Dying for Millions

by Judith Cutler

  He bent to pick up the glass, gathering the shards with his left hand and dropping them into his right.

  ‘Andy – there’s something else. Someone else knows, don’t they? The person who’s trying to kill you?’

  ‘Kill someone for doing good? Surely not –! Oh!’ It was a cry of surprise, not pain; he looked at the blood welling up in his palm and held it out to me.

  It was easy after that. Straight into big-sister mode, shooing him into the kitchen and grabbing a wodge of kitchen towel.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing? Get some gloves on, woman!’ With his left hand he pushed me away.

  ‘What –?’

  ‘I said, put some gloves on. No holes in your washing up-gloves? Here!’

  ‘Andy – you haven’t—’

  ‘Of course I bloody haven’t! I had the test before – I mean, I wouldn’t put Ruth at risk, would I? But there’s all sorts of blood-borne diseases in the camps. I think there’s still some glass in there – have you got any tweezers?’

  He was downstairs, fully dressed and stirring the porridge, by the time I surfaced. He didn’t lift his eyes from the pan: that was the nearest I’d get to an apology. I reached for bowls and spoons.

  ‘No need. I’ve already laid the table.’ He reached out his arm to pull me in for a hug. ‘I’ve been out of order, kid, haven’t I? Not just last night, but all along.’ He kissed my hair. ‘Now, about your offer … Can you disguise things a bit? Muddy the waters so – you know, it isn’t just me, but it’s the guy who helped, and the Foundation, and—’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’ When and how?

  ‘No risks?’

  What the hell did he think I’d be doing, if not taking risks? ‘No risks.’

  He gave the porridge a final stir. ‘Right, that’s ready. Breakfast is served, ma’am.’

  I was impressed: he’d not only found placemats, he’d also put the Golden Syrup on a plate to catch the dribbles. I looked longingly at it, picked up the brown sugar and a tiny spoon, but finally cast calorific caution to the winds.

  While he ate, he inspected the photographs: the river; the kids; the railway viaduct, Carl looking miserable; the cottages. ‘Good God. That was where some of Freya’s relations used to live.’

  ‘Not really!’ I was on my feet, looking over his shoulder.

  ‘See there – they used to have a swing from that tree. There’s the rope.’

  ‘Tell me about her relatives,’ I said, very quietly putting down my porridge spoon.

  ‘It was her father’s side, I think. Cousins … No, her mother’s. Must have been, because they had a different surname from Freya. Unusual. God knows what it was. Anyway, there was a family of them. The dad was in jail more than he was out of it because he couldn’t keep his hands off other people’s game – silly sod. The mother, she was a nice little thing, ever so tiny. You’d never have expected her to produce all those children. Five or six. Goodness knows when they were together long enough to beget them, what with his nocturnal activities and his time in jug. Tea?’

  ‘In a minute. Tell me about the children.’ I tried to sound casual: the more relaxed he was, the more likely to creep up on long-lost memories.

  ‘Well, there were four girls. One was a bit simple – special needs, I suppose you’d call it these days. That was – God! – Catriona. Then there was Fenella. And Eleanor. She went off for nurse training but hurt her back and had to give up. The youngest was Genevora. Goodness knows where they got all those names from. They weren’t really the fanciful type.’

  ‘What about the boys?’

  ‘Simon – they were spared the fancy nomenclature – how’s that for a good bit of vocab, oh English teacher?’

  ‘Very impressive. Tell me about Simon.’

  ‘Went into forestry. There weren’t all that many jobs round there.’

  ‘And—?’

  ‘Can’t remember the name of the other one. He was only a kid. Pretty bright, as I recall. I remember he went to university – pride and joy of the family!’

  Under the table I dug my fingers into my palms. Sound casual! ‘What did he study?’

  He shook his head. ‘He dropped out anyway, I seem to recall. Craig! That was it! But he hated his name – used some nickname.’ He ran his spoon one last time round the dish. ‘Why all this interest, anyway?’

  I pointed to an obscure plant in the corner of one of the photos. ‘Because that, Andy, is winter hellebore.’

  There was no getting away from it. I had to set out for work, and the chances were I’d be late. All I could do was phone Ian, and equip Andy with that list of roadies he’d so studiously ignored, in the hope that he’d pick out a name – surname, nickname, whatever – that would jog his memory. Then the police could take over. No more nasty hints; no more crimes.

  At least we wouldn’t be on the receiving end. I’d be at the committing end, wouldn’t I? Sooner or later, I had to talk my way into the airport, talk Gurjit out of acting as I’d advised her to act only days before, and undo all her good work. Oh, and not be detected in the doing.

  I was just off to my first class when the phone on my desk started ringing. Obeying an imperative I always resented but was powerless to resist, I picked it up.

  ‘Miss Rivers’ secretary, if you please.’

  Me? A secretary? A photocopy card would be a start.

  ‘This is Sophie Rivers. How can I help?’

  ‘Ah, I didn’t expect to reach you so easily, my dear Miss Rivers. Now, we’ve had a spot of bother here. I’ve found that Gurjit has got behind in her college studies and I will no longer be letting her work at the airport.’

  ‘Surely, Mr Bansal – all her lecturers said—’

  ‘My word is final. She must get those grades. She missed handing in the last Law assignment, and that put the tin lid on it. I would be grateful if you could notify the appropriate authorities. Good day to you, Miss Rivers.’

  ‘Mr Bansal! Mr Bansal? Shit!’

  The bastard! How dare he mess around with the poor kid’s life? Didn’t she deserve a chance to run it herself? I would have loved to pick up the phone and tell him precisely what I thought of him, but even as I fulminated I realised that I might turn the situation to my – or at least, to Andy’s – advantage. But it was still dangerous.

  My plan was to go to the first part of the choir’s rehearsal as usual, then feign a headache and ostensibly return home. In fact, I’d go to the airport and, using the passwords I remembered, get into the computer system. If anyone challenged me, I now had an excuse: I’d promised Gurjit that I’d tidy things up for her. Yes, I liked that. And tidying was precisely what I’d be doing. So I taught my way efficiently through the day, only breaking off to phone Andy to check on his progress.

  ‘Malpass,’ he said, promptly and carelessly. There was no evidence that we had anyone listening in, but I was getting paranoid.

  ‘Don’t tell me any more. Get Ian to come and collect you, OK? Don’t say anything over the phone.’

  I decided to take no chances. I phoned Ian myself. Surely no one’d bother to tap all William Murdock’s calls, and surely to goodness a police line wouldn’t have eavesdroppers …

  ‘There’s a name on a list of the roadies who worked on his show that Andy knows. Malpass. And this guy just happens to have lived in a house with winter hellebore growing in the garden. From winter hellebore you get—’

  ‘Helleborin! Well done, Sophie. Right, I’ll collect young Andy and see if we can dig up any motive. Any ideas?’

  ‘Well, Andy married this man’s cousin, and she subsequently died. But other than that – none.’

  ‘Weird. Well, leave it to me. And remember we’ve got that wine-tasting tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow! Ian, I—’

  ‘Just mind you don’t get a cold. OK?’

  I’d rarely known Ian so affable. It made my plans for the evening seem even more impossible.

  We were trying to convince our music director that we simply
couldn’t sustain his tempi when someone’s mobile phone beeped. The miscreant switched it off, blushing, but then retreated to the loo: he came back dramatically waving his arms.

  Naturally our attention switched from the conductor.

  ‘You should see it outside!’ he yelled. ‘And there’s a severe weather warning from the police. They’re expecting a foot of snow! They’re stopping the buses at nine o’clock.’

  It was fortunate we had no important concert the following day: as one person we got to our feet and prepared to leave. Oh, yes – me too. I was desperate to retreat to safety.

  But I had that job to do first. Better grit my teeth and get on with it.

  Gritting the roads would have been more apposite. The Renault was a sure-footed little car, but it didn’t like the side-road I was parked on. It took ages to find a suitable rut for it, and then it was buffeted by the wind so hard I was constantly afraid of losing control. I sat in a mini-jam waiting to get on to the main road and thought.

  It was a good job I’d always followed the dictum that there is more than one way of skinning a cat. On my desk at home, I had a modem: I also knew the access password. Right. Home, and hack from there. It was infinitely safer. I could alter the paper records on Monday, going in at a time when the airport staff would be expecting Gurjit and say I’d come to finish off her loose ends. It wouldn’t take very long.

  A set of tracks led away from my front door. Bad weather for burglars, this. They went straight across to a rectangle of thinner snow in which I parked my car. Or did they? There seemed to be a confusion of prints from the two houses opposite. Odd to be looking at a new house in this weather: the For Sale sign had been up long enough in more clement conditions without exciting any interest. And the people directly opposite me – a couple ten years younger than Aggie but with a tenth of her pzazz – had suddenly started to have a lot of visitors: their family developing pre-Will consciences, perhaps.

  Andy had locked the door from the inside – it was unnerving to have him develop common-sense at this stage. So I unlocked both the Chubb and the Yale, and, kicking the snow back off the step, picked my way inside, knowing conclusively as I did so that my waterproof boots were leaking.

  ‘Can I watch you?’ Andy asked as I outlined my plans. He was making more soup and promising to do wonderful things with pasta: he must be very penitent indeed. When he revealed the source of a rich fruity smell was pears baking in red wine, it was clear he was seeking absolution, pure and simple.

  Which was one thing I couldn’t give him. I’d seen hacking done, but had never done it myself; and even if I cleared the relevant bits, a real expert would be able to tell what I’d taken from the hard disk. It all depended how closely they looked.

  ‘Sophie? I said—’

  I shook my head. ‘Hacking’s not a spectator sport. Not the way I do it.’ The way I do it! As if I made a hobby of it! ‘It’s going to be slow and very boring, and I may not succeed at all. By the way,’ I added, trying to take my mind off the whole affair, ‘who was your visitor?’

  ‘Griff.’

  ‘Where the hell’s he been all this time? Shouldn’t someone have been looking out for you?’

  ‘You’ve only just got round to asking? Call yourself my minder?’

  ‘I don’t. So where’s he been?’

  ‘The police relieved him of his duties for a bit. They thought he might interfere with their surveillance. Probably why I’ve escaped unscathed so far. Chummie must have seen them around, been scared off. Griff came to give me a letter from Ruth.’ He patted it where it lay on the table: it was very long.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Fine! Voice back to normal. She reckons it was caused by the herb teas she’s been drinking – some allergy. I don’t see it myself. You can’t go wrong with what’s organic and natural.’

  ‘You can be allergic to the most innocuous things in nature – dogs and cats, not to mention all those nice country flowers. Hellebore’s a flower, come to think of it … Andy,’ I said, pushing myself from the table, ‘I’ll eat later. I’m off upstairs now, to my study.’

  ‘You mean that little box room? You usually work down here.’

  ‘I’ve got the printer and modem up there. Now, I mustn’t be interrupted. Tell anyone who should phone I’m flat out with a migraine – OK?’

  It was better not to allow him time to reply, so I strode out briskly, ran up the stairs, and closed the door.

  I’d expected myself to be sick with apprehension. To fumble hopelessly. I’d even written down the password, lest I forget it at the psychological moment. But I was so calm I frightened myself. And because I was calm, it was easy. Mechanical. If I ever left William Murdock, perhaps I could write a Hackers’ Handbook. I erased the offending lines and closed down the system: whoever now tried to print from them would get the same, innocuous invoices. Standing and stretching – perhaps it had generated more tension than I’d realised – it occurred to me that since I knew who the continental suppliers were, I could have a go at rewriting their files too. Retrieving all Gurjit’s papers from my little safe, I settled down for a more earnest hack. But my concentration wasn’t such that I could ignore the front doorbell followed by a man’s voice directly under my feet.

  Chris! What the hell was he doing at this hour, and in this weather? There was no time to get the paperwork back into the safe – he’d see me scuttling along the landing – so I shoved it into my marking file. Better get out of the system quickly. Come on, come on …

  Why the hell wasn’t Andy keeping him downstairs? Shit! But the screen was just asking if I’d finished when he burst in.

  No, he didn’t burst. Not Chris. A more stately entrance you couldn’t have imagined. But he’d register the computer screen fading, and the fact that I was using the modem: he couldn’t fail to. And there was nervous edge to my voice he’d pick up, for all my striving to be relaxed.

  ‘Not interrupting anything?’ he asked.

  ‘Just saving something,’ I said, sunny with innocence. And truth. ‘But I’ve finished now.’ I stood, and stepped towards him and the door; the room was so narrow he had no option but to back out. ‘What brings you here on a night like this?’ I asked, trying to sound pleased.

  ‘The night like this. My central-heating’s packed up, I’ve got a bagful of washing and have you eaten? Something smells good.’

  Fortunate, really. Or he might have smelt a rat.

  I was sure he had, come to think of it. Throughout the meal, he kept looking at me when he thought I wouldn’t notice; and afterwards, from the speed Andy checkmated him, his mind couldn’t have been on the chessboard. What had he seen? At least I had had a chance to conceal the papers again when I went to the loo. But had Andy said anything to make him suspicious? He was only a musician, not an actor, after all. I was tense and trembling enough to drop the soap powder all over the floor, and I knew I was smiling too much. Andy clearly wanted to catch my eye; I would have loved the chance to reassure him about the hack – not to mention asking what he’d said to Chris, or Chris to him. But, despite getting outside three glasses of Merlot, Chris didn’t need the lavatory until we all stood to go to bed.

  Then I discovered another thing about breaking the law: it gives you hang-ups about bonking a policeman who trusts you. This time it was I who turned a cold back.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  For once the classic inability of a central-heating engineer to predict anything approaching an exact time of arrival was a bonus: it got Chris out of my hair soon after eight. Presumably he had reckoned it would be too cold for him back home to iron his shirts: I could think of no other explanation for their continued presence in my kitchen. Naturally, I ignored them; I had work to do. As I plodded upstairs, however, it struck me that a pile of newly-ironed shirts would offer an exquisite hint of an alibi, a fact which struck Andy less hard than I’d have liked. However, eventually he admitted that ironing had been one of the skills I’d inculcated into him yea
rs ago, and he got stuck in, to the accompaniment of Radio Three.

  As I fished the papers out of the safe yet again, I had sudden doubts. Was this urge to conceal the material going to betray me? Wouldn’t the papers be safer tucked in with my marking? But, rationally, who was going to check up anyway? No one, not if I did my job properly.

  Germany turned out to be relatively easy; I emerged stiff but triumphant.

  ‘There! That’s that job jobbed,’ I said.

  ‘You look knackered. I’ll massage your shoulders as soon as you’ve had your lunch.’

  ‘Lunch?’

  ‘Well, it is nearly two. What’ll you have?’

  ‘Two!’ Relatively easy, was it? When was I going to find time to deal with Switzerland? In the meantime, trying to work out what would be a tasty lunch without any onion or garlic – bearing in mind my evening activities – I headed back upstairs again to hide those papers.

  I was too stiff to do any more this afternoon. In fact, despite my leaking boots, making a snowman seemed the ideal occupation. Chris, returning to take Andy and me to the wine-tasting, groped for adequate words to describe our creation – or perhaps he simply found the whole occupation simply beyond his comprehension. At last Andy found a way of making him loosen up. He pelted him with snowballs.

  We ought to have won, Ian and I. It was my fault we didn’t. I kept on forgetting names of the most familiar grapes.

  ‘Never mind! Third’s better than nothing,’ said Ian gamely.

  ‘Not when bloody Andy comes in first.’ I did not add that having Stephenson come in first with him was even more galling. Presumably it had something to do with the discovery of Malpass’s name on that list. And come to think of it, what was she doing sloshing umpteen varieties of wine round her mouth when she and her team should be out locating murder suspects? And, moreover, why, when Chris went to give her a fraternal cheekbuss, did she turn so she took it on the mouth?

  I wish I was a better loser.

  Sunday started – surprisingly – with a bonk. It continued with breakfast and thence to Chris’s for lunch. I predicted, rightly, that he and Andy would lock horns over the chessboard, and had taken my marking and preparation: Joyce, mostly, and The Dead. Chris took time off to congratulate me on the excellence of my ironing; I could see the effort it took Andy not to claim the praise for himself. The afternoon drifted into evening, with Chris resolving to stay over till the following morning, and suggesting I made up the spare bed for Andy: obliging of him. And neither Andy nor I could think of a reason not to. Perhaps it was just as well: as bonks went, it was the most adventurous and satisfying I’d ever had with Chris. He even made sure the duvet was tucked round me when he set off at five.