Magda tasted the wine. It seemed fine to her. 'How did you know my husband?' she said.
Fisher Boyd took off his overcoat and folded it carefully over the back of a chair. Magda hated those sharp chalk-stripe suits with the double vents and slanted pockets that she only ever saw on the backs of the kind of men that Philip described as 'necessary evils' in the world he moved in. Because of his company's specialised role as confidential printers, he had to work with a wide range of people involved in making and taking money. 'From borderline spivs to the grandees of private banking,' he'd once said, adding, 'And sometimes the extremes are closer than you might think.' She was pretty sure which end of the spectrum Nigel Fisher Boyd tended towards.
'Some of my clients need very high-quality confidential printing. Share certificates, bonds, that sort of thing. That's how we met.'
It was plausible. But nothing that couldn't be cobbled together from reading the trial reports. 'So if you've got something for me, why has it taken you this long to bring it to me?'
Fisher Boyd gave her a pitying look. 'It seemed sensible to wait until after the trial. So there could be no possibility of you perjuring yourself.'
'Perjuring myself?' Outrage battled bewilderment and won. 'How dare you suggest I would lie in the witness box!'
He flashed a quick, sharp-toothed smile. 'Precisely as I feared. You're much too honest a person not to have told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in court. And that would have been awkward for all of us.'
'I don't like the sound of this. What's all this about?' Magda gripped the stem of her glass tightly, feeling out of her depth.
Fisher Boyd snapped open his briefcase and took out a slim leather folder the size of a hardback novel. He pushed it across to her. 'Go on, open it,' he said when she just sat there looking at it with foreboding.
Magda opened the flap and looked inside. There were a few sheets of heavy linen paper but she couldn't see what was written on them. She pulled them clear and stared at the fine engraving, uncomprehending. The figure of 200,000 jumped out at her. There were four of them, each with the same amount embossed on them. 'I don't understand,' she said.
'They're bearer bonds,' he said. 'Whoever holds them owns them. They're not registered in anyone's name. It's like having the money in your hand without the inconvenience of walking round with a suitcase full of fifty-pound notes.'
'Why are you showing these to me? Where have they come from?'
'Didn't Phil tell you about them?' He looked faintly amused.
'No. I have no idea where this money has come from. His estate's been settled. Everything's accounted for. There's no missing eight hundred thousand euros.' She slipped the bonds back in the wallet and closed the flap as if that would somehow make it all go away.
Fisher Boyd shook his head, his mouth a tight, twisted line. 'Just as well I'm not a thief, then. I could have pocketed the lot and you'd have been none the wiser. Luckily for you, I don't believe in cheating my clients.'
'Look, you're going to have to explain this to me,' Magda said. 'I don't understand any of this.'
'It's quite simple. The motive that Paul Barker and Joanna Sanderson had for killing Phil was insider trading, right?'
'Yes. He was going to report them to the police and the FSA. They were finished. They'd go to jail.'
Fisher Boyd flashed his scary smile again. 'Well done, my dear. And how do you suppose Phil worked out what they were up to?'
'He found out they were spending far too much money and he discovered they were insider trading.'
'And how did he know what to look for?'
Magda frowned. 'I don't know. He just knew how the financial world worked, I suppose.'
Fisher Boyd's expression was pitying. 'He knew because he was doing it himself. This' — he tapped the wallet — 'is the laundered proceeds.' He raised his glass in a toast to the wallet, draining it and refilling it from the sweating bottle.
Magda felt her chest constrict with shock. What this man was saying was so at odds with her view of Philip that she couldn't make sense of it. 'Philip wouldn't do that,' she said.
'My dear, he not only would, he did. Why else would I be handing you a small fortune in bearer bonds?'
'But why would he inform on Paul and Joanna if he was doing the same thing?'
He shrugged. 'I wondered that too. My only conclusion was that they were doing it so badly that he was afraid they'd be unmasked and his own little house of cards would be pulled down with them. At least this way he was in control of things. He was prepared for the investigation.' He patted the wallet. 'And the proof of the pudding is in here. The investigators didn't find a trace of what he'd been up to.'
'I can't take this in,' Magda said.
'I know. It's a lot of money to fall into your lap,' he said, misunderstanding.
'I can't believe Philip did this.'
'He was trying to take care of you. As a good husband should.'
It was as if they were speaking different languages. Magda had never wanted Jay by her side more than she did right then. Jay was solid ground. And Magda needed something in her life to be solid ground. Her parents had failed her, and now it seemed her husband had done the same. 'I don't know what to do with this,' she said.
Still at cross-purposes, Fisher Boyd responded briskly. 'You'll need to deal with a private bank. Much easier than trying to get someone at your local branch to understand what this is, never mind what to do with it. I'll give you some covering documentation about it being a life insurance payout to keep you straight with the taxman. Perfect way to clean it up.'
'That doesn't seem very honest. I thought you said you weren't a crook? That sounds pretty crooked to me.'
A flicker of annoyance crossed Fisher Boyd's face. 'I said I wasn't a thief. I provide a service. I don't ask why my clients need this service, and I don't cheat them. Frankly, that's more than one can say for an awful lot of people in this business.'
'I can't make sense of any of this,' Magda said.
'Just think of it as a nice little nest egg,' Fisher Boyd said. He drank some more wine, smacking his lips at its dryness. 'You're a very lucky lady.' He reached for his coat and stood up. 'I'll send you that bogus insurance stuff in the post. You've nothing to worry about, I've done this sort of thing before and nobody's ever batted an eyelid.' He slipped into his coat with a flash of scarlet lining then picked up his umbrella and briefcase. 'Should you ever need my services, don't hesitate to call.' He tipped an imaginary hat to her. 'A pleasure to meet you.'
Dazed, Magda barely noticed him leave. She sat for a long time staring at the leather wallet. Part of her wanted to tear the bonds into small pieces and flush them down the toilet. But that wouldn't erase the memory of their existence. That wouldn't diminish the betrayal. Destroying them couldn't restore the image she'd always held of Philip as an honest, decent man.
And then there were the precepts dinned into her as a child. 'Waste not, want not.' 'There are poor children who would be grateful for what you take for granted.' She could hear her mother's voice in the back of her mind saying, 'Just think of the good you could do with it, honey.'
Magda picked up the wallet and thrust it into her handbag. For now, at least, she would hang on to it. She pushed her wine glass away and got up to leave. She was halfway to the door before the barmaid called her back. 'You need to settle up,' the woman said. 'A bottle of Sancerre.' Somehow, Magda wasn't entirely surprised.
With a wry smile, she paid for the wine. It was good to be reminded there was no such thing as a free lunch.
18
Wednesday
Unlike most cops, Nick Nicolaides never minded days when he was due to give evidence in court. Most of his colleagues liked activity. Sitting around for hours waiting to be called to the witness stand drove them mad with boredom. Nick had never had any problem with occupying his mind. Music in his ears, a book in his hand, and he was happy. The iPhone had been a glorious addition to his life. He could com
pose music, he could surf the web, he could read, he could play games. If he felt like it, he could even download files from the office and catch up on his report reading.
Or, like today, he could pursue his own investigations without anybody looking over his shoulder and wondering why in God's name he was Googling Swedish newspapers when he was supposed to be smashing an international child-trafficking ring. Because here, today, all he was supposed to do was wait till he was called into court and then respond to questions he already knew the answers to.
After he'd spoken to Charlie, Nick had put Jay Macallan Stewart to the back of his mind and concentrated on the operation his team were working on. But when he fell into bed, exhausted by a day of comparing CCTV images against their databank of known traffickers and pimps, his mind had drifted back to their earlier conversation. He'd gone to sleep thinking about what Charlie had told him and what information they needed to gather. And in the morning, staring at his reflection in the mirror as he shaved, he'd realised he was looking at the Ulf Ingemarsson case from the wrong end of the telescope.
'Alibi,' he muttered. That was the place to start. The only problem was how to nail down what Jay Macallan Stewart was doing during a particular week in 2004. Nobody could be expected to remember what they were doing six years ago.
'But their staff might.' He rinsed his face in the basin and gave himself a confident wink. Now all he had to do was figure out an approach.
Meanwhile, he could use the waiting time to see what he could find out about Ulf Ingemarsson. The translate function Google offered sometimes provoked more hilarity than clarity, but it was good enough to cope with press articles. The initial news stories — 'Swedish man murdered in Spain' — gave the usual spin of outrage. Bloodthirsty foreign brigands, incompetent foreign police, the risks of Abroad to decent Swedes. Behind the headlines, a story of a man holidaying in an isolated mountain villa, confronting burglars. A scuffle, a knife. A corpse lying on the floor for days, until the next visit from the cleaning company.
Then the counter-attack. Ingemarsson's girlfriend, a primary school teacher called Liv Aronsson, claimed this had been no ordinary burglary. As well as the obvious valuables, the thieves had stolen Ingemarsson's papers, which she insisted were meaningless and worthless to anyone other than a handful of web developers. She talked about his plans for an individually tailored travel guide system and revealed that he had been in talks with a British software developer, but the discussions had broken down over the issue of how the profits should be split. Her story was covered briefly in a couple of newspapers and one news magazine wrote a longer feature. Then the story died for a while.
When Jay Macallan Stewart launched 24/7, Liv Aronsson's story surfaced again on a couple of Swedish internet sites. Nothing was said to link Ingemarsson directly with 24/7, but it was there between the lines for anyone savvy enough. Again, the Spanish police were criticised for their refusal to consider this was more than a simple burglary, and Aronsson hinted that she believed her partner might have been killed for his idea.
Definitely worth talking to, Nick thought. He emailed the journalist who had written the article, asking for contact details for Aronsson. It's possible there may be a connection between Ulf Ingemarsson's death and a cold case I am investigating, he wrote. It seems that Liv Aronsson may have some helpful information. Either it would work or it wouldn't. In the UK, journalists didn't generally want to hand information over to the police. Maybe it would be easier in Sweden.
Now he'd read the Swedish coverage, Nick was even less keen to call the Spanish police. He didn't suppose there was much difference between them and his own colleagues when it came to being slagged off in the press, especially the foreign press. Lazy journalism was a great shield to hide behind when you knew you hadn't covered yourselves in glory. He'd have been very surprised if the Spanish cops were too dim to understand the significance of the stolen papers. And they would have been under pressure from their foreign ministry to solve the murder of a Swede. Bad for business, apart from anything else. If the cops had failed, he reckoned it wouldn't have been for lack of trying. And they wouldn't be thrilled by some Brit sticking his nose in and suggesting they weren't up to the job.
The option was taken from him by the arrival of the court usher, calling him to the witness box. To his surprise, Nick's testimony was over and done with by the time the court rose for lunch. Nobody would be expecting him back at base till late afternoon. If Jay was out of her office, he could make some useful progress without anyone noticing. He felt no guilt about sneaking off; in any given week, he did hours of unpaid overtime. Doing a little work on his own account was hardly stealing time from his employer.
Nick pulled up Twitter on his phone and typed 'Jay Macallan Stewart' into the search box. And there, posted two hours before, was a tweet from the woman herself: @ prosciutto tasting, Bologna. Will post best on 24/7 site l8r. If she'd been in Bologna two hours ago, she wasn't going to be in her office off the Brompton Road in the time it would take him to get there. As the thought struck him, he fired off a text passing on the information to Charlie. She'd wanted to talk to Magda without Jay being around. This could be her perfect opportunity.
The 24/7 offices occupied the upper floors of a double-fronted brick building. The entrance was a discreet doorway next to the designer handbag shop on the ground floor. Nick had read somewhere that the average woman spends PS4000 in her lifetime on handbags. Looking in the shop window as he waited for someone to answer the intercom, it was easy to see how.
His photo ID held up to the security camera was enough to have him buzzed in. The stairwell was clean and fresh, the carpet recently vacuumed and the walls bright with glamorous photographs of European cities. The reception office was just as smart — decent furniture, a proper coffee machine and plenty of space. Nick was impressed. He'd been behind the scenes of too many businesses that didn't seem to care about the working environment of their staff. The Metropolitan Police could learn something from Jay Stewart, he thought.
The woman behind the desk fit the room. She was beautifully groomed without fussiness. Nick put her at a good-looking thirty-something. Her immaculate white shirt amazed him. He could never manage to look that perfect, not even when he sent his shirts to the ironing service. He gave her his best smile, holding his ID up beside his face. 'Detective Sergeant Nick Nicolaides,' he said.
She smiled, but Nick could see she was anxious. That didn't mean anything. Most innocent people were unnerved by the presence of a policeman they hadn't actually summoned. 'Hi,' she said. 'I'm Lauren Archer. Is there a problem? How can I help you?'
Conscious that he was looming over her, Nick perched on the edge of a table set against the wall. 'It's OK, I've not come to arrest anyone, I promise you. This is a bit of a long shot,' he said, giving her a wry smile that invited complicity. 'We're investigating a cold case.'
Lauren nodded, still looking uncertain. 'Yes?'
'It goes back to 2004 but we've got fresh evidence analysis that has pointed us to a new suspect,' Nick lied fluently. 'The problem is, the guy we're looking at is claiming he has an alibi.'
Lauren frowned. 'How can that have anything to do with us? 24/7 wasn't even up and running then.'
'No, but as I understand it, the business was in the development stages. We understand that Ms Macallan Stewart wasn't working alone?'
Lauren smiled. 'That's right. Anne, her PA, has been with her since doitnow.com.' She frowned again. 'But what's that got to do with your case?'
Nick sighed. 'It's all a little bit complicated. We can't be precise about when the crime occurred. It could have taken place any time in the course of a particular week. And the man in question claims he spent that week doing work experience with Ms Macallan Stewart's company. That he was actually shadowing her for most of the time.'
Lauren's eyebrows shot up. 'That doesn't sound like Jay,' she said. 'She hates people looking over her shoulder.'
'You see? Already you're being helpfu
l. I wonder — do you think Anne would have a record of what Jay was actually doing on the week in question? An old diary or something?'
'Hang on a minute, I'll get her to come through.' Lauren picked up the phone. 'Anne? I've got a police officer here, he's got a query relating to Jay's schedule… No, not this week. A while back. Can you come through?' She replaced the phone. This time her smile was wholehearted, the look of a woman who has passed the baton to the next person in the team.
A door behind Nick opened and a deep voice said, 'I'm Anne Perkins. And you are?'
Nick stood up straight and introduced himself again, submitting his ID for scrutiny. Anne Perkins could have been any age between forty and sixty. Her thick salt and pepper hair was cut and styled in fashionable disarray, her glasses were on the cutting edge of chic and she wore a tight-fitting capsleeved T-shirt and cropped cargo pants that revealed tanned limbs and toned muscles. She looked like someone who cycled to work, Nick thought. And without getting out of breath. 'Thank you, Sergeant,' she said, handing back his ID. 'How can I help you?'
Nick repeated his story. Anne Perkins listened carefully, her head cocked to one side, a line of concentration between her brows. 'Your man's a liar,' she said. 'We have given people internships and work experience opportunities in the past, but never at the level of shadowing our chief executive. We'd never take that degree of risk in terms of corporate confidentiality. ' She half-turned, as if her saying her piece should mark the end of the matter.
'Thank you,' Nick said. 'Please don't take this the wrong way, but I can't just accept the uncorroborated word of one person on a matter like this.' He gave an apologetic shrug. 'Rules of evidence, and all that. I'm sure you appreciate my problem.'
She looked shocked. Nick imagined she wasn't accustomed to her position being contradicted. He hoped he hadn't overplayed his hand. 'I thought our legal system thrived on the word of one person against another?' she said coolly.
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