by Janet Neel
‘Very good-looking girl, of course, from the photographs,’ McLeish said into the silence.
‘Yes. Could’ve worn a flour sack and still looked good, but they don’t think like that.’ Richard Marsh-Hayden was still staring out of the window, but he had relaxed, slightly.
‘Your wife had changed her mind about selling her shares. Quite recently?’
‘The day before … before …’
‘Before you last saw her. Why, do you think?’
‘No idea.’
‘I understand that she had felt it might be possible to make a greater profit and get a better price.’
‘She’d been talking to some wanker, but she’d have come round again.’ He glanced at their unmoving faces. ‘She was holding up the sale because … well, because two things. She was pissed off with me, and she felt … she said that if we sold, the money would just go down the cracks. And she didn’t trust Brian Rubin – the chap who’s buying. He’d promised her a job, but he wasn’t offering a director-ship, or not to her, and she thought she’d lose out.’ He stubbed out his cigarette and lit another immediately.
‘Was she right?’
Richard looked at him, startled.
‘Yes,’ he said, slowly. ‘Yes, she probably was. He wasn’t that interested in pulling in the faces.’
‘Faces?’
‘People whose faces you know. The fashionable punters. Pulling them was what Selina was really good at – and looking after them when they were here – and he didn’t care much about all that. He looked at this place – and the other new one – as a big cash cow, middle-class people wanting good value, who didn’t give a shit about the fashionable crowd. Rubin just wanted bums on seats, push ‘em through, get the tables turned. Selina would have been bored. And done it badly.’
That sounded, McLeish thought, like a very shrewd but not unloving view of the dead woman.
‘But you still thought it was a mistake on her part not to sell?’
‘Yes. She’s not – she wasn’t interested in working that hard. She’d have come round, when she thought about it slowly. She is … was … a clever lady, she could have had a shop which she wanted and not so much hard graft.’
‘What would have happened to Miss Delves?’
‘I thought – though Judith never said – that Brian Rubin had offered her a deal. Work for him for six months, then go on his board.’
‘Is it possible, do you think, that your wife was only negotiating to see if Mr Rubin would offer her an arrangement she wanted, rather than lose the deal?’
‘Could be,’ he said, slowly, thinking about it. ‘I was too bloody angry with her, that’s the trouble.’ He coughed on his cigarette, and tears appeared at the corners of his eyes. He fished out a very dirty handkerchief and blew his nose, copiously.
McLeish waited till the man had got himself in hand and braced to discuss the restaurants, then changed the subject.
‘I need to ask you about the letters that were found among your wife’s papers.’
‘I told your people all I know.’
‘You hadn’t seen them before?’
‘No, but I knew the people who wrote them.’ He lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply. ‘I’d known Selina since we were children. She did what she wanted until we married. If anyone’d asked me I could’ve told you she’d had a walk-out with them, and a few more besides.’ He gave them a sidelong look. ‘I wouldn’t like to see a list of everyone I’ve had, sometimes not really meaning to except just at the critical moment.’ He stubbed the cigarette, half smoked. ‘Or the ones where I wanted to and didn’t get there, for that matter, if you know what I mean.’
McLeish decided he probably had no real idea what Richard Marsh-Hayden’s sexual life had been like. Davidson, who was looking just perceptibly smug, probably did. But the point at issue here was whether Selina Marsh-Hayden had continued to have affairs and, if so, whether her husband had known, and if he had known, had minded enough to kill her.
‘You said that you had occasional rows with your wife. Were they in connection with other men?’
‘No. Well, we had one, but that was my fault. Ex-friend of mine who was after her, and I didn’t see she was trying to get rid of him without upsetting me. No. We got on in bed, you see. Important to both of us.’
It was clear that he had loved his wife and was miserable without her; well, that had applied to many people who had nonetheless murdered their wives. But this one was not going to crack, not today, he had himself well in hand. They needed to know a bit more about the late Selina Marsh-Hayden before they could usefully probe further. And there was plenty of legwork that needed doing first. McLeish ended the interview and asked for the usual undertakings about not leaving London without notifying the police.
‘Can’t afford to, Detective Chief Superintendent. I’ll either be here, or on my knees to a bank manager.’
‘These, not these, John, come from one of these jackets. The white one.’
It was an hour later and McLeish and Davidson were up to their elbows in forensic scientists.
‘From one of the new jackets that were waiting to be marked the day before Selina disappeared. There were eighty of them,’ Bruce added, helpfully.
McLeish sat down, the better to consider the point. ‘So, if the threads come from one of these jackets, Bruce, we need all eighty rounded up and examined.’
‘Sergeant Willis and a DC are doing that now. It’s no’ at all popular at the Caff.’
‘Delicate plants, are they?’
‘There’s a whole kitchen shift with nothing to wear on top. And seven waiters.’
‘There won’t be many threads missing.’ It was Doc, sounding weary. ‘It’ll look like a snag and if it’s been laundered you may not even be able to see it. And even if you find the jacket we’re not going to be able to do much with any stains. If we even see any stains. My guess is the laundry use heavy duty bleach – the fibres are pure cotton. Laundered four times and overlaid with other stains. No, not a chance.’
‘Thanks, Doc. You just made our day.’
‘And he wore rubber gloves, John. Look at the prints off the plastic bag.’
McLeish peered obediently through the microscope. ‘Where did the gloves come from?’
‘Kitchen at the Caff,’ Bruce Davidson said, gloomily. ‘They’ve got thirty-one pairs down there and they order them in packs of twenty-four when they think they’re getting low.’
‘Who wears them? Not people cooking, surely,’ McLeish asked.
‘Mostly wash-ups. But they’re kept next to the spare overalls, and anyone can pick up a pair. Leastways anyone who had any reason to be passing.’
McLeish acknowledged the caveat, and realised his audience was showing signs of restlessness. ‘Doc, we need not keep you while Bruce and I engage in fruitless speculation. Thanks for your help.’
They walked out of the depressing basement and got into the waiting car. It was a warm morning again and McLeish yawned. ‘Sorry. Early start.’
‘Thank God it’s Friday?’
‘It is, isn’t it. But I’m going to come in tomorrow – I’m just not far enough up the learning curve on this one.’
‘I’ll be in too.’
‘Thanks, Bruce. I’ll try and get you time off in lieu. Look, tell you what’s itching me. The jackets were still in the office, right? So anyone who had access to the office could have picked one up.’
‘Yes.’
‘And, indeed, possibly, perhaps, killed her up there and stuffed her into a bag. Oh, hang on. The office is on the first floor, isn’t it? Is there by any chance a lift?’
Davidson flipped through the report. ‘I doubt it’s big enough. It’s a wee block and tackle job, apparently used for moving food from the basement storage to the kitchen on the ground floor.’
‘Doesn’t sound right. We need to go and look at the place.’
Judith Delves, who had been in the restaurant office since six o’clock that morning, d
ecided she was becoming less and less efficient and needed a second breakfast. It was clear that the business was paying dearly for the six months she had spent building Caff 2 across the river. It was ten thirty, the restaurant was not yet open, but the day staff were in, and waiters in long white overalls with the green Café de la Paix logo were setting up tables, placing vases and fresh flowers and polishing up cutlery as it came out of the plastic baskets from the washing-up machine. The bar, where light snacks were served, was not yet in action; the grill, dismembered, lay soaking in the sink, and a barman was rearranging and polishing glasses, working at speed, obviously running late. Reluctantly she walked over to the kitchen, hearing raised voices as she approached the serving counter. Tony Gallagher was not there, to her relief, and she asked Antoine for poached egg on toast. He nodded, pushed bread under the grill and reached for eggs and butter, while she considered the kitchen staff.
‘How many short, Antoine?’
‘I have only one commis, and no one on vegetables.’
‘I’ll join you. At least to get the prep work done.’
Antoine made a complicated gesture with a spatula that combined gratitude for the offered help with disapproval for the necessity of accepting it. It was all too clear, she thought, wolfing her eggs on toast, that no properly regulated kitchen in a major restaurant had Madame chopping vegetables, but needs must with 180 booked for lunch and 250 for dinner. Including, gratifyingly, the overnight tape of messages told her, a party of twenty from the English National Opera cast. She finished her breakfast and stripped off her jacket, substituting one of the white uniform jackets. There was no point in her volunteering to help during the service; she had not worked under pressure in a restaurant kitchen for eight years, and would be too slow and get in the way, but she could make a useful contribution to the prep work. Indeed, an hour and a half later, with the aid of a processor, she had worked her way through fifty salad-based starters and got them into a chiller, and prepared enough of the five varieties of vegetable which were served with all hot entrées to cover the likely requirement of the lunch shift. Antoine and two chefs were working furiously six feet away from her, getting fish, meat and sauces prepared. She straightened her back, which was aching from the unaccustomed physical work, and decided it was time she got into proper clothes to cover her shift as floor manager. The pâtisserie chef, mercifully, had got in that morning, a competent girl of twenty-two, and rows of stiff, beautifully presented puddings were being fed into another of the big chillers. The food lift lurched up, at her elbow, with big tin containers of ice-cream brought up from the freezer to sit in a chiller, so that the ice-cream could be scooped easily and tidily rather than hacked out to emerge in a less than elegant shape on the plate.
‘Madame. Il y a deux hommes qui vous demandent.’
Policemen, she thought, from their back view, as she glanced through the serving hatch. And one of them, as they turned to look at the back of the restaurant, revealed himself as Francesca McLeish’s husband, looking quite different in the light of day. She had not remembered how big he was, taller than Michael’s six foot two. And bigger-framed, with lots of dark hair and what was just recognisable as a broken nose, carefully reset. She watched him; he was standing absolutely still beside his smaller colleague and both had every ounce of their attention bent on the back wall of the restaurant.
‘Good morning,’ she said, lifting the serving hatch, and just avoiding knocking Antoine’s flying elbows as he manipulated four big pans at once; John McLeish turned to her, and she saw that his eyes were hazel, not brown, as she had expected.
‘Miss Delves?’
‘Yes. We’ve met.’
‘Indeed. My colleague, Inspector Davidson.’ He allowed a courteous pause for them to shake hands but his attention, she saw, was still on the back wall. ‘We have just noticed that the restaurant is larger than the rest of the building.’
‘Yes,’ Judith said, taken aback. ‘There’s an extension on the back of the block which goes up to the first floor, then stops. So, yes, the restaurant goes into the extension – in fact, the kitchen is there at ground-floor level, then we use the bit below for storage and the bit above is our office.’
‘Does the basement go right under the building? I mean, how does the access to the basement work?’
‘Only through our bit. The rest of the basement is services and pipes and so on, and the landlord has the right to come through to inspect.’
‘But he has to come through your back door.’
‘Which is in the basement. There is no access to the back directly from this floor.’
‘How do you get down to the basement?’
‘Stairs. And we have a pulley lift for goods going to the kitchen.’
‘May we look?’
She hesitated, and he caught it. ‘Or is it inconvenient?’
‘Well, it’s the service, you see. We’re short-handed today and I will have to floor-manage for a couple of hours. But come in quickly, I’ll show you.’
She took them round the back door of the kitchen, a plain door marked ‘Private’, and showed them the pulley lift, whose use was being helpfully demonstrated as it came up loaded with a tray packed with steaks. McLeish, looking enormous in the confined space, stood back to let a sous chef snatch one tray at feverish speed, taking no notice of them. The pulley lift occupied a space about four by four feet wide and about four feet high, enough to take two trays side by side.
‘Does it go anywhere else? The wee lift?’
It was the younger man, the Glaswegian, and she blinked at him. ‘Ah yes. Up to the office. We use it to send up coffee and the odd meal.’
‘And there are stairs to the office at the back too?’
‘Yes, that’s right. We – the office people – all come in by the basement entrance. It’s self-contained from the rest of the first floor. I mean, we don’t have access to the rest of the building, nor they to us.’
‘Very hard work doing two flights of stairs in the mornings.’
She had seen this coming, but nonetheless felt sick. ‘No. We take the lift. No, of course not this one. There’s an old twoperson lift right at the back, which goes up the outer wall.’ She had their full attention and it was an uneasy experience.
‘Can we see it?’
‘It doesn’t stop on this floor, you see, which is why I didn’t think about it straightaway.’ She was babbling defensively and stuttering, she realised, and steadied herself by taking a deep breath. ‘Or rather it would stop, but we built over the door because we need a clear space there.’ They were both watching her, absolutely immobile. ‘So you could walk down or up to see it.’
There was a pause which seemed to go on for some time and in which she was very conscious of her stained, sweaty jacket; beetroot had featured heavily on the day’s menu.
‘May we start in the basement?’
She led them down the echoing concrete stairs and felt them stop, briefly, behind her as they passed the laundry hamper and the roped-off passage where the old deep freeze had rested.
‘There.’ She pointed to the glass door which housed the small lift that dated back to the sixties when this part of the building had been put up. ‘It’s a bit erratic and very slow, but we’ve never bothered to do anything about it.’ She peered through the glass; the lift was there, so she pressed the button and they waited while the doors creaked slowly open and she stepped aside to give them a clear view. Neither of them spoke, but both were looking at the patch of dirty carpet on the floor and the stain at its edge about three by three inches, which under their attention might as well have been lit in Technicolor.
‘They didna look here. There’s nothing in the report, nae mention even.’
Judith hastened into speech. ‘I’m sorry, but I wasn’t here when they came. And I didn’t … d… d… didn’t look at my feet – I mean the carpet.’
‘Right. Miss Delves, I’m afraid we’ll have to come back, mob-handed. You’ll need to stop any
one using this lift.’ A bell, pressed in irritation two floors up, sounded as he spoke and Judith looked up, distraught. ‘If you would explain to your colleagues, Miss Delves?’
There was no hint of impatience in his voice, but the whole feel of the personality had changed. He had withdrawn inside himself, focused on the stained carpet, and she and his chagrined Scots colleague were there only to be told to do things. Chilled, she ran up the two flights, arriving out of breath in the office to tell Mary, the book-keeper, that she would have to walk down to lunch and to take the opportunity of a quick change into a respectable shirt and jacket. She arrived down, clasping the morning’s stained coat, and dropped it automatically into the laundry basket, turning round into John McLeish’s concentrated, all-observing gaze. She looked back, feeling suddenly cold, but the moment was broken by Inspector Davidson cursing at his mobile telephone. She offered him the staff pay-phone and some coins which he accepted, ungraciously, still in a flaming temper. He could just be heard venting displeasure in snarling Glaswegian, but she and John McLeish seemed to be stuck where they were.
‘When the new uniforms arrived, they were delivered to the office, I believe?’ He was watching her face and it occurred to her how few people did that openly, and how intimate it was.
‘Yes. We needed to check and mark them.’
‘And then they were sent down to this floor? How?’
‘Well …’ She tried to think. ‘Anyone going down just took a load. Tony – that’s Tony Gallagher – did come up and collect his two. He’s very hard on jackets – well, he works very long hours and he sweats a lot – I mean, everyone does, but he’s Chef …’