“Did we? You’ve got me there,” she said, shaking her head. “We put money into loads of film projects.”
“It’s a fact. British Metal had a big stake,” he told her. He was sure she wasn’t being obstructive. She genuinely didn’t know.
“If you say so. Until the films are made, I wouldn’t remember the titles or the directors. My committee could tell you. Janet is my movie and TV lady. She looks at the proposals and does the costing. If we had dealings with Mr Summers, Janet will have spoken to him.”
“You see the point, don’t you? This is important, Anna.”
She raised the finely plucked eyebrows and said, “I don’t see what difference it makes, frankly. There’s still a killer out there.”
“Yes-but you’re going to lead me to him. Here’s another question for you: do British Metal sponsor golf?”
“I guess,” she said vaguely. “We do endorsements of sports people now. I encourage it. You only have to look at the logos a tennis player wears on his shirt. The sponsors win no matter who lifts the silverware.”
“Golf,” he said, trying not to get exasperated. “I’m asking about golf.”
“Christ’s sake, Pete, do I look like the sort of gal who gets off on watching some fat Spaniard poke a small ball into a tin cup? My sports person on the committee is Adrian,” she said. “He clocks the players. We only endorse the best. Ade is an anorak, the sort of guy you’d cross the street to avoid, but ace at picking future champions.”
“If he picks the best, it’s likely he picked Matt Porter.”
“You see?” Anna said. “I have no idea.”
“But you could check with Adrian?”
“Any time.”
“Now.”
She still couldn’t see the relevance of all this. Diamond couldn’t entirely either, except that it would be more than a slight coincidence if Porter, too, had been sponsored by British Metal.
He picked up the cordless phone from the table in the corner and handed it to Anna. She pressed out the number.
“Don’t tell him where you are,” Diamond warned. “Just ask him if Porter was endorsed by British Metal.”
She got through. It soon became obvious from her end of the conversation that his guess was right.
Diamond prompted her, “Ask him if it was a major sponsorship.”
It was: the largest amount they’d invested in any sports star.
“Has it been reported in the press?”
It had, widely.
The reason Diamond hadn’t seen it was that he only ever looked at the rugby reports.
“Cheers, Ade,” Anna said. After she’d handed back the phone, she said to Diamond, “There you go. We sponsored the two guys who were killed. Is that a help to you?”
“Enormous help.”
“But nobody sponsors me. Why am I on the hit list?”
He had no easy answer to that. He could concoct theories, and he would, but not for her to get alarmed about. The next step had to be an intensive process of deduction, the kind of mental exercise profilers took credit for, and detectives did as a matter of routine. Would Emma Tysoe, given these new facts, have seen immediately to the heart of the mystery? He doubted it. There was more to be unearthed. This, at least, was progress.
“Did your late husband have enemies?” he asked.
“Wally?” She shook her head. “He was the sweetest guy in the world. Everyone loved him.”
“Rich men are envied.”
“Maybe.” She sounded dubious.
“He had the power to hire and fire.”
“That’s business for you,” she said. “Anyone who was laid off was given a fair settlement, and, take it from me, lay-offs were exceptional. Even when times were hard he’d bust a gut to keep people in work.”
“Did he lay off any in the year before he died?” Diamond persisted. The theory of the ex-employee seeking vengeance on the company was worth exploring.
“I doubt it.”
“Manufacturing industry is in decline. Even after the recession ended, unemployment continued.”
“Now you’re losing me,” she said. “I don’t remember lay-offs.”
“OK, let’s talk about something else. How did you two meet?”
She sighed and stretched her legs out. “That’s the question everyone asks. I always feel like saying something romantic-like he came to one of my gigs and sat in the front row and fell in love with me. What really happened is we both went for the same taxi one wet night in Dean Street, Manchester. I told him the cab was mine and slagged him off. Called him a waste of space and a bullyboy. He thought it was a great laugh. We ended up sharing the cab and telling each other old people jokes. Before getting out he gave me his card and said he’d like to take me to dinner.”
“When did you marry?”
“Six months after. His fourth marriage, my second.”
“He had family?”
“No children. A sister and three ex-wives, all getting handouts. Like I say, Wally wasn’t mean to anyone.”
“After he died, did the payments continue?”
“Still do. It was written into the will. Those wives are on the gravy train as long as they live.” She suddenly became attentive. “What’s that noise?”
He listened. A rustling and scraping. For a moment, he thought the Mariner was breaking in somewhere. He got up from his chair, looked across the room and then breathed more easily.
“It’s only the cat scratching on the patio door.”
She was not greatly reassured. “You will get rid of him?”
“I’ll take him with me when I go.”
“Yah. Over a hundred million. The tax was unreal.”
“To your knowledge, was anyone upset by the will?”
“Only the pressboys. They gave me a predictable roasting. ‘His bride of six years, the former pop singer Anna Walpurgis, comes into a cool eighty-five million pounds. Not bad for a performer with maximum hype and minimal talent.’ Stuff like that can hurt. There was plenty like it.”
“You could afford to ignore them.”
“Sure, but I do have talent. I made it to the top before I met Wally.”
“No question,” Diamond said. “I’m pig-ignorant about the pop scene, but I’ve heard you sing. You got there on merit.”
“Thanks.”
He chose his next words with care, not wanting to frighten her even more. “The sad fact is that some people believe everything they read in the papers. The person behind all this could be someone who resents the power you wield through that committee. They’ve hit at two of the people you invested big money in, and now they’re threatening you. I want you to cast your mind back and tell me if you received any kind of protest or complaint or threat about the decisions you made.”
She shook her head. “I don’t bother with that shit. I still get a sackful of fan mail I have to deal with. That’s enough to be going on with.”
“So what happens if someone writes to you at British Metal?”
“About things we decide? Someone else deals with it. We have a publicity officer. She bins it, I hope.”
“I’ll need to speak to her. It would speed things up if you made the call now, and put me through to her.”
“Be my guest.” She reached for the phone.
“You make it.”
He was right to insist. A call from Ms Walpurgis was given top priority at British Metal. No listening to canned music. She was put through to the publicity officer, a Mrs Poole.
Diamond was put on.
Yes, Mrs Poole told him, there was a small file of letters of complaint. Every business had to deal with them.
