Cruel as the Grave

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  When he said those words, Seagram’s eyes, which had been fixed on the wall behind Slider’s head, flicked for an instant to his face. Slider wondered whether he remembered saying them to Greyling, or if he thought his mind had been read. But he was not thrown yet. He carved his features into a pitying smile and said, ‘What you seem to be laying out is evidence of my wife’s guilt, and while I am shocked beyond measure that you should suspect her, I don’t see what this has to do with me.’

  Friedman rallied. ‘I think you must present some evidence of these allegations, inspector, or immediately release my client. Otherwise we may have to consider an action for wrongful arrest.’

  ‘I shall certainly present evidence,’ Slider told him. ‘There are fingermarks on the cover of both the address book and the diary. Paper is very poor at taking fingermarks, but Moleskine is better. They’re not absolutely distinct, but we might get a partial. Then there’s the seven hundred pounds drawn out of her account.’

  ‘How could I draw that out of her account without her PIN number?’ Seagram said triumphantly.

  ‘Well, married couples often do know each other’s PINs. Where there is trust between them – and I’m sure there was trust between you and your wife.’

  ‘But you can’t prove that I knew it,’ Seagram crowed.

  ‘You must have known it, because you did draw out the money.’ Slider’s eyes were fixed unwaveringly on Seagram. ‘Did you not know that cashpoint machines have cameras in them these days?’

  ‘Bank ATMs do,’ Seagram said contemptuously, ‘but that one’s not a bank machine.’

  ‘How do you know which machine I am referring to?’

  Seagram looked confused.

  Friedman closed his eyes for an instant. ‘I told you, you don’t have to say anything,’ he said.

  Slider went on. ‘You are right, that particular machine is not a bank ATM. It’s a private one. And it doesn’t have an integral camera. It does, however, have a camera mounted on the building above it, which you’ve probably never noticed. If you’d like to look at the monitor.’ He nodded to Atherton, who cued the tape. Friedman was back in full professional stoneface mode, and did not react, but he would know it was a body blow; Seagram glared at the screen as if to say, right, machine, you’re going to regret this.

  ‘We’ve correlated the time of withdrawal with the time of this camera shot. Would you like to explain why you withdrew seven hundred pounds cash from your wife’s account?’

  ‘I can think of a dozen reasons why I might, but I’m not saying anything,’ said Seagram. ‘I don’t have to offer explanations.’

  Atherton scribbled something and pushed it in front of Slider. Fatally gabby, it said. Both Friedman and Seagram watched the bit of business. Slider nodded to Atherton. Like the adulterer who deep down wanted to get caught, the cleverer they thought they had been, the more they subconsciously longed to tell about it. What was the point of stunningly fooling the police if the police never knew how they had been fooled? Seagram would talk – it was a question of leading him the right way so that it all came out.

  Slider continued, ‘You don’t have to explain, of course, but may I remind you that it may harm your defence if you do not mention during questioning something you later rely on in court?’

  Seagram looked at Friedman. ‘I think we should go now. Our friend here seems to be on a fishing expedition – or else he’s in the grip of a strange fantasy. Either way—’

  ‘We have Erik’s mobile phone,’ Slider said calmly. First blow, to the chin. ‘We spoke to Leon Greyling.’ Second blow, to the solar plexus.

  Seagram’s face twisted instantly, shockingly with rage. There was temper under there, rarely allowed out. ‘That little swine! What’s he been telling you? He’s a pathological liar. Don’t believe anything he says!’

  Atherton had laid the mobile, in its evidence bag, on the table. He said, ‘There are quite a number of fingermarks on it, and not all of them are Erik’s. You didn’t think it necessary to use gloves? I suppose you meant to wipe it clean when – or if – it was necessary to “find” it.’ He made the inverted commas around find clear. ‘Perhaps when you tragically, accidentally, stumbled across it in your wife’s handbag or underwear drawer: the final proof that she must have killed him. You took it away from Lingoss’s flat, and left it with Leon Greyling for safekeeping.’

  ‘Not proof,’ Seagram said. He sounded short of breath. He looked at Friedman. ‘None of this is proof, is it?’ Friedman looked back gravely but said nothing.

  Slider put in the final upper-cut. ‘We also have your handkerchief.’

  ‘What handkerchief?’ His eyes snapped back to Slider. Slider saw that he had forgotten it. Atherton laid it, in its bag, on the table.

  ‘You wiped your face with it. Meant to shove it into your pocket but it fell out, and in the excitement of the moment you didn’t notice. There was blood on it, Mr Seagram. Blood and brain matter. When you bend over a prone man and beat his head with a heavy object, there is always splatter. Perhaps you didn’t know that? And when you wipe it off your face with your handkerchief, it’s advisable to make sure you don’t mislay the handkerchief afterwards.’

  For once Seagram didn’t speak. His eyes moved and he gripped the edge of the table as his brain scrabbled for a way out.

  Friedman was the one who spoke. ‘I would like a private word with my client, if you don’t mind,’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ said Slider.

  In the corridor, Atherton rubbed his hands and said, ‘The game’s afoot. And he’s on the wrong one. D’you think he’ll cough?’

  ‘Friedman will be trying to persuade him to as we speak, I imagine. Plead mitigation.’

  Atherton scoffed. ‘As in “something come over me, guv”? The old red mist plea?’

  ‘He hasn’t got much else,’ Slider said.

  ‘You almost have to feel sorry for him, don’t you?’

  ‘Seagram?’ Slider was surprised.

  ‘Friedman. I bet he’s only doing Seagram as a favour to Gilda Steenkamp, the one with all the money. He must have been a bit puzzled as to why we fastened on her husband. Well, he knows now.’

  ‘We’re not home and dry. As long as Tufty comes up with a match, we’re safe. The rest of it … well, I’m sure a glossy barrister of the sort Friedman would know could explain it away. And we still don’t know why. Without a why, the jury won’t like it.’

  ‘You won’t like it,’ Atherton corrected shrewdly.

  ‘I like to understand things.’

  ‘Understatement of the decade,’ said Atherton.

  ‘My client has agreed to talk to you,’ Friedman announced, making it sound magnanimous and noble. Seagram no longer looked smug; he looked angry and defiant. If he folded his arms any more tightly he’d crack his own ribs.

  Slider considered him for a long moment, wondering how best to begin. It would all come out, if he could get him going. First, he needed to relax him, with an off-topic question.

  ‘How come you own an antiques business when you don’t like antiques?’

  Seagram looked surprised, as Slider had wanted him to be. His arm-clench relaxed slightly. He didn’t question how Slider knew he didn’t like antiques, but said, ‘It was the family business. My grandfather started it. My father built it up. He made such a success of it, he was able to take over Heneage’s, and they were the biggest name in the field in those days. He made Seagram an even bigger name. It was natural that I should be expected to go into the business and carry it on.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have said no?’

  He laughed, a short, humourless bark. ‘You didn’t say no to my father.’

  ‘He was a hard man?’

  ‘He was …’ Seagram seemed to be searching for a word sufficiently laudatory. But then his mouth twisted suddenly. ‘He was a sadistic brute.’

  ‘Did he hurt you?’

  ‘He believed boys ought to be thrashed regularly for their own good. Spare the rod and
all that sort of thing. Make a man of your son. It was the waiting that was the worst part. “Go to your room!” And then you’d wait ten minutes, fifteen, twenty, knowing what was coming. That was the sadistic part. I believe he loved it, the old ogre. He never left it too long, so you’d start believing he’d forgotten. Just long enough to have you wetting your pants in fear.’

  ‘What about your mother?’

  ‘She was a concert pianist – Myra Solomons?’

  He said it as if Slider ought to have heard of her, so he nodded appreciatively. ‘I mean, couldn’t she have defended you against your father?’

  He looked away for a moment. ‘She didn’t care for me. I had lessons from the age of seven, but I had no talent. I tried, for her sake, but she couldn’t understand that music really meant nothing to me. I didn’t hear it the way she heard it. My sister Lainie – Elaine – was brilliant. She was beautiful, clever, and talented. They both adored her. She was going to follow in my mother’s footsteps. I was a disappointment to both of them. They had no time for me.’ He paused, watching some internal home movie. Slider waited. Seagram was absorbed by his story now; he would talk without prompting. ‘She was drowned in a boating accident when she was seventeen. It was the most awful tragedy. My mother never really got over it. My father threw himself into the business. I couldn’t refuse to be part of it, could I?’

  ‘Were you jealous of your sister?’

  ‘I loved her,’ he said, as if surprised by the question. ‘She was … supremely loveable.’ He paused a moment. ‘She was older than me. Sometimes she tried to distract my father when he got in one of his rages, and sometimes it worked. She saved me some thrashings. But not all. After she died his temper got worse. I wasn’t sorry when he died. He had a stroke while he was bawling out a warehouseman who’d scratched a walnut loo table. I know it was wrong of me, but I was glad he’d gone.’

  ‘It’s understandable,’ Slider said.

  ‘I thought, when he was gone, my mother would … But she still had no time for me. Music was her world, and I was tone-deaf. I had nothing to say to her.’

  ‘It must have been a relief to you when you got married and moved away.’

  ‘Gilda reminded me a bit of Lainie. She was slim and dark and vivacious too. I thought …’ He paused, still staring at the past. His mouth made a sneer. ‘Turns out I was a disappointment to her, too.’

  ‘Why was that?’ Slider asked. But Seagram didn’t answer. Slider remembered what Gilda Steenkamp had said about their physical relationship not lasting long. Perhaps that was it.

  ‘When did you first know you were attracted to men?’ he asked quietly, hoping to slip the question in without startling the quarry to flight.

  Seagram was a long time answering, and Slider held his breath.

  ‘Michelangelo’s David,’ he began at last. ‘My father had a scale copy of it that he acquired for a client. It was in the shop for a couple of weeks before they could take delivery. It was the first time I’d appreciated the absolute beauty of the male body. It was the curve of his neck that struck me first. I wanted to stroke it. When it had gone, I looked for more examples, in paintings, in art books – photographs of statues. Then one day I came across a magazine in a shop in Monmouth Street, a newsagents. It was … I suppose it was published as pornography, but there was nothing gross about it, just photographs of nude, or near-nude men posing. But my father found me looking at it, and he thrashed me. The worst thrashing of my life. So after that, I was careful not to be seen looking.’

  ‘Did you have experiences with real men?’

  He didn’t seem to resent the question. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t possible. I made do with photographs. And museums. Thank God for the B M.’ A silence. ‘Then I got married, and for a while it was all right. I had enough new experiences, and the business to run. And company. I thought Gilda … would be a friend, I suppose. I’d never had a friend, since Lainie. But antiques bore me, the business bores me, and then Gilda started to be successful and had less and less time for me until …’ He paused. ‘I was at a loss. I thought, is this all there is in life for me? Is this it? And then one day I got a ticket for a pre-viewing of modern art for auction at Spink. And I saw that it didn’t all have to be brown furniture and oils. There was life and colour and … it was like being reborn. And there was a young man.’

  He stopped. Slider waited. Just as he felt a little reboot might be needed, Seagram came back online and said, ‘His name was Desmond. He had skin like milk. For one lovely summer, we went everywhere together, looked at the world with one pair of eyes. But he was a student working for the vacation, and when October came he went back to Ireland. I didn’t want anyone else after that. I found my outlet in collecting contemporary art. And cars – beautiful cars. My search for perfection.’

  ‘Was that why you bought the racehorse?’

  ‘Horses are beautiful,’ he agreed, ‘in the same way. Sadly, they are expected to produce money, and mine didn’t. Gilda was angry. She didn’t understand that the money wasn’t important. She thought it should be an investment. She has a pedestrian soul. She writes, but essentially she is not an artist – the souk and the bazaar are in her blood. They are what drives her. So I didn’t buy another.’

  ‘You bought property instead.’

  ‘That is an investment,’ he said absently. ‘Nothing perfect about houses. Though they can have little elements of beauty. A line here, a moulding there. But they’re not organic.’

  ‘And then there was Leon Greyling,’ Slider said.

  ‘Yes, beautiful Leon. I found him at the same time as my new car. The car, I fear, will last longer. His body is lovely, but his mind is prosaic. He too often jars me by the things he says. But he’s been useful as a caretaker of my collection. Gilda didn’t like my pieces so I had to keep them in a storage facility and visit them when I could. I don’t know why I didn’t think of buying a house for them before.’

  ‘She doesn’t mind that the house doesn’t bring in rent?’

  ‘She doesn’t know. She never bothers with the details of such things.’

  ‘It’s not really an investment, is it, if there’s no return on it?’

  He shrugged. ‘The capital value will always increase.’

  ‘So she doesn’t know that you installed Leon in the mews house?’

  ‘No, why should she?’

  ‘She’s never met Leon?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘She doesn’t know about your relationship with him?’

  Now he scowled, irritated at being dragged back from the benign past to the fractious present. ‘My relationship with Leon is entirely innocent. I don’t know what he’s told you—’

  ‘He said your relationship with him was innocent.’

  ‘Oh.’ The scowl cleared. He looked disconcerted.

  ‘He said you like to look at him.’

  ‘He was the best I’d found, since Desmond.’

  ‘Until you met Erik.’

  His face took on a stalled look, as if he’d just remembered what he was doing here.

  ‘Tell me about Erik,’ Slider said.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Un Po’ Per Non Morire

  It was not often you saw a solicitor looking uncomfortable. Slider took a beat to enjoy it before he continued.

  ‘Shall we begin at the beginning? How did you first meet Erik Lingoss?’ For a moment Seagram looked as though he was going to deny knowing him, so Slider prompted, ‘Was it during the TV filming at the shop?’

  ‘Lockhart,’ said Seagram, almost absently. ‘Pure trash.’

  ‘That was in June this year?’

  ‘Leon had a small part in it. He brought Erik in to watch. I didn’t know they knew each other. Apparently, they had both used the same gym for a short time.’

  ‘He brought Erik in?’

  ‘Not into the shop, of course – no one was allowed in while they were filming. The back office. They’d set up a monitor there. I was watching
from there to keep an eye on the stock. And in case they wanted anything moving. Leon brought him in and …’ He drew a breath, even at the memory. ‘He was like a young god,’ he said softly. ‘He was David, made flesh.’ He lapsed into a brooding silence.

  Slider gave him his space. He guessed this was going to be difficult for him. Finally, he prompted him. ‘What happened?’

  Seagram came back, more slowly this time, like a tired swimmer breaking the surface. ‘I knew, as soon as I saw him. And I knew he felt the same. It was as if we didn’t need words. We communicated on another level.’

  ‘How did the relationship develop?’

  ‘We chatted for a bit until Leon left. When we were alone I said that I knew he was my wife’s trainer, and asked if he would be mine as well. But I said, not at home. I said I didn’t want my wife to know. He didn’t ask why. He understood. He just smiled. And he said he could take me to his own flat, and that he promised absolute discretion. We made an appointment. When I went there the first time I was nervous. I thought it would be difficult – embarrassing – that I would have to explain that I wasn’t really interested in keep-fit. But he seemed to understand without words. It was as if … our minds were on the same plane. I never had to explain anything to him. He always understood exactly what I meant, what I was thinking – what I wanted.’

  ‘Were you lovers?’ Slider asked.

  He didn’t want to answer that. He looked away, at the ceiling, at his hands. Slider intuited that he was afraid of being laughed at, mocked, rather than afraid of incriminating himself. He was, after all, in an environment not only alien to him, but brutally masculine in the most old-fashioned way. Sweat and feet and testosterone and suppressed violence. No, you couldn’t imagine him at a gym, even a posh one like Shapes. Inside the large, well-fed, well-dressed body there was something as tender as a pea shoot that he had to protect.