False Charity

by Veronica Heley

  ‘Have you got an email address? Yes? Let’s try that. Now, how many computers have we got? Where’s the one Hamilton used to use? Is that the one Oliver’s got in his bedroom up top, or the one he’s been using in the interview room?’

  ‘I don’t know which one he’d use,’ cried Maggie. ‘The one in his bedroom, I suppose.’

  ‘Where was he when you saw him last?’

  ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t looking.’

  Piers said, ‘He went down the stairs, I think.’

  Bea led the way. ‘Piers, are you any good with computers?’

  ‘I’ve got a laptop. Had to learn how to use some of the latest technology. My bet is that he’ll use the one in his bedroom. On the top floor, is it?’ He disappeared up the stairs.

  Bea accessed the computer in the reception room, the one Maggie was supposed to use. She called up Windows Explorer to see what entries had been made most recently. There was nothing personal. She tried the email on the off-chance, but though Maggie had sent a couple recently, there hadn’t been anything coming back in.

  ‘Got it!’ Piers shouted down the staircase. He came down, waving a piece of paper. ‘In a file titled Home. Addressed to Maggie.’

  Maggie rushed up to him, and read it out. ‘“See you later. Don’t look for me. Thanks for everything. Oliver.”’

  ‘The idiot,’ said Piers. ‘What does he think he’s playing at? Hide and seek? He’ll end up as a rent boy if he’s not careful, or living in a cardboard box. Or both.’

  ‘Hide and seek,’ mused Bea. ‘“Don’t look for me.” The idiot’s hiding somewhere close. That’s what he means by telling Maggie not to look for him. We’ve got to search the house. Look in every space that might hold a skinny lad.’

  ‘Not the river?’ gasped Maggie.

  ‘No, child. Not the river. Oliver’s playing games with us. Now, shall we each take a floor?’

  ‘My pasta!’ shrieked Maggie and took the stairs up to the kitchen, two at a time.

  ‘Are you sure, Bea?’ said Piers. ‘He could easily have slipped out behind our backs.’

  ‘If there’s anything I’m sure about, it’s that that young limb depends on Maggie for everything. For crying out loud, she feeds him, clothes him and even makes his bed. He doesn’t strike me as the bold sort who’d see running away as a big adventure. Let’s open every cupboard, look in every small space before we give up and scream for the police.’

  They searched the basement. Looked in all the nooks and crannies. Piers swore when he caught his hand on the metal edge of a filing cabinet, but otherwise went along with Bea’s plan while making it clear he didn’t really believe it would produce results.

  They moved to the first floor where Maggie joined them. She said the pasta might be all right if they could eat straight away. Otherwise, she’d cook some fresh. They looked in every cupboard, even the kitchen ones. They looked under the sink in the cloakroom. They looked under the stairs, in the broom cupboard. They looked in the sideboard, even. Nothing.

  ‘Let’s start at the top and work down,’ said Bea. They climbed to the top floor. More cupboards. Wardrobes. They even looked under the sink in the bathroom and inside the airing cupboard. They looked under beds, even, in case he was lying flat somewhere. Nothing. Piers was getting bored. He’d left Oliver’s computer switched on, and sat down to play with it. What he found seemed to amused him.

  ‘My, he’s been a busy little boy, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Porn?’ said Bea, getting progressively crosser.

  ‘No, not porn. He doesn’t strike me as being hooked on women yet.’

  ‘Unlike you, you mean.’

  They descended to Bea’s bedroom floor, Maggie leading the way. Piers threw open the door to the spare bedroom, and arched his eyebrows as he saw it unused. So now he knew that Bea could give him a bed for the night if she wished.

  So what! thought Bea.

  The doorbell rang two storeys below. ‘I’ll go,’ said Maggie.

  Bea turned towards her own bedroom. ‘That’ll be Coral, I expect.’ Noting his bewilderment Bea quickly brought him up to date. ‘I’d better go down in a minute and see her. Find out if June’s been kept in hospital.’

  ‘Shall I give your bedroom the once-over?’ suggested Piers, grinning.

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Bea. ‘He wouldn’t hide in here, anyway. Or would he?’ But just in case, she tried it. Nothing under the bed, nothing in the en suite. She pulled open the door to the dressing room, packed with Nicole’s bits and pieces. A large cardboard box confronted her, two inches from her nose. That hadn’t been there last night.

  She tugged at it. It wouldn’t budge. ‘Help me shift this, Piers.’

  Maggie could be heard pounding up the stairs. ‘Mrs Abbot, Mrs Abbot! You’re needed!’

  ‘One thing at a time,’ said Bea. ‘Pull, Piers. Put some welly into it!’

  He tugged hard, trying to shift it right and left. ‘It’s heavy!’

  ‘Heavy enough to contain Oliver?’

  Maggie burst into the bedroom. ‘Mrs Abbot, are you there?’

  The box suddenly gave way, showering Piers with an avalanche of videos.

  Piers staggered back, yelling, his arms up to defend himself from attack

  Bea sighed. ‘Come on out now, Oliver. There’s a good boy.’

  Wednesday, lunchtime

  Lena had her laptop beside her, checking off lists, stuffing addressed envelopes with tickets.

  Richie walked around the room, talking on a mobile. He cut it off, shrugging. ‘Another dissatisfied customer. Lena, are you sure we ought to hang around for this next one?’

  ‘It’s not like you to lose your nerve, Richie. Haven’t we done this time and time again?’

  ‘You and I alone in the provinces, yes. It’s been good, but—’

  ‘There’s no way they can trace us except through the mobile phones. Which one were you using?’

  He consulted the label on it. ‘Priory Gardens. That was the wine merchant.’

  ‘Get rid of that phone. Find us a couple of new ones.’

  Richie nodded, hardly listening. ‘Noel’s been gone a long time. Lena, you and I never put a foot wrong, but bringing in your son—’

  She cut him off with a flick of an eyebrow. ‘Forget it, Richie. He’s part of the team now. With his looks and charm – and contacts – he can get to people we couldn’t even hope to reach. We’ve doubled our take since he joined us, haven’t we? True, he’s young and he’s made one or two small mistakes, but—’

  ‘Killing a man isn’t a small mistake.’ Richie rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. ‘I’ve never been involved in murder before.’

  ‘Not murder.’ She frowned. ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘You two make a good pair. You’ve got the brains and the nerve for this game, and he’s got the polish from university. But he makes me nervous, Lena. Maybe after this next event, I should fade out.’

  ‘I don’t want to lose you, Richie.’ Yet they both knew that if she had to choose between her son and her old partner, Noel would win.

  Six

  Wednesday, lunch to suppertime

  With some difficulty Oliver let himself down on to the floor. Bea hoped he hadn’t put his foot through anything valuable while making himself a nest in the hidey-hole, but didn’t really care if he had. Nicole ought not to have left her stuff there. Besides – and here Bea grinned to herself – Nicole ought to have insured her things, oughtn’t she?

  Maggie was flushed with indignation. ‘Oh, Oliver! How could you give me such a fright!’

  Piers nursed his right wrist, cursing beneath his breath. Oliver looked as hangdog as a puppy who’d been caught making a mess on the best carpet, and about as young. He needed a wash and a brush up.

  Coral Payne appeared behind Maggie. Coral had been crying.

  Bea put her hands on her hips. ‘For two pins I’d shove the lot of you out of the front door and go to bed for a fortnight. Coral, I’m sorry,
my dear, but we’ve got a bit of a crisis on here. I hope June’s all right?’

  Coral tried to smile. ‘It’s not the end of the world, but they’re keeping her in hospital on bed rest. Jake’s staying with her.’ She sat down on Bea’s bed. ‘Oh, dear, oh dear! I’ve come over all silly.’

  Bea understood that June had gone into labour, but the hospital was trying to stop it, to prevent the baby being born prematurely. She sat beside Coral and gave her a hug. ‘Come on, it’s up to us to keep the show on the road. We women can never afford to give way, can we?’

  Coral sniffed and shook her head.

  Bea said, ‘Tell yourself that June’s in the best possible place for her at the moment. Is Jake going to ring you if there’s any change? Yes? Good. So let’s deal with the next item on the agenda. Piers, does that wrist of yours need a doctor?’

  Piers waggled it a bit. ‘It’s not broken. Oliver, I think you and I should have a little chat.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ cried Maggie, arms akimbo. ‘You can’t beat him up just because he was scared.’

  Oliver peeked up at Piers through his hair which had fallen over his eyes. He looked about eight years old. He’d ripped his jeans, too.

  Piers took hold of Oliver’s ear and led him out of the room. ‘This isn’t about my wrist. Let me deal with this, Bea. Up the stairs you go, my lad. You and I are going to have a nice quiet talk about your extramural activities.’

  ‘Stop him, Mrs Abbot!’ said Maggie, hopping from one foot to the other. ‘He shouldn’t, I mean, he can’t just take him off like that. It’s against the law.’

  Piers’ voice floated back down the stairs. ‘What the lad’s been up to is also against the law.’

  Oliver emitted a squeak, but made no other protest. The door of his bedroom shut with a bang.

  All of a sudden Bea felt extremely tired. This time yesterday she’d been on a plane flying back from the other side of the world. She’d been weary when she got on the plane, and too tired to think straight when she got off. Then there’d been the surprise party, and the unpleasant revelations about the agency. She hadn’t slept well, and today had brought its own set of shocks.

  She helped Coral to her feet, put her free arm round Maggie and urged them to the door. ‘I think we’ll all feel better when we’ve eaten, don’t you?’

  Coral’s voice quavered but she managed, ‘That’s what I always say, too.’

  Maggie dithered. It was clear she didn’t know whether to charge to Oliver’s rescue, or dish up lunch. ‘Mrs Abbot, I hate to say it, but there’s someone else turned up this morning, wanting to see Max. She’s not on our books as a cleaner, but she says she’s done a job for someone who is. Which is nonsense, isn’t it? At least, I haven’t heard of anyone passing a job on to anyone else. You’d better warn him, because when I said he wasn’t here any more, she said she’d have to pay him a visit at the House of Commons. They won’t let her in, though, will they?’

  Bea couldn’t take this in. ‘No, my dear. I shouldn’t think they would. You say you’ve got some food on the go?’

  Maggie gave one last look up the stairs and then went into the kitchen to dish up. She served large soup bowls of pasta with mushrooms and tomatoes in a cheesy sauce. Bea put her head down and ate. She’d had enough of the world and its problems.

  When they were clearing their plates, Piers came in, pushing Oliver before him. ‘Now, boy. Make a clean breast of it.’

  Oliver shifted his feet about, darted a glance at Maggie. Another at Bea. He said, ‘It was all my father’s fault.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Piers, cheerfully sitting down and holding up his plate to Maggie for food. ‘If you think your father treated you badly, you should have seen what mine did to me. Anyway, you’re over eighteen now, and supposed to know the difference between right and wrong.’

  Maggie sent worried glances in Oliver’s direction, but cleared plates, and handed out yoghurts to those who’d finished their first course.

  ‘The thing is,’ said Oliver, ‘that I really like seeing what I can do on computers. One of my friends’ fathers taught me all sorts of tricks. Actually, I don’t think he should have taught me some of the things but it was, like, academic. Just seeing how to get round things. It wasn’t for real. We were never going to do those things, except that … well, eventually, I suppose, I did. Then one day,’ Oliver shuffled his feet again, ‘I turned on my Dad’s laptop, just for fun.

  ‘I found some hardcore porn. I couldn’t believe it. I’d heard of such things before, but I’d never actually seen any. He caught me at it and went ballistic. We’ve never really got on, you know, he and I. I thought he was going to hit me, so I threatened to tell Mum. He said I’d completely misunderstood what I saw, that he’d only been doing some research. He said I had a dirty mind and was probably into porn myself, though of course I’m not.’

  ‘So that’s why he threw you out?’ asked Bea. ‘Because he was afraid you’d spill his guilty secret?’

  Oliver nodded. ‘He wanted me out of the house before Mum came back from shopping. He said he’d tell everybody that it was I who was into porn and not him. He said he’d tell them that was why he’d thrown me out, and that they shouldn’t speak to me if I did phone up. He didn’t beat me up exactly. I tripped and fell down the stairs and got a nose bleed when he swung at me. So I ran away.’

  Maggie slammed a dishcloth down on to the table and everyone jumped. ‘Oh, Oliver, you told me he beat you up!’

  ‘He would have, if I hadn’t got away. Then you rescued me, and brought me here and that was all right, but Mr Abbot told us we had to be out at the end of the week, and I didn’t know what to do. I’d kept in touch with my friend from school and he told me it was up on the notice board that I’d got all my As. So I emailed Dad asking for my certificates, and he replied that I should go to hell and that if I tried to contact him again, he’d tell the police that I was into porn.’

  ‘He probably wouldn’t,’ said Piers, ‘because then it would come out about his own misdeeds. Go on, Oliver. Tell them what you did next.’

  Oliver took a deep breath. ‘I’ve had my own bank account for about a year, for birthday cheques and what I earned cleaning cars at weekends. Only, I’d just bought a new sound system for myself, so I was down to a few pounds. I knew my father’s credit card number and banking details. I can remember numbers, only have to see them once. So I … I bought stuff over the phone, tickets to pop concerts and football matches and stuff that I knew would sell out quickly.’

  He gulped. ‘I used my father’s bank details to pay for them. Then I sold the tickets on ebay. That way I thought that when Maggie and I left here, I’d have some money to give her and we’d be all right. Dad won’t find out till the middle of next month when his bank statements go through.’

  Bea brought her eyebrows down from her hairline, and managed to close her mouth, which was agape. She smoothed out a smile and tried to frown but didn’t quite make it. Coral choked on her yoghurt. Piers hid a grin behind his fist.

  Maggie’s expression passed through astonishment and horror to reluctant admiration. ‘You’d do that for me?’

  ‘Well, and for me, too.’

  Bea knew she’d sound prissy but felt she had to say it. ‘You do know that using someone else’s credit details is wrong, don’t you, Oliver?’

  He met her eyes steadily. ‘What would you have done, Mrs Abbot?’

  ‘Found someone to get your certificates from your father, I suppose. If you’d gone to your friend’s father, wouldn’t he have helped you?’

  ‘Yes, he might. But I’d have had to say what I’d found on Dad’s computer, and he might or might not want to believe me. If he did believe me, he’d have to do something about it, wouldn’t he, because he’s on the board of governors for the school. Then Dad would lose his job. I don’t care about him, but I do care about Mum, even though she’s a bit of an idiot sometimes. She’d have to divorce him, wouldn’t she? They’d lose their house and
then what would Mum do? And if my friend heard that I was supposed to be into porn, he probably wouldn’t speak to me, anyway.’

  ‘No, I see that. You haven’t tried to buy things on anybody else’s account, have you?’

  Oliver shook his head. ‘You mean on Mr Abbot’s account? No, I wouldn’t. Even though I don’t think he treated Mrs Payne right.’

  Piers pushed his plate forward for second helpings. ‘Eat up, lad. What you did was wrong, of course. But, well, perhaps Mrs Abbot can get you those all-important certificates in due course. If she can’t, then I will. Right?’

  Oliver gave Piers a look of such gratitude that Bea was taken aback. He’d never earned that look from his own son. She wasn’t sure that Piers even liked Max. Perhaps that was the key to it, that he liked Oliver and would put himself out for him? For a lad who ought by rights to be handed over to the police for retribution? Well, if not for retribution, he ought perhaps to be given a caution. No, he didn’t deserve to be given a police record for what he’d done. Or did he?

  She was too tired to think straight, and it was only half past two in the afternoon.

  She said, ‘Well, I’m glad that’s straightened out. I don’t know about you lot, but I’m bushed. I’m going up to my room to have a little rest. After that, we’ll have a chat about what we do next. Agreed?’

  She didn’t wait for their agreement but set off up the stairs. At her age she oughtn’t to be needing a nap after lunch. But there it was. She shucked off her outer clothes and her shoes, slid under the duvet, wriggled about a bit, and tried to drift away from all her problems.

  She woke slowly. Bars of sunlight were finding their way through the window and making patterns on the carpet. There was a scatter of videos on the floor beside the collapsed cardboard box. She’d put them back later.

  The room was warm. High summer in London can be rather too hot for comfort. She found a white cotton top and chinos that didn’t look too creased, made a face at herself in the mirror, tidied her make-up and went down the stairs slowly. She didn’t feel particularly refreshed by her nap.

  The house was very quiet. Had she heard Maggie’s high-pitched laugh while she was dragging herself back to consciousness? She rather thought the phone had rung a couple of times. Well, if it had, Maggie would have dealt with it. She stifled a grin, thinking of the cleaning woman trying to get into the House of Commons to see Max. What a laugh! The woman must be off her rocker.