Name To a Face (20 page)

In the end, Harding told Shepherd the truth. There was nothing to be gained by keeping him in the dark about Hayley’s murder of Barney Tozer once he had revealed what Kerry was investigating at the time of her fatal dive off the Scillies: not Tozer’s suspect finances, but an historical conundrum which by any rational standards could have no connection with her death.

Shepherd deduced Harding’s motive for holding out on him swiftly enough and was only briefly angered by it. It was a double tragedy now, he observed, the more so since he did not believe Kerry’s accident had been engineered by anyone. There was nothing for Hayley to avenge. And nothing Harding could do to help her.

Nor was there much Shepherd could do to help Harding. Except suggest he top up both their glasses and offer him a bed for the night; as well as proffer some sage advice.

“Go back to France, son. Landscape a few more gardens. Get on with your life. Let the dead bury the dead.”

“But Hayley isn’t dead.”

“She’ll be as good as, once the law’s finished with her. Not that it ever will finish with her. Prison and/or mental hospital sounds like her foreseeable future to me.”

“I keep wondering… if there was something I could’ve done to prevent this outcome.”

“I wonder that about my entire existence to date. The answer’s yes, of course. But it doesn’t help to know it. What’s done is done. There are no second chances.”

Harding thought of Hayley’s apparently serious suggestion that he and Kerry had met in some cosmically real alternative existence. In which case he and Hayley had also met there, with a different result. A happier one, surely. “Going back to my old life isn’t exactly possible.”

“Make it the nearest approximation, then.”

An approximation of life sounded uncannily like what did await him in France. And what he had left behind there when he first set off for Penzance on Barney Tozer’s behalf. The truth was that it was no longer enough. He realized now that he had coped with Polly’s death by withdrawing from the world he knew. And he had still found no other world to replace it.

“I get the feeling I’m wasting my breath,” said Shepherd, breaking into Harding’s thoughts. “You won’t be content until you’ve explored every last avenue and proved it to be a dead end.”

“Perhaps one of them isn’t.”

“Perhaps.” Shepherd eyed Harding over his whisky glass. “For your sake, I hope so.”

Harding slept poorly, as he had each night since the shooting at Nymphenburg. Whenever he closed his eyes, his mind would replay for him the last few seconds of Barney Tozer’s life, over and over again, until eventually it tired and let him sleep-though never for long. He found it restful by comparison to lie awake and hear Shepherd snoring in the adjoining bedroom, to gaze into the darkness and wonder, almost neutrally what the future held; and to know it had never been less certain.

Shepherd was still snoring away when Harding got up the following morning, made himself a cup of coffee and composed a farewell message for his host on a Post-It note he stuck to the toaster.
Thanks for hospitality. Gone to explore those other avenues. Let you know if I find anything. TH.

Harding could think of at least two leads he could still follow: Nathan Gashry’s reluctance to talk to him; and Darren Spargo’s claim to know who had stolen the Shovell ring from Heartsease. He would start with Nathan. Ann Gashry had said he worked for an executive recruitment consultancy in the City called Caddick Pearson. That was where the police had contacted him, to his considerable embarrassment. So, why not find out how he would react to an office visit from Harding?

About halfway through the two-hour train journey to London, Harding’s phone rang. Seeing the number of the caller, he was tempted not to answer. But he reasoned in the end that Whybrow was a man more safely misled than ignored.

“Hi, Tony. What can I do for you?”

“Where are you, Tim?”

“Oh, in… transit.”

“Only I was puzzled when Carol told me the time you left yesterday morning. It didn’t seem to fit with any of the scheduled flights to Nice.” So, he had checked, which was worrying in itself.

“I’m in England, actually, Tony. I decided… I needed a break… after everything that’s happened. Thought I’d see the folks and a few old friends.”

“Good idea. Just a little odd you didn’t mention it.”

“It was a last-minute thing. No problem, is there?”

“Only that they still haven’t found Hayley”

“But they will.”

“Yes. Of course. But tell me, this break… wouldn’t be cover for some… ill-advised attempt to do the police’s job for them, would it, Tim?”

“How d’you mean?”

“Well, you haven’t taken it into your head to try and find Hayley yourself, have you?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“I wouldn’t know where to look. Don’t worry Tony. I’ll be back next week.”

“Fine.” There was a momentary silence that felt significant. Then Whybrow concluded, “We’ll talk then.”

It was mid-morning when Harding arrived in London, late morning by the time he reached the offices of Caddick Pearson: one floor of a steel-and-glass tower near Liverpool Street station. His plan to catch Nathan unawares in his workaday environment was stillborn, however. Nathan had phoned in sick that morning.

Harding reckoned it was no better than fifty-fifty he would find Nathan at his flat. He did not suppose for a moment the man’s illness was genuine; he was up to something. Harding was not discouraged by the thought, however. Quite the contrary. It meant
he
was on to something.

The first warning he had that all was not well came as he approached the apartment block across Vauxhall Bridge. There were assorted vans and cars drawn up in the courtyard area below the flats-at least one of them a police vehicle.

As he drew nearer, he saw a line of police tape, with a constable standing just beyond it, barring access to the courtyard and the adjoining riverside walkway. A small crowd of onlookers had gathered, although they were in the process of dispersing. The incident, whatever it was, had evidently already lost some of its novelty value.

An Asian man dressed in dark-green uniform overalls was among those drifting away. Harding caught sight of the name of the block displayed on his breast pocket. He intercepted.

“Excuse me. Has something happened?”

“A tragedy. Someone has fallen. From one of the flats. They have just taken the body away.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“Oh yes. I saw him. Before the police came. Nasty. Very nasty. Poor fellow. Suicide, I suppose. But who would have thought it? Such a nice man. There was always a joke or a smile from Mr. Gashry”

“Nathan
Gashry?”

“Yes. You are a friend?”

“Sort of. You’re saying… Nathan Gashry’s dead?”

“Fifth floor. Straight down into the courtyard. You could not survive. He did not want to, I suppose. A desperate, terrible thing. But there it is.” The man spread his hands helplessly. “Yes. I am sorry. Mr. Gashry is dead.”

Harding waited till dark before presenting himself at Ann Gashry’s door. This was not only to allow time for the police to contact her with the news of her brother’s death. Harding had needed time himself, to come to terms as best he could with an event that seemed to make no sense in the context of what had gone before-unless, he was coming more and more to suspect, what had gone before was not as he had believed it to be.

Ann’s greeting suggested she had been expecting his visit. She invited him in and he found himself once more in the sombre, fustily decorated drawing room, which was thickly curtained and fire-lit against the chill of the evening. There was no obvious sign of distress on her part. She was dry-eyed and calm, though perhaps paler than ever. A photograph album lay open on the table beside her chair. Harding glimpsed faded snaps of seaside holidays long ago: stiffly smiling parents; a teenage girl in an unglamorous swimsuit; a pouty little boy brandishing a plastic spade like a weapon.

“I haven’t looked at these photographs in years,” said Ann, gently closing the album. “They date from before my parents divorced: the brief period when Nathan and I were brother and sister under one roof.”

“I’m sorry Ann.”

“Thank you. It’s a shock, of course. There can be little true grief. We led such different lives. And yet…”

“He was your flesh and blood.”

“Indeed.” She picked up a glass from the table and sipped some of the contents. Brandy, Harding assumed. Her tipple, especially at times of stress. “Would you like a drink?”

“Thanks.”

“Help yourself.”

He poured himself a whisky and tilted the Courvoisier bottle enquiringly towards Ann. She shook her head and sat down. Harding joined her.

She drew a deep breath. “How did you hear?”

“I went to see him. It had just happened.”

“Was it… very dreadful?”

“They’d screened everything off.”

“Did you speak to the police?”

“No. They’d have… queried my being there.”

“So you want me to tell you what they make of it.” She looked him in the eye, defying him to pretend his principal reason for visiting her was to offer his condolences. “Well, perhaps we could start with why you went to see Nathan today. You didn’t seem to have it in mind yesterday.”

“I hoped Jack Shepherd-Kerry’s old editor-would know what she’d hidden under the floorboards. But he couldn’t help me. So, I decided to try Nathan instead.”

“You seriously expected him to know-or to tell you if he did?”

“I was running out of options.”

“Well, you’ve one fewer left now.”

“Do the police believe it was suicide?”

“They seem inclined to. An accident’s out of the question. And murder? There was no sign of a struggle, apparently. Naturally, they wanted to know how he’d been when we last met. Was he distraught at being implicated, albeit unwittingly, in Barney Tozer’s murder? Was there any suggestion he was keeping back vital evidence? Was he perhaps not so unwitting after all and prey to remorse? I’m sure you can imagine the direction their questions took.”

“How did you answer them?”

“As frankly as I felt I could. A degree of reticence was essential, for my sake as well as yours. I certainly made it clear I regarded the idea that Nathan had committed suicide as absurd. I gather his girlfriend said much the same. He was planning to go to work today as far as she knew. He wasn’t ill. And according to her he wasn’t depressed, just angry at Hayley for using him to lure Barney Tozer to his death. None of which I suspect is likely to deflect the police from their suicide theory. It fits the facts better than any other from their point of view.”

“If it wasn’t suicide…”

“Hayley’s not physically capable of throwing a grown man from a balcony, Mr. Harding. You know that. It’s as absurd as suggesting he threw himself.”

“But something propelled him.”

“Yes. Or someone.”

“Someone other than Hayley.”

“Quite so.”

“Which means…”

“Have you seen Sir Clowdisley Shovell’s tomb in Westminster Abbey?”

Harding blinked in surprise. “Sorry?”

“If not, you ought to take a look at it, in view of your involvement in the
Association
story. A grandiose marble monument carved by Grinling Gibbons. Bizarrely in accordance with the fashion of the day, Sir Clowdisley is depicted, despite his obviously eighteenth-century wig, in a toga and sandals, more like a Roman emperor than an admiral. Most of the thousands of tourists who file past the tomb every year don’t pause to read the inscription, so probably have no idea he was a man of the sea. Costume sends a message. And sometimes that message can be misleading, whether by design or not.”

“What are you getting at, Ann?”

“How sure are you that it was Hayley who shot Barney Tozer?”

Harding could not suppress a rueful smile. It was the question he had been asking himself since learning of Nathan’s apparent suicide. It was the question that begged all others. He had persuaded himself at one point that the young woman he had pursued through rain and lamplight along the streets of Munich might not be Hayley after all. He had only changed his mind at Nymphenburg, in the seconds after Tozer’s death, when he had watched the same young woman run away through the trees,
without
looking back. She matched Hayley in height and build and hairstyle. And she was dressed for the part, in the same kind of mac Hayley had been wearing the very first time he had seen her, at Heartsease, a few days before the auction. But was it her? Was it her beyond the shadow of a doubt?

“If you’re not sure, Mr. Harding, not
absolutely
sure, then…”

“We only have Nathan’s word for it she set up the rendezvous in the first place.”

“And if he was lying, for whatever reason…”

“He can’t own up to it now.”

“Death seals everyone’s lips.”

“My God.” Some of the implications of what they were saying flashed through Harding’s mind. “Could this be true?”

“I think it may be.”

“But if it is…”

“Then, what do we do about it?” She gazed at him intently. “What
exactly
do we do?”

With so much unknown, they had to learn as much as they could as quickly as they could. Ann volunteered to contact Veronica and pump her for information about Nathan’s activities in recent weeks: where he had been, who he had spoken to, what he had said that might seem more significant now than it had at the time. For his part, Harding could see nothing for it but to chase down the last lead left to him: the identity of the Heartsease thief; which might, just might, be the answer to everything.

Since the call from Whybrow, Harding had kept his phone switched off. He checked for messages as he stood stamping his feet to keep warm while waiting for the next train to Victoria on the wind-lashed platform at West Dulwich station. There was one: from Carol. And it was very different in tone from the last message she had left for him.

Why are you in England, Tim? Tony’s told me what you said, but I don’t believe it any more than he does. If you’re still chasing Hayley, you’re as mad as she is. If not, then what the hell are you up to? Explanation please. I think I’m owed one. What are you trying to do?

It was a reasonable question in its way. But it was not one Harding had any intention of answering. He switched the phone off again, shoved it back into his pocket and squinted down the track. Where
was
the train?

The sleeper pulled out of Paddington on schedule at ten to midnight. Harding had secured a berth at the last minute. After dumping his bag in his cabin, he headed for the buffet, where nightcaps were being served. He suspected he would need several.

There were half a dozen or so customers ahead of him in the queue. He paid them no attention. But one of them paid him a great deal.

“Mr. Harding,” came a familiar voice. “This
is
a surprise.”