Restless, Bea stood and went to look out of the nearest window. Stunning view. Nearby an escritoire was open, supporting a netbook with Skype up and running, ready for use. And a letter from a stockbroker. She wasn’t prying, exactly. The letterhead was easy to read from where she stood. She checked who the letter was addressed to. Was it Sir Lucas? No. It was Lady Ossett.
Did Lady O study the markets? Hm. Perhaps she wasn’t quite as naive about money matters as her daughter had indicated. Also on the escritoire was yesterday’s copy of the Times, again folded to reveal the crossword puzzle. Completed in the same blue biro. Bea bent over for a closer look. It wasn’t one of those crosswords which you could polish off while you boiled an egg. It was one of the fiendish ones which Bea had never been able to cope with, although her dear departed husband had managed it most days.
Surely Lady Ossett hadn’t the brain for crossword puzzles, had she? These must have been completed by Sir Lucas. Uh oh. It was today’s crossword puzzle in the paper on the coffee table, filled in with the same blue biro as yesterday’s, while Sir Lucas had been gone two days. So, if Lady Ossett had filled them in, then . . . rethink, Bea!
While she was still on her feet Bea walked over to inspect the fine modern portrait which hung over the largest of the settees. A spotlight had been trained upon it to underline its importance. A name came into her head. Lucian Freud.
The subject was a businessman. Lucas? If that picture were by Freud, it must be worth a fortune. She peered at it. Yes, definitely. Freud.
There was no other evidence of a man’s presence in the room.
Books? None in sight . . . except for a couple of library books which were, unexpectedly, from P.D. James and the latest winner of the Man Booker prize. There wasn’t a Mills & Boon romance or a copy of Hello! magazine in sight.
A superb leather handbag squatted on the floor by Lady O’s chair. It lay open, disclosing the usual contents . . . and a pair of men’s sunglasses. Not a woman’s. Too large, too heavy, and totally unlike anything Lady O would wear.
Bea seated herself again as Lady O returned, bearing a second coffee cup and saucer. All traces of distress had been erased. She was even smiling. She reseated herself, poured out a cup of coffee for Bea and handed it to her. ‘No cream, I imagine. We older women have to watch our figures, don’t we?’
Bea produced a polite smile. It was interesting that Lady O should put herself in the same age group as Bea, who was in her early sixties. Flattering, even, for the vision herself could hardly be more than mid-forties. She’d been born with an excellent bone structure and a mop of fair hair which only needed a little help from her hairdresser to retain its champagne colour. There was no sign of a facelift, though incipient lines had been erased with Botox. Her eyelashes had been dyed, her teeth whitened and her nails extended by experts. Her figure was delightful. A pocket Venus, no less.
Money played a part here, of course. Bea could make a guess at where Lady O had bought the fine wool dress and four-inch heels she was wearing because she’d seen – and considered buying – both in Harvey Nicholls in Knightsbridge.
The coffee was excellent.
‘You hinted,’ said Lady O, with a sweet smile, ‘that my daughter might be able to turn her work over to someone else . . .?’
Bea set her empty cup down. ‘It would be difficult and perhaps have unpleasant consequences. Do you not have a friend who could keep you company for a while?’
Lady O lowered her eyelids and tried to look confused. ‘You must think me very selfish, but my daughter’s letting me down like this . . . you can’t possibly understand . . . and Lucas deserting me . . . though I really find it hard to have to beg, I must ask you to help Maggie reorganize her work schedule so that she may return home. I really do need looking after now that—’
‘Perhaps I could find you an assistant, a social secretary to keep you company? I believe you give bridge parties. How about employing someone to arrange a charity bridge event for you? I could find someone to live in, if you wish.’
A hesitation. ‘That might . . . But how much would it cost, and when could they start?’
A telephone shrilled. A landline.
‘Yes?’ Lady O picked up the receiver and listened with an almost frown on her face. Then she smiled. ‘Lovely to hear from you. No, I can’t make it this afternoon, I’m afraid. I’m having one of my little bridge parties here. Perhaps you might care to join us? A few friends, some of whom you will know and . . . yes, yes. That’s good. I look forward to seeing you.’ She put the phone down with a pleased air. ‘An old friend, visiting London for a few days.’
‘Which means you won’t need Maggie this afternoon?’
‘Well, perhaps not.’
‘You already have another man in your life?’
‘What? You mean . . .?’ This time her neck flushed. ‘How dare you?’
‘That wasn’t your toy boy on the phone? Yet you have a pair of men’s sunglasses in your handbag.’
‘How dare you! Those are my husband’s, left behind by mistake.’ Her face set like stone, Lady O marched to the door and held it open for Bea. ‘I must ask you to leave, now!’
Bea was annoyed with herself. How could she have been so stupid? She’d made a serious error of judgement and alienated Lady O. And it was Maggie who would suffer from it. ‘I apologize. I’ll leave you my card, in case you change your mind.’
Lady O lifted Bea’s coat down from the cupboard – having no difficulty in reaching the peg now, Bea noticed – and held it out to her. ‘I do not feel you are a fit person to have any contact with my daughter. I must insist she returns home at once!’
Bea collected her coat and walked out of the flat in silence. She’d visited Lady O to plead Maggie’s case, made one of the biggest boobs of her career, insulted the client and only made matters worse for her protégée. She took the stairs down one floor and summoned the lift.
Well, if there were no toy boy – and Bea accepted Lady O’s denial – then the lady was being very forgiving in keeping her husband’s sunglasses in her handbag, close to hand. Meaning to return them to him?
Perhaps Lady O was hoping for a reconciliation? It was all a bit of a puzzle. And talking of puzzles, what of the half completed crossword in today’s Times?
Maggie was a bright lass, but not academic. Was it possible that Lady O’s helpless, little-me persona was a front, and behind it was the sharp brain of someone who read the Financial Times and did brain teasers in her spare time?
Bea wondered if, despite Lady O’s denial, there was another suitor lurking in the background, waiting to move into the vacant position. It was understandable that Lady O wouldn’t wish it to be known that she’d taken another man into her bed the moment her husband had left. That wouldn’t go down well in a divorce court, would it?
Another thing; if Lucas really had walked out on her and sent his PA to remove his belongings, why had he left that valuable portrait behind?
Bea smiled, imagining a scene in which the PA tried to take the picture, while Lady O stood in front of it, defying her to remove it over her dead body. Perhaps the picture had been given to Lady O and she was entitled to hang on to it?
Well, if that was the case, he’d probably have to go to law to get it. It was the type of dispute which people did go to law about, and it would probably cost more in legal fees to sort out than the picture was worth.
Another niggle. A big one. Lady O had been anxious to get her daughter back because she was afraid . . . but afraid of what, exactly?
Bea got into the lift and pressed the button for the ground floor. The lift whispered its way down, stopping without a tremor to allow a red-headed woman in a fur coat to get in. A fake fur? Yes, but an expensive one. Ditto the hair colour. The woman didn’t look at Bea, but stood with her back turned to her as the lift resumed its way towards the ground floor.
Bea mentally raised her eyebrows, determined to use the opportunity to learn more about the lady she’d just visit
ed. ‘Forgive me; do you know a Lady Ossett? I was given this address for her, but I’ve been up and down in the lift, trying to find her flat without any luck.’
The woman didn’t even turn round to look at Bea. Didn’t answer.
The lift stopped at the ground floor and the woman got out, still without acknowledging Bea’s presence. She stalked off on slender legs and ankles. A well-preserved fifty? She wore mid-ankle, well-fitting boots with a stiletto heel. Enormous handbag which screamed Prada. Fine leather gloves. Mahogany red hair, dyed. And slightly too vivid make-up.
Bea, ruffled, wondered if she were someone’s mistress. Fur coat sashayed out of the front door into the street and walked away.
Bea stood on the pavement, watching the woman disappear. What now? She’d failed in spectacular fashion in her errand. She got out her mobile phone.
‘Maggie? Lucky to catch you. Your mother is probably going to get on the phone to you in a minute to say that—’
‘She has, but I decided not to take her calls till you got back. Did you persuade her to get someone else in to look after her?’
‘She’s a difficult woman.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘She’s desperate to have you back but—’
‘You’re not going to give in to her, are you? I thought you were on my side.’
‘No, but I’ve got a couple of questions for you. What newspapers does she read?’
‘High-powered stuff. Way above my head. She plays the stock markets, would you believe. Can’t make head nor tail of them myself.’
So Maggie had, without meaning to, misled Bea about Lady O’s level of intelligence? ‘Right. Does she own the Lucian Freud, or does he?’
‘It was a wedding gift from her to him. It’s his.’
‘Has she got another string to her bow at the moment? Someone who could do the crossword in the Times with her?’
‘No. She does it herself. Lucas helped her, sometimes, over breakfast.’
‘Could she still be seeing him for breakfast?’
‘I don’t see how. He’s left her and cleared out all his stuff.’
‘Except for the picture.’
‘So? I don’t get it.’
‘Neither do I. I think I’d better pay a call on your stepfather. Where can I find him?’
THREE
Thursday at noon
Bea paused outside a glass-clad skyscraper and looked up and even further up. Up a good few more storeys than the building in which Lady O lived. Twenty more, or perhaps even thirty?
Bea didn’t often visit the financial heart of the City and was impressed. Also depressed by the sheer weightiness of the buildings around her. They might have been built on the footings of businesses in medieval London with crooked alleyways inching them apart, but there was nothing ancient about these glittering towers.
The imposing stairs leading to the entrance of Sir Lucas’s building were made of polished, grey granite blocks. A half-landing supported a monumental piece of art, in the shape of . . . she couldn’t make out what it was supposed to represent, but it had undoubtedly been hideously expensive.
The building itself was named ‘Vicori House’. Bea seemed to remember from her school days that ‘Vici’ was Latin for ‘I conquered’. Was this a variation on the conqueror’s theme? Had someone inserted ‘or’ – or ‘org’, perhaps? – to remind the public that the corporation was a multinational business in a big way? No; it wouldn’t be ‘org’ or people would think of corgis, which was definitely not the way one was supposed to think of this organization.
According to the engraving on a free-standing block of granite just outside the revolving doors, Vicori Corporation was supreme in the fields of plastics, energy, the media and pharmaceuticals. They probably also produced plaster of Paris, pop stars, soap powders and pizzas. What was there to stop them?
She wondered whether there would be a floor of office space for each company in the trading empire. This was the headquarters of the corporation, but their various factories would be located anywhere from Asia to South America.
As she’d traipsed around the building to reach the entrance, Bea had glimpsed an open plan floor in which hundreds of youngish men and women concentrated on individual computer screens. The building reminded her of a beehive. How many workers were employed, and did they like their jobs? Were they well paid?
Bea shuddered. She’d never had to work like an ant in an anthill as these people did, and she was grateful that she would never have to do so.
She’d telephoned ahead for an appointment with Sir Lucas and to her surprise had been granted one immediately, so she squared her shoulders and marched through the revolving doors into the huge, well-lit foyer.
A large water sculpture dominated an expanse of marble floor, while black-clad blondes and large security men directed the flow of visitors in and out of ranks of lifts. On a board nearby there was a montage of photographs of the VIPs in the various companies which made up the Vicori Corporation. Bea thought they looked interchangeable; smooth, well-groomed, and well-off. Including the women.
Bea announced herself at the desk, was signed in, given a tag to wear and directed towards the very end lift; the one that went straight to the twenty-eighth floor.
Twenty-eight floors. She hadn’t been far out in her estimate.
Sir Lucas was a big bug. Not exactly Queen Bee . . . Bees didn’t have kings, did they? Did ants? How little she knew about such things.
A secretary or minder or personal assistant – an earnest-looking youngish man wearing the turban of a Sikh – met her at the lift and led her through a hushed, deep-carpeted hallway into a sunny office with a fine view of the river.
Had the sun really come out, then? No, it hadn’t. But the room was full of light and there was a sunburst of a tapestry spread across one wall. This was quite some office; a desk with no computer or paperwork on it, a group of armchairs and settees set around a coffee table by the far window and not a filing cabinet in sight. Well, everybody wanted a paperless office nowadays, didn’t they . . . Which was fine till there was a power cut or the computer developed a mind of its own.
A large, comfortable-looking man sketched an attempt to rise from a giant leather chair behind the desk, but only made it so far before collapsing back into it. One arm was in a cast, currently supported in a sling. There were barely-healed abrasions on his forehead and cheek, not to mention a spectacular black eye. Speaking of eyes, his were an icy blue, contradicting the easygoing, not to say soft lines of his face. She began to understand how he’d come to be CEO of this giant corporation.
‘Welcome,’ he said, smiling. ‘I wasn’t sure whether it would be you or Maggie coming to demand satisfaction from me.’
Bea started to laugh as most of the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place in her mind. Not all of them. But at least she now understood he harboured no ill feelings towards his wife. ‘Maggie’s working, and I’ve just left Lady Ossett – as I’m sure you know.’
‘Of course.’ That day’s Times was on the table in front of him, turned to the crossword, which had been completed in a broad-nibbed black pen. Beside it was the latest in computerized tablets.
She indicated the paper. ‘Did the two of you manage to finish the crossword separately this morning, or did you do it by phone?’
‘She got four down, which had eluded me. I have a meeting with our lawyers at two and was about to have a light lunch. Will you join me?’
‘Delighted.’ Bea shucked off her coat, which was whisked away by the PA even before she seated herself opposite Lucas.
He said, ‘You accused my wife of having a toy boy.’ Did his mouth twitch with amusement?
‘I apologized. I misread her completely.’
‘Hah!’ He barked out a laugh. ‘You understand why I had to leave?’
‘Someone tied wire or thread across the top stair, with intent to harm or frighten either you or your wife. There have been previous incidents of petty vandalism in
the flats which neither you nor your wife considered to be of any importance. This time you were caught in the trap, took it seriously and did the sensible thing by removing yourself from the danger zone. After all, you have a multibillion-pound business to run.’
He nodded. The Sikh returned with a youngish woman in a black trouser suit, pushing a hostess trolley. On a table at the far end of the room they laid out a tureen of soup, some bread rolls, a range of open sandwiches cut into bite-sized pieces, a plate of cheeses, some fruit and bottles of sparkling mineral water.
A better lunch than Bea would have had at home.
Lucas gestured for Bea to precede him to the table and informed his staff that they’d wait upon themselves. The Sikh and the woman in black left the room as noiselessly as they’d arrived.
Bea seated herself and served them both to soup. ‘I suppose it was only natural that you should think it an attempt on your life.’
‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘You’ve probably been looking at your executives to see who might want you disabled, dead, or otherwise removed from power.’
He nodded again, sipping soup. ‘I set my head of security on to it. There are several candidates, including a man I dismissed a while ago. I don’t want it generally known that someone has made an attempt on my life because it will affect the share price of our corporation and we have a shareholders’ meeting coming up soon. I hope to keep the police out of it until we can produce some evidence against the person I have in mind.’
‘You are fond of your wife, who is in many ways a perfect foil for you—’
‘Indeed. We complement one another. We usually finish the crossword between us, over breakfast. She only has to look at an anagram for the answer to leap into her mind. Would you be so kind as to cut up a bread roll for me? And pass the salt? My wife prefers her food rather more bland than I . . . Ah, thank you.’
‘Yet you didn’t think it a good idea to whisk her away with you to safety?’
‘She’ll be perfectly safe now I’m out of the picture.’
Bea treated him to an old-fashioned look. ‘She doesn’t share your confidence, and I’m not sure that I do, either.’
False Alarm Page 3