by Janet Neel
At a quarter to two he walked in through the doors of Café de la Paix in a mood to take on any giants he might meet. He had brought off a double with the proprietor of the dry-cleaners. He had entrusted him with eight shirts and a suit, and agreed to employ one of the daughters-in-law of the house as a cleaner for four hours on Thursdays. She would, of course, pick up and return any cleaning and laundry while she was at it. Flushed with success he had bought a Miele washing-machine, in honour of Francesca McLeish, a paragon of domestic efficiency, who always bought heavily over-engineered expensive German machines. He felt grown-up and in control and beamed at the girl on reception as he asked to see the chef. After ten minutes he was irritated, and after twenty, seriously annoyed, not least by the explanations offered for Gallagher’s absence.
‘I know it’s lunchtime. But he’s expecting me.’
‘I am sorry, but ’e is not in the kitchen even.’ The girl was flustered and there was no point harassing her, so he went to look in the kitchen himself; no sign of his client but a sous chef, gazing trancelike into space over his pans, said that Tony had popped up to the office after the bulk of the service. The man had been half asleep, he realised, as he went round the back and tramped up the two flights of stairs – the lift seemed to be roped off. Tony’s complaints about being short-staffed must be true.
The door to the office was closed but he could hear voices so he walked in. His client was in profile to him, bent over straining and scarlet-faced under the rough blond hair. He was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of navy socks, his jeans, pants and trainers were draped on a chair, and he was talking disjointedly to assist him in his task of pleasuring a thin, pale blonde, bent beneath him over a desk, Chef’s tunic protecting her hips from the sharp edges. Matthew withdrew, closing the door, hoping not to have put his client off his stroke. He went through the kitchen door, nodding to the sous chef now occupied with a late order, and sat at a table to drink coffee and read the paper, torn between irritation and admiration. It was now 2.30 p.m. and his time was being wasted, but you had to admire a man who could do that after cooking 150 lunches.
‘Sorry, mate, things to do.’ Tony Gallagher dropped into a seat beside him, wearing clean jeans and a sweatshirt. He had showered, Matt noted, hair sleeked down and damp, and he looked understandably tired out and pleased with himself as he loaded sugar into the coffee which had appeared in front of him.
‘I did come up to the office.’ Matt was not disposed to let clients get away with holding him up.
‘That was you then? Thank Christ for that. Not that I’d have taken any shit from anyone here, whatever had been going down, know what I mean? There’s only me, Antoine and two commis on tonight to feed the five thousand. Anyway, sorry, but I got an unexpected offer.’ He narrowed his eyes at the pale blonde, now upright and more or less clothed in a very short skirt as she walked, self-consciously, past them. ‘Not enough of that around.’
‘Indeed,’ Matt agreed. ‘Better for you than going on the beer.’
‘Been doing a bit of that too.’
‘You called me.’ Matt decided to call the meeting to order.
‘Police bothering you?’
‘They’re stirring things up. Talking to people.’
Matt waited, unmoving, while his client struggled with himself.
‘See, like I told you, I owe a bit, here and there. They’ve been talking to those people and that just makes hassle for me. And I got enough of that.’
‘Tony, can you give it to me straight? I’ve got things to do as well, like get fixed up for tonight, now you’ve given me the idea.’
‘Yeh, sorry.’ Gallagher, galvanised by this straightforward appeal to masculine solidarity, managed to find the words. ‘I have the odd bet, yeh? Well, it’s not been a good season, and I owe the bookies. Well, one bookie really. He’s carried me, fair play to him, and he’s let me go on, see if I can get it back, but … well, I haven’t and there’s other people behind him, know what I mean, and anyway, I’m on a deadline. And having the fuzz asking is just bad news – I mean, they … the people I mean … think I’ve asked for protection, like. And I wouldn’t do that, I told them. But they rung here, just before I called you. The Yard got one of the people out of bed at seven o’clock – I mean, it’s a liberty.’
‘The Yard?’
‘That’s what the man said. And they’d know the difference.’
Matthew sat, considering this disordered narrative. A few facts, he decided, would clear his mind. ‘How much do you owe?’
‘Five thousand quid?’
Matthew looked at him, wordlessly.
‘Nearer ten.’ Gallagher looked away, across the restaurant, colour patchy over his cheekbones, and lifted a hand to indicate that some more coffee would be welcome.
‘Who else knows?’
‘No one. Haven’t told a soul.’
‘Mm.’ Matthew sat, slumped, considering the implications. He waited until the waiter bringing coffee had come and gone. ‘If it’s the Yard asking, it suggests it’s connected to this investigation.’ He hesitated. ‘You always been a betting man, Tony?’
‘Yeh. I usually win, though.’
Well, Scotland Yard had been remarkably quick. John McLeish was a clever bloke of course, had to be, or Francesca would never have married him. He shook his head to clear it of the sudden vision of Francesca in the same position as the pale blonde. He’d been both sorry and relieved when the affair with her had stopped; he hadn’t had enough of it, neither of them had, but it was high risk for both of them and had no pay-off other than the obvious. In particular you wouldn’t, man or girl, want to cross John McLeish. He hauled himself back to his client’s immediate problem.
‘So the Yard probably knows by now how much you owe. And for how long.’
‘If we’d of sold this place when we meant I’d have paid it off.’
‘You’d promised that? The people you owe?’
‘Yeh. And now they know there’s been a problem, and the fuzz are in. I’m in deep shit.’
Deeper indeed than he had realised, Matthew thought, soberly. He had visited in hospital a previous client who had owed too much money for too long, and he would himself have gone a long way to avoid that fate. But worse than that, Tony Gallagher’s obvious need for cash, now, meant that he had a sound motive for disposing of Selina Marsh-Hayden, who was standing between him and the way out of his difficulties. And Gallagher came from a family which always resorted to violence to settle its conflicts with the outside world, as two siblings serving longish sentences amply attested. Gallagher gestured to a waiter, signalling a need for one of the sticky cakes on display at the bar, affording an excellent view of the powerful shoulders and muscular upper arms, developed from heaving heavy saucepans and loads of food around all day. Selina Marsh-Hayden, taken from behind, would have been no match for him at all. The image of the pale blonde came unbidden, and with it the alarming possibility of a further complication.
‘Tony. Was there ever anything sexual between you and Mrs Marsh-Hayden?’
‘Nah.’ Gallagher was looking uneasy and there was colour over his cheekbones. Matthew waited, silently, while his client fidgeted. ‘I tried it on,’ he said, finally, ‘and she turned me down.’ He looked at Matthew, who thought he had been registering only patient interest. ‘Nah, nah, mate.’ He patted him reassuringly. ‘Nicely she done it. Said she still fancied me – but it wasn’t on, not working in the same shop, surely my Dad would have told me that. Well, I had to laugh, because of course he did. When I was fourteen. She was a goer though, Selina. Would almost have been worth going to work somewhere else.’
‘So she didn’t confine herself to her old man?’
‘Nah. Him neither, mind. There was a blonde tart, used to come here, late, with him. Like Selina, only not as …’
‘Pretty?’
‘Confident, I guess. She knew she had us all where she wanted us.’ He brooded, silently. ‘She was a pain in the ass sometimes – in fa
ct a lot of the time – but she was a pleasure to the eye. They say that in Cork, you know.’
Matt, who had been thinking on different lines, considered his client. ‘I can’t do anything about the police, Tony. They’ve got an investigation to run. They just have picked up somewhere that you were in debt to the bookies. They’ve got contacts.’
‘What am I going to do, Matt?’
The man was not only a client but a contemporary in a fix, and Matt bent his mind to the problem. ‘If they come after you, the’ police’ll know who it was.’ Gallagher’s look told him this would not be much use. ‘We could ask for protection.’ That wasn’t going to meet the case either, he could see. ‘Make a deal,’ he suggested.
‘I did. And couldn’t deliver, so they’re not going to trust me, are they?’
‘Well’ – he lowered his voice – ‘this place will still get sold, won’t it?’
‘Yeh. But when?’ They looked at each other and Gallagher sat up. ‘You could tell them. You was acting for me on the sale.’
‘Yes, I could.’ He thought. ‘Well, I’d have to talk to Peter, but I don’t see why not. I’d be representing you and explaining your position, that’s what solicitors do. They want the money, don’t they, rather than risking trouble by beating you up?’
‘I guess so. Yeh. Particularly after a visit from the fuzz.’
‘Ah. So that was useful, as it turns out.’
‘I’d never have thought it, but you got a point. Thanks, mate, do it quickly, can you?’
‘Gallagher owes £9740 now, interest running at ten per cent a month,’ Bruce Davidson reported smugly, replacing the phone. ‘I sent Sergeant Willis, he knows those people.’
‘Well, well, well.’ McLeish, who had been working all day, consulted a chart, and looked wistfully out of the window. ‘No alibi, or not much of one, from eleven o’clock on the last day Selina was seen until about four in the morning next day. When he rolled home to Mum who would have heard him come in.’
‘Come a trial, she’ll have heard him come in whenever he needed her to.’
‘I expect that’s right – he’s the only one of the brothers bringing home a pay packet, isn’t he? My bet is, Bruce, that she was strangled sometime after the kitchen closed. In the office, and her body put in the lift and run down to the basement and unloaded into the freezer. By someone she knew, I think.’
‘What, she arranged to meet them?’
‘I think so. Much more likely than a vagrant – as some of the other shareholders have suggested. It would have had to be someone who knew the place. To find the lift and the freezer.’
‘You think this was all carefully planned?’ Davidson was sounding doubtful, and McLeish shook his head.
‘Not necessarily. I mean, you couldn’t have banked on the freezer still being there. Remember, it was supposed to have been taken away. No, the best bet is someone who knew the place well and who took advantage of all its features – including an old freezer which wasn’t meant to be there. And who Selina knew, and wasn’t worried by.’
‘That’s right. You’d not sit down and turn your back on a stranger, or someone you were scared of.’
‘This also assumes she was killed because she was holding up a sale. The timing favours that, but we ought to hold in our minds the possibility that she was murdered for quite other reasons.’ He considered his associate, who was looking restless. ‘We’re going to have to catch this one using our brains and very old-fashioned policework, Bruce. I had a call from Doc just before you arrived. Forensic did all the towels and jackets; as they thought, they couldn’t find a thing. Nothing left to test and couldn’t find any missing threads.’
‘We’d found all eighty of the jackets too.’
‘Yes. So the murderer’s jacket is in that lot, but the laundry’s destroyed all the evidence. So no help at all there, it’s back to motive and alibis.’
Bruce Davidson thought about it, gloomily. ‘So we start with the husband, who doesn’t have an alibi, and then have a look at the rest of the shareholders.’
‘None of them has an alibi. Judith Delves and Michael Owens went home individually and at different times to their own flats, and can provide no evidence at all of what time they got in. Richard Marsh-Hayden can prove where he was for some of the time, but not all – I’ve got a team checking. Tony Gallagher … well, he’s no better. And the outside chance, the one who wanted to buy the shares, Brian Rubin, is in the same case.’
‘Unusual, that,’ Davidson said, thoughtful.
‘Yes. And lucky for whoever did it.’
‘Mebbe they all ganged up, and agreed that nobody was to have an alibi?’
‘Thanks, Bruce. It’s time we stopped, when you’re thinking like that. I have to go, anyway, I’m babysitting.’
‘If you wanted to get letters from a lover, where would you have them sent?’
They were settled, cosily, drinking tea, Francesca with her feet up on the sofa and he in the big comfortable chair they had chosen together as her wedding present to him. Francesca, who had undone the top button on her trousers in the interests of accommodating someone that, as he observed, could not be much more than an inch long, considered the point.
‘To Gladstone. Marked “Personal”, then no one would open them.’
‘Not to home? I don’t usually open things addressed to you.’
She gave him a look of amused affection. ‘No, but if it was marked “Personal” you’d ask, wouldn’t you? Who was it from? Anything interesting? Any husband would. So no. Anything which comes here you may open in the confidence that it is a gas bill or an offer of a free Reader’s Digest.’
‘I maybe ought to have a word with the office at Gladstone.’
‘I haven’t had any letters like that for years,’ she said, wistfully.
He considered her; they had met when she was a driven twentyeight- old divorcée, working for the DTI. She had married her first love and had no option but to divorce her husband when she was twenty-six years old, he having left her for another woman. She had had three years on her own, living and loving as she pleased, before he had met her.
‘What sort of chap does write letters?’
She burst out laughing. ‘I was waiting for you to ask that. I don’t think you’ve ever written as much as a line to me – though you may, I suppose, have written to others? No? Well, when I used to get letters – when I was young – they were sometimes from chaps who liked writing about sex. But mostly they wrote because they were married and couldn’t chat on the phone, and wanted to make a date or simply keep in touch. I mean, one can’t ring up married men at home, so sometimes your only hope was a letter.’ She had gone rather pink, and he hauled himself out of his chair to move her feet over so he could sit beside her. ‘Put like that,’ she said, with a burst of her always disconcerting honesty, ‘it doesn’t sound much fun. Nor was it – I am very glad to be married to you, no matter how burdened we are.’ They both started uneasily at a faint cry from their principal burden, who they had hoped was still finishing his afternoon rest, but it did not persist and they relaxed.
‘So a man who wrote letters to a woman’s office address would have been married?’
‘Oh, not necessarily. They could be single and just like to write, or don’t mind writing if that was what was required. The ones who are writing only to fix a date, or who are saying things like “Last night was very precious to me”, sans préciser plus, are likely married.’
McLeish checked an entirely inappropriate giggle at her coolly detached view of a complex activity, and reflected humbly that in a limited field his wife was probably fully as expert as Bruce Davidson. ‘Where would you – would she – would anyone have kept letters like that at the office. What if someone tidied up and found them?’
‘No office I’ve ever been in gets tidied to that extent. Surely, you have a drawer where you keep the masculine equivalent of make-up, sanitary towels, medicaments, decayed combs, etc.’
‘
Old love letters. Yes, OK. I don’t keep the love letters, but I could easily. Jenny’d never bother with the bottom drawer of my desk.’
‘And much safer there than at home. Where did she – Selina – keep them, by the way?’
‘We found everything else you list in her desk, but no letters. So either there aren’t any more, or we haven’t found them.’
‘In a filing cabinet? Disguised as something else?’
‘Now there’s a thought.’ He moved her feet, got up and found a notebook while she watched him with love.
‘I do like a methodical man.’
‘Only way in my trade.’
‘Only way in most people’s, just very few accept this boring truth. You wouldn’t like to make another cup of tea?’
So he did that, in the big comfortable kitchen which you found in every house occupied by the family into which he had married.
‘You do have to go and watch Tristram tonight, I suppose?’
‘Oh darling. It means I can see Jeremy too. You don’t mind really.’
‘No, I don’t mind.’
*
Some hours later, Francesca, arm in arm with Tristram, who was as high as a kite on nothing more chemically advanced than a good performance, stopped outside Café de la Paix, struck by doubt and anxiety.
‘You go ahead, Tris, I’ll wait for Jeremy.’
Tristram, with acolytes, swept ahead, giving her the chance to ascertain, furtively, that none of the principals in the Café de la Paix cast were visible. With luck, her presence would go unnoticed and any complications with her husband would be avoided. He had not asked where they were eating after the performance and she had not told him, but it would all too obviously be better practice for the wife of the principal investigating officer not to visit the locus of the crime at this point.