by Adam Melrose
‘That will be three pounds fifty please.’
Bella looked at him quizzically.
‘Three pounds fifty for a soft drink, and a plate of Scampi and Chips?’
The barman gave a slight shake of the head.
‘No Miss, there is no charge for the food, the manager has said so. He is sorry about the accident.’
Bella looked spooked for a moment. The last thing she wanted was for Eva to get into trouble over this, that would not help the mission.
‘Oh no,’ Bella spoke quickly. ‘It was not Eva’s fault; it was totally my clumsy move. I don’t want her to get into trouble.’
Now it was the barman’s turn to look slightly quizzical.
‘No Miss. I know it was not Eva’s doing, it was just felt that it was an unfortunate accident; and as a token of thanks for coming to dine with us today, there is no charge.’
Bella looked awkwardly at the barman.
‘Well that is kind. Thank you.’ Then she stuttered again, a second quieter ‘Thank you.’
‘Eva will be out with your things in a moment, she is just drying them off in the kitchen for you.’
‘Great, can you tell her I will be waiting outside if that’s OK?’
‘Of course, not a problem.’
Matt and Norton had seen Bella re-emerge from the pub. Norton whispered that now she was out and safe, he needed a pee; so he crawled off on all fours to reach some cover where he could stand up without being seen from the pub. Something glinted on the ground, it caught Matt’s attention. It was Norton’s phone. Matt picked it up to place it on the grass incline they were watching from, so Norton didn’t lay on it when he returned. Matt looked at it for a moment. It wasn’t Norton’s phone, it was a different one. But it had to be his, he had been lying on it.
Without thinking Matt swiped it open. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was open with the text message app showing. A text had been composed, but not sent. It had just one sentence.
They are on to you; they are trying to get your housekeeper to talk.
Matt’s head was spinning. He couldn’t think straight. He closed the phone, and decided he needed to get a grip and think about this calmly when back at the hotel. He replaced the phone where he found it; but buried it slightly deeper in the grass, and made sure he wasn’t looking when Norton returned. Norton said nothing on his return, and out of the corner of his eye, Matt could see him stick it back in his pocket.
Bella headed further across the car park, breathing in the bright summer’s afternoon; the warm smell of beer and hot cooked food was replaced with fresh air. She crossed the car park to sit on one of the benches and wait. Forcing herself to think of Pete, and how much she missed him soon brought things flooding back. The last few days of drama had acted as a mild distraction, but that was all they were. Soon tears were in her eyes. She felt she needed them if her second stage with Eva was to work.
A couple of moments later and Eva appeared at the table. Bella’s plan worked better than she hoped. Eva instantly sat down.
‘Oh my goodness Mrs Stone, are you OK?’
Bella dried her eyes as best she could, and before speaking, she reminded herself these tears were legitimate; and that this woman might be her only chance at finding out what happened to her husband. Furthermore, if during what Bella hoped was going to be a lot of conversations it was revealed that Evo had a hand in Pete’s death, then all was fair.
‘I am, thank you,’ said Bella. ‘I just have these moments I’m afraid. I just miss him so so much.’
Eva sat in silence, she wasn’t really sure what to say, and thought it best to give Bella a moment.
Bella continued, ‘Tell me, did you ever meet my husband; did you like him?’
Eva’s face remained blank, expressionless. Bella began to worry that she had played that card too soon in the game and blown things. She was half expecting Eva to get up, make her excuses and walk away. As it happened she need not have worried. Eva’s face broke into a smile. Bella noticed through the slats in the table, that although most of Eva’s body was facing Bella straight on, her feet were pointing away. Somewhere she had read that was a sign that someone was still ready to try and get away. Play it cool, she told herself.
Waiting for a few moments to see if Eva would say anything, Bella kept quiet; Eva would have to say something.
‘I did meet your husband a few times Mrs Stone. I am only Mr de Varley’s housekeeper, and some of his office staff can barely manage to say hello when they visit Nalebury, especially the ones up from London; but your husband always made time to say hello, and ask how I was. I remember one day he was at the manor for a meeting and it was snowing. Mr de Varley was late getting back from Cirencester, and Mr Stone saw me carrying the shopping in from the car. He came out of the office straight away, and insisted I go inside and sit down. He brought all the shopping in for me, and then he made me a cup of tea in my own kitchen; there’s not many that would have done that, a real gent of a man if I may say so.’
Bella didn’t have to play act the smile that was radiating across her face right now. She was taking genuine great pleasure in hearing about her husband, and being reminded of the qualities that led to her falling in love with him so quickly.
Appreciating that no amount of acting was going to allow Bella to show such a genuine expression of enjoyment, she seized on the moment.
‘Please Eva, I know you will be terribly busy, and you probably get little time off, but would you meet with me and have some lunch. I would love to hear about your encounters with my husband. I am not sure if you are aware we were only married for three months before he died, so I don’t have an awful lot to remember him by. In place of the memories we would have built in time, I am hoping to build up a store of other people’s memories of him to help me. Would you be prepared to do that, at your convenience of course?’
Bella’s stomach was in her mouth whilst she waited for the response. She had placed her bet, and the wheel had been spun; it was just a matter of waiting for the result. It felt like an age, but Bella knew it probably was not.
‘Yes Mrs Stone, I will. Your husband showed me great kindness, it is the least I can do for him in return. I have a day off tomorrow, where would you like to meet?’
Bella worked very hard to keep her expression and her voice calm.
‘Where do you live Eva?’
‘Not far, just in the next village over.’
‘Great. Is there a pub or a tea room there?’
‘There is indeed. There is a pub called The Tame Swan.’
‘Great,’ said Bella, ‘Perhaps you would allow me to buy you lunch. I will be going home the following morning, so it is the last chance I have.’
Bella was hoping that added white lie would get Eva thinking that if she did this, then Bella would be gone.
‘That would be very kind indeed Mrs Stone, thank you.’
‘Great. Is twelve thirty OK for you?’
‘That will be fine.’ Eva smiled. ‘Now I had better get back to work, or I will be in trouble with the landlord.’ As she got up to leave Eva slid Bella’s items she had dried off back across the table to her.
‘Of course Eva, thank you. I will see you tomorrow.’
With that Eva wandered back across the car park, taking an order from another table before she vanished inside the pub. Bella for her part went over to her bicycle, and headed off back the way she had come. As per Matt’s instructions, she did not stop by the field he and Norton were in; but cycled on further, passed the parked up black and empty car, on under the railway bridge, and waited around the corner for her colleagues to catch up.
They appeared in due course, and having pulled off the road so that they could not be seen, Bella updated them. She had explained that she had got her card wet, so hopefully it would not work, giving her an excuse to come back with payment, but that in the end, that ploy was not needed. Matt had been a little cautious that the meeting had been so easy to arrange. A
couple of hours later and they were back at the hotel and had returned the hire bikes.
Chapter 34
Everyone was now in the Operations Room; they each gave a verbal summary report on their findings. Once that was done Matt stood up at the white board.
‘So, what do we have in summary. Evo suspected to be a front, but on balance probably just can’t follow his brightest employees; and that he has made an odd investment in hydro technology. We can’t see how at the moment, but perhaps Evo’s involvement with hydro technology is linked to his ownership of The Portal.’
Matt was quiet for a moment whilst he wrote the notes on the board.
‘Then we have the Shadow Tide. Someone has gone to a great length to give this some sort of fake background; we think to hide the fact they are a relatively new event. We agree it is most likely an overzealous attempt to keep people away from The Portal, or they are a bi-product of whatever process Evo’s people are developing there.
The white board pen gave the occasional squeak as Matt wrote. The familiar smell from it caught in Matt’s nostrils from time to time.
‘And then finally,’ he said, ‘We get to Bella’s efforts to get Eva to open up, which she should have some more information on tomorrow. Well where does that leave us then?’
The team talked openly for a few moments, the result of which was their most likely thesis.
‘We are all agreed then,’ said Matt, ‘That the most likely scenario is that Pete accidently died in The Portal, where Evo is developing some sort of new clean energy technology; and with Evo’s desire for secrecy, and his I’m a billionaire and the normal laws of the land don’t apply to me routine, he had the body moved, without any thought to anyone but himself.’
In their own way, everyone signalled they agreed.
‘OK, so everyone is happy to continue with their research in their own areas until we either disprove or prove this theory we have developed, or we run out of time.’
Again, everyone agreed.
‘I think all there is to do is to add a massive well done, and I think we should have an enjoyable evening; does everyone want to eat together? Max, can you hold back, I just want a quick word.’
As they wandered out, Bella joined Joe, ‘As I will be at lunch with Eva tomorrow, do you guys want this… just in case?’ Bella handed Joe the other key card.
‘Thanks, I hope we won’t be using this.’
‘No, I know, but Ava has the other one, so it makes sense.’
Chapter 35
Matt motioned to Max to join him out on the balcony. As Matt went to open the door he seemed to be struggling with the lock mechanism, despite having had no problem the numerous times before.
‘Everything alright boss?’
‘No, not really. Max do you trust me, I mean properly trust me?’
‘I do, one hundred percent; why what’s up?’
‘I need to ask you something very random. Then I need you not to ask me why I asked you, can you do that?’
‘Of course, this is work; whatever you need.’
Matt leant against the balcony for a moment.
‘OK. Do you trust Norton? I mean like you trust the rest of us?’
Max’s answer was not what Matt had been expecting.
‘No boss, I don’t.’
‘Thanks, I appreciate your candour.’
‘Always.’ Max gave Matt a reassuring smile.
Being good to his word, Max began to walk towards the door. It was obvious his boss needed space to process whatever was going through his head. For his own part, Max was surprised at how easy the answer had come to him. He hadn’t realised until he had been asked.
Max held the door open. ‘I’m starving… shall we?’
Chapter 36
Having passed a pleasant evening at the hotel, everyone was ready to go again the next morning; pleased that they were making progress.
After breakfast Ava and Bruno were sitting out on the balcony, planning their next move.
‘I’m not getting anywhere further with research on Evo. There just isn’t that much out there about him. He must have a team of people managing online stuff about him. Is it worth trying to get a copy of a birth certificate, or trying to trace his earliest years?’
Bruno looked at Ava for inspiration.
‘Could do I guess. That takes time to get hold of though; perhaps we should focus on trying to find more recent stuff about the hedge fund, but try and do things differently.’
‘What if we try some facial recognition analysis with Evo’s photo rather than a text search, and see what that shows up if anything?’
‘That is an inspired idea. We can get a photo of him, send it to the Refract Speech labs, and ask them to run it against any online photos that they find. That might throw up a visual pattern we aren’t seeing yet. I’ll send one now.’
They were both surprised when the phone rang an hour later. It was one of the lab techs. They would send over their findings. A few moments later, Ava and Bruno were each reading through a copy of the report. It made interesting reading; nothing they had investigated had led them to see this, but an analysis of photos had picked up a trend.
‘So,’ said Ava, ‘Evo has been buying up an amazing amount of art. I guess that’s not in itself odd. He does run a hedge fund after all. Perhaps you hedge the risky investments with more sensible long term secure investments like old masters and fine art. I guess that’s the point of a hedge fund?’
‘Yeah.’ Bruno slid a photo across the table that he had printed out. ‘Do you recognise anything odd about this photo though?’
Ava took her time looking at it. Try as she might, she could not see anything particularly odd about it. There was a photo of Evo and some other people drinking champagne at what looked to be an office reception. In the middle of the group was a large, stunning landscape painting, painted in oil, and sitting on a large easel. On the wall behind was the Chantmarle Capital hedge fund logo.
‘No, I can’t say that I see anything particularly odd with this picture. Just looks like Evo and some of his work colleagues sharing a drink, and celebrating the purchase of that painting.’ Ava flicked through the accompanying report. Her mouth dropped open.
‘Fifteen million pounds… For one painting.’
Bruno nodded very slowly, ‘Yup and that seems to be one of the cheaper ones. There is another one listed in the report he bought in the last six months that he paid thirty million pounds for.’
Ava gave a disbelieving shake of the head.
‘Even for a hedge fund, surely they are large sums of money for something so losable. I mean so much value in something so small.’
‘Yes,’ Bruno continued to flick back and forth through the report, ‘I wonder if that is not exactly the point. Maybe Evo is looking to get his money out of the business. What if there is something wrong with it, and he is trying to get the money out of it, without spooking investors. Would that not be the perfect way to do it?’
Ava gave a moment’s thought to Bruno’s proposal.
‘Yes, I guess so, but what makes you say that?’
Bruno lent across the table and tapped the painting in the photo a couple of times with his finger.
‘That’s what makes me say that.’ He tapped the photo of the fifteen million pound painting.
‘Really – why?’
‘Because I’ve seen that painting before.’
‘You have?’ Ava sat up in her chair, ‘Where?’
‘Not far from here actually. It is hanging in Evo’s billiard room at Nalebury. I… err… well I noticed it when I had a little snoop after going to the loo when we were there for dinner. I will swear it’s there, hanging on the wall.’
‘Is that allowed? I guess if he owns the business it is. Him having it at home I mean; rather than locked in a bank vault, or at the office.’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Bruno. ‘I’m not sure how these things work; like you say, if he owns the business, then I guess so. Wha
t I do think is that we should probably see if there is anything else art world-wise about Evo, as that seems to be a focus; though how that would connect to The Portal, I can’t imagine. No one would be mad enough to keep fine works of art worth millions of pounds in a damp tunnel in the middle of the countryside, would they?’
‘No, I guess not.’
They both hoped the next couple of hours of research would tell them more.
Twenty minutes into the research session Ava’s phone rang, it moved about on the smooth surface of the table as it vibrated. Ava leant in and picked the phone up.
‘I don’t normally answer blocked ID calls; it’s usually to ask if I was involved in an accident recently, and if so, I’m due a pay-out.’
Ava answered the call, and putting the phone on loudspeaker, she placed it on the table.
‘Yes?’ she said in an abrupt manner, ‘What do you want? I’m not interested in whatever it is you are selling.’
A deep, slow voice spoke.
‘I am not selling anything Miss Scott, and on the contrary – I think you will be interested in what I have to say.’
For a few moments none of the parties spoke.
‘I’m listening,’ said Ava. She was keen to get this joker, whoever they were off the phone, so the line was clear for the call they actually wanted.
The voice spoke again.
‘I gather you have been looking into Evelyn de Varley and Chantmarle Capital?’
‘How the hell do you know that?’
Again, silence, before the voice continued, ‘Nothing sinister, I assure you. Mr James told me about your cosy café chat. He and I have worked together in the past. He told me of your encounter, and that you seemed to be genuinely keen to get to the bottom of what is really going on with Mr de Varley. He thought that my observations of Mr de Varley would perhaps benefit your investigation. What I am not prepared to do is provide my name, or contact details, but I will tell you what I can on this one phone call.’