Blood Sinister

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  He said the name as though it ought to mean something, and when Slider continued to look politely enquiring, he went on, ‘Goodness, you must have heard of him! He’s the set designer who won the BAFTA award for Bess and Robin. Wonderful sets – very dark and moody – and then the Coronation scenes, very sheesh! Please don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Bess and Robin because, frankly, dear, I shan’t believe you!’

  ‘I’ve heard of the film,’ Slider acknowledged. Everyone said it was going to sweep the Oscars board this year, and it was being heralded as the harbinger of a new Hollywood love affair with the British film – something that seemed to be harbinged every couple of years with hopeful regularity but never arrived. And these days everyone was supposed to be so interested in the cinema that they not only knew the names of actors, but everyone else involved as well – smart people could discuss the merits of different directors, scriptwriters, producers, even cameramen. Slider felt like a caveman. ‘I hardly ever get to the cinema. No time.’

  ‘Poor you!’ said Medmenham kindly. ‘Well, Josh is an architect by training and has his own company – very successful, makes oodles of money – but he’s famous for his sets. Hollywood’s mad to get hold of him, he could name his price, but he doesn’t need the money, so of course he can pick and choose, happy man!’

  ‘Was he a friend, or did he visit Phoebe on business?’

  ‘Oh, he and Phoebe are old friends. They go way back. And his wife Noni, too. She was Anona Regan – have you heard of her?’ Slider shook his head. ‘She was an actress, but she never really made it big time. She was in that sitcom a couple of years ago, Des Res – you know, about the estate agents?’

  ‘I don’t think I ever saw it. I don’t get to see much television, either.’ Unless he could bring the conversation round to real ale or the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, Slider feared he was going to end up with nul points.

  ‘Oh, my dear, you didn’t miss anything! It was a spectacular disaster. Flopperissimo! Poor Noni was the best thing in it, and it was a complete kiss of death to her, poor lamb. She was just trying to revive her career, and after that no-one would touch her avec le bargepole. Well, she’d never really made a name for herself, but she was a real trouper, and one can’t help feeling sorry for her. Not that she needs the money, of course – Josh has loads – but that’s never why one does it. One lives for one’s art – well, most of the time!’ He smiled again and almost batted his eyelashes.

  Slider grabbed the tail of the straying subject. ‘So, if you didn’t see Josh Prentiss, how did you know it was him visiting yesterday?’

  ‘I saw his car. You see, I knew she had a visitor, because I went and knocked on her door at about a quarter to seven, to see if she was coming down later to watch the serial. You know, Red Slayer? The past couple of weeks we’ve been watching it together over a bite of supper in my place. But when she answered the door she said she had someone with her and she couldn’t come.’

  ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘No, she didn’t open the door right up, and she stood in the gap so I couldn’t see past her. So I said, all right, I’d tape it and we could watch it some other time.’

  ‘And what time was the programme on?’

  ‘Eight till nine.’

  ‘But you were leaving at eight to catch your train,’ Slider pointed out.

  He turned just a little pink, for some reason. ‘Well, that’s when I decided to go up yesterday instead of today. If I was going to tape the serial there was no point in staying in, so I thought I might as well go to Chelmsford. And it was when I left for the station’, he hurried on, ‘that I saw Josh’s car. It was parked further down, and I passed it on my way to the tube.’

  ‘You know his car?’

  ‘I’ve seen him arrive in it enough times. It’s a Jaguar – one of those sleek, sporty-looking ones.’

  ‘An XJS?’

  Medmenham smiled charmingly. ‘If you say so. I wouldn’t know. It’s dark blue, and the registration letters are FRN, which I remember because they always make me think of the word “fornicator” – heaven knows why!’

  ‘Is Prentiss a fornicator?’ Slider asked.

  ‘Oh, good heavens, it’s not for me to say!’ Medmenham cried. ‘Though if he were, one shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, he’s an architect. What’s that old rhyme? Roads and bridges, docks and piers, that’s the stuff for engineers. Wine and women, drugs and sex, that’s the stuff for architects.’

  ‘You seem to be trying to suggest’, Slider said, ‘that Prentiss was Phoebe Agnew’s lover.’

  ‘Do I? Oh dear, I’m sure it wasn’t intentional,’ Medmenham said with artificial blankness.

  ‘Did he often visit?’

  ‘I believe so. She often talked about him and I’d seen him in there from time to time. As I said, they were old friends. She’d known him even longer than me.’

  ‘Did he always visit alone, or did his wife come too?’

  ‘I never saw Noni there, but of course I didn’t watch her door every hour. But Phoebe went to their house too, so she saw Noni there. It was all above board. For all I know, they met for lunch every day.’

  The blue eyes were round and expressionless and the lips were pursed like a doll’s. It was hard to know what he was trying to suggest or not suggest.

  ‘Did Phoebe have lovers, that you knew of?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ he said. ‘I don’t know of anyone specifically, but I mean she was a gorgeous woman, with that lovely hair, and skin like a newborn babe, though she never really bothered much about glamour, knocked about in a pair of old leggings and a floppy jumper. I said to her many a time, you’ve got legs most women would die for, darling, yet you never, ever show them – and between you and me,’ he added confidentially to Swilley, ‘she was one of those lucky creatures who never even had to shave them. But she wore trousers all the time,’ he tutted. ‘Still, she never had any shortage of men admiring her. And not only for her intellect, fabulous though it was.’ Again, the bland stare. ‘I’m sure she had all the affairs she wanted. Not that I knew anything about them. She was always discreet. No names, no pack drill. I certainly never heard her mention any man’s name, or heard her name coupled with anyone else’s in that context, by anyone.’

  On their way back upstairs, Norma said to Slider, ‘Was he for real, do you think, boss? Bit of a Tragedy Jill, wasn’t he?’

  Slider frowned thoughtfully. ‘There was something going on underneath his words – or at least, he wanted us to think there was. That’s the trouble with actors, I suppose – you can never tell when they’re acting.’

  ‘He’s only an ex-actor,’ Norma pointed out.

  ‘That might very well be the worst kind. What did you make of him.’

  ‘He struck me as possessive. Phoebe was his best friend, and she oughtn’t to be anyone else’s.’

  ‘Hmm. What a life she led, with Lorraine upstairs and Medmenham downstairs, both knocking at her door at all hours, yearning to unbosom themselves.’

  ‘It was her choice,’ Norma said unkindly. ‘What was she doing living there anyway? I see her as leeching off them as much as vice versa – surrounding herself with sad acts who made her feel important.’

  He dropped behind her as they met people coming down. ‘But surely she was a big enough name already, without that?’

  ‘No-one’s ever important enough in their own eyes,’ Norma said. ‘We’re all insecure. It’s only a matter of degree.’ She climbed faster than him, and her wonderful athletic bottom bounced just ahead at eye-level, leading him ever upwards. Better than a banner with a strange device. She stopped on the landing and waited for him. ‘I couldn’t get my head round his kit. Those trousers and that sweater were smart and expensive, but then he tops it off with that whiskery old weasel.’

  ‘Harris tweed,’ said Slider, glad for once to be sartorially better informed than one of his minions. ‘It lasts for ever, but it costs a small mortgage in the beginning. So it’s o
f a piece with the rest.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Swilley. They pushed through the swing doors. ‘Maybe that’s what he spends his money on, then. If he’s a protected tenant, he won’t be paying much rent. He’d be a fool to move out of that flat. It makes you feel quite sorry for the Sborski character.’

  ‘Hmm. You know, there’s something not quite right about Medmenham. Something he’s not being straight about.’

  Norma raised her eyebrows. ‘I should have thought almost everything.’

  ‘Seriously. There’s something wrong about his story.’

  ‘Yes, he didn’t seem convinced by it,’ Norma agreed. ‘And if he was going to see his dear old mum, why not wait till the weekend, instead of taking a day off for it?’

  ‘Why indeed?’ Slider said. ‘I think I could bear to know whether he did go and see her last night. He’s hiding something. Or—’ he added with frustration, ‘he wants us to think he is.’

  ‘Don’t start that,’ Norma warned, ‘or you’ll drive yourself nuts.’

  ‘But even if he is hiding something,’ Slider continued, pausing at his door, ‘I can’t really see him as the murderer. I mean, why would he? And even if he did it, he’d hardly tie her up and rape her, would he?’

  Norma looked thoughtful. ‘I don’t know about that bit. But if it’s a motive you want, there’s always jealousy.’

  ‘Jealousy?’

  ‘Well, he obviously adored her. She was just the type – a big redhead, a faded star – just the sort they go for. And if she preferred butch men to the sort of sensitive love he could offer – well, that type of jealousy can be worse than the other sort.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Slider said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  De mortuis nihil nisi bunkum

  Phoebe Agnew’s parents, it seemed, were both dead, and her next of kin was her only sister, Chloe, married to a Nigel Cosworth and living in a village in Rutland.

  Atherton was impressed. ‘It’s quite hard to live in Rutland. Turn over in bed too quickly and you end up in Leicestershire.’

  The local police were breaking the news to her. Porson had held off from issuing a press statement until that was done, so the media frenzy had not yet materialised. The paragraph in the Standard did not name Agnew, only said that a well-known journalist had been found dead at her home in West London and that the police were treating the death as suspicious. The late editions of the tabloids were still running the ongoing search for two teenage girls who’d run away with some ponies that were going to be slaughtered (‘The story that has everything,’ Slider said), while the broadsheets were obsessed with another Government minister sex scandal and the Balkan crisis in about equal proportions.

  ‘I suppose the Grauniad will run the obituary tomorrow,’ Atherton said. ‘After all, she was one of theirs. And I suppose when the details get out they’ll all be panting for it. We’ll have the Sundays crawling all over us. The rape angle always gets ’em.’

  ‘Her having her hands tied doesn’t make it rape,’ Norma pointed out. ‘She had dinner with this geezer, and they were old mates. It was probably how they liked to do it.’

  ‘Well, said geezer is obviously the next port of call,’ Slider said. ‘Have you located him?’

  ‘Josh Prentiss? Yes, he’s still at work,’ said Norma. ‘D’you want him brought in?’

  ‘You haven’t said anything to alert him?’ Slider asked.

  ‘No, boss. I just asked for him, said it was a personal call, and got myself accidentally cut off when they put me through.’

  ‘Good. I’d like to confront him myself. First reactions and so on. Meanwhile, I’d like someone to go over and talk to his wife, get her slant on it before she knows what he’s said. Yes, all right, Norma, you can do that. Anyone who’s not house-to-housing can make a start on going through her paperwork. You’ve got it all here now?’

  ‘Sackloads of it,’ Anderson said.

  ‘Weeks of work,’ said McLaren.

  ‘There’s one thing, guv,’ Mackay said. ‘You know there were two filing cabinets? Well, they were stuffed so full you could hardly get them open, all except for one drawer. In that one the files were hanging quite loosely. The desk drawers were the same – jammed full of papers. It occurs to me that maybe some big file was taken out of that one drawer by chummy.’

  ‘Possible. Any way of knowing which one?’ Slider asked. ‘Labels on the drawers? Was the stuff alphabetical or anything?’

  ‘You kidding?’ Mackay said economically.

  ‘Okay,’ said Slider, ‘keep that in mind as you go through. Try to classify the stuff and see if there’s anything obviously missing. It may not mean anything, though. There were a lot of papers loose on the desk, as I remember, and they might have been what made the space.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Anderson said, ‘if it was a sex thing, he’s not going to go looking through her files, is he?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Slider said, ‘but it’s as well to keep an open mind.’

  It hadn’t snowed, but the sky had remained lowering, and its unnatural twilight had blended seamlessly with the normal onset of winter dusk. It seemed to have been dark all day, with the lights in shop and office windows making it darker by contrast. ‘It’s like living in Finland,’ said Slider gloomily.

  Atherton glanced at him. ‘SAD syndrome,’ he said. ‘Sorry Ageing Detective.’

  ‘Oh, thank you!’

  Rush hour was winding itself up. Illuminated buses glided past like mobile fish tanks; the wet road hissed under commuter tyres, so that, with your eyes closed and a certain amount of good will, you could imagine you were on the piste. Prentiss’s office was in a new block in Kensington Church Street – prime real estate these days, especially as it had a car park. Somewhere to leave a car in central London was becoming more valuable than somewhere to lay your weary head. The time would come when it would be cheaper to hire someone to drive your car round and round all day and jump in when it passed you.

  When they were finally ushered into Prentiss’s large and expensively furnished room, he was standing behind his desk and talking on the phone while he looked out of the large window onto the ribbon of lights, gold and ruby, that wound down to Ken High Street and up to Notting Hill. He gestured them to seats while continuing with his conversation; behaviour that Slider, perhaps unfairly, couldn’t help feeling was an executive ploy for impressing them with how busy and important he was.

  At last Prentiss slammed the phone down in its cradle and said, ‘Sorry about that, gentlemen. What can I do for you?’ He didn’t sit down, suggesting that whatever they wanted, it wouldn’t take him very long to sort it out and be rid of them.

  He was a tall man in his fifties, and broad under his pale grey suit, which even Slider could tell was fashionable and expensive. He was not fat, but heavily built and with a certain softness around the jowls and thickness in the lines of his face that was not unattractive, given his age, merely adding to his authority. His beautifully cut hair was fair, turning grey, and brushed back all round to give him a leonine look, which went with his straight, broad nose and wide, lazy hazel eyes. Altogether he seemed a commanding and handsome man, the sort women would fall for badly. A man who could kill? Perhaps, Slider thought, if the reason and circumstances were right. He looked as though he would be single-minded in pursuit of his own ends; and whatever he did, he would prove a formidable opponent. Or at least – Slider amended to himself, wondering if there wasn’t a trace of self-indulgence about the mouth and the softness – he’d always make you think he was.

  Slider introduced himself and Atherton, and proffered his ID, which Prentiss waved away magnanimously. ‘I’d like to speak to you about Phoebe Agnew,’ he said.

  The gaze sharpened. ‘What about her?’

  ‘You are a friend of hers, I understand.’

  ‘Phoebe and I are very old friends,’ he said, a faint frown developing between his brows. ‘There’s no secret about that. I’ve known her since college days. We’ve wo
rked on many a fund-raiser together. Why do you ask?’

  Defensive, thought Slider. ‘Would you mind telling me when you saw her last?’

  ‘I certainly would,’ Prentiss said.

  Slider raised his eyebrows in his mildest way. ‘You have some reason for not telling me?’

  ‘I am not going to answer any of your questions until you tell me why you’re asking,’ Prentiss said impatiently. ‘So either come out with it, or I shall have to ask you to leave. I’m a busy man.’

  ‘You haven’t heard, then’, said Slider, ‘that Miss Agnew is dead?’

  Prentiss didn’t say anything, but he stared at Slider as if looking alone would suck information out of him.

  ‘I’ll take that as a “no”,’ Slider said.

  ‘Dead?’ Prentiss managed at last.

  ‘Murdered,’ said Slider.

  Slowly Prentiss felt behind him and lowered himself into the high-backed leather executive chair. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  Genuine shock, or an act? Poke him and see. ‘No, I go round telling people things like that just to see how they react,’ Slider said.

  That roused Prentiss. ‘What the devil do you mean by coming in here with that attitude? Are you trying to be funny? Do you think this is a game?’

  Slider faced him down. ‘I most certainly do not. A woman has been murdered, and I never find that in the least amusing. As to attitude, perhaps we can examine yours. I’d like you to answer some simple questions instead of wasting time with ridiculous power-play.’

  ‘How dare you!’

  ‘It’s my job to dare. When did you last see Miss Agnew?’

  Prentiss seemed taken aback. Perhaps no-one had spoken sharply to him since he outgrew his nanny. ‘But I – I don’t understand. Phoebe’s dead? How? How did it happen?’

  ‘I’d rather not go into that at the moment.’

  Prentiss shook his head. ‘I can’t take it in. It’s not possible. And surely you can’t be suspecting me of anything?’