Faraday 01 The Gigabyte Detective

by Michael Hillier

  Charlotte returned to the car. Already the gates were opening. Julian drove up the short drive between the clumps of cypresses and stopped behind a white BMW four-wheel drive.

  “Nice car,” he said conversationally.

  The front door opened and an elegant woman stood there From this distance she appeared to be of an indeterminate age - somewhere between thirty and fifty - although Julian had told her that Susannah Blake was actually older than that. She was wearing a see-through bathing robe over the top of a sensible bikini. It seemed as though they had disturbed her in the middle of some serious sun-worshipping.

  “Do you mind waiting here, Julian?” asked Charlotte. “Somehow I don’t think I’ll be long.”

  “OK.” He reclined his seat a little and wound down his window while the detective got out and crossed to meet the star.

  “Susannah Blake?”

  The other woman smiled politely and nodded.

  “I shan’t take up a lot of your time,” said Charlotte, feeling at a disadvantage, being two steps below this small but statuesquely famous actress from the past. “We’re investigating another matter and it appears that one of the people who have come to light in our investigations may have been employed by you some years ago. I just want to check up with you about her.”

  Susannah looked suspicious. “I suppose you had better come in,” she said reluctantly.

  Charlotte followed her into a cool, rather bleak hall. There was a rich rug in the middle of a light-coloured, polished strip-wood floor. Dark oak panelled walls glowed in the light from the glass front door which had whispered shut behind her. She was led into a small study just off the hall. On a large desk at one side of the room stood the video screen, still showing a picture of the area outside the front gates. Suddenly it switched to a view across a terrace, presumably at the rear of the house. In the distance was the sea far below. Two loungers were facing away from the camera towards an outdoor swimming pool. There were small tables beside the loungers with tall glasses of drink upon each of them.

  Susannah crossed quickly to the desk and switched off the screen. She turned back to face the detective. Charlotte fancied the other woman’s cheeks had flushed a little. Or perhaps it was simply that she needed a further application of sun-block.

  The star said, “please take a seat, inspector …”

  “Faraday.” Charlotte chose a business-like chair facing the desk. “My enquiries concern somebody you used to employ here, Mrs Blake.” She paused helpfully. “Would you like your husband to be present while we have our chat?”

  “Er - my husband is away.” She perched on the edge of the desk but avoided looking Charlotte in the eye. “And Susannah Blake is my stage name. My - er - my married name is Holdsworth.”

  “Ah.” Faraday pursed her lips. “How would you like me to address you?”

  “Most people seem to call me Susannah.”

  “Very well, Susannah. Did you once employ a young woman called Sandra Harris?”

  “Sandra Harris?” There was a sudden frightened look at the back of her eyes but she shook her head. “No. I have never employed anyone of that name.”

  Charlotte was surprised. “Are you sure? Another person who employed her was quite certain that she had been employed by you, before she moved to them. Are you certain that you haven’t forgotten the name?”

  “I have only had three cleaners working for me since I moved here. That was nearly ten years ago. I remember the names of them all,” she shook her head, “and none was called Sandra Harris.”

  “That’s odd,” said Charlotte. “By the sound of it, I should expect that this woman would have left your employment at about the time you moved here.”

  “Ah. Perhaps I can offer an explanation.” The actress seemed to have recovered her equanimity. “My husband and I were married just under ten years ago. This is a second marriage for both of us. He already owned this house before we married and moved down here. I believe he had someone working here, keeping the place in order, and he presumably discharged her when we came here to live. I never met her and I never asked her name - perhaps she was this Sandra Harris who you’re looking for.”

  Charlotte considered the possibility. It seemed logical if a little far-fetched. “Perhaps that would explain it,” she agreed. “You said your husband isn’t here?”

  “No.” For some reason Susannah’s hand went towards her throat almost of its own volition. Then she slowly lowered it again. “No - he’s in Munich this weekend? Why?”

  “With a bit of luck,” said Charlotte smoothly, “he’ll be able to confirm the name of the woman he discharghed before you were married. Will he be back on Monday?”

  “He’ll be in London.” Her smile was apologetic. “He - he’s a bit of a workaholic. He doesn’t manage to get down here very often.”

  “Well, never mind. It can be dealt with on the phone. Can you give me his office number?”

  “I have it here somewhere.” Susannah searched about the broad top of the desk and came up with a box of business cards. She extracted one, checked it was the right one, and brought it across to the detective. “Here we are. I’m sorry I haven’t any other information about her that I can give you. I wish you success in finding her.”

  “Actually it’s not the woman we’re trying to find,” said Charlotte quietly. “She died more than five years ago. In fact, we’re looking for her husband, Richard Harris.” She was watching the other woman closely and, despite her obvious talents as an actress, Charlotte saw the sudden spurt of fear in her eyes. “Would you know anything about this man, or where he can be contacted?”

  “No.” The word was blurted out - almost a shout. Susannah shook her head strongly and turned away. “I’ve never heard of either of them.” She crossed to the desk and searched it’s top with her hands. “Would you like a cigarette?” She found and opened a large, rather obvious, silver cigarette case. She took out a cigarette, found a lighter nearby, lit the cigarette and took two deep lung-fulls of smoke before she straightened up and turned back to Charlotte. “Er - do you smoke?” she asked belatedly.

  Faraday shook her head.

  “Neither do I. Not often.” She gave another half-smile. “My husband doesn’t approve of it. These,” she indicated the cigarette case, “are really for guests.”

  Charlotte was absolutely certain that something was wrong with Susannah Blake. She asked, “Are you all right? You look as though you’ve had a shock.”

  The woman took another lung-full of smoke and exhaled it quickly. “I’m perfectly all right, thank you.”

  “Are you sure? You don’t think there’s anything else you should be telling me?”

  “No. I’m fine.” She gave an artificial shiver. “I’m just feeling a bit cold out of the sun. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see you out and get back to my lounger.”

  Charlotte got to her feet. For a moment she wondered about striding through the house to the rear terrace and confronting whoever was there, but she decided that was too dramatic. “Susannah.” Her voice was serious. “I’m here to help you if you need it. Are you sure you don’t want to discuss anything with me - in confidence, of course?”

  “No,” said the actress hastily. “I’ve told you - I’m quite all right. There’s nothing else I can tell you which would help you with your enquiries.”

  “All right.” Charlotte smiled to reassure her. “Don’t worry yourself. But I’d like you to ring me if you can provide any information about either of the Harrises.” She touched the other woman’s arm lightly. “Please also contact me if you have any worries about anything. Will you promise to get in touch with me if that happens?”

  “Yes. Of course I will.”

  Charlotte extracted a business card from the wallet containing her warrant and gave it to the other woman. “Keep this with you. You can ring this number any time and leave a message for me. Will you remember that?”

  “Of course I will,” she agreed again, almost pushing the detectiv
e towards the door.

  Charlotte went out to the car slowly and thoughtfully. In reply to Julian’s query she said, “Back to the station, please. I must get in touch with Stafford Paulson. He’ll be able to arrange discreet surveillance of this house for the next couple of days.”

  He started the car and they ran slowly down the drive. The gates were already open, waiting for their departure. As the car pulled away they closed quickly behind them and the video-camera swivelled after them to confirm their departure.

  * * * * * * * *

  The door to Giles Adams’ house was opened by his wife.

  “No,” she said in reply to Stafford Paulson’s question, “I’m sorry. Giles has gone off to visit his aunt in Plymouth. Can I be of any help?”

  He looked at the pleasant young lady facing him. She appeared quite a bit less of a dragon than he had been led to expect from the description which her husband had given them. “Yes,” he decided, “perhaps you could.”

  He accepted her invitation to come in and have a cup of tea and sit in the pleasantly shaded conservatory looking down the valley garden. The sensation was almost of sitting in the middle of the country.

  “This aunt of your husband’s,” he asked by way of conversation when she sat down beside him, “does he see a lot of her?”

  She shook her head. “Not nowadays. She’s becoming old and rather infirm. She can’t get out any more. That’s why he pops over to see her for an afternoon every few weeks.”

  “You don’t choose to go with him?”

  “No.” She smiled disarmingly. “He’s very attached to her, because she virtually acted like a mother to him for part of his life.” She pulled a face. “But to be honest, I find her a bit creepy. I know she’s old, but she has some strange ideas. She seems to hate the rest of the family - except for Giles, that is.”

  “Did you say she acted like a mother to him?”

  “Well.” Carol Adams put her head on one side. “I suppose that’s a bit of an exaggeration - but that’s the way Giles seems to see it. What happened was that his father got an important job in South America when Giles was only about seven years old. Henry and Cynthia went out there and stayed for eight years. They considered the climate and the educational facilities were unsuitable for Giles, so he was left back in England and sent to boarding school from an early age. They only came back every two or three years to pay the rest of the family a month’s visit. During the holidays Giles stayed with his Aunt Agatha - that’s the lady he’s visiting today. The result was that he was never very close to his parents. And I think it was made worse by the fact that his younger sister Rachel was too young to be separated from her mother. So she went with them,, and in the end she stayed with them for the whole eight years. I know he had sometimes been quite bitter about that. He regards her as having been favoured by his parents.”

  “And what do you think about it?” Paulson’s question was gentle.

  “I?” She appeared to be considering the question for the first time. “Well, I think I understand how he feels. I came from a very close family and I would have been devastated if I had lost personal contact with both my parents when I was seven.” She wrinkled her nose. “On the other hand I think his bitterness has been partly fuelled by Aunt Agatha. She seemed to think that Giles could do nothing wrong when he was a child. She never married herself, and never had any children of her own. Perhaps that’s why she feels so possessive about Giles.”

  He tried to ask the next question in a diplomatic way. “And what about you? Presumably you also felt sympathy for Giles. Is that the reason why you never went to visit Cynthia after she was widowed?”

  “No.” She didn’t appear to take the comment as criticism. “I don’t know how that came to happen really. We used to go and see them quite a lot in the first few years of our marriage, when Henry was still alive. I liked him a lot but I never felt very close to Cynthia. It’s - it’s funny, but I almost felt his mother was competing with me for Giles’ affection - not that I’m the competitive type. Then suddenly we stopped going to visit them a couple of years ago. We hardly saw Cynthia at all after Henry died. I assumed that Giles was meeting her from time to time during the day and they didn’t want me there. But, when I think about it, he hardly ever mentioned her to me.” She leaned forward confidentially. “Do you know, I wonder whether that coincided with his seeing more of his Aunt Agatha. They started to become quite close again just a few years ago.”

  “So you would have been perfectly happy to keep on visiting them?”

  “Well, I did find the old house a bit creepy. But it was Giles who didn’t suggest that we went any more. He did say once that there were things about his parents that he didn’t want to discuss.” She raised her eyebrows. “I assumed it was something Aunt Agatha had told him.”

  “What did he say?” asked Paulson. “Was he angry with them for their abandoning him to his aunt?”

  Carol shook her head. “No. He was talking as though he’d found out they’d been doing something wrong and that they should be punished. But he wouldn’t tell me what it was. It was all rather strange. But I don’t think it had anything to do with the way he was treated when he was young.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well - he’d already told me about that.” Her face was puzzled. “He definitely gave me the impression they’d done something wrong - as if it was illegal. He was always funny about everything being done in a correct way.” She shrugged. “I suppose that was partly his training and partly the old-fashioned morals his aunt had instilled into him. In her mind there was no compromise. It was as though his parents had to accept punishment for their misdemeanours.”

  Paulson felt confused. Carol Adams’ answers weren’t at all the sort of answers he had expected. In fact she seemed to be raising a whole new line of enquiry - one that he felt ought to be looked into. But to do that he needed to talk to Giles Adams himself, or perhaps to his aunt. He swallowed the last of his tea and got to his feet.

  “Well, thank you, Mrs Adams.” He put down his cup and extended a hand. “Tell me, what time does your husband normally get back from his visits to Aunt Agatha?”

  She looked at the clock. “Oh, not for some time yet, I’m afraid. He often stays on and gets them a Chinese take-away for their evening meal. She loves Chinese food. If he does that, he may not be back until nine or ten o’clock.”

  “In that case,” he said, “I may decide to go to Plymouth to see the two of them together. Can you give me Aunt Agatha’s address?”

  “Of course. Our address book is by the phone in the hall.” She preceded him to the front door, where she pulled out a large leather-bound book from a drawer under the telephone. Finding the address, she read it out to him while he wrote it down in his notebook.

  “I can ring them, if you like, just to make sure they wait for you.”

  He turned down her suggestion although he wasn’t quite sure why. “Don’t worry about that. It’s a nice afternoon. I may pick up the wife and trundle along at my own pace. So I don’t know what time I’ll be turning up. I’ll just take my luck. The thing isn’t urgent.”

  “Goodness,” said Carol Adams, “doesn’t your wife mind being dragged along while you go and interview people?”

  “Not really. She brings her book with her - she’s a great reader. She’ll sit out in the car and read while I’m talking to them.”

  “It wouldn’t suit me,” she said. “I prefer to stay at home and mess about in my garden. It’s so peaceful here.”

  “It certainly is a most beautiful spot,” he agreed. And on that note he left her to return and pick up his wife. On reflection he decided it would make a good excuse for him happening to be in Plymouth when he called in to see Giles Adams and his Aunt Agatha.

  * * * * * * * *

  Susannah watched the car disappear and walked back into the hall very slowly. Her stomach was knotted with tension and her legs felt weak and shaky.

  ‘What am I getting myself invo
lved in?’ she thought. However she knew she didn’t want to stop seeing Richard now.

  She forced herself to walk slowly through the living room to the open patio doors. She shivered slightly in the breeze as she paused, just inside the shaded part of the room. From here she could see the loungers in front of the pool. She could see one of Richard’s knees and the top of his toes sticking up. Her eyes strayed to the video camera. She didn’t think he would have been visible to Inspector Faraday.

  He was apparently still asleep - catching up on what he had lost last night. Perhaps she ought to wake him. Susannah unhooked her sun-glasses from her cleavage, put them on and stepped out into the dazzling sunlight. She crossed to the lounger and bent over him. He was sleeping like a baby in the sun. His body smelled of heat and sun-oil. When she rested her hand on his shoulder it felt scaldingly hot.

  At her touch his dark blue eyes opened. They observed her innocently for few seconds, clouded with sleep. ‘Oh, how I adore this man already,’ she thought to herself. ‘I can’t let him go just yet.’

  But instead she said, “you’re getting far too hot, Richard. You’ll catch sun-stroke if you’re not careful.”

  “There’s an easy solution to that,” he said. He astonished her by the way he could wake from a deep sleep and suddenly leap to his feet. He took three quick strides and dived into the pool, surfacing a few seconds later, gasping and laughing. “Come on in,” he urged, holding his arms out to her. “It’s fantastic.”

  “Not likely,” she replied. “I feel quite cool after being in the house.”

  “Who was it that you went in to see?”

  “How do you know it was anyone?” asked Susannah. “I thought you were fast asleep. You didn’t budge when the bell rang.”

  He grinned. “I heard the noise of the car. I thought it might have been a friend of your husband’s, so I decided I’d better lie low.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “If it had been anyone who knew Stephen, I wouldn’t have let them past the gates.”