Star Fall

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Oh, that was the recording before last. I thought you meant last week.’

  ‘Tell me about both of them.’

  ‘Well, the snuffbox caused real bad feeling between them. Rupert was very upset, and Rowland just wouldn’t back down. I don’t know why he was being so stubborn – and right was clearly on Rupert’s side. But then Rupert lost his temper and started calling him names. Called him a thief and a fake and a crook, suggested he rooked the punters, played on their ignorance. Rowland got very angry about that, and eventually Gavin had to come over and shut them down.’

  ‘And what about last week? Gavin didn’t say they’d had another row.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have known, because it wasn’t a shouting-match. As I said, I was standing just behind them, otherwise I wouldn’t have known either. Anyway, Rupert had been trying to make a move on one of the shoulder-cam boys, a young, willowy lad with long hair and very thin shirts. Called Tarquin, or Torquil, or some such name. I’d seen that myself. And Rowland must have too, because he came over to tell Rupert to lay off, because Antiques Galore! was a family show and if that sort of thing got out it would ruin its reputation and all their livelihoods. Rupert of course said what business was it of his, and Rowland said it was everyone’s business to keep the punters and the Beeb happy. Rupert said he was a fine one to talk, after his years of sexual antics, and Rowland said that was all in the past, that it was different now, that he didn’t do that sort of thing any more. Then Rupert said Rowland was just jealous because he fancied Tarquin himself – the old tease, you see, but he said it with real venom. I suppose he was angry with Rowland because of the snuffbox and just wanted something to taunt him with. But – and I was very impressed – Rowland kept his cool. He stepped closer and said to Rupert very quietly that if he didn’t lay off the cameraman he’d tell Alex – that’s Rupert’s current live-in.’

  ‘Yes, I know. How did Rupert react?’

  ‘Rowland walked away before he could say anything else, and Rupert went back to arranging his table, but I could see he was furious.’ She paused. ‘But, you know, these things happen. Words are exchanged, but they pass. We all went out for a meal and a drink after the show and everyone was quite chummy again.’

  She was back-pedalling, realizing she was dropping her colleague in it. Swilley let it go, rather than draw attention to it. ‘Why did Rupert call Rowland a fake and a crook?’ she asked instead.

  ‘Oh – I don’t know. I think he meant his public persona was a fake – all that charm, and oiling up the punters, flattering them. I suppose it is a bit false, though they all do it to some extent. It’s part of the act.’

  ‘And crook?’

  ‘I think Rupert had found something out about him. You see, I happen to know that Rowland had a lot of dealings with the art copyist, Pat Duggan.’

  ‘Patrick Duggan? Wasn’t he a forger? I’ve heard of him. Didn’t he get sent down for forging a Renoir in the late seventies?’

  ‘It was a Degas, actually. Yes, he was put on trial for conspiracy to defraud, though he always claimed he was innocent. I mean, he certainly painted it, but he said it wasn’t meant to defraud anyone. He served about three months, something like that, but then he was let out on condition that he helped the police crack a criminal ring that was making a lot of trouble with fake Old Masters. Anyway, after that, he apparently went straight, and became quite a celebrity in his own way, exposing the tricks of the trade.’

  ‘So how did Rowland have dealings with him?’

  ‘Oh, it was quite a bit later, when he and I were having our fling, and Rowland was busy with his interior design firm. He’d met Pat Duggan somehow, and liked him – he was a very likeable rogue, I understand – and decided to put some business his way.’

  ‘What sort of business?’

  ‘Painting pictures for his clients, as part of the decor.’

  ‘Forgeries?’

  ‘No, no. Pat was a good painter in his own right, and he could copy any style, so he could come up with just the right painting for any interior, and the clients loved it – as good as an old master but a fraction of the price and no trouble with insurance.’ She smiled. ‘But of course, he had been in prison, and if you want to blacken a man’s name you can always stick the old label on him. And on his friends. Something I overheard between Rupert and Rowland made me think he knew about Pat being Rowland’s friend. And he did like to taunt him with being a fake, or a faker.’

  She fell silent, thinking. Swilley thought she was realizing that, again, she had dropped a colleague in it. But as she was getting ready to speak, Sylvia went on, revealing a different train of thought. ‘First Bunny, then Rowland,’ she said sadly. ‘It’s what you always dread, this dropping-off-the-perch business. When your own generation start to go. You suddenly feel – exposed. “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made.” All very well, but even after Elizabeth died, Browning had a son living with him. And people were never alone then the way they are now.’

  Swilley felt a shiver. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the window, with a small view of the country road outside and a hedge and field on the other side. What on earth would persuade anyone to live out in a place like this, least of all someone who didn’t want to be alone?

  ‘I must be getting back,’ she said, and it wasn’t just a conventional lead-in to leave-taking.

  ELEVEN

  More in Zorro Than Anger

  ‘I’m not sure that gets us any further forward,’ Slider said. ‘Even if he was having an affair with Felicity Marsh – which is pure supposition at this point – where’s the motive for murder?’

  ‘Jealous husband?’ Gascoyne suggested.

  ‘She’s not married,’ Swilley said. ‘First thing I looked up when I got back.’

  ‘Jealous significant other, then,’ Atherton said. ‘Wasn’t she supposed to be hooked up with that newsreader?’

  ‘John Colley,’ Swilley said. ‘But according to the gossip mags that’s over. They split amicably eight months ago. Apparently, to concentrate on their separate careers. She’d just got that new series, you know, about the Nazi art thefts. That’s what she’s doing in Paris at the moment.’

  ‘Isn’t there a co-presenter who’s a bit of a bob?’ Connolly said. ‘Curly hair. Posh. Can’t remember his name, but he’s definitely ridey. I wouldn’t chuck him out of bed for dropping crumbs.’

  ‘Benedict Cowper,’ Swilley said. ‘With a “w”. He’s quite a bit younger than her, though.’

  ‘No reason that should stop them,’ said Atherton. ‘And a hot-blooded young man might well get worked up about an older rival. No man ever understands what women see in other men – I speak from experience – but when he’s old into the bargain …’

  ‘Yes, age is the ultimate crime in the eyes of youth,’ Slider said. ‘Well, not much we can do about Felicity Marsh until she comes back from Paris.’

  ‘I could sniff about, see if there’s any rumours about her and romantic entanglements,’ Swilley suggested.

  ‘Yes, do that. The other strand is the ill-feeling between Melling and Egerton. That seems a bit more substantial.’

  ‘But enough to make him want to murder him?’ Atherton said.

  ‘The actual killing looks like a blow struck in sudden anger, rather than a premeditated plan,’ Slider said. ‘And it seems as though Melling is capable of impulsive behaviour.’

  ‘But wasn’t it him provoking Egerton rather than vice-versa?’

  ‘There was the business about Egerton threatening to tell his lover about the cameraman,’ Swilley said.

  ‘Blackmail!’ Connolly said. ‘We like that. That’s grand for a motive. I can just see your man Egerton as a blackmailer. I always thought he was kind o’ creepy.’

  ‘Let’s not get carried away,’ Slider said. ‘How far have we got on confirming Melling’s alibi?’

  ‘I was going to do him after Lavender, guv,’ said McLaren, indisti
nctly through a mouthful of Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut. ‘I was prioritizing.’

  ‘All right,’ said Slider. ‘Tell us about Lavender, then.’

  ‘It’s looking tasty,’ McLaren said, swallowing with difficulty. ‘I got on to Waitrose and traced his till receipt. He paid cash, but there was only one basket that matched his exactly.’

  ‘What about CCTV?’ Mackay asked.

  ‘They’ve got cameras trained on the tills, o’ course,’ McLaren said. ‘Matching the till number and the time, it’s a tall man who could be Lavender. Definition’s not very good, but I’d say it was him all right.’

  Connolly said, ‘Please tell me he was wearing a trilby, Maurice, or I’ll be forced to killya.’

  ‘No hat,’ McLaren said.

  ‘A gentleman takes it off when he goes indoors,’ said Atherton.

  ‘Can a murderer be a gentleman?’ Swilley asked.

  ‘Can a cat look at a king?’ Atherton countered.

  ‘That’s not the important bit,’ McLaren said impatiently, recapturing his audience. ‘It’s the time. The till receipt says one thirty-eight.’

  ‘Interesting. If he didn’t leave his shop until one thirty, there’s no way he could have got to Waitrose and done his shopping in eight minutes,’ Atherton said.

  ‘But if he left the shop at one,’ Swilley objected, ‘that’s too much time. What’d it take – eight minutes to drive to the supermarket? Ten minutes tops.’

  ‘Allow him fifteen, faffing about at either end,’ Atherton said. ‘He looks like a faffer to me.’

  ‘He could easy take fifteen minutes to do his bit o’ shopping,’ said Connolly. ‘You should see my dad, God love him! Has to read all the words on the back of every packet before he puts it in the trolley. And he picks up things he’s no intention of buying and reads them an’ all. Finds it interesting, he says, the dote! Drives me mammy nuts, so it does.’

  ‘Lavender probably goes through every piece of fruit and vegetable to find the perfect one,’ Swilley said. ‘I’ve seen ’em, squeezing and sniffing – it’s always men on their own.’

  ‘Were there queues at the checkout?’ Atherton asked McLaren.

  ‘Yeah, it was busy.’

  ‘Well, there’s five minutes. So that makes one thirty-eight credible if he left the shop at one or soon after.’

  ‘What’s not credible is that he could be One Forty Man at the house,’ said Slider.

  ‘Not unless he wears his underpants over his tights,’ Connolly said sadly. ‘He’s got to get back to his car, get out of the car park and drive to Blenheim Terrace. That’s ten minutes give or take.’

  ‘One Forty Man was walking from the end of the street, not driving,’ Swilley said. ‘I never thought he could be Lavender.’

  ‘How are we on confirming the times of these sightings?’ Slider asked Mackay.

  He looked apologetic. ‘They’re all approximate. People don’t look at their watches every time they pass someone in the street. The one forty witness says it could have been a bit earlier but not later. He was walking from the tube station, and I’ve checked the log and the station CCTV. The train he must’ve been on arrived at one thirty-one, and there’s a man in a trilby coming through the barrier a few seconds after, so it must have been nearer to twenty-five to that the witness saw the man in the hat.’

  ‘Well, either way, that couldn’t have been Lavender,’ Swilley said.

  McLaren had been looking more and more impatient. ‘The point is,’ he said loudly to get their attention, ‘that Lavender says he went straight from Waitrose to the house and got there at twenty-five past two. If his till slip’s timed at one thirty-eight, where was he in between?’

  ‘That’s three quarters of an hour,’ Swilley said. ‘You’re right, Maurice. Do you need to sit down?’ she added sympathetically. ‘All this thinking – you must be exhausted!’

  ‘Ah, Janey Mac, why’re you always so mean to the poor oul divil? Isn’t he as smart as the next man?’

  ‘Only if he’s standing next to a tailor’s dummy,’ Atherton answered. ‘Did you know if you put your ear to McLaren, you can hear the sea?’

  ‘They don’t bother me,’ McLaren told Connolly with genuine serenity. ‘My back’s broad.’

  ‘Three quarters of an hour needs some explaining,’ Slider said, recapturing the thread. ‘You’re looking for his car on traffic cameras?’

  ‘Yes, guv. No luck so far. Trouble is, there’s nothing he’s got to pass from there, especially if he goes through the back streets. I’m going to try TfL’s bus cameras, but that takes longer, o’ course, cos with no number plate recognition you’ve got to do it the hard way.’

  Fathom spoke up. ‘I can’t see it matters where he was, if he wasn’t at Egerton’s house.’

  ‘Have you been working without a helmet again?’ Swilley demanded impatiently. ‘We don’t know he wasn’t at Egerton’s house. And if he was there earlier than twenty-five past, he could be the killer.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Fathom.

  ‘Any word on Lavender at Banbury?’ Slider asked Atherton.

  ‘There was a message for me when I got back,’ Atherton said. ‘A bloke in Banbury CID knows one of the private security guards at the fair, and asked him to check. Lavender turned up all right this morning. He’s going to let us know when he leaves.’

  Slider nodded. ‘All right. Well, there’s work to do – let’s get to it. McLaren – find where Lavender’s car was, then check out Melling. Swilley, you can look into Felicity Marsh if it doesn’t take too long. You’ve still got the finances to sort out. Connolly, you’re still looking through Egerton’s computer? Keep an eye out for mentions of Patrick Duggan. Fathom, Gascoyne – get back out and canvass some more. We need more reliable sightings of our killer going in and, if it wasn’t Lavender, leaving. I don’t need to remind you we’ve got nothing so far, except a putative hat.’

  ‘All hats are hollow mockeries,’ Atherton said.

  ‘Sure, a hat wouldn’t be a lot o’ use if it wasn’t hollow,’ Connolly observed. ‘Nowhere to put your head in.’

  The afternoon was wearing on when Slider had a telephone call from Peter de Wett.

  ‘How are things going?’ de Wett asked politely.

  ‘Making slow progress,’ Slider said circumspectly. It didn’t do to forget that however nice he sounded, he was an unknown quantity and a Yard man at that. You didn’t tell outsiders it was actually going as smoothly as a grand piano through a garden shredder.

  ‘Well, I think I can help improve your average. I believe we’ve found your Morisot.’

  ‘Really? That was quick. Where?’

  ‘It’s turned up in Chipping Norton,’ said de Wett. ‘We put out the word to all the dealers on our list, and one of them, the Ronald Hindlipp Gallery, has just contacted our agent to say someone’s offered him a painting that looks very like it.’

  Chipping Norton was in the Cotswolds, and only ten or twelve miles from Banbury. Slider almost held his breath. ‘Who was the person who was trying to sell?’

  ‘Hindlipp says it was an elderly man, well-spoken, who gave his name as John Smith. He thinks that might be a false name.’ He sounded amused.

  ‘Some people have no talent for deception,’ said Slider.

  ‘Actually, I once knew a chap who really was called John Smith. Had to change his name by deed poll in the end because no-one ever believed him.’

  ‘So what happens now?’ Slider asked.

  ‘Hindlipp asked the customer to leave the painting with him so that he could examine it, and come back later. That’s the usual routine when we’ve put out an alert.’

  ‘Later?’

  ‘About seven. Told him the shop would be shut but he would be there, just to ring the bell and he’d let him in. But he said the chap seemed nervous, so he might not come back. Or if he does, he might want to take the painting away. He’s awaiting instructions. What do you want to do?’

  Slider looked at the clock. ‘If we leave n
ow we can just about make it by seven.’

  ‘I’ll tell Hindlipp.’

  ‘If the man comes back before we get there, can he try and stall him?’

  ‘Is he dangerous?’ de Wett asked doubtfully.

  ‘I’m pretty sure not. But if it is our man, I’d rather he wasn’t spooked into running. Did Mr Hindlipp recognize him, by the way?’

  ‘He says he has a feeling he’s seen him somewhere, but can’t place him.’

  ‘Well,’ said Slider, ‘if it is our man, he’d naturally avoid going to a dealer he knows.’

  ‘If it’s your man,’ said de Wett, ‘and if it is the Morisot. Chances are, you know, that the whole thing is perfectly innocent.’

  ‘I know,’ said Slider.

  But Atherton was jubilant. ‘It’s him. It’s it.’

  ‘Remind me – are we us?’

  ‘He can’t talk his way out of this one. We’ve got him.’

  ‘We haven’t got him yet,’ Slider said. ‘Can’t you drive faster?’

  ‘Your word is my command,’ Atherton said as they reached the near end of the M40; the road widened, and he could put his foot down. ‘So much for the security guard keeping an eye on him,’ he grumbled.

  ‘He may have had his own work to do,’ Slider said.

  ‘Don’t be reasonable. The man’s a slacker and a nogudnik.’

  ‘If he had said Lavender was leaving, there wasn’t much we could do about it,’ said Slider. ‘We weren’t in a position to follow him. And we don’t know if this Chipping Norton bloke is Lavender.’

  ‘Being reasonable again,’ Atherton warned, skimming past the home-bound traffic at a hundred plus. A moment later, ‘We’ve got company.’ An unmarked police car had fallen in behind them, keeping an interested distance. ‘Where are you when we need you?’

  Slider turned in his seat and held up his warrant card, and they dropped back. They’d radio the other patrols now with their reg number and give them free passage.

  ‘If it is Lavender,’ Atherton said, ‘what on earth is he thinking, trying to sell the painting like that? Openly, to a legit dealer? What a clot!’

  ‘If he’s an otherwise innocent man, he probably doesn’t know any illegal fences,’ Slider said.