All My Enemies (6 page)

“No coffee, thanks. But perhaps you could let me speak to someone called Rhona, a friend of Angela Hannaford. Do you know who that would be?”

“Rhona Clement. She works on the seventh floor with Angela. Whatever is it about?”

“You didn’t notice in the paper this morning? I’m afraid Angela was murdered on Saturday night.”

“No! Oh my . . .” The woman went pale and sank into a seat.

“Look, I’d like to speak to one or two people who would have known of Angela’s movements on Saturday night, beginning with Rhona. Is there a room I could use?”

“Well . . . I suppose the boardroom. I don’t think it’s booked this morning.”

“Thanks. Could you ring Rhona and ask her to come down here? You don’t need to say what it’s about. I’ll tell her.”

The woman nodded.

“When Mr. Ferry comes in you could explain to him that I’m here.”

“Of course.”

Incongruous within the featureless modern office building, the boardroom was panelled out in dark wood like a medieval manor house. It reminded Kathy of the hall in Angela Hannaford’s home. Rhona Clement was obviously apprehensive about being
summoned there. She too had not seen the brief report of Angela’s death which had appeared in several of the morning papers, and was devastated when Kathy broke the news to her.

“Angela’s boyfriend, Adrian, told us that he thought you were going with Angela to the theatre on Saturday night. Is that right?”

She nodded, wiping tears from her eyes and struggling with her sobs. “She’d managed to get two tickets for us to see
Macbeth
at the National. It’s had such wonderful reviews . . .”

Rhona gulped and blew her nose before continuing in a rushed whisper. “She was really lucky to get them, and she was so excited about going. Anyway, on Thursday night Darren—that’s my boyfriend—heard that his brother had had a bad accident on his motor-bike. He was in hospital, up in Manchester. Then on Friday afternoon Darren phoned me at work. His brother was worse, apparently, and Darren was ever so upset. He was going to drive up to Manchester that evening, and he wanted me to go with him.”

Rhona’s face crumpled again. “Darren’s brother died on Saturday night too!” She gave a little howl of grief. She had a sweet face, framed in fluffy curls, which looked as if it had never had to come to terms with any bad news. Suddenly it was all being dumped on her at once.

When she recovered her voice, she gasped, “I came back on my own last night, on the train. Darren’s still in Manchester, with his family. I’m going back up tomorrow for the funeral. I’ve never been to a funeral before, ever. Now there’ll be two in one week!”

While she was immersed in another fit of sobbing, there was a knock and the secretary put her head around the door. She hesitated, seeing Rhona’s state, then said, “Er, Mr. Ferry’s here now, Sergeant. He says he’ll see you as soon as you’re free.”

“Thanks. I’ll be ten minutes or so. How about a cup of tea for Miss Clement?”

The woman nodded and left.

“Rhona, I’m so sorry about this. Do you think you could go on
with telling me what happened? Are you saying that you didn’t go to the theatre with Angela?”

“I’m sorry . . . Yes, that’s right. It was all such a rush on Friday afternoon. I realized we probably wouldn’t be back from Manchester in time to go out with her on the Saturday night. I can’t afford to throw money away, and I tried to find someone else who would buy my ticket from me, only none of the other girls up here are into that sort of thing. It was almost the end of the day before I eventually managed to get rid of it.”

“Who took it?”

“Mr. Gentle, the boss of our section—Sales and Marketing. He overheard me telling his secretary about it. I was really desperate and he suddenly said that he’d take it.”

“I see. Is he a single man?”

“Oh no!” Rhona coloured slightly. “He said . . . he said that he was a great admirer of the play, and that he’d been wanting to get to see this production.”

“Was Angela happy about it, when you told her who she was going with?”

“I never had the chance to tell her. She’d been working down here on the fifth floor all afternoon. I never saw her again!” The tears poured once more down Rhona’s plump cheeks.

“I’m sorry.” Kathy paused to let her recover. “Now, did Angela ever mention to you that she was being pestered by anyone? Followed home, perhaps, or getting phone calls?”

“No!” Rhona looked horrified. “Who told you that?”

Kathy shook her head. “No, I’m only considering the possibility. It’s something we have to consider.”

Rhona shook her head miserably.

“All right. Here’s your tea, Rhona. I’ll leave it at that for now. I’ll give you my phone number in case you think of anything later.”

Kathy followed the secretary out to her boss’s office, where Clive Ferry rose cautiously to his feet to shake Kathy’s hand. He
was dressed stiffly in pinstripe suit, starched white shirt, and club tie, all as immaculate as the small, perfectly sculpted moustache on his lip, and this careful personal grooming seemed designed to imply total propriety. He hadn’t seen the newspaper reports either, and he slipped quickly into expressions of regret, almost thankfully, Kathy thought, as if he’d been expecting something more immediately threatening from her visit.

“We’ll co-operate in any way we can, Sergeant. A dreadful thing. I’ll check later about Angela’s entitlements from our staff insurance fund, and inform her parents, of course.”

“At this stage we’re trying to build up a picture of Angela’s movements and the people she knew.”

“Of course. You’ve been speaking to Rhona Clement, I believe.”

“Yes. We thought that she went to the theatre with Angela on Saturday night, but it seems she sold her ticket to someone else. I’d like to speak to that person now if I can.”

“Ah yes. And who was that?”

“A Mr. Gentle.”

Ferry looked startled for a second, the moustache giving a little leap, as if it might be about to run for cover, and then his face went completely blank. “Really?”

“You’re surprised?”

“Ah . . . a little. I wasn’t aware that Mr. Gentle was interested in the theatre.”

“But apart from that, was there anything else surprising to you about the arrangement?”

“I really don’t know the circumstances. You’d better ask him.”

Ferry hurriedly picked up his phone. He murmured into it, then looked at Kathy. “He’s not in yet. His secretary is expecting him.”

Kathy looked at her watch: 10:15.

“Well, perhaps in the meantime I could speak to some of the other people Angela worked with.”

“Yes, of course. In the boardroom?”

“What about the seventh floor? I’d like to see her desk, make sure she didn’t have a diary or anything like that. Is there a room where I could speak to people there?”

Kathy took the lift, and as she stepped out into an open-plan office area she was immediately aware that the news had preceded her, as a dozen pairs of eyes, bright with troubled curiosity, focused on her. She was shown to Angela’s desk, where she found nothing of interest, and then to a small room separated from the main office by a smoked-glass partition. As she moved through the office, whispered conversations died in front of her and started up again behind. Alone in the small room, she spoke to each of the women who worked in the immediate vicinity of Angela’s desk, getting little hard information from them, but gaining a distinct impression of wariness when she brought up Mr. Gentle’s name. It might have been nervousness about discussing their immediate boss, she thought, but the reaction of one girl in particular bothered her. She wore more make-up than the others, and had a mischievous, knowing look about her. When Kathy mentioned that her boss appeared to have gone to the theatre with Angela, she sucked in her cheeks and rolled her eyes.

“What does that mean?” Kathy asked her.

The girl shrugged exaggeratedly. “What does what mean?”

“Did Angela have a problem with Mr. Gentle?”

The girl looked affronted. “Not as far as I know. I never suggested that.”

“Well, what are you suggesting then?”

“Not a fing. I’m not suggesting anyfing, and you’d better not say I am.”

Kathy followed her gaze out through the smoked-glass wall to the main office, where a man had appeared and was deep in conversation with one of the older women.

Tom Gentle gave the impression of being appropriately named. He was slight of build, medium height, neat, and middle-aged.
He came into the interview room, followed by the stares of the women who worked for him, with a look of immense distress. He sat opposite Kathy and spoke to her with a warm, soft voice, filled with concern. His most distinctive features, apart from his voice, were his large brown eyes, and Kathy suspected that he would be the sort of man that women might instinctively feel was in need of mothering.

“Now, I understand that you were at the National Theatre on Saturday night, Mr. Gentle, with Angela.”

“No.” He shook his head sadly. “No, I’m afraid I wasn’t.”

“Oh . . . Rhona Clement has just told me that she sold you her ticket late on Friday afternoon.”

“Yes, that’s quite right. Poor Rhona, she’s had a terrible time of it. She was very agitated when I overheard her talking to my secretary about the ticket. She was on the point of leaving for Manchester, and hadn’t been able to interest anyone. Well, on the spur of the moment I said that I’d take it. I thought at the time that my wife had arranged to have her bridge group round on Saturday night, and I was glad of an excuse to get out of the house. And of course I’d read a lot about how wonderful this production was. I didn’t have time to check with my wife, though, and when I got home I discovered that her bridge night is actually next Saturday. Well, that made it difficult. Muriel—my wife—did say that I shouldn’t waste the ticket and that I should go anyway, but I really didn’t feel comfortable about going out without her.”

“So, what did you do?”

“I stayed at home.”

“What about the ticket?”

“Well, I’m afraid that was just wasted.”

“You didn’t phone the theatre to see if they could sell it for you?”

“No—I wouldn’t have had time on Saturday to take it up to the theatre anyway.”

Kathy stared at him, and he stared back, a mournful smile on
his face. But there was something else in his smile, a suggestion of sly impishness which, even in the present circumstances, he couldn’t quite suppress.

When she returned to the fifth floor, Kathy rang Bren at the National Theatre. The operator tracked him down eventually to the booking manager’s office, where he was copying information on bookings for the Saturday night performance.

“The story is that the seat beside her was never taken up, Bren. The girl who was going to go with her, Rhona, had to back out, and sold her ticket to a man in their office, who says he decided not to go after all. It would be useful to know if that was true.”

“Yes. Trouble is that the system here isn’t set up to trace people in particular seats after the event. It’s going to take time to put a name and address to the seats in that part of the theatre, but I’ll concentrate on the ones close by. What about you?”

“I think I might as well get down to Orpington. I thought I’d follow Brock’s suggestion and take the train.”

“Yes, well, sometimes he starts off with some funny ideas, Kathy. Best to let him play with them for a while.”

“Yes, I had the feeling I spoke too soon this morning.”

“Don’t worry, he doesn’t talk unless he wants to.”

Kathy caught the 11:50 from Blackfriars, and settled back to discover Angela’s London. More familiar with the underground railway system north of the Thames, she studied the surface commuter train with a fresh eye. The carriage was open down its length, and anyone standing up could see over the tops of the seats from end to end. It would be difficult to harass someone unobserved unless there were very few passengers, as now. She wondered how full the 11:05 from Charing Cross had been last Saturday night.

From her window she watched the city roll past as they crossed the river and swung east through the congested South Bank, past
Southwark Cathedral and into London Bridge station. Soon after there was a view of Tower Bridge, an improbable confection in the bright noon sunlight, and then the train picked up speed through the inner boroughs of Southwark and Lewisham as it headed down towards New Cross. The line had long since been absorbed and accepted into the fabric of the city. It offered a voyeur’s view of London, at first from the vantage point of the brick viaducts on which it crossed the older districts near the Thames, and later from the embankments and bridges on which it slipped through the dormitory suburbs beyond St. John’s and Hither Green. Thousands of homes lined the route, at first the blackened Victorian terraces and post-war tower blocks of the inner city, and then the endless sea of semis beyond. All turned their public faces away from the railway and towards the streets on their other side, addressing themselves to the hundred people who might see them from that direction each day and stubbornly ignoring the hundred thousand who stared down into their back yards from the railway, following the daily progress of their washing, the bungled construction of the rabbit pen and the never-ending paint job on the Cortina.

Kathy stepped blinking into the hot sunlight at Orpington station and found a taxi to take her to the Divisional police station. There she was shown to a room where Ted Griffiths was interviewing Angela’s boyfriend, Adrian. He was freshly scrubbed and neatly dressed for the occasion, helping Ted compile a list of all the people who had been at the stag party.

“They’re not going to be able to tell you anything,” he added morosely, as if he resented having his friends bothered, “but that’s up to you, innit?”

“Adrian,” Kathy asked, “did Angela ever mention being annoyed or pestered by a man—at work perhaps, or on her train journey?”

He shook his head. “She never mentioned anything like that to me.”

“Did she ever mention the name ‘Gentle’ to you?”

“ ‘Gentle?’ Nah. Who’s he, then?”

“Doesn’t matter.”