by Keith Dixon
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I WENT BACK TO my office to get my mail. There was no mail. I called Gerald Finch. But there was no Gerald Finch. I stared at the mailbox and telephone as if they were traitors.
I tried to remember everything I could about Gerald Finch. His small house. His large frame. The cat sleeping on his kitchen counter. He was big enough and I thought strong enough to have knocked me out and overpowered Tara. And certainly he was still angry enough. The atmosphere in his house was like tinder ready to explode, and he struck me as someone who could easily be the fuse.
On the other hand he didn’t seem to be someone with the form for it. He worked in design. In computers. He was more likely to find a way to defraud Brands than murder Rory and kidnap Tara.
But murderers don’t usually make a career of it. The murder emerges from rage and the murderer’s belief that there’s no alternative if reparations are to be made for the hurt or bad feelings that he’s gone through. I asked myself whether I thought Finch felt that bad or demonstrated that level of rage.
The answer was, I didn’t know.
Thirty minutes had passed with me thinking this through when Laura called. I wondered how long I’d been calling her Laura.
I hadn’t seen her since the day before Tara’s abduction. I should have spoken to her as soon as I could, as my client, but I hadn’t worked out what to tell her about the events at Tara’s house. She’d also left a message on my home answer phone that I’d failed to return.
‘How are you?’ she said. I couldn’t tell whether she was angry or merely anxious.
‘I’m fine, except for a bruise the size of Denmark on the back of my head. Where are you?’
‘In the office. Just a skeleton staff today. We’re all at sixes and sevens. It was bad enough when Rory was killed, but this ...’
‘It must be tough.’
She sighed. I imagined her sitting at her desk, looking out of the windows at the blank, reflective offices in the centre of Waverley. ‘You have no idea,’ she said.
‘Will Brands carry on?’
‘I suppose you have to ask that question, don’t you? If I didn’t know better I’d think you had shares in our competitors. Well there’s a meeting of department heads tomorrow to see what we should do. People are still telling me I should take charge.’
‘Why don’t you?’
There was a pause. ‘I don’t feel it’s my place. It’s not my company and I know that. But I don’t see how we can stop trading—there’s too much at stake for everyone.’
‘Laura?’
‘What?’
‘I want you to do something for me.’
‘Oh God.’
‘I want you to be with as many people as you can. Don’t walk around by yourself. Don’t leave your car parked at night in streets you don’t know. Am I making myself clear?’
‘Why should I be a target?’
‘Because you can be. You won’t like to hear this, but I haven’t got a clue why Rory was murdered and Tara was kidnapped. Personal or professional—I don’t know. But I want you to be careful. I mean it.’
There was silence at the other end as Laura absorbed all this. A few days ago she’d have switched into Nazi mode and told me to shape up. Now she wasn’t so sure.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I phoned to see how you were, and to give you some information. Champion have refused to give us any more money for the IT development. We haven’t made a go of it in the last twelve months, so they’re pulling the plug.’
‘Do they want their three million back?’
‘Not yet. It doesn’t work like that. We have a few years before we have to start repayment.’
‘So what difference does it make to you now?’
‘The first thing we have to do is get rid of—sorry, make redundant—about forty people. We haven’t sold any licences of the programme, so we can’t carry on with this drain on our finances. Isn’t that great timing?’
‘It’s a money thing.’
‘It’s a business thing. I hope you’re not going to get wishy-washy on me, Sam. And you an ex-member of Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise SWAT team.’
‘That doesn’t mean I ditched my ethics. Don’t tell me you’re happy about it.’
‘Oh for God’s sake. These people are used to it. The new economy and all that. I don’t say I’m happy, but if it happens, it happens. There’s no such thing as a job for life any more.’
‘A job for longer than eighteen months would suit most people.’
‘I can’t talk to you if you’re going to be silly.’
‘So thinking about other people and their families is silly?’
‘You’re twisting my words. You really do like having rows, don’t you? Just when I thought we were getting on well.’
‘For me, this is getting on well.’
‘I guess you’re a single man, then,’ she said.
And hung up.
