The Borgia Ring (11 page)

There was a faint odour of damp in the briefing room. Pendragon noticed it as soon as he walked in with Turner. Other than this, a large brown-ringed damp patch in the ceiling was the only remaining indication that a gutter had given way under the pressure of water from the storm, causing a minor flood in this part of the station. Mackleby and Grant were already there. The sergeant was pinning a set of photographs of Tim Middleton to the board. Grant was tapping at a laptop, his eyes fixed on the screen.

‘So, what have we got?’ Pendragon said as Mackleby turned and walked towards the nearest desk.

She had a notebook and pen in front of her. ‘The restaurant owner was keen to help.’

‘He’s worried we’ll have Environmental Health round there.’

‘Yeah, but to be fair, guv, he did well. Stopped anyone leaving, got us there sharpish.’

Pendragon nodded. ‘Learn anything from his account?’

‘Mr Contadino was in the kitchen when Middleton started to take a bad turn. He heard a woman scream and rushed in to see the victim hit the deck.’

‘What about the others from the firm?’

‘Sergeant Mackleby spoke to the women. I took statements from the men,’ Inspector Grant replied, without looking up from the screen. He tapped at a button, stood up
and came around the desk. ‘Accounts match up. They all agree Middleton had tucked away a few. He was giving some sort of speech, a tradition in the company apparently. Then he started to slur his words and seemed disorientated. They thought he was sloshed at first, but then he spewed blood and collapsed. Rainer was the first to the body.’

‘Anything different from the women, Sergeant?’ Pendragon asked.

‘There is one thing that might be significant. A couple of the women saw Middleton arrive. He was late and they said he had a heated exchange with a couple who got to the restaurant at about the same time. Middleton was in a foul mood by the time he reached his colleagues at the table.’

‘You got the names of the couple?’ Turner asked.

‘Better than that. You probably saw them. They were there earlier. I spoke to Contadino. He witnessed the incident too and told me there was almost a fight. After Middleton collapsed at his table, the woman … er …’ Mackleby stopped to consult her notebook ‘… Sophie Templer, was distraught. Her boyfriend, Marcus Campbell, wanted to get her out of the restaurant, but Mr Contadino would have none of it. He …’

‘We split them up straight away and had a chat,’ Grant interrupted. ‘Campbell didn’t deny there had been a scene at the entrance, but insisted it was nothing serious. Apparently, until quite recently, Ms Templer and Middleton were an item.’

Pendragon raised an eyebrow. ‘Their stories matched?’ he asked Mackleby.

‘Yes, guv. They were in a different part of the restaurant from the Rainer party. Neither of them saw Middleton between the altercation and the time he died. They heard a commotion from the table in the main room, saw Contadino
rush in there. Campbell went to see what all the fuss was about and Sophie Templer came after him a couple of minutes later. She saw Middleton on the floor and went to pieces. By the time we got there she had calmed down, although she was still in shock when I spoke to her.’

Pendragon nodded and frowned, mulling over the information. ‘What about the deceased himself? Did you learn anything from his colleagues?’

‘They were all in shock, of course,’ Grant volunteered. ‘But you know, guv, I got the feeling none of them really liked the geezer.’

Pendragon turned to Mackleby. ‘Sergeant? Did you sense the same thing?’

She nodded. ‘I don’t think he was exactly flavour of the month at Rainer and Partner.’

‘Okay. All grist for the mill. Dr Jones is moaning like hell about being “overwhelmed by the dead”, as he put it, but he’s sure Middleton didn’t die from food poisoning. Unless it was something he ate earlier in the day. The only things other than deliberate poisoning that could act that fast would be toxins from seafood, and no one on the Rainer table had seafood.’

‘How long before Dr Jones can prove it one way or the other?’

‘Said he’d call within the …’ Turner began. Pendragon’s mobile rang.

‘Doctor,’ Pendragon said, recognising the number. ‘Yes, I see. Yes … I understand. How long … No, I realise that.’ He took the phone from his ear for a second and made a face at it. The others grinned. ‘No, that’s … that’s excellent. Thank you.’

He snapped shut the phone and sighed. ‘Preliminary tests show Middleton’s blood was awash with arsenic. Enough to
kill a rugby team, Jones reckons. He’s getting a full toxicology report from Scotland Yard, but it’ll take twenty-four hours.’

Two hours later, the restaurant looked very different. The traumatised patrons had gone, as had Middleton’s body. The only people remaining were Dr Colette Newman and two of her people. The Head of Forensics was placing a fibre from the carpet into a small bottle using a pair of delicate steel tweezers.

Pendragon crouched down beside her. ‘Jones thinks there’s a good chance it’s poisoning.’

‘That’s up to the tox lab to prove or disprove,’ Newman commented without looking at him. ‘There’s precious little to go on here.’

‘Oh?’

‘Just a normal lunch gone wrong by the look of things. We’ve bagged everything on the table and one of my assistants is doing the same with the kitchen utensils. If Middleton was poisoned and it was done in the conventional way, believe me, we’ll find the evidence.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ Pendragon replied, straightening up and pacing across the restaurant. In the kitchen, a man in a forensics suit was carefully sieving liquid from a saucepan. The entrance to the kitchen was the other side of the restaurant from the table where Middleton had died. It was hard to imagine how anyone from the Rainer party could have slipped into the kitchen unnoticed to place arsenic in the food. And if they had, how could they possibly have known Middleton would be at the receiving end and no one else? All of which still left the possibility that one of the kitchen staff was responsible. But that was almost as improbable. ‘Besides,’ Pendragon said to himself, ‘where the hell’s the motive?’

Pendragon ducked under the crime-scene tape cordoning off the pavement outside and nodded to a constable standing by the door to the restaurant. He decided there was nothing more he could do right away. He toyed with the idea of returning to the station and helping Turner, but suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired. He crossed the main road and started walking the mile to his flat. He could do with the air, he reasoned, even if it was Mile End Road air on a sticky, freakish summer evening. The traffic was light; a few families were heading back to Essex after a day in the city. The stallholders who usually lined the street across the road from the London Hospital had packed up early after suffering the deluge. They knew very few people would feel like wandering around sodden and steamy stalls; they would rather be at home watching Fox Sport.

The road and the pavements were glistening still, but the drains, dry for so long, had handled the downpour well. Steam rose from the concrete and tarmac, and Pendragon could feel the damp seeping into his bones. Soon he was lost in thought, trying to fit together the pieces of a jigsaw that would not meld. There were now two mysterious deaths linked with the construction site. The victims knew each other peripherally, but what possible links were there between them? None, as far as he could tell. None, except they were both working on the same project. But one was an Indian labourer, the other an architect. One had been beaten to death, the other … well, what had happened to Tim Middleton? It was possible he had died from something he had eaten, that it was no murder at all, just a bizarre coincidence. But that just didn’t feel right.

Then there was the skeleton. That too was linked to the construction site on Frimley Way, but it was hundreds of
years old. And yet he couldn’t ignore the fact the deaths had started as soon as the thing had been dug up.

Pendragon was so lost in thought, he hardly noticed he had arrived at his building. But then he saw the front door was ajar. He crossed the threshold and heard a stifled scream from along the corridor towards Sue Latimer’s flat.

He dashed along it and reached the door just as a man came crashing through from the other side. He was wearing a hoodie and an Obama mask. He was large and fit and Pendragon was caught off guard. The man’s shoulder slammed into the DCI’s chest, knocking him back against the doorframe. Before he could recover, the man had run almost the length of the corridor. He reached the front door and disappeared into the street.

Pendragon was about to run after him when he heard a moan from the floor. Sue was pulling herself up, one hand pressed to her face. He ran over and helped her up. Looking at her, he saw that a large bruise was blooming close to her eye and she had a cut under her right eyelid.

‘He’s snatched my purse,’ she said, and burst into tears. Pendragon held her shoulders and let her sob into his chest.

London, Monday 6 June

Sergeant Jez Turner pulled up outside the apartment block and checked his watch. It was 8.30 and the russet-coloured brickwork of the converted East India Company warehouse was awash with bright morning sunlight. Behind him rippled the dark water of the dock where once stood at anchor trade ships bringing exotic goods from far-flung places. In the distance stood the gleaming towers of Docklands dominated by Canary Wharf, testament to the social revolution that had transformed this area when he was barely out of nappies.

‘Very nice too,’ Turner said quietly as he looked up at the windows overlooking the water. He had studied the file on Sophie Templer: twenty-six. Graduate in Business Studies, Goldsmiths College. Now working for Woodruff & Holme, the largest PR company in Britain.

Sophie opened the door to her flat. She was dressed in a tight black skirt, cut just above the knee, neat oatmeal silk blouse and high heels. Her shoulder-length chestnut hair looked freshly washed and smelt of tropical fruits. With a brief smile and a ‘Hi’, she led the sergeant into a large open-plan space with a vaulted ceiling, white walls and polished concrete floor. There was an over-sized white stone kitchen counter, subtle lighting from invisible fixtures and a pair of huge grey suede sofas. An archway led to a white and grey bedroom.
Next to that was a small office, the huge screen of a Mac just visible on a glass-topped table. He could smell coffee.

She indicated a stool at the kitchen counter. ‘Espresso?’

‘Thanks.’

Turner took out his notebook and studied the woman’s neat behind while she operated the machine.

‘Have you discovered anything about … about how Tim died?’ Sophie said without turning. Her accent was studiedly middle class, Turner decided. He could detect some of the Essex vowels she had grown up with. And, for all her evident sophistication, it was not hard to imagine Soph out on the town with her girlfriends, squealing with faux-excitement at a Chippendales show or swearing like a trooper after a few vodka and tonics.

‘Too early,’ he replied. ‘Waiting for toxicology reports.’

‘But wasn’t it food poisoning?’

‘We’re treating it as homicide.’

She gave a little gasp and handed him the espresso, a brown slurry in a minuscule white cup.

‘You and Mr Middleton were an item … until recently?’

‘Yes.’ She looked him directly in the eye. The distraught young woman of the previous afternoon had been carefully concealed. ‘We broke up a couple of months ago.’

‘Had you been together long?’

‘Two years.’

‘So it was a serious relationship.’

She returned to the coffee machine to switch it off. ‘I don’t have casual relationships, Sergeant.’

‘May I ask what went wrong?’

She looked surprised for a second but covered it well. Leaning against the counter to one side of the kitchen, she took a sip of her coffee. ‘Oh, the usual. We grew apart. Wanted different things.’

‘I see. And the break-up was acrimonious?’

‘Look, Sergeant, what are you driving at?’

‘You and your … friend, Marcus Campbell, had a disagreement with Tim Middleton at the restaurant.’

She shrugged and looked back at him, head tilted slightly to one side. ‘Yes, it’s no secret. I answered questions about it yesterday.’

‘Was that the first time you’d seen Mr Middleton since your break-up?’

‘Yes, it was, actually. We’ve deliberately tried to avoid each other,’ Sophie replied. ‘It’s not difficult, Sergeant. It’s a big city.’

‘And Mr Campbell? You’ve known each other a long time?’

‘What on earth has that got to do with anything?’

He ignored her. She sighed and drained her cup. ‘Marcus is one of my clients.’

Turner glanced at his notebook. ‘MD of Trevelyan Holdings.’

‘Yes. They’re one of the biggest in my portfolio.’

‘And was Mr Campbell part of the reason you and Tim Middleton … grew apart?’

‘No!’ She was suddenly angry, the cool veneer abandoned. ‘Tim has … had some good qualities, but he was very difficult to live with … Oh, for Christ’s sake!’

Her eyes were ablaze and Turner decided she wasn’t one of those women who looked beautiful when she was angry. He could also tell she was keeping a lot back and that he had probably blown it by antagonising her now.

‘I’m sorry if you feel these questions are too personal, Ms Templer,’ the sergeant replied, trying to soften his voice. ‘But I’m sure you would want us to find Mr Middleton’s killer.’

She seemed to sag on hearing that word. ‘Yes, I’m sorry,
Sergeant. I’m just not used to this yet. It seems so surreal. Look. Tim and me … it was great for a few months, but then … well, I suppose it’s the same for everyone, isn’t it? The initial spark goes.’

‘What sort of person was he?’

‘Oh, very clever. Creative. We had fun. But, as I said, we were moving in opposite directions.’

She looked very tired suddenly and made a show of studying her watch. ‘Look, I’m sorry … I have a train to catch.’

‘Sure.’ Turner stepped back from the kitchen counter. Sophie Templer picked up a cream leather bag from the floor and led him back to the front door, pulling a jacket on as she went.

She took the stairs ahead of him and they emerged on to the quayside where she pulled on a pair of large Chanel sunglasses. ‘I’m sorry if I haven’t been that helpful, Sergeant Turner.’ She was standing with her handbag held to her breasts, arms wrapped around it, head tilted to one side.

Everything she does is carefully orchestrated, Turner thought.

‘The tube station is this way.’ She indicated behind her, then held out her hand.

‘Ms Templer,’ he said, ignoring her evident desire to be away, ‘do you have any idea why your friend Mr Campbell would have wanted you both out of the restaurant after Tim Middleton died? Even though the police had been called?’

With her sunglasses covering half her face, it was hard to tell what impact, if any, his remark had had. ‘I imagine he was thinking of me, Sergeant. Marcus is an extremely thoughtful man. And,’ she added with a faint smile, ‘I was a complete mess, if you recall.’

‘Yes, that’s what I assumed,’ he replied, and watched her turn and walk away.

Jez Turner had just reached the car when his phone rang.

‘Anything useful?’ It was Pendragon.

‘Only that she’s holding something back, guv.’

‘All right, leave her alone for a bit. No point pushing too hard. Get back to the station and run a thorough search on Middleton. I want a complete picture of the man’s past. Talk to everyone you think is relevant. And get on to Central Records.’

‘No probs. Where are you, sir?’

‘I’ve actually had a bit of luck,’ Pendragon replied. ‘Jones managed to call in a favour and has the tox report early.’