A Ghost in the Machine

by Caroline Graham

  Damn. There was the cab drawing up and three-quarters of his long-nurtured eulogy still undelivered. With a brisk, jolly swing of his hand Andrew picked up the bag and prepared to leave. In the doorway he looked back, savouring the final moments of victory.

  Gilda did not look at all happy. In fact she looked incredibly wretched and also rather ill. Andrew hesitated, then did something he was to regret for the rest of his life. He took the telephone from the far side of the room and placed it on a little table near her hand.

  “Cheer up, fatty. Talk to someone – get it off that gargantuan coal heaver’s chest. Try The Samaritans. Better still –” over his shoulder, closing the door – “Save the Whales.”

  It must have been about forty-five minutes after this that the police car drove up to the first set of electronic gates at Mount Pleasant and was admitted. Barnaby saw the ambulance, turning in the drive of Bellissima, straightaway.

  “Bloody hell!” Troy pulled up as close as he could to the nearest flowerbed, leaving room for the larger vehicle to manoeuvre. The siren howled and the ambulance shot by as Barnaby got out and ran across the grass.

  A youngish man stood in the porch. Pale, alarmed, smartly suited. Barnaby produced his warrant card and started asking questions. The man was Simon Wallace, a solicitor. The Berrymans’ solicitor.

  “Perhaps we’d better go inside,” said the chief inspector. Then, when they were, “You look as if you could do with a drink.”

  “Yes.” He helped himself to a whisky, his hands shaking. “God – what a day.”

  “What happened?”

  “She had a heart attack.”

  “Is Mr. Latham here?”

  “No one’s here. We had a call from Mrs. Latham. She sounded…extraordinary. Somebody had to come out immediately. She was almost screaming.”

  “And when you arrived?”

  “The front door was open. I found her on that sofa. She couldn’t move.”

  “So what was the call about?”

  “She wanted me to bring her will over.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “The usual reason. To change it.”

  “Was this a habit?”

  “Not at all. It was made just after she was married. She’d meant to make a new one long ago. Just hadn’t got round to it.”

  “The details?”

  “Oh, come on. You know I can’t—”

  “I’m involved in a murder investigation, Mr. Wallace. We can go through the proper procedure but, to be frank, time is not on our side.”

  “It’s not as if I’m a senior partner—”

  “Then I’ll talk to a senior partner. Your number?”

  “Well…” Simon could just hear them at the office. Unable to handle heavy stuff. Can’t take decisions. Better not risk him on the new Ainsley account.

  “She cancelled the will, which left everything to her husband. Then made a new one and signed it.”

  “Leaving everything to…?”

  “Charity. She couldn’t think which one – she was in such a state. But it had to be animals. People were vile – those were her last words. I suggested the Cat Protection League, my wife and I being members of the Fancy.”

  Blimey, thought Sergeant Troy, some mogs have all the luck. This place alone must be worth over a million.

  “There was also mentioned a nuptial agreement drawn up years ago by her father. In case of a separation it was supposed to stop her husband getting any of the spoils.”

  “But they’re not valid over here,” said Barnaby.

  “Mr. Berryman hoped he wouldn’t work that out.”

  “So when did Mrs. Latham become ill?”

  “Directly after the business was concluded. To be honest I got the impression she was just hanging on till I got there. The ambulance men said things didn’t look too good.”

  “I see. Thanks very much, Mr. Wallace.” Barnaby got up. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  “Can I go now?”

  “Of course. But leave a card, if you would.”

  Barnaby watched the solicitor’s Mercedes negotiate the drive and the small but select gathering of neighbours just beyond the boundary wall. He thought human nature didn’t vary much. Whatever the locale – run-down sink estate, neat suburban terrace or gated enclosure of the super-rich, curiosity as to the business of one’s neighbours seemed endemic.

  “See what you can find out from that lot,” said Barnaby. “I’ll look over the house.”

  He started at the far end in the larger of the four bedrooms. Men’s clothes were strewn everywhere. Some on the bed, some on the floor, over an armchair. An empty suitcase lay by the dressing table with its lid open. Some drawers had been tipped upside down.

  Barnaby tried to open the sliding wardrobes running the length of the room. He had just discovered the electronic button when he heard Troy running through the hall. Racing up the stairs.

  “It’s Latham, sir.” Troy stopped on the threshold staring at the mess. “He’s gone.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Hour, hour and a half ago. Left in a black cab carrying a large holdall. Cab was advertising Britannia Building Society.”

  “Right. Get a search call out. Railways, air and seaports. Full description. And get a trace on the taxi.”

  Troy seized the phone. Barnaby abandoned his investigation into the wardrobe and set about a more systematic search for Latham’s passport. He started in the library. He knew it was the library because there were red and gold book spines glued to all the shelves. There was also a framed picture of Shakespeare, quill poised, gazing gloomily at an astrolabe. But he had hardly started on the Chippendale desk before Troy was calling out again. Tetchily the chief inspector returned to the bedroom.

  “For heaven’s sake, man. Can’t you do a simple—” Then took in Troy’s expression. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “I think you should hear this direct, sir,” said Sergeant Troy, and passed over the telephone.

  The offices of Brinkley and Latham were almost deserted. The receptionist was still there, her eyes grossly red and swollen with weeping. A wastepaper basket at her feet full of sodden tissues. When Barnaby and Troy arrived she began to speak, then started to cry again. They made their way through to the main office.

  Leo Fortune sat in his cubbyhole staring blankly into space. His desk was cluttered with papers and notes and letters as if, only moments before, he had been lively and busily engaged. There was also a cup of tea, stone-cold with a congealing skin.

  When Barnaby said, “Mr. Fortune?” he brought his head up with great difficulty, as if it were a lump of rock. He looked years older than when they had seen him last, his mouth a miserable jagged line.

  “This is a bad business, sir.”

  “Have you found her?”

  “Found…?”

  “The Lawson girl.” His voice was cracking all over the place. “Have you arrested her?”

  “I need to clarify certain things. The message I got—”

  “What’s to clarify? You know what’s happened. You know who’s responsible.”

  “I still need to—”

  “Haven’t you done anything?”

  “Calm down, sir,” suggested Sergeant Troy.

  “Calm down?” He stared at them both in turn, his face such a mask of absolute incredulity it verged upon the tragic. Which made it, to Troy’s mind, also comic. He turned away, fumbling for his notebook.

  Barnaby sensed the man struggling not to cry. He said quietly, “If we could just take some details, Mr. Fortune…?” Then sat himself squarely in the comfortable chair facing what used to be Dennis Brinkley’s desk. His stolid, phlegmatic presence and the silence that gradually took over the room eased Leo Fortune back into some sort of composure.

  “Money has been stolen from nearly all of the accounts held here. Thousands of pounds. Hundreds of thousands.”

  “But you’re insured?”

  “Of course, we have to be. But th
is will still finish us. When you’re dealing with other people’s money, once trust has gone you’ve had it. God knows what Mrs. Latham will say.”

  Barnaby thought this was perhaps not the time to pass on the news that Gilda was in intensive care and not expected to last the day.

  “Have you any way of tracing the money?”

  “It’ll be out of the country by now. Some offshore slipperiness. Ghost accounts, more than likely.”

  “Ghost?” Barnaby looked up sharply. “How does that work?”

  “It’s an old scam. You find a child’s grave, the child being the same sex as yourself and, had it lived, roughly the same age. Apply for a copy of its birth certificate. Using this and an up-to-date photograph, apply for a passport. You can then open an account and start putting money in. And the owner of this account can never be traced because they don’t exist. Hence, ghost.”

  “Surely it’s not as simple as that.”

  “If it was,” decided Sergeant Troy, “everybody’d be doing it.”

  “There’s quite a risk. Checking procedures have been tightened up a lot, especially when presented documents are copies. And you can be in serious trouble just for trying it on.”

  Barnaby became briefly distracted then by the phone in reception. It had been ringing quite often since they arrived. He wondered if such frequency was the normal traffic of the day or whether the news of the disaster was already leaking out. With a dozen or so distressed staff on the loose it would hardly be a surprise.

  “Are you going to close the office, Mr. Fortune?”

  “I can’t decide. If I do it’s going to look as if I’ve scarpered—like one of those dodgy types you see on Watch-dog. And if I don’t, when this really gets out we’ll be practically lynched.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell people yourself?” asked Sergeant Troy.

  “Of course.” He waved a sheet of foolscap at them. “It’s what I’ve been working on all day. Trying to warn clients that something untoward has happened without actually telling them how bad things actually are.”

  “A fine line,” agreed Barnaby.

  “So you see why I jumped on you about getting hold of the Lawson girl. Every minute counts.”

  “We don’t think Polly Lawson is responsible for this, sir.”

  “Not…? But she must be. I mean – we know she did it. You said yourself—”

  “We believe these thefts to be something quite separate and unrelated to the earlier incident.”

  “How can that be?” Leo looked really sick. Terrible though things were, he had thought at least the police had a name. A point of entry to start searching for the money. “I don’t understand.”

  “Do you remember when we talked here a couple of days ago? When Andrew Latham joined us and became extremely disturbed.”

  “Of course.”

  “And at what point in our conversation it happened?”

  “You were talking about the fishmonger. How he’d identified the person Dennis saw breaking in here as Polly Lawson.”

  “Why do you think that brought about such an extreme reaction?”

  “How should I know?” Fortune put his elbows on the desk, covered his eyes with his hands and groaned. “I don’t know anything any more. I don’t even know what day it is.” Then he looked up sharply. “But I do know I haven’t got time to play stupid games. So get on with what you want to say in a straightforward manner. Or just go.”

  Latham was found before the day was out. The photograph helped. A happy smiling one of him and his wife taken years earlier. Gilda neatly excised, the police had it circulated within the hour. The lunchtime edition of the Evening Standard featured it on the front page. The black cab too had been quickly traced. Its driver had taken Latham to South Ruislip; the nearest Tube station to Bunting St. Clare that connected with the main line.

  There he was clearly remembered, having tried out his charm to poor effect on the female booking clerk. He had bought a ticket to London via High Wycombe. Apparently he was in exceptionally high spirits. You would have thought, suggested the clerk, he’d won the lottery.

  Latham’s complete ignorance as to any interest of the police in his whereabouts led to him travelling openly and, alas for Sergeant Troy’s romantic imaginings, with no attempt at disguise. He was detained around four o’clock at Waterloo, attempting to board the boat train for Southampton. By six he was seated in an interviewing room at Causton police station, having rejected, with an air of complete bewilderment, the suggestion that he might like to have a solicitor present. Two plainclothes officers were also at the table, on which was a folder and a large, somewhat bulky envelope. They were the same two officers, he recognised sourly, that had turned up at the bungalow only days ago and dropped him in it.

  If they’d known anything then they would have arrested him then. So what did they know now? What could they know? There were one or two details skilled ferreting could no doubt discover. But you had to know what you were looking for and they knew bugger all.

  His rights had been read. He knew he could not be compelled to speak, which meant he was the one with the power. And there was nothing like the power of silence.

  “Off on your holidays, Mr. Latham?”

  Andrew smiled.

  “All on your own?” Barnaby paused. “Perhaps you were meeting up with someone later?” Nothing. “In France, perhaps?” Nothing.

  “Where did you get the money?” asked the skinny red-haired one.

  “None of your business.” Damn, that was a mistake. He should have said, “What money?” How quick they were to trick and provoke.

  “Enquiries have led us to believe that you earned no regular salary.”

  “And that it was Mrs. Latham who held the purse strings.”

  “I believe she gave you an allowance every week.”

  “A very small allowance.”

  “So where did you get the money?”

  “What money?”

  The big man opened a folder and took out some papers, which Andrew immediately recognised. They had taken his travelling bag when he arrived, giving him a receipt as if that somehow made it acceptable. Obviously it had been searched. Surely that wasn’t allowed without some special warrant. If they had bent the law didn’t that mean any evidence so discovered would be inadmissible? Andrew wished now he had agreed to their suggestion of a brief.

  He said, “Are you allowed to do that?”

  “There is a balance here of over four hundred thousand pounds.” Nothing. “Did you have any special reason for opening an overseas account?” Nothing. “Protection from the Inland Revenue, perhaps?”

  Andrew shrugged. Having absorbed the initial shock of seeing the details of his recently obtained wealth made public he recognised anew the importance of silence. What he must not do was slide into some question and answer loop with them hammering away, looking for a slip or contradiction to pounce on. He would dig his heels in and keep shtum. God knew he’d had years of practice.

  “What made you choose today to disappear, Mr. Latham?”

  “It was a disappearance, wasn’t it?”

  “Not just a trip to gay Paree.”

  Gay Paree? Do me a favour. It was Cherbourg and a car, and motoring down to Provence and then across to Italy. Sorrento, Positano, Capri. All the places he had once pretended to own and manage property in. Except now the villa would be for real.

  “Perhaps the investigation of Ava Garret’s death was getting a little too close to home?”

  “The Causton Echo was full of it.”

  “How she met her murderer at Northwick Park.”

  Andrew allowed an expression of utter stupefaction gradually to possess his features. This was difficult because it had, of course, been exactly this series of events that had provoked his flight.

  “Sooner or later a witness will come forward who saw you.”

  “Or your car.”

  “Stands out, a yellow car.”

  At this point a wondrous
ly pretty uniformed policewoman came in with a tray of tea and a plate of shortbread biscuits. God – what a sight for sore eyes. Briefly Andrew’s concentration slipped its moorings. He gave her a warm smile but she had locked on to the younger of the two investigators, who was giving her an even warmer smile. He said, “Abby Rose, you’re a star.”

  Abby Rose! Andrew stored the lovely name away. He could afford her now. A girl like that.

  The tea was boiling hot and tasteless. Ignoring it, the detectives shifted tack. Now it was Dennis who occupied their attention. Dennis the menace as he was turning out to be. If he had minded his own business he would be alive today. With a million missing quid to account for, true, but alive.

  What was this? Andrew was being handed some sort of printout from British Telecom. His number featured along with a few others. As did the time and date of the call. But that wouldn’t tell them what had been said. And without knowing that, such information would be meaningless. He smiled politely and handed the paper back.

  “Quite a coincidence, Mr. Latham.”

  “Perhaps you remember discussing this very same evening with us recently in your office?”

  “When you had that rather unpleasant turn.”

  “Knocked bandy, as I recall. Sir.”

  “You didn’t mention this telephone conversation then.”

  He hadn’t been able to resist ringing, Dennis. Vindicated at last. Able to prove his fuss about the snake lamp had a sound basis in fact. Not triumphant – Dennis could never have managed that. But chuffed in his mild way. Silly, silly man.

  Because he had seen who it was. He knew the woman. The family lived in Forbes Abbot. The matter, Dennis gave earnest assurances, could be safely left in his hands. But that was the last thing Andrew could allow to happen. There was far too much at stake. Money, naturally. Love too (though not for him). And most important of all, freedom, without which the first two were as ashes in the mouth.