Murder in Adland (11 page)

‘Dead! 
You gotta be kidding, fella?’

‘I’m afraid
not, sir – he was murdered.’

‘
Moydered
?’

‘Yes, sir
– would it help if I called you back in a short while?’

There is a pause
followed by the sound of coughing and various muffled cusses, before the
American voice returns.

‘It’s no
problem, Officer – just a bit of a shock, that’s all.  Actually I
hardly knew the guy personally – met him just the once.’

‘So you
don’t mind if I ask you some questions?’

‘Shoot.’

While DS Jones
has been despatched to inspect any paperwork kept at the Tregilgis’s flat, and
to catch up with developments filtering back to HQ, Skelgill has commandeered
Krista Morocco’s office in order to telephone The States.  His patience in
waiting is rewarded with the capture of Ford Zendik at his desk, partaking of his
breakfast coffee and bagels.  A brief introduction has established both
parties’ credentials, enabling Skelgill to come quickly to the point with the
straight talking though amiable New Yorker.

‘We believe
Mr Tregilgis was due to fly yesterday to JFK – and thought he may have
been intending to see you.’

‘Dead right.’ 
(The man coughs again, perhaps recognising his unfortunate choice of
words.)  ‘In fact, Officer, he was due here in my office in less than an
hour.’

‘Where exactly
are you?’

'Corner of
third and fifty-second.’

‘That’s
Manhattan?’

‘Correct,
Officer.’

‘And can
you tell me what the meeting was about?’

‘Sure. 
We’re buying his company.  Tregilgis was coming over so we could put some flesh
on the bones of the deal.’

‘Do you
mean the sale has already been agreed in principle?’

‘What I’m
saying is we’d agreed a ball-park figure.’

‘Can I ask
how much?’

‘Sixteen
million dollars.’

Skelgill pauses
for a moment – perhaps for a quick mental calculation.  It is a tidy
sum to bank, even after the nation has taken its cut.

‘When did
you hope to close the deal?’

‘Today. 
Tregilgis was bringing the signed Heads of Terms.’

‘That would
be a printed document?’

‘Sure. 
We
Fedexed
it last week – he called me on Friday to say he’d received
it.’

‘And do you
know if he was in agreement with the main points?’

‘He said it
looked fine.  Said he should be able to sell it to his partner, no
problem.’

‘Were they
not entirely in accord?’

‘Oh they
were in accord, alright – sixteen million bucks in accord.  It was
just a matter of swallowing the jobs we needed them to do for the next couple
of years.’

‘How does
that work, then?  I’m new to this advertising business.’

‘When you
buy a company like theirs, Officer, it’s standard practice to keep the
principals on for continuity – staff like it, clients like it –
it’s a people business.’

‘Right.’

‘In this
case we wanted Tregilgis to front the show, and Goldsmith to take a bit of a
back seat – don’t get me wrong, we’d keep him on – same package,
impressive title with the word
President
in it somewhere – but his
skills are superfluous in an organisation the size of ours.’

‘Whereas
Ivan Tregilgis had more of a role to play?’

‘Correct. 
We’d made the usual discreet inquiries – talking incognito to their staff,
clients, industry contacts.  Tregilgis was highly rated on all fronts
– a top Creative with international awards.’

‘And not so,
Dermott Goldsmith?’

‘He’s okay
so far as it goes.  But he doesn’t really bring anything to the party
– I’ve got bean-counters crawling all over me here, the last thing I need
is another one in England.’

‘Was there
some doubt that Mr Goldsmith would accept the position?’

‘Like I
said, Officer, sixteen million bucks buys a lot of humble pie.’

‘Why were
you dealing solely with Mr Tregilgis?’

‘That’s how
they wanted it.  It kept things simple – one point of contact.’

‘Will Mr
Tregilgis’s death affect the deal?’

There is a
moment’s silence followed by a slurping sound, then in the background a muffled
exclamation.

‘Sorry,
Officer.  Let my drink get cold.  Yeah, we’d still be interested, but
it may alter the price.’

‘Significantly?’

‘Hey, buddy
– are you their agent?’

‘Sounds
like it would pay well.’

‘Sure would. 
But to answer your question, Officer, I’d need to think about it. 
Tregilgis had intrinsic value – some clients were loyal to him personally
– and we’d need to hire a replacement head Creative – it’s not easy
to find top guns, even in London.’

‘I
understand.  Who else would have known about the proposed takeover?’

‘Couple of
guys here – Tregilgis and Goldsmith over your side – I’d be
surprised if they told anyone.’

‘Why is
that?’

‘It could
be unsettling if rumours got around – you don’t want your clients or
staff to start jumping ship.  Best to present a fait accompli and show
everyone that it’s business as usual.’

‘And there’s
no other agency in the mix?  I mean – competing for your sixteen
million?’

‘Not in
England, Officer.’

‘Okay. 
Look – I appreciate your co-operation.  Just one last question
– what are your feelings about this?’

‘We’ve lost
one of the Good Guys.’

*

When DS Jones
reappears forty minutes later, she is metaphorically empty handed, though
Skelgill seems cheered by the late lunch she bears in a couple of deli-style
sandwich bags.

‘Not a
trace, Guv – but Miriam Tregilgis did take in a parcel from a courier on
Friday.’

‘Nothing
here either – he doesn’t have a desk in the office.’

‘Miriam is
pleading ignorance about the sale.’

‘Seems hard
to believe.’  Skelgill begins to investigate the bags.  ‘How was
she?’

‘Phlegmatic
as ever, Guv.  And she denies having a relationship with any of her personal
training clients.’

‘What did
she say?’  Skelgill selects a sandwich and seems impressed by its size.

‘At first
she just said straight “no” – then when I explained somebody had seen
her, she said that her clients might sometimes like to
think
that things
were getting intimate, but that didn’t mean they were.’

‘I know
that feeling.’

DS Jones
smiles sympathetically.

‘How about Ford
Zendik, Guv?  It confirms Krista Morocco’s suspicion.’

Skelgill
nods.  Between bites he relates the details of his transatlantic
conversation.  When he reaches the part about sixteen million dollars, DS Jones
quickly jots upon her notebook.

‘Not a good
deal for Miriam, Guv.’

‘In what
way?’

‘As things
stand she gets half a million from the cross-option insurance arrangement
– if the sale had gone through, Ivan Tregilgis would have been worth six
times that.’

Skelgill
raises his eyebrows as he continues to eat.

‘It Makes
Miriam look an unlikely murderess, don’t you think, Guv?’

Skelgill
cocks his head on one side.

‘It’s also
the perfect alibi.’

DS Jones
throws him an inquiring glance.

‘Just look
at the facts, Jones.  She still walks away with a guaranteed half-million,
plus whatever his personal life insurance is worth – mortgage paid off,
tidy income of her own.  Meanwhile, she’s the only person that we’ve got
concrete proof was at the scene of the crime – virtually at the time of
death – and covered in Tregilgis’s blood.’

DS Jones looks
pensive.

‘But say
she’d done it, Guv – what about the knife?  She’d have to get rid of
it in the couple of minutes before raising the alarm – in her nightie. 
Surely it would be nearby – and we’d have found it first time around?’

‘There’s
always the accomplice – the professional footballer waiting on the
terrace to spirit it away.’

Skelgill
says this with a grin, knowing his assistant still harbours a suspicion that
Grendon Smith had some role to play.

‘Of course,
there are swings and roundabouts.’

‘In what
way, Guv?’

‘Miriam
Tregilgis’s loss is Dermott Goldsmith’s gain.  He receives Tregilgis’s
half of the company at no extra cost, sells the
lot
to the Yanks –
and doubles his fortune.’  Skelgill puts his hands behind his head and
leans back in Krista Morocco’s articulating leather chair.  ‘As far as
having a financial incentive goes, Lord Goldsmith is in pole position.’

Now DS
Jones is nodding.

‘A good
reason to keep quiet about the takeover, Guv.  Let the dust settle and
then seal the deal.’

Skelgill
nods, though he raises a caveat.

‘According
to Zendik, the price would need to change without Tregilgis.  That’ll
probably come as a shock to Goldsmith – he’s got such an inflated idea of
his own importance.’

DS Jones’s
eyes light up.

‘What if
the dispute was about their new jobs, Guv – when Goldsmith was hassling
Tregilgis in the bar?’

‘Aye, well
– I’m certain he wouldn’t be happy about playing second fiddle.’

‘Perhaps he
hadn’t seen the job spec at that point, Guv – if Tregilgis only received
the contract on Friday?  It’s a reason to tamper with the briefcase. 
Then if he discovered something he didn’t like – that might have been
reason enough to commit murder.  With Tregilgis out of the way, he would
be the new kingpin.  And he could afford to drop the price – he’d own
100 per cent of the shares.’

Skelgill nods.

‘And, Guv
– I phoned the Path. Lab – they agreed with that theory about the
insulin – it would be a risky thing to do late at night – and surely
Goldsmith would have known that?’

‘Aye, you’d
think so.’  Skelgill ponders for a moment; he seems reluctant to get too
carried away with this line of reasoning.  ‘We just have to remind
ourselves that, as yet, we’ve got nothing to link him with the crime
scene.  No witnesses, no forensics, no admission.’  He takes a deep
breath, and then releases it slowly.  ‘Still, the questions mount for his
Lordship.’

As Big Ben strikes
nine times
post meridiem
, Skelgill can be found dining alone on Waterloo
Bridge.  He leans over the parapet and stares pensively into the murky
Thames as it streams below on the ebb tide.  Experimentally, he drops a
chip, and watches fascinated as it seems to tumble slowly through the air, then
suddenly to disappear beneath the oily surface, fodder for whatever foul and
disfigured creatures inhabit these polluted reaches.

He studies
a loose raft of flotsam drifting seawards: plastic bottles, sticks, a tennis
ball, clumps of weed, even a training shoe – an evolving aquatic
pastiche, a diverse collection of parts that has coalesced for no apparent
reason (although the tennis ball and training shoe are conceivably
related).   These individual clues to the raft’s origins bob along,
jostling one another for prominence in the eyes of the onlooker, while others perhaps
are carried unseen by the undertow.

Skelgill rouses
himself from his musings and stands upright.  A heavily overcast sky
heralds a premature nightfall, and the city is lighting up around him. 
Yielding to DS Jones’s exhortations, he has taken up her suggestion to see “the
best view in London” – in reciprocation of their visit to Calton Hill;
except she hasn’t come with him.  So he has ventured south along Drury
Lane and Aldwych – via a couple of hostelries – and is surprised to
find the river flowing so close by.  Now, in the centre of Waterloo
Bridge, he must surely agree with his colleague’s assessment.  Views might
be hard to come by in a city whose highest point is a building, but astride
this great curve of the Thames many of the nation’s most famous landmarks,
ancient and modern, are visible in a single spectacular sweep of the eye.

DS Jones,
meanwhile, at Skelgill’s insistence, has taken to public transport to meet her
occasional though long-standing boyfriend in Clapham.

Skelgill finishes
his fish supper and crushes the greasy wrappings.  Resisting any
temptation to toss the ball into the Thames, he finds a waste bin nearby. 
Then he returns northwards and turns left onto the Strand.  He slows as he
crosses Savoy Court.  Beneath a gilded knight with spear and shield, a
stream of taxis deposits bejewelled passengers outside the mouth of the
eponymous hotel, where they are fed into a revolving door by a top-hatted
commissionaire.

A man that
looks like Prince Charles comes towards him from the direction of the
hotel.  Not wishing to stare, Skelgill moves away.  A few paces
further on a postcard lying on the pavement catches his eye and he picks it up. 
It features a surprisingly well-educated oriental lady offering her
services.  He realises it has fluttered from a nearby phone booth, which
has much of its interior decorated with an array of similar invitations.  He
peers through a vacant rectangle in the glass.  The photographs leave little
to the imagination.

‘Scuse me,
John – aw-right if I get in there?’

Skelgill
spins round – it is Prince Charles – or, at least, his Cockney
doppelganger.

‘Aye
– sorry.’

Skelgill
steps away, perhaps embarrassed that he was caught ogling the images. 
There is a gap in the traffic, so he allows his momentum to take him across the
Strand.  As he glances to his left he sees a distant Lord Nelson, proud
above the rooftops, silhouetted against a sliver of orange horizon.  He is
still holding the postcard, and as he strolls introspectively up Southampton
Street he can be seen to fumble for his mobile phone and dial a number.

*

A few
minutes later he presses the buzzer of an entry phone marked simply ‘Flat 3’. 
He stands back so the spy-camera can see him clearly beneath the neon of a
streetlight.  A subtle click is his cue to enter.  He pushes into a
small, clean hallway that smells of new carpet.  Then he hauls on a chrome
bannister as he climbs swiftly to the penthouse landing.  Panting now, he
reaches out to tap on the heavy reinforced door.  Like magic it swings
slowly open.  In front of him, pink-cheeked and a little breathless
herself, stands Miriam Tregilgis.

*

‘Good
evening, Inspector.’

‘Have you
been drinking, Sergeant?’

‘I can’t be
the only one, surely, Guv?’

‘Aye
– but I’ve had more practise disguising it.’

‘Did you
make it to Waterloo Bridge?’

‘I saw
Miriam.’

‘No?’

‘Straight
up.  Come on – the bar’s still open – I’ll tell you about it.’

Skelgill
and DS Jones have arrived simultaneously to collect their room keys from the
hotel’s reception desk.  Now they wend their way into the lounge bar, a
large, over-bright room that is badly in need of refurbishment.  Skelgill
procures their drinks and joins his colleague on a stained, though reasonably
comfortable sofa.

‘Cheers,
Guv.’

‘Aye,
cheers.’

‘So what’s
the news of Miriam Tregilgis?’

Skelgill
shrugs, as though perhaps there is no news as such, and now he must manufacture
something of merit.  But he begins with a question.

‘When you
went round earlier – was her sister there?’

‘No, Guv
– apparently she’s already gone back to Wales.  Something came up.’

Skelgill
nods pensively.  In Miriam Tregilgis’s flat there had been an unfamiliar
though pleasant aromatic scent in the air.  She had led him along a
hallway, passing doors on either side.  From behind one of these had come
the sounds of a shower splashing, and a melodic female voice accompanying a
radio tuned to a music channel.

‘When I
arrived there was someone there – a girl, a woman.  I assumed it was
her sister and that she’d introduce me later.’

‘And did
she?’

Skelgill
shakes his head.

‘Miriam
didn’t – and the other one disappeared into thin air.’

‘Maybe she
went to bed?  Perhaps now that her sister’s away she’s got someone else
staying to keep her company – a friend?’

‘A
girlfriend?’

DS Jones
lifts her head knowingly, understanding what Skelgill is getting at.

‘It’s
possible, Guv.’

‘It might
explain a thing or two.’

DS Jones
nods.

‘I’m no
expert, Guv.’

‘I’m glad
to hear it, Jones.’

There
follows a silence – one that is perhaps a little awkward, and they both
end up by draining their glasses.  By unspoken mutual consent they rise
and make their way out into the lobby – the hour is late and another
challenging day awaits.  The lift is shaky and ponderous, and Skelgill
makes small talk.

‘How was Clapham?’

‘Fine.’

Her tone
suggests the opposite, and Skelgill does not pursue the matter.  Their
rooms are on separate floors, and they arrive at DS Jones’s first.  As the
doors slide open she suddenly clasps his sleeve and pecks him on the cheek.

‘Night, Guv.’

‘Night... Emma.’