False Step

by Veronica Heley

  Gail drew in her breath. ‘You know, don’t you?’

  ‘I guessed.’ Bea drove off leaving Gail, hugging her shoulders, to go back into the house.

  Seventeen

  Friday afternoon

  Bea let herself into her house, prepared to mount the assault course of furniture and carpet, and almost lost her balance. The carpet had gone! The furniture was still piled up in the hall, but the carpet had disappeared.

  She stood still, listening.

  She could see straight through to the kitchen and the only living thing there was the cat Winston, lying full length on the work surface. There was no sound of radio or TV, or of clashing pots and pans. So Maggie wasn’t in.

  There was no sound of hammers or drills from below. Only a soothing buzz from some machine or other that Bea couldn’t identify. The dust sheet had been let down over the stairs.

  The telephone pinged as a call came in, but it was quickly silenced. Someone was attending to it. Oliver? Miss Brook?

  Bea turned in to the living room and found it deserted and comparatively tidy. It was clear the Green Girls’ team had been and gone for there was hardly any dust to be seen. There was no sign of Max or of Miss Townend, and their piles of files had been stacked to one side of the fireplace. It might be possible for Bea to use the room again, if she avoided the area around the dining table where much of her office had landed up.

  She was hungry, having missed lunch and not been tempted by the sherry which was all that Derek and Trixie had thought necessary to provide after the funeral. She foraged in the fridge, finding a plate of sandwiches and some home-made soup left for her by Maggie. What a splendid girl she was, to be sure.

  Winston looked up with interest as she put her plate on the table, but she fended him off with one hand while putting the soup in the microwave to warm.

  ‘Thought I heard you.’ Oliver appeared in the doorway. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Interesting. Gail is ready to talk now. We’re meeting this evening. Things have been happening here? No carpet, no Maggie, no Max?’

  ‘Maggie’s at the job down the road, the foreman took the carpet at her instigation, and there’s someone sanding and polishing the floors downstairs as we speak. Miss Townend has popped out for some indigestion tablets but will be back shortly. As for Mr Max,’ Oliver tried to smooth out a grin, ‘Miss Brook got him to remove himself by sheer force of personality.’

  ‘How on earth did she do that?’

  ‘I wish I knew. She said she’d had enough of working in your bedroom and went down to confront him. He went out soon after. I expected her back upstairs straight away, but no … she came back ten minutes later, brushing one hand against the other, to announce that she will be working in the front office downstairs as soon as the furniture is replaced. She must have checked out the agency rooms while she was at it.’ Oliver switched on the kettle. ‘Coffee?’

  Bea worked her way back over what he’d just said. ‘You mean, she wants to come back to work for us on a permanent basis?’

  Oliver stared at the kettle, didn’t reply. Shrugged.

  Bea stroked her temples. Was she getting another pressure headache? ‘I suppose … do we have enough work to …? Yes, we do, because Maggie is wonderful as a project manager but has no great interest in the day to day agency business. But I’m not sure … Oliver, how would you feel about Miss Brook moving in?’

  ‘She’s good. Very good. A bit sharp at times, but I don’t mind that. She understands that I can do some things better than her and I have to admit she handles people better than I do. Come to think of it, routine bookkeeping isn’t exactly my favourite thing. I like puzzles, finding things out. I don’t want to do the same thing day in and day out. Oh, by the way, I’ve run off Matthew’s engagements for you.’ He slapped some papers down on the table. ‘Two months back, you said? I included what he’d got on for a month in the future as well. Lots of hospital appointments, I’m afraid. The big C.’

  Oh? Then perhaps he had been depressed about his health? Depressed enough to commit suicide? Yes, probably. Cancer was a killer. But why kill himself in that bizarre way?

  ‘Thank you, Oliver. I’ll look at them in a minute.’ He was coming on, was young Oliver. He reached for the coffee jar and Bea noted that he was filling out, his shoulders becoming more solid, his arms and legs ditto. Even his hair seemed thicker, glossier. He’d treated himself to a good haircut, which helped.

  He was growing up in more ways than one. A while ago, he’d no more have been able to make her a cup of coffee than fly. He wouldn’t stay with her for ever, nor should he. He was rapidly losing the little-boy-lost look which had tugged at her heart when she first saw him, and turning into a good-looking young man. He’d coped with the horrible business of being unjustly thrown out of his home, and he’d been secure enough in himself to write off for a copy of his birth certificate.

  ‘Oliver, do you want to talk about … whatever?’ She didn’t want to force the issue, but surely it wasn’t good for him to keep the information about his parents to himself? If what Bea suspected was true, his birth father was not the man who had brought him up and then disowned him. As for his birth mother – she might or might not be the woman he’d been taught to call ‘Mum’.

  He bit out the words. ‘It’s OK. It’s fine. I’m not bothered about it at all. I mean, lots of people get adopted every day. It’s what they make of themselves that matters.’

  ‘True. I believe that nowadays you can discover who really—’

  He jerked his head. ‘I’m not going down that road. I suppose some teenager got into trouble and the man wouldn’t or couldn’t marry her. What good would it do to find them? If they didn’t want to know me then, I don’t want to know them now.’

  ‘I suppose I could readopt you, if you liked the idea?’

  He closed his eyes and put out a hand to steady himself. Opened his eyes, stared straight ahead. In a deliberately casual voice, he said, ‘You’d have to adopt Maggie, too, and I don’t think you can do that because her mother is such a control freak she wouldn’t let her daughter go.’

  ‘Er, no. I suppose not.’

  Now they were both embarrassed.

  He looked at his watch. ‘Miss Brook will kill me if I don’t get back soon. Some glitch at one of the embassies who haven’t enough staff to cope with a big event this evening. She’s dealing with it in her usual efficient manner, but will expect me to field everything else that comes in. Maggie will be in about six. Oh, and Mr Piers rang, said he’d be dropping by this evening.’ Without making eye contact again, he withdrew.

  Bea pressed both hands against hot cheeks. Dear Lord, did I mess up, or did I! I am such a fool! Of course he doesn’t want to be adopted by an old woman. If only Hamilton had been alive, he’d have known what to say to the lad. I am an idiot! What on earth made me lose my head like that?

  She must turn her mind to something else or she’d die of shame. What should she do next? She couldn’t think. Ah, the material Oliver had printed off from Matthew’s computer? Matthew’s appointments for the last couple of months. She started at the beginning, working out what the abbreviated terminology meant.

  ‘Bert’. That would be his old accompanist, Bert Cunningham. Bert cropped up three times; no, four, always an evening appointment. ‘Damrs’ for Damaris. So Damaris had been seeing him regularly? Also in the evenings. ‘Dr’ for doctor, obviously. After the second one there was, as Oliver had said, a big ‘C’ with a query.

  ‘Hosp’ – no prizes for working that one out. ‘Rehrsl’ for rehearsal. Would that have been for The Gondoliers? The ‘Rehrsl’ entries ceased after a couple of weeks. Probably after he’d learned he’d got cancer. Lots of doctor’s appointments, lots of hospital appointments … a cluster of ‘Damrs’ entries and then two for ‘Soltr’. Solicitor? Was that when he made his will and signed it? Probably.

  Then ‘Hospital’ written out in full, followed by ‘Op’. Ah, an operation. Another doctor’s appo
intment followed by three exclamation marks. Why? A few days before he died, he’d typed ‘The Gondoliers’ in full, followed by another exclamation mark.

  There was an appointment for Bert the night before he died, and further notes for the future which he’d obviously not had time to cancel. Ah well. Pretty clear, then.

  She checked on the living room, but all was still and quiet in there. Max hadn’t returned and neither had Miss Townend. Bea stood at the window, looking down on the garden which was turning grey in an early twilight, and allowed herself a few moments of grief in which to remember her own dear husband.

  She went up the stairs to the bedrooms. Oliver was in the guest bedroom, where Max’s things were still piled up on the bed.

  Miss Brook put the phone down as Bea opened the door into the master bedroom. ‘Another job brought to a satisfactory conclusion. Although of course it would have been better if the client had known exactly what they wanted in the first place. The funeral passed off all right? In my day we hustled suicides out of sight without ceremony.’

  Bea sat on her bed, relaxing for the first time that day. ‘You should have been there. You’d have appreciated the sub-plots. Ex-wives bobbing up all over the place, grieving stepdaughter unavoidably absent due to a prior engagement with the mortuary, a surprise appearance from a woman who declares herself to be the new heiress, friends up in arms, no organist, no flowers, no order of service. And as for the wake; there wasn’t one. At least, not unless you count a cat-and-dog fight over the remains. But there was a lot of genuine grief as well, if not from the immediate family circle.’

  Miss Brook said, ‘You enjoyed it?’

  ‘In a way, yes. And in another way, no. A sad affair. Cancer. There’s a lot I don’t understand about the manner of Matthew Kent’s death, but I hope to clear up one or two points tonight. In the meantime …’

  Miss Brook tidied the papers on her desk. In anyone less self-assured, you’d have thought her nervous. ‘It seems to me that if Mr Hamilton had still been alive, God bless him, he would have prevented Mr Max from … I’m not quite sure how to put this, but—’

  ‘From making such a fool of himself? I agree, Hamilton would have handled the situation better. So, how did you manage to shift him?’

  Miss Brook allowed herself a tiny frown. ‘I wouldn’t have put it in those terms, precisely. I merely suggested that he was not serving his constituency well by having to work from such a makeshift office. At that point he discovered he was going to be late for an important meeting, and left. Which gave me unhindered access to the phone.’

  Bea tried not to be disappointed. She’d hoped he’d gone for good. ‘Did you speak to Miss Townend?’

  ‘The poor wee soul. She’s quite unable to make up her mind what she should do. Her eighty-seven-year-old mother, who lives in a nice flat on the South Coast, is pressing her to stop work and return home to look after her. Only, Miss Townend doesn’t feel she can leave Mr Max at such a terrible time. She talked about rats leaving sinking ships and her mother not being able to access the care which she ought to be offered by the council. Perhaps you can help her see where her duty lies?’

  Bea regarded Miss Brook with awe. ‘You certainly have a knack for dealing with people, Miss Brook.’

  ‘You would have been able to do the same, if you’d had the time to give to the matter.’

  That was a dig at Bea for getting involved with Matthew Kent’s demise, but she didn’t take offence. After all, it was very true. ‘Have you any ideas about dealing with Max’s files? Can we send them somewhere to have the information put on memory sticks?’

  ‘All in hand. And if you can convince Miss Townend of the benefits of retirement, I have drawn up a list of possible new secretaries for him.’

  Bea almost laughed. ‘You think of everything.’

  Miss Brook smoothed her back hair up into its dated but elegant French plait. ‘I must admit to enjoying myself, back at work. Early retirement did not suit. My friends always said I would be bored at home, and they were quite right.’

  She gave Bea a quick look, almost a plea.

  Bea responded, ‘Would it be too much of an imposition to ask you to return to working at the agency part-time? Oliver is a good lad and has many talents. He has really been carrying the agency recently, but we are getting so much work now that he can hardly cope by himself. And Maggie is—’

  ‘A delightful child; give her anything practical to do and she is in her element, but I fear she hasn’t the tidy mind needed for paperwork. Perhaps we could have two desks in reception in future, one for me and one for her? Three days a week would suit me admirably. Thank you.’ Miss Brook switched off the computer, and got ready to leave for the day.

  Bea knew when she was being dismissed. She went downstairs to see if Miss Townend had returned, which indeed she had. The poor creature was engaged in picking up pieces of paper in aimless fashion, wandering around, and putting them down again.

  ‘Miss Townend, I’m so glad I caught you. Such a difficult time for my son, and I can’t imagine how it must be for you, who has been his right hand ever since he was elected to Parliament. And to crown all, Miss Brook told me of your own personal problems. You must be feeling so torn.’

  Miss Townend made a helpless gesture, files in both hands. ‘Of course I can’t leave him now. Mother doesn’t understand how things are, how necessary it is that I stand by him. Only, at her age she does get so confused, poor dear, and last night when she told me she couldn’t work out which pills she ought to be taking … I must confess that I had a little weep.’

  ‘Of course you did, you poor thing.’ Bea took the files from Miss Townend and pressed her to sit on the settee. ‘What a dreadful decision you have to make. Your loyalty is beyond question, but your mother … well, mothers take priority, don’t they?’

  A handkerchief came out, and muffled the next words. ‘Mr Max puts a good face on things, but his constituency chairman keeps ringing … that’s dear Mr Max’s wife’s father, you know … and he positively shouts at me and I can’t think what to say to him when Mr Max isn’t here to take the call as he should be.’

  ‘Indeed. It is too much! My son has been under a lot of stress, I know, but that’s no reason why he shouldn’t consider your feelings.’

  ‘Oh, he does, of course he does!’ She blew her nose, wiped her eyes.

  ‘He does?’ Bea didn’t think he did.

  ‘Well …’ A half smile. ‘Perhaps at this time, it’s too much to expect, though I did tell him about Mummy wanting me to stop work some time ago, and he said that he couldn’t possibly manage without me. What he doesn’t realize is that I served his predecessor at the House, and her predecessor before that. I’ve worked there for nearly thirty years, and although I’m still in possession of all my faculties, my migraines do seem to be getting more frequent, and I’m just beginning to feel that it would be nice to relax and not bother about work, and see that Mummy takes her pills at the right time, because that’s important, too, isn’t it?’

  Bea nodded. ‘After all your years of devoted service, it’s only right and proper that you should start to think of yourself for a change, and of course you want to be with your family when they need you. I know my son appreciates everything you’ve done for him, but I’m sure that, if you’re really determined to go, we’ll be able to find someone else to look after him. She won’t have your years of experience in the job, of course, but she ought to be able to do his routine correspondence.’

  ‘The thing is, you’ll think me such a coward, but I’ve tried to tell him that he should think about looking for someone else, but every time I start, the phone rings or someone calls. It would be such an upset for him, and I do understand why he can’t deal with it at the moment. You wouldn’t like to tell him for me, would you?’

  ‘My dear, of course.’

  Miss Townend seemed to shed ten years. She looked at her watch. ‘Do you think I could go home now? I don’t like to leave things in such
a mess, but—’

  ‘I’ll take care of it.’

  ‘I feel a different woman. I’ll go home now and give my landlady notice. Then I can ring Mummy with the good news before she watches Coronation Street.’

  Bea left Miss Townend getting ready to leave, and went upstairs to shower and change. Miss Townend’s mother would probably be as hard a taskmaster as Max, and bully her daughter into an early grave, but some women are cut out to be carers, and there isn’t anything much you can do about that.

  She tried Max’s mobile phone, but it was engaged. So she left a message to say that Miss Townend had felt it time to retire and look after her elderly mother, and that the agency would find him a temp next week.

  As she shut off her phone, her landline rang. It was Piers. ‘So you’re back at last, are you? Sorry I couldn’t stop to talk at the crem, but something rather interesting came up.’

  Bea wanted to reply that she hadn’t been at all upset since she hadn’t even noticed he was there, but held her tongue. With an effort. ‘I saw you leave with a woman.’

  ‘Yes.’ He sounded unsure of himself. ‘Matthew’s doctor. I didn’t know her from Adam but she obviously wasn’t one of the widows. What a turn-up, that Goldie woman! But Sylvester dealt with her beautifully, didn’t he? Though I wasn’t the only one who thought he was looking decidedly rocky.’

  ‘Yes, Piers? You chatted his doctor up, I suppose, seeing she was by herself. And what did you find out?’

  ‘You know, Bea, if it weren’t for that suicide note, I’d be inclined to think that the coroner’s verdict was wrong. But then again, these highly-strung types, up one minute and down the next … what else can one think?’

  ‘I’m being very patient, Piers. What did she say about Matthew?’

  ‘Oh, she couldn’t. Patient confidentiality, and all that.’

  ‘You got something out of her, though?’

  ‘She said she was shocked to hear of his death. Which leads me to think that he’d no particular health problem when he died. It’s a something and a nothing, isn’t it? You can look at it either way.’