Simon Beckett - The Restless Dead

It was, although I didn’t feel that way. On an intellectual level I realized I’d had two narrow escapes inside twenty-four hours. Emotionally, though, too much had happened for it to have sunk in.

But I thought Clarke was probably right about Porter getting rid of the shotgun. The weapon tied him to the shooting of a police officer, and he’d just had his face peppered with shards after firing it point blank at a rusted steel door. Even if the blowback hadn’t damaged the barrel, he must have decided it was too risky to keep.

Looking back, I could see how events had slipped out of his control ever since he’d gone out to the sea fort to confront Emma Derby and Mark Chapel. And when Leo Villiers, who must have seemed the perfect scapegoat, returned from the dead Porter’s own situation had become untenable. I could well believe he was telling the truth when he’d said things had got out of hand. But that was small consolation to the people whose lives had been destroyed because of it.

‘The empty cartridge box wasn’t the only thing we found at his flat,’ Clarke went on. ‘He was a magpie. The place was full of stolen items. Nothing big or obvious, mainly stuff like watches and jewellery. We’re still checking records, but we think at least some of them came from burglaries reported in the area last year.’

‘Around the same time Creek House was broken into?’ I asked.

Clarke tipped her head in acknowledgement. ‘It looks as though you were right about them being a smokescreen. Porter would have known there’d be copies of the photographs on Emma Derby’s computer, but he didn’t want anyone thinking the Trasks had been specifically targeted. There weren’t any stolen computers in his flat, so he must have got rid of those. But we did find a USB flash drive hidden behind a loose skirting board. We’re still going through the files, but the blackmail photographs are on there. Shots of Leo Villiers dressing in women’s clothes, all taken at long range through the windows of his house. There’s some film footage we think is from the video camera Mark Chapel took from work, but it’s poor quality and doesn’t show much.’

‘You haven’t found the camera itself?’

‘Not yet. Porter was too savvy to keep anything that could easily be traced back to Emma Derby, but he obviously decided to hang on to the photographs. Makes you wonder if he planned to use them himself someday.’

Porter had been indignant when I’d suggested he was a blackmailer, but then he’d also denied being a thief. Although he might not have seen himself as either, he’d evidently left his options open in case he changed his mind.

‘He told me he wasn’t going to let them “muscle in” after all he’d done for the Villiers,’ I said. ‘What do you think he meant?’

Clarke raised the polystyrene cup again before thinking better of it. She set it back down with a sour expression. ‘I’m not sure, but the whole set-up seems odd. There doesn’t seem to have been any love lost between Porter and Leo Villiers, yet Sir Stephen sent him to clean Willets Point when he realized we were going to search the house. And why send his driver to deliver half a million pounds in blackmail money rather than one of his security team?’

‘He’d been employing Porter for twenty-odd years. He must have trusted him.’

Clarke gave me a sceptical look. ‘Exactly. But Sir Stephen doesn’t strike me as naïve, and Porter wasn’t what you could call the trustworthy type. We know he kept his boss’s money, and there were various bits and pieces at his flat we think he lifted from Leo Villiers’ house. Silver cutlery, gold cufflinks, a pair of high-end Zeiss binoculars, stuff like that. So how come a hard-nosed business leader like Sir Stephen put so much trust in his light-fingered driver?’

I rubbed my face, trying to organize my thoughts. Clarke was right, there was something wrong. I just couldn’t see what it was. ‘What does Sir Stephen say?’

‘Do you mean about his employee being a mass murderer or his son coming back from the dead as a woman?’ She pushed her cup of tea away as though it were to blame. ‘He’s making no comment about Leo, but he must have known he was transgender or he wouldn’t have stopped us seeing his medical records. Maybe he thought Leo really had murdered Emma Derby, as well. It’d explain why he was so keen for us to believe his son was dead. He knew there was a big fat can of worms waiting to be opened, and he was hoping to keep a lid on it.’

‘And what about Porter?’

‘Sir Stephen doesn’t have much to say about him at all. His lawyers have assured us how shocked he was, and said their client isn’t responsible for the independent actions of his employees. Oh, they also pointed out that Sir Stephen had his car stolen, so he’s a victim himself.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘I kid you not. I offered them the number of Victim Support, but funnily enough they declined.’ She gave a snort of disgust. ‘As far as the blackmail goes, they’re refusing to confirm or deny anything. My feeling is they don’t want people knowing Sir Stephen gave in to blackmail, so they’re hoping to bury it.’

‘Can they do that?’ I asked.

‘They can try. There’s no concrete evidence that Derby and Chapel actually blackmailed Sir Stephen, except for Porter’s version of events. And even that’s second-hand.’

Jesus, I thought, sickened. Blackmail or not, I couldn’t feel any sympathy for Leo Villiers’ father. There was a coldness to him that was unnatural, and a sense of entitlement and arrogance in the way he thought he was above the law. But then, with his money and connections, perhaps he was.

‘There is one more thing,’ Clarke said slowly. ‘The RSPCA took away the birds and animals from Holloway’s house before the fire. But when we made a start clearing the garden yesterday afternoon we found a sports holdall in the undergrowth. Looked like it’d been used for a sick seagull or something. As well as bird shit it was full of fifty-pound notes.’

I stared at her. ‘He used the money for a bird’s nest ?’

A faint smile tugged at the corner of Clarke’s mouth. ‘I know. It was close to one of the trees that caught fire, so if it hadn’t been so wet it’d probably all have gone up in smoke. The notes were pretty scorched but it looks like most of it’s there. Five hundred thousand pounds propping up a seagull’s backside.’

Christ. I sat back, stunned. Porter had been wrong when he’d said Edgar wouldn’t have any use for the money. At another time it would have been funny. ‘What’s going to happen to it?’

‘Well, that’s an interesting question. Obviously if the money belongs to Sir Stephen it should be returned to him, bird shit and all. But for that to happen he’d have to admit to being blackmailed. So unless he does we’ll have no choice but to regard it as Holloway’s property.’

We shared a smile at that, both of us appreciating the poetic justice. And for me there was also an element of relief. Although I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it, Porter’s accusation had lodged like a thorn at the back of my mind: If you don’t know where it is, that leaves Derby’s sister . I wondered what it said about me that I’d still harboured a doubt about her, even now.

Clarke was getting to her feet, signalling the interview was at an end. ‘I think we’re done here. Are you OK to get yourself back to London?’

I said I was. My car was a write-off, but I still had my wallet. I could catch a taxi to the train station and be back at my flat within a couple of hours. There was no longer any point in staying here, even if I’d had anywhere to stay. Rachel would have enough to deal with at the moment, and I needed sleep. Just the thought of it made my body feel twice as heavy as it should.