Star Fall

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Colin Hollis.’

  ‘Colin. I got a nephew called Colin, works in the meat trade. How do, Colin? It’s Art, by the way, or Arty. You’re a long way from home. What’s that accent?’

  ‘Manchester.’

  ‘Ah, the granite city. Had a fantastic curry there once. Place on Deansgate. What was it called, again?’

  ‘Akbar’s?’

  ‘No, that wasn’t it. Wait a minute, I’ll get it. Shimla’s – that was the name. You know it? Gor! I can still taste it!’

  Conversing, they crossed the road to a small, unfashionable-looking café that was clinging to life between the trendy and transient hotspots that the Angel was prone to. Hollis thought they must look ridiculous walking side by side – the beanpole and the beach ball – but you couldn’t help liking Abrams, with his permanent grin and easy chat. It was why the guv had sent him to interview the witness, rather than simply talk on the telephone. You could learn so much about your source face to face. Abrams, Hollis was sure, was straight as the Mile End Road.

  Tea and buns in front of them at a table in the window, Hollis let Abrams range a bit longer, swooping about like a kite enjoying the breeze, before bringing him gently down to earth.

  ‘I’m interested in a certain green box,’ he prompted.

  ‘So you are, Colin, my old mate, and so am I. I missed a trick with that box, I don’t mind telling you! I could have kicked myself after, which is why I remember it so clear, of course. I got it in a job lot at a house-clearance – up your way, as a matter of fact. Cheshire. A nice country house, out Wilmslow way. Not a stately, but a very nice manor-house, bit of Tudor, mostly Georgian, only who can afford to keep ’em up these days? And you can’t get your sheikhs and oligarchs to buy so far from London. So the whole lot was going, contents and the house. Probate auction. Well, you can generally pick up a bargain or two at that sort of sale because the beneficiaries are only interested in the grand total, not the bits and bobs. Hence the job lots. Anyway—’ He checked himself. ‘Stop me if I ramble on. I don’t know how much detail you want.’

  The tea was brick-coloured and invigorating, and the sticky bun was large. Outside, the sun had come out and long-haired, skinny Islingtonian girls in miniskirts and long boots were tick-tacking along the pavement only feet away. Hollis was enjoying himself. ‘Take your time,’ he said. ‘Tell it your own way. I like detail, me.’

  ‘Good-oh,’ said Abrams. ‘Well, this was a job lot of ornaments, chucked together in a cardboard box. Mostly ceramics, couple of bits of brass – the odds and sods, nothing much of any value, which is why I missed it that the malachite box was a bit different. Also, I was in a hurry to get to another sale that day, so I chucked the lot in the boot and didn’t look at it until I got home. Then I sorted out what I was going to put into which pitch. I’ve got several, as you know, and they’re different value levels. No use putting a thousand-pound piece on a ten-quid stand.’

  ‘I can see that. So, the malachite box?’

  ‘Right. Well, it wasn’t much to look at. Green’s not a popular colour, and the unpolished diamonds just looked like white crystal beads that’d gone a bit milky. I didn’t spot it for what it was, and that was my own silly fault – can’t blame anyone else. But I gave it a bit of a buff, and it was a good size and the gilt sort of saved it, so I put it into my pitch in Hatfield. Quite a good class of client comes in there. I thought I’d give it a try there, then move it downmarket if it didn’t sell. But as it happened, I was in there, doing my stint behind the counter, when this middle-aged couple came in and took a fancy to it.’

  ‘Do you know their name?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I do. They were regulars, you see. I’d sold ’em a thing or two over the years. Mr and Mrs Arbogast. They weren’t in the trade – retired couple; he was in oil, I think – but they prided themselves on having a good eye and knocking off the occasional bargain. So I ought to have paid attention when they picked up the box, but somehow or other I’d taken a dislike to it – not a dislike, really, more I just couldn’t be bothered with it. I’d priced it in my head at eighty for the gilt, but o’ course that sort always want a bit off so they can feel they’ve beaten you down, so I’d put it in at a hundred and sixty. After a bit of haggling I took a hundred and thirty off them, and we were all satisfied. And Mrs Arbogast said, as I was wrapping it up, “Well, I think this might be something a bit special, so I think I’ve got a bargain.” And I thought, good luck to you then, my darling.’

  Abrams took a draught of tea to fortify himself. ‘Well, just for once the punter was right and I was left with egg on my face. Because about a month, six weeks later, they came back in, the Arbogasts, to tell me the box turned out to be Fabergé, and those damned crystals were diamonds, and they’d sold it for fifteen-hundred pounds.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘How it slipped past me I’ll never know.’

  ‘Did they say who they sold it to?’

  ‘Oh yes. It was quite a little story. You see, there was an episode of that Antiques Galore! programme being filmed at Hatfield House, and they’d gone along with a few things, including the box, just for the fun of it. Apparently, it caught the eye of some official who was looking round for items for the programme, and they got to show it to one of the big experts.’

  ‘Rowland Egerton?’ Hollis said.

  ‘Yes, that was him. Of course, the programme doesn’t get aired until a long while later, but I made a point of watching it when it did come on, just so I could torture myself all over again for missing it. And there he was, all smarm, and the Arbogasts smiling so you’d think their faces would fall in half. Wait a minute,’ he interpolated, ‘didn’t he die recently? Rowland Egerton? I saw something in the paper. Well, there’s a coincidence!’

  ‘Isn’t it, though? Go on about the box.’

  ‘Right. Well, he says the box is Fabergé, blah blah blah, and the upshot is, after they’ve done their bit for the telly, the Arbogasts’re walking away and another one of the experts comes running after them, wanting to buy the box as a present for someone, and will they sell? Well, they were pretty happy to get ten times what they paid for it, what with looking forward to telling me what a mug I’d been, so they said why not, passed it over and took the cash, happy as clams. Or a cheque, probably. Though,’ he added, ‘mind you, I think they could have got more than fifteen hundred for it at auction, a lot more, so they were mugs as well. If they’d brought it back to me I could probably have got them two, maybe two and a half. But I didn’t tell them that. There’s no future making people miserable, that’s what I always say.’

  ‘You’re not wrong,’ said Hollis. ‘I wish more people thought like you.’

  ‘Your job’d go down the pan if everyone was nice to each other, wouldn’t it?’ Abrams suggested jovially.

  ‘You could be right,’ said Hollis. ‘Did the Arbogasts say who it was that bought the box from them?’

  ‘Yes, it was that Julia Rabbet – Bunny, as everyone calls her. I’ve met her a couple of times. Nice woman – posh as the queen, but never any side to her. Always gives you the time of day. Come to think of it,’ he said, a rare frown creasing his face, ‘didn’t she die recently, as well? Good grief! What was that box, jinxed or something? There was I thinking I’d missed my chance, but looks as though I had a lucky escape.’

  ‘You could say that,’ said Hollis.

  ‘Well, there! I always said there’s a bright side to every situation if you look for it. Fancy that! The curse of the Romanovs!’ He chuckled. ‘I’ll dine out on that one, I can tell you! Wait till I tell my wife.’

  FIFTEEN

  Madame Ovary

  ‘So Bunny Rabbet bought the box as a present for Egerton?’ Swilley said, when Hollis finished. They were all gathered in the CID room for the day’s meeting.

  ‘Does that mean she was the secret lover?’ Connolly said.

  ‘We shouldn’t jump to conclusions,’ Slider said. ‘Someone else could have bought it from her before it came int
o Egerton’s possession.’

  ‘And we can’t check, because Bunny’s dead,’ Atherton said. ‘Gives new force to the old saying, “I hope your rabbit dies,” doesn’t it?’

  ‘But Sylvia Thornton thought they were more like brother and sister,’ Swilley objected.

  ‘She also thought that Egerton and Marsh were doing it,’ said Atherton. ‘She’s not infullable.’

  ‘Infallible,’ Hollis corrected.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Atherton.

  ‘A brother and sister can give each other presents,’ said McLaren, though doubtfully. He had one of each and hadn’t seen or spoken to either of them in years.

  ‘Yeah, but wait,’ said Connolly. ‘If they were just great mates, it was all innocent, why wouldn’t her husband have known about it? And fifteen hundred’s a lot to spend on a prezzie for a pal.’

  ‘Not for someone like Bunny,’ Atherton said. ‘She comes from a moneyed background.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Mackay said impatiently, ‘it couldn’t have been Rabbet that killed Egerton and took the box, because she was already dead. It’s much more likely Lavender was right all along, and it was a burglary gone wrong. Chummy was looking for something worth nicking, Egerton comes in at the wrong moment, Chummy whacks him, pockets the nearest object and has it away. End of.’

  ‘No sign of a break-in,’ Atherton objected.

  ‘You don’t know who had a chance to make a copy of the key,’ said Mackay. ‘There’s Lavender at the shop, Mrs Bean at her house. Either of ’em could have left it around for long enough. And Egerton’s own key – all sorts of people come to the house. What about his big parties? Don’t tell me him and Lavender did all the food and drinks themselves. They’re bound to’ve had caterers and waiters in.’

  ‘Good point,’ Slider said. ‘Well, you’d better get on and check that line. And talk to Lavender and Bean again, see if they ever left the key anywhere, or lost it at any point.’

  ‘Yes, guv.’

  ‘Fathom and canvass team – keep at it. If One Thirty-Five Man was the murderer, someone must have seen him coming out, or leaving the area.’

  ‘It’s not easy, guv,’ said Fathom, a touch resentfully. ‘If we had an e-fit – even a description, apart from the coat and hat …’

  ‘No-one said it would be easy,’ Slider said. ‘McLaren, how are you getting on with tracing back One Thirty-Five Man on the tube?’

  ‘Haven’t found him yet, guv,’ McLaren said apologetically, his lips flaky from a sausage roll he was eating out of a bag. ‘It’s slow work.’

  ‘Keep at it. If you can get a decent CCTV shot of him, it’ll give Fathom something to work with. What else? Swilley, what about the money side of it?’

  ‘Nothing untoward to report, boss,’ she said. ‘He had plenty coming in, but no suspicious, untraceable amounts. No large cash sums either way. He seems to have been fairly frugal. Spent money on his parties and eating out, less on clothes than you’d think – I suppose he had enough already to ring the changes. He was sinking quite a bit into the shop and business, as Lavender said.’

  ‘I suppose that was his hold over Lavender,’ Atherton said. ‘In his little game of emotionally blackmailing everybody.’

  ‘Anyway, he had quite a bit to leave,’ Swilley concluded, ‘which goes to Dale Sholto. As to Lavender, the stock in the shop should leave him with a small surplus after the business is wound up – if he can shift it on the current market. A few thousand.’

  ‘Not enough to kill Egerton for,’ Mackay remarked.

  ‘Lavender’s motive was never going to be financial,’ Atherton said.

  Swilley went on, ‘I’ve found no evidence of debts. No evidence of drugs or gambling habits. I’m working my way round his contacts – I hardly like to call them friends – but so far they’re all clean. Anyway, apart from Lavender, he doesn’t seem to have been close to anyone, so nobody really knows how he spent his spare time.’

  ‘Boss,’ said Connolly, ‘the only person we do know about that had a shady past is your man Patrick Duggan, the forger.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Slider. ‘What did you find out about that?’

  ‘Well, boss, Egerton’s done a lot of work with him, and it isn’t all lost in the mists o’ time. I’ve been going through his files, and he’s been doing the odd interior design job all along, one or two a year on average. The last one was eight months ago, and he gave Duggan quite a commission on that one – four big paintings.’

  ‘Your point being?’ Slider asked.

  ‘He’s the only person in Egerton’s address book that we know’s been inside.’

  ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense,’ Atherton said.

  Connolly tutted. ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

  ‘It means Duggan’s famously on the straight and narrow now,’ said Atherton.

  Connolly ignored him and continued her pitch to Slider. ‘Egerton’d been using him over a long time – maybe they were friends as well.’

  ‘God knows we’ve got few enough leads to follow up,’ Slider said. ‘You might as well have a chat with him. Get all the paperwork that mentions him together – letters, invoices, anything – so you’ve got your ducks in a row, then give him a ring, set something up.’

  Connolly looked pleased. ‘Yeah, boss. I’ve got a good feeling about this.’

  ‘We don’t want feelings, we want facts,’ said Slider. ‘All right, back to work everyone. Gascoyne, have a look through records for anyone who does this sort of house job and check them out. I’ll goose up my snouts. Atherton, anyone on Egerton’s other shows, or his contacts in general, that he might have been blackmailing in the same way. I’ve a feeling,’ he said apologetically as they moved away, ‘this is going to be hard graft.’

  It was coming up for a week, and they had no strong lead. Slider thought Mr Porson was right – it was going to take more than trying their best.

  Nothing made you feel more tired than a day’s work that got you nowhere. Slider let himself in and paused just inside the door, sniffing the air for something comforting, like the rich aroma of a slow-cooking stew in the oven. It was disappointingly neutral, cold and faintly dusty, carrying only the sound of Joanna playing. He dumped his coat and briefcase and went to find her.

  She wasn’t working from music this time, so he assumed it was just practising – scales and arpeggios and other such combinations that tested the dexterity and exercised the muscles. He couldn’t always tell from a distance. To his uncultured ear, a lot of music sounded like practice.

  She stopped as he came in and turned to him with a questioning look. ‘Is it that late already?’ she said.

  ‘I’m a bit earlier tonight.’

  ‘Sorry, I got carried away,’ she said. ‘You must be hungry. It’s all ready to go, vegetables cut and everything. I can have it on the plate in fifteen minutes. I’m doing corned beef hash.’

  ‘Let’s have a drink first,’ Slider said. ‘I could do with a sharpener.’

  ‘You look tired,’ she said.

  ‘So do you,’ he countered.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said sharply.

  He stepped round the pothole. ‘I’m remembering that you said you had good news and didn’t get round to telling me what it was. I’m sorry. I should have asked. Tell me now.’

  ‘I’ll get the drinks first. Go and sit down. Put some music on.’

  He was too weary to search for anything in particular and grabbed the first CD that came to hand, which happened to be Respighi, The Pines of Rome. OK. Undemanding. He put it on, turned down low; loosened his tie and pulled off his shoes; and sat down on the sofa. Joanna came back in with two tumblers, ice cubes clinking, a half-moon of lemon, delicately beaded, bobbing between them. It looked as if it was smiling at him.

  ‘Ah, there is life after work,’ Slider sighed. ‘I’d heard a rumour, but I wasn’t sure.’ She sat, tucking a foot under her. He lifted his glass to her. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Be well,’ she responded, and took a mou
thful.

  ‘So what’s your good news?’

  ‘I hope you’ll think it’s good,’ she said. ‘I’m going back to work.’

  He felt instant alarm, which he concealed as well as possible. ‘Are you sure?’

  She cocked a humorous eye. ‘I think I’ll notice when it happens,’ she said.

  ‘I mean, are you sure you should?’

  ‘I know what you meant.’ She sipped again. ‘I rang Tony Whittam,’ she went on. He was the fixer for the Royal London Philharmonia, in which she had sat at number four in the firsts. ‘He said he couldn’t give me anything before the middle of March, but after that I could come back regularly, though not to my old position. Obviously, they had to replace me there. He said I’d have to work my way back up over time.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘I don’t really care about that. The extra money was nice, but I’ll be happy to sit nearer the back and have a bit more flexibility.’

  Slider felt relief. ‘So you won’t be going back to work until March?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. Not with the Phil until March. But I rang round a few other fixers, and some old friends, and I’ve got a few things lined up. Sid Cohen’s offered me some sessions next week. And you remember Phil Redcliffe? I used to share a desk with him years ago. Well, he’s got a long run in a West End show, and he’s given me a lot of dates to dep for him. You know what it’s like when these shows go on for ever – you end up with the entire pit full of deps.’ She gave a slightly nervous smile. ‘It’s only Lloyd Webber, and it’s only second violin, but it’s work. Reminds me of the old joke – how many second violins does it take to change a light bulb?’

  ‘How many?’ Slider said automatically.

  ‘None. They can’t get up that high.’ He only managed a smile, and she looked at him with embryo annoyance. ‘You ought to be pleased for me.’

  ‘I am – if it’s what you want,’ he said quickly. ‘But I don’t want you doing too much too soon.’