“The others weren’t musicians.”
“They were celebs like me.”
“Did you ever meet Axel Summers?”
“No.”
“Matthew Porter?”
She swirled her drink in the glass and took a long swig. “I don’t even know what he looks like.”
“Not too good, the last I heard.” He glanced across the room. Anna had her back to the patio window, which was fortunate, because she couldn’t see Sultan standing, front paws pressed to the glass, asking to be let in. “Do you do any singing at all these days?”
“No, I called time on that. I don’t need to work any more.”
“You’re still a name everyone knows. Do you get asked to do charity work?”
“All the time. I cut the appearances right down after Wally, my husband, died. Financially I still have a big stake in British Metal and I wanted to contribute in the best way I could.”
“British Metal, you said?” He was on high alert now. He’d heard of British Metal in another context.
“Wally’s empire, one of the top ten in the country. You knew that, didn’t you? So I invented this role for myself, chairing a committee that looks at the public profile of the company. I know one hell of a lot about PR from my own career.”
“You don’t get involved in the technical side?”
“Jesus, no. You work to your strengths. All my experience is in the music business.”
“Heavy metal, not British Metal.”
She managed to laugh. “Yah. I leave the nuts and bolts stuff to the experts, the people Wally trusted.”
“So as well as deciding which good causes to support…?”
“We sponsor events. And celebs, if they’re big enough. The aim is to give us a higher profile in the media.”
“You make the decisions?”
“As chair of my committee, yes, it’s my gig, basically. It was my idea to do this properly. When Wally was alive he dealt with it all himself when things came up. He was a sweetie and clever with it, but between you and me, Pete, it was anyone’s guess who got lucky. He’d give thousands of pounds away without asking what the firm got back in publicity. A lot of it went on bursaries and sponsoring research that had nothing to do with British Metal. When I came in, I made sure the money was used for projects that put our name before the public.”
He was deeply intrigued, his brain racing. “What sort?”
“Don’t ask me about the nitty-gritty. My committee does all the hard work. I just use my eyes. I see the racing on TV and I’m not looking at the gee-gees. I’m checking the product placement. I go back to my committee and say I want to see British Metal in large letters along the finishing straight, and they see to it. I watch a new film on TV and I look out for the little commercial the sponsor gets in every break just before the show begins again. ”
“So you moved into film sponsorship?” Diamond could scarcely contain his excitement at hearing things that promised at last to steer him to the origin of the mystery. “You put a large amount of finance into the film about The Ancient Mariner that Axel Summers was making.”
“Did we? You’ve got me there,” she said, shaking her head. “We put money into loads of film projects.”
“It’s a fact. British Metal had a big stake,” he told her. He was sure she wasn’t being obstructive. She genuinely didn’t know.
“If you say so. Until the films are made, I wouldn’t remember the titles or the directors. My committee could tell you. Janet is my movie and TV lady. She looks at the proposals and does the costing. If we had dealings with Mr Summers, Janet will have spoken to him.”
“You see the point, don’t you? This is important, Anna.”
She raised the finely plucked eyebrows and said, “I don’t see what difference it makes, frankly. There’s still a killer out there.”
“Yes-but you’re going to lead me to him. Here’s another question for you: do British Metal sponsor golf?”
“I guess,” she said vaguely. “We do endorsements of sports people now. I encourage it. You only have to look at the logos a tennis player wears on his shirt. The sponsors win no matter who lifts the silverware.”
“Golf,” he said, trying not to get exasperated. “I’m asking about golf.”
“Christ’s sake, Pete, do I look like the sort of gal who gets off on watching some fat Spaniard poke a small ball into a tin cup? My sports person on the committee is Adrian,” she said. “He clocks the players. We only endorse the best. Ade is an anorak, the sort of guy you’d cross the street to avoid, but ace at picking future champions.”
“If he picks the best, it’s likely he picked Matt Porter.”
“You see?” Anna said. “I have no idea.”
“But you could check with Adrian?”
“Any time.”
“Now.”
She still couldn’t see the relevance of all this. Diamond couldn’t entirely either, except that it would be more than a slight coincidence if Porter, too, had been sponsored by British Metal.
He picked up the cordless phone from the table in the corner and handed it to Anna. She pressed out the number.
“Don’t tell him where you are,” Diamond warned. “Just ask him if Porter was endorsed by British Metal.”
She got through. It soon became obvious from her end of the conversation that his guess was right.
Diamond prompted her, “Ask him if it was a major sponsorship.”
It was: the largest amount they’d invested in any sports star.
“Has it been reported in the press?”
It had, widely.
The reason Diamond hadn’t seen it was that he only ever looked at the rugby reports.
“Cheers, Ade,” Anna said. After she’d handed back the phone, she said to Diamond, “There you go. We sponsored the two guys who were killed. Is that a help to you?”
“Enormous help.”
“But nobody sponsors me. Why am I on the hit list?”
He had no easy answer to that. He could concoct theories, and he would, but not for her to get alarmed about. The next step had to be an intensive process of deduction, the kind of mental exercise profilers took credit for, and detectives did as a matter of routine. Would Emma Tysoe, given these new facts, have seen immediately to the heart of the mystery? He doubted it. There was more to be unearthed. This, at least, was progress.
“Did your late husband have enemies?” he asked.
“Wally?” She shook her head. “He was the sweetest guy in the world. Everyone loved him.”
“Rich men are envied.”
“Maybe.” She sounded dubious.
“He had the power to hire and fire.”
“That’s business for you,” she said. “Anyone who was laid off was given a fair settlement, and, take it from me, lay-offs were exceptional. Even when times were hard he’d bust a gut to keep people in work.”
“Did he lay off any in the year before he died?” Diamond persisted. The theory of the ex-employee seeking vengeance on the company was worth exploring.
“I doubt it.”
“Manufacturing industry is in decline. Even after the recession ended, unemployment continued.”
“Now you’re losing me,” she said. “I don’t remember lay-offs.”
“OK, let’s talk about something else. How did you two meet?”
She sighed and stretched her legs out. “That’s the question everyone asks. I always feel like saying something romantic-like he came to one of my gigs and sat in the front row and fell in love with me. What really happened is we both went for the same taxi one wet night in Dean Street, Manchester. I told him the cab was mine and slagged him off. Called him a waste of space and a bullyboy. He thought it was a great laugh. We ended up sharing the cab and telling each other old people jokes. Before getting out he gave me his card and said he’d like to take me to dinner.”
“When did you marry?”
“Six months after. His fourth marriage, my second.”
“He had family?”
“No children. A sister and three ex-wives, all getting handouts. Like I say, Wally wasn’t mean to anyone.”