Porson grunted. ‘And that was how long ago?’
‘Two weeks, sir.’
‘Well, I hate to throw a spanner in the ointment, but that’s a bit long to hold a grudge over a gatecrashing incident. We’re clutching at straws here. The fact of the matter is you’ve got nothing except Lavender, and Lavender’s going to be the hardest one to prove. Unless he obliges us by having it away on his tiny toes so we can put pressure on him.’ He sighed, putting down his cup. ‘We can hope. It’s always your first-timers who bolt. Run like cheap tights, your amateurs. Can’t stand the strain.’
When he had gone, Slider said, ‘None of which explains the painting and the box.’
‘Maybe Mrs Bean took them,’ Atherton said comfortingly.
Swilley said, ‘Boss, how about talking to some other people on the show? I was thinking, particularly the women. If he was a nuisance, the way we think, they might have some dirt on him.’
‘Yes, that’s a good idea,’ Slider said. ‘Find out if he really was having an affair with anyone. Women are generally more observant about that sort of thing.’
Atherton stretched and glanced at the clock. ‘What now?’ he asked.
‘Home,’ said Slider. ‘I need to see my children before they disappear again.’
‘Anyone for a pint?’ Connolly asked around the rest. ‘Me tongue’s dragging.’
By Monday morning, the snow was reduced to a line of dirty ice along the edges of pavements and a white streak under garden hedges, and the day was sparkling, hard, bright and cold. Slider had an early call from Tufty Arceneaux, the bodily fluids expert, a man of huge appetites and mighty lung power.
‘Bill, my old fruit bat,’ he roared. ‘Eto ti?’
Slider moved the receiver a little further from his ear. ‘What about tea?’ he said hopefully.
‘Just back from hols. Practising the lingo. Have to show some profit. Food was diabolical.’
‘How was your flight?’ Slider asked politely.
‘Attractively crash-free. How are you?’
‘I’ve never felt better,’ said Slider. He sighed. ‘Sometimes I wish that just once I had.’
‘We must get together. I brought back a suitcase full of caviar and vodka. Left all my clothes out there. Who needs ’em?’
‘You paint an attractive picture – naked and covered in fish eggs. Have you got my results for me?’
‘Yes, and you’d have had them sooner if I’d been around. Found ’em lying on my desk. My young replacement has no work ethic. Thinks we don’t work weekends.’
‘So – what are they?’
‘Weekends?’ The roar took on a puzzled note.
‘The results, oh Duke of Decibels.’
‘Sorry, was I shouting? Force of habit. Can’t get a word in at home unless I break out of my usual restrained murmur. Your results: blood on the trouser knees and the coat cuff was the victim’s. No other blood stains, and no spatter. I don’t know if that was what you hoped for.’
‘It just adds to the inconclusivity,’ Slider said.
‘Well, you don’t want the game to be easy, or anyone could play it,’ Tufty bellowed. ‘Other traces – skin and hair – have been typed, for the record. They match the wearer – name of Lavender, I believe? – except for one sensational long blonde hair on the back of the right shoulder. No match to anything you’ve sent us.’
‘He has a blonde assistant that he works with every day,’ Slider said.
‘Lucky bugger. Well, that’s it. Let me know when you’re ready to come and help me demolish the old spoils.’
‘Does it have to be nude?’
‘Just as you please. Liberty ’All in our house, as you very well know. Diana asks after Joanna – as do I, come to think of it. She well now?’
‘Physically OK, according to the doctor.’
‘It was a rotten show,’ Tufty said with sympathy, reading between the lines. ‘Caviar and vodka. Cheer her up. Show her life’s still worth living.’
‘Thanks. I’ll bear it in mind,’ Slider said.
Atherton telephoned Georgia Hedley-Somerton. She sounded relieved when he identified himself. ‘Something wrong?’ he asked. ‘More trouble from the press?’
‘No, they seem to have given up and left us now. It’s just that – I know it’s foolish, but I feel unsettled and nervous here in the shop on my own. As if it’s haunted. Not that I believe in ghosts,’ she added hastily, ‘it’s just an odd feeling of unease.’
‘Quite natural,’ he said. ‘Your mental rhythms have been disrupted by a very out-of-the-usual occurrence. It’s a sort of mild shell-shock, I suppose.’
‘It can’t be so out-of-the-usual to you,’ she replied. ‘How on earth do you cope?’
‘It comes with the job,’ Atherton said lightly. ‘How’s business?’
‘There’ve been a lot of phone calls – most of them nothing but ghoulish curiosity dressed up as enquiries about opening times. Quite a few clients ringing with sympathies. And a couple of genuine enquiries from people who didn’t seem to have heard about Mr Egerton, or didn’t associate the news with the shop.’
‘So you’re keeping busy.’
‘Not busy enough. I’m passing the time updating the inventory, in case the shop has to go. Was there something you wanted, or was it just a courtesy call?’
Atherton was charmed by the idea that they had time to ring round and see how everyone was doing. ‘I was concerned for your welfare, of course,’ he said – no harm in enhancing the Met’s reputation – ‘but I also had a small question. On Thursday, could you confirm what time you went to lunch and what time you returned?’
‘I thought I’d told you,’ she said. ‘I went out at twelve thirty and came back at one. I just went down to the bank at South Kensington and had a quick sandwich at a café there.’
‘And is that your usual time?’ he asked.
‘I don’t have any fixed time,’ she said. ‘It depends on what we’re doing. If Mr Lavender’s away, for instance, I might stay in the shop and have a sandwich at the desk. But if there’s something in particular I want to do, we arrange it so I have the time I need. It’s all very flexible. Mr Lavender is very helpful like that.’
‘Right,’ said Atherton. So it wasn’t that Thursday had been unusual and Lavender had absent-mindedly given the usual time. He had either misremembered or misspoken. ‘How is he today?’ he asked. ‘Still keeping to his room?’
‘Oh no,’ she said with a touch of pride. ‘He’s back at work. Did you want to speak to him? Because he’s not here. He’s gone to a sale, won’t be back until late.’
Atherton felt a stirring of unease. Had he skipped? ‘What sale is that?’
‘It’s a big antiques fair at Banbury. They have one every year at this time. It runs all week, but the Monday and Tuesday are dealers only.’
‘So – was it a last minute decision to go?’ Atherton asked, trying to make it casual.
‘Oh, no, it’s been in the diary for weeks – months. He always goes.’ Evidently, he hadn’t sounded casual enough, because she said, anxiously, ‘Why? You don’t think—? He wouldn’t do anything foolish, not Mr Lavender. He’s naturally upset about Mr Egerton – they’ve been friends for so long – but he’s not likely to hurt himself.’
‘No, no, of course not,’ Atherton said soothingly. ‘He’ll be back tonight, you said?’
‘Probably,’ she said. ‘He does sometimes stay over, if there’s anything else going on in the area, or if there’s someone he wants to see. There are a lot of dealers in the Cotswolds, and they all know each other.’
‘If he’s not coming back, I expect he’ll ring you,’ Atherton suggested.
‘Of course – so I’ll know to take care of the shop tomorrow.’
‘If he does ring you, will you let me know? Tell me where he’s staying in case I need to get in touch with him?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’ll call you.’ She sounded uneasy, and he guessed he hadn’t managed to convince h
er that he wasn’t.
‘It’s probably nothing,’ said Slider. ‘If it’s been in the diary a long time, as she says. He probably just needs to get away and keep busy. Sitting up there in that flat would give anyone the willies.’
‘Yes,’ said Atherton, ‘but …’
There was always the ‘but’. ‘Might be an idea to ask our brothers in Banbury if one of them will look in and see if he’s there,’ said Slider.
‘They might even have someone there anyway, if it’s a big event,’ said Atherton. ‘I know I would. In any case, they can’t have anything else much to do, in the country. It’s not sheep-rustling season.’
‘You’re so prejudiced,’ Slider said. ‘Anyway, Lavender’s becoming less of a suspect by the hour.’ He told him about the blood evidence.
‘Lack of spatter isn’t good,’ Atherton admitted. ‘But it’s not conclusive. He could have had something else on – a different jacket or a raincoat or—’
‘A smock? A pinny?’ Slider mocked him. ‘And where did he put this bloodstained protective clothing? The house was searched by SOCO.’
‘I was going to say “or he managed not to get spattered”,’ Atherton concluded. ‘He has long arms, and if the angle was right—’
‘Well, let’s get his timings checked out, then we can think about it some more,’ Slider said. ‘And, just so that we clear as we go, check Melling’s alibi. And Ehlie’s.’
‘Connolly’s doing Melling. Hollis is on Ehlie,’ Atherton confirmed. ‘And Swilley’s going to have a go at Sylvia Thornton and Felicity Marsh.’
Slider nodded. ‘It’s thin pickings, all the same,’ he sighed. ‘Meanwhile, I suppose I must go and have a word with Philip Masterson. You’d better come with me. You know more about the politician scene than I do.’
Atherton brightened. He was always game for an outing. ‘I’ll go and find out where he is. Probably sitting in a committee this morning. We ought to catch him when he comes out for lunch.’
‘The things you know,’ Slider said kindly.
TEN
Sex in a Cold Climate
An assistant in Philip Masterson’s office set up a meeting for them at lunchtime in Interview Room One at Portcullis House, the new building across the road from the Palace of Westminster. When Slider and Atherton arrived, there was a queue of about fifty people stretching along the pavement, visitors waiting their turn to pass through the extremely thorough security checks.
‘For once it pays to be a copper,’ Atherton murmured as they used their warrant cards to jump to the head of the queue. Once through security they were let loose like butterflies into the giant hothouse that was the central atrium. It reached the whole height of the building to the glass roof, which was supported by strange, curved ribs of steel: a vast area containing full-grown trees and shallow stretches of water. With the bee-like murmur of voices, and the light filtering through leaves, Slider thought it was probably a bit like being inside the original Crystal Palace with its elms and fountains. What looked from the outside like a hefty, solid office building was in fact a hollow shell, with the accommodation around the empty centre like the rind of a coconut.
‘What a colossal waste of space,’ Slider commented. ‘When you think they only built it because there wasn’t enough room over the road for all the MPs.’
‘Ah, the nineties!’ Atherton said. ‘When there was money to burn, and the golden age was never going to end. Stairs or lift?’
They had only been waiting in the interview room for ten minutes when the door opened and Philip Masterson appeared, looking flurried and a little damp about the collar as if he had been hurrying.
‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting,’ he said, a trifle perfunctorily, as though that was their problem. ‘Committee for Overseas Development. Solar farms. I had to sit in. I have to be at the debate this afternoon and I’ve still got some papers to look at, so we’ll have to make this quick. Mind if we go and get a coffee while we talk? It’s just along there.’
He was out again before they could object, and they hurried to follow him along the passage to the coffee area which took up one of the curved corners of this floor. There was no-one else there, and Slider and Atherton settled into a group of chairs around a table in the corner and watched their man as he manipulated the coffee machine. ‘You’re welcome to a cup as well,’ Masterson said over his shoulder.
‘Thank you, we’re fine,’ Slider said patiently.
At last he came back towards them, coffee in hand. He was early-fifties, of middle height, not fat, but softening and spreading around the waist and chin in the manner of a man who spends too much time sitting down at his job.
They had looked him up: his father had died when he was a year old; his mother had remarried a solicitor, and he had grown up with his stepfather’s name. He’d gone to Westminster, and Trinity Cambridge, and then straight into politics as a research assistant to an MP friend of his stepfather’s, and was later put up for a safe seat, which he won at the same time as he married the well-connected Julia Rabbet. With so much going for him he ought to have shot to the stars, but somehow he hadn’t managed to live up to his promise. There was something, Slider thought, looking at him now, too ordinary about him.
He had light-brown hair, artfully highlighted, styled in the floppy Hugh Grant fashion, and his face looked slightly greasy, as if he used a lot of moisturizer or – heaven help us – was wearing make-up. His suit looked expensive but hard-worn and a little crumpled, and his aftershave didn’t quite mask the smell of warm body underneath. Not yet the smell of sweat, but not far off, as if he’d had a hard morning. He was neither handsome nor the opposite; a wide face with a round chin and a nose-shaped nose. Nothing to notice about him at all except for his rather full-cut mouth, which he had the habit of pursing when he was thinking, as though hoping for a kiss.
‘So, what’s all this about?’ he said briskly, hitching his trouser legs and sitting opposite them. He drank from his coffee cup, licking foam from his upper lip as he lowered it. Slider felt an irrational suspicion of any man who drank cappuccinos. Men ought to drink coffee plain and black, and that was that. Masterson’s fingernails looked as though he had them manicured, too. And he wore a gold signet ring and a plain wedding band on the same finger. ‘I haven’t got much time, as I mentioned,’ he went on, ‘so I’d be glad if you’d just get down to it.’
Slider’s glance threw it to Atherton. He wanted to be free to observe.
Atherton took his cue. ‘We’re investigating the death of Rowland Egerton,’ he began.
‘Who?’ Masterson asked, frowning. ‘Oh, you mean that fellow on the television.’
Atherton thought this was going too far in the I’m-too-important-to-bother-with-little-things direction. ‘I’m sure you know who I mean. Your wife was on the same show.’
‘My late wife,’ Masterson objected. ‘I know you chaps have to do your job, but a little tact wouldn’t go amiss. Feelings are still raw.’
‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ Atherton said neutrally. ‘Your late wife must have known him pretty well. They were on the same show together for many years.’
‘Knew him as a work colleague, yes. But the show didn’t take up much of her time, you know. One day’s filming once a fortnight, thirteen shows a year. It hardly made the basis of a deep friendship.’
‘I believe she was a dealer in her own right?’ Atherton on. ‘With a shop in Woburn.’
‘She shared a shop with two other dealers,’ Masterson said, reluctantly, as though admitting something not quite quite. The little woman had to go out to work? Shame on you. But this was the twenty-first century; and Woburn was a posh place to have an antique shop.
‘And I expect she went to antiques fairs and country house sales,’ Atherton suggested.
Masterson agreed warily.
‘So I’m sure she met Mr Egerton on many occasions. All these dealers know each other, as I’ve been told several times recently.’
Maste
rson looked both wary and slightly annoyed now. ‘Yes, I expect she did meet him from time to time. What of it? I wish you’d get on with whatever you want to ask me. Time is precious.’ He looked ostentatiously at his watch – a Hugo Boss chronograph, all over dials and knobs. Expensive, but not discreet, Atherton decided. Masterson was a man who needed props to impress. It perhaps explained why he hadn’t reached his potential.
‘Very well, sir,’ said Atherton – the sort of ‘sir’ that only a policeman can deploy, a ‘sir’ that lashes contempt and menace together with the cling film of politeness. ‘If you insist – when did you last see Mr Egerton?’
Masterson coloured slightly. ‘I don’t like your tone,’ he said. ‘Why should I have seen him at all? He was Bunny’s friend, not mine.’
‘What about his Christmas party?’ Slider put in. It was a punt; they didn’t know Rabbet had been there, but Melling had said ‘everyone’ – and if Rabbet, then surely Masterson? He struck Slider as the sort of man who wouldn’t miss the chance to hobnob with celebrities. ‘I know partners were invited to that.’
The lips pursed, and behind them the front teeth chewed on something, as if he had finally dislodged a raspberry pip that had been bothering him. ‘Yes,’ he said at length, ‘now you come to mention it, there was a Christmas party. But Bunny went on her own. I had family commitments.’
‘So when was the last time you saw him?’ Atherton pressed.
Masterson allowed himself annoyance. ‘I really have no idea! What on earth is the point of these questions?’
‘Well, sir,’ said Atherton at his most silky, ‘may I remind you that he was at your late wife’s funeral?’
Masterson opened his mouth in fury, but no resentful bellow emerged. A cautious, politicianly look came into his eyes, and he closed it again, took a breath, and said more calmly, ‘Ah, yes, as a matter of fact I had forgotten that. As you can imagine, I had other things on my mind that day.’
‘Of course, sir,’ Slider said soothingly. ‘Please tell us how Mr Egerton came to be there.’
‘How? He just came, that’s how. Invited himself. I’d made it very clear it was close family only – told everyone – even went to the trouble of telling the producer of the show that we requested they stayed away. But that wasn’t good enough for him.’ He was growing annoyed again, with the memory. ‘He had to come anyway – shove himself in where he wasn’t wanted. Hoping to get his face in the papers, I suppose. Typical of him!’
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