read online TXT) 📗

house all day. The parents, who were normally at work, had remained home for the day to supervise their son. When the nanny returned, they went back to the studio.”

“Studio?” Gardener asked.

“Pinewood, in Buckinghamshire. The boy’s father was a film director.”

Gardener’s heart sank. In his confusion, his earlier calculation suggested that the killer should be in his sixties, which suspended belief. However, the other option was equally unthinkable. Could he possibly have started something so gruesome at such an early age?

“Who was the boy?”

“William Henry Corndell.”

Chapter Forty-five

Colin Sharp had returned from London during the early hours of the morning. It was early afternoon before he’d found his way to Gardener’s house for a meeting. Malcolm had gone to the cinema to see an old-fashioned black and white double bill that was right up his street. Gardener had asked his father to take a mobile with him, despite knowing he was under surveillance.

Gardener placed coffees on the table, sat down and cleared a space at the table. The files had all been neatly laid out.

Sharp took a sip of his drink. “That tastes good. You don’t know what a relief it is to be back.”

“Not keen on the Big Smoke, then?” asked Reilly.

“They do things differently down there. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, it’s just different.”

“What do you have for us?” Gardener asked.

“He’s definitely an oddball, but there’s nothing concrete here. Having said that, what I’ve found out might be enough to hold him for a while.”

“Go on,” said Gardener. He had a gut feeling that it was going to be one of those cases. William Henry Corndell was probably guilty, but lucky enough to walk free because what little evidence they did have wouldn’t stand up in court.

“Nothing odd about his early life unless you count the fact that he didn’t go to school.”

“He must have been educated somewhere,” replied Gardener. “From what we’ve seen, he’s intelligent.”

“If not a little loopy,” added Reilly.

“Oh, he was educated,” said Sharp, “just not in school. His mother and father paid for a private education at home. He had two different teachers, and they looked after him until he was about fourteen.”

“Did you speak to them?” asked Gardener.

“Only one of them is still alive. The other one died in a traffic accident a few years ago. Anyway, she said the same as you, he was intelligent, but he didn’t always use it, or show an interest. His pet subject was English. He used to love writing stories. They were always gruesome, but she blames his father for that. He used to take him to the film studio a lot, even bought him a make-up kit when he was eight. Eventually, Corndell spent most of his time at the studio. He worked with his dad on the films, and with the professionals in the make-up department by the time he was ten.

“And it was about that time Corndell discovered Lon Chaney, and how good he was. He was never away from the library, or the film studio’s archives, reading everything he could lay his hands on. By the time he was twelve, he’d honed his skill so much that most of the professional actors preferred him to any of the regular crew. The private tutors eventually left, and his mother and father hired a new nanny by the name of Elizabeth Cranshaw.”

“We already know what happened to her,” said Reilly.

“The people I spoke to said she had a stroke,” said Colin Sharp. “She was old.”

“Age had nothing to do with it,” said Gardener. “We’ve since learned from Fitz that Elizabeth Cranshaw was an asthmatic. She’d had a heart attack, which probably led to a stroke brought on by a lethal dose of sherry mixed with nuts that had been ground into a fine powder, creating the drug ephedrine.”

“What does this have to do with Corndell?”

“Janine Harper was killed the same way.”

“Interesting,” said Sharp.

“Did you speak to anyone who knew both Corndell and the nanny? Someone who could verify what kind of a relationship they had?”

“Briefly. The old lady had a daughter. They were together on the day of her death, shopping in London. She said her mother never stopped complaining about Corndell. He was highly strung, bad tempered, would go out of his way to play tricks on her. She did say her mother could be quite hard to get on with, and she was a bit strict: maybe the lad was just rebelling against a disciplinarian.”

“Not worth killing for,” said Reilly.

“Well, after what you’ve told me, maybe there was more to it. Elizabeth Cranshaw told her daughter about Corndell’s strange behaviour, and the fact that he hated authority, and she figured the only way to get her message across was through his make-up kit.”

“What did she do with it?” asked Gardener.

“That much I don’t know, the daughter never told me.”

“She probably got rid of it,” said Reilly. “That would send him up the wall, so it would. Especially if he was using it at the studio.”

“I’m sure it would be reason enough for Corndell to kill her ... in his eyes,” said Gardener.

“But he can’t have been much more than ten or twelve,” said Sharp. “Surely he wouldn’t have had the know-how at that age.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” replied Gardener. “That’s something we’re all guilty of – underestimating him.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Sharp.

“Show Briggs your evidence and see if he’ll get us a warrant for his arrest. Did you delve into his bank accounts?”

“I did. We need to take a closer look. His father left him about three million pounds all told, if you take the property into account. All the cash was deposited into an account at a private bank in London. What with client confidentiality, and