The Merchant's House (8 page)

‘Out where?’

‘On a shoot.’

The inspector had an idea what he’d be shooting, and it wouldn’t be pheasants. ‘Where can I find him?’

‘I really can’t say. They tend to move around … different locations.’ She made it sound almost glamorous. ‘He’ll be in first thing tomorrow,’ she added helpfully.

‘Have you got his home address?’

‘Er…’

‘This is a murder inquiry, madam.’

She drew a card from an index on her desk and wrote down an address.

‘We might need to speak to you again, Mrs, er …’

‘Webster. I’ve only been here three months …’

With her pleas of ignorance ringing in their ears, Heffernan and Wesley clattered their way down the uncarpeted staircase.

Pamela Peterson had had misgivings when her then boyfriend had shown an interest in joining the police force. The nightly portrayal on television of hardened cops with broken marriages and a drink problem had sounded warning bells. She had grown used to the anxiety and erratic hours over the years, but she still felt a stab of anger as she put the phone down.

She debated whether or not to ring her mother, but decided against it. Then she considered calling Maritia, her sister-in-law. The prospect of talking her problems over with a qualified doctor was tempting. But Maritia might be on duty, or too tired to be sympathetic. Besides, Pamela wasn’t really in the mood to talk to anyone. She had a bath and went to bed.

How could Wesley let himself get stuck in Manchester tonight of all nights, when tomorrow was so important? Everything depended on tomorrow.

The bar at the St Dominic Hotel – a name that had attracted Heffernan with its solid monastic associations – added a
whole new dimension to the concept of blandness. The walls were laminated, the bar was laminated, the lager tasted as though it had been created in a sterile environment using laminated barley. The greenery, growing up the trellis at the side of the bar, looked decidedly artificial.

Keffer had proved to be elusive. Twice they had returned to bang on the door of his flat in the up-market modern block with its decorative wrought-iron balconies – probably inspired by the architect’s annual holiday to the Continent. There had been no sign of Keffer or any other human habitation in the carpeted communal corridors. All was silence. So much for Northern neighbourliness.

Heffernan looked down at his lager, urine-sample gold. He didn’t feel like drinking any more. He had hoped for a paternal drink with Rosemary, but when he had rung to tell her he was up in Manchester she had claimed a prior engagement, a date with some young man – very likely unsuitable. He took another unsatisfying gulp from his glass. Wesley was upstairs on the phone, probably trying to appease an irate wife. Heffernan had been there. Now, as he drained his glass and looked round the lonely bar, he realised how much he missed Kathy. He wished he were up there talking on that phone; he wished he had somebody to appease. He took his glass back to the bar and climbed the stairs to his room.

They set out early next morning. Producers of pornographic magazines didn’t strike Heffernan as potential early risers, but you could never tell.

Keffer’s block of flats seemed just as deserted at half past seven in the morning as it had done the evening before, the only difference being that there were more BMWs parked in the residents’ parking spaces.

This time they were lucky. After five minutes of earnest doorbell-ringing their endeavours were rewarded by the appearance of a bleary-eyed man in his forties. A short towelling robe, insecurely fastened, fell open to reveal a pair of garish red boxer shorts decorated with a yellow slogan which, Wesley guessed, was probably rude, but he wasn’t prepared to study it long enough to read it. They produced
their warrant cards and the bleary eyes widened into suspicious wakefulness.

They were led into a darkened living room. It looked as though someone at least had had more fun the previous evening than Heffernan and Wesley had experienced at the St Dominic Hotel. An empty wine bottle stood on the tiled coffee table amongst tumbled lager cans, overspilling ashtrays and dirty glasses. The fuggy air reeked of cigarette smoke and perfume. Keffer made himself decent and drew the curtains back. The place looked more squalid in the grey daylight.

Heffernan addressed the wary Keffer with impeccable formality. ‘Ever been to Devon, sir?’

‘What’s this? Tourist board making house calls now?’ Keffer smirked at his own wit.

‘Just answer the question please, sir.’

Keffer shook his head. ‘Florida’s more my scene.’

‘We’re investigating the death of a young woman. She was found near Tradmouth. Know where that is, sir?’

‘No idea.’ He looked as if he might be telling the truth.

‘I wonder if you’d have a look at this photograph, sir.’ Heffernan nodded to Wesley, who handed the photo over. They watched Keffer’s reaction.

‘Karen … it’s Karen.’

Heffernan’s eyes shone with the excitement of the chase. ‘Karen who?’

‘She’s not, er … is she?’

‘What can you tell me about her?’

Wesley got his notebook out and prepared for some serious writing.

‘Look, I didn’t know her well and it was three years ago … more. She only modelled for me a couple of times – tasteful stuff, you know.’ Wesley raised his eyebrows. ‘She was a nice kid, just a bit short of cash; you know how it is.’

‘No, I don’t. You tell me.’ Heffernan leaned forward, challenging.

‘Well, there are girls who’ve been in the business years but sometimes the punters like a new face – someone different.’ He paused, waiting for a reaction. He got none. ‘Karen was a friend of a friend. She needed the money.’

‘Drug habit?’ Even though no traces had been found in the body, it was worth asking.

‘No way. She wanted to go on a modelling course. I was offering her some experience.’

I bet you were, thought Wesley.

‘Look, I was helping the girl out, giving her some modelling experience, and she was getting paid for it. What’s wrong with that?’

Heffernan assumed the question was rhetorical. ‘What can you tell us about her?’

‘I’ve told you. I hardly knew her.’

‘Anything you can tell us … anything at all.’

Keffer sat in silence for a few seconds, gathering his thoughts and his dressing gown round him. ‘I didn’t know her well, mind, only professionally. I just arrange the models and take the pictures.’

‘So who introduced you?’

‘One of my usual girls.’

‘Name?’

‘Sandra.’

‘Sandra what?’

‘Don’t know … forgotten. Something ordinary. Smith or something.’

‘Where can I find her?’

‘Dunno. Haven’t seen her in eighteen months. They come and go.’

‘This Karen. Where did she live?’

‘With her mum.’ The policemen exchanged glances. Now they were getting somewhere.

‘Got an address?’

‘No.’

‘Surname?’

‘Something foreign. She said her dad was American, killed in a car crash. Dunno if it was true. Sometimes they make things up to make themselves more … you know … glamorous.’

‘Who do?’ The man’s attitude was beginning to needle Wesley.

“The girls. They all see themselves on the front cover of
Vogue
, poor cows.’ He paused for a second, lighting a cigarette. ‘Gordino, that was her name. Something like Gordino.’

‘Would you have such a thing as a phone book, sir?’ Heffernan enquired with measured politeness.

The phone book produced no Gordinos but one Giordino. Wesley wrote down the address.

‘What do you think of our photographer friend?’

Wesley looked disdainful. ‘The word sleazy springs to mind.’ He decided on a direct approach as hints seemed to have no visible effect. ‘Look, sir, I’m going to have to make a phone call. I’ve got that appointment this afternoon and…’

‘Don’t worry, Wes, I’ve not forgotten. We’ll call on this Mrs Giordino then we’ll be straight off. If she’s the girl’s mum we’ll be taking her back with us anyway. We’ll be back in time. Trust me.’ He grinned and slapped the sergeant on the back in an avuncular manner.

After consulting the
A to Z
, they found themselves on a small council estate. The redbrick semis, of 1920s vintage with front gardens, had once achieved the pinnacle of municipal respectability; the lawns cut, paths swept and net curtains snowy white. But now, although most looked well kept, some were letting the side down, and a few overgrown gardens displayed broken toys and rusting cars mounted on bricks.

Wesley opened the wooden gate to a neat garden path. The house beyond, although the curtains were beige rather than white, gave the impression of being well cared for. Their knock at the recently painted front door was answered by a woman in her fifties who stared at them suspiciously from behind a door chain. The beige cardigan and cheap brown skirt she wore gave an impression of unrelieved dowdiness.

Wesley was struck by the gentle way in which his boss spoke to the woman, the sympathy with which he broke the news. As she sat on the beige Dralon sofa, surrounded by cheap-framed photographs of her dead daughter as a schoolgirl, sipping tea from a chipped flowered mug – the first one Wesley had been able to lay his hands on –
Heffernan continued speaking softly to her, asking questions with a delicate tact, gauging the woman’s feelings. Wesley, not hearing clearly most of what was said, looked at his notebook in despair.

Mrs Giordino silently packed a small suitcase then went next door to leave her key with a neighbour.

‘I didn’t get most of that, sir. What’s going on?’ Wesley looked down at the notebook’s virgin pages.

‘Plenty of time for getting things on paper when we’re back on home ground. Time and a place for everything.’

Heffernan sat in the back of the car with Mrs Giordino and Wesley drove – an arrangement that filled him with relief. Like most of his generation who had never encountered death and grief in their personal lives, he felt awkward with the bereaved: it wasn’t that he didn’t sympathise, he just didn’t know what to say. He ran through a mental calculation: the journey would take four and a half hours, five at the outside – he wasn’t a reckless driver. It was ten to ten. They would be in Tradmouth by three. The appointment was at four thirty. It wouldn’t be a problem.

The carpets at the Morbay Clinic were thicker than those Pam had been able to afford for her new home. She sank her toes into the pile, feeling its depth, as she sipped freshly percolated coffee and scanned an interior design magazine.

Her palms felt clammy and she needed the toilet again. Nerves. They always affected her like this: interviews, exams, her wedding day. Where was Wesley? He should be here. He should be going through this with her.

The receptionist was still giggling furtively into the phone. She was dressed in what appeared to be a nurse’s uniform, although her heavy make-up and blond curls hinted that she was employed more for her appearance than her professional qualifications.

Pam’s opinion of private medicine had been the same as Wesley’s, but when she had discovered the NHS waiting time for even an initial investigation, she had decided that political principles could be overridden and savings broken into.

It was two years now since she had come off the Pill: two
years of waiting to see what each month would bring; two years of disappointment. It had hardly mattered at first, but then, month by month, as every street seemed to throng with pregnant women and babies and every advert, every magazine, every TV programme showed babies in abundance, it had started to matter a great deal. The mothers of the children she taught seemed to leave rabbits in the shade when it came to breeding as they routinely provided new fodder for the education system. For a year now Pan had felt empty; a freak of nature.

The receptionist spoke with a soft Devon accent. ‘Mrs Peterson, Dr Downey will see you now. Did you say your husband was coming too? Dr Downey does like to see couples together,’ she added disapprovingly.

Where was Wesley? Pamela, flustered, dying for the toilet, opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.

Elizabeth’s sister Anne doth stay with us and she hath taken on the running of the household. Elizabeth prevails upon me to find Anne a husband from amongst our acquaintances but she is not young and well favoured so the task may not be easy.

The raising of the church roof hath commenced and the builders are about their task. The carpenters have used fine carved timber for the new gallery, from the Spanish galleon captured by the Roebuck some forty years past. It doth look exceeding well and hath saved the cost of new timber and carving.

The Reverend Wilkins did ask last night for more money from the town for the new windows. Mayor Rawlins hath promised two new windows. He is ever trying to buy a good reputation with his wife’s wealth.

I have seen little of Jennet now that Anne hath the household well in hand.

Extract from the journal of John Banized,
10 April 1623