On the Edge

by Michael Ridpath

  Yet he missed the City. He missed the camaraderie of the trading room. He missed the excitement of coming into work and never knowing what would happen from one day to the next. And he missed pitting himself against the market, taking those big risks, dancing on the edge of disaster.

  He took the occasional risk flying, but it wasn’t the same. Light-aircraft aviation was all about safety, and as the owner of a flying school he couldn’t be seen to be flouting the rules.

  A figure was silhouetted against the sky, bending over a tripod. A birdwatcher, that hardiest of Norfolk species. All around him the marsh was alive with the twitter and rustle of tiny birds, for whom these stretches of coarse grass and mud were staging posts in great global voyages. The small birds held no interest for Calder, but he was fascinated by the huge flocks of geese that gathered in complicated shifting formations in the wide Norfolk sky. Suddenly the peace of the marsh was interrupted by a roar as two Tornados passed low overhead and turned to follow the coastline eastwards. Calder thought he caught a glimpse of the lynx’s head on the tail as the rear aircraft banked. His old squadron was still flying from Marham; he wondered how many of his former colleagues remained there. Within a few seconds the jets were gone and moments later the sound waves from those mighty engines dissipated into nothing.

  He strode past the twitcher and exchanged a greeting and a smile. The birds twittered on, regardless.

  What if Perumal was right? What if Jen hadn’t committed suicide? Was it possible?

  Jen had been found six floors below her flat. Presumably the police had asked themselves whether she was pushed or whether she jumped, and decided that she jumped.

  But could they be fooled? By someone as cunning as Carr-Jones?

  Possibly.

  But why would Carr-Jones kill Jen? There was no doubt that he disliked her, but he had already ruined her life – why would he take the risk of ending it as well? Unless Perumal was right. He said Jen’s death was too convenient. Too many coincidences. What the hell did that mean?

  Perumal knew.

  Calder arrived at the edge of the sand. It was low tide, the sea was over a mile away. He looked out over the wide expanse of sand and mud, criss-crossed with creeks and channels of seeping salt water, studded with millions of shells, a city of molluscs. Birds large and small scurried about, busily searching out the choicest neighbourhoods. The salt wind bit into his face from the northern horizon, where the dark grey of the sky merged with the slightly lighter grey of the sea. As he watched, a rip appeared in the folds of the darker fabric and a curtain of thin sunshine fell on to a patch of sea, barely a quarter of a mile long, which immediately sparkled white and yellow. In a moment it was gone, the slash repaired, the sea dark and shitting once more.

  Calder turned. He looked back over the marshes to the low wooded hill behind his cottage, and the old windmill above it, its sails locked fast against the relentless wind. The birdwatcher was gone. There was no human to be seen.

  A hundred odd miles beyond that low hill was the teeming metropolis, with its millions of workers getting and spending. Did he really want to go back to all that?

  He headed home towards the cottage, the wind at his back now. He had known that when Jen had died his attitude to Bloomfield Weiss and the rest of the City had changed for ever. He had assumed that he could walk away from it, that he should walk away from it. But it wasn’t that simple. Jen had stood up for what she had believed in. She had been intimidated, bullied, crushed to the point where she had lost her life. Calder remembered that last phone call to him she had made, just before she died. To his eternal regret he hadn’t answered it.

  Maybe he should answer it now.

  Back at the cottage he dialled the Bloomfield Weiss switchboard and asked for Perumal. He tapped his fingers with impatience until the phone was picked up by a nameless colleague. Apparently Perumal was on a trip to the States but was expected back in the office the following morning.

  Calder called the following day, to be told that Perumal had decided to take a couple of days’ holiday, and would be in on Monday morning.

  It rained on Monday. A succession of cold fronts had buffeted the aerodrome all weekend and there was no let-up forecast. Once again, nobody was flying. A flying school’s finances were hostage to the weather. No flying, no students, no hirers, no income. In the long run, it should even itself out, but a bad summer could bankrupt an operation.

  Calder was in his office, trying to find an avgas supplier who would give him a decent discount. Not easy. After the third brush-off he decided to try Perumal again. By this time, he had his direct line.

  ‘Bloomfield Weiss.’

  Calder didn’t recognize the voice. ‘Can I speak to Perumal, please?’

  A pause. ‘Who’s speaking?’

  ‘A friend,’ Calder said.

  Another pause. ‘One tick.’

  Silence. Then a different, familiar voice. ‘Zero? It’s Justin.’

  Bloody hell. Calder might not have recognized the voice of the person answering the phone, but that person had identified his own mild Scottish accent. Calder considered hanging up, but that would just raise Carr-Jones’s suspicions more.

  ‘Hello, Justin,’ he said, his mind scrambling for a plausible reason to be telephoning one of Carr-Jones’s traders.

  ‘You were asking for Perumal?’

  ‘Yes. He called me last week about taking flying lessons.’

  ‘Ah, I see.’ Carr-Jones’s usual quiet self-satisfaction seemed to have left him. He sounded subdued.

  ‘What is it?’ Calder said, suddenly knowing the answer.

  Carr-Jones sighed. ‘I’m afraid Perumal won’t be taking up flying,’ he said. ‘He was involved in a snowmobile accident in America over the weekend. An avalanche. He didn’t make it.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Calder. Although the news should have come as a total shock, Calder felt that somewhere deep down he had been expecting it. He searched for something suitable to say, but suspicion was flooding into his mind. ‘I can’t imagine Perumal on a snowmobile,’ was all he could come up with.

  ‘No,’ said Carr-Jones. ‘I can’t imagine him flying, either.’

  ‘Where did this happen?’

  ‘Jackson Hole. Wyoming.’

  ‘He was visiting the Teton Fund?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Zero, I’ve got to go. There’s a lot to deal with here, as you can imagine.’

  The natural thing was to say how sorry he was for the loss of a treasured member of Carr-Jones’s team, but already the suspicion was screaming at Calder that Carr-Jones was in some way responsible. ‘Thanks for letting me know,’ was all Calder said as he rang off.

  Calder knew Perumal hadn’t had an accident. He had looked too scared, he had raised too many questions. He knew too much.

  But as he thought it through, he realized that no one else, with the possible exception of Carr-Jones himself, would be similarly suspicious. Calder knew things no one else did. He had a duty to tell the appropriate people. The police.

  DC Neville looked even younger and fresher-faced than Calder remembered. But she had a file out on the table in front of her, and she was listening intently to what Calder had to say, taking notes and weighing him up as he spoke. They were in a featureless interview room inside the warren that was Kensington Police Station.

  Calder told her everything, the background to Jen’s ‘suicide’, her feud with Carr-Jones, Perumal’s visit and his suspicion that Jen’s death had been convenient, and the news that he had died in an accident in Jackson Hole.

  ‘Do you know what he was doing out there?’ Neville asked.

  ‘When I called last week, they said he was on business. There’s a big hedge fund based there called the Teton Fund. You might have heard of them? It’s run by Jean-Luc Martel. He’s the guy who was blamed for forcing Italy to leave the euro last year.’

  Neville’s face was blank, but she was writing. She paused and looked up from her notebook. ‘Have you mentio
ned your suspicions to anyone at Bloomfield Weiss?’

  ‘No,’ Calder said. ‘I thought I’d leave all that to you.’

  ‘Very wise,’ Neville said. ‘You can rest assured we’ll be talking to them. And to the police in America. There may be a murder investigation under way there.’

  ‘Was there any doubt about Jen’s death?’

  ‘The coroner recorded a verdict of suicide. ‘

  Was he correct?’

  Neville picked up the file in front of her. ‘I think so. Although in the light of what you’ve just told me, we should take another look.’

  ‘Did you have any doubts at the time?’

  Neville leafed through the file. ‘Not really. The forensic medical examiner was a little concerned about the injuries to the victim’s skull. He thought there was a possibility one of them might have been inflicted before the others.’

  ‘You mean she was struck on the head before she hit the ground?’

  ‘That would have been the implication had the FME been certain. But he wasn’t. It was just a suspicion, barely hinted at in the report. He was sure she was still alive when she fell.’

  ‘But she could have been hit on the head, perhaps knocked unconscious and pushed out of her window afterwards?’

  ‘We did check that possibility. But we didn’t find any signs of struggle in the apartment. No one saw anyone come in or go out. No sound of a fight. No unexplained fingerprints. No blood.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  Neville scanned the file. ‘The woman who lived opposite her passed her on her way in to the building that evening. She saw Miss Tan bump into someone on the street. Miss Tan dropped her handbag, he helped pick it up.’

  ‘What sort of person?’

  ‘White male, fifty or sixty, medium height, well dressed, dark hair, thin dark moustache. But after the collision he walked off.’

  ‘So you were convinced it was suicide?’

  ‘She was having a rough time, as you yourself told us. As did lots of other people. She had reason to be depressed, and to take her own life. And she sent a text message to her mother on her mobile.’ Neville looked in her file. ‘“Sorry Mum”. That’s all. Sent right before she jumped.’

  ‘I remember. But could that have been faked?’

  ‘It could, but we have no evidence that it was.’

  ‘It must have been a horrible message to receive.’

  ‘Her mother saw it just before we had a chance to contact her. She called Miss Tan’s mobile. I answered it. She was hysterical.’

  ‘I bet.’

  Neville grimaced at the memory and leafed through the file. ‘There was a friend of hers … Sandy Waterhouse … know her?’

  ‘Is she some kind of lawyer?’

  ‘Yes. American. She said she was quite certain Jen wouldn’t commit suicide. I interviewed her. She was quite credible.’

  ‘But not credible enough to cast doubt on the coroner’s verdict?’

  ‘It’s often difficult to be one hundred per cent sure in suicide cases. And we will follow up this new information you’ve given us. Can you let us know where we can get in touch with you?’

  Calder handed her his North Norfolk Flying School card, which listed his mobile number. He had been worried that the police wouldn’t take his concerns seriously. But now he had done his duty: DC Neville had heard him out and he could leave it to her and her colleagues to see if his suspicions were well founded.

  Calder had planned to drive down to London and back in a day, but he decided to stop off at his sister’s place in Highgate on his way home.

  Anne was unloading the children from her Jeep as he pulled up outside her house. Phoebe was touchingly pleased to see him and leapt out of the car to give him a hug. Robbie grinned at him, and waved a half-eaten biscuit in his direction.

  Anne prattled on at him and the children as she made tea. It was a long story about Phoebe and one of her friend’s cats which Calder swiftly lost track of. He didn’t mind, though. There was something comforting about his sister’s chaotic existence.

  Finally they were sitting down at the kitchen table with the children banished to the playroom. Calder explained why he had come down to London. Anne listened intently.

  ‘I remember how upset you were when that girl died,’ she said when he had finished. ‘Almost more upset than I’ve ever seen you.’

  Calder knew that the ‘almost’ referred to their mother’s death. ‘It’s true. It shook me. It shook my faith in humanity. And I felt guilty. Perhaps I should have done more for her.’

  ‘It seems to me that you did more than anyone else did,’ said Anne with indignation. ‘You put your neck on the line. And she didn’t show any appreciation for that at all.’

  ‘She was in no fit state to. I still beat myself up about not answering the phone that night she died.’

  ‘Well, if it wasn’t suicide, it probably wouldn’t have made any difference.’

  ‘Yes, but who knows what she wanted to say? What she wanted to tell me? About Carr-Jones, for instance.’

  ‘Do you really think he could have killed her?’

  Calder sighed. ‘I don’t know. Part of me almost wishes he had. In some ways it’s not as bad as taking your own life. And if she did commit suicide, he drove her to it.’

  ‘But murder? Cold-blooded murder?’

  Who knows? It’s impossible for me to be objective about it. But I’m pretty sure the police took what I had to say seriously. I’ll leave them to find out the truth.’

  There was a sharp cry from the direction of the playroom and then a steady wail. Anne went off to sort it out.

  She was back a moment later. ‘There’s something I wanted to tell you,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Did you know Father has put Orchard House on the market?’

  ‘No!’ The news came as a complete surprise to Calder. An unwelcome surprise. The family had lived in that house since he was born. He hadn’t been there for at least three years, but the knowledge that it was still there, that it was still the Calder family home, comforted him. It was a reminder of happy times, times when his mother was still alive, times when they were a family, when the whole was greater than the individual parts.

  Anne was watching him, following the emotions in her brother’s expression. ‘I know. That’s how I felt.’

  ‘When did you find out?’

  ‘I spoke to him last Sunday on the phone and he dropped into the conversation that someone was about to come and look at the house. He acted as though it was the most natural thing in the world. But you know Father. That was just his way of telling me.’

  ‘Do you have any idea why?’

  ‘I asked him. He said he wanted to live in a smaller place.’

  ‘But he loves that house! It reminds him of Mum just as much as it reminds you and me.’

  ‘I think he needs the cash. Remember last year I told you he sold Mum’s jewellery.’

  ‘And the Cadells. Did you ever ask him about that?’

  ‘I tried to. He just changed the subject. You know what he’s like.’

  ‘But why would he need so much money?’

  Anne stared at the dregs in her tea. ‘Do you remember my friend Stacey McGregor from school?’

  ‘Vaguely.’

  ‘She lives in Hawick now.’ Hawick was a small mill town about twenty miles from Kelso. ‘She says she was in a newsagent’s there and she saw Father. He was buying lottery tickets. A hundred quid’s worth.’

  ‘Lottery tickets! Father! He’d never be caught dead with those. Is she sure it was him?’

  ‘Quite sure. She says he didn’t recognize her. She’s put on quite a bit of weight since he last saw her. But everyone knows what he looks like.’

  ‘So are you saying he’s spent thousands of pounds on lottery tickets?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I’m worried.’

  ‘Yeah. You said that last year.’

  ‘Aren’t you?’

 
; Calder wanted to say it didn’t bother him because he didn’t care. But it did. He knew how much it would pain the old man to sell Orchard House, how many memories it would hold for him. Something must be wrong. But he couldn’t believe it was lottery tickets. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I am worried.’

  ‘I think you should go and talk to him.’

  ‘Me! But at the best of times I’d only last half an hour in that house without having a row. No, you should talk to him.’

  ‘I’ve tried and got nowhere. He won’t listen to me. He avoids the subject, or worse, he lies. But I know he respects you. I think you can make him tell you the truth.’

  Calder shook his head. ‘This makes no sense.’ But he knew that, despite appearances, it did.

  ‘Alex?’ His sister rarely asked him for anything. She was asking him now.

  Calder sighed. ‘All right. I’ll do it.’

  17

  He flew up to Kelso the next morning, taking the flying school’s Cessna 172, which was good for short-field operations. Several years before, he had come to an arrangement with the owner of a farm-strip a few miles from Kelso. For twenty pounds the farmer let him land and have the use of an old banger for a few hours. He hadn’t told his father what he was doing. He didn’t want to give him the chance to hide anything.

  He arrived at Orchard House late morning. It was a long, low building of grey stone, with a pretty garden and an apple orchard to the side. His mother had loved the place; the apples reminded her of her native Somerset. It was a couple of miles out of town, in the tiny village of Cairnslaw. From Calder’s old bedroom window you could see through the apple trees towards Kelso with its church spires, its ruined abbey, and its bridges over the broad River Tweed hurrying eastwards towards Berwick and the North Sea. By the gate stood a yellow and blue For Sale sign bearing the name of a local estate agent.