be difficult, Bill. You see, Gerry is not available to all. He picks and chooses very carefully those with whom he associates. I doubt if you’d get near him. What do you want to see him about?’
‘I can’t tell you that,’ I said honestly. ‘It’s a private matter.’ I didn’t want to tell her that I was investigating her husband’s connections with the gambling interests. If she didn’t know about it the news might come as a shock, because she had given all the indications of believing him to be a genuine liberal.
‘Does it concern David?’
‘No,’ I lied. ‘It’s about something that came up just before I left England.’ Lying was something else that went with the job.
‘Is it urgent?’
‘Yes, in the sense that I have very little time on Campanilla.’
‘All right, I’ll introduce you. Would tonight be soon enough?’ She was smiling.
‘You can do it as quickly as that?’
‘Why not? All we have to do is to go into San Martin – to the Blue Water Casino. We’ll have dinner here first – I’ll even cook it myself. I don’t get into the kitchen nearly enough.’
John came down to the poolside carrying a telephone. ‘A call for Mr Kemp,’ he said.
That was Ogilvie. I had rung his hotel to find he was out so I had left the Salton number for him to call. As John bent to plug the telephone jack into a socket in the wall of the house, I said quickly, ‘I’d rather take it inside.’
Jill sighed. ‘Oh, more secrets!’ She turned to John. ‘Mr Kemp will use an inside phone – and tell Anna she needn’t stay on.’
‘Very well, ma’am.’
‘And you can go off yourself, John, at any time.’
John gave me a look of pure dislike and said evenly, ‘Thank you, ma’am.’
I followed him into a hall where he picked up a receiver, spoke into the mouthpiece, and then held it out. ‘Your call,’ he said. ‘Sir.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, and watched his upright back disappear among the greenery. ‘Kemp here.’
‘You wanted me?’ Ogilvie asked.
‘What’s new on the Rialto?’
‘I wish you’d stop quoting,’ said Ogilvie peevishly. He sounded tired. ‘Especially when you misquote. I’ve been talking to the police. They think the inquest went off fine.’
‘No foul play?’
‘None that was detectable. Winstanley’s report ought to be printed in Punch, though.’
‘The pathologist? Why – is it unreliable?’
‘I wouldn’t bet heavily on it, let’s put it that way. The body was in a bad condition but from what I hear, Winstanley is worse. Seventy and shaky.’
‘But highly respected,’ I said. ‘What happened to Salton – buried or burned?’
‘Buried. Are you thinking of poison?’
‘I’m not thinking of anything much. Did you see Jackson?’
‘I saw him. As you said, a creep. But an informative creep. He’ll lose his job if he doesn’t stop that sudden rush of words to the mouth.’
Ogilvie told me what Jackson had said, which didn’t add anything to what I knew already.
‘I’d better tell you how I’ve been doing here.’
‘Where’s here?’ asked Ogilvie. ‘All I have is a telephone number.’
‘El Cerco – the Salton place.’ I brought him up to date and he said, ‘Bill, do you suspect murder?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘Look, you’re the boss but does it make any difference to us? We pay out anyway.’
‘It all depends on who has done the murdering.’
His voice was incredulous. ‘Mrs Salton?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ I said. ‘Not out loud, anyway. Do some checking on the political side if you can. I’ll tackle the Salton Estates end tomorrow. Tonight I’ll be at the Blue Water Casino tying up Mr Black. I’ll be there pretty late, say, about ten o’clock. I’m having dinner here. Mrs Salton is preparing it with her own fair hands.’
‘If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you’d better watch for the arsenic in the artichokes. What’s she like, anyway?’
I considered before I spoke. ‘She’s fiftyish, runs to about two hundred pounds on the hoof, sallow complexion, dark moustache. You’ll be seeing her tonight at the casino.’
‘Ouch!’ said Ogilvie. ‘Bill, you work bloody hard for your money. See you later.’
He rang off and I grinned as I put down the telephone. But he was right; I do work bloody hard for my money. There was more to this than the possibility of a plain old insurance scam. My reputation as the best consultant in the business was at stake.
Back at the pool there was no one around so I sat down and contemplated the water. I had waited for Jill Salton to come to the point and all she had come up with was Jackson. Very curious. I thought of Jackson and Jill Salton, separately and in conjunction, and came to no conclusion.
Presently John came along. ‘Mrs Salton says to tell you she’s in the kitchen if you’d like to go along there.’
‘Where’s the kitchen?’
He told me. He had taken off his white coat and was dressed neatly in smart civvies. ‘Are you going off duty now, John?’
‘Yes, sir,’ he said stolidly.
‘Were you here the day Mr Salton walked out – the last day he was seen alive?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you know what Mr and Mrs Salton talked about just before he left?’
There was a sudden widening of his eyes, a movement quickly cancelled. He said quietly, ‘I don’t talk about the doings of my employer, sir.’
One in the eye for Kemp. I ought to have known not to pump the servants. Christ, what a lousy job I had. He stared at me steadily with defiant brown eyes, daring me to make something of it. He knew, all right! He knew what the Saltons had quarrelled about. But he wasn’t telling.
I said, ‘That’s good, John. Keep it that way.’
‘Is that all, sir?’
‘Yes.’ He turned away and
