Chelsea Mansions Part 32

THIRTY-FIVE.

Brock had worked through the night on the files, preparing his plan of attack. By five he was satisfied and had taken an hour's nap before waking to the sound of Dot in the outer office.

'Wanted to see what sort of mess they'd left the place in,' she said when he put his head around the door, as if she were talking about squatters who'd invaded her home.

Brock yawned. The clean shirt and toiletries that he used to keep in the desk drawer were no longer there, and he'd just have to make do with a quick splash in the toilet basin. A lick and a promise, his mother would have said.

The team a.s.sembled quickly, talking together excitedly about the developments. Chivers' action manager was present too, to answer queries about the ground his team had covered, and his detectives were available if required.

Brock began with a brief summary of the facts surrounding Hadden-Vane's suicide, and then they sat in silence, watching the recording of Freddie Clarke's revelations. At the end of it, Brock asked Zack if he had any observations to make on the tape itself.

'Well, it's been edited,' Zack said. 'Nothing sophisticated, just a couple of places where there's a slight jump, as if a few seconds have been cut out.'

'Meaning?'

'It could be that someone spoke, asked him a question maybe, and that's been deleted.'

They replayed the tape to the places Zack indicated. 'See?' he said. 'His eyes have shifted as if responding to someone to the left, behind the camera.'

Kathy said, 'There is something different about his manner from when I saw him. He's very tense, keyed up. His eyes are staring and he hardly blinks.'

'Drugs?' someone suggested. 'Or fear?'

'What about the background?' Brock asked Zack. 'Could you enhance it, get some idea where he is?'

Zack shook his head doubtfully. 'Maybe if we had the original recording, but the quality of this is poor. I'll have a go.'

Brock moved on to describe the lines of inquiry he wanted pursued. 'We have to finish the job we were doing when we were taken off the case. We'd made connections between Hadden-Vane and the Haringey youth club and the house in Hackney, but we hadn't established how it was done. How did Hadden-Vane brief Harry Peebles? How did he pay him? The missing link may be the security guard, Wayne Everett. Kathy noticed him in the background of that newspaper photo you found, Bren. Could he have been Hadden-Vane's agent in all this? We need to go through all the CCTV footage again, and all the forensic evidence from Ferncroft Close, to look for his traces.

'Then there's Freddie Clarke. We need to find him, or at least discover the circ.u.mstances under which this confession was made. Is he to be trusted? What were his motives?

'We also haven't explored the possibility that Nancy Haynes may have presented some kind of direct threat to Hadden-Vane. It's hard to see how, but we ought to check that she didn't try to get in touch with him, speak to the people in his parliamentary and const.i.tuency offices, his wife.'

Brock checked through the list in his hand. 'One other thing. I went to see the people in the hotel yesterday, and I had the impression they were hiding something about their dealings with Nancy Haynes. They said she'd never mentioned staying in Chelsea Mansions as a girl, or shown them the photograph she had with her, which seems improbable to me. They admitted detesting the Russians next door, and I wonder if they might be trying to hide something else she'd told them, perhaps to protect her reputation? We'll need to talk to them again, but first I'd like a bit more background on them and their dealings with Moszynski.'

He looked around the room. They were all fired up, debating options, throwing ideas around-all except Kathy, he noticed, who seemed preoccupied.

Bren Gurney's first task was to speak to Wayne Everett. He bustled into the interview room with a file of papers under his arm and shook hands with the security man.

'Sorry to take up your time, Wayne,' he said affably. 'We need to speak to as many people as possible who knew Sir Nigel Hadden-Vane. I take it you've heard about his suicide?'

Everett nodded cautiously.

'How about the video of Freddie Clarke on the web, accusing him of fraud? Have you seen it?'

'Yeah. Jeez, what a shocker, eh?'

'You didn't have anything to do with that, did you?'

'What? No, of course not.'

Bren chuckled. 'Don't worry, had to ask. So what exactly was your relationship with Sir Nigel?'

'Relationship? Well, that's too strong a word. I knew him because I worked for Mr Moszynski, and Sir Nigel was a friend of his and often came to the house. Sometimes Mr Moszynski got me to drive Sir Nigel home after a heavy evening, that sort of thing.'

'How long have you been working for Mr Moszynski?'

'Six months.'

Bren paused and opened his file. With his heavy build and Cornish burr, Bren sometimes appeared slow and deliberate, and Everett waited, shifting in his seat as the silence dragged on. 'Yeah,' he said, 'since December.'

'As I said,' Bren spoke at last, 'we're anxious to talk to people who've had recent contact with Sir Nigel, and we came across this.' He selected an enlarged photograph from his file and showed it to Everett. 'That's you, isn't it? And that's Sir Nigel, yes?'

Everett looked puzzled. 'Um . . . yeah. Could be. Where did you get this?'

'It was in the local paper, couple of years ago. Sir Nigel handing out prizes at the Haringey Sport and Social Club in Tottenham Green. Remember that?'

'Oh, yes.' Everett gave an apologetic laugh. 'Yes, I had met him before I went to work for Shere Security. In fact he got me the job there-it's a company that he part-owned.'

'So Sir Nigel got to know you well enough to get you a job?'

Everett shrugged, not quite as nonchalantly as he might have intended. 'Around then his chauffeur died, and I did a bit of driving for him, casual like. Then later, when I was looking for a regular job, he got me the interview with Mr Shere.'

'I see. Sir Nigel was a sort of patron of the club, wasn't he? We're wondering who else he knew there. Anyone else in the picture you recognise?'

Everett took another look. 'Don't think so.'

'What about this bloke?' Bren pointed to Danny Yilmaz.

'Face doesn't ring a bell.'

'You sure? He's been in the news lately, name of Danny Yilmaz, died last week of something called Marburg fever.'

'Oh, that bloke. Yes, I did read about it.'

'So have you had any contact with him in, say, the last six months?'

'Absolutely not.'

'That's his cousin behind him, Barbaros Kaya. Do you know him?'

'More by reputation. Bit of a tough guy, I've heard. But I haven't had any personal dealings with him.'

Bren nodded. 'Did you know Sir Nigel's previous driver then, the one who died?'

'I'd seen him around, yeah. I think his name was Bernie.'

'That's right, Bernie. And he had a son and daughter called Kenny and Angela. Remember them?'

'I believe I do. Kenny went up to Scotland, I seem to remember.'

'He did. Did you keep in contact with him?'

'No.'

'What about Angela? She inherited Bernie's house. Have you visited her there?'

'No. I wouldn't have a clue where it is.'

'Hackney, 13 Ferncroft Close. You quite sure you've never been there?'

'Quite sure.'

'You didn't maybe take Sir Nigel there?'

'Not to Hackney, no, never.' Everett was looking disconcerted now. 'I don't get it. What's this all about?'

'The thing is, Wayne, with two recent homicides a.s.sociated with Chelsea Mansions, we need to make quite sure that Sir Nigel's suicide wasn't, shall we say, a.s.sisted in any way. And we're also interested to trace Freddie Clarke and make sure his video was above board. You can appreciate that.'

'Yeah, okay.'

'But you knew Sir Nigel, you drove his car, were in close physical contact with him, shook his hand, may have touched his clothes. You see my point?'

'No, frankly, I don't.'

'Your prints and DNA may crop up in the course of our forensic examinations, along with those of other people we'll want to trace. So we need samples of yours in order that we can identify and eliminate them. You'll agree to that, won't you?'

'Oh.' Everett looked troubled. 'Sir Nigel spoke to me about this. He had very firm views on the subject, and told me I should never agree to it unless it was absolutely unavoidable. He said there had been mistakes, miscarriages of justice.'

'It really would help us, Wayne, and I can a.s.sure you . . .'

'No, sorry.'

Bren sighed patiently. 'That's a pity. We'll just have to do it the slow way. Now I'm going to need details of every occasion you and Sir Nigel came into contact during the past six months . . .'

'Can you throw any light on Mr Clarke's confession, Mr Kuzmin?' Brock asked. The two men were sitting in the library in Chelsea Mansions in which Brock and Kathy had first encountered Hadden-Vane and Freddie Clarke on the night Moszynski died, over three weeks before. In front of him, Vadim Kuzmin seemed tense and preoccupied.

'That's funny.' Vadim gave a chilly smile and lit a cigarette. Apparently Shaka's prohibition no longer applied.

'Funny?' Brock said.

'Yes.' The Russian inhaled deeply. 'I thought you might be responsible, Chief Inspector. I understand you and Sir Nigel were old enemies.'

'You must have had dealings with Mr Clarke recently, in connection with Mr Moszynski's business affairs. How did he seem?'

'Uncooperative, secretive, devious. My wife is an executor of her father's estate and the chief beneficiary. She was ent.i.tled to have full information about his a.s.sets and liabilities. I was trying to get Freddie to set down on paper all the details, but he seemed reluctant. He said it was very complicated.'

'You argued over this?'

'Sure, we argued. It was intolerable.'

'But you used to be a member of the FSB Sixth Directorate, Mr Kuzmin,' Brock said with a quiet smile. 'You would know plenty of ways to get such information from a reluctant witness.'

Kuzmin looked at him sharply. 'I had nothing to do with that video.'

'Really? I wondered, you see, because it struck me that the background to the film, the setting in which it was shot, reminded me of the cellars underneath this house. We're working on sharpening those background images.'

Kuzmin shrugged, sucked again at his cigarette. 'Good luck. Have you any idea where Freddie is now?'

'He took a flight to Athens yesterday morning. We don't know where he went after that.'

'He's done this before, several times. He sits at his figures day after day until something snaps and he takes off. He has always come back before, but things are a little different now.'

'You mean he might feel responsible for Sir Nigel's suicide?'

Vadim gave a derisive snort. 'Who cares about that? No, I mean that he is now the only one who can lay his hands on half a billion dollars' worth of Mikhail's money.'

This thought hung in the air for a moment, then Brock said, 'We'd like to have access here to carry out a thorough search of the house, to make sure we didn't miss anything before.'

'Sure, be my guest, take the place apart if you want.'

Brock made a call to the team waiting outside in the square, then said, 'It looks as if someone's been digging up the floors in the cellars. Do you know why?'

'Oh, that was Mikhail's next project, a huge swimming pool in the bas.e.m.e.nt. They had to investigate the drains, to see how it could be done.'

'Is Mrs Marta Moszynski here?'

'No, she's with Alisa at our house. She doesn't like it here any more. It reminds her of Mikhail. It is painful for her. She is talking about going back to live in St Petersburg. Is that everything?' He began to get to his feet, but Brock stayed where he was, watching the other man. He seemed as anxious as Marta to leave Chelsea Mansions.

'Not quite. In the old days, when you were all living in St Petersburg, you knew Mr Moszynski's father, Gennady Moszynski, didn't you?'

'What is this, family history time?'

'In a way, yes, it is.' Brock reached into his pocket and pulled out the photograph. He handed it to Kuzmin, who, just for a brief moment, gave a look of recognition, Brock thought.

'What's this?'

'That's Gennady standing there behind the girl, isn't it?'

Kuzmin's eyes darted to Brock's face, then back to the picture. 'Maybe.' He said the word carefully.

'The girl is Nancy Haynes, the other two people are her parents, the building in the background is this building, and the date is the twenty-sixth of April 1956.'