‘Mm? Yes. So?’
‘That’s a lot of money.’
He looked amused. ‘Well, I was very attached to her. But . . . do they give you a Christmas bonus, Inspector? No? Well, that represented less than half of mine last year. A small price to pay for a true passion, a meeting of souls.’
‘Aren’t you bothered that her mother and stepfather will get it now, your Christmas bonus?’
He looked more serious suddenly. ‘Marion signed a document, making it over to me in the event of her death. It was her idea. She didn’t like the thought of the Raffertys getting their hands on it any more than I did. Of course we didn’t imagine it would ever have to be invoked. The money was nothing. She meant much more to me than that, Kathy. Let’s be frank.’
Kathy flinched at his use of her first name, and she saw him register this. ‘Go on.’
‘That’s it, really. She moved into Rosslyn Court in January, and I visited her there whenever I could. It was a wonderful haven for me, away from the pressures of work and the strains at home.’
‘What about Sophie?’
‘Ah . . .’ He spread his hands, his face taking on a look of philosophical detachment. ‘Sophie is a marvellous woman, terrific author, very focused on her work and at the same time a great mother—but she doesn’t really need me, not any more. Nor I her.’
‘Did she know about Marion?’
‘I believe she did wonder if there might be someone else. But she never brought it up, and I felt that she had simply decided to close her mind to that possibility. I’m certain she didn’t think it was Marion. I suspected that the month in Corsica was a kind of test. She was insistent on it, and I felt I was under observation, to see how I’d react.’
‘And how did you react?’
‘By the book. On the surface we were a perfect couple, making friends with other holidaying couples at the local restaurants, entertaining neighbours around the pool. But I was in touch with London, and missed Marion dreadfully. When she told me she’d lost her baby, I was devastated. She was distraught. I felt so helpless . . .’
He frowned, as if this was an unfamiliar and disturbing sensation.
‘I did fly back to London to see her for just one day—there was a board meeting I told Sophie I had to attend. Marion was very low, and I arranged for her to see a doctor friend. Then later I flew her out to Bastia. It was the weekend before she died. She seemed in better spirits. I spent as much time with her as I could. We drove into the hills and she picked the wild flowers. It was the last time I saw her.’
For a moment Kathy caught a vivid glimpse of Marion, in despair, giving herself up to the arrangements this strong man was making for her.
‘What about the baby?’ Kathy asked. ‘Were you planning to leave Sophie and start a new family?’
‘Yes.’ He said it decisively, but there had been a small initial hesitation.
‘And now?’
‘Well, that may rather depend on you, Inspector. My first reaction, when I heard the terrible news, was to tell everyone the truth about us. I was in shock—I suppose I still am. I wanted to declare to the world that this was the woman I loved. But as time has passed I have come to appreciate how much other people would be hurt by that truth. And Marion is dead, so what would be the point? I was intimately involved with Marion Summers, but I had absolutely nothing to do with her death. I want to convince you of that. I have been completely frank with you, told you things that my wife does not know. I am in your power. You can tell Sophie, or not. Please think carefully before you decide.’
‘Hm.’ Kathy looked down at a squirrel loping across the grass, its tail tracing graceful loops through the air. She kicked her shoe against the ground, nagged by the feeling that she had missed something—maybe some words or intonations that had seemed out of place—but she had been concentrating so hard on catching every nuance that she’d barely had time to register them before she’d had to move on. She wished now that she had insisted on recording him. She shrugged off the thought and said, ‘Tell me about Keith Rafferty.’
•
Brock was not spending his Saturday morning with Suzanne in Battle, though he was thinking about her. It was his first day without a call from the office in weeks, and he was feeling restless and at a loose end. He had gone to the Bishop’s Mitre in the High Street near his home for a pint and a pie lunch while he read the paper, but the news was depressing and he was troubled by the way he’d left things unresolved with Suzanne. He should have been more, well, balanced about her sudden determination to dig into her own past. The fact was, if he cared to admit it, he had been jealous of Dougie Warrender, and Suzanne’s barely disguised eagerness to meet up again with her first big crush. He had even gone so far as to get a profile of the man from an expert in corporate affairs in the Fraud Squad. A formidable operator, was the word, and very wealthy. ‘He had some disagreement with his father when he was at Oxford,’ he’d been told, ‘and the old man cut off his allowance for a while, so he paid his way by playing poker with the rich kids. Disarmingly straightforward, when you meet him, but don’t let that fool you. Many have, to their regret.’
He turned away from the chatter of conversation at the bar and took out his phone. Suzanne’s answering machine came on, and he left a message.
•
‘A scoundrel, well, you must know that.’ He seemed amused by her question.
‘How do you know him?’
‘Marion told me about him. She hated the way he looked at her, and tried to get her alone.’
He stopped, as if he might leave it there, but Kathy said, ‘And?’
Another little smile, as if to say, smart girl. ‘He would hang around the place where she lived, in Stamford Street, and follow her, spying on her. One time he trailed her to a pub where we were meeting. That must have made his day. Later he contacted me. We met, and he demanded money to keep quiet about our relationship. I persuaded him that I could make life a great deal more uncomfortable for him than he could for me. He backed off. He was one of the reasons for moving Marion out of Stamford Street.’
Another pause, before Kathy said again, ‘And?’
He looked puzzled. ‘That’s about it, I think.’
‘What about Nigel Ogilvie?’
‘Ogilvie? Oh, the little creep in the library. Yes, well, that was Rafferty’s doing, not mine. Ogilvie was there when Marion collapsed—I suppose you know that. Apparently in the confusion he palmed a computer memory stick that fell out of her bag. It contained copies of letters that Marion and I had exchanged. He contacted me, with a view to selling it to me—for a highly inflated sum, naturally.’
‘Nigel Ogilvie, a blackmailer?’ Kathy found this hard to visualise.
‘Mm. He needed cash. He has a taste for expensive West End call girls, apparently. Did you know that?’
Kathy shook her head, readjusting her mental image of Ogilvie.
‘In his case I decided to pay—not as much as he first demanded, but we finally agreed on a more than fair price. I didn’t want to meet the man personally, but I did need to impress upon him that there must be no copies made, so I employed Keith Rafferty to make the exchange and emphasise the point. That was a mistake. I get the impression that he may have been over-emphatic.’
‘He put Ogilvie in hospital.’
‘Well I certainly didn’t ask him to do that. Does he say I did?’
Kathy didn’t reply.
‘It’s a lie if he does. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he did it so that he could keep a good part of the money for himself. He also has a financial weakness, in his case for the horses. Is there anything else I haven’t covered?’
‘I would like to see that memory stick.’
Warrender gave another of his easy smiles. ‘Oh would you? And why would I agree to that? It contains some very private correspondence.’
‘You want me to find out who killed Marion, don’t you?’
He gave her a bleak look. ‘Yes, I do.’ He rea
ched a hand into the pocket of his jacket. ‘I could tell you I wiped it . . .’ He brought out the small device. ‘This is for your eyes only, and then I want it back. I don’t want this circulating around the Met for laughs.’
‘I shall have to show my boss, and report our conversation today.’
‘DCI Brock.’ He nodded. ‘No one else? You promise?’
‘That’ll be up to him.’
He hesitated, then shrugged and handed it to her. ‘Please get him to agree.’
‘Tell me,’ Kathy said, ‘what’s your theory about what happened to Marion?’
He frowned and turned away. The squirrel was now prancing in front of a group of laughing Japanese, showing off. ‘I was rather hoping you could tell me that. You now know much more about it all than I do. What I very much do not want is for my involvement to distract you from the real culprit.’ He turned back to her and his eyes dropped to the memory stick in her hand. He seemed about to add something, then changed his mind. ‘Surely you have some idea? Won’t you tell me?’
She said nothing, and he shrugged and got to his feet.
‘I won’t say it’s been an unalloyed pleasure, Inspector. Too uncomfortable for that. But I feel easier for having told you all this.’
Kathy stared at him but he just smiled. ‘Let me know if you get tired of policing. They are plenty of opportunities for talents like yours, in jobs that give Christmas bonuses.’
He walked off across the park towards The Mall, and as she watched him go, one of the missing thoughts came back into Kathy’s mind with a jolt: he had said, She picked the wild flowers. Not just wild flowers, but the wild flowers, as if he knew about how she’d been puzzling over that posy. And the timing of his confession was odd too, days after her conversation with his wife, which in itself had hardly been challenging enough to cause him to spill the beans about his relationship with Marion. It was almost as if he had known that she already knew about it. A sick feeling was growing in her stomach. He had known far too much.
•
It was mid-afternoon before Suzanne answered his call. He was at home, trying to concentrate on finishing Sophie Warrender’s biography of Edward Lear.
‘Sorry, David,’ she said. ‘We’ve been so busy in the shop. The fine weather has brought everyone out. How are you?’
‘Fine, fine. I thought I might pop down this afternoon. I booked a table at the Old Pheasant for us for tonight.’
‘Oh. That would have been lovely.’
‘You’ve got something on?’
‘Well, an old friend of mine, in Hampshire, has invited me to go over there this evening. I said I’d stay the night.’
‘Ah. That’s nice for you.’
‘We haven’t seen each other for years. I’m sorry, I should have mentioned it, but it only just came up. This is your first free weekend for ages, isn’t it? Are you at a loose end?’
Her words were hurried, he thought, her voice unnaturally bright. ‘No, no. Plenty to catch up on.’
‘Maybe next weekend, eh?’
‘Yes.’
They had a brief conversation, rather rushed at her end and desultory at his, before they hung up. Brock threw Edward Lear aside, thinking of the time he’d almost lost her once before.
twenty-five
Kathy eventually found him in Weatherspoon’s Bar in Terminal Four at Heathrow. It had taken a phone call to Scotland Yard to get her through security to the passenger-only departure concourse on the first floor. The place was crowded with travellers, anxious, excited or bored. His head was buried in a paperback, and he didn’t look up when she sat at his table. After a moment he reached out a hand to feel for his glass of beer, but she got there first and slid it away. He looked up, puzzled to see that it had moved, then blinked and focused on Kathy.
His mouth opened.
‘Kathy!’
‘Guy.’
She watched his expression go through several shifts as he took in the sombre look on her face. Then he sighed, and said, ‘Oh God. You know.’
Her first thought, seeing him sitting there, had been to whack him one and pour the beer over his head, but now she felt only very sad.
‘I want to know why.’
He sighed again. ‘Oh, a friend of mine got into a bit of trouble over a big loan he took out to buy a flat.’
‘A friend of yours.’
‘Yeah, his name’s Helmut. We work in the same office. Anyway, one day he got a phone call from this bloke who said he could sort out the problem, if he was willing to do a little job for him in return. He wanted Helmut to go to Prague for the weekend, all expenses paid, and make friends with an attractive woman. It sounded like a breeze. Only Helmut couldn’t go. He’s married, and his wife’s really sick. That’s what made it so important. I said I’d do it for him.’
Kathy took a deep breath. Spare me, she thought. But how the hell had he known about Prague? ‘When was this?’
‘Just the evening before we went. It all happened so quickly I didn’t have time to think of the consequences. I’m really sorry, Kathy. It just seemed, you know, something to do for a friend, and a bit of a laugh. I didn’t count on . . . on really liking you. I hoped you’d never know. How did you find out?’
‘I’m a cop,’ she said bitterly. ‘Sometimes we get to know more than we’d like.’
‘Yeah, he didn’t tell me that, or I’d have been more cautious. But by the time you told me what you did, we’d got to know each other and were having a good time, and I didn’t want to stop. When I got back from Prague I asked Helmut what it was all about. He said he’d been told you were working on the murder of a close friend of this other guy, and he wanted to keep an eye on how things developed. He said he wanted to know the truth of what had happened, because he didn’t trust the police and the lawyers not to stuff it up. Helmut got the impression he might be prepared to take matters into his own hands if that happened. The way he told it, I felt some sympathy for him.’
‘So when was the last time you saw War render?’
‘Is that his name? I only met him the once, first thing this morning, after I left you. When I finally got the word to go to the Gulf he wanted to meet me in person, to get a personal briefing. I didn’t want to go, but Helmut was insistent.’ He shrugged hopelessly.
‘And you told him about the flowers on my wall.’
He nodded. ‘Yes. He was very interested in that.’
His eyes went up to a monitor and he said quietly, ‘My flight’s boarding, Kathy. Are you going to arrest me?’
She gave a snort. ‘What for, screwing a police officer under false pretences? I don’t think that’s in the book.’
‘I’m sorry. I really am. I feel like a total shit. But it wasn’t all false pretences. I meant what I said about—’
‘Don’t.’ She got to her feet and walked away, pushing through the crowds without seeing them.
•
When Suzanne looked up Angela’s address in Winchester she found that it was near the centre of the city, and she imagined the two of them, old friends, soaking up the historic atmosphere of the ancient college and cathedral precincts, visiting Jane Austen’s tomb and perhaps her house at Chawton nearby, places she hadn’t been to since she was a child. But Angela had other ideas.
She had been divorced for four months, and was still working through some of the issues. From what Suzanne could gather, the separation had been relatively straightforward—Angela had got the house in Winchester and her husband the flat in London, and neither money nor the adult children had been a problem. But the matter of his thirty-year-old girlfriend, which she’d begun by dismissing as grotesque and pathetic, had affected her in ways she still hardly knew how to acknowledge. For a start, the relationship hadn’t collapsed within a few months as she’d predicted, but was looking increasingly solid. But it was the inescapable contrasts, between the other woman’s youth and her own age, between beauty in its full flush on the one hand and laboured facsimile on the other, that had grad
ually got to her in deep and harrowing ways. She had started out shrugging these things off as spurious, but they had come to mean everything. Her life was her own, but it was over. What did she have?
Well, booze for a start, and from the moment that Suzanne walked through the front door and the first glass of bubbly was thrust into her hand, she found herself caught up in a race towards oblivion, quite liberating and amusing at first, then increasingly rather alarming. It was clear that Angela had already had a few, but she carried them pretty well, greeting Suzanne with tremendous warmth.
‘Oh God, when you contacted me I just couldn’t believe it! Seeing you again—you haven’t changed a bit!—takes me back to those wonderful days, when everything seemed possible and just so, so wonderful!’
But she didn’t really want to talk about those wonderful days, about which she had only the haziest memories. What she really wanted to talk about was being deserted for a very much younger woman.
‘No, look, I have to say she really is a very charming person. The kids tell me she is, and they would know, having seen so much more of her than I have. And very pretty. Well, good luck to them both. I feel . . . like I have a whole new life in front of me. It’s a fabulous feeling. God, I’ve even started smoking again, after thirty years! That’s how old she is, incidentally. Did I mention that? Come on, drink up. A toast—to real friends.’
There was no sign of food in the kitchen, and when Suzanne said she’d like to take Angela out for dinner, there was talk about a really marvellous little restaurant not far away, but when Suzanne suggested she phone up to book, it being a Saturday night, Angela got distracted in the middle of searching for their number when she found a photo of herself and her family in happier days, which provoked a sudden tearful collapse.
They eventually crawled into their beds without dinner and without having talked about Dougie Warrender and Notting Hill.
The next morning, very hungover, Suzanne made her way downstairs towards the smell of coffee. Angela seemed to be in slightly better shape than her, and apologised profusely for being such a bad host.
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