'Things settled back down,' she said. 'Went on pretty much as before. Ben got hooked up with Will Grant and they pulled off a couple of tasty scores. Tasty himself, Will Grant, I'll say that for him.' She gave Elder what would once have been a coquettish glance. 'Once or twice the law got too close and George had to straighten things out, make them go away. Then, a few years back, there was this big falling-out after they done this job at Gatwick. Law comes sniffing round, as per usual, and someone's only dropped Grant right in it, name and number, and of course he thinks I've grassed him up. Reckons George has persuaded me to roll him over. It's not true, not for a bloody moment, but Grant's not having any, real paranoid by now, thinks they're both out to stiff him of his share of almost a million, Ben and George both. Won't be persuaded. No way to turn him round. Oh, when the case fell apart and they all walked free, he let on it was okay, all pals again together, forgive and forget. But no, whatever trust there'd been had gone. George, especially. Always figured Grant for a loose cannon after that.'
She stubbed out her cigarette.
'Grant had threatened him, that was the problem. I know where the bodies are buried, George, remember that. Said he had something could put George inside for life.'
'You know what that something was?'
'Me? No, no idea. Just talk, more'n likely. But George, he believed him, I know that. I'd not often seen him worried, really worried, but that's what he was.'
'Worried enough to kill Grant if he got the chance?'
Lynette looked at him with her good eye. 'George would kill his own mother if he thought she might turn against him.'
Anton had come back into the room. 'Time for your nap before lunch.'
Lynette swore and smiled and brought the wheelchair back around. 'Nice to have met you, Frank. Come and see me again some time.'
'I'd like that.' He placed a card on which he'd written his London address and mobile number down on the arm of her chair.
'Lying bastard.'
Elder smiled and raised his glass.
46
Karen Shields and Mike Ramsden were gradually wearing Kennet down, chipping away at the carapace of half-truths and denials he'd constructed around himself, teasing out each incident in which he had broken into the flats or houses of various women living alone, some whom he knew well, others whom he scarcely knew at all. They persuaded him to talk, sometimes haltingly, sometimes, despite his own best interests, almost with relish, of the sexual life he had persuaded, cajoled, or bullied the women in his life to share: fantasies of forced sexual activity and rape which were often played out in public places where the risk of discovery added an extra frisson.
But on Maddy Birch's murder, they could not shake him. He remained adamant he was not involved. And as long as there was still no evidence, other than the circumstantial, to link him to the crime, they were stymied.
'Bastard keeps it up,' Ramsden said, 'he'll have me halfway believing he's telling the bloody truth.'
'About Maddy? Maybe he is.'
'You reckon?'
'In here, no. I think he's guilty as hell. But unless we can prove it, break him down…'
'Yeah.'
'We've got to find out what he was doing, Mike. The night she was killed. If he wasn't watching Jackie Chan and downing a few pints on the Holloway Road, what was he doing? Maybe he was drinking somewhere else? Somewhere closer to where Maddy was killed. Filling in the time till she was through with her yoga. Getting himself up for it, who knows? Let's have Lee and Paul back round the pubs with a photograph, Tottenham Lane, Crouch End, Hornsey Rise.'
'Okay.'
'And Mike, another thing. That story of his about getting up early the next morning to go to work – if he was, to all intents and purposes, still off on holiday, why was he going to work? And where?'
'Self-employed, isn't he? Work when you feel like it.'
'Even so. Let's nail it down.'
'That's a joke, right?'
'What?'
'Nail it down. Building. Kennet's job…'
'Mike?'
'Yes?'
'No time left for jokes.'
Attention to detail, Karen thought, check and double-check. That's what brought most cases to a satisfactory conclusion. That and sheer luck. She hoped their luck hadn't run out.
Meanwhile, the process by which Grant's assets would be claimed by the Crown had begun its slow and tortuous progress. His bank accounts had been traced and were being examined; the sale of his penthouse flat would eventually be negotiated. There were no records of him having had a safety deposit box.
The clothes and paraphernalia that had been removed from the flat itself were sitting in a succession of cardboard boxes, which it took two officers a good half-hour to locate and transfer to a room where Elder could examine them, article by article, piece by piece.
Suits, jackets, shirts, shoes. Toiletries, gizmos, histories of Stalingrad, Berlin and both the First and Second World Wars, some, as far as Elder could tell, unread, their spines uncracked. A few vinyl albums with bent and ragged sleeves: the original Dusty in Memphis, Otis Redding's Otis Blue. CDs that mixed Phil Collins and Simply Red with pop singers from the sixties, more Dusty, Lulu, Sandie Shaw. Some Aretha Franklin. The Temptations. A couple of DVDs: Titanic, Pearl Harbor. And videos: The World at War in a boxed set, Cross of Iron, Apocalypse Now, Das Boot. A slew of old musicals: Funny Girl, Top Hat, Follow the Fleet, An American in Paris, Carousel. A stationery box which had once housed A4 paper and now held photographs.
Elder spread them out across the table. Holiday snaps, beaches, umbrellas, tanned bodies, exotic plants; celebrations, faces mugging for the camera, champagne, cigars. Three men standing outside a nightclub, slightly the worse for wear, dressed to the nines, startled by the sudden flash of light: Grant, Mallory and a man Elder recognised from the framed picture in Lynette Drury's house as Ben Slater. There were photographs also of Grant and Slater in the changing company of others: in restaurants and bars, relaxing round the pool, the race track, the dogs, a hospitality box at Chelsea, the departure lounge at Heathrow.
Elder shuffled them around.
Grant and Mallory ringside at a boxing match – Elder lifted it up and turned it towards the light – Maurice Repton in the background, almost edged out of the frame.
Grant and Mallory.
I know where the bodies are buried, George, remember that.
Something could put Mallory inside for life.
How far did it go? How thick the stew?
Elder tapped the photos back into piles and replaced them in the box.
Close to two hours later it was all being resealed and replaced.
Vicki Wilson was sharing a flat near Gloucester Road with two others. Andrea was a make-up artist, working mostly on corporate videos and the occasional pop promo for MTV; Didi, real name Deirdre, was a dancer at a revue bar in Soho. When Elder called, Andrea was out filming and Didi in bed sleeping.
Vicki didn't look as if she'd been sleeping much at all.
She was wearing baggy sweat pants and a loose cotton top and she was letting her hair grow out; the only traces of make-up were at the corners of her eyes where she'd failed to wipe them away. In some strange way, Elder thought she looked more attractive than before.
'You're not working,' Elder said.
'Can't be arsed. Besides, Didi, she's thinking of chucking it in, going to Australia. This mate of hers, she's got a job dancing. Sydney. Says it's great. Thought I might tag along. Why not? Nothing to keep me here.'