Gillespie's eyebrows beetled aggressively. "Well?"
"May I come in?"
"Why?"
"I'd like to ask you some questions about your late wife."
"Why?"
Cooper could see this conversation dragging on interminably. He opted for the direct approach. "Your wife was murdered, sir, and we have reason to believe you may have spoken to her before she died. I understand that you have been living abroad for some years, so perhaps I should remind you that you are obliged by British law to assist us in any way you can with our enquiries Now, may I come in?"
"If you must." He seemed quite unruffled by the policeman's bald statement but led the way past a room with a bed in it to another room containing a threadbare sofa and two plastic chairs. There was no other furniture and no carpets, but a piece of net curtaining was draped in the windows to give a modicum of privacy. "Expecting bits and pieces from Hong Kong," he barked "Should arrive any day. Camping out meanwhile. Sit down." He lowered himself on to the sofa, trying somewhat clumsily to hide the empty bottle that lay on the floor at his feet. The room was frowsty with whisky, urine and unwashed old man. The front of his trousers was saturated, Cooper saw. Tactfully, he took out his notebook and concentrated his attention on that.
"You didn't seem very surprised when I told you your wife was murdered, Mr. Gillespie. Did you know already?"
"Heard rumours."
"Who from?"
"My brother. We used to live in Long Upton once. He still knows people there. Hears things."
"Where does he live now?"
"London."
"Could you give me his name and address?"
The old man thought about it. "No harm, I suppose, Frederick Gillespie, Carisbroke Court, Denby Street, Kensington. Won't help you, though. Doesn't know any more than I do."
Cooper flicked back through the pages of his notebook till he came to Joanna Lascelles's address. "Your step-daughter lives in Kensington. Does your brother know her?"
"Believe so."
Well, well, well, thought Cooper. A panorama of intriguing possibilities opened up in front of him. "How long have you been back in England, Mr. Gillespie?"
"Six months."
The bits and pieces from Hong Kong were eyewash, then. Nothing took that long these days to be freighted round the world. The old boy was destitute. "And where did you go first? To your brother? Or to your wife?"
"Spent three months in London. Then decided to come back to my roots."
Frederick couldn't put up with an incontinent drunk. It was guesswork, of course, but Cooper would put money on it. "And you saw Joanna during that time and she told you that Mathilda was still living in Cedar House." He spoke as if it were something he had established already.
"Nice girl," said the old man ponderously. "Pretty, like her mother."
"So you went to see Mathilda."
Gillespie nodded. "Hadn't changed. Rude woman still."
"And you saw the clocks. The ones she told you had been stolen."
."Solicitor's talked, I suppose."
"I've just come from Mr. Duggan. He informed us of your visit yesterday." He saw the old man's scowl. "He had no option, Mr. Gillespie. Withholding information is a serious offence, particularly where a murder has occurred."
"Thought it was suicide."
Cooper ignored this. "What did you do when you realized your wife had lied to you?"
Gillespie gave a harsh laugh. "Demanded my property back, of course. She found that very amusing. Claimed I'd accepted money in lieu thirty years ago and no longer had an entitlement." He searched back through his memory. "Used to hit her when I lived with her. Not hard. But I had to make her frightened of me. It was the only way I could stop that malicious tongue." He fingered his mouth with a trembling hand. It was mottled and blistered with psoriasis. "I wasn't proud of it and I never hit a woman again, not until-" He broke off.
Cooper kept his voice level. "Are you saying you hit her when she told you you couldn't have your property back?"
"Smacked her across her beastly face." He closed his eyes for a moment as if the recollection pained him.
"Did you hurt her?"
The old man smiled unpleasantly. "I made her cry," he said.
"What happened then?"
"Told her I'd be putting the law on to her and left."
"When was this? Can you remember?"
He seemed to become suddenly aware of the urine stains on his trousers and crossed his legs self-consciously. "The time I hit her? Two, three months ago."
"You went there at other times then?"
Gillespie nodded. "Twice."
"Before or after you hit her?"
"After. Didn't want the law on her, did she?"
"I don't follow."
"Why would you? Doubt you saw her till she was dead. Devious, that's the only way to describe Mathilda. Devious and ruthless. Guessed I'd fallen on hard times and came here the next day to sort something out. Talked about a settlement." He picked at the scabs on his hand. "Thought I wouldn't know what the clocks were worth. Offered me five thousand to leave her alone." He fell silent.
"And?" Cooper prompted when the silence lengthened.
The old eyes wandered about the empty room. "Realized she'd pay more to avoid the scandal. Went back a couple of times to demonstrate how vulnerable she was. She was talking fifty thousand the day before she died. I was holding out for a hundred. We'd have got there eventually. She knew it was only a matter of time before someone saw me and recognized me."
"You were blackmailing her."
Gillespie gave his harsh laugh again. "Mathilda was a thief. D'you call it blackmail to negotiate back what's been stolen from you? We understood each other perfectly. We'd have reached an agreement if she hadn't died."
Cooper allowed his revulsion to get the better of him. ''It seems to me, sir, you wanted to have your cake and eat it too. You deserted her forty years ago, left her to fend for herself with a baby, snatched up what the clocks were worth in nineteen sixty-one, spent the whole lot"-he looked pointedly at the empty bottle-"probably on booze, repeated the exercise with everything else you've ever earned and then came home to leech off the woman you'd abandoned. I'd say it's arguable who was the greater thief. If the clocks were so important to you, why didn't you take them with you?"
"Couldn't afford to," said Gillespie dispassionately. "Put together enough for my passage. Nothing left over to freight the clocks."
"Why didn't you sell one to pay for the freight of the others?"
"She blocked it." He saw the scepticism in Cooper's expression. "You didn't know her, man, so don't make judgements."
"Yet by your own admission you used to beat her to make her frightened of you. How could she stop you selling your own property? You'd have thrashed her."
"Maybe I did," he growled. "Maybe she found another way to stop me. You think I was the first one to try blackmail? She was a past master at it." He touched his lips again and this time the tremor in his hands was more marked. "We reached an accommodation, the essence of which was no scandal. She'd let me leave for Hong Kong on the condition that there was no divorce and she kept the clocks. Mutual insurance, she called them. While she housed them, she could be sure of my silence. While I owned them I could be sure of hers. They were worth a bob or two, even in those days."