Killing Time (21 page)

Norma and McLaren were back from searching Lafota’s flat. ‘We haven’t got much,’ Norma confessed. ‘We’ve got a boot with a sole that matches the footmark on Paloma’s door, but they’re ten a penny.’

‘Not in that size,’ McLaren pointed out.

‘True, but turning it up the other way, I doubt whether you’d find many blokes that tall under the age of, say, thirty, who didn’t wear boots like that.’

‘Every little helps,’ Slider said. ‘It all adds to the picture. Did you find anything else?’

‘A packet of drinking straws in the kitchen cupboard,’ Norma said, ‘and I’ll bet they weren’t for Coca-Cola. Forensic is going over the place for any traces, but unfortunately he didn’t leave any packets behind when he and Candy struck camp. Which
for a careless man was awfully careless of him.’

‘So it’s back on the streets, then, boys and girls,’ Slider said. ‘Knock on those doors and ask those questions. If Lafota left his flat on Tuesday night to go to Paloma’s, someone must have seen him. And people must be talking about it.’

‘Guv, it must have been a hit, mustn’t it?’ Mackay said. ‘I mean, why else did Lafota do it? He didn’t have a beef against Paloma, did he?’

‘Don’t ask me – ask around,’ Slider said. ‘The staff and regulars at both clubs – the Pink Parrot and the Pomona – have got to be our best bet. I’m getting some uniformed help as of today, so I’ll put them on the local stuff and you lot can concentrate on the clubs. I want everyone followed up and asked about both of them. Who did they know, where did they go, what did they do.’

‘It’s gotta be a drugs connection,’ Mackay said. ‘Stands to reason.’

‘I hate to say it,’ Norma said, ‘but I agree. And my bet is that Yates is behind it; and if he is behind it, he’s going to take a lot of winkling out.’ There was a mutter of agreement.

‘Nobody has special protection in my book,’ Slider said firmly. ‘If Yates has been a naughty boy, Yates is going to get his hand smacked. Meanwhile, we mustn’t lose sight of the victim. We don’t know nearly enough about what Paloma got up to when he wasn’t tucked up safe at home with Busty Parnell. Although we do now have a line on his special boyfriend, for whom he was putatively acquiring the recreational sugar.’ He told them about Lenny Marks’s evidence.

Hollis whistled. ‘Sir Nigel Grisham? Oh my oh my. That’s bad news for the Government.’

‘I never would have thought Grisham was an iron,’ Norma said. ‘He’s got a wife and kids, hasn’t he?’

‘In the country,’ Hollis said. ‘And if this gets out he’ll be spending a lot more time with them.’

‘What about protecting a political career as a motive for murder?’ Hart said.

‘Don’t get carried away,’ said Slider. ‘We’ve got Jonah on ice, remember.’

‘Maybe we’ve been maligning him. How tall is Grisham?’ Mackay wondered.

‘Paloma could have been blackmailing him,’ McLaren helped him out.

Slider said, ‘I’m going to interview Sir Nigel Grisham myself—’

‘And when he interviews people, they stay interviewed,’ Norma concluded. ‘Who’re you taking with you, boss?’

‘Hart,’ he said. ‘It’s likely to be a delicate interview, needing subtle techniques.’

Hart was grinning broadly and the others were looking faintly baffled. It was good to keep your troops from growing too complacent, he thought.

Research into Sir Nigel Grisham’s background proved he was eminently blackmailable. Besides the house in Flood Street he had a large country house near Chenies, in a part of Buckinghamshire long favoured by the upper echelons of government and the civil service for its pretty, unspoilt countryside and good fast roads into London. Grisham had married the daughter of a Cotswold landowner with the bluest of blood and the blackest of bank accounts and had raised four attractive children, the youngest just at university age. His Parliamentary career had been solid rather than fast-track, but in a Parliament increasingly filled by the callow and the indistinguishable, he had now in his early fifties attained an elder statesman status which was almost better than talent.

‘And he’s tipped to get Foreign Secretary in the reshuffle,’ Hart said as they headed westwards – a simple phone call had established that Grisham had left Chelsea for his country house, or ‘done a bunk’ as Hart put it. ‘A bum-scandal’d put paid to that, all right.’

‘How do you know that?’ Slider asked.

‘Well, s’obvious. It’s all right coming out of the closet if you’re an actor, but the public don’t like turd-burglars representing ’em at international summits.’

‘I didn’t mean that, I meant how did you know he was tipped for Foreign Secretary?’

She looked at him, wide-eyed. ‘It was in the news. Blimey, guv, don’t you read the papers?’

‘When do I have time?’ he countered irritably. ‘I can’t even get through all the stuff on my desk.’

‘Yeah,’ she said placatingly. ‘Well. Anyway, the papers’d have
a field day if it got out about him and Paloma, even without the murder. They don’t like anyone in the Foreign Office to sleep around, ever since Profumo.’

‘But that was prostitutes.’

‘So was Paloma. And arse-bandits is even worse. It looks as though Grisham’s got the wind up, anyway, making a run for it.’

‘It is summer, you know. People do go out of London in summer. And he has a wife and children in the country.’

‘He’s bound to have seen Paloma’s death in the papers.’

‘Then he ought to think he’s safe,’ Slider pointed out. ‘Dead men tell no tales.’

Hart only grunted, unconvinced. ‘I bet he’s in a panic,’ she said. Slider agreed with her. If Grisham had seen Paloma’s death mentioned in the papers, he must wonder whether he ought to come forward and disclose his relationship, or whether that would be exposing himself needlessly. Well, he was soon to find out.

Edge House, Grisham’s country place, was closed off from the road by a high wall. The ornate gates were shut; through them was a view of a gravel sweep around a well-tended piece of lawn, to a handsome Palladian house in softly red old brick with an ancient wisteria climbing up one corner, and modern but tasteful single-storey additions on either side. A million upwards, Slider guessed, depending on how much land was attached.

‘Lifestyles of the rich and shameless, eh?’ said Hart. ‘I’ve never been this close to the seat of power before. Are you sure it’s all right to come asking him questions? We won’t be slapped in the Tower for Les Majesty or summink?’

‘Cabinet ministers have no special immunity, not like diplomats,’ Slider said. ‘He’s got to account for himself just like anyone else. At least, if we can get past these gates,’ he added, looking in vain for a handle.

‘There’s an intercom,’ Hart pointed out. ‘Shall I ring?’

‘No, I’ll do it,’ Slider said.

She grinned. ‘Afraid they won’t let us in if they hear my accent?’

Slider frowned at her. ‘Get in the driving seat.’

It was a woman’s voice that answered when he rang; even
distorted by the intercom, it was middle-aged and cultured in accent. ‘Who is it, please?’

‘Detective Inspector Slider, Metropolitan Police. I’d like a word with Sir Nigel, if you’d be so kind.’

There was a pause. A conference going on, or simple caution? ‘I don’t know an Inspector Slider,’ the voice said. ‘You’re not our usual security liaison.’

‘It isn’t about security, ma’am. I’m from Shepherd’s Bush CID. I’d like a word with Sir Nigel on a private matter.’

‘Well I don’t know. It sounds very odd. Are you alone?’

‘I have Detective Constable Hart with me. May I suggest you telephone my Area Commander, Mr Wetherspoon, at Hammersmith Police Station for confirmation of my identity?’

Another pause. It was like holding a transatlantic telephone conversation. ‘Very well,’ the voice said at last. ‘Please come in, Inspector.’

There was a buzz and a click and the gates swung eerily open. Hart drove in over the scrunching gravel, and before they reached the front door, the gates had swung closed again with a solid electronic clunk. Someone must have been watching – there was a security camera mounted above the door – for the front door opened as soon as they reached it. A woman stood there, a well-preserved, well-dressed, well-coiffeured lady in her fifties, with a face schooled over a lifetime of public work to show no emotion. The eyes, however, were quick and anxious. They surveyed and summed up Slider and Hart with rapid professionalism.

‘I’m Lady Grisham,’ she said. ‘Please come in.’

They walked past her into a lovely hall with a polished wood floor, a Sheraton side-table bearing a
famille rose
vase, and a staircase of airy beauty rising like an invitation to the delights of the first floor. The walls were robin’s egg blue and weighted with old and expensive oil paintings; the air was cool and faintly scented with lavender. An ancient and outrageously shapeless black labrador waddled up with a clicking of nails and swung a polite tail, his blue-filmed eyes scanning in vain for faces through his own personal mist. Lady Grisham stood with her hands lightly clasped before her, elegant in a floral silk dress, pearls and a carefully-selected brooch, as she had stood on a thousand platforms and sat on a thousand committees:
being what was expected of her, waiting to cope. Slider felt a deep reluctance to be here. He felt like a vandal. He had come to smash this sweet order to bits; but he saw in her dark, unhappy eyes that Lady Grisham had been expecting this moment, perhaps for years.

‘I’m sorry to have to disturb you like this,’ Slider said when he had shown his identification, ‘but it is very urgent.’

Lady Grisham was ready to fight a rearguard action. ‘I know you have your duty to do, Inspector, but it really is a very inconvenient time. My husband is far from well, and he had a sleepless night. I persuaded him to try to take a nap in the library, and I really don’t wish to disturb him just when he may have managed to get off to sleep. He has a very crowded schedule for the next few days, and in this present state of health—’

‘It’s all right, my dear.’ The right-hand door which led off the hall, which had been standing slightly ajar, opened fully and Sir Nigel himself appeared. In tweed trousers, checked shirt, knitted tie, olive-green cardigan with leather buttons, and highly polished brogues, he was perfectly dressed for leisure in the country – if you were a public figure, that is. The old dog turned its head at the sound of his voice and staggered across, wagging everything in delight. Behind Sir Nigel was a glimpse of another lovely room, book-lined, with an Adam fireplace and comfortable old leather chairs. ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he went on. ‘And I’m sure the inspector and his colleague wouldn’t be here if it were not important.’

‘But Nigel, oughtn’t we to telephone Roger?’ she said urgently.

‘I don’t think so. I don’t think he can help at this stage. Won’t you come through to the library, Inspector?’ He looked bleakly at his wife. ‘Don’t let anyone disturb us, Annie. And no telephone calls.’

She met his eyes with some message, to which he shook his head just perceptibly; as if she had said,
run away, there’s still time
, and he had said,
it’s too late, there’s no escape
. Slider was perfectly well aware that this was fanciful on his part, but he wished the minister hadn’t called his wife Annie, and he wished the old dog hadn’t tried to go with his master into the library and been gently, firmly repulsed. ‘No, no, old fellow, not you. Go with missus, go on.’

‘Jasper, come here,’ Lady Grisham called. The dog pivoted stiffly and lumbered reluctantly to her, and Grisham closed the library door.

‘Can I offer you sherry?’ he asked, ushering them to seats.

‘No, thank you,’ Slider answered for both. He felt bad enough without drinking the man’s liquor.

‘You won’t object, I hope, if I have one?’ Grisham said. ‘I usually do at this time. Sure I can’t tempt you? Quite, quite. On duty, of course.’ He made a slow bustle of getting out decanter and glass, pouring and putting away, and Hart flung a couple of urgent looks at Slider –
thinking out what to say
– but Slider let them pass him by. Grisham was trying to steel himself for the ordeal to come, that was all. Finally he came and sat down opposite Slider, took a large sip of the sherry, put down the glass and said, ‘Now, what can I do for you?’ in a bland and friendly manner as if they were constituents come to talk about road planning. But his voice wavered slightly, and he looked haggard. Lady Grisham had probably spoken no more than the truth when she said he was unwell and hadn’t slept. His face, familiar from the television and newspapers, handsome in a presidential way, looked lined and exhausted; his mouth drooped wearily at the corners and his eyes were baggy with lack of sleep.

‘I’m very sorry to have to broach this subject with you, Minister,’ Slider said, ‘but I imagine that you must be aware that Maurice McElhinney, also known as Jay Paloma, was found dead at his flat on Wednesday last week.’

Grisham was breathlessly still. ‘Why should you think I would be aware of that? Am I supposed to know this—’

‘To save you trouble, Sir Nigel, I should say that Jay Paloma was traced to your house in Flood Street on Monday afternoon last week, the day before he was murdered, and that you were seen to let him in and greet him in a friendly manner. And that he told his closest friend that he had spent Monday afternoon with his lover.’

Grisham started to tremble. He moved his lips a few times, but couldn’t seem to speak.

‘We have taken in custody one Jonah Lafota, who works at the Pink—’ He stopped, because Grisham had gone quite suddenly to pieces. The meat of his face began to quiver uncontrollably,
his mouth sagged so that a thread of saliva slipped out of one corner, his eyes rolled round and upwards. For a thrilling second Slider thought he was going to have a stroke or a heart attack, but it was only despair and grief. Grisham put his hands over his face and hunched forward, chewing at his brow with his fingertips, moaning quietly. Hart looked at Slider but he shook his head. Behind Sir Nigel’s hands, the dog-like moans blurred into words.

‘I knew this would come. Oh God, I’ve been such a fool. I can’t bear it. I didn’t mean it to happen. Oh God, I’m ruined. I’m finished. Oh God, what’s going to happen to me? Annie. The children. They’ll never live it down. It’s horrible. I never meant anyone to get hurt. It was a mistake. I didn’t want him hurt. What’s going to happen to me? I’m finished. Oh God, I can’t bear it.’