‘I wasn’t sure what to think. He seemed to know facts not commonly known. He appeared to know a lot about Marjorie Frobisher.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘Past lovers, some prominent. He also alluded to something more significant.’
‘Her personal life is not that well hidden,’ Farhan said.
‘It is to her fans.’
‘The magazine puts him up in the Savoy, supplies him with whatever he wants – purely on the basis that he knows a few names?’
‘Yes.’
‘It seems very generous. Are these names important?’
‘According to him, they are.’
‘You don’t know the names?’
‘The magazine editor may. She’s the one who agreed to pay for all this. She even picked up the bills for the prostitutes.’
‘Many of them?’
‘A couple that I signed for. I suppose they would be called escorts, but they performed the same function as any woman off the street.’
‘The women were here?’
‘On a couple of occasions. The hotel complained, but I managed to smooth it over. It cost extra money, but Sutherland said for the magazine to pay or he was walking.’
‘Walking where?’
‘Another magazine. If what he had was dynamite, he could sell it with no trouble. He knew that.’
‘Smart man?’
‘Foul habits, but he knew how to negotiate. Yes, I would say he was smart.’
‘You didn’t like him?’
‘Not at all. Not that I would kill him, though. He was my meal ticket out of freelancing into a responsible and steady position, but he could make me feel dirty.’
‘You alluded to that before.’
‘He thought I was paid for as well. I couldn’t tell him that I found him morally reproachable and that I wished he was still in the gutter.’
‘You could, and then you would be out of a job.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Could one of the women have killed him?’
‘Do you see that as likely?’ she asked.
‘I would have thought not. They typically perform their function, take the money, and leave.’
‘I never saw anyone else in the room, but I wasn’t watching all the time. It’s possible, I suppose. Prostitutes murdering clients seems a little far-fetched.’
‘I agree it does,’ Farhan said, ‘but someone was here, and subject to confirmation, someone administered the poison. We need to find these women and check out their alibis.’
Chapter 14
After leaving Christy Nichols, Farhan headed over to the company that had been supplying the women for Charles Sutherland. Located in a modern office block not far from Tower Bridge, it did not look to be the sort of place to provide prostitutes, but as Marion Robertson explained, ‘We supply escorts of the very highest quality, not street-walkers. Our women are educated, beautiful, and articulate.’
‘But they are available for sex?’ Farhan needed to clarify.
‘If that is what the client wants.’ Marion Robertson was a stunner. Farhan, with an awkward wife, found solace in her presence. Christy Nichols had not been calming, quite the opposite. Marion Robertson was in her early forties, he assumed. Still slim and exceedingly attractive.
‘What else would they want them for?’
‘Escorts. I believe the name says it all. Some men need a date, someone to take to a function. Sometimes that is all they want.’
‘It seems unusual.’
‘Not at all. Rich men sometimes crave the company. They may have passed the age of wanting to screw every woman they can lay their hands on. Their wealth may have come at a cost, especially if they had started with no money.’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked. He noticed her mobile phone. The case appeared to be gold.
‘The phone?’ She had seen him glance at it.
‘It looks expensive.’
‘It is. A grateful client.’
‘Exceedingly grateful.’
‘Please, don’t misunderstand,’ she said. ‘Not for services rendered by me. One of my girls spent a couple of weeks with him. It was just a way of showing his gratitude.’
‘You mentioned before that wealth comes at a cost.’ He returned to an earlier question.
‘Some men, in the climb to succeed, dispense with relationships, others suffer broken marriages, others take advantage and marry a twenty-something bimbo. At a certain age, they find they need the company of a woman, but not the long-term hassles and not always the sex.’
‘And the person who gave you the phone was one of them?’
‘Yes. Exceedingly wealthy, obscenely, in fact. To him the cost was negligible. He was in his early seventies, and while still an attractive man, he had no need of a nymphomaniac blonde. The woman I supplied was in her late forties, highly educated, and fluent in several languages. It was her company he wanted, not a quick lay.’
‘He didn’t sleep with her?’
‘He may have; I didn’t ask.’
‘Charles Sutherland. I don’t think he was either rich or attractive.’
‘With him, it was pure sex,’ she said. ‘Perverse, threesomes ‒ that sort of thing.’
‘What kind of women did he like?’
‘Early to mid-thirties, stunning, not skinny and flat-chested.’
‘You’re able to supply that type of woman?’
‘The two I sent him were exactly what he wanted. One was a housewife making some extra cash on the side. Not sure if her husband knows, probably not. The other one was single and into casual sex. She works in the city somewhere, or maybe she doesn’t. I don’t ask too much about their private lives. I ensure that I don’t become too friendly with them.’
‘More like an employment agency than a supplier of women for hire.’
‘You seem not to approve of what I am doing here,’ she said.
‘That is not the issue here, is it? Charles Sutherland is, and the women you procured for him.’
‘Procured, such an unpleasant term,’ she said. ‘It sounds illegal, and there is nothing illegal about what we do here. The women come of their own free will. They are not coerced in any way. The only requirements I have are that they are medically
