A Conflict of Interests (22 page)

The agency was in an old Victorian building opposite a stretch of waste ground near the junction of Semple Road with Upper Thames Street. Mentally crossing his fingers, Mace climbed the wooden staircase to their office on the second floor, saw a door with the message "Inquiries — please walk in" stenciled on the frosted glass, and did just that. There were two desks inside but only one receptionist, a thin girl in a pair of faded blue jeans and a T-shirt who was standing at a small table in the window measuring instant coffee into a mug.

"Be with you in a tick," she said, her back still toward him.

"No hurry." Mace eyed the shrouded typewriter and the single wilting rose in a narrow long-stemmed vase on the desk just inside the door. "Where's your colleague then?" he asked.

"On holiday at Lake Como, the lucky devil." The girl switched off the electric kettle, poured the boiling water into the mug and added a dash of milk from a carton. Opening a small tin, she dropped two saccharin tablets into the coffee and stirred it with a plastic spoon. "You looking for somewhere to live?" she asked.

"Sort of," Mace admitted.

"Well, whatever the landlord is asking per month, we take the equivalent of a fortnight's rent on the initial payment as our commission." The girl finished stirring the coffee and returned to her desk. "It's as well to get these things straight before we go any farther. Saves a lot of heartburn later on." She gave him a fleeting smile and sat down. "Now, how much do you want to pay? Bed-sitters range between fifteen and twenty-five pounds per week, depending on the area and facilities provided. A self-contained flat with single bed, sitting room, bath and kitchenette starts at fifty-five."

"I'm not looking to pay anything," Mace said.

"That's all I need," the girl said, "a comedian."

"I'm a police officer."

"It amounts to the same thing."

"All right," Mace said evenly, "you've had your little joke, now look at the pretty badge."

The girl stared at the crest of the Metropolitan Police embossed on the front cover of the warrant card he was holding, her eyes popping, mouth agape. "Oh God, you weren't kidding." She smiled nervously, then said, "Look, I know there isn't a tax disk on my Fiat, but it's not like you think. I posted the insurance certificate and check for the road fund tax to Swansea a week ago and I'm still waiting for the license."

"That's not why I'm here," Mace told her.

"Thank the Lord for that," she said with feeling.

"I'm trying to locate a Mr. Oscar Pittis. It's possible he may have called on you last Thursday looking for accommodation."

"Pittis?" The girl wrinkled her brow. "The name doesn't strike a chord with me."

"He's about five foot eight or nine, round face, light brown hair, hazel eyes and has a Canadian accent."

"Pearce, Oliver Pearce, the insurance salesman." The girl swiveled around to face a narrow filing cabinet and pulled out a drawer labeled "L to Q." She went to the P's, flicked through the cards and extracted the one she wanted. "Yes, here it is — seventeen Linsdale Gardens, Kennington, three self-contained flats in an old Edwardian house. The property is owned by a Mrs. Drobnowski who lives at 48 Richouse Terrace."

"Drobnowski." Mace shook his head. "Nothing like a good old-fashioned English name."

"She's English. Her husband served with the Polish forces during the war and stayed on in this country. He's a cantankerous old sod at the best of times. According to our records, we made an appointment for Mr. Pearce to view the flat last Thursday."

"Did he take it?" Mace asked.

"Oh yes, he sent us a money order for our commission the same day." The girl looked up. "Do you know where Linsdale Gardens is?" she asked.

"Not exactly."

"Where's your car?"

"I left it at home," Mace said.

"Well, Kennington is the nearest station if you're going by the Underground." The girl left her desk, walked over to the large map of London displayed on the far wall and pinpointed the street. "You want to turn right outside the station and go down the Clapham Road. Richouse Terrace is the sixth turning on your right and Linsdale Gardens is only a short walk from there."

"Thanks a lot," Mace said. "You've been very helpful."

"It's my pleasure." Her face clouded. "About my tax disk?" she said anxiously.

"What tax disk?"

"The one on my Fiat."

"Oh, that," Mace said airily. "Well, I daresay the license is held up in the post somewhere."

"Yes."

"And one good turn deserves another. Right?"

"I like to think so," she murmured.

Patterson returned the Ford Fiesta to the Hertz agency in Leytonstone, then walked on down the High Road and turned into Flax Mill Lane. The Mini was where he'd left it the day before, two hundred yards from the junction and right outside the Willard-Jones Primary School on the left-hand side of the road. Unable to find a parking lot within reasonable walking distance of the rental agency, he had taken one look at Flax Mill Lane and decided the Mini was unlikely to come to much harm there. The quiet side street didn't have a rundown look about it, the school kids ranged in age from five to eight years and he'd slipped the school janitor a couple of quid to keep an eye on the car.

It seemed no one was too young to indulge in vandalism and it was evident the janitor had more of an itchy palm than an eagle eye. Both wipers were missing, the aerial for the car radio had been snapped off at the base and the offside rear tire was as flat as a pancake. Changing the wheel was no problem and took only a few minutes of his time; the naked windshield, however, was the kind of technical infringement of the Road Traffic Act which he thought was bound to attract the attention of an officious police officer. Head lowered, he walked on a few yards, spotted one of the missing blades, bent almost in two, lying in the gutter and picked it up. He straightened the blade out and jammed it on to the protruding spindle for the sake of appearances. With the eleven o'clock deadline in mind, Patterson had allowed himself ample time to return the Ford before contacting Denise Rousell. Although irritating, the unforeseen delay was therefore scarcely crucial. This optimistic thought remained with him as he drove south toward the river, and was given a further boost when he phoned a disgruntled Denise Rousell from Shoreditch and learned that the KGB had agreed to pay the equivalent of $350,000 for the video cassettes. Not even the traffic jam near London Bridge which subsequently held him up for almost twenty-five minutes could dispel his euphoria.

16.

There were a number of Minis parked in Linsdale Gardens, but all of them were the wrong color and none had been left anywhere near number 17. There was, however, a vacant space at the curbside opposite the terraced house which Mace thought significant. On the information available, anybody else would have assumed that Oliver Pearce and Oscar Pittis were one and the same man, but with his whole future in the balance, he wanted to be absolutely sure. Mrs. Drobnowski had been out when he'd called at her house a few minutes earlier, but one of the other tenants would know if Pearce owned a white Mini and that would clinch it for him.

Mace crossed the road, tried the front door and found it was ajar. There was nothing to indicate who lived in which flat, but in a room off to the left of the hall he could hear somebody hammering nails into the baseboard of the dividing wall. He went on inside, called out a couple of times but got no answer. Avoiding a large reel of cable in the entrance to the ground floor flat, he poked his head around the door.

The electrician was on his hands and knees, his sleeves rolled up to reveal knotted biceps reminiscent of a gnarled tree trunk. Wiry hair that was mostly gray crowned a bloated face displaying a web of tiny purple veins on the cheeks, the hallmark of a man who was fond of the bottle.

"Anybody at home?" Mace asked him when he finally stopped hammering and looked up.

"I'm the landlord. What do you want?"

It wasn't the friendliest greeting Mace had ever gotten and he understood why the girl at the City Bureau had warned him that Drobnowski was a cantankerous old sod.

"I'm looking for Mr. Pearce. We work for the same firm and he asked me to meet him here."

"He's out."

"So I gathered. Any idea when he'll be back?"

"How would I know? I'm not his keeper." Drobnowski found another staple in the container on the floor, held it between forefinger and thumb and hammered it into the baseboard to secure the cable tapped into a 13 amp power point. "He's supposed to be collecting his car from the garage."

"That old Mini of his still giving him trouble?"

"Seems like it," Drobnowski grunted.

Mace rubbed his mouth, hiding a triumphant smile. There was no longer any room for doubt; furthermore, the fact that Pittis was using an alias gave added weight to the circumstantial evidence which already indicated he had probably committed both murders. A call for assistance, and Pittis was as good as in the bag. Provided there was no last minute balls-up, most of the credit for the arrest would go to him and that was something Kingman would have to take into account when the drinking and driving report finally landed up on his desk.

"Can I use the phone in the hall?" Mace asked.

"It's out of order," Drobnowski told him. "We had it disconnected when we bought the place. Didn't want the tenants complaining when they got the bill."

Mace thought he remembered seeing a telephone booth near Kennington Underground station, but that was too far away; with his luck, he would find that Pittis had come and gone again in his absence. He would have to ask one of the neighbors across the street if he could use their phone and then stay on to keep a discreet watch on Number 17 until the cavalry arrived. He wondered if he should take Drobnowski into his confidence and warn him not to tell Pittis he'd been there. He was still trying to make up his mind one way or the other when a car drew up outside the house.

"That must be him now," Drobnowski said.

"You're probably right."

Mace hesitated, uncertain what to do. There were two options open to him: he could stay put in the hope that Pittis would go straight on up to his flat or else he could try to give the impression that he'd been to see the landlord as he passed him in the hallway. Either possibility depended on Drobnowski keeping his mouth shut and it was too late now to warn the Pole about that. No matter which option he chose, Mace knew that he would have to get to a telephone and summon assistance before confronting Pittis. By the time Mace made up his mind and went out into the hall, the man he knew as Pittis was already walking up the front path. For one brief moment, their eyes locked, then Mace glanced over his shoulder and called out to Drobnowski.

"Don't forget what I told you," he said in a loud voice. "The existing circuit will only take an extra two thirteen-amp power points. If you want any more, you'll have to install another main."

Patterson froze. The man standing in the doorway had dark receding hair and a middle-aged spread. His light gray suit was rumpled, the jacket unbuttoned probably because it was too tight for him. There was no telltale bulge under either arm and he could see the stranger wasn't wearing a hip holster. The advice he'd just given Drobnowski suggested he was a building inspector, except that there were beads of perspiration on his forehead and his faint smile was decidedly wary.

He didn't pretend to know how the fuzz had tracked him down, but he was quite sure the middle-aged man was a police officer. In the wake of this assumption, Patterson arrived at two separate conclusions simultaneously. First, if the police had been there in force, they would have been lying in ambush inside the house ready to jump him the instant he crossed the threshold. And secondly, it was evident that this plainclothes officer was hoping to bluff his way past him in order to get to a telephone. If he allowed him through, every man on the beat, every prowl car in the London area would know the license number of his Mini long before he made it to Heathrow Airport.

There was, Patterson decided, only one solution to the problem. His mouth creased in a warm smile, he moved toward the other man. "Well, hello there," he said affably. "I was wondering when you were going to show up."

Patterson was banking on an element of surprise and got it. A friendly greeting was the last thing his adversary had expected and it rocked him back on his heels.

"I'm Detective Sergeant Mace," he blurted out.

His voice, Patterson noted, was steady and at odds with his ashen face and the nervous tic below the right eye. "Detective Sergeant Mace," he repeated. "Well now, this is a real pleasure. Like most American tourists, I've a great admiration for you people."

"Don't do anything foolish," Mace warned him.

"Believe me, I'm not about to."

They were within touching distance of one another now, the open doorway a few feet behind. Still smiling, Patterson reached out as though to clap Mace on the shoulder, then seized his forearm and jerked him forward. At the same time, he drove the rigid, outstretched fingers of his right hand into the sergeant's throat to shatter the trachea and esophagus. Mace sagged at the knees and instinctively clawed at his shirt collar, trying to rip it open in a futile attempt to breathe. Lifting the dying man in a bear hug, Patterson carried him into the hall and laid him on his back. As he turned away from him to close the front door, Mace started to thrash about, grunting like a stricken animal while his heels drummed an erratic tattoo on the floor.

Farther down the hall, Drobnowski paused in the act of hammering another staple into the baseboard and called out to ask what the hell was going on.

"It's my friend," Patterson said loudly. "Come and give me a hand, he seems to be having some kind of a fit. I think it could be a heart attack."

He knelt down on the left side of Mace and thumped his chest repeatedly so that when Drobnowski ran out into the hall, it looked as though he was attempting to stimulate a heartbeat.