Chapter 10
Three hours later, Em and I are in a Pret round the corner from Kennel Row, in the West End.
The area is full of the tall terraced buildings that housed high society three centuries ago, and that are now offices for all the dubious businesses that keep high society afloat today.
It’s west of Harley Street, north of Oxford Street.
Kennel Row itself is a tiny spur off the main road.
It’s a cul-de-sac too – meaning, of course, the office probably has no back door, or not one that would allow a quick exit.
The lack of an escape route is just one of the things making me uncomfortable right now. The others are, in order:
‘The TV crew has gone, at least. I glanced in as we walked past and there’s no sign of them.’
‘Perfect. The less attention on me, the better.’
‘You ready?’
‘A bit nervous. I’m normally the only person in the buildings I get into. And if someone else turns up, I take evasive action.’
‘None of this fretting. You’ll be fine.’ She takes our empties to the bin and comes back.
‘Also, if you can’t do this, nobody can.
Seems like you know the property industry best out of all of us.
You’ll work out how to find out what was going on with our man Davy.
Or see if anyone in the office is shouting about how they’re glad they did it and he got what was coming to him. ’
‘Very funny.’
I give Em one last baleful look and head round the corner to the London office of Harcourt and Wallace.
Kennel Row is high and narrow, and still cold in the shadows at this time of year.
As I enter, a hideous sculpture of an enormous, distended copper eye watches me approach.
Cameras everywhere, too. If anyone’s looking for evidence I’ve been here – I think of Mr Bowling Ball from yesterday – they won’t have to look for long.
The office itself is going to be old-fashioned, you can tell that even from street level. At the brass plate of buzzers, I mumble something about condolences and wave my flowers at the lens, trying to obscure my face.
My performance for whoever’s at the other end of the camera seems to convince, because the door clicks.
The hall is clean and distinguished; marble underfoot, and a lift that must be a century old.
It’s one of the ones where you have to press the button, haul open a normal wooden door, slide the grille back, press the button, close the door, haul the grille again, and risk losing a hand, all for the dubious pleasure of standing in a box the size of a coffin as it moans and judders upwards.
After roughly three minutes of gentle ascent, I’m on the fifth floor, and after one more door, I’m in Dead Man Davy’s workplace.
This bit is an antechamber. The rest of the office – which looks like it occupies the whole floor of the building – is on the other side of a partition wall.
This section has a desk, with a woman sitting at it, and she looks rather pleased to see me for some reason. Maybe she just likes the flowers.
‘Can I help you?’
I let a bit of countryside into my accent. ‘I’m here for Mr Harcourt. Well, not here for him. I’m sorry, I’m a bit flustered …’ I genuinely am, so I may as well acknowledge it. This isn’t the sort of environment my cover would be happy in either.
‘That’s all right, dear. We’re all upset today.
’ She must be a few years older than Davy was, somewhere in her early sixties.
She’s quite mumsy – strong cashmere vibes – but she’s also clearly in mourning, because she’s dressed top-to-toe in black.
I wonder whether she saw the news before picking her clothes this morning.
More likely, they got word about Davy’s death yesterday.
The cops would have contacted the office and any next of kin before they released the news to the press.
That’s a point, I think – the TV report didn’t mention any family. Another thing to find out here.
‘How did you know David?’ The woman gestures at a vase – she’s already lined up half a dozen on the desk, three of which are full – and I busy myself putting the flowers in there. ‘Oh, dear, you haven’t done this before, have you? Let me.’
As she takes them off me, shears the cellophane with an inch-long nail and gets arranging, I look at the other bouquets.
Always – C, which is tied to a sumptuous bunch of lilies.
Regards Dave from the Balham Brats, which is on a petrol-station bunch of wilting daisies and gerberas.
And finally, appended to the biggest, most ostentatiously mournful bouquet of the lot, SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS DAVID. I check the label: Foxtons.
‘Sorry, how did you know him? I hope you don’t mind my asking. We’ve had two journalists try to get in already.’
‘How awful,’ I say. God, I hope they didn’t try the line I’m about to. ‘My name’s Ted. I know him from the village – Bridling, I mean. We used to play tennis together.’
‘You came all this way just to see us?’
Don’t push it. ‘Oh, I was in town anyway. But I saw it on the news this morning … I couldn’t believe it.’
‘I know. I know, dear. I’ve been here with him since the start.
We went through so much, and now this …’ She looks like she’s about to cry.
Whatever Davy’s crimes might have been in life, this woman had clearly forgiven him or never known about them.
‘I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.’ She gets out an actual lace handkerchief and starts dabbing her eyes.
‘No, I’m the one who’s sorry. He was a wonderful man. We didn’t see much of him in the village, what with his work, but he was always popular at the Head.’
‘The Head?’
‘The local pub.’ Rule 24: Speak casually and familiarly about whatever you do know, and they’ll assume you know the rest. ‘We didn’t know too much about his work, of course, but we knew he was important.’
‘Oh, yes. Yes indeed. He was the core of this place …’ Her lip wobbles again, but she pulls herself back. I think I see the way forward with her, though. Full crawling, full Davy-was-the-best, and see what she reveals.
So I continue: ‘I can’t think why anyone would want to murder him. He didn’t have an enemy in the world, not down where we were.’
‘No, dear. No indeed.’
‘It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Oh, I know, I know.’ She’s wringing her hands. I’ve never seen anyone actually do that before.
‘To be honest, it made me curious about who could possibly have wanted to. It wouldn’t have been anyone in Bridling. I wish I knew a little more about it.’
‘Of course, dear, of course. Although when you say he had no enemies … well …’ She leans forward suddenly, conspiratorial, and suddenly she’s a different woman – glancing around, ears attuned for any approaching footsteps, mouth framing the opening words of some really good gossip. ‘I can tell you this much …’
The moment doesn’t last, because a young Asian guy rounds the partition from the office proper, and within an instant she’s reverted again to her role of the grieving office widow.
As I watch her transform, I realise she’s a magnificent actor.
‘Sami!’ she practically shouts. ‘You must meet Ted. Sami, Ted is a country friend of David.’
Sami is twenty-something – sharp suit, sharper beard, small stud in one ear – but beneath the youthful features he seems deeply tired. ‘Hello, Mrs P. Hello, Ted. You knew David, then?’
Before I can get my story out, ‘Mrs P’ turns back to me.
‘Where are my manners? I’m Hetty, I run the office here.
Ted, Sami is one of David’s brilliant young men.
David does – did – so much for the young people just starting out …
’ The use of the past tense sets her off again – although given her extraordinary performance a moment ago, I have no idea if any of it’s real.
Either way, Sami says, ‘I’ll look after him, Mrs P,’ and gestures me through into the main office.
It’s decent, this place – the sort of place where you imagine millionaires buy their homes.
Cream walls and carpet, fancy plaster mouldings on the ceiling, the occasional bit of disturbing plastic modern art between the desks.
Most of the open-plan workstations are occupied by sleek young people.
From just one look you can tell they have meal-box subscriptions, Zone 1 gym memberships, and airy studio flats with railings instead of wardrobes.
The far wall is a row of private offices, with that sheet glass that you can turn opaque or transparent at the touch of a button.
Harcourt and Wallace are doing all right for themselves. Well, half of them are, anyway.
One of the offices has its windows blacked out, and there’s a sad bunch of flowers wedged into the aluminium handle.
In the next one along – currently transparent – is a big, broad man I recognise from the website – Rob Wallace, Davy’s co-founder.
He’s the one I want to talk to next. But Sami has escorted me to his desk and gestured me casually to the client’s chair beside it, and I don’t want to arouse suspicion by abandoning him now.
‘Sorry about her,’ he’s saying. Cheeky boy, I think. If one of your colleagues of nearly four decades had died, you’d be in bits too. ‘She was a bit obsessed with Dave. They used to be a thing.’ He makes a disgusted face.
‘Wow. When?’
‘Dunno. I probably wasn’t alive; I think in the eighties or some shit.’ He grins, and I suddenly feel rather sorry for Mrs P, working with these jackals.
‘When she said David’s brilliant young men, what did that mean?’
‘Dave ran a mentoring scheme. Charity thing.’
‘Sounds good of him. What did it involve?’
‘Nothing really. Just taking on young agents from disadvantaged backgrounds for six months, then farming them out to other firms, but with experience of high-end clients, high-end properties, that kind of thing. We followed him around’ – Sami clearly has no problem at all with the past tense as far as his former boss goes – ‘and we said nothing, just observed. It was all right.’