by William Paul
‘Have you checked the streets round old Zena’s house?’
‘No.’
‘If she’s genuine that will be what she means and you’ll find it there. If he drove there he didn’t get the chance to drive away again, did he?’
‘I never thought of that.’
‘And does the radio station have a record of where the call came in from?’
‘I’ll check.’
Sapalski paused, thinking whether there was anything else he could set in motion to find out if this was a breakthrough or a blind alley. He would have known already if he had stayed on. But the prospect was exciting. Wealthy New Town lawyers didn’t normally walk around in overalls, balaclavas, and surgical gloves. He remembered the neatly manicured fingernails. If it was true, there was an extremely strange story to flesh out in the reconstruction of Zena’s last hours on earth.
‘Find the partners in his law firm too. Maybe they know where this chap Randolph is.’
‘We’re on to that. By the way, so are the newspapers. I think Tam Spurious called them before he called us. They will be queuing up outside Randolph’s as I speak.’
‘It’s done now. We’ll have to live with it. Where is Chief Inspector Fyfe?’
‘Vanished. Should I contact him?’
‘No. Let’s wait and see if this stands up before dragging him in. We’ve already ruined one round of golf for him this afternoon, let’s not ruin his entire day.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Sunday, 16.22
Fyfe found an off-licence that was just closing and persuaded the shopkeeper to give him enough time to buy a bottle of wine. He grabbed the first one he came to on the shelves, a Sicilian red, without looking at the price and had to pay a lot more than he expected to, scraping together just enough loose change to cover the cost.
He sat in his car opposite Hilary’s address for several minutes, watching and waiting. It was a first-floor flat on the end of a terraced row marked off by a succession of walls and hedges. Its entrance was at the side through a gate and down the side of a garage. The light was on in her flat and the one directly below. Seagulls perched among the chimney pots. A smirr of rain was falling. The street was full of cars but empty of people, except for occasional pedestrians hurrying past followed by the vapour trails of their breath. The surface of the road shone wetly. He phoned in to headquarters and deliberately didn’t say where he was or what he was doing. Sapalski wasn’t back from his visit home, but once he was he could handle any routine stuff that cropped up. Fyfe was too senior an officer for anybody there to demand an explanation. He eventually found Detective Sergeant Bill Matthewson who was on the fringe of the investigation and didn’t really know what was going on. The golf party had yet to return from Gleneagles so at least they had got their priorities right and there couldn’t be anything too dramatic under way. A cryptic message had come in for Fyfe from one of his better criminal contacts, Donaldson MacDuff, but it didn’t seem to be desperately urgent. He had sounded drunk and said he would call back the next day. Matthewson quickly ran out of things to pass on.
Fyfe’s curiosity was not stirred. He knew he should go back but he had more pressing business he didn’t want to ignore. He decided to let Sapalski and his team get on with it and wait for developments. He could afford half an hour of rest and relaxation before plunging into the fray again. That kind of time period was easily explained away, if an accounting ever became necessary. He made a conscious effort to put Zena McElhose and everything associated with her to the back of his mind. Hilary appeared at the front of it in her short black dress leaning casually with her back against the wall inside the circle of his arm.
Fyfe crossed to Hilary’s door. A security light switched on automatically when he was half-way along the path, briefly dazzling him. He rang the bell and heard its muted buzz, then the sounds of movement and footsteps rumbling downstairs. The door opened and Hilary stood in front of him wearing a pair of faded blue jeans and a plain white T-shirt. He could see she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her feet were bare. Pale eyeshadow and lipstick. Pink cheeks. Flurry, blown-dry hair. Wonderful welcoming smile. Gold chains jumbled at her throat. Fyfe wondered if he should kiss her in greeting, but before he could decide she had stepped forward, placed her hands on his shoulders and bobbed up to kiss him on the cheek.
‘It’s you then,’ she said. ‘I’m glad.’
‘Sorry I took so long but I was delayed.’
‘Crime-fighting out there?’
‘Somebody’s got to do it.’
‘Are you coming in?’
‘For a little while. I’m actually on duty.’
‘Come on in anyway.’
‘Is it safe?’
‘As safe as you like.’
‘How safe is that? Here’s the wine.’
She took it by the neck and read the label. ‘Very nice,’ she decided. ‘You do have good taste.’
‘Thanks for the compliment.’
He followed her and the subtle trail of perfume up the internal stairs. One of the back pockets of her jeans was torn and hanging off. She walked on the balls of her feet, moving with an athletic bounce. On the landing she helped Fyfe off with his coat and motioned him to go into the sitting-room. It was simply furnished with two sofas and a deep armchair. The curtains were drawn. Light came from a pair of floor-level lamps beside the fireplace which had a tall arched mirror above it and a deerskin rug in front. A low glass-topped coffee table with books and magazines blocked the main window, and a furniture unit with ornaments and stuff on back-lit shelves was against the back wall. A rubber plant grew out of a copper bucket, reaching up and bowing under the ceiling. Other plants were dotted all around. Music was playing. A female vocalist crooned like a high-pitched Bing Crosby. Fyfe didn’t recognise her voice. He took off his jacket and laid it across the arm of a sofa. He was loosening his tie when Hilary came back into the room with the wine bottle and two glasses, kicking the door shut with her heel.
‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘Don’t be shy.’
Fyfe sat on the sofa, sinking into it too far for comfort and having to wriggle forward to balance on the edge. Hilary sat cross-legged on the floor a yard from him. She filled the glasses, making a great fuss about ensuring there was exactly the same amount in both. When she was satisfied she handed one to Fyfe.
‘Cheers,’ they said simultaneously, maintaining eye contact over the crystal clink of the touching glasses and the first drink of wine.
‘Well, Chief Inspector Fyfe, I didn’t think you’d come tonight.’
‘Why not?’
She made a face. ‘I just didn’t, not after I’d given you such short shrift when you called earlier.’
‘It would take more than that to deter me.’
‘Neil was beside me. I should have played it cool but I couldn’t think quickly enough on my feet. It’s a failing of mine.’
‘I often have that problem too.’
‘It was easier just to hang up.’
‘Who did you say I was?’
‘A squash partner looking for a game.’
‘That was quick thinking. You must have done it before.’
‘No. Only with squash partners. You’re unique. I haven’t invited anybody back home since I was a carefree teenager in pig-tails and bobby sox.’
‘You don’t make a habit of picking up men at parties then?’
‘No.’ She was deadly serious.
‘Why me then?’
‘I liked the look of you.’
‘Flattery will get you everywhere. I liked the look of you too. Wait till I get my tenses right. I like the look of you now.’
She did look extremely attractive kneeling in front of him. He wanted to reach out and stroke her hair, then run his hand down her neck and down to where the T-shirt fell vertically from the horizontal line formed by the peaks of her small breasts. The nipples were just discernible through the material if he looked closely enough. Her hips and legs strained against the shri
nk-wrap jeans. Fyfe remembered back to Angela and how she flaunted her body for him the night he discovered her among the debris and the dead bodies in a place, he now realised, that was only a few miles from where he was now. A night of unrestrained lust with the lady in black in return for a future of guilt and vulnerability with his haul of stolen money stashed away. Why had he done it? How could he have been so stupid? And now what did Angela want with him after so long? She was going to blackmail him in some form or another. And he would have no choice but to obey her. It was called consequences, a game he had played as a child.
‘I’m a married woman,’ Hilary said. ‘Fifteen years the virtuous wife.’
‘And I’m a married man. Something else we have in common.’
‘I’m not going to sleep with you tonight.’
He shrugged. ‘Pity. That takes all the suspense out of the evening.’
‘I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea. I must have misled you last night at the party but I was a wee bit drunk. Then there was your phone call today and me inviting you round here. You must have thought I was desperate.’
‘I said the suspense had gone out of the evening, not the enjoyment.’
‘You’re not angry then?’
‘Disappointed would be a better word.’
‘Oh, you’re disappointed with me.’
‘Only because I’m a slave to the male stereotype and have a duty to try to sleep with you at the very first opportunity. However, when I step outside the stereotype I’m actually rather pleased.’
‘You are?’
‘Yes.’
‘How am I meant to take that?’
‘Like a lady. The pressure’s off. I don’t have to perform. I only have to be good company, and I can’t stay anyway because I’m on duty and supposed to be working.’
‘You’re not just saying that, are you?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Good.’
‘We’re just getting to know each other.’
‘Have some more wine.’
Fyfe put his glass on the floor to be filled and slid off the sofa until he was sitting on the floor beside it. His back was propped up and his knees were almost touching Hilary’s. She put down the bottle and held a full glass in each hand.
‘You know something?’ Fyfe said.
‘What?’
‘There is one thing I’d like to do.’
‘What’s that?’
‘This.’
He put his hand out to touch her chin, then leaned forward. She opened her arms wide so that he wouldn’t spill the wine and tilted her head back to make it easier for him. He kissed her lightly on the mouth, allowing the contact to linger, feeling the delicate trace of the tip of her tongue along his upper lip.
‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ she said when he had sat back.
‘I’ve done lots of things I shouldn’t have done.’
‘And have you regretted them?’
‘Mostly.’
‘Do you think you’ll regret that one?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Later?’
‘Maybe. Who knows?’ Fyfe took a glass from her and clinked it against her own. The wine came within a millimetre of spilling.
‘Here’s to being friends,’ he said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sunday, 16.59
The reporters got to Randolph’s house before Sapalski. They were poking about the empty garage, straggling up the driveway and hanging about the gate, having failed to get any response to their ringing of the doorbell. Sapalski was delayed by having to find a Justice of the Peace to sign a search warrant. Strictly speaking, the police might have had a good case if he had decided to kick the door down without official consent but a good lawyer could easily make it look intimadatory and reckless. Sapalski liked to do things by the book, especially when they were accusing a high-flying lawyer or being seriously concerned for his safety, depending on how it panned out. So a JP was found and although he raised a questioning eyebrow when he saw the name and address he signed on the dotted line. The piece of paper in Sapalski’s pocket made him feel a lot better when, with the press herded back to a safe distance, a locksmith fumbled around and opened the door. The burglar alarm started to blare.
Once an initial sweep had established there was no one at home, search teams began going through the rooms systematically. Sapalski waited impatiently in the main ground-floor living-room that was cluttered with high quality furniture and obviously expensive antiques. Wealth and affluence oozed from the gilt picture frames and the polished silver in the cabinets under the sculpted plaster of the ceiling. The hee-hawing alarm gave him a sore head and he was extremely grateful when Graham Evans, who had collected the appropriate switch-off key from the neighbours, finally found the command console under the hall stairs and was able to stop the deafening racket.
Everything was coming together neatly, Sapalski thought, and he couldn’t understand why he was so nervous. He rubbed his sticky palms together and cadged a cigarette from Evans, although he hadn’t smoked since Wilma had announced she was pregnant.
‘You sure about this, sir?’ Evans said, tapping a cigarette from his packet to hand over.
‘I’m sure,’ Sapalski answered.
‘Here you go then. Enjoy it.’
‘One won’t kill me.’
‘No. Something else will get you before the fags.’
Sapalski sucked the smoke deep into his lungs. His body welcomed the nicotine like a long-lost friend and he immediately felt the craving for more. It took away his headache and steadied the slight tremor he had noticed in his hand when he was making food for Wilma. But it didn’t cure his unaccountable nervousness. What was wrong with him? There were names being filled in, motives uncovered, and loose ends tied up. The investigation had all the hallmarks of being a job well done. Case closed almost before the body was cold. Soon he would be able to go home and stay with Wilma. Soon he would be a father, a giver of new life. He decided it must be that prospect that was making him so nervous. Where the hell was Fyfe? It would be good to have him to lean on.
‘Nice place,’ Evans was saying. ‘Must be a rich bastard to live here.’
Sapalski compared his surroundings with the simple decoration and furnishing of his own house, a newly built two-bedroomed semi-detached on an estate of virtually identical semi-detacheds. His entire floor space would have fitted into this one room. He flicked ash over the elaborate brass-edged fireguard into a grate of unburned logs and threw the glowing fag end after it. Evans was going round lifting ornaments and inspecting them the way Sapalski’s mother-in-law did when she came to visit.
‘Count your blessings,’ Sapalski said. ‘We might not be able to afford a place like this but we’re not lying in hospital about to be charged with murder.’
‘Good point,’ Evans said. ‘Are we sure it’s him?’
‘Take a look at his photograph.’
There was a definite resemblance in the photograph on top of the bureau to the man in the hospital bed. Evans peered closely and nodded in assent.
‘Have you got another cigarette?’ Sapalski demanded.
‘Sure.’
Before Evans could hand over the cigarette they were called upstairs to what was clearly Randolph’s study. A young detective opened a cupboard door that blended in so well with the panelling in the room it had to be pointed out to be noticeable. Inside were four shelves. The bottom two were empty. The others had on them a curious variety of small objects, each widely spaced and sitting on a piece of paper with a cryptic message printed on it in letters and figures. The objects in themselves were fairly unremarkable. It was the neatly ordered way they were displayed that seemed out of the ordinary. There was a squat, half-empty jar of Quink, a miniature of ten-year-old Laphroaig whisky in its round box, a set of car keys with an ancient leather tab, a cat’s flea collar, a bookend in the shape of a parrot, a paperweight with integral flower, a crude porcelain bowl, a tin opener, an
old street map of Berlin with the city still divided into east and west, a Collins Gem French-English dictionary, a computer disc, and a drinking mug that said it was a present from the Oktoberfest in Munich.
‘What’s all this about?’ Sapalski said out loud. ‘This is a pretty strange collection of junk. What does it mean?’
‘Maybe it’s some kind of Masonic ritual,’ Evans said. ‘Or a hoard of personal treasures, sentimental value only?’
Sapalski frowned uncertainly. He reckoned the numbers on the pieces of paper were dates although the normal written style was reversed with the month ahead of the day. The dates stretched back a year and formed a clear pattern of monthly intervals. The letters might be people’s initials with another element indicating place. People, place, and time. Personal mementoes of meetings, special occasions, special events? He stared at the objects and felt a curious disaffection as if they were relaying some kind of cryptic warning to him. What the hell did it all mean?
A tap on the shoulder by the same young detective who had showed Sapalski the cupboard brought his attention over to the desk in the centre of the room. It too looked unremarkable until he was shown the letter. He bent down and read the neatly printed words, unaware that his lips were moving as he scanned the few sentences. A smile had spread over his face by the time he reached the hand written signature at the end.
‘This I can understand,’ he said. ‘Now we’re beginning to have some light shed on it all.’
Evans read the letter in turn and handed Sapalski another cigarette. ‘The odds are our anonymous tip-off came from this Maureen. Randolph’s aggrieved lover. She’s obviously not a happy woman.’
Evans thumbed through his notebook. ‘Randolph’s personal assistant is a Maureen Gilliland,’ he announced.
‘Really? I have a feeling we’ll be hearing more from Maureen.’ He inhaled the calming smoke and relished the prospect of telling Fyfe what they had discovered once he reappeared. ‘From the tone of this letter I doubt if she’s finished yet.’