Jigsaw Man (32 page)

Thirty-seven

‘What do you think, Sir?' Chang asked Tartaglia, as they left the hospital and walked
towards the car park.

‘I wish all witnesses were like that. Get somebody over to him first thing tomorrow
with a laptop to do the E-FIT.' His phone rang and – adding to Chang, ‘We'll get
a decent image out of him' – he answered it to find Colin Price at the other end.

‘Thanks for calling me back,' Tartaglia said. ‘Were you working at Stoneleigh Park
about four years ago?'

‘Yes. Why?'

‘I was told something about a chef who was sacked or walked out. It all sounded pretty
dramatic and the police may have been called.'

‘If it was four years ago, you'd be talking about Dave Simpson. He was the head chef.
Very talented lad and very young to get a star, but he screwed everything up big
time.'

‘Can you tell me a bit more?'

‘I hadn't worked with him long when it happened and I can't say I knew him well,
but I think it was the usual problem of stupid hours and pressure . . . and a tricky
personal life, along with booze and other substances. He just burnt out younger than
most.'

‘Was this anything to do with Richard English?'

Price laughed. ‘It was all to do with Richard English.'

‘Where can I find Dave Simpson?'

‘You can't. He's missing.'

‘Missing? Since when?' Tartaglia heard voices in the background at the other end
of the phone.

‘Hang on a sec,' Price said. A muffled conversation followed, then Price came back
on the line.

‘You said Simpson's missing,' Tartaglia said.

‘That's right. According to what I heard, he walked out on his wife and kid one day
and never came back.'

‘Is there anyone I can talk to about him? Any friends or relatives?'

‘I don't know about his family, but he was quite close to one of the sommeliers.
A young woman called Chantal Blomet. She was a bit star-struck and used to follow
him around like a little lamb. Simpson lapped it up but his wife wasn't best pleased,
as you can imagine.'

‘Do you know where Chantal is now?' Again he heard voices in the background at Price's
end.

‘Sorry. We've got a bit of a problem brewing here,' Price said. ‘I'm going to have
to go. You could try Richard's partner, Ian Armstrong. If she's still working in
the company, he'd know. And if she's moved on, they'll have probably given her a
reference.'

It was nearly midnight by the time Tartaglia got home. The flat was in darkness and
he switched on a lamp in the sitting room and drew the shutters. He pulled the seat
cushions off the sofa and picked up the pillows, sheet and duvet he had left piled
on the coffee table. He threw them onto the sofa unenthusiastically, another night
of fragmented sleep ahead of him.

He had eventually managed to get hold of Ian Armstrong, rousing him out of bed at
his house in Belgravia. Armstrong remembered who Dave Simpson was, but the last he'd
heard of him was when his wife had contacted the office to say the chef
had gone
missing and she'd hoped they might know where he was. Armstrong had no recollection
of Chantal Blomet, but had given Tartaglia the details of the company's personnel
director to contact first thing in the morning.

He was heading to the kitchen to get a glass of water when he noticed that the bedroom
door was wide open and one of the bedside lights was on. He peered inside. There
was no sign of Donovan or, looking around more closely, any of her things. The bed
had been stripped, the linen roughly folded in a pile on top of the duvet. He checked
the bathroom. Again, no sign of any of the bits and pieces she had brought with her.
She had gone. He searched around for a note but there was no sign of one.

He closed the shutters and stared at the empty room with an awkward mixture of relief
and concern. What had made her go? Was it the conversation they had had the previous
night? He had been thinking about it on and off all day. Donovan was keeping something
from him, he was sure. Whether it was something totally outlandish that she was ashamed
to mention, or whether it actually had some basis in reality, he couldn't tell. He
had no idea what to make of her. He could understand her obsession with trying to
find Claire's killer. The issue of justice when it came to murder was one they had
discussed on many occasions, but she must know that even if the killer were caught,
no form of retribution could bring Claire back.

Thinking through it all again, he was convinced that something particular had sparked
her off the previous night. He would speak to Chang again in the morning about what
had happened at the Dillon. He needed more details of what exactly had been said
and exactly how she had reacted. Donovan's theory that Claire had been deliberately
targeted,
that her murder was part of a grander plan, had not been easy to explain
to Steele. As he spoke, he realised how odd it must sound, although Donovan's instincts
in the past had been generally good. To give Steele her due, she hadn't dismissed
the idea straight off. She listened patiently while he gave her a blow-by-blow account
of what Donovan had said, and appeared relatively sympathetic, even though in the
end she dismissed it as a flight of paranoid fancy. There were no hard facts to support
Donovan's theory, and it was the facts that mattered. Even so, Steele had agreed
to get the taped samples taken from Claire's face and neck tested for DNA as a priority.
At least he could have told Donovan that, if only she hadn't run off somewhere.

He tidied away the dirty linen into the laundry basket and made the bed with fresh
sheets. He was looking forward to getting into it and having space to spread out.
He was about to get undressed and have a shower when he noticed Donovan's black laptop
bag leaning against the side of a chair in the corner of the room. She must have
forgotten it. It was the excuse he had been looking for. He fished his phone out
of his pocket and dialled her number, but it went straight through to voicemail.
He then tried Sharon Fuller's mobile.

‘Sorry to wake you,' he said, when she answered after several rings, her voice thick
with sleep. ‘But I've just got home. Sam's left and she's taken all her stuff, apart
from her laptop. Do you have any idea where she is?'

‘Her house, I imagine. Forensics finished with it a few hours ago. Hannah called
her to let her know.'

‘You haven't spoken to her?'

‘Not since this morning,' she said, mid-yawn. ‘Would you like me to go round there?'

‘No. It's fine.'

‘I can get dressed and drive over there, if you want. If you're worried about her
. . .'

He sighed. ‘No. I'm sure she'll be fine. Like everything else, it can wait until
morning.'

Thirty-eight

‘I'm pretty sure Dave Simpson's dead,' Chantal Blomet said, meeting Tartaglia's gaze.

‘Why do you say that?'

‘I don't know. I just have a feeling.'

She sat quietly, stiff and upright, hands tightly clasped in her lap as though uncomfortable
with being interviewed. It had taken a while to track her down and it was now almost
noon. She had just started her lunchtime shift at the hotel where she worked and
had looked visibly startled at the mention of Simpson's name. Small and slight, her
androgynous black sommelier's uniform looked slightly too big for her, although
she was nice enough looking in a girl-next-door sort of way. He put her age somewhere
in her late twenties to early thirties.

‘A feeling? Any other reason?' he asked, wondering if she was serious.

She gave a slight shrug. ‘Because he's gone, disappeared into thin air. Nobody's
seen him, not even his wife, apparently. There's stuff about him on the Missing Person
website, and on Facebook and a couple of the chef websites. If Dave was still alive,
somebody somewhere would know.'

It wasn't that simple, he wanted to say. Sometimes people didn't want to be found,
but maybe it wasn't an option she wanted to consider. Her English was fluent and
without accent. He had commented on it and she explained that her mother was English
and that she had spent most of her school holidays in the UK.

‘Do you think somebody killed him?' he asked, just as his phone started to ring.
He checked the screen and saw Melinda's name. He had texted her to say that he had
no news yet but she still kept calling. No doubt she knew what he'd said was a lie.
He had no desire to renege on their deal, but he had no time to talk, let alone work
out how much to tell her, and she would have to wait until he was ready. He switched
the phone to silent and looked back at Chantal.

She looked perplexed. ‘No. I don't mean anything like that. More likely he killed
himself, or had some sort of an accident. He wasn't a happy man. But you should probably
speak to someone who knows him better than me. I haven't seen him for ages.'

He sensed there was more that she wasn't saying, but was it relevant? Simpson was
only of interest because he had been treated badly by Richard English and was now
missing, along with the fact that the so far unidentified male victim fitted Simpson's
age profile. ‘But I understood you were close to him?'

‘In a way.'

‘You had a relationship with him?'

A flicker of irritation crossed her face. ‘No. I don't know who told you that, but
we were just friends. Unfortunately, people like to gossip. I was fond of Dave, he
was
incredibly
talented of course, but he was all over the place emotionally. Besides,
he was married, he had a kid.' She spoke almost primly, but he didn't entirely believe
her. He remembered Colin Price saying that she had been star-struck and the look
in her eyes as she spoke about Simpson gave her away. Had Simpson rebuffed her, he
wondered.

‘I understand he was sacked,' he said.

She nodded. ‘It was his fault, but it should never have ended that way. After what
he did to Richard . . . well, there was no going back.'

‘Did to Richard? You mean Richard English?'

The colour rose to her face and she looked confused. ‘I assumed you knew . . .'

‘No,' he said studying her closely, wondering at her reaction. Perhaps she thought
she was speaking out of turn. ‘You'd better tell me what happened.'

She looked away, her fingers pulling at the hem of her jacket. ‘This was four years
ago. Why does it matter?'

‘Just tell me what happened, Miss Blomet.'

She shrugged and folded her arms. ‘Things weren't going well between them. There
was a history. I won't bore you with the details but that particular night Dave had
been drinking in the kitchen and Richard caught him. There was an almighty row. He
called Dave a “loser” and said he wasn't getting a single share in the business until
he sorted himself out. Dave just lost it and he hit Richard. Everything in the kitchen
went flying. Richard said some stuff, then Dave picked up a knife and went for Richard.
If it hadn't been for the other kitchen staff, I think he might have killed him.'

‘You were there?' he asked.

She looked up at him. ‘Yes. I was working that night. Even though I wasn't in the
kitchen, I could hear what was going on, as could most of the guests. They called
an ambulance and Richard was taken to hospital. He had to have a few stitches and
he had a broken nose and a black eye. Of course he made a huge song and dance about
it, saying it was all unprovoked and that he was just defending himself.'

‘Was that true?'

She shook her head. ‘Richard knew how to needle people. He had it down to a fine
art. He probably didn't think Dave would finally retaliate.'

‘So Dave Simpson was sacked,' he said, remembering
Nicoletta's description of the
drunken, emotional chef in the restaurant. ‘What did you think of Richard English?'

‘Me?' She looked taken aback by the question. ‘He was a hateful man. Ask anyone.
I tried to stay out of his way as much as I could.'

‘What happened to Dave Simpson?'

‘Richard brought charges. We all tried to persuade him not to, but he was a vindictive
shit and he wouldn't listen. Dave had publicly humiliated him and he wanted revenge.
So poor Dave ended up in jail.'

Again it was his turn to be surprised. ‘Jail? Where?'

She hesitated. ‘Dartmoor.'

He made a mental note to check as soon as he was done. If Simpson had been inside,
his DNA would be stored on the National Database. They would soon be able to tell
if there was a match with the unidentified male body parts from the two fires. ‘Do
you believe Dave Simpson meant to kill Richard English?'

She shook her head. ‘Of course not. He wasn't thinking straight.'

‘But you think he's capable of killing someone?'

She looked at him strangely. ‘You think Dave's killed someone?'

‘Just answer the question.'

‘He's capable, yes. Isn't everyone, in the heat of the moment, if they're pushed
too far? He certainly saw red that night, but he was already teetering on the edge.
Richard just helped him over. I blame Richard a hundred per cent for what happened
and I wasn't the only one.' She spoke forcefully and what she said tallied with what
Colin Price had told him.

‘Do you know where Simpson's wife and child are?'

‘No idea, I'm afraid.'

‘Does he have any other immediate family?'

‘He never talked about his family, at least not with me.'

‘When did you last see him?'

‘I went to visit him in jail a couple of times before I left Stoneleigh Park. But
it was really awkward. I think he felt embarrassed and he made it clear he didn't
really want to see me. I didn't bother going back after that.'