by Penny Grubb
She scrabbled through the mounds on the bedroom floor, desperate for a glimpse of real leather, the cornerstone of her outfit, the touch of class with which to meet the prestigious client. They’d have taken it; it was probably all they’d taken; the one thing she owned that had real value.
‘You mean your good jacket?’ Mike pointed across the room. ‘Isn’t that it?’
She dived for the familiar sheen and dragged it out, holding it up, twisting it back and forth. ‘Is it OK? Have they damaged it? Is it torn?’
‘Bit of something down near the hem.’
She held it high and inspected every inch, sagging with relief as the powdery something brushed off.
A minute after five, she pushed open the office door. The flat would be sorted later; she might not have clean clothes tomorrow morning. It didn’t matter; none of it mattered. All that mattered was the Buenos Aires report.
An unexpected bustle of noise and activity met her. Dean’s was the only familiar face. He sat on the floor, surrounded by printouts, and grinned up at her.
‘Hi. How’s tricks?’ She aimed the question at Dean but stared around in fascination. The four other people in the room were strangers to her.
Dean gave her a double thumbs-up. ‘Sorry about the flat. Much damage?’
She waved away his concern. ‘Nothing major.’ The door swished open behind her and Casey marched in, slapping Annie on the back as she hurried by. ‘Ay up. Double-oh-seven’s back from the wilderness.’
Annie grinned. Something had happened while she was away. Something good.
‘Ah, there you are, Annie.’ Pieternel was at the far side of the room beckoning her into the small office.
Annie picked her way between the new makeshift desks. Pieternel closed the door behind them.
‘What’s happened?’ she said, not daring to believe the miracle until Pieternel spelled it out.
‘A couple of lucky breaks came off the pack. We’re not there yet. Not quite. But we’re within that.’ Pieternel clicked her fingers. ‘Everything hangs on the next few days. I’ve a new investor. Don’t you breathe a word out there, not even to Dean. He might spill the beans to Casey. We’re flavour of the month right now. I’ve had to buy in experienced staff to cope.’
Annie swallowed, her mouth dry. Pieternel must be financing all this on fresh air. It was a last desperate throw of the dice. If her gamble with the new investor didn’t come off … ‘How close are you to signing him … uh … her … whoever?’
‘Them. New money. I need their names on the dotted line pretty damned quick, but I’ll have them tied in tighter than a stallion’s balls if I can just keep them dazzled for a few more days. I’ve been balancing them like prize salmon, Annie. It’s been hell.’
‘So why send me away? I could have done everything from here.’ And missed some stuff I could have done without.
‘Believe me, Annie …’ Pieternel ran her hand through her hair, making the dark tresses glint as the sun caught them. ‘It was important, but it’s too complicated to go into now. We have to focus on getting over the line. It’s working, that’s what matters. Just look around you.’
Pieternel was hiding something, but she was right. If the miracle was in reach, they had to focus. The full story could wait.
Pieternel pushed the office diary towards her, indicating a new entry for this evening. Annie felt her mouth curve to an even wider grin. One of their long-standing clients, a particular favourite of Annie’s, was booked in.
‘That’s so good to see. I thought we’d lost them.’
‘Yeah, great, isn’t it? Make sure you give them the real five-star treatment when you go round.’
‘This evening? I can’t. I’ve the Buenos Aires report to deliver.’
‘Casey can take that.’
Annie felt her mouth fall open. ‘You’d trust Casey with that?
‘It’s a simple delivery.’
‘I know, but …’ Certainly, their returning clients needed red-carpet treatment, someone who would flatter them, remember all the old cases. But the Buenos Aires job was the one that absolutely mustn’t go pear-shaped. ‘I suppose you’re right. She won’t have to talk to anyone.’
‘And if anyone wants to talk to her, she won’t know a thing.’
‘Is that good?’
‘Sure. Why wouldn’t we send a trusted gofer, rather than an experienced operative? We fitted them in remember.’
Annie narrowed her eyes. ‘Have they said they want to talk to me?’
‘Uh … yeah. They want to talk to the person who did the job. I’ve not given them any contact details as yet, but that’s not to say they won’t dig them out for themselves. But that’s good. It means they’re thinking in terms of hiring us again. I told them you were out of the country on another case.’
‘If we want to reel them in, then I should go and talk, shouldn’t I?’
‘In a day or two, yes. Not yet. We mustn’t run after them, mustn’t look needy.’
Annie stared, perplexed. She understood the need to put on a front, but surely this was over the top.
‘It’s not over the top, Annie, I promise you. It’s important we play hard to get. Trust me, I know these people. Go out tonight and rebuild our client base. Then you can take a couple of days off. Get your flat sorted.’
‘You’re joking.’ Annie half laughed. ‘With all this lot going on?’
‘It’s all covered. Right this second the only job for you is to go and soft soap old clients. In a couple of days, I’ll have you a case load and a half, but just for now, it’s important to play it quiet. No one must talk to you about the Buenos Aires job before I’ve tied in the new investors.’
‘How are they mixed up in it?’
‘They’re not, but they’re about to commit a lot of money. They’re doing their due diligence and they’re thorough. I’ve been playing confidentiality and data protection of course, but I’m pretty sure they know exactly who we’ve been working for. If they go fishing to the guys who are, on paper, our biggest clients, I don’t want them talking us down.’
‘What difference does talking to me make?’
‘That’s the end of the job. I mean, I hope it’s also the start of something new. But once they’ve talked to you, they know everything they need to know, so they can talk us down as a minor outfit that did a minor job. If they still want something from us, they’ll play their cards close, which makes us look good.’
This level of negotiation was outside Annie’s comfort zone. This was Pieternel’s territory. It made some kind of sense. And it was the route that would save Aunt Marian.
‘Yeah, OK, but really I don’t need time off. We need everyone here.’
‘I’ve told them you’re off the radar on another job. If they call round and find you here, it looks bad. I need you properly out of sight for a couple of days. Go to the meeting tonight, then vanish. Mobile off; don’t answer your landline.’
‘I can’t vanish completely. I might have to talk to the police about the flat.’
‘That’s fine. Friends, family, all that stuff. Just don’t take any calls from people you don’t know.
‘What if you want to get in touch?’
Pieternel gave her an impish smile. ‘Hey, don’t I count as a friend after all this time?’ She reached into the desk for a tightly wrapped folder.
‘Give this to Casey. She knows she’s to deliver it on her way home, but I want you to have a word. She listens to you. Stress how important it is. Tell her she’s not to say she’s seen you.’
Not without misgiving, Annie took the package and opened the door to the outer office. Casey and Dean were laughing together.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Pieternel snapped, voice low. ‘Look at that abortion she’s wearing. Casey,’ She raised her voice. ‘Do you have a coat?’
‘Nah, not in this weather.’
‘Then borrow Annie’s for tonight. And keep it on and buttoned.’
‘Pieternel, it’s m
y best,’ hissed Annie.
‘For Chris’sakes, Annie, she can’t take mine. It’d swamp her.’
It was only a jacket. The wrong impression could cause all sorts of damage. It was no big deal. Annie tried to talk herself round but it was with great reluctance she handed over the Margot jacket and watched Casey fling it carelessly round her shoulders.
Later that evening, Annie left her meeting and strolled into the early evening crowds. It had gone well. They’d chatted like old friends and signed up a whole new contract.
The skies had opened while she’d been in there. They’d all joked about unsuitable clothing and how soaked they’d be when they left, but the shower had been short and sharp, only showing now in the water trickling down the gutters and a wet sheen on the pavement. Annie’s hand went automatically for her phone to turn it back on, then pulled back, remembering the need to vanish. Mike would be late tonight. There was nothing to hurry for, and hard to generate any motivation to face the mess that awaited her at home. She found herself barely annoyed at the intrusion, especially in comparison to the sharp anger she felt at the break-in at Mrs Watson’s and what it might have done to her aunt. All the way to Glasgow on her own on a fool’s errand because someone had violated her environment.
She must email her father about Dish and that squalid bedsit where she’d shared Mrs Watson’s stolen whisky with Jak. Those battered boxes were probably stuffed with enough to make a serious dent in the local crime clear-up rate.
The high frequency wail of a siren interrupted her thoughts. She watched the car cut round the wrong side of a traffic island. No one expected her anywhere just now. No one could contact her.
Her feet headed in the direction of Tottenham Court Road. In her pocket, she fingered the scrap of paper where Charlotte’s address was written.
Chapter 16
Charlotte’s flat was in a converted house with a communal entrance and locked front door. Pseudo-carelessly, Annie pressed the side of her hand on to several of the bells.
A man in jeans and an unbuttoned shirt emerged and opened the door. He had a cordless phone in one hand and was obviously in the middle of a call.
‘Sorry,’ Annie apologized. ‘I hit the wrong bell. I’ve come to see Mrs Grainger.’
‘Uh huh.’ He held the door open, and gave an indeterminate gesture that encompassed the rest of the house.
Annie smiled her thanks and strode in past him. He didn’t look unduly interested, but idled in his own doorway a moment before he resumed his call. Annie’s gaze ran a lightning inventory of the doors she could see and calculated that Charlotte’s flat wasn’t on the ground floor. She jogged up the stairs, hoping she exuded an air of someone who knew where she was going.
Assuming worst-case scenario, that the man downstairs was now phoning the police, she would give herself ten minutes. No more. If the official response to a potential intruder at Charlotte’s flat came in under an hour, then she’d know for sure that the hidden agenda was momentous.
She found Charlotte’s door towards the rear of the house. No one was about so she slipped out her credit card and bent over the lock to give it a try. It yielded at once. Annie stepped back in surprise. That was far too easy and spawned a gut-knotting moment where she was sure it would trigger an alarm.
When everything remained quiet, she slipped inside. The room wasn’t large and encompassed living, kitchen and bedroom space. She moved swiftly to the only other door and found a cramped shower and loo. In the main room, her gaze raked the small space and she strode round the perimeter opening cupboards and drawers. The only places worth exploring further were the chest of drawers and a wooden cabinet.
She took the cabinet first and raked through its contents; books, magazines and a stash of papers in a folder, including a passport and marriage certificate.
The chest of drawers was packed with clothes and books. It took only a few seconds to satisfy herself there was nothing of interest, before she headed back to the cabinet.
She looked first at the marriage certificate, wondering for a moment if she would find that Charlotte’s husband had been Jak. However, the name on the official document was Alan David Grainger. She retrieved the passport and looked through it with care. The Charlotte she’d known stared out from the photograph.
Next of kin … Julia Lee.
Surprise caught her breath. She grabbed the marriage certificate again. Maiden name: Lee.
Charlotte’s tale of two sisters; all that garbage about a fake death. Had Julia faked her death on the moor with Lorraine as the witness no one believed? Had the car been intended to go over the edge empty and burn the evidence to dust at the bottom of the ravine? Poor Charlotte, if that had been the plan. There’d been nothing fake about her death.
Swiftly, she tucked the papers into their folder and moved round the room putting everything back as she’d found it. One last glance to check she’d left no obvious trace and she slipped out, pulling the door gently closed behind her.
Impossible to work through the ramifications of what she’d found, but she couldn’t let this lie. She needed to know more about Charlotte. Margot had a personnel file that she’d volunteered to show Annie, and because of Pieternel’s strictures, she had a free day tomorrow.
Mike was in the flat when Annie arrived home. He’d cleared enough space to sit in front of the TV and, in the kitchen, created a small oasis to stand the kettle and coffee jar surrounded by scattered food and shards of crockery.
‘Ah, there you are. Did you know your mobile’s switched off?’
‘Uh … yeah. Meeting.’
‘Oh yes, that report. How did it go?’
‘Yup, all fine.’ Please God Casey had delivered it with no glitches. She hoped he wouldn’t notice that she’d come back without the Margot jacket. She didn’t feel up to explanations.
‘Shall we eat out? I’ll have to get back to my place tonight. I’m in early tomorrow, and–’
‘Sure.’ He didn’t need to explain. Any change of clothes he’d had here would need dry-cleaning if he had to turn into Mr Respectable for the merchant banking world tomorrow morning.
‘Mike, thanks for sorting it.’
She swept some more of the mess aside and sat at the kitchen table, cradling her cup.
He ambled through and kissed the top of her head. ‘Annie?’
‘Hmm?’
‘We need to talk.’
Immediately on guard, she looked up.
Mike showed her the paperwork. The post that had lain behind the door had been ripped open in the search for anything convertible to cash. She glanced at the financial warnings, bills and threats that the intruders had raked through. What a disappointment they must have had. Even her identity wasn’t worth stealing.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Mike struggled to keep the dismay out of his voice.
‘You shouldn’t have looked. It’s not your problem.’
‘But …?’ He held up a page that Annie recognized as from the landlord.
‘It’ll take time to get me out. I’ve looked into it. I’ll have something sorted by then.’
‘But why haven’t you given it priority? It’s your home, Annie.’ He held out another statement. ‘Why have you been paying off this one. It’s a piddling little unsecured loan.’
It was hard to explain to someone who’d never had to let go of the sides. Ending up on the street wasn’t the issue. The important thing was to dive and dodge, to rob Peter to pay Paul to keep up a front as long as possible so that no one got to see the full picture, to know how bad things really were. Her one and only priority was to cling to her financial integrity.
‘Sit down, Mike. It isn’t good.’
She told him everything. How the business was on a knife edge and would swallow her whole if it failed, about Aunt Marian; about Mrs Watson’s; about all that her aunt had done for her. Everything she’d lined up to tell her father was suddenly easy to say.
At the start of the tale, she watched him
roll a couple of how-bad-can-it-be phrases round his tongue but he swallowed them unsaid.
‘Things are looking up for the business. I think Pieternel’s going to pull off the miracle.’
‘But your personal finances might still go belly-up?’
She nodded. ‘If Pieternel pulls off this last trick, yes, the business’ll turn the corner, with me or without me. If I go under, I won’t take them with me, but I’ll still take Aunt Marian.’
‘And what’s this trick Pieternel’s after pulling off?’
The relief of talking it out made her realise how badly she’d screwed herself up over keeping quiet, then making the decision to confess but being thwarted by events.
Having gone this far, there was no reason not to tell him the rest. Mrs Buenos Aires, the case he’d joined her on. The routine job for a big prestigious client that Pieternel had turned into something big. ‘I don’t know what she’s doing. Anyway, I don’t want to know, not yet. I’ll play along because it’s working. She doesn’t want me answering my phone to anyone I don’t know. That’s partly why it was off earlier.’
‘Oh, I forgot.’ He clapped his hand to his mouth. ‘Someone rang while you were out. I’m afraid I said I was expecting you home this evening.’
‘Don’t worry. You weren’t to know. ‘Who was it?’
‘She wouldn’t give a name. Just said to say the girl at Torran Hill.’
‘Torran Hill?’ Annie felt her eyes widen in amazement. Beth had rung her. ‘Did she leave any message?’
‘You weren’t to ring back. She was adamant about that. Her uncle wouldn’t like it, apparently. I asked if there was a message and she said, tell her the one she’s after is keen.’
‘Keen?’
‘Yup. I got her to repeat it, said it back to her. The one you’re after is keen. Is she part of the Buenos Aires case?’
‘No, nothing to do with it. She lives near my aunt. She’s a bit … well, I don’t know, not all there.’
‘Talking to her, I thought learning difficulties.’
‘That would cover it.’