local, not been tarted up like the rest. Said that and then headed off for the bright lights and shiny wood of a Pitcher and Piano, an All Bar One.
The barman had his shirtsleeves rolled back and tattoos snaking up both arms, a silver ring piercing the corner of his left eyebrow and a stud through the centre of his lower lip.
'Get you?' he said, affably enough, glancing up from a well-thumbed copy of Love in the Time of Cholera.
Furness nodded at Paul Denison and Denison took out the single sheet, showing Kennet full-face and profile.
'Don't suppose you've seen him?'
The barman barely gave it a second glance. 'Not for a good while now. Other side of Christmas, certainly.'
'You know him then?'
'Used to come in here quite a bit. After work, like, you know. Pint of Guinness, maybe two, and then he'd be on his way. Lived around here, that'd be my guess.'
'The other side of Christmas, you said. You couldn't be more specific?'
The barman folded down a corner of his book and let it fall closed. 'Time and date, you mean? I don't think so. Early December, maybe? No, wait, wait, it was November, the end of the month. I know because…' He looked past them, towards the man playing cards. 'Ernest, your seventieth, when was that exactly?'
Ernest placed a black ten on a red jack. 'Tuesday, the twenty-fifth day of November, 2003.'
'We had a bit of a party for Ernest, got some food in, dug out the Christmas decorations early. Picture of Ernest in his prime here over the bar. Full uniform – what was it, Ernest?'
'Second Royal Fusiliers.' Red queen on black king.
'What's all this got to do with Kennet?' Furness said.
'Who?'
'Kennet.' Tapping the picture. 'Him.'
'Oh, right. He came in, didn't he? Next day. Later than usual. Eight thirty, nine? Asked me about the photograph, I remember that. Still up, you see. Started to pour him his Guinness, but no, whisky he said. Doubles, two of them. Standing there, where you are now. Quite chatty he was, more than usual. Bit hyper I thought. Just back from Spain, he said, holiday.'
'He didn't say anything about meeting someone? Later?'
'Not to me, no. Not as I recall.'
'How about where he was going? After this, I mean.'
The barman shrugged. 'Home, I suppose.'
'Thanks for your help,' Furness said.
'Drink before you go? On the house.'
Furness gave Denison a glance. 'Yes, why not? Small Scotch, maybe.'
'Lee,' Denison said.
'What?'
'Better not.'
Furness shook his head and stood away from the bar. 'Another time,' he said.
'Suit yourself,' said the barman and opened his book.
'Blessed are the pure at heart,' Furness said, as he followed Denison through the door. 'Blessed and thirsty, too.'
'What the flying fuck,' Mallory said, 'is going on?'
'Not here,' Repton said.
'Not here? Not fucking here? Farmer fucking Framlingham and that deadbeat Elder come waltzing in without so much as a by-your-leave, and next thing you're going off with them in Framlingham's fucking four-by-four. Nice little drive, Maurice? Giving the motor a spin? Got the picnic basket out later? Spot of lunch? Hamper in the fucking trunk?'
'Not here,' Repton said again.
Mallory's face was puce, fingernails digging deep into his palms.
'Then you'd better say where, Maurice, and soon.'
Karen's call tracked Elder down at his flat, late afternoon.
'We've placed Kennet near the scene of the murder, the day after he came back from Spain. Had a drink in a pub on Hornsey Rise, close to the time. Right between his flat and the place Maddy was killed. He could have walked from there to the community centre in five minutes, ten tops.'
'Good work,' Elder said. 'I mean it. Really good work.' And then excused himself to go across to the entryphone. There was a parcel downstairs waiting for collection.
50
By the time he had arrived downstairs, whoever had delivered the package was nowhere in sight. A padded envelope the size of a hardback book, with his name printed on the front. Elder shook it, prodded it, carried it back upstairs. Inside the envelope the contents were swathed in bubble wrap, a video tape with a title handwritten on the edge. Singin' in the Rain. Just that and a date.
Who, Elder wondered, was sending him home-taped movies and why?
Not certain when he'd last eaten, Elder thought he'd do it right; phoned out for a pizza and some garlic bread and, when they arrived, opened a bottle of Becks from the fridge.
A mouthful of pizza, and he slotted the tape into place; pressed 'play' and leaned back. For a copy, the picture quality wasn't too bad. Fine, in fact, until the scene, maybe a quarter of the way through, when Debbie Reynolds, in her pink cap and little pleated skirt, pops up out of the cake. Then abruptly the image twisted, caught and jarred, and changed to black and white. An interior, blurred and poorly lit. Some kind of party scene. Men in dinner jackets, black tie; others with jackets discarded, white shirts, braces. Women in low-cut dresses. Champagne. And, as if on cue, a face Elder knew. Like watching a veteran actress in her heyday, cigarette in one hand, glass in the other, wearing a pale dress that reached to the floor, Lynette Drury crossed the room and, for one moment, looked directly at the camera, as if she were the only person present who knew that it was there.
Elder pressed 'pause' and searched the screen for someone else he recognised, but no. When he moved on, the picture changed: the same room later. Kneeling at the low table in the centre of the room, a young woman, naked save for a bracelet in the shape of a snake on her upper arm, snorted cocaine through a rolled-up banknote, while a man, trousers round his knees, fucked her from behind.
A starburst of static and what had to be another camera, six people sitting round another table in another room, a poker game. And amongst them faces Elder knew: Mallory, Slater, Grant, and standing just behind Mallory, at his shoulder, Maurice Repton. Younger, all of them. A decade ago, Elder guessed. Possibly more.
The image broke again and reformed.
A bedroom, sparsely lit. Elder adjusted the brightness with the remote control but to little effect. Shapes moved naked across the bed, arms, legs. Three bodies, intertwined; two women and a man. One of the women detached herself and stood beside the bed. Not a woman at all. A girl, slim-hipped, no breasts to speak of, long fair hair. The man reached out for her and she evaded his hand, turning away. Surfacing from the bed, he seized her arm and pulled her back. As his arm tightened around her neck, the other hand pulled at her hair. Silently, head swivelling towards him, she shouted or screamed.
Elder could see her mouth, opening wide, but heard nothing.
