‘So I suppose now he’ll just be waiting for them to fall down?’ Hart said.
‘That won’t help him,’ said Meikle with satisfaction. ‘Rules of listing – if you knock it down, or it falls down, you have to rebuild it to original spec. Otherwise, the protection wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s written on, see?’
Hart saw.
All the same, she reflected as she trotted down the stairs, there must be ways of getting round it, or Holdsworth wouldn’t have bought the property in the first place. Or at least, he must have thought there were ways round it. And it was a fact, as she knew from the occasional stories in the papers, listed buildings did get destroyed. Fire was a good one. There was a block of listed Georgian houses right in the centre of London, by Vauxhall Bridge, that had got badly damaged in a, hem-hem, accidental fire, and the owners were being allowed to build a modern office block on the site as long as the Georgian façade was preserved. It wasn’t that she took a lot of notice of that sort of thing, but she’d driven past the site a thousand times and wondered why there was heavy duty scaffolding holding up a single wall of old bricks – wondered enough to make the enquiry. That development was taking a long time. Presumably, having to pile-drive, and operate modern heavy machinery, without destroying the frail façade slowed things down a lot. But with central London property values as they were, it was obviously worth it to someone.
Kevin Rathkeale was in a committee meeting, but Slider asked that he be informed of their presence, and the message came back with gratifying speed that he would appear very shortly. In the mean time, it was no hardship to wait in the outer office, standing by the window and watching the great, grey river roll by. The sky was too hazy for it to sparkle, but it looked serious and important, a waterway of substance. A pair of cormorants was busily fishing, proving how clean the water was, and a row of gulls, perched along the roof of a jetty-hut, shuffled their wings and contemplated the deep, eternal questions of existence.
Out in the corridor there was the sound of lift doors opening, then rapid footsteps. The soothing background rattle of computer keys stopped as the PA looked up and said, ‘Here he is,’ and then Rathkeale burst into the room, rolled-up shirtsleeves, loosened tie, jacket over his arm and a faint smell of sweat and aftershave. He scanned Slider’s and Atherton’s faces briefly but comprehensively, then said, ‘No calls,’ and led the way into his office. Atherton closed the door behind them. Rathkeale tossed his jacket onto the sofa, went behind his desk and sat down, folded his pale, faintly gleaming arms on the desktop, and said, ‘Well? What is it now?’
Slider studied him. He seemed wary, but not like a man racked with fear, guilt or apprehension. He had bags under his eyes, but his skin was of that loose, thick kind that bagged up nicely without encouragement. He didn’t look like a man who had longed in vain for the kiss of peaceful sleep for two weeks. He looked like someone called away from some important task by an annoying unavoidable duty which he was hoping to get out of the way as quickly as possible. Slider didn’t like it. He didn’t like his interviewees to be too comfortable. Especially when they had been caught on film doing illegal things, and they knew they had.
‘I take it,’ he began, ‘that you haven’t been contacted by a blackmailer. I take it that if you had been, you would have let me know.’
‘Of course I would,’ Rathkeale said impatiently. ‘For God’s sake, is that what you’ve pulled me out of a meeting for? Just to ask me that?’
Slider kept up the impassive look. ‘Sometimes people feel they’d sooner go it alone. Pay the blackmailer, rather than risk having the material made public.’
He shrugged. ‘I can understand that. But I’m telling you, no-one’s contacted me. Maybe they know you’re onto them. Or they’ve changed their minds. Or it was just a silly joke. I can’t think of a reason why they’d go to all that trouble and then not try to get something out of me for it.’
Atherton said, ‘I must say, you’re amazingly calm. If I knew there was material like that about me out there somewhere, I’d be a nervous wreck.’
‘I am a nervous wreck,’ he asserted. ‘But you know how it is. You wait and wait and nothing happens, you start to relax. And there’s work – I can’t tell you how busy I’ve been – and that takes all your attention …’ He surveyed their faces. ‘Why do you keep coming and bothering me? I’ve co-operated with you. I’ve given you permission to look at my phone logs. What more can I do?’
There was a film of sweat on his upper lip now. Good. That had softened him up a bit.
‘As far as the blackmail’s concerned, as there was no actual attempt to extort anything from you, no crime has been committed,’ Slider said. ‘My interest is in who murdered Leon Kimmelman.’
‘I’ve told you I didn’t even know the man—’
‘And the apparent intention to blackmail you interests me only as it seems to be connected with the murder,’ Slider concluded as if he hadn’t spoken.
‘So why are you here? What do you want?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I haven’t got all day, you know. Can’t you just come to the point?’
Slider obliged. ‘What are your relations with Myra Silverman?’
The question surprised him. ‘Myra? What on earth are you asking about her for?’
‘Just answer the question please.’
He reddened. ‘I don’t know what you mean by “relations”. There was nothing like that between us.’
Which meant, of course, Slider thought, that there probably had been. ‘I don’t know why not. She’s an attractive woman, from what I’ve seen.’
‘She’s too old for me,’ he said. ‘She must be pushing sixty. Not to be ungallant,’ he added with a little laugh, ‘but my tastes don’t run to grandmothers.’ They didn’t laugh with him. His face straightened. ‘Anyway, I haven’t seen her for ages. Things cooled between us after that KidZone business.’
‘You thought you needed to put some distance between you,’ Atherton suggested. ‘She’d become bad news. Not to be associated with.’
He was stung to defence. ‘Look, Myra does a lot of good. Sometimes her enthusiasm runs away with her. But better that, than all those people who sit on their arses and do nothing.’
‘So you’re still friends,’ Slider asked.
‘No, not really,’ he said, scratching his head with a badgered look. ‘I mean, I don’t see her any more, not socially. Our paths cross occasionally at functions, I don’t bear her any ill-will, but our worlds have moved apart, that’s all.’
‘But she has been ringing you a lot recently. Coming to see you at the office.’
‘Once,’ he said quickly. ‘She only came here once. Yes, she did contact me about a scheme she wanted me to back, but that was a while ago. I haven’t heard from her for ages.’
‘Three weeks is not such an age.’
‘I think it’s more like four. But anyway, what’s Myra got to do with it?’
‘You told her you didn’t want anything to do with her scheme?’
‘No, I said I couldn’t help her. You make it sound as if … Look, there was nothing wrong with it, it was a good project, it’s just that I’ve got other things already earmarked for the money. She thought she might change my mind, but I told her I’d made my decision and that was that. I was sorry, but I wasn’t going back on it.’
‘She wanted money?’ said Atherton.
‘Not for herself,’ he said, with a slight blush of vexation. ‘For her scheme.’
‘Which was?’ Slider asked.
‘A youth outreach centre,’ Rathkeale said. ‘Something like what she’s done before, only this one was on a bigger scale. Get the disadvantaged youngsters off the streets, give them something to do, turn their thoughts to more constructive activities. A gym, workshops – a theatre with a movie production studio behind, get them interested in film making. Plus a psychiatric clinic, because a lot of them have underlying mental problems.’
‘It sounds wonderful. Very worthwhile,’ Sl
ider said.
Rathkeale squirmed a little. ‘Yes, it was a good one, and of course she knew I had both government and GLA money to invest in youth outreach and urban renewal – it’s apparently a very rundown site. But the thing was, it was very similar to a scheme I’ve already gone public as backing. At the Elephant, where all that urban redevelopment is going on. And there’s real poverty there, and community integration problems. I’ve gone on record as backing it. So I told Myra, I’m sorry, but it’s no go.’
‘Was that the only reason you said no – because you’ve given your word to the Elephant?’
‘Yes.’ Another little squirm. ‘Well, and because Myra is still unfairly pilloried by the media. Whenever her name is mentioned, that KidZone business comes up. I’ve just got myself clear of all that, I don’t want it sticking to me again.’
‘Quite understandable,’ Slider said in sympathetic tones.
‘And the Elephant is a more deprived area than Shepherd’s Bush, anyway,’ Rathkeale said. ‘What with the new tube station and the Westfield development, and the BBC Media Village, it’s hard to put it across as inner-city-deprived any more.’
‘So Mrs Silverman’s project, it was in Shepherd’s Bush? Are you talking about Coal Sidings Road, by any chance?’
‘Yes. Oh, of course, you’re from there. You’d know about it,’ he said. A thoughtfulness came over him. ‘Why are you asking me about all this?’
Slider didn’t want him pondering along that route. ‘You have a large budget for this kind of scheme?’
‘Large enough, including the central government grant. In the region of ten million.’
‘And yours is the final word on what it gets spent on?’ Atherton asked.
He looked proud. ‘Yes. Well, there are other people involved, of course – other committees – and I have to justify the expenditure to them. But basically, yes, I’m the one who gives the final say-so. That’s what we’re elected for – to take responsibility.’
‘And I can see you take it seriously,’ Slider said. ‘So when you last spoke to Mrs Silverman about this, your answer was no? And what was her reaction?’
‘She said she understood. She said, “You can’t blame me for trying.”’
‘She took it well, then?’
‘Well, she was disappointed, obviously, but she knew I wasn’t going to budge. We parted on good terms.’
‘And that was – four weeks ago, you said?’
‘About that.’
‘And you haven’t spoken to her or seen her since?’
‘Not that I recollect. No, not at all.’ He looked puzzled and was obviously about to ask again why he was being asked.
So Slider stood up and said, ‘Well, thank you for your help. I won’t keep you any longer – I know how busy you must be.’
‘Yes, November’s always a busy time for us. Everything galloping downhill towards the Christmas break.’
They left him before he could ask any more questions, and their last glimpse of him was of a puzzled and unsatisfied face, wearing a frown of thought and pursed lips of contemplation.
Outside, Atherton said, ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’
‘Perhaps. But there are problems.’
‘Myra Silverman, married to Jack Silverman. Who was going to get the building job.’
‘But where does Kimmelman come into it?’
‘Oh, stuff Kimmelman. This outreach centre is much more interesting. Ten million?’
‘Not just to be pocketed. Something would have to be built for the money,’ Slider reminded him.
‘But I’m betting there’d be a substantial profit for someone somewhere. Those officially-backed projects always seem to be funded with sticky money. The sort that sticks to people’s fingers on its way through.’
Slider shook his head. ‘We haven’t any proof. Not even any evidence. Or,’ he added with irritation, ‘any damn reason for Kimmelman’s death.’
Atherton looked at him sharply. ‘But do you think Myra Silverman is involved?’
‘I think the Silvermans and Holdsworth are the only links we’ve got with Kimmelman. But I also think he could just as easily have been whacked behind a betting-shop by a bloke who thought he’d looked at him funny.’
‘Fat lot of help that is,’ said Atherton.
PC D’Arblay was waiting for him when Slider got back to his office. He was a fair-haired, pleasant-faced man who looked like someone’s favourite nephew, until you clocked the steel under the smile and the sharp intelligence in the eyes. Slider had always liked him, and would have been glad to have him in the firm, but D’Arblay was wedded to the uniform side.
‘Sergeant Nicholls detailed me to look for your black SUV, sir,’ he said.
‘You’ve got a result already?’ Slider said. ‘That was quick work.’
‘A partial result, sir. I thought you’d like to know before I went any further. There’s a traffic camera for the lights at the junction of Dalling Road, and I looked there first. I’ve got a BMW X3 coming out of Nigel Playfair at about the right time. It turns left onto King Street then immediately right down Dalling Road – ran the lights and nearly caused a crash with a car coming the other way. But the thing is, sir, you can’t read the index. The front plate’s obscured – probably mud, or it could be paint. And the rear plate’s missing.’
‘I see,’ said Slider.
‘He could have gone any number of ways from Dalling Road – there’s a mass of side streets he can zigzag through if he’s camera savvy. And without a number to put into the ANPR …’
You could not get a ping without a number, so it would mean viewing every possible tape for every possible direction in the hope of spotting the car again.
‘I didn’t know how much further you wanted me to go, sir,’ D’Arblay concluded. ‘I could—’
‘No,’ said Slider. ‘You can leave it there. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do. Thanks, anyway.’
‘I’ll put out an alert, in case a patrol stops a car for the number plate violation,’ D’Arblay offered. ‘But otherwise …’
‘Quite,’ Slider finished for him.
Anyway, if it was the same black SUV as the one Kimmelman was driving on blackmail night, McLaren and Fathom were already looking for it.
James Hadleigh, of Blenheim Property Development, greeting Swilley with a grin and sparkly eyes. ‘Couldn’t get enough of me, eh? Managed to find another excuse to visit? Jacket’s Yard again, is it?’
‘Not this time,’ Swilley said. ‘It’s some general information I wanted, if you’ve got a minute?’
‘For you, five of them,’ he said. ‘Take a pew.’
She sat, smoothing her skirt down and crossing her legs. The things I do for my country …
‘It’s about developing where there’s a Grade II listing in place. I know it’s supposed to prevent the buildings being altered or demolished, but I wondered if there was any way round it.’
‘What are we talking, here? Country mansion? Georgian rectory in the Cotswolds?’
‘No, in London. Suppose there was a row of protected buildings, and you wanted to knock them down and redevelop the site. Is there any way to do that? Say, for argument’s sake, it was in a conservation zone as well Grade II listed?’
If he knew she was talking about Coal Sidings Road – if he had heard about it – he revealed nothing. ‘Depends a lot on the individual circumstances. What the buildings are, how historically important, how much local resistance there is. And what the development will be. But as a general rule, you can find your way round anything if you really want to.’
‘Bribery?’ she suggested.
He grinned. ‘Local councils tend to be incompetent rather than corrupt. There are always corrupt individuals, of course. There are also stubbornly virtuous individuals who insist on doing the right thing no matter what. And the sheer bloody-minded who oppose for the sake of opposing.’
‘So how do you get round it, then?’
‘
The best way forward is to get either the GLA or the government interested. If your development has some element that accords with their strategic plans – well, you’re home and dry. They can override local objections and force the planning permission through. Happens all the time.’
‘You mean, for instance, if they’re keen on youth centres …?’ she suggested.
‘Right. You’ve got the idea. Stick on a youth centre, find the right advocate at City Hall or the DoE, and away you go.’ He looked at her quizzically. ‘Am I to understand that an elderly aunt has left you some historic property in a sensitive part of Kensington …?’
She smiled and shook her head, thinking out her next question. ‘Supposing,’ she said, ‘you wanted to do this development for reasons of personal gain …’
‘Is there ever another reason?’
‘All right, but who gains. Who profits from getting the permission?’
‘Well, the owner of the site, of course. You expect to get more from the sale after you’ve developed, than the cost of the site plus the cost of the work.’ She nodded receptively. ‘You want more? Well, then …’ He thought. ‘I suppose the builder would benefit from getting the contract. Obviously. I mean, that’s what he’s in business for – and with a government-backed development, your profit margins are always going to be higher. And, depending on what you were actually building, I suppose someone might have a financial stake in the end result.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, for instance, if it was a sports centre, someone who supplies sports equipment might be very happy about it. I can’t really tell you without knowing what it is you’re building.’
‘I had better not tell you,’ Swilley said.
‘Part of a case, is it?’
‘It may be. But thanks, anyway, for your help. You’ve given me something to think about.’
‘No trouble at all,’ he said, his eyes following her up as she stood. ‘I never knew it could be so pleasurable to be interrogated by the police.’ She smiled warily, not liking the look in his eye. ‘I don’t suppose you’d—’ he began.
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