by Val McDermid
I could feel a dull ache starting at the base of my skull. The combination of staring into my laptop and trying to work out what was going on was getting to me. I stood up and stretched, then moved around the office doing some of the warm-up exercises I'd learned down the Thai boxing gym. I swear the routine sends my brain into an altered state. As my body found its rhythm, the tension flowed out of me, and my mind went into free fall.
Then all the assorted bits and pieces of information that had been swilling round in confusion inside my head came together in a pattern. Abruptly, I stopped leaping around the room like Winnie the Pooh's imitation of Mikhail Baryshnikov and dropped into my chair. I didn't have a split screen facility on the laptop, so I hastily scribbled down half a dozen of the addresses of the houses that had been mortgaged according to DUPLICAT, along with the names of their buyers. Then I called up the files from WORK.C, the directory of Cheetham's straight conveyancing business.
It didn't take me long to discover that for every file in DUPLICAT there was another file in WORK.C that corresponded to it. In each case, the house was the same but the buyers and the mortgage lenders were different. Now I understood exactly what Brian Lomax and Martin Cheetham had been up to. They'd exploited the system's weaknesses in a scam that would have given them a tidy profit almost indefinitely. The pair of them were committing the classic victimless crime. But someone had grown greedy, and that greed had led to Martin Cheetham's death.
I glanced at my watch. It was just on four. I still had no proof that Brian Lomax had been an active conspirator rather than a mug that Martin Cheetham and, possibly, Nell Lomax had exploited for their own ends. But I was convinced that whatever had gone wrong with Cheetham's carefully worked out scheme could be traced straight back to Lomax. There was something about his body language, a kind of swagger in the way he carried himself. Brian Lomax was no more one of life's victims than Warren Beatty. And I had to get him in the frame before a jumbo jet took off into the sunset on Monday night.
I closed the laptop and took it through to Bill's office. He was staring at an A4 pad, gnawing the end of a pencil. 'Bad time?' I asked.
'I'm trying to write a memory resident program that will automatically check for any date-activated programs hiding in the computer's memory,' he said. He dropped the pencil with a deep sigh and started chewing his beard instead. I'm often tempted to ring his mother and ask what experience he had in his infancy that's made him so oral.
'Virus protection?' I asked.
'Yup. I've been meaning to get to it since the debacle on Yom Kippur, but this is the first chance I've had.' He pulled a face. Bill was still smarting from the computer virus that had attacked one of our clients at the beginning of October. The virus had been set to activate itself on the Jewish Day of Atonement. Our clients, a firm of accountants called Goldberg and Senior, had taken it very personally when all of their records had been turned into gobbledygook. They didn't find it a consolation when Bill told them it was a one-off that wouldn't recur in other years, unlike the really vicious Friday the Thirteenth and Michelangelo viruses that attack again and again till they're cleansed for good.
'I'm putting the laptop in the safe. It's got the data from Martin Cheetham's hard disc on it, and I think it's probably the only evidence left of what he and Brian Lomax were up to,' I said.
'You've cracked it, then?' Bill looked eager and stopped chewing.
'I think so. The only problem is that it's hard to prove Lomax was actively involved with the criminal aspect of it. So I've got a little experiment in mind to sort it out one way or the other.' I crossed the office and pushed the frame of the print of Escher's Belvedere. The spring-loaded catch released itself and the picture swung back on its hinges to reveal the office safe.
'You want to enlighten me?' Bill asked as I keyed in the combination. The door clicked open and I cleared a space on the bottom shelf for the laptop.
'I'd love to, but I haven't got the time right now. I need to be in Buxton before six if this is going to work. Besides, this is not a tale you want to try and digest on a Friday tea time. The twists and turns in this make Yom Kippur look as simple as Space Invaders.' I closed the safe, then unlocked the cupboard that contains all our Elint equipment.
'I don't want you to think I'm being chauvinist about this, but you're not going to do anything dangerous, are you?' Bill asked anxiously.
'I wasn't planning to, no. Just a simple bit of bugging in the hope of picking up something incriminating.' I chose a directional bug with a magnetic base, and added the screen that indicates where the bug is relative to the receiver. I also helped myself to a couple of tiny radio mikes with integral batteries, each about the size of the top joint of my thumb, and the receiver that goes with them. The tape recorder was still in the Fiesta, so I'd be able to record anything I overheard. I screwed each mike into a plastic pen-housing that also contained a U-shaped length of wire which acted as an aerial.
Bill sighed. 'As long as you're careful. We don't want a repeat performance of last Friday night.' From anyone else, it would have sounded patronizing. But I recognized the genuine concern that lay behind Bill's words.
'I know, I know, the firm can't afford the insurance premiums to get any higher,' I said. 'Look, there's been no sign of anyone having another go. Maybe it was the real thing, a genuine accident. You know, someone a bit pissed or tired? Stranger things have happened.'
'Maybe,' Bill agreed reluctantly. 'Anyhow, take care. I haven't got the time to train a replacement.' He grinned.
'I promise. Like I said, just a simple bit of bugging, that's all.' I didn't want to upset him. That's why I chose not to tell him I was going out to find me a murderer.
24
Enchantments didn't. Enchant me, that is. There was something about their stock of expensive clothes that screamed "girlie'. I'd only ever have shopped there if I'd been deliberately looking for something that made me look like a middle-class bimbo. It wasn't so much mutton dressed as lamb, as 'little baby lambikins'. It was obviously what the locals wanted, since it certainly wasn't a style that came naturally to the fiercely elegant Nell Lomax. Today, her wavy brown hair tumbled round the shoulders of what looked to me like a classic Jaeger suit and blouse. She looked like an advert for one of those richly spicy perfumes that we career girls are supposed to love.
I'd drifted past the shop to check she was there, then I'd slipped out the rear entrance of the modern glass and concrete shopping arcade where the boutique sat uneasily between a butcher's and a shoe shop. A quick prowl round the car park revealed there was only one white convertible Golf there. On the pretext of tying my lace, I slipped the directional bug inside the wheel arch. Now I could keep tabs on Nell without sitting tightly on her tail.
Nell was sitting on a high stool behind the counter reading Elk. She glanced up when I walked in, but clearly didn't think a woman who would be seen out of doors in jogging pants, sweatshirt and ski jacket was the sort of person worth lavishing her personal attention on. I'd pulled my hair back and tied it in a pony tail, and now my bruising had gone down, I was back to my usual light application of cosmetics, so it's not really surprising she didn't recognize me as the smartly dressed, over-made-up private eye she'd come face to face with a few days before. Besides, a lot had happened since then to take her mind off my face.
As she read on, I browsed among the racks of over-priced merchandise, trying to imagine anyone I respected wearing any of these clothes. I did find one skirt my mother would probably have liked, but she'd have wanted to pay about a third of the price for it, and I can't say I'd have blamed her. Keeping half an eye on Nell, I worked my way round the shop.
Eventually, I approached the counter from the side, so I was close to her coat, which was slung over a chair, and to her handbag, on the floor at her feet. 'We need to talk, Ms Lomax,' I said, dropping on to the chair with the coat and letting my bag slide on to the floor next to hers.
She looked startled, as she was meant to. 'I'm sorry,
I don't think I...?' she said.
'We haven't been introduced,' I said, leaning forward to open my bag. I took out a business card and handed it to her. While she was frowning at it, under the pretext of closing my bag, I slipped one of the radio mikes into her handbag.
'I still have no idea who you are, Miss Brannigan,' she said uneasily. Not a good actress; I could see the nervous flicker of her eyes as she lied.
We met in Martin Cheetham's office. The day he died,' I said. I leaned back and casually draped my arm over the back of the chair. I managed to slip the second mike into one of the deep pockets of her Burberry without taking my eyes off her face.
'I don't know what you're talking about,' she replied with a nervous shake of the head.
I sighed and ran my hand over my hair. 'Ms Lomax, we can do this the hard way or the easy way. Martin Cheetham was your boyfriend. He did business with your brother. Very dodgy business, some of it. You were both at his house on the afternoon he died, something which I don't believe you've seen fit to discuss with the police. Now, I know about the double dealing with the land, I know about the mortgage frauds and I know how the money's been laundered. And I know why Martin Cheetham had to die.'
Nell Lomax's chic facade crumbled, leaving a frightened woman whose eyes couldn't keep still. 'You're talking rubbish,' she gabbled. 'I don't know what you're on about. How dare you - coming in here and talking about Martin and my brother like that.' Her attempt at defiance didn't even convince her, never mind me.
'Oh, you know all about it, Nell,' I said. 'What you don't know is that your lovely brother is planning to skip the country and leave you holding the sticky end.'
'You're mad,' she said. 'I'm going to call the police.'
'Be my guest. I'd be happy to tell them what I know, and to show them the proof. It's in a very safe place, by the way, so there's no point in trying to get rid of me like you got rid of Martin Cheetham,' I added.
'I think you'd better leave,' she said, unconsciously backing away from me.
'I came to deliver a message. Your brother and your lover conned my client out of five thousand pounds. They did the same to another eleven people in the same scam. I want that sixty thousand back before he leaves the country on Monday, otherwise the police will be waiting at the airport for him.' I indicated my card, which she was still clutching tight. 'You've got my number. When he's got the money together, tell him to ring me and we'll arrange a hand over.'
I picked up my bag and stood up. 'I'm deadly serious about this, Nell. You're in the frame too, don't forget. That should be a hell of an incentive to convince your brother to refund my clients.' I walked briskly across the shop. At the door, I contemplated kicking over a rail of clothes, but I decided the air of low-key menace was probably more effective than going over the top. I marched out, not looking back.
I gambled on Nell shutting up shop and going off to find brother Brian. Since it was just after half past five, I thought there was a good chance that she'd head straight for home, so I checked back in to my cheap and cheerful guest house. The landlady nearly burst with curiosity at my return, especially when she spotted the electronic equipment. I closed the door firmly behind me and settled down at the window, the directional receiver on a low coffee table beside me. I plugged an earphone from the microphone receiver into my ear and waited. So far, nothing. Either Nell was too far away for me to pick anything up or she'd found the bugs and flushed them down the toilet. Given the state she'd been working up to when I left the shop, I frankly didn't think she'd have noticed if they'd jumped out of the bag and bitten her.
Then the screen started to flash. The bug itself has a radius of about five miles, and it transmits back to the receiver. The screen shows the direction of the bug relative to the receiver, and there's a display of figures along the bottom of the screen which gives the distance in metres between the bug and the receiver. At first, the numbers started climbing, which got me twitching. Had I guessed wrong? Was she heading for some building site where her brother would be working late? Just as I reached the point of panic, the direction changed and the numbers started to plummet. When it showed 157, I could actually see the white Golf racing up the hill towards the house. Then the earphone came alive and I could hear engine noise.
She was driving like a woman who'd lost control. It was a miracle she didn't leave her front bumper on the gatepost as she shot into the drive. As it was, I heard a harsh scraping as she pulled off the road. She didn't even bother garaging the car, simply abandoning it on the Tarmac in front of the house. I watched and listened as she jumped out of the car, slammed the door and let herself in.
'Brian,' she shouted. I could hear her footsteps, the rustle of her clothes and her quick breathing as she hurried through the house calling his name. But there was no reply. Then it sounded like she'd taken her coat off and thrown it down somewhere.
I heard the electronic chirruping of a phone as she keyed in a number. I could faintly hear the distinctive ringing tone of a mobile phone. Someone answered, but even I could hear the static on the line. 'Brian?' she said. 'Is that you? Brian, I've got to talk to you. Brian, it's that Brannigan woman. Hello? Hello? You're breaking up, Brian!' He wasn't the only one. Nell sounded like she was in pieces.
'Brian? Where are you?' she yelled. There was a pause, and I couldn't hear what was coming down the phone at all. 'You'd better get here soon, Brian. This is real trouble.'
It was working. I waited patiently while Nell poured herself a drink. Luckily she was one of those women who are attached to their handbags by an umbilical cord. More often than not, they're smokers, I've noticed. I heard the unmistakable click of a lighter. She was on her third cigarette by the time Lomax turned into the drive. Seemingly unperturbed by his sister's panicky phone call, he calmly garaged the E-type and strolled unhurriedly round to the back of the house.
A moment later, I heard Nell shout, 'Brian?'
'What the hell's the matter with you?' I heard, the voice muffled at first but growing clearer as he approached her.
A chair scraped on a hard floor, then Nell said, That Brannigan woman. The private eye, the one who was sniffing round Martin? She came into the shop this afternoon. Brian, she says she knows everything that's been going on!' She sounded as though she were on the verge of hysterics. It was like listening to a radio play, trying to conjure up the picture that matched what I was hearing. I checked that the tape was running, then concentrated on what I could hear.
'And you fell for that bullshit? Christ, Nell, I told you, no one can pin a thing on us. We're in the clear now. What did she say anyway? She could only have been bluffing.' He sounded angry rather than edgy, as if he wanted someone to blame and Nell was handy.
'She said she knew all about the land deals, and the mortgage scam, and about using the old houses to launder the money,' Nell reported, surprisingly faithfully.
'Jesus, that really is bullshit. She must have been guessing. And even if she did guess right, there's not a shred of proof.' Another chair scraped on the floor and a different lighter clicked.
'She said she had proof,' Nell said.
'She can't have. I got rid of everything after Martin. Every bit of paper, every computer disc. There isn't any proof. For Christ's sake, Nell, get a grip.'
'What if she does have evidence? What if there was something you don't know about? I'm telling you, Brian, she knows. And she knows Martin's death wasn't an accident.'
'Now you're really on Fantasy Island,” Lomax snapped. 'Look, the cops think it was an accident. The inquest is going to say it was an accident. You and me are the only ones who know any different. How the fuck could this private eye know anything? She wasn't there, was she? Or did I miss her? Was she there giving us a hand to drop your precious boyfriend over the banisters? Did that somehow escape my notice?' he demanded. 'Listen, there's no way she could know anything about that gutless little shit.'
'Don't talk about him like that,' Nell said.
'Well, he was. Say
ing he wasn't going to have anything to do with violence,' Lomax mimicked in a namby-pamby voice. 'Saying he was going to the police if I didn't lay off the nosy bitch. As if it wasn't his stupid fault in the first place that something had to be done about her. If I'd done the fucking job properly to begin with, we wouldn't be getting any fucking aggro off this Brannigan cow. She'd be on the bottom of the bloody Ship Canal where she fucking belongs.'
In spite of myself, I shivered. There's something very stomach-churning about listening to someone who's tried to kill you whingeing because they didn't succeed. A bit like reading your own obituary.
'Well you didn't do it properly, did you? And now she says she knows. And she wants sixty thousand from you or she'll go to the cops,' Nell said. Her voice sounded shaky, as if she was forcing herself to stand up to her brother.