False Alarm

by Veronica Heley

  ‘Now, what they told me – and it needs checking – is that a woman, I think her name was Lavinia, lived on the ground floor. She was in her nineties and never went out. Social services came in twice a day, and the biddies ran errands for her when they could. The place was a tip, apparently. The biddies said they came back from shopping one day and found her on the floor in the entrance hall, dead. They didn’t go to the funeral because it was in the local Catholic church and they’re Church of England if they’re anything, which I rather doubt – that they go to church, I mean.

  ‘Afterwards the caretaker told them that the old lady’s grandson was coming round to see what furniture he could sell or give away. Carrie said she didn’t think there was much that they’d have wanted, even as a keepsake. In other words, I suppose they’d have liked the chance to look around and pick up any unconsidered trifles. Sir Lucas is thinking of buying the remainder of the lease from the grandson, if he’ll sell.’

  Piers pointed to flat six. ‘You haven’t any details for these people?’

  ‘Harvey something. That’s all I’ve got.’ Annoyed with herself. ‘It might just be an oversight.’

  ‘Or it might be someone they like too much, so they don’t want to point a finger in their direction?’

  ‘Possibly, yes. Or it might be someone tied to Sir Lucas’s organization. Tariq used to work for him. It seems Sir Lucas owns the building and that he’s “vetting” or possibly “approving” of any new lettings. I only hope Oliver isn’t getting himself into difficulties by allying himself too closely to Sir Lucas. I don’t care for the man.’

  ‘You have to let Oliver make his own choices.’

  She sighed. She knew that.

  He emptied the last of the coffee into his cup. ‘Talking of Max, which we weren’t, but we might as well . . . He came round to see me the other day, saying he needed to explore what business opportunities might open up for him in addition to his work as a member of parliament. He’s looking for directorships in this company or that.’

  He sent her a sharp look. She didn’t react.

  ‘In words of one syllable,’ he said, ‘he thinks you would be happy to appoint him as a director of the Abbot Agency, so that he could go on the board of this other company . . . What’s it called, Holland and Butcher? He says they want closer ties and he’d be able to . . . Don’t throw your mug at me! Calm down. It was not my idea.’

  ‘Nor mine,’ said Bea, seething. She pressed both hands to the back of her head. ‘Oh. Oh! Now I see why he was so keen for me to sign up with them. The idiot! As if I . . . He’s a lovely boy, of course he is, but not the world’s greatest brain, and I would never have thought of making him a director of the agency.’

  ‘That’s all right, then. I didn’t think you’d like the idea, but I did think I should check.’

  ‘He seems to think that . . . He doesn’t see any difficulties, whereas I see nothing but problems everywhere I look.’

  ‘Tell me, slowly and quietly, in words of one syllable, what happened yesterday. Was it an attempt on your life? God forbid.’

  ‘No, I don’t think it was that.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Yesterday. I’d been talking to Lady Ossett. Then I called on the Professor on the floor below her. I asked him to go up and talk to Lady O. Then I rang the bell for the lift. Nothing happened. It’s an old lift, but mechanically sound. It doesn’t clang and clatter as some of them do. I thought someone must be using it.

  ‘I started down the stairs which wind round the lift shaft. I could hear people shouting down below. Carmela was standing by the lift on her floor, also trying to summon it. I spoke to her. She didn’t respond, so I went on down. She followed me. Nearing the bottom of the stairs, I heard more shouting and then the front door bang shut. The young couple from flat number two were in the foyer. They looked as if they’d been in a fight. The boy had a nosebleed.

  ‘The lift doors opened to reveal the two old biddies, who’d been riding up and down, waiting for the disturbance to be over before they departed for their afternoon’s walk or whatever. The girl explained that they’d had a visit from a man looking for a Miss Whiplash at that address. She’d told him to go away, he’d insisted, they’d struggled, Connor intervened and got the worst of it. Their visitor had gone by the time I got there.’

  ‘There really was a visitor?’

  ‘Oh yes. I heard him leave. Carmela confirmed she’s had much the same problem. As with the other “incidents”, the nastiness had escalated. First, call-girl cards with the tenants’ private phone numbers on had been put in their letter boxes, and then displayed in a public place, bringing punters into the flats. Carmela invited me to join her for a cup of coffee down the road. As we left the building, the caretaker arrived with some cleaning materials and stuck an “Out of Order” notice on the lift door. Carmela and I talked. She was helpful though always loyal to Sir Lucas.

  ‘It seemed odd to me that the caretaker should clean the lift at that time of day. On our return Carmela and I saw what looked like a broom handle had been placed between the lift doors, preventing them from shutting. There was no light on inside the lift. We assumed, I think correctly, that the power had been cut to the lift. I saw . . . It was dark inside, but I thought I saw someone’s feet on the floor wearing a pair of trainers. I suggested we call the caretaker, but then I thought – or Carmela said – I’m not sure who suggested it, I’ll have to think, my head aches—’

  ‘Leave it for now.’

  ‘Carmela and I between us pushed the door open, but it sprang back. Before it closed I saw . . .’ She took a deep breath. ‘I saw a young man with dark hair, dressed in a black padded jacket and jeans. Trainers; white with orange laces. He was lying on something, a pile of something, maybe a sports bag. I think it was Tariq, and I think he was dead.’

  NINE

  Saturday morning

  Bea put her hands to her head. ‘Did my imagination run away with me?’

  ‘You wouldn’t imagine white trainers with orange laces. You saw them all right.’

  ‘Which means that I saw Tariq lying . . .’ She held up both her hands. ‘I’m jumping to conclusions again. I’ve never met Tariq and wouldn’t recognize him if I did. I saw a young man lying on the floor in the lift, with his back to me. He was half propped up on something between him and the floor. I assumed that he was young because he wasn’t thick around the middle. His head was in shadow but he did seem to have dark hair. I didn’t see his face. But three people said I saw decorators’ rubbish. Why would they lie? Why would they want to cover up a death?’

  He shrugged. ‘Do you want to hand it over to the police?’

  ‘On what grounds? “Please, sir; I want to report a suspicious death, but I’ve had a bad bump on the head and three other people say I’m imagining it.” I did think of asking CJ about it, but he’s on Sir Lucas’s side in this, and Sir Lucas doesn’t want anything to get out which might affect the share price of his company.’

  She cleared the breakfast things away. The sky had turned ice blue. It would be cold outside. It was a Saturday, and there was no real need to go down into the agency rooms although she often did so.

  Maggie hadn’t returned home. Nor Oliver. She didn’t like to think of them staying on in the flats. ‘There’s something very nasty going on there. Let me tell you what else I imagined. The moment I saw – whatever – in the lift, I got out my mobile and said I’d call the police. Someone reached round from behind me and snatched the phone out of my hand. I turned to see what was happening, the heel of my boot snapped, I staggered . . . and felt a blow to my head before I blacked out. I didn’t fall. I was pushed. Now you can have a good laugh.’

  ‘I’m not laughing. What happened to your phone?’

  ‘I was told it got smashed to pieces on the tiled floor as I fell. Oliver arrived just as the others were picking me up. He saw the phone in pieces and didn’t think to rescue it.’

  ‘If we accept that all three of them had something to hide, I can
understand them not wanting the police brought in—’

  ‘Four,’ said Bea, homing in on the recollection of the moment when she’d fallen to the ground. ‘Carmela was by the lift. The dark-haired girl was standing next to her. The boy Connor was by the door to their flat. None of them was near enough to snatch my phone. As I turned I caught a glimpse of someone looming over me. It was a fleeting impression, but yes, I think someone else had come into the foyer at that moment.’

  ‘Four people conspiring to hide a body?’

  For a moment she wondered if Piers had joined the opposition in refusing to believe her story.

  He hadn’t. ‘Bea, if you go back there . . . No, make that when you go back there, I’m coming with you. It’s a Saturday, and we should be able to find everyone in. We’ll talk to every single one of them. We’ll check and double-check until we find out what’s really going on. If Oliver tries to interfere—’

  ‘If someone in the flats really is using email to liaise with Sir Lucas’s enemies, Oliver could find the link, however well hidden. I wondered at first if they would all have computers but, having met some of them, I think probably everyone does, except perhaps for the biddies, and even they might use one occasionally to keep in touch with their friends or order something online.’

  ‘Give me your gut reaction. Who is doing this?’

  Her mind see-sawed between various possibilities. Images of all those she’d met went flittering through her head. ‘Tariq may have been responsible for . . . I do think he keyed Sir Lucas’s car, but as for the rest of it . . . I really don’t know.’

  ‘Did Lady Ossett try to kill her husband?’

  ‘No. Definitely.’

  ‘Has he left her, or not?’

  ‘Carmela says he has. If he removes the Freud picture soon, then yes, he has. It’s possible he’s looking for a younger and more beautiful woman to hang on his arm. Lady O doesn’t want to believe she’s being superseded by someone younger, and she says he’s only pretending to leave her, to protect her from his enemies. That’s his cover story, too. I don’t believe him and I don’t believe her. At bottom, I don’t think she believes it, either. She’s facing a solitary life as a divorcee again. What’s more, she’s frightened. She thinks someone is out to get her. I don’t want to believe her, because if it’s true, it’s going to affect Maggie’s future. Unfortunately, I do. The cat died because it ate her supper.’

  ‘Did she kill the cat to persuade Lucas that she’s in danger from person or persons unknown?’

  Bea stared into the middle distance, testing this hypothesis. It fitted the facts, but didn’t convince. ‘No, I don’t think so. The poisoning was done by someone who was at the bridge party that afternoon. I thought at first that someone might have come up the fire escape from outside the building, but that’s not possible because of the way it’s constructed. Then I thought someone might have got out of his or her flat on to the fire escape and climbed the stairs to the top . . . but then you can’t get into the penthouse or into any of the other flats unless someone opens a door for you from the inside. Which means you could only do it if you had an accomplice.’

  ‘Which is not impossible.’

  A gesture of resignation. ‘You know something? I would like to walk away from the whole boiling lot of them. Let them fight it out among themselves. What do I care if Tariq has been killed? He probably deserved it. Well, no . . . I can’t say he deserved it, unless it really was him who caused his boss to tumble down the stairs, and even then . . . No, he didn’t deserve to die. But I really do not see why I should bother my head with them.’

  He cheered her on. ‘I understand. If it weren’t for Maggie and Oliver getting involved, you’d wash your hands of them.’

  ‘Yes, I would. I am not amused. I’m annoyed about my mobile phone being smashed. It might have got broken when it fell to the floor, of course. But I suspect it was deliberately smashed because it held – or once held – some rather incriminating evidence, and someone wanted to make absolutely sure I didn’t have it any more.’

  She told him about the shots she’d taken of the tiny nail marks on the staircase. ‘Sir Lucas deleted the pictures on my mobile, probably after sending them on to his own phone.’ With her most angelic expression, she added, ‘Which is exactly what I’d done, too, before I met him. I’ve fallen into the habit of sending any pictures I take on my phone back to base as a matter of routine, in case I happen to be mugged on the way home, or have an accident. As soon as I’d got the pictures on my camera, I sent them on to my old mobile which is currently sitting in the top drawer of my desk downstairs. Sir Lucas doesn’t know that, and he thinks he’s got the only hard evidence there is.’

  ‘Bea, I love you.’ He gave her a hug and a kiss on her cheekbone. He probably did love her, too. In his own way. Let’s call it affection, shall we?

  Later on Saturday morning

  Bea retrieved her old mobile, carefully transferred the information on it to her computer and, with Piers at her side, set for the flats. He looked up at the building and whistled his appreciation. ‘Distinctive. Art Deco?’

  Bea began to enjoy herself. ‘You should know. Now, who should we annoy first? Lady Ossett should be up and about by this time so we’ll ask her to let us in.’

  Bea rang the intercom but, instead of operating the door lock, Oliver’s voice announced that he’d come down to the foyer to let them in. Which he did, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

  ‘Hello! Are you all right now? Lady O’s been asking where you’d got to. Maggie’s gone out to stock up with food for the weekend, and the Professor is sitting with Her Majesty. They’re discussing a new and fiendishly difficult crossword.’

  The caretaker was mopping the floor in the foyer.

  Oliver nodded to the man and led them over to the lift. ‘There’s an electrician and some workmen doing something in Lady Ossett’s living room, I’m not sure what, so it’s a bit crowded. Lady Ossett says we can use Sir Lucas’s study if we want to talk.’

  Once inside the lift, Oliver pressed the ‘Up’ button. Bea looked closely at the floor. Was that a bloodstain? No. The place looked pristine. Did it smell of cleaning fluid? Sniff. Yes. And an air freshener? She said, ‘Can you smell anything, Piers?’

  Oliver shook his head at her. ‘Honestly, Mother Hen. You and your imagination. Bodies in the lift, indeed. Whatever next?’

  ‘You’ve been talking to the people in the ground floor flat?’

  ‘Ms Lessbury was kind enough to fill me in. A great friend of Sir Lucas’s. Known him from childhood.’

  Bea rolled her eyes, but forbore to comment. ‘You think it’s all right to leave Lady Ossett with the Professor? You’ve cleared him of any involvement in the dirty tricks department?’

  A satisfied nod. A careless tone of voice. ‘I called on him last night and had a look at his computer, nice little job, masses of special apps. He let me play with it for a while. An intelligent man.’

  Bea set her teeth at Oliver’s patronizing tone. He’d really got above himself, hadn’t he?

  Oliver said, ‘I told Sir Lucas that the Professor’s squeaky clean. One less to worry about. Sir Lucas directed me to look up Tariq next, so I saw him last night. Odd little chap. Quite bright in his own way, I suppose. But limited. Ah, here we are at the top.’

  Bea missed a step on leaving the lift. What? Oliver had called on Tariq last night? Tariq was alive? Piers pressed Bea’s arm, warning her not to show surprise.

  Oliver led the way up the stairs, still talking, oblivious to Bea’s reaction. ‘I had a good look at his computer when Tariq went out this morning, but there’s nothing of any importance on it, more’s the pity. Sir Lucas will be disappointed, but there it is.’

  Bea controlled her voice with an effort. ‘What’s he like, this Tariq?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Pakistani origin. Born and brought up here, well educated, but got a chip on his shoulder. His family ought to have got him married off ages ago which would have settle
d him down, but for some reason he doesn’t seem to be in contact with them.’ He reached out to touch the doorbell of the penthouse.

  Bea stopped him. ‘Oliver, did you say that you saw Tariq last night?’

  ‘Mm? He wasn’t feeling too good, got an upset tummy or something, so he put me off then. But he was OK this morning. He lent me his spare key while he went to the gym so that I could have a look at his computer without him breathing down my neck.’

  ‘He left the building this morning? Perhaps with a sports bag? How did he get past the caretaker?’

  ‘What do you mean? Why on earth shouldn’t he go out if he wants to? I told you, I’ve had a look at his computer and there’s nothing suspicious on it. As for the caretaker, I don’t understand what you’re getting at. A bit of a thug, of course, but he gave me a list of the tenants this morning and said he’d go round with me when he’s got a minute, let me into the different flats, introduce me, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Oliver, did you talk to the caretaker down in his flat? Could Tariq have left the building while you were there?’

  Oliver reddened. ‘Tariq’s not a criminal.’

  ‘Some of the other tenants think it was he who keyed Sir Lucas’s car. I don’t say that he did, but that’s what is being said. Plus he’s lost his job and seems to be in arrears with his rent. I suspect the caretaker was given orders by Sir Lucas to keep an eye on Tariq and not let him leave the building till he’s paid up what he owes.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’ve got a bee in your bonnet about Sir Lucas. As he says, this is a perfectly straightforward case of commercial espionage and—’

  ‘I doubt if there’s been any such thing.’

  Oliver’s temper was rising. ‘It’s clear to me that you are jealous of Sir Lucas because he’s made a success of his life, and that you resent his interest in me. He warned me this might happen and I didn’t believe him, but I can see he’s right. You’re way out of your depth on this one. Instead of encouraging me to take advantage of this fantastic career opportunity, you’ve made up your mind that Sir Lucas is a villain, which is—’