The Company

by Sally Spencer

  ‘But Mrs Conroy wasn’t like most of your clients?’

  ‘Indeed, she wasn’t,’ Miss Bannister agreed. ‘There wasn’t a night when she didn’t call up room service. Coffee was what she always wanted. Usually at about three o’clock in the morning. She said she couldn’t sleep. Well, there’s no wonder she couldn’t sleep if she was drinking coffee at three o’clock in the morning, now is there?’

  ‘And who took it to her?’

  ‘Me. You see, there’s only a skeleton staff on at night – just the receptionist and the security guard. So if anybody calls down for anything, I’m the one who has to fix it.’

  ‘Do you remember serving her coffee the night before she left?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘You seem pretty sure of yourself.’

  ‘As I said, I served her every single night of her stay,’ Miss Bannister said. ‘Besides, with the police coming to see her the next day, it sort of stuck in my mind.’

  ‘Can you remember exactly what happened?’

  Miss Bannister closed her eyes. ‘I was sitting at my desk. I glanced at the clock and I saw it was nearly three o’clock, and I thought to myself it was about time the Witch Lady from Room Thirty-Seven rang. And I’d no sooner thought it than the phone did ring.’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘What she always said. “I can’t sleep. I want a pot of coffee right away.” No please or thank you, mind you, just an order – and me with a diploma in hotel management!’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Made the coffee and took it up to her.’

  ‘Did you see her?’

  Miss Bannister shook her head. ‘When I knocked on the door, she said, “Come in.” She was in the bathroom. She usually was. She probably considered she would be lowering herself to be in the same room as the hired help.’

  Matthews chuckled.

  ‘It’s no joke,’ Miss Bannister said. ‘You haven’t met her – she really is like that.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ Matthews said. ‘Carry on.’

  ‘I put the tray down on the table, and I said, “I’ve brought your coffee, Mrs Conroy,” and she said, “All right, you can go now.” So I went.’

  ‘And you’re sure it was her?’

  ‘Oh yes. I’d recognize that voice of hers anywhere. I’ve always found it grating.’

  Well, even if she hadn’t actually been seen, that seemed about as tight an alibi as anyone could hope for, Matthews thought.

  I walked slowly down Church Street, giving my injured leg the regular exercise which the doctor had advised.

  I’d been a coward to think of staying away from Oxford, I thought, because however things turned out between Marie and me, I should at least have the guts to handle them face-to-face.

  I reached the church and saw Owen Flint. The skinny Welshman was standing with one foot on the stocks, gazing pensively down the High Street. When he saw me, he smiled – but I knew him well enough to detect the underlying level of worry below that smile.

  ‘Is something the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘I was hoping they’d keep you in hospital a while longer,’ he admitted.

  ‘And why should you hope that?’

  ‘Because you’d be safe in hospital. Even the most determined killer would be unlikely to risk committing a murder with so many potential witnesses around.’

  ‘Why should I be his target?’ I asked.

  ‘Why should your father or your brother have been his target?’ Flint countered. ‘How long are you going to be here in the village?’

  ‘I’m planning to leave this afternoon, as soon as the will’s been read,’ I told him.

  Owen gave me a quizzical look. ‘That would be your grandfather’s will, would it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You sounded surprised I asked the question.’

  ‘I was,’ I admitted.

  ‘Yet there are two other wills to be read – your father’s will and your uncle Tony’s.’

  Despite myself, I grinned ruefully. ‘That’s the kind of family I was brought up in,’ I said. ‘If you talked about the dog, you meant Grandfather’s red setter. If it was any other dog, you said Tony’s bull terrier or Edward’s Labrador.’

  ‘What do you expect the will to say?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘And aren’t you even curious?’

  ‘As long as I keep control of Cormorant Publishing, I couldn’t care about anything else.’

  ‘And you think you will?’

  I shrugged. ‘Grandfather knew how much I cared about Cormorant.’

  ‘He might well have done, but he was prepared to let your uncle mortgage it,’ Owen Flint pointed out.

  That thought had been nagging away at my mind, too. There were times when I saw it as a complete betrayal, but I wasn’t about to speak ill of the old man to anyone else, not even an old friend like Owen.

  ‘So where will you be going when you leave here?’ Flint asked. ‘Back to Oxford?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Owen looked troubled again. ‘I’ll get on to the local coppers and ask them if they’ll keep an eye on you,’ he said. ‘They can’t provide round-the-clock protection – they don’t have the manpower for that – but perhaps the fact that there’s a uniform around some of the time will be enough to deter anybody who wants to harm you.’

  I thought of trying to resolve my problems with Marie under the watchful eye of an Oxford flatfoot.

  ‘I don’t need police protection,’ I said.

  ‘I think you do,’ Owen countered.

  ‘I’m not important enough to have enemies,’ I told him. ‘I’m just a humble publisher.’

  Owen laughed. ‘A humble publisher who just happens to publish Andy McBride,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t have the opportunity to make enemies,’ I protested. ‘I work most of the time, and even when I’m not working, the only people I see are Andy McBride and … and …’

  ‘And Marie O’Hara,’ Owen supplied.

  ‘How do you know about her?’ I asked, shocked.

  ‘I’m a policeman investigating three murders and two attempted murders,’ Flint said. ‘Marie O’Hara is part of your life, and that makes her part of my investigation.’

  ‘I don’t think she is,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t think she’s part of my investigation?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s part of my life. There was a time … but I really don’t want to talk about it now, Owen.’

  ‘Have you been out with many girls since Jill?’ Flint asked.

  And from the tone of his voice I could tell that the policeman in him had temporarily receded, and I was talking to my old college friend.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘There haven’t been any.’

  Owen shook his head sadly, then checked his watch. ‘The pub’s just opened,’ he said. ‘Do you fancy a pint?’

  I shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  We were the first customers of the day. We ordered our drinks and took them over to a table by the window.

  ‘You should have someone special in your life, you know, Rob,’ Owen said. ‘People like you aren’t meant to be alone.’

  ‘What about you?’ I asked, pulling the famous Rob Conroy trick of changing the subject whenever it got vaguely uncomfortable.

  ‘I grew up surrounded by other kids,’ Owen said. ‘When I first got my rooms in Oxford, I couldn’t believe how much space there was. It terrified me. But it’s remarkable how quickly you can get used to things. I don’t want to share my space with anyone, Rob. I like being alone.’

  Perhaps it was his obvious candour which made me say, ‘I’m never alone. I’ve always got my guilt to keep me company.’

  ‘Guilt?’ he repeated. ‘What have you got to feel guilty about?’

  ‘The first week Jill was working in Cornwall, she took the kids out canoeing on the river,’ I said. ‘The second week, she was involved with pony trekking
. It wasn’t until the third week that she went abseiling. So you see, I had plenty of time to do something.’

  ‘You’re not making a lot of sense, boyo,’ Owen Flint told me.

  ‘I asked her not to go, but she said she had to – and suggested I went with her. I told her I couldn’t, because I’d agreed to work for Grandfather, but if I had gone, I’d have been there that second day of abseiling, when her harness broke halfway down the cliff and …’ I shuddered. ‘And she plunged backwards to her terrible, frightening death.’

  ‘But it was an accident, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said heavily. ‘It was an accident. They say harnesses sometimes break, however careful you are about checking the equipment. But it shouldn’t have happened to my Jill!’

  ‘The harness would have broken whether or not you were there,’ Owen said quietly.

  ‘I once read a science fiction story about a group of big game hunters who time-travelled back to pre-history,’ I told him. ‘The only dinosaurs they killed were the ones which were due to die that second anyway, so nothing would be changed. Then one of the hunters stepped off the safe path and crushed a leaf. A single leaf! When they got back to their own time the world had changed so much they hardly recognized it.’

  ‘I understand what you’re saying but …’

  ‘If I’d gone with her, like she wanted me to, everything would have been different. We might have had a few too many drinks the night before, so she’d have cried off the abseiling. We might have stopped to talk for a minute or two, and some other poor bugger would have ended up with the faulty harness. A thousand things could have happened which would have meant that Jill hadn’t died. And she gave me the choice. “Come with me,” she said. But I wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘You’re being too hard on yourself,’ Owen said sympathetically.

  ‘Perhaps I’d agree with you if it was only an isolated incident, but I’m always running away from things – evading my responsibilities.’

  ‘You didn’t run away from Andy McBride,’ Owen pointed out in my defence.

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘I didn’t run away from a stranger I met on the street. But I ran away from my brother.’

  ‘What’s that you say?’ Owen Flint asked, and in an instant he was the policeman once more.

  ‘I have this feeling deep down inside me that there was some way I could have stopped this whole bloody tragedy from happening.’

  ‘Would you like to elaborate on that?’

  ‘I can’t. As I said, it’s just a feeling. But it’s a very strong one. I believe that at some point in the last few years I could have said something, or done something, which would have meant that John would still be alive now.’ I laughed. ‘Of course, it’s well known that I’m a mental case, so if I were you, I’d take absolutely no notice of anything I say.’

  Owen didn’t join in my laughter, or even show any signs of pity. ‘If you get anything more definite on this feeling of yours, come and see me right away,’ he said.

  FIFTEEN

  For several days before the crash, I had been carrying around a heavy secret which belonged to my brother – as well as others – and now, as I stood in front of the austere Norman church, I found myself wondering if I should have revealed it to Chief Inspector Flint, who sometimes slipped back into the role of my old friend Owen.

  It was not an easy question to answer. On the one hand, anything I told the police might help them to track my brother’s killer down. On the other, it was hard to see how this particular piece of information could be of any use to them at all – and having done little enough for my brother in his life, I was determined not to do anything now which might turn him into a posthumous figure of fun.

  The dead are always entitled to retain their dignity, I told myself – my brother more than most. And if I could somehow manage to drag out from the recesses of my mind the one crucial fact – the one essential element – which had been nagging at my brain since I returned to the village, then perhaps there would be no need to expose the secret which John had been at such pains to hide.

  I let my eyes climb the high church tower and thought of John’s wedding day.

  If the weather can be taken as an omen of things to come, then, on that particular morning, it looked as if the marriage of my brother, John Conroy, to Miss Lydia Hornby Smythe, was off to a marvellous start.

  Looking out of my bedroom window, I could see that the sky was a perfect blue, without a trace of cloud. And when I opened that window and breathed in, the outside air had that balmy feel to it which can only be found in England – and even then, rarely. It was going to be a terrific day, and I hoped from the bottom of my heart that John and Lydia would have a wonderful life together.

  I walked over to the wardrobe and inspected my morning suit. The alterations my tailor had made had ensured that it fitted perfectly, I thought, but should he have had to make them at all? I was still far enough away from my thirtieth birthday not to be concerned about it, yet I was already acquiring a middle-aged spread.

  When I got back to Oxford, I would start to take regular exercise, I decided. But even as I made the promise to myself, I knew I would never keep it. The desk which greeted me on my return would be piled high. There was Andy McBride’s book to nursemaid into its final form. There was an American tour to organize for one of my authors who had just started to make a name for himself over in the States. There was a book of poems from new writers, which would sink without trace if I didn’t mobilize my media contacts. There was …

  There were so many things, and the second I returned to my office, I would be completely immersed in my work again.

  Someone was knocking softly – almost hesitantly – on my door.

  ‘Come in,’ I said.

  The door opened, and my brother walked into the room. We had had a quiet drink together the night before, but from the way he looked at that moment, it would have been possible to believe he was suffering from the effects of a full-blown stag night hangover.

  ‘Have you got a minute?’ John asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  My brother sat down on the bed. It creaked under his bulk. For a few seconds, he was silent, but when he did speak, his words came out in a rush – as if he were afraid that if he didn’t get them out then, he would never get them out.

  ‘I think this whole thing is a mistake,’ he said.

  Was this nothing more than normal pre-wedding nerves, I asked myself, or was it something much more fundamental?

  ‘What makes you think it’s a mistake?’ I asked, picking my way cautiously.

  John shrugged his powerful shoulders. ‘I just … I just don’t think it’s going to work out, that’s all.’

  ‘But you must have a reason,’ I pressed him. ‘Has Lydia done something or said something which has led you to believe—’

  ‘This isn’t about Lydia,’ John interrupted, almost angrily. ‘It’s about me. I’m not sure I’m the marrying kind.’

  ‘Who is?’ I asked. ‘I don’t think marriage is the natural state for most people – yet we feel incomplete without it.’

  John smiled weakly. ‘Do you feel incomplete?’

  It wasn’t something I wanted to analyse.

  Not then.

  Not ever.

  ‘I’d have married Jill, if she’d lived,’ I said, side-stepping the question.

  ‘Maybe that’s my problem,’ my brother told me. ‘I saw you with Jill, and I’ve seen myself with Lydia. And it’s simply not the same.’

  I felt a heavy weight resting on my shoulders. With just a few words, I could destroy this marriage – and I was not sure whether that would the right thing, or the wrong thing, to do.

  ‘Do you love Lydia?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ my brother replied. ‘Yes, I really think I do.’

  ‘Then stop comparing yourself and Lydia to Jill and me,’ I said. ‘Every relationship’s different. Look at Mum and Dad. They’re an odd couple in so many ways, yet you can
’t deny the fact that they’ve been perfectly – if quietly – happy together for over thirty years.’

  John nodded. ‘You’re right,’ he agreed. He stood up. ‘Thank you, Little Brother.’

  ‘I’m only doing my job as best man,’ I said.

  But I wondered how good a job I’d really done.

  I found my father sitting alone at the breakfast table.

  ‘Everything under control?’ he asked, in the mild tone he habitually used.

  ‘Seems to be,’ I said, mentally brushing aside John’s moment of panic.

  ‘Err … there’s something you should know before we go to the church,’ my father told me.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The seating arrangements will be a little unconventional. It would be best if you pretended not to notice it.’

  I felt the back of my neck start to prickle.

  ‘In what way will they be unconventional?’ I asked.

  My father shrugged awkwardly. ‘Well, as you probably know, it’s normal on these occasions for the bride’s family to sit on one side of the aisle and the groom’s family on the other. That won’t be happening today.’

  The prickle at the back of my neck was almost becoming an itch.

  ‘And why’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘As you know, Lydia’s an orphan.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, it … err … it would be rather uncomfortable for everyone present if one side of the church was conspicuously empty.’

  ‘But why should it be empty? Even if she hasn’t got family, there are her friends to consider.’

  My father shifted in his chair. ‘She’s … From what she said to me, she sees this marriage as a new start.’

  ‘So you’re telling me that no one from her side is coming to the wedding?’ I asked incredulously.

  ‘There may be one or two people,’ my father said. ‘Lydia was a little vague about it when I asked her. But certainly none of the wedding presents which have been arriving at the house all week seem to have come from anyone other than our friends and relatives.’