Time disappeared. I was roused by a loud tattoo on the door and a shout, ‘Are y’ decent, kiddo?’
‘Come in,’ I called out, and when he was in, ‘Do you really have to inform the whole hotel that there could be times when I’m not decent?’
Nel gave me his twisted smile, as though he was cracking nuts. ‘You coming down to eat?’ he asked. Then, belatedly, ‘Are you feeling well enough to eat?’
‘Good heavens, is that the time! I’m ravenous, Nel, and quite recovered.’ I got to my feet stiffly, eyed him cautiously, then walked round him. When he expects a rebuff, his shoulders slump and his eyes go all round. ‘You’ve been up to something.’
‘Now Phillie…all I’ve bin doing is getting an eyeful of your glorious country. Mostly brown trees all dripping water and misty, gloomy fields and rotting old houses. Seen better at home.’
‘You haven’t been driving!’
‘Went out with that Maguire. Took me out an’ around in his Mercedes. A man-sized auto, that is. Said he lived around here when he was a kid.’
‘He lives around here now, you fool.’ I was annoyed with him.
‘I know,’ he said, spreading his hands like excavator shovels. ‘He took me there. Met his wife. Nice wife. Bit’ve a prude, though. Had tea there. English country-house tea. Now there’s an experience! Scones an’ butter an’ a cup ’f tea like rainwater. No taste. Saw the horses. I’ve had me day, chicko. Quite a day.’
‘Let’s get out of here before I brain you, Nel,’ I said tightly.
‘You’re peeved,’ he complained.
‘However did you guess?’
We went down to dinner. I must have eaten, because I was less hungry afterwards, but I can’t recall a mouthful of it. Nel was at his most diverting.
Fellowes and Maguire were at a nearby table. Maguire I could understand; he’d driven Nel back here. But not Fellowes.
Nel waved. ‘How’re y’ doin’, cobber?’ he called out.
‘Cobber?’ I asked. ‘That’s Australian.’
‘I know. They know. Confirms I’m just a fool. Great.’
Maguire smiled back, a thin and tired smile. Fellowes scowled. He was a huge man with a lot of weight to move around. A scowl was less effort than a smile. Neither expression had any effect on Nel. Such things sail right past him. He wiggled his bony fingers.
‘How about General Motors?’ he shouted. Neither answered. I was baffled.
‘That’s Fellowes with him,’ I said. ‘Fellowes of Fellowes and Simple. Chairman and Director.’
‘I know.’ He will slurp his soup. ‘Crighton Fellowes. Call him Crighton, he told me.’ He raised his head. ‘Ain’t that right, Crighton?’ He seemed to fancy the name.
‘He was there too?’
‘Sure was.’
‘It’s a wonder they didn’t produce Simple for you. He’s been dead ten years.’
‘Pity I missed him. Could’ve sold him a burial plot in…’
‘Nel,’ I cut in. ‘You’ve been acting the fool. They’ve been trying to pump you for information. What did you tell them?’ I demanded, my voice not too steady.
‘Of course they wanted to pump me. D’you think I’m stoopid, Phillie? An’ of course I played the fool. That’s what they took me for. I gave ’em a good show.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘That we were over here lookin’ for top talent. Brains, I said, and weight. Told ’em the Yanks go f’ weight. Y’ gotta be seen to have weight, I said. An’ he’s got that, Crighton has. Crighton, by God! Told him a name like that was worth a handshake fulla gold. Said I could get him a top job with CBS. Or with Ma Bell.’
‘And Maguire?’ I asked carefully.
‘Straight inta the office of the Attorney General in Washington.’
‘He’s a company lawyer, Nel.’
‘Yeah. Told him that was what they called the administration, the Company.’
‘That’s not —’
‘I know. You know. But he don’t. I warned him about that.’
‘About what?’
‘That he’d have to take a language course on American English.’
‘You did enjoy yourself, Nel.’
‘Sure did.’
‘And I suppose it just slipped out that we needed finance for the European expansion?’
‘Negative. Double negative. Tried to buy inta their company. Said we had lotsa capital we wanted to spread. Mentioned trouble with the IRS. Said they were after us. I think… I jus’ think… I said we needed to shed a coupla million.’
‘Dollars?’
‘O’ course dollars. If it’d been pounds, they mighta said yes and then where would I have bin? Eh, chicko?’
One thing about Nel, you could rely on him for a bit of light relief. The trouble with him was that even I could never tell when he was playing the fool or genuinely being one.
‘And tomorrow?’ I asked.
‘What about tomorrow?’
‘If you’re not too busy, I’ve got business in Birmingham, and I could do with an escort.’
‘Well dang me, I’ve bin propositioned by a woman!’
‘Don’t fly that kite too high, Nel. All I want is company.’
‘Ya got it.’
Afterwards, Nel indicated yearnings for the bar. Equally, prowling my room like a demented hotel detective, he showed interest in the stuff on my bed. So I shoo-ed him out. The bar for him.
It was very late that night when I cleared it off so that I could use the bed to sleep in. But after all, I’d slept until two that afternoon.
I had established one or two facts. First: the five original accounts had each started with £10,000. So where was the quarter of a million? These accounts had remained static until a year after I’d left him. Was there anything significant in that? I thought not. At that time small sums — no more than £200 at a time — began to be withdrawn from each of the five accounts, and later, a week or two, they appeared in his deposit account. This seemed to be an obvious laundering of the £50,000, but at that rate it would have taken him a lifetime. An anticipated lifetime, that is.
Then, two years ago, other sums, not from the five accounts, began to appear as income in his personal accounts. Not large. Forty pounds, fifty pounds. And not often, sometimes separated by two months. Until — a year ago — there was a sudden change. The income sums suddenly jumped to £1,000 or more. The smaller sums I could understand, the larger not. The smaller were obviously from sales of his paintings.
But strangely, the larger sums were matched by equivalent withdrawals of the same sums from his five ghost accounts, as though he’d become suddenly more bold and was risking his laundering process being spotted. Poor, tiny-ambitioned Graham. He should have known he was in such a small league in this respect that his efforts would’ve slid right beneath the noses of the authorities.
And then, strangest of all, the income payments into his personal accounts began to be speckled with large sums that had no cross-reference to withdrawals from his five ghost accounts. This began about a year before. Withdrawals did continue to take place, but by that time his ghost accounts had almost been emptied. Yet still the large payments rolled in. The largest was £1,800.
I could detect no explanation.
Worrying at this in my mind, trying to make sense out of it, I drifted off to sleep. Perhaps, when I could get to Birmingham, I would find the truth. After all, I had that invoice to work from.
It was the phone that woke me. I hadn’t set my travelling alarm clock, feeling I could allow myself a natural period of sleep. The clock was right there, though, when I could focus on it. I reached for the phone. Seven-fifteen!
‘Yes?’ My brain doesn’t come alive as quickly as I would wish. I was fuddled, trying to decide where I was and why.
‘Had breakfast yet?’
‘What? I don’t…’
‘I woke you, didn’t I?’ There was a note of pleasure in the voice.
‘Who the devil’s this?’
‘It’s Oliver.’
I struggled myself into a sitting position. ‘D’you realize what time it is?’
‘I certainly do,’ he admitted. ‘I wanted to catch you before breakfast.’
‘Don’t you ever sleep?’
‘I got a few hours in, but I’ve been back on the job since midnight. Going off now. In fact, I’ve been off duty for ten minutes. I stopped on the way at this phone box.’
I sighed. ‘I’m sure it’s lovely to hear your voice, Oliver. But not at this time. Now, you head for your little bed…’
‘I’ve got to see you, Phil.’
‘Later, then. Later.’
Nothing seemed to have any effect on him. He ploughed on. ‘Do you know Beecher’s Fold? It’s just off —’
‘I know it. This is my town.’
‘There’s a little coffee bar along there. They do breakfasts. Meet you there at a quarter to eight. I’ll buy you bacon and eggs.’
‘Half an hour! You must be insane.’
Then his voice became very serious, the undertone of banter no longer there. ‘I’ve got to see you, and this could be our last chance. Be there, Phil. I’m depending on it.’
Then he hung up. I stared at the phone and then slammed it down. My feelings were a scrambled mess, anger, curiosity, and a ridiculous panicking realization that if I didn’t hurry I’d be late.
I splashed through a quick shower, decided that only the most brief acquaintance with my make-up would suffice both for breakfast and for Oliver, changed my mind and tried to do something about those cheekbones, discovered I was rapidly ruining everything I’d got to wear that was decent, and almost ran down the stairs in my professional outfit. Ridiculous, I thought, for breakfast. What sort of image did I want to present? Did I wish to present anything at all, except me?
It wasn’t raining for a change. In fact, the sky appeared to be clearing. Beecher’s Fold wasn’t far, just at the end of the High Street, so I decided to walk. It would help to clear my head. I had to be prepared.
The small café was new to me. There used to be a cycle shop there, I recalled. It was a quarter to eight. The bell pinged when I pushed open the door. It was that sort of place, the staff so small that they had to be called from the far reaches, where the same people probably fried their eggs hard and burnt the bacon. Only three tables were occupied. Oliver rose from a corner table, set, I noticed, where it was not visible from the chintz-curtained windows.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Did I hurry you? You look flushed.’
I wasn’t flushed at all; it was the rouge. I didn’t say so.
‘You’re quite impossible, you know,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I’m properly awake yet.’
We both sat. Not making too obvious an inspection of it, I noticed that he was tired and drawn, with grey patches in the corners of his mouth and shadows beneath his eyes. A slave-driver, WPC Lyons had called him, but it was himself he drove the hardest.
‘I wanted to see you,’ he said.
‘Just that? To fortify your resolve?’
‘What resolve?’
‘I don’t know.’ I’d flustered myself. ‘To get rid of me, I suppose. To get this affair over and out of the way, so that I’ll go home.’
‘This is your home.’ There was no tone in his voice.
‘Home to New York.’
‘Is that your home? Is it really? Do you genuinely like your work, which I rather gather is to place people in top-flight positions?’
I thought. How to put it? ‘I like the challenge.’
‘Yes.’ He stirred the end of the spoon in his saucer with a finger. There was a cold and empty cup there, too. He’d been waiting a little while. ‘It’s the sort of challenge that’s fine as long as you can face it, but there can come a time when it’s behind you, and it’s chasing you. New York’s a predatory city, Phil.’
‘It’s alive. It moves. It’s never still.’
‘And that’s what you like?’
‘It’s exciting. You can’t know till you’ve lived there and worked there.’
He met my eyes directly. His smile was sad. Or very weary. ‘Perhaps I should try it.’
I touched the back of his hand, more a reflex action than anything else. ‘We haven’t got many connections there, Oliver, but I could probably get you into the NYPD as a lieutenant.’
I’d pronounced it: lootenant. He laughed. ‘I’d never learn how to pronounce my own rank. Can you imagine me with a thirty-eight Police Positive stuck down the back of my waistband? Ha! I don’t know how they do it. Must give ’em a hell of a pain in the kidneys.’
And there’d been just a little strain in his voice, saying that with the correct tone of amusement and rejection.
Before I could say anything more, the elderly lady who was the only waitress was poising her pad over my head. ‘What’ll it be, Mr Simpson?’
‘Hello Kay. How’s Frank?’
‘Bearing up. You know how it is.’
‘I’ll pop in and see him soon.’
‘He’d like that. What’ll you have?’
Oliver looked across at me. I said, ‘Oh, bacon and egg and a very big pot of very strong tea and toast and marmalade.’
‘Same for me, Kay, only make it two eggs.’
Kay went away. I waited for Oliver’s explanation. He shrugged. ‘Luck of the game. Frank was my sergeant. We went out to an armed hold-up at a motorway service station. This character had a shotgun. Frank tackled him — and, well, he lost a leg. So Kay and her son opened this place, on his compensation money. I really must get round to see him.’
‘There you are, you see,’ I told him. ‘In New York you’d have been armed.’
‘And one gunman would be dead. Make no mistake about it, Phil. I’d have shot him without a moment’s hesitation. And that would’ve been one death to my credit, and just one more coat of hardness between me and reality.’
‘That was real.’
‘A tiny bit of reality. Not important to my life. Not so important as a killing would be. It’s not what I want from life.’
‘Which is?’
Then he laughed. ‘At the moment, bacon and eggs.’
‘Idiot.’
Then the food arrived. If they could maintain this standard, I thought, they’d be made. For a minute or two we ate silently. I found myself as famished as Oliver obviously was. On the second cup of tea I said, ‘But this isn’t why you brought me here, is it?’
‘A change for you from hotel food.’
‘And?’
‘I’ve got some more information for you, Phil.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s why I asked you here. I didn’t want to be seen entering The Carlton.’
‘No?’
‘I wanted to give you time to think about it.’
I’d asked for strong tea, and that was what I’d got. It was a wonder the spoon would stir it. I was taking in more caffeine every second, waking me fully. All the same, I didn’t know what he meant.
‘Time to think?’
‘I’ve had time, and I can’t make sense of it,’ he admitted, but I knew, because he looked down quickly at his empty plate, that this was not what he’d meant.
‘Can I hear it please.’
He raised his shoulders, then lowered them. ‘We’ve had an interim post-mortem report, Phil. Verbal, so it’s by no means comprehensive. First of all, it seems that your husband, Graham, died at least four days before Costello did.’
‘What!’ Then I lowered my voice. ‘But it was obvious. Wasn’t it, Oliver? Obvious. He must have died after.’
He was shaking his head wearily. ‘I jumped to that conclusion myself. Possibly because it was the easiest explanation. I mean, I sort of tried it out in my mind, Graham dying first, and it threw up too many ifs and buts. But now — it’s a scientific fact. He died first. Can you see what that means?’
It meant that my feelings on his death had not been valid from the very first moment that I’d heard the
facts from Harvey. I’d known he was alive. I’d been able to feel it, right through to my bones. And the whole thing had been false as hell! God, I’d been such a fanciful fool. I know…it’s always like that. I’d heard from women I’d known; they just couldn’t accept he had gone, their man. Yet it had been different for me. There’d been the years of separation when the memory — the acceptance of him as part of my existence — had faded. It was different for me. I shouldn’t have felt his death so strongly that I’d had to reject it, clinging to any tiny facet or suggestion of fact that I could use as proof that he was alive.
And all that while, every second I’d been awake, he had been positively and inescapably dead.
My love for him too, that early warm and exciting pulse in my blood when I’d first met him, that too had been returning. The more I’d learned about him, the more it had matured. But that had been for a man I’d believed — was certain — was alive. There was something about it that I had, now, to reject, something even morbid. I had to fight an impulse to plunge to my feet and walk away, away from myself, leaving it behind me.
I was aware that Oliver’s hand was covering mine, my other covering my eyes. I glanced up, impatiently trying to throw off the mood. He smiled, delicately shading it.
‘It’s different, isn’t it?’ he asked softly. ‘Sort of déjà vu. It’ll go away. You’ll see.’
He knew. His choice of words might not have been the best, but he understood.
‘It’ll take a while,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to think…think…’
‘Can I help?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘My thoughts on it,’ he offered.
‘All right. Is there any more tea? Damn it all, what a way to start a day!’
‘Yes. It can only get better.’
‘I’m not so sure of that. Come on then. Your thoughts on it.’
‘Right. Graham dies, and then, four or five days afterwards, Costello dies. Let’s not think about how Costello died, and what that means in terms of suicide or murder…or even accident, I suppose.’
Hung in the Balance (Simpson & Lowe Detective series Book 1) Page 16