Jan Setter had called me strange.
Was I really funny, or strange?
I didn’t think so.
To me, I was “normal,” but I suppose everyone thinks they are normal. And yet we are all so different. There was actually no such thing as normal.
“Now, darlings,” my mother said, changing the subject, “would you like some late lunch? I’ve a shepherd’s pie in the oven.”
“Mum,” I said, “it’s gone three o’clock.”
“So?” she replied. “I thought you might be hungry when you arrived.”
Surprisingly, I was, and I could tell from Claudia’s eager look that she was too. I had been so busy trying to make the journey smooth and jerk-free, to keep Claudia as comfortable as possible, that I hadn’t even thought of stopping for food.
Consequently, the three of us sat down to a very late lunch of shepherd’s pie and broccoli, with my mother insisting that I have a second helping.
I called Patrick on his mobile at twenty to six, late enough for the funeral to be over but early enough to still be the workday.
Claudia was upstairs having a rest, and my mother was busying herself by the stove, preparing yet another high-protein, high-fat chicken casserole for our dinner. I sat on the chintz-covered couch, facing her but at the farthest point of the room.
“Ah yes. Nicholas,” Patrick said, seemingly slightly flustered. “Mrs. McDowd told me you’d called. Sorry I wasn’t able to speak to you earlier.”
“And I am sorry to hear about Colonel Roberts,” I said.
“Yes, what a dreadful thing. He was only sixty-two as well. Enjoy life while you’ve got it, that’s what I say. You never know when the Grim Reaper will catch you up.”
Yes, I thought. But I’d outrun him once down Lichfield Grove.
“Have you spoken to Gregory?” I asked, getting to the point of the call.
“Yes, I have,” he said. “He is still very angry with you.”
“But why?” I asked.
“Why do you think?” he said crossly. “For getting arrested and being splashed all over the papers and the television. He believes you brought the firm into disrepute.”
“But, Patrick, his anger is completely misplaced, and he is wrong. It wasn’t my fault that I was arrested. The police jumped to a conclusion and it was an incorrect one.”
“Yes,” he said. “But you did give them reason to draw it.”
“I did not,” I said, getting quite angry myself. “It was that idiot Billy Searle who shouted out about murder. I did absolutely nothing wrong.”
My mother glanced over at me from the kitchen area.
“Gregory says there is no smoke without fire. He still thinks you must have had something to do with it.”
“Well, in that case Gregory is more of an idiot than I thought.” My raised voice caused my mother to stand and look at me from across the room, and with a furrowed brow. I paused to calm myself down. I then spoke much more quietly. “Am I being fired? Because if I am, I’ll be taking Lyall and Black to court.”
He did not reply, and I stayed silent. I could hear his breathing.
“You had better come in to the office tomorrow,” he said at last. “I will tell Gregory to hold his tongue.”
“Thank you,” I said. “But I may not make it in tomorrow. Claudia is not very well, and I’ll probably work from home using the remote-access system. I hope to see you on Friday.”
“Right,” he said, sounding slightly relieved that he had at least another day to dampen the erupting Gregory volcano. “I’ll see you on Friday.”
He hung up and I sat for a while wondering about my future, if I still had one with a gun-toting assassin on the loose.
“What was all that about?” my mother asked with concern.
“Oh, nothing, Mum,” I said. “Just a little problem at work. Nothing to worry about.”
But I did worry about it.
I had really enjoyed working for Lyall & Black over the last five years, but the role of an independent financial adviser was one that necessitated absolute trust, both of the client and of one’s colleagues. What sort of future did I have in a firm where one of the senior partners believed me to be involved in an attempted murder, and, at the same time, I wondered if he had been involved in a successful one?
The three of us sat at my mother’s dining table for dinner, and I ate and drank too much for my own good.
“What’s happened to your cat?” I asked, noticing its absence from under the table.
“It’s not my cat,” my mother said. “He’s just an irregular visitor, and I haven’t seen him for days. He’ll probably be back sometime soon.”
No doubt when fillet steak was back on the menu, I thought.
Claudia and I went up to bed early for us, around ten o’clock.
“You are such a clever thing,” Claudia said to me as we snuggled up together under the duvet.
“In what way?” I asked.
“Insisting we came here,” she said. “If we’d gone home, I would have felt pressured to cook or clean, or do something useful. Here, I can relax completely, my phone doesn’t even ring, and your mother is such a dear.”
I smiled in the darkness. Now, that was a turn up.
“But we can’t stay here very long,” I said seriously.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because if she goes on feeding me as she’s done today, I’ll end up with a waistline like Homer Simpson.”
We giggled uncontrollably.
Since we’d left the hospital that morning, neither of us had mentioned anything about the cancer or the upcoming chemo treatments. It was as if we had left all our troubles behind in London.
But they were about to come looking for us.
I dreamt that I was riding in a race, but, like all dreams, it was inconsistent and erratic. One second I was on a horse, the next on an ostrich or in a car. However, one part of the dream was unvarying: Whatever we were riding, I was always racing against Gregory. And he was ever smiling and aiming a gun with a silencer at my head.
I woke up with a jerk, breathing fast, ready to run.
I relaxed, and lay there in the dark listening to Claudia’s rhythmic breathing beside me.
Did I really think that Gregory Black was involved in fraud and murder?
I didn’t know, but I was sure interested to hear the results of the postmortem examination on Jolyon Roberts, if there had been one.
I drifted back to sleep but only fitfully, waking often to listen for sounds that shouldn’t have been there. Woodmancote was much quieter without traffic, and much darker without streetlamps, than our home in Lichfield Grove, but nevertheless I slept badly and was wide awake long before the sun lit up the bedroom window soon after six o’clock.
I got up quietly and padded silently downstairs in bare feet with my computer. I had been seriously neglecting my clients over the past two weeks and, if I didn’t pull my finger out soon, I’d have no job worthy of the name at Lyall & Black to cry about even if I was fired.
I logged on to the Internet.
I had forty-three unread e-mails, including a fresh one from Jan Setter telling me how fantastic the first night of the Florence Nightingale show had been and how crazy I was to have missed it. It was timed at five-fifty a.m. this morning, and the show in London hadn’t finished until ten-thirty last night, not to mention how late the after-show party had gone on. Did she never sleep or had she’d sent it as soon as she arrived home?
I e-mailed back to her and said how pleased I was she had enjoyed it and how I hoped it would make her lots of money.
Then I went onto the daily newspaper websites to read the reviews. All but one were pretty encouraging, so maybe the show might make some money. Backing shows and films was always a risky business. I usually told my clients that it was far more of a gamble than they would have on the stock market, but, as with most risky investments, the potential gains were greater too. But they had to be prepared to lose all their money.
<
br /> One of my clients never expected any financial return from such investments, he just reveled in rubbing shoulders with the stars at the first-night functions and taking all his friends to see “his” show in the best seats. “I know I might lose it all,” he would say, “but, if I do, I’ll enjoy every minute while I’m losing it. And, you never know, I might just make a fortune.”
And he had done precisely that the previous year.
At my suggestion, he had backed a small independent film company to make an obscure and irreverent comedy based around the first transportation of convicts from England to Australia in 1787. To everyone’s surprise, not least my client’s, the film had been a huge international hit. At the box office worldwide it had earned back over two hundred times its production cost, as well as receiving an Oscar nomination for its young star who played the title role in Bruce: The First Australian.
But the successes were few and the disasters many.
It took me over two hours just to answer my outstanding e-mails, by which time I could hear movement above and, presently, my mother came downstairs in her dressing gown.
“Hello, dear,” she said. “You’re up early.”
“I’ve been down here over two hours,” I said. “I have work to do.”
“Yes, dear,” she said. “Don’t we all. Now, what would you like for breakfast? I have some bacon and local eggs, and Mr. Ayers, my butcher, has made me some wonderful sausages. How many would you like?”
“Just a coffee and a slice of toast would be lovely,” I said.
It was like King Canute trying to hold back the tide.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, already placing a frying pan on the stove. “You’ve got to have a proper breakfast. What sort of mother would I be if I didn’t feed you?”
I sighed. Perhaps Claudia and I would go out for a drive at lunchtime.
I took her up a cup of tea while the sausages and bacon were sizzling in the pan.
“Morning, gorgeous,” I said, pulling open the curtains. “How are you feeling today?”
“Still a bit sore,” she said, sitting up. “But better than yesterday.”
“Good,” I said. “Time to get up. Julia Child downstairs is cooking breakfast.”
“Mmm, I can smell it,” she said, laughing. “Now, don’t you expect that every morning when we’re married.”
“What?” I said in mock horror. “No cooked breakfasts! The wedding’s off!”
“We haven’t even fixed a date for it yet,” she said.
“Before or after the hair loss?” I asked seriously.
She thought for a moment. “After it grows back. Give me time to get used to this engagement business first.”
“After it is, then,” I said. I leaned down and kissed her. “Don’t be long or Mr. Ayers’s sausages will get cold.”
She dived back under the covers and put a pillow over her head. “I’m staying here.”
“Hiding won’t help,” I said, laughing, and leaving her alone.
My mother hadn’t lied, the sausages were excellent, but, as always with her meals, they were too big and too numerous, and then there was the mountain of bacon and the scrambled eggs on fried bread, not forgetting the mushrooms and grilled tomatoes on the side.
I felt totally bloated by the time I sat down again at my computer to check through my client files using the firm’s remote-access facility.
Claudia, meanwhile, had managed to extract herself from her bed, coming down to join us in a bathrobe, but she ate just a small bowl of muesli and a little sliced fruit. And had grinned at me as she did so. It really wasn’t fair.
I spent the morning briefly looking through all the files for my fifty or so personal clients, to check on the reminder tags, ensuring that I hadn’t missed reinvesting the proceeds of maturing bonds or such like.
What I really needed to do was to study all the recent stock movements. It was something that I should be doing every day in order to maintain a “feel” for the markets, to try to be, if not one step ahead, at least in tune with market trends. Not that Lyall & Black invested directly in individual stocks. That proportion of our clients’ money put into equities was almost exclusively invested through unit trusts or investment funds that had a broad range of different shares within them. It was a way of spreading risk, of placing one’s eggs in many baskets at the same time. But it was still important for me to have a feel for the markets in order to advise my clients which of the hundreds of trusts and funds to buy into.
And, over the past week or so, I had been guilty of serious dereliction of duty in the study department.
I used my mother’s telephone landline to check on my voice mail. There was one new message and it was from Sherri, asking me to call her at Herb’s flat.
“Hi,” I said when she answered. “Is everything all right?”
“Fine,” she replied, sounding totally fed up. “Least, I suppose it’s fine. Monday in Liverpool was a bit of an ordeal.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “Well, it’s over, anyway.” She sighed audibly down the phone. “I’m going home. Tomorrow morning. I’m on a flight at ten forty-five to Chicago. I just called to say good-bye.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m glad you did.”
“A few letters have arrived here for Herb, and I had a phone call from his gym, something about Herb not paying them and they want his locker back. Hold on, I’ve got their number somewhere.” I could hear her rummaging in the background. “Here it is. Someplace called the Slim Fit Gym.” She read out the telephone number, and I jotted it down on the back of the rental car agreement.
“Don’t you worry,” I said. “Leave the letters on the desk, I’ll deal with them. And I’ll call the gym. You look after yourself. I hope you have a safe trip home. I’ll let you know about the funeral and such when I know.”
“The police said it could be weeks away. That’s why I’m going back. I’ll lose my job if I stay here much longer.”
Life could be a bugger.
I called the Slim Fit Gym.
“Mr. Kovak’s direct debit has been canceled,” someone said. “So we want his locker back.”
“He died,” I said. “So take it back.”
“But there’s a padlock on it,” the person said.
“Don’t you have a spare key?” I asked. “Or can’t you cut it off?”
“No,” they said. “We need Mr. Kovak’s key.”
I remembered the key pinned to the bulletin board above Herb’s desk.
“OK,” I said. “I’ll bring the key in next week.”
They didn’t like it but it was too bad. However, they did insist on having my contact details. I hated giving out my mobile number so I gave them the office one instead.
I disconnected and leaned back in the chair, stretching.
“Fancy going out?” Claudia said, coming over and rubbing my shoulders. “It’s a lovely day out there.”
My studying would have to wait.
“That would be nice,” I said, turning around on the chair. “But are you sure you’re feeling up to it?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “I’m feeling much better today. But let’s take the car. I’m not yet ready to trek round the countryside. Why don’t we go to a pub for lunch?” She winked at me.
“Great idea,” I agreed. I stood up and went into the kitchen area, where my mother was fussing with the dishwasher. “Mum,” I said to her, “Claudia and I thought we might drive to a pub for lunch. Do you want to come?”
“Oh,” she said. “I have some nice pork chops from Mr. Ayers for lunch.”
“Won’t they do for this evening?” I said.
“I’ve got a roast leg of lamb for us tonight.”
Mr. Ayers, the butcher, had obviously been busy.
“Leave the chops in the fridge,” I said. “Give yourself a rest. Let’s all go out for lunch.”
And we did, with me looking over the hedge for my would-be assa
ssin as the three of us climbed into the nondescript blue sedan. But of course he wasn’t there and we made it safely to a local country pub with a big GOOD FOOD sign outside. Claudia and my mother both ordered a glass of white wine and a poached salmon salad while I just had a Diet Coke and a bag of roasted peanuts.
“But, darling,” my mother complained bitterly, “you must have a proper lunch or you’ll fade away.”
“Mother dear,” I said. “I’ve done nothing but eat since we arrived. I think fading away is the least of my worries.” But she didn’t like it, and I could already feel an extra large portion of lamb coming on for dinner.
The phone was ringing when we arrived back at the cottage and my mother rushed in to answer it.
“It’s for you,” she said, handing over the receiver to me.
“Hello,” I said.
“It was definitely a heart attack,” said Chief Inspector Tomlinson down the line. “While he was swimming in his own pool. Then he drowned as a result. A full postmortem was carried out at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead on Tuesday afternoon. Seems Colonel Roberts had a history of heart problems.”
“Oh,” I said. “Such are the perils of early-morning swimming.”
“It was late-night swimming, apparently, and on his own. And he’d been drinking. Stupid fool. His blood alcohol level was more than twice that for drunk driving.”
“But he wasn’t driving,” I said.
“No,” said the detective, “but he was swimming, and in my experience alcohol and water don’t mix.” He chuckled at his own joke, and I found it slightly irritating. But it reminded me of Jolyon Roberts doing just the same thing during our meeting in the Chasers Bar at Sandown Races.
“Hold on a minute,” I said, suddenly remembering something else from that meeting. “Colonel Roberts told me categorically that he didn’t drink alcohol. And that he never had.”
14
I’ll get back to you,” said Chief Inspector Tomlinson suddenly.
“I need to call in a few favors.”
He hung up, and I was cross I hadn’t asked him about Billy Searle. But it would wait.
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