Dear Departed (33 page)

He was a surprise to Slider too. He appeared to be about fifty, tall and well-built, immaculately suited and extremely
good-looking. His thick dark hair was swept back from a lightly tanned face with even features, a straight nose, dark eyes and a firm chin with a slight cleft in it. The surprise, for this place, was that he was smiling. His teeth were white and even – perhaps a thought too white. Slider’s rapid process of instant summing up had said here was a man who had relied on his looks and charm all his life, with the corollary that he didn’t have many other abilities. He was aware that this was probably unfair, and also probably a reaction from all the stern inhospitality they had met up until this point. He summoned up a smile of his own, pushed away his judgement and prepared to meet the man with an open mind.

‘David Cockerell,’ said the man, extending his hand. His handshake was efficient, neither too hard nor too limp, and brief without being surly. Professional, Slider thought. ‘How can I help you? Please sit down.’

Slider sat. ‘I’d like to talk to you about your sister-in-law, Charlotte Cornfeld.’

The smile widened just a little. ‘I suppose I was half expecting this,’ said Cockerell. ‘You fellows have to be thorough, I know that. But I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you. I really didn’t have much to do with Chattie. That was her nickname, by the way. You knew that?’ Slider nodded. ‘Can I offer you a drink?’ As he said it, he crossed to the unit and opened one of the upper cupboards, which proved to contain decanters and glasses. ‘Whisky, sherry, gin and tonic? Not too early, is it?
The sun’s over the yard-arm somewhere in the world, that’s what I always say.’ He laughed, a purely functional laugh that had nothing to do with humour but was a social signal: I’m a good guy, you’re good guys, let’s all be good guys together.

Slider smiled. ‘I’m afraid we can’t, but please don’t let that stop you.’

‘No! Really? I thought that was all bushwah, about you people not being allowed to drink on duty. Surely a small one?’

‘I’m afraid not, but thank you,’ Slider said.

Cockerell hesitated about the glasses, and then decided against solo drinking, closed the door and returned to the desk. He sat, folded his hands together, and placed them on the desk in front of him. ‘So, what can I tell you?’

‘What was your relationship with Miss Cornfeld?’ Slider asked.

‘Well, I can’t say I really had one. The family wasn’t all that close, you know. The occasional dutiful Christmas gathering, and that was that.’ He looked straight at Slider, like a man about to reveal something painful. ‘My wife and her father do not get on, I’m sorry to say, and so we aren’t at the old man’s house very often. I believe he and Chattie were very fond of each other, though.’

‘Did Chattie visit you and your wife at home?’

‘No, I don’t think Chattie’s ever been to our house. We only ever met at Frithsden – my father-in-law’s house – and not very often there, as I’ve said. Ruth, my wife, doesn’t approve of the way her father lives. His personal life. I don’t know if you know …?’ A delicate pause and lift of the eyebrows.

‘You mean Kylie?’

‘Ah, you have seen her.’ Cockerell leaned back with a faint man-to-man smile. ‘She’s one of a string of similar lovelies. In my humble opinion, the old man’s entitled to take his pleasure where he likes at his age, but Ruth doesn’t agree. So we don’t visit very often.’

‘So when did you last see Chattie?’ Slider asked, still as if going through the motions.

Cockerell was quite relaxed. ‘Oh, well, let me think. I suppose it must have been last Christmas. Did we go there at Christmas?
Oh, yes, I remember there was some disaster in the kitchen and dinner was terribly late.’ He smiled. ‘One needs these signposts to remember one Christmas from another.’

‘So you haven’t seen her at all for six months?’ Atherton asked, picking up the minute pause Slider left for him. They had worked together for so long they knew each other’s rhythms without having to think about it.

‘No, I suppose I haven’t,’ said Cockerell.

‘Then last week’s meeting must have been about something out of the ordinary,’ said Atherton.

Cockerell’s smile remained behind, like the Cheshire Cat’s, though the rest of his face had abandoned it. ‘I’m sorry?’ he said.

‘Your meeting last Tuesday with Chattie,’ Slider took over. ‘It was obviously important, as it was so unprecedented.’

Cockerell blinked rapidly several times, and cocked his head
slightly. ‘I’m afraid I don’t follow you. I didn’t have any meeting with Chattie last week. Or indeed any week.’

It was well done; it was very natural. But having had the interrogation split, Cockerell did not now know who to look at, and when he looked at Atherton, Slider looked at his hands. The truth, like blood, will out. Cockerell had his face and voice under control, but Slider had seen the small, convulsive clasp of the hands. He relaxed, and felt Atherton beside him feel it.

‘Please, Mr Cockerell, don’t waste time. We know that you had a meeting with Chattie at ten o’clock on Tuesday morning. Now it may have been – I expect it was – a perfectly innocent meeting, but as it happened on the last day of her life, we have to ask about it. You do see that?’

‘I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken,’ Cockerell said. ‘I had no meeting with Chattie. Why should I? And now I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to leave.’ He half stood, admitting, though he was not aware of it, defeat.

Slider did not move. ‘It is pointless to deny it. We know that you met her – in Trafalgar Square.’ He waited a beat, and then said, gently, ‘We have the evidence. If you won’t tell us about it, we’re bound to become suspicious.’

Cockerell, still in his half-risen crouch, seemed to consider. Then he sat down, slowly, leaned back in his chair and swivelled a little, passed a hand over his mouth in thought, and then said, ‘Look.’

The word of capitulation. Slider looked.

‘Look,’ said Cockerell, ‘I did meet her, but it has to be kept a secret. It – it wasn’t exactly improper, but if it was known that we met, it could be thought that something was going on, that we were colluding. You’ve got to promise me this won’t get out. There could be consequences. Serious consequences. It could ruin the whole deal, and a lot of jobs depend on it.’

‘The deal – you mean the takeover?’ Slider said. ‘The takeover of Cornfeld Chemicals by GCC?’

His eyebrows shot up. ‘You know about it?’

‘It was in the papers,’ Slider reminded him.

‘Speculation only, several weeks ago. But we killed that. What made you think we were still interested?’

‘We have our sources,’ Slider said, ‘just as you do. You are still interested, aren’t you?’

‘Well, yes. But that’s not for public consumption. You see why Chattie and I had to keep the meeting secret. The way we were placed, if the reporters had got hold of the fact that we’d been seen together, it would have been disastrous.’

‘And what was the purpose of the meeting?’ Slider asked.

Cockerell hesitated. ‘I wanted to find out how Henry felt about it. Chattie’s the person closest to him in the world. I knew she’d know.’

‘Why couldn’t you ask him yourself?’

‘I’m in negotiation with him. He’s not going to tell me the truth, is he? That’s not the way these things work. He takes a position and I take a position. We try not to give away anything to one another. And Henry’s a master at the game.’

‘So you thought you might cheat a little and ask Chattie what his real position was?’ Atherton asked.

‘That’s right. But it wasn’t really cheating. Just – trying to get an edge.’

‘But it was a little shady, so you kept it a deep, dark secret,’ Atherton led him on. ‘Did your wife know about the meeting?’

‘Yes, she knew, and Lucinda knew – my secretary.’ In the heat of the moment he had forgotten to call her personal assistant. Lucky she wasn’t listening. ‘But they’re both sound as bells. They would never tell a soul. I don’t know how the hell you found out,’ he complained. ‘I would never have thought Chattie would be indiscreet.’

‘You said you were afraid of being seen together,’ Slider said blandly.

‘Oh, so that was it, was it? Well, that was damnable bad luck. We took such precautions.’

‘And what was the result of your meeting?’ Slider asked. ‘Did Chattie tell you how her father felt about the deal?’

‘No, she didn’t,’ he said. He frowned angrily at the memory. ‘She refused. I didn’t get anything useful out of her at all, so it was really a waste of time.’ He engaged Slider’s eyes and tried for lightness after the frowns. ‘So, you see, there’s no need to report it to anyone. Nothing improper happened, but if it was known we had met, people would assume, and rumours would spread.’

‘Was anything else discussed between you?’ Slider asked. ‘You see, you were one of the last people to see her alive. Did
she say anything that might help us? Did she talk of any worries she had? Did she tell you who else she was going to meet that day?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing else was discussed. The meeting was very short. I wish I could help you,’ he said, with a look of sincerity, ‘but I knew nothing about her life and she didn’t say anything about it then. I’ve no idea who killed her or why.’

Slider stood up. ‘Well, thank you, sir,’ he said. ‘You’ve cleared up one little mystery for us. We’re most grateful.’

Cockerell was all beams now. ‘Oh, not at all, not at all. Glad to help. Anything else I can do for you, don’t hesitate to ask.’

He was coming round the desk to usher them out. Slider veered across to the wall unit to look at the photographs on his way out. ‘Your family?’ he asked.

‘Yes, that’s my wife, and our son and two daughters.’

Granny Cornfeld was right, Slider thought – they did look dull. But the wife, Ruth, looked faintly familiar to Slider, though he couldn’t place her. Perhaps there’d been a photo of her in Frithsden House?

They were shown back to the lift, rode down in silence, handed in their badges to the two Cerberuses, and made their way out of the heavy swing doors into the early-evening sunlight.

‘He’s lying,’ Slider said.

‘Yup,’ Atherton concurred. ‘But why?’

There was a pub at the end of the street, its doors open on the pavement and, for a wonder, no piped music inside. ‘Pint?’
said Slider.

‘Hm. Okay. Might help the little grey cells.’

It was cool and dark inside, one of those
faux
-traditional places with bare floorboards, dark wood everywhere, tall barrels for tables, the ceiling painted an authentic smoke-dimmed dirty cream. They ordered two pints of Director’s, and Slider led the way to a couple of stools pulled up to one of the barrel tables just by the open door.

‘All right,’ said Atherton, having taken the top third off his pint. ‘Cockerell’s story.’

‘It makes sense in its own terms. I just don’t feel that’s all there was to it. Both Jasper and Marion said Chattie was preoccupied that evening.’

‘Wouldn’t she be disturbed by Cockerell trying to pump her about the old man’s feelings on the takeover?’

Slider shook his head. ‘I’m not sure. If it was just Cockerell saying, is he pro or con, and her saying, mind your own business, would she really be that bothered? It surely wouldn’t have been news to her – at least, judging by what Granny Cornfeld said – that he wasn’t quite pukka.’

‘Well,’ Atherton said, as one stretching a point, ‘you could be right. But she could have been preoccupied about anything – her business, her love-life, the state of the economy.’

‘Of course. But what did she do with the rest of the day? She cancelled her appointments, but she must have been out of the house, because Marion Davies said she was just sorting the mail when she called round at a quarter past six, still in her business suit. So where was she, and with whom?’

‘What’s your theory?’

‘I haven’t got one,’ Slider admitted, taking a long swallow. ‘I’m just working out the pattern. Cockerell said something to her, she was disturbed by it, she – perhaps – went and saw somebody else about it, and the next day she was murdered.’

‘You think Cockerell did it?’ Atherton said. ‘That’s a very large size in assumptions. Although,’ he allowed, ’I didn’t like him, and he did seem to be just dumb enough to do the murder that way. And, perhaps more to the point, he’s a senior executive in a drugs company that manufactures ultra-short-acting barbiturates.’

‘It does?’

‘I do my homework,’ said Atherton. ‘If anyone could work out how to get access to them, he could. But for all you know, he’s got an alibi.’

‘That’s why we’re sitting here – to catch his secretary on her way to the tube.’

‘How do you know she goes home by tube?’

‘I saw a tube ticket sticking out of one of the front pockets of her handbag.’

‘Blimey, the eyes of the sleuth! What if she doesn’t come this way to the station?’

‘Then we’re stuffed,’ said Slider patiently, ‘but at least we’ve had a pint.’

‘The man’s a genius.’

‘Keep your eyes peeled.’

Atherton turned his stool so they were both facing the street; and indeed, half an hour later, the big hair and the suit went past, with the addition of a fine leather shoulderbag and a rolled umbrella by way of accessories. Atherton and Slider left their seats and went after her. A little hampered by not knowing her surname, they fell in one on either side of her and almost got clobbered by the umbrella as her natural reactions were set off by being bracketed.

‘I’m sorry to startle you,’ Slider said. ‘We just wanted a quiet word.’

‘I thought you were bag-snatchers,’ she said, very much annoyed. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘We’ve been waiting for you.’

She faced them, glaring. ‘This is ridiculous. If you wanted to speak to me, why didn’t you do it at the office?’

‘I rather wanted to speak to you privately,’ said Slider.

‘Without Mr Cockerell knowing? I see. And why should you imagine for a moment that I would betray my employer to you?’

‘Betray?’ Atherton said. ‘Now there’s an interesting word for you to have used.’

‘Betray his trust,’ she said witheringly, ‘by talking about him behind his back.’

‘Oh, come on,’ he coaxed. ‘You don’t
like
working for him. He’s a jumped-up little turkey cock. You’ve got ten times his brains and character. And he called you his secretary.’