‘Which musician did she mean?’ Rebus asked. ‘Bruce Collier?’
‘Is he the one Maria had the knee-trembler with?’
‘That’ll be Dougie Vaughan.’
Attwood clicked his fingers. ‘Exactly so. But you see, I definitely wasn’t anywhere near the bloody hotel — that was the whole point.’
‘You wanted Maria to get the hint? That you were breaking off the affair?’
Attwood screwed up his face. ‘I’d tried telling her a couple of times, but then she would say something or do something and suddenly I’d change my mind. But Joyce had come along, you see...’
‘The lover you left her for?’
‘I really thought Joyce was the one.’
‘Things didn’t work out that way, though.’
‘And then I met dear Jessica...’
Rebus knew from the photos on file that Attwood had possessed Hollywood good looks and a dress style to match. With the passing years he had lost both, and now he looked like any other pensioner. Which was to say: harmless. Forty years back, he would have been a very different proposition, something Rebus had to keep reminding himself.
‘The staff member who said he saw you...’ Fox prompted.
‘Yes, that little bugger tried to dip me in shit all right. Know why? I’d never bothered to tip him. The mark-up on room service, why should I? He was sly with it, too — he only ever said he saw someone who looked “a bit” like me.’
‘What did you think about Vince Brady’s story?’ Rebus asked.
‘Is he the one who said Maria had been snogging the musician? Not the knee-trembler, but the other one?’
‘Not snogging exactly, but she’d been talking to Bruce Collier in the corridor.’
‘I think that’s balls, if you’ll allow a measure of frankness. Maria was expecting me to turn up at her door. She would have gone straight to her room, same as always — the first tap you gave, the door flew open and she was standing there, ready to pounce.’ He smiled wistfully. ‘She was some woman, I don’t know if you can appreciate that.’
‘She hadn’t made a good marriage, though.’
‘John was all right, I suppose. A decent type — too strait-laced, maybe, and not a huge fan of the physical stuff... intimacy, you know. They implied at the time that Maria was a nympho or off her head, but that was just to sell their papers.’
‘You were friends with John Turquand, weren’t you?’ Rebus asked.
Attwood squirmed a little. ‘Not so much that I wouldn’t sleep with his wife.’
‘You don’t think he knew the two of you were lovers?’
‘Not until the police told him.’
‘Did you ever see him afterwards?’
‘Once, some years later. We happened to be lunching in the same restaurant. He punched me square on the nose, and who’s to say I didn’t deserve it?’
‘Did it ever cross your mind he might have killed her?’
‘He wasn’t that sort. Plus he was in meetings and such like.’
‘Then who did?’
‘If I had a fiver for every time I’ve been asked that... I think it featured more than once on Miss Dromgoole’s questionnaire.’
‘You don’t have an answer?’
‘Some psycho on the hotel staff? One of those musicians who were swarming through the place that day, high on drugs? Take your pick.’ Attwood offered a shrug and slurped some of the weak tea. ‘Whoever it was,’ he eventually offered, ‘they stole a beautiful spirit from the world. I’d never met anyone like her, and never would again.’ He looked from one visitor to the other. ‘But please don’t tell Jessica I said that. She’d run me through with one of her knitting needles...’
John Turquand’s country pile was reached by way of a half-mile private road bordered by rhododendron bushes. The house itself was probably Edwardian, with apparently endless crow-stepped gables and mullioned windows. The huge reception hall smelled of damp, however, and there was no sign of the army of servants such a place demanded, just the stooped, balding figure of Turquand himself. Fishing rods stood in an untidy line against one wall, while a stag’s dusty head graced another.
‘Whisky?’ Turquand asked, his voice reedy.
‘Maybe just a soft drink,’ Fox responded.
‘I think there might be something in the library.’
And that was where Turquand took them. He wore carpet slippers that, like their owner, had seen better days.
‘Broke my hip last year,’ he said, explaining his gait.
‘Quite some place you have here,’ Fox said. ‘Takes a lot of upkeep, though.’
‘You’ve hit the nail on the head,’ Turquand agreed.
‘You live here by yourself?’
‘Yes.’
They were in the library now. Its floor-to-ceiling fitted shelves were mostly devoid of books, other than a few true stories of adventure. Turquand sported a tweed waistcoat and collarless white shirt. Two of the fly buttons on his trousers hadn’t been done up. He had made for a drinks trolley. Next to decanters of whisky and gin sat a plastic one-litre cola bottle, a few inches missing from it.
‘Might be a bit flat, I’m afraid,’ he said as he poured, handing both men a glass covered in enough fingerprints to keep any crime scene manager happy. He poured an inch of whisky for himself, adding a splash of water from a jug.
‘Down the hatch,’ he said. The first gulp brought some colour to his gaunt cheeks and seemed to perk him up. Four chairs sat around a green baize card table. A deck of cards lay untouched in the middle. Turquand motioned to Rebus and Fox, and the three men sat down, the unpadded wooden chairs creaking in protest.
‘We’ve just been to see Peter Attwood,’ Fox said. ‘He mentioned the punch you gave him.’
‘I’d have done worse, too, but he’s a bit bigger than me.’
‘You know why we’re here?’
‘I saw it in the paper — Robert Chatham, it said. Retired detective. Dreadful thing to happen.’ He shook his head. ‘The only mystery is why you think I might be able to help.’
‘Mr Chatham interviewed you eight years ago,’ Fox recited. ‘Had you heard from him in the intervening period?’
‘Not a peep. Are you suggesting his death had something to do with Maria’s story?’
‘We’re just trying to put together the complete picture.’
‘I always thought Attwood must have killed her, you know.’
‘He had an alibi, though.’
‘Yes, the altogether convenient new lover,’ Turquand said dismissively.
‘While you yourself were locked away with Sir Magnus Brough,’ Rebus commented.
Turquand smiled at the memory. ‘Plotting the takeover of the Royal Bank of Scotland, no less.’
‘Might have dodged a bullet there, if you’ll pardon the phrase.’
‘We would never have made the mistakes RBS did. What happened to that bank was a tragedy.’
‘From everything we’ve discovered about your wife, Mr Turquand,’ Rebus went on, ‘she seems a remarkable woman.’
‘She really was.’
‘Were the two of you well matched, do you think?’
‘I was making a lot of money, and a successful man needs to show it.’
‘By investing in a glamorous partner?’
Turquand’s mouth twitched at Rebus’s use of ‘investing’, but he didn’t deny the truth of the comment.
‘I provided stability in her life, I suppose — that was the trade-off, or so I thought.’ He stared at Rebus. ‘Surely none of this can have any bearing on that poor man’s demise.’
Rebus just shrugged. ‘We have to keep an open mind, sir. Do you remember a woman called Maxine Dromgoole?’
‘She wrote a book, didn’t she? I remember giving it a quick squint — not very pleasant. She did want to interview me, but I think I told her to bugger off.’