Gilroy raised an eyebrow at Slade, who nodded.
‘Pretty much all of it, number 22 excepted. And 83-87 Carlisle Street is still with the lawyers. Braithwaite’s still playing silly buggers, Derek. I’ve told him to get his bloody finger out, but he’s the same as always. I think you should give him a blast. The synagogue’s still in limbo, but it seems pretty certain now that the Minister will declassify it.’
‘But surely,’ Kathy broke in, ‘if 22 doesn’t sell, the whole thing will be stopped.’
Slade smiled indulgently at her. He reached across to the model and lifted out a small section of the podium near the base of the tallest tower. ‘Phase five,’ he said. Beneath the removed section was the outline of the plan of 22 Jerusalem Lane. ‘They can stay if they want. Of course it’ll be a worthless piece of real estate if they do. Unsaleable.
‘You have to understand,’ he continued, fixing Brock with his unblinking eyes, ‘that this has been the outcome of a long and painstaking process. The key to the redevelopment of this run-down area of London has been land ownership. For hundreds of years no one has been able to assemble the land to redevelop it. Now we have. It’s taken a long time. We bought our first property in this block thirty years ago, and we’ve hung on to it through boom and bust, and gradually added to it and waited until within the last year the whole block matured like a ripe fruit, ready to go. I didn’t know Mrs Winterbottom, and I’m sorry to hear about her death, but her decision wasn’t going to make any difference to this development, one way or the other.’
‘Couldn’t she have objected to your planning application?’ Kathy asked.
Slade shrugged. ‘As I said, it would have made no difference.’
‘Mr Gilroy,’ Brock said, ‘who else have you negotiated with over number 22, apart from Mrs Winterbottom?’
Again the agent looked to Slade, who gave an imperceptible nod.
‘I did speak to the family solicitor. I thought he might have been able to help Mrs Winterbottom to get a balanced view of the advantages of our offer.’
‘And her son, Mr Terry Winter?’
‘Yes, the solicitor mentioned him. I had a word with him on the phone one day. Didn’t do much good, though.’
‘But he was receptive to your proposals?’
‘He listened to what I had to say.’
‘May I ask what you were prepared to pay for number 22?’
‘Do you recall, Quentin, or do you need to look it up?’
‘No, Derek, I do remember. We offered Mrs Winterbottom two hundred K. I believe I indicated to Mr Winter that we might go to a quarter million.’
As they stepped out through the sliding glass door on to the street, Kathy took a deep breath. ‘Poor Meredith,’ she said, ‘and poor Peg and Eleanor.’
8
Terry Winter was waiting for them in an interview room when they got to divisional headquarters. He looked sulky.
Kathy began, her face expressionless, voice neutral. ‘Well, Mr Winter, what can we do for you?’
‘I wondered if there were any developments.’
‘Oh we’ve made some progress. We believe that your mother did die of asphyxia. And we’ve discovered that you didn’t have a cup of coffee in the place next to your Deptford salon, as you informed us yesterday.’
Winter rocked a little in his seat and blinked. ‘Yeah,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Well, that’s what I came here to talk to you about, wasn’t it?’
‘Could you speak up, sir? Just so we don’t miss anything.’
‘Look, I didn’t tell you the exact truth yesterday.’ He spoke aggressively. ‘I was in sort of a difficult position.’ He shrugged, as if that explained it.
‘Go on.’
‘I spent most of Sunday afternoon with a friend… a woman friend. My wife doesn’t know.’ He tried to address himself to Brock, but the Chief Inspector had opened a newspaper and appeared to be ignoring the proceedings.
‘Yes,’ Kathy said without any hint of surprise. She thumbed through a file of papers on the table in front of her, as if the whole sorry mess had already been written up. ‘Name?’
‘Is… is it going to be necessary for this to come out?’
‘Is she married?’
‘No, divorced. I was thinking of my wife.’ His voice tailed away. He swallowed. ‘Could I have some water?’
Kathy poured him a glass. He took a gulp. ‘Can I smoke?’
‘No. I’d rather you didn’t. It’s these new smoke-free zones, you know.’
‘Jesus.’ He shook his head and shoved the packet back into his jacket pocket. ‘Her name’s Geraldine McArthur. She’s the manager of my New Cross salon.’
‘You were with her between what times?’
‘From about 2.15 till around 6.’
‘Can anyone else vouch for that?’
‘No. No, I don’t think so. We were alone in her flat near the salon at first. Then we went out for a drive in the Merc, up to Greenwich. We took a walk in the park, but I don’t remember seeing anyone in particular there. We returned to her place for a cup of tea, then I left.’
‘No one phoned her while you were in her flat?’
He shook his head. He was fingering the gold chain round his wrist impatiently.
‘And you’ve discussed this with her, and told her you were coming to see us?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right. We’d better get her over here straight away. Where will she be?’
Winter gave Kathy a phone number and she left the room. They waited in silence, Brock slowly scanning the pages of his newspaper, until Kathy returned with a young woman constable.
‘We’re going to videotape you. Is that OK?’
‘I suppose…’
‘Fairly normal now. Just to make sure we get it right. Now, you realize that, having lied to us once, you have now given us an explanation of your movements during the afternoon your mother died which depends on one other witness, with whom you have since had the opportunity to collude, and with no likelihood of corroborating evidence. So’-Kathy sighed and put her papers to one side-‘the only way we can test your statement is to take a detailed account from you and another from Ms McArthur, and see if they match.’
‘I’ve told you what we did…’
‘I said a detailed account, Mr Winter, minute by minute, of what you did. Who did what, to whom, in what order, and for how long.’
Winter stared at her, startled. He glanced at the policewoman in the corner, head down, writing furiously, and at Brock who turned the page of his newspaper absently.
‘You’re not serious!’ Winter was agitated, his fingers working overtime.
‘Only way, sir. So let’s get on with it. You arrived in your car at what time?’
Winter began haltingly with the innocuous details of his arrival. He described parking the car round the corner because it was so conspicuous among the wrecks in her street, the walk to her front door, how many times he rang the bell, the sound of her footsteps running to the door. His attempt to maintain a neutral flow of words was disturbed by vivid pictures of what he was describing-Geraldine’s face glowing with pleasure at his arrival, her arms around his neck.
‘Was that before or after you closed the front door?’
‘After.’
