Willing Flesh (37 page)

‘You’re finished,’ says Staffe.

‘What!’ Mulplant loses his composure. His shoulders slump and he holds his suit hanger in front of him, like a shield.

‘For Christmas. You’ve finished working for now?’

Mulplant smiles, unconvincingly.

‘Did you hear that the man you ID’d has killed himself?’

Mulplant nods.

‘You should be bloody ashamed of yourself.’

‘I saw him!’

‘You enjoy your Christmas, Gary. I’ve got too much to do right now, but in the New Year, I’m coming back. I’ve got new evidence and I’m having you. You’ll never work in this or any other industry again. You’re going inside, young man.’

‘I’m not. They …’

‘They?’

‘Nothing.’

‘There’s no one left who knows the truth about that day. Only you. I’m going to leave you alone for a week. You’ll have a worse fate – in their hands.’

‘You can’t talk to me like this. I have the name of a lawyer.’

‘Is it Sir Ralph Waikman?’

‘What?’ Mulplant switches his weight from foot to foot.

‘He’s going to be too busy to represent a nobody like you.’ Staffe stands down from his bar stool, tells the bartender to make himself scarce, which he does without saying a word. ‘Describe Elena for me – what she did that afternoon when she came here.’

‘She was beautiful. I mean
really
beautiful.’

‘How?’

‘Fair and tall. Everybody stopped. She turned all our heads.’

‘All?’

‘There was me and Victor, the concierge, and a guest. An Arab man.’

‘How did she move?’

‘Like she didn’t touch the floor. She was in a fur. She had a phone call; went to the windows, I think.’ Gary narrows his eyes, seems happy to drift back, to see her again. ‘The large windows overlooking the river and she had her back to me and …’

‘And what, Gary?’

‘And I wanted to touch her. Anybody would.’

‘What did she say?’

‘I wasn’t listening.’

‘They hadn’t come to you yet?’

‘No.’ Mulplant looks up, eyes wide. ‘Who? Who do you mean?’

Staffe takes a hold of Mulplant, presses his thumbs to the sweet spots behind his ears. ‘I’m going to show you a photograph. If you saw this person on the afternoon that girl was murdered here, you nod. If you didn’t, you stay perfectly still. You understand?’

Mulplant nods.

Staffe releases him, takes the photograph from his jacket, shows it to the bellboy.

Mulplant nods.

*

Up at Jarndyce Road, it had been impossible to tell whether Darius A’Court had flown his coop. The place looked no different, but on his way out, Staffe had seen Stanislav, the builder, loading up his pickup. He had told Staffe that he and his workers were driving for the port. They had a Dover crossing and said that, with a bit of luck, they would be in Minsk for Christmas dinner. Their wives and mothers and brothers and children would all be there. And he told him, too, that Darius A’Court had scarpered, first thing. Stan reckoned he wouldn’t be back any time soon.

Darius’s mother, Geraldine A’Court, according to Jombaugh’s investigations, lives in the attic of a grand house on Warwick Way, overlooking the canal at Little Venice. ‘I used to own the whole building,’ she told Staffe, with more pride than sadness in her face as she showed him into her home.

When they separated, her husband got nothing from the divorce and she kept this house, garnering sufficient rent from having split it into flats to live quite nicely. The bastard husband now lives with a younger version of herself, she tells Staffe without malice. ‘He will pay for his transgressions,’ she says, with absolute confidence.

‘And what about Darius?’

Geraldine’s face melts at the mere mention of his name. ‘Has he been messing around again? You can’t imagine how hard it hit him; all that upset. He was such a wonderful, kind child. He’s still that same person, you know. I’m so proud of all the things he has done.’

‘Do you still see him?’

‘Not since he moved to Greece. He’s so busy, with his music and his art. And so many friends. He was always such a popular boy. He took such a knock, you know, when we had to bring him from Ampleforth. You do know he went to Ampleforth?’

Staffe can’t bring himself to tell Geraldine that he knows Darius was expelled. He wonders if Darius might have got himself expelled to avert the shame of their sudden lack of funds. Did he fall on a sword at such an age, all those years ago, to preserve a reputation? Has he misjudged the young man?

‘Is there something wrong, Inspector?’

Staffe also can’t bring himself to tell Geraldine A’Court that her darling Darius is not in Greece, so he says, ‘One of his bad influences, I’m afraid. A young man called Roddy Howerd.’

Mrs A’Court nods, sagely, and takes a shoebox from the drawer of a Queen Anne secretaire. She is a quite striking woman, with a narrow, pale, porcelain face and bobbed golden hair, but dressed ten years beyond her age in a knitted twinset. She issues not an ounce of allure and seems, to Staffe, perfectly pious. ‘Roddy Howerd,’ she says. ‘Such a very good family. He and Darius were ever so close, a couple of years ago, when Darry first went to Greece.’ She proffers a photograph, of the same hue as the one Staffe had seen in Roddy’s album. ‘He knew the Howerd boy at school. He was in the year above and I think there was something.’

‘Something?’

‘Darry was quite obsessed, for a while. I’m told it’s normal. I spoke with my bastard husband about it and he said it was all part of growing up and being English. He laughed about it. Roddy even came here one half-term, when we had the whole house. There was such a hoo-hah about it beforehand. Darry wanted it to be just so.’

‘Didn’t Darius go out with Roddy’s sister?’

‘Arabella? I know about her. We have friends in common – from Ampleforth. Darius has a fickle heart. A good heart.’

‘He was comfortable in those circles?’ asks Staffe.

‘He is
of
those circles, Inspector. A chance circumstance, one bad business decision, does not undermine everything.’

‘Darius gets his breeding from you, I suspect,’ says Staffe.

Geraldine cannot help herself. She smiles from ear to ear. ‘A’Court is not his father’s name, you know. My father had no sons. I was an only child.’ Geraldine looks ashamed. ‘My father allowed Peter – my bastard husband – to take my hand, on the condition that he also took my name.’

‘Peter is your ex-husband, surely.’

‘The A’Courts don’t divorce, Inspector.’

‘Ahaa,’ says Staffe. ‘Like the Howerds.’

‘Exactly. A wonderful family, in so many respects, but that daughter. My word!’

‘Not everybody can be blessed with good children. We take that for granted, I suppose.’

‘I take it you are a father, Inspector?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss my personal situation whilst on business.’

‘Of course. And your business? Have I been of any help?’

‘I think so, Mrs A’Court.’

‘Can I ask what Roddy has done?’

Staffe shakes his head. He imagines Darius A’Court under his mother’s spell, his grandfather’s, too: all that history on his bony shoulders and probably an entirely different strain from his bastard father’s blood, and all tits up – until he met Roddy Howerd, at school, and followed him to Greece. Then Roddy’s sister – with the same thing to offer, but more, perhaps. A few lean years and a grand plan unfurls; a promise from the highest deity.

‘I’m sure Darius will tell you all about Roddy next time you see him, Mrs A’Court. Does he have any plans to return home?’

‘I’ll be the last to know,’ says Geraldine. ‘How youth is wasted on the young.’ She flutters her lashes and for an instant, he sees the maiden her, with all the world ahead.

Staffe promises to pass on her regards to the Howerds and as he leaves her to a steeped, confected peace, he thinks of Brendan and Rebeccah Stone. Fathers and daughters and mothers and sons. He closes the door on Geraldine A’Court, tries not to imagine her all alone on Christmas morning.

*

Gone twilight, and the City is dead, just the odd gaggle of smokers and thin trails of people in suits and Santa hats, making their ways down into the tube. A wisping mist comes off the Thames. The buses are like something from greetings cards.

Staffe looks up at the slice of olde England. The Colonial Bankers’ Club is tall and slim, built from red brick and dressed with stone, a Jacobean tower squashed in by a Victorian branch of Glyn’s and an eighties infill of glass and steel,
TO LET
.

He rehearses what he will say but his words smudge. He pushes open the door, holds up a hand to the steward, his collar stiff and his mouth agape at the unpretty picture of Staffe’s battered face. ‘Don’t worry, Dickinson, I’ll find my own way,’ and he strides towards the dining hall, opens the double doors, looking around the room.

Here and there, diners look up, wonder what such a specimen is doing here. In the far corner, at a small table under a portrait of Thomas Coutts, Staffe sees what he wants.

When Howerd and Markary see Staffe coming, his face cut and swollen, they look at each other, frowning.

‘Merry Christmas, gentlemen,’ he says, pulling up a chair, sitting between them. ‘I come bearing gifts.’

Howerd’s smile remains tight, resolute.

‘Your children miss their mother most, I imagine, this time of year, Mr Howerd? Especially Roddy.’

Markary intervenes. ‘You have no idea.’ He folds his napkin, his cheese only half eaten. He dabs at his mouth and a petal of port stains the linen.

‘I don’t understand what you have to gain, Taki.’

Markary shrugs.

Staffe turns back to Howerd. ‘And Uncle Bernard? Does he ever get in touch – after what happened?’

‘What did happen, Inspector?’

‘His First Consistory. You missed it. You were in Peru.’

Howerd says, ‘This is becoming tiresome, Mr Wagstaffe.’ He raises a hand, beckons a waiter.

The waiter arrives at the table and Howerd says, ‘This man is leaving, Samuel. Please show him out.’

Staffe turns to the waiter, hisses, ‘If you want me off the premises, tell Dickinson to call the police.’

‘Why exactly have you come?’ says Howerd.

Staffe addresses Markary. ‘In your case, new blood comes and new blood goes, but for others, life goes on, the way it has for centuries. The Howerds have been solid so long, it shouldn’t surprise us.’

‘Surprise?’ says Howerd.

‘That you emerge unscathed from the death of Elena.’

‘What is the point of this?’

‘I said I have a gift. Tchancov’s arse is in a sling for you.’

‘There was a time when you thought I was responsible,’ says Markary. ‘It pays to keep faith.’

‘Faith,’ says Staffe. ‘Faith in what is right.’

‘How long will he serve?’

‘Forever. As you know.’ Staffe stands. ‘But he left a few crumbs.’

‘Crumbs?’ says Howerd, colour draining from his face.

‘Like Hansel and Gretel, but easier to read. I’ve been reading about your family, the original line, before you ran out of genes. John Howard – that’s with the “a”, of course – helped kill the princes in the Tower, so they say.’

‘That’s conjecture. And a long time ago,’ says Howerd, unflustered by what he sees as Staffe’s little joke.

‘It would mean murder was in the family. Those poor young Princes, paying such a price. Merry Christmas,’ says Staffe, turning his back. From the door, he looks back, at Thomas Coutts looking down on one of his own. Howerd is signing his account, making hasty arrangements.