‘I wonder why she would tell you that,’ Swilley said, almost to herself.
‘Well, we all knew how things were between them before that, so I suppose she was making sure we knew she wanted nothing more to do with him. Too good for him, the stuck-up cow.’
‘But he had two-timed her in a pretty nasty way.’
‘I told you, I never believed in that. He was set up. Anyway, what about “stand by your man”? She should have forgiven him and taken him back,’ Shawna said sententiously, straight from the pages of whatever magazine she had most recently been reading. It wasn’t Country Life, that was for sure. ‘Anyway, before you can turn round, she’s started going out with someone else.’
‘Who is that?’
‘Freddie Bell,’ Shawn said, with a certain ripe, significant look.
‘The casino mogul?’
‘That’s him. And a real rough diamond he is. When he comes in the office to see her it’s “What are you lot staring at? Haven’t you got any work to do?” Never stopping for a chat like poor Mr Stonax did.’
Swilley was fascinated. ‘Are you sure about that – Candida Scott-Chatton going out with Freddie Bell? I wouldn’t have thought he was her type at all.’
‘Well, if you want my opinion, she likes a bit of rough. And of course he’s mega-rich. It got her into the papers all right – didn’t you see?’ Swilley shook her head. ‘They were photographed together all over the place. Rubbing Mr Stonax’s nose in it, I thought.’
‘So she wasn’t still seeing Ed Stonax?’
‘You kidding? He was history. Besides, Freddie Bell’s not the sharing type, and he’s got a temper on him. He broke that bloke’s arm just for looking at his girlfriend funny – didn’t you read about that? It was in What She Wants and Chat magazines.’
‘I don’t get those.’
‘I couldn’t live without them! It’s the only way you find out what’s really going on in this world. Anyway, that was years ago, but it shows what kind of man he is. I suppose that’s what she likes. So all I’m saying, if she comes over all holier-than-thou and pretends to be the grieving widow, don’t you believe her.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Christ, I must go.’ She dashed the cigarette to the ground and stamped it out.
Swilley said, ‘Thanks, you’ve been a great help. Just one last thing – did she see Mr Stonax at all after that time?’
‘Oh, yes, now and then, because they were interested in the same campaigns. But it was just official stuff. Freddie Bell would never have stood for anything else.’
The rest of Stonax’s flat seemed as immaculate as the drawing-room, except for the obvious signs of forensic activity. There were taped ‘safe lines’, and Slider conducted Emily Stonax through them to look around the flat. She seemed pale but in control, and said that she couldn’t see anything out of place or missing. ‘It all looks just the same,’ she said. There was a bad moment when they looked into the spare room. She said, ‘He made the bed up for me,’ and pressed her fingers to the inner corners of her eyes, to keep the tears back. When they came to his bedroom, she couldn’t speak at all.
Bob Bailey came up to say to Slider in a low tone, ‘We didn’t find any money, credit cards or wallet, but there are a couple of watches in one of the drawers. If you could ask her . . .?’
Slider offered her his handkerchief and she shook her head, dragged out another tissue, blew her nose briskly and said in a reasonably controlled way, ‘They’ll have been his old watches. Dad had a gold Oyster Perpetual he wore all the time. He loved it. He was always mad about watches and of course he needed a good, reliable one in his work, but the Oyster was his great treasure. Candida bought it for him last Christmas, and I don’t think he ever took it off, except in the shower.’
Seeing she was back in charge, Bailey asked, ‘We didn’t find a mobile phone . . .?’
She turned to him. ‘He had the latest Nikoti Cyber-box, the F283. It’s a 3G Smartphone that does everything – VGA camera, camcorder, mobile, broadband, video calling, the lot, plus the electronic notebook facility. You can write or dictate notes into it and download them to your computer through a wireless link. He took it everywhere. It would have been in his pocket.’
Slider nodded. Even he had heard of the Cyber-box. There had been queues round the block in New York when it came out, gadget aficionados wanting to be the first to own one. It made robbery from the person look a better bet.
‘We’ll put a trace on it. And on his credit cards, once we have the numbers. I suppose all that sort of thing will be in his office.’ There was something at the back of his mind which wouldn’t come forward, but it prompted him to ask, without really knowing why, ‘Did your dad have a fountain pen or a fancy ballpoint? A Mont Blanc or anything like that, that he carried in his pocket?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘He just used ordinary biros. He wasn’t interested in pens. Why?’
‘Oh, just wondering what else might have been in his pocket.’
‘Well, it wouldn’t have been a biro. He hated people who had them sticking out of their pockets. Like men who wore signet rings. He had a lot of those little prejudices.’
‘We all do,’ Slider said, to comfort her.
They moved on to the third bedroom, which was furnished as an office, with a desk, computer, filing cabinets and so on. Again, everything looked orderly, and Emily Stonax said she couldn’t see anything missing.
Bob Bailey eased Slider aside and said quietly, ‘There’s something interesting about one of those filing cabinets. Fingermarks on the top and on this drawer. Don’t get excited – they’re gloved prints, so we won’t get a match, but it’s an indication?’
‘Yes,’ said Slider. What normal person puts gloves on to do their filing? Someone had been in. ‘You’d better have a look for footprints as well. That’s quite a new carpet with a good pile.’
‘Already on it. And here’s something else – a quick analysis of one of the smears suggests oil of some kind, probably petroleum based.’
‘I didn’t know you had a field test kit for oil,’ said Slider.
Bailey gave him a withering look. ‘It’s called smell and taste.’
‘Well, get me a sample and I’ll shove it off to the lab,’ Slider said, his interest quickening. If the oil came from the perpetrator’s car, it might be possible to get a match: the oil in each car had a unique combination of impurities – dirt, soot, pollen etc. Of course, there was no register of car-prints, but it was good evidence once they had a suspect. ‘Have you opened any of the drawers yet?’
‘Not yet. Still doing externals.’