Jigsaw Man (24 page)

Jim nodded. ‘Rose got in touch with him via his agent. At first he thought it was
a try-on, someone after some money, or something. But then he met her and she was
the spitting image of him, only pretty. There wasn't any point doing any of that
DNA testing business. It was clear as crystal she was his.'

‘Who's the mother?' Tartaglia asked.

‘Some actress he had a fling with when he was in rep, back in the early eighties,'
Tony said. ‘She only told her daughter who her real father was recently.'

Jim nodded. ‘John said the woman was also married so I suppose that's why.'

‘And Isobel knows about all of this?' Tartaglia asked, thinking back to their conversation.
It explained why she had wanted to shut out all questions about her father's private
life. She had then lied about not knowing who ‘R' was.

‘Most definitely. Eaten up with jealousy, I think, poor thing. Didn't want to share
her father with anyone.'

‘I suppose she was just defending her mother, or her mother's memory,' Tony said.
‘But Isobel refused to meet Rose and it really hurt John. His son, Ian, was OK with
it in the end, luckily. He's got a family of his own and I guess he could afford
to be more grown up. But Isobel was a right bitch about it, if you'll excuse my French.
She said if Rose came to his birthday, she'd leave.'

‘Do you know how we can get in touch with Rose?' Tartaglia asked, deciding he would
speak to Isobel immediately the interview was over.

Tony shook his head. ‘I haven't seen her since John disappeared.'

‘She lives out of London, somewhere,' Jim said. ‘I remember she was worried about
missing her train home. I think it went from Paddington.'

‘Isn't she an actress?' Tony asked.

‘A set designer, I think,' Jim said. ‘Freelance. Or at least something to do with
the theatre. It's obviously in the blood, although Isobel hasn't inherited any of
it. She's much more like her mother. Not at all artistic.'

‘Why didn't you tell me about Rose?' Tartaglia asked, practically shouting. He didn't
care who heard.

‘Because it isn't important.' Isobel Smart clamped her thin lips shut as if that
was the end of the matter.

They were standing in a small meeting room at the office in Marylebone where she
worked as an accountant. He had hauled her out of an internal meeting, threatening
to take her down to the local station if she didn't cooperate.

‘This is a murder investigation. Everything's important. What else have you lied
about?'

‘Nothing. I swear. I didn't tell you about
her
because there was no point. She couldn't
help you anyway.'

‘I'll be the judge of that. She seems to have seen your father quite often, and he
certainly seems to have cared about her. Maybe he told her something he didn't tell
you.'

Isobel looked as though she had been slapped but made no reply.

‘I need her phone number. Right now.'

‘I don't have it.'

‘I don't believe you.'

‘I tell you, I don't have it. Why would I want it? I didn't want to speak to her.'

‘If I find you're lying again . . .'

She glared at him, arms folded tightly across her ample chest. ‘I don't have it.
When Dad disappeared, she kept calling me at the office; he must have told her where
I work. Anyway, she drove me nuts. She wanted to come over to the flat and look through
his stuff. She probably wanted to take something . . .'

‘Maybe she was genuinely worried. Maybe she wanted to find out what had happened
to her father.'

‘Well, she had no right. He wasn't her father. That was a story to try and get money
out of him.' Tears were streaming down her face now. In a way he sympathised. The
bubble of a perfect family life had been burst by a secret from the past. She had
clearly idolised her father and her reaction was no different to that of a jealous
lover – and equally irrational.

‘What did you say to her?'

‘I said the police were handling it and that I'd get a solicitor onto her if she
didn't stop harassing me.'

‘When was the last time you spoke to her?'

‘About a year ago. She called me again and I told her the police had found nothing.
I haven't heard from her since.'

‘Did she contact the police?' There had been no mention of another daughter in the
Missing Person report.

‘How the hell do I know? And I don't bloody well care. Now can I get on with my work?'

Twenty-six

The front door slammed shut and he heard Gunner's footsteps pound down the path towards
the street. He grabbed his jacket and followed him outside. It was cold, the sky
a deep iron grey, rain threatening. He put on his jacket and peered around the hedge.
Gunner was nearly at the end of the road, walking fast. From a distance, it looked
as though he was wearing a suit. Adam followed, ready to dip into a gateway if his
quarry looked around. At the corner of Kensington Church Street, Gunner stopped,
scanned both ends of the road, and a moment later stuck his hand in the air to hail
a cab.

As he climbed in and drove off, Adam ran to the end of the street and did the same.

‘Follow the cab in front,' he said, jumping in and slamming the door. It was such
a cliché but he didn't know what else to say. ‘I'll give you double money if you
don't lose it, but I don't want them to know. OK?'

‘No problem,' the cabbie said flatly, as though used to such instructions.

The drive took them along the Bayswater Road and into Hyde Park. It looked as though
Gunner was heading into town. Adam hadn't seen him in a suit before and wondered
if he was going to an interview. In the few days Gunner had been staying at the house,
he appeared to have no regular routine, going out and coming back at unpredictable
times. He also appeared to be an insomniac, habitually making noisy forays
down to
the kitchen in the middle of the night. He certainly didn't seem to have a regular
job.

The traffic slowed considerably as they negotiated Park Lane and turned off into
Mount Street and then into South Audley Street, Adam's taxi now two cars behind.
At the bottom, they turned right and, just before Grosvenor Square, Gunner's taxi
pulled up on the left-hand side.

‘What do you want me to do?' The cabbie asked in a bored tone.

‘Drive past. Stop over there, behind that red car.'

Through the back window of the taxi Adam saw Gunner disappear into one of the houses.
He paid the cabbie, waited a minute to make sure Gunner wasn't coming straight out
again, then walked back along the street to where he had last seen him. Behind the
eighteenth-century façade was an office building, like the majority of the others
in the street and surrounding area. He took a quick look through the window at the
front, but all he could see was a dark, empty meeting room. A fish-eye security camera
stared out above the brass entry plate, which was engraved with the initials
G.R.M.A.
He took a photo of the plate with his phone. Wondering what to do next, he spotted
a café on the corner, just a block and a half away, with tables and chairs outside
on the pavement. He made his way there and sat down, tucking himself away in a corner
that was well screened from the road by some large tubs of laurel. Through a gap
he had a clear view of the building Gunner had entered. He turned on the patio heater
and ordered a latte. As the waitress went inside, she shouted out instructions in
Polish to the man behind the bar, along with a rude remark about customers who were
stupid enough to sit outside in the cold. Since joining the EU, Poles had taken over
London and you couldn't move without hearing their foul language being
spoken. He
understood the gist, having been brought up in London by his Polish grandparents
who had insisted he speak Polish at home.

Using his phone, he googled the company acronym, along with the office address. It
stood for Global Risk Management Associates, whatever that was. Keeping one eye on
the street, he tabbed through the website menu. The company seemed to be mainly active
in Africa and the Middle East, ‘protecting companies' risks abroad', according to
the blurb, with particular focus on the oil industry. The phrases ‘security consulting',
‘security solutions' and ‘experts in multiple security disciplines' appeared many
times, as well as the strapline ‘G.R.M.A. helps its clients to make security an integral
part of their business model.' Along with sections on personal and business protection,
the other main tab was headed ‘Kidnap, Ransom and Extortion,' with a paragraph that
referred to personnel having ‘backgrounds in the military and special forces'. He
thought of Gunner's physique, his tanned face and forearms, the tattoo of the crow
and skull on his chest. It all made sense and it filled him with foreboding. What
was he doing in Kit's house? Was he really Kit's lover? Or had he been sent there
by somebody else?

Twenty-seven

‘So, where are we with the fires?' Tartaglia asked, looking over at Justin Chang.

It was early evening and Tartaglia had called an impromptu meeting for those members
of his team who weren't still out on the road. The small room was stuffy, the heating
having decided to work overtime for a change.

‘I've been in touch with the Coroners' Association and asked for details of all fires
in the various jurisdictions involving human fatalities over the last two years,'
Chang said. ‘It's roughly eight hundred incidents. The majority were fires in the
home caused by poor wiring, cigarettes, chip pans catching alight. That sort of thing.
There were less than a hundred cases where deliberate ignition was suspected.'

‘Anything interesting?'

Chang looked unenthusiastic. ‘It's difficult to tell. There's a heck of a lot of
stuff to get through and it's not straightforward. So far, I've found three incidents
worth checking into further, but I'm waiting for more info.'

‘What about you, Sharon?'

Fuller yawned. ‘Nothing new to report from the Scrubs, although both inmates I saw
remembered Finnigan talking about having some hot Russian babe come to see him. Sounds
like he wasn't discreet with the photos of her either. Finnigan wasn't a popular
guy, by all accounts, but neither of them could think of anybody with a specific
grudge. According to the warder, Finnigan mixed with a pretty heavy crowd inside,
but
he didn't cause any actual trouble and kept himself to himself for the most part.
He'd been transferred there from Pentonville because of some sort of incident. I'm
waiting for the details.'

‘Any news on finding Smart's daughter Rose, Hannah?' he asked, turning to Hannah
Bird who was leaning against the door, arms folded. Everything about her face and
body language spoke of tiredness. He couldn't remember what her previous role had
been before she joined the murder squad, but he guessed she was unused to the pace
and the hours. He had seen it before, and wondered if she would learn to cope. It
was either sink or swim and his bet was on the former.

‘There's only one Rose, or Rosie, in John Smart's contacts,' she said, trying not
to yawn. ‘I've left messages on her home number and mobile but she hasn't called
me back yet. Do you want to send someone over to her address? She lives in Frome,
in Somerset.'

‘Keep trying, but if you don't get a reply by tomorrow morning, get somebody over
from the local station. It's important we find her. Smart may have told her something.'

As he spoke, the door behind Bird was pushed open and she moved aside to let Minderedes
in.

‘Sorry I'm late,' he said. ‘I've been over at the house next door to Jane Waterman's.
The woman who lives there had just got back from work. She and her husband haven't
been there that long and didn't know John Smart, but she did remember the Polish
gardener, Marek Nowak, because he did a few hours of gardening and DIY for them as
well. She described him as always cheerful and hardworking and said she was very
surprised to hear he'd run off with some of Jane Waterman's things. I've also dug
out the crime report for the burglary. Waterman's nephew alleged that various items
of silver and jewellery had been stolen from the house by Nowak.'

‘This was when?'

‘About three months after Smart disappeared. According to the report, Nowak hadn't
been staying at the house long, but he had worked for Jane Waterman on and off before,
so he may have crossed over with Smart at some point.'

‘Did they check to see if he had a criminal record back home?'

‘I don't think so. Nowak apparently did a runner, so charges were never brought.
But there is mention of a girlfriend being interviewed, although she wasn't very
helpful.'

‘You'd better go and talk to her in the morning. She might be more cooperative if
she knows it's a murder investigation.'

As he finished speaking, Carolyn Steele put her head around the door. ‘Sorry to interrupt,
Mark, but I've had Ian Armstrong on the phone. Someone has tipped him off that Richard
English may be a victim of the Jigsaw Killer, as the press are now calling the perpetrator.
I told Armstrong there was no DNA match with the London fire, but that didn't satisfy
him. Is there any news from Hampshire?'

He shook his head. ‘We should get the results this evening, or tomorrow morning at
the latest. I spoke to Ramsey earlier and he's chasing his end too.'

‘Has anyone managed to trace the tramp?'

‘Still no luck.'

‘OK. Let me know as soon as you hear from Ramsey. I said I'd call Armstrong back.
I didn't, of course, tell him we're treating English as a possible suspect.'