Star Fall

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  Outside it had got dark, and even colder, with what country people called a ‘lazy wind’ – too lazy to go round you, went straight through you instead. Slider’s troops huddled, banged their hands together, hopped from foot to foot.

  Lavender had looked at the drawing room and said he could not see that anything else was missing, and Atherton had taken him back to the station to make a start.

  Mr Porson came for a look-in, but didn’t stay long. ‘Can’t stand around here or I’ll end up like Goebbels.’ He pronounced it ‘Go-balls’, to rhyme with the ditty. ‘What’s it looking like?’

  ‘Not sure yet, sir,’ Slider said. ‘We know of one thing that’s missing. It could be a theft to order. No apparent break-in, so either someone had a key or they talked their way in, then panicked and whacked him. Of course, we can’t be a hundred per cent sure nothing else is missing. It’s Aladdin’s Cave in there.’

  ‘Burglar alarm? Cameras?’

  ‘There’s a burglar alarm, but it was switched off, as you’d expect with the householder at home. No cameras.’

  Porson nodded. ‘All right. I’ll go and stall the press. “Treating the death as suspicious.” That’s all I’ll give ’em today. But they already know who he is – it’s been on the TV news. Not hard to find out, once they see which house it is. Bloody electoral rolls!’ he complained.

  ‘They’ll always latch on to anyone who’s anything to do with television,’ Slider said. ‘What are they saying?’

  ‘So far just “found dead at his home in West London”.’ Porson beat his arms with his hands. His face was purple and grey, his eyes reddened by the wind. ‘Bloody Nora, it’s cold,’ he said. He looked about a hundred and ten, but he strode off to do battle with the Hydra with purposeful tread.

  Slider turned away. ‘There’s someone here wanting to see you, boss,’ said Connolly, one of his DCs. In contrast to Porson she looked both warm and perky in a sheepskin-lined coat and a cap with long lappets. Ah, the blessing of youthful circulation!

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Little old mammy. ’Bout a hundred and ten, hundred and eleven. You’d hang her on a charm bracelet. Says she’s the cleaner.’

  ‘Name of Mrs Bean?’ Slider asked.

  ‘That’s what she said. I thought she was making it up. I don’t know if she just wants attention, or if she knows something. Will I send her back to the station?’

  It occurred to Slider that someone who regularly dusted all that stuff in the drawing room might be the person to spot if anything was missing. ‘No, I’ll talk to her. Wheel her over,’ he said.

  Molly Bean was not quite in the lucky charm category but she was diminutive – about five foot two – and elderly. Though she had a certain look of whippy strength about her, it was hard to see her stabbing a man six or seven inches taller than her. Anyway, her clear, brown face and sharp eyes filled Slider with confidence.

  ‘Mrs Bean?’ he asked. ‘What brings you here?’

  She was wearing a thick black wool coat, worn grey at the seams. Her home-knitted hat was in red and green vertical stripes with a pompom on the top: she only needed a spout sticking out of one ear and a handle out of the other. Her nose was red and moist from the wind, but she seemed more stimulated than grief-stricken. ‘It was on the news,’ she said, her eyes scanning Slider alertly. ‘They said Mr Egerton had been found dead, so I came to see if it was true. Then I saw all this carry-on –’ she waved a hand to encompass the police presence – ‘so I thought maybe I could help. Is it something bad? You wouldn’t be doing all this if he’d died of a heart attack, would you?’

  ‘I think you can help us,’ Slider said, avoiding the question. ‘Let’s just get out of this wind, shall we?’

  The SOC team had erected a tent over the entrance, which at least gave a bit of shelter. Mrs Bean followed him in, talking. ‘Some of them lot back there were saying he’s been murdered. Is that right?’

  ‘First things first,’ Slider said. ‘When did you last see Mr Egerton?’

  ‘Monday. Monday and Friday are my days, cause they mostly do their entertaining over the weekend. He was still in bed when I got here. He got up late and padded around a bit, then he got ready and went out to lunch. Something to do with his show, I think. He didn’t get back before I left – half past four – and that was the last I saw of him.’ Her excited eyes were impatient for more. She looked as if she might peck him. ‘What was it, a burglar? Some lowlife robbin’ his stuff?’

  ‘You have a key, I understand.’

  ‘Of course I do! How’d I get in otherwise, when they’re not there? I’ve been with Mr Egerton nearly twenty years, so if he doesn’t trust me by now, I don’t know what!’

  ‘Does anyone else have a key?’

  ‘Not that I know of. Just me, Mr Egerton, and Mr Lavender.’

  ‘Mr Lavender doesn’t live there all the time?’ Slider suggested.

  ‘He comes and goes,’ she admitted. ‘Got his own place, but he’s here as often as not.’

  ‘I’d like to have a chat with you later about the gentlemen, but there’s something you can do for me now, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Anything to oblige.’

  ‘I’d like to know if anything is missing, and I’m guessing you must know Mr Egerton’s things pretty well.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘I ought to, seeing it’s me has the dusting of ’em. And if I was to break anything! Not that I ever have, in all these years, bar the odd wine glass washing up, but you can’t help that. Their little treasures I’ve never so much as chipped. But everything has to be put back in the same place or there’s ructions. Fussy’s not the word! And Mr Lavender’s worse than Mr Egerton, if that’s possible.’

  Slider and Connolly escorted her along the passage to the drawing room, and she paused at the door almost on tiptoe and with her eyes on stalks, prepared to see God knew what evidence of mayhem. But without the body there was nothing to see, just the tarpaulin over the place where the body had been. She gave that a good, long look, sucking what juice out of it she could for when the neighbours asked.

  ‘Was that him?’ she asked. ‘How did they do it?’

  ‘Tell me if anything’s missing. Take your time,’ Slider said.

  She scanned the room and said at once, ‘The paintings are wrong.’

  ‘What do you mean, wrong?’

  ‘Over there.’ She pointed at the wall beside the fireplace, which was opposite the door. ‘The picture of the girl’s gone. And the bottles have been moved up to fill the gap,’ she said with an air of triumph.

  The section of wall between the fireplace and a bookcase was paved with paintings, hung almost frame to frame, in three rows, but the bottom row had only three paintings in it, spaced further apart. Mrs Bean indicated a still life hanging in the middle of the middle row. ‘These old bottles used to be there,’ she said, pointing to the end of the bottom row. ‘Someone’s taken the Maurice O.’

  ‘Maurice O?’

  ‘That was the name of the painter. I don’t know what the O stood for. It was a picture of a girl in her undies doing her hair in front of the mirror. “Girl at the toilet” it was called. Fancy using that word in a title! Coarse, I call it. But what can you expect from the French? You’ve never seen the like o’ their plumbing. I went to France on a coach once, and the toilet in the caff where we stopped – well! I wouldn’t want to put you off your dinner describing it. But then I didn’t think much of it meself, the painting. Kind of messy and streaky, like a kid painted it. I’ve seen better,’ she concluded with a sniff.

  ‘Was it there when you cleaned on Monday?’

  ‘Of course it was. Didn’t I notice straight away it was gone?’

  ‘Right. Anything else?’

  She scanned the paintings, then turned on the spot, surveying the room at large. ‘The green box is gone,’ she said, pointing to the console table. ‘It sat right there, in front of the clock.’ She did another scan of the room. ‘I don’t see it anywhere else.
Unless maybe he’d took it upstairs.’

  ‘We’ll check. Can you describe it?’

  ‘It’s about so big and so deep.’ She gestured with her hands, making an oblong about five inches by three, and two inches deep. ‘Dark green, some kind of stone – you know, like that oinks.’

  ‘Oinks?’ Slider was puzzled.

  ‘They make coffee tables out of it sometimes. Me sister had one.’

  ‘Ah, onyx,’ he fathomed.

  ‘However you say it. Like that, only dark green. With a gold frame and little white beads on the lid. It was made by that man, what d’y’call ’im? You know who I mean!’ She pressed a frustrated finger to her brow. ‘Famous. What’s his name? The egg man.’

  ‘Egg man?’ What with eggs and pigs, he felt he’d fallen into a nursery rhyme.

  She looked exasperated by his slowness. ‘You know, the Russian bloke, the egg man!’

  Connolly came to the rescue. ‘Do you mean Fabergé?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Mrs Bean exclaimed, relieved. ‘Them Fabergé eggs cost a fortune, don’t they? So this box could be worth a bit.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Slider said. He glanced at his watch. ‘Connolly, can I leave Mrs Bean with you, to go through the rest? And then I’d like a statement of anything that’s missing, with as detailed a description as possible.’

  ‘If it’s descriptions you want,’ Mrs Bean told him, ‘all this stuff, the pictures and knick-knacks and so on, it’s all on his computer. For the insurance, d’ye see? There’s photos of everything, as well.’

  ‘That’s very helpful,’ said Slider, though he wondered why Lavender hadn’t mentioned it.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, pleased, ‘he was very thorough. All his little treasures, all written down and photographed. You’ll find it all in there.’

  John Lavender was in what Atherton called the ‘soft room’, the interview suite for witnesses rather than suspects. Despite this, he was anxious and on the brink of being indignant.

  ‘Am I being suspected of something?’ he demanded when Slider came in.

  ‘Why should you think that?’ Slider responded.

  ‘Because they took my clothes, and now they’re asking for fingerprints and a DNA sample. What’s that all about?’

  ‘I’ve explained to you about your clothes,’ Slider said. ‘And we need your fingerprints so that we can eliminate them from all those we’ve found around the house. The same with the DNA. Once we eliminate your traces, and Mr Egerton’s and Mrs Bean’s, we can see who else came into the house.’

  Lavender looked unconvinced, drawing himself up and clasping and unclasping his big, knuckly hands.

  ‘You haven’t been arrested,’ Slider said in his most soothing manner. ‘You’re just helping us with our enquiries.’

  ‘When I’ve heard that phrase before, I’ve always thought it was a euphemism.’

  ‘It’s just a fact. Won’t you sit down, Mr Lavender? I’d like to talk to you. You’re the person who can help us most at this stage.’

  Lavender stared a moment longer, then subsided like a long, slow puncture on to the sofa.

  ‘Have you had something to eat and drink?’

  ‘They brought me tea and a sandwich. Thank you,’ he added belatedly. ‘I would like some water, though.’

  Atherton fetched a fresh bottle and a glass and put them in front of him on the coffee table. Slider sat down opposite him. The mention of the sandwich had reminded him that he had eaten nothing since the bacon roll. That might account for the feeling of weirdness and unreality he was experiencing – or it might be the hideous decor of the soft room that was to blame. Coming straight from Egerton’s drawing room, the contrast with the cheap-’n’-nasty furnishings and carpet was eye-defying.

  Lavender poured and drank some water, and Slider began. ‘First, can you go through your movements, and Mr Egerton’s as far as you know them, say, from Monday?’

  ‘I was in my own flat on Sunday night, so I didn’t see him during the day on Monday, but I know he had lunch with Gavin – that’s Gavin Ehlie, the producer of Antiques Galore! I suppose that was to discuss the upcoming programme. I was in the shop all day. I went over to the house at about six, and we drove down to Winchester together. That’s where the next show was being recorded, on Wednesday.’

  ‘But you went down on Monday?’

  ‘Monday night. There’s always a set-up day, before the day of the shoot. You don’t have to be there for the whole of it, but Rowland always likes to get the feel of the place where we’re shooting, meet the owners, walk around the town, meet some of the people. He’s very thorough.’ He sipped water. ‘Also find out the lie of the land as far as dealers go. You can make some good contacts that way, sometimes pick up some bargains.’

  ‘Was that why you went with him?’

  He looked up to see if the question was loaded and seemed to decide it wasn’t. ‘Partly. Of course, it was me who took care of the shop side of things. But he liked me to be there anyway.’ He frowned. ‘We were friends. Is that so hard to understand?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Slider said. ‘Where did you stay in Winchester?’

  ‘At the Royal. We ate there on Monday night – they were very good to us. People always are with Rowland – they think it’s an honour to have him. On Tuesday we went over to Wykeham Hall – that’s where the show was being recorded. Met the owners – a charming couple. They invited us to dinner on the Tuesday night. Looked round the place – mostly eighteenth-century, but a massive seventeenth-century great hall, which was where we were filming, of course. Walked about the town, popped into a few shops, chatted to a few locals. Wednesday was the recording. We went for a meal with Gavin and some of the others afterwards. Rowland needs time to “come down” after a show. Then he’s exhausted, completely drained. I drove back, and he slept all the way. I dropped him off, picked up my own car and drove home. That was last night. I was in the shop this morning, catching up, then this afternoon I popped into Waitrose to get the things for supper and drove over to the house, and – you know the rest.’

  The energy seemed to drain out of him as he came to the end of the narrative. He stared down at his hands. ‘I can’t believe it. It doesn’t seem real. I keep thinking I’ll wake up.’

  Slider knew the feeling. ‘What time did you leave your shop today?’ he asked instead.

  ‘When Georgia came back from lunch. About one thirty.’ He met the enquiring look and added, ‘Georgia’s my assistant – Georgia Hedley-Somerton. She’s a treasure – runs everything when I’m not there.’

  Slider nodded. ‘So you left at one thirty, drove to Waitrose – which one?’

  ‘Kensington High Street. It’s not the nearest, but I like it better, and sometimes I do other bits of shopping at the same time.’

  ‘Did you today?’

  ‘No, just the food shopping at Waitrose.’

  ‘And you got to Mr Egerton’s house at—?’

  ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘At two twenty-five.’ He gave Slider a frowning look. ‘You aren’t going to make me go through the rest again, are you?’

  ‘No, that’s not necessary now,’ Slider said.

  Lavender got in a question of his own before he could go on. ‘Have you spoken to Dale yet?’

  ‘His daughter?’ Slider looked at Atherton.

  Atherton said, ‘We’re trying to get in touch with her – without success so far.’

  ‘Please offer her my sympathy – if she needs it. They weren’t close, you know.’

  Slider made no comment, and moved on. ‘Did a lot of people come to the house?’

  Lavender looked as though he didn’t understand the question. ‘Rowland had a lot of friends. He was handsome, talented, enormously successful – the sort of man every woman wants and every man wants to be. He was tremendously popular everywhere he went, always in great demand. He needn’t have spent a single night at home if he didn’t want to.’

  ‘And were these friends the sort to drop in
casually?’

  Lavender still looked puzzled.

  ‘I’m trying to get a sense, you see, of who might have called today. There was no sign of a break-in, so it looks as though Mr Egerton may have let the person in.’

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t have let a stranger in. He was too careful for that. And why on earth would a friend kill him like that? Everyone loved and admired him.’

  ‘Evidently, someone didn’t,’ Atherton said.

  Lavender raised hurt eyes. ‘I don’t know of anyone who wished him harm.’

  ‘What about business rivals?’ Slider asked.

  ‘The antiques business isn’t like that. Of course, it’s competitive, but not to the point of violence.’

  ‘Did he perhaps have debts?’ Atherton asked.

  ‘Of course not. He made a handsome living from his television appearances.’

  ‘Did he take drugs?’

  Lavender looked shocked. ‘Certainly not! And he would never have mixed with people like that, if that’s what you’re suggesting. The idea is preposterous. He was very careful of his image, because of his large following.’

  Slider sighed inwardly. This was getting them nowhere. Lavender was looking worn – and they still had to get his prints and buccal sample, and his statement. ‘I won’t keep you much longer, Mr Lavender. I’d just like to ask you about the box you said was missing.’

  ‘What do you want to know about it? A gilt and malachite trinket box. It was by Fabergé.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that make it valuable?’

  ‘Fabergé had a huge output. Practically industrial. There’s a lot of the stuff out there. The eggs are very much in demand, of course, and anything with a Romanov connection, but anything else … The lid was set with diamonds, but they were unpolished, so they looked like irregular crystal beads. That would bring the price down, too. I don’t suppose you’d get more than a couple of thousand for it – five at the absolute best.’

  ‘Where did he get it from, do you know?’

  ‘I don’t know. He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.’ He looked slightly uncomfortable, his eyes shifting away. ‘I don’t quite know why he kept it. It wasn’t particularly handsome, in my view. Often he acquired things that he changed his mind about. He could be a bit of a magpie – not discriminating enough. After a few days or weeks he’d pass them to me to sell in the shop. But he’s had that box – oh, over a year. Perhaps he’d forgotten about it.’