Deadly Intent (21 page)

She logged onto the computer, looking up Alexander Fitzpatrick again. She scrolled through the various newspaper articles written at the time of his arrest, and found a short paragraph about his prowess as a yachtsman when he had escaped via his boat back in the eighties. She kept scrolling through, to see if there was ever a mention of what the yacht was named, but found nothing. She sat back. Could the painting be of his boat? It would, she doubted, be in his possession now, as it was many years ago and ocean vessels had become much more sophisticated since then. However, if this was Fitzpatrick's boat in the painting, it gave an obvious link to Honour Nolan. She surely knew Fitzpatrick a lot better than her noncommittal "never met him."

Ballistics were able to ascertain very quickly that the bullet taken from Stanley Leymore was a match for the bullets that had killed Frank Brandon: it came from a Glock weapon. Pathology estimated that he had been dead for at least four days. He left a widow and three teenage children. Mrs. Leymore had not reported her husband missing, because she said he had told her he was going to be away on business.

Anna physically jumped as someone rapped on her door. Gordon poked his head in. "You heard the latest?"

"You mean about Stanley Leymore?"

"No, Julius D'Anton."

"What about him?"

"Fished him out of the Thames four days ago."

"What?!"

"Boss wants you and me to go over to the Richmond mortuary."

A fisherman had seen the bloated body of Julius D'Anton floating over the weir in Teddington, caught in weeds beneath Richmond Bridge. Wrapped around one ankle was a rope; it appeared to have been attached to something at some point, but it must have broken loose and the body floated to the surface, aided by the gases trapped in the swollen belly. Anna stared at the hideous face.

D'Anton was not like the other kids they had interviewed. A mature man, he had been wearing a tweed sport jacket, polo-neck shirt, and cord trousers; even his shoes looked good quality. He had no wallet or identifying papers in his pockets, and cause of death was listed as unknown! No water had been found in his lungs, so he had not drowned, and was therefore presumed dead before being tipped or falling into the Thames. D'Anton had been initially ID'd by his fingerprints, due to previous arrest sheets. His wife, Sandra, had also identified him. Anna and Gordon went to interview her.

The house was in Chiswick, a substantial property on three floors. Sandra D'Anton was an attractive blonde in her early forties. She had decorators in, and apologized for the mess in her hallway. She had large, sad brown eyes, and a weight of depression clung to her. She was wearing slacks and a loose sweater with old leather slippers .She led them into a pleasant kitchen and offered them tea, but both declined.

"I am very sorry about your husband. I really appreciate you agreeing to talk to us," Anna said quietly.

"I've wondered if someone else would come—you know, after they came to tell me they had found him."

"I need to ask you some questions."

Sandra shrugged and sat down at the kitchen table.

"When was the last time you saw your husband?"

"Over a week ago."

"So were you worried when you didn't see him?"

"Not particularly; he often went off for days on end. He was in the antique business, so frequently traveled up north or wherever."

"Do you have a shop?"

"No, he had regular customers he bought and sold for. We sort of worked doing up properties, like this place; soon as it's all finished, we sell and start all over again. Well, we did ..."

"So you own this house?"

"Yes, but it's mortgaged up to the hilt."

"So you believed he was buying antiques?"

"I presumed he was."

"He used to just take off?"

"Well, yes. This time he said that he was..." She threaded her fingers together. "It's the way he was, you know, always going to find something that would get us off the treadmill. Out of debt, to be more exact."

"So you are in debt?"

"You could say that. I don't think we have ever not been, not for the past ten years."

"Before that?"

"He was successful; we had a shop on the King's Road, but that went." She sighed. "My husband was arrested for dealing drugs. He served time, but always said when he came out, it was over. He
tried
to straighten out, but it was hard and he was always chasing the dream. When he did deal drugs, he had money he could throw around."

"Do you know Donny Petrozzo?"

"No."

"How about Stanley Leymore?"

"Never heard of him."

"Julia Kendal?"

"No."

Anna hesitated. "Frank Brandon?"

"No. I don't know any of these people."

"Anthony Collingwood?"

"No."

"Alexander Fitzpatrick?"

Sandra closed her eyes. "Well, I know who he is. I never actually knew the man but Julius knew him years ago—I mean years, like thirty, maybe even more." "How well did he know him?"

"They were at Oxford together—Balliol. I think he was pretty infamous. Julius used to dine out on stories about when they were undergraduates." "Did he keep in touch with him?" "Good God, I doubt it."

"Did he mention recently that he might have seen him?"

"No. Look, if you must know, and I see no reason why I shouldn't say it, my husband was quite a sad character.

He came from a very good family but blew his inheritance before I even met him. Then he got caught up in drugs."

"Was he still using?"

Sandra nodded. "He tried to quit, but then he'd make some money and go on a bender. It drove me to distraction, but he wouldn't listen to me. He was a very sweet guy, so generous. For all his faults—and there were many—he was always kind to me." She sighed. "Even though he was older than me, he just never grew up."

I‘m sorry.

"Yeah, but you know, all the time we've been together, I always felt something bad would happen to him. In the end it did, didn't it?"

It was strange. Sandra didn't seem that distressed; there was just a sad resignation. Perhaps, just as she said, she had always been expecting this.

Anna knew that one of the charges against him had been for domestic violence, but she didn't feel that this was the time to bring that up. She didn't have to.

"He hit me, you know," Sandra said. "It was a long time ago. He was high on crack and he lost it, started wrecking the house—not this one, another place we had. Anyway, when he attacked me, 1 called the cops and they arrested him. I never meant it to be such a big thing. 1 mean, he had punched me around, but they found his stash of drugs, so he got a six-month sentence. He was in Ford Open Prison; in a way, it was the best thing, because he got clean whilst he was there. When he came out, we started over. For a while, he was on his best behavior but then, as always, he started using again. You know, recently, he'd been trying to stay straight. Then, when he said he'd got this big thing going down ..."

"Did he ever hint at what this was?" Anna asked.

Sandra got up and went to the fireplace. It was being rebuilt; there were tiles and bricks stacked beside it. She looked along the dusty mantelshelf and sifted through some letters. "You get so fed up that you don't really ever believe someone like Julius. You know the promises— he was always going to sort himself out, go into rehab, when he came out of prison things would be different... but you get used to empty promises. They sort of deaden any real feelings."

"But you loved him," Anna said softly.

"I guess so, but the terrible thing is, I feel a kind of relief. That may sound awful, but it's the truth. I mean, we lived together but he was impotent—had been for years—and I was getting tired out from propping him up."

"Are you looking for something specific?" Anna asked, watching Sandra hunting through the papers.

"Yes. It was a few months back—he said he was onto something. He'd been away for a couple of days antiquing, going to odd fairs up and down the country ..."

"Something he wanted to buy?"

"I'm not sure. All he said was, things were going to turn around and he would be able to buy the lease on a shop he had seen—you know, really start afresh. But if you knew how many times he'd said

that..." Sandra held on to one opened envelope and placed the others back onto the mantelshelf. "Those arc mostly bills, unpaid, and will have to stay that way until I know what I'm doing." She opened the envelope; tucked inside was a pink flyer with lists of antiques fairs. "This is the flyer they leave at the London fairs, giving details of the ones out of town. He bought a few things, but it was after that trip he said he was onto something. Whether or not he went back there, I really don't know."

"May I see it?"

"Yes, take it."

Anna glanced at the advertisement. A couple of fairs had rings around them and were underlined. One, Anna paid particular attention to: a trade fair in Shipston on Stour. "Isn't this near Oxford?"

Sandra looked over her shoulder. "Yes, but it's not a big one: just a village hall. Sometimes you can pick up good stuff if you're lucky. I doubt if Julius would have found anything of great value there, but I think he was going back to one of the shops."

"Not the antique fair?"

"I think the guy may have had a stall there; often shop owners take stalls at these fairs. You get to see a regular bunch of people."

"Did he stay in hotels?"

"No, he used to sleep in the back of the van. He never had enough money to stay in hotels. Drink in them, maybe ..."

"The van, do you know where it is?"

Sandra shook her head. "It was a wreck. Julius drove it into the ground. I think the back end or something went, so he might have dumped it somewhere."

"What was he driving the last time you saw him?"

Sandra puffed out her cheeks, trying to remember. "I don't know. He said he'd borrowed someone's jeep, I think. Whose, I have no idea."

"Did you ever see this jeep?"

"No."

"Could it have been a Mitsubishi?"

"I don't know, and he could have been lying. All I remember is, he said he was going to pick it up."

They drove in silence back to the station, Anna's mind churning over everything they had discussed with Sandra. Gordon, as usual, had not said more than a few words, but he was at least onto the fact that the antiques fair was not that far from Honour Nolan's village.

Anna gave him a sidelong glance. "Yes, my thoughts exactly. It's another link, because Julius D'Anton also knew Alexander Fitzpatrick."

"What if he was hiding out at the farmhouse and somehow D'Anton saw him?"

"But if he was hiding out, he's not likely to have been wandering around an antique fair, is he? It's another schlep to check it all out; it'll mean contacting all those dealers that had a stall, especially the guy that Sandra said owned a shop. It might be local, it might not, but that's what you have to start on as soon as we're back at the station."

"Okay."

Anna decided that she would go over to the forensic lab and see if they had any results from the tests being done on the Mitsubishi. This time, she wanted to find out if there was any crossover from the clothes worn by Julius D'Anton—anything that would place him in the jeep.

Pete listened as Anna outlined what she wanted tested. He shook his head. "You must be joking. We've had it stripped down, and it was given a very thorough clean, apart from the small blood swipe."

"What about the map?"

"There were prints, but nothing clean enough for us to run by the database."

"The note?"

"Ditto. It does look as if the numbers were, as you thought, directions to the farmhouse. We're testing soil samples, but they will take a while. Then we've got to match them with samples taken from the farmhouse."

Anna sighed with impatience.

"You can well sigh, Detective Travis, but have you any idea of the amount of forensic work going on? The body count keeps on growing every time I turn around. This guy brought in from the Thames—his

clothes are all pegged out, so are Donny Petrozzo's clothes, then there's the guy shot on his toilet ..."

"Stanley Leymore."

"Yes, him—we've got all his gear being tested. The cost is mounting. We've brought in three extra assistants and the path lab is screaming blue murder. They are as inundated as we are."

"What about the toxicology report?"

"Jesus! Ask Fielding, I don't know. I'm aware he's getting in extra people too, but the costs—do you know how much it is just to get the soil samples tested?"

Anna wondered if Cunningham was under pressure; her budget must be through the roof. Maybe that was why she was so bad-tempered all the time.