‘Got into trouble,’ Slider suggested helpfully.
‘He isn’t really a bad boy at heart. Just high-spirited. And he’s been spoiled. His mother and his grandfather between them have spoiled him. I wanted him to go into the law, you know, and he would have followed me into my business and been a terrific success. He’s got brains, you know. But they squabbled over him like two dogs over a bone, and the result is he hasn’t done anything. I tried to push him, but it just made him defy me. He always knew he could appeal to them, you see,’ he added bitterly, ‘and they’d always side with him. Talk about spare the rod.’ He seemed to feel he had painted the picture blacker than he meant. He looked at Slider quickly. ‘But he’s a good boy at heart. And when your boy gets into trouble and comes to you, you don’t stop to read a lecture, you help him out, don’t you? Have you got children?’
‘Two. One of each.’
‘Yes, well, you understand then. Marcus – he – I couldn’t refuse him, could I? I couldn’t let them take him to court, maybe lock him up. It would have killed him. He’s a free spirit. You can’t put sensitive people like him behind bars.’
‘So you borrowed from the trust, to pay for his – needs,’ Slider said carefully. ‘What about the oil paintings. Where did they fit in?’
Coleraine had the grace to blush a little. ‘That was – oh, God, I mishandled everything so badly! I suppose you know all there is to know about the paintings. I met a chap, an art dealer, who told me the market was just right for investing in minor masters. The recession had brought prices down, but as interest rates fell everyone was going to look for a better home for their cash, and prices were all set to rocket. As long as you bought soundly, you couldn’t fail. I was getting worried about the trust, and it seemed a way to get back on an even keel in one go. I went into it very carefully, you know. I didn’t just take this bloke’s word for it. But Christie’s agreed with everything he’d said, and buying the paintings from them I knew they had to be good.’
Slider nodded sympathetically. ‘But why didn’t you insure them?’
‘I know, I know. It sounds like madness. But at the time – you see, the premiums would have been astronomical, they would have cut into the profits; and besides that, the insurance company would have insisted on all sorts of modifications to the flat, which I could hardly have kept secret from Fay.’
‘She didn’t know about the paintings, then?’
‘Of course not.’ He looked aghast. ‘How could I tell her where I’d got the money from, and why? Anyway, I thought it would be safe enough for a year or so. We’d never been burgled before. And the pictures were in the back of my wardrobe, all wrapped up. It wasn’t as if they were hanging on the wall for all to see. It was just the most wretched bloody luck that we got turned over like that.’
An idea had been forming in Slider’s mind, based on a general knowledge of Larry Picket’s acquaintances. ‘The art dealer who gave you the advice – was he a tall, thin, military-looking man with a sandy moustache? Well spoken – Guards’ tie?’
Coleraine looked at him with awful reluctance. ‘Bill Hanratty,’ he said almost in a whisper. ‘Do you know him?’
‘I think so,’ said Slider. ‘I told you we’d got your paintings back, didn’t I?’
‘From him? He stole them?’
‘We picked them up from a fence, but Ginger Bill’s one of his known associates. Hanratty isn’t his name, but it sounds like him. And the break-in at your place was a professional job.’
‘He was so interested in what I’d bought, said I’d been very shrewd. I thought he was a nice guy.’ Coleraine put his head in his hands. ‘I’ve been such a fool. God, why was I born? I should have realised it was a bit of a coincidence, a bit odd that the burglars found the paintings. Oh, what have I done? What have I done?’
Slider let him alone for a moment or two, and then prompted him gently. ‘All right, so the paintings were gone, and you were in a worse state than ever. So what happened next?’
‘Next? I carried on. What else could I do? I thought at least I had a couple more years, I hoped something would turn up, I’d find some way to put the money back. I knew Stefan was filthy rich, and when he went all his money would go to Fay – that was understood. She’d give it to me, of course, to look after and invest for her, so that was no problem, as long as he died before Henry came of age, and there was a good chance of that because he had a heart problem—’
‘He didn’t, actually.’
‘What? What are you talking about? Of course he did.’
Slider shook his head. ‘The post mortem showed a perfectly normal heart for his age – no disease.’
‘But – but Buster told me—’
‘Possibly Sir Stefan made it up as a means to keep Buster in line. “Don’t cross me or it might bring on an attack”, that sort of thing.’
‘Good God,’ Coleraine said slowly. ‘Yes, it’s just the sort of thing he’d do. Poor old Buster. It was a good thing, then—’
‘Yes?’ A good thing I didn’t wait for him to die naturally?
‘Oh, nothing. I’ve forgotten where I was.’
‘I think you’d just about reached Henry Russell announcing he was getting married.’
‘Ah. Yes.’ Coleraine looked suddenly very old and very weary. ‘Well, you know, of course, that the trust winds up when Henry marries. Suddenly I was going to have to face the music. I can tell you I was worried sick. I didn’t know which way to turn. And in the middle of it all, Marcus came to me again with more trouble, some—’ He stopped, looking at Slider warily.
Slider shrugged. ‘You may as well tell me everything. How much worse can it be?’
Coleraine sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right. It was some cocaine dealer who was into Marcus for big money. Threatening him if he didn’t pay up. Marcus came to me – I gave him what I had – he said it wasn’t enough. We had a bit of a row.’ He stared sadly at the table. ‘I was so worried already, I said some pretty harsh things to him, about how he’d bled me dry. He said his grandfather had plenty and why didn’t I go and ask him. I couldn’t bear the idea of that. I hated Stefan, you know, and his attitude towards us. I said I’d sooner die than ask him for money. So Marcus said that if I didn’t, he was sure his mother would, especially if she knew what he needed the money for.’ He looked at Slider appealingly. ‘Fay – she doesn’t know everything about Marcus. I mean, she knows about some of his – pranks, but – not the serious stuff. I try to keep it from her. He knows that, Marcus knows that. It would break her heart if she knew he takes drugs. So I said I’d go and see Stefan.’
‘And that was the visit you paid him on Tuesday?’
He was very white now. ‘Yes. It was useless. I knew it would be. He told me he wouldn’t give me a penny, whatever I wanted it for. I went to work. I sat there all day going round and round like a rat in a cage, desperately trying to think of a way to raise the cash. I couldn’t think of anything. Then on Wednesday morning Marcus phoned me to ask how I’d got on. I told him Stefan had refused. He said—’ Coleraine swallowed. ‘He said why didn’t I kill the old boy then. Shoot him. Marcus knew he kept a loaded pistol in the house in case of burglars. “Go and get Grandpa’s gun and shoot him, then you’ll have all the money you want,” he said. I thought he was joking, of course.’ He stopped. ‘Then he said if I didn’t do something and get him the money, he’d take to crime. Breaking and entering was easy, he said, and no-one ever got caught. I lost my temper with him, told him to stop being stupid. I told him to come and meet me and we’d talk it out. He said he didn’t mind taking a free lunch off me, and rang off.’
‘You met him where?’
‘Tottenham Court Road. There’s a cafe in Hanway Place, somebody’s Pantry. Kate’s Pantry, I think. I’d have taken him somewhere better but I was afraid he was going to talk wild again and I didn’t want to be overheard.’
‘And did he?’
Coleraine nodded miserably. ‘We had a row. He called me tight-fist
ed. He said he had to have the money and that didn’t I care about him. He said he’d be maimed or killed by the dealer’s gang if he didn’t get the money.’ He shook his head hopelessly. ‘Terrible words. Words can hurt, you know, like a real, physical pain. Then he said if I was too much of a coward to kill Stefan, he’d do it, and once the old man was dead, perhaps I’d loosen up and give him what he wanted. And then he stormed out.’
‘You really believed he was going to do it?’
‘No! No, of course not! It was just talk. He was young and wild and he’d say anything when he was in a temper. But I felt terrible. My head was pounding, I felt sick, I couldn’t think. I went straight home. Fay was out, thank God. I walked about the house, up and down, going over it in my mind. I even thought about what he’d said, about killing Stefan. It would be so easy, I thought, and then all my troubles would be over. I could put the money back into the trust, get Marcus out of trouble, maybe even set him up in some career that would keep him out of trouble in future. And Stefan was dying anyway – so I thought. It wasn’t so much of a crime, was it?’
‘Don’t fool yourself. It was very much of a crime, and you know it. It’s the worst crime there is. And the worst motive.’
Coleraine looked at him with a sick and beaten look. ‘I know. Yes, I do know. I don’t think I would really have done it. I mean, you don’t know until you’re face to face with it, do you? But I don’t think I could have pulled the trigger. I’ve never handled a gun. It’s different for Marcus – he’s been out shooting, and though birds are different, of course, still it’s shooting to kill, isn’t it? But with me, even if I could have got hold of the revolver, I don’t think when it came to it I could have shot him.’
Slider said, ‘But you did, didn’t you? You took the revolver out of his desk when you were left alone in his study on Tuesday. And you shot him in the church on Wednesday afternoon.’
Coleraine stared back with blank incomprehension. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, of course I didn’t. That’s what I’ve just been telling you. Good God, did you really think—? But I’ve just been telling you I went home, and I didn’t leave the house again that day. I felt so ill I went to lie on the bed, and I was so tired I fell asleep.’
‘If you were at home, why didn’t you answer the telephone? We tried to ring your wife there on Wednesday afternoon to tell her about the shooting, and there was no answer.’
‘I didn’t hear it ring. I turned off the phone in the bedroom, and I was so heavily asleep I didn’t hear it ring downstairs. I slept until just before Fay came home at seven o’clock, and that’s the first I heard about Stefan being shot.’
Slider studied his face, but it sounded true; he had sounded all along as if he was telling the truth. All around them the wall of noise had built up unnoticed; the band was playing, and people were listening, drinking, smoking, talking, tapping their feet, enjoying their Sunday morning socialisation, with no idea of the drama being run through in this unremarkable corner.
‘You suspected me?’ Coleraine said now in a dazed sort of way, as if it was beyond belief.
‘I was just going to invite you to come back to the station and make a statement,’ Slider said grimly. ‘I shall still have to, of course, but a different sort of statement now. And the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question is, if you didn’t kill Sir Stefan Radek, who did?’
But the answer was written large in Coleraine’s sick and suffering face. ‘I’m so afraid Marcus must have done it. It’s a terrible thing to say, but – but—’
‘It’s a terrible thing to do,’ Slider said.
‘If he did it. I can’t believe – but if he did, I can’t shield him any more.’ He looked a desperate appeal at Slider. ‘I’ve got to know. I can’t stand it any longer, suspecting him. Please—’
‘We’ll find out,’ Slider said comfortingly. ‘You come along with me now, and we’ll get to the bottom of it.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Domino Effect
‘So he came to you to grass up his own son, did he?’ Norma asked with somewhat irrational indignation, considering their jobs depended on people giving information about each other. Coleraine was downstairs at this very moment, making a statement to Beevers and Mackay, and considering he was busy unpicking the best case they’d had so far, Slider was taking it very well.
‘It all got too much for him. He hates himself even for suspecting Marcus, but he’s got to the point where he can’t bear the uncertainty any longer of not knowing,’ Slider said. ‘Of course, he says he’s sure Marcus didn’t do it—’
‘Which is shorthand for he bets he did,’ Norma said.
Atherton was jubilant. ‘I said it was him, didn’t I? Nasty little slime-bucket. Now we’ve only got to prove it.’
‘You take a large size in onlies, my lad,’ Slider said.
‘Hang on, guv,’ McLaren said untidily through a jumbo sausage roll he was eating out of a paper bag. ‘Didn’t I hear someone say Marcus Coleraine had a flat in Bayswater? We’ve got a possible sighting of chummy coming out of Queensway station, haven’t we?’ Flakes of greasy pastry fluttered down from his moving lips and stuck to his powder-blue and magenta striped jersey like terminal dandruff, but he had everyone’s attention. ‘Well, Queensway station serves Bayswater, dunnit? I mean, Bayswater tube station is in the same road. They’re only about a hundred yards apart.’
Atherton looked at him almost with affection. ‘I knew God must have had some purpose in creating you, Maurice. Of course, that’s it! Marcus’s flat’s in Caroline Place, which is half way between Bayswater and Queensway stations. This is getting interesting.’
‘And we know he had the opportunity to take the gun, because Buster said he’d called on Radek on Tuesday afternoon,’ McLaren said.
‘Opportunity is not proof. And what about his Murray alibi?’ Norma said.
‘I wouldn’t value that above the paper it’s written on,’ Atherton said happily. ‘If Marcus left his father in the café at a quarter past one, he had plenty of time to get back to Shepherd’s Bush by half past two to be murdering his grandpa. He even had time to go home first and collect the gun, supposing he hadn’t taken it with him for the meet with his dad. And he could have arranged the alibi with Murray either before or afterwards. My personal bet would be afterwards.’
‘Tell us why, oh mighty one,’ Norma said sourly.
‘Well, I don’t see him as the sort to plan anything in any detail. I imagine he went storming off in a frenzy of self-pity, shot his grandad, then ran home in a panic. He realised he had to fix himself an alibi, so he rushed off to land his old pal Murray in it; and incidentally indulge in a spot of the doings by way of calming his nerves after the horrid ordeal. That way he really would be at Murray’s flat on the afternoon in question, and it would only be a matter of fudging the time he arrived.’
‘And what did he do with the gun?’ Norma asked.
‘God knows. Maybe he stashed it at his flat, maybe he took it to Murray and asked him to get rid of it. But there’s all of London on the way, or afterwards. It could be anywhere. It could be at the bottom of the Thames.’
‘Not if he meant to put it back,’ Slider said. ‘Putting it back would still be the safest option, as long as no-one ever discovered it had been missing.’
‘Does he know we know?’ McLaren wondered.
‘If he’s been in touch with Buster he probably knows, but there’s no reason he should have been. It’s a good chance anyway that he doesn’t. I think we ought to pay his flat a visit before he does find out. Even if we don’t find the gun, we might find a duffel coat and a wide-brimmed hat.’
‘I must say it’s nice investigating a crime amongst the upper echelons for a change,’ Atherton said. ‘At least their houses and flats don’t smell of urine and their cupboards aren’t full of filthy rags.’
Slider was about to answer when Anderson and Jablowski came in. He looked at his watch. Three o’clock. ‘You two are back early,’ he said.
‘You’ve got something?’
‘Nothing terribly exciting. Just a confirmation of the Marcus-Murray alibi.’
‘What?’
‘Another good theory destroyed by unnecessary facts,’ Atherton said gloomily.
‘What theory?’ Anderson asked.
‘We’d just got Marcus down for chummy,’ McLaren said, and explained.
‘Oh, bad luck,’ Anderson said. ‘But we’ve got a witness sighting of him going into Murray’s flat at about half past one. There’s a fruit and veg stall on the corner of Russell Street, just opposite the door to Murray’s flat. The trader – Ray Tate’s his name – knows Murray well. Reading between the lines, I think he gets certain illegal substances from him from time to time. Anyway, Tate says on Wednesday he’d been watching for Murray to come out because he wanted to “talk to him”, inverted commas, and he saw a fair young man ring the doorbell at about half past one. He didn’t know him, but he thinks he’s seen him there before. Murray let the fair man in and shut the door. About half past three Tate takes a break and a cuppa tea, decides to ring Murray’s door while he’s got five minutes. No answer, which Tate thinks is odd because he’s sure no-one’s gone out in the last two hours. He rings again, and looks through the letter-box, sees Murray’s feet half way down the stairs, just standing there. He shouts out “Steve, it’s me, Ray,” but the feet turn round and disappear, so he reckons Murray’s got his reasons for not wanting company and gives it up. But he keeps an eye on the door all the same, hoping to catch Murray as he comes out. Only Murray never appears, not before Tate closes up at half-five.’
They digested this. ‘Well, it’s not conclusive,’ Slider said. ‘Someone could have slipped out while Tate was serving a customer or bending down picking up a box of apples. He can’t have been watching every minute of the afternoon. But it’s an indication.’
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