by Penny Grubb
Later in her flat, Annie spread the papers over the kitchen table, and outlined the key points in marker pen. She flitted from table to worktop, as she read and absorbed the detail, then returned to the camcorder to wrestle with its battery-housing. Dean had got it working, but she looked at it with misgiving.
She shuffled through the slices of a supermarket loaf, absently skimming the mouldy ones towards the bin. The last half dozen looked reasonable and she slipped a couple into the toaster, then leant across and pressed the button on the answer-phone that flashed one-message at her. It was three days old and the familiar voice brought a smile to her face.
Hi, Annie. It’s Mike. Are you home? D’you fancy a night out? Give me a ring.
He’d expected her back early from her father’s like she usually was. A night out with Mike was tempting. He had a knack of taking her outside her worries. He knew nothing about the desperate state of the business. It was just a casual thing between them so wasn’t fair to offload her troubles on to him.
She picked up the phone. It was good to hear his voice.
‘No, I can’t take time out,’ she told him. ‘We’ve got a rush job on.’
‘Oh, come on, Annie. You’ve always got a rush job on.’
‘Hey, you know you said you’d like to come out on a surveillance with me? I’ve got one that might be just right.’
She spoke on impulse, half regretting the words, but why not? If it weren’t for the context of the business going under, this would be the perfect job, routine, no fleet-footed quarry. And it would be an eye-opener to him to share the cramp and boredom of a routine stakeout.
‘Yeah, great. Where and when? Now?’
‘No, tomorrow. You’ll have to take time off.’
‘No problem. They owe me.’
Later that night, she gathered the papers back into their bulky folder. There was a single document that gave her pause. A copy of a fax from a hospital in Buenos Aires, slightly askew where the original hadn’t been placed straight in the copier. She stared at it, asking it to give up any secrets it might have to give.
I’m nothing, it told her, just an off-centre copy.
The rational part of her knew that was true; knew she was desperate enough to clutch at anything that would turn this into a non-routine case that she could solve with a spectacular flourish.
Chapter 8
Two days later, Annie manoeuvred her car into a gap at the end of the street, a discreet thirty metres from the target house. It was her second day trailing the woman she’d labelled Mrs Buenos Aires, who ranked with the easiest targets she’d ever had.
Despite his confidence, Mike hadn’t been able to join her yesterday, but she expected him this morning and he would immediately learn a lesson about arriving earlier than this if he wanted a legitimate place to park.
The events in Scotland bugged her like a seed caught between her teeth. She’d checked the Oban Times website last night. The severed leg, literally and figuratively, was going stale. And she’d hear nothing from her father until he rang her. He wouldn’t do email, except an occasional one-liner if she really pushed him.
‘Email’s for work, Annie. I prefer to talk.’ Except of course he didn’t. They hadn’t talked properly in years.
As for her aunt, she might as well try to get her in a Formula One racing car as use email. She wouldn’t even touch a mobile phone.
Mike’s car pulled up beside her. Annie grinned and opened her window. He released his seat belt so he could crawl across the passenger seat to lean far enough out of the window to kiss her hello. The awkward angle made it a kiss on the level, as though they were in bed, instead of him bending down to bridge his almost-six-foot to her just-over-five. It felt good to have him close by. One day, when she shucked off some of her baggage, she might let him into her life properly. She knew it was what he wanted. Maybe it was what she wanted too, but if she ever let him close enough to see what sort of person she really was, he’d run a mile.
‘There’s nowhere to park,’ he said.
‘Just stay there. When she comes out, I’ll move off. You park here and then come and join me.’
‘Will we have time to do that? Won’t she get away?’
Annie smiled at the tension in his voice. ‘We’d have time for a complete change of clothes, not just cars. She’s not too good on her feet.’ She pointed across the road to the house. ‘Just be ready to move when you see anyone come out. And keep an eye out for wardens, you might have to do the odd circuit. They’re red hot around here.’
As the street began to wake, Annie outlined Mrs Buenos Aires’ story for him. ‘Her sister’s lived in Argentina for a few years. They were visiting, her and the husband, and a motor bike hit her. She had a spell in hospital, then home by air ambulance with some pretty nasty injuries. It’s a big claim.’
‘Why does it need investigating?’
‘They always look at anything this size. And you wouldn’t believe the stunts people can pull. She could be exaggerating the injuries, be in cahoots with the biker, anything …’
‘Is that likely?’
Annie shook her head. ‘Nah, she’s legit. I trailed her to the hospital yesterday. She wasn’t putting it on.’
She almost mentioned the fax, but it was just an off-centre copy.
This case was a slow burner. It would bring a few more clients in its wake, a trickle, maybe enough to hold off disaster for a short while. Maybe long enough for Pieternel to reel in a real biggie, but more probably just long enough to keep them all hoping to the bitter end.
It was just after 9.30 when her phone rang. She picked it up without looking. ‘Hello. Annie Raymond.’
‘Hello, dear. Is that you?’
‘Aunt Marian!’ She shot bolt upright in surprise. Aunt Marian with her weird views on technology never rang a mobile phone unless she had to.
Mike’s voice registered somewhere on the edge of what was important. She glanced across and saw a dustcart hassling him to move. She gave him a wave and twisted away to concentrate on the voice in her ear. The tone was excited. Annie imagined her aunt standing alone in the hallway at Mrs Watson’s. She heard semi-audible muttering and heard paper rustling. ‘Now where is it …? Ah yes …’
‘What is it?’ Annie tried to keep her voice even, but it came out a squeak. It must be bad news to make her aunt call like this, yet she sounded so calm.
‘Your voice sounds odd, dear. I hope you didn’t catch a chill in all that rain the other day. I expect it’s your mobile phone. It must do all sorts to a voice, sending it through the air. Anyway, I’m on a proper phone so you can hear me clearly. That’s the main thing. Now listen carefully, Annie. I’ve a job for you.’
‘A job?’
‘Yes, dear, a job. I was sadly mistaken in that lass and I feel responsible. If I hadn’t taken her under my wing, Mrs Watson wouldn’t have let her take advantage of the facilities like she did.’
‘Who? Charlotte?’
‘Yes! There you are. Annie knew at once who I was talking about. I told you she’d know what to do.’
Annie readjusted her mental image of Aunt Marian, and set Mrs Watson in the hallway behind her. ‘What’s she done?’
‘She’s …’ Aunt Marian cleared her throat and spoke self-consciously. ‘She’s … done a runner.’
Annie smiled and relaxed. It wasn’t a crisis after all. It was just her aunt grabbing an opportunity to brush shoulders with her niece’s cloak and dagger world. Mrs Watson was probably every bit as impressed as she was intended to be. ‘Done a runner, has she? What did she take?’
‘Och no, dear. Nothing like that. She hasn’t stolen anything out of the house, but she left owing a full week’s half board. Now, you’re to find her, Annie. Spare no expense. She mustn’t get away with it. Heaven knows what sort we’d start getting if word got out. I must say though, I was sadly mistaken in her.’
Me too, thought Annie. Her opinion of Charlotte rose a notch. The thought came to her that maybe Charlotte simply co
uldn’t stand another moment under Aunt Marian’s wing and had cut and run.
‘When can you be back here, dear? Later today?’
‘I … uh …’ Annie scrabbled in her mind for a way to say no, without snubbing her aunt. ‘I’ll make enquiries at this end. She works in London, doesn’t she?’
‘Aye, of course. You can call on Margot. The old girl network. Anyway dear, I won’t keep you. You call me when you’ve got Mrs Watson’s money. A full week’s half board.’ There was a murmured exchange in the background. ‘Yes, and two packed lunches.’
Annie clicked off the phone and blew out her cheeks. With any luck, her aunt’s enthusiasm for the venture wouldn’t last long.
She turned to look for Mike, but the dustcart now occupied his space, blocking her in. He’d be back round in a moment. Poor Charlotte, she must have been desperate to get away to run out without paying. The dustcart revved up and moved further on, clearing Annie’s view of the road.
‘Oh shit!’ Mrs Buenos Aires’ car was gone.
She leapt out to look up and down the road. No sign, but she couldn’t have gone far. Her phone rang again.
It was Mike, his voice panicked. ‘Annie, at last! She came out while you were on the phone. I followed her.’
Good old Mike, that would save her some time. ‘Where are you?’
‘On the main road. She’s just turning into Tesco.’
Tesco? That was just round the corner. She’d be there before either of them found a parking space.
As Annie pulled into the car park, she saw Mike standing next to his car, jigging about, head snapping back and forth, a look of alarm on his face that relaxed into a slump of relief as he saw her.
‘Over there. Over there.’ She saw him mouth exaggeratedly, as he waved his arms and pointed over the tops of the cars. People going past glanced at him and looked away. Annie gave him a grin and swung her car round to where he pointed, to where Mrs BA made heavy weather of backing her car into one of the disabled bays. Mike needed a beginners’ lesson in covert surveillance, but that could wait.
It must be agony for her to drive, thought Annie, as she focused the lens. They hadn’t had any money yet. Had they taken out a loan to adapt the car? Did she just struggle on when she had to? Why was she shopping on her own? Where was Mr BA?
She filmed the woman as she disappeared inside the store, then wandered over to the car and peered inside. No, as far as she could tell, it had all the standard controls. Just the blue badge in the windscreen to show there was anything wrong.
‘That’s her car.’ Mike was at her side, his voice excited. ‘She went in that way. Should we follow? She didn’t look that bad on her pins.’
Annie looked down at the bulky camera, then up at Mike. ‘Come on.’ She pulled him back towards her car. ‘For God’s sake turn your collar back down and stop looking so guilty. See this?’ She indicated the camera. ‘How far d’you think we’d get carting it around a busy supermarket? We’ll wait for her to come out.’
They sat in her car and chatted desultorily until Mrs BA re-emerged from the store.
Annie lifted the camera to her shoulder and watched through the lens. A woman in a Tesco tunic strolled at Mrs BA’s side carrying a couple of bags. Yes, Mrs BA’s bland face wore the mask of a smile. Aunt Marian would do just the same. Accept help if she had to, but not show the pain.
‘You could use this, couldn’t you?’ Mike said. ‘To make it look as though she isn’t as bad as she says.’
Annie nodded, but said nothing as she watched Mrs BA, framed in the lens, climb into her car and reach for the seat belt. This was damning footage.
‘It wouldn’t negate the medical reports,’ she told Mike, knowing as she spoke that it could do just that. There was something compelling about video footage; a magic that could counter reams of paperwork. Annie could weave a temporary spell over the case that would reduce the stratospheric claim to ashes. Mrs BA would have to go to court to fight maybe for years for her rightful dues. The medical evidence would restore the balance – eventually. And meanwhile, the business might stand up on its feet again on the back of some clever spin with a chance recording. And Mrs BA might die before she saw her payout. ‘It’s not the true picture,’ she said. ‘And I’d have to be an unscrupulous bastard to use it.’
A terrible fantasy played in her head, where this turned into the case of her dreams, the case where she pulled the impossible out of the hat, saved the client hundreds of thousands. A big case. Could make the papers.
But she’d seen the medical reports, seen Mrs BA and her elderly husband yesterday as they struggled to the hospital. They needed their settlement and needed it without delay. If the only thing on the other side of the scale were financial ruin, these thoughts wouldn’t get off the ground. But there was Aunt Marian. If two elderly women are drowning in front of you, and you can only save one of them, which do you choose? The elderly aunt you’ve known all your life, who brought you up and gave you everything, or the stranger you’ve never even spoken to?
‘Mike, I have to get back to the office. I have to take this lot back in.’
‘What? Now?’ He looked taken aback. ‘Let’s at least go and get some coffee.’
She forced a smile. If you only knew what I was really like, she thought, you’d keep your distance. He’d joined her at her request, taken time off work, she couldn’t desert him like this. But neither could she sit and talk pretending everything was OK. She had to be on her own.
She glanced at her watch. It was early still. ‘Give me an hour,’ she said. ‘Meet me back at my place. I’ll make us something for lunch.’
‘Ooh!’ He waggled his fingers in mock excitement. ‘Coffee and stale bread. Can’t wait.’
‘Oh Mike.’ She ducked her head in some embarrassment at the accuracy of the picture, but he’d pulled a real smile from her. ‘I’ll call and get something, OK?’
Annie made straight for the flat and spread the case notes over the kitchen table. She needed space to think.
If Mrs BA had let herself wallow in self-pity, if she’d played the victim for all it was worth, she would never have struggled to the shops and jeopardized her claim. And if she’d been like that maybe Annie could have contemplated cheating her out of what was her due.
No, she couldn’t even think about it. This woman was someone else’s Aunt Marian. But what of her own aunt? One elderly woman was condemned to a future hell by Annie’s actions. There was no middle ground. It was Aunt Marian or Mrs BA.
The click of the key in the door took her by surprise. Had she been sitting here so long? ‘Mike.’ She smiled up at him and tried to pull her thoughts back together. She was as muddled now as when they’d left each other an hour ago. What was it they’d arranged to do? ‘Oh shit. I’m sorry, Mike. I forgot to get anything in for lunch. I’ll go now.’
‘Of course you forgot, Annie. The day I come round here and find a tidy kitchen and a meal ready I’ll know something’s really wrong.’ He eased back a pile of dirty crockery and dumped down a carrier bag. ‘Just sarnis from Pret. And I got some fruit.’
‘Thanks.’ She laughed back at him, and prayed that her thoughts didn’t show. Something really wrong. This was the perfect time, by his reckoning, for her to be ready for him with a three-course meal in a candlelit room.
Annie intended to get into work early the next morning to start taking the load back off Dean, but eight o’clock found her at the kitchen table, riddled with indecision and still in her pyjamas.
She riffled through the case file and pulled out the fax. The supermarket trip meant nothing. The only thing that niggled at the back of her mind like grit in her shoe was that skewed fax copy. She stared at it until her eyes ached, but couldn’t see anything, or even catch a glimmer of what might be there to see.
What she wanted was someone with whom to talk it through, like in the old days when she and Pieternel had sat for hours over the files, over Annie’s notes.
The first time Annie h
ad said, ‘It’s just a feeling … I don’t know …’ Pieternel was scathing. ‘We can’t build a business on feelings, Annie. Get some evidence.’ So Annie had dug out the evidence. Evidence that no one else had found, because they didn’t look, didn’t have just a feeling to guide them. After a while, when Annie said, ‘It’s just a feeling …’ Pieternel pitched in to help, to dig through to find what had set Annie’s senses to alarm pitch.
But this one was different. This wasn’t her investigator’s instinct scenting a trail, it was desperation trying to find a way out and she daren’t tell Pieternel she might have found one.
She knew what to do and a weight lifted from her as she made the decision. Of course she couldn’t doctor the Buenos Aires report. Aunt Marian wouldn’t countenance it for a second. No matter what the consequences, she wouldn’t have Annie overstep that mark.
The certainty she was right cushioned her through a morning spent closeted with Pieternel who interrogated her for every last detail.
‘But Annie, are you sure? This footage …’
‘She’s on the level,’ Annie told Pieternel again and again. ‘They know it. They have to. They’ve seen the medical reports.’
‘And the fax? You said you’d wondered about it.’
‘Nah, I was clutching at straws. There’s nothing missing off it anyway.’
It was stuffy in the small office. Pieternel’s face was drawn, and Annie was sure it reflected her own expression. ‘Let’s get some coffee. I’m parched. What shall we do with it? D’you want me to write it up this afternoon? We can get it to them before the end of the day.’
‘Hell, no! Let’s get coffee, but get this straight first. I don’t want to talk about things out there if Casey’s about. The less she knows, the better. She can do her own caseload and as soon we can do without her, she’s out.’
Annie fought back an instinct to tell Pieternel how unfair she was being. Let Casey fight her own battles. ‘What do you mean, no? Don’t you want me to write it?’
‘I mean we don’t rush round with it. We fitted them in, remember? As a favour. We rush round now, it’s pretty clear we’ve put everything else on hold. I don’t want them seeing a hint of desperation.’