Ash & Bone

46

Karen Shields and Mike Ramsden were gradually wearing Kennet down, chipping away at the carapace of half-truths and denials he'd constructed around himself, teasing out each incident in which he had broken into the flats or houses of various women living alone, some whom he knew well, others whom he scarcely knew at all. They persuaded him to talk, sometimes haltingly, sometimes, despite his own best interests, almost with relish, of the sexual life he had persuaded, cajoled, or bullied the women in his life to share: fantasies of forced sexual activity and rape which were often played out in public places where the risk of discovery added an extra frisson.

But on Maddy Birch's murder, they could not shake him. He remained adamant he was not involved. And as long as there was still no evidence, other than the circumstantial, to link him to the crime, they were stymied.

'Bastard keeps it up,' Ramsden said, 'he'll have me halfway believing he's telling the bloody truth.'

'About Maddy? Maybe he is.'

'You reckon?'

'In here, no. I think he's guilty as hell. But unless we can prove it, break him down…'

'Yeah.'

'We've got to find out what he was doing, Mike. The night she was killed. If he wasn't watching Jackie Chan and downing a few pints on the Holloway Road, what was he doing? Maybe he was drinking somewhere else? Somewhere closer to where Maddy was killed. Filling in the time till she was through with her yoga. Getting himself up for it, who knows? Let's have Lee and Paul back round the pubs with a photograph, Tottenham Lane, Crouch End, Hornsey Rise.'

'Okay.'

'And Mike, another thing. That story of his about getting up early the next morning to go to work – if he was, to all intents and purposes, still off on holiday, why was he going to work? And where?'

'Self-employed, isn't he? Work when you feel like it.'

'Even so. Let's nail it down.'

'That's a joke, right?'

'What?'

'Nail it down. Building. Kennet's job…'

'Mike?'

'Yes?'

'No time left for jokes.'

Attention to detail, Karen thought, check and double-check. That's what brought most cases to a satisfactory conclusion. That and sheer luck. She hoped their luck hadn't run out.

Meanwhile, the process by which Grant's assets would be claimed by the Crown had begun its slow and tortuous progress. His bank accounts had been traced and were being examined; the sale of his penthouse flat would eventually be negotiated. There were no records of him having had a safety deposit box.

The clothes and paraphernalia that had been removed from the flat itself were sitting in a succession of cardboard boxes, which it took two officers a good half-hour to locate and transfer to a room where Elder could examine them, article by article, piece by piece.

Suits, jackets, shirts, shoes. Toiletries, gizmos, histories of Stalingrad, Berlin and both the First and Second World Wars, some, as far as Elder could tell, unread, their spines uncracked. A few vinyl albums with bent and ragged sleeves: the original Dusty in Memphis, Otis Redding's Otis Blue. CDs that mixed Phil Collins and Simply Red with pop singers from the sixties, more Dusty, Lulu, Sandie Shaw. Some Aretha Franklin. The Temptations. A couple of DVDs: Titanic, Pearl Harbor. And videos: The World at War in a boxed set, Cross of Iron, Apocalypse Now, Das Boot. A slew of old musicals: Funny Girl, Top Hat, Follow the Fleet, An American in Paris, Carousel. A stationery box which had once housed A4 paper and now held photographs.

Elder spread them out across the table. Holiday snaps, beaches, umbrellas, tanned bodies, exotic plants; celebrations, faces mugging for the camera, champagne, cigars. Three men standing outside a nightclub, slightly the worse for wear, dressed to the nines, startled by the sudden flash of light: Grant, Mallory and a man Elder recognised from the framed picture in Lynette Drury's house as Ben Slater. There were photographs also of Grant and Slater in the changing company of others: in restaurants and bars, relaxing round the pool, the race track, the dogs, a hospitality box at Chelsea, the departure lounge at Heathrow.

Elder shuffled them around.

Grant and Mallory ringside at a boxing match – Elder lifted it up and turned it towards the light – Maurice Repton in the background, almost edged out of the frame.

Grant and Mallory.

I know where the bodies are buried, George, remember that.

Something could put Mallory inside for life.

How far did it go? How thick the stew?

Elder tapped the photos back into piles and replaced them in the box.

Close to two hours later it was all being resealed and replaced.

Vicki Wilson was sharing a flat near Gloucester Road with two others. Andrea was a make-up artist, working mostly on corporate videos and the occasional pop promo for MTV; Didi, real name Deirdre, was a dancer at a revue bar in Soho. When Elder called, Andrea was out filming and Didi in bed sleeping.

Vicki didn't look as if she'd been sleeping much at all.

She was wearing baggy sweat pants and a loose cotton top and she was letting her hair grow out; the only traces of make-up were at the corners of her eyes where she'd failed to wipe them away. In some strange way, Elder thought she looked more attractive than before.

'You're not working,' Elder said.

'Can't be arsed. Besides, Didi, she's thinking of chucking it in, going to Australia. This mate of hers, she's got a job dancing. Sydney. Says it's great. Thought I might tag along. Why not? Nothing to keep me here.'

'You'd work as a dancer?'

'Oh, yeah. Just see it, can't you? That'd be faking it and no mistake. Five minutes, they'd have me good and sussed. Out on my ear.'

'What then?'

'Same sort of stuff I do here, I suppose. Demonstrations, sales. Bit of modelling maybe. Catalogue stuff, you know? Got to be something, hasn't there? Better'n this.' She coughed and fidgeted a tissue out from her sweat-pants pocket. 'Bastards like that Repton, sneaking round.'

'He's been to see you again?'

'Oh, yeah.'

'Tell me.'

Vicki pushed a hand up through her hair. 'First it was like before, right? Wants to know if anyone's been to see me, asking questions. No, I said, course not. Why would they? I never mentioned you. Didn't want to drop you in it, did I? Then he changed tack, didn't he? Come out with all the smarm. Why don't we go out for a drink, something to eat, enjoy ourselves? All the while he can't take his eyes off my tits. Tongue hanging out so far he could practically lick his own dick.'

Elder smiled. 'It was a no, then?'

'Too bloody right.'

'And you've not seen him since?'

'Be feeling sorry for himself, won't he?' She snorted dismissively. 'His sort, they can never get it up anyway.'

'His sort?'

'Something about them, blokes like him, you can see it in their eyes. Get off on watching. Or that business, you know, where they stuff oranges in their mouths and pretend to hang themselves – what's that called?'

'Self-asphyxiation.'

'Yeah, that's it. Sad bastards.'

'And you think Repton's one of those?'

'Yeah. Wouldn't be surprised.' Suddenly her face brightened. 'Maybe I could get a job as one of them sex therapists, what do you think?'

'Maybe you could.'

'Bet you need qualifications though, even for that. Some bloody degree. NVQs.'

Elder was looking at the clip-framed photograph across the room.

'Lovely, isn't it?' Vicki said, following his gaze.

It showed the two of them, Grant and Vicki, together, standing in front of a low stone wall, the sky behind them a tremulous blue.

'Mykonos,' she said. 'Last year.'

Elder nodded.

Vicki blew her nose. 'He was a good bloke, you know? Straight.'

'Are there any others?' Elder said. 'That I could see.'

There were only a few that she'd been keeping flat in the back of a book, mostly shots of her and Grant, one of him on his own.

'Any idea where this was taken?' Elder asked.

Vicki shrugged. 'Cyprus, I think.'

He handed the photographs back.

'He never talked about Mallory, I suppose?'

'Jimmy? Talk about the copper? Why would he do that?'

'I don't know – some history between them. Bad blood.'

Vicki shook her head. 'Never as much as mentioned him. Never heard of him, had I? Not till the bastard shot poor Jimmy dead.'