Cold Hearts

by Malcolm Richards

  “That puts you at risk,” Emily said.

  “What are they going to do? They must know that the truth about TEL is going to come out eventually. I’m sure they have a whole PR campaign already prepped in the event of exposure.”

  Evan removed a pile of newspapers from a wooden stool and perched on its edge. “Helen’s right. I’m sure they’re fully prepared and briefed. They’ll expect their reputation to take a hit. The environmental groups they’re working with such as ECG will want to distance themselves immediately, and that’s going to cause problems for the projects they’ve been collaborating on. But Valence know they’ll survive this, and they’ll continue selling TEL until the law says they can’t.”

  Emily was outraged at such a notion. She wasn’t alone.

  “Come on, they wouldn’t dare!” Helen cried. “The press will drag them through the mud. There’ll be a public outcry demanding a change in exportation laws. Eco-activists will be all over them.”

  “And you think that will stop them?” Evan smiled as he clasped his hands across his stomach. “Companies like Valence Industries rule the world, Helen. They’re wealthy and they’re powerful. They know they can sell poison like TEL and get away with it, too. If they have a problem, they flash some money and they make it go away. Tell the world about TEL and yes, you’ll hurt them. But the pain will be a bee sting. Soon, it will fade. Some other scandal will grab the public’s attention, and then it’ll be business as usual. The only thing that’s going to stop Valence Industries from producing and selling TEL is if the law changes. Or, if we find something incriminating.”

  “Like the death of Max Edwards,” Emily said.

  Evan shook his head. “Bigger than that. I’m sorry, Emily, but the accidental death of a known alcoholic isn’t going to cut it. Regardless of what we may or may not believe about Max Edwards’ death, there isn’t a shred of evidence to prove he was murdered.” He was on his feet again, pacing the room. “But what we do know is that Max found something. Some kind of incriminating evidence against Valence that he believed was powerful enough to ruin them.”

  Her face pulled into a scowl, Helen leaned forward on the sofa. “What if we don’t find that evidence? What if Valence tries to put a stop to us running the story? I say we make a move on it now, while we can. Maybe the story won’t take them down, but it will punch a hole in them. Maybe wide enough for the eco groups to do the rest. And who says a public outcry won’t force a change in exportation laws? It’s too great a chance to pass by.”

  “But if we hold on for just a little longer, we could find out more. We still have leads to chase. Max must have had help to get his evidence, so let’s find out who helped him. We look into his history as an environmentalist, in particular at any involvement with the more, shall we say, passionate groups. Plus, there’s still Anya Copeland. And I’m waiting on some intel from overseas that could prove useful.”

  Helen’s eyes narrowed. “What intel?”

  “I have a guy looking into Valence’s market competitors. I want to know why no unleaded alternative has tried to take their crown.”

  “Maybe it’s because they’re sitting around waiting for something to happen instead of striking while they can.”

  “Maybe if you had a little more experience under your belt, you’d see that waiting is sometimes your best weapon.”

  As the journalists continued to argue, Emily sat, slowly detaching herself from the conversation. What exactly did Max Edwards mean to them? For Evan, he was an information source that could help expose yet another corrupt company, while cementing his reputation as an investigative force to be reckoned with. For Helen, Max Edwards meant another step up the career ladder. More than a step. A story as powerful as the wilful poisoning of millions of children would garner interest from the major media players, as would working alongside renowned investigative journalist Evan Holt.

  But Max Edwards was surely more than just a helping hand. He was a man, a husband, a son, a friend, a passionate believer in right and wrong. And yes, he’d been flawed, and yes, he’d been troubled, and yes, his alcoholism had damaged Diane just as much as it had damaged him. But Max Edwards was whole and human. It hurt Emily to think he’d been reduced to nothing more than a stepping stone. This was not why Diane had hired her. Not to further Helen’s career. Not to help Evan prove yet again just how toxic the world really was. And yet, perhaps the only way to discover what had really happened to Max Edwards was for Emily to play her part in doing both of these things.

  The journalists had ceased arguing and now stood on opposite sides of the room. Amid the silence, Emily cleared her throat.

  “I’m tired, I’m going home. I’ll visit Max’s wife tomorrow and ask her about his activist friends. I need to give her an update anyway.”

  She turned to go.

  “I’ll be away for the next few days,” Evan said. When Helen glared at him, he added, “It’s for another story. I’ll be back next week.”

  “What do you think, Emily?” Helen stared at her from across the room. “Should we wait or should we run the story?”

  Emily avoided the journalists’ competing gazes. “I agree with Evan. We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet, especially now Valence know they’re being investigated. Who knows what kind of repercussions there could be.”

  Folding her arms, Helen sank back on the sofa.

  “There are always repercussions, no matter what road you take,” Evan said. “It comes with the territory.”

  Emily turned and looked back into the room. Then, with Evan’s last words stalking her, she left the flat and hurried towards the lift.

  As she reached the graffiti-covered lobby, her phone began to ring. It was not Jerome, as she had hoped, but the Riverside Hotel.

  “Miss Swanson? It’s Manik Singh calling. I have some information that may prove to be of use. One of the night porters claims to have seen Mr Edwards leave the hotel during the night. He says Mr Edwards wasn’t alone.”

  Emily’s anxiety was instantly swept away by a wave of excitement.

  “Really? Who?”

  “Perhaps if you came to the hotel to speak to the porter yourself? He’ll be on duty at nine.”

  Emily was exhausted. Her head reeled from the day’s events. But this new information could not be ignored.

  Hurrying out into the darkening street, she said, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Andy Bartlett was a tall and pasty nineteen-year-old, whose body jerked and twitched beneath his ill-fitting black and gold uniform as he answered Emily’s questions. At first, Emily thought it was nerves, then she saw the empty two-litre bottle of cola stashed behind the reception desk. Mr Singh had already left for the night. The lobby was empty. Piano music and subdued chatter floated out from the bar.

  “So this man,” she said to Andy, who seemed to be having a hard time making any sort of eye contact, “he showed up at what time?”

  “About three, three-thirty. He was hanging around the lobby, said he was waiting for a friend to come down. I thought it was a bit weird ’cause it was so late. But then that guy came down—Mr Edwards—and I was like, okay then, maybe he’s a dealer or something, ’cause they were whispering and everything, and then Mr Edwards pulled out an envelope. But he didn’t give it to the guy. He gave it to me. Asked if it was possible to send it out with the morning post. I said, yeah, whatever. He tipped me a fiver, then the two of them left.”

  “And Max—Mr Edwards—he didn’t come back?”

  “Not that I saw, and I was on till seven.”

  “What about the envelope he gave you? What happened to it?”

  “I put it in with the rest of the mail, so I s’pose it went out in the morning with everything else.”

  “You don’t remember who it was addressed to?”

  Andy shrugged a shoulder up and down.

  “What about the man that was with Mr Edwards. Did you hear his name? What did he look like?�
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  Andy’s gaze moved up to the lobby ceiling, high above his head. “Can’t remember a name. He was old, maybe forty-something. Blond hair in a ponytail.” He laughed at that. “And he had a beard as well, I think.”

  The description didn’t fit anyone Emily had met so far. “And how did they seem with each other? Were they friendly?”

  Andy replied with another shoulder shrug.

  “Did Mr Edwards leave of his own free will?”

  The porter stifled a laugh. “The bloke didn’t have a gun on his back if that’s what you mean. They knew each other, you could tell.”

  Questions running through her mind, Emily turned and looked over the lobby. Who was this man that Max had disappeared with? What had the envelope contained and who had been its recipient? She turned back to Andy, who had his phone in hand and was scrolling through text messages.

  “There’s nothing else you can remember about that night? Nothing that stands out?”

  The porter didn’t take his eyes off his phone. “Nope. I doubt I would have remembered anything at all if the guy hadn’t died.”

  Emily took the phone from his hand and placed it down on the desk. The porter’s expression flicked from shocked to annoyed to scolded schoolboy.

  “And you didn’t tell any of this to the police, to anyone else?”

  Andy shook his head, stared longingly at his phone. “No one asked.”

  Emily had no more questions. She asked for the porter’s phone number, which he reluctantly gave her, then told him she’d be in touch.

  “So you’re like a private detective or something?” he asked, meeting her gaze for the first time.

  Emily’s face flushed. “Something like that.”

  She said goodnight, crossed the lobby towards the exit, then stopped.

  “One more thing. Did Mr Edwards seem like he’d been drinking?”

  Andy looked up from his phone. “You mean was he drunk?”

  Emily nodded.

  “Seemed sober enough to me.”

  Emily’s mind raced as she stepped out into the night. Max Edwards had left the Riverside Hotel at three in the morning with a man he knew. And he’d been sober. The more Emily was finding out about Max Edwards, the less credible the coroner’s conclusion of ‘death by misadventure’ was becoming.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The 11.17 a.m. train to Epsom Downs was half empty, giving Emily a row of seats to herself and the space to stretch out her weary limbs. When she’d finally gone to bed, sleep had evaded her. There had been too many thoughts swimming in the mirk of her mind, all knotting together until she had started to get a headache. Now, as she travelled towards Diane Edwards’ home, those thoughts were no less clear. It wasn’t just Max Edwards clogging her brain, however. Jerome was in there, too. She had sent him another text message, had tried calling him again, but his response had been stony silence. And there was her conversation with her therapist, Kirsten Dewar. Somehow, Emily had found enough room in her mind to worry about that, too. Perhaps when this was all over, she would take Kirsten’s advice. After all, conducting a little research wasn’t the same as making a commitment, and having options was better than holding onto an uncertain, blank future.

  When Emily arrived at the house just after one, Diane Edwards greeted her with a polite smile and showed her into the kitchen, where a pot of tea and a plate of sandwiches waited on the table.

  “I didn’t know what you eat, so I kept it simple,” Diane said.

  Emily wasn’t hungry at all, but for the sake of politeness she nibbled on a cheese sandwich.

  “I’m very curious about what you’ve found so far,” Diane said, watching her eat. “But I’m sure you’ll share your findings once you’re ready.”

  “I will. I don’t want to tell you anything without the proof to back it up.”

  Diane’s face soured. “Sounds like you’ve discovered something that will be painful to hear.”

  “I just want to be certain of all the facts, that’s all,” Emily explained. “The last thing I want to do is give you misinformation.”

  “Of course.”

  Diane fell silent, staring emptily into her tea cup. It couldn’t be easy for her, Emily thought—delving into the past, reliving every negative feeling.

  “I need to ask you a few more questions about Max. Did he talk much about his work?”

  “I know the Clean Water Project was his focus for that last year or so. He told me snippets here and there about how it was progressing, the countries where they were planning to implement it, that sort of thing.”

  “And did Max ever talk about his colleagues? The people he worked with on the project...”

  “He mentioned names from time to time. There was Tim Marsden, of course, whom I’d met on occasion. There were others, but if I’m honest, most of the time I was half-listening.”

  Emily hesitated. “What about Anya Copeland?”

  The twinge in Diane’s left eye was small but telling. “I... Yes, I think he mentioned her. Why?”

  Her eyes were filling with hurt, growing wet and shiny.

  “It’s nothing to worry about for now,” Emily said. The panic on Diane’s face remained. “There’s a man, perhaps a friend of Max’s. Forties, blond hair in a ponytail. Does that sound like anyone you’ve met before?”

  Diane said that it didn’t, then stared out into the garden, deep lines creasing her forehead. Emily continued with her questions.

  “Was Max still in contact with friends from his activist days? People he went on protests with, eco group members...”

  The women stared at each other, both searching each other’s expressions for clues.

  “What is this about, Emily? I know you don’t want to misinform me, but now I’m worried. Was Max involved in some kind of trouble?”

  Emily looked away, wondering if she should share what she’d learned with Diane. After all, nothing would ever hurt more than the news of her husband’s death, which had clearly broken the woman into a hundred pieces. But causing needless suffering—especially without a shred of evidence—was not Emily’s way of doing business.

  “To be honest, I’m not sure,” she said. “But what I do know is there are still some questions that remain unanswered, and I was hoping you might be able to help with one of them.”

  She asked Diane about the blond man again. “Does he sound familiar? One of Max’s friends perhaps.”

  Diane pressed her hands together and stared out of the window. “If truth be told, Max didn’t have a lot of friends. He lost most of them during his drinking days. It doesn’t sound like any of Max’s friends I know of, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “What about friends in environmental groups? You said he used to be quite the activist in his younger days.”

  Diane was lost in thought for a few seconds. Her eyes lit up with an idea. Beckoning Emily towards the hall, she showed her into a small, windowless office, with just enough space to fit a desk and a one-drawer filing cabinet.

  “Max spent the last year of our marriage hidden away in here,” Diane said. She hovered in the doorway as if the boundary that had been set by her husband continued to exist. She pointed to a shelf above the desk. “Those are photograph albums from his younger days. He quite liked taking pictures. Wasn’t very good at it, though. I haven’t looked through them in a while, but there are pictures from back in the day. Be careful with them, won’t you?”

  “Of course.” Emily cast her eyes over the rest of the office, imagining Max Edwards hunched over the desk, plotting to take down corrupt corporations. “Did Max have a computer at home?”

  “Oh, he did. It was stolen in the break in, along with everything else.”

  “You were robbed?”

  Diane gave a curt not. “You hear about thieves casing houses, don’t you? Watching and waiting to see when people come and go. Those animals waited until I was on the way to the church to bury my husband.”

  Emily stared at the empty surfa
ce of the desk. A terrible coincidence? She wasn’t entirely convinced. Regardless, the robbery would have been a kick in the gut to a woman who had already suffered so much.

  “They turned the whole house upside down,” Diane continued. “The police were very kind and very thorough, but they never did catch them. These days, they rarely do.” She continued to hover for a few seconds more, then said, “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

  She closed the door behind her, leaving Emily in the centre of the cramped room. The walls closed in around her. Opening the door again, she took the photograph albums down from the shelf and began working her way through the pages. It seemed pointless wading through the pictures without Diane, but she persevered. Many of the photographs were taken in the late eighties and early nineties. Several depicted various environmental and human rights protests across the country and beyond. Here was Max, wearing a CND t-shirt, carrying a placard that demanded the collapse of the Berlin Wall. And here was Max, halfway up a tree in protest against the construction of the Newbury bypass. In these early photographs, his eyes crackled with fiery conviction. Now, Emily could see why Max Edwards had been driven to expose the wrongdoings of Valence Industries. They had betrayed his beliefs. They had used him as an unwitting distraction while they’d indulged in the very activities he’d spent much of his life fighting against. And they were still doing it, only with Tim Marsden in his place.

  Emily continued to flip through the albums, scanning through the pictures and pinpointing faces that showed up repeatedly over the years, including those belonging to a number of blond-haired men.

  She found Diane sitting at the kitchen table, busy writing a list. Outside, clouds smothered the sky. Spots of rain speckled the windows.

  “I’ve been trying to think of names,” Diane said. “People that Max used to hang around with in those days. But it’s been so long and my memories are rusty.”