If Phil had been having a long-term extra-marital affair with Emma, and she’d dumped him for Bryan, he’d had a motive for murder. I was certain she’d gone back to him once Bryan was dead. Murder was an excessive reaction to a girlfriend’s defection, but not unknown. And who else was there? Not Ric. Or Dave Calder - I just couldn’t believe it of him. Jeff Pike…now there was no doubt in my mind he could be violent, and he loved Ric…but he knew Ric was heterosexual; what would he gain by murdering Ric’s best friend? Emma had no reason to kill Bryan, either. She’d just moved in with him, and he was rich, successful and devoted to her. Whether she loved him or not, it was an excellent career move for an ambitious woman. Even after he found her and Ric, she must have thought it likely, infatuated as he was, that he’d forgive her.
It seemed increasingly obvious to me that Phil was the killer. Not that I had any proof.
I gazed at the picture; I was out of my depth, and I had the nasty feeling that Ric was too. He had to hand himself over to the police. That was an essential first step in sorting out the mess he was in. If he did that he’d be safe from Phil, who must now be thinking how much easier things would be, if Ric was dead as well as Bryan. He’d keep Ric’s money, and Bryan’s murder case would stay closed. Alarm grew in me.
The cello snippet. I looked up to the mezzanine and saw Ric’s arm emerge from under the duvet.
“Hi…I’ll call you back, dude. When I’m awake.”
Jeff Pike. Calls from him now featured regularly and frequently in our lives. Ric sat up, swung his legs to the floor and pulled on his jeans. I reached out and flipped the kettle’s switch as he and Dog came downstairs; his hair was tousled, his chest bare; he was a dead ringer for a jeans commercial. I wondered how long it would take me to get used to his dazzling good looks, and whether I was going to get the chance.
While he tipped some food into Dog’s bowl and changed his water, I told him the conclusions I’d reached. He listened in silence. I finished,
“What I think you should do is hire a really good solicitor and a private detective. You can afford it - you’ve got the Euros, and the diamonds. The only evidence against you is circumstantial. There must be proof somewhere that Phil killed Bryan. And if you go to the police, you can tell them all the dodgy things Phil’s been doing, and that’ll make them investigate him. Once you’re officially alive, Phil will have to hand back the money. The solicitor will know how to sort it out.”
“There’s a lot of sense in what you say.” Ric nodded slowly. “I hate not doing anything. And I don’t want Emma deciding she’ll give the rape story to the News of the World - if she hasn’t already, that is.”
“Then you’ll do it?” I could hear the hope in my voice. I was positive this was the best course of action.
“I don’t want to, Caz. The first thing they’ll do is throw me in jail. If I could just give them something so they know it wasn’t me…”
“I’ve been round to everyone now. What more can we do?”
“There might be something incriminating at Phil’s house.” Ric’s eyes glinted. “I’ll break in. See if I can find anything.”
I looked at him, hoping he didn’t mean it. He meant it. A cold, panicky feeling fluttered in my chest. Eventually I said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“He’s got a burglar alarm, for one thing.”
“I’ll go when he’s there so it won’t be on. At night, when he’s asleep.”
“But don’t people with big houses have those alarms where you set it at night just for downstairs?”
“Phil hasn’t. I’ve stayed there. He has a panic button by his bed.”
“What if he wakes up and catches you?”
“I’ll be careful. I know the house. If it came to it, I can handle Phil.”
This confidence worried me. Ric underestimated how dangerous Phil was, I felt sure, just because his manner was mild and he was no fighter. Appearances can be deceptive. Look at Dr Crippen: diminutive and meek, yet he’d killed his wife, dismembered her, destroyed the body in acid, put her head in a handbag and thrown it into the sea on a day trip to Dieppe.
I said, “He’s not likely to have left evidence lying around the place, especially after three years. You’d be wasting your time.”
“There’s his safe.”
“I saw what was in there! Hardly anything, just some jewellery cases, the cash he gave you and a folder.”
Ric pounced on this. “There was a folder?”
“Yes, a pink A4 cardboard one.” Its sides had bulged; it was full of something, but I wasn’t going to tell Ric that. It would only encourage him. I wished I hadn’t mentioned it.
“Why keep a folder in a safe?”
“Insurance policies? Maybe it’s fireproof. And how do you propose to open the safe, anyway? The whole point of safes is burglars can’t get into them.”
“Phil’s crap at remembering numbers. He’ll have the combination written down somewhere in the office.”
“It’s too risky.”
Ric grinned at me. I spent the next five minutes trying to dissuade him, to no avail. He said he’d just break into the office, see if he could get into the safe; if he could, then check it out, and leave. He made it sound straightforward. “It’s a big house. The bedrooms aren’t over the office. He won’t hear me.”
“He’s got CCTV cameras.”
“So? He’ll know it’s me. He can’t go to the police.”
“What about the dogs?”
“They’re not proper trained guard dogs. They might remember me from last time, with a bit of luck. I’ll take some meat for them.”
I was sweating at the very thought of what might happen if Phil found Ric breaking into his safe, and I couldn’t make Ric see it was a crazy thing to do. The idea of another night like last night, lying awake worrying about him, but this time knowing he actually was doing something life-threatening, made me go cold. At last I said,
“I think you’re insane to go, but if I can’t persuade you not to, I’ll come with you. When are you going to do it?”
“Tonight, while you’re in Winchester with James, and I’m going alone, Caz. Dog’s not coming, either.”
“I can put off James. You need me, I’d be useful.”
“No.”
“Please, Ric. I couldn’t bear waiting here in the small hours, not knowing what’s happening. I’m coming with you. I’m not letting you go alone.”
Ric’s eyes met mine. He was not smiling. He said, in a voice of finality, “No, Caz.”
I stood up and went downstairs to the paint workshop. I spread newspaper, got the brackets and swing irons out of the shoebox marked SALADIN, and fetched emery paper and wire wool. I started to remove the rust and old blistered paint, thinking about the night ahead. If interviewing suspects was, in James’s words, poking a furnace with a short stick, this was more like jumping into the furnace to have a good look round.
Ric would have to give me a time by which, if he wasn’t back, I could ring the police. I made a mental list of what he needed to take with him, then got pencil and paper and wrote it down. The door opened. I didn’t look up.
“Caz…”
“Go away. I’m not talking to you.”
Ric came up behind me and wrapped me in his arms. “Don’t be like that, Caz…”
I went on rubbing the brackets with emery paper as best I could. “It’s no good trying to get round me. I’m sulking.”
He nuzzled my neck. “No, you’re not,” he murmured. His pheromones and my endorphins were trying for their usual effect of infusing me with happy compliance, but I was too anxious for them to get a straight run at it. “It’s quite safe, Caz. I’ll be back before you know it.”
“If it was safe, you’d take me and Dog with you.”
Still holding me, Ric reached for my list. He read aloud,
“Torch
Pepper
Wrecking bars
Camera
Rope
Duct tape
Scissors
Penknife
Glass cutter
Meat, bones, treats for dogs
Dark clothes
Gloves
Balaclavas
Camouflage face paint?
Socks.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I never realized you’d put in time with the S.A.S.. What are the socks for? Do we fill them full of sand and attack Phil with them? Sock him over the head?”
“They’re to go over your shoes, so no one hears you.” I’d got this out of a Dick Francis novel. “You said we.”
“I’d be a fool to turn down an S.A.S. graduate.” I dropped the bracket on the bench, turned and hugged him. “You can hold the torch,” he added.
“Huh.”
“Okay, you can be in charge of the dog meat too. And the socks.”
“I’ll ring James.”
“Don’t do that. We’ll go tomorrow. It’ll be better, Sunday he’s more likely to have an early night. Gives us time to get all the stuff on your list. Then Monday morning I’ll get a lawyer, whether we find anything or not, and go to the police.”
I kissed him.
It was only later it occurred to me: he’d somehow manoeuvred me into being grateful for inclusion in a venture I thought was a Seriously Bad Idea.
Chapter
23
*
I fetched all the things on my list I already owned, and laid them out on the coffee table. I had two wrecking bars, one sixty centimetres, one thirty, each with chisel and swan neck ends; my Canon IXUSi, though we might not be able to use it because of the flash; some lengths of fine rope I keep for holding together awkward glue joints, neatly coiled.
I walked to Hoxton Street market, and bought men’s black socks (three pairs for two pounds fifty), duct tape, and a glass cutter. At Iceland I got some ground pepper, as I only had peppercorns, and two packs of diced beef, which should do for the bull mastiffs. We could take some of Dog’s treats as well. I looked unsuccessfully on the stalls for a black hoodie for Ric; there was a navy one which I thought should be dark enough, so I splashed out four pounds on it.
Ric was lying on the sofa with one of my detective novels. He seemed amused by my comings and goings, and watched the accumulation on the table with interest, without actually helping. I consulted my list.
“I haven’t got a decent torch. I’ll nip to Maplin’s, they’ll have them. D’you think we need balaclavas?”
“Too hot.” Ric stood, zipped on the navy top and brooded at his hooded self in the big mirror over the fireplace. “This’ll do. Cheap and nasty, but I guess the whole idea is no one will see me.” He picked up the longer steel wrecking bar and swung it experimentally.
“What about face paint?”
“Nah. We’d have to get it off once we were out.”
“Gloves? I’ve got some thin vinyl ones. So we don’t leave fingerprints.”
“Doesn’t matter if we do. I’ll run you to Maplin’s.”
He waited outside the shop in Tottenham Court Road, the Harley’s engine throbbing, attracting attention, while I went in and bought two tiny, super bright aluminium torches. Back at the flat I added them to the collection and checked it over.
“I think that’s everything…”
“Yup - with that lot any right-thinking policeman would take us in for going equipped…happy now?”
“Not really…”
Getting the things on the list had distracted me from thinking about using them on Sunday night. My stomach lurched and my hands felt cold at the very idea of sneaking around illicitly in the dark, inside the house of a man I believed to be a murderer. I said pleadingly,
“Can’t we just go to the police?”
“We will,” he said soothingly. “As soon as we’ve checked out Phil’s safe.”
After tea I put our planned break-in from my mind, and concentrated on transforming myself, outwardly at least, into the sort of girl Rosemary considered ‘nice’.
A calf-length floral dress I’d bought in a sale and never worn, teamed with a lilac shrug and natural tights seemed just the job. Inoffensive. I applied minimum make-up, found a pink lipstick at the back of the drawer, and spent ages putting my hair up in a bun. There was a pair of shoes I’d only worn on Speech Days at the school where I used to teach; I slipped into them, then added a string of pearls and matching earstuds. I surveyed myself in the long mirror. I was correctly dressed for the occasion; Rosemary would approve. She’d never think me Suitable, but she’d pass the outfit. I imagined her scanning glance, her small satisfied nod.
I took it all off again. I let down my hair, framed my eyes with khol and put on my favourite dress, blue/grey like an Ayres, fullish skirt that came to mid-thigh, off the shoulder wide straps that sometimes slipped down becomingly. Not too low-cut; you don’t need it with all that leg showing - one doesn’t want to look like a hooker. I laced on high black boots, and found a silver necklace and bracelet. Much more me.
Would I be letting James down? No. Men are simple souls. He’d think a lot of leg on view was good. Anyway, I was perfectly respectable - just not what Rosemary meant by ‘respectable’. Ric stopped watching television long enough to approve.
“When will you be back?”
“It’ll finish around eleven, then about two hours’ drive home.” The bell went. “See you, Ric.”
I kissed the top of his head, and ran down the stairs so as not to keep James waiting. He stood at the door, having already turned his car in the limited space.
“Mmm, you look lovely. Will you be warm enough later on?”
“Hang on.”
I raced back upstairs to my bedroom and grabbed an oversized black jumper. The television was off, Ric on his feet. He caught me at the foot of the mezzanine stairs, said, “Good, I want to kiss you goodbye,” and did, at some length.
Bright evening light shone in our eyes as we set off in the BMW. The bridge of James’s nose had caught the sun - being so fair he burns easily. He told me he’d been tackling the overgrown garden that belongs to his flat. It’s not a terribly convenient garden, as you have to go out of the front door and round the side of the house to get to it, and James tends to neglect it. He’s not a gardener.
“It looks tidier now, but a bit bare.” He glanced at me. “I should put some plants in, but I don’t know what to get.”
“I can give you a list if you like.”
“I’ll have to go to a garden centre. You wouldn’t consider coming with me, would you? Pick out some stuff and tell me where to put it.”
“Okay. Tomorrow week?”
“Thank you, Caz, that’ll be great. We can have Sunday lunch at The Dragon.”
“I’ll bring the van. More space.”
James smiled. Silence fell, the relaxed kind you get between old friends. I had no intention of telling him about Ric’s criminal plans for the next night, particularly since they involved me. He would only try to persuade me out of it whenever we were alone; he’d have three or four hours in the car to itemize his apprehensions, plus snatched opportunities over dinner. I’d be crazy to tell him. But I had a brilliant idea - I’d print out the Private Investigations file, containing the information I’d collected about Phil Sharott - all too little - plus suspects’ addresses and my conclusions, and somehow leave it where James would find it first thing Monday morning. Just in case Ric and I didn’t return.
I shivered, in spite of the sunshine, and resolved not to think about Sunday night.
It was seven twenty when James parked in the quiet Victorian terrace beside his mother’s house and checked his watch. The last time I’d been there was the Christmas after my mother died; James had insisted I went with him when he found out I’d be spending it alone. A dark and sleety day. Now the street was bright and sunny: to a London eye it was remarkably well-kept and litter-free, no recycling bins or bags of rubbish on view; something you only get in the most exclusive p
arts of Kensington and Chelsea. Window box flowers glowed against white-painted stucco. As I got out of the car and stretched, I heard the cathedral’s bells ringing.
James reached into the back seat and picked up a bunch of cream roses in bud. They looked a little tired after their journey. I wondered if I should have brought Rosemary something. He pressed the brass bell push. Moments later the door swung open to reveal his mother, elegantly dressed in taupe.
“James!” She reached up, kissed his cheek and took the roses. “Are these for me?” She inspected them. “They look thirsty, I’d better give them a good soak.” Her attention turned my way. “Caz, what a lovely surprise. I was expecting Posy.”
Her pearls rattled as we air-kissed; I smelled Chanel No. 5. She drew back and her eyes flickered over me. No approving nod; slightly raised eyebrows and a pause. “Do come in. You’re not the first.”
Rosemary led us into the drawing room at the back of the house. A man and woman were looking out of the open windows at the garden; flower beds, and a path through lush grass leading to trees and what I imagined must be a gazebo, new since my last visit. The couple turned and came to be introduced.
“This is Cassandra Tallis. She’s very artistic and has her own little business in London restoring rocking horses. Caz, this is Anne Hamilton and Brigadier David Hamilton. He retired recently - not that you’d know it, he’s busier than ever. We’re lucky he could make it tonight.”
We shook hands. The Brigadier’s eyes twinkled. “I only see young James once or twice a year, and each time his new girlfriend’s prettier than the last one.”
I smiled, and was about to disabuse him of the notion that James and I were an item, but Rosemary got in first. “Caz and James have been great friends since they were toddlers,” she said dismissively. “Didn’t you meet Posy at Easter? Oh no, I remember now, you were away. She’s a lovely girl, I’m hoping we’ll be seeing a lot more of her.”
I looked at James, but he chickened out of breaking the bad news.
“Lovelier than this one? That’s hard to believe,” said the Brigadier, with old-fashioned gallantry.
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