by Val McDermid
Lindsay nodded calmly. “I hear what you’re saying. You’ll be well looked after, I promise you. First off, I’ve got a couple of questions, but if you don’t mind, I’d rather wait till Sophie comes back.”
Lauren’s eyebrows flicked upwards in bored exasperation. Her response was to take out her cigarettes and light up. “What do you need her for?” she asked petulantly.
“Because my brain’s still cabbaged from all the painkillers the hospital shoved into me when I did my swallow dive on to the asphalt. Chances are I won’t remember all the things I need to know. Okay?” Lindsay said mildly.
“I suppose.” Lauren smoked furiously, her lips pursed between inhalations. When Sophie rejoined them with mineral water and sandwiches, she ostentatiously crushed out her cigarette. “So how much are you offering me?” she demanded, all empty belligerence.
“How does two and a half sound?” Lindsay said. “That’s a final offer, by the way. Non-negotiable.”
“Two hundred and fifty?” Lauren squeaked, impressed in spite of herself. Then suspicion kicked in. “What d’you want me to do that’s worth that kind of money? I ain’t putting myself at risk here.”
“Pretty much the same as you did for Penny. Let us in the building today and we’ll drop the keys off with you later.”
“There’ll be people there. Working.”
“On a Saturday?” Lindsay sounded incredulous.
“You’ve got no idea. Workaholics, some of them. Brown noses, the rest of them. Think just because Danny sometimes drops in on a Saturday that they’ll get Brownie points if he sees them at their desk. Saddos.”
“So what time do they leave?” Sophie asked.
“Look, what are you going to do in there? I’m not going along with anything criminal, like trashing the place.” Lauren’s voice was apprehensive underneath a superficial bravado.
“Nobody will even know we’ve been in there,” Lindsay promised. “All I want to do is exactly what Penny did. There’s something I need to check out for myself, just like she did.”
Lauren picked up one of the sandwiches and tore into it as if she hadn’t seen food for a week. “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” she said through a mouthful of sandwich.
Lindsay shrugged as Sophie leaned forward, pinning Lauren with her eyes. “You have to trust us, Lauren. Lindsay told me how fond you were of Penny. Well, so was I. She was my best friend. I know we’re asking you to take a big risk, but we’re not asking for fun. This is as serious as it ever gets, Lauren. This is about my best friend’s death, and I am absolutely determined to find out what really happened to her. Now, if you want to help, I’d be delighted to accept your assistance. But if it’s too much to ask, that’s okay too. We’ll just have to find another way of getting at what we need.”
Lauren gave up trying to outstare Sophie and mumbled, “All right. But this is the last time I take any chances, okay?”
Sophie reached out and touched Lauren’s shoulder. “Thanks.”
“Cash, mind,” Lauren said gruffly. “Up front.”
Lindsay took out an envelope and pushed it across the table. Lauren paused for a moment, her eyes going from one to the other in a flickering gaze. Then she snatched up the envelope and ripped it open, revealing five new fifty-pound notes. Glancing quickly round her to make sure no one was watching, she held them up to the light to check metal strip and watermark. “Oh, yeah,” Lindsay said with a tinge of sarcasm, “I really look like a big-time forger.”
Lauren gave a sunny grin. “All I know, you could be Al Capone. Right now, I couldn’t care less. Be outside the office at half past five. They’ll all have gone by then. I’ll let you in.” She grabbed her bag and stuffed the envelope in an inside zipped pocket. Then, picking up the remains of her sandwich, she pushed back from the table, about to leave.
“Wait a minute,” Lindsay said. “One or two questions, remember?”
Again the “Oh, God” upward flick of the eyebrows, accompanied by the heavy sigh of the hard done by. “All right, then, what do you want to know?”
“The couple of times I’ve been in reception, I’ve noticed you taking messages for people without checking if they were in. Is that a regular thing?”
Lauren frowned. “Yeah. I’ve got a list of about a dozen blokes. They never come in the office, but I get messages for them regular.”
“What do you do with the messages?” Lindsay asked. The hair on the back of her neck seemed to be standing on end and, in spite of the stuffy heat inside the café, she felt a chill inside. So much hung on Lauren’s answer.
“I pass them on to Danny’s secretary. When I started working on reception, I asked who they all were and she said they were business associates of Danny’s. She said they were consultants who didn’t have offices with secretaries of their own and it was convenient for them to be able to leave messages here. I thought they must be a right bunch of tossers if they couldn’t spring for a mobile phone or voice mail or something.”
Lindsay let out the breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. “Thanks, Lauren,” she said softly. “We’ll see you tonight.”
She nodded and gathered up her bag, pausing to light a cigarette. “Funny you should ask about the messages,” she said conversationally. “Penny wondered the very same thing.”
Chapter 21
Lindsay popped the last mouthful of strawberry tart in her mouth and carefully mopped her lips with the paper napkin. The movement of her jaw while eating still gave her twinges of pain, but she’d never been able to resist strawberry tarts, and those she’d found in California just weren’t the same. Sophie was watching her with an air of bemused affection. “I don’t know how you can think about eating when the next thing on the agenda is burglary,” she said.
“S’easy,” Lindsay said, swallowing her mouthful of cake. “Besides, it’s not burglary. No breaking, no intent to steal or rape or commit GBH on the premises. It’s not even criminal trespass.”
“You sure they haven’t changed the law since you last covered the criminal courts?” Sophie said dubiously.
“They have changed the law. That’s the current status. Which you would know if you actually read the Guardian Weekly instead of using it to put under Mutton’s food bowl. That dog knows more about current British politics than you do.” Suddenly, Lindsay leaned forward and pointed across the car park to the front door of Monarch Press. “Fuck! That’s our man,” she said, indicating Danny King, who had just left his office with a tall man in shirtsleeves and suit trousers who carried a square sample case in one hand and a briefcase in the other. Danny was empty-handed, dressed in baggy cream-colored trousers and a flowing dark blue long-sleeved shirt.
“The one who doesn’t look like a sales rep?” Sophie asked.
“Got it in one. Oh, shit, they’re headed this way!” Lindsay exclaimed, shrinking back from the window, as if that would render her invisible. For a taut moment, she was on the point of taking flight. Then the two men paused by a dark saloon.
“It’s okay, they’re only going to their car,” Sophie said, relief spreading across her face. The man in the collar and tie dumped his bags in the boot, then climbed into the driving seat, while Danny strolled further down the car park and climbed behind the wheel of a silver Mercedes convertible.
“Nice wheels,” Lindsay enthused as Danny shot out of his slot and headed for the exit. “Shame about how he paid for them.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Sophie said.
“We soon will.” Lindsay checked her watch. “Nearly five now, and anybody left will be out like greased lightning now Danny’s gone and there’s no one left to impress. I don’t know about you, but I fancy another strawberry tart.” Sophie pulled a face. “Hey,” Lindsay said. “The night is young. My blood sugar needs all the help it can get. Like you said, it’s a tough business, burglary.”
Forty minutes later, they stood inside the reception area of Monarch Press. Lauren had hustled them through the front d
oor faster than a Royal aide helping the boss escape the paparazzi. Then she’d handed over a bunch of keys and a sheet of paper that provided Lindsay and Sophie with the instructions for setting the intruder alarms when they left, and Lauren’s address so they could return the keys later.
“The list?” Lindsay demanded.
Lauren reached behind her desk and grabbed a scruffy sheet of A4 paper with a list of names. She thrust it at Sophie and, before they had a chance to ask her any more questions, was off.
The vertical blinds that lined the windows of the publishing house let in more than enough light for the two women to see where they were going and what they were doing. “His office is upstairs,” Lindsay whispered, handing Sophie some latex gloves and wrestling her hands into her own pair.
“Why are we whispering?” Sophie hissed, efficiently covering her hands.
“Because burglars always whisper?” Lindsay said in her normal voice as she picked a way through the open-plan office to the stairs.
“I thought we weren’t burglars?”
“So sue me. I can’t believe I’m doing this for the second time in the same week. Raiding offices, poking around in other people’s data.”
Sophie shrugged. “Synchronicity. You probably wouldn’t have thought of this approach if you hadn’t already been messing around with somebody else’s computer. But let’s face it, you dropped lucky with Guy and Stella. Do you really think we’re going to find proof that Danny’s running a ghost-jobs scam?” she said skeptically. “Wouldn’t a sensible man have destroyed all the evidence after Penny confronted him?”
“Professional criminals are convinced they’re smarter than the police. They know they’re never going to get caught. So they hang on to all sorts of incriminating stuff. Besides, Danny King can’t get rid of the evidence without explaining to the tax people why it is his company has suddenly shed half its editorial staff when on paper they’re the ones generating his profits.”
“Good point,” Sophie acknowledged.
They emerged in a corridor at the top of the stairs. On the first floor at Monarch Press, democracy and openness yielded place to hierarchy and privacy—or secrecy, depending on where the observer was standing. Lindsay was in no doubt which word she’d have chosen.
They walked to the far end of the corridor and started working their way back towards the stairs. The end room was a boardroom that ran the full depth of the building, its centerpiece a vast antique oval table that must have used most of a mahogany tree. “There’s always something, isn’t there,” Lindsay muttered. “All these supposedly radical, right-on companies, they always have an Achilles’ heel of good old greedy capitalist materialism lurking somewhere. Now why do I not believe that table’s one of Danny’s family heirlooms?”
“Because you’re a twisted old cynic. Now come on, never mind the self-righteousness. We’ve got more important things to think about,” Sophie said, chivvying Lindsay out of the doorway and towards the next office, whose door revealed it belonged to the Sales Director. Opposite that was the Marketing Director, then Publicity, opposite Accounts. Finally, they came to an office with no nameplate on its door. “I guess this is it,” Sophie said, turning the door handle.
They stepped into a small office with a modern desk and the usual array of electronic equipment. A buttoned damask Victorian chaise longue ran along one wall, beneath a framed photograph of Danny with a jeroboam of champagne surrounded by his staff under a banner that announced “Monarch’s Ten Year Reign.” This was clearly a reception area that doubled as his secretary’s office. A second door led off it at right angles to the corridor. Lindsay opened it to reveal another room that ran the full depth of the mews.
One end of the room was arranged as a meeting space, with four gray leather sofas surrounding a glass and polished-granite coffee table. At the other end, two desks sat in an L-shape. The one facing out into the room was empty. The other held a computer. Between them was a black steel shelving unit that contained TV, video and a Bang and Olufson stereo that had probably cost as much as the average family car. A run of low-level black filing cabinets occupied the back wall below the window.
“Toss you for it,” Lindsay said, fishing a coin out of the pocket of her baggies. “Call?”
Sophie groaned. “Whatever I say, I just know I’m going to end up with the filing cabinets. Heads.”
Lindsay tossed the coin, caught it, slapped it on to the back of her left hand and revealed it with a flourish. “Tails it is. I’ll take the computer, you take the filing cabinets. Hang on, I’ll get you a copy of the names on Lauren’s list.” She disappeared back into the secretary’s office, where, rather than wait for the photocopier to warm up, she slipped the sheet of paper through the fax machine. Giving the original to Sophie, she laid the flimsy fax paper on the desk next to her and switched on the computer.
“These are locked,” Sophie said, rattling the first drawer fruitlessly.
“Try these,” Lindsay said calmly, pulling a bunch of small keys out of the desk drawer to her right. “Arrogant little shit deserves to be burgled.”
While Sophie searched for the correct key for the cabinet, Lindsay found her way around Monarch’s computer software. It wasn’t hard; they ran a network of PCs, an expanded version of systems Lindsay had worked on both in her university department and in small magazines where she’d contributed articles. It didn’t take her long to find the personnel directory, where a database held files on all their employees. “Yes,” she said softly, a sense of triumph surging through her.
“Got somewhere?” Sophie said, her voice muffled from kneeling on the floor with her head bent over a filing drawer.
“I think so. Look for personnel dossiers, see if they compare with what’s in here.” Now that she was faced with the answer she’d been desperately searching for, Lindsay was almost superstitiously reluctant to start checking the individual files of the men on Lauren’s list. Instead, she typed in a search request for Baz’s file. Just for comparison purposes, she told herself.
The file listed Baz’s title—Editorial Director (Fiction)—her work station number—026—her salary, date of birth, home address and telephone number, the names and job titles of staff she was responsible for, her starting date with the company and details of her pension fund contributions. Unable to resist, Lindsay called up Danny King’s file. Publisher, work station 101, plus all the other details. What looked like an extremely expensive address in Holland Park. Plus a very healthy and generous pension. Now she had an idea what a file should look like, she typed in the first name on Lauren’s list.
Paddy Brown was allegedly the Foreign Rights Acquisition Director at work station 201. He earned three times what Baz was paid, though he lived in what sounded like a block of flats in Bethnal Green. Like Danny, his pension arrangements looked well cushioned. The picture was similar for Bill Candy, the Translation Rights Director (work station 202), Paul Edwards, the Senior Commissioning Director (work station 203), Brian Hedges, the Promotions Controller (work station 204) and the other names on the list.
“It’s just like Penny laid out for us,” Lindsay said. “Look, he’s even put the equivalent of an extra floor on the building.” Sophie stood up and looked over Lindsay’s shoulder. “That’s what she meant with that cryptic note about the tenth floor of a nine-story building. All the ground-floor staff have work stations beginning with zero, and everybody on the first floor begins with one. But all the shady staff’s work stations begin with a two. That way, if there was ever a snap raid, all Danny King would have to say is that those members of staff work from home, or they have a roving commission or whatever.”
Sophie slapped a pair of files on the desk. “Compare these. Legitimate employee files have copies of all the correspondence from when they applied for a job and were interviewed and had their references called in. Ghost personnel just have a letter of appointment. Bit of a giveaway, isn’t it?”
Although she was eager for evidence to support her
case, Lindsay was determined not to jump to conclusions again. “I don’t know . . .” she said. “Couldn’t he just say he head-hunted them?”
“I suppose so. That would save him having to forge letters and references. So does any of this actually prove anything?” Sophie asked.
“Taken on its own, none of it means much. But if we took this to the police, along with Penny’s synopsis, plus Danny King coming forward at the last gasp to make a false statement about Meredith . . . well, it all adds up. It hangs together. This ghost-employment con couldn’t stand up to any serious scrutiny, especially if he’s supplementing it with a ghost-publication scam. As soon as the cops start looking at it seriously, the whole house of cards is going to collapse.”
“And this is what Penny uncovered,” Sophie said dully.
“I think so. The phone calls made her suspicious, especially when she found out about Lauren’s little list. My guess is that her main motive for getting into the computers here was to check out Baz’s files, to see if there was any solid evidence for her suspicion that Baz was the one that Meredith had had her disastrous little fling with. But when she was actually faced with the prospect of uncovering the truth, she bottled it.”
“So she took a look at the mystery men in Danny’s files as a way of putting off what she knew she had to do,” Sophie said. “That would be just like her. She hated unpleasantness. She’d have done anything she could think of to postpone actually having to face up to the proof that she’d been betrayed twice over.”
Lindsay took a floppy disk out of her bag and slotted it into the computer, keying in instructions for it to copy the files in the personnel database. “I think that’s the way it happened. She had a devious mind, did Penny. She’d have realized right away there was something seriously dodgy going on. Even if she didn’t work it all out at the time, she learned enough to figure it out later.”