‘You lay off Griff.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re doing yourself no favours; worse, you’re making a fool of yourself. The guy was a sergeant in South Africa, and he’s got “flyer” written all over him. You’re coming across as plain jealous.’
‘You left out the bit about him knocking off Alex Skinner.’
‘I also left out the bit about him being hard enough to crack you like a walnut if he heard you saying that. Just think about what I’m telling you, that’s all.’
Wilding frowned. ‘Jealous?’ he murmured.
‘That’s how it looks.’
‘Okay, I’ll think about it,’ he said, as they reached the attic floor.
There was a door at the end of the landing, with a glazed panel bearing the logo that they had seen on the plate at street level. Wilding rapped on the frame, then led the way into an office space that seemed to cover the full width of the building. It was open plan, apart from a glass office in the far corner where a woman sat behind a desk. The area was flooded with light from Velux windows. The sergeant glanced around expecting to find the walls filled with posters and pictures of the agency’s clients but, to his surprise, they were bare.
‘Yes, gentlemen?’ a young man greeted them brightly. A big, broad lad, in jeans and a Coldplay T-shirt, he was well spoken and looked to be still in his teens; he was the only other person in the room, and judging by its furnishing, High-end Talent’s only other employee.
‘Police,’ said Singh, only a little winded by the climb. ‘We’re here to see Hope Dell.’
‘Do you have an appointment?’
The big detective constable sighed, then smiled. ‘You didn’t hear me, son. We’re the polis; we don’t do appointments. We want to talk to her about Harry Paul.’
The boy flushed slightly. ‘Of course. Sorry, gentlemen. Just hold on a minute, please.’
The woman had looked up; as he walked towards her cubicle, she rose from behind her desk. ‘Mum, it’s the police,’ they heard him say, as he opened the door. She nodded, and beckoned to them, an invitation to join her. She was dark-haired, of medium height, and wore a pale blue suit over a matching polo-neck that had the smoothness of cashmere. Singh’s parents were in the rag trade; he knew quality when he saw it.
‘Put the coffee on, Jacky,’ she told her son, as the two men approached. ‘Come in, take a seat.’ She directed them to three designer chairs, grouped round a coffee table.
Wilding thanked her, then introduced himself and the detective constable. ‘We’ve come about Harry Paul,’ he told her.
‘Yes, poor lad, it’s appalling. Tragic for him and for his friends; the door had just opened for them, and they were about to make themselves some serious money.’
‘There’s one possible connection,’ the sergeant told her, ‘between Harry and the man who’s our chief suspect at the moment. We’re trying to establish whether there were any others.’ He took the likeness of Padstow from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘Is this person familiar to you?’ he asked.
She took it from him and peered at it. ‘I saw this in today’s Herald,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t know who he is, but I can tell you who the artist was. It was Stacey Gavin, wasn’t it?’
Wilding stared at her. ‘Yes, but how did you. .?’
‘Stacey was a client of mine. When you arrived, I didn’t think you’d just come to talk just about Harry; I thought you’d be asking about all three.’
‘Zrinka Boras was a client as well?’
‘Yes.’ She paused as the young man brought in a tray, holding a jug of filter coffee, milk, a plate of biscuits and three mugs, and laid it on the table. ‘Stay with us, Jacky,’ she told him, then turned back to the detectives. ‘Clearly you don’t know a lot about my agency. High-end Talent has only branched into music fairly recently, since my son left school, and decided that he wanted to work with me and study part-time, rather than go to college. Before that I represented writers and artists exclusively.’
‘Isn’t that an unusual spread?’ asked Singh.
‘Not really. Multi-talent agencies are quite common, although a business my size tends to concentrate on one discipline. I started my working life as an editor with a Scottish publishing house. I put my career on hold when I had Jacky here, and his sister, but when I was ready to restart I found that the industry was contracting and that there were no openings, not here at any rate. It had occurred to me as an editor that virtually all of the writers whose work was pitched to me were represented by agencies outside Scotland, and when I did some research I discovered that there were few here, worth the name at any rate. So I set myself up, working from home, focusing on general and children’s fiction, and before too long I had a respectable client list.’
‘When did art come into it?’
‘After I lost my husband. He was killed in a car crash four years ago, and I was left with two kids to raise and a limited income. I had to make the agency grow, but it wasn’t just a matter of taking on more authors: this business is driven by talent, not volume, so growth is dependent on finding the right clients, and you can’t plan for that. Diversifying into art was my brother-in-law’s idea: he has a passionate interest in it, and he knew that my core degree was in art history. He pointed out that there are many artists who could do much better for themselves if they had commercial representation. I did some more research, and I found that he was right. So I began by running a little strategically placed advertising. Then I produced a leaflet and I circulated it around the Scottish art schools, and the new division began to grow. I don’t sell their work direct to customers, not as a rule, or through galleries, for there would be hardly any money left for the client if I did that. I maintain a database that’s available to interior designers and architects, and to a few private buyers who are registered with me, and I look to develop new markets for them. Currently I’m opening up a website, where people will be able to buy signed and numbered prints on line.’
‘I see,’ said Wilding. ‘So how did you meet Stacey and Zrinka?’
‘Zrinka approached me a couple of years ago, more or less as soon as she moved here. She was young, but she had a very sharp business brain, inherited, no doubt.’
‘You knew her background?’
‘She told me. She never tried to hide it; she simply refused to trade on it. She was only ever known as Zrinka on my database. When we met, we had a two-way chat, but nothing was resolved. I’m sure she had me checked out, for it was a few days before she came back and said that she’d like me to represent her.’
‘Has she been successful?’
‘Oh, yes. If you look into her affairs, you’ll find that she set up a limited company to handle the work she put through me.’
‘But she was selling directly as well, from a stall.’
‘She was, but that was part of our agreement, and I was happy, as long as she didn’t undervalue her work.’
‘And Stacey?’
‘Zrinka brought her to me last year, after she had graduated from college, and introduced her. It was a very generous thing for her to do, but she was that sort of woman. Stacey was very talented too, maybe even more than Zrinka.’ She held the print up. ‘I could have landed her some pretty serious portrait commissions, you know, but she insisted that she wasn’t ready for that. Too bad. I hope her parents have an idea of the long-term value of the work they’re holding.’
‘What about Harry, and Upload?’ Singh asked her. ‘Why did you go into music?’
‘For Jacky.’ She smiled at her son. ‘He wanted to come into the business, and he persuaded me that music would fit naturally into a creative agency. He has a good ear for that sort of stuff. It’s all beyond me, but he got it right with Harry and the boys, when Zrinka brought them along to see us. The contract they had. . I can’t bear to think of the money we’d all have made.’
‘And still can, Mum,’ Jacky told her. ‘Harry can be replaced in the band. He’s dead, but his compositions aren’t.’