‘Were you suspicious?’
‘Ben always had a sense of the dramatic. After one year, more or less, the relationship with Helen is working fine. The house is empty, the woman is paying regular visits, and there’s nothing more for me to do. I’ve other clients, and I gave little thought to Aberman.’
‘Until?’ Isaac said.
‘Why do you say that?’ Slater said.
‘There’s always an “until”. You wouldn’t be opening up to us unless there was a reason. You told us you didn’t know Helen Langdon before, that you’d never met her.’
‘Occasionally, Helen would phone me up.’
‘Why?’
‘She wanted to let me know that she was still around, and any attempt by me to enter the house would be met with retribution.’
‘She knew what was in the house,’ Wendy said.
‘If she knew, then you did,’ Isaac said to Slater.
‘I did not. It was an unusual request, but I complied.’
‘But the man was a friend who walked on the wild side. You must have been suspicious.’
‘I was.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Several weeks ago, I was near to the house. I had a key in my pocket. It was an overcast day, and there was no one in the street. I took the opportunity to look around the house.’
‘What did you find?’
‘Nothing. It was not in good condition, and there was dust everywhere. I stayed about ten minutes and left.’
‘No one saw you?’
‘The old lady next door saw me leaving.’
‘Did she talk to you?’
‘No. I was too far away, but Mrs Hawthorne, she knew who I was. Before her husband died, I used to do some legal work for him.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘Nothing for a few days, and then Helen phoned me. She’s angry, telling me I’d violated her trust, and our relationship would be severed forthwith.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing. She hung up, and that was the last time I heard from her.’
‘And when she ended up dead with James Holden?’
‘I recognised her, knew her death was probably related to Ben Aberman. I was scared, not sure what to do.’
‘Why was she killed?’
‘She must have known that Ben Aberman was dead. But in all the years, she never dropped her guard.’
‘What about the four years she was in jail?’
‘I still received email correspondence.’
‘Not from jail you wouldn’t. Slater, you know more than you’re telling us,’ Isaac said. ‘Unless you start giving us the truth, we’ll be suspicious of you. You’re too close to the action, maybe you killed Aberman. Maybe you’re involved with these gangsters.’
‘I’m innocent, believe me, but those that killed Aberman, they’re dangerous. If they know I’ve been talking to…’
‘They’ll have you killed?’
‘Yes. Even now, they’re watching me.’
‘Why would they be watching you? Apart from the one visit to the house, you’ve acted correctly.’
‘I don’t know why, and that’s what frightens me. Helen, she could tough it out, but not me.’
‘We’ve been told of a heavy who goes by the name of Pete. Any ideas?’
‘I received a phone call,’ Slater said.
‘When?’
‘Two days ago.’
‘What did the person say?’
‘I don’t know who he was, only that he told me to be careful in what I said to you. I told him I knew nothing, but he didn’t believe me.’
‘Neither do we,’ Larry said. ‘You went into the house, you were curious, suspected something. I put it to you, Mr Slater, that you’ve always known Aberman to be dead and buried in that garden. Were you one of those at the house the night he died? Was it you who cleaned the house afterwards? And who was it who dug the hole in the garden? And who are the people who threatened the man and let Helen have the house, and why?’
‘Helen, she was two-timing Aberman.’
‘With who?’
There was a sound of shattering glass, a spray of blood, and Slater collapsed forward on his desk.
‘He’s been shot!’ Isaac said. Both police officers moved from where they were and took shelter to one side of the window. Slater’s receptionist opened the door on hearing the noise – another shot, and she collapsed to the ground.
Larry dropped to the floor and crawled over to where she was. He gently lifted her head. ‘She’s dead,’ he said.
Isaac was on the phone, calling for backup. Wendy was on the way, as were Gordon Windsor and Caddick. The situation was dangerous. A quick glance by Isaac had shown a rooftop on the other side of the road. He couldn’t see anyone there.
A phone call. Isaac answered. ‘Specialist Firearms Command here. What’s the situation?’
‘Two dead. We’ll try and move out of the line of sight.’
‘Fifteen minutes, stay alive.’
‘Slater knew the full story,’ Larry said from his position on the ground next to the dead woman. ‘She opened the door at the wrong time.’
Forty minutes later, the all-clear. ‘No one up there,’ the leader of the specialist firearms team said. ‘A difficult shot, not sure I could have made it.’
Inside Slater’s office were a team of medics, not that they could do much. Slater had been shot in the back of the head, his receptionist in the front.
‘Nasty,’ Caddick said as he entered the crime scene.
‘Slater was about to tell us who had killed Aberman.’
‘Out of here, everyone,’ Gordon Windsor said. ‘Isaac, you’ve got a right mess here. We’ll need time on this one.’
Outside the building there was an ambulance; a medic checked out Isaac and Larry. Apart from shock and their clothes being covered in blood and shattered glass, they were declared fit.
‘What’s happened here?’ Caddick asked.
‘The man was covering for Aberman’s murderers. He was about to give us a name.’
‘The woman?’
‘We think she was innocent. She’s only worked for Slater
