Shadow Play

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Were those her actual words? “What to do with him”?

  ‘Or “what to do about him”. Does it matter?’

  ‘It may do. Go on.’

  ‘You don’t have to go on.’ Wilton made one last effort to check him. ‘You don’t need to make any voluntary statement, and you don’t need to answer any question if it may tend to incriminate you.’

  Holdsworth gave her a patronising smile and patted her hand. ‘Don’t you worry, I know what I’m doing.’ He turned back to Slider, with a look that said, ‘The ladies, eh? God bless ‘em!’ All he needed was a monocle and a moustache to preen. ‘Where was I? Oh yes. Jack phoned on Sunday to say Myra was worried about Leon, that he could blow the whole thing out of the water.’

  ‘Did he say Myra had suggested a solution?’ Slider asked.

  ‘He said we might have to pay Leon off. But as it happens, he’d had a different conversation with her, which I didn’t know about until later.’ He gave Slider, and then Wilton, a triumphant look.

  ‘Very well. But what happened next?’

  ‘Leon rang to say he’d finished editing the film and he was bringing a copy over. I rang Jack, and he said he’d come over too. But he arrived without Myra. Typical! She was trying to distance herself, trying to make sure someone else would get the blame, not her – just like she always did. Even though it was her idea from start to finish. Anyway, Leon turned up, and gave Jack the flash drive, and said he wanted a proper share of the money. He said he was the one who’d done all the work. Jack didn’t like that. I could see he started to get angry. I asked Leon what he wanted, and he said a million pounds.’ He snorted with derision. ‘A million! For doing a bit of camera work! I said he was dreaming. And then he said—’ the smile left his face – ‘he said he had a copy of the film, and if he didn’t get the money, he’d take it to the police.’

  Ah, the blackmailer blackmailed, Slider thought. Very neat. ‘But he was implicated himself,’ he said.

  ‘That’s what Jack told him. He said Leon was just as guilty. But Leon said he hadn’t made any attempt to extort, and that whoever made the approach to Kevin – which would be Jack – would be the guilty one. And that if he took the film to the police, we’d never get the money, that was the end of Davy Lane for us, and we’d all be bankrupt, so it made more sense to give him a fair whack and be done with it. I thought Jack was going to explode. I tried to calm him down. I said we ought to talk about it, and asked Leon to wait in the next room. But as Leon turned away, Jack grabbed the poker from the fireplace and hit him. Killed him.’ He shook his head. ‘That damned temper of his. We’d have been all right if we’d done it my way.’

  ‘And what was your way?’

  ‘Well, to …’ He paused, sensing a trap. ‘To sort it out later.’

  ‘You mean, to kill him somewhere more convenient?’

  ‘Don’t answer that!’ Wilton said despairingly.

  Holdsworth looked sulky. ‘It was Myra’s idea to kill him. That’s what Jack told me later. She’d said Leon would have to go, that even if we paid him, we’d never be sure he’d keep quiet. I don’t suppose she meant he was to kill him in my drawing room,’ he said with a kind of glee, ‘but Jack always was a stupid, impulsive fool. I told her that from the start. I told her not to marry him – but she never listens to me.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s been a happy marriage,’ Mrs Holdsworth had said to Swilley. ‘Apart from not being able to have any children, I mean. Myra’s so ambitious, she drives Jack, and I think all he really wants is a quiet life. They both—’ she looked up into Swilley’s eyes – ‘have affairs.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Swilley asked.

  ‘I don’t think it’s a secret. I’ve overheard Myra talking to Charles about it. She’s quite open about hers – it’s always influential people, people who can advance her – and I’ve heard her say, quite dismissively, that it doesn’t bother Jack because his secretaries and popsies keep him occupied.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘What a way to run a marriage.’

  ‘Charles has said that Jack has a temper,’ Swilley said.

  ‘Well, I suppose he does, a bit, and I don’t like it when he shouts. I hate loud voices. But I don’t think he means any harm, really. I can stand that more easily than Myra’s ruthlessness. Jack’s been a good uncle to Charlie, in many ways, but Myra never wanted anything to do with him. She was always worried about how it would affect her reputation, her career, if anything he did got out.’ She sniffed. ‘She’s supposed to be so wonderful, such a saint, caring so deeply about all those damaged kids, but it’s different when it comes to her own nephew.’

  ‘So I told Jack he’d have to get Leon’s body out of there,’ said Holdsworth.

  Slider guessed this was the point at which Jack had said, ‘Why do I have to do all the dirty work?’ He imagined the express-lift sinking of stomachs when something alerted Holdsworth to his wife’s presence outside, with Leon sprawled dead on the carpet. Luckily, he had spent a lifetime training her to instant obedience and no questions.

  The body must be got away, the other copy of the film discovered, and above all, no guilt must ever attach to Holdsworth. Jack could be sacrificed. Probably even Myra would agree about that. ‘I can’t go to prison. I have children and you don’t.’ But the real reason was that Charles must never be blamed for anything.

  Slider felt almost sorry for Jack Silverman, who was indeed being lumbered with all the dirty work. Blackmail Rathkeale, remove the body, search the flat – and if anyone was going to get caught and jugged for it, it wasn’t going to be anyone with the Holdsworth blood in their veins. Charles may hate Myra, but they evidently thought alike, or why had Jack been sent to the Sunday meeting alone?

  Holdsworth ran through the rest of the story.

  ‘Why Jacket’s Yard?’ Slider asked. ‘Why not somewhere further away – out in the country?’

  ‘That’s what Jack said. But we didn’t have too much time. The flat had to be searched and the other copy found, and Leon would have hidden it well, we knew that. And the search would have to be done during the night when there was no one around. And I wasn’t having the body left in my house while he did that. Besides, people always dump bodies in the countryside and they always get caught. I told him as long as there was nothing to link it with us, there was no problem. So we took everything out of the pockets first. And when Jack searched the flat, he took away all Leon’s personal stuff, in case there was anything to connect him with me. And his laptop. But he didn’t find the film,’ he concluded with a brooding look.

  ‘Where’s the other copy? The one Leon brought to you?’

  ‘Jack’s got that. Or he’s given it to Myra, I don’t know.’

  Slider imagined that they were planning to leave it a couple of weeks to make sure no questions were asked about Leon – and why should there be? A man with no friends and no family to miss him, a nobody rendered even more a nobody by his empty pockets – and then resurrect the blackmail scheme. Why not? It was a good plan. Rathkeale would really lose nothing by green-lighting it, the street kids would get a place to go, some people would get nice flats, Myra would get a good directorship and two firms would be saved from going under. An eyesore shabby terrace would be transformed into something useful, and a lot of people would have jobs along the way. Coal Sidings Road would become Davy Lane, and everybody would win. Holdsworth and the Silvermans would have performed a public good. They ought to get medals, really.

  If Leon Kimmelman had not got greedy and spoiled it all – and for what? For a retirement house in the Isle of Wight. The absurdity of human ambition and human endeavour never failed to strike Slider.

  Holdsworth looked at Slider hopefully. ‘So you see, I really haven’t done anything wrong. I’m the innocent party here. It was all Jack, and Myra. So can I go now?’

  ‘You tried to run me down,’ Slider said. ‘I don’t take that very kindly.’

  ‘Not me,’ he said quickly. ‘I don’t like drivin
g. That’s why I had Leon to drive me. My eyesight isn’t so good, I don’t like cars, I never drive unless I have to. I could never do that, drive deliberately at someone. It was Jack did it. Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘But the car, you see, is in your garage. With the number plate obscured and the rear plate missing,’ said Slider. ‘Attempted murder is a serious thing. You are the registered owner and the car is in your keeping. You are just as guilty as he is.’

  ‘No!’ said Holdsworth. ‘I haven’t done anything! It was them, not me!’

  Slider thought of 1984, and Winston shouting, ‘Do it to Julia! Not me!’ Not to be able to accept blame was a terrible, debilitating thing. It stunted a person. There was a large chunk of Holdsworth that had never grown up beyond the boy taking a beating from his father, while his sister-ringleader smirked in the background. She had broken the window, but he had been there, he had been part of it. He couldn’t see that then, and never would now. Jack had killed Leon, perhaps, but he had been there. And probably he’d been glad to have it done.

  EIGHTEEN

  E Pluribus Unum

  Myra Silverman and her hotshot solicitor had taken the line that Myra was innocent of any involvement in the crime of murder, and as she had not been there when the deed was done, and there was no actual evidence that she knew anything about it, it was going to be tricky to include her. It depended on the wider conspiracy. She was certainly involved in Davy Lane, and had been the one to try to persuade Rathkeale to back it, but again, there was no evidence that she had been involved or even aware of the set-up and the intention to apply blackmail. It looked rather as though little Myra was going to get away with it again.

  Jack had relied on the tried and traditional method of saying nothing, answering ‘No comment’ to every question, though with a brooding, glowering look that could have set fire to the curtains, had there been any.

  Porson said, ‘The evidence all points to Holdsworth, but if he keeps saying Silverman did it … Maybe that’s the way to go. Have another go at Silverman along the lines that Holdsworth’s going to get away scot-free while he’s going to get jugged. See if you can prod him into giving us something. I don’t like all this “no comment” business. It always looks bad when they haven’t held their hand up. Get him to throw some mud at Holdsworth, which he can’t do if he doesn’t chirp. I don’t think there’s any love lost round the three of them.’

  ‘I think you’re right, there,’ said Slider.

  Porson eyed him. ‘But not now. You’re tired. You’re not firing on all calendars. We’ve got enough time on the clock. Let him have a nice long brood overnight, and have a go at him in the morning when you’re fresh and he’s not.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Slider said. It was, however, a longish time after that before he could get away. There were reports to write and forms to sign and instructions to give. Silverman’s office had to be searched; the BMW’s route to Nigel Playfair researched; phone records to be collated. There was overtime available to rejoice the heart, but it all had to be organised.

  Slider went home at last, late, too tired to eat, too tired to talk. Joanna wisely left him alone, to fall into bed and sleep like the dead – if the dead had huge, complicated dreams. However, he couldn’t remember what they had been about when he woke, only that they had been hard work.

  Over breakfast he told Joanna of the breakthrough.

  ‘So you’ll be going in?’ she queried.

  ‘I have to,’ he said, and then, dragging his mind back from his case to her career, remembered, ‘Oh. You’re working, aren’t you?’

  ‘Seating rehearsal this afternoon, and the televised concert tonight. You were supposed to be having a day off – with George.’ To his helpless look, she said, with a sigh, ‘I’ll sort something out. Don’t worry.’

  ‘You’re a saint,’ Slider said. ‘What did I do to deserve you?’

  ‘I wonder that myself, sometimes,’ she said. ‘But saints, like worms, can turn, so don’t push your luck, Bill Slider.’

  ‘When this is over …’ he said.

  ‘You always say that.’

  ‘But this time I really mean it.’

  ‘You always say that, too.’

  ‘Let me have a go at him, boss,’ Hart pleaded. ‘Wiv my funky charm.’

  ‘I thought Loessop was the funky one.’

  ‘Yeah, but I got assets he can only dream about. If Silverman’s got an eye for the popsies …’

  ‘What, you?’

  ‘I can do popsy,’ Hart said, wounded. ‘Go on, guv. I think I can get him to talk.’

  So Jack Silverman, brooding alone in his cell after breakfast, received a visit from a tall, slim, attractive black woman in very tight trousers, a slinky top and earrings shaped like leaping dolphins, who greeted him with a cheery but not unsympathetic grin and said, ‘Your wife and brother-in-law have dropped you right in it. They’ve jumped ship.’

  ‘What?’ said Jack.

  ‘They’ve taken the only lifeboat and they’re rowing hard for the shore. Which leaves you – what? Manning the bridge and going down with the ship.’ She did a naval salute. ‘Aye aye, captain. Glug glug. It’s been nice knowing you.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he said, though something in his eye told her he’d twigged.

  ‘They say it was all down to you. You alone are the guilty one. Your idea. You dunnit.’ He stared at her, his face darkening. She added an extra ounce of pity to her smile. ‘Loyalty is an admirable trait, but they’re not reciprocating,’ she said. ‘In uvver words, they’ve hung you out to dry, old mate. Nice class of relative you’ve got there! They’re going to swan off into the sunset, doing whatever it is they do for jollies, while you’re eatin’ off tin plates and lookin’ at the sunset through iron bars. And if you drop the soap in the showers, for Gawd’s sake don’t bend down to pick it up.’

  ‘Nice language,’ he scowled at her.

  ‘I’m just trying to make you see reality. They’ve done you like a kipper, and I don’t like to see that. Good-looking bloke like you. They said you killed Kimmelman, and tried to kill our guv’nor. Blamed it on your temper. Ask me, you’ve been keeping a lid on it like a bleedin’ hero. Good for you! There’s just one more thing to do. One more step from hero to saint.’

  Her smile was so perky, it would have taken enormous self-control not to say ‘What?’ at that point. Jack said it.

  ‘Martyrdom,’ she replied. ‘You just keep saying nuffing, while they make their escape. That’s what makes a hero a saint – suffering for others.’

  He put a weary hand to his head. ‘Don’t you ever stop talking?’

  ‘I’ll stop,’ she said seductively, ‘if you’ll start.’

  So it was back in the tape room, Hart and Slider facing Silverman and his solicitor. Slider said, ‘For the record, you have asked of your own volition to make another statement. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Silverman.

  ‘Then let’s start with the Davy Lane redevelopment. That was your idea, was it?’

  ‘No!’ he said. ‘They thought it up between them, Myra and Charles. Charles had that property to get rid of – that was typical of him, the way he got stuck with it. Trying to be too clever. He always thought he was a lot cleverer than he really was. Getting it listed to bring the price down – then he couldn’t get it de-listed. And Myra wanted a new big project to boost her reputation. She lives for the press coverage. She was beside herself when they went for her over that KidZone mess-up – like, “how dare they criticise me?”’

  ‘But you stood to gain yourself, didn’t you?’ Slider said.

  ‘I’d have got a large contract for the building, I don’t deny it, but that’s my business, building things. All that would have been legitimate. But I wasn’t desperate like Charles. My head was above water. My firm’s ticking over all right. I mean, we all want more work, of course we do, but it wasn’t life or death to me. Charles is up to his eyebrows in debt, and poor Charlie …’ He paus
ed. ‘You know about Charlie?’

  ‘We know,’ said Hart.

  ‘Oh.’ He nodded. ‘Well, Charlie costs him an arm and a leg, and he’s got nothing coming in. Davy Lane went from “wouldn’t it be nice if” to “it’s got to happen”.’ He gave a sour look. ‘And Myra was so sure Kevin would jump. She thought she could pull his strings like a puppet.’

  ‘She over-estimated her influence with him,’ Slider said.

  ‘Yes, and that made her mad as fire. She can’t stand anyone crossing her.’

  ‘So she thought up the blackmail plot out of …?’ Hart invited.

  ‘Temper mostly,’ he supplied.

  ‘How did she know about his … proclivities?’ Hart asked.

  ‘Oh, she knew him pretty well. She knew all about the boys and the cocaine and so on, when they were working together. I think she liked it. Gave her a hold over him.’

  ‘Was that why he defended her in front of the House committee?’ Slider asked.

  He shrugged. ‘It may be. I hadn’t thought about that. She never said. But it could be.’

  ‘So the blackmail plot was all her?’

  ‘Her and Charles. They cooked it up between them. I thought it was stupid – and risky. I said, just let it go. But they were sure it would work. Myra said it wasn’t as if they would be asking for money, just pressuring Kevin to do what he ought to do anyway. Charles had the boat, he had Leon set up the camera and everything, and follow Kevin for a week or two to find out where he went, and then set up the … what d’you call it? The sting?’

  ‘If you like,’ said Slider.