A Conflict of Interests (6 page)

A bell pinged out in the hall and Whitfield jerked his head around to look at the door. Lips pursed and whistling tunelessly to himself, Mace ambled into the room and returned to his chair.

"No answer," he said laconically. "All I got was an answering machine advising me to try another number." He consulted his notebook. "Zero one, eight one three, two six nine three. There was a long ringing tone but no Mr. Leese."

"I think it would be helpful if Mr. Whitfield gave us a description of him, Harry," Coghill said.

"Seems a good idea." Mace turned to a clean page, took out a ballpoint pen and waited expectantly.

"Oliver's thirty-eight," Whitfield said. "He's a little taller than me — about five-eleven — and much heavier. I would think he weighs all of fourteen stone. He has fair hair going thin on top and parted up on the left side. His eyes are gray and he has a longish face. Oh, and there's a two-inch scar on his forehead."

"Do you know how he got that?" Coghill asked.

"The result of an accident. Oliver slipped on the polished floor in his kitchen and struck his head against the steel drainboard. At least, that's what he told me."

"Thank you, Mr. Whitfield, you've been very helpful." Coghill stood up and slipped his jacket on. "I think that's about it for now, but we may want to talk to you again."

"Yes, of course."

"Will you be staying here or with Mr. Quainton?"

"Here, I think." Whitfield fingered the knot in his tie. "There are things I must arrange — the funeral and so on. I can go ahead with that, can I?"

"Any time."

Coghill shook his hand, said goodbye to Quainton and walked out into the hall with Mace. Whitfield followed them to the door and let them out of the house. Somewhat inconsequentially, he said it looked as though they were going to have another scorching hot day.

"Well?" Mace said when they were halfway down the short drive. "What do you make of him, Guv?"

"I think he's hiding something." Coghill walked around the Volvo, got in behind the wheel and waited for Mace to join him. "Yesterday evening I thought the news of his wife's death had completely shattered him, but now I've changed my mind. I don't think he gives a damn about Karen or his stepson. He's just worried that we may uncover a few unpleasant facts he can't explain away."

"My feelings exactly." Mace tugged the lobe of his left ear. "Question is, where do we go from here?"

"Maida Vale," said Coghill. "I think we ought to give Abercorn House the once-over."

"I'd better let Control know where we're going."

"You do that, Harry. And while you're at it, give them Leese's description." He turned the ignition key, started the engine and shifted into gear. "Tell them we want it circulated to all districts."

Coghill glanced into the side mirror, saw there was nothing behind them and pulled away from the curbside.

Patterson turned right outside Kennington Underground station and went on down Clapham Road, following the route he'd memorized from
Nicholson's Street Finder
. The flat he was hoping to rent was in Linsdale Gardens, but the owner lived in Richouse Terrace. A quarter of a mile beyond the Underground station, he turned right again into a street of terraced houses, each one fronted by a privet hedge behind wrought-iron railings set in a low brick wall. Late Victorian or early Edwardian, he thought, low-cost housing built for the working class. When you'd spent as much time in London as he had, you got to know something about its architecture. He walked on, counting off the numbers until he reached 48 Richouse Terrace.

The front door was wide open. A small boy about four years old was sitting on the step, performing aerobatics with a toy Spitfire that looked decidedly battered. Lying supine on the tiled path was a large black Alsatian.

"Is he friendly?" Patterson asked.

The boy held the Spitfire at the top of a barrel roll and nodded solemnly. Contrary to his assurance, the Alsatian was anything but friendly. As Patterson raised the latch and pushed the gate open, the dog leapt to its feet and advanced toward him, hair up, top lip drawn back, teeth bared and snarling.

Above the furious barking, a shrill voice yelled, "For Christ's sake, Rosie, shut that bloody noise."

The woman was thin, sallow-faced and had her dark hair pinned up in a bun. She was wearing an apron over a brown silk dress, and a pair of carpet slippers that had seen better days.

"Mrs. Drobnowski?" Patterson inquired when the Alsatian finally stopped barking. "My name's Pearce. I believe the City Bureau phoned you?"

"Oh, yes, the Canadian salesman. You've come about the flat in Linsdale Gardens." Telling the dog to stay, she opened the gate and joined him on the pavement. "It's only a short walk from here."

Linsdale Gardens was a carbon copy of Richouse Terrace, except that the house Mrs. Drobnowski owned looked a little more dilapidated than most. The usual privet hedge was missing and the tiny strip of lawn had been concreted over. The window frames needed a lick of paint but the front door was a glossy yellow.

"My husband's still doing the place up," Mrs. Drobnowski informed him and produced a bunch of keys from the pocket of her apron. "But your flat's been completely renovated."

From what? Patterson wondered. The hallway didn't look too good; the staircase wasn't carpeted and the linoleum on the floor was a mosaic of hairline cracks. The flat was on the first floor to the right of the landing and consisted of two rooms knocked into one. There was also a small kitchen and an even smaller bathroom. Most of the furniture was plywood with a thin veneer that was supposed to be walnut, and the curtains were skimpy and almost diaphanous.

"What was the rent again?" Patterson asked.

"Forty pounds a week."

It would still have been daylight robbery at half the price, but it suited his purpose. "Okay, I'll take it," he said.

The BMW would stick out like a sore thumb in the neighborhood; so would the brand new Ford Fiesta he'd planned on buying. A five-year-old Mini was, he decided, about par for the course.

"Can I move in this afternoon?"

"You'd have to sign the lease and I'd want a month's rent in advance," Mrs. Drobnowski told him.

"Will you take a check?"

"I prefer cash."

"Who doesn't?" Patterson took out his billfold and peeled off a wad of ten-pound notes that made her eyes light up.

5.

Abercorn House presented a streamlined appearance, its aerodynamic curves owing a lot to the Hollywood influence of the mid-thirties. It was fronted by a small forecourt, with sufficient parking space for twelve cars on either side of a rock garden and ornamental fountain. Double swing doors in the entrance opened into a carpeted foyer, where there was a reception desk manned by an elderly hall porter who was reading a copy of
The Sun
when Coghill and Mace walked into the apartment house. A warrant card thrust under his nose blanked out the topless blonde on page three and claimed his reluctant attention.

"I'm Detective Inspector Coghill, this is Detective Sergeant Mace," Coghill informed him.

"And my name's Nolan, sir, Kevin Nolan. What can I do for you?" He was an Irishman from the southwest and had a soft brogue.

"We're investigating the murder of Mrs. Karen Whitfield."

"Ach, yes." Nolan inclined his head and looked sage as though about to impart some vital piece of information. "She's on the front page and I saw her picture on TV last night."

"Lots of people did," Mace said.

"Is that a fact now?" The grizzled head dipped again. "Funny thing is, I thought she was Mrs. Cairns."

"That used to be her name," Coghill said. "Until she married again five years ago."

"Really?"

"I'm told she lived here at one time."

"She still does." Nolan pointed to the letter rack inside the entrance. "That's her, flat 52, Mrs. S. K. Cairns. She was a real nice woman, always had a cheery word for me."

I bet she did, Coghill thought. "You mind telling me when you saw her last?" he asked.

Nolan frowned, looked up at the ceiling and started counting off the days on his fingertips. "It must have been a week ago last Monday. Mind you, I didn't see as much of her as I used to in the old days."

He recalled that Karen Whitfield had moved into Abercorn House some time during the late spring of 1973. From little snippets she'd dropped, Nolan had gathered she was a buyer for one of the big department stores in the West End. Dickins and Jones, or was it D. H. Evans? He wasn't sure which now, but she had obviously been well paid. She had had to be when apartments in Abercorn House were changing hands at £37,500 in 73 and there was a ground rent of £198 per annum on top of that.

"You could tell that woman had class just by looking at her," Nolan went on. "So I wasn't surprised when she became a fashion editor for one of them glossy magazines."

"When was this?" Coghill said.

"About six years ago. I remember Mrs. Cairns once showing me an article she'd written. Of course, it wasn't under her own name."

"That doesn't surprise me," Coghill said drily.

"She used to do a fair amount of work at home. Had quite a few visitors too; other writers and the like. Contributors, she called them. I recognized one of them: Jeremy Ashforth, him that's on TV."

"You actually saw Ashforth with Mrs. Whitfield?"

"Not exactly. But he was here several times and he always took the lift up to the fifth floor."

"Recently?" Mace inquired.

Nolan shook his head. "No, this was before he became really famous. I can't recall when he was here last, but it must have been a couple of years ago, perhaps longer. Truth is, I'm getting on a bit and my memory's not what it was."

"It happens to us all sooner or later." Coghill took out a pack of Silk Cut, offered Nolan a cigarette and lit up. "Was anyone with Mrs. Whitfield the last time you saw her?" he asked.

"No, she arrived alone, but an Arab-looking gentleman showed up a few minutes later and he's no stranger to this place. Mind, I'm not saying he did call on her; there are that many people coming and going, it's hard to keep track of them. Anyway, it's not my job to inquire what they're doing here."

Nolan took messages, ran errands, opened doors and got the repair men in whenever anything went wrong. To hear him talk, the central heating system had a mind of its own and only functioned spasmodically in the winter, much to everybody's annoyance. And the lifts were the bane of his life; not a month went by without one of the residents being marooned between floors.

"Any chance we'll get stuck?" Coghill asked him.

"Why?"

"Because the sergeant and I are going up to have a word with her former neighbors."

"You'll be wasting your time," Nolan said. "She was never one for popping in and out of other people's apartments. Kept herself to herself she did, a real fine lady."

"So you said before."

"And meant every word," Nolan called after them. "I was very sorry when she changed jobs and went to work for that American advertising agency. Never saw so much of her from then on."

"That's the way it goes."

Coghill dropped his cigarette into the wastebasket, joined Mace inside the lift and closed the gate behind him. There was a significant delay between the time he pressed the button for the fifth floor and the moment when the lift finally responded to the signal.

"No two ways about it," Mace observed. "Nolan was definitely her number-one fan."

Coghill grunted. "She certainly pulled the wool over his eyes."

"And Trevor Whitfield? Do you think he knew she still owned this flat?"

"I think so, Harry. But you can bet he'll pretend he didn't when we confront him with it."

Coghill waited for the lift to stop shuddering, then opened the gate and glanced up and down the corridor. There were ten apartments on the fifth floor, six on the right of the lateral passageway, two on either side of the twin lifts. Number 52 was almost directly opposite.

"What do I take?" Mace asked. "Odds or evens?"

"Odds," said Coghill. "After we've given Karen's apartment the once-over."

"Do we have a key?"

"No. I'm relying on your knowhow."

"Oh, shit." Mace went over to the apartment, examined the door and reached into his hip pocket for a slim black wallet containing a bunch of master keys. "I hope you realize this is strictly illegal," he muttered.

"Let me worry about that."

"I was just sounding a warning note." Mace examined the lock again, tried three different Yale keys and finally managed to open the door.

There were four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchenette, a dining room and a lounge off the hall. Of the three single bedrooms, the one adjoining the master suite was no bigger than a dressing room. It contained only two items of furniture, a built-in cupboard housing a tripod and a Bolex 16mm movie camera, and a low table with steel legs which was positioned under a large two-way mirror. In the adjoining master bedroom, this two-way mirror was incorporated in a dressing table and double wardrobe unit which took up the entire dividing wall. Hanging from the rail in the right-hand unit were a collection of gym suits, hot pants and rubberized jump suits. On the rack below were a dozen pairs of ultrahigh-heeled shoes and thigh-length leather boots. A pair of handcuffs, several padlocks, an assortment of chains, a riding crop and a number of canes were jumbled together on the top shelf of the other wardrobe.

"Seems our Karen had some very interesting and unusual hobbies," Mace observed.

"And she made a bundle out of them." Coghill lifted a lamp from one of the bedside tables and showed him the mike in the base. "This whole room is wired for sound."

"We've got a motive then?"

"Yes. Looks like Karen bled one of her clients white and he turned nasty when she couldn't or wouldn't hand over the film."

They had two possible suspects: Jeremy Ashforth and a man of Arabic extraction who had visited one of the fifth-floor apartments on a number of occasions. Coghill thought there was a chance some of the neighbors might come up with a few other candidates.