‘So, she peroxided her hair?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you help her?’
‘No.’
‘And did you provide any of her clothes?’
‘No. We’re different sizes.’
‘And the tiara?’
‘What about it?’
‘Real diamonds. Was it yours?’
Beryl stopped and stared at him as if he was from Mars. ‘Yeah,’ she drawled. ‘It was my second party tiara. I kept it with my bleeding crown jewels.’
‘You’d never seen it before?’
‘No. I hadn’t. Still haven’t – except that drawing in the papers.’
‘You didn’t need one . . . professionally?’
‘I had a little paste thing.’ She glanced at the stub of her cigarette, now finished, took another one from the packet and lit it. ‘Nothing special. Got it from a shop in Brighton, in the Lanes. I offered it to Gina but she didn’t need it. Found something better, didn’t she?’
‘Evidently she did. Any idea how?’
Beryl took a drag and shook her head.
‘Are you sure you didn’t provide it?’
‘No!’ She seemed genuinely surprised by the question. ‘How could I? Why would I?’
‘Nobody gave it to you, or asked you to—?’
‘What are you getting at?’ she asked, brow furrowing. ‘D’you mean another of my gentlemen? No.’
This was not what Darbishire meant. If a gang had planned this murder and stolen a tiara to order, or if they’d had one lying around after a robbery and decided to use it for fun, it was plausible – just – that they had given it to Beryl to pass on to the unfortunate Gina. This was one of his theories. But he believed her surprise at the suggestion. She simply wasn’t a good enough actress to fake it.
‘What did you know about Perez?’ he asked, changing tack.
‘Nothing.’ Her gaze was shifty again.
‘He was a client of the agency,’ Darbishire pointed out.
‘He wanted company a few times, yes. But I’d never met him.’
‘You said his last “companion” was otherwise engaged. Was that deliberate? Did you ask to take over?’
‘No! She didn’t want him! She—’ Beryl caught herself and stopped suddenly.
‘She what, Miss White?’
‘Nothing,’ the girl said. Her attempt at breeziness was undermined by the stiff set of her shoulders.
‘Don’t lie to me,’ Darbishire barked. ‘Don’t even think about it. Why didn’t she want him?’
Beryl stiffened further. ‘Look, it was nothing. She just said that he wasn’t the most . . . gentlemanly. It’s not exactly news. They’re not all saints. There was something in his eyes, she said . . . But that’s all I knew, I swear.’
The agency hadn’t mentioned this. They weren’t entirely forthcoming with information, Darbishire had noticed. Given that it was illegal for them to profit from prostitution, they had to be careful what they said.
‘What about Gina?’
‘What about her?’
‘Did she know about him, too?’
The escort shifted uncomfortably and crossed one elegant leg over the other. ‘I might have told her. She was just grateful for the job. Look, can I go? I don’t know anything. I wasn’t even there!’
‘That’s the point, Miss White,’ Darbishire insisted, stepping up a gear. ‘You weren’t.’
‘W-what d’you mean?’
Sensing he was on the right track, he pushed on.
‘There’s something you’re not telling us. And if you don’t come clean, this won’t end well for you.’
She flicked another frightened glance towards Woolgar. Darbishire looked round to see if his sergeant was glowering at her in a threatening way, but he seemed as impassive as ever.
‘That house,’ Darbishire said harshly. ‘Why did they go to Cresswell Place in particular?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘Why not a hotel?’
‘I told you, I don’t know! I assumed Mr Perez asked to go there.’
‘You do know, Miss White. We’ve talked to the char who cleaned at number forty-four. She’s admitted that room was used for occasional assignations by the agency. Gina Fonteyn somehow had the keys, but Perez was expecting you. Admit it – you gave the keys to her. You’d been there before and—’
‘Not for months!’ she insisted. ‘I didn’t touch those keys, I swear!’
‘Let me put a theory to you,’ Darbishire suggested.
‘OK, but—’
‘I think you arranged where Gina Fonteyn was going to meet up with Dino Perez. Somewhere nice and quiet, without witnesses like a hotel clerk. I think you made sure you were out of it, but you let somebody else know too. There are some dangerous characters involved, Miss White. Men who know how to hurt a pretty face. Maybe there was money in it for you, or maybe you were just scared out of your wits, but you did something you’re ashamed of. And you fled London as fast as you could to get away from it—’
‘I swear! I never—’
‘But you can’t escape, Miss White. Not from these people. Not without our help. You need to be honest with us or we can’t protect you.’
She trembled and looked desperately towards Woolgar. What was it about him? Darbishire briefly wondered if he had another sandwich stuffed in his pocket and she thought it was a gun. Should he throw the man out? He would, if she did it again. Darbishire turned and glared at him, then straightened and lowered his voice to reassure her a little. Perhaps he’d overdone the threat.
‘We can protect you, Beryl, but you have to help us. Can you? For Gina’s sake? Because I don’t think you meant any of this to happen.’
Beryl stared him full in the face, wide-eyed and noticeably pale.
‘Meant it to happen? Meant it? What are you getting at? Of course I didn’t mean it. I just . . . Gina wanted to go with him. I didn’t know where they went, I swear. D’you think I’m in danger? I just went away because I was feeling rotten, like I told you. My head.’ She pressed the heels of her hands to her temples, as if to demonstrate. ‘What dangerous characters? I don’t even know any. I mean, I know some, but none as would do this. Would they? I don’t understand. I—’
‘There, there. Calm down. As I say, we can protect you.’
She glared at him again. ‘You can’t,’ she spat, to his astonishment.
‘What do you mean by that?’
Her whole demeanour changed. She had been openly panicking, but now she sat back in her chair and her lip curled. ‘Since when did the likes of you ever protect the likes of me?’
For the first time, Darbishire sensed he was seeing the true Beryl White. And she had a very low opinion of him, of the Metropolitan Police, and of everything that had happened here so far, despite his best assurances.
For the next half-hour, he grilled her as hard as he could about who might have set up the meeting with Perez, what she knew and what they did to buy her silence. But the silly girl was scared witless, and for a full thirty minutes he got nothing further out of her at all.
Chapter 8
The Honourable Fiona Matherton-Smith had a beloved spaniel called Monty, and Joan knew this because Monty’s empty dog basket still took pride of place beside the radiator in the deputy private secretary’s office, which she now also shared. In the week since she had been offered the job of assistant private secretary by Sir Hugh (with obvious shock and reluctance on his part, and absolute astonishment on hers), Joan twice tried to move the dog basket, to make way for much-needed filing cabinets, but Miles Urquhart wouldn’t hear of it.