Gilded Edge, The (15 page)

‘Let’s get back to Mr Beresford and his enemies. Everyone has them and, as one of his closest friends, I’m sure you would know who they are.’

‘He’s bound to have picked a few up, being a wealthy man. One of the lucky few, the silver spoon and all that. And he was a handsome chap, too. Money and looks can make a combustible combination, as people get jealous. No doubt the enemies were there, Detective, but none so spiteful as to prove a problem, and certainly none with the strength of feeling, or character, to put a bullet in his head. If I was a gambling man, Detective Treadwell, which of course I am, my money would be firmly on Isabel. But if I was going to bet the house, my money would have been on Johnny killing her instead.’

‘He was violent towards her?’

Asprey wobbled his head from side to side in a gesture of weighing this up, then said, ‘It was a volatile mix. Certainly had a temper on him, and he was a big chap. Spent five years in the army, boxed for the regiment, and knew how to handle himself.’

‘I’d hardly call Isabel Saxmore-Blaine simply an adversary who needed handling, would you?’

‘Yes, I would. She shot him, for God’s sake!’

Vince let that one hang in the air. And he let Asprey hang with it. He watched as the gambler waited for Vince’s confirmation of the fact, but Vince didn’t give it to him. Instead, he asked: ‘When did things start to go wrong between them?’

‘Who’s to say?’

‘Take a punt. Six months ago? A year ago?’

‘From day one, I’d say. There was something . . . something very show-offy about them. They had to be the centre of attention: either fawning all over each other in public or fighting. Acceptable behaviour in the animal kingdom, where they do it without affectation, but with those two it was just tiresome. They were as bad as each other, Detective Treadwell. And, of course, they were both drinking too much in the end. She’s half-American you know, so of course she was taking drugs. Not the hard stuff, but uppers and downers and the like. Frankly, together, they were a mess.’

‘So different then from the photos I’ve seen of them together, where they look like the golden couple. All cheesy smiles and expensive dentistry for the camera and the public. But, in private, deep resentments and tearing strips off each other. Is that right, Mr Asprey?’

Asprey gave an exclamatory knock on the desk. ‘Exactly! Looks can be deceiving, Detective, and the camera often lies. I’ve got a chum, a professional photographer, who’s paid a fortune to tell lies with his camera.’

Vince reached into his inside pocket and pulled out the photo of Asprey sitting with Beresford and the rest of the Montcler set. ‘Like this, you mean? All smiles, and expensive dentistry?’

The smug grin on Asprey’s face weakened, then fell away altogether. His normally languid delivery tightened as he said, ‘Well played, Detective. I fell right into your hands.’

Vince pointed at the picture, ‘And there’s your photographer chum – Nicky DeVane, right?’

‘That’s him. So you don’t think Isabel did it, do you? Then what are you suggesting, Detective? One of us?’

‘I’m sure you understand, Mr Asprey. This is just procedure, nothing personal. We have to hedge our bets.’

‘A gambling man too, are you?’

Vince shook his head.

‘We’ll never be friends then.’

‘I always figure that likelihood into the equation when I meet people working a murder case. Did any of these men in this photo have a reason to kill Johnny Beresford?’

‘I’m in that photo myself, Detective.’

‘So you are. Then let’s start with you. Where were you the night he was killed?’

‘You think I would have let you in here without having a decent alibi? I was at home. Not in London, but my home in the country. It’s near Canterbury. I’m usually in London during the week, but my camel was suffering from a compacted tooth that needed removing.’

‘Camel – as in the animal?’

‘Unless you can think of any other kind of camel, yes. As you may know, wildlife is a passion of mine. Everything else I indulge in is a vice.’ Again he looked down lovingly at Zarra, who now lay stretched out with her eyes closed and was purring contentedly. ‘I find animals so much more agreeable as company than humans. Most of the humanity crawling across this planet are vermin.’

‘You should join the police, that’ll warm your views.’

There was no witty rejoinder from Asprey. He was being deadly serious.

‘Hitler, for all his little eccentricities, had some good points regarding eugenics. Did you know, Treadwell, it’s been proven that higher-income groups tend to possess superior genetics? So joining the police would be out of the question, as I’m just not genetically built for the penuriousness of the public pay sector. I’m a capitalist with a big C.’

‘The air’s turning rank, Mr Asprey, and it’s not all Zarra’s fault either. I’m a little bored with the Übermensch philosophy, so let’s just stick to what time you spent at home?’

‘The vet arrived at about nine p.m. It was a reasonably simple procedure, but he’s a chum and we then had a drink together and a game of backgammon, so he didn’t leave until well past midnight.’ Asprey smiled. ‘Minus his fee for the camel’s tooth.’

‘After that, were you alone?’

‘Yes.’ Then, almost as an afterthought he said, ‘Apart from my wife and children.’ He gave a decisive shake of his head as if he’d suddenly come to a conclusion. ‘No, Detective, I wouldn’t kill Johnny. Not only was he a friend but he was a financial asset. Lots of people would come to the club to try and beat him, and they lost. He brought people in, so why kill the golden goose?’

‘You’re all heart.’Vince stood up. ‘I’ll now need to talk to two of your members, Mr Goldsachs and Lord Lucan.’Asprey gave him a quizzical look, and Vince firmly informed him: ‘I saw them both downstairs as I came through.’

‘You’ll give us a bad reputation.’

‘Rakish, I’d have thought.’

‘This is a place of business.’

‘Oh, I’ll be incredibly discreet.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you will.’Asprey stood up and looked Vince over, as if measuring him for a suit. ‘I must say, Treadwell, you don’t look like a policeman. I usually expect the rotten clothes, the flat feet, the haggard expression, the dull eyes, and ultimately the outstretched palm.’

‘I’ve got all that to look forward to.’

‘I’ll draw you up some chips, on the house.’

‘Like I said, I don’t gamble.’ But he knew that Asprey wouldn’t have forgotten that little fact already.

‘Like I said, you’re most unlike a policeman. They always used to accept my chips, whether they gambled or not.’

Vince glanced down at Zarra, and her spiralling tube of shit on the floor. ‘I bet the cleaner’s glad you don’t bring the camel in to work.’

Vince and Asprey made their way down the stairs just as Leonard was making his way up – with some urgency. When Vince asked him about the whereabouts of Simon Goldsachs and Lord Lucan, Leonard quickly informed them that they had both left the club (no big surprise there: Leonard had obviously done his job). He then quickly revealed his real purpose for coming to see his boss: Isabel Saxmore-Blaine was downstairs, in Jezebel’s. She had obviously been drinking and was demanding to see James Asprey, or any of his friends.

Asprey wanted to know: ‘Why the hell did they let her in?’

Vince wanted to know, why the hell did they let her out?

The red silk rope was immediately unhooked and the detective descended into the basement club alone. Vince had been into downstairs dives before, but this wasn’t one of them. The high Georgian style from upstairs didn’t stop downstairs, which originally would have been used for the servants’ quarters and cellars of the grand house above. Jezebel’s took its name from Lady Belle Finch, who had lived at the Berkeley Square address circa the 1700s. Quite a beauty, and quite a gal in her time, she was rumoured to have been the lover of Frederick, Prince of Wales, hence the nickname from Belle to Jezebel. It was a name and a reputation she apparently, though very privately, revelled in.

Jezebel’s, with its vaulted ceilings, gave you a sense that it was a cathedral of high class and good taste. All the fixtures and furnishings were period: silver Corinthian-columned candlesticks illuminated the rooms, and gloomy old Dutch masters adorned its darkly varnished wood-panelled walls, giving the club a sombre look. But every now and then your eye was taken by a flash of colour: a framed splashy abstract, a modern advertising poster of artistic merit, along with the odd African mask or South American tapestry. All this was tempered with fine dining, one of the best wine cellars in London, and the slickest cocktail mixers this side of Manhattan. Somewhere around there was also a dance floor, although it wasn’t big enough to swing Zarra on. But for the members of Jezebel’s, this was home from home. For visiting kings and queens and presidents and potentates it was a paradigm of English class and discretion.

And for Isabel Saxmore-Blaine it was a designated battlefield. Seated on her own, nursing a greenish-looking cocktail, she was in full plume. The thick honey hair was jooged and styled and shiny and luxurious. The lips were painted, the eyes mascaraed, the cheekbones blushed – all done with the lightest of touches, because hers was the kind of face that really didn’t need a lot of work. She came pre-prepared.

She was dressed in a short shiny black and white outfit, something by Pierre Cardin just a little more modern than the gowns worn by the surrounding debs. To Vince’s eye, and he considered his eye to be pretty damned good, she was easily the best-looking woman in the place. And maybe that’s why she was being so studiously ignored. Out of jealousy? No, because she was being ignored by the men too. Therefore social pariah. How could she be anything but? And yet she looked as though she didn’t give a damn, positively rising to the occasion and enjoying it. She sat bolt upright, defiant, as if she was challenging the room; which, of course, her presence was.

Vince sat down at the same table. He stayed calm and was all smiles, as though they were two friends meeting up for a drink. Inside he fumed, though, and didn’t quite know why. What did he care if they banged her up?

‘What are you doing here?’

‘You want a drink, Detective? I’m on the gimlets. They were a favourite of Johnny’s. I soon developed a taste for them myself, like a good little faithful lush.’

Vince saw in her dark eyes that she was already well lit up. From out of nowhere a waiter magically appeared at their table.

‘My handsome detective friend and I will have some more gimlets, please, and—’

‘We’ll just have the bill,’ said Vince cutting her off. ‘And that will be all.’

The waiter genuflected his way silently back into the ether.

‘You asked what I’m doing here. Well, I could ask the same of you. No offence but they’re very fussy about who they let in. I’m a member, so what’s your excuse?’

He looked down at her three-quarters finished drink. ‘Finish it up and let’s go.’

‘No.’

‘Then leave it and let’s go.’

‘No.’

‘You want to make a scene, Miss Saxmore-Blaine?’

‘No.’

‘That’s an awful lot of nos.’

‘I counted three, but there’s a lot more where they came from. I’m drunk and I’ll do as I please, Vincent Treadwell.’

‘Drunk or sober, you’re a spoiled, over-privileged brat who’s been cut far too much slack, as far as I’m concerned. You want to make a spectacle of yourself, to be honest I really don’t give a damn.’

Her head rolled back to emit a peal of laughter, then she banged the table in approval. ‘Well said, Detective! I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with that summation, and I really don’t give a damn either, so there!’

‘Let’s go.’

‘I’m not ready to leave. Not until I’ve set eyes on one of the rats. Where are the rats? Are they here?’

‘If you mean James Asprey—’

‘King Rat himself!’

Heads turned at this remark. Isabel Saxmore-Blaine did the mature thing and poked her tongue out at them.

Vince could not resist a smile. ‘Sitting here really isn’t doing you any favours at all.’

‘Oh, that’s the joy of this place. Everyone so incredibly discreet. No one talks. No one will say a thing, for fear of being considered indiscreet and having their memberships taken away.’

‘It’s not them I care about.’

She leaned across the table at him. ‘Your summation of me was about right, my dear Detective Treadwell, but with the money and influence my father has, until they tie a noose around my neck, I can do pretty much as I please.’

‘Don’t bet on it. I’m pretty sure the stipulations of your bail don’t allow nightclubbing. If this gets out you’ll be residing in another exclusive club, Holloway, with bull-dyke screws as hostesses and a mixed clientele of whores, junkies, shoplifters and murderesses. How does that grab you?’

The forced frivolity left her face, and a moroseness settled in. ‘Maybe that’s what I deserve.’

She looked as if she might start crying. Vince wasn’t going to let that happen, so he said, ‘No, no, and thrice no! You see, two can play at that game.’

A smile broke out on her lips. ‘You’re cute, as we say in Poughkeepsie. In case you don’t know, Poughkeepsie is in New York State, home to my old alma mater, Vassar College. I was happy there, Detective, full of fun and ideas and ideals. Just before real life started. Did I mention you’re “cute”, as we say in Poughkeepsie?’

‘And you’re pissed, as we say in Pimlico. But beautifully so.’

Vince grabbed her by the arm before she could react or get into a self-pitying jag. She attempted to free herself of his grip, but soon realized that resistance was futile, as they say. He had already arranged her escape route with James Asprey, just in case any photographers were waiting outside. So, with a firm hold, he steered her towards the cloakroom and collected her coat, which wasn’t a coat at all but a black fur cape, just like Zarra but without the teeth. Then through the kitchen and out the back way to where Vince had parked the Mk II.