Cherringham--Follow the Money

by Neil Richards

  And then there were the drivers who seemed to treat it as a badge of honour never to slow down or give way.

  “Warm enough?” said Sarah.

  “Sure,” said Jack. “Good call by the way — taking your car this morning. Turned so chilly. My car — would have been freezing.”

  “Definitely winter today, Jack.”

  “Yep, no more open top driving for me this year.”

  He watched the fields and woods roll by through the window. Stone cottages, so warm in the summer, but now so grey in the dull winter light.

  “Here we are — Coutts Lane,” said Sarah, swinging the car off the road and down a narrow wooded lane.

  Jack leaned forward. Though they were only a mile by river from Cherringham, the road looped round for a couple of miles through countryside that Jack didn’t know.

  He’d been in Cherringham for a few years now, but still there were areas he’d never explored, even whole villages tucked away with their regular pub, church, and grocery store.

  The road got more and more narrow, with dry stone walls on either side. The woods finally gave way to open fields and ahead, down a gentle slope, Jack saw a copse of trees.

  And just visible within it, with a lot of distance between them — four dramatic, modern houses, all glass and timber, with high roofs.

  The houses had been spread out within the trees to give plenty of privacy. Just beyond them Jack caught glimpses of the river.

  “Wow,” said Sarah. “Alan said they were pretty smart — he was right.”

  “Think he’s really okay with us nosing around?”

  “As long as he gets the arrests,” said Sarah.

  “Happy to oblige.”

  At the bottom of the hill a discrete sign read ‘Planter’s Croft’. The road split into four long gravel drives.

  Sarah took the final one and pulled up outside what had to be the Goodmans’ house, next to a little red sports car.

  “God knows how they got planning permission,” said Sarah.

  “Oh, I think we know — don’t we,” said Jack. “Just gotta have the right friends. And sometimes there can be shortcuts to getting such ‘friends’.”

  Before Sarah had turned the engine off, Jack saw a woman’s face appear at an upstairs window, then disappear again.

  As they both climbed out of the car, the front door opened and Jack saw the woman come out and walk towards them.

  In her late forties, Jack guessed, and even in jeans and a sweater she managed to look dressed up for visitors.

  “Jack? Sarah?” she said, holding out her hand to Jack, then quickly embracing Sarah as if they were old friends. “Oh look at me! What am I doing giving you a big hug? I hope you don’t mind — it’s just, well Sarah, your mum, I feel like I’ve known her forever and she’s been such a support …”

  “No need to apologise,” said Sarah.

  “You’re too sweet!” Then she turned to Jack and smiled. “And you’re the famous New York detective?”

  “Ex-detective, Mrs. Goodman,” said Jack.

  “But still at it, I hear. Oh, and do call me Claire, please!”

  “Happy to,” said Jack.

  “So, you getting much support from Alan up in the village?”

  “Oh, he’s fine, doing his job, fingerprints, chaps in white suits, taking care of all that, it’s just, well, you know …”

  Jack watched her look around as if there might be eavesdroppers lurking in the bushes.

  “You know … he doesn’t know the whole story, does he?”

  “I’m not sure that we do either, to be honest, Claire,” said Sarah. “Why don’t we go inside, so you can tell us in your own words what happened?”

  For a second Claire Goodman seemed to pause as if she didn’t know what Sarah meant.

  Then her face broke into a grin.

  “Of course, of course! What am I doing, leaving you out here in the cold! Come on in and let’s have a latte. I’ve got one of those machines, makes it just like real coffee …”

  “Mind if I take a few minutes, look around out here first?” said Jack.

  “No, of course,” said Claire. “We’ll be at the back of the house in the kitchen. Come on, Sarah.”

  And she put her arm through Sarah’s and headed towards the front door of the tall glass-fronted house.

  *

  As Sarah followed Claire inside, Jack stood with his back to the building and took in the setting.

  A large gravel area sat in front of the house, big enough for a car to come in from the lane and turn easily.

  To one side, by the sports car, stood a large triple garage with what looked like a studio above it.

  Trees and shrubs circled the front garden, almost obscuring the houses that lay on the other side.

  As far as Jack could tell, there were no security lights set amongst the trees.

  Wouldn’t have been hard to do that, he thought.

  He turned back to the house and spotted the alarm box — prominent just below the roof line.

  And here security lights dotted the front wall and the side wall of the garage.

  He walked back to the open front door, ran his hand around the frame, then inspected the door’s edge. Solid locks, no sign of forcing that he could see.

  He pushed the door further open and stepped into the hallway, all gleaming maple floors and open plan. He could just hear Sarah and Claire’s voices from the back of the house.

  On the wall to the left he saw the security panel with a digital display and a keypad.

  That too didn’t look like it had been tampered with. He stood with his back to the panel and looked out of the front door, gauging the distance from the panel to the shrubs and the cover of the trees.

  And a thought …

  It might be possible — just — for someone to hide in the trees and video people coming and going.

  Recording them as they entered the digits on the panel.

  Not much different from the cash machine scam he’d come across so many times back in NYC, where guys would set up a camera in an empty apartment opposite a machine and record the regulars as the took out their dollars.

  Sure. Would work here.

  But then they’d have to hike all the way across open fields before they hit the cover of the woods, and they’d be visible from the main road.

  They wouldn’t come down the lane by car — too easy to get trapped.

  Course, someone could come by boat. He needed to check the rear of the house, where it led down to the river.

  He walked round the side of the house and emerged onto a wide lawn that stretched down to the river.

  On the far bank, Jack could see meadows and woods, and beyond — in the distance — Mabbs Hill, outlined against the grey sky.

  He took in the view. No wonder this place was worth a couple of million. The neighbouring houses were completely hidden behind tall hedges and the garden was totally private.

  He followed a gravel path that wound its way down to the riverbank. A terrace and a covered swimming pool lay behind a low wall. He could see a bar and barbecue area. Sun loungers were stacked up out of the way for winter, and covers were on everything.

  But he could just imagine this terrace on a hot summer’s day. Pimms, champagne … the only disturbance the little river boats passing to and fro.

  Perfect.

  But also a security nightmare. And as far as he could see, there were no cameras down here to capture an intruder.

  He left the terrace and continued down a grassy bank until he finally reached the river.

  A jetty jutted out a few yards into the fast-flowing water from the bank. And next to it, set beneath a couple of tall oaks, Jack saw a small boathouse.

  He went over. Double doors on the waterside were padlocked.

  He peered in through a window. Dark inside, but he could just make out the shape of a lightweight, hard-bottomed RIB, the inflatable boat sporting a powerful-looking outboard.

  Of cours
e, thought Jack. No pretty little rowing boat for Mr. Goodman. 70 horsepower or nothing.

  He turned back to the jetty and walked to the end. The river gently curved in each direction. Up river, to his right, just a mile away, he knew was the Cherringham toll bridge.

  And not far beyond it, his own Grey Goose.

  To his left — twenty gently twisting miles that he knew took the Thames to Oxford, then beyond — London and the sea.

  To Jack, that direction was mostly uncharted territory, although he had been up to Oxford a couple of times by boat.

  Once, he remembered, grinning at the memory … in the unlikely guise of a Texan millionaire on the trail of a stolen Roman artefact.

  That case had been solved in the end.

  This one, he suspected, was going to be trickier.

  His instincts told him that the burglar might have come this way.

  But then there still was the question of how they got past the alarms.

  He turned, walked back down the jetty, and headed up the sloping grass.

  Just as he reached the pool terrace, he heard the sound of a motor down on the river behind him.

  He stepped out of sight to watch.

  A small, black, open speedboat cruised up river. When it reached the jetty, it slowed almost to a halt, bobbing up and down in the current.

  Jack could see a man at the wheel.

  The man turned and looked up at the house. Tall, mid-forties, designer sailing gear. He had a groomed look.

  Like he should be advertising a watch in a magazine, thought Jack.

  Then, as if he had seen what he wanted to see, the man hit the throttle, turned the boat around in a wide curve, and headed back down river.

  Jack shook his head as the sound of the motor receded.

  Come that way, on the river, and this place could be burgled so easily: you could land an army here and nobody would even see, let alone call the police.

  He turned and headed towards the house and the smell of coffee, wondering what the man in the boat had been up to.

  *

  “Can I give you a top-up Jack?’ asked Claire, pouring herself another coffee from the giant chrome espresso machine that sat on the steel worktop.

  That thing’s bigger than my cooker, thought Sarah.

  “Not for me, thanks,” said Jack. “That was — as you promised — a real latte.”

  Sarah knew Jack’s taste in coffee — and she knew he would have hated the sweet frothy drink that Claire had proudly dished up when he came in from the garden.

  “Why don’t you tell us what the place looked like when you came in the other night?” he said.

  “Oh, I can do better than that,” said Claire, and she walked across the enormous kitchen, opened a drawer and took out a plastic folder. “Jerry insisted we take photos … for the insurance, you know.”

  She came back and handed the folder to Jack. Sarah watched as he opened the folder, took out the photos, and carefully inspected each one.

  “Quite a mess,” he said, handing them one by one to Sarah for her to see. “Think we can have copies of these?”

  “I’m sure,” Claire said. “I’ll get Terry to organise it.”

  “Is he going to be around by the way?” said Jack.

  “No, he’ll be at the showroom all day.”

  “Shame. Was hoping to chat to him too.”

  “I’m sure he won’t mind if you meet him there.”

  Slowly Sarah leafed through the pictures, every room the same: furniture tipped up, ornaments smashed, chairs on their side.

  “How awful,” she said. “Like they wanted to make a mess.”

  “Took forever to tidy up,” said Claire.

  “Did Alan figure out how they got in?” said Sarah.

  “He said it looked like they forced a window at the back.”

  “Yep,” said Jack. “I think I saw the window just now — the French windows, yes?”

  “That’s the one,” said Claire. “The whole frame was bent. They were handmade, you know. Came from Norway. I found them in House and Garden. When we moved in, they were the first thing I had changed.”

  “That’s such a shame,” said Sarah.

  She seems as upset by the doors as the money, thought Sarah.

  “And no luck with prints?” asked Jack.

  “Alan thinks they wore gloves,” said Claire. “Very professional, he said. Though they did seem to miss a lot of valuable items …”

  “They trash every room?” said Jack.

  “Most of the downstairs,” said Claire. “And our bedroom, of course.”

  “But not the other bedrooms?”

  “No.”

  “Hmm,” said Jack. “How many bedrooms are there?”

  Sarah watched Jack carefully. She could tell from the sound of his voice when he felt he might be onto something.

  “Well, apart from ours — there’s five. Three guest rooms. And, um, the room Terry sleeps in. Sometimes.”

  Sarah wasn’t sure how to phrase her next question, but Jack didn’t hold back.

  “So — and excuse me for asking — but you and Terry no longer share a bedroom Claire?”

  Bold as brass, thought Sarah. Guess that’s the American way.

  Claire didn’t seem to mind the question one bit.

  “Not on a full time basis,” said Claire, looking directly at Jack. “If you know what I mean.”

  “Sure,” said Jack.

  “Claire — that’s four bedrooms — but you said there were five?”

  “Right, yes, well, there’s Olli’s room of course—”

  “Olli?” said Sarah.

  “Our son.”

  “He around?” said Jack.

  “University,” said Claire, beaming. “He’s at Oxford. Pelham College, second year.”

  Sarah could hear how proud Claire was.

  “It must still be term time?” said Sarah. “I guess he’s not back yet?”

  “Another couple of weeks,” said Claire.

  “Does he ever come back during term?” said Jack.

  “Only when he’s short of cash, bless him,” said Claire laughing.

  “I’ve got all that still to come,” said Sarah, smiling. She liked this woman. “God knows how I’ll afford it!”

  “No matter how much you give them — it’s never enough!” said Claire.

  “So Olli’s room wasn’t touched?” said Jack, gently steering the conversation back.

  “No,” said Claire. “He’ll be so relieved.”

  Sarah saw Jack catch her eye.

  “I’m sure he will,” said Jack. “Out of interest — when was he last home? Do you remember?”

  “Hmm … He came back for my birthday, last month. Oh — and he dropped in a week or so ago, with a couple of friends.”

  “Stayed over, huh?”

  “Terry’s got a games room over the garage. Terry was away on business, so I went and stayed with a friend. Left them to it!”

  “Uh-huh,” said Jack.

  Sarah watched him thinking about this.

  “Can we see upstairs now?”

  “Of course. Oh dear — I do chatter, don’t I? Stuck here on my own all day you see, you just tell me to shut up or I’ll go rambling on forever!”

  And Sarah watched as she put down her coffee and went out into the hall.

  “This way!” she called.

  Considering she’d just lost twenty thousand pounds, Claire seemed surprisingly upbeat.

  Maybe she’s short of company and loves to chat? thought Sarah.

  Or maybe there’s another reason?

  5. Secrets

  “And this is where I keep — kept — the cash,” said Claire.

  Her voice low as she discussed her secret.

  Jack watched her slide back the mirrored closet doors.

  The doors slid back silently and seemed to disappear into the wall — revealing an enormous, brightly-lit walk-in dressing area, with racks of hangars and drawers.

&
nbsp; There were two long velvet-covered shelves with pairs of shoes neatly lined up.

  Then below them, more shoeboxes.

  Jack had never seen so many shoeboxes before. He’d always joked with Katherine, his wife, that she surely held the world shoe record.

  But her unruly stack of shoes in their little apartment back in NYC, which he’d given away to charity when she died, was nothing compared to this.

  There must have been a hundred pairs.

  “Ten down — four across,” she said — pointing to one of the boxes on the bottom row. “That’s where I kept the money.”

  “Wow,” said Sarah. “Not a bad hiding place.”

  “Not good enough though, it turns out,” said Claire.

  “That night — were all the boxes out of the closet?” said Jack.

  Claire shook her head.

  “They were still in here. But it was a right mess.”

  “Had they all been opened up?”

  He watched Claire as she thought about that.

  “No,” she said. “Come to think of it — quite a few hadn’t been opened at all. But the boxes were all scattered.”

  “None of the shoes were stolen?” said Sarah.

  “No. Not a single pair. And I do have some very expensive Christian Louboutins.”

  “They’re just shoes, though. Not really that—”

  Claire turned to him. “These shoes? Cost thousands! Took me forever to sort them all and put them back in place too,” said Claire.

  “And nobody else knew this was where you kept the cash?” asked Jack.

  She answered quickly.

  “Nope. Not a soul.”

  Jack saw Sarah go to the other side of the closet and slide open more mirrored doors to reveal a long rack of suits and jackets.

  “Is this Terry’s side?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t think maybe, possibly … he could have found your money?”

  “Why would he go looking in my shoe boxes?” said Claire. “All my shoes — they drive him crazy. But he has that big car of his, and I have my shoes.”

  Jack nodded.

  He was beginning to understand why Claire would want money to run away with.

  “But, I dunno, maybe your husband knocked over the boxes — a month or two back. Found the cash — was waiting for you to mention it …” he said.