False Impression

by Veronica Heley

  ‘If he came to me for a job, what would I try to find for him?’

  ‘Cocktail waiter. Or, more likely, toy boy.’

  She spurted into laughter.

  He shook his head. ‘No, I do him wrong. He’s honest enough, I believe, and supposed to be good at his job.’

  ‘Does Dilys know she’s supposed to be taking an interest in this young man?’

  ‘Does she even know what day of the week it is?’

  ‘Good point.’ No, she didn’t.

  Why did Leon need an alibi?

  Bea frowned. She had enjoyed being Leon’s partner at various functions, even though sometimes she’d been bored by the politicking that went on behind the scenes. She liked being dined and wined by this attractive, amusing man. She relished being taken to watch the latest play or musical and occupying the best seats in the theatre as a matter of course. She’d liked his company, too. She’d not realized how much until now. She wasn’t at all sure how he felt about her, but he’d come to mean a lot to her.

  It was disconcerting to someone who prided herself on being independent, to realize how important a place this man had come to occupy in her life.

  She wasn’t stupid enough to fall in love with him. Of course not. She was, she told herself, merely concerned for a good friend who seemed to be in trouble. Nevertheless, she felt the need to move close to him as he stood by the mantelpiece. He was watching her in the mirror. He was taller than her by a few inches, even when she was wearing her highest heels. Her ash-blonde hair gleamed in the light of the side lamps. Neither of them looked their age, and his plentiful light-brown hair was only now beginning to show a few silver threads. As it happened, both were wearing grey, though his handmade suit was enlivened by a dark-brown tie, while she had a string of amber beads around the high neck of her fine wool dress.

  He said, looking into her eyes in the mirror, ‘Marry me?’

  She took half a step back, attempted a laugh and shook her head. ‘You must be feeling threatened, to propose.’

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘Perhaps you do, but … bad timing.’ She put her hand up to touch his cheek.

  He took her hand in his and held it there. ‘I need you, Mrs Abbot.’

  ‘You need an alibi. Why?’

  ‘I was late for an appointment which had been set up for me. My nerve failed me. I ducked out and flew to you for shelter.’

  ‘You have nerves of platinum or titanium, or whatever the strongest metal is. Can’t you tell me what’s wrong?’

  He turned away from her, to pace the room. ‘A week ago my chauffeur left without notice. I drove the Rolls myself until it developed a fault and I put it into the garage for repair. Two days ago – Sunday afternoon – the courtesy car wouldn’t start. I was due to go up to Birmingham by train, for some meetings early the following morning, so I decided to walk to the station. A van came out of nowhere, clipped my heel and roared off before I could pick myself out of the hedge.’

  ‘And that makes you think your life is in danger?’

  ‘Isn’t it absurd?’

  But, he needed an alibi. Why?

  She drew in a sharp breath. ‘It all comes down to the sale of your brother’s corporation, doesn’t it? Who’d go that far to influence you, or to wipe you out? Have you made a will? Who benefits if you die? Your brother, or Sybil … or … No, not Dilys, surely!’

  He nodded. ‘Once I got on the train I found some paper and roughed out a will. I got a couple of people in the carriage to witness my signature. I’ve been carrying the paper around with me until I can get to a solicitor. I’ve named you as the chief beneficiary.’

  ‘What?’ She put a hand to her head. ‘No, you mustn’t!’

  ‘Because it puts you in the firing line?’

  ‘No, I …’ She gave a nervous laugh. ‘You’re not going to die. Besides, what would I do in big business circles?’

  ‘Who else would I leave it to? My sister Sybil? She has more than enough of this world’s goods already. Dilys? No; how could she cope? If Dilys’s daughter Bernice were twenty years older, I’d leave it to her, as I think she may well develop into a businesswoman, but she’s only a child now.’

  She sank into a chair. ‘But to name me …? You’re mad!’

  ‘I have an appointment with a solicitor tomorrow morning. Until then, I need a chaperone.’

  ‘You mean, a bodyguard?’

  ‘Do you have one on your books?’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Very. I’m not going anywhere without protection.’

  ‘What about your own staff?’

  He shot her a hard look. Of course, it must have been someone at the Holland mansion who had scuppered his car in order that he might be run down on his way to the station. Which meant he couldn’t trust anyone there.

  Finger to lip, she went through her files in her mind. Lighted upon a name. ‘I’ll need to go down to the office. Will you come?’

  She hastened down the stairs to the office with him at her heels. Her staff were preparing to shut down for the day. Bea reminded herself to ring back the customer whom she’d been talking to earlier. In the meantime … She flicked through her records. Someone had offered … some months ago … If the man were available? He might be working …

  A deep voice answered the phone.

  ‘Lucas? Good, you’re not working today, then?’

  Lucas was a big, good-natured, black taxi-driver who’d once helped Bea out of a tricky situation. He’d enjoyed the brush with danger and had said she could call on him any time and he’d be delighted to help.

  Bea handed the phone over to Leon and made herself scarce. A wash and brush up was necessary. Also a fresh application of lipstick. She always felt better able to cope with her war paint on.

  She returned to her office to find Leon had finished with the phone and was sitting in her chair at her desk. ‘Lucas is going to look after me.’

  ‘He’s a good man, but not a professional bodyguard.’

  ‘He knows where I can hide out for a few days. Get some breathing space. He says that if I go to a hotel, there’d be no one to account for my movements overnight.’

  ‘Oh.’ She hadn’t been really sure that she should take Leon’s fears seriously. Was Lucas overdoing it, playing at Baddies and Goodies? Was Leon?

  ‘He’s taking it seriously. I’m not sure that I can.’ He went to look out of the window at the darkening garden. The sycamore tree at the bottom of the garden was still leafless, and through it you could see the spire of the church nearby. Did Leon pray when he was in trouble? She’d never asked him.

  Bea did try to, but sometimes there was no time for anything but an arrow prayer. So here goes: Dear Lord … keep him safe.

  He said, ‘Tell me this is a bad dream.’

  She had a sudden thought. ‘You haven’t touched your iPad or your smartphone since you arrived. Won’t there be messages for you?’

  ‘My smartphone is registering a number of calls from my brother’s office and from my managers. I haven’t responded to any of them. It occurred to me to wonder if my phone had been hacked or was being traced. I stopped off at a superstore and bought myself some pay as you go phones so that I could phone out but no one would know where I was. I tried phoning Adamsson on his mobile number. It was him I was supposed to meet today. His phone is out of commission. He lives with his elderly father, who doesn’t like answering the phone. I tried there, too. Also no reply.’

  ‘Tell me why you ducked out of the meeting.’

  He grimaced. Tested the grille over the office window to make sure it was locked and drew the floor-length curtains, shutting out the dusk. ‘The venue had been changed at the very last minute. I was sent the details by text. I didn’t like the look of it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Aren’t you due out somewhere? Lucas said he’d beep three times when he arrived. He said I wasn’t to get in any old cab. He gave me his licence number. I’d better be ready for hi
m, hadn’t I?’

  She couldn’t bear it. She dived into his arms, tucked her head in the angle of his neck and shoulders and held him tight. She could feel his heartbeat against her.

  His arms closed about her, and he put his head against hers. ‘Do you realize that’s the first time you’ve come to me for comfort? Perhaps I should invent a story about being in danger every day.’

  It wasn’t an invention. Something was wrong, and he was in danger. She was sure of that.

  She could feel him breathe in and out. She could smell the fine linen he wore. He used a very light aftershave, but that was overlaid with a hint of tea.

  There was a smile in his voice as he said, ‘If you’ve left lipstick on my collar—’

  ‘I use lip-gloss.’

  ‘I’d wear the badge with pride. Perhaps not even send the shirt to the laundry for a couple of days. But I draw the line at mascara.’

  ‘Waterproof.’ She tried to draw away, but he caught her back.

  He said, ‘I ought not to have come here. They – whoever they are – if indeed it’s not all a figment of my imagination – would guess I’d come here, and your staff would confirm it. You know nothing, right?’

  ‘But I don’t.’

  ‘I wish I’d had you with me this afternoon. I saw something that caused me to turn tail and hare back to the cab, but I can’t think what it was. I was only out of the cabbie’s sight for, maybe, three or four minutes. Bea, you’ve got the right kind of brain for puzzles, but no … I shouldn’t have come here. If I’m in danger then the last thing I should have done is put you in danger, too. If you’re asked, say I annoyed you by arriving unexpectedly, that we argued and I went off in a huff. Say that you don’t know where I’ve gone. That should keep you safe for a while at least.’

  She shivered. He really was in danger? He seemed to think so, anyway. What could she do to help? ‘Money. Do you have any? Can you use your credit cards?’

  He drew in his breath sharply. ‘I’m getting paranoid, aren’t I? Surely …’

  She rushed to her desk and unlocked the top drawer. ‘Take my building society debit card. It’s one I don’t often use, because I ought to change the pin number and haven’t. It was my late husband’s birth date. Here … I’ll write the number down for you and—’

  ‘Got it.’ Looking over her shoulder. ‘Destroy that. I’ll use my new pay as you go mobiles or public phone boxes to ring you, and we’ll use that pin number as a code.’

  Now it was her turn to aim for a lighter note. ‘Talk about cloak and dagger!’

  He caught her up in a bear hug, and then let her go. ‘I must go. Remember, you’ve fallen out with me.’ He set off for the stairs, and she followed. As they reached the hall, they heard a taxi tooting outside in the street.

  He collected his overcoat and bag and opened the front door, saying, ‘No, I’m not going to apologize!’

  Did he think someone was watching? Was that why he’d drawn the curtains at the front?

  Arms akimbo, she followed his lead. ‘I’m in two minds to call the police—!’

  ‘You invited me in!’

  ‘Bastard!’

  She could see Lucas leaning out of his taxi, wide-eyed. One or two passers-by looked interested, but she didn’t observe anyone acting suspiciously. Leon dived into the taxi, and it drove off. She went back inside and slammed the door on the world.

  TWO

  ‘Was that Uncle Leon?’

  Bea started. Dilys was standing halfway up the stairs which led to the upper floors. She was wearing an expensive pale-pink sweater over a black skirt. Pale pink was definitely not her colour: it made her look washed out. Dark hair, dark eyes large with distress. How much had she overheard?

  ‘Indeed,’ said Bea, as lightly as she could. For two seconds she wondered about taking Dilys into her confidence and decided against it. The girl was far too fragile. It would be best to pretend that nothing was the matter. ‘He asked after you. Did you have to go to the shops for something?’

  ‘No. I mean, yes. I mean …’ She twisted her hands. ‘You sounded awfully cross with him.’

  Bea shrugged. ‘It was nothing.’

  ‘It didn’t sound like nothing.’

  ‘Men forget their manners sometimes. Did you get something in for supper?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ Dilys sounded defiant. ‘I can’t be expected to be your housekeeper as well as work in the office.’

  Bea suppressed a longing for her previous lodger, Maggie, who had been able to combine her own career with being their part-time housekeeper without any trouble. Maggie and her new husband had moved into a flat nearer his work a couple of weeks ago, and Bea missed her enormously.

  Dilys was quite right: Bea ought not to expect her to be a Maggie-substitute. ‘No, of course you can’t do both, Dilys. Are you going out tonight?’

  The girl rarely went out in the evenings. It had taken Bea some days to persuade her even to ring up an old friend and go to the pictures with her. Or him, if Leon were to be believed.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Again, the hand twisting. ‘You’re going out, aren’t you? It says so on the calendar in the kitchen.’

  Bea clapped her hand to her head. ‘So I am. Thanks for reminding me. I’ve got to make a phone call, and then I’ll be off. Would you like to come with me? It’s a private viewing of some pictures—’

  ‘Oh, no. I wouldn’t like that at all. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be quite all right by myself.’ She stole away up the stairs, and a moment later Bea heard a door close on the top floor.

  Bea glanced at her watch and wondered if her client might still be available. She didn’t like to let her down, but time was marching on …

  Why did Leon think he needed an alibi?

  First things first: she must ring her client back. She went down the stairs to the silent office, mentally running through the list of people on her books who might be available for the job.

  Wednesday morning

  Bea had once heard someone say, ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’

  Personally, that was not the way she wanted to live. She was all in favour of giving deserving people a helping hand.

  Define ‘deserving’.

  Bea set her teeth. She was not, repeat NOT going to shout at the girl. Shouting wouldn’t help. Dilys was in tears already. Aaargh!

  Bea aimed for a quiet, reasonable tone. ‘But Dilys, you must have been warned about viruses? You worked in one of your father’s offices before you got married, didn’t you?’

  The girl wailed, hands over her face, rocking to and fro. ‘Yes, but … I didn’t … It just …!’

  Bea controlled herself. What she wanted to do was to kick the girl around her office, rather as if she was a football. Or put her in a large crate marked ‘Return to Sender’.

  Now that would make Bea feel better. Very much better. Except that the sender in this case was Dilys’s Aunt Sybil, who had flown off to Los Angeles or Seattle or New York; some place, anyway, in which diamond-encrusted harpies transacted business with billions or even trillions of pounds as a matter of routine.

  ‘I didn’t think!’ sobbed Dilys.

  Which reminded Bea that she’d meant to ask Dilys about the trace of a man’s aftershave which she’d recognized in the house that morning. It wasn’t Leon’s. Definitely not. The strange thing was that it rang a bell with Bea, though she couldn’t think why. It had only been a trace … Perhaps she’d been mistaken. Anyway, it was not a mystery which she had to solve at that particular moment.

  Because if she didn’t sort out the problem with the virus in their computers, they could say goodbye to the agency’s future. They had clients on their books expecting well-trained personnel to turn up on time and be prepared to cook, clean and shop for them. Not to mention au pairs and personal assistants, butlers and bottle-washers, chauffeurs and dog-walkers. With a smile.

  Prioritize, Bea.

  She pushed a box of tissues over her desk to the girl. ‘Well, le
t’s see what we can do to save the situation.’

  A note of hope crept into Dilys’s voice. ‘It can’t be so very bad, can it? I mean, all I did was to plug the smartphone into my computer to give it a charge, and then … oh! And Carrie screamed at me that I should have known better, and now they all hate me and … and …’

  Carrie was the agency’s super-efficient office manageress. She was middle-aged with a thickening body, but there was nothing wrong with her brains. Carrie had summoned Bea down to the agency just as she’d started to read the newspaper over breakfast. Usually, Bea was down before the agency staff arrived, but she hadn’t slept well for worrying about Leon and had taken her time getting up.

  Carrie’s language had been colourful. Bea had known what to do, but the damage …!

  Bea held on to her temper. ‘Don’t take on so, Dilys. We’ve stopped the others from booting up, and with any luck we can isolate the virus to those two computers. Meanwhile Carrie’s getting our neighbourhood geek in to deal with them.’

  Sniff, sniff. ‘I wasn’t to know, was I? I’d got down early because I know you don’t like my being underfoot at breakfast time, and I thought I’d make a start and that you’d be pleased with me. Instead … I can’t bear it!’

  For some reason, the old tale of Bluebeard popped into Bea’s mind. Didn’t he hang up his wives by their long hair if they disobeyed him? Presumably, he killed them first? She really must check. How pleasing it would be to hang Dilys up by her hair, perhaps behind the door on the coat hook? Until she’d learned some common sense.

  Bea said, in the kindest voice she could manage, ‘It’s not the end of the world, and—’

  ‘I thought I was helping.’

  ‘I quite understand. Now go and clean yourself up, and we’ll see what can be done to put matters right. We’ve unplugged all our computers from the network and can connect with our customers via our smartphones. There won’t be any web access, and we won’t be able to print anything, but we can function after a fashion.’

  Sniff, sniff. ‘Yes, but they’re all looking at me. And if they can’t use their computers, they’ll blame me for losing their jobs, and I can’t face them, I really can’t.’