Snapshot

32

They formed three teams and early on Thursday morning hit the surgeon, the accountant and the funds manager. Six o’clock, no dawn light leaking into the sky yet, houses slumbering or only just stirring; an hour when heads are unclear and lips loose.

Challis and Ellen heard later from Scobie Sutton and the Mornington detectives that the surgeon and the funds manager had displayed plenty of genuine shock, dismay and outrage, so it was clear they hadn’t been tipped off by Robert McQuarrie. After the outrage had come shame and fear. They asked to be understood; they asked that their wives be spared the truth. The surgeon had attended the sex parties with his sister-in-law, the funds manager with his secretary. Their alibis were solid, and they confirmed that yes, they’d received photos of themselves in the post on Monday: no accompanying note, but, like Robert McQuarrie, they’d assumed someone at the Progress had sent the photographs and were fearful of blackmail and media exposure.

The accountant was a different kettle of fish, nothing like Robert McQuarrie, the surgeon or the funds manager. His name was Hayden Coulter and he lived alone in a rammed-earth loft house on a slope above Penzance Beach. The driveway was narrow and the turning circle awkward, so Challis did what he always did in unfamiliar places and unknown circumstances-parked the car so that it faced the road and allowed him and Ellen an unimpeded escape route.

Coulter greeted them at the door wearing a shirt and tie, trousers and carpet slippers. His face was clean and tight from the razor and there were comb tracks in his shower-wet hair. About forty, Challis guessed, and used to playing his cards close to his chest. He regarded them expressionlessly, invited them in out of the cold.

They followed him through to the kitchen, into the odours of fresh coffee and toast.

‘Can I get you something?’

Ellen glanced at Challis and answered for both of them. ‘Coffee, please.’

‘Pull up a pew.’

Coulter poured the coffee and sat across the table from them, precise, contained, watchful, his grey eyes clear and untroubled. He said nothing and betrayed no curiosity or apprehension. He’ll wait us out, Challis thought, sliding a photograph across the table.

‘Is this you, Mr Coulter?’

‘Yes.’

‘What can you tell us about it?’

‘I’m having sex with a woman, on a bed, being watched by other men and women.’

‘Did you receive a copy of this photograph in the mail on Monday?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you make of that?’

‘I made nothing of it. I have nothing to hide. I cannot and will not be blackmailed.’

‘You received a blackmail demand?’

‘No.’

‘Then how do you know it’s blackmail?’

‘I assume that I’m being softened up for blackmail,’ Coulter said, blowing across the steaming surface of his coffee.

‘You say you can’t and won’t be blackmailed,’ Ellen said. ‘Is that bravado?’

‘I can’t and won’t be blackmailed because I simply don’t care enough,’ Coulter said. ‘So what that I go to sex parties? I have no family who would be shamed if word got out, and my clients certainly wouldn’t care. I represent interests in the horse-racing industry and my reputation with them rests solely on my ability to make and save them money-which I do very successfully.’

Challis disliked the man’s coldness and vanity. ‘Did you build this house yourself?’ he asked, noting Coulter’s work-hardened hands, incongruous against the soft, costly fabric of his shirt.

‘I did.’

‘Impressive.’

Coulter said nothing, aiming for a prohibitive silence.

Ellen drained her coffee. ‘Have you any idea who sent you the photographs?’

‘Janine McQuarrie. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You think I killed her?’

‘Did you?’

Coulter looked bored. ‘Why? What would be the point?’

‘She threatened your reputation.’

‘Perhaps you weren’t listening: I don’t care about my reputation.’

‘The photos-or Janine herself-were a threat in other ways.’

‘I’ve never met the woman.’

‘She was murdered not far from here,’ Challis said. ‘Was she coming to see you?’

‘No. I wasn’t here anyway, but in my office in Mornington and needless to say I can prove it. But perhaps she was on her way here with more photographs.’

It occurred to Challis then that if Janine was murdered because she’d attempted to blackmail someone, wouldn’t that someone want to search her home and office for all copies of the photographs? Yet neither place had been broken into. On the other hand, Robert presumably had access to the keys.

As if reading his thoughts, Coulter said, ‘Did she have copies with her when she was shot?’

Never let them ask the questions. ‘How did you know that Janine McQuarrie took your photograph?’

‘I saw her do it.’

‘With what?’

‘Her mobile phone. Look, I go to these sex parties to look at faces and responses. Everyone else watches the sex. I saw her, I saw what she was doing. It amused me-though I was surprised to get photos in the mail. I assumed she was taking photos to meet some kind of basic and boring erotic need.’

‘Did anyone else see her?’ Ellen asked. Challis could see tension in her jaw, meaning that she loathed Coulter.

‘Possibly, but that’s your job, isn’t it? I can just see it: the police going in heavy-handed, knocking on forty or fifty doors, throwing a scare into people who until then thought their grubby secret lives were safe from scrutiny, and they’re all going to deny knowing anything about Janine McQuarrie and her pathetic photographs.’

‘You’re the one who’s pathetic,’ Ellen said.

Coulter grinned to know that he’d goaded her and Challis saw at last, behind the cool faзade, an empty man.

‘Mr Coulter, you say your clients are in the horse-racing industry.’

‘Yes, and I daresay some of them are dishonest, and a handful know the type of men who will shoot someone dead for a few thousand bucks.’

‘Do you know such men?’

‘If I do, they haven’t announced themselves to me.’

‘Do you hear whispers?’

‘I’ve heard whispers all my life. Am I going to inform? No?’

‘But you might know who to go to if you wanted someone shot dead?’.

‘I might, but I don’t. I don’t care enough about anything to want anyone dead. I can’t raise the emotional heat. There’s nothing I want to preserve, no gain I want to make. The woman could have published my photo on the net, for all I care. Now if that’s all, I have an appointment at a stable in Mornington in thirty minutes.’

‘Early,’ Challis observed.

‘Horse-racing people are early people,’ Coulter said.

That’s how it’s going to be between us, Challis thought. No confession or clear signs of guilt. Just a hard slog through Coulter’s past and present.