His mouth dropped. ‘No. I had no idea. Brian never said anything. But – what does that mean?’
Slider didn’t answer that. ‘When Brian gave you the phone, it was still switched on, wasn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. And then: ‘Oh, well, yes, I remember now, he switched it off before he handed it to me. He told me to put it away safely and not tell anyone about it, because it was his insurance. So, are you saying it’s Erik’s phone? Are you saying …’ He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing visibly in his neck. ‘You’re not saying he killed him, are you?’
Slider didn’t answer that, either. ‘Have you spoken to Brian since, or seen him?’
‘No,’ he said eagerly. ‘Because after you came round asking about the visit last Tuesday, I was worried and I wondered what was going on, so I tried to ring him, but he was never there and even though I left messages, he never rang back.’ He looked at his hands. ‘I haven’t got his mobile number, you see. He rings me from the shop, and though he’s said I can ring him there in an emergency, he doesn’t really like me to, in case his girl picks up.’
‘He’s keeping you a secret?’
‘I suppose – he doesn’t want people to know about the nude modelling thing. In case they get the wrong idea.’
As they certainly would, Slider thought.
Greyling must have read it in his face, because he said resentfully, ‘Well, that’s the conclusion you jumped to. And what gets me is that here I am being interviewed by the police, and I haven’t done anything. He promised I wouldn’t be involved. I didn’t ask him to bring the phone to me. I wish I’d got rid of the bloody thing now.’
‘You didn’t, though,’ Slider said, almost holding his breath.
‘No. I suppose you want it? It’s in the drawer in the bedroom.’ He gestured with his head to the second staircase in the corner, leading up to the next floor. ‘D’you want me to …?’
‘No,’ said Slider, and nodded to Atherton to go.
‘The top left-hand drawer of the chest,’ Greyling said. ‘It’s wrapped in a handkerchief.’
Atherton departed. The dog woke with the movement. Its eyes tracked him, and it gave a low, muttering growl. Greyling stroked it absently. He was looking at Slider in a troubled way.
‘If you tell Brian I told …’ he began.
Slider gave him a kindly look. ‘It’s a great deal more serious than that. I’m sure you must realize that by now.’
‘But surely you’re not saying Brian killed Erik? That’s crazy! He barely knew him. Why would he do that? Why?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I had nothing to do with it, you do believe me?’
‘All you can do is tell the truth,’ Slider said. ‘That’s your best defence. I understand your loyalty to Mr Seagram but I’m afraid it would not be in your best interests any more.’
He looked miserable. ‘I’ll get turfed out of this place, I suppose. I’ll have nowhere to live and no money.’
‘You might have to make peace with your parents,’ Slider suggested.
‘Mummy would have me back, I suppose, but my father? After this?’
Atherton came back down the stairs, and the dog’s muttering growl went up a notch.
‘Shush, Flossie. Quiet. It’s nothing.’
Atherton held up an evidence bag, in which the phone was snuggling with a white cotton hanky. ‘Is this your handkerchief?’ he asked.
‘No. I don’t use them. Mummy says it’s a disgusting habit, blowing your nose on fine cotton then wrapping it up and carrying it around as if it’s something precious. I always use tissues.’
‘So whose handkerchief is it?’
‘Brian’s, of course. He left it behind, so I put it with the phone so I’d remember to give him both when he came.’
‘Sensible,’ Slider said. ‘You said Mr Seagram was excited when he arrived. Did you notice anything unusual about his appearance? His clothing?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Greyling, seeming genuinely puzzled.
‘I imagine he was always quite properly dressed, quite formal and smart?’
‘Yes, always a suit and tie. I used to tease him about it – told him he should loosen up, said I’d like to see what he looked like in jeans. He was horrified.’ There was a smile, a bit tremulous, but the relief of having confessed was working on him.
‘So, was he at all rumpled or untidy that evening?’ Slider didn’t want to lead him, but he was hoping for blood. ‘Any marks or bruises that you noticed?’
The eyebrows went up. ‘You mean – he’d been in a fight? No, he looked just the same as usual.’ He stopped abruptly, and closed his lips tight.
‘You’ve remembered something. Come on, you know you have to tell me. Tell the truth – remember?’
‘The truth shall set you free,’ he murmured in a distant voice. ‘That was the school motto, at the school I went to.’
‘What did you notice that evening, that you’ve just remembered?’ Slider said implacably.
‘I made him a drink, a whisky and soda – I hate whisky, I only keep it for him. He was sitting in that chair.’ He nodded towards Slider. ‘When I bent over to put the drink on the table beside him, I noticed there was something on his face. I said, “There’s blood or something on your cheek,” and he pulled his handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped it. He was talking all the time and I don’t think he was even aware he’d done it.’
‘He wiped it off on his handkerchief?’ Slider asked. Greyling nodded. He had the big eyes of the victim now. ‘The same one – this one?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he had more than one,’ he said pathetically. ‘You see, when he’d wiped his face, he sort of crumpled it up and stuffed it into his jacket pocket, the side one, but he must have missed, or not pushed it in far enough and it fell out, because after he’d gone, I found it down the side of the chair. So I put it in with the phone.’
Slider stood up. ‘I’d like you to come back to the station with us now and make a full statement, of everything you’ve just told me.’
‘Am I under arrest?’ he asked in a small voice. He looked very young and frightened now.
‘No, you’re just helping with our enquiries. And we will have to get a forensic team to go over the house.’ If there had been blood on Seagram’s cheek, there might have been blood on his hands or his clothes, which could have been transferred onto furniture or fittings.
‘It’s not my house,’ Greyling said pathetically. ‘You’d have to ask Brian’s permission.’
‘I don’t think we’ll be doing that,’ said Slider.
Sometimes, when Porson really listened, he stopped pacing and stood still.
Atherton was downstairs, supervising the taking of the statement – a long process. Slider told his boss the story alone.
He stirred when Slider got to the naked staring part, but said it was weird enough to be true.
‘That’s what I thought, sir,’ Slider said. ‘It’s not the sort of thing someone would make up.’
‘Obviously Greyling wants to make himself out a parable of virtue. But he’s already taking the money, so copping to a bit of slap and tickle wouldn’t make much difference. It’s probably true.’
‘But if Seagram wasn’t doing Greyling and he and his wife were off hooks, he must have been getting his jollies somewhere else,’ Slider said.
‘Some people can live without jollies,’ Porson said. ‘Some people have to.’
Slider continued and Porson went still again, until he got to the bit about the blood.
‘And?’ he barked.
‘There does appear to be a smear that could be blood on the handkerchief. We’ve sent it to be analysed. Greyling thinks he wasn’t aware he’d done it.’
‘Nobody can remember everything,’ Porson said approvingly. It was the crack through which they wriggled after criminals every day. ‘So, why was the phone his insurance? What’s on it? I suppose it is Lingoss’s?’
‘Yes, sir. We checked
that before we gave it to forensics to be dusted. We should be getting it back any minute.’
‘Let me know as soon as you get it,’ Porson said. He met Slider’s eyes. ‘What? You think I’d miss the big reveal? We don’t get a lot of excitement in this job.’
Slider smiled. ‘And there I was, thinking it was wrong of me to be excited over something like this.’
‘You’re only human,’ Porson said. ‘We’re all tarred with the same brooch.’
TWENTY
Cynical Studies
Swilley was waiting for him when he got back to his own room.
‘Heneage and Seagram, boss?’
‘You’ve had a look at the accounts?’
‘There’s a lot more detail I can go into if you need it, but a basic overview says it’s no more than breaking even. And I had a word with Crafty Harris.’
Colin Harris was a former fence of stolen antiques, now turned legitimate and an outlier for SCD6, the Art and Antiques Crime unit. He got his nickname from his haunting of craft fairs in his previous life.
‘He says the antiques business is going through a rough patch. Houses and flats are smaller, and everyone wants open-plan spaces and light modern furniture. There’s still money to be made at the top end, for people who’ve made it big and bought a country mansion, but even then, if they’re not brought up to it, they’re often just as happy with repro. And the top end of the genuine antiques market is crowded with experts all trying to make a living.’
‘I see. So when you say “just breaking even”, is Seagram drawing any money from it?’
‘Hard to say, boss. There is an item for wages on the balance sheet of forty thousand pounds. He can’t be paying Lucy Gallo that much – I doubt she gets more than eighteen, tops – but we don’t know if he has any other employees. If not, the rest is probably a salary he pays himself.’
‘So at best he’s getting around twenty thousand a year? That’s not enough for his lifestyle.’
‘Right boss. Cue large cash injection from mega-rich wifey.’
‘We don’t know that,’ Slider said.
‘Well, somewhere, anyway. The phone’s on its way back. Fingermarks from at least two, possibly three people, all overlaying each other. They’re trying to separate them but they don’t think they’ll get more than a partial, if that. Are we arresting Seagram? The report on the handkerchief’s not back yet.’
‘Mr Porson says that with or without the blood, we’ve got enough to bring him in, assuming Greyling’s story holds up. But I would like to wait and see what’s on the phone before I talk to him.’
‘If Greyling was going to lie,’ said Swilley, ‘surely he’d lie the other way, to protect Seagram. I mean, why would he lie to drop him in it?’
‘I agree. I think he’s only coughed now to save his own hide – he was plainly rattled when we turned up again. But of course there’s always the possibility that Seagram was lying to him.’
Swilley looked puzzled. ‘But about what, boss? The phone is Lingoss’s. He couldn’t have got hold of it any other way, surely? He must have killed him.’ She thought. ‘Unless he and Steenkamp are in it together? Or she killed Lingoss and he’s protecting her? But’ – she shook her head – ‘it would be a funny way to protect her. And then there’s all that about a divorce. I can’t see why he’d want to divorce her when she’s the paymaster. Unless he was only talking about divorce to impress Greyling – maybe Greyling had been making a play for him, trying to pressure him into marriage.’
‘But Greyling says he isn’t gay.’
Swilley gave him a sceptical look. ‘He says he isn’t. Do you buy all that celibate gazing malarky?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘I say, if you don’t want the watch, don’t breathe on the works.’
‘BILL! My old firecracker! How goes it? Has the lovely Mrs Bill sprogged down yet? I’m guessing not, or you’d have phoned your faithful friend with the news as a matter of priority?’
Slider, who had winced and recoiled at the first explosion, cautiously approached his face to the phone again. Tufnell Arceneaux, the forensic haematologist – the bodily fluids man, as he generally characterized himself – was large of life, larger of appetites, and largest still of voice.
‘Nothing doing yet, Tufty,’ he reported. ‘It’s supposed to be another two weeks.’
‘Tell that to the babeling, old banana! They’ve got no sense of timing. Or rather, they have, but in a totally perverse manner. Just wait till you’re doing something vital that you absolutely can’t leave, and that’s the moment it’ll choose to poke its little head out. Take Uncle Tufty’s word for it. I’ve forgotten – is it a girl or a boy?’
‘We decided not to ask.’
‘My God! Your self-control fills me with awe. And astonishment. Why? Never put off till tomorrow a pleasure you could have today, that’s my motto.’
‘I was taught as a child to save my pudding until last.’
‘Crackers! Eat it first, while you’ve got room. Before the fire alarm goes off. Or war is declared. Well, let me be the first to hear the good news, won’t you? You owe me that, as your oldest friend. And, by the way, there was a trace of blood and what appears to be brain matter on the handkerchief.’
‘I thought this was purely a social call?’
‘You should thank God you have me, because anyone less devoted to you would have gone home and given you the good news tomorrow.’
‘I am in awe of your devotion to duty. It’s definitely blood?’
‘You can take that to the bank. Human blood. It’s amazing what we can do with a smear these days. Back in the old days, we needed an eggcupful to be sure.’
‘Who keeps blood in eggcups?’
‘Deeply weird people, don’t ask.’
‘Now we just need to know that it’s the victim’s.’
‘Ah, that will take a bit longer. We have deceased’s DNA profile on record, of course, so as soon as the sequencing’s done I’ll let you know if it’s a match.’
‘I hope it is. Chummy’ – there was something oddly satisfying in describing the terribly posh Mr Seagram as ‘chummy’ – ‘wiped it off his face.’
‘Filthy beast! Well, then, I shall trawl for the inevitable skin cell he will have wiped off his phizzog at the same time. Just one cell will do it – I’m that good!’
‘As soon as I arrest him I’ll get a buccal swab over to you for comparison.’
‘Good man! We’ll get him – if he’s the one. Love to Joanna. Toodle-oo!’
Atherton came up, looking weary. ‘Got it,’ he said. ‘God, I hate taking statements. If the ability to speak is a God-given gift, why are most people so inarticulate?’
‘Has he changed anything?’
‘No, it’s come out the same. You obviously impressed him with that “truth shall set you free” speech. He’s clinging to it like a drowning man to a glass of water.’
‘Steady lad. You are tired. Go and get a cup of coffee. Tufty Arceneaux says there was blood on the handkerchief. And as soon as we’ve had a look at the phone, we’ll go and reel Seagram in.’
Everyone gathered for the unveiling of the mobile. Slider felt like making a speech. Atherton steepled his fingers and twiddled them in mock excitement. ‘Hurry up, I can’t wait! What can it be that was Seagram’s insurance?’
‘We know from the phone log that there was a call from Steenkamp to Lingoss at half past nine,’ said LaSalle.
‘Accuracy, please,’ said Atherton. ‘From Steenkamp’s phone.’
‘All right, but if he’s that clever he’d know we could find that out from the log, we wouldn’t need the phone for it. It can’t be that.’
‘We don’t know what he knew, or how clever he is,’ Swilley said. ‘We don’t even know it was him that made the call on her phone.’
‘It was him that drew out the cash,’ LaSalle said. ‘If he had her card, he had her phone as well.’
‘She could have been in the car with him,’
said Swilley. ‘It could have been a joint enterprise.’
‘But why?’ said Hart in frustration. ‘Why does either of them want to kill Lingoss?’
‘Perhaps we shall find out,’ Slider said mildly, waiting for the phone to boot up.
‘Blimey, this show’s a bit lacking in oomph, isn’t it?’ came Porson’s voice from the back. ‘Glad I didn’t put my dickey on. Stop all the bunny and get on with it!’
‘Sorry, sir.’
As many heads as possible were crammed into the space around Slider’s, till he felt he might pass out from a lack of oxygen.
‘D’you want me to do it, guv?’ McLaren offered kindly. ‘There might be stuff on there you don’t recognize – there’s new apps coming out every day, y’know.’
‘Give over, Maurice – he’s not a geriatric,’ Hart said, shoving herself in front of McLaren. ‘Let me do it, boss. I’ve got quicker thumbs.’
‘It might be something on the dark web,’ said Gascoyne anxiously. ‘You’d need his passwords.’
‘You’d need a Tor browser,’ said Lœssop.
‘Stop talking or I’ll send you all back to your desks,’ said Slider.
‘Yerss, stand back and let the dog see the rabbit,’ said Porson, taking the role of dog himself as he inserted his considerable person into the space at Slider’s left elbow. It was not that he was fat – quite the opposite – but he did seem to take up a lot of room.
And in the end it wasn’t anything hidden or encrypted or even password protected. It was right there in Gallery. Photographs of Gilda Steenkamp.
Atherton, in the favoured position on the other side, whistled soundlessly. ‘She wouldn’t want them to get out onto her fansite.’
‘Very tasteful,’ said Porson.
‘Blimey, she’s got a fantastic body for her age,’ said McLaren, who had climbed onto the desk behind so he could see over Slider’s head.
Slider felt bad suddenly about everybody ogling her, and handed the phone to Swilley, who was at least a woman. The photos were, as Porson had said, tasteful – not porno shots. Steenkamp stretched out on her side on a bed like the Rokeby Venus, head propped on one elbow; sitting backwards on a hard chair staring contemplatively out of the window; kneeling on the bed, arms folded across her breasts; a rear view, kneeling again, looking over her shoulder and laughing; and so on. Ten in all, and you would have called them art photos if you hadn’t known who took them. They could have been publicity shots, if she hadn’t been naked. She was smiling or laughing in several of them, and there had obviously been no coercion or deception. And the thing that made Slider saddest was the perception that they had been taken with love. Steenkamp did have an amazing body, for which he supposed Lingoss took some credit, and he had shown her in the best light. Perhaps all those hours studying himself in the mirror while making love had given him an eye for it; perhaps he had a natural artistic streak. But he had immortalized in digital form a woman he cared enough about to make her look her best – and a woman who was looking at the camera, and therefore at the photographer, with eyes of love.
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