Days Without Number

by Robert Goddard

  ‘I’m not in the advertising game.’

  ‘Nor ever likely to be, with that attitude.’

  ‘Marty—’

  ‘OK. No more arsing about. Was I able to work the magic on a certain solicitor’s computer system? That’s what you want to know, isn’t it? Did I hack it, so to speak?’ Braxton grinned.‘When did I ever not?’

  ‘You mean—’

  ‘It’s more of a colander than a computer, mate. Not much of a challenge. Still illegal, mind.’ With an effort, Braxton dropped his voice, the intended whisper emerging as more of a growl. The things I do for an old pen-pushing pal, hey?’

  ‘I’m grateful, Marty. Really.’

  ‘So you should be. Especially since I went the extra mile for you. Just to make it worthy of my attention.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It shakes down like this. That cool half million paid out by Hopkins and Broadhurst on twenty-six January? The payee was a company called Develastic. Know them?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Jersey-based. Probably just a shell. Info’s thin on the ground. But that goes with the territory. I managed to get the names of the directors, though. Just in case you were interested.’

  ‘I might be very interested.’

  ‘There you go, then.’

  Braxton handed Nick a slip of paper, on which were written three names:

  MAWSON, Terence

  MAWSON, Catherine

  RAMIREZ-JONES, Clive

  ‘Friends of yours?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘But not exactly strangers either, unless you’ve gone pale because that pint’s off.’

  Nick took a swig from his glass and looked Braxton in the eye.‘There’s nothing wrong with the beer.’

  ‘Thought not.’

  ‘But something else’—Nick glanced back down at the slip of paper in his hand -‘is wrong.’

  Nick made dismal company for the rest of Braxton’s lunch hour, as Braxton more than once complained. It was a relief in the end for both of them when they parted. Nick headed south, down through Green Park and St James’s Park towards Westminster Bridge, his thoughts moving faster than his feet, but with a vastly inferior sense of direction. He had feared Braxton might have nothing for him. Or nothing of much use, while hoping with little confidence for a direct lead to Elspeth Hartley, or maybe to Demetrius Paleologus. But neither his fears nor his hopes had come to pass. Instead, enemies had appeared from the least expected quarter. His brother’s ex- wife and her present husband were the source of the Tantris money. One or both of them had helped Elspeth Hartley pull off the deception. Or she had helped them. There was no way to tell who the prime mover was, nor what his or her motive might be.

  Though not necessarily for long. Nick had warned Basil that, by going to Venice in search of their cousin Demetrius, he might be stepping straight into the lion’s den. Ironically, Nick was now the one about to put himself in harm’s way. Kate’s invitation had suddenly acquired a sinister connotation. Was his visit an opportunity for her and Terry to decide whether he posed a threat to them? And what would their response be if they decided he did?

  But he could not cancel the visit without arousing their suspicion. Nor could he deny to himself that an opportunity for them to take the measure of him was also an opportunity for him to take the measure of them.

  He phoned Kate from the concourse at Waterloo to tell her which train he would be on.

  ‘It leaves in a few minutes. Due into Sunningdale at a quarter past four.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up at the station.’

  ‘I can get a taxi if it’s easier for you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. It’s no problem. I’ll be there.’

  ‘OK. Thanks.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh—all right.’

  ‘We’ve been worried about you.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Naturally. We were glad to hear you were feeling better. You are feeling better, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I am.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘See you soon.’

  ‘Yeah.‘Bye.’ Nick rang off and glanced up at the departure board. His train was ready. There was no time to be lost. He started walking.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Andrew and Kate had met on a diving course at Fort Bovisand. They had married while Nick was still at school and thrown themselves into making a success of Carwether Farm. Things had only begun to go wrong after Tom was born. By then things were going wrong for Nick as well. The final break-up of their marriage had passed him by. As far as he could recall, Terry Mawson had not been on the scene at the time, though he shortly after was. Kate had married him in the mid-Eighties, just as his Devon-based building business was transforming itself into a nationwide property company. He had made a medium-sized fortune before the boom turned to bust and timed his exit from the housing market to perfection. Since then he had invested here and there and God knows where to ever better effect, such that he and Kate now led a semi-retired life of leisure, divided between a big house in Surrey and a scarcely smaller villa in Spain, with a golf course on both doorsteps.

  It was difficult to begrudge them their prosperity, though naturally Andrew had. The fact was that Terry had worked hard for what he enjoyed and freely admitted that what had looked like shrewdness had often been luck. He was a genially blunt-mannered bear of a man, fond of cigars, golf and fast cars. The stereotype did not extend to a roving eye, however.

  He was a devoted if not uxorious husband, despite a lack of children which had reputedly led him to spend a lot of time and money on exotic fertility treatments—to no avail. Andrew’s one consolation for losing Kate had been her failure to bear Terry a son to compete with Tom.

  Kate’s view of the matter was unrecorded. She had preserved the unsentimental, level-headed demeanour of the farmer’s wife she no longer was. Not for her the gin bottle and the poolside lounger. She owned a riding school in Ascot and an interior design studio in Camberley. She was very much her own woman. But she was no longer as busy as she had formerly been. Her and Terry’s concerns ticked by profitably without much day-to-day involvement on their part, freeing them to—

  What exactly? Nick turned the question over in his mind as the train ambled down through Hounslow and Staines. He could not believe what it seemed he had to. A less likely pair of conspirators than Kate and Terry he could not imagine. They had everything they wanted, including each other. And the Paleologus family had done them no harm. More criticism had been levelled at Andrew over the divorce than at Kate. Friendly relations had always been maintained. Tom was held to be a credit to his mother and by implication to his stepfather. There had been no feud.

  But Marty Braxton’s delvings left no room for doubt. Kate and Terry’s fingerprints were on the Tantris money. And money was one thing they were not short of.

  As promised, Kate was waiting for him at Sunningdale station, looking tanned and fit and smart-casually elegant in blue jeans, red sweater and black thigh-length coat. There were a few flecks of grey in her dark hair and laughter-lines around her eyes, but otherwise she was a walking advertisement for the benefits of middle-aged affluence. She appeared carefree and wholly unconspiratorial.

  ‘Hi, Nick,’ she said, hugging and kissing him.‘It’s great to see you. And looking so well.’

  ‘You’re the second person who’s said that today.’

  ‘It must be true, then. There’s been quite a change since—’

  ‘Andrew’s funeral? I know. I was pretty well out of it then. Blame the drugs they had me dosed up with. I’d still fail an Olympic dope test, but I’m getting there.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. And to see the evidence. Now, talking of getting there, let’s go.’

  Kate’s Mercedes was parked outside. They climbed in and started away, Nick noticing already the anxious tightness in his stomach. He slowed his breathing and tried to relax
his facial muscles.

  ‘It’s really good of you to be going up to see Tom. We’re worried about him, but he wouldn’t welcome me fussing around, so this visit of yours is a real blessing.’

  ‘Is there any reason to worry about him? I mean, obviously, losing his father—’

  ‘There’s nothing specific. But, when he was down, he was so—tight-lipped. I wish he’d talk about it, that’s all. Maybe he’ll open up with you.’

  ‘I can only tell him what happened and see where we go from there.’

  ‘And what happened was just a crazy accident. I wonder if that doesn’t make it worse.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I wonder if Tom doesn’t want there to be someone he can blame. Only no-one is to blame, are they?’

  ‘No.’ Nick looked straight ahead at the road.‘No-one at all.’

  A few minutes later, they turned off onto the private road through the Wentworth estate. Kate slowed to a seemly 20 m.p.h. as they cruised past the security-gated properties. Triple garages and towering gables peeked at them from the distant ends of tree-lined driveways. A manicured, emerald green swathe of golf course intervened, then they entered a still more exclusive enclave of seven-figure designer residences and followed a curvaceous cul-de-sac to the house that Kate and Terry called home. There was, Nick, felt sure, no place quite like it, but humble it was far from. Mariposa was quite possibly the biggest bungalow in Surrey, terracotta-roofed, picture-windowed and land-hungry to a fault.

  Thanks to Kate, the interior was as tastefully furnished and decorated as the exuberantly extensive ground plan would permit. Mariposa was no more her natural habitat than Carwether had been, but she disguised the fact well. She was, Nick reflected, an expert at disguise, perhaps more of one than he had ever supposed.

  After a brief excursion to the guest wing to dump his bag, he joined Kate for tea in the pastel vastness of the lounge. Terry, she explained, was entertaining a party of clients to an afternoon’s racing at Sandown Park; he would be back in time for dinner.

  ‘If it hadn’t been arranged so long ago, I’d suspect him of deliberately engineering his absence.’

  Nick smiled and glanced through the window into the lushly landscaped garden, where a soft rain had begun to fall among the snowdrops and early daffodils.‘Why would he want to do that?’

  ‘Because he’s more sensitive than people give him credit for. He knows I want to talk to you about Andrew.’

  ‘What is there to say, Kate? I wish I’d done more to stop him, but—’

  ‘I don’t mean the accident. In one of the few conversations I managed to have with my son while he was here last month, before well, before it happened he told me about this weird Tantris business.’

  ‘Ah.’ Nick’s senses suddenly sharpened. He could hear the rain now as well as see it, dampening the patio with a gentle, ophidian hiss.‘Did he?’

  ‘Was it a secret?’

  ‘Not really. Anyway—’ Nick sipped his tea.‘I’m glad he told you. It’s better to have things—out in the open.’

  ‘Isn’t it just? That was one of the reasons why Andrew and I broke up. He always kept so much to himself. Whereas with Terry what you see is what you get.’

  ‘Someone played a strange and rather cruel trick on us, Kate. The strangest part of it is that we don’t know who—or why.’

  ‘You’ve no idea who was behind it?’

  Nick shook his head.‘If we understood their motive ‘

  ‘You’d be able to figure out who they are.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Was Andrew particularly upset about it?’

  ‘Well—yes. Selling Trennor at a premium price would have been advantageous to all of us, obviously, but especially to Andrew. Farming’s been a mug’s game for quite a few years now.’

  ‘That’s what Terry says. That he must have seen the deal as a lifeline.’

  ‘I suppose he did.’

  ‘And then the lifeline was snatched away.’

  ‘Yes. It was.’

  ‘Which is why we’re so worried about Tom.’ Kate leaned forward in her chair.‘He figured out Tantris was a fraud, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He exposed the trick for what it was.’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘We’re worried he blames himself for his father’s death, Nick. That’s what it comes down to. He was so—withdrawn—at the funeral. He wouldn’t talk to me. Not really talk, you know? He takes after Andrew that way. He just won’t open up. I think, inside, he’s decided he somehow tipped Andrew over the edge.’

  ‘That’s absurd. We’d have had to find out the truth sooner or later.’

  ‘I know. But it was thanks to Tom that you found out when you did.’

  ‘Even so—’

  ‘I know. Of course it doesn’t make sense. Grief and guilt don’t tend to. But I’m worried—really worried—that he’s convinced himself he’s in some way responsible. Which is why I’m so pleased you’re going to see him. If anyone can make him understand, it’s you.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Bless you, Nick.’ Kate stretched across to clasp his hand.‘That’s all I’m asking.’ And looking into her eyes, he found it hard to doubt that she meant exactly what she’d said.

  Lying in the bath before dinner, Nick stared up through the whorls of steam towards the sunflower-sized showerhead, focusing on the gradual formation of a droplet of water at its centre and wondering just how long it would take to drip free. Slowly, slowly, it glisteningly grew, and with it grew also his dread of the evening that stretched before him. He had almost convinced himself that Kate was being entirely honest and knew nothing about the source of the Tantris money. But, if so, then Terry had deceived her as well as the Paleologus family. And the consequences could only be worse as a result. Everything seemed normal and placid and restrained. But nothing remotely was.

  Nick climbed out of the bath, suddenly impatient with his own anxiety. He towelled himself down vigorously and pushed open the window to clear the steam. Then he heard it: the low, thrumbling engine-note of Terry’s Ferrari. It growled up the drive and came to a halt with an extravagant scrunch of rubber on gravel.

  Nick wiped a clearance on the mirror in front of him and stared at the damp, drawn face he saw there. The fleeting impression struck him of a man seeking to avoid his gaze. Then he remembered: he was that man; it was his gaze.

  ‘Terry’s taking a shower,’ Kate called to him from the kitchen as he passed the door a short while later.‘And I’m at the messy stage of a recipe. Make yourself comfortable in the lounge and one of us will join you in a mo.’

  Nick tried to do as he was told, but comfort required more than soft furnishings. He poured himself a nerve-numbingly large gin and tonic and turned on the television news. A reporter was talking sombrely about the foot-and-mouth outbreak. Nick switched it off again. He walked to the patio door and parted the curtains. Outside, it was still raining. He could see the misty motion of it in the coppery glow of a floodlight countersunk in the lawn. A minute passed. Then several more.

  ‘Nick,’ came Terry’s booming voice.‘Sorry we’re neglecting you.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Nick turned to meet the broad smile and merry, sparkling eyes he remembered better than any other feature of Terry Mawson’s appearance. He sounded as big as he looked, balding and jowly, his cigars-and whisky baritone rumbling inside a barrel-chested frame. His voguishly black shirt was cut generously enough to disguise a considerable paunch, and a glittering gold belt buckle was the only hint of the medallion-man fashion he had once favoured. Everyone liked him because it was so hard to dislike him. Kate had certainly refined his dress sense over the years, but his personality was still the raw force of nature it had always been. Or so, in normal circumstances, Nick would have confidently declared.‘Good to see you, Terry.’

  ‘You too.’ They shook hands and a meaty paw clapped Nick on the shoulder.‘What’s that you’re drinking?
’

  ‘G and T.’

  ‘I’ll join you.’ Terry grabbed the bottle.‘Freshener?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Very wise.’ Ice rattled in a glass. Gin glugged over the cubes, followed by a fizz of tonic.‘Cheers.’

  There was that impossibly broad smile again, accompanied by a wink as they touched glasses. Nick’s mind reeled. Nothing made sense. Terry Mawson could not have dreamed up the Tantris scheme. Intrigue and secrecy were alien to him; medieval literature was terra incognita. Nick was missing something, something as simple as it was obscure.

  ‘When were you last down here, Nick?’

  ‘Not sure. Tom’s eighteenth birthday party, maybe.’

  ‘A few years ago, then.’

  ‘Must be.’

  ‘In that case you won’t have seen this.’

  Terry moved towards the marble-hearthed fireplace and nodded at the painting above the mantelpiece. Nick had not noticed it earlier and could not have said whether he had ever seen it before or not. Big, clean-lined, and acrylically bright, it depicted a woman in a ballgown dancing on a beach with a non-existent partner. Something about it was faintly familiar.

  ‘Vettriano. What do you think?’

  ‘It’s, er, very good.’

  ‘You probably recognize the style from all the greetings cards they flog with his pics on.’

  ‘Yeah. I think I do.’ Thus was the familiarity explained.‘I didn’t know you were into art, Terry.’

  ‘I’m not really. But you’ve got to put something on the walls, haven’t you? And I like this guy’s stuff. I can understand it. At least, I think I can. Besides, my accountant tells me he’s a good investment.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Red hot, apparently. Let’s hope so, after what I forked out for this one.’ Terry’s roar of laughter filled the room so suddenly that Nick jumped.‘Are you OK? Didn’t mean to startle you.’

  ‘Sorry. I—’ Nick shrugged.‘Nerves aren’t too good, to be honest.’

  ‘Not surprised, after what you’ve been through. Sure you don’t want a splash more gin?’