by Roy Lewis
‘And written a few books.’
‘Well, they’re really photographic essays,’ Gilbert replied smugly. ‘Shall I get some backing for this print or will you just roll it—’
‘I suppose this line of work takes you about the country a fair bit,’ Cardinal interrupted.
Gilbert shrugged. ‘Certainly around the northern counties. I’ve tended to restrict my work to Lancashire, Durham, and Cumbria, both for aesthetic reasons and as a way of staying away from some of those sharks down south. I tell you, it’s criminal what they charge for gallery displays—’
‘Very interesting.’ Cardinal cut him short and turned to Grout. ‘By the way, I’ve had some further information about Gus Clifford. He was seen in London yesterday afternoon, so he’s not away yet. And we’ve also arranged to get details of the fencing arrangements in place for some of the art thefts last year. It would seem the pieces in question, which we are certain Clifford was involved with, were moved out to Switzerland to a receiver who was the director of a registered auction company in Basel. Each picture was catalogued then sold on to a member of the ring. Each ‘sale’ gave the picture provenance, a spurious legal coverage so that when it was passed on to a private buyer – not in open auction, of course – he’d have some paperwork to cover his back in due course. The buyers are probably up to the whole fiddle, up to their necks no doubt, but that’s where we’ve got so far.’
Cardinal smiled. Grout stared at him, astonished that Cardinal would be speaking so freely in front of Paul Gilbert. Then Cardinal turned to the photographer. ‘You’ve heard of Clifford, I suppose?’
Gilbert’s features displayed only polite interest.
‘Clifford? Is he a dealer?’
‘I suppose you could call him that,’ Cardinal said and laughed.
‘I’m not sure … I can’t really place the name among the people I’ve been dealing with over the years.’
‘No matter. But these trips of yours, when you traipse around photographing things, I suppose you keep a record of them?’
‘Naturally, since I have expenses to note for my accounts, and believe me, I have a meticulous accountant. And I need the records for the shots, of course, to use them as the basis of captions I’ll use later in my publications. You can forget so easily, when you’re moving around. So I have records of dates, places, atmospheric conditions, lens focal number, exposure time, all the professional data that one needs to maintain to—’
‘Yes, I’m sure. But it’s just the places you’ve visited that I’m interested in.’ Cardinal’s tone was still affable and relaxed as he smiled benignly at Gilbert. ‘So, let’s test your memory. Let’s take a random date. Let’s say 9th March last year.’
‘Ninth of March.’ Gilbert screwed up his eyes in thought. ‘Not easy … March … hold on, yes, that’s when I would’ve been working the border castles. I was somewhere around Berwick round about that date. I was working my way gradually south.’
Cardinal seemed genuinely pleased. ‘Very good! So let’s try another. February this year?’
Gilbert nodded, at ease now. ‘Beginning of the month, that’s easy. I was in Leeds. After that, I moved up to Durham but for details I’d have to consult my diary of course, my working diary, that is—’
‘Odd, really.’ Some of the relaxed ease was leaching from Cardinal’s manner and Grout detected a certain edge of steel entering his tone. ‘It’s interesting, but on 9th March last year there happened to have been a theft of jewellery from the Delavere mansion in Northumberland. Not too far from Berwick, yes? And in February of this year an auction room in Sunderland was raided and some valuable silver stolen. You were in Durham, you say?’
‘I don’t see …’ The immediate protestation on Gilbert’s lips died. His eyes widened, and he stared at Cardinal as though he was looking at a particularly poisonous snake. ‘You’re hardly suggesting … Northumberland is a big county.’
‘So is Durham,’ Cardinal replied flatly. ‘Equally, a job that takes you around the counties regularly can be a good cover for nefarious activity such as the looting of auction rooms … or being on hand to accept stuff and dispose of it according to instructions. And you say you’ve never heard of Gus Clifford?’
Gilbert shook his head angrily. ‘You must be mad! You can’t be suggesting—’
‘I’m not suggesting anything yet, Mr Gilbert. I’m just asking questions. I’m simply pointing out a few facts to you. Now let’s add to them. You stayed at the same hotel as a woman who was probably tied in with a member of a gang of thieves. A man by the name of Rigby. I don’t suppose you know him, either, hey? You were seen with this woman, spoke to her, took her photograph – with or without her permission – and tried to seduce her about the time her boyfriend got his skull crushed. Before, or maybe after, you were failing miserably to get what you wanted. But we don’t really have a timeline on all this, do we? Did the events coincide? Or did one follow on from the other?’
Gilbert bobbed up in his seat. Indignation scored his features, alarm squeaked in his voice. ‘But what you’re saying, what you’re implying, it’s all wrong! It’s twisted! It wasn’t like that. I never saw the dead man before I found him up at the bath house. And the girl, I was just—’
‘You were just what?’ Cardinal sneered. ‘Just trying to make time with her behind her boyfriend’s back?’
‘I’m telling you I didn’t even know her, never met her before that night. I didn’t know the man up at Chesters, and I didn’t know he was linked to her. As for all this rubbish about thefts in the northern counties, I can’t see what it’s got to do with me.’
Cardinal silenced his tirade with a sharp gesture. He rose from his chair and advanced menacingly upon Gilbert. ‘Don’t play games with me, Gilbert,’ he snarled, injecting venom into his tone. ‘You’ve already held up our investigations by withholding evidence.’
‘I swear to you I never saw that woman before that night!’
‘But you wanted to see her again, isn’t that right?’
Something again kicked in with Grout. Cardinal had earlier spoken of the woman as mysterious, and unfortunate. He looked at the detective chief inspector and then glanced at Gilbert. The man’s features were covered in a light sheen of sweat. He stared at Cardinal with the eyes of a dog that had been unjustly kicked.
‘What car do you drive?’ Cardinal asked quietly.
‘It’s … it’s a Ford Focus.’
‘Colour?’
‘Light green. What—’
‘Is that the car outside the garage?’ Cardinal interrupted him.
Gilbert licked dry lips. He nodded, scared. ‘Yes, that’s the one. Why do you ask?’
Cardinal grimaced, stared at him silently for several seconds then turned away and glanced at Grout.
‘We found the woman.’
Grout made no reply. He was watching Gilbert. Plain terror now glared out of the man’s eyes as he riveted his attention on Cardinal’s back.
‘I received a call from the Sheffield police,’ Cardinal explained coldly. ‘They’d been presented with a corpse answering the description we put out. Her real name’s Eloise Parker. Or was. So we won’t really need Mr Gilbert’s photograph of her now, not for identification purposes, at least. Miss Parker has been strangled. Attractive she might have been, but she’s not pretty any longer.’ He looked at Gilbert, scowled. ‘Maybe you’d like to take another photograph for your album. Sort of before and after, if you know what I mean.’
‘That’s sick,’ Gilbert croaked.
‘Don’t like ’em dead, do you?’ Cardinal’s mouth twisted unpleasantly. He observed the man carefully for a little while, noting the stains of vomit on his clothing. ‘Were you hitting the bottle hard last night?’
Gilbert made no reply.
‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me, Mr Gilbert, what precisely you were doing yesterday and the day before? Working? Or checking on photographic agencies?’
‘Why would I want to do that?’
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‘Because the woman you met at The George Hotel worked as a model. My feeling is you knew that … or guessed it.’
Gilbert shivered. ‘I want to see my solicitor,’ he whispered.
‘That’s your privilege,’ Cardinal grunted, unmoved. Gilbert nevertheless seemed incapable of movement, so he went on, ‘Someone’s been checking up on the dead woman … we know that from the agencies. A neighbour saw a car outside her place. Was it your car, Gilbert?’ When Gilbert still made no reply, Cardinal suddenly snapped, ‘Was it because she still wouldn’t have you that you killed her?’
Gilbert leaped to his feet, stood there swaying unsteadily. He was shuddering and his eyes were wild. He glared at Cardinal, then at Grout and seemed to lose control. ‘You’re crazy! You can’t believe that! I don’t know what you’re talking about! I was never—’
‘A light green Ford Focus was seen parked near the flat where the dead girl was found. It was your car, Gilbert – admit it! Come on, you’ve left a trail any fool can follow. First you withhold information, fail to help identify the woman, then you check with the agencies, find her address and go parking outside her flat! If it wasn’t your fingers who tightened the belt that throttled the life out of her—’
The last vestiges of resistance crumbled in Paul Gilbert. He glanced wildly about him, as though he felt himself trapped. ‘This is madness! I … I never … my car… All right, all right, I admit I went there, but I didn’t … I never touched her. She was dead before I even got into the flat.’ He stopped suddenly, moaned. ‘I want to phone my solicitor. …’
Cardinal’s tone was suddenly gentler. ‘All right, my friend, you can talk to your solicitor. Use your mobile or the house phone. But before you do, off the record, you might like to tell us your side of this story. What do you have to lose? If your story checks out we can let you just fade from the scene. No more hassle. So what do you say?’
Gilbert grabbed eagerly at the opportunity. The story was quickly, if incoherently, related. Grout listened while Gilbert gabbled his tale to Cardinal, and recognized the bottled-up tension in the man, the sexual frustration, the blow to his pride by the rejection he had suffered at Chesters. Gilbert was a womaniser; there was no telling what degree of success he was accustomed to obtaining but it was certain that his failure with Eloise Parker had hit him hard. It had built up a determination to seek her out, find her, persuade her into a closer relationship with him. What he had to say largely confirmed what Cardinal had already suggested.
It had not been too difficult, Gilbert explained, finding her. He had noted a certain grace, a way of carrying herself that had suggested to his experienced eye that she had worked as a professional model. He had his own shot of the girl so he had simply checked with the photographic agencies known to him, narrowed the search down to five firms and had been given access to their files in view of his own recognized status as a photographer. He had wheedled the information out of the last agency, learned her name and obtained her address, even though it seemed she had somewhat faded from the modelling scene of recent months. She lived in Sheffield. He had gone there.
‘The flat was rented by Joseph Rigby, the man whose body you found,’ Cardinal said coldly.
‘I knew nothing about that.’ Gilbert’s immediate reaction changed and his eyes widened. ‘Rigby … you say that was the man I found up at Chesters, but how was I to know his identity?’
‘The dead man was the woman’s lover.’
‘I didn’t know that. How could I? I didn’t know who she was, didn’t know she was tied up with this man when I met her. How the hell could I? I only met her for the first time at The George Hotel that night!’
‘But how did you expect to press your suit,’ Grout asked, ‘by going round to her place in Sheffield?’
‘Press his suit?’ Cardinal asked, wonderingly. Grout was certainly of the old school, in spite of his age. Grout shot an irritated glance in his direction.
‘I’d got her photograph,’ Gilbert babbled. ‘I just thought … if I went there and told her I’d kept it from the police, how I was looking after her, keeping her out of trouble, well, she might be … grateful, me helping her escape the attention of the police.’
‘But not escaping your attentions,’ Grout murmured. Cardinal was still staring at him, clearly amazed by Grout’s choice of words. Gilbert rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘So, Mr Gilbert, what happened when you got there?’ Cardinal asked.
‘I … I went to the address. She wasn’t in. I parked, waited in the street for a few hours. I wanted to see her,’ he said miserably. ‘I must have been crazy. But after what happened … or really, didn’t happen – at Chesters … at the hotel she was just another woman. But later … I couldn’t forget her. It was like I was on fire. Couldn’t keep still. Couldn’t get her out of my mind.’
‘So you waited in the street,’ Cardinal said, prodding to get him on with his story, rather than wallow in his frustrated misery.
‘I left to get something to eat about eight, I hadn’t eaten all day. Then I came back, waited, left to get some petrol before the station closed, came back and it was only then that I tried her door again. This time … it was unlocked. I went in. I called out.’ He took a gulp of air. ‘I called … and then I saw her.’
‘What time was this?’
Gilbert shrugged, shook his head. ‘I can’t be certain. About 12.30 I guess. Maybe a bit later. I don’t know. I was in shock.’
‘Why didn’t you report her death to the police?’ Cardinal asked.
Gilbert hesitated. ‘I was in shock, I just told you! I got out of there fast, like a bat out of hell. But I did think of calling in. I took out my mobile phone, was about to make a report, then realized if I made the call it could be traced later even if I didn’t leave my name … and I didn’t want to be involved. Too many questions. Too much hassle. Too much explaining to do. So I never made the call. I kept my head down. I drove home.’
He shivered as though someone was walking over his grave.
‘When I got home I couldn’t sleep. I took a few drinks, but it didn’t help. I lay awake all night, absolutely terrified. I didn’t feel I could go to the police, couldn’t explain about her, about the photographs, finding her dead. I was afraid …’
‘You’ve made things a damn sight worse for yourself,’ Cardinal growled, ‘and impeded our investigations. Couldn’t you see delay would make your story more difficult to believe?’
‘Look, I swear I didn’t kill her! I didn’t even touch her when I found her. I wanted her, I lusted after her, couldn’t get her out of my mind. Now I can’t get the memory of her just lying there, different, horrible … I can’t eat. I can’t sleep, I’ve been drinking, I went out to a pub, and when I got back here tonight and saw a strange car in the drive the panic just overwhelmed me. I’ve been sick as a dog …’
After Gilbert had been taken out to the squad car that Cardinal had called in, to be taken to York to make a complete statement, Cardinal joined Grout as he gathered up piles of photographs recently taken by the photographer on his expeditions. He watched him push a thick wad of prints on Chesters Fort into a file and tie it up with string.
‘So, you reckon his story stands up?’
Grout tucked the file under his arm, looked down at the floor and shrugged. ‘I don’t know, sir. He’s probably telling the truth, to my mind. But what about your remarks regarding the Clifford gang? Do we really have anything to back up the suggestion Gilbert was involved with Clifford?’
Cardinal grunted and shook his head ‘Nothing, really. I was just testing the water, and trying to throw a scare into him. I wanted to see how he’d react. But we got nothing, really.’ He sighed. ‘Well, we’ll get a team in to turn this place upside down, see what we find. But like you I get the feeling Gilbert has no link to Clifford … and probably no link to Rigby. He just stumbled upon the body… . It was all just coincidence.’
‘You’re ruling out the possibi
lity this could have been a crime – the killing of the woman – that had nothing to do with Gilbert getting revenge, or letting his anger overcome him when he got rejected a second time?’
‘You think he’s the type?’ Cardinal didn’t wait for an answer. ‘No, I think Gilbert’s no strong-arm man. I think we need to look elsewhere for the woman’s killer.’
‘Clifford?’
‘He’s still around in the background, isn’t he?’
‘So how do you see it all, sir?’ Grout asked carefully.
‘I’m not sure yet.’ Cardinal bit his lip, chewed at it thoughtfully. ‘The evidence we’ve got so far makes a hazy picture but I think I can see some possibilities emerging. I have the feeling maybe Rigby was wanting to get out of the organization, or possibly Clifford caught him with his fingers in the till on his own account, something along those lines. He didn’t move fast enough and Clifford caught up with him. Gus Clifford was either up at Chesters himself, or sent one of his thugs, or even a contracted killer, and Rigby was sent to hell.’
‘And the girl?’ Grout asked.
Cardinal shrugged. ‘She was probably tied in with Rigby. And knew too much for her own health. Just like Gilbert, Clifford would have traced her easily enough. And now she’s dead. He’s tied up the loose ends, it seems.’
‘That still doesn’t explain what Rigby was doing up there at Chesters.’
Cardinal nodded. ‘That’s why I’d like to go through all the shots that Gilbert took in that area. I don’t know what we’ll be looking for, but who knows what’ll turn up? Maybe he’ll have photographed something that’ll give us a lead. We know he went into the storeroom; he might have shot something that’ll help us with the cataloguing … because I still have a gut feeling there was something in that storeroom that Rigby – and maybe Clifford too – wanted. We’ll need to check his photographs against the list you tell me that young man Proud gave you.’
He led the way out of the house and stood in the driveway, sniffing at the air. ‘First thing, we’ll get a statement out of Gilbert. He’ll be our guest for the night in the nick. By morning he might have cleared his mind a bit and come up with something else for us. Me, I’m off back to London. There’s a conference with the Mets to attend. We’ll be going over the cock-up that let Gus Clifford dance free. The whisper now is that he’s probably already left the country. There are signs that his organization is being wound up: the rats are scattering.’