I decided I ought to ask him about that.
‘I’ll take charge of this,’ said Bill, meaning the money. ‘I’ll run you home.’
‘No.’
‘The hospital, then.’
But I needed my own transport. I shook my head. ‘Nicola’s Golf is round the side. Have you looked at it?’
‘You can’t use that.’
‘She won’t mind.’
‘Without permission, it’d be theft.’
‘What’s the matter with you, Bill? You trying to find an excuse to get me inside? I’m not taking a powder. Is that what you’d call it?’
He grunted. ‘Nobody does. You’re living in the past.’ Quietly and impassively, he was furious. ‘Let’s go and look at it.’
The Golf was still standing squarely on its four wheels. Apart from a dent in the roof and a smashed rear window it seemed all right. The keys were in the ignition. I climbed in and tried it, and the engine fired first touch.
‘I’ll use it,’ I said.
Bill grimaced, but he went and lifted open the gate, which had been blown off its top hinge.
At that time of night the parking meters in the centre of town were only sparsely occupied. I parked, got out, and walked along the line. Orton’s Rover was there.
I approached his office block from the other side of the square. His office would be on the twelfth floor. No windows were lit, as the building was entirely offices. Not discouraged, I crossed to the main entrance. The doors were locked, the lobby dark apart from a small light above the reception desk. I walked round the building, into the alleyway called Shepherd’s Fold, and found the rear entrance. Each resident would have his own key. I touched the door, and it was open.
That was interesting. Had he left it open for me, thinking I might hunt him out – always assuming I was alive to do so? I went inside, and closed it behind me. At the far end of the corridor there was a tiny light, which I found to be the indicator light for a service lift. I pressed the UP button and the doors slid open.
The twelfth floor corridor was dark, though street lighting seeped through the glass-fronted office doors. Michael Orton Associates had a suite. Four doors, the end one of which bore his own name: S. Michael Orton. It was half open. I pushed it, and walked in.
I could see the shape of his shadow outlined against the window behind him. He was sitting at his desk, his double windows flung open. The paltry sounds of the town centre drifted up.
‘In the dark?’ I asked, reaching for his switch.
The overhead light was gentle and diffused. He was in his swivel chair, a bottle at his elbow, a glass cradled in both hands. He looked at me calmly, but already the drink had dulled his responses.
‘It seemed appropriate for what I was contemplating,’ he said in a dead voice.
He wasn’t drunk; he’d managed that last word perfectly. I looked round. It was a large office, with a fitted carpet and vintage car prints to break up the flat surfaces of the walls. He had a leather easy chair in front of the desk, and a long leather settee against the side wall, both in green to match the carpet. But his desk dominated the room, a massive slab of teak on chromed legs.
I nodded towards the opened windows. ‘You heard it?’
He grimaced, inclining his head. ‘Even from here. That wasn’t the reason...’ And stopped.
‘No,’ I agreed, lowering myself into the easy chair. It almost succeeded in lulling me into friendliness, but not quite. ‘It didn’t work, you know. Nicola’s alive, and we have the Day Work Book.’
‘We?’
‘The police. Sergeant Porter, to be precise.’
He twisted his lips into a sour smile. ‘And now?’
‘I’d expect the Fraud Squad people, if I were you. Bill Porter didn’t say much, but he hasn’t got any alternative. I’m assuming that was how it started. Fraud. Had to be something like that, otherwise Colin Rampton wouldn’t have had to die.’
He leaned forward. ‘Advice for you, Cliff. If you’re ever in a position to take on assistants, never employ a person who’s cleverer than you. Rampton got on to it inside a couple of months. I was in deep trouble at that time, and he just about floored me.’
‘Blackmail?’
‘He simply suggested it was time he had a pay rise. I doubled his salary. He suggested I should treble it. They’re never satisfied. And that was just for the fraud.’
‘There was more?’
‘It started with fraudulent conversion. It’s so easy for an accountant. We handle investments for our bigger customers, and all you have to do is borrow a bit here and there, playing the stock market with their money. Grand if it works. They need never know. If it doesn’t – and in my case I lost one packet after the other – then you have to feed one client’s funds to cover the other’s losses, and by then you’re only playing for time.’
‘But fortunately, there was Val.’
‘Ah yes. Valerie. Dear Valerie, she just loved bailing me out – and owning me. But even she’s never known about the drugs.’
I slid down into the leather, shoulders down and knees up. It was a surprise, but I pretended it wasn’t.
‘Was this before or after the marriage?’
‘Oh...long before. I was approached. Lord, how did they get to know I was desperate for money! A partner was needed, one with a fluid access to money and looking for quick profits. That was me. I found the capital and shared the profits. My partner’s been scrupulously fair with me – until that idiot George Peters lost a consignment. The supplier wanted his money. Three thousand. That consignment would’ve fetched fifty thousand on the streets. My partner was livid. George had to pay, he said. So George was pressured – oh, not by me, by our street agents – I never came near the actual handling aspect of it.’
He took a drink to clear his voice. He seemed to think he’d produced something in his favour. I said nothing.
‘So of course,’ he went on, ‘Tessa had to find it for George, and so Tessa pressured me, and I supplied the money myself. Go on, you can laugh. It’s funny, Cliff, so stupidly funny.’
I didn’t feel like laughing. ‘And that was lost?’
He grimaced. ‘You were supposed to be carrying it, and you weren’t. Nor the statement that that idiot George had made out. But I took your keys. You can see, I had to search your car for them.’
‘And you had to find a home for George’s body?’
‘That too.’ He shrugged. ‘I seemed to be stuck with that damned car. I’d had to put it out of action, to delay you, and give me time to get to George, and persuade him to sign a withdrawal. Then I had to get back to your office to wait for you, but there was no statement in your briefcase, and nothing on you, and no bloody money, so I had to take your keys and go back and search the Volvo. They’d got it round the back by that time, so I had a clear run at it. Nothing in the Volvo – but you know that. But by that time I’d got George’s body in the boot of my Rover, and I had to unload him somewhere, so the Volvo’s boot was the obvious place.’
He stopped. The memory of that night still harrowed his face.
‘It wouldn’t start when I tried it,’ I prodded gently.
He gave a short, dry laugh. ‘The old potato trick, stuck in the exhaust. I’d heard it worked, but I’d never tried it.’
‘It works.’
‘And when I finally left it, I pulled a wire loose, just to make it look good.’
‘Got it all worked out,’ I commented.
‘A mind for detail,’ he said complacently. ‘An accountant’s mind.’
‘And the keys?’
‘Hung ‘em on the rack, when I was round there, a day or two later.’ He glared at me. ‘What’s so damned funny?’
I straightened my face. ‘When you did that, you were only a yard from the envelope of money and the statement Peters made.’
‘That blasted statement! Tessa told me later that she’d got it.’
‘As she had, I suppose, though she didn’t know it.’
‘Oh God! Why did she insist? But, statement or not, too many people knew, and from then on it just grew. When you came back to the real world, and started working on your memory, things seemed to fall apart. I’d raised the three thousand again, though of course there was Val’s money to draw on then. But Tessa had got her teeth in. She wanted more and more. For the garage, that was, as a special gift for Tony when he came out of prison. She said something ought to be done for Tony.’
He was silent, contemplating what he’d done for Tony. I spoke gently.
‘I wonder she dared.’
The glass banged down on the desk surface, spirit splashing out and ruining the polish. ‘Don’t take that tone with me. I’m warning you.’
‘She died, Michael. In the end, she died.’
He looked beyond me and filled his glass as his eyes fell. He gulped it down. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose she had to die.’
‘But...’ I said. ‘...the money you made from drugs, the money from Val – all poured into Tony’s business, and this business...’ I waved my hand embracingly. ‘Surely, with all this...’
His mouth twisted. ‘But in the end, it wasn’t money. It all grew from Colin Rampton’s death. Too many people knew, or were finding out. I couldn’t keep up with it. I’m drowning in it. That’s the truth, Cliff. Drowning.’
It seemed to me he was asking for sympathy. From me? I shifted uneasily in the chair. ‘We have the statement Peters made.’
‘That too?’ He raised his eyebrows. He seemed unconcerned. ‘Have you told anything of this to Val?’
‘You know I haven’t had time.’
‘Then perhaps you will.’
‘As a favour?’
‘I’d find it too difficult. She doesn’t know about the drugs.’
I levered myself to my feet, rubbed my hands on my hips, and looked round. There seemed nothing more to say. I nodded and went to the door, and paused.
‘This partner you mentioned?’ I asked. ‘Am I to know his name?’
He smiled bleakly. ‘Perhaps I’ll write it down for you.’
‘Bill Porter will want to know his name.’
‘Porter knows it.’
As I opened the door he raised his glass to me. I closed the door gently behind me.
I walked away rapidly, but from the far side of the square I stopped and looked back, just in time to see his light go out. I turned away quickly and went to collect Nicola’s car. I drove directly to the hospital. An ambulance raced past me, going the other way.
They told me that Nicola was asleep, under sedation. At my concern, they said it wasn’t serious, but I knew something about head injuries. No, they assured me, no skull fracture. Simply keeping her under observation, and she’d probably be out in a couple of days.
I drove to Woodstock Heights to see my ex-wife, stopping at the first call box to ring Aunt Peg and have a word with Marsha, who by that time was in a fair panic. Aunt Peg had been worried, but was calm enough. Marsha had to be dissuaded from dashing round to the hospital. I told both of them I’d be in touch.
Val had the front door open before I’d got out of the car. She peered into the darkness of the drive.
‘Michael?’
‘It’s me, Val. Cliff.’
I walked up to her. She clutched at my arm. ‘Have you seen him?’
‘Quite recently.’
She stood firm and tense. The porch light above her head cut hollows into her cheeks and shadowed her eyes.
‘May I come in, Val?’
She seemed to jerk awake, but her mind wasn’t completely engaged. She backed away, then turned, walking with uncertainty into the house. I was on her heels. When she stopped in the living room doorway and turned, I nearly fell over her. From behind the settee, Laddie came out suspiciously. He didn’t even raise his tail for me. They can sense atmosphere.
‘I don’t think he’ll be coming back, Val.’
She stared into my eyes. Even in the small period since I’d last seen her, the flesh seemed to have fallen from her face. Her lips were thin and cold and bloodless, teeth showing as though the upper lip had stuck to them. I put a hand to her shoulder gently and led her across to the settee, where she stood firmly, as though to sit down would be to concede a weakness.
‘What do you mean?’ she demanded. ‘Why have you come here?’
Setting an example, I took the easy chair and leaned forward, knees apart, arms resting on my legs. I held the silence long enough, until she slowly lowered herself to the cushions, but she’d read my mind and her legs would no longer support her.
‘He was at his office, Val.’
‘Why there?’
‘I believe he expected me to go to him there.’
She touched her forehead briefly, and shook her head. ‘Talk sense, Cliff, please.’
‘When I left, he had his window wide open.’
She gave a tiny moan and pressed her fingers to her lips. But her voice was quite firm when she spoke. ‘I don’t believe what you’re trying to say.’
‘It’s all over, you see. The police now have George Peters’ statement, and I know all about what happened. About George’s death, Tessa’s death, perhaps Arthur Pitt’s death, but I couldn’t prove it. And all of it arose out of the original death of Colin Rampton. Even the attack on me. After all, I must have known by that time, though I probably hadn’t made sense out of it. But the intention wasn’t just to get the statement from me, it was to make a good job of it and finish me off. I wasn’t intended to recover, because then I might have denied that George Peters had signed that withdrawal.’
I had been talking on, deliberately giving her time to recover, using a dull, matter-of-fact tone. She was taking deep breaths, and eventually her eyes moved away from me. She had absorbed it, taken it in, and accepted.
‘Would you like a drink?’ she asked.
‘Thank you, but not now.’
‘Then you don’t mind if I do?’
‘Don’t you think you’ve...’
She was on her feet, her voice a whiplash. ‘Don’t dictate to me, Cliff. You never could, so don’t try to start now.’
I smiled up into her face until she turned away with a sharp exclamation of anger. She went across the room. I didn’t follow her with my eyes, but listened to the agitated rattle of glass and bottle. Laddie put a damp nose on to my knee. She returned, carrying a glass of amber liquid that looked like straight scotch, and sat deliberately, straightening her skirt primly as though I was a stranger to her legs. She was calm and contained again.
‘And Michael admitted all this?’
‘I didn’t take a statement – but yes.’
‘If that’s a poor attempt at sarcasm...’
‘Far from it. I’m only putting on record that there’s no proof, nothing in writing. He spoke at length, and I listened. He was using me to wash out his conscience. Nothing in writing, though he did say he’d write down the name of his partner.’
She stared at me over the glass. Her eyes reflected the amber. They were big, and filled with pain. ‘Partner?’ she whispered.
‘Didn’t you know he was into drugs, Val?’
‘That’s a lie!’ she shouted. ‘Michael would never take...’
‘I didn’t say take. Into drugs, in a small way. Trafficking. Pushing. Call it what you like. For money, Val. Money.’
‘Damn you!’ she spat, and she threw the dregs of the glass at me.
I fished out a handkerchief and wiped my face. It would have been an insult to her. She underlined it.
‘Why should he?’ she cried, her voice breaking with her anger. ‘He had mine. He knew that. Why...’
‘I think it started before you were married, Val. Easy now. Listen, please, and think. He was desperate for money, and I suppose, when you get into that sort of thing, it’s not easy to back out of it.’ And also, he would strive to be free of Val’s money, but I didn’t say that.
She searched my face, wondering whether I was trying
to be kind, then she gave an exclamation of rejection. ‘Not Michael.’
‘Very well. If you say so, not Michael. It’s not vastly important.’
‘It is to me.’
‘The treasured memory?’
‘God-damn you, Cliff! That blasted sarcasm again.’
‘No. I assure you.’ I shook my head. ‘Sorry – I suppose it was. But you’d naturally be annoyed that he hadn’t turned to you.’
‘Anything!’ she cried. ‘Anything he asked, he could have had.’
‘Or taken,’ I murmured.
‘What?’
‘Anything he couldn’t have, he killed for it.’
‘That’s a filthy thing to say.’
‘One crushed skull, Val, one, two, three murders, possibly four, and tonight, nearly another.’
She showed her teeth. ‘He admitted to all that?’
‘Not...exactly. Colin Rampton, now. Killed with a BMW 525, gently pushing Rampton’s car off its jacks. I know exactly how it was done. Your car was due in for some work to be done on it. Something about pulling to the right when braking. It was due in at the garage at 5.30, and Rampton died at 5.20. That was the time it was actually delivered. Michael delivered it.’
I paused. She made no comment, for a moment stared into her glass, saw it was empty, then jumped up to refill it. I waited patiently until she was sitting opposite to me again.
‘But there’s something out of phase with that reconstruction,’ I said. ‘I mean, you can imagine Michael using your BMW that day, intending to drive it in the same evening and leave it. Think about it, though. How would he have got home? Taxi? Seems very cumbersome. And to arrange for you to drive in with the Rover to pick him up...well, that would be stupid. Much easier all round for you to drive the BMW in and leave it, and have Michael pick you up there, on his way home from his office. Don’t you think?’
‘Your brain was affected!’ she said thinly. ‘I think you’d better leave, Cliff.’
‘There’s more.’
‘More nonsense?’
‘I don’t think so. It would be natural for you to drive round the rear, in the circumstances I’ve just told you, cut your engine and lights, and walk through to the foreman’s office with the car keys. A BMW is quiet. You need not have been noticed – not noticed, even, when you walked through the repair bay, the noise they sometimes make. And there you’d see Colin Rampton, lying dangerously with his car sump inches from his chest and a ton of car above him. You had perhaps met Rampton in Michael’s office, and what Michael’s said suggests you’d have known Rampton had been blackmailing him. No reason why you shouldn’t, because he’d have had to tell you about the fraud.’
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