30

Tim Wade leaned back in his chair until the frame cracked and rubbed his face slowly with his hands. ‘I haven’t lied to you,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t know who the girl was and I had nothing to do with her death. Are you sure she was murdered?’

Tartaglia nodded. ‘Absolutely.’

‘Can you tell me what happened to her?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘You think it was some sort of sexual encounter gone wrong?’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Come on, Inspector. You and I both know what we’re talking about. I’ve seen enough of that sort of thing in my time at the Bar, and I’m sure you have too, in your line of work. Why else would a young woman get herself killed at a party?’ He fixed Tartaglia with a level stare. ‘I’m right, aren’t I? I’m surprised you found any evidence after all this time, but as far as Alex is concerned, he’s not your man.’

Tartaglia held Wade’s gaze. What he said was reasonable, although it was impossible to tell if it was what he really thought, or if he was hiding something. At face value, his words had the veneer of honesty and there wasn’t a glimmer of anything less settled behind them. But he was a professional and far too experienced to be wrong-footed.

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Easy. Alex and I have been friends for thirty years. He’s honest, he’s decent and he’s always been absolutely hopeless with women. At one point I thought he might even be gay. Whether it’s because he’s lazy, or just hasn’t the confidence, he never makes the first move. In a way, it’s actually quite a successful strategy. The women all end up doing the work for him—’

Tartaglia held up his hand. ‘Thank you, Mr Wade. But we’re talking about murder, not whether or not he’s capable of pulling women.’

‘But that’s the point. Alex is psychologically not the type. I’ve never seen him aggressive, or losing his temper in a serious way.’

‘Aren’t you jumping the gun a bit?’

Wade shook his head. ‘I’m sure you’ve worked it out for yourself already, but why else would someone have killed her? I know you won’t tell me anything, but my guess is it’s unlikely to have been premeditated.’ He looked at Tartaglia inquiringly. ‘Do you agree?’

‘Impossible to say.’

‘You really think someone set out deliberately to kill her?’ He shook his head dismissively. ‘It was a party. Lots of people there, lots of drink and things going on. Things happen. Maybe someone got a bit carried away.’

‘What’s the point of speculating?’

‘Just hear me out. The way I see it, based on my professional experience, there has to be some sort of emotion driving it. I’m thinking frustration, anger, jealousy, hatred, maybe sexual passion. Right?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Well, none of this fits with Alex. He’s generally pretty placid. He doesn’t get riled up and he wouldn’t harm a fly.’

‘People do strange things when they’re high, particularly when they’ve taken a mixture of things, as Mr Fleming has admitted to.’

‘Well, I disagree,’ Wade said emphatically. ‘And I’m very worried about him.’

‘So are we. We’re doing everything we can to find him. When did you two last speak?’

‘Yesterday afternoon, after we finished here. He was in a pretty emotional state, I can tell you.’

‘I thought you said he wasn’t emotional.’

‘I said he wasn’t aggressive. He does self-pity very well and he was feeling extremely sorry for himself. It sounds like you gave him a pretty hard time. I tried to talk some sense into him, but he just gave me the brush-off.’

‘Why was he so upset, do you think?’ Tartaglia asked, wishing he could have been a fly on the wall during their conversation.

‘Because he’s not used to dealing with you lot. He doesn’t know how you work and you scared him.’

‘I don’t see why, if he’s innocent.’

‘He said that you thought he’d killed the girl, that you thought he might have killed Paul and Joe too, and being a stupid fool, he actually believed you meant it. I told him it was a load of rubbish, that you were just trying to find out how much he knew and that you had no evidence whatsoever and that he shouldn’t let it worry him.’

‘That was helpful of you. We were just trying to get to the bottom of things.’

‘As I said. Anyway, strong-arm tactics don’t work with Alex. He was really upset about it and he wouldn’t even listen to me, which is most unusual. Maybe he’s run off somewhere to get away from all of this and bury his head in the sand.’

‘Do you know where he went after that?’

‘To the restaurant. He said he had to work.’

‘We’ve spoken to the people at the restaurant and they confirmed that he worked his shift last night.’

‘Was he there today?’

‘No, and he’s not due in again until Monday evening. We’ve checked with his flatmate and he didn’t sleep there last night and he hasn’t been back since. Does he have a girlfriend or partner?’

‘No. Hasn’t had one for ages, as far as I know.’

‘Maybe he went home with someone from the restaurant?’

Wade shook his head. ‘Alex isn’t into casual sex. He’s one of the world’s last, genuine, old-fashioned romantics. It’s why he’s never married.’

‘Really?’ He found Wade’s remark surprising and wondered what lay behind it. Was his view of married life cynical or merely pragmatic? Did he hanker after the single life? But there was no time to explore it. There were more important things to cover. ‘Are you sure you don’t know where he is?’

‘Hand on heart, Inspector. If I did, even if he’d told me not to tell you, I would. As I said, I’m very worried about his safety.’

‘What about Daniel Black? When did you last see him?’

‘Again, it was after we both were finished here. I left Alex in Ken High Street, came back here and waited until Danny came out. We had a quick drink in the Scarsdale Arms around the corner, then he pushed off.’

‘Do you know where he went?’

‘He said he had to meet someone, but I’ve no idea who. Danny was always going off to meet some unsavoury type, so I didn’t bother to ask.’

‘You don’t seem very upset by what happened to him.’

Wade stared at him and shook his head disapprovingly. ‘Don’t give me that. I’ve been around the block far too many times to allow myself to be provoked by some cheap remark. You have no idea what I feel and it’s none of your business.’

‘Still . . .’

‘I’m here of my own free will. If you start trying to get at me, I’ll stop cooperating.’

Tartaglia held his gaze for a moment, then inclined his head. It was a cheap remark. Wade had seemed visibly shaken by the news of Black’s death and the discovery of the girl’s body. He decided to play it straight. ‘OK. Going back to the girl, in the statement you gave us yesterday, you said you met Mr Fleming that night after he had found her in the lake.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Where exactly did you see him? I was there today and I’m just trying to get a picture of it all in my mind.’

‘It was somewhere in the woods, but don’t ask me precisely where. I was pretty pissed. All I know is I was trying to find my way back to the stables. Alex saw me and called out. He tried to tell me about her, but I’m afraid I really didn’t pay much attention to what he was saying. I was shattered and all I could think about was bed. I know it sounds callous now, but he wasn’t making much sense and it was really late. Is there any point in going over this again?’

‘Please. Humour me for a minute. Was he agitated or upset?’

‘Both, I suppose. But there’s nothing suspicious in that. Even in the state he was in, he could see something wasn’t right with her. He tried to get me to go back with him and take a look at her, but as you’ll know if you’ve been there, it’s all very spread out. I didn’t fancy walking all the way back and I told him it would have to wait until morning.’

‘But you believed what he said?’

‘To be honest, I thought he was exaggerating. Alex is inclined to be a bit dramatic. People were crashed out all over the place by that time. I don’t think anyone made it home that night. I just assumed that whoever she was, she’d had too much to drink, or something, and just needed to sleep it off.’

‘If you didn’t take what he said seriously, why did you bother to go back to find her the next day?’

Wade rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘You know, I don’t really remember. I’m not even sure if it was my idea. Maybe I thought we ought to check, just to make double sure.’

‘But according to what Mr Fleming said, you came to find him and you had Paul Khan and Danny Black with you. So you must have taken it seriously.’

Wade shrugged. ‘Maybe I said something to Paul and he said we should all check it out. He was very proprietorial about the place, as if the whole thing belonged to him, not his uncle. But I’m afraid it’s all too long ago to remember the exact details. Anyway, why does it matter? What’s important now is to find out who’s doing this. Until you do, Alex and I aren’t safe. We both need protection and you should have offered it to us before.’

‘We’re trying to sort something out now,’ Tartaglia said, picking up the implicit threat in Wade’s words. Hopefully, Steele would be able to square things with Cornish. If not, they would have to go up the food chain until they found someone with sufficient understanding and clout to do it.

Wade gave him a penetrating stare. ‘Well, I’m not leaving here without it. I have no intention of becoming the next victim.’

‘I promise you, Mr Wade, that’s the last thing we want too.’

Wade shifted in his chair. ‘Do you think this is all about that girl?’

‘We’re keeping an open mind for the moment.’

Wade shook his head as though he didn’t buy it. ‘It’s got to be about her, hasn’t it? The only problem is, there were any number of people at that party who could have done it. They got away with it until now, so why suddenly stir things up? She could have been there another twenty years without anyone knowing. And why kill Joe, and Paul, and now Danny? If it’s someone close to the girl, say a member of her family, why start killing now, and why target us? I tell you, all we’re guilty of is hiding her body. We didn’t kill her.’

Tartaglia looked him in the eye but could read nothing. What Wade said made sense and it was something that had also been puzzling him. As soon as they had an ID, they would start tracing the girl’s next of kin, but it still didn’t get them much further towards finding out who had killed the three men. If it was a father, or a brother, how would they have known about what had happened that night? How would they know about the crypt, the boathouse and the lake, and about the five men, unless they were there? And if they had been there, why hadn’t they done something about it sooner? On top of everything, even though the five had committed a criminal act in hiding the body, he agreed with Wade. It didn’t seem sufficient motive for cold-blooded murder.

Nor did the theory that one of the five was behind what was happening hold water any longer. The post mortem hadn’t yet been carried out, but it looked as though Black had been killed some time between six o’clock in the evening and the early hours of the next morning. The park was officially closed between midnight and five a.m., but it wasn’t fenced in and access was easy. Although the area was riddled with security cameras, he held little hope of anything meaningful being found. The killer was far too organised. Black’s body had been left face down in shallow water, hidden under the thick, overhanging branches of a willow tree. Tim Wade had been the last person they knew of to see Black alive. So far they had been unable to trace Danny’s steps after that. It looked as though his body had been in the lake for at least twelve hours before it was discovered by an elderly Labrador, chasing a tennis ball, in the early afternoon. He wondered what the statistics were for bodies discovered by dogs; they deserved medals, as far as he was concerned. Fleming had been at the restaurant for the whole of Saturday evening until one o’clock Sunday morning, which probably ruled him out, although where he had gone afterwards was a mystery. It seemed that Wade, too, was in the clear. After his drink with Black, he had gone straight home and stayed in all evening. His wife would vouch for him, he said. He had left the house the next morning at nine o’clock and had arrived at his chambers by ten, where he had been seen working by two other members of chambers. He had then returned home for Sunday lunch with his in-laws just after one.

There was a knock and Steele put her head around the door. ‘Mark, can I have a quick word?’

‘I’ll be right back,’ Tartaglia said to Wade, getting to his feet. He joined Steele outside and they walked away down the hall. Once they were safely out of earshot, Steele turned to face him.

‘Bad news. Either there’s been one leak too many or the press have joined up the dots. The press office just emailed this over to me for comment.’ She held up a sheet of paper with the headline CENTRAL LONDON MURDERS LINKED. He couldn’t make out the details but he saw Anna Paget’s by-line beneath the name of one of the regular hacks on the crime desk. His heart sank. What had he said to her the night before? He was sure he hadn’t mentioned anything particularly sensitive . . .

‘Isn’t Anna Paget the woman who interviewed Joe Logan?’ Steele asked. He nodded, hoping she couldn’t read his internal confusion. ‘There’ll be a press conference first thing tomorrow,’ she continued. ‘I guess it was only a matter of time, but they’ll all be on our backs now like a pack of hyenas and they’ll whip the public up into a state of hysteria. You’d better tell your team to batten down the hatches. They are not to talk to anybody, and I mean anybody.’

‘What about Wade? What shall I say to him?’

‘Oh yes,’ she nodded. ‘I almost forgot. You can tell him he can have the protection he’s asked for on the condition that he says absolutely nothing to the press. Hopefully his name won’t come up anywhere, but tell him that if any journalists start sniffing around, he’s to refer them to us and contact us immediately. In the meantime, we’ll put someone in the house with him and his family twenty-four-seven and there will also be someone outside. There’ll be a special alarm with a panic button that will come straight through to us in the event of an emergency.’

‘He says he’s in the middle of a case up in Oxford and he insists he can’t abandon it.’

She sighed. ‘That’s very awkward. It would be easier if he stayed put, but if, as you say, he insists on going, tell him we can work something out. Given what happened to Danny Black, we must bend over backwards to keep him safe.’

‘What about Wade’s family? He has a wife and two children. He said he wanted protection for them as well.’

‘When he’s away, the alarm and the panic button will have to do. As far as I’m aware, they’re not under threat.’

‘He won’t be happy with that. He seems to think the killer may use them to get at him.’

‘I can’t help what he thinks. They’re not at risk as far as I can tell and we—’

‘Haven’t got the resources. I know. I’ll explain it to him. I’m sure he knows how it works. Maybe he can send them away somewhere until this is all over.’

She nodded. ‘What I don’t want him to know is that we’re also putting him under covert surveillance.’

He looked at her surprised. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit late for that?’

‘No. We can’t take any chances. It’s possible the killer may be watching him. And if Fleming tries to contact Wade, we need to know about it immediately. I don’t want to have to rely on Mr Wade’s civic-mindedness to turn Fleming in. I also want to know what they talk about amongst themselves. They must have some idea who’s doing this.’

‘You really think so?’ he said, again thinking back to the conversation Fleming and Wade had had the previous afternoon, wishing he knew exactly what had been said. If only they could find Fleming . . . ‘Surely if they did, they’d say something?’ he added. ‘I mean they’re clearly both in danger.’

‘It depends what their role in all this has been. If Fleming did murder that girl, which seems highly likely, we have no way of proving it unless he owns up to it. We need a lever. If we could get him to admit to it on tape, maybe that would be enough.’

‘What about Fleming’s flat?’

‘We’re putting that under surveillance too and we’ll be monitoring his phone, although it appears to be switched off at the moment.’

They started back along the corridor towards the interview room. They were almost at the door when Minderedes stepped out of the lift in front of them.

‘There you are, Sir,’ he said to Tartaglia. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you.’

‘I’ve been in with Tim Wade and my phone’s been off.’

‘There’s a message for you from Graham Roberts, in Bristol. He said they’ve found the girl’s things in the lake. You’re to call him as soon as you can.’