Destroy Unopened

by Anabel Donald

  Anabel Donald

  DESTROY

  UNOPENED

  Contents

  Thursday 3 November

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Friday 4 November

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Saturday 5 November

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Sunday 6 November

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Thursday 3 November

  Chapter One

  DESTROY UNOPENED. Bold printing scrawled in red felt tip on the front of a big, battered, bulging manila envelope. The gummed flap was tacky from being opened and resealed countless times. It lay on the coffee table between us. Ten minutes into the meeting and neither of us had mentioned it yet, though the client’s eyes flickered towards it and away so often it was like having a third person in the room. Or perhaps a grenade.

  ‘I don’t want to look a fool,’ the client said abruptly. ‘I’m not a fool. Do I look like a fool to you?’

  ‘No,’ I said. I’d have said that anyway, but actually she didn’t. She looked like a successful barrister in her fifties, which is what she was. Pink and puffy round the eyes – natural enough, as she was recently widowed – but pleasant faced, with strong once-dark greying hair well cut and springing back from a high forehead. Medium tall tending to stocky, no make-up, untamed eyebrows, short square-cut nails on strong hands. I’m not good on clothes but her trousers and top were a fine silver-grey jersey knit, middle-range expensive. They suited her

  So did the room, a large mostly book-lined living room of a very expensive mansion flat in Kensington. Any wall space not covered by books held paintings, mostly oils or acrylics, all twentieth century, at a guess, and some of the styles were familiar although I couldn’t put a name to them. Minor works by major artists, possibly. There were also small sculptures on tables: all head-and-shoulder bronzes of adults and children. One was a younger version of my hostess.

  French windows led to a balcony which would have had a view of Kensington Gardens if London hadn’t been engulfed in fog. Cream net curtains billowed gently in the sporadic, chilly breeze. ‘You’ll have to forgive the draught,’ she said. ‘I always like to have a window open. I like air.’

  ‘So do I.’

  Silence.

  Her eyes flicked to the envelope. Not a grenade, I thought. A time bomb. She’d mention it eventually, and she was the client. I just wished I knew the timing on the clock. I forced myself to sit back in the well-upholstered armchair I breathed the acrid fuel-laden air, admired the effectiveness of the central heating, sipped the excellent cup of coffee she’d just made me and waited for her to get to the point. I’d already calculated how often you’d have to wash net curtains in London to keep them cream (once a week), how much the service charge on the flat would be (fifteen thousand a year minimum), and the price of a lease on her flat (start at half a million and the sky’s the limit).

  ‘Adrian Trigg recommended you,’ she said. ‘He’s our solicitor.’

  ‘Mm-hmm,’ I said, nodding keenly. Trigg is a partner in a top law firm and a contact I want to keep. That’s why, though I’d been out of London when he’d rung my office yesterday, I’d rearranged my plans to present myself for this interview prompt at two o’clock, ready to work tirelessly day and night to keep Hilary Lucas from looking a fool. Partly to keep Trigg sweet: partly because, when you’re self-employed, day and night is when you work.

  ‘Tell me about yourself,’ she said.

  I opened my mouth to speak.

  ‘Professionally, I mean,’ she added.

  I hadn’t supposed she wanted a rundown on my star sign and sexual orientation. I didn’t sigh though, and said, ‘Originally, I was a TV researcher, BBC trained. Self-employed TV research is still about fifty per cent of my work. I do private investigations on the side, and I have no formal training for that. I’m basically a one-woman outfit, but I use assistants as and when they’re needed.’

  ‘And what kind of private investigations do you do, mainly?’

  ‘Mostly missing persons. And residential enquiries.’

  She lifted a formidable eyebrow. ‘Residential enquiries?’

  ‘For prospective buyers of properties round Notting Hill. Mostly media and banking people. Time is money to them, or more valuable than money. They want to buy a particular flat or house, but don’t have time to check out what it would actually be like living there. So they pay us to investigate the immediate area for noise and litter and crazy neighbours and other little details of local life. It’s a recent venture, growing all the time.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Tell me about your assistants.’

  ‘My chief assistant is Nick Straker. She’s young but very bright and committed and currently works full time. The others are employed on an ad-hoc basis.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘Adrian told me you were independent minded. And that you respected confidences.’

  ‘True. It goes with the territory.’

  Then I just went on drinking coffee. She didn’t strike me as an easy target for gush and empty reassurances.

  ‘You have just come back from Newcastle, you said?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve been there since Sunday.’

  ‘And what were you doing?’

  ‘Working for Minerva Communications.’

  ‘As a detective?’

  ‘No, as a contestant interviewer.’

  I got the raised eyebrow treatment again. I considered leaving the question unanswered. She wasn’t hiring me for chat about TV. Or perhaps she was. I’d got up at five that morning – much too early for me – and was beginning to feel stroppy.‘Choosing potential candidates for quiz and game shows,’ I said, mildly.

  ‘Is that difficult?’

  ‘Yes. They can’t be too stupid or too bright or too ignorant or too well informed or too ugly or too good-looking, and they mustn’t babble or dry in front of the cameras.’

  ‘A strange area of expertise.’

  ‘Not un-lucrative,’ I said.

  ‘And while you were away in Newcastle, who handled your detective work?’

  ‘Nick.’

  ‘I want you to handle this yourself,’ she said. ‘If you use assistants, I don’t want them to be told the reason for their enquiries, or any of the background. And no record keeping on a computer, please. Can you manage that?’

  ‘Certainly,’ I said, rather snittily. I don’t like being told how to do my job, and so far I’d refrained from giving her helpful pointers on international contract law. Her field, according to Trigg.

  She ignored my snittiness and looked at me closely. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Thirty last June.’

  ‘
You look younger.’

  ‘People often say that.’ It’s partly my clothes (jeans, sweatshirt and Doc Martens boots), partly my hair (cropped) and partly my make-up (none).

  ‘You’re not very tall, are you?’

  That’s a sensitive point, with me. I’ve always wanted to be tall, six foot plus. That’s what I feel I am. ‘Five feet four,’ I said. She looked sceptical. ‘On a good day,’ I added, repressively. A good day on the rack, perhaps.

  ‘Do you live alone?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘All the time?’

  ‘No. I have a friend who stays sometimes.’

  ‘Often?’

  ‘Often,’ I said. My man Barty had been staying more than he hadn’t, recently. More than I wanted him to sometimes. While I was in Newcastle he’d left for Zaire, and I was looking forward to having the flat to myself.

  ‘Have you martial arts or self-defence training of any kind?’

  ‘Evening classes in karate,’ I said. ‘But I don’t do criminal or body-guarding work, usually.’

  ‘Forgive me. Your hair – that’s not your natural colour?’

  The red of my hair is so chemical that, any minute now, environmental protection groups will ban it. I didn’t see why it was her business, though. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Do you ever dye it blonde?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘And your eyes are naturally green? Those aren’t tinted contact lenses?’

  ‘My eyes are naturally green,’ I said, wondering why she was wandering out where the trams don’t run, well at the limit of my patience. Bereavement perhaps.

  ‘And your ambitions? What motivates you?’

  My immediate ambition was to spring-clean my flat. I’d been trying to get started on it since the spring and either hadn’t had time or Barty had been there. I don’t enjoy cleaning round a man: they’re too big, their paperwork spreads everywhere, they leave damp towels in odd places and wreck the kitchen when they cook.

  I couldn’t tell her that. So what ambition could I produce?

  ‘Financial security, mostly,’ I said. ‘I want to earn as much as I can, doing a job of work I enjoy.’

  She half smiled. ‘And what are your fees?’

  I told her, upping them by a third, what with the flat, Trigg, and her nosiness. Her expression didn’t change. Damn, I should have upped them by a half.

  ‘Right, I’d better get to the point, hadn’t I,’ she said.

  Then she started to cry.

  I’d already given her my condolences, and there was a limit to how much sorrow I could express to a very recent acquaintance over the death of a perfect stranger, so I looked seriously at the carpet. She was sad but she wasn’t distraught, and she was too self-possessed to welcome hugging or hand patting.

  She stretched out her hand to the envelope on the table. The clock on the time bomb had stopped, I thought in the silence, but she withdrew her hand and said, ‘Do you mind not answering questions?’

  A smile seemed the only possible answer I gave it.

  She smiled back, briefly. ‘I’m not being very explicit, am I? What I mean is, I don’t want anyone you talk to on my behalf to have the least idea what you are trying to discover.’

  As things stood, I’d wouldn’t have any difficulty with that, since neither did I. ‘I don’t mind stonewalling for a client, if that’s what you mean. I don’t mind lying for a client either, if it’s in a good cause. But if you told me what we were talking about, it’d help.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘As you know, Robbie – my husband – died suddenly, of a heart attack, nearly three months ago.’ ‘It must have been a shock.’ ‘Of course,’ she said, but absent-mindedly, as if she wasn’t thinking about his death.

  ‘And you want me to . . .?’

  Her face went blank, her body stiffened, she snatched up the envelope and clutched it tightly to her silver-grey jersey chest. ‘I can’t make myself clear,’ she said, sounding annoyed with herself, as if lack of clarity was embarrassing. Which I suppose it would be, to a Queen’s Counsel whose livelihood depended on articulacy.

  What I wanted to do was snatch the envelope and tear it open. What I did was give an encouraging nod. Open-minded Alex. Nothing you say will surprise me.

  ‘I . . . I . . .’ She clicked at herself impatiently. ‘My husband Robbie is – was – a Professor at NCL, that’s New College, London.’

  Pause.

  She forced herself on. ‘He has – had – an office there, naturally.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And they cleared his office last week, and sent me his things. Mostly books, and lecture notes, and research work in progress. And I sorted through them.’

  ‘That must have been hard for you.’

  ‘Sad,’ she said briskly. ‘Inevitable, though.’ She squared her shoulders and tried to look in control. A naturally independent woman, I thought, when not so recently widowed. I adjusted my expression, phasing out sympathy and leaving intelligent interest.

  She cleared her throat. ‘Among his things, I found this,’ she said, and held the envelope out to me, bottom upwards.

  ‘You want me to destroy it?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course not. Not yet. And of course I have looked inside.’

  ‘And what is it?’

  ‘Letters. Love letters. To Robbie.’

  Chapter Two

  Several questions sprang to mind, but I said nothing. She was as tense as if a dentist was prodding round her infected teeth. I didn’t want to hit an unnecessary nerve.

  ‘The earlier ones are typed. The later, word-processed. I didn’t see any handwriting, although there may be some. I don’t know. I’m not going to look at them, ever again.’

  Very wise, I thought. Wiser still just to chuck them. ‘Mrs Lucas, how long had you been married?’

  ‘Thirty years.’

  ‘And he wanted the letters destroyed. Surely he knew you well enough to make the decision for you. Maybe you should respect that.’

  She clicked impatiently again, this time at me.‘If he really wanted them destroyed, he’d have made sure the envelope never reached me. He may have been an academic and rather unworldly at times, but he wasn’t a complete idiot.’

  ‘He wasn’t expecting to die suddenly, either,’ I said.‘What exactly is it that you want me to do?’

  ‘Find the woman. Find the woman and tell me who it is. Probably reading the letters should be enough. But perhaps not, since you’re an outsider Ask around at NCL. Chances are she’s an academic. Use any cover story you like, but if you need me to back it, make sure I know in advance.’

  Any suggestions?’ I said.

  ‘I’m finding difficulty . . .’ She stopped. ‘I can’t . . . think of things at the moment.’

  ‘I could say I was researching a television documentary.’

  ‘What on?’ she asked.

  ‘On academics.’

  ‘He wasn’t outstanding in any way,’ she said uncertainly. ‘He was well known in his field, of course.’

  ‘His field being . . .?’

  ‘Fourteenth-century irrigation and drainage systems. He was a historical geographer.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said.

  She seemed nettled by my blankness.‘He was the world authority on drainage and irrigation in Flanders, Lombardy, Burgundy and Gascony.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I should say the documentary was on heart attacks and lifestyle.’

  ‘If you wish. He wasn’t at all dull, you know. It’s an important area, historical geography.’ Protective affection exuded from her. All their married life, probably, she’d been explaining defensively how fascinating her husband’s subject was.

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ I said. ‘Television is usually concerned with the trivial, though. Let’s go with heart attacks, everyone understands those.’

  ‘In that case, you’ll need some information,’ she said, writing in her organizer, then tearing out the page and giv
ing it to me.

  She’d written his age at death – fifty-eight – the name of his GP, the name of the hospital where he’d died, and details of diet, exercise, alcohol and tobacco consumption.

  ‘That’s fine. Who was his closest colleague in the department? Who should I start with?’

  ‘His closest friend at work wasn’t in the History Department. It was Philip Gein, an English Professor But he died a week before Robbie.’

  ‘Another heart attack?’

  ‘No, a mugging. A terrible thing. Robbie was devastated. It probably contributed to—’ She was remembering, and with the memory came anger, which she turned on me. ‘You’re not understanding me,’ she said. ‘I particularly don’t want you interfering with Robbie’s friends and mine, putting the idea into their heads. I don’t want them knowing, I don’t want anyone knowing, because I don’t think it’s true.’ She faltered, and stopped. ‘I can’t believe it’s true,’ she amended. ‘And the fewer people who know about it, the better.’

  I didn’t say that the chances were that she was the only person who didn’t know. ‘Fine,’ I said placatingly. ‘Leave it to me. But you do realize it would be much more efficient – and confidential – for you to read the letters yourself. You’d probably spot the writer in five minutes.’

  ‘I know, but I’m not going to. I’m not going to read another word of – that.’ She almost spat it out. ‘We were married for nearly thirty years. I thought I knew him. All about him – as much as you can know about another human being. And no, of course it wasn’t a perfect marriage, and yes, I think there was at least one other woman, twenty years ago. We had some dull patches, and rocky patches, and fights, and it was hard adjusting to no children, because we both wanted children. But it was thirty years. It’s what I did, for thirty years, apart from my work, of course. Do you know what you’re left with, when your husband dies, if you don’t have children?’

  She didn’t need my answer so I didn’t even formulate one. I cleared my mind of widows’ pensions, long leases on huge posh flats, and insurance policies. I just looked enquiring.

  ‘Memories. That’s what you’re left with. And if I read through that –’ she pointed at the envelope – ‘my memories will be smeared over. I’ll have their times and places and chapter and verse, all mixed up with ours. And I won’t do it. I won’t.’