The Complete Kate Benedict Cozy British Mysteries

by Carrie Bedford

  20

  My afternoon was open and unplanned. It was tempting to go visit Bradley Associates, which was close by. I’d be welcomed back like a prodigal daughter. Alan would be happy, even though he wouldn’t show it. I could review the projects, catch up with the team, maybe go for drinks after work. A haven of normalcy shimmered like a gold citadel on a distant hill.

  My mobile buzzed. Without checking the caller ID, I answered.

  “What the hell is going on, Kate?” It was Eliza Chapman. “It’s been days since we talked and I’m not seeing anything in the papers. When is the story coming out?”

  “It’s on the schedule,” I lied. “I’d have to check with the editor to find out exactly when.”

  “Do that and call me back. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll follow up on my own.”

  The phone clicked off. I stared at the blank screen, then slid the phone into my bag. To hell with Eliza, to hell with all of it, I thought, walking with intent towards Paternoster Square and my office. I’d go back to work, look after Anita, and leave Scott and Lewis to the professional ministrations of the police and security forces. But, while my feet were doing my bidding, my mind wasn’t cooperating.

  I was worried about Eliza. What did she mean by following up on her own? Did she intend to call the editor of the Messenger and tell him all about a journalist on his staff who had promised a story? A journalist who in fact wasn’t a journalist and wasn’t on his staff? Or did she mean that she’d take some sort of action against Scott? I stopped suddenly, a bad idea, as two people barreled into me from behind, both looking at their mobiles. One of them muttered “idiot” as he circumnavigated the obstacle in his path. I moved to the side, leaning against the solid limestone wall of a Lloyds TSB Bank and dialed Clarke’s number. He didn’t answer, so I left a message telling him what Eliza had said. Then I called Colin Butler. The least I could do was warn him that his boss might hear from her.

  “I appreciate the warning,” he said after I’d explained. “Not to worry. I’ll claim journalistic immunity if Eliza mentions my name.”

  There was a pause. In the background, I heard the click of a keyboard. “Was there something else, Kate?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Well, yes, actually. I’d like more information on Simon Scott. I told a detective, a friend of mine, about Eliza, Chris Melrose and the binoculars man but I’m not convinced he’s doing anything with the information.”

  “Hmmm.” I guessed Butler was concentrating on something else. Then he spoke. “I’m about to take a lunch break.” The clack of the keys stopped. “Let’s have a beer, or whatever you young things drink. How about the Mitre? You know it?”

  “Of course.” We agreed to meet at two. The clacking resumed just before Butler rang off.

  I checked my watch. It would be too rushed to get to the office and still make it to the pub, so I set off, weaving my way through the crowds. The pub was a quaint and ancient landmark, popular with locals and tourists, tucked away in a narrow street. When I arrived there, Colin was just going in. “I’ll grab a table if you get drinks,” he said.

  Getting to the bar was like swimming against the tide. “Lemonade and a pint of something good on tap,” I shouted above the din. The bartender nodded, returning quickly with both the drinks. Wending my way carefully through the crowd, I found Butler at a small table near the door.

  He took a deep swallow of beer before speaking. “What do you need?”

  “All the background on Simon Scott,” I told him. “His political career, his years as a doctor, his marriage, family, everything.”

  Butler shifted on his chair, tapping his fingers on the table. “Can I ask why?”

  I knew he was going to ask that and had come up with an answer of sorts. “I have it on good authority that there’s a serious threat to Scott. Maybe not Chris Melrose, although I have my concerns about him. Nor Eliza Chapman, or that binoculars chap. But someone means him harm. So I’m doing some research to see if there’s anything else in his past that might show up as a motive now.”

  Butler tilted back in his chair, raising the front two legs from the ground. I winced, thinking of all that weight on two spindly supports. He rocked back and forth several times before coming in for a gentle landing. “And this ‘good authority’ of which you speak? Who would that be?”

  “I can’t name my sources,” I said, thinking I’d heard a phrase like that in a movie I’d seen recently.

  Butler’s face creased in amusement. “Uh huh. So why don’t you tell me the real reason you’re digging around, Kate?”

  “You want the truth?”

  “It’s always a good place to start.”

  I took a swallow of my drink, which was cloyingly sweet. It was all or nothing now. “I have an unusual gift. I can see auras that predict death. Scott has one. So does Kevin Lewis.”

  To be fair to Butler, he didn’t get up and walk out. He ran his finger around the rim of his beer glass several times before looking up at me. “I’ve heard a lot in my long and checkered career, but this is a first. Do you find it amusing to take the mickey out of a grumpy old journalist?”

  “Colin, I’m telling you the truth. The problem is that almost everyone reacts like you. They don’t believe me and therefore they don’t take any action that might save a life. My only option is to identify what the source of the threat to Scott is. If I can come up with a credible scenario, maybe I can persuade the powers that be to take me seriously.”

  Without saying a word, he got to his feet, carrying his empty beer glass to the bar. He returned with a replenished pint. “Let’s talk,” he said. “Tell me more about these death-predicting auras. What do they look like?”

  My glass, sweating with condensation, was slippery in my hand. I put it down, carefully positioning it in the dead center of a cardboard coaster. Then I told him everything. Good journalist that he was, Butler listened without interrupting, just nodding his head occasionally. The lenses of his glasses shone like yellow headlights when they caught a ray of the pale lemon sun coming through the bottle-glass window.

  When I finished, I hunched forward over the table. Describing my ability always left me exhausted, as though I was using all my energy up in an effort to convince my listener to believe me.

  “Remarkable,” he said. We sat looking at each other. I was suddenly aware of noise around us, the hum of voices and the clink of glasses, as though someone had turned the volume dial. “So, let’s talk about Scott and what you hope to find?”

  “Does that mean you believe me?”

  “I have no reason not to. Based on our acquaintance, brief though it is, I believe you to be an intelligent and responsible young woman. This gift of yours would explain several things, like your rather pathetic attempt to be a journalist at the event when we first met and your willingness to go to Cambridge to visit Eliza Chapman. This gift is a rather better rationale for your recent behavior than your sudden purported interest in politics.”

  “I am interested,” I protested.

  “I think it’s very hard to be interested in something you know nothing about,” he said. “It would be like me expressing an interest in quantum mechanics.”

  “Nothing is rather harsh,” I said. “I know as much as any average voter.”

  “True. Sad, but true. So let’s get on with it then. The best place to start is at my office. We’ll have access to a range of resources there.”

  He drained his beer, wiped a foamy moustache from his top lip and stood up.

  “Now?” I asked

  “I’m under the impression that there is some urgency to the matter, so yes, now.”

  It turned out that the Messenger offices were only a couple of blocks away, a short walk passed in silence. When we arrived, we walked through a spacious lobby, which was surprisingly and rather disappointingly modern, with a massive “Messenger” logo on the wall behind a reception desk. Comfortable couches, interspersed with plants in shiny black pots, gathered comfortabl
y around coffee tables holding glossy magazines and back copies of the Messenger.

  My disappointment lasted only a few minutes though as we turned out of the lobby into a narrow corridor with a tan lino floor and beige walls. It led into a large room crammed with cubicles, most of which were occupied. A general buzz of noise hovered like a swarm of bees, the sound of dozens of people on phones or talking loudly over the cubicle walls to their neighbors.

  The days of ink and cigarettes were long gone, replaced by computer keyboards and the stale odor of burned coffee, but the flickering light and the cramped workspace had something satisfyingly Dickensian about it.

  Colin led the way to his cubicle, set down his bag and draped his huge brown jacket over the back of a rickety chair. His computer screen filled the tiny area with blue light.

  “Take a seat,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

  He returned a few minutes later with a stack of folders. “Work your way through these,” he said. “If anyone asks what you’re doing here, tell them you’re my intern. I’ve got some things to finish up. Just take your time.”

  Opening the first folder, I found a stack of papers that were creased and coffee-stained, pierced with staples or held together with paper clips. The name Scott was highlighted in yellow throughout. It didn’t take long to realize that sometimes his name was mentioned only in passing or that the article related to something where he was only marginally involved.

  I’d already spent hours researching him on the Internet, and nothing new jumped out at me from the contents of the first folder. I skimmed the second folder and opened the next one, already feeling the disappointment of wasted time. On the second page, I found a collection of news clippings about his wife, an heiress who ran in the same circles as some of the minor royals. Her father, I learned, had founded a luxury food company. Her money and connections had been of huge benefit to Scott when he first went into politics. It seemed from some of the later clippings though, that Daddy had been losing money. He was selling the family house in Hertfordshire as well as several racehorses.

  Was it possible that money was the source of the threat to Scott? I wrote some notes on a pad I found on Colin’s desk, and moved on to the next file. More clippings, describing Scott’s climb from Member of Parliament to Under Secretary of State for Health, a long and tedious analysis of his political platform, quotes from his speeches, a schedule of his public appearances leading up to election day and what seemed to be a calendar of his other appointments. I typed the dates into the notepad on my smartphone. Knowing where he was going to be each day for the next week might be useful.

  By the time Colin lumbered back to the cubicle, I’d finished reading all the files. “Find anything?” he asked.

  I held the phone up. “I took notes. I’ll review them at home. Thanks, Colin. I really appreciate that you let me do this. There was more material than I could have imagined, far more than I found on the web.”

  “Digital is overrated in my opinion,” he said, tapping one of the folders. “Write it down, file it away. You never know when something might come in useful. It helps, of course, to have a team of researchers on hand to do all the legwork.”

  I held out my hand to shake his bear paw. “Thanks again. I’ll let you know how things go.”

  He nodded. “My pleasure.”

  I had taken a few steps when he called me back. “Kate?” he said, cocking his head to one side. “I don’t have an aura, do I?”

  21

  I’d turned my phone off while I was sitting at Colin’s desk. When I remembered to turn it back on, I had three voicemails from Eliza, each one ratcheting up the threat level. The last one was delivered at high volume. She sounded unhinged. “Last chance,” she said. “That story hits the headlines tomorrow, or I will do something that will make you sorry.” I tried calling her back but I just reached her answering machine.

  When I opened the door to my flat, the lights were on and music was playing. Although it seemed unlikely that an intruder would make himself so at home, my heart pounded as I edged into the hallway. Then I remembered it was Friday. Josh must be back.

  “Kate?”

  “Josh.” We hadn’t spoken much during the week. His excuse would be that he’d been busy with work. Mine was that I’d been busy with auras. And I hadn’t been able to put the postcard out of my mind.

  He crossed the kitchen to give me a hug. I stood stiffly in his arms, not ready yet to forgive him.

  “Tea?” he asked, stepping back. “Maybe wine would be better?”

  I nodded, taking off my scarf and coat.

  We sat, Josh on the couch, me in an armchair, glasses of wine on the coffee table between us. After an awkward silence, I spoke. “How was your week? Are you home all weekend?”

  He winced. “Actually, Alan needs me to go to Cambridge for meetings on Sunday and Monday. It’s a pain, I know, and I’m sorry. You know he’s on a mission to restore the company to its former glory. When a client says jump, he leaps. And he expects the rest of us to as well. But you and I can do something nice tomorrow.”

  He picked up his glass and took a drink. “Before that, though, I need to explain about Helena.”

  “You don’t have to explain anything. It’s none of my business.”

  “I want to. I’ve been thinking about it a lot for the past few days. You were right to be upset that I kept the postcard. I…” He paused, put his glass on the table. “I’ve been trying to work out what to do about it.”

  “Are you really sure you want to talk about this?”

  I shifted in my chair, trying to get comfortable.

  “Let me tell you the history, just so you understand. Helena and I dated all through college. We’d planned to move to London together when we graduated, but her mother got very sick about two weeks before graduation. Helena said she needed to go home to Berlin to be with her and asked me to go too. She said we could hold off on getting jobs for a couple of months. I wouldn’t do it. I already had an offer from Alan Bradley, and he wanted me to start right away. I started just a couple of weeks before you did, right?”

  I nodded, remembering how kind he’d been to me when I first joined the firm. We’d been the newbies together, deciphering the politics of the company, reading up on clients, working extra hours to convince Alan he’d made good choices. I think I’d fallen in love with Josh then, but I’d kept my feelings to myself because he seemed so inaccessible.

  “I told Helena that I’d start work and go flat-hunting on weekends. As soon as she was able, she could come back to London. It never happened.” He was tapping his fingers on his knee, a nervous habit of his. “I should have gone with her.”

  Tears burned my eyes. His words were like slashes at my heart.

  “I don’t mean it that way,” he said, reaching out to take my hand. “I don’t wish I was with her. I just think it would have been the right thing to do. She needed me and I abandoned her. I didn’t even make time to visit Berlin to see her at weekends because I was too busy at work.”

  “What happened? Why didn’t she come to London?”

  “When her mother died, her father was distraught. She stayed on to look after him. It was supposed to be just for a few weeks, but it dragged on. I flew to Berlin then, to talk to her, but it was too late, I suppose. We broke up officially, even though at that point we hadn’t seen each other for months anyway.”

  “It doesn’t seem to me that this is your fault,” I said. I didn’t mean to criticize Helena, but I wanted to reassure him.

  He shrugged. “I’ve always felt guilty that I left her to deal with things by herself at such a critical time in her life. God knows how I’d feel if my mother were sick. It was selfish of me. And I put my work first. Who does that?”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  Pulling my hand away, I stood up. My body felt tense and twitchy. “So now she’s moved to Munich,” I said. “That must be a good sign, don’t you think? That she’s getting on with her
life?”

  “I suppose so.” He pulled the postcard from his inside jacket pocket. I gasped, a sharp intake of breath. He was carrying it around with him?

  “Do you still love her?” I asked. I hated hearing my voice tremble when I said it.

  “Of course not. I love you.” He looked at the card. “I’ve been trying to decide whether to email her. Just to wish her well. It would be the right thing to do. Wouldn’t it?” He looked at me, eyebrows raised as though seeking my permission.

  “Of course,” I said, even though I felt as though I had a lead weight pressing against my chest.

  On Sunday morning, we woke late and moved slowly. Josh planned to take an early afternoon train to Cambridge for his meeting there. I decided to make brunch, something to keep my mind off postcards and auras. I’d texted Anita a half dozen times the day before to make sure she was safe. Finally, she’d told me she was applying for a restraining order against me and to stop stalking her at once. At least that had made me smile.

  I peeled some oranges, careful to remove every piece of white pith, and swept the nubbly skins into the rubbish bin. The citrussy smell reminded me of my last trip to Spain’s central coast, where orange groves stretched for miles beside the azure Mediterranean Sea. Maybe Anita and I could go back there together, when this was all over. It would be good to focus on something positive for the future. I cracked eggs into a bowl, snipped chives, and ground salt. The motions of cooking were soothing and distracting. By the time the food was ready, I was feeling calmer.

  “Want a glass of bubbly?” Josh asked, looking in the fridge.

  “I think we finished it last night,” I said. “Coffee’s fine for me.” I rarely drank during the day, except at weddings or funerals. Not like Eliza Chapman, I thought, as I remembered her mid-afternoon glass of wine. I had an idea.

  “I’ll come with you to Cambridge,” I said to Josh, handing him a plate. “I think Eliza Chapman is planning to make trouble. I want to find out what she’s thinking.”