Chelsea Mansions

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Perhaps I might,’ John said. ‘History was originally my subject. If you really wouldn’t mind, Toby?’

  ‘Be my guest, old son. If you find any worthwhile photos, we might get them framed.’

  After they finished their lunch they lingered for a while in the food hall, and John took hold of Kathy’s arm and steered her away.

  ‘You think there might be some connection between Nancy and Chelsea Mansions?’

  ‘I’ve really no idea, John, but it’s an intriguing thought.’

  ‘It does kind of make sense. The holiday was a bit of a nostalgia trip for her—tracing the lost relatives in Scotland, that kind of thing. And she had brought old photographs with her. Emerson showed me.’

  ‘Yes, I saw those. I didn’t take much notice at the time.’

  ‘I don’t remember seeing any of Chelsea Mansions. They were mainly pictures of people. It would be interesting if any of those faces are up in Toby’s attic, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘It might explain why she came to the hotel.’

  But not much else, she thought, as she waved them off in a taxi, the three of them looking like an affectionate family group, the elderly couple and their deferential, grown-up son, indulging the old man’s passion for knickerbocker glories. The sight of them together filled Kathy with a sense of futility. They hadn’t been able to help, although they’d obviously wanted to, and the failure wasn’t theirs, it was hers. She had been in a kind of shock since being dumped from the case, wasting time, clutching at straws like this, when the real questions lay elsewhere.

  And the real questions were why Nigel Hadden-Vane had done it and how he’d managed it. They had caught sight of a couple of his connections to the killer and his accomplice, and sketched out a circumstantial case, but nothing more. How had he arranged it, making contact with the son of his old chauffeur in Barlinnie Prison to recruit Harry Peebles? How had he made contact with Peebles, given his instructions, paid the cash? The only person who might have given them an inkling was Danny Yilmaz, and he was dead.

  On the way home she went over again in her mind that first interview with Danny. She remembered a slight change in his manner, an apparent eagerness to cooperate, when she began to question him about the man who had made the arrangements for the job over the phone. Did he know the caller? Was it Hadden-Vane himself, or had he worked through some other acquaintance of Danny’s?

  When she got back to her flat she went through the case files on her computer once again, searching for the newspaper photograph that Bren had shown her, of Hadden-Vane at the Haringey Sport and Social Club, handing out certificates. When she found it she stared at the faces, a dozen of them watching the ceremony. The quality was poor, the features grainy, but there was one other that seemed familiar. It took her a moment to place him, then she remembered. In the back row, face partially obscured, stood a man who looked very like Wayne Everett, the security man on duty the night Moszynski died.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  When she got to the hospital the following morning, Brock was dressed and getting ready to leave.

  ‘Kathy!’ he beamed. ‘I was going to give you a call. They’re letting me go home at last. Fancy a train ride?’

  They caught a cab to Victoria Station, Brock opening the window to take in the smells of the city, untainted by hospital chemicals, and it was only when they were on the train that he began to speak of what was on his mind. He had been careful to choose an empty compartment, and as the train pulled out of the station he said, ‘Chivers called in to see me this morning. He brought me a book about preparing for retirement. I nearly threw it at him. Apparently he’d heard a rumour that I’d decided to go.’

  They were rumbling across Grosvenor Bridge, the chimneys and bulk of the old Battersea Power Station on the far side of the river, and hovering overhead a helicopter coming in to the heliport that Moszynski had used. Life goes on, Kathy thought.

  ‘Did he say how his investigation is going?’

  ‘I rather gathered that they haven’t found anything more concrete to link Hadden-Vane to Peebles, nor a motive for him to be involved in either death.’

  ‘I might be able to help him.’

  ‘You got something from the hotel people?’

  ‘No, they couldn’t help. But afterwards I was thinking about Danny Yilmaz, and wondering who else might have made the arrangements for Peebles’ visit, if it wasn’t Hadden-Vane himself. So I looked again at that picture of him at the Haringey club, and I recognised Moszynski’s bodyguard, Wayne Everett, among the onlookers. And that makes sense too, because Hadden-Vane is a director of the company he works for, Shere Security.’

  Brock nodded, thoughtful. ‘I see.’

  ‘Should I tell Chivers?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘Hm, I think he’d regard it as just another circumstantial detail. So Everett was in the photo, so what? And it doesn’t help us with the most important thing, the thing that’s bothering him most: the motive. Why on earth would Hadden-Vane want to harm Moszynski or Nancy Haynes?’

  They were passing through the densely packed terraces of inner South London now, the brickwork blackened with age and long-extinct coal fires. It was an area Brock had once worked as a young CID officer, and he said, ‘This feels like being in limbo, doesn’t it? Watching life through glass.’

  ‘You could get away. Take a holiday, go somewhere nice with Suzanne.’

  ‘She’s busy, and I’m supposed to check in to the clinic every day for tests. I could still be a walking time bomb, according to the specialist. So if you hear me ticking, watch out.’

  When they got off the train they stopped at the Bishop’s Mitre on the way back to Brock’s house. Brock ordered his habitual pork pie and pint of bitter, and Kathy watched him address them like a sacrament for a life recovered.

  When they were finished she took a couple of sheets of paper from her bag and spread them out on the table. ‘This is our victim profile for Nancy Haynes. Thin, isn’t it? I realised when I was talking to the hotel people how little we really know about her. We don’t know why she chose Chelsea Mansions or if she’d been to London before, and we have only a vague sketch of her background and family structure. It didn’t seem particularly relevant. Now I wonder. What if she had had some previous contact with Hadden-Vane?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking the same thing,’ Brock said. ‘In fact I’ve been wondering if Sharpe might be right about you leaving London.’

  She gave him a puzzled look and he said, ‘Have you ever been to Boston?’

  She hadn’t. In fact she’d never been to North America, and at first she didn’t like the idea of leaving. It felt like running away, and she objected that they could talk to Emerson and Nancy’s relatives on the phone, but Brock wasn’t having any of that.

  ‘It’s not the same, Kathy. You’ve got to see them on their home ground. Get the taste of it, where she lived, what kind of life she had. You know that.’

  So they went back to Brock’s house and explored the idea, and when they’d finished Kathy got on the web and started to make some bookings.

  On the train back to central London later that afternoon, Kathy called John Greenslade. He was at the Tate Gallery, viewing the Henry Moore exhibition, and they arranged to meet outside on the gallery steps. The sky was heavy with dark clouds when Kathy came out of Victoria Station and walked briskly down Vauxhall Bridge Road, and by the time she reached the river and turned along Millbank fat drops of rain were spotting the pavement. She ran up the steps towards the shelter of the portico and John stepped out to meet her with a smile, and it struck her with a sudden feeling of regret that she probably wouldn’t see him again.

  ‘Fancy a cup of tea?’ he said.

  ‘Okay.’

  They went inside and downstairs to the café.

  ‘How have you been making out?’ he asked, and she sensed a reserve about him, as if he’d resigned himself to getting nowhere with her.

  ‘A bit of a loose end.’

  He n
odded. ‘I would have called, but I figured you’d get in touch if you wanted to.’ He stirred his tea slowly. ‘And now you have. So what can I do for you?’

  Kathy felt uncomfortable. ‘I really appreciate the help you’ve given me, John.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. What do you need?’

  ‘I wondered if you’re going to stay in London for a few more days.’

  ‘I reckoned I’d stay at least over the weekend. Why?’

  ‘If you had the time to look through Toby’s old records that would be very useful.’

  ‘Yes, I said I would. In fact I made a start this morning. I found some old photo albums, family groups mostly—on a beach, playing golf, at a fair—the sort of things you’d expect, but I didn’t come across anyone I recognised. To tell the truth, I don’t really have any idea what I’m supposed to be looking for.’

  ‘I’m going to try to get hold of those photographs that Nancy brought with her, and I thought I could email them to you so that you could see if any of the people in those showed up in Toby’s pictures. That would give us a connection.’

  ‘Email?’

  ‘Yes, I’m going over to Boston. She may have had other photos, or letters which might tell us something.’

  John looked stunned. ‘I see. Are you back on the case then?’

  ‘Not officially, no. But since they don’t seem to be checking this angle I thought I would. Give me something to do. I’d be grateful if you kept it to yourself, though.’

  ‘When are you going?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Have you been there before?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I spent a month at Harvard last year. Hotels are pricey though. Have you got somewhere to stay?’

  ‘A bed and breakfast in a place called Back Bay.’

  ‘Back Bay is nice. Very classy. You’ll like it.’

  ‘It’s where Emerson lives.’

  An awkward silence fell between them. She guessed what was going through his mind: I could come with you, it’s on my way home. But if that was what he was thinking he didn’t say, and she certainly didn’t want to compound the problems she would face if Chivers found out what she was doing.

  ‘I’m grateful, John, really I am,’ she said at last.

  ‘It’s a pleasure.’ He smiled stiffly. ‘You’ll have packing to do. I think I’ll take another look at Henry Moore.’

  At the door they shook hands and went their separate ways.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  As the plane dropped through the clouds Kathy made out the ragged coastline and islands of Massachusetts Bay and, away to the south, the long crooked arm of Cape Cod reaching into the Atlantic. Soon she could see a harbour dotted with small craft, and wharves with the towers of central Boston behind, and then the plane was dropping into Logan International.

  When she was finally clear of immigration she caught a cab into the city, giving the address of the bed and breakfast in Beacon Street. It was a solid brownstone house with a curved bow front to one side of the entrance steps. Two men welcomed her, gay she guessed, probably in their early forties, and showed her to her room upstairs. It was beautifully appointed and had a view out across the Charles River to the north shore beyond, lit up by the afternoon sun. Having assured her that they could help her with anything she needed, her hosts left her sitting by the window, feeling numb from the dawn start, the long flight and sudden immersion in this new city, and for the first time she was glad to have come, to have escaped the claustrophobia of London.

  She had phoned Emerson Merckle the previous day to make sure he would be available, and had arranged to contact him as soon as she arrived, which she now did. He sounded pleased to hear from her, and suggested they meet for afternoon tea at a place in Newbury Street, just a few blocks away. She had a shower and changed into lighter clothes and set out through the leafy residential streets, across the broad boulevard of Commonwealth Avenue and on to Newbury Street, lined with fashionable shops, galleries and restaurants. As she approached the café she saw Emerson sitting at a window table, half a storey above the street, gazing out at the passers-by, and gave him a wave. He looked a little puzzled at first, not recognising her, then smiled and got to his feet as she climbed the steps and went inside.

  They shook hands and made polite conversation about her flight and where she was staying. She could understand him not recognising her out of context, because he too seemed different, more confident and expansive in his own setting.

  ‘You said you wanted to get to know Nancy,’ he said, ‘so I had to bring you to Newbury Street, her favourite shopping place. Sure, she went out to the malls, of course, but this was really what she loved, the boutiques along here.’

  ‘She liked clothes?’

  ‘She liked shopping, the whole experience, for herself, for her children and grandchildren, for her friends. She bought me this shirt at a little place down the street here.’

  He paused, remembering. It was a very stylish shirt, Kathy noticed, brilliant white, with gold cufflinks and a dark tie and trousers so that he looked as if he’d come prepared for a formal interview, hair combed, cheeks pink.

  ‘Afterwards we’d meet somewhere like this and she’d tell me what she’d found. I look out of the window now and expect to see her walk by at any moment, with carrier bags full of her trophies.’

  ‘And she did the same in London?’

  ‘Actually, no, not really. We did go to Knightsbridge, but that was about it, and frankly I was a little surprised. I was thinking about this after you called me. There were other things that strike me now, small things, but a little odd.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, we arrived in London on the Saturday, and the following day we took a boat down the river to Greenwich, but by afternoon I was feeling jetlagged and just wanted to lie down for a while before we thought about dinner. But she was more energetic, and said she’d go out for a walk around Chelsea. It was about seven that evening when she tapped on my door to tell me she was back, and when she came in I was aware of a peculiar smell. It took me back to my childhood. It was incense—my family were Catholics—and I asked her where on earth she’d been, and she laughed and said she’d been to vespers. I was astonished, because that just wasn’t like Nancy at all, but she said she’d passed a cathedral and looked in.’

  ‘A cathedral?’

  ‘That’s what she said. I didn’t think any more about it, until I got home and saw on the TV news about the funeral in a Russian Orthodox cathedral in London of that Russian who lived next to our hotel. I wondered if it could have been the cathedral Nancy visited, and if it was possible they had met there and that was why he’d come to Nancy’s memorial service.’

  Kathy felt a stir of excitement. ‘It’s possible. That cathedral is in Knightsbridge, not far from where you were staying. It’s where he was a regular worshipper. This was one of the things I wanted to ask you, Mr Merckle . . .’

  ‘Emerson, please.’

  ‘. . . Emerson. You left the day after Mikhail Moszynski was killed in Cunningham Place, and we didn’t have a chance to speak to you again, but I wanted to find out if it was possible that Nancy could have had any contact with him.’

  ‘She never made any mention of a Russian, and we were together almost all the time, apart from that Sunday evening.’

  ‘What about the following day, Monday, around lunchtime?’

  He pulled out a little appointments diary from his trouser pocket. ‘Monday, Monday . . . the twenty-fourth. That was the morning we did go shopping, to Harrods first of all. She bought some things in the toy department for her grandchildren. Then Harvey Nichols, then back to the hotel. What then?’ He frowned in thought. ‘I was tired by the end of the morning and still a little disoriented by the time difference, and we decided to have a rest before going out to lunch. Why do you ask about that day?’

  ‘Someone in the square said they saw Nancy call in next door, that day or maybe Tuesday, at lunchtime.’
>
  ‘Next door? To the Russians? She never said a word to me about it. I don’t think I even knew she went out. Let me think . . . I read in my room for a while, and may have nodded off. Then I noticed the time, getting on for two, and went to see if she was ready to go. She was sorting some things on her bed, I remember—the pouch of photographs you saw. That was the first time I’d seen them. We went up the road to the department store in Sloane Square—Peter Jones—and had a late lunch on the top floor. Great views over London, I remember. She seemed very lively. I told her she had a spring in her step.’

  ‘But she didn’t mention having gone out?’

  ‘No, she didn’t.’

  ‘But if she did, she may have taken the photographs with her?’

  ‘I suppose it’s possible.’

  ‘You said other things struck you as odd about your time together in London?’

  ‘Well, she seemed a little secretive, now I look back, slightly out of character. It was only because she was usually so open that I noticed it as odd. Like the way she quizzed Toby at the hotel about its history, and his family, as if it really mattered. I knew her so well, you see. I knew what interested her—fashion, recipes, gardens, music. But not architecture, history, heritage.’

  ‘She spoke to Toby about that?’

  ‘Oh yes. At least, I came in at the end of a conversation. That’s what they were talking about.’

  ‘How did you come to be staying at Chelsea Mansions?’

  ‘Oh, that was entirely her doing. When she first suggested the trip to me she had already decided on that hotel, said she’d found this “darling little place” and I just assumed it was on someone’s recommendation. When we got there and I discovered what it was like I asked her about that, and she was a little mysterious, as if it were a game. When I pressed her she said, teasing me, that it was a ghost story, and I assumed that whoever had recommended the place had told her it was haunted, and she wanted me to discover it for myself.’