Rathe shook his head. “The ages of the missing girls don’t suggest anything like that.”
“So what are you implying?”
“All these girls disappearing, all of them linked to you, and all of them also connected by the fact that they are young, healthy, and beautiful.”
Graham’s eyes flashed towards the house, ensuring that Eliza was nowhere in sight. “Just what is it you’re suggesting?”
“I’ll leave that to your intelligence.”
Graham’s fingers had balled into fists on the table. “I’d rather you say it out loud.”
Rathe leaned back in his chair, a smile flickering across his lips. “This talent agency of yours… Does it often approach girls for interview for possible representation when they’ve not been formally trained?”
“I don’t… ”
“Kirsty Villiers had applied to a whole collection of agencies as well as yours. They had all said the same thing: she needed a formal qualification from stage school or university before she could be considered. But not Trebuchet.” He pointed a finger at Graham. “Not you. You were prepared to see her when she had had no formal training at all. Why is that?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Perhaps it was as simple as ensuring that you could meet her alone and on your own terms. Coaxing her to you with the promises of fulfilled ambitions.”
“Or perhaps we just saw something in her.” Graham regretted the choice of words immediately, but Rathe was unable to prevent the snort of contempt from exploding out of him.
“I’m sure you did,” he said. “A viable commodity, no doubt.”
Graham shook his head. “I find these insinuations not only offensive but tiresome.”
Rathe sprang forward in his chair, slapping a hand on the table. Coffee spilled from both cups into their respective saucers. “Why would attractive young women keep disappearing from nightclubs, bars, gyms, and so on which you own? Why? What might you think is the likeliest explanation?”
The outburst had been sufficient to shake Graham out of his arrogant apathy. Now, he saw Rathe’s eyes darken with anger and the sensitive mouth snarl back in fierce disgust. Graham contemplated Rathe’s change in demeanour, his throat constricting with sudden discomfort, and he released his fingers from themselves, spreading his palms on the table in an effort to steady his nerves.
“If – if – there were any criminal activity going on in my club involving anything of the nature you’re suggesting, it does not mean I knew anything about it.”
“And what is it I am suggesting, Mr Graham?”
“You know.”
“I want you to say it.”
Graham had regained some of his previous disgust. “You will have seen the newspapers and TV reports over the last few weeks, Mr Rathe. Modern slavery is becoming an increasingly problematic concern for our society.”
“Selling women to sexual predators, here or abroad,” Rathe nodded.
“And if anything like that was going on in my enterprise, I would make sure something was done about it.”
“I don’t believe you. I think you’re in the thick of it.”
Graham shook his head. “And Lyndsey? Do you think, in this wild fantasy of yours, that I would sell my own step-daughter? In fact, she seems to be something of a fly in your ointment, Mr Rathe. If these disappearances are somehow all linked, how do you account for Lyndsey?”
“I think she had to disappear,” Rathe said. “You wanted the others because they would be good business. But Lyndsey? I think she vanished because she had to, not because you wanted her to.”
“And why?”
Rathe shrugged. “Had she found something out? Overheard you setting up one of your… transactions? Read an email she shouldn’t have seen? I can’t say, but it was something like that, I’ve no doubt.”
Graham remained impassive. “You’ve not explained why you think I had anything to do with my step-daughter’s disappearance at all. I told you that I went to pick her up and she wasn’t there.”
Rathe nodded. “True, you did. And when I met you that first day, something occurred to me and I knew I had heard something important. But it wasn’t until later that I realised what it was. We only had your word for what happened. You say you went to the tube station to pick her up, that you waited, but she didn’t turn up.”
“Which is true.”
“But we only have your word for it,” pressed Rathe.
Graham pursed his lips. “Is that all?”
“Not quite,” replied Rathe. “Something else was said which I couldn’t account for. The police… Why did you ask Eliza to wait until she called the police?”
“I didn’t want to cause panic if there was no need,” answered Graham, with a dismissive shrug of his shoulders.
“Or were you delaying things on purpose? You see, I can’t imagine a concerned parent being that lucid. In fact, I would expect a concerned parent to start to think about calling the police within a few minutes. Just like Eliza did. Because she was a genuinely concerned parent.” Rathe pointed a finger at Graham once more. “Not like you.”
Graham grinned, allowing a small laugh to escape from his mouth. “So, you think I use my various businesses – all of which are extremely successful, I should add – in order to procure young women who I can then sell on some abominable black market of human beings, but that my step-daughter discovered it somehow and so I had to dispose of her in the same way?”
“Yes,” admitted Rathe.
“And you expect me to accept all of that?”
“No,” confessed Rathe.
Graham laughed once more at his candour. “And these murders? Did I commit them?”
Rathe sighed gently. “I don’t know for sure. The same man did, certainly. The method of murder was the same. But I can imagine you having one of your many employees, expendable or otherwise, doing it for you. Part of me feels sure you are unlikely to get your hands dirty.” He paused, shaking his head. “And yet… ”
“And yet, what?”
“Cook’s theory is that the murderer approached Gilchrist as a potential new client. When the private detective’s back was turned, the killer struck. Alice… ” Rathe’s attention wavered for a moment, as his memories came back to squeeze his heart with their fingers of ice. “She was killed because the murderer feared Gilchrist had made the connection between Lyndsey and Kirsty Villiers – the connection being you. The killer had discovered Gilchrist and Alice were going to meet, because Gilchrist had put it in his diary, which was open on his desk. The killer couldn’t allow that meeting to take place, but he also couldn’t be sure what Gilchrist had already told Alice, so she... had to die.”
Graham had listened to Rathe’s summary of the official theory of the killings with barely feigned interest. “But you don’t believe this theory?”
Rathe raised his eyebrows briefly. “Most of it. Up to a point, I think it must be accurate but, for me, something about it isn’t quite right. You see, Mr Graham, I find it much easier to believe that Gilchrist would open his office and put himself off guard if the person who had gone to meet him that day was the husband of an existing client. After all, in discovering the disappearance of Kirsty Villiers, Gilchrist felt he had made something of a breakthrough in finding out what had happened to Lyndsey Crane. He would want to give an update of his success as soon as possible. If, by coincidence, he received a call from his client’s husband, he might forget his promise of confidentiality for just a moment. In the wake of his excitement with his news, you understand. See my point?”
Graham contemplated Rathe for a moment and then allowed his eyes to roam around the garden. Rathe continued to watch him, wondering what thoughts were going through the man’s head. Despite his assurances that he was right, Rathe knew that nothing he had said could or should cause Elliott Graham any disquiet. What Cook had said was true: there was no proof, nothing which Graham couldn’t explain away by one lie or another.
“You’ve
said a great deal to me, Mr Rathe,” Graham said, at last, “so I think it only fair that I have a right of reply. But my only response to what you have said will make me sound like a broken record, I fear, because I can only repeat what I have told you previously. I deny every allegation you have made and, without proof to support what you say, the only guilt I can see here is yours of slander.”
It was not an unexpected answer and Rathe felt no threat from it. He had known it would be the response Graham gave; if truth be told, Rathe knew that there was no other reply the man could give. But all that meant was that Rathe had come prepared for it.
“Inspector Cook is as convinced of your guilt as I am,” he said. “He’ll find some proof eventually. He’ll crawl over your accounts like insects over a carcass until he finds some evidence of a transaction. And it will take only one transaction to prove what you do behind the closed doors of your companies, Mr Graham. After that, it will be forensic examinations of Alice Villiers’s home, Roger Gilchrist’s offices, your home, your offices. Search after search until they find that one fibre or that one trace which places you at the scene of one or both of the murders. When that happens, you’ll be closed down and put away. I only hope I’m here to see it.”
Graham drained his coffee. It was cold, but he barely noticed. “All that takes time, Rathe. If I am what you say I am, the process of Inspector Cook’s investigation will give me enough time either to cover my tracks or to shut down my businesses and move away. Either way, it looks as though it is you and not me who is in in Trebuchet.”
Rathe did not share the smile which Graham gave to his remark. Instead, his eyes had hardened once more and his lips had curled over his teeth in a feral snarl. “You’re going too fast, Graham. The law may be required to take its time but the tabloid press isn’t. A court may demand evidence to support allegations, but a headline needs only a whiff of truth and scandal to make itself heard.”
It was Graham’s turn to scowl. “What the fuck do you mean by that?”
“You close down right now and vanish yourself or the papers get a phone call.”
“That’s blackmail, you sanctimonious bastard!” Graham spat. “I’ll have you prosecuted.”
Rathe’s smile had more than a trace of wickedness in it. “Never heard of anonymous tips? The press don’t betray sources and you’d never be able to prove anything against me, just as I can’t against you. But mud sticks and the damage to you would be done.”
“You bloody hypocrite!”
“You deserve a life sentence, one way or another,” hissed Rathe, rising from the table.
“I thought you believed in justice, Rathe,” goaded Elliott Graham. “The rule of law.”
Rathe looked down at the man for whom he felt neither pity nor remorse. “Sometimes justice and the law have nothing to do with each other. If I could prove your complicity, I wouldn’t hesitate to see you stand trial, but I can’t. But that doesn’t mean you should get away with it.”
Graham remained seated, his eyes flickering around in confusion and distress. It had not been a move he had anticipated. Rathe had felt cheap making it, but the thought of Graham going about his business without any form of opposition made Rathe feel worse than cheap. Graham stuttered some words, pleas to reconsider or formulate some sort of deal, but Rathe shook his head, closing his doors to them. Graham’s mouth continued to move as rapidly as his eyes, but no more words came out. Turning on his heel, and without any sense of regret in his heart, Anthony Rathe walked away from Elliott Graham with the most acute feeling in his heart that the two of them would never meet again.
* * *
“I’m just sorry I can’t give you anything definite.”
Sonia Villiers took his hand in hers. “You’ve done more than we could ever have hoped or expected from you.”
Terence was staring out over the lawn, not yet able to meet Rathe’s eye. “Now that this man, Elliott Graham, has done what he has, I don’t suppose we’ll ever know the whole story.”
Rathe lowered his head. “Not necessarily. Graham’s suicide means that he isn’t around to hinder any police enquiry into his affairs. Inspector Cook is confident that something will turn up soon.”
“You trust this man – Cook?” asked Terence. “He’s a friend of yours, am I right?”
Rathe took a moment to answer. “I think so, yes. And I certainly trust him.”
Sonia was not listening to their conversation. “It’s Graham’s wife I feel sorry for. As well as learning what he might have been, what he might have done to her daughter, she has to live with the memory of walking in on him in the bathroom. All that blood she must have seen. It’s horrible.”
Terence Villiers turned to face them both. “I don’t give that a second thought.”
It was an admission which threw them into silence for a long period. Rathe was wondering precisely how he felt about Elliott Graham’s death. It had not been unexpected that the news of it had brought back memories of Kevin Marsden and, for a long time after Cook had given him the facts of Graham’s suicide, Rathe had known that his actions towards Graham and his threats of scandal had contributed to the man’s decision to end his life. And now, Graham had cursed Eliza to the same sense of loss and shame with which Kathy Marsden lived. Rathe could not help but incline to Sonia Villiers’s point of view about the effect of Graham’s death on his wife but, in equal part, he felt he could understand Terence’s reaction to the situation.
Rathe thought back to that telephone call with Cook. It had been characteristically brief, but the exchange between them had not been lacking in its mixture of truth and lies.
“I can’t say I’m sorry,” Rathe had confessed.
“Nor can I,” Cook had admitted. “He was a shit and he deserved everything he got.”
“You’ll still try to find evidence that he was at the centre of it, won’t you? I still want to know what happened to Lyndsey and Kirsty.”
Cook had been adamant. “Investigation’s on-going and it won’t stop any time soon. Seems a bit sudden, though, doesn’t it? Graham cutting himself open like that.”
“Perhaps.”
“Something I should know about it?” Cook had asked, his voice betraying that he knew the answer only too well.
“No,” Rathe had lied. “What do you mean?”
“Just a thought I had. Came to me in a flash when I heard what Graham had done.”
And then the call had been terminated, seemingly as quickly as the thought of Rathe’s involvement in the death had entered Cook’s head.
Now, Rathe thought once more about Kevin Marsden. He had been an innocent young man, betrayed by a system of justice which saw him as expendable. His death had been entirely unjustified and Rathe now seemed to understand more clearly that it was this quality of it, which weighed heavily on his shoulders. He had played his part in condemning Marsden to his own death, but he had been entirely innocent. Could the same be said of Elliott Graham? Rathe doubted it very much and, for a reason he could not clearly define, he did not feel as though Graham’s death would stay with him alongside the memory of Kevin Marsden for any length of time.
He stayed with the Villiers for a while longer before making his excuses to leave. At the front door, he received a small kiss on the cheek from Sonia and a firm handshake from her husband.
“Keep in touch, Anthony,” demanded Terence. “We must hold on to what family we have.”
Rathe had permitted himself a smile. “I will. And I’m sorry for everything which has happened.”
Sonia shook her head. “You have no reason to apologise. We know what you’ve done and we’re grateful for it.”
“I’ll let you know as soon as Cook has any news about things,” he promised. “Anything to connect Elliott Graham to Alice’s death. And any news about Kirsty. I’ll tell you at once.”
“We know,” said Terence.
That day, Rathe walked home slowly, allowing his mind to drift over a collection of different thoughts. He ga
ve none of them any special attention. He was tired of imagining horrors, deciphering facts, and analysing questions. His mind felt drained, cramped, and a small hum of pain began to form at the back of his head. He wanted to permit himself to wonder only about banalities, to listen to some conversation which had no meaning for him and no expectation of any response from him. He wanted to watch an escapist film, read a comic novel, listen to music which would stir his soul into wonder. For the remainder of that day, and many more to come, Anthony Rathe did exactly that and the past few weeks seemed to distance themselves from him, losing themselves in time.
It was three weeks later when Cook found Rathe standing at Kevin Marsden’s grave. The inspector’s face was blanched, his cheeks sallow, and the growth of beard on his chin spoke of several late nights and early mornings. He stood next to Rathe, his hands in the pockets of his crumpled suit, his eyes staring down at the ground.
“How did you know I’d be here?” asked Rathe.
Cook sniffed. “Lucky guess. You weren’t at home and you weren’t in my office. Where else would you be?”
“You’re a cynic.”
Cook looked around him. It seemed they had the churchyard to themselves. “I don’t know why you come here, Rathe.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand it even if I told you.”
“Can’t do you any good.”
“That doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary.”
Cook offered no reply other than to shake his shoulders. “How long do you normally stay here?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
Rathe turned to face him. “What are you doing here, Cook?”
Cook sighed heavily. “There’ve been some developments. We’ve traced some of Elliott Graham’s business financials. Most of his restaurants and bars launder money for some of the bigger names in our sights. Some of the shits he does business with are known for drugs and prostitution. At least one is being investigated for trafficking.”
Rathe smiled. “Then we were right.”
“Looks that way. There’s something else.” Cook paused, shifting his position, as though the pressure of the words he had to say was too much for his body to manage. “We’ve found Lyndsey Crane.”
When Anthony Rathe Investigates Page 22
