- 7 -
Detective Inspector Paisley sat down opposite Ben in the clients’ sampling area and pulled the low table towards him. He placed his interview file neatly to his left, took out the first sheet of statement paper and set it in front of him. From his inside pocket he took two cheap ballpoint pens, one of which he placed at the head of the sheet of paper. With some deliberation he removed the cap from the other and placed that alongside.
He nodded at Ben. “I prefer to take the statements myself, face to face. That way I get a full picture.”
Ben sat mute and watched as the inspector laboriously filled out the details at the top of the form, using his second pen when necessary as a ruler to underline the headings. He glanced at his watch. It was already half past midnight. Time was dragging.
To start with he had been relegated to the role of tea-maker for the large number of people who’d turned up – patrolmen, detectives, a doctor, scene-of-crime officers, a photographer, a specialist security man to check the locks and alarm systems, a police-woman to offer help to Mollie – it seemed to go on for ever. The inspector had painstakingly tried to extract a logical statement from Mollie while Ben had been told to wait at the other side of the shop. A police car had taken her home nearly an hour ago.
Then Ben had been required to help in a minute search of the shop and offices to see what had been removed and whether anything had been left behind by the intruders. That had uncovered nothing of significance. Then he was allowed to tidy up the remains of the upturned display unit in the shop. Now at last it was his turn to be questioned.
From the office there came a soft mumble which was the pathologist describing his preliminary investigation of the body in intimate detail to a recording machine, watched by a horrified young detective. The combined effects of shock and fatigue seemed to make the sound rise and fall irregularly in his ears.
“Now – Mr Cartwright . . .”
With an effort Ben concentrated on Paisley’s face.
“ . . . I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but I do like to have written statements from any other witnesses before I interview the primary witness. It saves me from having to keep returning to you to ask further questions if new points are raised. Do you understand?”
Ben nodded a little nervously. He noticed the inspector still had a faint Scottish burr to his accent.
“Now – I understand that you have known the deceased for over six years. Can you explain how you met?”
Ben tried to order his thoughts. “I believe it was at a wine fair in Paris.”
Paisley waited a few seconds but the young man didn’t add anything further. “Any special significance in Paris?”
“Well – it’s the biggest centre of wine-trading in the world.” The words started to tumble out of him. “France is the biggest wine producer in the world, even now. It’s the place to go if you want to buy or sell wine wholesale. I had only recently taken over my father’s business – this business. My father had died the previous year. It was the first time I’d been to anything like that.”
“And your partner?”
“Pardon.”
“What was the reason for the deceased being at the Paris Wine Fair?”
“Oh, Toni is a member of the Cimbrone family.” He felt an absurd desire to giggle as he spelled out the name for Paisley. “They have been wine producers for generations in Southern Italy. They had a stand at Paris to promote their wines.” He shrugged. “Well, somehow we got talking.”
He remembered that until then he had made the common mistake of thinking Italian wines were solely for the cheap, poor quality end of the market. It had taken Toni a long time and several subsequent visits to Ben’s shop to convince him that there was also a range of quality Italian wines which was more reasonably priced than the French but equally as good.
The inspector stopped writing and looked up at him. “And this led to your setting up a business partnership?”
“In the end - yes. But not for nearly two years.”
“How did that come about?”
“Well.” Ben thought for a minute. “A few weeks after our first meeting he called in to see me. I agreed to try some of his wines on a sale or return basis. A lot of my customers are discerning wine drinkers who like to try something different for a change. They, like me, were pleasantly surprised and gradually the wines began to take off. So Toni started to call on me every three months or so to extend the range. We soon discovered that people were asking for his latest selections. So we decided that there was a real gap in the market and in due course we formed a joint company to exploit it.”
The inspector wrinkled his nose. “And your working relationship has been - er - harmonious?”
“Yes, the business has been a great success.”
“However I understand that you were under the impression that Mr - er - Cimbrone - ” (he didn’t quite manage to get hold of the name) “- had returned to Italy.”
“Well, yes. I haven’t seen him for more than three weeks. His father died suddenly at the end of last month. He went home for the funeral and expected to be away for several weeks. In any case he spends quite a lot of his time in Italy at this season of the year. He is the buying half of the company.”
“And you’ve heard nothing from him since he left?”
Ben shook his head. “I didn’t expect to. There was no real need for contact unless something unusual came up. We both deal with our own sides of the business. I had his mobile number. If I couldn’t get hold of him that way, I could contact him through his family if necessary.”
“So you’re not absolutely sure that he ever left this country?”
Ben tried to drag his disorganized thoughts into line. “Well - I suppose not,” he said slowly. “But I think I would have heard from his family if he hadn’t arrived.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ll have to ring them first thing in the morning to ask when he left them. God knows how I’ll break his death to them.”
“And there was no indication that he intended to return to this country during the last few days?"
“No. I was absolutely shattered when I found him lying on the floor.”
The inspector raised his eyebrows. “Do you mean you expected the victim to be someone else?”
“No!” Was the man trying to catch him out? “No, of course not. I didn’t expect anything like - well, like that. I thought at first that the alarm was just another break-in by young vandals. We had one last year while I was away. At first I was surprised that there was no mess in the shop.”
Paisley nodded and opened his mouth, but Ben hurried on.
“I’ve suddenly thought of something. After our last trouble we installed a new alarm system with infra-red sensors. But it was the old one on the front door which went off.” He snapped his fingers. “Why didn’t I think of that before? I’m sure I switched on both alarms before I locked up this evening.”
“Who has the keys?”
“Only Toni and I - and the alarm company, of course. So they – the killers - must have used his keys. I’ve still got mine.” He dug in his pocket and held them out for inspection.
“That’s very interesting. Can you show me the control panel?”
Ben took him to the cupboard in the secretary’s office, being careful to keep his eyes averted from the gruesome scene on his own office floor. Sure enough, there was a key in the panel and the system was turned off.
“Don’t touch anything,” said the inspector unnecessarily. “Let me see your key.”
Ben passed it to Paisley. “The one in the panel must be Toni’s. The alarm company advised that we shouldn’t keep any spares.”
“We’ll check it for prints. This is the installer’s name on the box?”
Ben nodded. That seemed obvious to him.
“OK. Let’s carry on, shall we?” The inspector started to lead him back to the report table.
“A moment of your time please, Inspector Paisley,” said the pathologist
as they were about to go.
Ben went back on his own and sat down while the two men talked quietly out of his hearing. He put his head in his hands. He couldn’t understand it. He had been so sure that Toni was fifteen hundred miles away in Southern Italy. Why had his friend come back without warning him? From the mess in the office it looked as though his murderers had been looking for something in that room but Ben had no idea what it might have been.
He never had any reason to suspect that Toni might be keeping any secrets from him about the business - or about his private life, for that matter. Toni wasn’t that kind of person. He was always very open. Ben had also received no intimation that his partner might have had enemies who would wish to murder him. Thinking about it, he had to admit that he knew relatively little about Toni’s family and his other connections in Italy. He had met members of the Cimbrone family in a formal kind of way on two or three other occasions. His mind wandered back to vague memories of sunny days at the villa in Posillipo. He had also spent a holiday there a couple of years ago. That was the one which had ended in the tragic death of Toni’s brother-in-law, Carlos. Ben hadn’t visited Italy since.
The Mafia Emblem Page 7
