Tip Off (34 page)

He didn't blink. ‘Similar, yes, though Greeves left a note.'

‘Unlike Toby,' I added.

Tintern seemed to have a ready answer for every question I put to him. As we talked, I was sure he was involved but knew I still couldn't prove it. So did he.

‘Listen,' he said, frowning, ‘let me tell you now, once and for all, I don't want to hear that you or your bumptious partner are having anything further to do with this case. I've told you we have our own people on it now and don't want their considerable prowess hampered by a crowd of bungling amateurs. You saw what happened last night when you tried to get too smart – you lost your man. Fortunately, I know where he is and our own people can carry on the investigation despite your interference.'

I was sure he was lying but didn't argue.

‘That's fine, Gerald. We're only interested in who killed Toby, so if there's no connection with the doping, I guess we won't need to go down that path any more.'

‘Leave that alone too,' he ordered. ‘I realise Jane is desperate to exonerate her son, but you'd be doing her a favour in the long run if you could simply persuade her that the truth is he did away with himself, and that's that.'

‘Once we know that's true, we'll tell her,' I assured him.

He didn't answer at once, but looked at me speculatively, making no attempt to hide his scorn. ‘You really should learn to stop meddling in other people's business,' he hissed with an icy glare.

Tintern's cheek twitched violently as he leaned closer to me. ‘I spent ten years and millions of pounds acquiring a premier site in Buckingham Gate. Then you come along and fuck the whole thing up – and for what?' he spat. ‘A poxy, tuppenny ha'penny commission from that jumped up oik, Harry Chapman! You bloody fool! Let me tell you, that'll be the hardest commission you'll ever earn. If I were you, I'd take this advice: don't meddle in my business or Toby's death. It could be catching!'

He spun round and marched out of the room by the garden door and across the lawn towards the yard. I watched him go, astonished at his indiscretion.

I wondered how he already knew that it was I who had tipped off Harry Chapman about the Buckingham Gate site.

The branch of Salmon Racing on that site, even under normal conditions, had never reached its target. This was due, Harry had told me, to the high proportion of people living and staying in the vicinity who were visitors or temporary residents with no interest in English racing.

When Salmon's had been approached by a company purporting to be operators of a chain of Bureaux de Change, they had been offered double the value of the eighteen-year lease on the premises.

The shop was a very small component in the whole spread of Salmon's gambling business, and its fate had barely touched on Harry Chapman's attention. However, spurred on by the knowledge that this shop was one of the last pieces in the jigsaw which would become the site of Tintern's biggest London hotel, it hadn't been hard to persuade him to change his mind about disposing of the lease.

When Emma and I arrived back at our offices, a police car was skewed untidily outside, one man sitting in it.

Though my conscience was clear, I took the deferential course of pulling up and getting out of my car to walk over and speak to the driver.

‘Excuse me, are you going to be here long?' I asked.

‘Do you work here?' he answered.

‘Yes.'

‘There's another officer in there.' He nodded at the atrium entrance in the middle of the block. ‘We're looking for . . .' he consulted a note-book ‘. . . Thames Valley Technical Pro—'

‘That's us,' I interrupted him.

‘Who? You and the young lady?' He glanced at Emma.

‘No. My business partner's called Matthew James. He should be up there.'

As I spoke, the radio in the car confirmed that the driver's colleague had made contact with Matt.

‘The other one's here,' our man said. ‘I'll send him up.'

‘What's it about?' I asked before heading for the building while Emma parked my car.

‘We're following up on an enquiry for Avon police about some stolen property.'

I felt a chill of foreboding. But I could tell that this man wasn't going to tell me any more so made my way with Emma through the post-modern cloisters of hermetically sealed corridors and glass lifts to our offices.

A stolid policeman loomed in our reception area while Monica busied herself at her desk. He seemed less threatening than his colleague, though. It took only one of his politely phrased questions for me to gather that he was seeking information, not treating us as suspects.

‘What's going on?' I asked.

Matt turned to me with a faint, confident smile. ‘Dysart's supplier has confirmed that the helium canister in the camera can only have come from them, so those prototypes were definitely stolen. But now Taylor, the research guy who dealt with Tresidder, has disappeared too.'

‘With the other prototype?'

‘Presumably.'

The policeman looked offended at being left out of the conversation. ‘Excuse me, sir,' he said to me. ‘Could I talk to you separately?'

‘Of course,' I agreed, and showed him into my own room.

In fifteen minutes I neither elicited nor offered any more information than I had in the first few seconds of seeing the man. He had none of the details and had come to see us only to establish that we were aware of the identity of the canister.

‘A CID officer from Avon will be up to see you later today or tomorrow. Apparently this bit of kit's worth a lot of money.'

I nodded, made polite goodbyes and showed the man out through the reception area where Emma was talking on the phone with great animation.

Matt came in as the policeman left.

‘Did he tell you anything?'

I shook my head. ‘No.'

Emma finished her phone call. I could see she was anxious to speak to me but restraining herself.

‘Something tells me Tintern's been busy,' I said to Matt. ‘He's getting rid of witnesses and evidence as fast as he can.'

‘Or letting them get rid of themselves,' Matt offered.

‘He doesn't know we've got the bar-codes, though.'

‘No. He must think Lincoln's still got them.'

Emma was looking at each of us in turn. ‘For God's sake, you two. When are you going to tell the police what you know?'

Matt looked at her. ‘Wouldn't you mind seeing your father disgraced?'

Emma screwed up the near-perfect symmetry of her face. ‘Hasn't Simon told you?'

‘Told me what?' he asked sharply.

I looked at Emma. ‘I didn't think you'd want me to, until it was confirmed.'

‘It has been. That's what I've been trying to tell you! I've just been talking to Frank, and he's had the results of the DNA tests we had done.' She gave a wide, happy smile. ‘It's official – he's my real father.'

Matt's jaw dropped a fraction. ‘But, how come? I mean, how did this come up after twenty-five years?'

‘I'll tell you another time,' she said. ‘Let's deal with Tintern first.'

I'd asked Emma if she could find a recording of Lord Tintern's voice, on either video or audio tape. She'd gone one better and helped herself to his Dictaphone.

As we sat in the office and listened to him reciting a list of mundane things to remember, it was almost impossible to reconcile it with his recent activities. I took out that tape, and told Matt and Emma I was going to London to play it to Tilbury, the porter in Toby's block.

I didn't tell them that I was planning to see Harry Chapman first. I didn't want to be committed to a strategy until I was confident that it would work. Besides, I might not manage to achieve it. But I had the information I needed, and an hour's drive in which to make a decision.

I phoned Salmon's as I drove, and Sara put me straight through to Harry. He agreed to see me as soon as I reached Hanover Square.

When I was shown into the cavernous room where Harry worked, I was struck by the contrast between this meeting and our first in that office with Matt.

The chief executive of Salmon Leisure greeted me warmly, as if he were grateful I'd come.

‘Drink?' he offered genially.

‘No, thanks.' I was far too excited to drink.

‘Okay. What's your proposal?'

‘First, I have to tell you that Tintern knows it was me who told you about Buckingham Gate.'

‘Yes.' Harry nodded. ‘I told him.'

I gulped. ‘But why?'

‘To stop him asking even more questions round the place. I also told him I'd paid you a very fat fee in return. I hope you don't mind? But, if you think about it, it won't do you any long-term harm.'

I sighed, but was inclined to trust his instincts. ‘Okay. Now I'll tell you what I had in mind.'

 

I left Harry cheerfully engaged in bringing about a final act of sabotage and drove to Hay's Mews to find Tilbury.

He was in his small porter's office on the ground floor of the mansion block where Toby had lived. He'd had his week off, the flurry of police and press activity had subsided, and he was back on duty again.

This time, a twenty-pound note was enough to engage his rheumy attention while I produced Tintern's Dictaphone and played it to him.

He was almost certain that the voice was the one he'd heard outside the building, saying goodbye the morning Toby had been found dead.

Satisfied, though aware of the limited value of this evidence, I headed west out of London in the kind of early-spring sunshine I'd almost forgotten existed. Determined to keep faith with what I had set in motion, I arranged to meet Frank and Emma at Wetherdown.

Then I phoned Matt.

‘What's new?' I asked.

‘We're still looking for Lincoln, and I've put Larry on to tracking Taylor. Nothing on either so far and two plainclothes plods from Bristol were here until a few minutes ago. David Dysart's obviously put a rocket up their Super's backside. They're desperate to get a lead on these prototypes. I had to confirm that at least one of them was partially dismantled to produce the camera-airgun we found on Tresidder.'

‘How did you explain Tresidder?'

‘I said we were aware through Brian Griffiths that he'd had meetings with Taylor, Dysart's propulsion expert, and that led us to his place in Windsor, where, regrettably, he is no longer to be found. However, I didn't tell them anything about what the gun was being used for, or Tintern, or the Jockey Club investigation into Toby's tipping line. All they're after is Dysart's piece of kit.'

 

The first of the daffodils bordering the drive at Wetherdown had pushed their way into bloom since the day before. There was no wind shrieking off the downs when I parked and walked from my car and for once the birdsong was audible.

Frank and Emma came out of Jane's front door to greet me. ‘We were just going to stroll round to the yard through the garden,' Frank said, inviting me to join them.

‘Fine,' I agreed. We set off towards the tranquillity of the hundred-year-old yew alley – a hidden place where time seemed to stand still and the thick, immutable green walls kept the real world at bay.

We sat in a bower there. Frank pulled out his cigar case and lit a richly scented Monte Cristo.

‘I thought you'd like to know,' he said, making certain the end of his cigar was glowing evenly, ‘I received a fax from Harry Chapman.'

‘Good Lord! He was quick off the mark. I wanted to warn you first.'

‘No problem, dear boy. But before we discuss his proposition, tell me what you know about Harry and Gerald, and why Harry listens to you?'

I smiled at the way things were working out. ‘Have you been to see the property Gerald's buying up in Buckingham Gate?'

‘I can't say I've looked at it, no. Why?'

‘When I saw there was a Salmon's betting shop on the site and then discovered it was one of the few leases that Tintern hadn't managed to buy, the idea that he might be prepared, even have planned, to buy out the whole Salmon empire first occurred to me. And, of course, the more money Salmon's were losing, the cheaper it would be. It seemed such a crazy idea that I could hardly believe it – I mean, if ever anyone cut a figure of unimpeachable moral authority, it was him. But I went straight round to Harry Chapman's anyway, only to discover that he hadn't got a clue Gerald owned the site all round his, which he'd just agreed to sell to a chain of Bureaux de Change. Naturally, he soon changed his mind.'

Frank smiled widely. ‘Gerald must have found that deeply, deeply irritating. But then, I suppose he's had a lot of other preoccupations. I wonder if he seriously hoped he might see the bookmakers bend to the will of the many and start putting their profits back into racing.' Frank took another long pull on his cigar and exhaled a lazy spiral of blue smoke. ‘An absurdly vain hope, I regret, but then, in some ways, Gerald always was an absurdly vain man. I think it must have been Harry's snatching back this shop from under his nose that prompted him to launch his bid for Atlantic Hotels.'

‘Yes,' I agreed. ‘That's why I did it – to get a reaction. But I thought he would still have found a replacement when Connor died and persevered with the doping.'

‘You don't think he killed Connor?'

‘No. Harry wouldn't admit it, but I'm almost certain the guy who turned up there was sent by him – or at least on his orders – though not to kill Connor.'