I slipped out into the corridor, and no one shouted a challenge or questioned what I had been doing in Gregory’s office.
As everywhere in the offices, the corridor outside was lined with cardboard document boxes holding the paper transaction reports. I searched for the box containing those for the date at the top of the computer file.
Mrs. McDowd may not have liked policemen very much, and she was definitely too nosy about the staff’s lives and families, but she was very methodical in her filing. All the boxes were in chronological order with dates clearly written in marker pen on the ends.
I lifted up the box with the correct date and dug through its papers until I found the correct transaction report and associated paperwork. I pulled them out, folded them and stuffed them into my trouser pocket alongside Herb’s MoneyHome payment slips, before putting the box carefully back in the same place I’d found it.
I glanced at my watch once more: twenty past two. Where had those twenty minutes gone? Time I was away. But why did I suddenly feel like a thief in the night? I’d done nothing wrong. Or had I? Maybe I should just go and see Jessica straightaway when she returned from lunch. But the client, Jolyon Roberts, had specifically asked me to have a discreet look rather than initiate a possible fraud investigation that would, as he put it, drag the good name of the Roberts family through the courts.
Nevertheless, whatever else I might do, I didn’t want to be in the offices when Gregory returned from his restaurant.
I went back into my office to collect my jacket.
“Leaving already?” said Rory sarcastically. “What shall I tell Gregory?”
I ignored him.
As I walked down the corridor towards the reception area I realized with a heavy heart that I’d left it too late. I could hear Gregory and Patrick talking. I would just have to face the music.
“Ah, there you are Foxton,” Gregory announced at high volume. “I’ve been looking for you all morning.”
I was so mesmerized by Gregory that I hardly took any notice of a man standing to the side of him and next to Patrick, but the man suddenly stepped forward right in front of me.
“Nicholas Foxton,” the man said. “I arrest you on suspicion of the attempted murder of William Peter Searle.”
7
I spent the afternoon waiting in an eight-foot-by-six holding cell at the Paddington Green Police Station not quite knowing what to think.
The man in the office had identified himself as another detective chief inspector, this one from the Metropolitan Police.
I’d missed his name. I hadn’t really been listening.
I did, however, remember him advising me that I didn’t have to say anything, with the proviso that it might harm my defense if I didn’t mention something when questioned that I later relied on in court. I’d been too shocked to say anything anyway. I had just stood there with my mouth open in surprise as a uniformed policeman had applied handcuffs to my wrists and then led me down in the lift to a waiting police car.
William Peter Searle, the chief inspector had said when I was arrested.
That had to be Billy Searle.
So Billy had been right about one thing.
Thursday had been too late.
I suppose I couldn’t really blame the police for arresting me. Hundreds of witnesses had heard Billy shouting the previous afternoon at Cheltenham. “Why are you trying to murder me?” had been his exact words, even if the Racing Post had distorted them somewhat.
I hadn’t been trying to murder him, but I hadn’t taken him seriously either.
But to whom could Billy have owed so much money? Clearly, someone who was prepared to try to kill him for nonpayment by the Wednesday-night deadline.
I sat on one end of the cell’s fixed concrete bed and went on waiting. But I wasn’t particularly worried. I knew I had nothing to do with Billy’s or anyone else’s attempted murder and surely it would be only a matter of time before the police discovered that.
First Herb Kovak and now Billy Searle. Could the two be connected?
Thursday afternoon dragged on into early evening, and I was left alone in the cell, still waiting.
For the umpteenth time I looked at my wrist to check the time and, for the umpteenth time, saw no watch.
It had been removed when I was “checked in” to the custody suite by the custody sergeant, along with my tie, my belt, my shoelaces and the contents of my pockets, including Herb’s MoneyHome payment slips and the transaction report from the box outside Gregory’s office.
The cell door opened, and a white-shirted policeman brought in a tray that held a covered plate and a plastic bottle of water.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Seven o’clock,” he said without looking at his watch.
“How much longer am I going to be kept here?” I asked.
“The DCI will see you when he’s ready,” replied the policeman, who then placed the tray down next to me on the concrete bed and went out. The door clanged shut behind him.
I looked under the cover. Fish and chips. And quite good too.
I ate the lot and drank the water. It took about five minutes.
And then I waited some more, counting the bricks in the walls in an attempt to alleviate the boredom. It failed.
The detective chief inspector finally opened the cell door long after the barred and frosted-glass window had turned from daylight to night black.
“Mr. Foxton,” he said, coming into the cell. “You are free to go.”
“What?” I said, not quite taking it all in.
“You are free to go,” the detective said again, standing to one side of the door. “We will not be charging you with any offense.” He paused as if not being quite able to say the next bit. “And I’m sorry for any inconvenience that may have been caused.”
“Sorry!” I said. “Sorry! I should bloody well think you are sorry. I’ve been treated like a common criminal.”
“Mr. Foxton,” the chief inspector replied, somewhat affronted. “You have been treated exactly in accordance with the laid-down regulations.”
“So why was I arrested?” I demanded.
“We had reason to believe you were responsible for the attempted murder of the jockey, William Searle.”
“So what’s happened that now makes you so sure I’m not responsible for it?” I was purposefully making myself appear angry. It might be the only chance I would have of asking the detective for some answers, and I wanted to take advantage of his defensive position.
“I am persuaded that you could not have been present when Mr. Searle was attacked. You have an alibi.”
“How do you know?” I said. “You haven’t asked me any questions.”
“Nevertheless,” he replied, “I am satisfied that it was not possible for you to have committed the attack. So you are free to go.”
I didn’t move.
“How are you satisfied that I couldn’t have done it?” I asked with persistence.
“Because it is physically impossible for you to have been in two places at the same time. That’s what having an alibi means. ‘Alibi’ is a Latin word meaning ‘somewhere else,’ and you were somewhere else when the attempt was made on Mr. Searle’s life.”
“So where was this attack?” I asked. “And when?”
The chief inspector looked uncomfortable, as if he didn’t particularly like answering questions. No doubt he was more relaxed asking them.
“Mr. Searle was deliberately knocked off his bicycle on the road outside his home in the village of Baydon in Wiltshire, at exactly five minutes past seven this morning. He is currently in a critical condition at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon.”
“And how are you so sure I was somewhere else at exactly five minutes past seven this morning?” I asked.
“Because you were at 45 Seymour Way in Hendon exactly fifty-five minutes later,” he said. “You were interviewed at that address at precisely eight o’clock by Detective Chief Inspector
Tomlinson of the Merseyside Police. There is no way you could have traveled the seventy-two miles from Baydon to Hendon in fifty-five minutes, and especially not at that time of the morning during the rush hour.”
“And why didn’t you work this out before I was arrested?” I was beginning to sound rather self-righteous even to my ears.
“We were simply acting on a request from the Wiltshire force,” he replied, neatly passing the blame elsewhere.
“Well, then they should have checked,” I said, trying to maintain a look of rightful indignation. “Maybe I’ll sue you for wrongful arrest.”
“I think, sir,” he said very formally, “that you will find that attempted murder is an arrestable offense, and that we had reasonable grounds for an arrest. Just because it turned out that you couldn’t have been the perpetrator doesn’t give you grounds for claiming false arrest.”
“Hmm,” I said. “So I am now free to go, just like that?”
“Yes,” he said.
“No questions? No police bail?”
“No, sir,” he replied. “Alibi is a complete defense. It doesn’t mitigate a crime, it proves innocence. So there would be no point in charging or bailing you. However, I am sure that the Wiltshire force will want to ask some questions about your argument with Mr. Searle at Cheltenham Races yesterday. No doubt they will be making an appointment in due course. You are free to go home now,” he said. He waved a hand towards the doorway as if trying to encourage me on my way.
I’d had enough of this cell and I didn’t need his encouragement to leave it.
The custody sergeant sneered at me as he returned my watch and mobile phone, my tie, belt and shoelaces, and the previous contents of my pockets. He clearly enjoyed booking prisoners in far more than letting them go.
“Sign here,” said the sergeant without any warmth, pointing at a form on the desk.
I signed.
“Thanks for the supper,” I said cheerily.
The sergeant didn’t reply.
“Which way out?” I asked, looking around at various doors, none of them with a convenient EXIT sign above it. Perhaps it was designed that way to confuse any escapees.
“That way,” said the sergeant, pointing at one of the doors. He pushed a button on his desk, and the lock on the heavy steel door buzzed. I pulled it open and walked out into the police station reception area as the door closed automatically behind me with a loud clunk.
Claudia was waiting there, sitting on an upright tubular steel chair that was bolted to the floor. She jumped up when she saw me and rushed over, throwing her arms around my neck and hugging me tight. She was crying.
“Oh, Nick,” she sobbed into my neck, “I’ve been so frightened.”
“Come on,” I said, hugging her back. “Let’s go home.”
We walked out into the night, hand in hand, and hailed a passing black cab.
“I didn’t think you’d be here,” I said to Claudia as we sat down.
“Why ever not?” she said. “I’ve been here ever since I found out where they’d taken you. It’s been bloody hours.”
“But how did you know I’d been arrested?” The police had allowed me only one call, and I’d made that to the company’s lawyer, Andrew Mellor.
“Rosemary called me,” Claudia said. “She was in floods of tears.”
“Rosemary?” I asked.
“You know,” she said. “Rosemary McDowd. She’s such a dear.”
I had worked at Lyall & Black for five years and for all that time I’d had no idea that Mrs. McDowd’s name was Rosemary. The receptionists were always referred to as Mrs. McDowd and Mrs. Johnson because that’s what they called each other. Only the other staff had first names, Mr. Patrick, Mr. Gregory, Miss Jessica, Mr. Nicholas and so on, and we were only addressed in that way because, again, that was how the Mesdames McDowd and Johnson did it.
“How did Mrs. McDowd have your number?” I asked.
“Oh, we speak quite often.”
“What about?”
Claudia didn’t reply.
“What about?” I repeated.
“You,” she said.
“What about me?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing,” she said evasively.
“No. Come on,” I said. “Tell me. What about me?”
Claudia sighed. “I sometimes call her to find out what sort of mood you’re in when you leave the office.”
More likely, I thought suspiciously, to check that I was actually in the office or when I’d left it.
“So what did Mrs. McDowd tell you today?” I asked, purposely changing the conversation’s direction.
“Between sobs, she told me that you had been arrested by the police for attempted murder. I thought it must be to do with Herb Kovak, but she said it was about someone else.”
I nodded. “Billy Searle was attacked this morning. He was a top jump jockey, and also a client of mine.”
“What the hell’s going on?” Claudia said.
That’s what I wanted to know.
I t had been nearly eleven o’clock by the time I’d been released, and I’d asked the taxi driver to go to the newspaper kiosk on the Edgware Road where I knew they received the early editions of the daily newspapers the night before.
Claudia stayed in the cab as I went to buy copies of all they had, including the Racing Post, which arrived in a van as I was paying for the rest.
If its previous day’s front-page headline had been vague and set as a question, this one pulled none of its punches:
BILLY SEARLE ATTACKED.
FOXTON ARRESTED FOR
ATTEMPTED MURDER
And the article beneath gave no comfort to me either.
Further to our exclusive report in yesterday’s Racing Post concerning a heated argument at Cheltenham Races on Wednesday between top jump jockey Billy Searle and ex-jock turned financial wizard Nicholas (Foxy) Foxton, we can exclusively reveal that Foxton was yesterday arrested for Searle’s attempted murder.
Billy Searle was taken to the Great Western Hospital in Swindon from the scene of a horrific incident in Baydon, near Lambourn, early yesterday morning when it appears he was deliberately knocked from his bicycle. Doctors at the hospital state that Searle’s condition is critical, with a broken leg and serious head injuries.
Foxton was arrested yesterday at 2:25 p.m. on suspicion of attempted murder at the Lombard Street offices of City financial services firm Lyall & Black, and he is currently being held for questioning at the Paddington Green Police Station.
Remarkably accurate, I thought, except for the bit about currently being held at the Paddington Green Police Station, and that had been right until about twenty minutes ago. Beside the article was another picture of Billy Searle, this time all smiles and wearing a business suit, and a photograph of the cordoned-off village of Baydon. Overlying the top right-hand corner of this photo was a smaller head-and-shoulders shot of me, positioned, to my eye, as if implying that I had been present in Baydon High Street.
Gregory was going to have a field day in the morning. It wouldn’t just be my head he would have on a stick, it would be my career as well. Who would trust a financial adviser who was on the front page of a national newspaper having been arrested for attempted murder?
Not me, for one.
I climbed back into the cab with the papers and showed the Racing Post to Claudia.
“It so bloody unfair,” she said, reading the headline. “How can they mention your name when you haven’t even been charged? You should sue.”
“Over what?” I asked. “They haven’t said anything that wasn’t true.”
“But why do the police give out names before they charge someone?”
I suspected that the information had not come from the police but from a source much closer to home. The time and place of the arrest were too precise and too accurate. The police would have only said something like “A twenty-nine-year-old man has been arrested and is helping with our inquiries.”
My mo
ney would be on Rory to be the office mole, although what he hoped to gain by it was anyone’s idea. He couldn’t have my job without passing his IFA exams first, and even I didn’t believe he would have murdered Herb for the cubicle close to the window. It would have been Diana’s anyway.
I looked at the newspapers before I went to bed and all of them had front- or back-page reports about the attack on Billy Searle. None of them had the full facts, but each still managed to mention me by name and imply my guilt.
Oh God, I thought, my mother would see them in the morning.
I switched on the television and watched the latest news on one of the twenty-four-hour news channels. They had a report live from Baydon.
“It appears,” said the reporter, “that the jockey Billy Searle was leaving his home to ride his bicycle to Lambourn, as he did every morning. He was due to ride horses at morning exercise. He was being waved away by his girlfriend when a car, which had seemingly been waiting in the street, suddenly accelerated into the bicycle, knocking Searle violently to the ground, before being driven away at speed. Billy Searle was taken to the hospital in Swindon, where he is in a critical but stable condition with head and leg injuries. Police are asking anyone who may have any information concerning the incident to come forward. A man who we believe to be the ex-jockey Nicholas Foxton was arrested in connection with the attack, but he has since been released without charge.”
“Well, at least they said you’d been released,” said Claudia.
“I’d rather they hadn’t mentioned my name at all,” I said. “You watch. Most people will think I’m guilty. They will already all have me tried and convicted in their minds. Being released will make no difference, not until after the police have caught the real attacker and he’s confessed.”
“It’s so unfair,” Claudia said again.
Indeed it was, but complaining about it wasn’t going to help. I just hoped that they arrested the real attacker soon.
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