‘I’m very sorry about what happened to him, by the way. Sorry for you.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, biting her lip.
‘I only saw you for a few minutes this summer. But you seemed to be very fond of each other.’
‘We were,’ she said. ‘Then.’ She looked at me doubtfully. She wasn’t much older than me and at that moment she seemed young and vulnerable. She wanted to talk.
‘Then?’ I said quietly.
‘Yes.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Until I found out he was having an affair. That’s why I hired Leonard Donnelly. I overheard Tony talking to a woman on his mobile. I checked the last-numbers-called on his phone later when he wasn’t looking and got the number. It was British. London. So I contacted a private detective agency and asked Mr Donnelly to watch Tony next time he went there. It was a terrible thing to do, but I couldn’t stand the thought of him seeing another woman. I mean, what did he find wrong with me?’
A very good question, I thought.
‘After Andreas was born I was convinced he didn’t think I was attractive any more. I wanted to know who this other woman was.’
‘Did you find out?’
‘Yes.’ Sabina looked crushed. ‘It was the wife of a friend of his. Mr Donnelly thinks she is forty-eight. I was humiliated. And very angry.
‘And then... Then he was killed. Can you imagine how bad I felt then? I hadn’t stopped loving him. In fact, it was because I loved him that I was so angry with him. It almost destroyed me. And now, whenever I think of him, I think of him and her. I wish I’d never heard that phone call. I wish I’d never hired Mr Donnelly.’
‘Do you have any idea who might have killed him?’
‘No. None.’
‘What about business enemies? I remember reading many years ago that he forced out his partner.’
‘That was many years ago. In fact, the man died last year. Cancer, I think. No, it’s a long time since Tony’s property days. He hardly ever spoke about them, and I never met anyone from then.’
‘What about in France? Had he made any enemies there?’
‘Oh, no. Or none that I’m aware of. No, I don’t think so.’
‘So what was this man Donnelly up to?’
‘Well, as you can imagine, the police had lots of questions about him. They thought I might have paid him to do it. But he’s not that kind of man, and they know that. Anyway, I was the one who first told them about him.’
‘He must have seen who did run Tony over?’
‘Apparently not.’
‘But I don’t see how he can have missed it?’
‘I don’t know the details. I don’t want to know the details.’ Sabina shuddered, her face pinched. ‘Why are you asking all these questions?’
‘Tony’s death was very close to home. I don’t know whether it had anything to do with Ninetyminutes. The police haven’t got anywhere. So I thought I would check, myself.’
‘I’m sure the police will find who killed him in the end.’
‘I hope so. What are you going to do now?’
‘I’m not sure. I’m not living in Les Sarrasins, that’s for certain. I’ll stay here with my parents until I decide what I want to do. According to Patrick, Tony left me quite well off. And, of course, he left me Andreas.’
Her eyes began to fill with tears. I decided it was time to leave.
27
I caught the first flight to London the next morning, and was in the office by ten. Guy didn’t know and didn’t care that I had spent the night in a Munich airport hotel. I did some research on the Internet and soon located Leonard Donnelly. I phoned his number and spoke to a man who informed me he was Donnelly’s partner. I made an appointment to see Donnelly that afternoon.
His office wasn’t far from Hammersmith tube station. There was a doorway right next to a bookmaker’s with a steel plate proclaiming AA Abacus Detective Agency. Not very imaginative, but it had snared Sabina. I pressed the bell and climbed the dingy stairs in front of me. AA Abacus was on the second floor, and I was greeted by Mr Donnelly himself. I recognized him, as much from the photograph Spedding had shown me as from when I had seen him in his car that night. He was thin, with small bright eyes that quickly moved over me. He was wondering whether he recognized me too.
He led me into a small office with two desks, two computers and lots of filing cabinets. Both desks were empty. His partner was out on the streets. There was a funny smell in the place. Damp or drains or both.
‘Take a seat, Mr Lane,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’ He spoke rapidly in a clipped Irish accent.
‘We’ve met before,’ I said, sitting down. ‘Or, if we didn’t actually meet, we saw each other.’
Donnelly nodded, and smiled a thin smile. In doing so he displayed protruding front teeth with a clear gap between them. I wished I’d seen them when I was describing him to Sergeant Spedding.
‘I saw you waiting in a car the night Tony Jourdan died,’ I began.
‘I know.’
‘I was wondering if you could tell me what happened. What you saw.’
‘I told the police.’
‘I know. Now perhaps you would tell me.’
Another smile. Those teeth again. ‘Doing a little detective work, are you, Mr Lane?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Now, why would it be in my interest to help you?’
I had anticipated his question. I pulled out five twenties. ‘I believe you make your living by providing information for a fee. There’s the fee.’
Donnelly glanced at me. I had no idea what the right amount to offer him was. He could see that. He could also see that I was keen to get the information.
‘That’s quite true,’ he said. ‘But I charge more than that.’
‘How much?’
‘Two-fifty. Including VAT.’
I counted out another five notes. ‘Two hundred. That’s all.’
Donnelly pocketed the notes.
‘What do you want to know? I warn you I can’t divulge any private information relating to my client. That would be unethical.’
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘Just tell me what you saw that evening.’
Donnelly took a well-worn notebook out of a desk drawer and thumbed through it until he found the right day. The smell seemed to me to be getting worse. I glanced at the window. Shut.
Donnelly noticed. ‘Got to keep it closed, I’m afraid. Street noise is pretty bad here. Can’t hear yourself think.’ He smoothed open the pages. ‘This is it. I had been following Jourdan on and off for two days, since he arrived at Heathrow on Sunday morning.’
‘Did you see him with a woman?’
‘That’s confidential to my client.’
‘Fair enough,’ I said. I didn’t think it was important.
‘At eight fifty-eight I saw you and Ms Da Cunha enter Jourdan’s flat. At nine twenty-one you left. A couple of minutes later, Jourdan left the flat as well. He started walking south, towards Old Brompton Road. This was a bit of a problem for me because of the one-way system round there.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It means that I couldn’t follow him by car if he walked south. The one-way pattern is north. So I had to drive north, go around the block and pick him up as he came out on to Old Brompton Road looking for a cab. I’d already done that a few times before, so I thought it would work this time.’
‘But it didn’t.’
‘It didn’t. I went around the block and waited on the main road. No sign of him. Then I heard the sirens. I drove back towards his street and as soon as I saw it was filled with police cars I drove on.’