He carefully closed the drawers and moved over to the bookcase, where Riley was using a pen to shuffle aside each book, checking for items in between. They were standard office tomes on company law, administration and accounting, all too old to be of current use and plainly bought by the yard. But one looked out of place, with a glossy cover and cantered at an angle to fit into the shelf space. Palmer took it down. It was a hardback edition of ‘A Guide to Russian Imperial Art’, and looked well thumbed, with yellow Post-it notes protruding from the edges of the pages.
He flicked through it. The notes highlighted an array of icons, portraits, glassware, gold and silver, all elaborately decorated and set against a backdrop of display cases lined with plush material to highlight the rich colours. One or two pages had neat notations in the margins, although they were in Russian and Palmer couldn’t read them.
Close to the back, he found two slips of paper. One could have been a shopping list, containing references to page numbers in the book. The other was smaller and heavy in texture, with a glossy feel. It had jagged edges, as if torn from another, larger piece. He slipped this into his pocket, and replaced the book exactly as he had found it.
In the fridge, they found two bottles of lager, a bottle of vodka and one of whisky, with six small tins of tonic and soda. A plastic tray of ice cubes. No peanuts, no chocolates, no little nibbles. Whatever Messrs Radnor and Michael were into, they didn’t lean towards the wild side when it came to alcohol.
‘This isn’t where they do their main business,’ said Riley. ‘Is it?’ She was staring round with a grim expression. ‘It’s too blank.’
‘Right,’ Palmer agreed with her. ‘It’s a place to hang, that’s all. A cover. No working office is this bare — not when there are two of them and they come in here every day. They haven’t even got a computer. When was the last time you saw an office without one?’
‘Laptops,’ Riley guessed, nodding towards a coiled power cable on one of the shelves. ‘Safer than leaving a PC lying around. With the right hardware, they can make a connection to anywhere they like.’ Even the phone had a thin covering of dust. ‘But what about the stuff Jimmy said they bring in from time to time? And the packing stuff in the skips?’
‘More cover. My guess is, they move a bit of stuff through here, just to keep it real. If so, it’s probably genuine and clean. I’d like to know where the other place is.’
‘Could be they’ve flown.’ Riley thought back to when they had seen Radnor and Michael leaving the building earlier. They had been carrying briefcases and coats, but hadn’t seemed to be in a hurry. But then, if Radnor was who Palmer thought, he would have been trained not to give anything away, and to act normally, especially if he thought he was being watched.
Palmer walked over to the window. Standing to one side, he peered down to where a couple of forensics officers investigating Gillivray’s death were studying the ground in minute detail, while a young woman took shots with a digital camera.
He wandered back to the desk. Something about the contents had rung a small alarm bell. It wasn’t simply the layout, which he thought too contrived to be normal, but something else. He slid the top drawer open again, careful not to disturb anything, and studied the interior.
‘What is it?’ Riley knew Palmer’s body language fairly well and realised he had noticed something.
‘Without touching anything,’ he said, ‘tell me what you see.’ He turned away and stared out of the window.
Riley glanced at her watch. She was concerned about the accountant arriving early. With only one way in, they’d be caught red-handed if he decided to be overly conscientious today.
‘We’ve got time, don’t worry.’
Riley turned to the drawer and studied the contents. ‘Okay. There’s a stapler, paperclips, elastic bands, pens, pencils, ink cartridges, a book of stamps, scissors, sticky tape, some string, a gold something — could be a tie clip — some Euros, a retractable craft knife, earphones, a pen-torch-’
‘Go back.’ Palmer turned and joined her at the desk. He looked down. ‘Where’s the gold tie clip?’
‘There.’ Riley pointed to where a small bar of gold with a clip attached to one side was sitting in one corner of the drawer, partly concealed beneath a stapler. The clip was bent back away from the main bar.
‘Damn,’ said Palmer, with a faint look of surprise. He’d been concentrating so hard on the layout of the drawer and not leaving clues, he’d missed the obvious. ‘Well, now we know who killed Gillivray.’
Riley stared at him. ‘Radnor?’
Palmer nodded. ‘Or Michael. He looks more the type.’
‘But why? I wouldn’t have thought they even knew each other.’
‘They probably didn’t. You said yourself that Michael was asking questions about us. The visitor’s book would have shown who we were calling on — even if the security guy downstairs hadn’t told them. It’s a short step from there to wondering what we were doing here, and following the trail up to the sixth floor. Radnor must have got worried and set Michael on to them, to find out what they were up to. Knowing Gillivray, he probably told him to shove off. After that, it was a link they couldn’t leave, in case he blabbed.’
‘But killing him? That’s a bit extreme.’
Palmer wasn’t so sure. It went with the background of people like Radnor. ‘It’s what they do, covering their tracks.’
Suddenly the phone rang. They stared at it, both rooted to the spot. Palmer let it ring four times before reaching forward and picking up the receiver with his fingertips.
‘Incoming!’ The voice was Nobby’s, speaking from the front desk. ‘Twenty seconds — half a minute, tops.’
Chapter 18
Palmer replaced the phone and gently eased the desk drawer shut to avoid disturbing the contents. Riley was already making for the door.
‘Across to the other side.’ Palmer said quietly. ‘First door on the left.’
They crossed the foyer to the opposite door. Just as Palmer closed it behind him, he heard a key turning in the front door. He followed Riley into the first office and clicked the door shut behind him.
They heard the newcomer close the front door, whistling tunelessly as he moved away from them across the foyer. Then came the sound of the door to Radnor’s office opening.
Palmer turned to look at Riley, to warn her to be ready to go, but she was peering into the wastebasket by the side of the desk. Ten seconds later, footsteps approached and the door to the corridor was flung open. Palmer readied himself, but the newcomer walked on by and disappeared down the corridor and through another door, humming to himself.
Riley looked at Palmer and mouthed the question, ‘Toilet?’
Palmer nodded and opened the door, then beckoned Riley to follow, silently thanking the God of weak bladders.
Thirty seconds later, they were downstairs and crossing towards the desk where Nobby sat waiting, his face drawn with worry.
‘Christ, that was close!’ he breathed. ‘I was waiting for him to start screaming blue murder.’ He stood up and came round the desk. ‘I spoke to Jimmy, like you asked. He said you’ve got to be joking about the black guy.’
‘Why?’ Riley asked.
‘Because a cleaner here was fired two weeks after Azimtec moved in. They complained he was incompetent and implied stuff had gone missing. He was black. When an Asian took over running a sandwich service into the building, they stopped taking food from him. They also insisted they’d only use white cabbies. Jimmy says from other comments they made, if those two on the first floor aren’t card-carrying members of the British National Party, they should be.’