Malice in London (8 page)

Boles frowned. “Mention Richard Brighton to anyone in the borough, and you’re sure to get a strong reaction one way or the other. People either loved him or hated him. The traditional Labour types accused him of selling his soul to Mrs. Thatcher, the Conservatives were jealous of his success, and the yuppies—who have flocked here in the last few years—loved him. He won his seat on the council by a landslide last election, and he was being touted as the next mayor. And I personally think that his ambition extended well beyond that. He was charismatic and articulate, with an attractive wife who is a successful businesswoman in her own right.”

Powell smiled crookedly. “Sounds like your typical Blairite.”

“You’re right. But in Brighton’s case, one got the impression there was a worm in the apple. Even some of his most die-hard supporters felt that he’d gone beyond the pale with the position he’d taken on the proposed Dockside development in Rotherhithe.” He looked at Powell with a questioning expression.

Powell nodded. “I know about it.

“Brighton said all the right things, of course,” Boles continued. “How the increased revenue would allow the council to provide better services and facilities for the greater good of the people of Southwark.” He hesitated, as if searching for the right words. “But it seemed out of character somehow, even for him. Promoting development
is one thing, but turning upward of a hundred council tenants out into the street is quite another.”

“Do you think,” Powell asked carefully, “that someone could be so set against the project he or she would resort to murder?”

Boles’s eyes blinked slowly in his pale face. “It beggars the imagination doesn’t it? On the other hand, the only thing tying Brighton’s murder to a robbery is the fact that his wallet was missing.” He looked at Powell. “All I know is my instincts tell me it was something personal.”

As Rashid Jamal, clucking like a broody hen, cleared away the dishes from their table, Detective-Sergeant Sarah Evans leaned back in her chair and sighed contentedly. “Mere words cannot do justice to that
korma.
”

Rashid flashed a grin. “Thank you, miss. You are most kind.”

When they were alone again, Evans regarded Powell speculatively. Because it was ostensibly a social occasion, she felt she could dispense with the usual formalities, although it was admittedly a fine line she was treading. “Although I’m certainly not complaining, you didn’t ask me here to discuss the Brighton case, did you?”

Powell smiled thinly. “You’ll make a great detective someday, Evans. To answer your question, no I didn’t actually. Apart from an excuse to enjoy your company, I wanted your views on another matter. As a woman, I mean.”

She looked at him suspiciously, oblivious to his compliment. “What do you mean, ’as a woman’?”

He frowned. “It’s about this young friend of mine—more of an acquaintance, really … She works at the pub next door …” He went on to tell Evans about Jill Burroughs and the events leading up to and following her disappearance.

Evans listened intently. When Powell had finished his account, she thought about it for a moment. “I think you can call her a friend,” she said pointedly, “since I take it she wasn’t running some sort of doss house in Bloomsbury.”

Powell screwed up his face. “Ouch!” he said.

“You know what I mean. She sounds like a very nice person, and I can understand why you’re worried. But try and look at things from her point of view.”

“What do you mean?”

“It sounds to me like the poor girl had a weekend from hell. I’ll leave aside the events of last Friday night and the psychological impact of having a policeman commandeer her couch for the night—”

“Very funny.”

“That bloke who was always hanging about the pub watching her—the so-called poet—is obviously completely crackers. It must have worn on her nerves, and when he tried to follow her home that night, it was the last straw.”

“So she ran away?” Powell ventured doubtfully.

Evans looked disappointed in him. “She was living away from home in a foreign country, she was being pursued by some screwy sonneteer, and from what you’ve
said, she was involved in an iffy relationship with a young man whose family wasn’t thrilled with the idea. And come to think of it, working in a pub can’t be all fun and games—having to put up with the Clive Mortons of the world, for instance.”

“Yes, well, look what happened to him,” Powell said to no one in particular.

Evans shrugged. “Perhaps she just needed to get away for a while to think things through. God knows I wish I could sometimes. Anyway, that’s my gut reaction, based on what you’ve told me.”

“But why not tell someone? Her employer for instance.”

Evans looked thoughtful. “I think it’s the kind of thing one would tend to do on the spur of the moment if one felt really hard-pressed, without necessarily thinking about the consequences.”

“There are, of course, more sinister possibilities,” Powell said, stating the obvious.

Evans looked at him with her clear blue eyes. “You asked me for my opinion, and I’ve given it to you. As a woman,” she added dryly.

He smiled warmly. “And an exceedingly pleasant luncheon companion, at that. Thank you, Evans. You’ve been most helpful.” His expression turned serious. “And I sincerely hope you’re right about Jill.”

Powell escorted Detective-Sergeant Evans to the tube station, then, motivated by the need to clear his head, decided to go for a walk alone with no particular destination in mind. He stepped into the Tottenham Court Road under an equivocal gray sky. During the course of his
discussion with Evans, he had come to realize on a conscious level just how worried he was about Jill Burroughs. In an irrational way, he felt that he was partly responsible for complicating her life, perhaps even contributing to her decision—if that is in fact what it was—to run away from her problems. And that was the most optimistic scenario; the others didn’t bear thinking about. He had been carelessly free with advice that morning in Jill’s flat, advice that he had rarely followed in his own life. Follow your bloody heart indeed. He shook his head in disgust. In any case, there was nothing he could do about it now. Time would tell whether Evans’s intuition was sound. He found the acceptance of this self-evident fact strangely liberating.

As he walked past the endless line of discount computer and stereo shops, he concentrated his attention on the disparate murders of Richard Brighton and Clive Morton. A popular Labour councillor is found floating in the Thames, an apparent robbery victim. Then, a month later, Clive Morton, the notorious restaurant critic and a thoroughly disagreeable chap by all accounts, has his throat slit in a Soho alley. In Morton’s case, there was no indication of robbery; however, the corpse had been garnished with an apple, which was, to say the least, suggestive. Morton had often boasted in his newspaper column that he could make or break a restaurant’s reputation, and the sheer number of London restaurateurs who were the victims of a scathing review, and who would no doubt have taken great pleasure in personally administering the coup de grâce, boggled the mind. At this point, Powell had to suppress a mental
image of a maniacal Rashid Jamal furtively feeding his tandoor.

At the corner of New Oxford Street, a green-glass and concrete office tower dominated the skyscape like an obscene finger. Powell turned into the nearest pub. The only apparent similarity in the two crimes, he mused as he sipped his beer, was the fact that both men had been initially struck on the head before being dispatched in dramatically different ways. On the surface of it then, here were two unrelated events: one a random act of violence of the type so prevalent nowadays, the other something more personal perhaps. There was, however, one potential fly in this particular ointment and without a doubt the most intriguing revelation in the case so far: Clive Morton’s connection—via his proposed restaurant, Chez Clive—with the Dockside development scheme in Rotherhithe, the very same scheme on which Richard Brighton had staked his political future.

As he watched the steady stream of passersby on the pavement outside, it occurred to him that his approach up until now had been hit-and-miss. Even Black had politely made the point. It was time to sweep the personal clutter from his mind and get down to business. He drained his pint, then reached into his pocket for his mobile phone.

Forty-five minutes later, Powell found himself once again in Shad Thames. The office he was looking for was sandwiched between a gourmet food shop and a clothing boutique.
P. K. ATHERTON, PROPERTY DEVELOPERS AND ESTATE AGENTS
the sign in the window proclaimed discreetly. Powell announced himself to the secretary, a smashing young redhead with green eyes who invited him in a lilting brogue to take a seat while she went to inform Mr. Atherton. Presently he could hear the murmur of voices.

A few minutes later, she returned to escort him through a door at the rear of the main reception area. There was no sign of any other employees. At the end of a short hallway, she ushered him into a large office that was sparsely furnished with a few good pieces of furniture (to give an impression of richness, he surmised) in addition to the usual file cabinets and office paraphernalia. A man about his age, fit-looking in a short-sleeved white shirt, tie loosened casually, sat behind
a massive desk. He smiled and stood up, extending his hand across the desk. “Paul Atherton,” he said as they shook hands. He gestured for Powell to sit down in a green leather–upholstered chair across from him. “Please shut the door, Ms. Kelly, and hold my calls.”

Powell discreetly surveyed his surroundings as he took his seat. There was a closed door to his right. Mounted on the oak-paneled wall behind his host was a small glass cabinet, inside of which was displayed a pair of antique percussion dueling pistols in their fitted, baize-lined case. On the corner of the desk was a Christie’s auction catalogue of antique arms that one suspected had been strategically placed to look as if it had been tossed there casually.

Atherton noticed Powell’s apparent interest. “You aren’t a collector, by any chance, are you, Chief Superintendent?” he asked.

Powell smiled. “You should see my basement.”

Atherton laughed unselfconsciously. “The desire to acquire things, whether one needs them or not, is an innate human characteristic, I fear. I’ve long ago given up trying to fight it.” His expression suddenly became sober. “Now, then, what exactly can I do for Scotland Yard?”

“As I mentioned on the telephone, I was hoping you could answer some questions I have about your proposed development on the Thames in Rotherhithe. I’ll try not to take up too much of your time.”

Atherton frowned. “Not at all, Chief Superintendent, although I can’t see that I’ll be of much help to you. I
find it inconceivable that Richard Brighton’s death had anything to do with Dockside.”

“I admit it’s a long shot, but if I can eliminate it as a possibility, my job will be that much easier.”

Atherton seemed satisfied with this response. “What do you want to know?” he asked.

“I understand that Dockside tends to arouse the passions of both its supporters and detractors,” Powell replied tactfully. “Perhaps you could begin by giving me a bit of background on the project.”

Atherton shook his head ruefully. “It never ceases to amaze me how people who claim to have the best interests of their community at heart can consistently stand in the way of progress and not see the hypocrisy of their position. Times change—that’s the nature of things and it’s futile to deny it. At one time, London boasted the largest enclosed cargo dock system in the world. Each dock was surrounded by forty-foot-high walls and set up for a specific type of cargo. They even had their own police forces. With the advent of container ships in the Sixties, however, everything changed. Freighters that took a fortnight to unload using traditional methods were being replaced with container ships that could be turned around in twenty-four hours. In addition, much of the cargo that used to be transported by rail through London to the docks was now being carried on truck ferries plying to and from Europe. To make a long story short, the port moved downriver, and the docks closed one by one. One can mourn the loss of a way of life, but one cannot turn back the clock, Chief Superintendent.”

Powell grunted neutrally.

“Essentially, we’re talking about five thousand acres of land, seven hundred acres of water, twenty miles of riverfront, and hundreds of buildings that no longer served a useful purpose,” Atherton continued with growing enthusiasm. “In the Seventies and Eighties, Docklands, as we now know it, was a wasteland of abandoned warehouses with high unemployment and a dwindling population, but it was the development opportunity of a lifetime for those with the vision to see it. The renaissance, if I may put it that way, began with Canary Wharf. Despite a temporary setback due to the nineteen-ninety recession, which pleased the naysayers no end,” he added with a hint of contempt in his voice, “Canary Wharf alone now provides nearly five million square feet of high-quality office space, very little of it vacant. And there is a growing demand for residential properties as well. Prices here in Bermondsey, for instance, are presently increasing at a rate second only to Kensington.”

“And how does Dockside fit into this architectural renaissance?” Powell prompted dryly.

Atherton smiled. “I do get carried away, don’t I? Dockside is a rather modest development in the scheme of things—forty-four one- and two-bedroom flats in a converted warehouse on the Thames in Rotherhithe, with an adjacent shopping and recreation complex across the road. We’re rather proud of it, actually.”

“I understand that part of the development is proposed on property presently owned by the borough …”

Atherton sighed. “Therein, Chief Superintendent, lies the root of the controversy you alluded to. We have
an option to purchase the warehouse from its owners, but as you say, the council owns the land across the road. As you can imagine, it’s difficult enough to put together a project of this nature without that sort of complication. Unfortunately, the commercial component is necessary to create a viable project, so we have made what we believe is a reasonable proposal to the council to purchase the property at the going rate. We’re still waiting for a decision.”