“We don’t believe this was a robbery, Mr. Delingpole,” Detective Fairburn said. “The common items that thieves target are all still here. Do you have a safe in the apartment?”
Dominic shook his head. “The only things of real value are that collection of glassware and this armchair. It’s a Rennie Mackintosh,” he added, by way of explanation.
Detective Fairburn perched on the corner of one of the settees, declining a cup of coffee from Gillian. “You’re a lawyer, I understand. Do you have any clients with a grudge?”
“Well, they’re usually unhappy about something. It’s the rich pattern of my work with the great British public. But this….” Dominic gestured at the room. “This is a little extreme.”
He took a sip of his coffee. It was already clear in his mind that the recent events in Brighton were related to the ransacking of his apartment. But after the bizarre interview with Detective Inspector Scott that morning, Dominic had no intention of confiding his suspicions to the young woman who sat across from him. Instead he asked, “I presume that you checked for fingerprints, footprints, the usual evidence like that?”
“Yes, we’ve already done that. It’s normal procedure when criminal damage is involved. However, it’s more than likely that the intruder, or intruders, wore gloves.” Detective Fairburn stood up. “We’ll leave you to check for anything that’s missing. Do let us know, won’t you?”
She walked toward the door before turning back to Dominic. “By the way, I received a call from Sussex Police shortly before you arrived. They told me that you are representing Mrs. Samantha Gregory. Is that so?”
Dominic nodded but chose to say nothing, waiting to see what might come next.
“Has it not crossed your mind that the same people who attempted to murder her son might also be connected to this?” She gestured around her. “I hope that you might give me more complete answers when we next meet. It’s good news on Simon Gregory. He recovered consciousness half an hour ago. Good-bye, Mr. Delingpole.”
Chapter 16
SAMANTHA GREGORY sat on one of the hard plastic chairs in the corridor outside Simon’s room. She had been there for nearly an hour. Screens were pulled around his bed, and Samantha felt like a spectator at some bizarre medical pantomime. Three or four nursing staff hurried back and forth, smiling reassuringly at her each time. She had watched a succession of doctors arrive and depart. In addition a policeman stood outside the door to Simon’s room, checking the identities of anyone who entered.
It was just after lunchtime and she had been sitting by Simon’s bed reading when her son stirred. She laid the book down, removed her reading glasses, and gazed at his pallid face on the pillow. Simon’s eyelids were flickering, and his head was rolling gently from side to side.
Samantha reached across with her right hand and stroked his forehead, as she had done when he was a child. At the same time, she reached for the emergency pull cord with her left hand. An alarm began to sound, and within minutes the door opened and the ICU’s duty sister walked in.
By this time it was clear that Simon was regaining consciousness. Samantha had been gently ushered out of the room as an increasing number of medical staff arrived. She wanted to call Dominic, but the battery on her cell phone was dead. She longed for a cup of coffee but did not want to leave the ward.
Instead she sat staring through the window at the drama playing out before her. She rehearsed in her head the conversations she would have with Simon. She had so many questions, but she knew they would have to wait. Perhaps they might never be answered. She seemed to know so distressingly little about his life.
After her husband died in the climbing accident ten years before, Samantha had been forced to sell the large, comfortable detached house the family had enjoyed in the Cotswolds. Their modest two-bedroom apartment in Ash House was cramped by comparison. Samantha was concerned that she might become unfairly overdependent on their only son, who was now the man of the house. Perhaps it was the way she had behaved with him that had led to the row they’d had on his seventeenth birthday. It was a trivial argument about the party she had planned. Simon had stormed out, and for the next year he had lived with the family of one of his school friends a few miles away.
Samantha had been devastated by Simon’s rejection, endlessly questioning where she had gone wrong. The summer after his A-levels, Samantha had hardly seen him. He had gone to stay with friends in London, apparently sleeping on their couch and finding occasional bar work. He had sent her text messages from time to time. He only returned to Oxfordshire to get his A-level results from the school. They had gone for a celebratory drink, and she had tried to find out more about the friends he was living with. At the start of their conversation, Simon had opened up and talked about his life in London. His friends had an apartment on the East side, close to Hackney. It was now a fast up-and-coming area since it had been regenerated with money from the London Olympics. His friends were two young men who worked for a television production company. They lived the dream that Simon aspired to.
When she asked more about his London housemates, Simon had become evasive, then hostile to her questioning. It was the first time that Samantha had guessed her son was gay. But during the entire conversation, she had avoided asking him directly.
Their celebration ended on a sour note. Simon walked out after accusing her of trying to interfere with his life. Samantha was left clutching her half-empty glass of champagne.
Perhaps she should have asked him more direct questions about his sexuality. Perhaps he had wanted her to do so. It was too late now. Too late to change history. Instead, if Simon pulled through, she hoped that they could build a better, more open relationship together.
“Mrs. Gregory, is everything all right? What’s happening?” Samantha looked up to see Simon’s housemate John and a young woman standing in the corridor.
The girl crouched down at Samantha’s side. “Hi, I’m Gemma, one of Si’s other housemates. I thought I’d come along with John this time. What’s going on in there? Is Si going to be okay?”
Samantha began to recount the news to the two students. A nurse emerged from Simon’s room.
“Mrs. Gregory? Would you like to come in now? We’ve had to sedate Simon, I’m afraid, because he was becoming very distressed with the tube in his throat. But he’s doing a lot better. You can sit with him for a while. We’ll review his situation again in an hour. If he continues to make progress, we can consider reducing the sedation.”
Samantha put her hand on Gemma’s shoulder. “You’re very kind to come here, Gemma. I hoped that Simon had good friends at university. Now I know.” As she stood up, she took John’s hand. “I’m sorry. You’ve been texting me, and I must confess that I’ve not been answering. Give me some time with Simon. I promise that we can talk later, and you can tell me this important news you say you have.”
Samantha let go of his hand and followed the nurse into Simon’s room.
JOHN WALKED up to the window that separated them from Simon as Samantha entered the room. He placed the palm of his hand on the glass. His shoulders sagged as he looked at the almost lifeless form of his friend and lover lying in the bed beyond.
Gemma gently laid a hand on his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s do something practical. You carry on working on deciphering those files you found on Si’s laptop, and I’ll go and get some coffee for all of us. I’m sure Si’s mum could do with it.”
John pulled away from the window and sat down heavily on one of the hard plastic seats. He heaved Simon’s aging laptop out of his shoulder bag and opened up the screen. Ten minutes later, when Gemma returned with three plastic cups of hot brown liquid, he raised his face to her with a look of triumph.
“John, don’t tell me you’ve cracked it! What have you found?”
John beckoned Gemma to look at the screen. He was careful to keep it turned away from the police officer stationed by the door of Simon’s room. John showed Gemma the list of addresses he had found.
“I knew this laptop would be treasure trove,” he said with excitement. “I never really saw Si using it. He always seemed to be on the computers in the library. Just before we set off, I’d found some unusual hidden folders on the D drive. I never took Si to be a techie type. There’s a lot I don’t know about him, it seems. He’s got address lists that would make your toes curl.” There was a hint of admiration in his voice as he added, “He’s going to be a great journalist, Gemma. Take a look at this.”
Gemma set the cups of coffee down on the corridor floor and sat next to him. She leaned in to take a closer look at the screen. “It looks like a list of students—some of them have got halls of residence as their addresses. What’s the big deal?”
John kept his voice low, conscious of the two policemen standing close by. “Yeah, they’re students in the Barton Kane drug trials. You knew Si was into that. I’m one of their guinea pigs. He recruited me last year when I joined the house. Didn’t he ever approach you?”
Gemma shook her head.
“Strange. Maybe you don’t fit the profile or something. I knew that he must have something like this list hidden somewhere. But it’s what I found with it that’s the interesting bit.”
John brought up a different address list on the screen. This time several of the names had companies listed alongside them.
“I want to know why Si has got the names and addresses of a bunch of company executives and what look like Members of Parliament on a list hidden in his laptop. They’re tied up with Barton Kane in some way, I’m sure of it. Si’s put some cryptic notes alongside each of them. God, we really need to talk to him.” John looked up at Simon’s bed through the glass in front of them. “Do you think they’ll let us in there?”
“It’s going to be a while,” Gemma said, “and I don’t think Si’s just going to open up to us about this, do you? He’s kept it from us so far.”
“But don’t you see, this is all tied up with the attempts on his life!” John pointed at the screen as he continued in a whisper. “Look, this is some executive at Barton Kane. This guy is a junior minister in the Department of Health, and this is some Member of the European Parliament. Si’s got addresses, e-mail addresses, and even cell numbers for them. If he’s got those kinds of details, he’s got to have been doing some serious snooping. I reckon Si’s in deep shit here. We’ve got to help him. Otherwise they’ll be coming for him again.”
Gemma looked up at John. “Then we should go to the police. We could end up in as much danger as Si.”
John shook his head. “At best we’d look like some antiestablishment, paranoid students. At worst, the police could be part of it as well. Our house has already been done over. What if the police are actually in on this?”
He stood up. “I’m going to talk to that lawyer friend of Mrs. Gregory’s. I think we can trust him. But I haven’t been able to get his contact details.”
At that moment the door opposite swung open, and Samantha Gregory stepped out, her eyes red and puffy.
Gemma stood up. “Mrs. Gregory, is he going to be…?”
“It’s too early to say, but….” She smiled. “I think things are better than they were a few hours ago. I’m going to sit down for a moment. I haven’t slept for over a day. It’s kind of you both to come. Simon is very lucky to have such good friends.”
Samantha settled on the plastic seat vacated by Gemma a moment ago. Gemma handed her one of the cups of coffee she had brought back from the machine. “I’m afraid it might be a bit lukewarm now, Mrs. Gregory. I didn’t want to barge in with it while you were in there.”
As Samantha raised the cup to her lips, John stood up.
“We’ll go now if that’s all right, Mrs. Gregory. We can talk another time. It’s not important now. Can we get you anything else before we go?”
“Could you call Dominic, er, Mr. Delingpole? My cell battery is dead, and I haven’t been able to recharge it. I’m going back to the hotel in a moment for some sleep, but I’d like to talk to him before I do and let him know the news.”
“Yes, of course,” said John, quickly taking out his cell. Getting Dominic’s cell number was too good an opportunity to miss. “Shall I dial it for you?”
Samantha handed him Dominic’s business card. “Here. He’s gone back home to Oxfordshire for a day or two. Something about a burglary at his apartment.”
Chapter 17
NOT LONG after Dominic finished the call with Samantha, his cell rang again. It was from the same number. “That didn’t take long,” he said brightly. “Are you missing me already?”
But it was a male voice that replied. “Actually, Mr. Delingpole, it’s me. John. We, that is, Gemma and me, need to see you really urgently. Can you come back to Brighton any sooner?”
Dominic hesitated. He had still been recovering from the worrying encounter with Detective Fairburn when Samantha had reached him. She had confirmed the detective’s information about Simon recovering consciousness. Dominic had promised her that he would return to Brighton as soon as he could. But first he had to finish checking through his possessions in the apartment. Then he had a number of clients to call back. Gillian could not fend them off forever.
“I can’t come any sooner, John,” he said. “I’m afraid there’s an awful lot for me to do here.”
“Well, can we come to see you? We’ve got something of Si’s that you really ought to see.”
“Can you tell me what it is?”
There was a pause. “I’d rather not on a cell phone. You don’t know who might be listening. Look, are you in London? We can get into Victoria station and meet you somewhere.”
Detective Fairburn’s passing remark about a link between the burglary and Simon Gregory’s attackers had already unsettled Dominic. John’s paranoia about the cell phone added to his growing sense of unease. But it also fueled his curiosity.
Dominic had a meeting in London the next morning with the client who wanted to discuss his long-running patent dispute. The meeting was at his advocate’s offices in Holborn, with a lawyer called Miles Torrington QC. Miles was an old friend from Dominic’s Oxford days who had developed a renowned expertise in forensic computer matters. He was just the person to talk to about the events in Brighton.
“I’m going to be with a barrister in London tomorrow,” Dominic said to John. “You should meet him. He’s got chambers in Lincoln’s Inn. Join us there after lunch. I’ll text you the address.”
MILES AND Dominic spent over two hours in fraught discussion before they finally got rid of the demanding client. They agreed that the client’s claim for breach of patent by a rival software company was a good one. But while Miles and Dominic recommended accepting a very generous offer of settlement, the client wanted to reject it and take the argument to court.
“You know, Dominic,” said Miles as he heaved at the drawer of a dilapidated filing cabinet. “It’s no skin off my nose if the wretched client wants to waste his money on courts and judges and all.” He pulled out a bottle of Glenfiddich and two glasses. “But why can’t he see that he risks ending up with nothing? Why are clients always so convinced that they deserve their day in court?”
Dominic gratefully received the generous tumbler of Scotch and clinked glasses with Miles before replying. “I suppose for the same reason that people are desperate to be on television. It all looks so glamorous. The fact that most of them end up looking foolish seems to completely pass them by.” He settled into the comfort of a large, slightly shabby Chesterfield sofa alongside Miles.
“My dear Dominic, you’re so right. But thank God for the vanity of men. Otherwise my children’s school fees would go unpaid. Now what’s this about your adventures in the fleshpots of Brighton? I always saw you as a stay-at-home queen. Don’t tell me you’ve started clubbing! At your age?”
Dominic ignored this dig at his apparently dull way of life. He gave Miles a rapid summary of the events of the past few days. At the end of the story, Miles sank back into the leathe
r Chesterfield sofa and whistled loudly through his teeth.
“I withdraw my previous comments. You may not be clubbing, but you’re certainly showing some moves, old boy. I’m as intrigued as you are now to meet these two students.”
Miles picked up the bottle of Glenfiddich and refreshed Dominic’s glass. “But what are you going to do once they’ve shown you whatever it is they’ve got? You’re going to have to be very careful if you insist on acting like some amateur sleuth. The boys in blue will take a pretty dim view of it if they find out, especially as you’re a lawyer.”
“I was absolutely ready to tell the police everything until yesterday morning at the police station after the car accident. None of us could understand why Inspector Scott said they’d found no identification on Freedman’s body. I definitely saw Christophe put the wallet back in his pocket just before the ambulance arrived.”
Miles sat up and grasped Dominic’s arm melodramatically. “Tell me again what Inspector Scott asked you just before you left.”
“He wanted to know who had made the emergency call.”
“And you told him that it was the driver. How do you know it was a real ambulance that turned up?”
Dominic’s glass paused midway to his mouth.
“Well, it had a siren and flashing blue lights, and the chaps who jumped out were wearing hospital scrubs and seemed to know what they were doing. I didn’t ask for their identity cards. You don’t, do you?”
Miles sprang to his feet and began to pace up and down the well-worn Persian carpet beside his desk.
“Let’s be paranoid for a second. But let’s also give the police the benefit of the doubt and assume that they aren’t involved. You say this Freedman character was the hospital assassin. That he was killed, and he had a pass for the Palace of Westminster. What if the accident you saw wasn’t an accident? Perhaps someone wanted him done away with. Someone moving in political circles. These bad guys dispatch not only a hit man with a black Range Rover to do the job, but a fake ambulance crew to swiftly remove the body. Probably to make sure he’s dead as well.”
The Necessary Deaths Page 10
