‘You’ll not get much from standing here. Have you tried talking to Mr McIntyre?’
Cable looked up the road at Isaac in discussion with the heavies. ‘They made it clear that if we hung around for too long, they’d come and smack us.’
‘You’re still here, though.’
‘As I said, we’re off down the pub. What about you two? An arrest imminent?’
‘No comment.’
Larry left Cable and his two offsiders and walked back to the mansion gate.
‘It’s not much fun standing here, Inspector,’ the stockier of the two heavies said.
‘Ed Davidson, how are you?’ Larry said. ‘An old friend,’ he said, looking over at Isaac. ‘We go back a long way.’
‘Who’s inside?’
‘Mr McIntyre and his lawyer – said his name was Grantham.’
‘It’s been cleared, you can let us in,’ Isaac said. ‘I’ve just spoken to Fergus Grantham.’
‘That’s as may be, but until I receive a call, I can’t open the gate.’ The man’s phone played a tune. He looked down at the message. ‘Let them in,’ he said to the other heavy, a sullen man with tattoos covering his hands as well as his neck, and whatever else that wasn’t visible under the heavy coat that he wore. Isaac had seen the bulge, though. The man was carrying a weapon, no doubt illegally. Another day, another time, he would have passed the information on to Challis Street to deal with it.
But not today. Today was for wrapping up the outstanding murder investigation.
‘Davidson?’ Isaac asked as he and Larry got in of the car.
‘He’s a part-time boxer. Fancied his chance at a crack at the title eight years ago.’
‘He never got it?’
‘Knocked out in the first round, light heavyweight. The man’s a bodyguard these days. You’ll often see him close to one or another celebrity.’
‘Criminal record?’
‘A few pub brawls. No idea why he’s protecting McIntyre.’
‘Trustworthy, that’s why. The other man?’
‘Never seen him before.’
Isaac and Larry drove up to the mansion, walked the short distance from the car to the front door, where Fergus Graham waited for them.
‘Sorry for the inconvenience at the gate. As you can appreciate, it’s a little tense here, and the media are intrusive. They’ve even started buzzing the place with helicopters,’ Grantham said.
Inside the house, McIntyre sat quietly. If it had been anyone else, it would have been possible to feel sadness for the man, but he did not deserve that, Isaac thought.
‘What now?’ McIntyre said. He glanced up at the two police officers, but no handshake this time.
‘Your lawyer’s here, so I’ll speak frankly. Devon Toxteth?’
‘Who or what is that?’
‘Mr McIntyre, it may be that so many have been killed on your instructions that you don’t remember him.’
‘I advise you to be careful,’ Grantham said.
‘Where’s this heading?’ McIntyre said. He continued to drink his whisky. Judging by the half-empty bottle, he’d drunk a lot already.
‘Stephen Palmer.’
‘Not him again.’
‘Toxteth had a factory unit down where you and Matthews took Palmer. He’s a witness.’
‘Where’s this liar now?’
‘Long dead, almost as long as Palmer.’
‘He’s hardly a witness then, is he?’
Isaac took a seat opposite McIntyre. ‘Toxteth left a note before he visited you at one of your clubs.’
‘Get to the point,’ Grantham said. The man was nervous, Isaac could see, fiddling with his tie, adjusting the collar of his shirt.
‘We have that note.’
‘How old is it?’
‘Nine days before he died, over twenty years.’
‘You’re joking, Cook,’ Grantham said. The man laughed, but it wasn’t a bellyaching laugh, more of a nervous tic.
‘He was fished out of the Thames, out past Greenwich.’
‘I still don’t know the man,’ McIntyre said.
‘He would have been offering his silence in exchange for money.’
‘If I can’t remember the man, how can I be held responsible?’
‘We can place your car and Marcus Matthews at the murder scene. And now, we have a witness’s letter. It’s admissible. The net closes, as I said.’
‘Enough of this charade,’ Grantham said. ‘My client has suffered great distress recently. I suggest that you leave.’
‘It’s either here or at Challis Street. Mr McIntyre, your daughter is arrested for murder, so is Armstrong. And then two bodies are found at your farm. Now, either Armstrong was a damn fool, or you told him where to dispose of them. Bob Palmer was a nuisance, Wolfenden was not. Palmer was looking for a woman with a butterfly tattoo. We believe that he intended to harm her.’
‘Nothing new, just rehashing what’s been said before,’ McIntyre said. ‘My daughter will be acquitted; Fergus will ensure that. And as for Armstrong, he was a loyal employee, a friend. He may have thought that he was doing Samantha and me a favour, but he wasn’t. Fergus will defend him; I can assure you of that.’
‘We still have Devon Toxteth, Stephen Palmer and Marcus Matthews.’
‘I didn’t know one of them, the other was fooling around with my daughter, and Marcus was married to Samantha. Which one am I supposed to have killed?’
‘Toxteth, we can’t prove either way. You killed Stephen Palmer with Matthews as your willing accomplice. Marcus Matthews still puzzles us. We know that you had an arrangement with Charles Stanford to use the house in Bedford Gardens.’
‘This is heading into the land of fantasy,’ Grantham said.
‘It’s not,’ Larry said. ‘We know about your client and Yanna White. The place he set her up in, the visits to meet with her.’
‘This is slanderous,’ McIntyre said.
‘Is it? We have proof that Yanna White, a victim of sex trafficking out of Romania, had lived in a place you owned. We have the address, photographic proof of you and her entering and leaving the place. Do you deny this?’
‘My client denies it,’ Grantham said.
‘Not so fast, Fergus. I knew Yanna, and yes,
