by Rob Wyllie
'It's always the same with these rich and powerful older men, isn't it? They think they can take anything they want, and sod the carnage they leave behind. My David was fifteen years older than me when we married, but then as soon as I hit forty, boom, that was it.' David. She'd pulled that name from thin air, and now she'd better remember it. Bound to raise suspicions if you couldn't remember the name of your own husband, whether he was dead or not. 'So when he decided he wanted a younger model, I was dumped. But look, I'm sorry. Over-sharing, I'm always doing that. You're not here to listen to my troubles.'
She wiped a tear from her eye. A genuine tear. God, she was getting good at this already. Better start looking out an outfit for the BAFTAs.
But if Lotti Brückner was affected by Maggie's performance, she wasn't showing it. 'No, I don't mind at all Magdalene,' she said, giving a little smile. 'But I've been thinking that it may be a good idea for us to start with a little tour of our gallery. We have a big display in the back room and upstairs also. If I can understand the type of paintings you find appealing, then that will help me too.'
Maggie nodded. 'Yes, that sounds perfect. Because as I said, I really have no idea where to start.' And it was true. Acting skills or not, she wouldn't have any problems in playing the part of the naive art collector, since that was exactly what she was.
Robert had returned with the coffee, laying the delicate china mugs carefully on the glass table.
'Looks like you two are all set then,' he said brightly. 'I've got to go out now, but you'll be in good hands with our Miss Brückner I'm sure. But before I go, could I have a word with you Magdalene?' He beckoned her over towards the door, smiling at Lotti, who took the hint and slipped off into the back office.
'Look, I hope you won't find this too forward or presumptuous, but I wondered...would you possibly have dinner with me tomorrow evening? There's a lovely little Italian just round the corner if that's to your taste, and the house red is really very acceptable.'
And before she really knew what she was doing, she had said yes. That was going to make the job a bit more complicated. Magdalene Slattery, the two-timer.
Chapter 6
Frank wasn't entirely sure why the case intrigued him so much, but it did, which was why this morning he had broken with his normal routine to head straight to Paddington Green nick. True, they had better coffee there, and the vending machine offered a wider variety of the teeth-rotting and diabetes-inducing goodies that he loved, but the principle reason for his visit was to meet up with his old mate DI Pete Burnside. He'd given him the briefest of overviews on the phone. A couple of suicides that might not be suicides. Dig out the files and see what you can find.
'Good to see you mate,' Pete said as Frank arrived at his desk with latte and Mars Bar in hand. 'How's tricks?'
'Oh, same old same old. Nothing much that looks as if it will turn into anything, other than the one I mentioned to you.'
Burnside laughed. 'Yeah, you must be desperate if you're having to go through the suicides file.'
'Aye, you're not wrong there mate. But the one I looked at came to me from Ronnie French. You remember him?'
'He's that fat lazy DC from your manor?'
'That's the one. You're right, he's always been an idle turd, but I have to admit he's always had a good nose for the dark side. Well anyway, it was him that sniffed this one out. This girl walked in front of a train, but there might be a drugs angle and you know how much I hate that stuff and the low-lives that peddle them.'
Burnside nodded. 'Yeah, you and me both. So, you didn't exactly give me much to go on but I went through the records on our crime system here and funnily enough, there was another case that seemed to match your one. A young bloke who decided to step off a railway platform just as a train was coming in. I remember it, it was about nine months ago and the transport muppets called us into have a look, but that's just routine.'
'Aye, that's the one I read about,' Frank said, taking a slurp of his coffee. 'Any others?'
'Give us a chance mate, we've only been at it a day. But no, I don't think so.'
'Only joking pal,' Frank said. 'So tell me about the one you did dig up.'
Burnside spun his monitor round to face Frank. 'We've been busy mate, and all for you. I hope you're bloody grateful.'
Frank gave a wry smile. 'That depends on what you've got. But it might be worth a pint, you never know. Anyway, what am I looking at?'
'We've got the post-mortem pictures. The mortuary tries to tidy them up best as they can but you don't really want to look at them for too long. But of course we've managed to get a few snaps from his social media too.'
'That's brilliant Pete, it really is,' Frank said. 'So, do we know who he is? I suppose you worked that out by now.'
'Meet Luke Brown. Twenty-four years of age, lived in Clapham, mixed-race, born and raised in Leicester, graduated from Oxford two years ago, working as an intern at some insurance company over at Canary Wharf.'
Frank stared at the screen, struggling to take in what he was seeing.
'Pete, mate, I'm no judge of this kind of thing, and I know he's a young guy and all that, but is it just me, or is our Luke a bloody good-looking boy? I mean, my brother Jimmy's irresistible to women, but this lad would give him a run for his money that's for sure. What do you think?'
Burnside gave him a contemptuous look. 'Why are you asking me, you cheeky bastard? As it happens, I did think the same, but as you say, everybody's good-looking at that age.'
'I wasn't,' Frank said. 'Not like that anyway. But come on mate, there's something going on here. No idea what, but something.'
'If you say so. And I kinda agree, it is a bit odd how close the two cases are. But who knows, it's probably just coincidence.' His friend smiled. 'Anyway, you know that pint you were on about? So if you make it two, then maybe I'll let you know the really interesting stuff we found out.'
'Two pints? Aye well, I suppose I could just about run to that. Alright, what have you got?'
'So the first thing that I thought was a bit odd was this guy had written a suicide note that turned up on social media after he did it.'
'Christ,' Frank said, 'that's exactly the same as my girl'.
'Yeah, so obviously that meant the Coroner chalked it down as a suicide.'
'Aye, took the easy way out you mean.'
'A bit harsh Frank,' Burnside said. 'There wasn't any evidence that it could have been anything else. Although the post-mortems did find evidence of some drug use, it was no more than recreational amounts. But before you say anything else, we didn't just leave it there.'
'Tell me more,' Frank said, interested.
'Well believe it or not mate, even the Met are using interns these days. It's cheap labour isn't it? Anyroads, Yvonne Sharp's the girl we've got. Sharp lady. See what I did there? Sharp by name and sharp by nature.'
Frank gave him a mock-contemptuous look. 'You make that one up yourself mate?'
Burnside ignored the jibe. 'To be honest, we were a bit stuck for something for her to do, so I gave her a morning on your case and she did really well. First of all she spoke to the insurance company that Luke Brown was assigned to. Alexia they're called. German or Dutch-owned I think, and apparently big in marine insurance. Yvonne also got the name of the intern agency that employed him. Some outfit called The Oxbridge Agency. You know, as in Oxford and Cambridge universities.'
'Yeah, got that.'
'Well I thought I'd better spell it out, you being a northern hick and all that. But anyway, here's the thing. Yvonne herself had an interview with them, just last year. As I said, she's a clever girl. Did Law at Cambridge and that's where she came across them. Apparently they market themselves pretty heavily on their campuses. Oxford and Cambridge I mean. So as I said, she had an interview, but didn't much like the culture. She got the impression they were very elitist and upper class and she didn't think she would fit in, even if her parents could afford their fee, which they couldn't. So she came direct to us i
nstead.'
'What, they charge to give these kids a crap non-job?'
Burnside nodded. 'Apparently that's quite common.'
'And yet our two were working-class kids. Remarkable, isn't it?'
'I suppose it is,' Burnside said, sounding unconvinced. 'But there was something else that our Yvonne found out. Something pretty interesting in my opinion.'
'What?'
'Just two days before he died, Luke Brown was asked to leave.'
'You mean he was sacked?'
'I suppose you could describe it that way, but I expect these kids aren't on an employment contract as such, so the firms can dispense with them anytime they want. Yvonne talked to a girl in their HR team who was pretty tight-lipped as you might imagine. What was it she said? It was an internal matter and it simply coincided with a budget review. And that was as much as she could get out of her. Said the matter was now closed as far as the firm was concerned.'
Frank pursed his lips. 'So what do you think mate? Caught thieving? Or maybe looking at some inappropriate stuff on his laptop?'
'Yeah, it could be that, I don't know. As I said, their HR lot weren't too keen to say much, but Yvonne got the impression that there was something that wasn't quite right. I suppose if you really needed to find out we could send a couple of uniforms round. Say that we're re-looking at the death of Luke, and we've got some questions.'
'Which is the truth in fact. Aye, maybe that's an option but let me think about it first. But that agency outfit. The Oxbridge Agency. Find out anything about them?'
Burnside laughed. 'Frank Stewart, you are a right bloody dinosaur aren't you? They're not a secret society as far as I can tell, so you'll probably find their address on this new thing we've got now called google.'
'Cheeky swine,' Frank said. 'I just thought maybe your wonder-kid Yvonne might have wheedled out something, that was all. But no worries, I can look into that myself, no bother.'
Burnside gave him an enquiring look. 'So have I earned my pints then?'
'Aye, and some. You've done a cracking job mate, you really have. I'm actually down the Old King's Head after work tonight if you can be arsed to make the trip into town.'
'Yeah, I'd forgot it was Thursday. That's your regular night with your brother and that very lovely boss of his, isn't it? But I'm afraid it'll have to be some other time, I've got a call with the kids tonight and I don't want to miss it.'
Frank nodded. He forgotten about Pete's horrible situation, his former wife now re-married and living in Australia with his two kids, their relationship just another casualty of the job, with its late nights and broken promises and all the stresses it brought with it. He really felt for him.
'Aye, sure mate. Some other time, eh? Well, I'll be getting back over to my gaff and I'll see you soon. Cheers Pete.'
That very lovely boss of his. Pete was right, Maggie Bainbridge was lovely, in every conceivable way. Lovely to look at and with the sweetest nature of any woman he had ever met, despite everything she had been through. And God, hadn't she been through some shitty times. It was cringingly old-fashioned he knew, but sometimes he just wanted to wrap his arms around her and tell her he would make everything better. But of course, he hadn't said a thing in the nearly two years he had known her. Too scared, but too scared of what? Of rejection, of dying with embarrassment, of the gentle mocking he would have to suffer from his brother? Well, whatever it was, surely now was the time to shake of his pathetic self-doubt and just bloody do it. What's the worst that could happen? So she might say no, but wasn't that what he was expecting anyway?
Perhaps the truth was he was scared that she might say yes, and then he would find himself racing down the same path that Pete Burnside had followed. Everything starting off so perfect and sunny and optimistic until the job crushed every good thing out of their lives. But bugger this pessimism, tonight he was going to grab this thing by the throat for once. Tonight, he was going to ask Maggie Bainbridge to have dinner with him. He'd seen a nice little Italian just round the corner from the Old King's Head and that looked as good a place as any. Maggie, will you have dinner with me? How hard could that be?
Now, as he battled through the stop-go traffic of the North Circular back to Atlee House, he could turn his attention to what he had learned in the last hour. Old Pete had done a great job for him, and that wee nugget about Luke Brown, the fact that he seemed to have been sacked for some reason, made it doubly interesting. Although, when he thought about it, it could have given him a motive to take his own life, which rather put the kibosh on his murder theory. But he would figure out where that fitted in at a later date. No, the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was right. Two near-identical deaths. Two kids from the same modest background. Two kids blessed by the fates with brains and good looks. Two kids that surely had no reason to kill themselves. What did it all mean?
But right now, there was a more pressing priority. That name, Operation Dolphin. It just wasn't going to cut it. It wasn't just the fact that the causes of death were the same. It wasn't even that the victims were all listed as working for that Oxbridge Agency outfit. No, it was their bloody photographs. Because Luke Brown and Chardonnay Clarke shared one characteristic that he just knew was going to turn out to be ten times more important than all the others combined. They were ridiculously, arrestingly, sensationally good-looking kids, and so the case, for that is what it undoubtedly had become, demanded a more appropriate moniker.
And then, with an uncharacteristic flash of inspiration, it came to him. Surely there was only one that would suffice. Sorted. Operation Aphrodite was now up and running.
Chapter 7
'Aphrodite? Well I suppose it's better than the usual rubbish names you come up with. Some sort of Greek goddess, wasn't she?'
They were in the Old King's Head in Shoreditch for their semi-regular Thursday meet-up, and Jimmy had just fought his way back from the crowded bar after the always-regular buying of the first round. Frank believed there was a sort of natural hierarchy in families which demanded that wee brothers always bought big brothers the first drink, and so far Jimmy had never challenged the convention.
'Aye, she was,' Frank said. 'Goddess of love and beauty and everything in between.'
Jimmy grinned as he placed the drinks on the table. 'You must have looked that up I suppose.'
'Nah,' Frank lied. 'If I was on Mastermind, Greek mythology would be my specialist subject.' He raised his glass and downed a generous measure. 'Ah, that's better. Cheers mate. Where's Maggie by the way?'
'She should be here in five or ten minutes,' Jimmy said, at first failing to detect the hint of anxiety in his brother's voice. 'She was just meeting Asvina for a quick coffee. Looks like something's cropped up on the case we're working on. Which is a dead interesting one, by the way. Have you ever met a billionaire Frank?'
'Not as I recall. So who're we talking about?'
'The guy's name is Hugo Morgan. He runs something called an Investment Trust. I don't really understand them to be honest but that's how he made his money. And it turns out he's an ex-army bloke like myself.'
'Never heard of him.'
'Don't you read the papers mate? The divorce of the century they called it. His ex-wife walked away with more than thirty million in cash.'
'What, actual cash?' Frank said, laughing. 'She must have needed a lot of suitcases. But aye, now that you mention it, I do remember. So that was him was it?'
'Yeah, the same guy. Reached his fiftieth and decided he wanted someone younger and sexier.'
'We could all do with some of that mate,' Frank said. But that wasn't quite true. In fact it wasn't true at all. There was only one woman that he wanted and right now he was hoping against hope that her meeting with her friend wouldn't last so long that she would decide to give the pub a miss. He stole an anxious glance towards the door and this time Jimmy did notice.
'Don't worry mate, she'll be here.'
'What're you talking about?' he said, avoiding
his brother's gaze.
Jimmy gave a wry smile. 'Don't come it with me bruv, I've seen the way you look at her. What I don't understand is why don't you just get off your fat arse and ask her out?'
'Nah, couldn't do that.' Which was exactly what he intended to do later that same evening. If he could find the courage from somewhere that was.
Jimmy shrugged. 'Well, it's your loss pal. But if you take my advice, you better move fast because she's not going to be on the market for ever.'
'She's not a bloody second-hand car you know.'
'Just a figure of speech,' Jimmy said, his tone apologetic. 'You know what I mean. But talk of the devil, here she is in person.'
He leapt to his feet and waved an arm. 'Over here Maggie', bellowing to make himself heard above the background din. She spun round, giving a smile of recognition then began to squeeze her way through the throng of early-evening drinkers.
'Hi Jimmy, Hi Frank. I see you've already got me a drink, that's brilliant.'
Jimmy laughed. 'Aye, took a risk that you might just want one. Anyway, that call from Asvina. That was all a bit mysterious. What was it all about?'
'Nothing really,' she said, grimacing. 'Nothing other than she's heard on the legal jungle drums that Morgan's ex-wife might be looking to contest her settlement.'
'What, can she do that?' Jimmy asked, surprised. 'I thought these things were full and final.'
'Well, that's where it gets interesting. Because apparently that journalist guy McGinley has been in touch with her and has suggested that Morgan might not have been exactly accurate with his financial disclosures. Anyway, Asvina's looking into it, to see if there's anything she can do to nip it in the bud. Before Morgan gets to hear about it and throws his toys out of the pram.'
Jimmy nodded. 'So do you think maybe the wife's found out about his relationship with the new girlfriend and decided to try and throw a spanner in the works?'
'Yeah, Asvina thinks it's a possibility. It seems that the ex-Mrs Morgan is still off-the-scale bitter about the whole thing.'