by Alice Castle
‘It’s weird but I’ve no idea about her. I’d ask Katie, but she’s away…’ said Beth wistfully.
‘All I know is, Letty’s tougher than she looks,’ said Nina.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘The way she’s got Potter running around, doing all this stuff for her. The holidays, cars, house, you know, the full Dulwich monty. Those jumpers with the sleeves miles too long, f’rinstance – it’s all from Amanda Wakeley, costs an effing fortune.’
Beth couldn’t help laughing. ‘Really? I just wondered why she couldn’t find the right size. But I suppose it explains why Belinda keeps her so close. She loves the money side of things.’
‘Yeah, and I think they’ve got a place in Norfolk, and a chalet in some skiing resort somewhere.’
‘I don’t know a thing about skiing,’ Beth confessed. She’d never tried it, though James had been keen to give it a go, way back when. Although she’d reckoned her low centre of gravity would mean she wouldn’t have as far to fall as virtually everyone else she knew, this had not been enough of an inducement. She didn’t like being cold, and though she was prone to moments of recklessness, she liked to think she usually had better motivation than simply the desire to scare herself out of her wits by throwing herself down a mountain into the white unknown.
‘Me neither. As you can imagine, me bowling down a slope is an invitation to an avalanche,’ Nina said dryly.
Beth tried to look supportive, but the image of little round Nina, on skis, hurtling down a black run was, she had to admit, reasonably comical – almost as funny as the Shetland pony on ice that Beth herself would be.
‘I suppose a chalet would be quite a draw for Belinda, though,’ Beth mused. Belinda, for all her showy ways, did rely on her acolytes for a lot of freebies, which were willingly given in return for a place at the top table. This was despite the fact that her husband, Barty, was an investment banker and, if only one quarter of Belinda’s boasting was accurate, he owned all the chunks of the British economy that were still making a profit. A corner of Beth’s mind added this nugget to a store of information which sometimes suggested that Belinda, like so many people in their postcode, was not exactly what she appeared.
‘Well, maybe she does have family money or something? Everyone seems to, round here,’ said Nina.
At this, Beth’s cheeks flamed, and she blessed the fringe that swung down heavily and hid her expression. Though she was hardly an heiress, her dad’s untimely death, coupled with sensible investment in life assurance while he’d had the chance, meant that there’d been enough for her Pickwick Road house. She didn’t feel guilty about it, but she didn’t feel entirely comfortable gossiping about other people in similar circumstances, either.
‘Anyway, it all seems to be financed by him,’ Nina went on. ‘And it’s a constant drain. I don’t know how he does it. And when I say that, it’s not an “oh, I really admire him” kind of compliment. I mean it’s just not possible to do it on our income. He must have another business, some really successful investments somewhere, or…’
‘Or?’
‘He’s diddling the firm. Simple as,’ said Nina, draining her tea.
‘Hm. Finding out about stuff like that’s hard, though, isn’t it?’ Beth was thoughtful. She knew enough to cope with her own tax return once a year and usually remembered to stump up Ben’s pocket money, but she was by no means a financial genius. Anyone trying to pull the wool over her eyes in money matters could use egg cosies, not enormous fluffy jumpers and scarves.
‘Nah. I’ve done some book-keeping before. Not in this job – they never wanted that, just reception, filing, all that crap.’
Beth automatically darted a look over at Ben, as she was wont to do when there was swearing. She didn’t disapprove of it per se, and was prone to let rip a few choice four-letter zingers when heavy objects inexorably sought out her unguarded toes, but she didn’t want him picking up too many bad habits. Time enough for all that when he was at big boy school. Ben, though, seemed to be glued to the cartoons, now showing a talking dog effortlessly upstaging its owner.
Nina, noticing Beth’s sharp glance, rolled her eyes a little and carried on.
‘That’s a bit odd in itself, doncha think? If you’d got a qualified book-keeper sitting around, would you send out all your accounts to an outside place, costing more?’
Beth swung back to face Nina. ‘That is odd. And they know you can do it?’
‘S’on my CV, large as life. I’m not going to hide my lights under any bookshops, that’s for sure.’
Beth, puzzled for a moment, moved on. ‘Who does the finances then?’
‘Dunno, really. Just a firm. Everything gets picked up by a courier.’
‘Could you find out where it goes to?’
Nina looked doubtful, her normally confident features seeming suddenly vulnerable as she seemed to calculate the possibilities. ‘Dunno. I could give it a go. Ring up the company, maybe? Ask a few questions? But I’m no great actress. I’d be worried they’d smell a cat. That’s where Wilf gets it from.’
Wilf’s star turn as the donkey in the Nativity was fresh in Beth’s mind. Rarely, over the past two thousand years, can Mary have been equipped with such a recalcitrant animal to bear her in the ninth month of her pregnancy. It was a wonder the Holy Child wasn’t born several miles shy of the stable, throwing out the plans of the shepherds, kings, angels and, indeed, God himself, so frisky was her mount.
‘I wonder if I could come into the office and help out or something, then? Or make some enquiries from home? Must be possible to just check…’
Beth was still meandering gently through various half-formed plans when Nina yelled out. ‘Brainwave! Listen to this, you’ll love it. And it should work. How about if I suddenly get ill, and you have to cover for me? I can say you’re from the temp agency, Potter’s never going to check. So, you get to sit in the office, have a shufty around, get on the trail of the couriers, and Bob’s our lobster. What do you think?’
‘Do you think Potter would buy that? That I’d just arrived from a temp agency? He wouldn’t check up? Or be surprised later when there isn’t a bill from this mythical agency?’
‘Have you ever had a boss who’s complained because he didn’t get a bill? He’ll be over the moon, if he even remembers about it. He thinks he’s so far above me, with all his billions of qualifications, that we’re barely in the same universe. He leaves all the grunt stuff to me, and getting someone to sit in my chair for a while is very grunty, as far as he’s concerned, believe me.’
‘The only thing is, he sort-of knows me. I popped in today looking for you.’
Nina was silenced for a second, then her face cleared. ‘Did he actually ask you what you wanted?’
Beth thought. ‘No. As soon as I said I was there to see you, he lost interest.’
‘Typical, but there you are then! We can say that was your interview.’
‘Interview? For covering for you when you’re going to be ill, some time in the future? But you weren’t even ill today, were you? Isn’t it going to look a bit fishy, or at least like you’ve been planning to take time off, behind his back?’
‘Nah, you’re over-thinking it. He honestly doesn’t really care who sits there. Anyway, I’ve been feeling peaky for days, I really have,’ said Nina, breaking into a very unconvincing, high-pitched cough. Beth could see what she’d meant about her acting skills. ‘He never asks me how I am, so he’s not going to know exactly when I started to feel rough, is he?’
‘I don’t know, Nina. It sounds a bit dicey to me. Quite a lot could go wrong, and if he starts to suspect anything…’
‘What’s the worst that could happen? He’ll just sack you. Sack us both probably, which wouldn’t be so good. But I could find something else,’ Nina said with bravado.
Beth thought for a moment. There was a lot at stake for Nina. She’d only just moved here, but had already got a little nest sorted out for her and her boy, and a job w
as central to feathering that. There didn’t seem to be a Mr Nina in the picture, to take up any potential slack. Surely she could just turn a blind eye to whatever was going on at the solicitor’s, and get on with her life?
‘Do you really want to risk this, Nina? You never quite know what you’ll find, or what effect it will have on everyone…’ Beth didn’t want to labour the point, but she was speaking from bitter experience now, not least from her last adventure in Camberwell. She didn’t regret getting involved. She couldn’t, or the mystery of what had happened to Jen might never have been solved. But it had not been without its costs, for all concerned. And now they all had to live with the consequences.
Nina looked thoughtful, which sat ill on such cherubic features, made for laughing and seeing the sunny side of life. ‘Thing is, you see, at the end of the day it’s a solicitor’s. If it was a newsagent’s, for example, and they were selling a few knock-off sweeties, then fine, I suppose. I can turn a blind lie if I have to, same as the next person. But this is the law, see? If he’s fiddling the law, well, that don’t sit right with me. What’s the point of all this, trying to bring our kids up proper, telling them about truth and lies, if a man like that is bent? It’s worse than a crooked policeman, that’s what it is.’
It was a long speech, and at the end of it Nina’s cheeks were like Pink Lady apples, clashing frantically with her auburn curls, though whether the heat came from passion or just embarrassment, Beth couldn’t quite tell.
But she was thrilled that Nina seemed to share her moral compass. Often she’d thought she was the only person in Dulwich who was driven by anything more than the desire to inveigle their children into good schools, though she certainly shared that need, more than ever with the entrance exam for Wyatt’s looming. But she did also care about abstract notions like good and evil. She smiled approvingly at Nina.
‘I know just how you feel, I really do. And I’d like to help. But I’m not sure how it would work.’
She thought about Potter. She hadn’t exactly taken a dislike to him on sight, which she was more than capable of doing, but she definitely hadn’t warmed to him either. What she had noticed, above all, was the trappings of wealth, which he clearly used as a currency to prove his credentials in a high-achieving world, to intimidate less successful mortals and maybe to bolster an ego that might be more fragile than it looked.
‘First, I’m not convinced that we can just tell him I’m a temp. I don’t know one single thing about being a receptionist, for starters. And if I just turn up, what if he asks for my CV, or rings the agency to check up on me?’
‘Look, I think you’re way over-estimating the number of fucks he gives,’ said Nina, while Beth automatically swivelled to check where Ben’s ears were now. Still being filled with inane, high-pitched cartoon storylines, and still oblivious to grown-up chat, or so it seemed. ‘Honestly, as long as there’s a live body in that chair, he’s happy,’ Nina continued. ‘We can do you a bogus CV if you like, that’s no prob. And being a receptionist, well, I don’t want to do myself down, do I, but it’s not rocket salad, know what I mean?’
Beth did a slight double-take. The more she talked to Nina, the more she realised that sometimes, she didn’t exactly know what she meant – but she did rather love the way she said it.
‘Could you tell me every single thing I’m likely to need to do, as a receptionist, before I go in? If I do. It’s a big “if”; I haven’t decided yet. Imagine how awful it would be if he took one look at me and called the police, saying I was completely bogus? Seriously, it’s probably some sort of offence, impersonating a receptionist…’
‘Nah. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I wouldn’t be mad keen for you to do surgery on me, or even to mend my car – not that I’ve got one – or fix the electrics in here or something. But sitting there saying, “Can I take a message?” all day long? I kind of think you can do that. Hell, Ben could probably manage.’
Ben, hearing his name, now did look round, and Beth could see he was drooping slightly. There were only so many cartoons that even her son could sit through. Wilf, meanwhile, seemed to have gone into a sort of trance, which was probably going to end in sleep very soon judging by the way he was sliding down the leather settee. Beth could see this was a pretty handy way of ending the evening for Nina, but she still had to get her own boy home and sorted out. His bedtime, he was sure to protest, should be hours after Wilf’s. But it was cold and dark outside. Time to make a move.
‘It’s been a lovely afternoon. Let me give it a bit of thought, the receptionist thing. It might work, but I’ve just got to think it through. I’m not even sure if I could spot what was going on with the financial record stuff even if it was all lying there in front of me on the desk, that’s the trouble.’
‘No, but you could keep an eye on Potter. You’ve got some experience of crooks – you can tell me if I’m going loopy-loo or not. Even that would be good. I don’t want to stay there if he’s up to something well dodgy. I need to find out, and if I’m right and he is, well, then I need to think about moving on. While you’re in the office, I can be brushing down my own CV, getting onto some agency books, doing all that stuff. Anyways, it’s a mystery, innit? And I know you love those. You’ll be bored, otherwise, sitting at home. Nothing much else going on… except maybe the dogs dying.’
‘Have you heard any more about that?’ asked Beth, immediately curious, though it was very hard to believe such a thing could have been deliberate. Who could possibly have wished any ill to little Roxie, or Lola? They must have eaten something that had gone off. Maybe in Dulwich Park? That was where everyone aired their pooches. And as they’d died so close together, it was possible they’d scoffed the same thing.
‘Nah, only that the families are beside themselves. Dogs don’t usually go from fine to dead so quick, do they? I’m no expert, though, cats are more my line,’ she said, as Tom wandered over and butted her with his huge orange head.
‘I don’t suppose I could get anywhere with that mystery, anyway. I don’t know either family really, and I couldn’t just poke around without being asked,’ Beth said.
‘Couldn’t you?’ Nina said innocently. ‘But no, don’t worry about that whole business when you’ve got mine to sort out.’ Her voice was as near pleading as Beth suspected it ever got.
‘Well. All right. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt just to look into it a bit, for a couple of days. There’s just one thing. What would I do with Ben? He’s off school, and I don’t have a childminder.’
Nina thought for a moment. ‘Leave that to me. Wilf’s nearly finished at Jo’s for Christmas, and when he has, then I can take both boys, do some great stuff with them while you’re ferreting away in the office. He’ll have a whopper of a time, your lad, don’t you worry about that.’
Beth smiled. Ben had certainly enjoyed the afternoon. He always loved company, and with Charlie away and her own limited enthusiasm for unbridled boys’ activities all day long, staking out the office could well turn out to be an oddly satisfying option for both of them.
But sitting on her sofa later that night, Beth wondered if she’d let Nina’s irrepressible bounce sway her into a pointless, and potentially dangerous, operation. Harry hadn’t come round after all; he was busy on a case, and it was tempting to distract herself from her disappointment by thinking she might soon have one of her own. But, despite herself, she listed the potential hitches with the plan.
One, getting caught out by Potter in seconds flat, as she knew absolutely nothing about being a receptionist, then being unceremoniously slung out on her behind, possibly in full view of passers-by from Herne Hill, many of whom she might know.
Two, getting caught by Harry himself. He would almost certainly go nuts at the idea of her embroiling herself in another Dulwich contretemps.
Three, what about Ben? For all Nina’s promises about great outings, Beth was willing to bet he’d just end up watching far too many cartoons and eating far too many battered suppers, at th
e exact moment when she should be getting his mind finely tuned for the looming exam.
She sighed. There were certainly enough possible pitfalls arrayed against her to make this sound like a very bad idea indeed. But when had she ever let that stop her? If she’d stuck with doing the sensible thing in life, then she wouldn’t be on the verge of writing a book about slavery, and she wouldn’t have a handsome policeman boyfriend either. A little voice whispered that she wouldn’t also have woken up in hospital several times, or felt the dread that came with being pretty certain your last moments on earth had just arrived. But the trouble was that such adrenalin rushes were quite addictive. And her curiosity and obsession with the truth were, as all who knew her could vouch, quite unbounded.
Would Ben really be any the worse for having the odd ready-meal for supper? And anyway, fish was supposed to be brain food, wasn’t it? She scooped up Magpie, who’d been contentedly shedding all over her lap while she mulled, and snapped off the lights. Time for bed. Maybe by morning, the way forward might be clear.
Chapter Six
Beth woke to the sort of grey day, garnished with a relentless mean-spirited drizzle, that had mothers everywhere groaning. Especially mothers of boys. Without regular airings, Beth had rapidly discovered that even Ben’s cheerful disposition tended to fray round the edges, causing the disintegration of her own mood. He needed exercise, like a puppy, and it was down to her to provide it.
She sat at the kitchen table in her dressing gown, clutching a cup of tea as though her life depended on it, and tried not to jump a metre as Magpie clambered in through the cat flap and proceeded to wipe her cold wet fur lovingly all over Beth’s legs, like a particularly affectionate car wash.
‘Hm, strange the way you’re so keen to cuddle up when you’re sopping wet,’ said Beth resentfully, pushing Magpie away and getting a reproachful glance from glinting green eyes for her pains. Something about the water jogged a thought, though. Swimming.
