The Carrier

by Sophie Hannah

  And yet Kerry was delighted to see her. Her arrival had elicited a “Thank God.” The two of them were obviously friends of some description, though they looked as if they would have nothing in common: the tassel-skirted, fluffy-sweatered Bohemian and the glossy, assertive businesswoman. Not so glossy today, perhaps, but Charlie could imagine how intimidatingly stunning Gaby would look after a good night’s sleep. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but it was sort of hard to stop looking at her face.

  Her expression was more agonized than delighted. She was trying to shake herself free of Kerry’s embrace. “Kerry, don’t. Stop crying, or you’ll start me off. I don’t want to waste my limited time with the police crying.” Kerry backed off, nodding, and started to wipe her eyes, visibly comfortable with being ordered around.

  That’s what’s odd: she and her husband both like to be told what to do. They glance at each other hesitantly, hoping for a cue of some kind, unsure who’s in charge. Weird marriage.

  Black kettle. Black pot.

  “You are the police, right?” Gaby’s confident voice broke into Charlie’s thoughts.

  “Sergeant Charlie Zailer.” She stood up, held out her hand.

  Gaby shook it. “Gabrielle Struthers, only ever known as Gaby. I’m a friend of Kerry and Dan’s from years ago. Also a good friend of Tim Breary’s.”

  “What you said about not wanting to waste your limited time with the police . . .” Charlie began, not really knowing where she was going with this, or, come to think of it, what she was doing here without Sam. He’d stuck his head in to say something had come up and he had to nip back into town, told Charlie to text him when she wanted picking up. An obvious ruse. He was hoping she’d be able to connect with Kerry Jose more successfully than he had, get something out of her that he’d failed to extract. She planned to tell him later, proudly, that she’d bypassed the empathetic-emotional route altogether and asked about the household finances instead. As far as she could see, it was the most interesting aspect of the setup at the Dower House, as well as the most suspicious. Not with regard to Francine’s murder, perhaps, but strange nonetheless. And therefore worth investigating. Fair enough, Tim and Francine Breary were close friends of the Joses, but most close friends weren’t willing to support each other financially till death did them part. A lot of parents wouldn’t even do that for their kids.

  Charlie became aware that Gaby Struthers was staring at her, eyebrows raised expectantly. Waiting for her to finish the question she’d started asking.

  “Most people aren’t that keen to talk to us,” she said. “Guilty or innocent, they avoid us if they possibly can.”

  “Guilty or innocent, most people are cowardly and superstitious,” Gaby said, pulling a chair out from beneath the table so that she could sit down. There was something round and silver on the seat. A napkin ring? No, too big, too-sharp edges. A pastry cutter. Charlie knew people owned them—people whose lifestyles were very different from hers. She’d have had more use for a fat giant’s wedding ring, which the silver thing also might have been.

  Gaby picked it up, tossed it into a Pyrex oven dish on the table that was full of shells, stones, elastic bands and packets of aspirin. She sat down. One of the elastic bands in the dish was red, Charlie couldn’t help noticing; the sight of it made her angry. Liv had e-mailed her the other day asking her to pick up any red bands she saw on the pavement for Gibbs’ ball. Charlie had no intention of doing anything of the sort and told Liv so. Her sister’s reply had arrived fast enough to make the speed of light look like the chubby asthmatic who always got picked last for team sports: “If it was Dom collecting red elastic bands and not Chris, would you do it?” For once Charlie had taken Simon’s advice: she’d ignored the question and deleted the e-mail.

  No, I fucking wouldn’t. This isn’t about me taking an ethical position on your love life. I’ve got better things to do than collect red rubber bands, either for your bit-on-the-side or for your fiancé.

  “Why’s your time limited?” Charlie asked Gaby Struthers. “Do you have to be somewhere?”

  “No. I assumed you did. Look, what I’ve got to say won’t take long. Why don’t I just say it and then you can get on with dismissing it, like DC Gibbs did, and talking to the people who’ll tell you what you want to hear instead?”

  “You should know . . . I’m not actually directly involved in the Francine Breary investigation. I used to be CID but I’m not anymore. So I don’t know what Gibbs said or did to annoy you, but if there’s a party line on this, I’m not party to it.”

  “You’re not directly involved in Tim’s case?” Gaby looked at Kerry, who shrugged helplessly.

  “I didn’t have a chance to explain that to Kerry before you arrived,” Charlie said. A good friend of Tim Breary’s. Tim’s case. It was clear what Gaby Struthers cared and didn’t care about here. Was she at all disturbed by Francine Breary’s murder, or was Tim’s welfare her only concern?

  “Then, if it’s not your case, if you don’t even work for CID, what are you doing here?”

  “I’m not sure. Sam Kombothekra was coming and he asked me to come with him—he’s the DS in charge.” Charlie shrugged. “Maybe he thinks a woman’s touch is needed.” She allowed Gaby and Kerry to hear her sarcasm.

  “Needed for what?” Gaby asked. “Is the case still open? Does that mean DS Kombothekra doesn’t believe Tim killed Francine?” Her pronunciation of Sam’s surname was perfect after only one hearing.

  Charlie had to be careful. One option was to answer honestly: “Sam thinks everyone in this house is lying about something. The word ‘conspiracy’ has been mentioned.” A line like that, with its shock value, might have a productive effect on Gaby Struthers, but would obliterate the rapport Charlie had been building with Kerry Jose, out of whom the truth, assuming she was withholding it, would have to be coaxed gently.

  “Because he didn’t kill her,” Gaby said with certainty.

  “Gaby,” Kerry murmured, closing her eyes, “I wish he hadn’t done it as much as y—”

  “He didn’t do it, Kerry. On Thursday, I flew to—”

  “Düsseldorf. I know,” Kerry said, as if it was causing her pain to utter each word. Her eyes were still half closed.

  “You know Lauren was on my flight?” Gaby snapped.

  “I booked her flights for her. She told me she was going to visit friends, that Jason mustn’t know anything about it.” Kerry sighed. “Well, he knows now. He’s on his way to the airport to collect her. She’s not in good shape, apparently. To be honest, I don’t know what’s going on with Lauren.”

  “Dan didn’t know Lauren was on my flight,” said Gaby pointedly, “when I told him a few minutes ago.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to tell him,” Kerry said. “He was in London this morning, only got back about half an hour ago. I’ve been busy talking to Sergeant Zailer.”

  “Please, call me Charlie.”

  “Do you know why Lauren decided to stalk me all the way to Germany?” Gaby asked. Her manner reminded Charlie of Simon in interview mode. You’ll tell me what I want to know, or you’ll regret it. “How did she even know about me?”

  Kerry shook her head. She was hiding behind her long ginger-blonde hair, holding it like a shield in front of her face. With her other hand, she picked at it, made a show of flicking something onto the floor. Charlie didn’t believe there had been anything in her hair that had needed removing; it was an act, to avoid meeting Gaby’s eye.

  Interesting. Kerry hadn’t been afraid when she’d been talking to Charlie alone. And yet she’d been genuinely delighted when her friend had walked into the room; that wasn’t an act.

  “She didn’t tell me anything, ask me for anything,” Gaby spoke to Kerry as if she’d forgotten Charlie was there. “Apart from what she let slip out by accident . . .”

  “Could someone please fill me in?” Charlie asked, worried she
’d fall hopelessly behind if she allowed the two women any more private communion time.

  “I told DC Chris Gibbs the full story this morning,” Gaby said. “He can fill you in on the details. Short version? I went to Düsseldorf yesterday. Lauren Cookson, the care assistant who looked after Francine, followed me there. She blurted out something about letting an innocent man go to jail for a murder he didn’t commit.”

  “What?” Kerry dropped her hair. Her arms hung at her sides, trembling as if in a mild breeze. Charlie recognized authentic shock when she saw it.

  “She was talking about Tim,” said Gaby. “Somehow she knows he didn’t do it, and since she must have been around Francine every day, since she lives here, I believe her a hundred percent. I also know Tim’s not a killer and never could be. What’s going on, Kerry? Why’s he saying he killed Francine when he didn’t? You must know the truth.”

  “He killed her, Gaby.” The muscles in Kerry’s face were tight with anxiety. “I’m so sorry, but we were all here. Dan and I—”

  “And Lauren?” Gaby demanded.

  Kerry nodded. “Lauren knows . . . what we all know,” she said almost inaudibly, looking down at the floor. “I can’t think why she’d say otherwise.”

  “Gaby, is it okay if I ask you a couple of questions?” said Charlie.

  “Ask away.”

  “Where were you on the sixteenth of February?”

  “The day Francine was murdered?” Gaby reached into her bag, pulled out a dark brown leather diary with “Coutts 2011” embossed on its front cover.

  “How do you know that’s when Francine was killed?” Charlie asked.

  “How does anyone know anything? Google. The sixteenth of February: I was in Harston, a village near Cambridge.”

  “All day?”

  Gaby nodded. “Got up at five a.m., got there at seven, was in meetings all day.”

  “Meetings?” All day, in a village? First the church hall about the flower arrangements, then the post office to discuss the padded envelope window display?

  As if she could read Charlie’s mind, Gaby said impatiently, “Sagentia’s UK head office is in Harston—they’re a product development company. We’ve outsourced a small but crucial part of our work to them. Google my name if you want to know more about what that work is, and ring Luke Hares at Sagentia if you want confirmation that I was there all day on the sixteenth of February.” After a pause, Gaby added, “I didn’t kill Francine Breary any more than Tim did. Christ, if he was going to kill her he’d have done it years ago.”

  Charlie saw Kerry Jose stiffen. She decided not to pursue it for the time being and mentally filed Gaby’s comment for future reference.

  “You said you were going to tell me everything I needed to know about the money.”

  “Happy to,” said Gaby. “In a nutshell, Kerry and Dan have got plenty and Tim’s got none.” Kerry had put the kettle on and was putting a teabag into a mug. “What’s happened with the Heron Close house?” Gaby asked her.

  “It was repossessed. Tim hasn’t worked since he left Francine, which wasn’t long after you last saw him. He didn’t have hardly any money saved. Couldn’t make the mortgage payments.”

  Gaby laughed. “Did he care? He hated that house.”

  Charlie watched Kerry’s features jerk and reset themselves. It would be useful if this could continue to happen every time Gaby revealed a detail that Kerry had hoped to keep secret; for Charlie, it was like having a yellow brick road of significance to follow.

  “After Francine had her stroke, she couldn’t make the payments either. I’m . . .” Kerry made a choking noise, gagging on her own words. She tried again. “I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch, Gaby. I wanted to tell you everything—about Tim leaving his job, leaving Francine, but . . .” She shrugged. “Well, I explained in the letter I wrote you. Did you get it?”

  Gaby nodded.

  “I just couldn’t,” Kerry said, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Can we come back to the money?” Charlie prompted. “So Tim and Francine had a house on Heron Close that was repossessed. . . .”

  “Yes. Dan and I support—supported—Francine, still support Tim,” said Kerry. “Always will.”

  “That’s extremely generous,” Charlie said.

  “We’re family,” Kerry said firmly. “Not literally, but we’re all he’s got and he’s all we’ve got. And it’s not as if Dan and I are going to have children.” Her face reddened as she realized what she’d said. “There are . . . pathologies in my biological family that I don’t want to risk passing on,” she explained.

  Interesting.

  “Kerry and Dan wouldn’t be wealthy if it weren’t for Tim,” said Gaby, as Kerry brought her mug of tea over to the table. “Have you heard of Taction?”

  Charlie shook her head.

  “The Da Vinci surgical robot?” Gaby said it as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

  “Not really. Is it what it sounds like? A robot that performs surgery?”

  “Yeah, basically—with the help of a surgeon, obviously. At the moment, the Da Vinci’s the only surgical robot on the market, but there are a couple of companies working on new robot models that’ll be cheaper to manufacture and less invasive than the Da Vinci if they can be made to work. That’s a big ‘if.’ There are no guarantees, but if the front-runner competitor makes the killing it hopes to make, it’ll be partly thanks to me. My first company, the one I created and sold, invented a tactile fabric.”

  “Taction?” Charlie guessed.

  Gaby nodded. “We designed it specifically to be used in the manufacture of tactile feedback gloves. We also designed a prototype glove that doesn’t work with the Da Vinci, but another company’s incorporated it into the design of a rival surgical platform they’re working on. The glove provides whoever’s operating the robot with data that closely simulates what she’d feel with the five fingers of her own hand if she were performing manual laparascopic surgery. The Da Vinci doesn’t do that, doesn’t even come close. The surgeon controlling the Da Vinci can’t feel what’s going on inside the patient’s body. There’s no force feedback.”

  So . . . I’m sitting here talking to some kind of cutting-edge technological genius superstar. Charlie kept the thought to herself; Gaby Struthers didn’t appear to be in need of a boost to her confidence.

  “So, that was our product,” she said. “In order to fund its creation and trialing, we needed money. Tim advised me on where to get it from. He brought me investors—all the investors I needed.”

  “So Tim was your . . . what, your business partner? Your accountant?” Charlie asked.

  “My accountant, eventually. At first, though, he just saw exactly what my business needed, and he got it for me.”

  “You mean the money to make your product?” Charlie asked.

  “Yes, but not only that. I could have gone to any number of venture capital firms with my business plan and they’d have fallen into my lap,” said Gaby, with what Charlie was starting to recognize as her characteristic modesty and self-effacement. “They’d also have wanted control, and they’d have tried to squeeze me out. That’s what these people do. I wasn’t having that. It was my company, my expertise going into the product. I knew that if we succeeded, the investors would get the lion’s share of the money—that was fine, I had no problem with that. But I had a huge problem with the idea of big slick bastards in suits wading in and telling me how to run the show because—at the risk of sounding big-headed—I knew what I was doing, better than they ever could.”

  “Gaby’s company sold for nearly fifty million dollars,” said Kerry. “To Keegan Luxford.”

  Charlie nodded. She knew she should say Wow, or something like that. She wondered if Keegan Luxford would be interested in buying anything of hers for fifty million dollars. Simon’s brain, perhaps. Even that was a non-star
ter. Removal and delivery would be too complicated. “So Tim found you investors who’d hand over the money but let you do what you wanted with it?”

  “Exactly,” said Gaby. “He asked only people he knew well, who trusted him. He had unwavering confidence in me.” She looked uncertain for a second. “I never really understood why. He . . . I knew I could make it work, as much as you can ever know with something so high-risk and speculative, but Tim can’t have known. He just . . . believed in me, the way devoutly religious people believe in God. Faith. Somehow, Tim managed to convey that faith to enough of his clients and acquaintances, who all invested. He told them the best thing they could do was let me get on with things in my own way.”

  “He knew it was true, and it was,” said Kerry.

  “Or he was in love with me and that was all he cared about,” Gaby fired back at her. “Maybe he didn’t care if his clients and friends lost all their money as long as he got to impress me and be the one who solved all my problems.”

  “Gaby, stop.” Charlie heard authority in Kerry’s voice for the first time since she’d arrived at the Dower House. “Poor Tim. You’re not being fair and you know it.”

  Poor Tim? Poor wife-smothering Tim? Charlie felt as if she’d been cast adrift on waves of oddness, without a map or a pair of oars. Or even a boat.

  “I’m sorry. Sorry, Kerry.” Gaby sounded as if she meant it. She covered her face with her hands for a few seconds. “Ignore me. I had no sleep last night. You’re right, Tim would never have advised his clients to act against their own best interests. I don’t know why I said that.” She sighed. “All along, he claimed to know I’d succeed, that there was no risk at all, only an enormous profit to be made by all involved. I knew no such thing, but he knew. I just find it hard to believe sometimes, that’s all. How can he have known?”

  “We knew too,” Kerry told her, squeezing her arm. “Tim’s confidence in you was so powerful, we didn’t doubt him for a second, him or you. And you did pretty much know, Gaby—you’re being modest. Why else would you have spent all that money on the whole Swiss—”