***
The consensus in Homicide was that the special clients of Colin Young/Barry Montgomery were not going to be found easily. The first location where the dead man had met with one of the ‘specials’, a cottage in the countryside, picturesque and available through Airbnb, had had a succession of different people occupying it, mostly couples looking for a romantic weekend, a wedding night, or just a break from the hustle and bustle of the city.
Bridget had found the owners, a professional couple who lived in Brighton, a city about seventy miles south of London. A favourite holiday destination on the coast in the past, but now, with discount airlines and trips to Europe and further afield affordable and in the reach of most people, some of its lustre had been lost. The Prince Regent built the Royal Pavilion there in the late eighteenth century, finally completing it in 1823. The prince, later to become George IV, maintained the building, designed in the Indo-Saracenic style, as a discreet location for his liaisons with his long-time companion, Maria Fitzherbert, later marrying her in secret.
Wendy and Larry drove past it to their meeting with the Goldworths, the owners of the thatched cottage, a building whose style had appealed to Wendy: homely, inviting, loved.
‘We can’t help you,’ Brent Goldworth said. He and his wife were sitting in the alcove of the bay window in their third-floor flat on Brighton’s promenade, overlooking the sea.
‘My husband’s correct. We go up there every couple of weeks to check everything’s in order, though we don’t clean the place. We pay an agency to do that and to ensure it’s ready for whoever’s coming. If it’s newly-weds, we ensure that there’s a bottle of champagne in the fridge, flower petals on the bed, but that’s all. Credit card payment or PayPal, and there’s a key around the back, hidden, a password to open where it is.’
‘The agency?’
‘A couple in the area. They’ve made a good business looking after rentals for absent landlords. Not that we’re really absent, but we prefer to keep hands-off. If we’re up there, Brent’s fussing over what needs to be fixed up, a scratch on the wall, the television’s getting old. As for me, I’m checking under the bed, in the cupboards, worrying as to who’s been there, what they’ve been up to. We lived in it for a long time, until Brent was transferred down here, a company promotion. We should have sold the cottage, but it holds fond memories, and we’d prefer to leave it shut up, but that serves no purpose. Life’s expensive enough as it is, and every little helps.’
Larry assumed that the Goldworths did not bother to tell Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs about their additional income. The short-term letting of property had become a lucrative black-market activity, and cities across the world were trying to crack down, ostensibly to maintain standards, although he knew, as did everyone else, that it was all to do with money. The hotels couldn’t compete, their occupancy rates were down, and they weren’t paying as much in taxes as they had before.
‘We gave Bridget Halloran all that she requested,’ Brent Goldworth said.
‘Unfortunately, it didn’t help. As you said, a credit card.’
‘A name on it?’
‘The murdered man had paid for it; no doubt whoever he met paid him back.’
‘It’s disturbing to think that someone who died had been in our cottage,’ Emilia Goldworth said.
‘And for the purposes of prostitution,’ Wendy added.
‘That’s worse. We’ve considered selling the cottage after what has happened. Do you have any problem with that?’
‘That’s up to you. It’s some time since the man was there with his lover. The crime scene investigators won’t find anything, and we’ve not asked them to look. Besides, we’re not sure what we’re looking for. The place will be full of fingerprints, needle in a haystack to find Colin Young’s, let alone who he was with.’
‘You could try the agency we use.’
Larry and Wendy visited the agency on the way back to London.
‘We don’t make a habit of welcoming the visitors. Sometimes we’ll go around if there’s a problem, but that’s rare, and we can’t recollect a couple of men there. Are you sure about them? The Goldworths are a bit sensitive about that sort of thing,’ a friendly red-faced man said. For someone who made a living looking after other peoples’ properties, he didn’t look particularly fit.
‘Two men, that’s it,’ Wendy said.
‘We can’t help you, sorry.’
There was no need to visit the hotel in Windsor again. Mrs Winterly had provided the information that Colin Young had been there for her, and the date when he had been in the hotel with the ‘special’ coincided with a week when she had gone to see a friend in Cornwall.
Chapter 28
It was Larry who found Terry Hislop at a pub in Paddington. It wasn’t one of the trendy pubs that serve gourmet food, boutique beer, or even a cup of coffee. It was a serious drinking man’s pub, the place that the affluent kept well clear of.
‘Made a fool of yourself,’ Larry said as he sidled up alongside the man sitting on a bar stool, leaning on the bar, steadying himself to focus.
Hislop looked Larry’s way, unable to make the connection.
‘Inspector Larry Hill, Homicide.’
‘I’ve killed no one,’ Hislop said, still struggling to focus. It was as Gwen Hislop had told Isaac: Terry Hislop wasn’t a drinker, even if he wanted to be.
‘We met in Liverpool. I came up with Sergeant Wendy Gladstone.’
‘I remember her well enough. She came to my office.’
‘That’s it. You were polite then, and then the two of us met you in the local police station. Coming back to you now?’
‘Gwen threw me out of her house.’
‘Why not? You’ve been divorced from
