The word of capitulation. Slider looked.
‘Look,’ said Cockerell, ‘I did meet her, but it has to be kept a secret. It – it wasn’t exactly improper, but if it was known that we met, it could be thought that something was going on, that we were colluding. You’ve got to promise me this won’t get out. There could be consequences. Serious consequences. It could ruin the whole deal, and a lot of jobs depend on it.’
‘The deal – you mean the takeover?’ Slider said. ‘The takeover of Cornfeld Chemicals by GCC?’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘You know about it?’
‘It was in the papers,’ Slider reminded him.
‘Speculation only, several weeks ago. But we killed that. What made you think we were still interested?’
‘We have our sources,’ Slider said, ‘just as you do. You are still interested, aren’t you?’
‘Well, yes. But that’s not for public consumption. You see why Chattie and I had to keep the meeting secret. The way we were placed, if the reporters had got hold of the fact that we’d been seen together, it would have been disastrous.’
‘And what was the purpose of the meeting?’ Slider asked.
Cockerell hesitated. ‘I wanted to find out how Henry felt about it. Chattie’s the person closest to him in the world. I knew she’d know.’
‘Why couldn’t you ask him yourself?’
‘I’m in negotiation with him. He’s not going to tell me the truth, is he? That’s not the way these things work. He takes a position and I take a position. We try not to give away anything to one another. And Henry’s a master at the game.’
‘So you thought you might cheat a little and ask Chattie what his real position was?’ Atherton asked.
‘That’s right. But it wasn’t really cheating. Just – trying to get an edge.’
‘But it was a little shady, so you kept it a deep, dark secret,’ Atherton led him on. ‘Did your wife know about the meeting?’
‘Yes, she knew, and Lucinda knew – my secretary.’ In the heat of the moment he had forgotten to call her personal assistant. Lucky she wasn’t listening. ‘But they’re both sound as bells. They would never tell a soul. I don’t know how the hell you found out,’ he complained. ‘I would never have thought Chattie would be indiscreet.’
‘You said you were afraid of being seen together,’ Slider said blandly.
‘Oh, so that was it, was it? Well, that was damnable bad luck. We took such precautions.’
‘And what was the result of your meeting?’ Slider asked. ‘Did Chattie tell you how her father felt about the deal?’
‘No, she didn’t,’ he said. He frowned angrily at the memory. ‘She refused. I didn’t get anything useful out of her at all, so it was really a waste of time.’ He engaged Slider’s eyes and tried for lightness after the frowns. ‘So, you see, there’s no need to report it to anyone. Nothing improper happened, but if it was known we had met, people would assume, and rumours would spread.’
‘Was anything else discussed between you?’ Slider asked. ‘You see, you were one of the last people to see her alive. Did she say anything that might help us? Did she talk of any worries she had? Did she tell you who else she was going to meet that day?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing else was discussed. The meeting was very short. I wish I could help you,’ he said, with a look of sincerity, ‘but I knew nothing about her life and she didn’t say anything about it then. I’ve no idea who killed her or why.’
Slider stood up. ‘Well, thank you, sir,’ he said. ‘You’ve cleared up one little mystery for us. We’re most grateful.’
Cockerell was all beams now. ‘Oh, not at all, not at all. Glad to help. Anything else I can do for you, don’t hesitate to ask.’
He was coming round the desk to usher them out. Slider veered across to the wall unit to look at the photographs on his way out. ‘Your family?’ he asked.
‘Yes, that’s my wife, and our son and two daughters.’
Granny Cornfeld was right, Slider thought – they did look dull. But the wife, Ruth, looked faintly familiar to Slider, though he couldn’t place her. Perhaps there’d been a photo of her in Frithsden House?
They were shown back to the lift, rode down in silence, handed in their badges to the two Cerberuses, and made their way out of the heavy swing doors into the early-evening sunlight.
‘He’s lying,’ Slider said.
‘Yup,’ Atherton concurred. ‘But why?’
There was a pub at the end of the street, its doors open on the pavement and, for a wonder, no piped music inside. ‘Pint?’ said Slider.
‘Hm. Okay. Might help the little grey cells.’
It was cool and dark inside, one of those faux-traditional places with bare floorboards, dark wood everywhere, tall barrels for tables, the ceiling painted an authentic smoke-dimmed dirty cream. They ordered two pints of Director’s, and Slider led the way to a couple of stools pulled up to one of the barrel tables just by the open door.
‘All right,’ said Atherton, having taken the top third off his pint. ‘Cockerell’s story.’
‘It makes sense in its own terms. I just don’t feel that’s all there was to it. Both Jasper and Marion said Chattie was preoccupied that evening.’
‘Wouldn’t she be disturbed by Cockerell trying to pump her about the old man’s feelings on the takeover?’
Slider shook his head. ‘I’m not sure. If it was just Cockerell saying, is he pro or con, and her saying, mind your own business, would she really be that bothered? It surely wouldn’t have been news to her – at least, judging by what Granny Cornfeld said – that he wasn’t quite pukka.’
‘Well,’ Atherton said, as one stretching a point, ‘you could be right. But she could have been preoccupied about anything – her business, her love-life, the state of the economy.’
‘Of course. But what did she do with the rest of the day? She cancelled her appointments, but she must have been out of the house, because Marion Davies said she was just sorting the mail when she called round at a quarter past six, still in her business suit. So where was she, and with whom?’
‘What’s your theory?’
‘I haven’t got one,’ Slider admitted, taking a long swallow. ‘I’m just working out the pattern. Cockerell said something to her, she was disturbed by it, she – perhaps – went and saw somebody else about it, and the next day she was murdered.’
‘You think Cockerell did it?’ Atherton said. ‘That’s a very large size in assumptions. Although,’ he allowed, ’I didn’t like him, and he did seem to be just dumb enough to do the murder that way. And, perhaps more to the point, he’s a senior executive in a drugs company that manufactures ultra-short-acting barbiturates.’
‘It does?’
‘I do my homework,’ said Atherton. ‘If anyone could work out how to get access to them, he could. But for all you know, he’s got an alibi.’
‘That’s why we’re sitting here – to catch his secretary on her way to the tube.’
‘How do you know she goes home by tube?’
‘I saw a tube ticket sticking out of one of the front pockets of her handbag.’
‘Blimey, the eyes of the sleuth! What if she doesn’t come this way to the station?’
‘Then we’re stuffed,’ said Slider patiently, ‘but at least we’ve had a pint.’
‘The man’s a genius.’
‘Keep your eyes peeled.’
Atherton turned his stool so they were both facing the street; and indeed, half an hour later, the big hair and the suit went past, with the addition of a fine leather shoulderbag and a rolled umbrella by way of accessories. Atherton and Slider left their seats and went after her. A little hampered by not knowing her surname, they fell in one on either side of her and almost got clobbered by the umbrella as her natural reactions were set off by being bracketed.
‘I’m sorry to startle you,’ Slider said. ‘We just wanted a quiet word.’
‘I thought you were bag-snatchers,’ she
said, very much annoyed. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘We’ve been waiting for you.’
She faced them, glaring. ‘This is ridiculous. If you wanted to speak to me, why didn’t you do it at the office?’
‘I rather wanted to speak to you privately,’ said Slider.
‘Without Mr Cockerell knowing? I see. And why should you imagine for a moment that I would betray my employer to you?’
‘Betray?’ Atherton said. ‘Now there’s an interesting word for you to have used.’
‘Betray his trust,’ she said witheringly, ‘by talking about him behind his back.’
‘Oh, come on,’ he coaxed. ‘You don’t like working for him. He’s a jumped-up little turkey cock. You’ve got ten times his brains and character. And he called you his secretary.’
Her lips twitched, but she kept her countenance. ‘Nothing would induce me to say anything behind his back that I would not say to his face.’
‘Fine, then tell him to his face tomorrow. For now, come and have a drink – a gin and tonic to brace you for the tube journey home.’
Slider could only look on in admiration as Atherton worked his magic, and then followed them back to the pub like a younger brother tagging along. This time they took seats away from the door, round the corner. Lucinda Gaines-Harris, for such was her name, accepted the offer of a gin and tonic, and while Atherton chatted her up, Slider observed with interest her struggle to keep her face disapproving and not to show that she was rather enjoying the adventure of something that didn’t happen every day or to everyone.
‘I bet he’s tried to get off with you,’ Atherton said, with almost girlfriendish sympathy.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I know the type. It must be galling for you. Where did you go to university?’
‘Cambridge. Chemistry,’ she said, flattered that he had guessed she was a graduate.
‘So how did you end up here?’
‘It was the best I could do,’ she said. ‘I get paid more this way than I could as a lowly researcher or a lab-rat, and I have my mother to support. Of course, if I were a man, I could go up the executive ladder. But I don’t have back-scratching privileges, so that’s out.’ She had loosened up enough to swig back her G-and-T like a man, and Slider hastened to get her another before the mood was broken. When he returned with it, she said, ‘I hope you aren’t thinking of getting me drunk, because it won’t work.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Atherton said. ‘I bet you could drink me under the table. I was just being hospitable.’
‘So, what do you want to know?’ she asked, apparently abandoning pleasure for business. She glanced at a gold watch on a slim wrist. ‘I can’t be too long, because of Mother.’
Atherton got down to it. ‘On Wednesday last week, what time did he get to the office?’
‘Eight,’ she said. ‘He’s always in at eight, when he’s in the office. Of course, sometimes he goes to other offices, or to meetings elsewhere, or to one of the plants. But when he’s here, he’s in at eight.’
‘Did you actually see him at eight that morning?’
‘Oh, yes, certainly. In fact, he was already at his desk when I came in at eight.’
‘When he comes and goes, does he have to go through your office?’
‘No, there’s another door to the corridor through his bathroom, which leads off his office. But in the morning he usually comes in through my office and I give him the mail and any messages.’
‘I see.’ Well, that knocked him out from being First Murderer, said Atherton’s glance to Slider. Only Superman could have got from the park to the office, with a change of clothes thrown in, in the maximum possible allowance of ten minutes. Pity, really. It would have been nice to de-smug him. ‘And can you cast your mind back to the day before, to last Tuesday? He said that you knew he had an appointment to meet Miss Cornfeld.’
‘Yes. Well, he pretty well had to tell me, because I’d have to cover for his absence if anyone called.’
‘Did he tell you what the meeting was about?’
‘I’m not sure if I should tell you that.’
‘He told us it was about the takeover – wanting her to find out how her father stood on it,’ said Slider.
She looked relieved. ‘Oh, well, that’s what he told me, too. But it had to be a secret meeting. Rather dangerous if anyone found out and suspected collusion.’
‘The meeting was at ten o’clock?’
‘Yes. He left at five to. He said he was meeting her in Trafalgar Square.’
‘Isn’t that rather public for a private meeting?’
‘That’s what I said, but he said it was safer in the open because you could see people approaching – they couldn’t creep up on you and overhear. I think he saw that in some spy film or other,’ she added, with a sneer.
‘And what time did he come back?’
‘It was about ten to eleven.’
Slider was surprised. ‘He told us it was only a brief meeting.’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know about that. I suppose he may have gone somewhere else afterwards. All I know is that I heard him come in at that time. He went in through the bathroom and banged the door very noisily. I went straight in to give him his messages and he was stamping about in an absolute temper.’
‘What about?’
‘I don’t know. I said, “Is everything all right?” and he said, “Not now, Lucinda. Leave me alone. I’ll buzz when I want you.” So I put the messages down on his desk and went out. When he buzzed for me I went in and he was quite calm again, and he didn’t mention anything about it, so naturally I didn’t ask. It wasn’t my business.’
‘So you’ve no idea what put him in a temper?’
‘None at all.’ She hesitated. All I can tell you is that when I went in – the first time – I heard him mutter something like,
“Thank God there’s a few days left” or “There’s still a few days” – I can’t swear to the exact words. But he never mentioned it again.’
‘How did he react when he heard about Miss Cornfeld’s death?’
‘I’m not sure when he did first hear. I heard about it on Thursday evening on the news, when the name was first given. The next morning at the office I said something to him about how dreadful it was, and he seemed already to know then, because he said, “Yes, it’s tragic,” or something like that.’
‘Did he seem very upset?’
She thought. ‘Yes, I’d say he was. He was very quiet and thoughtful all morning, quite absent-minded. Brooding, almost, you might say. In the afternoon he went off to the plant in Bedford so I didn’t see him again that day.’
‘The plant – is that where the drugs are manufactured?’
‘Some of them. Bedford’s the secure plant for the restricted pharmaceuticals. It’s only a small place.’
‘Does he go there often?’
‘Oh, from time to time. He was there last Monday, as it happens, but that was unusual. It was for the opening of the new lab block. Some local bigwig cutting the ribbon, and the press were there, and there were drinks and so on afterwards, with the Health Minister looking in.’
‘A big do like that, that date must have been known well beforehand,’ Slider said, the germ of an idea twitching in the depths of his brain.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘To get a cabinet minister you have to book months ahead.’
‘Did you go with him?’
‘Certainly not. A frightful waste of time, those things, but useful publicity, I suppose, which is why he had to go. In any case, his wife was there if he wanted his hand holding. I’m not obliged to do it, thank God. Oh, look at the time. Is there anything else, because I really ought to get going? Mother frets if I’m more than half an hour late.’
‘Just one last question,’ Slider said. ‘The proposed acquisition of Cornfeld Chemicals. Is there anything – odd or unusual about it?’
‘I don’t think so. In what way?’
‘I don’t
know,’ Slider said ruefully. ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’
‘Well, I haven’t heard anything. It’s all still very secret – has to be, until the offer’s made public, or the shares would go haywire. But as far as I know, it’s a simple purchase.’
‘Thanks,’ said Slider, and stood up to pull out her chair for her as she made getting-up movements.
She gathered her belongings, and at the last moment paused and said to Slider, ‘You think she was killed because of something to do with the takeover?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But all murders come down to money or passion in the end, don’t they?’
‘I don’t know anything about it,’ she said, ‘and I hate gossip, but I suppose it is murder after all, so I ought to tell you. There was talk a couple of years ago that there was something between him and that girl.’
‘He had an affair with Chattie?’
‘I don’t think it amounted to that. Just a brief fling. For a few weeks there were a lot of phone calls, and he went off for long lunches without saying where he was going, and – well, all the signs of an affair. He’s had them before – and since – so I know the symptoms. It may not even have been her. I mean, the calls were, but maybe not the lunches and so on. I don’t know. It was just what the rumours said. But if it was her, there’s been nothing since. The calls stopped, and as far as I know he hasn’t seen her until that meeting last week. So you see,’ she looked from one to the other, ‘it might not have been the takeover at all. I just thought you ought to know.’
They thanked her again, and escorted her to the door. When she had walked away, Atherton said, ‘For someone who didn’t want to betray her boss, she certainly let her hair down.’
‘Chattie, an affair with Cockerell?’ Slider mourned. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Rather a lapse of taste,’ Atherton agreed. ‘But we know she liked to have it large, and he’s not without his attractions. I fancy even Miss Gaines-Harris has yearned for a slice of that particular beefcake at some time in the past – and didn’t get one, which is why she’s so ready to shop him.’
Dear Departed Page 27
