“Just get on with it, Phil.”
“As you wish. When Paula died, I had to wind up her affairs for probate. The account was in her name as well as yours.”
“You could have told me. I went to the Credit Suisse at Marseilles, and found my account had been closed six months before. All the money taken out. My money.”
“I did write to you. I wrote to the post restante address you gave me. The letter must have gone astray.” Ric snorted. “I’m not trying to cheat you, Ric. If you’d stayed at the villa like I said the problem wouldn’t have arisen. I didn’t know where you were. When I didn’t hear from you, I assumed something had happened. You hadn’t been in touch for more than a year.”
“I tried to call you. You’d gone ex-directory.”
“You shouldn’t have done that.” Phil frowned. “We agreed you wouldn’t ring me. It’s insecure. To be honest, I’m not at all happy about your turning up here like this.”
“So give me my money and I’ll go away again.”
Phil smiled, a deprecating smile. “I don’t have it on me. I can’t contact the bank to set up a new account and transfer the funds until Monday, and then it’ll take several days, maybe a lot longer. There could be a problem with banking information security regulations, given you don’t have an identity, or any papers or fixed address.”
“You managed it last time.”
“Yes, and I will now, if you’ll just be a little patient.”
Ric got to his feet. “At Credit Suisse, the manager showed me the account details, when I was having trouble believing there was nothing there. The money had been paid in, all right; totting up for more than two years. It got to nearly forty million dollars, Phil, before you withdrew it, and that’s after the extra-large cut you insisted on for your trouble. I’m a millionaire, and I hadn’t even got the money for the train fare here. If you have any cash in the safe, I suggest you give it to me.”
Phil’s mouth straightened. “Certainly.”
He got up and went to an oil painting of a Dutch interior. It swung to one side. Behind it, set in the wall, was a safe. Though I’d been feeling tense at the palpable antagonism between the two men, I had to smile. I thought such things only existed in the movies. I stood up for a better view, and watched with interest as he moved the dial of the combination lock six times, and the door opened. Inside was disappointing. Though not large it was nearly empty; I could see a stack of leather jewellery cases resting on a white cardboard box, a dull pink A4 cardboard folder and, nearer the front, a slim bundle of twenty-pound notes.
Phil handed the notes to Ric, who counted them. “Nine hundred and twenty. Is that all you’ve got?”
“Yes.”
Ric stuffed the money in his pocket, and looked around the room. He went over to the showcase.
“My Fender Strat…I’ll take that with me.”
“I’d prefer you not to, Ric.”
“Unlock the case.”
“It’s insured, if it’s not there how am I supposed to explain it?”
“Give me the fucking key, Phil, now. I’m taking it with me.”
“Just calm down, Ric, can we discuss this sensibly—”
Ric picked up one of the Golden Globe trophies, and swung it against the showcase. There was a bang, and a waterfall crash of glass. An alarm bell went off. Ric lifted out the guitar and amp, placing them on the floor beside him. He reached in for the jacket, and shook the shards of glass out of it.
“I’d forgotten this,” he said conversationally to me, over the noise of the alarm, as he put it on. “Wore it on our first album cover. How do I look?”
The jacket was black, with lots of biker badges, metal, enamel and embroidered; it also had studs, buckles and leather fringes.
“Cool,” I said. “A bit o.t.t., but definitely cool.”
Phil’s face was rigid. I felt sorry for him, but it was becoming clear to me there was a history between the men I hadn’t been told about. Ric walked over to the desk, found a pen and wrote on a card. He handed it to Phil.
“My mobile number.”
He picked up the Strat and amp, and walked towards the door. I followed him. He paused, and spoke over his shoulder.
“I’m tired of being a non-person. I’m going to start again, solo this time. Make a come-back. I might go to the police.”
“As your lawyer, I would advise against that.”
I could still hear the alarm ringing as we crunched across the gravel. I turned, and saw Phil at his office window watching our departure. We reached the van, and Dog’s face greeted us, his enthusiasm misting and smudging the glass. Ric let him out briefly while he loaded his loot in the back of the van, so Dog could scamper off and lift his leg against a shrub. Then we got in and set off down the drive.
It seemed Ric wouldn’t be staying at Phil Sharott’s after all.
Chapter
7
*
We drove in silence, retracing our journey through the sunny Berkshire countryside. I sneaked a look at Ric. He was absently stroking the dog; his face had a closed, intent expression.
“Forty million dollars is a lot of money,” I ventured.
“It should be more. I think. In the old days I didn’t bother about money, as long as I had enough for what I wanted. I let Phil take charge of all that. I’m wondering if he’s been screwing me.”
“That house must have cost a fortune.”
“Yeah.”
Supposing Phil had called on Bryan Orr after Ric left, and seen an opportunity to get Ric out of the way with a view to getting his money? Suppose he’d stabbed Bryan, then helped Ric fake his own death thinking he wouldn’t be able to return? But then, he was unlikely to be Ric’s legatee, so that wouldn’t work…and I found it hard to believe he would murder cold-bloodedly for money anyway. He would have to be a monster, and he didn’t look like a monster.
“You never said where you were for three years. Or how you got away from England.”
Pause. “I was labouring on a farm in the Auvergne.”
“For three years?”
Ric nodded.
“Quite a change of lifestyle.”
“My old lifestyle was shit. Even before it happened…before Bryan died, I didn’t like where I was at. I wasn’t writing songs, I wasn’t performing, I was just getting smashed every day. Alcohol, coke, heroin, meth, E, K, anything going. I was out of control, getting into fights, doing stupid stuff, and the paparazzi following me round wherever I went, waiting for it to happen. A lot of it I don’t remember. You start by thinking you can handle it – you think you are handling it – by the time you know you can’t, it’s too late.”
His fingers tapped a rhythm on the van’s door. I slowed to pass two horses and their riders, nicely turned-out Pony Club types. They waved to thank me.
“When I was in police custody, I thought I’d be there till the trial. After that, straight to prison for God knows how long. I felt bad.”
“But they didn’t have any real evidence it was you. Didn’t forensics work out the blood on you was yours, not Bryan’s?”
Ric gave a brief, humourless laugh. “They didn’t get the chance. Back at my flat I had a shower. I stuck my clothes in the washing machine and turned it on. The police loved that. ‘Do you normally do your own washing, sir? A bit unusual for a rock star, wouldn’t you say?’ I said how was I supposed to know someone was going to stab Bryan, and I’d be needing the clothes to prove I didn’t do it? They looked at me in that special way they learn in police college – they made it dead obvious they didn’t believe a word I said. They went on at me in relays for hours. I think they hoped the withdrawal symptoms would soften me up. Bastards wouldn’t even give me a cup of tea. Eventually they put me back in the cell to think about it. The next day Phil bailed me. I still don’t know how he got them to do that. They don’t usually let murder suspects out on bail.”
Ric stopped talking. After a minute, I said, “What then?”
“We hit
on this plan of faking my death. Paula – my sister – didn’t approve, but she went along with it. So: after the crazy plane trip, while the Cessna flew on without me, Phil picked me out of the water – he’d been following me on his boat – and we went to a French cove near the Spanish border. It’s easy to berth there, like you’ve come from just along the coast. They don’t ask for your papers. He hired a car and drove me to a villa tucked away in the hills, above a little village called Asile. Phil had bought it a while before, with cash he needed to get rid of. He’d never stayed there. It’s remote, difficult to get to. Ideal if you want to disappear. Then he went back home. He left me three crates of vodka and a whole stash of drugs. I guess he meant to help. I flushed them down the toilet. I’d had enough. I went cold turkey.”
“Bad.”
“Yeah. But there are worse things. I got better after a while.”
“Were you on your own?”
“A middle-aged maid came in every morning and did the food and the cleaning. Maria. I think she disapproved of me. She wasn’t very sympathetic.”
“Then what?”
“I left Asile a few weeks later. Told Phil he could write care of the Sainte-Emile Bureau de Poste. I got a job on a farm; cash in hand and a barn to sleep in. The farmer wasn’t a bit like you, Caz, he didn’t want to know who I was or where I came from or why I had no friends. I was just cheap muscles to him. It suited me. He had horses I used to work with. Percherons, huge and really gentle, because over the centuries they’ve eaten the stroppy ones. I stayed there three years, climbing in the mountains when I wasn’t working or sleeping. I got good at it. Did a bit of parkour, too, when I got the chance. No contact with anyone except a few villagers. They didn’t talk much. Phil hadn’t got my address, just the poste restante. He wrote occasionally. Mostly I didn’t answer. He told me when Paula died.”
It seemed to me Ric had found his own way of punishing himself for Bryan’s death. He hadn’t done his time in Brixton, Wandsworth or Wormwood Scrubs. He’d sentenced himself to three years’ solitary in rural France, with hard labour; no treats, no visitors, no friends.
“I got my head together. I felt ready to move on. So I went to the Credit Suisse at Marseilles. While I was still at Asile, Phil had sent me details of the numbered account he’d set up under my name and Paula’s. The deal was he’d pay my share of The Voices’ earnings into it each month, minus the extra cut he was getting for arranging it. But it was closed.”
“Where did the money go, if your sister was dead? Who inherited it?”
“Her husband. Phil Sharott.”
“She was married to him?” I began to feel I wasn’t keeping up very well with all this. “So Phil cheated you once Paula had died?”
Ric looked sideways at me. “That’s what I wondered. I decided to come and see him. Of course, I hadn’t got a passport, but a boat skipper took me on as crew, and dropped me off on a Welsh beach. I hitched and walked to London. I met you.”
I thought this over. It answered my earlier question.
“Ric, I don’t want to upset you, but have you thought…are you sure Paula’s death was accidental?”
“It was a head-on collision with a truck. The truck driver died too. It was his fault. So yeah, I think it was an accident.” This, it appeared, was not a new idea to Ric; it was a possibility he’d considered. “Paula and Phil always seemed pretty solid to me, too. You’ve met Phil – does he seem the murdering type?”
“I’m not sure I know what that is.” It did seem to me Phil Sharott had a lot to gain by Ric being out of the picture. I changed tack. “Who was the blonde woman in the photographs? She was in several of them.”
“That’ll be Emma.”
“She’s very pretty.”
“She is.” Ric shifted in his seat and stared out of the window.
I wondered what was he going to do next. It looked like I’d got a lodger until either Phil Sharott sorted out the money, or Ric decided to hand himself over to the police. Or until he discovered who killed Bryan Orr. I thought of the murder mysteries I had read; not many, just tatty old paperbacks my mother had; Dick Francis, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett…their heroes went round asking questions, putting information together, and getting hit over the head by the villains, which was a good thing, if painful, as it meant they were getting close to the truth. Ric could not do this. He’d be recognized.
“Are you going to the police like you told Phil?”
“If I turn myself in, they won’t investigate. Why should they? I need to give them evidence it was someone else.”
“How? If you go round interviewing witnesses and suspects it may just occur to them you’re not dead…”
“You’re right, I can’t do it.” I could feel his eyes on me. “But you could, Caz.”
“I could not.”
“You can say you’re a journalist writing a book about the Orr murder.”
“No.” I wanted to make myself absolutely clear on this one. “Ric, you are looking at the worst liar in England. Probably the world. I’d give myself away before I got through the door. I’m not doing it.”
“I’ll tell you what to say. You can record the interviews and I’ll know when they were lying.”
“No. Seriously bad idea. Anyway, I can’t afford the time. I have to earn my living.”
He gave me a long look, and said no more for the rest of the drive.
After lunch I spent the afternoon updating my website, loading photos of the latest horses, and writing a bit about them. It’s worth spending time on this, because an appealing description with lots of detail can make the difference between selling a horse or not. People can choose one from the photos and send me a cheque, or narrow their choice before they visit the showroom. The home page has a pleasing picture of me nailing a mane on a J & G Lines, smiling winsomely at anyone visiting my website. As well as Horses For Sale, I have pages on Rocking Horse Makers, one on Identifying Your Rocking Horse, examples of my restorations, Before and After, and a page on my own designs, Modern Classics.
Ric stayed downstairs playing his guitar. I could just hear it from the flat. He came up to make himself coffee. While the water boiled he peered over my shoulder.
“Thunder, Athena, Biscuit…they have names.”
“Yes, it’s easier to remember than numbers.”
“D’you sell to shops?”
“In theory I do. At sixty per cent of these prices. I must do a sales trip. I’ve been putting it off. I’m not much good at selling.”
Ric poured water, added milk and sugar and picked up the packet of chocolate digestives. “I’ll have this downstairs. I’m on a roll.” He dropped something beside the keyboard. “Half of what I got from Phil. For food and that.”
Sunday passed in the same peaceful co-existence as Saturday afternoon. I’ve had friends to stay here who were under my feet the whole time; exhausting. Ric was surprisingly easy to live with. I didn’t see much of him, and he didn’t bother me. He even put away the duvet and cleared his own dishes. Mostly he played his guitar or lay on the roof sofa. Not asleep; he seemed to be thinking. When I brought a horse up to the roof to sand, he went inside to get away from the dust and used my laptop and printer.
Monday morning I heard Dog barking at the pigeons in the Yard. He derived a simple doggy pleasure from startling them into flight. He and his owner were off for a morning walk. An hour later I buzzed them back in. Ric was holding a big Marks & Spencer carrier bag. Ten minutes later he left again, this time without Dog. I watched from the upper workshop window as he emerged into Fox Hollow Yard. Incongruously, he was wearing a suit, a normal dark grey one, with a white shirt and black shoes. I thought this a clever idea. Ric really isn’t a suit sort of guy; no one who knew him before would expect to see him wearing one. Though I’d have guessed he’d reject M & S in favour of a more exclusive tailor like Paul Smith.
He hadn’t said where he was going. I was curious. In spite of all he’d told me, I felt I hadn’t heard an
ything like the full story yet. Dog pattered up the stairs, and settled near my workbench in a friendly way.
I kept finding myself at the window, watching for Ric’s return. I suddenly wondered whether he’d gone to the police – but why would he buy a cheap suit to do that? He might have disappeared for good…but I didn’t think he’d leave Dog behind. I went down to the office/showroom. None of his things were lying about. I opened the cupboard by the shower. The Strat was there, and his new clothes, folded, the Converses lined up beside them, as neat as a suicide’s pile of belongings on a beach. No note.
I went back upstairs, thoughtful. The thing was, though I’d now known Ric for four days, and he was living in my house, in some ways he was still the stranger I’d found asleep on my rooftop. I knew very little about him. I liked him in spite of this. The fact that he was so attractive didn’t help me to form an objective opinion. He had that quality which earns stars in Hollywood twenty million dollars a film; you couldn’t take your eyes off him; it was as if he glowed under his own personal spotlight. And, when he wanted, he had those warm eyes, whose gaze made you feel you were basking in the sun.
I hoped he was all right.
The doorbell rang at tea time. I let him in. He came into the flat carrying a small bright yellow Selfridges bag and looking pleased with himself, and went straight for the chocolate biscuits. In the suit he made me think of a male model in a colour supplement fashion shoot. I was determined not to ask him where he’d been. He sat on a stool and grinned at me.
I crumbled before he did. “You’re looking incredibly smug. Spill.”
He got some papers out of his jacket pocket and handed them to me. I unfolded the top one. It was on Selfridges headed paper; a signed order for one of my Modern Classics, large size. The next was an order from Harrods, for three of my horses, one in each size, small, medium and large.
“I told them I’d left my order book in the car,” he said. “They want delivery this week. I said that would be okay. I’ll give you a hand.”
“You’ve been selling my horses? My own designs? To Harrods and Selfridges?”
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