‘And that’s Nancy, the woman who was murdered just before your son. How do you explain that, Marta?’
‘No… no, no.’
‘Could it be that Nancy-’
But Marta had lurched into movement, ripping the photographs into tiny pieces while she spat and cursed in Russian. She threw the scraps at him, screaming abuse, then turned and took hold of the ashtray at her side and hurled it too, with surprising force, straight at his head. He just had time to dodge and lift an arm, and he winced as the glass block hit his wrist. They were both on their feet now, Marta casting around for another weapon, when the maid burst in and ran to her. Abruptly the old woman’s manner changed, and she began sobbing and gasping. The maid gathered her in her arms and eased her back down into the chair.
‘You must go.’ The maid looked back over her shoulder accusingly at Brock. ‘She is not well.’
‘Do you need a doctor?’
‘No. I will take care of her. Please leave now.’
Brock hesitated, then nodded and turned to go. As he reached the door Marta hurled a parting curse at his back.
He waited for the lift, nursing his wrist. He was still jolted by the suddenness of her fury and its physical force. Now the silence in the deserted atrium made the whole episode seem surreal. The lift sighed to a halt at the ground floor and he stepped out, his heels squeaking on the polished marble floor. He took a few paces towards the front door, then stopped and looked around. In each of the flanking walls stood large doorways framed with classical pilasters and entablatures. He went over and opened a door to reveal a mirrored dining room in which a long table had been laid with porcelain and cutlery as if for an elaborate banquet. Another door opened into a huge sitting room whose walls were hung with contemporary art-Hockney, Freud, Hirst-and, bizarrely, hanging over the massive fireplace, a portrait of Mikhail Moszynski himself, dressed in the ruff and slashed doublet of a Tudor grandee, with a hedgehog at his feet.
On the far side of this room was another door, opening into a corridor. Brock was about to turn back when he heard the muffled whine of machinery from one of the closed doors up ahead. He went towards it and hesitated, his hand on the doorknob, listening. The whine became shriller for a while, then subsided again. It was a sound he’d heard before, but it took him a moment to remember it coming from Dot’s office-a paper shredder. He opened the door.
The woman turned from the machine and stared at him. There were tears running down her cheeks, and for a moment they stood staring at each other in surprise.
‘I’m sorry to startle you,’ Brock said, and showed her his police ID. ‘Are you all right?’
Embarrassed, she wiped her hand quickly across her face. ‘Oh, not really. I’ve just been sacked. It’s only to be expected really, but it was just so… abrupt. I’m sorry. I’m Ellen Fitzwilliam, Mr Moszynski’s secretary-former secretary.’
‘Tidying up?’ Brock asked.
‘Yes. I was sorting things out for Mr Kuzmin, who’s trying to make sense of it all for the solicitors, only he’s decided… Well, anyway, he’s just left, gone to speak to Mr Clarke, if you wanted him.’
‘I imagine it must all be very complicated.’
‘Oh yes. And Freddie-Mr Clarke-isn’t easy to pin down. Was there something I can help you with?’
‘I know you’ve been asked this before, but I’m just trying to tie up one or two details. I’m interested in Mr Moszynski’s state of mind in the days before he was killed. Were you working with him then?’
‘Not on the Sunday when he died, but I did come in to work on the Saturday morning, and all through the previous week. I can’t say I noticed anything terribly different about his manner. He seemed his usual self-brisk, businesslike.’
‘He went to the memorial service for the American woman here in the square on the Sunday morning. Was he upset by her death, do you remember?’
‘Ah, yes, he did seem to be bothered by that-I told your inspector. He certainly read all the news reports about Mrs Haynes’ death, and got me to keep cuttings.’
‘He seemed personally affected?’
‘Yes, I suppose so. He was certainly concerned about sending flowers for her memorial service.’
‘Was he?’
‘Yes, he got me to order them on the Saturday, to be delivered to the church. He was quite particular about them.’
‘In what way particular?’
‘About the type of flowers. I’ll have the details in the file. Do you want to see?’
‘Please.’
She took a pouch of invoices and orders marked May from a filing cabinet and flicked through it. ‘Here we are.’
Brock read the note. One hundred pounds worth of roses and camomile daisies. ‘Camomile daisies?’ Brock murmured.
‘Yes, he was particular about the daisies. It seemed an odd choice to me, but he explained that camomile is the national flower of Russia. Very thoughtful, don’t you think?’
‘Very.’ He looked through an open door on the far side of the room to what looked like a board room table, on which a couple of trays of sandwiches lay beneath plastic film, untouched. ‘Mr Kuzmin miss his lunch?’
‘Oh, yes. He and Mr Clarke were supposed to have a lunchtime meeting to discuss the financial matters, but Mr Clarke didn’t show up. He wasn’t answering his mobile phone, and when I tried to contact him at his office his secretary said that she hadn’t seen him today at all. In fact, she hadn’t seen him since he went out for a walk in Hyde Park yesterday lunchtime. But that’s not unusual for Mr Clarke. He gets bored and suddenly disappears without telling anyone, and then after a few days we get an email from Tokyo or Las Vegas or somewhere. Mr Moszynski used to put up with it with a smile-he said Mr Clarke was an eccentric genius. But Mr Kuzmin isn’t so tolerant. He started shouting down the phone at Mr Clarke’s secretary to see if his passport was still in his safe, and she checked and it had gone. Then Mr Kuzmin got in a rage and told me there was nothing for me to do here and I was fired.’
Brock shook his head in commiseration. ‘Bit fiery is he, Mr Kuzmin? How does he get on with Sir Nigel Hadden-Vane?’
‘Oh, pretty well. He tried to get hold of him, too, but the secretary at his parliamentary office said that he was in a committee meeting and would be tied up all afternoon.’
Brock said he would find his own way out, and left the secretary to her shredding. He returned along the corridor and came to what looked like one of the original house staircases. He decided to follow it down into the basement, where the security control room was located, and as he descended he was aware of a change in the air, becoming cooler and tinged with the slightly acrid smell of fresh cement and plaster. Sure enough, the lower floor looked as if it had been recently abandoned by builders, with a heap of sand and a cement mixer blocking the way. Ahead of him a doorway had been roughly knocked through a party wall into what had once been the basement of the next house, and as he stepped through Brock found himself in a dusty, dark room that looked as if it hadn’t been touched in a hundred years. He stopped, letting his eyes adjust to the dark, and then saw that the floor in front of him had been dug up, with the old stone slabs tilted up on end against the wall and the ground beneath excavated. He made out the dim line of an old earthenware sewer pipe. Planks had been laid across the earthworks to a doorway on the far side of the room, and he crossed and found himself in another cellar, the floor of which looked as if it had been similarly excavated and then filled in again. There was a closed door on the other side of this space, and when he tried the handle it opened into a carpeted corridor lit by fluorescent lights. A door to one side was open and he saw the equipment of the security monitoring unit inside. The room was deserted, a mug of coffee-Wayne Everett’s perhaps-still warm on the table. The whole building had the air of an abandoned palace, half high-tech redoubt, half ruined excavation. He watched the screen for a moment as it flicked automatically from one empty room to another, before he continued along the corridor to a stair that took him up to the entrance hallway again. He opened the front door and, with a sense of relief, stepped into the sunshine.