‘No, I take your point.’
‘So it occurred to me that if he’d been in the shop that day, they might remember him. I mean, I don’t suppose they’re stuffed with customers at the best of times. And with a niche market, you do tend to know your customers – they come back. It’s a small world and a bit nerdy. So they might possibly be able to tell you his name, or something about him. I mean, I know it’s a long shot, but . . .’ He trailed off as if expecting to be shouted at.
‘That’s a very good idea,’ Atherton said. ‘You were quite right to mention it, and we’ll certainly look into it. Thanks a lot.’
‘Just trying to help,’ Johnson said, pleased. Or was it relieved?
SEVEN
Porter Coeli
‘Tattoos were not my thing. Vinyl is,’ Atherton said, arguing to be the one to go. ‘I’ve looked up the address, and it’s on the corner of Brook Green – the road, I mean.’ Brook Green was not only the name of an area and a green space but of the road which ran along the side of the green and debouched into Shepherd’s Bush Road. ‘Just round the corner from Ransom Productions, in fact – another connection.’
‘I thought you didn’t believe in connections,’ Swilley sniped.
‘If you two can’t behave I’ll send you to your rooms,’ Slider said. ‘Atherton, go. He’s right, it is a long shot, but we haven’t got any short ones. Good luck. May the force be with you.’
‘You’re not allowed to call it the Force any more,’ Atherton said, turning away. ‘It’s the Police Service.’
Vinyl Heaven was so niche it had a hand-painted fascia instead of the usual glossy plastic or glass job: a pale blue background with the name in black capitals in the middle and two overlapping LPs painted on either side of it, black, of course, with red labels.
Inside there were records and CDs in wall racks on either side and in a rather home-made-looking double-sided wooden stand down the middle. There was a counter across the far end, and on the walls were a number of posters, pin-ups of bands and artists and vintage bills advertising gigs, some framed, and evidently also for sale. The carpet was worn threadbare down either side from the fidgeting feet of aficionados rifling through the goodies – though Atherton guessed it had never been very good carpet, perhaps not even new when the shop was established. The place had that air about it of hanging on by its fingernails.
However, even on a weekday morning it already had two customers – or at least, there were two people in there when Atherton walked in. The air was bouncing with the relentless dub-beat and shuffling high-hats of a garage CD being played over the loudspeakers – had Atherton known it, it was DJ Luck & MC Neat – and two young men were idling about in front of the racks, twitching to the music and pretending to look at the stock.
Atherton drew his eyes firmly away from the vintage classical LPs and eased past the twitchers to the counter, where a skinny young man with wild hair, a tattooed neck and a stud through his lip was standing watching him hopefully.
Atherton showed his brief and the hope faded rapidly, to be replaced by an unfocused apprehension. ‘Are you the owner?’ Atherton asked.
‘Yeah, I’m Steve.’ Into Atherton’s insistent silence he added, ‘Steve Chilcott. This is my place. Is something wrong?’
‘Not as far as I’m aware,’ Atherton said. ‘I wanted your help with something, if you wouldn’t mind.’
He relaxed a little, and said, ‘Yeah, OK. If I can.’
The music came to an end, a split second before Atherton was going to ask him to turn it off. ‘I wonder if you can remember this man coming in,’ he said into the ringing silence, handing over the mugshot. ‘It was a while ago.’
Chilcott was looking puzzled and already shaking his head, and Atherton went on, ‘We think he came into your shop on the Tuesday after Easter. It would probably have been a quiet day, so we hoped you might remember him. He was wearing cords and a sports jacket, slightly posh-looking bloke. He bought a CD from you.’
‘Oh, yeah, I remember him,’ Chilcott said. ‘I wouldn’t have known him from this picture though. What is he, asleep?’
Atherton sidestepped that one. ‘You do remember him?’ he insisted.
‘Yeah. Actually, now I know who you mean, I can see it’s him. But it’s a funny picture. He was a walk-in. I saw him going by, as if he wasn’t going to stop, but as he passes the open door he sort of stops. Must have heard the music. It was a Blur single I was playing – I think it was Beetlebum. So he comes in. He looks like a Blur, Oasis kind of guy – you know, a bit older, dressed like a grown-up.’
‘Had you seen him before?’
‘Not that I know of. Anyway he gives me a sort of nod, and starts looking through the racks but I could tell it was the CD he was listening to. It happens all the time,’ he said with a faint sigh and a glance towards the two lingerers, who were evidently waiting for him to put something else on, pretending to be occupied while watching him out of the corner of their eyes, like dogs hanging about near the biscuit tin. ‘They just come in for the music and don’t buy anything. But you gotta get ’em in first, so when the Blur single finishes I put something else on, and suddenly he’s not looking any more, he’s listening like someone’s put a couple of thousand volts through him.’
‘The music meant something to him?’ Atherton hazarded.
‘Yeah – I’ll tell you. When the music stopped he came straight up to the counter, all smiles, and I was just about to tell him what I’d been playing when he tells me. “That was Breaking Wave,” he says. “I Didn’t Mean It, 2005. I didn’t think that was still on sale anywhere.” So I said, “Breaking Wave’s a bit of a cult.” That’s what we do here – vintage and cult bands.’
‘Breaking Wave,’ Atherton said. ‘I don’t think I’ve heard of them.’
‘They were never very big,’ Chilcott said. ‘They did a couple of singles that got in the charts, and the one album, and then they disappeared. Happens all the time. But their video for I Didn’t Mean It went viral on YouTube and they became a cult overnight. Minor cult,’ he added fairly.
‘But this man did buy the CD?’ Atherton insisted.
‘Yes, the album.’
‘How did he pay?’
Chilcott looked puzzled. ‘What d’you mean, how?’
‘Cash, cheque, plastic?’ Atherton said, mental fingers crossed.
‘Well, I don’t remember,’ Chilcott said reasonably. ‘Not this long after. Probably plastic though, given he was a smart-looking bloke.’
‘Is there any way you can find out? Do you have records you can check?’
Chilcott frowned at him. The two idlers had got bored and wandered out. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘d’you mind my asking what all this is about? What’s the CD got to do with it? Has this bloke done something?’
Atherton decided to come clean. ‘He’s been found dead and we don’t know who he is. We thought you might know him, or have a record of his name, OK?’
Chilcott had stalled at the beginning of the speech. ‘Dead? What d’you mean, dead?’
‘It looks as though he committed suicide.’
‘Fuck,’ Chilcott said reverently. ‘Poor guy. What a bummer.’ A beat. ‘What, right after he bought the Breaking Wave CD? I didn’t think it was that bad.’
People do sometimes find themselves resorting to humour when they are put off balance. Atherton thought it kindest to ignore it. ‘So, can you help us? Do you have records of the sales?’
Chilcott pulled himself together. ‘Yeah, I keep a record of everything I sell. ’Course, I don’t write down everyone’s name, but as it happens,’ he added with a gleam of intelligence, ‘I’ve still got a card-swipe machine – haven’t been able to afford a new chip-and-pin job – so I have the flimsies. And the flimsies show the name.’
‘Brilliant!’ said Atherton
He looked pleased. ‘I’ll have to look it up.’
‘Of course.’
‘Now?’
‘If you would.’
‘Fairly sure. Start there, anyway, and see how you get on.’
Chilcott nodded and became businesslike. ‘I only had the one copy of I Didn’t Mean It. I’ll look in the sales book first.’ He went through the doorway behind him to the back office and came back in a moment with a sales ledger which he slapped down in front of Atherton. He opened it, riffled through the pages, then started running his finger down the columns. ‘Here it is. You’re right, it was Tuesday twenty-sixth. Paid by Visa.’ He looked up. ‘I’ll have to go through the flimsies. It’ll take a minute. Can you watch the shop for me? Give a yell if anyone wants anything?’
It took ten minutes. Someone did come and put their head round the door – Atherton couldn’t have sworn it wasn’t one of the previous idlers – but went away again, presumably because there was no music. And then Chilcott was back, flushed with accomplishment. ‘Got it!’ he said. ‘It was a NatWest Visa. Here’s the number. And the name was B.J. Corley.’
There was an odd thrill for Atherton in hearing the right name for the first time. ‘You’re absolutely sure?’
‘That’s the name on the credit card he used. I don’t know if that was his real name, do I? I mean, he might have stolen it. Except he didn’t look the type. And the payment went through OK. Like I said, I only had the one copy of that CD, so there’s no doubt about that.’
‘Right. Well, thank you very much,’ Atherton said. ‘You’ve been a great help.’
He was turning away when Chilcott said, ‘I can’t get over he killed himself. He seemed such a nice bloke.’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘I had the feeling I’d seen him somewhere before, when he came in.’
‘But you said you didn’t know him?’
‘No, he just looked a bit familiar, I can’t say why.’ He shrugged. ‘But maybe he just had that kind of face.’
The credit-card company was able immediately to supply an address for B.J. Corley, and promised to email a list of all recent transactions on the card.
‘Wynnstay Gardens,’ Swilley said, looking over Atherton’s shoulder. ‘Where’s that?’
‘It’s just off Allen Street,’ said Slider. ‘Kensington High Street. And the cabbie said he picked him up by Allen Street, so that fits.’ It was a strange relief at last to know the victim’s name.
‘If that is him,’ Swilley said, echoing the proprietor of Vinyl Heaven. ‘He might have stolen the card.’
They looked up the telephone number but there was no reply, not even an answering machine.
‘We’d better get round there and see what we can find,’ Slider said. ‘Atherton – with me. Swilley, see what there is on record for the name or the address. The rest of you, carry on with what you were doing.’
Wynnstay Gardens was a shallow crescent with both ends on Allen Street. It was lined with handsome five-storey red-brick Victorian mansion blocks, which had always been luxurious, each with a lift and porter. With their proximity to Kensington High Street, they were going for the better part of two million quid these days.
Atherton gave a soundless whistle. ‘How could our victim afford to live there? And if he could, why did he work in porn flicks and pretend to live in Conningham Road? I’m beginning to think he must have stolen that card.’
‘Don’t say that. If we don’t find answers here, we’ll be right up a close.’
There was no reply to the doorbell, down at street level, so the first thing was to winkle out the porter, who to begin with was unwilling to be winkled, until Slider suggested he could stay put and they’d break the door down. Then he emerged like a hermit crab, slightly sidelong because of a spectacular limp, rumbling and grumbling and clutching a bunch of keys. He was probably in his sixties, Slider guessed, and despite the limp he moved briskly enough, leading the way to the lift, with its elaborate wrought-iron gates and mahogany-panelled interior.
‘We don’t have any trouble here,’ he offered gratis. ‘People don’t pay this sort of money for a place to cause trouble. And my building’s a quiet building. No rentals, all owner-occupied. There’s one down the road that’s nearly all rented, crying shame I call it, tore out the insides and tarted ’em up all modern, renting ’em out to dear knows who, rich foreigners and film stars. All right, they got money but it lets the tone of the place down. When I was a lad, renting wasn’t known, not at all. My dad was porter here before me and he knew all the families, not just this building but the ’ole street. People don’t stay put any more, that’s the problem with the world today. If everyone stayed put, we’d all be better off.’
‘I’m sure you know all the tenants here, don’t you?’ Slider said flatteringly. It was close quarters in the lift, which moved with elegant Victorian slowness, and the old man smelled of hair and paregoric sweets.
‘The ones that’ve been here a while, I do. There’s a couple of newcomers. Seem all right,’ he added grudgingly. ‘We’ll have to see.’
‘What about Mr Corley?’ Slider asked. ‘Has he lived here long?’
‘Prac’ly all his life,’ the porter said triumphantly, as if that proved some point he had been making. The lift shuddered gently to a halt, and he clashed open the gate and sidled out. ‘Fourth floor,’ he said. ‘These are the best flats, up here. Quieter, and the air’s cleaner. Always cost the most, the ones up the top. Closer to heaven, that’s what I always say to my ladies and gentlemen. Just my little joke. Closer to heaven, see?’ He pointed upwards.
The air was cool and smelled of furniture polish, and there was a feeling of great stillness. The heavy mahogany doors of the three flats on this floor looked massive and motionless and a little reproachful, as though even this much noise and disturbance was unwelcome.
The porter approached the door on the left, bringing his keys into the operative position. ‘Course it’s not his flat, stric’ly speaking. It’s his mum and dad’s. But they’ve been living out East – ooh – must be nine, ten years now. They come back for holidays, but mostly it’s young Mr Corley who uses it. And his sister visits now and then. Little nipper of five he was, when he first come here, and his sister was seven. That was when Mrs Manningham died – his great-aunt – who owned the flat before. So that’s three generations have lived here. That’s the way it always used to be, in my father’s day. You knew where you were then.’
He rang the bell and knocked, paused for a moment listening, then unlocked the deadlock, put the Yale in and opened the door. ‘Porter here. Anyone home?’ he called. And hearing no reply, he pushed the door all the way open and stood aside to let Slider and Atherton pass.
‘So what’s all this about, then, anyway?’ he asked, coming in behind them and closing the door. ‘Why you asking about Mr Corley? What’s he done?’
‘I’m sorry to tell you that he seems to have committed suicide,’ Slider said, and turned back to see what effect it would have.
The porter stared at him, his mouth slightly open, his brows bent in surprised disbelief. And then he said, ‘No. You made a mistake. No, he wouldn’t do that, not Mr Corley. Not young Ben. It’d break his parents’ heart, and he’d never do that. No, you made a mistake.’
The door had opened on to a large and handsome vestibule, containing a mahogany bookcase and a Regency side table with a massive mirror over it. On the walls were several watercolour paintings, and two portraits in oils of a young man of about eighteen and a young woman perhaps a little older, taken sitting with the same background, of a tall window and a crimson velvet curtain. The young man, Slider noticed sadly, was unmistakably their corpse, although in the portrait his hair was very dark.
‘Is this him?’ he asked the porter.
‘Yes, that’s Ben. And his sister, the next one. That’s Jennifer.’
‘Then I’m afraid there’s no mistake. That’s the same man. I’m very sorry.’
The porter’s jaw was stuck out in stubborn disbelief. ‘He’d never do a thing like that,’ he said again.
Reluct
antly, Slider produced the mug shot. The porter stared, and slowly subsided on to a chair beside the door. ‘Excuse me,’ he said more faintly. ‘I gotter sit down.’
‘That is him, isn’t it?
He nodded. ‘But whatever’s happened to his hair? Lovely black hair he had. And last time I saw him he had a beard. Didn’t like it much, made him look like a pirate, but he said it was the fashion. What’s happened? I don’t understand.’
Slider took a quick look round while Atherton kept an eye on the porter, who had asked for a glass of water.
The flat was enormous, big rooms with high ceilings, elaborate marble fireplaces, moulded cornices, heavy mahogany doors. There were servants’ bells in every room, and behind the huge kitchen was a servant’s bedroom and service door. He could see why they were worth so much, and also why it would be a crying shame to rip out all the original detail and modernize it.
It wasn’t furnished like a young man’s home, and it was easy to work out that the furnishings had been passed down along with the flat. There were old Turkish and Chinese carpets on the floors, large pieces of antique furniture, lamps from a dozen different periods, paintings on every wall, old clocks and fine-china ornaments, vases, figurines, framed photographs galore. A grand piano. And books everywhere: the alcoves were filled with shelves and there were besides several tall mahogany bookcases like the one in the vestibule. A flat for sitting down and being comfortable in, which probably hadn’t looked much different at any time in its life.
It was also evidence of a wealthy, cultured family, which threw the mystery of ‘Robin Williams’ into sharp relief. Even if all this stuff belonged to his parents rather than him, surely if he had needed money he could have gone to them rather than to Ransom House?
Blood Never Dies Page 11
