A Conflict of Interests (8 page)

"Sales receipts can be fudged," Coghill told him. "So can purchases."

"I wouldn't know about that. The company accounts were no concern of mine. I merely did the conveyancing on the various properties."

"Whitfield must have known what his wife was up to when they were living at Abercorn House."

"I imagine he couldn't help but know she was engaged in prostitution." Quainton opened a drawer in the desk, took out a pack of Panatella cigars and lit one. "However, you may find it considerably more difficult to prove he was aware of her other activities. Still, I can see it would be in his interest to be cooperative."

"Maybe you should be present when we question him?" Coghill suggested.

"When's that?"

"Now," said Coghill.

Quainton gazed at the files lying in the various trays on his desk and pursed his lips. "I'm a little busy at the moment," he said.

"It shouldn't take long, an hour to an hour and a half at the most. You can spare him that much of your time, can't you?"

"It seems I'll have to." Quainton mashed his cigar into the ashtray, stumped over to the door, removed his jacket from the hanger and slipped it on. "My car's parked in Rushmore Avenue, a good five minutes' walk from here."

"We'll meet you at the house then."

"I think that would be best," Quainton said.

Coghill nodded, beckoned Mace to follow him and left the office. When they came out onto the street, he crossed the road, entered a snack bar that was almost directly opposite and ordered two coffees. Ten minutes later, Quainton emerged from the passageway and turned left.

"He's a regular streak of greased lightning," Mace observed. "A fiver says he's been on the blower to Whitfield."

"Damn right," said Coghill. "Quainton wants to save his skin. He's probably advised Whitfield to do the same."

Air France flight 1600 was supposed to arrive at Charles de Gaulle, but a sudden strike by the baggage handlers resulted in the plane being diverted to Orly, where it finally landed ten minutes behind schedule. Once through Customs and Immigration, Patterson caught the airport bus to Les Invalides where he flagged down a cab and told the driver to take him to the Hôtel Jules César in the Avenue Ledru-Rollin. From the Jules César, he picked up another cab and headed across town to check into the Fondary, a modest pension in the 15th Arrondissement.

Patterson unpacked, left the pension and from a pay phone on the corner of the Rue de L'Avre and Letellier, dialed the code for Trinité followed by 001764. The number rang for some considerable time before anyone answered, then a soft, effeminate voice said, "Société de Bibliothèque."

"My name's Kingfisher," Patterson said, "Henry Kingfisher. Would you please inform Monsieur Viktor that I'm in town for a couple of days and would like to do business with him again. You can also tell him that I have some interesting material on offer which I know he'd want to see."

"Very good. What did you say your name was, Monsieur?"

"Kingfisher," said Patterson. "I'm staying at the usual place."

He hung up, backed out of the telephone kiosk and walked on down the Rue de L'Avre to the nearest cafe. Previous experience had taught him it would take the cutout about an hour to contact Viktor Orlov and organize the standard security check, and he passed the time over coffee and a large cognac.

Leaving the cafe, Patterson walked to the Metro station at La Motte Picquet, rode a Line 8 train to Concorde, then detoured to Louvre before going on to Abbesses via Marcadet Poissonniers and the first checkpoint at the southeast corner of Sacré Coeur. When he arrived at the appointed place, he removed his jacket, draped it over his left arm and sat down on a wooden bench. Knowing that somewhere among the milling crowd of tourists somebody was watching his every move, he loosened his tie, undid the top button of the shirt and crossed his feet at the ankles to complete the recognition signal. Exactly ten minutes later, he got up, put his jacket on again, walked back to the funicular and stood there for some moments, watching the cars shuttle backward and forward, before making his way into the Place du Tertre.

He strolled around the square, pausing every now and then to gaze at the canvases on display, his eyes constantly sliding to the telephone kiosks over by the Rue Norving. No less than four budding artists tried to persuade him to have his portrait done in pen and ink, but he politely declined their offers and moved on.

Up to that point, the security check had gone smoothly, but it started to fall apart when he entered the predesignated telephone kiosk and found it had been vandalized. He tried the backup in the Rue Gabrielle and discovered it too was out of order. There remained only the drop in the Place Pigalle, but Patterson figured it would be some time before Orlov's people cottoned onto the fact that the communication network had broken down. Uncertain what to do, he returned to the Place du Tertre, wandered into a snack bar and ordered coffee and a couple of hotdogs.

The coffee arrived in a cup not much bigger than an eggcup and the hotdogs had a rubbery texture that even the tomato relish couldn't disguise. Patterson ate them without enthusiasm, asked for another coffee to wash the taste from his mouth and then started chain-smoking one cigarette after another. Presently, the girl sitting next to him left the snack bar and a thickset, middle-aged man in a baggy suit took her place at the counter. The stranger turned sideways, reached across Patterson for the ashtray he was using and deftly transferred a folded slip of paper into his jacket pocket.

It was a development Patterson had not expected and it made him feel uneasy. The way Orlov's people had made contact didn't bother him, it was the fact that he'd no idea they were tailing him which was disturbing. There was no ignoring it, he was slipping, making the kind of error only a greenhorn would. Angry with himself, he walked out of the snack bar and started back to the Metro station. Halfway there, he took the slip of paper out of his pocket and saw the meet had been set for 2210 hours at Laval's bakery, twenty-five meters from the junction of the Rue Nic-Fortin and the Avenue de Choisy in the 13th Arrondissement.

Away in the distance he could hear the rumble of an approaching thunderstorm. In his present despondent mood, he considered it a bad omen.

It didn't take much to get Whitfield thoroughly rattled. A brief description of what they'd found at Abercorn House, a few pointed innuendos concerning his role in the setup and the color had gone from his face and his voice was reduced to a hoarse whisper. "I had no idea" — he murmured it over and over and kept glancing to Quainton for moral support, but nothing was forthcoming from that quarter.

"Don't kid yourself," Coghill said. "We could have you for living on the immoral earnings of a common prostitute."

"I have a job."

"Oh, come on, you couldn't afford a house like this on five thousand a year."

"We bought it on a joint mortgage," Whitfield said with as much dignity as he could muster. "Of course, I admit the monthly repayments to the building society were debited to Karen's personal account, but I always gave her my director's fee from the company."

"And that's your story, is it?"

"Yes. It happens to be true."

"Really?" Coghill shook his head and looked doubtful. "Well, I think I should tell you the Fraud Squad will go through the books with a fine-tooth comb. Among other things, they will contact every supplier your wife dealt with, and if any of the invoices are forgeries, you're going to find yourself in very serious trouble."

"Karen had eighty percent of the voting shares. I merely did as I was told."

Whitfield appeared to think that nobody could touch him on that score. Turning to Quainton, Coghill suggested he put him wise, then sat back while the lawyer detailed his responsibilities under the Companies Acts. By the time he'd finished, the younger man knew exactly where he stood and was looking even more apprehensive. For good measure, Coghill told him there was a distinct possibility he would also be charged with several offenses under Section 21 of the Theft Act of 1968.

"I've never stolen a damned thing in my life." Whitfield pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and dried his sweaty palms. "Never," he repeated.

"The inspector is referring to blackmail," Quainton told him curtly. "In legal parlance, this means unwarranted demands with menaces. Of course, as I've already pointed out, the police might not find that quite so easy to substantiate unless they can persuade one of the victims to give evidence. But I wouldn't be too confident about that, if I were you. There's always a chance somebody will give them an anonymous tip-off."

"Thanks," Whitfield said, "thanks a lot, Stanley. You're a big help."

Coghill could see the reason for his bitterness: Stanley was dumping him, washing his hands of the entire affair like some latter-day Pontius Pilate. The process had started when he and Mace had stopped off at his office in Putney, and now Quainton was merely putting the finishing touches to it.

"I'm afraid you've been used, Trevor," he said quietly.

"Used?"

"By Karen." Although Coghill was throwing him a lifeline, there was a good deal of truth in the assertion. Whitfield was essentially a weak character, immature, easily led and something of a drifter. He'd come down from university with no clear idea of what he was going to do with his life and had happened to bump into Karen at exactly the wrong moment for him. She had been looking for a front, someone who would give her a cloak of respectability, and he had apparently filled the bill. It was even possible he'd fulfilled some kind of need. "You were her camouflage, Trevor," he went on, "part of the trappings of a middle-class and respectable married woman. With that kind of image, who would ever suspect she was a prostitute and a blackmailer?"

"I suppose that's one way of looking at it," Whitfield said in a dull voice.

"Trouble is, she pushed one of her clients too far and he turned nasty and hired himself a professional killer. At least, that's the theory we're working on."

"I see."

"We think she had a list of potential victims, people who'd gone with her and were vulnerable for one reason or another. It's likely she assessed how much they had to lose, how much they could afford to pay, and made some notes to that effect in a pocket book or a diary. Perhaps you've seen one around the house?"

"No. No, I can't say I have." Whitfield raised a hand to his mouth and nibbled at the thumb like a baby with a teething ring. "Karen never kept a diary."

Coghill was pretty sure there was a diary or some sort of sucker list, but Whitfield wasn't prepared to admit it for fear of incriminating himself. "Husbands and wives are not always completely open with one another," he said, trying a different tack. "I mean, take Karen Boutiques Limited — I don't suppose your wife gave you a blow-by-blow account of the business, did she? As far as you were concerned, the cash came rolling in and she banked it. You weren't to know if she was simply transferring the money from a personal account, were you?"

"No."

"And maybe she had some sort of deed box, too?"

"It's possible."

There was a long silence, then Quainton decided to give Whitfield the benefit of his advice, and told him he had nothing to lose and everything to gain by being completely frank about his wife's affairs. The inference was both clear and accurate: if he was cooperative, the police wouldn't press charges under either Section 30 of the Sexual Offenses Act of 1956 or the Theft Act of '68. It was, however, some little time before the penny dropped; when finally it did, Whitfield was slightly more forthcoming.

"I seem to remember Karen mentioning she had a safety-deposit box at the First National Bank of America in Park Lane."

Coghill could have wished for more precise details, but he sensed Whitfield could be pushed just so far and no farther. In any case, the fact that he would be unable to quote a box number to First National was unlikely to be a problem; a search warrant would satisfy the bank and forestall any objections from the branch manager.

"Tomorrow morning," he said, "sharp at eight forty-five, I want you spruced up and waiting when we arrive to pick you up."

"Where are we going?"

"To the bank," Coghill told him. "You may have some explaining to do when we open the safety-deposit box."

Quainton said he assumed his presence was not required and looked very put out when he learned otherwise. He didn't say a word thereafter, merely vented his anger on the Vauxhall Chevette, taking off like a Grand Prix driver with the tires screeching a protest.

In a more leisurely fashion, Coghill and Mace returned to Wimbledon Police Station. In the eight and a half hours they'd been away, the number of calls received on the two hot lines had jumped to 187, an average of one every 2.7 minutes throughout the day. Of this total, Detective Sergeant Ingleson, the officer in charge of the crime index, figured 11 were definite hoaxes, 163 were from people who thought they recognized Karen Whitfield and had seen her at various times in various places, while another 4 were from obvious nut cases who wanted to confess to her murder. The remaining 9 were from witnesses whose information tallied with the known movements of the deceased on the day in question.

A further Identikit likeness of the suspect had been put together with the help of additional witnesses who thought they'd seen him in the area of Wimbledon Park Station. The main differences between it and previous versions were the eyes, which were narrower and farther apart, and the mouth, which was almost a straight gash. Although there was still nothing very remarkable about the face, Coghill had it photocopied and issued to the investigating officers. The initial inquiries in St. Mark's Hall had drawn a blank, but he decided to cover the neighborhood again. The homicide had been carefully planned and it was possible the killer had reconnoitered the area beforehand. With this in mind, Coghill wanted to know if any of the residents had noticed a man resembling the unidentified suspect at any time during the past ten days or so.