by Liz Evans
‘The manufacturer being located ...’
‘There’s really no need for you to know that, is there? Let’s just say it was out East and far enough away to give us both jet lag.’
‘You were going out there too?’
‘The deal was I’d stay for a couple of days; get things signed up and so on. And then I’d fly back and Kristen would stay on. She said she fancied living abroad for a while. More opportunities.’
‘But you didn’t go?’
‘I couldn’t. The damn customer changed the date for the final shake-down on Sumata at the last minute. The original Sumata node, I mean, the one the government were getting. They brought the meeting forward to the first. A full complement, quality, security, technical, all decided to descend on us.’
‘Why? Did they smell a rat?’
‘I doubt it. They smelt a freebie day out by the seaside at our expense. But unfortunately Joan was there when the call came in and she told them I was free. I hadn’t put the Far East trip in my office diary for obvious reasons. And I couldn’t afford to take the chance of rattling the government lot by suddenly asking to move the meeting date back. Since that business with the Abercrombie contract they’ve been supersensitive to the possibility of missing something so bloody obvious that even they could be sacked for incompetence if they overlooked it. For much the same reason, I decided to remove every trace from Wexton’s of “my” Sumata ...’
‘The turbo-charged version ...’
‘If you like ... Anyway, I placed everything on the CD ... and then destroyed all other copies. It was probably unnecessary, but I was so close ... When you were a child, did you ever look forward to a treat so much that you became totally convinced that something dreadful would occur to make it not happen?’
‘Hurricanes at picnics and raging toothache at birthday parties.’
‘That kind of thing, yes. In my case, I was this close to being rich ...’ He pinched an infinitesimal fragment of air between thumb and forefinger.
‘You’re not exactly on Income Support, are you, Stephen? Detached house, swimming pool, double garage, his-an’-hers luxury cars, kids at private schools, wife in designer frocks. I should be so poor!’
‘Wealth is relative.’
‘Not in my case it’s not. I haven’t a rich auntie to my name. And believe me, I’ve been looking for years.’
‘My money isn’t inherited, Grace. Whatever I’ve got, I work damn hard for. And frankly I’m fed up with it. I’m sick of having to go into that factory every day. Of having to put in hours evenings and weekends sorting out this week’s mess, so we can move on to a fresh crisis next week. I’m fed up to the back teeth with unreliable suppliers, non-paying custom-ers and whingeing staff. I don’t want to spend another ten or fifteen years chasing orders and worrying myself sick about cash flow, overdrafts ... Do you remember that cruiser that sailed past the bay in Jersey? That’s what I want.’
‘So sell some of this posh plonk and get yourself a boat.’
‘Not the craft. The lifestyle. The luxury of being able to spend days doing as I choose. Of not being tied to a desk. I don’t want to work for my existence any more, Grace. I want to sit back and let the money flow into my bank account.’
‘Preferably one that isn’t in contact with our wonderful tax office?’
‘Yes. It would be a foreign account. But the government have only themselves to blame ... if they choose to adopt an antiquated attitude to modern business tech ...’
‘Yeah, OK, I got the message. Did Mrs Reiss know about this scheme?’
‘Joan? You must be joking. My mother-in-law has what might quaintly be described as strong moral fibre.’
‘What about Amelia?’
‘No. She wouldn’t have understood anyway. She has a talent for spending money but very little grasp of how it’s actually made. I am, therefore I shop is my wife’s motto.’
‘Or possibly the other way round. So you and Kristen ... or rather Julie-Frances ... had a jaunt out East fixed up. When was this, incidentally?’
‘Beginning of May. That was the earliest the customer could be ready at their end. We’d originally planned to go on the Friday, the first; Amelia would have been en route to Los Angeles, Joan was having Patrick, and Bone was off staying with some pal in London for the weekend. The idea was I’d spend Saturday and Sunday out there, call in sick Monday and hopefully be back at my desk Tuesday.’
‘What if anyone rang the house?’
Stephen shrugged. ‘Answerphone. I can pick up messages anywhere. And then the damn meeting at Wexton’s got switched. Which meant that I not only had to be in for Friday, but I had to be there the following Monday too.’
‘How come?’
‘We always have a post-shake-down meeting in-house the next working day. If I’d tried to get out of it, Joan would have started asking questions. I tried to put the Eastern lot off, but then they started getting paranoid; they seemed to imagine we were holding back because we’d had another bid for the design. In the end Kris ... I mean Julie ... look, let’s just call her Kristen, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘Kristen was to go out alone, with the designs. I’d follow as soon as I could set it up here. I bought her a personal CD player and some music discs. She’d have carried the file out amongst those.’
‘Why? I mean, can’t you just send all that kind of stuff down the telephone lines these days?’
‘You can. But you never know who’s going to intercept it. I daresay I could have encrypted it, but quite honestly I wasn’t inclined to risk it! The deal was Kristen would hand over the disk once she saw them send an electronic transfer to my bank.’
‘Very trusting of you.’
‘Stupid, you mean. Yes, I can see that. But I was so close ... And where was her incentive to rip me off? She was on to a good deal and she knew it. If she tried to go it alone, she’d have had to find another buyer, and that’s not as easy as you might imagine.’
‘How did you find your buyer?’
‘There’s a chap ... I’d met him at conferences over the years ... he’s always on the look-out for a way to cut himself a good percentage. He put me in touch with the Eastern company.’
‘Isn’t it possible Kristen ...?’
Stephen shook his head emphatically. ‘No. He wouldn’t deal with someone he didn’t know. He’s not that stupid.’
‘You just can’t tell a Board of Trade investigator from a real human being these days, eh?’
‘Something like that,’ Stephen agreed. ‘Could she have gone back to this friend you mentioned? The one who was concerned about not being in touch?’
‘If she had, he’d hardly be employing me to find her.’
‘So it is a he. A boyfriend?’
‘A friend,’ I said flatly, annoyed with myself for being tripped up so easily. But at least I hadn’t blown Henry’s identity completely. ‘Can we open one of these? I’m gagging.’ I pulled out the nearest bottle at random.
Stephen snatched it back and slid it carefully into its cubbyhole. ‘Not the Margaux, for heaven’s sake. It’s sixty years old.’ Kneeling, he selected a bottle from the bottom of the stack. ‘Here. This has been rather disappointing, I suppose we may as well open it.’
He had all the wine waiter trappings in a small drawer built into the racks. I had to wait whilst he sliced, extracted and sniffed cork, before tipping a mouthful into a small silver ashtray. ‘There aren’t any glasses. You’ll have to make do with the tasting dish.’
‘I’ll take a swig out of the bottle.’
‘It isn’t Coke. Nobody swigs out of my bottles.’
He gave me several more ashtrays of red as we talked. It was trickier than it looked. Half dribbled down my chin and ended up on my blouse.
‘So,’ I said, nudging a few droplets back up my chin with my middle finger, ‘you waved goodbye to Kristen - and your files - Thursday afternoon. Did she contact you at all after that? From the airport, for instance?’
‘Oh?’
‘She had to get out of her flat that day. The Thursday she left Wexton’s, I mean. She was going to spend the night at a hotel. But her flight wasn’t until late afternoon ... and, well ... I felt safer having those designs under my eye for as long as possible, and since Amelia was staying up in town anyway ... she had an early check-in for her LA flight; well, Kristen spent Thursday night here.’
‘So it was you who picked her up from the Beamish Court flat that evening?’
‘Yes.’
‘For a cosy little evening chez Bridgeman?’
‘There’s no need for the pathetic attempt at innuendo. I spent the evening preparing for the meeting with the government contingent, and she spent it watching dvds. Then we went to bed - separately.’
‘And in the morning?’
‘For me - quick shower, quick breakfast, and out of here. Kristen was still in bed. I told her how to set the alarm system, and said goodbye for now.’
‘Weren’t you worried about someone walking in on her?’
‘Who? The cleaner had already walked out on us.’
‘I was thinking of your mother-in-law. Doesn’t she have a key?’
‘Yes. But no reason to call. Are you fantasising about Joan cooking chicken casseroles for the neglected husband? Don’t. Believe me, she never comes near the place unless Amelia and the children are here.’
‘How was Kristen getting to the airport?’
‘She had a cab booked for two thirty. The driver said he came but couldn’t get any answer from the house.’
‘You checked?’
‘Well of course I did. I’m not totally without sense, Ms Smith.’
Just mostly by the sound of it. Still, it wasn’t my place to tell my customer he was green enough to qualify as Wimbledon turf. Well, not until his advance cheque had cleared anyway. So I asked him if the alarm was set when he got home Friday.
‘Yes. It was.’
‘When exactly did you start to suspect your master plan was going down the plughole?’
‘I don’t know ... I suppose ... she should have telephoned on Saturday, but the system isn’t too good in some parts of the country. And besides, there’s the jet lag; it can hit you like a brick wall ...’
‘Brick walls only move in motor insurance claims in my experience, Stephen. So, come late Saturday, panic’s setting in. Did you try to contact her?’
‘Naturally. She wasn’t at the hotel. They said she had never checked in. I thought perhaps she’d changed her mind; gone to another hotel.’
‘You mean by this point you’d started clutching at straws. When did you start lunging at the whole haystack?’
‘Late Sunday. The manufacturers contacted me. They couldn’t understand why Kristen hadn’t been in touch. I told them there had been problems this end ... they weren’t best pleased.’
‘And then you went round to Kristen’s flat? What on earth made you think she’d go back there?’
‘I didn’t. I’d just tried everywhere else. I drove up to Heathrow Sunday night. They wouldn’t tell me anything. Not even whether she’d caught the flight or not. And I tried that place in Bayswater. Her old address. They were worse than useless. I even rang some chap who’d given her a reference; all I got was an answerphone message about pixie pottery. After that I didn’t know what to do ... except wait for the design to surface ...’
‘And then what ... leap in and say “Excuse me, but I stole that first”?’
‘I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I just wanted the files back. I must have them back. It would take a year at least to duplicate the work on them ... even assuming I could do it. And that’s about ten months too long. Nothing stands still in this business. In a couple of months someone else will have produced their own Sumata and that’s it ...’
‘They’ll be the ones cruising around Jersey while you slog over a hot desk.’
‘Yes.’ He grasped the top of my arms suddenly, lifting me up slightly and closer to him. ‘I need those files, Grace. The Eastern lot will still deal, I’m sure of it. If you can locate them in the next few weeks, I’ll make it worth your while. What do you say?’
‘Put me down or I’ll knee you.’
‘What? Oh, yes, sorry.’
He let go and finger-combed his hair in that familiar gesture.
I pulled my blouse off my skin, and discovered wine splodges liberally splattered down the front. ‘Damn.’ I licked a hankie and dabbed. ‘We’d best be getting back. It’s gone very quiet up there.’
‘This section is fairly soundproof.’ As evidence, Stephen opened the rubber-sealed door and ushered me out. A low buzz of noise flowed around us.
Another question occurred to me. ‘Do you know someone called Figgy?’
‘I should think it is highly unlikely. Who is she?’
‘He. He’s a street entertainer in Seatoun. Does an act on roller-blades. Mornings in the square; afternoons on the prom; six o’clock and ten thirty outside the amusement park.’
‘I’m rarely in any of those places at those times. Why do you ask?’
‘He seemed to think he knew something about Kristen’s dropping off the planet. But I shouldn’t get overexcited. It’s more likely he was trying to wind me up.’
The hall was deserted as we emerged from the cellar, but Patrick charged down the stairs.
‘Mummy says she doesn’t want the diamonds. She wants the gold necklace and the ear-rings you bought her in Dubai. And she wants Grace to bring them up.’
‘Oh, damn, I forgot the jewellery. Hang on here a minute, Grace.’
I’d intended to skip as soon as I’d spoken to Stephen, but interestingly spicy, sizzling-type smells were drifting across the passageway. And then there were all those rows and rows of champagne. It seemed a pity to leave before I’d investigated the possibility of leftovers. Besides, I was curious to see how the posh people partied.
Stepping into the downstairs cloakroom, I soaked the towel in cold water and dabbed at the wine stains again. They turned a paler pink and spread copiously. Unbuttoning the blouse, I flapped, trying to dry the material.
The door was opened suddenly. I fumbled to conceal my modesty - not to mention the depressingly flat chest - before I realised it was Bone.
‘Hi. Have you found him yet?’
‘We’re talking Tom Skerries here, are we?’
‘Natch. Who else?’ She bolted the door, closed the toilet seat, perched on it and offered a packet of cigarettes. I shook my head.
Flicking the disposable lighter, Bone blew a stream of smoke and wriggled into a more comfortable position. She’d changed from the jeans she’d been wearing earlier. But instead of the Jane Austen creation, she was now in a plain black round-necked dress with short sleeves and a skirt that barely covered her butt.
‘I think you’re going to have to face facts, Bone. Tom isn’t going to make Claudia’s hoedown. Can’t you find someone else to take you?’
‘Of course I can. Dozens of blokes. But I want ...’
‘Tom. Yeah. Right. But I think it’s time to stand up to Claudia and Livia and the rest of your mates and give it to them straight.’
‘Who are you to tell me what to do? And if you haven’t found Tom, what are you doing here?’
‘What makes you think I haven’t been invited to the party?’
‘You wouldn’t be. You’re not the sort of person Mummy and Gran know.’
I looked down at her, leaning back against the cistern, blowing clouds of blue smoke through glossed lips. Her expression was neither superior nor embarrassed. It was just the way things were. People like the Bridgemans didn’t know people like me on a social level. So much for a classless society.
‘I’m with the caterers. Undercover. Surveillance.’
‘Really?’ She looked torn between doubt and nosiness. ‘Who are you
watching? Maybe I could help.’
‘I’ll get back to you on that.’
‘Can I have my money back?’
‘You what?’
‘My money. I gave it to you to find Tom. And you haven’t. So I want it back.’
‘It doesn’t work like that. I’ll have to calculate how many hours I’ve spent on this investigation. Plus expenses, of course. Then we settle up.’
‘Oh?’ She frowned slightly. ‘I don’t think that’s fair.’
‘Tough, kid. That’s business.’
CHAPTER 30
‘Look,’ I said stepping over Bone’s black patent boots to reach the door, ‘why don’t you start running an eye over the substitutes and I’ll stay on the case. This is a funny business ... just when you’re about to give up, something cracks wide open. You never know, I might have nailed Tom down by the end of the week.’
It was a prophetic guess; although I didn’t know it at the time.
Stephen was twitching impatiently by the stairs.
‘Here, take these.’ He pushed two black velvet drawstring bags into my hand. ‘You’d better hurry. Amelia will be wondering what the delay is.’
Amelia actually gave no sign of noticing there had been a delay. In fact she looked set to provide the biggest one of the evening. She was still in the sunken bath, twiddling the gold seahorse taps with polished toes. A lump of foam hung suspended from a huge white orchid on the window sill over her head.
‘Hi, Grace. Are you any good at opening champagne bottles? The way those corks come out just scares me to death ... wheee ...’ She waved a wet foot in an arc, dripping suds over the surround. ‘There’s one on the dressing table ... would you be a sweetie ...?’
We watched an Australian soap on a television built into the vanity unit, sipping champagne from tooth-mugs whilst Amelia frothed up her bath bubbles occasionally and I lounged on the white pile carpet. The rich certainly knew how to party.
‘Oh well,’ Amelia sighed as the closing signature tune filled the room. ‘I suppose I’d better start getting ready. Pass me a towel, could you?’