The Chalon Heads (7 page)

‘How did you get hold of that?’

White said nothing, looking smug.

‘How much did he want to spend with them?’

White pointed to the figure. ‘Forty thousand.’

‘He must have been serious. Doesn’t that seem unlikely to you? Sammy Starling a stamp collector?’

White shrugged. ‘Old men . . .’ he began, then stopped himself. ‘I suppose it was a form of investment. People do that. He had other business investments on the go.’

‘Yes, that’s what he called it.’ Kathy didn’t mention the stamps on the ransom notes. ‘All right, Sammy went into a decline. Go on.’

‘Ah . . . then the
miracle
happened.’ White’s tone was heavy sarcasm, but his eyes lit up as he used the word.

‘Eva?’

‘Eva.’

‘How did that come about?’

‘Sammy and Brenda had been friends with a couple called Cooper, living in Uxbridge. A year or two after Brenda died, they got Sammy to invest in a time-share development on the Algarve, in southern Portugal. They persuaded him to go out there to look at the place in the spring of ’ninety-three. While he was there he met their Portuguese partner, Dom Arnaldo de Vasconcellos, and his eighteen-year-old daughter Eva. Sammy and Eva were married less than six months later.’

‘A whirlwind romance,’ Kathy said.

‘That’s right.’ White turned to several pages of cuttings from newspapers and magazines showing pictures of the wedding.

‘Posh,’ Kathy said. ‘What kind of people are they?’

‘Old money. Portuguese aristocracy. About as far from Sammy Starling’s bloodline as you could get, I’d say.’

‘A very odd match, then.’

‘Like I say, Kathy, a miracle . . . for Sammy that is.’

‘Most of these reports are Portuguese, Peter,’ Kathy remarked. ‘You have been busy.’

‘We asked Interpol to do us a favour.’

‘But you’d retired by then, hadn’t you?’ She smiled at him reassuringly.

He grinned back and finished his whisky. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like . . .?’

She shook her head and he left the room again for a refill. While he was away, Kathy examined the pictures, the bride in white, somehow managing to look spontaneous and effervescent despite the burden of the traditional wedding gown in which she was wrapped. Sammy looked transformed from the nadir of his passport picture, tanned, ten years younger, unable to stop beaming.

White resumed his seat beside Kathy. ‘The happy couple!’ he said, his breath heavy with the Scotch. ‘Well, now. You tell me, Kathy, as an attractive young woman yourself, how the bloody hell did he do it, eh? What did she see in him? What did her old dad see in him, eh?’

‘He has got a certain . . . style,’ Kathy said.

‘Bollocks!’ White snorted. ‘The Alsatian next door has got a certain style, and she didn’t marry him!’

‘Money, then.’

White nodded with grim satisfaction, his eyes fixed on a picture of Eva lifting the skirts of her full white gown with both hands to negotiate the church steps. His expression suggested, Maybe if I’d had money . . .’

‘How much is he worth, have you any idea?’

‘Any idea?’ White scoffed. ‘I could give you an estimate of his net worth that’s within ten per cent, guaranteed.’

‘I’m impressed. How much, then?’

Like a magician coming to his star turn, White turned the pages until he reached a section of financial data. There were copies of credit checks, photocopies of bank statements, property valuations and share transactions.

‘God!’ Kathy breathed. ‘How did you get all this, Peter?’

He smirked. ‘Grand total, one point eight million, sterling. That’s
sterling
, not
starling
. . .’ White guffawed at this witticism. His speech was becoming slightly slurred now. ‘I’d have thought it might have been more.’

‘It was, at the time Brenda died, but as I said, he got burned in the ’eighty-seven crash. Panicked, didn’t he? Didn’t have her steady head to save him. But it’s been building up again since then, see.’

‘So that’s what Marty Keller is after, do you think?’

White thought about it. ‘Not Keller . . . No. The poor bastard has just finished eight years inside. Had a hard time of it, I heard. He’d have to be crazy to start all that again. Risk going back. No, he’s not your man.’

Kathy looked at her watch. ‘I’ll have to get going, Peter. Is there anything else you can tell me?’

White began turning the pages of the reports again. ‘You saw this one, did you? And what about this?’ He was searching for something of interest to her, not wanting to let her go. She watched him politely for a while longer, asked him to give her photocopies of some of the key documents, then got to her feet.

‘What’s he like now, then?’ he said quickly, following after her. ‘In the flesh. How is he holding up?’

‘Starling? Worried, panic-stricken, I suppose, lack of sleep, but physically in pretty good shape.’

White ignored the last bit. ‘Panic-stricken, eh? My God, yes, he will be. How much will he pay for her? Half a million? One million? Everything?’

As they reached the door, he said, ‘Have you anything to implicate Marty Keller, apart from motive and Sammy’s imagination?’

‘Early days,’ Kathy said, evasive.

‘You sure it isn’t Sammy done her in, making it look like a kidnapping?’

‘That’s always a possibility.’

He followed her out to the front gate. ‘Now, Kathy,’ he said, ‘I want you to promise me something.’

‘It’s all right, Peter.’ She turned and met a gust of whisky breath up close. ‘I won’t tell anyone about your files.’

‘Not just that. I want you to promise to get back to me if you think of anything you need to know, day or night. Promise?’

Kathy smiled, feeling sorry for this sad, obnoxious old bloke.

‘What if I think of something?’ he said, suddenly worried. ‘How can I get in touch?’

‘Do you know Brock’s office number?’

‘Not Brock! I’m not going to contact him. What about you?’

Kathy gave him a card, writing her mobile number on the back for him.

‘Good, good. And one last thing, Kathy,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘If I were Marty Keller after revenge,’ he whispered, as if the roses might have ears, ‘I wouldn’t just want Sammy Starling to suffer.’

‘No?’

‘Oh, no. I’d want to bring Brock down, too.
Very
much.’

Kathy blinked, thanked him, and hurried to her car.

Kathy sensed that the examination of the flat was coming to an end. Among the décor of black and silver and white, Brock, with his grey hair and beard and white nylon overalls, looked like an incongruous designer item. He sprawled on the white Italian hide settee, scratching his chin with a latex-gloved hand, looking deeply dissatisfied.

‘Nothing interesting?’ she said, picking up an overall pack for herself.

‘Puzzling. She’s been here, sure enough—there’s some dirty clothes in the laundry basket and a used towel in the bathroom. But I’d swear the bed hasn’t been slept in since the sheets were changed, which according to Sammy would normally have been last Thursday, when the cleaner comes in.’

He got stiffly to his feet and went on, ‘No signs of a struggle, but look at this . . .’

He led her into the kitchen, where two men were examining the worktop beside the sink, a polished grey granite surface lit by hidden low-voltage spots. Compared to her own modest facilities, Kathy thought the place resembled an art gallery more than a kitchen. One was holding a camera with large flash attachment, the other a fingerprint powder brush. The one with the brush, an Indian, looked round, and Kathy recognised Leon Desai, their liaison with the forensic science lab. Brock was taking this seriously, she thought.

‘Hello, Kathy.’ He nodded to her, with his cool smile. No matter what mayhem his job took him into, Desai was always cool, a source of irritation to Bren and some of the others.

Kathy said hello and followed Brock over to a corner of the kitchen floor.

‘What do you make of that?’ he asked her.

At first she saw nothing, then made out a faint trace of brown against the cream ceramic tile. ‘A footprint?’

‘Could be. And possibly blood. The rest of the floor’s been washed clean, by the looks of it.’

‘What about the neighbours?’

‘We’re being discreet so we haven’t made a big production of it yet, but we’ve spoken to a few. Most use the place as she did—hardly any permanent residents. This being a ground-floor flat, facing the back, tucked away, it wouldn’t be difficult for someone to come and go unobserved, if they knew their way around. There’s a door to the residents’ car park just along the corridor from the front door to this flat.’

Kathy looked around. ‘It’s very tasteful . . .’

‘Oh, very. Classic, simple, expensive . . . tasteful.’

‘Is that Sammy Starling?’

‘Not unless he’s changed in that too. Sammy wouldn’t feel the need to acquire any taste himself. He’d just hire someone who already had some. It would mean nothing.’

He led her back into the living-room. ‘You saw Peter White?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did you get on?’

‘We nearly didn’t. He tried to put me in my place early on. I walked out.’

Brock grinned. ‘That’s the way. He buckled after that, did he?’

‘We started again. He’s still keeping a file on Sammy Starling, you know. He seems haunted by him, and by Keller and Harley . . .’

Kathy saw the shadow cross Brock’s face. She went on, ‘It was useful background, I suppose, for me. He told me Starling’s life story. But nothing directly relevant to this.’

‘Bitter, is he?’

Kathy nodded. ‘He tries to lose himself in his roses.’

‘His wife, Ruth, started growing them a year before his retirement, to give him something to do. He had no other interests than police work before then. Does he have any thoughts about Keller?’

‘He doubts Keller would have the stomach for it after all that time inside.’

‘We’re finished, Brock.’ Leon Desai stood at the doorway. The SOCO photographer came past him carrying his big aluminium equipment case. He peeled off his gloves and overalls and Desai let him out of the front door.

‘Yes . . .’ Brock sighed. ‘We’re all finished.
Kaput.
Finito.
’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m hungry. Mrs Starling was known at a little Italian place around the corner, La Fortuna. Fancy giving it a go?’

The stark décor, unusual modern chairs and cutlery, lush white tablecloths, all signalled
expensive
to Kathy. For the first time she felt personally confronted by Eva Starling’s lifestyle. She was pretty certain she couldn’t afford to eat anywhere where Eva was known.

The menu confirmed this. Kathy’s heart sank as she searched in vain for a modestly priced plate of spaghetti Bolognese.

She looked at the reaction of the other two. Desai was frowning intently. He caught the look on her face and silently mouthed the word
help.
Brock bore an expression of mild surprise as his eyes scanned the large but sparsely printed document through his glasses.
^–‘
Now I understand why this place is called La Fortuna. This is on me, by the way,’ he murmured, and waved aside their brief, unconvincing protests.

When the wine waiter visited their table Brock asked what Mrs Starling might have chosen, and barely blanched as he ordered a bottle of the same.

‘She had very good taste, didn’t she?’ Desai said. ‘The flat, I mean.’

‘Is that her?’ Kathy asked. ‘I mean, rather than some interior designer that Starling might have hired.’

‘Yes, I think so. Because of her clothes. Kryzia suits, La Perla underwear, Xenia shoes. All spot on.’

‘
La Perla underwear?
’ Brock echoed. ‘What do you know about things like that, Leon?’

Desai smiled, unfazed. ‘It’s my job to be observant, Brock,’ he said smoothly.

Kathy looked at him with interest. She’d never heard of Xenia shoes.

‘Yes, well, you’re absolutely right,’ Brock said. ‘Sammy Starling wouldn’t have a clue about La Whatsit underwear. Brenda was strictly Marks and Sparks, no matter how much money she had.’

‘Maybe Eva educated him,’ Kathy said.

‘Yes, maybe.’ He returned to studying the menu. ‘Anything else you found to be observant about, Leon, apart from the lady’s underwear?’

‘The videos.’

‘Go on.’

‘The titles.’ He pulled out a notebook and read from it.

‘
The Young and the Damned
,
The Criminal Life of
Archibaldo de la Cruz
,
The Exterminating Angel
,
The Discreet
Charm of the Bourgeoisie
,
That Obscure Object of Desire
. . .’

‘So?’

‘They seemed kind of evocative, belonging to a beautiful young woman who’s just disappeared.’

‘They’re all Buñuel titles,’ Brock said. ‘He liked stories about sex and death and obsession.’

The waiter appeared at his elbow, and Brock returned the glasses to his nose. He lifted the impressive menu.

‘And Signora Starling is coming to join you?’ the man said hopefully. ‘Shall I lay another place?’

‘Unfortunately not,’ Brock said. ‘You know her well? What’s your name?’

‘Tomaso.’ The man looked smoulderingly at Kathy. ‘You are friends?’

‘Yes,’ Brock said. ‘I think we can claim to be that. You could say that we may be the only friends she has left.’

‘The only friends?’ The waiter looked puzzled.

‘Yes. It seems she may have been betrayed by her other friends, Tomaso.’

‘Is so?’ He now looked vaguely troubled.

‘Is so. Did she bring her other friends here?’

‘No, here she eats alone. Sometimes with Mr Starling, when he is in London.’

‘When was the last time you saw her, Tomaso? Last weekend?’

‘No. She hasn’t been here for three weeks, a month.’

‘Are you sure? Mr Starling keeps an account here, doesn’t he? Would you mind checking it for us?’

The waiter looked at him disdainfully. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I couldn’t possibly—’

Brock showed him his warrant card. ‘Eva is missing, Tomaso. This is important.’

The man looked startled.

Brock said, ‘And keep this to yourself, please, Tomaso. That’s important too. Now, our order . . .’