'I don't get you.'
'Grace Jefferies. She was murdered in Mullin Street a few days after Cill went missing. I've been wondering if the two events were connected.'
He sounded surprised. 'It was Howard Stamp did that. I remember Dad telling me what a miserable little wanker he was.'
George took a breath to calm her irritation. 'If they'd had DNA testing in 1970, Mr. Burton, Howard wouldn't even have been charged, let alone sent for trial. It was someone else who killed Grace, but in those days no one gave a damn if a miserable little
'What makes you think Cill's disappearance was linked to the murder?'
'Statistics,' said George bluntly. 'Lightning never strikes in the same place twice ... or if it does, there's a reason. Louise said one of the rapists was ginger-haired. Do you know what his name was?'
'What's ginger hair got to do with it?'
'Grace's murderer had ginger hair.'
This time the silence was interminable, as if the man at the other end was putting together pieces of a jigsaw. 'I knew them by sight,' he said at last, 'but the only name I remember was Roy. He's the one kept kicking Cill.'
*11*
WEST LONDON
SUNDAY, APRIL 13, 2003, MIDDAY
The Spicer & Hardy offices were on the third floor of a converted townhouse in a smart Victorian terrace in west London. Courtesy of Andrew's ex-wife, who made a living as an interior designer, it had been revamped six years previously to reflect a more modern taste than Mr. Spicer and Mr. Hardy's (deceased without issue) penchant for a donnish library look of dark walls, heavy leather furniture and mahogany bookcases. Andrew, who had loved the old style and still recalled the happiness of childhood days curled in an armchair in his father's office reading whatever was available, had never come to terms with the acres of space that Jenny had created using glass, color and artificial lighting. However, no one shared his feelings. To everybody else, the frequently photographed decor was a triumph.
George Gardener was no exception. 'Goodness!' she said admiringly as Andrew escorted her up a flight of unremarkable stairs into the reception area, where a trompe 1'oeil reflection converted a quadrant of glass and chrome into a sweeping semicircular desk. 'It's huge.'
'Smoke and mirrors,' said Andrew, opening another door. 'Be careful you don't walk into a pane of glass by mistake.'
She caught a glimpse of her reflection and hastily buttoned her jacket. 'You must have a very confident receptionist. I'm not sure I'd want to be looking at myself all day long.'
Andrew chuckled. 'We're not big enough to afford one, so the phones are all inside. It was my wife's least good idea. She was either planning for a future that was never going to happen, or she got it into her head that agents' offices are like doctors' waiting rooms, and people drop in off the street clutching manuscripts to their chests.' He invited her to go in front of him. 'It makes a good quiet room for reading or one-on-one meetings, so it isn't entirely wasted.'
The next room was open plan with three desks, isolated from each other by glass screens, foliage plants and pools of artificial light. There were no drawers below the L-shaped ebony tabletops, and only computers and telephones stood on them. 'Goodness!' said George again, astonished by so much neatness. 'Isn't this room used either?'
'It certainly is. This is the hub of the whole operation. All the paperwork's done in here ... correspondence, contracts, payments, manuscript returns.' He nodded to the first desk. 'That's where my rights manager sits. She works on a stack of files every day.'
'Where are they?'
He stooped to release a catch under the table top, and a mirrored panel swung back to reveal shelves of papers. 'The doors are set at a slight angle to reflect the carpet but the illusion vanishes the minute you open them. Personally I think it's awful, but then I'm boring and old-fashioned. The staff love it. It's about creating space, even imaginary space. I'm told it's good for stress levels.'
'It makes sense,' said George, thinking of the tiresome clutter in her Mini, 'but it wouldn't do to put me in here. I'm far too untidy. I'd never be bothered to clear away at the end of the day and that would spoil the impression for everyone else.'
'Me neither,' said Andrew, leading her down a short corridor to a room at the end, 'so you'll feel at home in here. This is where I drew the line.'
The room wasn't exactly as his father had left it, but it was close enough for comfort. The leather armchair, double-sided partners' desk and mahogany bookcases remained, but it was lighter and cleaner than when Mr. Spicer Sr. had dropped cigarette ash on the floor, coated the books and ceiling with nicotine and allowed a single walkway through the piles of manuscripts that littered the floor. Secretly, Andrew still hankered after the old man's eccentricity, but Jenny had convinced him that image was everything. Visitors viewed a man's surroundings as a reflection of his professionalism.
He hadn't seen the truth of that until she left him for the actor. There was a tragic irony that he'd allowed her virtually free rein with his business premises while failing to appreciate that 'image is everything' was a coded message for him. Occasionally he indulged in depressive navel-gazing, when he wondered whether she'd have stuck by him if he'd lost weight, worn lifts in his shoes and bought a toupee. There was no argument that the business had perked up since the refurbishments, which was a good indication that superficiality worked.
As if to prove the point, George gazed about the room with approval. 'If you drew the line, does that mean your wife didn't have a say in what was done?'
