Kill and Tell Read Online Free PDF Page B

old arteries crackle.
    The door creaks open and Jombaugh comes in, carrying a plate and two pieces of the baked cheesecake his wife makes. ‘What’s all this?’ he says, looking at Staffe’s lists. He peers over his pince-nez glasses. ‘Aah.’ Jombaugh doesn’t have a face for spectacles. His face is big and pitted and his hair is like steel wool. His uniform always looks a size too small for him. ‘You’re following the money. Bound to end up in shit,’ he laughs.
    ‘Carmelo Trapani’s house is worth three, maybe four million. No mortgage. He’s a director of dozens of companies in the UK and from the look of things, dozens more in Monaco and Guernsey, including some new trusts set up in the last week.’
    ‘Shuffling the pack?’
    ‘I’m waiting for his lawyer to call me, but he’s got to be worth at least ten million, probably more, and even his butler lives in a big old gaff in Muswell Hill.’
    ‘And it’s all going to the one son.’
    ‘You’d think so,’ says Staffe, picking up the phone, dialling Carmelo Trapani’s solicitor.
    Martin Goldman answers immediately and in a meek voice explains he is not in a position to discuss Carmelo Trapani’s last will and testament. He pauses. ‘In fact, it may be nothing at all to do with us.’
    ‘But you are Carmelo’s lawyer, are you not?’
    ‘I asked Carmelo on several occasions if there was anything he wanted to tend, in that regard, and he was quite cagey. That may be more than I should divulge.’
    ‘Surely you can offer an estimate of Mister Trapani’s wealth?’
    ‘It is only an estimate, but it wouldn’t be less than twenty million. I am not his accountant.’
    ‘But you are supposed to represent his best interests. If anything happens to Carmelo, and it transpires that you had information that could have helped us, or if you knew something that might have prevented us from going down a blind alley—’
    ‘I know!’ Goldman is breathing heavily now. ‘But I have said all I can say.’
    ‘I can tell you know something. Don’t take me for a fool, Mister Goldman.’
    The phone lapses to silence again.
    ‘Would you describe his recent behaviour as unusual in any way?’
    ‘He brought me a letter last week and said if anything untoward happened, I was to open it.’
    ‘And what does it say?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Wouldn’t you say that Carmelo’s disappearance from the face of the earth is untoward? Now, Mister Goldman, will you please open that letter and tell me what is in it.’
    ‘There are conditions.’
    ‘What conditions?’
    ‘I’ll call you back.’
    The phone clicks dead.
    Jombaugh blows out his cheeks. ‘What about the son? Does he need the money?’
    Staffe jabs his finger at the sheet of jottings. ‘Attilio Trapani, a bloodstock agent and horse breeder, but there’s barely a mention of him in Tattersalls’ sales.’
    ‘He could be acting as agent.’
    ‘Attilio has no registered companies in the UK, even though he’s supposed to be a racehorse trainer, and apart from a one-bedder in Ladbroke Grove, he’s got no other property in the UK. There doesn’t seem to be any regular payment from Carmelo to Attilio.’
    ‘But he’s got a fancy wife by all accounts.’
    ‘Helena Ballantyne owns Ockingham Manor. It’s worth a few million, but she’s got a mortgage of two million against it and that must be racking up at six thousand a month. Plus, she’s got a million-quid flat in Ebury Street with a half-million mortgage taken out only three years ago.’
    ‘I know she’s posh, but is she minted?’
    ‘Her social activity is pretty extravagant: Chinawhites, Gstaad, Taormina.’ Staffe puts a ring around ‘Taormina’ and draws a line across to his Attilio list.
    ‘Taormina?’ says Josie, coming in and smiling to herself. Staffe thinks she must have seen her new bloke, Conor. She holds out a cardboard cup of designer coffee between Staffe and Jombaugh, and says, ‘You’ll have to fight over