‘Darling, give it a rest. You’re driving everybody mad.’
The girl unstrapped her pink crash helmet, a present from Simon.
‘You could have got the electric one, Mum.’ she said. ‘I told you that was quieter, and planet-friendly. Daddy offered to go halves. But you didn’t want to spend an extra thousand pounds.’ The girl had Prisha’s large brown eyes, her dark hair cut into a short bob.
‘Well, we’ll see.’ Prisha was convinced that Deepak had spoiled their daughter from birth. Now, as a less regular visitor, he positively showered her with gifts. The trouble was that Indigo knew with some kind of primal, childish cunning exactly how to play off one parent against the other. And Simon – well – he was complete putty in her hands. Indigo generally referred to him as ‘the loser’, a phrase she must’ve picked up from classmates. If this was the result of all those fees, she might as well have sent her to a state school.
‘I’d still prefer that pony,’ Indigo said as she dismounted. ‘I’m a bit bored with this. Oh, there’s air in the fuel line again.’ She stalked past her mother into the house, with the helmet under her arm, for all the world as if she was a Formula One racing driver marching out of the pits. Prisha stared across at the ruined paddock, two acres that had once been a pear orchard. She wondered where she had gone wrong, with a child that demanded so much without a word of thanks, expecting everyone to clear up after her.
Prisha turned and walked back into the house. ‘Simon,’ she called. ‘Quad bike time. Can you check the fuel line? And hose it down before putting it in the garage.’
There was an answering call from somewhere in the lounge, where her partner was probably watching the horse racing and wasting her money again. After her daughter emerged from the shower, wrapped in a large towel, Prisha followed the child into her bedroom.
‘Darling.’
‘Mmm?’ Indigo was sitting on the bed playing with her gold iPhone.
‘Are you happy in yourself?’
The child looked up, a curl of contempt on her pink cherubic lips.
‘I don’t mean money or presents. Are you happy with who you are?’
She shrugged and turned back to her phone.
Prisha waited, but getting no further comment added. ‘Do you feel happy in your body?’
‘I’m not fat.’
‘I didn’t mean that, of course you’re not fat. You’re perfect.’ She paused again, but still hadn’t succeeded in attracting her daughter’s attention. ‘Some children these days feel they were born in the wrong body.’
This time she did look up, the twist of contempt in her mouth joined by an inflection in her dark eyebrows. ‘So we’re actually having a transgender conversation?’
Prisha was often astounded by her daughter’s precocity. ‘Not exactly.’
The child turned back to her phone. ‘I’ve got brown skin, and you’re bringing me up a Hindu. I don’t need any additional hassle, thanks all the same.’
‘I’m just saying that if you felt that underneath everything, you were a boy, that is a conversation we could have.’
Indigo gave a laboured and heavy sigh. ‘I know it was always a disappointment to you, but I was born with a vagina. I’m eleven, so I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do with it yet. But now you want me to swap it?’
‘No, of course not.’ This really wasn’t going well.
Another sigh. ‘I don’t know what you want me to be, Mum. Maybe you should wait until you figure out who you are.’
* * *
Disturbing the chief constable on a Sunday afternoon was never something to be done lightly, but Gillard knew he would get a fair hearing. Alison Rigby answered on the third ring.
‘Yes, Craig?’
‘Huge progress ma’am,’ he said. ‘As you will have read, Mrs Roy had been exposed to thallium over the last few months. We were struggling to find out exactly how. We tested every item of food in her kitchen in Richmond as well as in the flat in Leatherhead, and all her toiletries. Nothing reacted to the tests. However, DI Mulholland on her own initiative visited Mrs Roy’s office and found some toiletries there in a drawer. It turns out that someone had injected a roll-on deodorant with the poison. I can only presume that the reason she is still alive is that she didn’t use this deodorant every day, just occasionally.’
‘Do you have a suspect?’
‘Not yet, ma’am. I need to speak to Mulholland, but I’m sure we will be narrowing it down. I just wanted to let you know this stage because—’
‘Because this couldn’t be Jason Waddington, right?’
‘Correct, ma’am. We’ll need a few more hours to narrow down who could possibly have done this, who might have had access to her office.’
‘Thank you, Craig. We still have something of a conundrum, though, don’t we? The actual murder was a crude assault undertaken by a male on a bicycle. Someone who would have known that she was likely to be walking her dog on Ashtead Common very early on a Sunday morning. If we are assuming that the earlier poisoning was undertaken by the same person, the same man, he would presumably have been frustrated that he had not managed to kill her.’
‘My thoughts exactly, ma’am.’
‘And we still don’t know why?’
‘No ma’am. There are no obvious financial incentives because of the way the shareholding of Empire of Spice is structured. Mrs Roy’s children already enjoy the trappings of considerable wealth.’
‘What about Parr-Fielding? He’s in debt, has previous convictions and I understand that he was caught snooping round the crime scene?’
Gillard smiled. Prisha’s partner seemed to be the chief constable’s favourite suspect. ‘His DNA didn’t show up anywhere, so he’s in the clear for now. I’ll continue to monitor him.’
‘All right, Craig. Good work on this. I’m not going to release Waddington until we have a bit more at least. I’ll be away most of this week, but you’ll still be able to get hold of me.’
I know exactly where you’ll be, Craig thought. The National Police Chiefs’ Council convention in Scarborough. It’s no coincidence that she gave me until Thursday to get a result. That’s the day she’s due to give her major speech, and she wanted something to boast about.
* * *
Gillard drove over to Claire Mulholland’s home, where he had been promised an early evening meal of scrambled eggs and bacon with the family. Claire had been surprised to hear his news of thallium in the deodorant, and wanted to hear more, even though she was off duty. The detective chief inspector was always a little wary of going to see her because of her boisterous Irish wolfhound, Dexter, whose wildly sprayed saliva could make a mess of any suit. Gillard edged his car onto the cracked pavements outside her Staines home, and made his way between the other vehicles on their paved-over front garden. The moment he rang the front door bell, Dexter hurled himself against the glass door, his stretched front paws giving him a passing resemblance to the wookiee from Star Wars. Claire came and heaved him away from the glass by his collar to allow Gillard to get in. Once the dog had calmed down, Gillard made his way through the sitting room, where husband Baz was watching the TV, and into the kitchen, from which Dexter was barred.
‘Those toiletries that you found at Mrs Roy’s office, where exactly were they?’ he asked.
‘In the drawer of the desk. I don’t think it was locked.’ Claire opened the fridge, got out half a dozen rashers of bacon and set them under the grill.
‘Apart from Philippa Boswell, who has access to that office?’
‘I don’t think it’s terribly secure,’ she said. ‘Mrs Boswell said it was locked after she went home, but both Mrs Roy and Morag Fairburn have keys. It’ll be too late now to do any fingerprints around her desk, drawers and phone, given how many people end up sitting there.’
‘But at the very least a suspect list must be confined to those who work at Empire of Spice’s Slough office, plus family who would not be questioned if they walked in. That may not narrow
it down very much except by excluding Jason Waddington. He cannot be the poisoner.’
‘But could he still be the attacker?’ Claire asked as she whisked up eggs and milk.
‘It’s unlikely,’ Gillard responded. ‘Two separate attackers trying to kill her at roughly the same time, or an odd conspiracy. Neither really convinces me.’
‘So what did Delahaye say?’ Claire asked.
Gillard laughed. ‘Well, he finally agrees it must be deliberate and ingenious. As he pointed out, Mrs Roy’s apparent hygiene fetish, having deodorants all over the place, probably saved her life. Well, until she got bashed on the head by a cyclist.’
* * *
Monday. 9.15. a.m. Harry Roy was sitting at his desk staring disconsolately at a spreadsheet on his desktop PC. It was his first full day back at work since the murder. There was an enormous backlog but he was finding it difficult to concentrate. His eye was drawn to the small window on which the share price page for Nosh2U was showing. But the price hadn’t moved, and after checking he discovered the shares were suspended from trading. The reason given was ‘pending an announcement’. He kept wondering why, searching the Internet for commentary articles on what this might mean. He had found nothing.
Time to get on with some work.
Blustery March weather had buffeted his car on the drive in, and now he realised that this wind direction meant a particularly noisy backdrop from the Heathrow runways. For years he been able to block the airport out, but it just took a few days away from the office to lose that mental defence, to remind him what a hellish location this was to earn a living. He felt like putting his hands over his ears. Perhaps his eyes too.
Everything was getting too much for him. His mother’s funeral, finally, was taking place in two days’ time. He had badgered the coroner’s office daily to release the body, citing the Hindu requirement for a quick cremation. But the coroner would not sign it off until the police were satisfied they had all the forensic information they needed.
A funeral.
A deferred wedding.
Sonali and her mother, badgering him every day.
And the bloody auditors, now definitely coming later this week.
He didn’t know how he would cope. It was only Morag’s love and support that made him feel strong enough to come in and face the day. He could see her through the glass door in the next office, in his mother’s seat, working away on the phone. A real grafter.
She glanced at him, and he could see her speaking to Philippa. The PA came towards him and knocked on his door.
‘Johnny Lam is here to see you.’
‘What? He’s not on my schedule.’
‘Nor mine,’ she said with a smile. ‘But he wants to see you urgently. I’ll set up Mrs Roy’s office with coffee and chocolate digestives.’
* * *
Two minutes later Harry was sitting across the table from the main competitor to Empire of Spice Plc.
‘Good to see you, Harry. I’d like to say that you’re looking well, but you’re not. You look terrible.’
‘Well, you know what we’ve been through,’ Harry said.
Lam was a dapper individual with square spectacles, a goatee beard and an almost constant smile. Years living in London had erased his Chinese accent and replaced it with an almost cockney twang. He was dressed, flamboyantly as always, in a pea green jacket with dark trousers, and sported a chunky gold chain around his neck. He was accompanied by his money expert, Dominic Furnell, tall and thin with such narrow shoulders that he looked hunched. Furnell was dressed in black bar an orange tie, and carried a large legal-sized briefcase.
Lam’s Hong Kong & International Cuisine was listed on the Hong Kong market and boasted twice the sales of EoS. Its products, from coconut milk to noodles and Chinese cook-in sauces, could be found in every British supermarket. Lam was a very private individual but he was, by common consent, a billionaire.
‘Come on, Harry, you’ve got to get back into the groove. Things are happening that you can’t ignore. You can’t sit mooching around like this.’ Lam looked around the office, his easy grin unmoved. Harry watched his quick dark eyes taking in details: the bulging in-tray, the printouts untidily stacked on the floor, the open filing cabinets. The full shambles.
‘I don’t know,’ Harry said, rubbing a hand across his face. He had met Johnny Lam numerous times before; he was the nimblest of operators in the cut-throat British packaged food industry. Squeezed by the supermarkets, he was always able to bounce back, gradually acquiring companies that offered international food for a British taste. He had first attempted to buy Empire of Spice more than a decade ago, and still retained a 15 per cent stake.
‘I’m terribly sad to hear about your mother. An awful crime. Wasn’t it, Dominic?’ Lam turned to his associate, who smiled lugubriously. ‘Could happen to anyone. Just one of those things. However, the world of business will not wait. I tried calling many times, but you don’t return my calls. So that’s why I came round.’
‘I’m a busy man. So what is it that you want, Johnny?’
‘I’ve come to give you a heads up.’ He smiled. ‘A bit of information that you might find useful.’ He turned to Furnell, who grinned wolfishly. ‘Essential even.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, before I tell you, let me remind you that I would still really like to buy Empire of Spice.’
‘I know, we all know. We don’t want to sell.’
‘Well, your mother didn’t want to sell. But now she’s gone, bless her, I was hoping you might see sense. I offered you all a very fair price. That offer, or a very similar one, is always open.’
Harry leaned back and spread his arms ‘It’s no good, Johnny. With the trust’s holding, there’s always enough votes to block you.’
‘Yeah, but you’re a trustee right? You can make them see sense.’
‘I’m not the only trustee, and it wouldn’t be easy to convince some of the others.’
‘I offered a fair price, Harry.’
‘No, it was always a low price. But I can’t deal with this now.’ He gestured at his in-tray.
‘Snap out of it, my friend. You’ve got a multi-million-pound business to steer.’ Lam pointed a fat finger towards Harry. ‘Who will run EoS now, after your mother? Who’s got the strategic vision? Who can see the trends? Who, above all, has the fire in their belly? It’s not you, is it?’
‘I don’t know, Johnny.’
Lam shook his head. ‘You’ve got a head for numbers, okay, but it’s not about numbers, is it? It’s about vision, it’s about leadership. You can’t rely on that idiot Deepak.’
‘What do you know about Deepak?’ Harry asked.
‘I know enough to know that I wouldn’t trust him to invest your money.’
Suddenly Harry was more focused. ‘What are you saying?’
‘That’s what I came to tell you. Nosh2U. The shares were suspended this morning. I think it’s going down the pan.’
‘No, don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Food delivery is so competitive, and nobody makes any money. I can see that you’ve been looking at their share price.’ He pointed at Harry’s phone.
‘So what? Your company has five per cent. If you don’t believe in it, why don’t you sell?’
Lam smiled, and shared a big grin with Furnell. ‘We did, Harry. Last week. The whole lot.’ He looked very pleased with himself. ‘I can read the tea leaves. And this one is not going to end happily. Not happily at all.’
Harry sat up. ‘You had better tell me what you know.’
‘What I know is that your company is in to Nosh2U, big time. I just wondered how you got the money?’
‘My late father knew the founder. The stake is in the trust. Hardly cost a bean all those years ago.’
‘No no no, Harry. I’m not talking about the stake held by the trust. There’s been fresh buying from you guys in the last few months. That’s what my contacts are telling me.’
Harry just stared at him.
‘How much borrowed money have you sunk into Nosh2U now, Harry? A hundred million? Or is it more?’
The door opened behind them and Morag Fairburn walked in.
‘Ah, here comes the cavalry,’ Johnny said, as he stood to face her. ‘Morag, how are you?’
‘Busy enough not to need these kind of shenanigans,’ she said, exchanging a firm handshake with Lam. She glanced briefly at Harry. ‘Johnny, don’t you think that any offer you have to make should be put in front of the entire board?’
‘Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.’
‘Well, you’ve had your answer then, haven’t you?’ she replied.
Harry cleared his throat and interrupted. ‘Morag, look, it’s not quite as straightforward as that.’
‘What you mean?’ Morag rounded on him.
Lam looked from one to the other, grinning at this apparent breaking of ranks. ‘Are you going to tell her, or should I?’
‘Tell me what?’ Morag said, scowling first at Johnny and then at Harry.
Johnny Lam clicked his fingers, and Furnell heaved the heavy briefcase onto the table, opened the combination lock, then pulled out a wedge of documents. ‘Today is Monday, right? Shares suspended. On Tuesday morning, tomorrow, Nosh2U Plc is going to release this document to the stock market.’ He tapped the printouts.
The Body in the Snow Page 19
