Kathy felt sorry for him, but then remembered Betty’s words; ‘I watch him you know, I know his secrets.’ It seemed entirely possible that she had been referring to Gilbey, the neighbour with whom she shared a long and troubled history. Stan Dodworth wasn’t the only one who might want to see Betty dead.
‘Your sitter’s gone?’
Gilbey gave an abrupt little nod. ‘Couldn’t do any painting, hand was shaking too much. Just seems to have hit me…’ He reached for the tumbler of whisky and lowered his head to it so as to reduce the chances of it spilling in his trembling hand. He swallowed, gave a rasping cough. ‘Wouldn’t stop talking about her.’
‘The judge?’
‘Mmm. How well did Betty know the girl? Were they very close? Did she talk to me about the kidnapping?’
Good questions, Kathy thought, and wondered at Beaufort’s curiosity. There had been something insistent about it, she remembered.
‘What did you tell him?’
‘Yes, of course Betty talked about it, we all did. But with Betty, you never knew what was real and what was fantasy. She was obsessed, you see, with the idea of the stolen child. Had been ever since… that business I told you about. So when the reports of the other missing girls appeared in the news, she got it all tangled up with her own fantasies, even before Tracey disappeared.’
‘Do you feel able to come next door with me?’
‘All right.’ His eyes darted up to hers with an anxious look. ‘You don’t think those Turks could have done it, do you?’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Only… well, they made no secret of wanting to buy her house, and she was always fighting with them about one thing or another-noise, mud in the lane, blocked drains, smells. I’ve heard her screaming at that Yasher character more than once…’His voice petered out.‘No, doesn’t seem likely, does it?’
‘Come on, let’s take a look at her house.’
The SOCO team were finishing as they reached the back door. She led Gilbey slowly from room to room, trying to prompt his memory and taking notes as he identified this item or that. The dolls spooked him, watching with their blank smiles, and Kathy had to force his attention to the drawings and paintings. He pointed out a number that she’d hardly noticed on her previous visit, when she’d been concentrating on signs of disturbance. Some especially caught his eye. ‘Oh yes,’ he said as they came upon an abstract in a dark corner of the living room, ‘William Scott, of course, I’d forgotten about this one.’ She noted the unfamiliar names, checking the spelling: Wallis, not Wallace; Brangwyn not Brangwen. By the time they came to the last room, Betty’s own bedroom, Kathy had listed a dozen original works of mid-twentieth century British art, which Reg assured her would together be worth well into six figures. They had also come across a similar number of empty picture hooks. He mentioned the details of those of the missing paintings he could remember.‘I helped her sell them, through my own dealer.’
‘Fergus Tait?’
‘Fergus Tait! Fergus Tat, more like. Certainly not, I wouldn’t deal with that cowboy. My bloke’s in Cork Street, in the West End.’
Gilbey was looking uneasily at Betty’s bed, stripped of its sheets and pillowcases for laboratory analysis. He seemed very pale, and Kathy saw his eyelids flutter, his body begin to sway.
‘Sit down, Reg,’ she said, and quickly grabbed a chair into which he almost toppled.
‘It’s been a shock,’ he whispered.‘I still can’t believe it. Hanged, you say?’
‘I think you need a doctor.’
‘No, no. I need a drink. Take me home.’
Kathy looked at the colour returning to his cheeks and nodded. Then she said, ‘What was the painting in this room?’ She pointed at the empty hook on the wall beside the bed.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never been in here before.’ He caught her watching him.‘And that’s the honest truth.’
She took him back to his kitchen and got the name of his dealer in the West End, just in case. Then her phone rang, Brock on the line.
17
Kathy joined Brock and Bren for their first formal interview regarding the murder of Betty Zielinski at Shoreditch, beginning with Yasher Fikret, as representative of the family companies that both owned the house in which Betty’s body had been found and were carrying out the building renovations.
‘What can I say,’Yasher said, making an expansive gesture with his hands, heavy gold rings glinting.‘I’m devastated, as a neighbour, as a friend, as a local businessman. My whole family is devastated. I speak for them all. When’s the funeral, incidentally? We will want to show our respect with floral tributes etcetera etcetera. My mother is offering to cater, no charge.’
Yasher was smartly turned out in dark suit and thick silk tie, but his gestures and way of speaking suggested that the style of businessman he modelled himself on owed less to the Financial Times than to Hollywood, The Godfather, perhaps. But the suggestion of menace beneath the swagger was real enough, Kathy thought. She eyed the big gold rings and wondered if one of them had torn Poppy’s cheek.
‘That’s very generous, I’m sure,’ Bren said dryly. ‘At present we’re still trying to trace Ms Zielinski’s next of kin. Do you know if she had a solicitor?’
‘No idea.’
‘You didn’t have dealings with her, as an adjoining owner to your development?’
‘Our lawyers may know. You want me to check?’
‘Please.’ Bren pushed the phone across the table, but Yasher ignored it, slipping an impressive little silver machine out of an inside pocket, unfolding it and pressing a few buttons.
‘Allo, Tony?’Yasher drawled.‘You remember the owner of number fourteen West Terrace, next to the end of our block, Betty Zielinski?
… Yeah, well she’s been done in, mate, last night… I’m not kidding. I’m with the cops now. Listen…’
Bren and Brock waited impassively while the exchange continued. Yasher finally folded away his phone and said, ‘Sorry, no. Never dealt with a solicitor, just Betty in person.’ A slight pause, then,‘So you don’t know the next of kin?’
‘Not yet.’
Yasher looked thoughtful.‘Bad business.’
‘Where were you last night, Mr Fikret?’
‘Me? I was at home with my wife and little boy. After dinner I watched football on the sports channel till eleven, then I went to bed. My wife will confirm that.’
‘How many people know about that cellar room in your property, where the men play cards?’
‘Well… all the regular building gang, of course, plus most of the subcontractors-plumbers, electricians…’
‘We’d like all their names. Anyone else?’
‘You know about me taking some friends there, the night poor little Tracey disappeared. My artist friends.’ He smiled as at a private joke.
‘To sell them drugs, yes.’
Yasher held up his hands in protest. ‘If you’re going down that road, Mr Gurney, I’m saying nothing. I’m here to help…’
‘The point is that whoever took Ms Zielinski down there knew it very well. They knew exactly what was down there-a live power supply, for instance.’
‘They broke in; they didn’t have a key,’ Yasher said defensively.
‘That doesn’t necessarily follow. They knew how easy it was to break in with just a screwdriver through the hasp. No alarms, no guard dogs. Very poor security for a building site in that area, Mr Fikret.’
‘That’s the site manager’s business, not mine.’
‘The site manager tells us that you had your own arrangements for a dog and a security guard right up until last week.’
