by LJ Ross
“Nice ’round here,” Phillips remarked.
Just recently, he’d been wondering whether it was time for a change of scene. MacKenzie had sold her house after…well, after what happened, and had been living with him ever since. But the house he owned had been his late wife’s too, and her taste was painted on every wall. He’d done his best to spruce the place up and had told MacKenzie time and again that she should change whatever she liked to make the place her own. All the same, he suspected she had too much respect to want to change much, even after all these years.
So perhaps it was time for a fresh start.
“My cousin lives near here, in Boldon,” Yates said. “There’s a nice charcuterie where you can get an eggs benedict that’s to die for.”
Phillips almost performed an emergency stop, but managed to hold off.
Twelve-thirty, the clock on the dashboard read. Maybe after they’d paid their house call, there’d be time for a quick nibble.
“It’s just along here, to the left,” Yates said, pointing towards a smart street of houses not far from the village green.
They pulled up in front of a red-brick detached property bearing a slate name plaque which read, ‘LITTLE GABLES.’
“Sounds about right,” Phillips muttered. “Howay, let’s see what Eddie’s former girlfriend has to say about him.”
CHAPTER 15
Their enquiries had already confirmed Jill Grant was a self-employed graphic artist, with a studio at home which meant there was a good chance she would be in residence. Sure enough, it only took a couple of rings of the bell before the door swung open to reveal an irritated-looking woman in her late fifties.
“Yes?” she demanded.
“Jillian Grant? My name is Detective Sergeant Phillips, and this is trainee Detective Constable Yates. We were wondering if you could spare us a few moments of your time?”
They held out their warrant cards for her to inspect and watched her demeanour change rapidly.
“CID? That’s serious crimes,” she said, in a detached, faraway sort of voice. “Has something happened to Mark or Hannah?”
Her hand crept upward to clutch her neck.
“No, no. It’s nothing to do with your family, love,” Phillips said quickly, diffusing the situation with the ease of long experience. “Actually, it’s concerning someone you lived with a few years ago—Edward Clarkson?”
“Eddie?” she swallowed, clearly confused. “Yes. Yes, come in.”
They followed her through an impressive hallway filled with modern pop art they presumed she had created herself and into a large kitchen-diner, where she invited them to sit at the dining table.
“Would you like some tea, or something?”
“That’s kind, but we’re fine,” Phillips replied, deciding to hold out for the charcuterie down the road.
Jill sat down at the table beside them and linked her hands, which were covered in silver rings of varying designs.
“What’s happened to Eddie?”
For once, Phillips remained silent and Yates looked across at him in surprise. He raised a single bushy eyebrow and she realised with dawning panic that he expected her to deliver the news, which was something she usually managed to dodge. Delivering bad news was one of the worst parts of the job but she knew it was something she needed to practice, which was precisely what Phillips intended.
She shuffled a bit in her chair.
“Ah, I’m sorry to tell you that Mr Ch—Mr Clarkson was murdered on Wednesday evening. I’m sure this must come as a shock, so please take all the time you need.”
Not bad, Phillips approved silently.
“We’re also hoping you might be able to fill us in on a few details about Eddie,” he added, to give the woman something to focus on.
“I—I hadn’t seen Eddie in quite a few years,” Jill mumbled, kneading a sudden tension headache at the base of her neck.
“That’s alright,” he said reassuringly. “We just want to talk through whatever you can remember of him.”
She laughed suddenly, but it was far from being a happy sound.
“What I remember?” She touched her fingers to her lips as she fought for composure and when she spoke, she sounded ten years older than she had moments before. “I remember the last time I saw Eddie, he was threatening to kill me. He was looming over me in the bedroom, naked after a shower, demanding to know who I’d seen that day. He was almost psychotic.”
Phillips and Yates exchanged an eloquent look. This was not what they had been expecting to hear, although they couldn’t say what they had expected, really.
“Was Mr Clarkson violent towards you?” Yates asked, gently.
The woman’s eyes spoke of many things, but her lips pressed tightly shut.
“I’d rather not discuss that,” she said.
“Of course,” Yates replied. “Would it be better if we came back another time, perhaps when you have someone with you?”
Jill rubbed the back of her hand against her forehead and then let it fall away, staring off into the distance as memories swirled.
“No,” she said eventually. “No, I’d rather get this out while Mark’s at work. He knows…I told him all about Eddie, but I’d rather not go over it all again in front of him. He gets angry on my behalf.”
They both nodded.
“Take your time,” Phillips said.
“I met Eddie at a friend’s party in 1990 or maybe 1991,” she began. “Must’ve been 1991 because I had just turned thirty.”
She sucked in a quivering breath.
“Eddie wasn’t the most handsome man in the room, but he had charisma,” she recalled. “He was very charming and, of course, he was a barrister working for the Crown Prosecution Service, which I thought was very important and glamorous.”
Her lip curled, presumably at her former self.
“Eddie was a selfish man,” she said. “I’m sorry to say it, now that he’s dead, but it doesn’t change the truth.”
“It’s okay,” Yates murmured. “We’re not here to judge anyone, we just want to know anything you might be able to tell us, so that we can try to find who killed him.”
Jill nodded again and then drew in a shaky breath before rising to her feet.
“If it’s alright with you, I think I’ll make a pot of tea, after all. It’ll give me something to do with my hands.”
They waited while she found some cups and saucers, which rattled against the granite worktops as she lost her grip.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
They said nothing and then, after a moment, she started talking again.
“As I said, I met Eddie in 1991 and fell head over heels in love with him. He was…dashing, I suppose.”
Phillips thought of the man he’d seen lying dead on the hermitage floor and tried to imagine what he might have been like, years before.
He couldn’t even begin.
“Eddie had just bought an enormous house in Gosforth and, within a couple of months, I agreed to move in with him.”
Jill paused in the act of finding a tin of biscuits to look over her shoulder.
“I realise now how foolish that was,” she said. “With Hannah—my daughter—I’d be up in arms if she agreed to live with a virtual stranger after only eight weeks. And she probably wouldn’t listen to me,” she added, with an air of acceptance. “Just as I didn’t listen to anyone back then. As far as I was concerned, Eddie and I were going to get married one day and I’d be Mrs Edward Clarkson who lived in the fabulous house, wore fabulous clothes and whose husband was the toast of the town.”
“But?” Yates prompted, gently.
“Exactly. But. It didn’t take long for the cracks to show,” she said bitterly. “Soon enough, he was criticising what I wore, how I behaved, even my accent. Apparently, the wife of a barrister isn’t entitled to a regional accent. It was the height of hypocrisy, looking back, considering Eddie was born in Walkergate, himself.”
Phillips knew the area well
and its people were the salt of the Earth.
“So he was a bit of a snob, our Eddie?”
“That’s putting it mildly,” she replied, setting a polka-dot teapot on the table. “It started out with a couple of slaps here and there, if he thought I’d embarrassed him at a party, or said the wrong thing. He was such an insecure man, always wanting to be fashionable, never wanting people to think he wasn’t anything other than perfect and successful. It was an impossible standard.”
She sank down into a chair, weary with the effort of remembering.
“You said Eddie was born in Walkergate,” Phillips prompted. “Do you happen to know the name of his parents, or whether he kept in touch with any family? Brothers, sisters?”
“He told me once that his parents ran an Italian restaurant, but that could have been a load of old hogwash. He lied frequently,” she explained. “But he never told me their names or whether they were still alive and, frankly, I learned not to ask.”
Phillips was undeterred.
“How about close friendships, or his work colleagues?”
“Ah, well, when I knew him, he worked at Riverside Chambers, down on the Quayside,” she said. “I think he knocked about with some of the other blokes there, and their wives, but it was all superficial friendships and golfing on Sundays. They loved fine dining, seeing whether they could out-do each other on a Saturday night, you know? But there was nobody he could have called in a crisis.”
Yates opened her mouth, but then Jill added, “I suppose you could speak to his clerks. They knew everyone in chambers and all the gossip. They’d probably know more about Eddie than he knew about himself.”
“Okay, thanks for the tip,” Phillips said. “Let me ask you this: do you remember Eddie ever being frightened of anyone? Did he mention getting himself into any trouble, or getting in with the wrong people?”
Jill looked up with tired eyes.
“Eddie was a shark,” she told him. “He didn’t care who he upset, so long as he stayed at the top, ahead of everyone else. He could have offended half of the city and it wouldn’t surprise me but, as for him ever telling me about being worried, he just wasn’t that sort of person. He probably would have considered it a weakness to confide in me that way.”
Phillips caught Yates’ eye and she nodded, reaching for a card with her contact details printed on the front.
“Thanks so much for your help, Jill. If you think of anything else, please contact us right away. My number is on the card, or you can call the incident line.”
Jill nodded, turning the little piece of rectangular card around in her fingers.
“Is it wrong to feel nothing?” she asked them, softly. “Shouldn’t I feel sad that he ended up the way he did?”
Phillips laid a hand on her shoulder in a gesture of silent support.
“None of us are saints,” he said. “We can’t perform miracles.”
She nodded and only after they left her alone in the silence of her own home did she allow the tears to fall.
CHAPTER 16
“There’s nothing more I can do.”
Inspector Ricci held up his hands in an apologetic gesture and leaned back in his chair, while Ryan paced around his office like a caged tiger.
“There has to be something,” he argued. “Has anything else come through from the Parisian police? Surely they’ve gone through Bernard’s flat with a fine-toothed comb for forensics, by now.”
Ricci’s face said it all.
“I’m sorry, my friend. They have a different policy in France. The authorities do not continue to investigate the disappearance of missing adults unless there is clear evidence of foul play or unless that person has shown signs of intending to commit suicide. The case of Luc Bernard does not fall into either category, so I heard from our colleagues today that they have now closed their investigation.”
Ryan was silent for a full five seconds, during which time they could have sliced the tension in the room with a knife.
“You’re telling me they’ve dropped it, just like that?” Ryan snapped his fingers angrily. “You’re telling me they couldn’t give a monkey’s about that kid, who’s probably rotting somewhere at the bottom of the Seine by now?”
Ricci pointed a finger.
“Calm down, Ryan. I am not your enemy.”
“You’re not much of a friend, either,” Ryan snapped back. “Doesn’t it rankle, even a bit, that Luc Bernard’s life counts for nothing? What if he were your brother or your son? Would you care about it then?”
Ricci turned a slow shade of red and rose to his feet to plant the palms of his hands flat against the desktop.
“You are a guest in my city—”
“Your city?” Ryan queried.
“Yes! My city, not yours, for all you speak the language and know its streets. It doesn’t give you the right to demand anything of me—”
“I’m not demanding anything of you that you shouldn’t already be asking of yourself,” Ryan snarled, snatching up the helmet for his scooter. “You call yourself a detective? Start detecting, for pity’s sake.”
He turned to leave, but Ricci’s voice stopped him.
“Can’t you see my hands are tied?” he said. “The police in Paris have closed the book on it and the Austrians are too scared—”
He broke off abruptly.
“Scared of what?” Ryan asked, silkily. “Scared because of who Riccardo Spatuzzi is, or of who his family are?”
Ricci’s eyes flicked over to the door, which was ajar, and Ryan leaned across to push it fully shut.
“Start talking to me.”
Before answering, the Italian moved across to one of his cabinets and retrieved a bottle of beer from a mini-fridge, shrugging when Ryan refused one for himself.
“The Spatuzzi family are notorious,” he said, taking a long swig from his bottle. “Monica Spatuzzi is the head of the family, ever since her husband was assassinated three years ago. You might guess that we never found the culprit, although our sources indicate the Giordani family are most likely to have ordered the hit. That’s a story for another day,” he muttered.
“Go on,” Ryan urged.
“Monica has three sons and a daughter, all of whom are active within the family operations except for her eldest son, Riccardo, who seems to have followed his own path. As you know, he is a lawyer and had worked for a leading Italian firm in Rome for over ten years, but he moved to Austria following his father’s death, presumably because he did not want to be forced to take up the mantle.”
Ricci paused to take another drink.
“Since we heard the news of Spatuzzi’s disappearance, there has been a spate of organised crime. We think that Monica is searching for answers and believes one of the other families to be responsible.”
“Do you think so?” Ryan asked.
Ricci muttered something in Italian.
“Until I heard from my colleague in Rome and until you arrived, yes, I believed one of the other families to be responsible. Punishment does not end at the Italian border,” he said. “Even after I heard of the other missing person and of the…let’s say the coincidence of Armstrong having met both men, I did not believe differently.”
“But now?” Ryan prodded.
Ricci polished off his beer and dropped the empty bottle into a wastepaper basket with a heavy thud.
“Now…I do not know.”
When Ryan would have argued again, Ricci held up a hand to stop him.
“I see what you see, my friend. I don’t doubt what you have told me about Armstrong’s history, especially after meeting him in the flesh today. He’s a cold fish, that one.”
“He’s never been brought to justice,” Ryan said urgently, willing him to listen. “That’s why he’s so complacent. He knows we don’t have enough to charge him, so he can afford to be. But his ego is a fragile monster that needs constant feeding. If we continue to put pressure on him, continue to watch him, I believe he’ll slip up.”
Ri
cci made a clacking sound with his teeth, the only outward sign that he was conflicted.
“He is a famous man,” he said. “We were given approval to question him and nothing more. If we go beyond that and are proven to be wrong, it would go very badly for you—and for me.”
Ryan understood Ricci’s concerns, but there were other people to consider, those whose lives mattered much, much more than any professional disgrace either man may suffer.
“Think of the families,” he said, softly, and Ricci nodded.
“I am. It’s the only reason we are still having this conversation. But I need to be clear, Ryan. We cannot approach him again without good cause. Leave it to me to try to find it and I’ll do all I can, but I’m setting down a marker in the sand. Stay away from Armstrong, for now.”
Ryan said nothing for a long, thrumming second.
“And if I happen to run into him at a public event?”
Ricci waggled his finger.
“The party on Saturday is a closed event,” he said. “You cannot walk in from the street.”
“You aren’t the only one with connections,” Ryan murmured, as he prepared to leave.
“If you’re determined to unnerve the man, I can’t stop you. But be careful,” Ricci warned him. “Armstrong knows you are behind this; make no mistake about that.”
Ryan nodded.
“I want him to know. I want him to worry.”
“But he is the least of your worries, signore. Remember that.”
* * *
When Ryan stepped outside the Commissariato, morning had given way to afternoon and the sun caressed the rooftops of Florence, backlighting its gentle curves and edges. As far as Tuscan landscapes went, it was the finest hour of the day, setting off the scenery with the kind of light artists craved the world over.
Ryan straddled his Vespa but, before starting the engine, he sat there for a moment and decided to put a call through to Anna, to let her know he’d be on his way back to the villa soon.
