The Verge Practice

by Barry Maitland

  ‘And go to bed with him?’

  Something occurred to Jennifer, some memory that caused her expression to soften, but whatever it was she apparently decided not to share it with Kathy. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That happens. But nothing serious or dangerous.

  Nothing that need disturb his perfect family.’

  ‘It’s perfect, is it?’

  ‘Oh God, yes. Wife’s family are old county, a mansion in the Cotswolds. He has a married daughter and two sons, both at Oxford, and they live in this fabulous house on the edge of Greenwich Park. He was a navy flier for a couple of years when he was young, helicopters, and he’s still got some of that dash. Well, you’ve met him.’

  ‘And he still pulls the girls.’

  ‘Just as a diversion. He can be very amusing and charming, quite different to Charles.’

  ‘Charles being the fiery and dangerous one?’

  ‘Fiery, sometimes, and intense. Dangerous? Well, if Miki was having an affair he’d have been angry and jealous, certainly, but he wouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘So why did he?’

  ‘Opinion is divided. Among my staff, the secretaries and bookkeepers, the reason is that he just flipped, because all designers are basically a bit obsessive and demented, aren’t they? Among the architects the feeling is a) he didn’t do it and it’s all a terrible mistake, or b) she drove him to it.’

  ‘How did she do that, if it wasn’t with a lover?’

  ‘It’s to do with their work. Their lives are so bound up in their work that it would have to be that. Deep down they all care more about how to detail the next staircase than whether their wives are being screwed.’ She laughed and drained her glass. ‘Mmm, that’s quite nice, isn’t it?’

  ‘Have another,’ Kathy said.

  ‘Thanks. Does this make me a paid informant? A snout? A grass?’ She laughed again, enjoying herself.

  Kathy signalled to a waiter. ‘Go on, then, how did the work drive him to it?’

  Jennifer frowned as if trying to work out how to explain. ‘This is not spelled out exactly. It’s more like an undercurrent of belief or superstition that you pick up from time to time in the drawing office. And in a way it is sexual, but not as straightforward as a lover.

  ‘Did you notice the gender distribution at VP? Basically, there’s a divide. The admin staff are mostly female, while the architects are almost entirely male. I don’t know why it is. I’ve watched them recruiting and interviewing, and I never detected any bias, but not many women designers apply to work there, and those that come usually don’t last. Maybe all architects’ offices are like that, I don’t know; but you’d think it would be a good profession for a woman, wouldn’t you? I’ve wondered if maybe there’s some kind of suppressed aggression or competitiveness at VP that puts women off. Anyway, whatever the reason, that’s the general rule. But there are exceptions, like Miki, and before her Charles’s first wife, Gail.

  ‘I knew Gail Verge. I joined the firm the year before she left. I used to watch the way she and Charles worked together. Each evening, after the bulk of the staff had gone home, the two of them would tour the drawing office, going from board to board, or computer to computer. They would examine what each person was working on, and Charles would make notes and sketches on a pad of white paper he carried around with him, then he’d tear the page off and leave it for the designer to look at next day.

  ‘But the thing I noticed as I watched them was that it was almost always Gail who took the lead. She’d stare at the work for a while in silence, then point at something and they’d have a discussion. Then Charles would nod his agreement and do one of his famous little spiky black sketches to show the guy what he had to do.’

  The second glass of wine arrived and Jennifer paused while Kathy paid.

  ‘I assume you’ll get expenses to cover this, will you? The prices are scandalous here.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Kathy said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  ‘So you think Gail was the better architect?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Maybe she was a more perceptive critic.

  Maybe her judgement was better. I think that must be very important for them, don’t you? I mean it’s one thing to be very creative and come up with lots of bright ideas, but it’s also important to be able to decide between them and pick the winner. She was a deeper thinker than Charles, and had a lighter touch. I think that they complemented each other’s strengths. Maybe you should talk to her, she might give you a different angle on Charles. I’ve got her number here.’ She gave it to Kathy.

  ‘Anyway, she must have decided she’d had enough of living in the shadow of Superman and she walked out, and suddenly Charles was on his own. And it showed; maybe not to the clients on the outside, but to Charles’s hot shot designers. There were whispers in the office that he’d lost his touch. At first we put it down to depression over Gail leaving him, but then it began to seem more than that, as if some kind of magic had left with her. The projects kept rolling in, bigger and bigger, and the discipline of the practice and its talent kept the show going, but something was missing. The rave reviews in the international magazines became more cautious and people began to say that VP was becoming mainstream.

  ‘Then Miki came along, and Charles came to life again, and everybody was hoping that she would be another Gail, a fresh young queen to rejuvenate the tired old king. I mean, she could draw like an angel and she looked the part, as if she’d sprung fully formed from one of his sharpest buildings, and although she was so young she had confidence and authority.’

  ‘I thought people didn’t like her.’

  ‘On a personal level, that’s true. She was arrogant and ambitious and cold. But that didn’t matter. The point was that she might restore Charles’s magic touch, turn the good back into the brilliant.’

  ‘Did it work?’

  ‘No. After they were married Charles began to give her more and more freedom in their design work together. It seemed okay, people were encouraged. Then came disaster.

  There’s this building that nobody in the firm ever mentions now, the Labuan Assembly. Fortunately it’s a long way away and almost nobody goes there, but those that have all agree that it’s an absolute pig—out of scale, clunky and derivative. And it was Miki’s.’

  ‘But what about Sandy Clarke? Where does he fit into this?’

  ‘Sandy is the one who manages the teams who develop the production drawings for the buildings after Charles and his people have worked out the concept designs. You could say that Sandy’s talent is to bring Charles’s designs to life as faithfully as possible. When he realised what people were saying about the Labuan Assembly building, he persuaded Charles to keep the architectural press away. Effectively he buried it.’

  ‘How did Miki feel about that?’

  ‘She was furious, but Charles knew in his heart that Sandy was right. After that he insisted on making all the major design decisions alone.’

  ‘How did that affect their relationship?’

  Jennifer shrugged. ‘That was the end of the honeymoon. Things got tense.’

  ‘What about the Home Office project, Marchdale Prison? Who designed that?’

  ‘Charles, one hundred per cent. I would say that Marchdale is Charles’s attempt to wipe out the shame of Labuan, his demonstration that he can still do it like in the old days. He was obsessive about it and took control of every decision, doing little sketches at night for the draughtsmen like he used to do with Gail. Mind you, to hear Miki talk about it sometimes, you’d have thought it was all hers.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that as a motive for murder? Professional jealousy?’

  ‘No. Everyone at VP knew whose work it really was.

  But if you were to look at their personal relationship as a reflection of their working relationship, you’d have to say that when he killed her she was already dead for him.’

  ‘You mean, she’d outlived her usefulness? That’s a pretty horrible idea.’

  ‘
Yeah. It’s not a motive exactly, but when you’re looking for the thing that finally put the knife into her heart, you have to bear that background in mind.’

  9

  That Wednesday evening Kathy sensed that something had changed between herself and Leon, although the feeling was so indefinite that she hesitated to make an issue of it. She had returned to the flat to find him working on his university assignment on his computer, the rest of the table covered in textbooks and notes. He’d apologised stiffly, as if they were two strangers temporarily sharing a railway compartment and sensitive to territorial rights, and had begun to clear things away. She said it didn’t matter and tried to make conversation about their day, but he didn’t join in, pointedly returning his attention to the screen. Then her mobile phone rang, and she became locked in an interminable and one-sided conversation with Jay about the importance of having a woman chair for the committee, and of the women members acting as a caucus.

  Later she went out to buy takeaway for them both, which they ate in silence. Eventually she said, ‘You’re not angry with me are you, Leon?’

  ‘Why should I be?’ he said, not meeting her eye.

  ‘I don’t know. Because I spotted the mix-up with Clarke’s DNA?’

  ‘No, of course not. I just . . . I’ve just got to concentrate on this work, okay?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I can’t help, can I?’

  Suddenly he sagged as if he’d been punctured, the anger or frustration or whatever had been simmering inside him gone. ‘No, thanks. I’m sorry, Kathy.’

  ‘What for?’

  He took a deep breath. ‘For everything,’ he said, and wouldn’t elaborate.

  Later that night, across the other side of town, Brock turned restlessly in his bed, sleep eluding him. He had always enjoyed the luxury of lying alone in a wide bed, the freedom to stretch and turn without disturbance, but lately this feeling had been replaced by an uneasy sense of loss and isolation. To take his mind off this he forced himself to recall the pages of the Verge scrapbook which Suzanne’s grandchildren had given him. He could picture most of them quite clearly, the images of success and scandal. As he finally slid towards slumber his brain focused on one of them, a colour magazine photograph of Charles Verge standing beside the nose of his silver glider, dressed in black leather jacket and jeans. In Brock’s torpid imagination the picture seemed to come to life, Verge breaking into a smile and walking jauntily out of frame, to reveal behind him in the shadowy space of the aircraft’s cockpit a second figure, a dark outline only, handling the controls.

  Kathy woke to find herself alone in bed, the smell of toast and coffee coming from the other room. She found Leon propped against the door of the kitchenette, flicking through a paper he must have gone out to buy. The computer was alive and he looked as if he’d been up for some time.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, not looking up from the page. ‘Want some coffee? Your horoscope says you’re going to be doing some travelling.’

  Kathy wasn’t sure, but she thought she detected a note of hopefulness in his voice.

  They were making progress. She could sense it in the animated murmuring around the room as they waited for Brock to start the team meeting the following morning. As they each gave their reports it was apparent that everyone had something to offer, some suggestive little bit of fresh information, though where it all led Kathy still couldn’t make out.

  First it was reported that Sandy Clarke had been asked for a new DNA swab, and this request had apparently been met with something like panic. ‘Went white as a sheet,’ the officer said with satisfaction. ‘Then demanded to know why, and when I said routine elimination he wouldn’t believe me, then said he’d refuse and call his lawyer, then finally apologised and did the doings. Something to hide, I reckon.’

  Kathy described her conversation with Jennifer Mathieson, and her assessment of Clarke’s attitude to women.

  ‘But she reckons that they couldn’t have been having an affair without the office inquisition getting wind of it, so either they were very discreet, or it had only just started.’

  It had not been possible to identify Clarke’s car on the tapes retained from security cameras in the streets near his offices for Saturday the twelfth of May. Statements made by his staff had confirmed that he was present throughout the day, supervising the team preparing for the presentation to the Chinese on the following Monday, although it was also said that Clarke had been absent for extended periods during the morning; he was mainly in his own office, according to his statement, working on correspondence and other paperwork. It would have been quite possible for him to have gone up to the Verge apartment during this time, or even to have left the building, if he had avoided the routes covered by the cameras.

  But it was the group working under Tony, the Fraud

  Squad officer, who had the most intriguing material to offer. Tony stroked his notes with loving fingers and eased his neck a little in his stiff white shirt collar, with his customary air of an undertaker presenting his estimate of funeral expenses. ‘We haven’t been able to get access to his personal accounts as yet, chief. We should progress that today, with any luck. But a couple of things have come up that may be of interest.’

  He cleared his throat, for theatrical effect Kathy guessed, as if he were about to offer a special on the oak casket.

  ‘We ran his name through the accounts we have had access to, and came up with two payments from him of ten thousand quid each, to the account of Verge’s daughter Charlotte, in July and August of this year.’

  ‘Mmm . . .’ Brock scratched his beard ruminatively.

  ‘Understandable. Helping out the daughter of his old partner. She’s had extra expenses lately with the new house, and a baby on the way.’

  ‘True enough. Or the money might be intended for Charles. But it does raise the whole interesting question of who’s entitled to what out of the Verge Practice. Talking to the accountants, it appears that on May the twelfth ownership of the firm was shared between the three equity partners, Charles Verge and Miki Norinaga and Sandy Clarke, in the ratio 45:25:30. Now only one of them is left.’

  ‘What about Charles and Miki’s successors?’

  ‘The firm had an insurance policy to cover the sudden death of a partner. But Miki left everything to Charles, assuming he outlived her, and so Charles now theoretically owns over two-thirds of the business. If he were to turn up dead, his estate—principally his daughter Charlotte— would have his share paid out by the insurance company.

  But he hasn’t been declared dead, so his assets are in limbo.

  Either way, dead or alive, Sandy Clarke effectively controls the firm one hundred per cent.’

  Brock shrugged doubtfully. ‘By all accounts business has been terrible since the murder. If you’re suggesting Clarke had a financial motive to murder his partners, it hasn’t turned out to be a very smart move.’

  ‘Maybe that wasn’t the motive, chief.’ Tony’s face took on a look of cunning. ‘Maybe he had no choice.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The accountants are only now getting around to finalising the books for the last financial year, and they’ve come across something interesting. In the twelve months leading up to last May, the Verge Practice made a series of payments to a company that nobody seems to know anything about:

  Turnstile Quality Systems Limited. The thing that alerted the accountants was the size and number of the payments, sixteen in all, amounting to a couple of million quid. When the accountants asked the bookkeeper at VP she knew nothing about the payments, which had been authorised directly by Sandy Clarke and not entered into the monthly accounts.’

  ‘What does that mean, Tony?’

  ‘Well, this only came up yesterday evening, so we haven’t had time to do a proper check on Turnstile Quality Systems yet, but when we tried to phone them the number didn’t work, so I took a drive out to their address, in an industrial estate in Neasden, number 27 Poplar Lane. It turns out that the last
building on Poplar Lane is number 25, and nobody around there has ever heard of this company. The accountants wanted to take it up with Clarke, of course, but I told them to hold off until they get the all clear from us. The possibility is that he was using a dummy company to siphon money out of his own firm.’

  ‘A couple of million? Surely someone would have noticed?’

  ‘VP authorised well over a billion in payments to contractors last year, chief, and their own profits were very healthy. The invoices were VAT exempt, apparently, so there was no discrepancy in the VAT returns. They were bound to surface eventually, of course, but by then Sandy Clarke was the only partner left to worry about it.’

  They discussed what they should do next, Brock allocated tasks and the meeting broke up. As she was leaving, Kathy found that she had a text message on her phone, postponing the committee meeting until the following Monday. Her first reaction was relief that she would have time to work with the team on the Verge case, but then irritation as she realised that all the important jobs had now been allocated. She hurried over to Brock and explained the situation.

  ‘Oh, that’s good, Kathy,’ he said, sounding preoccupied and not overjoyed. She felt marginal, hanging around on the edges. ‘And how is the committee going? I haven’t had a chance to talk to you.’

  ‘Pretty hopeless. Apart from a day’s workshop on gay rights, we’ve spent the whole time quarrelling about who should be chair.’

  ‘Maybe you should step in and take over.’ He smiled at the idea. ‘Yes, why not? This may be your opportunity.’

  ‘I’d rather quit and work on the case full time. Is there anything interesting I can do today?’

  ‘Interesting? Well . . .’ he consulted the sheaf of papers on his clipboard, ‘. . . there’s a lot that needs doing. There’s a list of car numbers from the CCTV cameras needs checking . . .’ He caught the look that crossed her face and stopped. ‘Or . . . well, how do you fancy a trip up to Peter-borough? That’s where the couple live who thought they saw Verge in Barcelona on the Monday after the murder.