by Janet Neel
‘Indeed not. I suppose we all think of our own trade first.’
Fair enough, Matthew thought, amused by encountering Francesca’s speed of response coming out of a man’s face. ‘You’re rehearsing, are you?’
‘Yes. This production is having a bad time – Alan O’Meara is fighting a cold, and poor old Scarpia just about managed yesterday. If there were any justice in the world both of us understudies would be singing tomorrow but, life being what it is, Alan is croaking through and they had a spare Scarpia. We’re just walking through it with the new Scarpia who happens to be in the country, make sure we don’t all bang into each other.’ Tristram’s eyes flickered past him and Matthew realised that several other people had stopped, including two very good-looking young women. He would have to leave them to Francesca’s brother; it was already past noon. And not much chance of lunch, Matthew understood, as he was admitted to Café de la Paix – an unlit cavern, blackened with smoke, with grime-encrusted figures labouring assiduously in every corner.
‘Where was the fire?’ he said, by way of greeting to his client who had appeared, hands black to the elbow.
‘In the kitchen. An accident. Grease filter caught fire. Never mind that, I need you to write an agreement.’
Raised voices could be heard behind them and they turned to look. A waiter, less than immaculate in a filthy kitchen tunic over battered jeans, was explaining, voice raised in frustration, that the restaurant was closed, there had been a fire. A familiar, slurred voice responded that it owned half the fucking place and it was coming in, sunshine.
‘Richard.’ Tony Gallagher, tight-lipped, indicated to the waiter that he should be admitted.
‘Just heard about it. Fuckin’ hell.’
Not a bad description, Matt thought, fading as far backwards into the scenery as he could. Richard Marsh-Hayden was in a vile temper, and he himself just wanted to talk to his client and get out of there. Not only was it a profoundly depressing scene, but he had an uneasy feeling that any unemployed spectator would find themselves in a dirty tunic up to the eyes in black grease before they had time to protest.
‘Bugger, isn’t it?’ Tony Gallagher agreed, looking round for someone to take Richard away from him.
Judith Delves came out of the gloom, very pale and as filthy as everyone else.
‘Judith, for Christ’s sake.’ Matthew realised abruptly that Richard was just this side of drunk. ‘We have to get out of this. I’ll call Brian Rubin.’
‘Will you shut up,’ Judith hissed, furious, as heads turned among the labour force.
Richard Marsh-Hayden opened his mouth to protest, looking to Tony for support.
‘Listen, Richard, you want to talk to Judith, better be in the office. We’re all working our arses off here. You can go through the kitchen if you want to see the worst, but keep your mouth shut.’ He summoned Matthew, inadequately camouflaged behind a stepladder, and took him to a table close to the front which had been more or less cleaned.
‘What’s going on, Tony?’ Matt asked, and saw over Tony’s head Judith Delves coming back towards them.
‘I’ve put Richard in the office with coffee,’ she said, wearily. ‘We’ll have to talk to him later. Now, Mr Sutherland. Has Tony explained?’
After the first two minutes Matthew managed to get his mouth shut, and to start taking notes. ‘OK,’ he said, after ten minutes. ‘I’ll set up a meeting as soon as I can with Mr Abbott, or his associates, and offer them a settlement, for which my firm will be put in funds by you, Tony.’ He considered his notes. ‘I’ll draft the loan agreement and the charge on the shares. You need to be separately advised, Miss Delves, I can only act for Tony here, not both of you.’
‘I’ll act for myself. I can read.’
She was very pale and tense but had herself well under control. He would clear all this with Peter Graebner; a situation where one person – and a female person at that – was lending money, uncounselled by a solicitor, to someone who did have proper legal advice, was uncomfortable however they might formally disassociate the firm from her. And Peter would have to set up the meeting with the bookie’s reps and hold his hand on this occasion, though next time he would know how to do all this by himself.
‘Right,’ he said, thinking of the quiet office and the word processor and the precedent file which were what he needed right now. He realised he had lost his audience; both were staring over his head.
‘He must have found some more booze.’ Tony had half risen from his seat. ‘You stay out the way, Judith.’
‘There wasn’t any in the office.’
‘Brought it with him, didn’t he?’
Richard Marsh-Hayden, moving unsteadily and clumsily, barely missing knocking over a stepladder complete with young woman and bucket, sank into a chair, the hem of his jacket hitting the edge of the table with a solid clunk.
‘Judith, you’re fucking insane. It’ll take weeks to get this place open again, and the customers will have buggered off somewhere else. Rubin doesn’t give a shit, he just wants it. His offer still stands, just as it was. Same dosh.’
‘When did you speak to him?’
‘I didn’t. Michael did. He told me. Must have been this morning.’
Two blotches of colour appeared on Judith Delves’ cheekbones. ‘He shouldn’t have done that.’
‘Oh, Judith. Get off. He owns more than thirty per cent, so do I. Anyway, Rubin rang him. Rang me too, I just wasn’t there – it was on the answerphone. He’d heard.’
Yes, of course he had, Matthew thought, and saw the same understanding in Judith’s face. He was very sorry for her, she was fighting hard, but it didn’t really matter who rang whom in this situation.
‘Bugger all that anyway.’ Richard Marsh-Hayden, echoing his thought, leant unevenly across the table. ‘If you won’t see any business sense, Judith, think of your mates. It was bad enough when this place was running OK, but now …’ One wavering sweep of the hand indicated the desolation around them, as an ant line of people filed past them, carrying chairs and tables, barely adequately cleaned up, out the front to a removal van so they could sit in temporary storage ‘Well now, it’s all gone. Like Selina.’ He gazed round them. ‘You’ve all forgotten her, but I haven’t and I just want out of here. And I can’t afford to bugger off. Every fucking thing reminds me, and I want out.’ He looked round their faces, sighed, leant forward and crashed on his forehead on to the table, causing three coffee cups to add the rest of their contents to the general disorder and disarray.
Curtain, Matt thought, irresistibly, and let out the breath he seemed to have been holding. The only thing a conscientious lawyer could do about any of it was to get out and get on with the work he was being paid to do, so he picked up his briefcase and left with a muttered explanation to Judith and Tony who were grimly cleaning up spilt coffee. But as he passed the Coliseum, he stopped to look at a man putting up the new cast list for the next day and decided he would have lunch well round the corner from the Café de la Paix and all its works. He stood for a moment to watch the man putting up posters, wondering if it was double time on Sundays in his trade, unlike the practice of the law, and working out where to eat. A door at the side opened and Tristram came out, calling over his shoulder. He saw Matthew and blinked.
‘I take it you’ve not been there since I last saw you.’
‘No. In the Caff, but I need lunch. Where else do I eat round here?’
‘Pub. I’ll come with you, I’ve been let out while Scarpia and Tosca do the supper scene where she makes a deal for life. Good voice, Scarpia, but his English is terrible.’
‘I forgot it was sung in English here.’
‘I’m not sure anyone told this Scarpia either. I did suggest, quietly you know, that the poor bugger might as well be allowed to do it in Italian, like he’s used to. That’s when the director sent me out to lunch.’
The bar was crowded, but they both ended up with a substantial pie and chips, washed down with beer in Matthew’
s case and tonic water for Tristram. Matt eyed the drink askance and Tristram grinned, looking exactly like his sister. ‘They’d know what to think in New Zealand, I expect, but you can’t drink and sing. Alcohol opens the throat temporarily, then you’re buggered, or I am. When my voice started to break, Frannie kept me going with slugs of gin for recordings, but we only got away with it for three months.’
‘You’ve done well on it, anyway.’ Matt was eating with hangover-inspired hunger. ‘Will I get a ticket tomorrow?’
‘No, apparently. But I’ll get you in if you want to come. Fran’s got two and I’m not sure my brother-in-law’s going to make it. He’s not really into opera. But either way I’ll see you in. Maybe in a box.’
‘Are you sure? I haven’t seen – heard – much opera, but I’m interested. Implausible plots, though. I’ve never understood quite how Tosca could be so dippy.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Tristram said, tolerantly, showing all his sister’s capacity for arguing a case from either side. ‘I daresay a lot worse happens in police states. There’s a very good aria where she says she’s always lived an artistic life and been kind to people and lovers, and brought flowers for the Virgin, so what has she done to deserve all this? Lot of ordinary people, trapped in police states, must have felt like that.’ He grinned. ‘I have to say Fran thinks that whole aria is just whingeing self-pity, but then she doesn’t like Puccini.’ He looked carefully at Matthew. ‘Chap who wrote the music.’
‘I did know. But the bit I find really peculiar is that Tosca believed this Scarpia, when he said the bullets wouldn’t be real. He was a policeman, for heaven’s sake.’
‘Like my brother-in-law? Not that I find it easy to imagine John in a similar situation.’ Tristram was sounding dismissive, and Matt understood that he was a little jealous.
‘Can’t be easy for him with you lot,’ he said, mildly, and Tristram looked up, sharply.
‘Lucky to have us,’ he said, indignantly, and met Matt’s amused stare. ‘He’s got our Fran, barefoot and pregnant and not keeping up her piano, and we need to rescue her every now and then.’
‘Get her out to the opera?’ Matt asked, deadpan.
‘That sort of thing.’ The blue eyes under the dark hair were considering him, alive with mischief. This of course was the way-ward sibling whom an unmarried Francesca had rushed to rescue from the clutches of the New York State police, abandoning John McLeish and all other obligations. No wonder she found Tosca prey to unnecessary self-pity, he thought, with affection; she would undoubtedly have been prepared to sleep with anyone she had to in order to get a brother, never mind a lover, out of the nick.
‘Well, I suppose she’s out of it for a bit, with this latest sprog,’ her brother said, stretching and collecting his wallet. ‘Give her a ring, check if she’s using both tickets tomorrow,’ he suggested, smooth as glass. ‘If she is, let me know here and I’ll leave one for you.’
John McLeish and Bruce Davidson looked up as their driver pulled to a halt behind a high-sided van outside the Café de la Paix. Three men were fitting a glass pane into one side of the van and three others were following, carefully, across the wide pavement with another.
‘Taking the glass out,’ Davidson observed, redundantly.
‘Why? Vandals?’
‘More like they want to carry things in without breakages.’
Davidson was right, he understood, as they edged their way past a gang of three carpenters starting work on the gaping hole that had been the Caff’s largest floor-to-ceiling glass window. They stood and stared at the echoing, dirty room and the blackened ceiling.
‘Lot of material to bring in,’ Davidson pointed out, helpfully.
‘Indeed.’ McLeish, hearing footsteps, turned to see Michael Owens and Brian Rubin, both of whom checked on seeing him.
‘Afternoon. I’m sorry, this looks terrible.’
Michael Owens glanced past him. ‘Not quite as terrible as it did at three o’clock this morning. Judith and I were in the country in bed and drove up as soon as we’d managed to wake up. I’ve had some sleep, but she hasn’t.’
McLeish gazed at him expressionlessly, and he sighed. ‘I suppose you were woken up too? But I’m trying to take Judith home as soon as I can.’
‘We’ll try not to be too long,’ McLeish said, non-commitally, and stepped into the wreck of the Café.
‘Darling.’ Judith Delves emerged from the confusion to greet Michael warmly and faltered, seeing the police presence. Brian Rubin, McLeish observed, had shrunk his considerable presence into a corner behind a stack of timber and two carpenters.
‘We’ve just had to send Richard home in a taxi,’ she said, hurriedly to her fiancé. ‘In a very bad way.’
Michael Owens opened his mouth to ask a question, then visibly remembered the police standing politely waiting and said that he would go and talk to Gallagher or something and fix a coffee, if that was all right, until she was finished, and went off, Brian Rubin scuttling unobtrusively after him.
‘If you have time, Miss Delves, we would like to establish who had keys to the back door.’
She was looking a bit wild-eyed, and small wonder with the mess around her, but they had a murder to solve and no one’s business problems could be allowed to interfere. John McLeish had already talked to the London Fire Brigade and the loss adjuster representing the insurers, and the fire had been undoubtedly accidental. There was, the loss adjuster had made it clear, an area of dispute over contributory negligence. The grease filter over the grill should not have caught like that had it been cleaned out regularly, but the evidence was no longer there to see; any excess grease that might or might not have been present had disappeared in the fire. And when all was said and done, no lives had been lost, or even endangered, the sous chef’s injuries were not at all serious and apart from some expensive replacement of ventilation pipes the rest was smoke damage, tiresome to clean but not structural.
John McLeish understood that he would have to allow Judith Delves a little time to settle. By his calculation she had managed on two hours’ sleep in the last thirty-six and was showing it.
‘Keys. Well, I’ve already explained that we keep one in the till. It shouldn’t have been copied. It’s a Banham key and you have to send them one as a sample. But it’s not impossible. I have one. Selina had one. Tony has one. So does Gérard, the night manager.’ She counted on her fingers. ‘That makes four and there were six. Oh yes. One in the till and one with Mary, our book-keeper.’
‘Did you – have you – got Mrs Marsh-Hayden’s key back?’
‘No. For some reason it didn’t seem very important.’ Furious sarcasm is part of the day’s work for police officers and McLeish ignored it.
‘Do you have yours here?’
She blushed scarlet, the colour incongruous on the pale face. ‘No, as a matter of fact.’
‘When did you last use it?’
‘Oh. It must be ten days ago.’ he sighed. ‘The thing is, Mary gets here at eight thirty, before I do, and I leave before the night manager except if I’m the night manager, which I only am in an emergency, and the last time was ten days ago. Otherwise I leave the key at home. In my flat.’
‘Would Mrs Marsh-Hayden have carried her key with her?’
‘She didn’t need to either. Unless it was an emergency.’
So Richard Marsh-Hayden had access to a key and so did Michael Owens as well as the official keyholders. He glanced at Davidson who had written ‘Rubin?’ in his notebook.
‘It would be unlikely then that Mr Rubin would have a key?’
‘He doesn’t need one. He comes in here, or the kitchen, whenever he wants as far as I can see. Like a vulture, waiting to pick our bones.’
‘I suppose that the damage is such that he might want to withdraw his offer.’
She stared at him. ‘You cannot possibly be thinking that anyone would do this’ – her hand swept round the devastation around her – ‘just to put a purchaser off?’
‘In any case it would have been a mistaken tactic. Both Richard, who was in earlier, and Michael are even more keen to sell now, because they think I can’t get the place straight again. Well, they’ll see. And bloody Brian Rubin knows better – look at him there looking round, he knows it can be done if I keep my nerve, and the insurance pay quickly.’ She stopped, suddenly, looking blank, and McLeish looked at her enquiringly. ‘Sorry, a passing worry. Look, I have to finish ringing up the customers booked for tonight to explain what has happened – I know you’ve got things you need to do, but could we do it all tomorrow? I need to keep the business going for when we can open again.’ They stared involuntarily up at the smoke-blackened ceiling and the filthy walls, and she saw them look. ‘It will reopen, let no one doubt it.’
‘That’s fine, Miss Delves.’ McLeish decided that pressing her at this point was counter-productive. ‘May we just have a look round and then we’ll get out of your hair.’
In the first-floor office, which was untidy but looked like an oasis of peace and tranquillity after the chaos on the ground floor, Michael was watching Brian Rubin.
‘What do we do now?’
Brian Rubin sat down, having looked cautiously at the bentwood chair and rejected it in favour of a solid metal piece. ‘It’ll cost £100,000 plus to put that lot downstairs right,’ he said. ‘Take £100,000 off the price – or don’t, and let me deal with the insurance company – and I’m still on. You keep the loss of profits if you get any.’
‘I’ll have to talk to the others. But that’s a fair offer. You did look in the kitchen?’
‘As I went past. £20,000 of the money’s in there – the grill’s gone and the hood and a couple of the hobs.’
Michael nodded, thinking that this man would make an excellent corporate finance client; knew his own mind and how to do a deal, no messing around salami-slicing on a bargain. ‘Well, Richard’s very keen to proceed.’
‘What about Judith?’