Hushabye (7 page)

“This whole thing is just a nightmare,” he said in a muffled voice. The two women watched him. He raised his head again and there were tears in his eyes.

“I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and it’ll all be over,” he said. He dropped his head back down. “It just keeps going on and on.”

Casey jumped up and flung her arms around him. Kate stood for a moment, watching the embracing couple. I should feel sympathetic for him, she thought. But I don’t. Why don’t I? Is it because I think he’s just saying something for the sake of it, that he doesn’t really mean it after all? Am I getting that hard, that cynical – or is there something in what I’m thinking?

Chapter Six

Olbeck and Theo had driven to Ali Saheed’s flat in South Kensington, fully expecting to find him away as it was the middle of a normal working day. Olbeck had queried whether they could have gotten a search warrant, but he knew that the process would involve several hours of form filling and sign offs. He was impatient to chase up this latest lead, even if it meant time wasted in trying to track down their latest suspect.

Saheed’s flat was a basement one, in a street just off the Brompton Road. The elegant, white Georgian townhouses stood in serried rows, painted black railings separating them. The basement forecourt of the flat was empty, save for a solitary bay tree in a large stone pot standing like a sentinel by the front door. Olbeck rang the bell, not expecting an answer, but to their surprise, they heard footsteps approaching the door before it swung open.

The man regarding them with suspicion was short, although powerfully built, with carefully-tousled, thick black hair. He wore a suit that Olbeck’s practised eye picked out as an Oswald Boteng and, rather jarringly, bare feet.

“Yeah?”

“Ali Saheed?” said Theo.

“Yeah,” said Saheed, more warily. “What’s this about?”

“Charlie Fullman, Mr Saheed,” said Olbeck. “Mind if we come in?”

The flat was small but luxuriously furnished: granite-topped kitchen counters, black gloss units, black leather sofas and an enormous flat screen television. An empty espresso cup stood on the glass-topped coffee table, along with a packet of Silk Cut, a lighter and an ash-filled glass ashtray.

“I heard about the baby,” said Saheed, who perched himself on the edge of one of the sofas, as if he was about to spring up at any time. “And that poor girl. It’s terrible. I tried to give Casey a ring but–”

“Yes, Casey Fullman,” said Olbeck. “I understand that you are her former agent?”

“Yeah.”

“When did you – part company?”

Saheed reached for his cigarettes. “Not sure. Not long ago. Maybe a couple of months.”

“So just after Charlie Fullman was born, really. Is that right?”

Saheed shrugged. “I guess so.”

Olbeck leant forward. “Now we’ve been told that you and she had something of a fight recently, is that right?”

“A fight?” said Saheed. He looked uncomfortable. “No, not really, just a – well, a disagreement. That’s all.”

“What was the disagreement about?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Saheed. He must have realised that that didn’t satisfy them, as he went on, “I just thought she was making a mistake, that’s all. About sacking me as her agent. I thought – I thought she was doing it for the wrong reasons, that’s all. I just wanted to talk to her about it.”

“What were her reasons?”

Saheed had smoked his cigarette down to the filter. He crushed it out in the ashtray with disproportionate violence.

“That’s confidential.”

“Nothing’s confidential in a murder case, Mr Saheed.”

Saheed looked startled. Olbeck wondered if he was unused to being told no in any form. But as a theatrical agent, surely he heard it all the time? That was Joe’s department, that sort of world. Olbeck resolved to try and get home at a normal sort of time, if he could, to try and talk to his partner about the industry.

“Her reasons, Mr Saheed?” he prompted.

Saheed shrugged.

“She – she just thought that I wasn’t helping her enough. Wasn’t getting her enough work. She’d just had a baby, for Christ’s sake, she shouldn’t have been thinking about work. She wasn’t thinking straight.”

Olbeck had been looking unobtrusively around the flat as they spoke. He didn’t really think there would be any trace of anything belonging to Charlie Fullman, certainly not left in plain sight if Saheed had in fact taken him – and Olbeck was far from convinced that was the case – but you never knew. There was nothing to be seen, anyway, nothing but the usual detritus of a bachelor pad. His house had once looked something like this. No longer, since Joe had moved in. He sighed, inwardly.

“So this fight, my apologies, this disagreement you had with Mrs Fullman...was that the only time you’d been to their house in recent weeks?”

Saheed had lit another cigarette. Sheets of bluish smoke hung in the air, and Theo smothered a cough.

“That’s right,” said Saheed.

“That was the only time?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re quite sure about that, are you?” said Olbeck, holding his gaze. Saheed gazed back angrily.

“I said,
yes
. That’s the only time.”

Theo and Olbeck exchanged a glance.

“Well, Mr Saheed, I’m afraid that I don’t quite believe you. Your very distinctive car has been seen on numerous occasions on the road outside the Fullmans’ house, both driving past and parked on the verge. What were you doing there?”

The hand holding the cigarette was shaking.

“Nothing, I…” said Saheed. He dropped his eyes to the floor. “I wasn’t doing any harm. Just parked on the road. That’s not being at the house, is it?” He looked at them fearfully. “I had nothing to do with this, nothing, I’m telling you.” The policemen regarded him with impassive faces.  He swallowed. “Do I need a lawyer?”

He accompanied them back to the station with Theo sitting next to him in the back seat of the car. The traffic was heavy, and the journey took an hour longer than it had taken to get there. Olbeck thought of Kate and wondered how she was getting on at the Fullmans’ house, questioning Casey.

Back at the station, they took Saheed into an interview room, accompanied by the duty solicitor.

“I’m telling you, I don’t know anything about this,” he kept saying. “All right, so I drove by a few times. I kept thinking that Casey would–” He was silent for a moment. “That Casey would change her mind.”

“About employing you again as her agent?” said Theo.

Saheed nodded, after a moment.

“I’m assuming that she didn’t, in fact, do this?”

Saheed’s black brows drew down in a frown. “I’d been with her for five years,” he said. “Five years. I got her that TV show, I got her into the papers. Five years and she just throws me away, bye-bye Ali, nice to have known you.”

“That must have rankled,” said Olbeck, non-committedly.

“Yeah,” said Saheed, a trifle uncertainly. Olbeck wondered whether he knew what rankled actually meant. “I was pretty pissed off.”

“So pissed off that you thought you’d do something drastic? Something to get back at her?”

Saheed stared at him. “No. Nothing like that. I told you, I had nothing to do with Charlie going missing – and the nanny – nothing to do with it. You’ve got to believe me.”

“So why were you driving up and down outside her house at all hours of the day and night?”

“I was – I was thinking.” Olbeck looked sceptical. “All right, I was thinking about going back to see her. To try and persuade her to change her mind.”

Olbeck sat back in his chair. Perhaps it was time to try another tack.

“What was your relationship with Mr Fullman like?”

Saheed stared again. “Like?”

“Did you get on well? How did he feel about your relationship with his wife?”

“Okay, I guess.” There was a short silence. “He’s a weird guy, you know. He’s totally obsessed with his work, that’s all he thinks about. Casey got fed up with it, sometimes.”

“So Mrs Fullman would confide in you? You were close friends as well as business associates?”

Saheed half smiled. “I guess. You do get close, you know – when you both know the game…” He dropped his head. “She was lonely.”

Theo and Olbeck exchanged a glance.

“So you’re saying that, perhaps the Fullmans’ marriage was in trouble? Under strain?”

Saheed shrugged.

“For the tape, please.”

“What? Oh–” Saheed glanced over at the recorder. “I don’t know what their marriage was like, we didn’t really talk like
that
. Casey just used to say that Nick was always working and it pissed her off sometimes, particularly after she got pregnant. He didn’t seem very excited about the baby. That’s what I remember her saying, he didn’t seem excited at all about the baby, and he was the one who’d suggested the whole thing to her.”

Olbeck raised his eyebrows. “Nick Fullman suggested what to his wife?”

“That they have the baby, you know. Casey’s still young, you know, she’s not twenty seven yet. She’s got loads of time to have a baby if she wanted one. Nick was the one who was keen to have one.”

“Is that right? But Mrs Fullman took some persuading?”

“No, Casey wanted kids as well, it’s just that – oh, I dunno – it was more that she would have waited...”

“Do you think the Fullmans are happily married?”

Saheed’s eyebrows went up. “I don’t know.”

“What is your opinion?”

He looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You said Mr Fullman is a ‘weird guy’. Can you explain any further?”

Saheed reached for his cigarettes and then realised that he wasn’t going to be able to smoke. His foot was jiggling up and down on the floor and he put a hand on his knee, obviously to stop it.

“Don’t know,” he said. “All I know is that Nick does what he wants all the time. It’s always about him. He gets his own way a lot of the time, seems to me. He always gets what he wants. One way or the other.”

*

Olbeck got home later than he’d expected, and unfortunately, about two hours later than he’d promised. As he put the key in his front door, he braced himself. Joe was such a tempest, sometimes. There’d be storms of tears, shouting, even the odd plate thrown now and again. Then, just as quickly, calm again, all the energy dissipated. Olbeck knew he didn’t deal with it very well. He’d tried being placatory and unruffled as he was berated for his wrongs, both real and imaginary. He’d tried shouting back. He hadn’t thrown anything yet, but it was sometimes a near thing. It was
exhausting
, this relationship business, a constant battle between the compromises demanded by Joe and his own, selfish inclinations.

Joe was in the kitchen, clattering about with pots and pans. A rich, garlicky smell hung in the air, reminding Olbeck of the length of time that had passed since he’d last eaten. Joe was a fantastic cook; it was one of the things Olbeck loved about him.

“You’re late,” said Joe, not looking around.

“I know.” Olbeck hesitated and then wrapped his arms around his partner, kissing the back of his neck. “You know how it is when I’m on a case. I’m sorry.”

“You’re always on a case. You
are
a case. Headcase.”

“Nutcase.”

“That too.” Sighing petulantly, Joe turned around and kissed him properly. Despite his hunger and his tiredness, Olbeck felt a stir of interest. His boyfriend really was very nice looking, after all...

Then Joe moved away from him, stomping to the fridge. Olbeck sighed. Play this wrong, and it wouldn’t only be separate beds tonight, he’d been lucky not to be wearing his dinner.
Be nice, be calm, be interested...
Trouble is, he didn’t
want
to be interested. What he wanted to do was have a quick and dirty shag, something to eat and then hit the sack without any more conversation whatsoever.

“Guess what?” said Joe, in a slightly-less-annoyed tone. He was stirring a bubbling pot on the stove, bringing the spoon to his lips to taste. “Ouch, hot. Anyway, guess what?”

“What?”

“Mandy and Sarah are getting married. Well, civil partnership, you know.”

“Oh right,” said Olbeck, scrolling frantically through his mental contact list to try and place Mandy and Sarah. He remembered – Mandy was an actress friend of Joe’s and Sarah was her girlfriend. “That’s nice.”

“Isn’t it? They’re such a fabulous couple. I bet they’ll do the big white wedding thing, that’s Mandy’s style at least.”

“Right,” said Olbeck, trying not to yawn.

Joe glanced sideways at him. “That’s the kind of thing I’d like, as well.”

“What is?”

“The big white wedding.”

Olbeck’s heart sank. “Okay,” he said, not really sure where this was going but not liking the sound of it.

“Don’t you want that?”

No, I don’t
. Olbeck knew he couldn’t say that out loud. Instead he muttered something like “Of course, but it’s not the right time at the moment…”

Joe was pouting. “You could at least sound a bit more enthusiastic.”

“Do we have to talk about this now? I’m tired and it’s been a long day.”

“No,” said Joe, ominously quietly. “We don’t have to talk about this now. God forbid that you want to
talk
about making a commitment to your partner, God forbid that I might actually want to talk to you for a change instead of getting your voicemail all the fucking
time
.” His voice began to rise. “God forbid that I’ve been here all day cooking for you and you promised to get home on time, promised and yet a-fucking-gain you don’t!”

“Okay–” said Olbeck, trying to head off the inevitable, but it was too late.

“I’m fucking sick of it!”

The wooden spoon went flying across the kitchen, trailing drips of sauce. Seconds later, Joe slammed out of the kitchen and Olbeck heard his footsteps pound up the stairs and then the more distant slam of the bedroom door.

Olbeck remained standing for a moment with his eyes shut, breathing deeply. Then he got himself a plate from the cupboard and helped himself to the stew. He sat at the table, eating methodically, refusing to get upset. Joe would calm down. Merely a storm in a tea-cup. The stew was so good he had second helpings before he stacked the plate into the dishwasher – there, who could say he never did anything around the house? – and went through to the front room to watch television.