“And have you ever bought any?”
“Me? No! I’d lose my job.”
“So Mr. Badger doesn’t buy from them either?”
Cherisse shook her head and continued with her desultory processing of the glasses. “I thought I’d mention it, though,” she said. “He’s a nasty piece of work, that Mitch.”
“He certainly sounds it,” said Liz. “Thanks.”
She stared out into the empty bar. Pale winter sunshine streamed through the leaded windows, illuminating the dust motes and gilding the accessories on the wood-panelled walls. If Mitch, whoever he was, was involved in the selling of cut-price tobacco, and had told Ray Gunter as much, why was he so angry when Gunter had mentioned it to Cherisse? Much of a tobacco-smuggler’s life was taken up with persuading publicans and bar staff to take his goods off his hands.
The only reason that Liz could fathom was that Mitch had graduated from tobacco-smuggling to more dangerous games. Games in which loose talk could be fatal. Thanking Cherisse again, she changed a ten-pound note into coins, and called Frankie Ferris from the pay phone in the pub’s entrance hall. The hall was overheated, and smelt of furniture polish and air freshener. Ferris, as usual, seemed to be in a state of advanced agitation.
“It’s really come on top with this murder,” he whispered. “Total, like… Eastman’s been locked in his office since yesterday morning. Last night he was there till-”
“Was the dead man anything to do with Eastman?”
“I don’t know, and I wouldn’t ask. Right now I just want to keep my head down, and if the law comes knocking I want some serious…”
“Serious?”
“Like, protection, OK? I’m taking a major risk just making this call. What if someone-”
“Mitch,” said Liz. “I need to know about a man called Mitch.”
A short, charged silence.
“Braintree,” said Ferris. “Eight o’clock this evening on the top level of the multistorey by the station. Come alone.” The phone went dead.
He smells trouble, thought Liz, replacing the handset. He wants to keep on pocketing Eastman’s money but he also wants to protect his back when it all blows up. He knows he’ll get no change out of Bob Morrison, so he’s come back to me.
She wondered briefly about going down to the village hall, reestablishing contact with Goss and Whitten, and finding out if they had moved the case forward. After a moment’s thought, however, she decided to drive down to Headland Hall and speak to Peregrine Lakeby first. Once she had linked up with the others it would be harder to keep information to herself.
With a quiet popping of gravel, the Audi came to a halt outside Headland Hall. This time the doorbell was answered by Lakeby himself. He was wearing a long Chinese dressing gown and a cravat, and was surrounded by a faint odour of limes.
He looked surprised to see Liz, but swiftly recovered himself, and led her along the tiled corridor into the kitchen. Here, at a broad work table of scrubbed pine, a woman was drying wine glasses with an unhurried action which Liz immediately recognised. This must be Elsie Hogan, mother to Cherisse.
“Aga’s smoking again, Mr. Lakeby,” said the woman, glancing incuriously at Liz.
Peregrine frowned, pulled on an oven glove, and gingerly opened one of the Aga doors. Smoke whooshed out, and taking a log from a tall basket, he slung it in and slammed the door shut again.
“That should do it.”
The woman looked at him doubtfully. “Those logs are a bit green, Mr. Lakeby. I think that’s the problem. Did they come from the garage?”
Peregrine looked vague. “Quite possibly. Have a word with Anne about them. She’ll be back from King’s Lynn in an hour.” He turned to Liz. “Coffee?”
“I’m fine, thanks,” said Liz, reflecting ruefully that you couldn’t say to a man what she was about to say to Peregrine Lakeby and be drinking his coffee at the same time. So she stood and watched as he boiled water, spooned ground arabica beans into a cafetière, mixed, plunged, and poured the steaming result into a Wedgwood bone-china cup.
“Now,” said Peregrine, when they had quit the smoky realm of the kitchen and were once again comfortably disposed in the book-lined drawing room, “tell me how I can help you.”
Liz met his enquiring, faintly amused gaze. “I’d like to know about the arrangement you had with Ray Gunter,” she said quietly.
Peregrine’s head tilted thoughtfully. His hair, Liz noticed, swept back into steel-grey wings over each ear. “Which arrangement was that, precisely? If you mean the arrangement by which he kept his boats on the beach, I was under the impression that we had discussed that in some detail last time you and your colleagues came here.”
So, thought Liz, they haven’t been back.
“No,” she said. “I mean the arrangement by which Ray Gunter brought illicit consignments ashore by night, and you agreed to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to any disturbance. How much was Gunter paying you to ignore his activities?”
Peregrine’s smile tightened. The patrician mask showed minute signs of strain. “I don’t know where you’ve got your information from, Miss… er, but the idea that I might have had a criminal relationship with a man like Ray Gunter is quite frankly preposterous. May I ask what-or who-led you to such a bizarre conclusion?”
Liz reached into her briefcase and removed two printed sheets. “May I tell you a story, Mr. Lakeby? A story about a woman known in certain circles as the Marquise, real name Dorcas Gibb?”
Peregrine said nothing. His expression remained unaltered, but the colour began to ebb from his face.
“For several years now, the Marquise has been the proprietor of a discreet establishment in Shepherd Market, W1, where she and her employees specialise in…” she consulted the printed sheets, “discipline, domination, and corporal punishment.”
Again, Peregrine said nothing.
“Three years ago, the existence of this establishment was drawn to the attention of the Inland Revenue. Madame la Marquise, it seemed, had neglected to pay any income tax for a decade or so. It must have slipped her mind. So the Revenue asked the Vice Squad if they’d mind giving her a nudge, and the Vice Squad didn’t mind in the least. They raided the place. And guess who-along with an eminent QC and a popular New Labour peer-they found strapped to a flogging-horse with a rubber gag in his mouth and his trousers round his ankles?”
Peregrine’s gaze turned to ice. His mouth was a thin, taut-clamped line. “My private life, young lady, is my own business, and I will not, repeat not, be blackmailed in my own house.” He rose from the sofa. “You will kindly leave, and leave now.”
Liz didn’t move. “I’m not blackmailing you, Mr. Lakeby, I’m just asking you for the precise details of your commercial relationship with Ray Gunter. We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. The easy way involves you giving me all of the facts in confidence; the hard way involves a police arrest on suspicion of involvement in organised crime. And given that, as we all know, there’s a regular flow of information between the police and the tabloid newspapers…”
She shrugged, and Peregrine stared down at her, expressionless. She returned his gaze, steel for steel, and gradually the fight and the arrogance seemed to drain out of him. He sat down again in slow motion, his shoulders slumped. “But if you’re working with the police…”
“I’m not quite working with the police, Mr. Lakeby. I’m working alongside them.”
His eyes narrowed warily. “So…”
“I’m not suggesting you did anything worse than take Gunter’s money,” said Liz quietly. “But I have to tell you that there’s an issue of national security at stake here, and I’m sure you wouldn’t wish to endanger the security of the state.” She paused. “What was the deal with Gunter?”
He stared bleakly out of the window. “As you surmised, the idea was that I turned a blind eye to his comings and goings at night.”