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‘Not brandy?’

  Freddie smiled. ‘I didn’t analyse it. It smelled like wine. But there’s no pathological sign that he was drugged or poisoned. Do you want a tox screen? I’ve taken his fingerprints and blood type, of course.’

  Slider shook his head slowly like one goaded. ‘This is not going to make me popular. Mr Carpenter particularly wanted it to be an accident.’

  ‘Did he, indeed? Does that make him a suspect?’

  ‘You’re not helping, Freddie.’

  ‘I’ll go. Just let me know in your own time what tests you want me to send off for. Meanwhile – goodnight, sweet prince. And flights of anguish sing thee to thy rest.’

  ‘They’ll do that, all right.’

  Porson gave him a bloodshot look. ‘I might have known.’

  ‘It isn’t my fault, sir,’ Slider pointed out.

  ‘Just let me have a moan, all right?’ He stamped up and down a bit, and then said, ‘What do you need?’

  ‘I’ll have to put my whole team on it,’ Slider said. ‘The house secured. Full SOC work-up. He didn’t hit himself on the head, so someone must have gone in there later that evening. Maybe they left traces.’

  ‘No CCTV cameras nearby?’

  ‘Sadly, not. But we may find the weapon, if it was dumped.’

  ‘If it was me, I’d’ve dumped it on the building site next door.’

  ‘That thought had occurred to me,’ Slider said sadly. ‘Plenty of heavy blunt instruments there to be going on with.’

  ‘You’ll have your work cut out,’ Porson grunted. ‘Any idea of motive?’

  ‘Haven’t got that far yet, sir. I’m told everybody liked him.’

  ‘Well, everybody bar one,’ Porson pointed out.

  FIVE

  The Regina Monologues

  Atherton was singing, an old policeman’s ditty, ‘Don’t ever hit a suspect with a shovel, it leaves a bad impression on his brain.’

  ‘What have you got to be cheerful about?’ Slider growled. He was driving.

  ‘The game’s afoot. It’s exhilarating. The roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd …’

  ‘You’re a victim of circuses,’ said Slider.

  ‘Why are we going back to the house?’ Atherton enquired.

  ‘I’d like to have another look at the departure lounge.’

  ‘It’s a bit dark, calling it that.’

  ‘You said it first. Anyway, death is dark.’

  ‘They say death is but a sleep,’ said Atherton hopefully.

  ‘But it’s a lot harder to wake up in the morning,’ said Slider.

  SOC had finished with Wiseman’s study, and Bob Bailey, the SOC top dog, reluctantly agreed they could go up.

  ‘Did you find anything?’ Slider asked.

  ‘No blood,’ said Bailey.

  ‘The fatal blow didn’t break the skin,’ Slider said, ‘so I didn’t expect any.’

  ‘Well, we haven’t found anything that looks like a blunt instrument, so presumably chummy took it with him.’

  Slider remembered the tiny screw, and asked about it.

  ‘Yeah, we got that. Bagged it. Looks like it might’ve come out of a pair of specs.’

  ‘Wiseman’s glasses were broken,’ Atherton said. ‘One side arm was off.’

  ‘It ought to be possible to match the screw to the specs,’ said Bailey.

  ‘I’m not sure that would add anything,’ Slider said. ‘Except that he was wearing them when he was attacked.’

  Bailey lost interest. ‘I got the rest of the house to do,’ he said accusingly. ‘Millions of fingermarks. Anything in partic I’m looking for?’

  ‘Someone else was there that evening,’ Slider said. ‘Evidence of that someone, where they went and what they were doing.’

  Bailey snorted. ‘How about a signed confession while I’m at it? You don’t want much. What d’you want to look at the office again for, anyway?’ he went on in a complaining voice. Civilian experts came in two flavours, the ones who felt privileged to help the police, and the ones who liked to throw their weight around and show them up. It was curious, Slider thought, how few of the former he came across. ‘You’ve got photographs.’

  ‘No substitute for the naked eye,’ said Slider.

  The bookshelves, as they had previously noted, were full of books, which turned out on closer inspection to be pristine, and mostly hardbacks still in their dust jackets.

  ‘Copies of titles Wiseman agented,’ Atherton hazarded.

  ‘Except for these,’ Slider said. There was a whole shelf of Wisdens, cheerfully yellow, as recognisable as old friends. ‘Some of them are historic,’ he said, eyeing the dates. ‘Could be worth a bit. I wonder what the connection was. He didn’t agent them, surely.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  The rest of the walls were covered in photographs, posters for books, framed dust jackets, letters, press cuttings: his life measured out not in coffee spoons but in evidence of public notice. The anatomy of the deceased, exposed and undefended now. When death was unexpected, you lost control over what would be left behind for the next man in to judge you by, what image you would project to the cynical eye of the world. It put a whole new perspective on that Reader’s Digest Condensed Book on your bedside table.

  In the photos, a younger, darker-haired Wiseman, usually in evening dress, was snapped with various people, some of whom Slider recognised. Those he didn’t mostly had a dazed expression of having been unexpectedly tapped on the head with something less than lethal, like a whole salmon perhaps, so he supposed they were writers who had just won some award or other, or were being honoured in some other way. Famous or not, Wiseman’s arm was invariably round them, and his grin was huge, attractive and life-affirming.

  Atherton drifted up behind him, and said, ‘Oh, look, that’s Lady Jane Flamborough. You know – big historical biographies.’

  ‘I’ve heard of her. She’s got a lot of diamonds,’ Slider observed.

  ‘She’s a lot of rich,’ Atherton said. He scanned more photos. ‘Tactile chap, wasn’t he?’

  ‘You noticed?’

  ‘He’s even got his arm round John Grisewood, look, and he’s no cuddly bear.’

  ‘Oh, is that who that is?’

  Atherton gave him a look. ‘I told you, cold war spy stories.’

  ‘I know who John Grisewood is,’ Slider said with dignity. ‘I’ve just never seen a picture of him before.’

  ‘No, I suppose most authors don’t get to be recognised in the street,’ Atherton agreed.

  ‘Perhaps they wouldn’t want to be,’ said Slider. He looked some more. ‘All this stuff is quite old,’ he remarked.

  ‘I suppose he’d run out of room for new stuff,’ said Atherton.

  ‘He could have swapped in.’

  ‘With an arrangement like this, you tend not to start messing with it. Once it’s up, it’s up.’

  ‘True, I suppose,’ Slider said. ‘You stop even seeing it after a while. But there is one space he could have used.’

  Under the shelf of Wisdens, displayed on the wall among the frames, were four battered-looking cricket balls, displayed two by two, one above the other, each nestling on a separate round bracket – the sort of thing that might have held a tooth-mug. Presumably they meant something to Wiseman: what with the Wisdens, it seemed he had an interest in the game.

  ‘Maybe he played when he was younger,’ Slider said.

  ‘Maybe he handled cricketing memoires,’ Atherton offered.

  ‘Anyway, there’s a space.’

  Between the pairs of balls there was indeed a remnant of unused wall – enough to have hung a couple more frames.

  ‘Maybe there was something there at one time,’ Slider said. At the top of the space, in the shadow of the shelf, was a wall-mounted spring clip.

  Atherton shrugged it away. ‘What I’ve been thinking is that if he was reading at the desk—’

  ‘We don’t know he was,’ said Slider. ‘That’s just what we were supposed t
o think. He could have been anywhere in the house.’

  ‘What about the tiny screw by the window?’

  ‘Villain could have dropped it when he was throwing the glasses out. We mustn’t make the mistake of buying the bit of theatre uncritically.’

  ‘All right. But it’s a fact that someone whacked him, which would be easier if he was sitting down.’

  ‘Or was bending his head, examining something. He’d have his glasses on for that. Or he could have been reading in bed. We don’t know what time it happened or what time he went to bed. What was your point?’

  ‘Only that it was probably someone he knew. Rather than an intruder.’

  ‘There were no signs of a break-in,’ Slider agreed. ‘I was rather assuming it was someone he knew, and that he let them in.’

  ‘So we want someone with a secret grudge,’ said Atherton.

  ‘Why secret?’

  ‘Would you let in your worst enemy, late at night, armed with a baseball bat?’

  ‘He might have pushed his way in and walloped him right there in the front hall,’ said Slider. ‘The thing is, if this scenario in the departure lounge was a set-up, we really don’t know anything about “how”. We’re going to have to do it backwards, starting with “who”.’

  ‘So we want someone tall, strong and cunning,’ said Atherton. ‘Or less tall, more cunning, and with a winning personality who could get the victim to sit down nicely to be clobbered.’

  ‘We’ve got to look at phone records and computers, see if he was contacted by someone for a visit – he didn’t necessarily tell Hollinshead everything. And his finances.’

  ‘Good thinking. If it isn’t passion, it’s usually money,’ said Atherton.

  ‘And the more cunning,’ Slider said, ‘the less likely it is to be passion.’

  ‘And what are we doing?’

  ‘I’m going to pay a respectful visit to the ex-wife. You’re the literary expert, so you’re going to exert your charms on the person he lunched with on his last day.’

  ‘Cathy Beccles, rights manager at Wolff & Baynes,’ Atherton supplied.

  ‘Right. Find out what was on his mind, who he was involved with, whether he mentioned any plans for the evening. Hollinshead said they were old friends so they might have chatted.’

  ‘Must have, I should have thought, to make lunch last that long.’

  ‘Oh – and find out who Calliope Hunt is. I’m sick of that name cluttering up my mind.’

  The ex-Mrs Wiseman, formerly Regina Cantor, was now married, Slider discovered, to Simon Haig, the author. He didn’t need Atherton’s helpful intervention to place him. Simon Haig and Quantum went together in the mind: The Quantum Files; The Quantum Enigma; The Quantum Sanction; and so on. Spy thrillers. Slider had never read one – he didn’t have much time for reading, and when he did read a book, he liked something where the plot unfolded in a straight line and the action didn’t jig back and forth between characters, times and sometimes even dimensions. He had enough obscurity and complexity in his job: he had no capacity to spare for it in his leisure pursuits.

  Gascoyne, however, was a fan, and was considerably excited when he learned Slider was going to Haig’s house and might possibly meet him – so excited, Slider was obliged to cool him down by asking witheringly if he wanted his autograph. Gascoyne’s bright, boyish smile indicated that he was on the brink of saying yes, before he controlled himself and said, ‘I don’t collect autographs. Not anymore. Just when I was a kid.’

  ‘What was your best one?’ Swilley asked from her desk. It was not clear if she was trying to be nice, or trying to trap him for purposes of ridicule.

  ‘I had Roy Hattersley’s,’ Gascoyne admitted. ‘And Mike Rutherford. Of Genesis. At least, I think that’s who it was. I couldn’t really read it. I saw him in Archer Street and he was in a hurry, so I didn’t like to ask.’

  Swilley evidently decided this was beyond parody and went back to what she was doing. Slider also turned away, and heard Gascoyne behind him say wistfully, ‘I suppose a signed copy of a Quantum book’s out of the question?’

  The Haigs, if that’s what they called themselves, lived in a flat in one of those tall dark-red buildings in Barkston Gardens, a side street off the Earl’s Court Road. The lady of the house was alone, and let him into a flat which had been altered beyond recognition from its sombre Edwardian beginnings. It was on the top floor, and had had access to the leads, and the outside space had been turned into a narrow terrace, with potted shrubs and a view over the communal gardens. All the rooms on that side had been knocked together into one and the whole wall was now sliding glass doors, letting in the light. The large room was sparsely furnished over beige wall-to-wall carpet, with fat cream leather chairs and sofas, glass coffee tables, an entire wall of books, and an ultra-expensive sounds-and-viewing complex on another wall. An open archway showed a tiny but very modern kitchen beyond, with a breakfast bar and two tall stools looking onto the terrace.

  Swilley had done a quick recce online and told Slider that a flat of that size in that road would go for around two mill these days. Of course, there were lots of people who had lived in them for thirty years or more, and it did not follow that the Haigs were millionaires; but seeing what they’d done with the place, Slider instantly concluded that they were not hurting at all. And given the Quantum books, no wonder.

  Mrs Haig, who instantly corrected him, saying, ‘I don’t use my husband’s name – I’m Regina Cantor. For business reasons. Please call me Reggie,’ welcomed him with a serene smile and offered him coffee. ‘It’s all ready to go – I only have to switch on.’ He accepted. She was short and plump with tightly curly grey-black hair and intensely dark eyes in a soft pale face, like big raisins in an uncooked bun; but she was well-corseted and expensively dressed, and moved and spoke briskly, so the overall impression was of efficiency and success, allied to an underlying kindness. A good combination for an agent, he supposed.

  The coffee smelled good, and when they were seated on one of the big sofas with cups, he sipped appreciatively, then began by saying he was sorry for her loss.

  She nodded, sad, but not overwhelmed. ‘It was a shock, I must admit. So unexpected. But it’s a long time since I moved on from Ed, so you needn’t treat me as a grieving widow. When we parted ways, I made a determined effort to detach myself emotionally from him. There was no other way of coping, because we still had business with each other for some time afterwards.’

  ‘And did you succeed?’ Slider asked. He was glad she was prepared to conduct the conversation on this free and easy level – it would make his life easier.

  ‘In detaching myself? On the whole. Ed wasn’t someone you got over easily. One is always a little bit in love with him. I suppose I always shall be. But I haven’t been weeping into my pillow – though it was disconcerting to have him go in that way. Falling out of a window? You don’t expect people to die from falling out of a window. But they said there were excavations next door, which made it a much longer drop – is that right?’

  This was the tricky bit. ‘I’m afraid we suspect now that it wasn’t an accident.’

  She looked startled. ‘Suicide? No, I can’t believe that. Ed was too much in love with life to kill himself.’

  ‘Not suicide,’ Slider said. He waited for her to filter it. Her dark eyes searched his face.

  ‘You’re not telling me someone pushed him out?’

  ‘I can’t go into the specific details, I’m afraid, but we are proceeding on the basis that he was murdered. I’m very sorry.’

  ‘Good God,’ she said blankly. She processed the information for a few moments, took a sip of coffee, and squared her shoulders. ‘That’s horrible. Unbelievably horrible. How can I help?’

  ‘Talk to me about him. The more I know about him, the better I understand his life, the easier it will be for me. Tell me about you and him. How did you first fall in love with him?’

  ‘Instantly,’ she said. ‘That’s the way it was
with Ed. I met him at a party. He was with Chatto then. I was a junior agent at the Anthony Halligan agency. It was a launch for one of our authors. And there was Ed – tall, dark, full of fire. It seemed to radiate out of him – you could almost see it, like a corona.’ Her face had softened with recollection. ‘He took it upon himself to charm me – I don’t know why – and I was charmed. Fell instantly, head-over-heels in love. Like tumbling down a mine shaft.’

  ‘And was it mutual?’

  ‘Hard to say, with Ed. When you were with him, he made you feel you were the only person in the world that mattered. But as he was like that with everyone …’

  ‘He was insincere?’

  ‘Oh no,’ she hastened to defend him. ‘That’s the thing you have to understand about him. He really meant it – at the time. He loved people. Just too many of them.’ She shrugged. ‘It took me years of marriage to understand that, and many more years to accept it. It was just the way he was. You couldn’t hate him for it.’

  Perhaps someone did, Slider thought. ‘But he married you,’ he said, ‘so you must have been special.’

  She smiled. ‘Thanks. I hope I was. After that first meeting, we went out a few times, but I didn’t fool myself it was anything serious. But then he joined his father’s literary agency, and I started to see more of him.’

  ‘He had professional differences with his father, I believe?’ Slider asked from the depths of his Wiki knowledge.

  ‘That collaboration was never going to work,’ she shrugged. ‘Leo was a difficult man, reserved, a perfectionist, impatient of informality, while Ed was a free-flowing, seat-of-the-pants, impulsive, chameleon person. Agenting really was his milieu, because he got on with everyone, had a natural empathy, instinctively knew how to get the best out of people – and that included getting good deals from publishers. But he didn’t like the hard graft behind it, the paperwork, the detailed stuff. Leo loved all that. They should have been a good partnership – probably would have been if they hadn’t been father and son. But Leo wanted Ed to be like him and couldn’t accept the ways in which he was different. They rubbed each other up the wrong way all the time. It was bound to end badly.’