‘Why would she lie? He’s not very appetising,’ said Atherton.
‘D’you want me to try and check it any further?’ Hart asked.
‘You’re getting his phone records?’
‘Yes, guv.’
‘Then you may be able to corroborate his story – there must have been communication between them over that weekend.’
‘That’s what I thought, guv,’ said Hart. ‘And if there’s any funny-looking contacts, I can follow them up. Because if he did hire somebody to wallop Kimmelman, he’d take care to set himself up an alibi, wouldn’t he?’
‘True,’ said Slider. ‘OK, anybody got anything else?’
‘I’m after a traffic camera, guv,’ said McLaren. ‘It’s down Hammersmith Road. It’s a bit of a distance from Ruskin House, but it’s a straight bit of road and a clear view, and if there is anything there, we can follow it to other cameras in the area. Find out where Kimmelman went the last coupla days.’
‘I’ve got Kimmelman’s bank account details from Wiley’s this morning,’ Swilley said. ‘Local branch of NatWest. I’m going to ask for the records, but you know what they can be like.’
‘OK,’ Slider said. ‘Any thoughts as to further lines of investigation?’
‘I was thinking about those fractures,’ Gascoyne said, ‘whether he was a boxer once. Is it worth making enquiries along those lines?’
‘Can’t hurt,’ said Slider. ‘We know so little about him.’
‘And I was wondering whether he was in one of the services,’ LaSalle said.
‘Why d’you think that?’ Gascoyne asked.
LaSalle looked puzzled. ‘I dunno, really. He’d just got that sort of look about him. You can generally tell ex-army types. There’s something about ’em. Maybe the way he’d polished his shoes, I dunno.’
The phone had rung and Hart, being nearest, had gone to answer it. Now she said, ‘Boss, someone downstairs to see you. Penny Duckham. Says its about Kimmelman.’
She was the editor of one of the local newspapers, the wittily named Bush Telegraph. Most local papers lived almost entirely off their advertisements, so their interest in hard news was minimal, but Penny Duckham was new to the job, was young and enthusiastic, and had dreams of building up the Telegraph until it got noticed by the big press beasts, and she was elevated to stardom to one of the national dailies. Manchester Guardian syndrome, Slider called it. So she made a point of following any crime that could be classified as local, and any local government stories, particularly if there was an element of scandal to be wrung out of them. She had early made Slider her personal contact, and though the traffic had been pretty one way so far, he was never averse to having another pair of eyes looking out for him. So he encouraged her to contact him, on the basis that one day it would pay off.
She was waiting for him out in the shop, and he was encouraged to see that she had a file under her arm. ‘Come on through,’ he said, and led her into an empty room on the other side. She was a tall young woman, just a little chubby, with a very pale face which contrasted startlingly with her spiky dyed black hair. She wore glasses with heavy black frames, and scarlet lipstick, and a scarlet skirt-suit over a black top. Slider wondered vaguely if she was subconsciously motivated by the old riddle, ‘what’s black and white and red all over?’
She gave him a cheery, toothy grin, and said, ‘I think I’ve got something for you this time.’ She put the file on the table and opened it. ‘You sent round that picture of the man at Jacket’s Yard, and I’ve kept it on my desk, just in case I came across anything.’
‘Very kind of you,’ Slider said encouragingly.
‘Got to help our boys in blue, haven’t we?’ she said whimsically. ‘Well,’ she pulled something out and passed it across to him. ‘I was trawling through the archives looking for something else, and I found this. It is the same man, isn’t it?’
It was a copy of a newspaper cutting, a black and white photograph of a man coming out of a building into the street. He was tall and lean, very dark – almost swarthy; in his fifties, probably, wearing a dark overcoat over a good-looking suit. He had a look of prosperity about him. He was looking at the camera and his mouth was partly open, giving the impression that he was not happy about being photographed and was saying something like, ‘Not you again!’
He was not, however, the subject of Penny Duckham’s eager anticipation of praise. Coming out behind him, and clearly visible over his right shoulder, was a slightly shorter, chunkier man, also in a dark overcoat, whose eyes seemed to be flitting sideways in the manner of a bodyguard looking for trouble.
‘That is him, isn’t it?’ she urged again.
‘It certainly looks like it,’ Slider agreed. The headline was DAVY LANE HOPES CRUSHED, and she had written the date over the top – a date about nine years ago. ‘Doesn’t it say in the article who it is?’
‘No, just the bloke in front – Jack Silverman. He owns a big construction company, Abbott Construction. But the one behind him looks as though he’s with him, don’t you think? Sort of attached.’
‘What was the story?’
‘Davy Lane’s a rundown area that needs reviving. It’s been going on for years – since before my time. One of those things where there’s a new scheme put forward every few years, but nothing comes of it, because the money’s not there. Obviously this one—’ she tapped the picture – ‘didn’t take off either, because nothing’s happened, as far as I know.’
‘Jack Silverman,’ Slider mused. ‘Any relation to Myra Silverman?’
She frowned. ‘I know that name … Wait a minute, isn’t she that woman who got in trouble a while back over some kids’ charity? KidZone, that was it. Well, I don’t know, but he could be. Easy enough to find out, anyway. What’s she got to do with it?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing, probably,’ Slider said. She had a connection to Rathkeale and Rathkeale had a connection – involuntarily – to Kimmelman, but beyond that … Still, the name was not all that common. Coincidence?
‘Well, thanks a lot for this,’ he said. ‘It gives us another avenue to explore, try and find out more about this bloke. He’s a bit of a mystery man.’
She stood up to go, smiling, pleased with herself. ‘If I find any other references to him, I’ll let you know. And anything else you want …’
‘I won’t forget.’ He shook her hand heartily and guided her out.
‘And you’ll keep me in the loop over this murder? It’d be great to scoop all those big boys with the first news of an arrest,’ she said wistfully.
He didn’t like to tell her that the big boys weren’t interested in the death of an unnamed nobody; or that they were desperately keeping the Rathkeale connection away from everyone. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said.
‘Jack Silverman, Abbott Construction,’ Swilley said as her fingers rattled over the keys.
‘Why Abbott when his name’s not Abbott?’ McLaren objected.
‘Position in the alphabet,’ Swilley said impatiently. ‘Keep up!’
‘What’re you talking about?’
Atherton took over. ‘If your name begins with an “A”, you’re the first on the list in Yellow Pages. “Ab” is good, and “Abb” is even better. The only person who’ll beat you is Mr Aardvark.’
‘I know that,’ McLaren said contemptuously. ‘It’s still stupid. Who picks a builder because he’s the first on the page?’
Atherton looked at him admiringly. ‘You know, Maurice, I think you’ve got something. I hand it to you.’
‘And his name’s not Abbott.’
‘Ah, I’ll have it back, please.’
‘Here we are. Jack Silverman,’ Swilley interrupted. ‘Interesting – his name apparently is Jack, not John. Age fifty-eight – he doesn’t look it. Hmm. Hmm. Yes, he is married to Myra. No children. Abbott Construction, formerly AA Construction – old habits die hard. Let’s have a look at the website. Here we are – pretty glossy. Quite impressive.’ There were photographs of large-sc
ale construction sites, people in yellow jackets and hard hats consulting over blueprints, a shot of a boardroom with serious men around a shiny table with a glimpse through the windows of a skyscape that could be any modern city’s downtown.
‘Do they look like generic pictures to you?’ she said, frowning.
‘Culled from the Internet, from Shutterstock?’ Atherton said. ‘You could be right. It has that feel. I can’t see anyone who looks like Silverman in there.’
Swilley scrolled to the copyright line, very, very small down the bottom. ‘And it hasn’t been updated since last year.’
‘What does that mean?’ Slider asked.
‘Maybe nothing. Maybe that they’re not very busy.’
‘Or it could mean the exact opposite,’ said Atherton. ‘Maybe they’ve got so much work on the books they don’t need any new stuff coming in, so it doesn’t matter whether the website’s kept fresh or not.’
‘Helpful,’ said Slider. ‘Well, given that it’s the first new thing we’ve learned about Kimmelman, I think we’d better go and have a chat to Mr Silverman. Where’s the office?’
‘Fulham Palace Road.’
‘Nice and handy. Give them a bell, see if he’s in.’
The office was in a newish building of red brick and glass, at the Hammersmith end of the Fulham Palace Road – very nice, but you’d have needed a satellite link to get the window view in the website picture. Slider mentioned this to Silverman to break the ice, and he said, ‘You misunderstand. Those pictures represent jobs we’ve done – offices we’ve built.’ And he looked worried. ‘Did you really not get that?’
‘I’m sorry. My mind works a different way,’ Slider said.
Silverman reminded him a bit of Porson, not to look at, but in his air of contained restlessness. He was obviously so full of energy, or nerves, or possibly caffeine – there was a tall mug steaming on his desk – that standing still was a penance to him. His lean dark face was vivid, his hair seemed to have a life of its own, and his hands were never still. They spent a lot of time pushing his glasses up his nose and sliding them down again, for near and remote vision. Well, Slider thought, some people can’t get on with bifocals. In the flesh, and with the sunlight coming in from the window, he looked his age, but not in a bad way. He was an attractive, mature man. He offered coffee, which Slider refused.
‘How is business?’ Slider asked.
‘Booming,’ Silverman said promptly. ‘Books full – amazing how things have picked up. We had a tough time during the recession, like everybody else, but it’s all systems go, now.’ He gave Slider a curious look. ‘Is that what you came to ask me?’ And he glanced at his watch, to let him know he was a busy man with no time for wasting.
‘No,’ said Slider, and passed the Telegraph picture across. ‘I wanted to ask you what you know about this man.’
Silverman looked at the picture for a long moment, frowning. ‘Well, that’s me at the front, so you must mean the person behind me? I don’t know him, I’m afraid.’
‘He seems to be with you,’ Slider said.
Silverman shook his head. ‘He looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place him. What was the occasion?’
‘You don’t remember?’
He smiled pleasantly. ‘I’d need a few more clues than a door in the background. Obviously a meeting of some kind, but I go to plenty of those.’
‘“Davy Lane Hopes Crushed”,’ Slider gave him the headline.
‘Oh,’ Silverman said, enlightened. ‘Well, there were lots of meetings – residents’ associations, councillors, planning committees. It could have been any of those. That must be why the man looks slightly familiar – if he was at the meetings and I caught sight of him.’
‘His name’s Leon Kimmelman.’
Silverman shook his head slowly, looking at the picture. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell. Could be one of the residents, or a solicitor or surveyor.’ He smiled briskly and passed the picture back. ‘Sorry. Was there anything else?’ He glanced at his watch again.
Slider didn’t like being dismissed by people who thought they were busier than him, but there was no point in flogging a dead end, as Mr Porson might say.
‘Not at the moment, thank you,’ he said. He didn’t mean anything by it, was only saving face, but was pleased to see a faint look of consternation at the thought that he might be bothered again slip across Silverman’s good-looking face.
DC Phil Gascoyne had come up to the Department via the uniform side, much to the amusement and derision of his colleagues. The detectives called the uniforms woodentops, and the uniforms called the detectives bananas – yellow, bent, and go round in bunches. They thought Gascoyne in particular had a lot to betray, since he came from a long line of policemen. His grandfather had been in the mounted police working out of Hammersmith stables, his uncle and younger sister were in the Job in other parts of London, and his father, Harry ‘Bob’ Gascoyne, was an instructor at Hendon and had been a beat copper in Shepherd’s Bush when walking the beat really meant something.
Gascoyne, however, was one of those serene people who know their own mind and go their own way without worrying what others think. He’d developed the desire to become a detective over a long period, and had achieved it. They could tease him all they liked – he just smiled genially as it rolled right off him.
It didn’t mean, however, that he wasn’t ready to use his contacts. His father, in particular, seemed to know everyone who had ever lived in and around the borough, and soon put him on to Tommy Rylance, who had been a trainer and fight promoter thirty years ago.
Gascoyne met him in the Stonemasons, just off Glenthorne Road. Like most Hammersmith pubs it had been, in Tommy’s words, ‘ponced up’, but ‘at least it was Fullers’, he said, so young Phil could buy him a decent pint.
It was only just past opening time, but a retired man often found time hung heavy on his hands. At least the pub was quiet at that time of a Tuesday, so they could keep their conversation private. Like most pubs visited too early in the day, it had a hollow, echoey feel to it, an unrealness, like a theatre during daylight hours. In the old days it would also have had a smell of stale beer, but they cleaned everything with anti-germ spray these days, so it didn’t really smell of anything at all.
Tommy Rylance had been a big man, but age had shrunk and bent him, giving him a curious shape inside his inevitable camel overcoat, as if he were concealing a lot of awkwardly-stuffed shopping bags under there. In deference to the poncing up, he removed his brown trilby inside the pub, revealing sparse hair carefully eked over his scalp, two cauliflower ears, and a face whose bumps and lopsidedness confessed a life in the ring before his life managing it.
He downed half the pint in one seamless action, put down the glass, wiped his watery eyes, and said, ‘Aah! I was due that. Lovely! Now then, young Phil, whatja wanta know?’
Gascoyne produced the picture of Kimmelman. ‘I’ve got a feeling this man might have been a boxer. Or if not, you might know him anyway.’
Rylance took the photo, felt inside his coat for his glasses, wiped them carefully, put them on, adjusted the picture to get the best light, tilted his head around for the best focus, sniffed, and said, ‘Right then, let’s have a gander.’
Gascoyne waited patiently. Patience was one of his best qualities as a policeman.
Rylance spoke at last. ‘Maybe, maybe. Difficult with the eyes shut. You got a name?’
‘Kimmelman. Leon Kimmelman.’
‘Gor Blimey, yes, Kimmelman. I remember that name! No name for a fighter, that’s what I told him back then. Lime Grove Baths, that’s where I met him. Quiet chap, sort of brooding, if you know what I mean. Ex service.’
Well spotted, LaSalle, Gascoyne thought.
‘Done his time in REME, got a useful trade,’ Rylance went on, ‘but when he come out, he couldn’t settle to it. Seen a lot like that. Done a bit of boxing in the army, thought he could make his living that way. Change the name, I told him. Something punchier, par
don my pun. So he went for King, on account he lived in King Street. Lennie King, the King of King Street.’ He chuckled.
‘Lennie King?’ Gascoyne queried.
‘No, I tell a lie. It wasn’t Lennie. No, it was Leo – Leo the Lion, see, king of the jungle.’ He shook his head. ‘He thought too much, that was his trouble.’
‘So, did you train him? Manage him?’
‘Not as such. He had a trainer – Puggsy Littlejohn, at Lime Grove. Old Puggsy got me to look at him. I put him in a couple of fights, but I could see right away he wasn’t going to work out. Nice lad, and he had the technique all right – the army’s good for that – but he didn’t have the drive, know what I mean? The killer instinct. You gotta be hungry when you go in the ring. Technique’ll keep you from getting bad hurt, but you need fire in your guts to win and keep winning. I told him, you’re never going to make it, professionally. Pure skill’s all very well, but people pay to see a fight, not a points contest.’
‘Do you know what happened to him?’ Gascoyne asked.
‘Well, he gave it up, that I do know. Yes, as I remember, he got himself a job driving. That’s the other thing they teach you in the army – that, and how to shine shoes properly.’ He grinned at his own jest. ‘Yeah, he got a job driving for some limo hire company. And that’s all I know. Never seen him from that day to this.’ He met Gascoyne’s eyes, his own faded and watery, but still direct and sharp. ‘This photo – something happened to him? Looks like a whatjacall – corpse shot.’
‘I’m afraid someone did for him.’
‘Murdered?’ Gascoyne nodded. Rylance studied the picture again. ‘Shame. He wasn’t a bad bloke. Quiet. Read books, as I remember. The sort of bloke that’s good to his mother. Not that he ever mentioned a mother, mind you. Never mentioned any home life. How’d they do it?’
‘A heavy blow to the back of the neck.’
‘Ah,’ said Rylance. ‘Well, technique won’t help you there. Can’t guard against that.’ He handed the picture back. ‘I’ll keep an ear open, and if I hear anything, I’ll let you know. But don’t hold your breath. Like I said, I never seen or heard of him since he left the ring, and that’s gotta be – what? Thirty, forty year. How’s your dad?’
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