‘Not the faintest.’
‘What about any unusual activity in the Palace?’
‘Such as?’
‘It looks as though one of your security guards might have been renting rooms.’
‘Renting rooms?’ he asked. ‘For what?’ But the answer occurred to him a moment later. ‘Ah, the world’s oldest profession.’
‘We’re keeping an open mind.’
‘You must get very open-minded in your line of work.’
I nodded. ‘I think it’s the second or third oldest profession.’
‘So you suppose this man’s death is, what? Related to prostitution? Does Blick know about all this?’
‘I was actually hoping to speak to him, but he’s out of the country.’
A roguish look passed across Coyle’s face and he dug his phone out of a pocket. ‘I’ll say …’ He held it out to me. On the screen was a picture of a topless, overweight man. He was wearing designer sunglasses and was surrounded by young Thai women. ‘I won’t be surprised if he never comes back.’ I had to admit that for a solicitor he looked pretty relaxed.
‘Returning to the Palace, Mr Coyle …’
‘Prostitution, you said?’
‘That’s one line of enquiry. When was the last time you visited the hotel?’
He laughed at that. ‘I haven’t been there in years. That’s the truth.’ I thought I believed him but his making the distinction this late in our conversation seemed interesting.
‘And you don’t have any personal enemies who might want to delay the sale of the hotel?’
The smile froze on his face. ‘Delay the sale? Could it delay the sale?’
‘The point is that it could be an effort to.’
He thought for a long moment, his eyes moving off and then back on to me. I thought I could see last night’s booze finally breaking the surface.
He shook his head. ‘I’m certain that’s not the case but we have to be careful. Can you be discreet?’
‘About …?’
He shook his head in pity and spoke slowly so I’d understand. ‘Headlines about assaults and dead bodies will only send the asking price in one direction.’ He gave me an illustrative thumbs down.
‘It’s an interesting chain of events, though. A closed-down hotel in negotiation for sale gets broken into. Nothing’s taken but the security guard gets assaulted. A dead body’s discovered. You can understand why we’d want to speak to the owners …’
‘Have you spoken to Natasha?’
‘Your wife? Yesterday.’
‘My ex-wife.’
‘I didn’t realize the divorce was finalized.’
‘That only the makes distinction more important. The Palace is our divorce in practical terms, and she’s the only one holding things up.’
‘Do you suspect your wife of some involvement in this?’
‘I didn’t say that.’ He looked at me. ‘Natasha wouldn’t have left any survivors …’
‘But she’s obstructing the sale?’
He ignored the question. ‘I merely wish you’d spoken to me first.’
‘I wanted to speak to the two of you together. You weren’t available.’
‘To discuss a breakin,’ he said. ‘If I’d known the full details, I’d have cleared my schedule.’ His eyes darted about the glasses in the room. I got the impression that they were his schedule.
‘Why does a dead body change things so drastically for you?’ I asked.
‘Because of the potential ramifications. If we’re to avoid negative publicity, things need to be handled delicately. Not something Natasha has any great flair for …’
He invited the question so I asked it. ‘What does Ms Reeve have a flair for?’
‘The dramatic,’ he said, reclining into the couch. ‘What did she tell you about me?’
‘Just the facts.’
He looked up, shrewdly. He was a man who’d been betrayed by facts before. ‘So you’re on her side?’ he said.
‘I’m usually on the dead person’s side. Ms Reeve told me very little about you.’ I wasn’t interested in feeding his martyr complex. ‘And she was pretty vague on the details of the Palace itself.’
That seemed to please him. ‘Well, no surprise there. She acts as though she built it from the ground up.’
‘That’s not true?’
‘She married into it,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Then remade the place in her own image. You can imagine why I’m so desperate to get rid.’
‘Are you desperate, Mr Coyle?’
‘For everything except money,’ he said, waving the question away. ‘I was using what’s called a figure of speech. It’s Natasha’s fault that we’re going through all this. I would have been content to remain a silent partner in the business. She gave me an ultimatum …’
‘And that’s what happened six months ago?’ He didn’t answer. ‘Is that when the two of you separated?’
‘We separated years ago, as far as any real relationship goes.’
‘May I ask if there was someone else involved in your marriage?’
‘You may,’ he said, sitting upright. ‘But you won’t get an answer. I fail to see the question’s relevance.’
‘What about now, are you seeing anyone new?’
‘Again, I fail to see the question’s relevance.’
‘Its relevance is that I’m wondering if you can account for your movements on Saturday between 10.30 p.m. and midnight.’
‘We both know I never killed a man.’
‘Even if we did. Other things happened that you could have done.’
‘Such as?’
‘Your security guard heard two voices, arguing, shortly before midnight. When he went to investigate, he was attacked. We saw someone flee the scene and found the unidentified dead man soon after.’
He smiled. ‘You think Natasha and I meet there for our midnight punch-ups. Perhaps we killed a stranger on our way out to alleviate the stress?’
‘You could quite easily have had an argument there and had nothing to do with the man’s death. If that was the case, now would be a good time to say something.’
‘It’s almost worth it to take her down with me, but I haven’t spoken to Natasha in months, not since I moved out. I’d love to hear what she said to this accusation …’
‘It’s not an accusation, Mr Coyle, and she simply explained where she’d been, what she’d been doing.’
‘And?’ When I didn’t expand he went on. ‘Well, I’m afraid I can’t account for my movements. Saturday night? I was here. Alone.’
‘Your ex-wife was on her own as well.’
‘As she no doubt delighted in telling you.’
Freddie kept a jazzier, more flamboyant mask on his disappointment than Natasha, but it was there all the same. I left his apartment feeling grateful not to have seen the two of them together. They were both evasive in their own ways, argumentative too, and I wondered if that’s how they’d lasted for ten years, by evading each other. I wondered why that had suddenly stopped working. As I reached the staircase I thought I heard voices, or at least his, talking to someone else. Then I heard ice, rattling inside the cocktail shaker.
2
My phone was vibrating when I reached the street.
‘That rubber,’ said Sutty by way of a hello.
‘Good morning to you, too. The condom wrapper? Was there a print on there?’
‘Yeurgh, but no hits. It’s the brand that caught my eye, though.’
‘Remind me.’
‘Lifestyle,’ he said. ‘Ever come across it? So to speak …’
I thought for a second. ‘It looked unusual, but I didn’t recognize it. To be honest it’s been a while.’
‘Well, I’d worry if it was your protection of choice. Y’know the clinic on Hulme Street?’
Around the corner from the Palace, there was a sexual health walk-in clinic run by a charity. As soon as Sutty mentioned it I remembered.
It was branded as the Positive Lifestyle Clinic.
‘I’m about a five-minute walk away.’
‘All right then, but Aidan …’
‘Yeah?’
‘Get yourself checked out while you’re there.’