‘Do you like it?’
‘Very nice.’ He squinted at the picture for a few seconds. Maybe airbrushed a bit . . .
Winters mentioned the name of an artist that Umar had never heard of. ‘He said I was a great subject.’
‘Cool.’ He wanted something to eat. ‘I’m starving.’
Giselle Winters, however, had other ideas. Stubbing the remains of her cigarette into an ashtray on the bedside table, she caressed him under the duvet. ‘More of this,’ she murmured, ‘then food.’
He was just about to hang up when a bright and breezy voice came on the line.
‘This is the Doppio Clinic. How may I help you?’
‘I would like to speak to Janice Anderson,’ Carlyle replied, trying not to sound too grumpy at being kept on hold for so long, ‘please.’
‘I’m afraid that Dr Anderson is with a patient at the moment.’
‘When will she be free?’
‘Hold, please . . .’
Stay calm, he told himself, it’s not a big deal.
After a short while, the receptionist came back on the line. ‘I can book you in for an appointment, next Wednesday at three. Or we have a slot available on Friday at eleven thirty.’
‘I don’t want an appointment,’ he said snappishly, ‘I just want to know when Janice . . . Dr Anderson will be free today.’
‘Are you a new patient?’ the girl asked, sounding more like a machine now than a human being who could hold an actual conversation. Maybe that’s it, Carlyle thought. Maybe I’m not talking to a person at all, just some high-end automated booking system.
‘I am not a patient,’ he said firmly.
‘We have Wednesday at three . . .’
He glanced at his watch. His sugar-levels were plummeting. Lunch was overdue. ‘What time does the doctor’s last appointment finish today?’
There was a pause. ‘We cannot give out that information. Do you want to leave a message for the doctor?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll sort it out.’ Ending the call, the inspector slipped the phone back into his pocket. The shrink could wait; it was time to eat.
The gardeners had left. Dropping his head, Umar gave himself a discreet sniff. Even after a shower, he could still smell the not-so grieving widow on his skin. For sure, he couldn’t risk presenting himself in front of Christina like this. But that was okay, since he had a plan: after work he would go for a swim at the Oasis, before heading for home.
What he was going to do about the scratches was another matter. He was certainly going to need a decent story to cover his afternoon activities. The Swiss railway clock on the wall told him that he should have been back at the station a couple of hours ago. And a glance at his mobile told him he had four messages. He was in no hurry to check them.
Catching the worried look on the sergeant’s face, Giselle Winters gave him a consolatory smile. Placing a bowl of cherry tomatoes on to the table, she stared at the wedding ring on Umar’s hand. ‘Feeling a bit guilty?’
‘No, no,’ Umar lied. ‘Everything’s good.’ Anyway, even if it isn’t, it’s too late to do anything about it now. He watched as his hostess placed some ciabatta, cheese, olives, water and a bottle of white wine on the work surface in front of him. His appetite, however, had gone. Helping himself to a small bottle of Evian, he made no effort to reach for the food.
‘Not hungry?’ Winters asked. ‘I’m ravenous.’ She began piling food on her plate. ‘You must have burnt off some calories up there. Don’t you see anything you fancy? Eat.’
‘Looks good, thanks.’ Reaching forward, Umar grabbed a tomato and dropped it into his mouth.
Nibbling on a piece of cheese, Winters poured herself a large glass of wine and immediately downed half of it. The marathon sex session had sobered her up and it was time to get pissed again. ‘So, down to business. What did you want to know?’
‘Well . . .’ For a moment, Umar struggled to remember anything about the dead lawyer or, indeed, why he was here.
‘Yes?’ Winters refilled her glass almost to the brim.
‘Was there anything about your husband’s death that was suspicious?’
‘Not really,’ she shrugged. ‘He had a heart attack, didn’t he?’
‘Yes. But he was under a bit of stress, wasn’t he?’
‘Ha. I’d say.’ Putting down her glass, Winters placed her hands palms down on the counter. Looking up, her face was all business. ‘He had over-extended himself with the house in France, and my lawyer was going to take him to the cleaners on the divorce. Worst of all – from his point of view – his legal business was being sold on the cheap to the Americans by that bastard Chris Brennan, so he wasn’t going to be able to use his equity to raise enough cash to bail himself out.’ A gleam appeared in her eye. ‘Best-case scenario? He was going to have to work until he was eighty, in order to pay back his debts.’
‘So he’d had a falling-out with Brennan?’
‘Sure.’ Winters slipped onto a bar stool and recovered her drink. The maid appeared in the hallway and was waved brusquely away. ‘They spent 90 per cent of their time arguing over the deal with Austerlitz amp; Co. and the rest of their time doing lines of coke together.’ She shook her head. ‘Men.’
Umar tried to look suitably apologetic for his sex.
‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘Brennan was happy to take the Americans’ paper but Brian wanted cash – quite rightly, in my opinion. You know what they say: money talks, bullshit walks.’
‘So there was a deadlock?’
‘Not really,’ Winters sighed. ‘The company is called WBK – Winters Brennan amp; King – but Chris effectively owns it. Sid King sold up when he retired and Brian had to keep selling off parcels of shares to fund his . . . lifestyle. Brennan now has something like 80 per cent of the shares. Effectively, he could do what he liked. Brian wasn’t happy, but he was powerless to stop him.’
Umar pointed at the briefcase which was still standing on the island. ‘After your husband died, Brennan tried to get us to hand over Brian’s case. We couldn’t do that, obviously, but any idea why?’
Taking a sip of her wine, Winters looked at him suspiciously. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Just curious. After all, Chris Brennan is quite a well-known character down at our shop.’
‘I bet he is.’ The woman laughed. ‘So you hate him too, huh?’
‘Well, I think my boss has had a few run-ins with him over the years.’
‘He is such a total bastard,’ she spat, the wine glass hovering in front of her pale lips. ‘I can think of a couple of reasons why he wanted the case. One, if there were any drugs in it . . .’
Umar shook his head. ‘No drugs; just different sets of papers.’
‘Okay. Well, in that case, it must be something to do with Kenneth Ashton.’ She gave the young sergeant an amused look. ‘I presume you know who he is?’
THIRTY-THREE
With the receiver wedged between shoulder and ear, Carlyle tuned out of the conversation as he flicked through the BBC Online news pages: ‘record’ drug seizure in Portugal; 25 per cent rise in homelessness in Britain; and, in Russia, a girl pop group called Pussy Riot were in court on charges of hooliganism.
‘God bless the Russians,’ he mumbled.
‘What?’ squawked an irate DI Julie Postic.
‘Nothing, nothing.’ Re-focusing on the matter in hand, the inspector sat up in his chair.
Postic returned to her rant. ‘It is completely unacceptable that you go briefing journalists behind my back on a case that is nothing to do with you.’
‘Julie, Julie,’ he said soothingly, ‘I haven’t briefed anyone about anything. I don’t speak to journalists, full stop. Everyone knows that.’ Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Umar approaching across the floor.