On Wednesday, Jack arrived at the Casa Manolo on the King’s Road in Chelsea, about twenty minutes before Jason Marks, instantly noting that the Spanish food and wine selection looked fabulous.
Jason walked in wearing tan chinos and a pristine white T-shirt. Over one shoulder he wore a man-bag and, over the other his jacket hung from a finger. Before sitting sat down at the table, he ordered at the bar a selection of dishes from the tapas menu and a bottle of Beronia Gran Reserva Rioja, all of which he’d clearly ordered numerous times before.
‘I hope you don’t mind. You’ll thank me when it all arrives,’ he said. Jack’s quick smile hid the fact that he had been hoping for a beer and a meal that came on a plate which would only be touched by him.
Jason sat a little way back from the table with his legs crossed, and looked at Jack with a defensive gaze. ‘This is completely informal, Mr Marks,’ Jack assured him. ‘You don’t have to answer any of my questions, but I’d appreciate it if you did.’ Jason straightened his knife a quarter inch, so it was in line with his fork. Then he seemed to relax. Jack got straight to the point. ‘Did you witness a will for Avril Jenkins?’
‘Several months ago, I do believe I did,’ Jason replied. ‘That is to say, she put a piece of paper in front of me and thrust a pen into my hand. There was a name in the header, which told me it was something from a solicitor. I can’t recall the name.’
Jack asked if Jason knew the name Adam Border. He nodded vaguely. ‘Arnie Hutchinson let it slip that he’s the new beneficiary of Avril’s will. And that he’s gone AWOL. Or he’s dead. Either way, Terence is preparing to fight for what he firmly believes is his. Terence claims that a son can’t exist because Frederick would have known about him. He’s also banking on the fact that Avril was a bigamist.’
Jack asked what evidence Jason had of that. ‘Chinese whispers. Someone said to someone. All I can say is that nothing would surprise me about Avril Jenkins. If she was already married when Frederick proposed, I have no doubt whatsoever that she’d lie about it. She had a childlike view of life. She’d have spoken without thinking and worried about it later.’
‘Did you ever meet Adam Border?’
‘I met the man who tended her garden. I never asked, or was told, his name. But if that was him, she didn’t treat him like he was her son. She treated him more like he was her toy boy. An unseemly ruse if he was her offspring.’
The wine and food arrived, and all conversation paused whilst Jason tasted and approved the bottle chosen, then visually checked the tapas dishes he’d selected, shifting the tiny bowls until they formed an aesthetically pleasing pattern on the table.
‘In truth, I was Freddie’s friend and only really dealt with Avril after his death,’ he said. ‘Freddie could be a tricky customer at times. Moody. Probably bipolar, in hindsight. He could be paranoid, too, which is why he rarely relinquished control of the reins with investments. He questioned my valuations and expertise, but he also paid me well so I could live with it. Freddie did have a stunning ability to spot an up-and-comer. He’d follow the careers of students, attend their little local art exhibitions, then pounce on collections he guessed would one day be worth money. And he was right most of the time.’
Jason fell silent again while he selected a spoonful of food from each of the tapas bowls, arranging them in neat piles on his plate, like paint on a palette. It was only now Jack realised that Jason had ordered food by colour and not by content.
‘What was I saying? Oh yes, Freddie. He learnt from his dad, who really was an art collector. The old boy spotted Andy Warhol early, but his real passion was the Dutch masters. Mr Jenkins was the real talent, and an obsessive collector. After he died and Freddie inherited the lot, he learnt fast — but then, dear God, Avril was a nightmare. She was one of those people who bought and sold based on whether she liked the look of something. Preposterous! She stopped insurance payments and sold on a whim. She decimated poor Freddie’s vault.’
Until this moment, Jason had been providing information that Jack already had, which was exactly what Jack wanted him to do, so he could be certain that he’d not overlooked anything. But a vault? What vault?
Jason explained that during a bout of paranoia, Frederick Jenkins had had a secret vault built beneath the cellar in order to safely store his art collection. ‘Avril moved Rossetti’s Venus Verticordia from the vault to above the fireplace. I told her not to. The heat, I said. The heat will destroy it. She couldn’t care less. She liked it, so that’s where it was to live.’ Jason became almost mournful. ‘Her worst crime was selling a Degas pencil drawing without seeking my advice first. And a rather unusual Van Gogh which, thank the Lord, turned out to be a fake. I would have given my eyeteeth to have been allowed just one peek inside that vault. What a vision it must have been to see it filled with masterpieces! I only knew of its existence because once when I was in the hallway, just about to leave, he came out of the kitchen carrying a canvas that needed to be authenticated, and he said he had been down in the vault. He said no one, not even Avril, was allowed down there.’
Jack sipped from his glass of wine to give himself a moment to think. So the vault beyond the cellar — which they’d all assumed was built to be used as a secret drug factory — was in fact a private art gallery which had been in existence decades before the drug dealers showed up. Once again, Jack was privy to information that no one else had, simply because his gut had told him to keep probing with someone who’d been dismissed from the inquiry days ago.
But did it mean the art angle was now more pivotal than the drugs?
Chapter 36
Jack was still hungry when he got home. On the kitchen top was a large pork casserole with one scoop missing, so Penny had clearly eaten earlier. Seeing as it was Wednesday, that meant that she was now at the college learning how to... Jack couldn’t recall. It was something to do with the garden, that’s all he knew.
As Maggie put two plates in the oven to warm, Jack was eager for the upcoming feast. This was the kind of food that suited him best: home-cooked, on its own plate and shared with the women he loved. The £6.99 bottle of Merlot was also far more to Jack’s liking than the £50 bottle Jason had so pretentiously chosen.
Jack’s mind was now firmly on Elliot Wetlock because he knew he wouldn’t be able to focus on all of the loose ends belonging to the Avril Jenkins case until the weight of accusation surrounding Tania’s death had been lifted from his shoulders. And the only way that was going to happen was if her killer was identified. Maggie didn’t understand why Jack was the only person who was referring to Tania’s death as a murder and not a suicide. But Jack wasn’t going to share his suspicions about Wetlock until it was far more than just a hunch based on the revelations of a fugitive. So far, all he had was Foxy’s evidence that Tania had taken drugs anally. Jack’s current theory was that she had taken a cocktail of drugs orally, but not enough to kill herself, then a second person had administered the lethal additional dose anally which brought on the OD.
‘How would you get a rat out of a hole?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Cheese!’ Maggie beamed. But the grin on his face suggested that she was way off the mark. ‘Oh, you mean a person rat. Not a rat rat,’ she said. ‘Well, swap cheese for whatever it is that your rat likes best. Then,’ Maggie continued, pouring two glasses of wine, ‘close off all escape routes barring the one you’re waiting at. Then scare the shit out of them and wait till they come to you.’ Maggie grinned, impressed with her own ingenuity. ‘I know, I should have been a copper. Also, for your information, Penny and I were discussing getting one of those doorbell camera things, and I am going to order one online, for the front and back door.’