On the Edge

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘Who did you talk to?’

  ‘A Mr Davis. Benton Davis.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I’m not surprised you didn’t get anywhere. He would be eager to make sure that anything swept under the carpet stays under the carpet.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  Calder caught the note of doubt in the detective’s voice. ‘What did Benton say about me?’

  DC Neville hesitated before answering. ‘He questioned your objectivity. He said you had become emotionally involved with Jennifer Tan, and you were unable to let her death go.’

  ‘There’s some truth to that,’ Calder admitted. ‘But that’s because I’m sure there’s something suspicious about it. Did you talk to the American police?’

  ‘I spoke to the Teton County Sheriff’s Office in Jackson Hole.’

  ‘They have a real sheriff there?’

  ‘Apparently. I spoke to one of his deputies. He didn’t say howdy, though. And I didn’t ask if he had a horse.’

  ‘Do they suspect anything?’

  ‘No. They think Perumal was just foolish. He had no experience on a snowmobile – he’d only been out on one for the first time the day before. Anyway, he went off by himself away from the trails and got lost. He ended up in a high-risk avalanche area. Sure enough, there was an avalanche. The man I spoke to seemed to think there was a good chance Perumal started it. They found the snowmobile, but not his body. They might have to wait till spring for that.’

  ‘So they don’t think anyone could have murdered him?’

  ‘He was alone. Quite alone.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So, I think we’ll leave it there.’

  ‘But it’s too much of a coincidence! Perumal coming to me with his fears about Jen, and then getting killed himself a few days later. There must be something in it.’

  ‘It was worth checking out. But we’ve done that now.’

  ‘So that’s it, then?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘That’s not acceptable,’ Calder protested. ‘You can’t just drop it.’

  Neville’s voice, which had been friendly, became firm. ‘I’m afraid we can, sir. There are plenty of other things to be doing closer to home.’

  ‘I want to speak to your superior.’

  ‘Certainly, sir. His name is Detective Inspector Price. I’ll tell him you’ll be calling.’ Then her voice changed again. ‘Look, Mr Calder. I know how you feel. It seems to me that there are one or two loose ends as well. But it was all I could do to get the time to find out what I have. We’ve got two schoolgirls missing down here. You can call him if you want, but there’s no chance my guv’nor will let me waste any more time on this. I’m sorry. But that’s the way it is.’

  Calder sighed. He realized there was no point in arguing. ‘I understand. Thank you for doing what you’ve done.’

  He put down the phone. The anger simmered inside him. Once again Carr-Jones was going to get away with something. This time murder. Benton Davis and the other spineless cowards at Bloomfield Weiss would help protect him. Two people had died because of him. Two young, brilliant people. Calder slammed his fist hard on to the desk.

  He had always believed that there were people of integrity in the City, people you could trust, people who would stand by you. He hoped that he was one of them. He had been helped out of scrapes in the past by friends in the market, many times. He would have counted Tarek as one of these friends, but Tarek had gone along with the others at Bloomfield Weiss in turning a blind eye to what was going on. Calder was sure that the likes of Linda Stubbes and Benton Davis had started their careers as decent people, but now look at them. A year ago he had decided he would have no more to do with any of them, and he didn’t regret that decision for a moment. So why was all this bothering him? He should just stick with his plan and ignore it all, as he had done so successfully since moving to Norfolk. He had done his duty by telling the police. If they weren’t interested, then neither should he be.

  He thought again of his trip to Kelso the previous week. He still hadn’t got over the shock and disappointment of his discovery that his father was not the man he believed he was. If anything he felt worse about it. Somehow his father continued to have a hold on him, even in his moment of shame. It had been bad enough to accept a year before that the institution he had worked for so loyally for so many years had become corrupted by the greedy, the sleazy and the ambitious. And now he had to face up to the fact that his father was just like those City traders he had fled from, abandoning their integrity in the quest for the big win.

  Calder had just written out cheques to the three bookmakers totalling a hundred and sixty thousand pounds. He had plenty saved from his Bloomfield Weiss bonuses, but it was still a lot of money. If it solved the problem, that would be fine. As long as his father didn’t just run up another hundred thousand in debts. Could he trust him? For Calder, that was the last question he thought he would have asked of his father.

  He looked out of his window over the runway. An engine roared as a Piper Warrior started its takeoff roll. He glanced up. Where half an hour before there had been gloom and rain, there was now clear blue, with bright tufts of white scudding across the sky.

  He couldn’t just sit in his office stewing. He needed to get out.

  He checked at the desk to confirm that his next student had cancelled, and decided to take the Pitts out for a whirl. In ten minutes he was airborne. He skipped through the puffs of cloud up to four thousand feet, found a patch of clear sky and did a couple of lazy-eights to warm up. Then he tried a slow roll, checking the altimeter to make sure he didn’t lose height. Perfect: exactly four thousand feet going in and coming out. He did two more, both exact.

  He was definitely improving with practice. He felt a powerful urge to stretch himself. Try something that was truly difficult, dangerous even. He had never done low-level aerobatics in the Pitts, not truly low level, and it was nine long years since he had flung a Tornado around two hundred and fifty feet above the Welsh mountains. Ever since he was a boy, he had wanted to do a low-level pass over an airfield with a slow roll. Just once. Just to show he had the guts.

  He pointed the nose back towards the airfield.

  It was against the rules. And Jerry would kill him. But he knew Jerry had taken a student on a cross-country navigation exercise to Ely. And none of the other instructors was working. There were no other aircraft in the circuit.

  Damn it, it was his aeroplane and his airfield. And his life.

  Just once.

  Langthorpe was approaching. He radioed Angela and told her what he was doing. Or part of what he was doing. He didn’t tell her about the roll bit.

  He descended on to the final approach at a hundred knots, and then at one hundred feet levelled out. As he passed over the runway threshold he pulled up on the stick and applied right aileron. He rolled round to inverted, pushed forward, and felt the familiar pressure of his weight on the shoulder straps. The ground rushed past only a hundred feet above his head. Then, as he completed the second half of the roll, he was a smidgen too quick in taking off the forward pressure on the stick and he felt he was losing height. Only a few feet, but at this altitude every foot was crucial. The wingtip swung around underneath him. For one dreadful instant he thought it would clip the ground, but it came up on the other side. Now that the horizon was in its usual place, he could see he was only twenty feet above the ground, if that. He slammed open the throttle and climbed rapidly.

  The adrenaline exploded through his system and his heart raced. His palms were sweating on the control column. He had made it, but only just. Somehow he had lost eighty feet. If it had been a hundred and ten everything would have been over. As he turned downwind to land, he knew he had done something very stupid, something he wouldn’t do again.

  But he was very glad he had done it. Just once.

  ‘Romeo Oscar, I thought the wheels were supposed to be pointing at the ground on landing, not the sky,’ said Angela, her voice strained underne
ath the banter.

  ‘I’ll try that next time,’ Calder replied.

  He was taxiing the Pitts to its habitual parking spot when he saw a Warrior land behind him. It taxied rapidly over to the parking area, and Jerry hopped out. He was a short man with a thick dark moustache. He was usually a jolly fellow, patient with the dimmest student, but not this time. He marched straight over to Calder, who turned to face the retribution that he knew was coming.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Jerry shouted when he was still twenty yards away.

  ‘It was just a bit of practice while the airfield was quiet. There was no one else around.’

  ‘Just a bit of practice! It was one of the stupidest stunts I’ve ever seen in my life! If you want to commit suicide take the pills, don’t splatter a perfectly good aircraft all over the runway. Seriously, Alex, what were you thinking of?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jerry, I won’t do it again.’

  ‘What you did then goes against every rule in my book. Against all we’re trying to do here. How can you teach a student to fly safely when you do that kind of thing yourself?’

  ‘OK,’ Calder said. He was feeling bad. ‘I really won’t do it again.’

  ‘You’re telling me you won’t. I’m the CFI here, and I’m saying that you’re not going up in that thing again until you can convince me you’ll treat it with respect. I don’t care if you do own the plane, or the bloody airfield.’

  Calder’s ears were burning. He didn’t bother to argue. He knew Jerry was right. He went straight to his car and drove slowly home.

  That evening he walked the mile or so from his cottage to the Admiral Nelson, in the village of Hanham Staithe. It was a bitter evening, but the pub was warm and welcoming, with a wood fire roaring in the grate. He exchanged a few words with Stuart and Jess, the local vet and his wife, and Archie, a wizened artist who lived on a decrepit boat laid up in the creek. Normally he would have chatted to them, but that night he wanted to be by himself, and they were perceptive enough to realize it. They were a friendly bunch and didn’t seem to object to a recent immigrant from London, especially one who lived there all the year round.

  He bought a pint of bitter and ordered a steak sandwich. He sat by the window and stared out at the raw darkness. He remembered the evening he and Jen had split that bottle of champagne in Corney and Barrow overlooking the ice rink, and her challenge to him to skate with her. He had genuinely believed that Jen had a future as a trader then. How wrong he had been. All that was just about a year ago and a hundred miles away and another life. But it was calling to him now.

  He could try to ignore the past, but he wasn’t a quitter – it just wasn’t in his nature. He had tried half-heartedly to help Jen, but he hadn’t done enough. If he continued to do nothing Bloomfield Weiss would cover up all trace of her death. The injustice of what had happened would always grate at him. He had almost killed himself that very day in a fit of angry bravado. It wasn’t all going to disappear in the morning. He would have to face up to it. Now.

  He didn’t know whether Carr-Jones was responsible for the deaths of Jen and Perumal, but he knew that he had to find out. And when he had found out, do something about it.

  19

  He drove down to London the next day, to his sister’s place in Highgate. Jerry was happy to let him go. Calder had explained what was worrying him, and how he felt he had to go down to London to sort it out. February was a quiet month for flying, with short days and bad weather, and Jerry was sure he could manage without him for two days.

  ‘Don’t come back till you’ve sorted yourself out,’ Jerry said sternly. ‘I don’t want any more stunts like yesterday’s.’

  ‘There won’t be any. I promise,’ said Calder. ‘And thanks, Jerry. I mean it.’

  After the children were put to bed, or at least shut in their bedrooms, Anne opened a bottle of wine. It was nine o’clock.

  ‘When’s William back?’ Calder asked.

  ‘Any time between now and eleven. He’s working on a deal, apparently.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘He’s always working on a deal.’ Anne sounded more disappointed than bitter. She glanced around the large house. ‘I suppose we have to pay for this place somehow. Are you hungry? I usually wait to eat until he comes home.’

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ Calder said, although he was starving. But he wanted to slip into their routine rather than disrupt it.

  ‘Tell me about Father,’ Anne said. ‘I still can’t believe it.’

  Calder had spoken briefly to her on the phone, but he now went into all the details.

  Anne was shocked. ‘How could he hide it from us for so long?’

  ‘He said he began after Mum died.’

  ‘She’d have spotted it and stopped him. And he would have been too proud to gamble in front of her. You must be angry, especially after the hard time he’s given you over the years about your trading.’

  ‘You can say that again. He promised me he’ll go to Gamblers Anonymous. We’ll see if he keeps that promise.’

  ‘At least it shows he’s human.’

  ‘If being a hypocrite is human.’

  ‘I’m afraid it probably is. You two are even more similar than I thought.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Annie! Don’t say that.’

  ‘You’re both gamblers. You both struggle to control it. And neither of you quite succeeds.’

  ‘I’d never lose a hundred and fifty grand on the horses!’

  Anne raised her eyebrows.

  It was true that Calder had flirted with gambling at Cambridge. He had fallen in with a regular poker game in his first year. It had fascinated him, especially the idea that poker was actually a game of skill, and that by studying the probabilities you could place chance firmly on your side. Then a dissolute Wykehamist called Jonny had joined them one evening. Full of charm and whisky, he had bet heavily and lost, mostly to Calder, who walked away thirty quid up. The following week he was there again. Somehow, Calder managed to lose two hundred pounds to him, a significant sum for a student. As Calder left the game, cleaned out and having written all the IOUs his bank account could withstand, Jonny, who seemed three-quarters drunk, gave him the tiniest of winks.

  At that moment Calder realized that poker was a mug’s game. It was a game of skill, and there would always be a more skilful player to come along and take his money.

  That’s what he liked about trading: he could restrict his bets to those situations where the odds really were on his side.

  ‘So, what are you doing in London?’ Anne asked.

  ‘The police don’t have the time or inclination to follow up on Jen’s and Perumal’s deaths, so I thought I would. I found I couldn’t just hide away in Norfolk and forget about it.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re doing something for the poor woman. Good luck.’ Anne raised her glass and sipped from it. Then she frowned. ‘Just one thing, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘If you’re right and Perumal’s death had something to do with him asking awkward questions about Jen, well…’ She looked anxious.

  ‘Well what?’ Calder asked.

  ‘It might be dangerous for you to run around asking the same kind of questions.’

  It was something that had occurred to Calder. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Be careful,’ Anne said in her sternest tone of voice. ‘I would hate it if something happened to you.’

  The waiter listened attentively as Tarek gave him his complicated, but very precise, breakfast order. It involved mozzarella cheese, Italian bread, olive oil and black pepper. Tarek liked breakfast and he liked Claridge’s, so Calder wasn’t surprised when he had suggested meeting there at seven. At that time of morning the elegant dining room was almost empty, save for a scattering of extra-keen American tourists looking to get an early start. The businessmen would be in a bit later.

  It was the first time Calder had seen Tarek since leaving Bloomfield Weiss. He thought he co
uld spot the beginnings of a comfortable paunch above the belt of Tarek’s trousers, looking incongruous on his thin frame. But his brown eyes were as large and as observant as ever. Despite the circumstances of their parting, Calder was pleased to see him.

  ‘You must be getting used to being senior management now,’ Calder said. ‘Not having to be at the morning meeting.’

  ‘Actually, I usually go to that still,’ Tarek said. ‘I try to keep in touch. Breakfast is a treat for special occasions. Like this.’ He smiled.

  ‘Don’t you miss trading?’

  ‘A bit,’ said Tarek. ‘And there’s so much bullshit to deal with. But things are going well, inshallah, at least in Fixed Income. We’re back on top of the league table for Eurobond issues, we made record profits last year, and I think I’ve finally got the salesmen and the traders to work well together.’

  ‘That’ll be the day,’ Calder snorted. ‘Speaking of salesmen, how’s Cash Callaghan doing?’

  ‘Still whippin’ and drivin’ those bonds.’

  ‘And the Prop Desk?’

  ‘Kevin Strumm from New York is running it now.’

  ‘He’s pretty good, isn’t he?’

  ‘Actually, he’s very disciplined. But he doesn’t have your flair. There were a couple of times in the last six months when I wanted to push him out of the way and load up on a big position myself, but he was taking profits, for God’s sake.’

  ‘What about Nils?’

  ‘He’s shaping into a competent trader. But he’s frustrated with Strumm.’

  ‘Well, I wish them both luck.’

  Tarek took a bite out of his olive-oil soaked bread. ‘You asked me if I missed trading. What about you?’

  ‘No. Not at all.’

  ‘Really?’ Calder could see Tarek’s brown eyes didn’t believe him. ‘Don’t you miss the markets? Running positions? Taking risks?’

  Calder smiled to himself, remembering his recent experience of being the wrong way up too close to the ground. ‘No, no. I’m quite happy. The flying school I’ve bought is coming together. And I get to fly a lot.’

  ‘You’re welcome back, you know.’ Tarek said. ‘Any time. We need you.’