Altered Life

by Keith Dixon

CHAPTER TEN

  'I’D LIKE TO APOLOGISE for my behaviour yesterday. I was taken by surprise.’

  Tara sat behind a laptop computer in one of the small meeting rooms. This room contained a high desk with the effect that as she worked, her eyeline included both me and the screen of her laptop.

  I was here because Carol the receptionist had left a brief message on my mobile phone that had brooked no argument. I was to present myself in the office at an early hour so that Mrs Brand could talk to me. I pulled a face at the phone but agreed to come nonetheless. Although I wasn’t keen to be snubbed by Tara again, I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to speak to her. After all, I was effectively working for her company now, searching for the killer of her husband. The least I could do was meet her face-to-face.

  Now I stood opposite her and didn’t know what to think. Her Yorkshire accent had disappeared. Her dress sense had improved dramatically since I’d last seen her and she was wrapped in a warm ochre jacket over a cream blouse, her mass of crinkly red hair bunched and pulled back into a fiery pony-tail that looked something like I imagined a comet to look, if you got up close. As for her grief, that seemed to be well under control. Her eyes were not red or watery but instead glittered with a hardness that I didn’t remember. Whatever she felt for Rory had been parcelled up and put away for the time being. It certainly wasn’t on show for the likes of me.

  ‘I’m sorry I intruded,’ I said. ‘And I’m sorry about Rory’s death. I only met him once but he seemed ... full of energy.’

  She closed the lid of the laptop and relaxed into her chair. ‘Thank you, Sam. I’m sorry if I didn’t seem to recognise you yesterday. You look different with your hair shorter. I realised afterwards that it was you I saw at the funeral. I certainly didn’t expect to see you knocking on my front door. I suppose I’m still in shock. How have you been?’

  ‘Do you want a rundown of the last eighteen years?’

  ‘An executive summary will do. I’m an executive now, you know. It means I have a short attention span because there’s always something more important I have to do.’

  At least she was trying to be friendly. But she was using that brittle humour people use when their emotions are not fully in check and they don’t understand the impact of what they’re saying.

  ‘I moved about, worked here and there.’ I gave her the benefit of a small smile. ‘I’m in private practice now.’

  ‘So I gather. Married?’

  ‘No.’ I looked away. Her eyes had suddenly become inquisitive. I said, ‘I suppose you’ve had adventures.’

  ‘Oh, I did stuff in London once I got away from Leeds—and Dad. The Major.’ She’d always had a strained relationship with her father. She shook her head as if trying to get him out of there. ‘I found out about marketing. Seemed to suit me. Went to college and did a course. I worked for an international distribution company that you won’t have heard of. Then I set up my own marketing consultancy, which is how I met Rory. A conference at a swank hotel in London.’

  ‘Did you know he’d spoken to me?’

  ‘Only after Laura told me. I didn’t even know you were in the area. I thought you’d be filling in forms for the underprivileged somewhere in Huddersfield.’

  ‘I broadened my horizons.’

  ‘Good for you,’ she said. ‘I think I underestimated you, you know … ’

  ‘When we were married.’

  ‘Yes, that.’ She’d become very still, as if wary of disturbing the air around us. I wondered what she was being cautious about. She seemed to be choosing every syllable she uttered carefully. But then she moved away from these dangerous waters and back into history. ‘I hated London, you know. I was glad to come back North. Though I don’t know if Tory Cheshire counts as the real North. There are snobbier people up here than you get in Islington—and that’s saying something.’

  For a moment we contemplated the essential mystery of class differences. Outside the room, a phone rang insistently.

  ‘I know I called this meeting,’ she said abruptly, ‘but can we make it as quick as possible? I’m still not good for much. I’m trying to ration what I do. Laura tells me you were on a special project for Rory.’

  ‘That was the idea.’

  ‘Now it turns out she’s asked you to look into Rory’s murder as well. As usual with Laura, I think she’s stepping over some boundaries. But my first question is, why did he hire you? What did he want you to do?’

  I hesitated. I remembered Rory and his unwillingness to tell her about his suspicions. I said, ‘I can’t talk to you about that.’

  ‘Why not?’ she asked, affronted. ‘Rory’s dead. Don’t tell me your client confidentiality extends beyond the grave.’

  ‘In this case it does. It might cause more problems if I started talking about it.’

  She stared at me for a long moment. ‘So what am I supposed to do now? You come in to do one job, which you won’t tell me about, and all of a sudden you expect me to pay you for working on another.’

  ‘Fair point. Let’s just say they might be linked.’

  ‘Or they might not be.’ Her eyes suddenly registered a surprise. ‘Hang on, am I part of the investigation?’

  ‘I do want to ask you some questions,’ I said. ‘But we don’t have to do it now.’

  ‘Why – are you afraid I’ll break in half?’

  ‘Well naturally it’s your call, but I don’t think you should rush it.’

  She reached up and framed her hair with both hands, pulled off the device that held it in a pony tail, then moved her hands away and let it fall. It was a dramatic gesture that gave her time to think. She seemed distracted and unsure how to deal with me. I didn’t blame her, because I didn’t know how to deal with her either. She looked up at me and smiled glumly. ‘History, eh?’ she said. ‘Who’d have thought we’d end up like this? You a detective, me a—whatever the hell I am.’

  ‘I’m a different person to the one you knew.’

  This seemed to interest her. ‘Really. How?’

  I heard myself saying the words before I knew I’d even thought them. ‘I know what I want,’ I said.

  She rolled her eyes upwards.

  ‘Oh, Sam,’ she said. ‘Don’t give me that new age bullshit. Nobody knows what they want apart from a few obsessives.’

  ‘OK—I don’t know what I want. But I know what I don’t want.’

  ‘Let me guess—you don’t want to work for other people and you don’t want to clock on every morning. You don’t want to pay a mortgage till you die and you don’t want always to be driving second-hand cars. So welcome to the human race. It doesn’t exactly make you Captain Freedom.’

  ‘I’d forgotten how compassionate you could be.’

  That pushed a button. She smiled to herself and gave a little shake of her head. ‘I’m bored with this now. So ask me your questions and let’s move on. What do you want to know?’

  ‘I’m not going to ask you any questions now. It’s too close to Rory’s murder.’

  Her clear eyes widened and she leaned back from the table. ‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’ she said. ‘What do you think’s going to happen? Don’t tell me you want sackcloth and ashes. I don’t do that sort of thing. I’d have thought you of all people would know that, Sam.’

  Our moment had passed. I realised that she wasn’t the girl I’d known eighteen years ago. She was still argumentative and direct, which was always a quality I’d liked because of its challenge, but now she seemed to be thinking differently too. There was a brittle shell that covered her like a porcelain shield that I didn’t recognise and didn’t particularly like. I decided to be as straightforward as she was.

  ‘OK – I’d normally ask about motives,’ I said. ‘Anyone with a grievance. Any arguments, people he didn’t get on with. You might know about those, being the wife and all.’

  Her eyes gave nothing away. ‘Go on.’

  ‘There’s two possibilities here, as I see it. There could hav
e been a personal grudge: an old romance, or envy, or just plain dislike. Someone who had taken against Rory for personal reasons and wanted to prove a point.’

  ‘Rory? Never.’ She was being ironic.

  ‘On the other hand, it could have been a professional conflict: a business deal gone belly up, or someone who felt they’d been cheated or put in the wrong.’

  She continued to stare at me. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘This isn’t Chicago. We’re consultants, not gangsters. I’ve only been in the business a couple of years, but I’m a main board member and I’ve been involved in every decision in that time. I told Inspector Howard there was nothing like that going on. Has he talked to you?’

  ‘I haven’t had that pleasure.’

  ‘Oh, you should look forward to it. What a delightful man.’

  This was said with some disdain—but whether for me or for Howard I couldn’t tell.

  ‘Okay,’ I said bluntly. ‘Straight up. Do you have any idea who might have killed Rory?’

  Her gaze was steady, even brazen. ‘None. He was a businessman, but he wasn’t a captain of industry who wheeled and dealed and toyed with thousands of people’s lives. He had fallings-out with people occasionally, but you and I know that happens all the time.’

  ‘So as far as you know there was nobody with a grudge, no threats, no suspicious letters?’

  ‘I’ve told you. Nothing of any kind. You’ve got me really interested now. What the hell did Rory say?’

  ‘You know I can’t tell you,’ I said. I relented slightly. ‘We only met once. He didn’t tell me much. But he was worried and suspicious about some things that were happening.’

  ‘And then he was killed. Poor Rory.’ She sighed. She had the air of a weary schoolmistress dealing with a stupid child. ‘There are things you don’t seem to have grasped about me, Sam. Although I’m from a military family, I’ve always wanted to run my own business and I’ve been self-sufficient since I went to nursing school. You know I’m ambitious. I’m well organised. I’m good at identifying trends and going for them. I specialised in marketing because like Rory I’m very convincing when I’m in front of a client. People tell me it’s a joy to see me at work. I’m telling you all this in case you have any suspicions that I had anything to do with Rory’s death.’

  ‘You don’t need to be defensive.’

  ‘Maybe not, but that seemed to be the direction you were going in.’

  She was right and she’d double-guessed me. I tried another tack.

  ‘When I came to your house yesterday, I saw a man leave. Who was he?’

  Her cheeks flushed.

  ‘That was bad timing,’ she said. ‘It had nothing to do with Rory. It was an old friend.’

  ‘Your conversation didn’t sound friendly.’

  Now her eyes blazed. ‘You listened?’

  ‘You were loud.’

  ‘That doesn’t give you permission to eavesdrop.’ She took the heat from her eyes and they grew cold and distant. I knew what was coming before she said it. I recognised the gesture from many years, and many arguments, ago. ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere. I can’t have you interfering with this company’s business. It would be best if you went now. Thanks for your concern but I believe the police have everything in hand.’

  She flipped up the lid of her laptop and looked down into it as though I’d already left. I took a step closer so she was forced to look up at me. I found myself reacting to her in exactly the same way I had when we were barely out of our teens. I had to push back. I wouldn’t let her win.

  ‘Ignoring these things only makes them more interesting,’ I said. ‘To me and to the police. It’s no way to deal with legitimate questions.’

  She stared at me without flinching, almost as though she were looking through me. I’d become an obstacle to her getting her own way, and when that happened to Tara there was only going to be one conclusion. She said, ‘When I hear a legitimate question I’ll consider your point of view. OK, Sam. Good to see you again.’ She looked down briefly at her computer screen, then back up at me. ‘Didn’t I make myself clear? You’re sacked. Submit an invoice and we’ll pay it in thirty days. Goodbye.’