with the great and the good. Five years ago he was given a life peerage. He's Lord Chalybeate of Boxgrove now.'
'I think I've heard of him,' Hen said. 'Not that I've ever stepped inside a health club. Where can we see him?'
'Problem there,' Shilling said. 'He's unavailable.'
'What do you mean — 'unavailable'?'
'I made enquiries. He has a secretary and she says his diary is full for the next week. The government are trying to get some bill through the House of Lords and every vote is crucial.'
'I'll see him in London, then.'
'You won't get past that secretary, guv.'
'Watch me.' She handed him the phone. 'Get me the number.'
Without another word, Shilling pressed the buttons and handed it across.
'Is that Lord Chalybeate's secretary?' Hen said. 'Good. May I speak to him?. . Detective Chief Inspector Mallin of West Sussex Police. . Isn't he? Oh, but I think he'll make an exception for me. Tell him it's about an old colleague of his at Lanarkshire Publishing, Edgar Blacker. Yes, Blacker …' In a short while she winked at Shilling. 'Lord Chalybeate? Good of you to come to the phone. DCI Mallin here. Bit of a blast from the past, this. I need to see you urgently about your connections with the late Edgar Blacker. You probably heard he was murdered. . This afternoon, please. . That will do nicely. Three thirty?. .' She put down the phone and said to Shilling, 'Do you own a suit and tie? Get home and togged up. We're meeting him at the Garrick Club.'
They didn't step far into the Garrick. Just enough to announce themselves to the porter. Lord Chalybeate was waiting at the top of the steps and came down when he heard his name. He was silver-haired now and wore designer glasses and a pinstripe suit. He was just recognisable as the man in the photo.
'I thought I'd take you to my hotel,' he said with one hand steering Hen out to the street again.
'Here will do,' she said. 'Your time is precious and so is mine.'
'We can talk more freely there.'
He was well organised; he had a taxi waiting. They were driven along the Mall and past the palace to the Goring Hotel in Beeston Place, around the corner from the Royal Mews.
'Would tea and sandwiches in the garden suit you?' he asked.
They stepped right through the small hotel to the rear, where a large square lawn was intersected by a paved path. No one else was there. They chose a spot in the shade and the tea and sandwiches arrived while Lord Chalybeate was still talking about the advantages of living close to Victoria Station.
'Do you remember Edgar Blacker?' Hen asked as soon as the waitress had stepped away.
'Not particularly well,' he said. 'It was a brief association.'
'Is that a joke?' she asked.
'What?'
'Brief, briefs. Girlie magazines.'
His face was a mask of displeasure. 'What about them?'
You published them, didn't you?'
After a long pause he said, 'The odd title. It was a tiny part of our output. Glamour mags, we called them in those days.'
'Blacker edited some of them.'
'Probably.'
'I'm telling you,' Hen said. 'He did. One of the tides was
'I wouldn't recall it.'
'Wouldn't recall, or would rather forget?'
'Both,' Chalybeate said. 'It's not a time I wish to revisit.'
'But you remember the magazine?'
'Just about.' He looked away. 'We were publishing scores of tides on any number of topics: music, motoring, wildlife, sport. The top-shelf stuff was a tiny part of the output.'
'That you'd rather forget.'
He shrugged and tried to seem unconcerned. 'In fact it was all very tame. More nudge-nudge, wink-wink than porn.'
'Blacker was your editor, right?'
'Yes.'
'He seems to have looked back on his time at the magazine with some affection. He kept that photo for over twenty years. Have you any idea why?'
'No.'
'Arms around each other. You must have been close.'
Chalybeate held up a warning finger. 'You won't tar me with that particular brush, inspector. I'm straight and always have been.'
'Was Blacker?'
'I'd be surprised if he wasn't.'
'Perhaps he was simply proud to be linked with a peer of the realm, then. Found the photo in a drawer and thought, 'Lord Chalybeate and I were mates once.' Helped his self-esteem.'
Chalybeate gave a shrug, and it seemed like acquiescence.
'Did he try to make contact again?'
'He may have done.'
'He set himself up as an independent publisher. He'd have been looking for financial backers.'
'I dare say.' His tone suggested he was thinking of other things. Or trying to.
'Did he put the bite on you, Lord Chalybeate?'
A sigh. 'All right. You know, don't you? I chipped in a couple of grand, mainly to keep him quiet. I'm a politician. I could be in line for a government post. We have to be squeaky clean these days.'
'Hush money.'
'I don't care for the term, but that's what it amounted to.'
Hen exchanged a glance with Shilling. 'And there was no guarantee that he wouldn't come back for another handout.'
'If you're thinking I caused the man's death, forget it,' Chalybeate said. 'I was in Los Angeles until last weekend attending the World Fitness Fair.'
'Actually we're investigating three separate deaths by fire,' Hen said. She let him stew before adding, 'You're not a suspect.'
He relaxed as if he'd just completed a lift on one of his machines.
Hen said, 'But I'd like to know more about the men's magazines.'
He tried laughing it off. 'That was over twenty years ago.'
'Blacker was editor, and you owned the tides, right? What was his role exactly? My impression of soft porn is that it's more pictures than words.'
'There's a certain amount of text. But, yes, the pictures sell the magazine.'
'Would he have taken the pictures?'
'No, no. We had a couple of professional photographers.'
'Blacker hired the models and set up the photo sessions?'
'Yes, and chose the shots for publication.'
'The girls were professional models?'
'In the main.'
'Not all of them, then? The idea of a magazine like
'Supposedly they hadn't. You can make it look like an amateur shoot in a number of ways, varying the lighting and the location, and so forth.' He was more willing to talk now he'd been told he wasn't a crime suspect.
'So they weren't amateurs?'
