The Cuckoo's Calling(44)

“Left some, had she?”

“Yeah. Presumably the body falling past the window put her off.”

“The window’s visible from the bathroom?”

“Yeah. Well, just.”

“You got there pretty quickly, didn’t you?”

“Uniformed lot were there in about eight minutes, and Carver and I were there in about twenty.” Wardle lifted his glass, as though to toast the force’s efficiency.

“I’ve spoken to Wilson, the security guard,” said Strike.

“Yeah? He didn’t do bad,” said Wardle, with a trace of condescension. “It wasn’t his fault he had the runs. But he didn’t touch anything, and he did a proper search right after she’d jumped. Yeah, he did all right.”

“He and his colleagues were a bit lazy on the door codes.”

“People always are. Too many pin numbers and passwords to remember. Know the feeling.”

“Bristow’s interested in the possibilities of the quarter of an hour when Wilson was in the bog.”

“We were, too, for about five minutes, before we’d satisfied ourselves that Mrs. Bestigui was a publicity-mad cokehead.”

“Wilson mentioned that the pool was unlocked.”

“Can he explain how a murderer got into the pool area, or back to it, without walking right past him? A f*cking pool,” said Wardle, “nearly as big as the one I’ve got at my gym, and all for the use of three f*cking people. A gym on the ground floor behind the security desk. Underground f*cking parking. Flats done up with marble and shit like…like a f*cking five-star hotel.”

The policeman sat shaking his head very slowly over the unequal distribution of wealth.

“Different world,” he said.

“I’m interested in the middle flat,” said Strike.

“Deeby Macc’s?” said Wardle, and Strike was surprised to see a grin of genuine warmth spread across the policeman’s face. “What about it?”

“Did you go in there?”

“I had a look, but Bryant had already searched it. Empty. Windows bolted, alarm set and working properly.”

“Is Bryant the one who knocked into the table and smashed a big floral arrangement?”

Wardle snorted.

“Heard about that, did you? Mr. Bestigui wasn’t too chuffed about it. Oh yeah. Two hundred white roses in a crystal vase the size of a dustbin. Apparently he’d read that Macc asks for white roses in his rider. His rider,” Wardle said, as though Strike’s silence implied an ignorance of what the term meant. “Stuff they ask for in their dressing rooms. I’d’ve thought you’d know about this stuff.”

Strike ignored the insinuation. He had hoped for better from Anstis.

“Ever find out why Bestigui wanted Macc to have roses?”

“Just schmoozing, isn’t it? Probably wanted to put Macc in a film. He was f*cked off to the back teeth when he heard Bryant had ruined them. Yelling the place down when he found out.”

“Anyone find it strange that he was upset about a bunch of flowers, when his neighbor’s lying in the street with her head smashed in?”

“He’s one obnoxious f*cker, Bestigui,” said Wardle, with feeling. “Used to people jumping to attention when he speaks. He tried treating all of us like staff, till he realized that wasn’t clever.

“But the shouting wasn’t really about the flowers. He was trying to drown out his wife, give her a chance to pull herself together. He kept forcing his way in between her and anyone who wanted to question her. Big guy as well, old Freddie.”

“What was he worried about?”

“That the longer she bawled and shook like a frozen whippet, the more bloody obvious it became that she’d been doing coke. He must’ve known it was lying around somewhere in the flat. He can’t have been delighted to have the Met come bursting in. So he tried to distract everyone with a tantrum about his five-hundred-quid floral arrangement.

“I read somewhere that he’s divorcing her. I’m not surprised. He’s used to the press tiptoeing around him, because he’s such a litigious bastard; he can’t have enjoyed all the attention he got after Tansy shot her mouth off. The press made hay while they could. Rehashed old stories about him throwing plates at underlings. Punches in meetings. They say he paid his last wife a massive lump sum to stop her talking about his sex life in court. He’s pretty well known as a prize shit.”

“You didn’t fancy him as a suspect?”

“Oh, we fancied him a lot; he was on the spot and he’s got a rep for violence. It never looked likely, though. If his wife knew that he’d done it, or that he’d been out of the flat at the moment Landry fell, I’m betting she’d have told us so: she was out of control when we got there. But she said he’d been in bed, and the bedclothes were disarranged and looked slept in.

“Plus, if he’d managed to sneak out of the flat without her realizing it, and gone up to Landry’s place, we’re left with the problem of how he got past Wilson. He can’t have taken the lift, so he’d have passed Wilson in the stairwell, coming down.”

“So the timings rule him out?”

Wardle hesitated.

“Well, it’s just possible. Just, assuming Bestigui can move a damn sight faster than most men of his age and weight, and that he started running the moment he pushed her over. But there’s still the fact that we didn’t find his DNA anywhere in the flat, the question of how he got out of the flat without his wife knowing he’d gone, and the small matter of why Landry would have let him in. All her friends agreed she didn’t like him. Anyway,” Wardle finished the dregs of his pint, “Bestigui’s the kind of man who’d hire a killer if he wanted someone taken care of. He wouldn’t sully his own hands.”