Dead Of Winter (Willis/Carter #1)(33)

‘No, I’m sorry. I’ve never heard of those names.’

‘Mr Martingale . . . I’m sorry to interrupt. The patient is deteriorating. He’s quite poorly.’

‘Okay. I’m coming. Please excuse me.’ Martingale turned to them with a professional smile. ‘It’s an emergency. One of my staff’s children is in need of an appendectomy.’ He opened a box on the desktop and took out a business card. ‘Here is my private number.’ He gave the card to Carter. ‘Please feel free to ring or call in here at any time and please keep me informed. My PA will see you out.’

Carter thanked him and they followed Nikki back past reception. ‘Sorry, Miss? I didn’t catch your surname? You worked for Mr Martingale long?’ he asked.

‘Nikki de Lange. Yes . . . I have, a long time.’

‘You have a slight South African accent, don’t you?’ said Ebony.

‘Ah . . . can you hear it?’

‘It’s only faint.’ Ebony tried not to stare but she wondered why anyone who looked as beautiful as Nikki de Lange ever messed up their face with surgery as she obviously had. The thing was, it had become too perfect. It was expressionless. It could have been sixteen or sixty. ‘Did you travel with him from South Africa?’ she asked, trying to stop staring.

‘Yes, I am his personal assistant. I travel with him wherever he goes.’

‘Must be like being married to the job.’ Carter looked back and smiled. Nikki de Lange had come to a halt by the hospital doors.

‘My husband doesn’t mind. He comes too. He’s Justin de Lange, Mr Martingale’s accountant.’

‘It’s a family affair,’ smiled Carter as he thanked her and shook her hand.

They walked back across the car park.

‘What did you think of Martingale?’ he asked Ebony.

‘He’s very self-absorbed; loves himself. Thinks he’s God.’

‘Controlling?’

‘Yes, but I guess you have to be a bossy type if you’re a surgeon.’ She glanced across at Carter as they walked. ‘He’ll tell Davidson we came to see him.’

‘I know. But what can Davidson say, Ebb? This was just a friendly visit, wasn’t it? Only polite to keep him informed. Did you see his watch . . . big money, Ebb. He’s slick.’

‘Definitely.’

‘Expensive threads. Smooth finish. Bit of a Don Juan, don’t you think?’

She looked across at Carter. ‘Who?’

Carter looked back surprised for a few seconds. Then laughed. ‘Don’t you know your classics? Casanova: sophisticated. Ladies’ man.’

‘Yeah . . . probably. He doesn’t look like a man who ever does things spontaneously. Never flustered, always calm.’

‘That’s the key to him maybe. We’ll push him for that list later on today and we’ll get Robbo onto it. Martingale’s got to have an Achilles heel, everyone does. It might be money or women . . . yeah . . . he looks like a man who could be driven by pleasure – what do you think, Ebb?’

‘His PA definitely loves him. I get the feeling she was hovering outside the door waiting to rescue him from us.’

‘From our questions? Something she didn’t want him to talk about?’

‘Not so much the questions as the intrusion into his world. Memories maybe about his daughter dying. It’s got to be hard for him to hear it gone over again. Whatever it was, she couldn’t wait to get rid of us.’

‘Not us, Ebb.’ Carter looked across at her and winked. ‘Couldn’t keep her eyes off me.’

Ebony rolled her eyes skyward and exhaled loudly. ‘Yeah right.’

‘See, Ebb . . . have to have a backup plan in case Cabrina ditches me for good. I reckon we would make a lovely couple.’

‘She’s too old for you, Sarge.’

‘What? Ebb, are we talking about the same woman? She’s about thirty-five and she’s definitely interested in me.’

‘She’s had so much work done on her face: Botox, fillers. She couldn’t look interested if she tried.’

Carter stopped walking and looked across at Ebony’s poker face and laughed. ‘You might be right, Ebb. Let’s head back to Blackdown Barn, and see if it can tell us anything new.’ They got settled in the car, Carter at the wheel. ‘Have you got the gardener’s number? I want him to be available when Sandford goes down there.’

Carter drove out of the car park while Ebony found Marty Reedman’s card in a side pocket of her bag and phoned him. She could hear the sound of cars passing as he answered.

‘Sorry . . . caught you at a bad moment?’ she asked. ‘It’s Detective Willis here, we met at Rose Cottage.’

‘Of course I remember you – I don’t get to meet many detectives. I can talk . . . just working on a garden in town, sorry if it’s noisy.’

‘I wanted to ask you more about the section of gatepost you rebuilt.’

‘Go on.’

‘When did you come to the cottage? How soon after the murders happened?’

‘I came back from holiday, as I said. I was working on one of the gardens nearby. I saw the police there and told them who I was. I offered to help. They asked me if there was anything different in the garden: anything there that shouldn’t be, or not there that should. I said “no” but when the officer went back inside the house I realized the gatepost wasn’t right. When I took a closer look at the damage I saw a small square of material, blood-soaked. When the officer came back I told him what I’d found and showed it to him.’