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“I’ve been trying to get hold of you for a feeeks, Mr Bestigui…”
“You are in a shitload of trouble,with a set jaw, his thick shoulders braced
“…to talk about the night Lula Landry died”
Twoalong the glass wall to Strike’s right; young, fit, tense-looking
“Get hi at Strike, as the two guards bounced off each other in the doorway, then forced their way inside
“Specifically,” said Strike, “about the whereabouts of your wife, Tansy, when Lula fell…”
“Get hiet in here?”
“…because I’ve been shown soraphs that make sense of your wife’s testier of the guards now tugging his upper arh that ”
The security guard did not let go, but looked towards Bestigui for instructions
The producer’s bright dark eyes were fixed intently on Strike He clenched and relaxed his thug’s hands After several long seconds he said:
“You’re full of shit”
But he did not instruct the waiting guards to drag Strike from his room
“The photographer was standing on the pavehth of January The guy who took the pictures doesn’t realize what he’s got If you don’t want to discuss it, fine; police or press, I don’t care It’ll co in the end”
Strike took a few steps towards the door; the guards, each of as still holding hiht by surprise, andhim back
“Get out,” Bestigui said abruptly to his minions “I’ll let you know if I need you Close the door behind you”
They left When the door had closed, Bestigui said:
“All right, whatever your fucking name is, you can have five minutes”
Strike sat down, uninvited, in one of the black leather chairs facing Bestigui’s desk, while the producer returned to his seat behind it, subjecting Strike to a hard, cold glare that was quite unlike the one Strike had received froed wife; this was the intense scrutiny of a professional gaarillos, pulled a black glass ashtray towards hihter
“All right, let’s hear what these alleged photographs show,” he said, squinting through clouds of pungent smoke, the picture of a film mafioso
“The silhouette,” said Strike, “of a wo-room s She looks naked, but as you and I know, she was in her underwear”
Bestigui puffed hard for a few seconds, then rearillo and said:
“Bullshit You couldn’t see that frole you wouldn’t see anything You’re taking a punt”
“The lights were on in your sitting rooaps in the stone There was room then, of course, because the shrubs weren’t there, were they? People can’t resist fiddling with the scene afterwards, even when they’ve got aith it,” Strike added, conversationally “You were trying to pretend that there was never any room for anyone to squat on that balcony, weren’t you? But you can’t go back and Photoshop reality Your as perfectly positioned to hear what happened up on the third-floor balcony just before Lula Landry died
“Here’s what I think happened,” Strike went on, while Bestigui continued to squint through the sarillo “You and your wife had a rohile she was undressing for bed Perhaps you found her stash in the bathroo a couple of lines So you decided an appropriate punishment would be to shut her outside on the sub-zero balcony
“People ht ask how a street full of paps didn’t notice a part-naked wo shoved out on a balcony over their heads, but the snoas falling very thickly, and they’ll have been sta, and their attention was focused on the ends of the street, while they aiting for Lula and Deeby Macc And Tansy didn’t make any noise, did she? She ducked down and hid; she didn’t want to show herself, half naked, in front of thirty photographers You ht even have shoved her out there at the same time that Lula’s car ca at your s if Lula Landry had just appeared in a skimpy little dress”
“You’re full of shit,” said Bestigui “You haven’t got any photographs”
“I never said I had them I said I’d been shown them”
Bestigui took the cigarillo fro, and replaced it Strike allowed several ui was not going to avail himself of the opportunity to speak, he continued:
“Tansyon thei your wife to start screalass, were you? Understandably averse to anyone witnessing your bit of doht past you, screa her head off, out of the flat, and downstairs to Derrick Wilson
“At which point you looked down over the balustrade and saw Lula Landry lying dead in the street below”
Bestigui puffed s his eyes off Strike’s face
“What you did nextto a jury You didn’t dial 999 You didn’t run after your half-frozen, hysterical wife You didn’t even—which the jury ht find more understandable—run and flush away the coke you kneas lying in open view in the bathroom
“No, what you did next, before following your wife or calling the police, was to wipe thatclean There’d be no prints to show that Tansy had placed her hands on the outside of the glass, would there? Your priority was to make sure that nobody could prove you had shoved your wife out on to a balcony in a temperature of minus ten What with your unsavory reputation for assault and abuse, and the possibility of a lawsuit fro to hand the press or a prosecutor any additional evidence, were you?
“Once you’d satisfied yourself that you’d relass, you ran downstairs and compelled her to return to your flat In the short time available to you before the police arrived, you bullied her into agreeing not to admit where she’d been when the body fell I don’t knohat you promised her, or threatened her with; but whatever it was, it worked
“You still didn’t feel coh, because she was so shocked and distressed you thought she ht blurt out the whole story So you tried to distract the police by ranting about the flowers that had been knocked over in Deeby Macc’s flat, hoping Tansy would pull herself together and stick to the deal
“Well she has, hasn’t she? God kno h the dirt in the press; she’s put up with being called a coke-addled fantasist; she’s stuck to her cock-and-bull story about hearing Landry and the lass
“Once she realizes there’s photographic proof of where she was, though,” said Strike, “I think she’ll be glad to coht think she lovesin the world, but her conscience is troubling her I’m confident she’ll crack pretty fast”
Bestigui had sarillo down to its last few lass ashtray Long seconds passed, and the noise in the outside office filtered through the glass wall beside the of a telephone
Bestigui stood up and lowered Rolass partition, so that none of the nervy girls in the office beyond could see in He sat back do
wn and ran thick fingers thoughtfully over the cru at Strike and away again, towards the blank cream canvas he had created Strike could alh he was riffling a deck of cards
“The curtains were drawn,” Bestigui said finally “There wasn’t enough light co on the balcony Tansy’s not going to change her story”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” said Strike, stretching out his legs; the prosthesis was still uncoal ter to prevent the course of justice,’ and that a belated show of conscience ht keep her out of the nick; when I add in the public syet as the victim of domestic abuse, and the ahts to her story; when she realizes she’s going to get her say in court, and that she’ll be believed, and that she’ll be able to bring about the conviction of the ui, I don’t think even you’ve got enough money to keep her quiet”
The coarse skin around Bestigui’s arillos but did not extract one There was a long silence during which he turned the packet between his fingers, round and round
At last he said:
“I’ Get out”
Strike did not move
“I know you’re keen to phone your lawyer,” he said, “but I think you’re overlooking the silver lining here”
“I’ve had enough of you I said, get out”
“However unpleasant it’s going to be, having to adht, it’s still preferable to beco to be about the lesser of evils froh to what really happened, you’re putting yourself in the clear for the actual murder”
He had Bestigui’s attention now
“You couldn’t have done it,” said Strike, “because if you’d been the one who threw Landry off the balcony two floors above, you wouldn’t have been able to let Tansy back inside within seconds of the body falling I think you shut your wife outside, headed off into the bedrooot coed and slept in—and kept an eye on the clock I don’t think you wanted to fall asleep If you’d left her too long on that balcony, you’d have been up forlike a whippet Probably in the early stages of hypothermia”
Another silence, except for Bestigui’s fat fingers drue of the desk Strike took out his notebook
“Are you ready to answer a few questions now?”
“Fuck you!”
The producer was suddenly consu and his shoulders hunched, level with his ears Strike could i thus as he bore down on his emaciated, coked-up wife, hands outstretched
“You’re in the shit here,” said Strike calmly, “but it’s entirely up to you how deep you sink You can deny everything, battle it out with your wife in the court and the papers, end up in jail for perjury and obstructing the police Or you can start cooperating, right now, and earn Lula’s fa way to de remorse, and it’ll help when it comes to pleas for clemency If your inforto be the police who’ll get the real going-over from the public and the press”
Bestigui was breathing noisily, but see Strike’s words At last he snarled:
“There wasn’t any fucking killer Wilson never found anyone up there Landry jumped,” he said, with a small, disie, likewife”
“There was a killer,” said Strike siet aith it”
Soe to jeer His eyes were slits of onyx as he mulled over what Strike had said