Cruel as the Grave

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘My staff are all top professionals in their field,’ she said woodenly.

  It was obvious she wasn’t going to be co-operative – and of course, it might be that she really didn’t know anything. Slider flicked a glance at Atherton and stood up. ‘I’d like a list of your members, if you wouldn’t mind,’ he said.

  She stood too. ‘I most certainly would mind! My members rely on our absolute discretion – some of them are very eminent people. I will not supply any personal data about them without a direct court order. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t help you.’ She pressed a button on her desk as she said it. Slider was half expecting a Mr Burns-type trapdoor to open under his feet, but all that happened was that a young woman came in from the door in the corner and looked enquiringly. ‘Show these gentlemen out, please, Jessica.’

  Jessica crossed the room to open the other door, holding it for them to pass through. In the corridor she turned the other way from the bar; at the far end here was another staircase, marked as the fire escape. As soon as they were a few paces from the manager’s door, she turned to them and said in a low voice, ‘I heard what you were talking about. It’s terrible about Erik, isn’t it? She was only pretending not to know. It’s all over social media. I told her about it myself this morning. But she pretends all that sort of thing’s beneath her.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’ Atherton asked.

  ‘Oh, what people do, ordinary people, like us and the trainers. Everybody in the world, really, apart from the members. She’s all about the members.’

  ‘Isn’t that her job?’

  ‘Yes, but she fawns over them. It’s sickening. Just because they’re rolling in money doesn’t make them more important, does it?’

  It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but Atherton answered it. ‘Well, yes, it sort of does – to someone providing a service for them.’

  She had pushed through the fire door onto the staircase, and there stopped and turned to face them. ‘Yes, but she thinks they’re better, too. Like, better better. I happen to think everybody’s the same and we should all be treated the same.’ She presented this novel view with all the pride of the innovative thinker.

  Slider diverted her gently. ‘Did you know Erik Lingoss?’

  ‘Only to know who he was. To say hello to.’ She blushed suddenly. ‘He wouldn’t be interested in somebody like me.’

  ‘Like—?’ Slider began, puzzled.

  She went on quickly, avoiding his eyes. ‘I’m nothing to look at. He could have anyone he wanted.’

  Oh dear, Slider thought. Her perfect make-up gave her the impression of beauty, but underneath, if you analysed her features, she was rather plain, with an over-large, oddly shaped nose and insufficient chin. But of course, most people didn’t go round analysing other people’s features; and attractiveness didn’t lie in any particular configuration of nose, eyes and mouth. She would have been perfectly attractive if only she’d thought she was.

  ‘Were you interested in him?’ he asked.

  ‘Everybody was,’ she said. ‘He was gorgeous. But he only went with really smart, beautiful girls.’

  The ones who’d look good on his arm and enhance his appearance. Like an expensive watch other men would envy. He wasn’t dating, he was accessorizing.

  ‘So can you tell us anyone in particular who would know more about him? Someone he was close to? Did he have any friends here, people he spent time with?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘there’s my friend Lucy. She works at Heneage’s, the antique shop on the corner of Phillimore Walk. She went out with him for a bit. Her brother, Jack, he and Erik are friends – at least, they were friends once, but I think they’d fallen out recently, I don’t know what about.’

  ‘Surname?’ Atherton asked.

  ‘Gallo. She’s Lucia really, and he’s Giacomo, but they call themselves Lucy and Jack. They’re Italian,’ she added helpfully. ‘Only they’ve been over here since they were children, so you wouldn’t know.’

  ‘And what does Jack do?’

  ‘He’s a personal trainer as well. He has his own gym now – not like this, but more like a muscle factory, for men mostly. He used to work here before he opened his own place.’ She paused, and then, looking at Atherton, lowered her voice. ‘What you were saying in there’ – she nodded in the general direction of the manager’s office – ‘asking if he had sex with the clients. Well, I bet he did. A lot of the members, they’re very rich women with nothing to do, no job or anything, and they get bored, and the trainers get paid a lot extra for giving them a sorting-out.’ She blushed again, and added, ‘I don’t know anything for certain, but that’s what everybody says.’

  ‘Thank you, that’s very helpful,’ Atherton said, giving her a smile that deepened her blush to critical point. ‘How did you hear what we were saying?’

  It steadied her. ‘Oh, she forgets to turn off her intercom. She’s always doing it. I don’t tell her, because I often hear interesting things,’ she explained without shame. ‘She isn’t as clever as she thinks she is,’ she added with bracing contempt.

  Outside, the grey blanket of cloud seemed to be thinning, as though the sun might come through at some point. To counterbalance that, a niggling cold wind had got up. ‘We ought to get back,’ Slider said, ‘but given that Phillimore Walk is only just over there …’

  ‘And we haven’t got any useful information so far,’ Atherton agreed.

  The antique shop was called Heneage and Seagram, and was one of those ultra-high-end places that mostly seemed to be full of expensive emptiness. Inside, one or two exquisite pieces of furniture lounged elegantly around an expanse of moss-green carpet as if they had no intention of doing anything as vulgar as being sold. Those with flat surfaces further sported some desirable objet – a Carolean clock, a silver epergne, a Sèvres vase – picked out by an artful spotlight. You had to ring the bell and be buzzed in to gain access – and, frankly, if they weren’t expecting you, you might as well not bother. It didn’t say ‘by appointment only’ on the door, but you’d have to be a bit of a thick not to know it was implied.

  At the far end a young woman was using as a desk a gilt-inlaid console table that would have made a Roadshow presenter unseemly with excitement. She looked up when Slider pressed the bell, but did not immediately hasten to admit them. Nothing good could be expected of walk-ins. Slider pressed his warrant card against the glass of the door, and she rose in a leisurely manner and came to the door to look at it. She frowned at them enquiringly and they saw her lips form the question ‘Police?’ and when Slider nodded and mouthed ‘Can we speak to you?’ she pressed a latch and opened the door.

  She still seemed slightly wary, so Atherton offered his brief as well, and said, ‘We’re investigating the death of Erik Lingoss. May we come in and ask you a few questions?’

  Slider liked his use of ‘may’ rather than ‘can’, and either that or something about their appearance reassured her. She relaxed and let them in, saying, ‘Anything I can do to help.’

  ‘Are you Lucy Gallo?’ Atherton asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s me. About Erik – they’re saying on the internet he was murdered. Is that true?’

  For some reason, Slider had been expecting a small, slight girl, but Lucy Gallo was tall, and slim but of athletic rather than twig-like build. She seemed to be in her early twenties, but had the air of confidence that probably – to judge from her accent and lustrous skin – came from a private education. She seemed to be what he would class as a sparky girl, with bright eyes and a wide, ready smile, though at the moment it was suppressed by funereal thoughts.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Slider said. ‘Can I ask, what was the nature of your relationship with him?’

  She led them back to the console table, and drew out for them two bow-legged, gilt chairs that didn’t look as if they ought to be sat on, while she perched on the edge of the table and folded her arms across her chest. She was wearing beige pleat-fronted trousers and a sage-coloured
silk shirt, and her glossy dark hair hung down behind, held back by a matching green hairband. She was the perfect example of what Slider had been thinking in relation to Jessica: apart from unusual gold-brown eyes, her features were in no way remarkable, but she was a beautiful girl because she thought she was. Or, more likely, she never gave it a thought either way, which worked just as well.

  ‘Erik was friends with my brother Jack,’ she said. ‘They were both trainers at Elite Shapes – the club across the road?’

  ‘Yes, we know it. How long has your brother known Erik?’

  ‘Oh, quite a few years. They met when they did a diploma course together in fitness psychology and it went on from there.’

  ‘Were they good friends?’

  ‘Oh yes. Well …’ She hesitated a fraction of a second, then went on. ‘Yes, they were, though they weren’t able to meet all that often, until Erik started working at Elite Shapes. Jack got him onto that, you know. He’d been telling him for ages that he ought to go for a better class of client, where he could make more money. He wanted to start his own business – Erik did – but you need money, or backing, or both. So Jack got him an interview at Elite Shapes and he got taken on.’

  ‘And your relationship with Erik was only that of his friend’s sister?’

  A faint blush coloured her cheeks, but she held Slider’s gaze. ‘I suppose you know it wasn’t, or you wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘You went out with him?’

  ‘Yes, but only recently, and not for very long,’ she said. ‘I’d known of him as Jack’s friend for a long time, but I’d only met him in passing, really. But after Jack got him on at Elite Shapes, he was seeing more of him, and I started to meet him more often. Then Jack invited him to a party of some friends of ours, and we really got talking. There was a spark between us. And he asked me out.’

  Now she was avoiding his eyes. Slider let Atherton take over.

  ‘You dated?’ Atherton said. ‘When did that start?’

  ‘Oh, about three months ago. It was in the summer – July, I think. Maybe June. I know it was the summer because it was at a roof garden party in Phillimore Place.’

  ‘And when did your relationship end?’

  ‘What makes you think it ended?’ she said. She was going for insouciant, but her eyes were too bright.

  ‘Because you don’t seem terribly upset about his death.’

  ‘Of course I’m upset,’ she said. Her voice wavered, but she quickly regained control. ‘But you’re right, we had broken up. I was – I was mad about him, at first. Jack didn’t approve. But he’s always been overprotective of me. He’s the eldest and I’m the youngest, and since our parents died he’s always felt he had to look out for me. He didn’t want me to go out with Erik. I thought he was just being, you know, the usual “no one’s good enough for my little sister”. He’s never really liked anyone I dated. So when he told me things about Erik, I wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘That I shouldn’t trust him. That he wasn’t good to women. I was mad about him and I thought he felt the same. He really seemed to …’ She bit her lip, then shook herself. ‘But it seems Jack was right and I was wrong. A month ago he suddenly broke up with me, and I haven’t seen him since.’ She raised her eyes defiantly to Atherton’s face. ‘I did all my crying then. So I’m not going to cry now. It was all over between us. I’m sorry he’s dead – of course I am. And terribly shocked. But I won’t cry for him.’

  ‘What did Jack think about it?’ Atherton asked.

  ‘He said it was Erik’s way, to use people as stepping stones. When someone more useful came along, he moved on. But …’ She stopped, looking down at her knees. She didn’t seem to be going to continue.

  Slider prompted. ‘Yes?’

  She looked up at him, seemed to be searching his face for sympathy – as if she thought he might ridicule her. She looked very young. He tried to project fatherly at her – something Atherton would struggle with.

  ‘I don’t think that was true. It didn’t feel like that at the time,’ she said at last, in a low, uncertain voice, so different from her original polished self-confidence. ‘It felt real between us. I really thought he cared for me.’ She gave herself a little shake and went on more briskly. ‘I suppose if someone’s a con artist, that’s what they do. I mean, they wouldn’t be successful if they weren’t good at making you believe them, would they?’

  Slider reflected that he had certainly been seeing at least one other person: there was an overlap between Lucy and Kelly-Ann. Probably he had been seeing Ivanka as well, which made it likely there were others too.

  ‘Was your relationship sexual?’ he asked, a blunt question to distract her from her feelings.

  It did seem to brace her. She didn’t look in any way embarrassed. She just said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you ever go to his flat?’ He didn’t like to think of her being performed with between those mirrored walls.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve got my own flat in Aubrey Walk. We went there.’

  ‘Did you ever meet any of his other friends?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I only saw him with Jack’s crowd, or alone.’ A slight frown flitted across her brows. ‘He never talked about any other friends. When we were together, we only talked about us.’ It seemed to be striking her, perhaps for the first time, as odd. But, as human beings do, she quickly rationalized it. ‘He was very driven. He was all about his profession, and his ambition for his future. I don’t suppose he had time for much socializing.’

  Except with a number of other sexual partners, Slider thought, but he didn’t say it aloud.

  SIX

  It’s Gym Life, but Not as We Know It

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Slider said. ‘What did an oaf like Lingoss have to attract a gem like her?’

  Atherton shrugged. ‘Having a posh accent doesn’t make you clever. It just makes you sound clever.’

  ‘But she’s been left alone in charge of the shop, so she must have something.’

  ‘Then perhaps Lingoss wasn’t an oaf.’

  ‘He must have had a superficial charm to attract so many women,’ Slider admitted.

  ‘Superficial?’ Atherton said in a pained voice. ‘I don’t think you realize how much intense effort and thorough preparation goes into being irresistible. The life of a hound is one of constant toil and responsibility.’

  ‘Stop, I may weep.’ The promised sun had broken through in a watery I-may-not-stay-long way. Still, it was an improvement. And Ken High Street was seething with well-dressed, bright-looking people going about their business and not bothering anyone. It was a scene to warm a copper’s gnarled old heart. ‘At least we’ve got a lead to someone who might have known him,’ Slider said. ‘Someone other than a sexual partner, that is.’

  Atherton was working away on his mobile. ‘Here we are. Jack Gallo. He’s got quite a presence on the internet. Big following on Twitter. And here’s his gym. Pex Muscle Gym, Notting Hill Gate. Rave reviews from happy customers. “Not the usual pussy gym,” says someone called Ironhead. “Serious worx,” spelled with an x, says Big Lifter. “Perfect place for a good sweat,” says Megapump. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m sold.’

  ‘Good thing too, because you’re going there. I have to get back to the factory.’

  ‘Me? In these trousers?’

  ‘You need to see how the other half lives,’ said Slider.

  McLaren had been eating a Jumbo Cornish Pastie. The flakes of pastry on his lips looked like advanced dermatitis.

  ‘The laundromat and the heel bar don’t have any security cameras,’ he said. ‘The newsagents have got one, but it’s facing the counter, so there’s no view of the street. The other place is still closed, so I can’t find out if they’ve got anything.’

  ‘If an electronics shop can’t have a camera, who can?’ Slider said.

  ‘Yeah, guv, but it might be pointing inwards, like in the newsy. Protect the stock, sort
of thing.’

  ‘And why is it closed?’

  ‘Dunno, guv. I asked Kadan in the heel bar, and he said he’s hardly ever seen it open.’

  ‘A front, do you think?’

  ‘More likely one of these techie hobby places, run by some geek so he can talk bollocks to other geeks all day.’

  ‘Hardly all day if it’s not open.’

  ‘Well, he could be off sick or on holiday. And I wouldn’t trust Kadan to know, anyway. He’s inside working all day. With those venetian blinds on the window, you can’t tell if it’s open unless you try the door.’

  ‘Well, shelve that for now. You’d better start looking at street cameras in Holland Road – something might cover the end of Russell Close. And if not, it may have to be bus cameras.’

  McLaren did not look thrilled. ‘We don’t know what time we’re looking at,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time,’ said Slider. ‘Start with ten until midnight. That seems the most likely time. If necessary, we can extend it later.’

  ‘There’s four buses go down Holland Road. That’s a lot of buses in two hours.’

  Slider was impressed he knew. ‘You’ve checked already?’

  He shrugged. ‘I know buses, that’s all. And three night buses: they all start after midnight, but if we have to look at later—’

  ‘Let’s see how we get on. It’s a weekday, so there may not be that many people around after ten. Or all that many cars turning into Russell Close. Get the indexes, and see if anything comes back to anyone connected with Lingoss. And get Fathom on checking taxis and minicabs – anyone dropped off at the flats or in the road.’

  Hart passed him in the doorway. ‘Still nothing on the canvass,’ she reported. ‘Nobody heard any disturbance. We’ve talked to all but two of the flats, and they all agree with the old lady – that building’s got good insulation. Couple of ’em knew Lingoss by sight, but that’s all. But there’s one woman’ – she checked her notes – ‘Aditi Prasanna. She lives in flat nine on the top floor. Single, twenty-six, data analyst. She says she met him in the hall one morning a couple of months back when she was going to work and they walked out together. Says he started talking to her about some kids charity he was involved in, she thinks it was called Fit and Fun, or Fitness Fun, something like that. Helps disadvantaged kids. Supposedly if they get fit it gives ’em confidence and gets ’em off crime and drugs and so on. Though it seems to me,’ she added in parenthesis, ‘that all you’d get is fitter burglars, but what do I know?’