Star Fall

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  And it must be hard for a man with hair like Lavender’s not to feel jealous of a man with hair like Egerton’s.

  FOUR

  Escape from Alky Trash

  Like the majority of the population, Mrs Bean didn’t appear in records at all, nor did any Bean with the same address. Armed with this assurance, Connolly went round to her home, a ground-floor maisonette in Dunraven Road. The house, part of a two-storeyed terrace, was tiny, designed in Edwardian times for a smaller race of people. It was neat and perfect outside, red-brick with white trim and a minuscule front garden, with the original tiled front path and front door with stained glass panels. Connolly reflected, somewhat glumly, that this two-bedroom doll’s house, built in 1910 to be rented to a railway clerk or a shop assistant, would probably fetch half a mill in today’s bloated London market.

  Mrs Bean opened the door, looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Connolly held up her warrant card. ‘Detective Constable Connolly,’ she said.

  ‘I remember you, dear,’ said Mrs Bean. ‘I thought you was the press. I’ve had one of them on the phone this morning already.’

  ‘I’m afraid you may get more of that.’

  ‘My back’s broad. I didn’t tell ’em nothing. Come in, dear. You look too young to be a policeman.’

  ‘I’m ageing as fast as I can,’ Connolly said, following her in. The passage was so narrow that a fat person would have got wedged. It passed on the left a sitting room and a bedroom, both about ten by twelve; dog-legged round a tiny bathroom, passed an even smaller bedroom, and led into a kitchen which, while small, about twelve foot square, was at least bright, with a window at the end on to the garden and a glazed back door on the left. It was immaculate and smelled of lemon Flash, but the kitchen cabinets and the table and chairs looked as though they dated from the fifties. The mystery of how Mrs Bean could afford a place like this was solved – the Beans had been here all along. Probably protected tenants.

  ‘I’ve got the kettle on. Sit down dear,’ Mrs Bean said.

  Connolly sat at the table. She’d have been seriously in the way if she hadn’t. Even the table was tiny, about three feet long and two feet wide, just big enough to accommodate the plates of four people, a cruet set and two sauce bottles. She felt quite at home. She’d had school friends in Dublin who’d invited her back to ‘tea’ in kitchens like this. There were even the same round raffia table mats.

  ‘So,’ said Mrs Bean, with her back to her at the stove, ‘you’ve come to give me a going over?’

  ‘Just routine. Ask you a few questions.’

  ‘Oh, I know. I’m not daft, dear. You’re bound to wonder. I was the only other one with a key.’ The kettle began a mournful whistle and was cut off as Mrs Bean poured water into the teapot. She turned her head to smile at Connolly. ‘Stands to reason, you got to suspect me.’

  Connolly grinned. ‘I don’t really. What’d you kill him for?’

  ‘You’re right, love. I’d’ve done meself out of a job,’ Mrs Bean said, the smile fading. ‘I’m at a bit of a loss, if truth be told. This should have been one of my days. Don’t know what to do with meself. Ken’s gone down the old people’s centre – he helps out there on my working days, so as not to be on his own here. I told him to go – can’t let the old folk down.’

  ‘He’s retired?’

  ‘Ten years ago, with his back. He was on the railway – track maintenance. Forty years. Our son, our Billy, he went on the railway too. Men and their trains!’ She tossed her head in affectionate contempt, putting the teapot down on the table, and reaching for mugs from the dresser beside it. Distances were so small in this room that she could reach them without moving. She also reached down a large tin of mixed fancy biscuits, pulled off the lid and placed it on the table. ‘Help yourself,’ she said. ‘I always get a tin at Christmas, lasts us for weeks.’

  Connolly could see the chocolate ones were mostly gone. She selected a Highland shortcake and nibbled on it.

  ‘So is it just the two of you here, now?’

  ‘Oh yes. Billy’s married, lives in Swindon, got two kids. Nice girl he married, Linda. Always keeps the children lovely. We only had the one, Ken and me.’

  Probably for the best, Connolly thought. Where the hell would you put a second child? ‘So, I have to ask you this,’ she said. ‘Where d’you keep the key to Mr Egerton’s house?’

  Silently, Mrs Bean half stood and pulled open a door in the top half of the dresser, exposing neatly stacked crockery. On the inside of the door were lines of hooks on which hung keys. She pointed to a bunch from which dangled a furry object like a shrunken rabbit’s foot. ‘That’s them. Front door – Yale and deadlock – and them two are the doors in the kitchen on to the garden. I s’pose you’ll be taking ’em away?’ she concluded a little wistfully. Then she braced herself. ‘Still, even if he’d gone natural, they’d’ve had to be given back.’

  ‘So they’re always kept here?’ Connolly asked.

  ‘Except when I’m using ’em.’

  ‘And does anyone else know about them?’

  She looked doubtful. ‘Well, Ken, of course. And I s’pose friends who pop in probably know that’s where we keep the keys, though they wouldn’t know which was which. I mean, that bunch there is to Billy’s house, and that’s my friend Gwen down the road that I go and feed her cat when she’s away, and that’s the spare set to the church hall – Ken’s a sidesman, he often opens up or closes up when they have a do. But none of ’em’s labelled. Anyway,’ she finished with a clear look, ‘they’ve never gone missing, so if you’re thinking someone might’ve nicked ’em to make a copy, you’re far wrong.’

  Connolly smiled. ‘If you keep getting ahead of me like that, you’ll do me out of a job.’

  ‘Oh, I may be old, but I’m not daft,’ Mrs Bean said, pleased. ‘I know what’s what all right. Anyway, nobody that comes to this house is the sort to do such a thing, even if they could have. And if I wanted to steal from Mr Egerton I could have done it years ago, without harming the poor soul. Have another biscuit. Is your tea all right for you? Drop more milk?’

  ‘No, thanks, I like it strong. Tell me about Mr Egerton and Mr Lavender. What did you make of them?’

  ‘Very nice gentlemen,’ she said firmly. ‘Lovely manners. Mr Egerton, he could speak sharp now and then, if something wasn’t done just the way he liked, but my back’s broad. Mr Lavender, he was the quiet one. More the brooding type. He’d store it up, like, and then, out it would all come, with him looking at you like you’d killed his rabbit. I’d sooner be told off by Mr Egerton any day, if truth be told.’

  ‘What was their relationship like with each other?’

  ‘They were friends ever since I knew them. Some people thought they were more than friends, if you get my drift.’ She surveyed Connolly to see if she did. ‘I suppose that was with Mr Lavender never being married. But I never thought they were, not for a minute. Not that I’d mind. I’m broad-minded,’ she went on. ‘People can do what they like, so long as they don’t do it in my front room. But no, they were just friends. And of course they had the business between them.’

  ‘Did they get on all right?’

  ‘Oh, they had rows now and then, like anyone else. I’d hear them sometimes in another room – they’d never argue in front of me. But it was just disagreements. They were devoted to each other, really.’

  ‘Disagreements about what?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, dear. Business, I expect.’ She sipped her tea firmly to put an end to this line of questioning.

  ‘Apart from Mr Lavender, did anyone else come to the house regularly?’

  ‘Well, I’m not the one to ask that, dear. I was just the cleaner. I did see visitors coming and going, but I couldn’t tell you who they were. And they liked to entertain at the weekends – dinner parties and such like. I’d hear them planning them, and talking about them afterwards. Quite sociable, I’d call them. More tea? Shall I top you up?’

  ‘No, this is grand, thanks,
’ said Connolly. ‘That little box, now, that you said was missing. The green Fabergé box – what can you tell me about that?’

  ‘Well, he’d not had it that long. About a year or so? It was a present from somebody. He set a lot of store by it. I remember Mr Lavender said once it didn’t look right on that table and he wanted to move it, but Mr Egerton said, quite sharp, that’s where it was to stay. Pride of place, you see.’

  ‘Did he use those words? Pride of place.’

  ‘Not as such, I don’t think, but that was the upshot. It didn’t look like much, to my mind, with those dingy white beads on the top, but it might have been worth a bit. Or it might just have been the sentimental value.’

  ‘Do you know who gave it him?’

  Shake of head.

  ‘Can you make a guess at who it might be?’

  ‘No, dear. No idea – except it wasn’t Mr Lavender.’

  Connolly thought for a moment. ‘Was there anything in it?’ she asked.

  ‘In the box?’ Mrs Bean temporized.

  Connolly’s heart lifted. The sidelong answer was always a giveaway. She kept her expression neutral. ‘Didn’t Mr Egerton keep something in it?’

  Mrs Bean hesitated a revealing second, then said, ‘He wouldn’t tell me if he did.’

  Connolly, very casually, looking into the middle distance, said, ‘Maybe it came open by accident one time, when you were dusting.’

  ‘I’m not one for snooping,’ said Mrs Bean, offended.

  ‘Of course you’re not,’ Connolly said. ‘But you have to pick it up to dust it, don’t you, and you couldn’t help seeing there was something inside, if it did happen to come open.’

  Mrs Bean seemed torn, eyeing Connolly as if it might be a trick question – but which way? ‘Well,’ she said at last, doubtfully, ‘there might have been a bit of paper in it.’

  ‘What sort of paper?’

  ‘Just a folded up bit of paper. Like it might be a letter, or something.’

  ‘Like a love letter? Or a business letter?’

  She met Connolly’s eyes now. ‘I couldn’t say, dear. I never took it out and opened it. I wouldn’t snoop about his private things,’ she said firmly. ‘Just a folded piece of paper, that’s all I know.’

  Connolly saw she would not budge from that – and it might have been the truth, after all. She said, ‘Did Mr Egerton have any relatives, do you know?’

  ‘None that I know of, bar his daughter.’

  ‘Have you met her?’

  ‘I only saw her the once, when she came to the house. That would be – oh, five years ago, easy. Maybe more. Big, tall woman. Very smartly dressed. Didn’t look like him at all – I suppose she took after her mother. I don’t think they were close. I never heard him mention her. Mind you, he wasn’t much of a one for chatting, except about himself. He liked to tell me when he’d done something clever or he’d been somewhere important. He’d stand watching me while I dusted his little treasures and talk about things he’d bought and sold and the programmes he’d been on and important people he’d been to dinner with. I tuned out a lot of the time, if truth be told. When you’ve heard one of them stories, you’ve heard the lot.’

  ‘Did he have lady friends?’

  ‘That I couldn’t tell you,’ Mrs Bean said firmly. ‘But I’d be surprised if he didn’t.’

  Fulham Road had its fair share of antique shops, and those down the Kensington end were in the posh range of the spectrum. Egerton Antiques had a very elegant fascia – dark blue with curly gold letters – and a window display of an artfully-lit Sheraton desk, dressed with a mahogany letter rack, a silver ink pot and a rather splendid alabaster bust of what Atherton took to be Julius Caesar. It was the sort of antiques shop where you had to ring the bell to be admitted, which of course always suggested to the potential customer that if they had to ask the price, they’d better not bother.

  He was buzzed in, and was met by an elderly Dandie Dinmont which tracked across the carpet from the back of the shop to greet him. After the brightness of the day outside it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness within. On a moss-green carpet, covered in the centre by an ancient Persian rug, a few choice items of furniture were displayed, lit with soft spotlights. It left the rest of the room in a level of semi-gloom similar to candlelight; very good for displaying eighteenth-century wares that would have been seen that way in their own time, he thought. Around the walls, among tables and bookcases, were some glass-fronted cabinets with ceramics and other small objects displayed, and on the walls were paintings, oils and watercolours, mostly in their original elaborate gold frames. It was everything he would have expected from a high-end antiques shop – and that also went for the woman who now rose from behind a table at the back and came towards him with a, ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Georgia Hedley-Somerton?’ he enquired, though he had no doubt of it. If anyone ever looked like a Georgia Hedley-Somerton it was this tall, elegant blonde, apparently in her late but exquisitely-preserved thirties, in a beige skirt and caramel-and-white angora sweater, with a double string of pearls round her neck and neat pearl earrings. It hardly mattered, with everything else she had going for her, but she was also attractive, with a nice smile and welcoming grey-green eyes. Despite the friendly mien there was about her – not only in her height and cut-glass accent – a certain something of authority and firmness that hinted that you wouldn’t come in here to waste her time; or, at least, that you wouldn’t do it twice. Atherton was glad of his own height and (he’d always been assured) good looks. Better for police work not to start off intimidated.

  ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Atherton,’ he began.

  She anticipated. ‘Oh, dear, yes. What a terrible thing about poor Mr Egerton. I expect you want to talk to Mr Lavender.’

  ‘Is he here?’ Atherton asked.

  ‘He’s in the flat, upstairs. He hasn’t come down yet. He rang me last night and told me about it, and said he might not come down at all this morning. But I can ring upstairs for you, if you want.’

  ‘No, don’t disturb him. I’d like to talk to you first.’

  A faintly doubtful look came over her face, but after a consideration she squared her shoulders to do her duty and said, ‘Please, won’t you sit down?’

  There was a chair on this side of the desk – for people to sit while they made out enormous cheques, Atherton thought – and he sat, while she went back to her side, and the Dandie flopped down in a basket by her side.

  ‘Have you worked here long?’ he asked.

  ‘Ten years,’ she said. ‘I was with Sotheby’s before that. I started in post-sales services and went on to valuations. It was interesting,’ she said reflectively, and perhaps a little wistfully. ‘But once I started a family I needed less pressure and more flexible hours. Mr Lavender’s been wonderful that way. We work very well together.’

  ‘I believe the business is owned by him and Mr Egerton, jointly?’

  ‘Yes, it’s a partnership.’

  ‘Did you have much to do with Mr Egerton?’

  She gave a small smile. ‘Oh, he popped in and out quite frequently.’

  ‘Did you like him?’

  She hesitated.

  Atherton spread his hands. ‘You can be frank with me. I need to understand as much as possible about the protagonists. And nothing you say can hurt him now.’

  She regarded him steadily, but seemed reassured – perhaps by his use of the word protagonists. Ah, the power of vocabulary! Was there a country in the world where you made more judgements about a person from the way they talked?

  ‘Well, since you ask – no. I didn’t like him very much. He was too – showy.’

  ‘You must be an unusual person. I understood women generally fawned over him.’

  ‘A certain sort of woman,’ she said, a touch scornfully. ‘He was very obvious, you know, bowing over them and kissing their hands and complimenting them.’

  ‘Like an obsequious dog?’ Atherton suggested.


  She laughed, and stopped herself at once, giving him a stern look. ‘That’s not appropriate.’

  ‘But still true?’

  She didn’t respond.

  ‘Did he ever make a play for you?’

  He had guessed right. She coloured a little, looking away. ‘When I first came here. I rebuffed him, but—’

  ‘He didn’t stay rebuffed?’

  ‘He was rather persistent.’ She met his eyes. ‘I told him I was married and he – he said he preferred married women. I didn’t like that,’ she concluded.

  ‘I expect he had a lot of lady friends.’ She didn’t respond, so he made it a question. ‘Did you know about any of them?’

  She chewed her lip a moment. ‘I can’t tell you anything for certain, but I was aware from time to time of certain undercurrents with certain customers, or wives of customers. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had had affairs with some of them.’

  ‘Most recently?’

  ‘Oh, nothing recently. This was when I first came here, when he was equally engaged in this side of the business. Since he’s been doing the television shows, he’s gradually spent less time in the shop. He leaves it mostly to Mr Lavender, so of course he doesn’t have much to do with the customers now.’

  ‘I’d have thought his television fame would be good for business,’ Atherton said.

  ‘Not our sort of business,’ she said, a touch loftily. ‘We do get people coming to gawp, but they never buy anything – most of them couldn’t afford it. They find out about the shop and come dawdling by, hoping to see Mr Egerton. That’s why we had the buzzer put on the door – it deters some of the less determined. But Mr Lavender’s afraid our real clients will be put off by the autograph-hunters. He’s said several times that we ought to change the name of the shop to keep them away.’

  ‘How did Mr Egerton respond to that?’

  She turned her mouth down. ‘He didn’t like it. He refused to allow it. He put the capital in, you see, to set it up. It was a bone of contention between them.’

  ‘How long has this been going on?’