Star Fall

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘It was a Constable,’ Slider said. ‘Yes, I know, Lenny. I just want you to put me in touch with Ginger Bill. I’ve been trying to track him down, but no dice. The numbers I had for him have come up blank. No-one seems to have seen him.’

  ‘They wouldn’t,’ said Lenny. ‘He’s dead.’ He nodded to Slider’s expression of surprise. ‘S’fact. Dead as a herring, oh – year before last, back end. You ain’t rung him recently, that’s obvious.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Appendicitis.’

  ‘People don’t die of that much these days.’

  ‘His own stupid fault. He was always terrified of doctors and hospitals, was Ginger. Do anything rather than go. He’d had a grumbling appendix for weeks but he wouldn’t get it seen to. Even when it bust, so I heard, he just lay there groaning and wouldn’t call the ambulance. When they finally got to him, it was too late. Peritonitis and I don’t know what else. His whole belly was full of pus. Puffed up like a toad with it, he was.’

  Slider looked down at his pint with less enthusiasm than a few minutes ago. ‘I see,’ he said, and to forestall any further medical details hurried on with, ‘Do you know anyone else in that field? Fine art and antiques fencing?’

  Lenny took a long suck at his fag, managed to extinguish it in the process, and fumbled out his lighter again. ‘At a matter of fact,’ he said between renewing puffs, ‘I got a new bloke now, much better than old Bill ever was. He was lazy, was Ginger Bill, and you got to apply yourself to get anywhere in this world. Crafty Harris, that’s your man. Used to fence, now he’s gone legit, does antiques fairs, knows every dealer from here to Aberdeen.’

  ‘Is he willing to help us?’ Slider asked.

  ‘For a finder’s fee.’ Lenny shrugged. ‘We all got to make a living.’

  ‘Fair enough. Let me have his number.’

  Lenny blew out thin, acrid smoke. ‘Better let me talk to him. You got pictures?’

  Slider handed over the pictures of the painting and the malachite box they had taken from Egerton’s computer. Lenny studied them a moment. ‘Funny pair. Why them?’

  ‘If I knew that, I’d be halfway home,’ Slider said.

  Lenny nodded and put the pictures away. ‘I’ll talk to Crafty, get him to give you a bell if he gets a sniff.’

  ‘Why Crafty?’ Slider had to ask.

  ‘Craft fairs and such like. He’s a decent bloke – straight as I am. Jim’s his real name. Lives in Northampton, nice and near the M1 for travelling. Got pitches in shops up and down the country. You can rely on him. Got your card handy?’

  Slider gave him one.

  ‘I’ll get him to bell you,’ said Lenny.

  There was half a pint left in Slider’s glass. Time for a little gossip. ‘So, tell me,’ he said, ‘who else is still around?’

  ‘Did you hear Scruffy Barnet snuffed it?’ Lenny said, settling down with relish. ‘Heart. He had a ton on some outsider at Market Rasen and the bugger come in. Fifty to one. He dropped down dead with excitement. His missus was in to collect the winnings the same day. Came straight from the hospital, soon as they confirmed he was gorn. S’fact. Oh, and you remember old Calvert, the dog breeder? Well, he came a cropper …’

  It started to snow again, but they were cosy with beer and Schadenfreude.

  When he got back, Atherton was there, sitting on Swilley’s desk, annoying her by looking at pages she was trying to work on. He glanced up as Slider came in. ‘They said you were seeing a man about a dog,’ he said. ‘Surely not? This is no time to go greyhound racing.’

  ‘I was trying to track down Ginger Bill Hanratty. Had trouble contacting him. Turns out he’s dead.’

  ‘That’d do it,’ Atherton said.

  ‘Where were you, by the way?’ Slider countered.

  ‘I was spending my time fruitfully in social intercourse with a solicitor,’ Atherton said with the smile of the cat that had got into the cream-pot.

  For a moment Slider misgave. He was aware that Atherton had been seeing a solicitor called Jane Kellock, of Kintie and Abrams – in fact, she was the fatal element in the ending of his relationship with Emily. Surely, surely he wouldn’t have been off hobnobbing with her when he should have been working? Of course, doinking on the firm’s time was a well-known failing of CID officers up and down the land – what could you expect when you gave red-blooded males large amounts of freedom and unaccountability? The orchestra world was rife with it, too, as Joanna had often confirmed – but he wouldn’t have expected it of Atherton, his right-hand man.

  Then he saw Atherton was watching him closely for his reaction and realized it was a tease. ‘Any solicitor in particular?’ he asked lightly.

  ‘Arbuthnot, Yorke and Cornish,’ Atherton replied, ‘which despite its schizophrenic name takes the corporeal form of a sweet young woman, Eva Tavistock, who just couldn’t do enough for me.’

  Slider wasn’t biting any more. ‘Who,’ he said firmly, ‘are—?’

  ‘Egerton’s executors,’ Swilley answered before Atherton could. ‘You got his will, Jim?’

  ‘I got his will,’ Atherton confirmed.

  ‘And God knows what else besides,’ Swilley muttered, not quite inaudibly.

  Atherton produced it, Swilley unfolded it across her desk, and they crowded round, joined by Connolly and Hollis.

  It was relatively simple. The house and its contents and any cash deposits at the time of death went to Dale Sholto. Egerton’s share in the business and its assets went to John Lavender.

  ‘I suppose that’s fair enough,’ Atherton said. ‘Lavender couldn’t have expected more.’

  ‘Depending on what value there is in the business to leave to him,’ Swilley said. She linked her hands behind her head and stretched, sensationally. ‘From what I’ve seen so far, it isn’t doing very well.’

  ‘That’s what Georgia said,’ Atherton agreed. ‘But she said it was the same all over the antiques business.’

  ‘That doesn’t make it any better for Lavender,’ said Swilley.

  ‘How close are you to understanding the state of it?’ Slider asked.

  ‘It’s complicated, boss,’ said Swilley. ‘There’s the value of the assets to be taken into account. But some of them have been on the books for a long time, and if they haven’t sold yet, who’s to say they have any value at all? I can tell you that Lavender has been drawing a reducing income for years. And it looks as though Egerton’s been propping things up from his TV earnings. He gets a big cheque in every so often, and a lot of that goes straight out of his account and reappears in the shop’s, for paying rent and electricity. And Hedley-Somerton’s wages.’ She looked at Atherton, deliberately using the surname. ‘Luckily, they’re pretty small. I’m guessing either she has private income, or she’s hanging on out of loyalty, because she could surely earn more than that elsewhere.’

  ‘So the business is in trouble?’ Slider mused.

  ‘Not exactly, not yet,’ Swilley said, ‘but I can tell you this: the lease on the shop falls in in six months’ time, and if it’s anything like property everywhere else in London, the rent will double when it’s renewed. And we’re talking about South Kensington. I’m not sure the business can survive that.’

  ‘Well, that means the will’s good for a motive for the Sholtos,’ Connolly remarked, ‘but it’s a shit motive for Lavender.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Hollis. ‘His TV earnings’ll dry up, and without them, the shop could fold.’

  ‘If the motive was money,’ said Atherton, ‘and not passion.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll know all about passion, we realize that,’ said Swilley.

  ‘Well, it makes more sense as a crime passionel than a financial hit,’ said Atherton.

  Slider let them argue on for a bit longer, his mind coasting, out of gear. Then he roused himself to look at the clock. It was getting dark outside, though that was partly the heavy clouds, threatening more snow.

  There was a sound of footsteps and voices, and the rest of his
people came trooping in from a day’s canvassing, a little disconsolate and very cold. Their reports were largely negative, though some grains of supposed information would have to be analysed and cross referenced before they could be dismissed. Suddenly, the room was full and noisy and the dismal day outside retreated a step or two. Talk bubbled up about pubs and pints, curries and pizzas, and other such warming topics.

  ‘I’d better go and see Mr Porson,’ said Slider.

  He drove home along wet roads, shiny in the headlamp’s light, windscreen wipers going hard against the still-falling wet snow and the filthy spray from the tyres in front. A border of grey slush was forming along each kerb, but so far the snow was only settling on well-insulated roofs and the wider patches of grass. He had forgotten to have lunch again, and the pint of Fuller’s was moaning with loneliness in there, making acid as a frustrated child smashes toys.

  Which reminded him – his children would be there, full of their day’s business, talking, squabbling, complaining, demanding, making more noise and disruption than you would think possible from looking at them, unless you were a parent. It was life – real life. He hoped it would do Joanna good, help to ease her out of the cold dark place and back towards the light. Perhaps after supper he could persuade everyone to a family game of some sort – Monopoly or Cluedo or something like that. Better than slumping in front of the telly, with the consequent bickering over which programme to watch, and the inevitable complaints from Kate and Matthew about not having a television each in their bedrooms. They had them in their rooms at their mother’s house, but Slider suspected that was more for Irene’s and Ernie’s benefit than theirs.

  The house seemed too dark when he pulled on to the hardstanding, with light only downstairs, coming through the stained glass panels in the front door. He heard the music before he got the key in the lock, and it swelled towards him as he opened it and stepped in. Joanna was in the drawing room, practising. He hadn’t heard her practise in a long while. It was Bach, he thought. He remembered her saying to him once that by all the rules, Bach really shouldn’t work, in the same way that a bumblebee really shouldn’t be able to fly. But in both cases it did work, miraculously and wonderfully. He shrugged off his coat and walked quietly towards the sound.

  She was standing near the window, half turned away, the music stand up high, the music on it looking from where he stopped like an infestation of black caterpillars. He stood and listened, and watched, as the notes streamed out from nowhere, from the black oblivion of nothingness and into the light, the strands coming together and moving apart, overlapping and weaving, only her strong hands controlling the flood, creating a space in which the music could bloom in all its terrible beauty.

  He moved carefully closer, not wanting to disturb her, but at the same time wanting her back. She was gone away, her eyes not looking at the pages, but through them. She didn’t see those odd black marks; she was looking with the far gaze of an astronomer at the music itself, at the sounds that a man who had died a quarter of a millennium ago had heard in his head, and now came spinning through one woman’s eyes and hands into the head of another man: ignorant, but humble and glad, ready to be transported beyond cold feet and hunger to a more lambent sphere where one might glimpse the face of God.

  She became aware of him. Delicately, she let the shining strands falter and fall, so that there should be no crash. She lowered the fiddle and looked at him.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said.

  ‘Getting better,’ she said. ‘I’m not as stiff as I was.’

  ‘You’re all alone? Where are the kids?’

  ‘Your father has them. He took them to the Imperial War Museum, and when they got back, Lydia came up and collected George as well, so I could practise. They’re having hot chocolate and watching Doctor Who.’

  ‘Sounds like heaven.’

  ‘Good day?’ she asked.

  He examined the tone of her voice from several angles. ‘Do you want me to go down as well and leave you be?’

  She looked grateful. ‘Another half hour. Then we can all have supper together.’

  He kissed her cheek. ‘It’s yours,’ he said.

  EIGHT

  Happy as Kings

  As soon as he woke, he was aware it wasn’t just the ordinary quiet of Sunday. There was a quality to the silence that he knew of old. He got out of bed and crept shivering to the window, pulled aside the curtain, and found the world transformed. He stared at the all-enveloping white with the usual mixture of pleasure and dismay. Everyday things redecorated were just so pretty – the black-and-white theme so elegant, so classy – but with it came the knowledge of mess, delay, inconvenience and the atavistic memory of danger and death. But for now, he would allow himself to enjoy it. As he stared, a fox came over the fence from next door and trotted across the lawn, lifting its feet high at every step, clearly puzzled by the phenomenon. It went over the opposite fence, leaving neat footprints and a trail between them from its brush.

  He let the curtain fall and hopped back to bed, shivering. He’d have liked to fold himself into Joanna, the way he always had in the past, in the time Before the Miscarriage, but she seemed to be sleeping quietly and he didn’t want to wake her. He lay still until the bed-warmth unlocked his limbs, and then drifted back to sleep for a pleasant hour before the television went on downstairs and shortly afterwards the sound of bickering roused him to go and do his parental duty.

  By the time he drove in to work the main roads had been worn clear by passing tyres, though the Sunday pavements were still unblemished, and the roofs and gardens were flaunting their make-over. The sky had cleared and the sun was doing its bit, sparkling on things that didn’t usually sparkle, like car lots and light-industrial units, covering up man’s careless unloveliness.

  They had had a big family breakfast – Dad and Lydia had come upstairs for it – and he had talked to his children. He was well-fed and nurtured, and Joanna had been practising last night, so all was well – or at least better – with the world. He felt more cheerful this morning – more hopeful about the case. Atmospheric pressure, he told himself. It affected one’s mood more than most people realized. But it didn’t alter the basic fact that today he felt as though he might win.

  Mackay had been coordinating the reports from the ground and the phone-ins. ‘We got a few possibles so far,’ he said. ‘Two of a man coming out of the house. One says “some time after two” and the other says “about twenty past”, so split the difference and they’re probably the same sighting.’

  The inexactitude of public witnesses was legendary. But Slider said, ‘If Lavender wasn’t the murderer, we may be talking about quite small time differences, so it doesn’t do to assume.’

  Mackay nodded. ‘All right. But they both say a tall man in a dark overcoat came out of the house. The later one, the two twenty one, says he was wearing a hat, a trilby, either brown or black, and carrying a briefcase under his arm. Says he’s gone to the boot of a car parked outside. Seemed to be unlocking the boot. Then the witness has gone past so he doesn’t see any more. The other one, the earlier one, doesn’t mention a hat or a briefcase, just got the impression of a tall man coming out of the house. But she wasn’t really looking, and she’s not even sure it was the same house.’

  ‘Did she see him going to the car?’

  ‘No, guv. She was texting as she walked so she didn’t look over there again.’

  ‘Either of them get a look at his face?’

  ‘They say not,’ said Mackay, aware these were sub-standard offerings.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Well, we’ve got another man in a hat going into the house. That witness says about twenty to two. Middle height, dark overcoat, didn’t get a look at his face.’

  ‘What sort of hat?’

  ‘He didn’t know the name; he said the sort posh blokes wear at the races, so it sounds like a trilby. No briefcase. No mention of the car. Says when he turned into the street the bloke was walki
ng ahead of him, then turned into the house. Which looks as though, if he had a car, he must have parked it some way off. Or come on the tube, or a bus – or a taxi, maybe, and got dropped at the end of the road.’

  ‘All possibilities,’ Slider said. But it was all frustratingly vague. All three could be Lavender; they could be two different, or three different people; or they could be nothing to do with it, and it was a different house altogether. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘have another go at them. More description. And try and pin them down a bit more on time. Ask them to come in, if you like – it sometimes concentrates their minds when they realize it’s important. And have the others keep going. If there are three witnesses there must be more.’

  ‘Right, guv.’

  ‘Nothing from the other residents?’

  ‘Nothing so far. Most of them are out at work, weekdays. And people don’t stand looking out of their windows much.’

  Slider nodded. ‘And there are no street cameras down there, more’s the pity, so we can’t check the cars in and out. But put out an enquiry to the taxi firms, for anyone dropped in or near the street between twelve thirty and two thirty.’

  ‘Yeah, guv, I’m on it,’ said Mackay.

  He left, and Slider thought a moment, then called Swilley in. ‘Have you an idea yet about the state of Lavender’s personal finances?’

  ‘It’s hard to say, boss,’ said Swilley. ‘It’s all so tangled up with the business. The lease is on the whole building, and the rent of the flat isn’t calculated separately. Same with the electricity and the rates. I suppose that’s because originally it was all in his name and he didn’t bother. But it means effectively he lives rent-free. And then he charges expenses to the business – travel and hotels and food while he’s on the road, which is all legit. As far as I can make out most of the furniture in the flat belongs to the shop as well. So what’s left would be his day to day expenses – food and so on – and clothes, and from what you’ve said I don’t suppose he spends a bundle on them. As to entertainment—’ She shrugged. ‘The parties are all at Egerton’s place, and I suppose he pays for them. Ditto if they go out to eat.’