Free The Chalon Heads by Barry Maitland

Tomaso said. He spoke some more to the cook, then again to Brock, lips pursed with frustration. ‘He has no description besides this. He didn’t take notice. He was too busy. His mind was full with his sauces.’
    When they had gone, Desai suggested, ‘A boyfriend?’
    ‘Maybe,’ Brock grunted. ‘It certainly seems she had her little secrets. The question is, were they lethal?’
    ‘Lethal?’
    ‘If she was being a bad girl, and Sammy couldn’t cope with it . . .’
    ‘You think he’s killed her?’ Desai was fascinated. ‘And staged the kidnapping business?’
    ‘Well, it is very stagy, isn’t it? That business of contacting us through Cabot’s, and the way we’re brought in when two out of three messages have been delivered. All seems a bit like a script someone’s prepared for us. I’ve already experienced one of Sammy’s surprising little scripts, and I don’t fancy taking part in another.’
    ‘That’s what White suggested to me,’ Kathy said. ‘That Sammy might be behind it.’
    ‘Did he? Well—but you have other ideas, Kathy? From your questions to Sammy about the stamps on the notes?’
    ‘It was the business of these valuable stamps being ruined. What was the point? Then I thought that they must have been sent by someone who knew Sammy was obsessed by stamps, but didn’t themselves know or care about them. It was like a gesture designed to get under his skin. I thought it might be the sort of thing that an angry wife might do.’
    ‘Oh, I like that,’ Desai smiled. Brock conceded a nod.
    ‘And Sammy had thought of this too,’ Kathy went on. ‘When I pressed him, he acknowledged that he’d checked to see if they were his own stamps.’
    ‘Well,’ Brock said, ‘if you’re right she’s alive, if I’m right she’s dead. Let’s hope you’re right, Kathy. Ah, the bill . . .’

4
The Canada Cover
    T hey had arranged for Sammy Starling’s mail to be intercepted. He drove up from Farnham early the following morning, Friday the eleventh, and was sitting in the conference room at Queen Anne’s Gate at six a.m. when a messenger arrived with an envelope addressed identically to the first two. Apart from Brock and Kathy, Leon Desai was there with an expert from the Questioned Documents Section of the Physical Sciences Division of the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory, which deals with counterfeiting, handwriting analysis, typewriter identification and other matters relating to the analysis of documents. The expert, Bert Freedman, took charge of the letter, briefly examining the exterior with a magnifying lens before carefully slicing open the envelope and drawing out the note from inside.
    There was the expected fourpence blue head of the young Queen Victoria, the stamp this time cut into four pieces. Beneath it, the message read,
    EVA’S PRICE IS LOT 15
CABOT’S COMMONWEALTH AUCTION.
BUY IT.
HAND-OVER INSTRUCTIONS
ON YOUR MOBILE 4.00 P.M. SATURDAY
    Starling was very pale as he read and reread it. Then he nodded to himself, as if this was to be expected, and raised a glass of water to his lips, hand trembling.
    ‘That’s the auction we saw advertised yesterday at Cabot’s, is it, Sammy?’ Brock asked softly, and Starling swallowed and nodded.
    ‘We’ve got the catalogue somewhere. Do you know what lot fifteen is?’
    Starling gave a little shake of his head, still speechless.
    Kathy got to her feet. ‘I’ve got it in the office.’
    A minute later she returned and placed the book in front of Brock. He had barely glanced at it since Melville had presented it to him. Now he looked at the illustration on the front cover to which Kathy was pointing. It was a photograph of a small envelope addressed in looping copperplate letters, with a black stamp of a Chalon Head design in the corner. Beneath the photograph was printed ‘Lot 15’.
    He picked up the catalogue and turned over the pages until he found a description of the item, which he began to read out: ‘