Joanna beat me to it. ‘With a motive?’
‘The one thing in Kirkslap’s favour is that he has no motive for killing Miss Hepburn, so, as you say,’ Crowe condescended, ‘finding someone with a motive would be ideal. Unfortunately, men kill women for all sorts of reasons, frequently on the spur of the moment and sometimes for no obvious reason at all. One thing we might be able to use is the fact that most murdered women are killed by men they know; most likely someone with whom they are, or have been, in a relationship.’ Sounded quite a lot like the Violet/Kirkslap set-up to me. ‘Yes, a motive would be excellent, but, perhaps, that’s being a tad over optimistic. I'd settle for someone, preferably crooked, who knew Violet and had the opportunity to kill her.’
‘The last defence team looked into her previous relationships in some detail and there’s nothing of any interest,’ Joanna said.
‘Mr Crowe's not talking about Violet's past boyfriends and romantic liaisons,’ I said.
Crowe agreed. ‘We all know what kind of person she was—’
Joanna cut him off. ‘What kind of person is that?’
‘A glorified call-girl,’ Crowe said. ‘Someone out to make money from men, and not too fussy what she had to do to earn it. For a woman like that, violence is an occupational hazard.’
‘She was only doing what she had to, to get by,’ Joanna said.
Crowe's smile was little more than a baring of teeth. ‘How very sisters-are-doing-it-for-themselves of you.’
‘It wasn't as if Violet was hanging around industrial estates, shouting at men in passing motors,’ I said.
‘That’s right,’ Mike chipped in. ‘She was one of the regular girls at Karats. They don't let just anyone in.’
‘I’ll take your word for that,’ Crowe replied. ‘Say what you like, our Miss Hepburn was a hooker. A high class hooker, perhaps, but such a woman is always going to meet unpleasant people. We need to dig up…’ he grinned horribly at Mike, ‘not literally, an alternative suspect. At the moment Kirkslap is isolated. No man is an island, but in these proceedings our boy is Ben-bloody-becula.’ He jabbed a finger at me again. ‘I want you to find if there was someone unsavoury who knew Violet in her professional capacity. We'll put that person on a witness list and lodge his schedule of previous convictions. If we can muddy the waters enough, I guarantee that there are some on the jury who'll think that a woman who uses her physical charms to sponge off rich men, has got what was coming to her. Most of those will be women. I find that female jurors can be highly judgmental of their own gender.’
How Crowe had come to that conclusion, I didn't know, but his plan came straight out of the Robbie Munro book of smoke and mirrors. Maybe we weren't so unlike after all.
‘Where did you say Violet plied her trade?’ Crowe asked Mike.
Mike opened his iPad case. It was a handy device. You never knew when it was going to come in useful. In a few deft manipulations he had brought up the web-site for Karats champagne bar, all turquoise and gold graphics.
Crowe took a fleeting look at the electronic tablet, then seized hold of my bicep and ushered me further along the landing, our backs to Joanna and Mike. ‘We both know you have a certain knack when it comes to rooting around in the dirt,’ he said. ‘Do what comes naturally, but do it quickly.’
Chapter 31
I was thoroughly scrubbed and dressed in my best, grey suit over a black shirt that Jill had bought me in advance of my birthday. I didn’t come any smarter than this, and yet the doorman still took a good, long look at me, from polished shoes to new haircut, before somewhat grudgingly pushing open the smoked-glass doors to Karats Champagne Bar. The plush interior was replete with turquoise fabrics and gold fitments. Suddenly, I had a deep longing for the bare, reclaimed-timber floor, painted wood-chip walls and water-stained ceiling of the Red Corner Bar, where I usually found myself at some stage of a Friday night; more often than not to prise my dad loose from a bar stool and sling him into a taxi; however, this Friday night was different. This Friday I was suited, booted and hefting an enormous wedge of expenses, courtesy of the accused in the case of Her Majesty’s Advocate –v- Larry Kirkslap. My business account would describe the trip as an evidence-gathering mission.
I took a deep breath and, as I walked through the candlelit bar, piano-player crooning Paul Anka in a far corner, I realised that I wasn’t under, but over-dressed. Any dress-code applied to women only. The male occupants of the velvet-lined booths were not only a lot older than me, but casually attired; chino’s and checked shirts or, at best, rumpled suits seemed to be the order of the day. I could sense disappointed stares from the group of bored-looking, mahogany-tanned women, gathered by the powder-room as they watched me walk up to the bar, my best clobber semaphoring the fact that I wasn’t rich, that I was trying too hard. More was less here. I should have come in dressed like a scruff and the girls in the slinky evening gowns and tight-fitting dresses would have been all over me.
‘What can I get you sir?’ asked the barman, leaning across a beaten-copper counter top, so highly polished it shone like gold.
I pulled out a wallet that was straining at the seams. ‘This is a champagne bar, isn't it?’
The barman perked up a little at that and slid a menu across the counter at me. I hadn’t realised there were so many varieties, all listed in order of price. Obviously no-one bought the cheapest and the clear sign of a cheapskate was to order the second cheapest on the list. I selected the Perrier Jouet Belle Epoque 2002. I’d no idea if it was any good. I liked the name and it was sufficiently mid-table to be reassuringly expensive. ‘Two bottles,’ I said, I hoped, airily, looking around the dimly-lit room. The booths along the walls were all occupied. I pointed to an empty table in the centre of the room. ‘I’ll be sitting over there.’
The pop of the first champagne cork was like a starting gun to the bronzed women in the corner, two of them broke loose from the pack and came over to me. I could imagine Kirkslap and his colleagues, Mike and Zack, at their celebration night here, back in December 2011, commandeering a corner booth, ordering a dozen bottles of vintage Bollinger and waiting as Violet and the other would-be prospectors wiggled and giggled their way over.
My girls were called Molly and Candy, blonde and brunette. They were young, pneumatic and smelt as lovely as they looked. They sat down either side of me. No sooner had they done so than the waiter arrived with two more glasses. He poured each of the ladies a drink and we clinked glasses. I had the strangest feeling that I’d seen Candy before, though I doubted we moved in the same circles; I certainly didn’t remember her from a Friday night at the Red Corner Bar.
The night drove on. The young women were delightful company and became even more delightful as we started on the second bottle of champagne. They were witty and intelligent, never letting the conversation flag for a minute, never failing to laugh at my jokes. There was a moment, shortly before I ordered another bottle of champagne, and as I stuck the second dead Frenchman nose down into the ice bucket, when I thought of Jill. I hadn’t spoken to her in a week. Since her phone call on Tuesday morning, the one that had been answered by Joanna, I’d tried every number I had to call her. I’d sent emails, left messages on switchboards, answering machines; and nothing. Was she dodging me? Who did she think she was, going off in the huff? I'd done nothing wrong. I wasn't the one away on skiing trips with hunky Swiss guys. I looked at my gorgeous bookends and wished they were gone and that Jill was there instead. What a night that would have been; just me, my wife-to-possibly-be, champagne and someone else's money.
I beckoned to the barman with an upraised index finger and while I waited for the next bottle to arrive, Molly and Candy excused themselves and floated off in the direction of the powder room.
‘I think you might find it more comfortable over here, sir,’ the waiter said, arriving with bottle three in a new ice bucket, and, taking his advice, I followed him to the velvet warmth of a recently vacated booth.
The waiter brought o
ver fresh glasses and was peeling the foil from the top of the bottle when Candy returned minus Molly. She didn’t say anything about her friend's departure. I wondered if the girls had arm-wrestled for me in the ladies’ room. Or maybe I’d passed some kind of nutter test, been weighed in the balance and found harmless. That was good. It was also good from the point of view that, if such precautions were taken, it meant that there were some dodgy characters about. The gorilla at the front door wasn’t there to beat off the hordes of punters who were fighting to get in to spend two hundred quid on a bottle of fizzy French wine. When it came down to it, no matter how much I was enjoying myself, I was there for a reason. I wanted to know the names of any men who had ever been considered a cause for concern or were downright dangerous. In my short time in the bar, I'd already noticed a face I recognised: Tam ‘Tuppence’ Christie, sharing a booth with a male acquaintance and three young ladies in brightly-coloured, tight-fitting clothing. Tuppence was an ageing Glasgow gangland figure. I was uncertain as to the source of his nickname; however, his notoriety was such that, if he were even loosely associated with Violet Hepburn, it would open up a whole avenue of defence that had not previously been explored.
‘Tuppence come here often?’ I asked.
Candy smiled and changed the subject. ‘La Belle Epoque,’ she said, tilting her head to read the label on the champagne bottle, as the waiter twisted off the wire cage and prised out the cork with a satisfying pop.
‘The Beautiful Era,’ I translated.
‘France eighteen ninety to nineteen fourteen.’ She’d mentioned earlier that she was a student. History probably. A subject that got more difficult with every passing day. ‘Also a female trio with the Seventies hit, Black is Black,’ she added. Perhaps with the average age of Karat’s clientele it was handy to know something of classical music. Certainly the man on the ivories hadn’t ventured this side of the Eighties.
The waiter wrapped a white cotton napkin about the bottle and began to pour. Candy drew a finger down the sleeve of his jacket as, having filled our glasses, he withdrew from the table. He returned a few minutes later with a small glass bowl of strawberries.
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ Candy said, which I took to mean, I hope you don’t mind paying for these, because you are.
Champagne and strawberries. It was then that I realised where I’d seen Candy before: that afternoon I'd met Kirkslap at Carnbooth House. It was the hair that had fooled me. It had been auburn then; tonight it was a deep chestnut. I felt awkward for the first time since walking into the bar. I’d hoped to casually drop Violet’s name into the conversation, find out a little more about her and glean some information that, with a twist here and a little innuendo there, could be put to good use in Kirkslap’s defence. Did Candy recognise me? Would she know what I was up to?
She seemed to read my mind. ‘Why did you lie earlier?’ She asked, dropping a strawberry into her champagne. It hovered for a moment on a billow of golden bubbles before sinking slowly to the bottom of the flute glass. ‘When you said you were a pools winner.’
‘What I said was that I’d had some luck with betting on football.’
‘And have you?’
‘As a matter of fact I have,’ I said, though the tenner I’d eventually squeezed out of Grant Goodwin’s wallet, despite the Sheriff Clerk’s valiant efforts to keep it there, was long spent.
‘But you’re really a lawyer. One of Larry Kirkslap’s lawyers.’
I ate a strawberry. Might as well since I was sort of paying for them.
‘Can I take it you’re here on business not pleasure?’ she asked, chewing up my cover story like the strawberry I was enjoying.
I stalled, wondering how to play this without ending up with a glass of champagne over my new suit and the doorman introducing my face to the pavement. ‘If it is, it's the most pleasurable business I’ve ever been on,’ I said.
‘Does Larry know you’re spying on him? Or are you spying on me for him?’
‘Larry doesn't know I’m here and, no, he hasn’t asked me to spy on you.’
‘But I take it you’re spending his money?’
‘It’s a dirty job,’ I said.
She smiled. I relaxed, called over the waiter and ordered an eighteen year-old Talisker. Might as well find out if my dad was right when my client was paying for it.
‘So why are you here?’ Candy asked.
‘I’m digging.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ She played with the gold chain around her neck on which was set a single diamond, twice the size of the one in a certain velvet box at the bottom of a drawer in my office.
‘Not for gold,’ I said. ‘For information on Violet Hepburn.’
‘Dirt, then.’
‘Is there any?’
Candy didn't reply, just lowered the level of her glass with a delicate sip.
‘I'm not trying to blacken Violet's character,’ I said.
‘No?’
‘All I want is—’
‘Someone else to pin the blame on?’ She was definitely not daft.
‘Obviously you don't think Larry Kirkslap's a murderer,’ I said. ‘Not if you're happy enough to keep his company.’
She shrugged. ‘A murderer? No. Did he kill Violet? Perhaps. Larry may seem like a big pussycat to you, but he likes things to go his own way. If they don't, believe me, he'll let you know all about it.’
‘Got a bit of a temper has he?’
‘I saw Larry lose it once and it was quite frightening.’
It wasn't what I'd come to hear. ‘You probably come across a lot of men like that in your line of work,’ I said. ‘Men who are angry and violent when they don't get their own way.’ I glanced over at Tuppence Christie and his party.
Candy set her glass down firmly on the table. ‘My line of work?’
Touchy. I swiftly moved away from that topic and asked her to tell me about Kirkslap's temper tantrum.
‘It was not long after his daughter's wedding.’
I hadn't known Kirkslap had a daughter far less a married one. ‘When was this?’
‘Last September, anyway, it was weeks after he'd stopped seeing Violet. She turned up unannounced at the reception, drunk and upset. She caused a major scene and had to be carted off. A few days later Larry went to her flat with his lawyer. The lawyer threatened an interdict. Larry threatened something slightly more permanent than a court order.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘I was there. I'd started to see Larry back and forwards, and Violet asked me round for a drink. She wanted me to take a step back, give her a free run.’
‘She must have really liked him.’
Candy drained the last of the champagne, tilting her glass so that the strawberry fell into her mouth. ‘Violet was a lovely girl,’ she said, chewing slowly, ‘but she was getting on; thirty six on her last birthday.’
Same age as me more or less. ‘She'd had a good innings then,’ I said.
Candy didn't miss the sarcasm. ‘I don't mean it like that.’ She allowed me to replenish her glass. ‘Violet wasn't old, old. It's just that... well you've seen the other girls here.’
‘Can I ask how old are you?’
She was twenty-five. Two years younger than Joanna. Ten years younger than Jill.
‘I think she saw Larry as her last chance at a real high-roller. The pair were practically inseparable for six months. I actually believe she heard wedding bells. Dumb. That's not what this place is about.’
I'd assumed it was exactly what Karats was about.
‘Do you know what we do here?’
‘I have a rough idea,’ I said.
‘I don't think you do.’
‘You're gold-diggers. Looking for rich husbands.’
She sighed. ‘We're not here to form long term relationships. We meet men, we're nice to them and in exchange they buy us nice things. They're not looking for anything permanent, we shouldn't be either. No-one's forced to do anything they don't want to. As so
on as I've paid for my education, I'm out of here.’
‘Unless you end up like Violet. Come on, who else did she know? Tuppence? Some of his pals?’
Candy took a quick sideways look in the direction of the gangster and put a finger to my lips. ‘I like you, Robbie,’ she said. ‘I like your spit and sawdust haircut, your off-the-rack suit and the way you throw other people's money about, but it's time you were going.’ She removed her finger and stood, looking from me to the smoked glass doors and the dinner-suited monolith beyond.
I stood too. The waiter appeared instantly at my side with a turquoise leather folder. He handed it to me. Fifty quid for strawberries. The whole bill came to seven hundred and forty eight pounds including a very unoptional-looking, optional gratuity.
‘Who picks the strawberries for you - the Queen?’ I asked him.
Candy no longer found my sense of humour quite so charming. I peeled off eight hundreds, stuffed them inside the folder and handed it to the waiter who received it with a polite nod of the head. ‘I'll wait for my change,’ I said to his back as he walked away. ‘And a receipt.’
‘Classy,’ Candy said.
‘Anything else you can tell me about Violet,’ I asked. ‘Any other men lose their temper with her?’
Candy looked around. ‘It's not a good idea to go around asking those kind of questions,’ she said, satisfied no-one had overheard. ‘The men who come here rely on a degree of discretion. Not everyone has such an open marriage as Larry and Marjorie Kirkslap.
‘And you'd be happy to cover up for them, even if they'd murdered your friend, for the sake of being discreet?’
The waiter returned, laid the turquoise folder on the table beside me and marched off again. Candy moved closer, made a show of hugging me, before dismissing me with a peck on the cheek. As I made to leave, she lifted the diamond solitaire from her chest. ‘If you really want to know, why don't you ask Larry Kirkslap? He'll tell you how discreet I can be.’
Chapter 32
‘He threatened to kill her?’ Crowe asked incredulously.
Killer Contract (Best Defence series Book 4) Page 14