Perfect Strangers

by Tasmina Perry

  Ruth tried to keep her face straight, but her journalistic instincts were tingling. Peter Ellis had invested in the Asner Ponzi scheme? Immediately her mind began to see the story laid out in print: British family wiped out by financial sting, brokenhearted father suffers heart attack, distraught daughter subsequently becomes a murder suspect. She could feel her pulse begin to race. Even for the Washington Tribune, with its emphasis on politics and world news, this was a better story than she had imagined. But still something didn’t quite fit. The Asner scheme had been such big news when it was exposed twelve months earlier because Michael Asner, a supposedly genius investor, had preyed on the East and West Coast super-rich. It was an insiders’ club for the wildly wealthy, and Asner had used their greed against them, providing high returns on investments that nobody thought or wanted to question. The news piece on Peter Ellis’s funeral had mentioned that he was an accountant with a practice in the City. He was clearly a well-off white-collar professional, but he hardly fitted the Asner victim profile.

  ‘Yes, I read about that,’ she said carefully. ‘Your husband was in financial services, wasn’t he? Is that how he came to invest with Asner?’

  ‘You mean why was Peter playing with billionaires?’ said Julia tightly. ‘It’s a question I asked him many times, believe me.’

  She took a tiny sip of tea which seemed to barely touch her lips. ‘Peter and Michael were good friends at Oxford. Michael Asner was a Fulbright scholar, would you believe? Furiously bright, but a horrid little man, if you ask me.’

  ‘So you knew him?’

  ‘I met him a handful of times in the early days of our marriage. I never really liked him; always so full of his own cleverness, as if he was doing us a favour letting us talk to him, even before he became super-successful.’

  ‘Had you seen him recently?’

  She shook her head. ‘Peter and Michael drifted apart once Michael began to move in those powerful Wall Street circles. The last contact I was aware of was about fifteen years ago, when he left the firm of investment brokers he had been working for and set up his own wealth management business. He couldn’t be bothered with us in the years running up to that, but when he was fishing around for investments, suddenly we were good enough. Or at least our life savings were.’

  Julia looked up. ‘You heard he died in prison, of course?’ she said. ‘I can’t say I was sorry. How could anyone do that to a friend? Peter was a quiet man. He kept everything bottled up inside him,’ she said, clutching her hand to her chest. ‘When the scheme collapsed and we lost the money, he seemed to be coping well, but then he had a heart attack on that little boat of his. We thought he was going to pull through, but he had another sudden cardiac arrest in hospital a few days later.’

  Ruth glanced at her watch again. Fox would be here any minute, and she couldn’t imagine he would be pleased to see her again.

  ‘You said Sophie hadn’t been herself recently. How did her father’s death affect her?’

  ‘They were very close,’ Julia said quietly. ‘If I’m honest, I was rather envious of their relationship. It’s been tough for all of us, of course, but Sophie . . . We had to sell her flat in Chelsea, her boyfriend finished with her, and her other friends? Well, she was dropped like a stone. Do you know, only three of her friends came to the funeral? Three!’

  ‘People can be very judgemental,’ said Ruth.

  ‘People can be bastards, Miss Boden,’ said Julia, bitterly. ‘And you can quote me on that. We paid through the nose for Sophie’s education; she is a beautiful, refined young woman, and yet when it comes down to it, you realise what ultimately matters to people: money. They only care about money.’

  She produced a tissue and dabbed at her eyes.

  ‘Sorry. This is all very difficult. I’ll have to sell the house, of course. We remortgaged to liquidate some cash, and now . . .’ She looked around at the devastation of the burglary. ‘I knew we should have kept paying for the alarm system,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘But Peter said it was an unnecessary expense. At least I took the Chanel on holiday with me,’ she added, clasping her handbag to her side protectively.

  Ruth paused, wondering how to phrase her next question.

  ‘Sophie must have been very upset about losing the family home, too.’

  Julia’s shrewd grey eyes locked on to Ruth’s.

  ‘Don’t start imagining motives where there are none, Miss Boden,’ she said, steel in her voice. ‘I read the papers, I know how the press can spin things: a young girl fallen on hard times tries to trap a rich man and it goes tragically wrong. That did not happen with my daughter, do you understand me?’

  ‘Honestly, Mrs Ellis,’ said Ruth quickly, ‘I’m really on your side. I just want to see justice done.’

  ‘Justice?’ she spat. ‘I don’t believe in justice any more. Not when Michael Asner’s wife is still sitting in some big house in upstate New York. Where’s the justice in that?’

  Ruth looked up at the kitchen clock. Twelve on the dot – time was up.

  ‘I’d better be going,’ she said, stuffing her notebook into her handbag. ‘I’m sure Sophie will be in touch very soon. Perhaps the police will have more news.’

  Julia went with her to the front door.

  ‘Do you have a photograph of Sophie I could take?’ she asked quickly.

  Julia nodded. She went into the study and returned with a family snapshot.

  ‘You will help her, won’t you?’ she said. ‘Sophie’s a good girl and she’s already been through so much. I don’t know what’s happened with this man in the hotel, but she wouldn’t hurt a fly, you do believe that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Ruth truthfully. Just then, there was the sound of a car turning into the drive and her heart sank. Shit.

  She walked down the drive as Fox was getting out of his saloon.

  ‘We must stop meeting like this,’ she said, lifting one eyebrow.

  Fox didn’t smile. ‘Why are you here, Ruth?’

  ‘Just doing my job, unlike you.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he frowned, slamming his door.

  ‘Mrs Ellis has been burgled, Inspector.’

  Fox looked up at the house, concern on his face.

  ‘Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it, both mother and daughter burgled within a day of each other?’

  ‘I’ll let you know when I’ve examined the evidence,’ he said, clearly annoyed to be arriving at the scene after a reporter.

  ‘So any more details on Nick Beddingfield?’

  He moved to walk past her. ‘As you say, I’ve got a job to do.’

  ‘Come on, Fox,’ said Ruth, invading his personal space. Fox sighed and took a step back from her.

  ‘We’ve tracked down his mother in LA. She’s distraught, understandably. She’s on a flight out to London, not that she can collect the body just yet.’

  ‘Where’s she staying?’

  ‘Oh, give me a break, Boden.’

  ‘You know I’ll find out, so there’s no point in not telling me.’ She batted her eyelashes at him. ‘For me, Ian?’

  Fox gave a hint of a smile.

  ‘That’s the first time you’ve called me by my Christian name.’

  ‘I’ll do it again if you tell me where Mrs Beddingfield is staying.’

  ‘The Horizon Hotel, Paddington. Now get out of here before I accuse you of tampering with evidence. Again.’

  She watched him walk up to the house, feeling a moment’s sympathy – for Fox, who had to deliver so much bad news; for Mrs Beddingfield having to fly twelve hours to see her son’s dead body; for Julia Ellis, who was all alone in a house full of ghosts. But as she turned and walked back towards her car, her thoughts were for Sophie Ellis, who had been dragged into this mess through, she suspected, no fault of her own.

  ‘You will help her, won’t you?’ her mother had said. And she would. Not only was this going to help Sophie, Ruth knew it was the story to help herself.

  21
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  ‘Get your bag, princess,’ said Josh, wiping his mouth with a napkin. ‘We’re off.’

  ‘Where are we going now?’ said Sophie. She had been enjoying their room service picnic – a club sandwich, fruit salad and a bottle of Badoit water. Lounging on the bed, eating off a silver tray, it all seemed decadent and slightly naughty, and she was in no rush to leave the relative safety of the suite.

  ‘We’re here to find out about Nick, remember?’ said Josh, picking up his jacket. ‘And the obvious place to start will be at his apartment.’

  Sophie reluctantly stood and brushed the crumbs off her white ‘Jil Sander’ shirt – another of the fakes from the lock-up he’d brought along. It was a size too small and the buttons were straining slightly, but Sophie still liked the Parisian air it gave her.

  ‘Aren’t the police going to be there? Surely that’s the first place they are going to check.’

  Josh pulled a face. ‘No, because the flat wasn’t his.’

  ‘Whose was it?’

  Josh sighed and opened the door. ‘I’ll tell you on the way.’

  They took a cab from the front of the hotel, turning down the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré with its smart boutiques and cafés. She saw a flower stall doing a brisk trade in sunflowers and a baker’s with an art deco frontage and a queue snaking out of the shop. She wound down the window and let the warm air roll over her as Paris passed before her. The honking traffic on the Place de la Concorde, the stateliness of the Tuileries Gardens, the waters of the Seine glinting and flashing as if she were in some Technicolor-drenched movie set.

  ‘Having fun?’

  ‘It’s better than wading through the Thames, yes,’ she replied, wishing she were in Paris under different circumstances.

  Her companion looked cynical. ‘Just because we’ve crossed the Channel, don’t start thinking we’re safe, okay?’ he warned.

  ‘Don’t you think I know that? I know we’re in trouble, Josh. I was there, remember? I have a bullet hole in my bag to prove it, and for all we know, those Russians might be waiting for us at any point in this city. So yes, I wish we were on a minibreak, but we’re not, so I just want to find out what Nick was up to, report it back to Fox and go home.’

  Josh turned away from her, relaxing back into his seat; she watched him stifle a smile. Did he really appreciate the danger they were in, or was this just an everyday occurrence for a man like Josh? He certainly didn’t seem to be as ruffled as she was.

  They travelled in silence until they passed a Monoprix store. Josh told the driver to stop, and ran inside the shop, leaving Sophie in the cab. Watching the street scene, she noticed that Paris seemed unsettlingly quiet.

  ‘Les vacances,’ explained the cab driver when she asked him in her schoolgirl French.

  She was glad when Josh returned, carrying a small black rucksack.

  ‘What’s in there?’ she asked.

  ‘Toothpaste,’ he said flatly, sitting down next to her as the taxi took off.

  ‘Why don’t I believe you?’

  Josh raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I’d say that was a common theme of our acquaintance.’

  He was maddening, she thought, edging away from him on the black plastic taxi seat. Why couldn’t he converse with her for five minutes without tormenting her? Leave her to enjoy the view and forget about the last two terrible days, just for one moment?

  ‘So tell me about Nick’s mysterious apartment.’

  ‘I don’t want this to be difficult for you,’ said Josh, looking straight ahead.

  ‘Tell me,’ she pressed. ‘It can’t be any worse than everything else I’ve heard over the past couple of days.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Josh, letting out a long breath. ‘I guess you’ve grasped by now that Nick lived off women?’

  Sophie felt her stomach turn over again. In her head, she knew it was true, but she supposed her heart hadn’t quite caught up yet. She gave a tight nod.

  ‘Last year, he spent the summer in Monte Carlo, where he met a woman. She was a countess, an older lady. Nick told me she lived in a suite in the Hotel de Paris – that’s in Monaco – and had properties around the world.’

  ‘She was “older”?’ Sophie asked, noticing his emphasis on that word. ‘How much older?’

  ‘Older,’ repeated Josh.

  ‘How old, Josh?’

  He shrugged. ‘He showed me a photograph of her on his phone. She was well preserved. Sixties, maybe more.’

  Sophie felt sick. Could it be true? It had to be.

  ‘You men,’ she said, her mouth turned down. ‘If a woman is rich, it doesn’t matter what she looks like, does it?’

  ‘Oh yes, and I suppose you’re telling me that women are so different? What do all your Chelsea girlfriends do for a career? They hang around nightclubs hoping to snag a banker or a minor royal. You saw them at the Chariot party: all those long-legged model types with their Birkin bags and their eyeball-sized diamonds. You think they care what their husbands look like?’

  Sophie thought of beautiful Francesca and her tubby, red-faced fiancé. Josh was right, of course. He was always right.

  ‘Doesn’t make it okay, though, does it?’ she said.

  Josh put a hand on her arm.

  ‘I know this is hard for you,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Thank you,’ she conceded.

  There was a few seconds’ pause.

  ‘Were you in love with him?’

  Sophie gave a half-laugh.

  ‘Can you really be in love with someone after a few days? I liked Nick a lot, I know that much. I liked being with him. I liked the way he made me feel. Happy, special, worthwhile. I hadn’t felt that in some time.’

  She looked back at Josh.

  ‘But now I know that’s what he did. He made women feel special, that was his job. So now I feel pretty shitty and stupid.’

  She saw the cab driver glance at them in his rear-view mirror. Did he speak English? Was he listening to them? Sophie found she didn’t really care; she wanted to know everything, however idiotic it made her look.

  ‘So what about this countess?’

  ‘She let Nick live in her apartment in Paris. I don’t think she’s been here for years.’

  ‘That was nice of her,’ Sophie said tartly.

  ‘Don’t be like that, Sophie.’

  ‘How am I supposed to be, Josh? Am I supposed to accept all this? Just shrug and think, “Ah well, so I’ve been taken in by a con man, c’est la vie”? Well I can’t. I’m sorry, but I just can’t.’

  She turned back to the passing scenery, watching through misty eyes the crowds milling around the Louvre’s glass pyramid, the Seine with its long black barges and the island in the middle of the river. From a distance it looked like a fortress rearing up from the water with steep walls that plunged into the Seine.

  ‘Look at that,’ she said, her mood mellowing.

  ‘That’s where we’re going,’ replied Josh.

  On the island itself, it was like stepping back in time. She saw a juggler and a mime artist, fishmongers serving crabs on beds of ice, cafés advertising chocolat et digestifs, bakeries displaying pastries and tarts loaded with redcurrants and blackberries, each shop window making her drool more than the one before.

  ‘This is fantastic,’ she said, desperate to step out of the cab and soak it all in.

  ‘This is Île Saint-Louis,’ said Josh. ‘Not many tourists come here; they all pile on to the Île de la Cité and Notre-Dame cathedral instead.’

  He signalled to the driver to pull over at the kerb.

  ‘Final stop,’ he said, as the car moved away. It was a small, traditional-looking café restaurant with a zinc-topped counter and bare floorboards. They took a table on the pavement, sitting in rickety rattan chairs, and Josh ordered ‘deux cafés’ while Sophie nervously glanced at the other patrons of the café. There was a couple hunched together, both wearing matching Ray-Bans, and a young man with uncombed hair scribbling into a notebook.

>   ‘We’re surrounded by poets,’ whispered Sophie.

  ‘We’re surrounded by people who look like poets,’ corrected Josh as the waiter brought their drinks.

  ‘So what are we doing here?’ said Sophie, wincing at the strength of her espresso.

  ‘We’re looking for Nick’s apartment.’

  ‘The countess’s apartment, you mean.’

  Josh ignored her.

  ‘When I was in Paris, Nick and I agreed to meet at this café because it was across the road from la comtesse’s place.’

  Shielding her eyes from the sun, Sophie looked up at the smart grey building in front of them. It had a long row of balconies and shutters at the windows.

  ‘You don’t know which one? That’s an awful lot of apartments over there,’ she said.

  ‘Île Saint-Louis is like a little village. We might have some luck,’ said Josh, waving the waiter over. He was a short man, perhaps in his sixties, with grey hair and a white apron.

  ‘L’addition,’ said Josh, handing him a twenty euro note and waving away the change. ‘Puis-je vous poser une question?’

  ‘Of course. I speak English, monsieur.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Josh, smiling, ‘I wonder if you know my friend, la comtesse. I know she used to come to this café; she said it was her favourite.’

  The man’s chest visibly puffed out.

  ‘Oui, la comtesse, she lives across the street there,’ he said, pointing up to the corner balcony on the top floor of the building. ‘She would wave to me in the mornings. Always the same order: tart tatin et chocolat chaud, even in summer.’

  His smile dimmed a little.

  ‘But she has not been to visit for many years. She is not ill, I hope?’

  ‘No, she is in fine health,’ said Josh. ‘And she asked me to send her regards.’

  They finished their coffee and crossed the street.

  ‘I think you made his day,’ said Sophie, waving to the waiter.

  ‘I do try,’ said Josh. ‘I’m all about the public relations.’

  ‘But how are we going to get . . .’ she began, but Josh made a silencing motion as he craned his neck to look up at the building’s balconies.