Chelsea Mansions by Barry Maitland Page A

When my mother was sick and I needed time off at short notice he was completely understanding. And he was just such an interesting man—he knew so many famous people. He started as a penniless apprentice, you know.’
    ‘Yes, an interesting family. How about his mother, Marta?’
    ‘Oh, she’s a character. Quite the matriarch. Of course she’s had a very hard life. She’s so proud of her son.’
    Tears began to form in Ellen’s eyes. Kathy said quickly, ‘And his son-in-law, Mr Kuzmin?’
    ‘Ah, he is . . .’ She seemed to have trouble finding the right word. ‘Very vigorous,’ she said at last.
    ‘Vigorous?’ Kathy looked at her, puzzled, and the woman coloured slightly.
    ‘A great sportsman. He likes shooting, and he plays football.’ She hesitated. ‘And very loyal to Mr Moszynski, of course. Was there anything else?’
    Kathy showed her the Times letter. ‘Have you seen this before?’
    She frowned as she read it. ‘Friday . . . No, I haven’t.’
    ‘Is there someone else who might have typed it for him?’
    ‘No, I do all his typing. But he does sometimes write his own notes and letters on the computer. And that is his signature.’
    ‘Could you check your computer?’
    Kathy stood behind her as she opened a file marked Gen Corr on the machine on her desk. ‘Nothing on Friday the twenty-eighth . . .’ She tried the previous day and scanned the list to one marked Times , which she opened. ‘Here it is.’
    ‘Can you find out for me when it was written, please?’
    Ellen tapped the keys and brought up the properties information on the document. It had been created on Thursday 27 May, at nine thirty-two p.m.
    ‘Do you know when you left work that day, Ellen?’
    She consulted her electronic diary. ‘Yes, I remember. I was taking my mother to the theatre and I had to leave on time, at five thirty.’
    ‘So you wouldn’t know who was here that evening?’
    This time Ellen thumbed through a thick desk diary and said, ‘Mr Moszynski had pencilled in that evening for a business meeting here at the house with his close advisers. He didn’t say what it was about.’
    ‘His close advisers being…?’
    ‘Well, Mr Clarke, Sir Nigel Hadden-Vane and I suppose Mr Kuzmin, if he was still here. I think he left for Russia around then.’
    ‘So Sir Nigel was a business adviser to Mr Moszynski?’
    ‘Oh yes, and on social matters too. They were very close.’
    Kathy moved on to show her Nancy’s picture.
    ‘Isn’t that the American lady who was staying at the hotel next door?’
    ‘You recognise her.’
    ‘Well, from her picture in the newspapers, yes, of course. We were shocked.’
    ‘We?’
    ‘Mr Moszynski and I. We talked about it. He was upset by the news.’
    ‘Why was that?’
    ‘Because she was living right next door. He was like that. He got upset when the old lady across the square was hit by a car a couple of years ago. I had to send flowers every day to her in hospital. He felt things personally.’
    ‘But had he met Mrs Haynes?’
    ‘Oh no, he would have mentioned that.’
    ‘Someone said that they saw her call in here on that Monday or Tuesday.’
    ‘Here? No, they must have been mistaken.’
    ‘You’re quite sure.’
    ‘Absolutely.’
    Kathy left her and went through the same thing with the other members of the household, without learning anything new. When she asked about the recording from the security camera at the front door she was told that the police had already taken it.
    As she left she looked back up at the front of Chelsea Mansions, thinking of the palace inside, and the secret lives of houses. The problem was that it seemed hardly possible that Mikhail Moszynski’s killer had spent night after night waiting in the gardens on the off chance that his target would come out for a smoke. Someone in the house had surely tipped off the murderer, who must have been nearby, within, say, a ten-minute radius.
    She got into her car and headed off across the