Jigsaw Man (7 page)

He sighed, not knowing what to say and wondering how to stop the questions. ‘She
wasn't abducted. From what we can tell, she went up to his room of her own accord.
Knowing Claire, I don't think he was a stranger.'

It was as though she hadn't heard him. ‘His name's Robert Herring. Herring, like
red herring. Like Mr Kipper. Do you think—'

‘I can't tell you anything more about Claire,' he cut in, although he had had the
same thoughts initially.
Mr Kipper
, the man who had abducted and presumably murdered
the estate agent Suzy Lamplugh nearly thirty years before, the crime still unsolved.
But the MO had been totally different. Whether or not the name was some sort of allusion
to a red herring was not something worth wasting time over for the moment. ‘However
hard it is, you need to try and stop thinking about it and let us get on with the
investigation. Anyway, as of this evening I'm off the case.'

She stared at him. ‘Off the case? Why? Because of me?'

‘No, something else. Another case I was working on just
before has blown up big-time
and I have to focus on that. There won't be time to follow both.' He had no intention
of mentioning his own connection with the Dillon Hotel, of telling her that he had
been there at the time of Claire's murder, and that he had seen nothing. However
irrational, the thought made him feel worse than useless.

She looked at him for a moment, as though struggling to take in what he said, then
closed her eyes and leaned back against him with a sigh, her head heavy on his shoulder.
He was surprised she had let it go so quickly, but maybe her state of mind, as well
as the medication she had been given, had dulled her usual persistence. He sat with
her, unmoving, for a while, until he realised she must have fallen asleep. Not wanting
to wake her, he gathered her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom, where
he laid her down on the bed. He pulled off her boots, eased the duvet over her, and
turned off the overhead lights, leaving a bedside lamp on in case she woke up and
forgot where she was. He closed the wooden shutters and watched her for a moment,
listening to her soft, rhythmical breathing, until he was sure she wasn't going
to wake. Seeing her there, in his bed, he felt a sudden pang of regret that he had
ever lost touch with her and, for a moment, he reflected on what might have been.

Then he shut the door and went back into the sitting room. Alex Clare was singing
‘Too Close', and as he sat down with his glass of wine to wait for his takeaway to
be delivered he listened to the lyrics and his thoughts turned again to Sam Donovan.
Their brief physical closeness had reawakened a complexity of feelings, not least
of basic physical attraction, which he usually tried to ignore. It had no place in
their friendship. Sex was easy, commitment a lot more difficult. As his sister's
words rang in his head again, he pictured Jannicke
and the brief but pleasurable
episode at the Dillon. He felt no guilt, but briefly wondered if his life would always
be that way. Perhaps he wasn't ready yet for anything much more, or maybe the cliché
was true: maybe he just hadn't met the right person. As for Donovan, something always
held him back from making a rash move in the heat of the moment. With expectations
so high on both sides, any relationship was doomed to failure, he was sure. What
was the point of risking a good friendship? As with the song, they were
too close
.
Not for the first time, he told himself to put it to the back of his mind, that it
was one of those things best left.

His eyes drifted to the files and footage from the car park body case spread out
on the coffee table in front of him and his thoughts turned again to the next day.
Until the DNA results came back, the focus had to be on Richard English. For the
moment, he was the only lead they had.

Six

The sky was grey and heavy with cloud, a cold drizzle just setting in again as Tartaglia
climbed out of Minderedes's BMW. It was nearly eleven in the morning and they were
in Markham Square in Chelsea, where Richard English had lived. Tartaglia's head felt
thick but he didn't mind a bit of rain and it was good to have some fresh air and
get out of the office for a while. The briefing meeting earlier had not gone well.
His team had greeted the news that they had been taken off the Dillon Hotel case
with unanimous and loud objections. Sam Donovan had been universally liked and everybody
wanted to help find her sister's killer, but Steele had been immovable. He was glad
that it was she, with her calm, unemotional manner, who had had the job of explaining
that the case had already been reassigned to the other team under her command. In
the end they had been forced to accept it, but it was going to be difficult to keep
everybody focussed on the car park case, when their hearts and minds were elsewhere.

A quick visit to the Sainsbury's car park had yielded nothing. They had been over
the ground again and looked at the logistics of what might have happened, but nothing
new had emerged and the homeless man known as Dodger was still nowhere to be seen.
Things had not improved as the morning wore on; the lab result had shown that the
DNA sample provided by Richard English's daughter had no familial connection with
any of the body parts. However, the wallet was still considered significant – it
had to have been placed at
the scene deliberately – but if none of the body parts
belonged to English, what was his connection to the others? Could he possibly be
a suspect?

English's house was almost at the end of the terrace, with a shiny dark-green door
and a knocker in the shape of a dolphin. Halloween had been and gone a few days before
but a huge pumpkin still stood grinning on the doorstep and the window overlooking
the road was festooned with garlands of fake cobwebs and spiders. Tartaglia pressed
the bell and the front door opened soon after.

‘Are you the police?' A young, blonde-haired woman peered short-sightedly up at him.

‘DI Mark Tartaglia.' He held up his warrant card.

‘I'm Lisa English. I was expecting you. Come inside.'

She was of medium height and very thin, dressed in tight, light-blue tracksuit bottoms
and a T-shirt with some sort of logo on the front mapped out in tiny crystals. He
followed her into the sitting room, where she motioned him towards a beige-coloured
leather sofa.

‘Do sit down. Would you like tea or coffee?' Her voice had a brittle tone, with a
trace of a South London accent.

‘I'm fine. Thanks,' he said, making himself comfortable. ‘We've got the results back
from the lab of the DNA sample taken from your daughter, Mrs English. There's no
familial link with the body we found in the car, which means your husband may still
be alive.'

He had expected a look of relief, or surprise, but her face showed no emotion. ‘I
thought you found his wallet,' she said flatly, sitting down opposite him in a large
armchair and crossing her legs. ‘His credit cards haven't been used since he disappeared.
You can check with the bank.' She sounded almost irritated.

‘Yes, they are still in his wallet, but whatever the explanation, he isn't the man
in the car.' He was careful to use the singular. ‘We also found a set of keys close
to the wallet, which we assume belong to him. Could they be for here?' He held up
the plastic evidence bag containing the keys, showing her the fob with the initial
‘R'.

She studied them closely for a moment, then shook her head. ‘Our front door's got
a Banham lock. If they're his, they'll be for his office, or maybe his flat.'

‘His flat?' The only address listed in the report was the Markham Square house.

‘He'd moved out. We were getting divorced.'

At least that explained her strange reaction. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't know.'

‘It was for the best.' Her mouth tightened. ‘There's something . . . I don't want
it to go further than this room. It's possible Charlotte isn't Rich's daughter.'

He looked at her surprised. ‘Why didn't you tell us this before?'

She shrugged, a gesture of what he hoped was embarrassment, although he doubted
it. She didn't look the type. ‘I didn't know for certain, until now.'

‘Does he have any close relatives? Parents, or siblings? We really do need to try
and get a DNA sample, if only to eliminate him.'

‘Rich was an only child and both his parents are dead, but he has two sons from his
first marriage. Last I heard, the eldest is off travelling somewhere on his gap year,
but you can try the younger one. He's at some posh boarding school out of London.
He's an absolute dead ringer for his dad. He's definitely Rich's son.'

‘We'll contact him immediately, if you can give me the mother's details?'

‘Sure.'

She still seemed oddly detached, even for a woman who clearly didn't like her missing
husband. ‘Are you alright, Mrs English?'

‘Of course I am. Why do you ask?'

‘Talking about what may have happened to your husband doesn't upset you, then?'

Her brown eyes widened. ‘Why should it? I just hoped you'd be telling me it was him
in that car.'

Taken aback, he studied Lisa English closely. In his experience, divorce was rarely
something cut and dried. Emotions ran high, and in all sorts of directions. Complete
calm and such coldness were unusual, even after a gap of two years, and he decided
that her blasé attitude must be an act. He suspected that, underneath, she felt the
bitterness of somebody badly hurt, and he guessed that Richard English had left her,
not the other way around. She wasn't wearing any make-up, not that she needed it;
she was pretty enough. She was older than he had initially thought, maybe late thirties,
heading towards forty, a tricky age for some women. He noted the light sprinkling
of freckles on her cheeks and small nose, the way her mouth turned down at the corners,
and the fine laughter lines around her eyes. He couldn't imagine her laughing or
having a sense of fun, but maybe he wasn't seeing her on a good day. The photos of
English in the missing persons report showed a middle-aged man with the bulky build
of an ex-rugby player gone to seed and a taste for loud, striped shirts and shapeless
leather jackets. He struggled to picture the two of them together.

‘So there was no love lost between you?'

‘That's one way of putting it. I'd just like to know if he's dead. We've been in
limbo too long.' She looked at him, as if daring him to make some sort of judgemental
comment.

He decided to change the subject. ‘Mr English was clearly a wealthy man,' he said,
more as a statement than a question, appraising the expensive furnishings and wondering
if money was behind Richard English's disappearance and possible murder.

‘Making money's all he cares about.'

‘What sort of work was he involved in?'

‘Hotels and restaurants and stuff. You'd better ask Ian, if you want the full gen.
I didn't get involved.'

‘Ian?'

‘Rich's business partner.'

‘He's the one who reported Mr English as missing?'

‘Yes. He can fill you in better than I can. Rich is the man with the Midas touch,
the creative one. Ian's the numbers guy, Mister Nuts and Bolts, or at least that's
what Rich always calls him. It's the perfect marriage.'

‘You keep referring to Mr English in the present tense. You think he's still alive?'

She shrugged. ‘I don't know what to think, really. I've been through it all in my
head over and over again. If he'd had an accident, we'd know about it. He carries
ID. He certainly likes a drink, particularly if it's some special, fancy vintage,
but he doesn't do benders, he doesn't go AWOL and he's not the sort to top himself.
He loves himself far too much. So something must've happened. Sometimes I wonder
if he's done a runner.'

‘A runner?'

‘It's possible. If something's up, it'll be to do with work, I'll put money on it.'

‘So you think he disappeared deliberately?'

‘I don't know, but if he's in some sort of trouble and he's taken off, Ian would
look after everything for him. That's the only thing I can think of.'

He looked at her, intrigued. She seemed to be telling the truth, and assuming her
description of her husband was accurate, she was right: people like Richard English
didn't just disappear into thin air. ‘Did he have any enemies?' he asked.

‘Again, you'd better ask Ian.'

‘Tell me more about Ian,' he said, curious, deciding that he should be the next priority.

‘He's like Rich's brother. They've known each other since school. I often felt like
Ian was the other woman in our relationship.'

‘If your husband
is
dead, are you the main beneficiary?'

She shifted in her chair and re-crossed her legs. ‘I get half his estate, according
to the solicitor. Luckily for me, he hadn't gotten around to changing his will before
he disappeared.' She didn't bother to mask the satisfaction in her tone.

‘What happens to the rest of it?' he asked, thinking that if English had deliberately
decided to disappear, it didn't sound very carefully planned.

‘Ian gets some shares in the business and the rest is put in trust for Charlotte
and his two kids from his first marriage. Once he's officially declared dead, that
is.'

‘Do you know what your husband was worth?'

She smiled openly. ‘Tens of millions, from what the solicitor says. Rich was a right
sod as a husband, but he knew how to make money.'

Struck again by her directness, which against his better judgement he found disarming,
he was silent for a moment. Money was always one hell of a motive for murder, but
he reminded himself that it was none of his concern, unless English was one of the
victims in the car.