Chelsea Mansions bak-11

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Moszynski’s accountant and financial adviser, a man called Freddie Clarke. Though it may be difficult to get samples of their writing.’

  ‘Formal letters would be best, but even emails, memos, notes might give me a clue.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Fine, and I’ll look at these. You’re right to be sceptical, of course, but I am fairly sure Moszynski didn’t write that letter to The Times.’

  Kathy nodded, put some money on the table and got to her feet. ‘You were right about the pie. I’ll be in touch.’

  Bren was waiting for her when she got back to Queen Anne’s Gate, his big ruddy face alight with energy.

  ‘Take a look at this, Kathy,’ he said, and placed a sheet of paper on her desk reverently, as if it were a sacred text. ‘It’s Hadden-Vane’s declaration of interests for last year, something every Member of Parliament has to put on the record.’

  Kathy read: HADDEN-VANE, Sir Nigel Featherstone

  1. Remunerated directorships Director, Caribbean Timeshare Investments Limited Director, Shere Security Limited 2. Remunerated employment, office, profession, etc. Lectures for Anglo-Russian Investment Conference (Up to?5000). In September 2009 I undertook a working visit to the Russian Federation, all expenses paid by the Anglo-Russian Business Promotion Council, who also paid me a fee (Up to?5000). 3. Gifts, benefits and hospitality (UK) July 2009, guest of RKF SA at the Men’s Finals at Wimbledon 16-18 October 2009, shooting in Inverness-shire as the guest of RKF SA. 4. Office-holder in voluntary organisations Honorary Patron, Hammersmith Youth Employment Project Honorary Patron, Wildlife Preservation Society Honorary President, Haringey Sport and Social Trust

  ‘So Moszynski took him shooting in Scotland,’ Kathy said. ‘Brock would appreciate that.’

  ‘The last item, Kathy.’ Bren stabbed his finger at it. ‘Haringey Sport and Social Trust. Care to guess who’s a member of the youth club they run?’

  Kathy stared at him. ‘Haringey… Not Danny Yilmaz?’

  Bren grinned. ‘Got it in one.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  I t was after eleven that evening when John Greenslade returned to Chelsea Mansions. Toby put his head around the lounge room door as he passed and said, ‘John, old chap, come in and join us. Deb and I are just having a nightcap.’

  ‘Oh, thanks, Toby. Sounds good.’ Judging by Toby’s mellow tones and the level of the liquid in the Teacher’s bottle, he guessed that this wasn’t their first.

  ‘Had a good day, dear?’ Deb beamed at him, holding her glass up to the whisky bottle as Toby poured.

  ‘I’ve just seen a very scary movie, actually. Blood everywhere. I could do with something to settle my stomach.’

  ‘Quite enough of that in real life, eh?’ Toby rumbled. ‘Especially in Cunningham Place.’ He handed John a brimming glass. ‘Cheers. Down the hatch. I see the inspector caught up with you.’ He waved a finger at the envelope John was carrying. ‘She called in here at lunchtime with it, and we told her she could find you at the Anglesea.’

  ‘Oh thanks. Yes, she had a quick pie with me on her way back to the office.’

  ‘No need to explain, old chap.’ Toby’s smile inclined towards a leer. ‘You could have had a tumble in the hay for all we care.’

  They all had a chuckle over that.

  ‘But John,’ Deb said, ‘what is this mysterious work you’re doing with her? Or shouldn’t I pry?’

  ‘We’re all friends here,’ Toby prompted. ‘In our past lives we’ve both signed more Official Secrets Act declarations than you’ve had hot pies, old chap. We know how to keep a confidence.’

  John gave a self-deprecating little laugh. ‘Oh, it’s not such a big deal. In my university work back home I often have to look at the authorship of documents, or fragments of text.’

  ‘Like did Shakespeare or Francis Bacon write a particular sonnet?’ Toby said.

  ‘Right, or Guittone d’Arezzo and Guido Guinizelli in my case. But anyway, the Montreal police got to hear about it, and I’ve been able to help them in a few cases of contested documents.’

  ‘Aha,’ Deb said. ‘And now you’re doing the same with Inspector Kolla.’

  ‘Moszynski’s will!’ Toby cried. ‘It’s a forgery, is it?’

  John laughed. ‘No, no, nothing like that. She just needs to be sure that something he wrote was genuine. For the coroner, you know.’

  ‘And is it?’

  John hesitated. ‘I’m not sure that I can give a definitive answer at the moment.’

  ‘But you think it could be a fake?’

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Toby mused. ‘Bet it’s the letter to The Times. It implicated the Russian government, which is what everyone wants to believe, but if it’s a fake it suggests another motive. Sex or money.’

  ‘Sex?’ Deb said.

  ‘Well, in an earlier life, and after a few months in the Arabian desert, Shaka Gibbons might have tempted me to desperate acts,’ Toby said. ‘Here, let me top you up, old chap. All right, not sex. Money, obviously. Who could be after his money? The son-in-law, of course-he looks a ruthless bastard. And that weird accountant chappie that we saw at the funeral holding Shaka’s arm. Who knows what he’s been up to? And that slimy MP, Hadden-Vane, who’s always there next door, day and night. He’d be in it for whatever he could lay his hands on.’

  John gave him a sharp look.

  ‘What, got it right, did I?’ Toby chuckled. ‘Not that difficult. It’s a freak show next door, a fucking circus. We see it every day and we smile, don’t we, Deb? The fabulously rich Russian, his crazy mother, the confused daughter, the sinister son-in-law, the glam wife…’

  ‘Oh now, I like Shaka,’ Deb protested. ‘She’s feisty, and beautiful.’

  ‘Yes, well…’ Toby conceded. He fixed John with a glare, enigmatic through the dark discs of his glasses. ‘ The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings .’

  ‘What’s that, Toby?’

  ‘Time was, John, we were the masters of our fate, our wealth created by our own ingenuity and hard work. Now look at us-lackeys to every foreign crook and embezzler that turns up with a suitcase stuffed with roubles or dirhams. “Let me take your bag, sir! Let me invest your lovely gold. Income tax? Good heavens no, sir, not for you. Citizenship? Any time you want! You like my house? Take it. A nice English girl? She’s yours!”’

  Deb laughed and patted Toby’s hand. ‘Feel better now, love?’ She turned to John. ‘He needs to let off steam, now and then.’

  Toby reached for the Teacher’s. ‘Time was, John,’ he growled, ‘when I was a small boy, my family owned three of the houses that made up this block. My great-aunt Daphne, an independent lady of Fabian tendencies, ran a small hotel in number seven next door, catering to people of an enlightened disposition-she insisted on that. My uncle George owned number six, and my father this house, number eight. Numbers one to five were owned by respectable, hard-working families-a solicitor, a retired general of the Indian Army, a civil servant, a bank manager and the head of an advertising agency. Now we’re the only ones left, clinging to the end of the Russian’s juggernaut. Not that they haven’t tried to push us out, eh, Deb? Every trick in the book. A refurbishment loan offered through a totally unconnected finance company that just happened to have been created by Moszynski’s little rat of an accountant for the purposes of forcing us into liquidation. Then they used the courts, suing us for breach of contract, stuffing the pockets of English lawyers with their cash to pulverise us into submission. And they nearly succeeded, didn’t they, Deb?’

  ‘Yes, Toby.’ She leaned over to John. ‘They decided they had to own the lot, the whole block, but Toby wouldn’t have it.’

  ‘You think I’m being paranoid, do you, John?’ Toby said. ‘Then let me ask you this: what are the police doing, would you say? Come on, you’re on the inside there. Tell us, what are they doing?’

  ‘Well… I don’t really know, Toby.
Trying to solve Moszynski’s murder, I guess.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Toby nodded. ‘You’ve got it in one, boy. They’re trying to solve Moszynski’s murder. Not Nancy Haynes’ murder. She doesn’t count, does she? She didn’t have a sackful of roubles to command our servile attention. She was a pensioner, for God’s sake, a decent woman, but who gives a fuck about that.’

  ‘Toby, darling, I think it’s time for bed,’ Deb said.

  ‘True enough.’

  They drained their glasses and John said, ‘I didn’t realise you’d had problems with the people next door.’

  ‘Actually, I liked Mr Moszynski in many ways,’ Deb said. ‘He could be quite charming and considerate when he felt like it. But if he wanted something, and you were in his way, then God help you. Our rather shabby little hotel was an affront to his vision of his palatial residence.’

  ‘Will it be easier for you now, do you think?’

  ‘We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?’

  TWENTY-THREE

  T he owner of the house in Hackney in which Harry Peebles had died was Angela Storey, who was serving six months in Holloway for the theft of seventy-eight thousand pounds from her employer, a car dealership. Kathy, wanting to know exactly how Peebles’ use of the house had been arranged, went to see her, and found her to be a pleasant young woman, eager to talk about her situation.

  ‘It was my own fault, I know. After Mum passed away I moved back home to be with Dad, and then when he died of a heart attack last year I was on my own. Dad left me the house, in Ferncroft Close, and a bit of money. It was the first time I’d had any to spare, and I went a bit mad. I started gambling on the internet, in a small way at first, then more and more. Soon I ran out of Dad’s money but I didn’t stop. I got into debt, only it was hard to meet the repayments on what I was earning in the office at Meredews. Then it occurred to me one day how easy it would be to create a new supplier account and pay myself a bit extra. I ended up with five false accounts before they found out. The money’s all gone. Stupid really. Dad would be horrified to know that both Kenny and me are doing time.’

  ‘Kenny’s your brother?’

  ‘Yes, he’s in Barlinnie Prison, in Scotland. It was the drugs with him. When Dad found out he disowned him, and Kenny left London and went up to Glasgow with a mate, a scaffolder like him, but they got into trouble up there. Anyway, when I got a message from him asking if a friend of his from Scotland could stay at the house for a few days I couldn’t very well refuse, could I? I mean, by rights the house is half his anyway.’

  ‘Did you know this friend?’

  ‘No. Kenny just gave me his name and I contacted Mrs Taylor next door, who’s got the key, to say it was all right for him to stay. It’s terrible what’s happened. A drug overdose, wasn’t it? I should have known, I suppose, if it was a friend of Kenny’s.’

  ‘I’ve got a book of photographs here, Angela, that I’d like you to look at and tell me if you’ve seen any of the men before, okay?’

  Angela looked doubtful. ‘Will it get Kenny into trouble?’

  ‘No, not at all. We just want to trace the people that Harry Peebles may have met while he was in London.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know…’

  ‘I do appreciate your help, Angela, and I’ll certainly report to the governor how cooperative you’ve been.’

  ‘Well, let’s take a look then.’

  Kathy opened the album of mug shots and Angela began to scan them, slowly turning the pages. Eventually she stopped at one picture.

  ‘Oh,’ she said with a smile. ‘I know him, but he would never have met with someone like Harry Peebles.’

  ‘How do you know him, Angela?’

  ‘He was my dad’s boss. My dad was a driver-a chauffeur, he insisted on calling it. He worked for Mr Hadden-Vane for years.’

  ‘Really? Has he ever been to your house?’

  ‘Oh no. But he knew where Dad lived, right enough.’

  When she got back to her office Kathy found Bren leaning over Pip’s shoulder looking at her computer screen.

  ‘Hey, Kathy,’ he said. ‘Take a look at this.’

  It was an article from a local newspaper, three years old. The caption read, mp rewards civic-minded youths beneath a picture of Hadden-Vane handing a certificate to a grinning teenager. In the background, clapping, was a group including both Danny Yilmaz and his cousin Barbaros Kaya.

  ‘Brilliant, eh? The three of them together in the same photo.’

  ‘Yes. Can I have a word, Bren?’

  They went into an empty office and Kathy told him about her visit to Holloway.

  Bren grinned. ‘Well, now we have got him. We can connect him to both the killer and the bike-rider, and can establish that he had an opportunity to write the letter to The Times to put us off the scent.’

  ‘What about motive?’

  ‘Something to do with money, I’d guess. Probably to do with the heat he’s been taking over improper dealings with the Russians. Maybe Moszynski was about to come clean about something that would severely embarrass him.’

  Kathy nodded. ‘Maybe, but we have absolutely no evidence of that. And was he acting alone?’

  ‘Vadim, you mean?’

  ‘Maybe, or how about Freddie Clarke?’

  ‘Yes…’ Bren considered that. ‘Yes, if it’s to do with money, he’d either be involved or have some idea of what’s going on. But if he is involved and you ask him about Hadden-Vane’s financial dealings with Moszynski, it’ll tip them off.’

  ‘So we need to tap their phones, get hold of their emails, take a look at their financial records.’

  ‘The big boys upstairs are going to be very cautious, Kathy, after the last brush we had with Hadden-Vane.’

  ‘You’re right. We’d be in a much stronger position if we could place him inside 13 Ferncroft Close, wouldn’t we?’

  ‘Yes, but none of the neighbours saw anyone else visit the house during that week that Peebles was there.’

  ‘We did find a number of unidentified fingerprints and DNA traces inside.’

  Bren nodded slowly.

  ‘I thought I might have a word with Sir Nigel,’ Kathy said.

  Kathy showed her identification to the policeman on duty at the Cromwell Green visitors’ entrance to the Houses of Parliament, and was directed to a reception desk from which she was escorted up stairs and along gothic corridors to the door of a secretary’s office.

  ‘Yes, I know he’s expecting you,’ the woman said. ‘He is very busy at the moment, but he asked me to call him when you arrived. Would you just take a seat?’

  After ten minutes Hadden-Vane arrived. He looked around the room then said to Kathy, getting to her feet, ‘On your own?’

  ‘Yes, Sir Nigel.’ She offered him her hand, but he ignored it, or perhaps didn’t notice.

  ‘Thanks, Maureen.’ He lifted a thick stack of papers from the secretary’s desk and turned to the door. ‘This way.’

  They walked at a fast clip down the corridor to another door. Hadden-Vane unlocked it and they entered a small office with bookcases filled with gold-lettered binders.

  ‘Take a seat.’ He dropped heavily into the chair behind the desk, thumped the papers down in front of him and ran his eyes quickly over the cover sheet. ‘Right. What can I do for you?’

  ‘We’re trying to reconstruct Mr Moszynski’s movements in the days leading up to his death. I have a couple of timesheets here for the week beginning Sunday the twenty-third, and we’d be grateful if you could fill them in, one for your own movements and one for what you know of Mr Moszynski’s. If you could let us have them in the next twenty-four hours we’d appreciate it.’

  He frowned for a moment at the sheets of paper she gave him, then took a deep breath and puffed out his cheeks. ‘How’s your boss?’ he said, not looking up.

  ‘DCI Brock? He’s in hospital, in isolation. He contracted a virus.’

  ‘Yes, I heard. Is he out of danger?’

  ‘Not y
et.’

  He nodded slowly. It occurred to Kathy that he was tired. The bluster and showmanship of the other times she’d seen him were gone, and he seemed drained, like an actor between performances. The strain of recent days was taking its toll, she guessed.

  ‘So who’s in charge of the case?’

  ‘I’m senior investigating officer, sir, reporting to Commander Sharpe.’

  ‘Really?’ He seemed to consider this unlikely. ‘Busy work,’ he said finally.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘That’s what this looks like.’ He tossed the pages onto his desk and ran a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes. ‘Filling in time.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. There are always a lot of routine procedures to go through in cases like this.’

  ‘But I thought you’d found the culprit?’

  ‘It appears that he was paid to kill Mr Moszynski. We need to find who by.’

  ‘And the American woman? Why would he kill her?’

  ‘That may have been a mistake.’

  ‘A mistake?’ He looked incredulous for a moment, then shook his head. ‘All right, I’ll fill in your paperwork and have it faxed to you. Give me your number.’

  ‘It’s at the foot of the sheet. Also, I’d like to arrange for an officer to come and take your fingerprints and a sample of your DNA.’

  ‘What?’ Hadden-Vane seemed to focus on Kathy for the first time.

  ‘For elimination. There were a number of traces on and around Mr Moszynski’s body in the gardens, and we need to eliminate the ones that may have been picked up from people he’d been in contact with.’

  ‘But you have the killer’s body, don’t you? You know which traces are his.’

  ‘We have to be sure he didn’t have an accomplice.’

  He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘If there was an accomplice who has a police record, you’ll know who he is. If he doesn’t, the unidentified traces won’t help you identify him, will they?’