Shut Eye

by Adam Baron

  Ally made me a sandwich which I ate quickly, washing it down with more coffee. I walked down to the forecourt and waited for the taxi by the front gate. The taxi took me down past Regent’s Park and along the Marylebone Road before eventually pulling into Leinster Mews. When I got out to pay him the driver couldn’t help himself.

  ‘That’s some shiner, mate.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Don’t tell me; I should see the other guy, right?’ He laughed.

  ‘If you do,’ I said, ‘call the police. He’s a serial killer.’

  * * *

  The cab pulled off and I walked down into the small street. I could see Lloyd, kissing Charlotte goodbye, getting into his car. The day was surprisingly warm for mid November. I saw that it had rained last night. Small stones gave a little under the soles of my boots and a freshness blew across from the park.

  Before my hand could reach the door knocker of number 8, the door opened to reveal Charlotte Morgan. She was standing in a pair of jeans and a fitted black sweater which looked to be cashmere. She didn’t have any make-up on and the difference between the way she looked now and the way she had before, in Agnieska’s, was startling. She didn’t look any worse, just different. She reminded me of Helen Mirren when she’s playing a housewife rather than a successful career woman. She did look older though, and tired.

  ‘Mr Rucker,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming.’

  Charlotte Morgan showed me into the small kitchen and invited me to sit at the table while she poured us both some coffee. I took a sip and waited as she took a chair herself. She studied my face.

  ‘It wasn’t the police?’ she asked. ‘Who did that?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not them.’

  ‘They were here.’

  ‘I imagined they would be.’

  ‘They showed me a picture of you. I told them that you had been to see me. They wanted to know if I had ever seen you before but I said that I hadn’t. They wanted to know what we talked about.’

  Charlotte looked nervous.

  ‘Did you tell them?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I didn’t. Not everything, no.’

  She took a sip from her coffee and then looked down into the steam. I watched her and I remembered watching her before, in the other room. But this time she wasn’t crying. There was a cast to her face which told me that whatever pain she felt was now enclosed within herself, locked up well away from the surface. She looked thoughtful and determined. Her look was a more effective cover than any amount of make-up.

  Eventually, a bitter smile broke into her features and she glanced up at me.

  ‘I want to thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Thank me?’

  ‘For not telling the police. I thought you had when they phoned yesterday. I thought that’s what they wanted. But it wasn’t.’

  ‘I still might have to tell them. I probably will.’

  Charlotte Morgan nodded.

  ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘But it doesn’t matter now. I might even tell them myself.’

  Charlotte put her cup down and leant forward on her elbows. Her eyes were looking at me but they were focused on her own thoughts. Luke had once told me of an acting exercise where you have to split your level of awareness into different layers: the distance, the immediate surroundings and then to a place no further than your own mind. That’s where Charlotte Morgan was now.

  ‘I saw Graham last night.’

  I’d guessed this was coming.

  ‘After the police were here. I’d been trying to see him for days but he was always too busy or something just came up. I knew what was going on but I wouldn’t let myself believe it.’

  I waited. I think she wanted me to say it. ‘And he ended your relationship?’

  ‘He said that it was too complicated, that things had changed. He said his wife was ill. He said all kinds of things. I didn’t really listen to him. I didn’t respond very well, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. It hasn’t been easy for you.’

  ‘Yes it has!’ I was surprised by the ferocity of Charlotte’s denial. ’It has been so easy for me. I wasn’t killed. I didn’t have a wife who was being unfaithful, unfaithful with a worthless bastard. I didn’t have a wife who went to her lover the night she found her husband’s body.’

  Charlotte’s focus had changed. It was levelled directly at me now. She finished off her thought: ’I didn’t have a wife who was cold, who drove him to try and get some affection somewhere else.’

  I let Charlotte take hold of herself. There was no point contradicting her. She ran her hands back through her hair and pushed them together in front of her like she was praying. Her hands touched her chin.

  ‘Charlotte,’ I said, ‘why are you telling me this?’

  She had regained her composure very quickly. I could see her censuring herself, reminding herself to keep it in. There was a notepad on the table beside her which she took hold of, and opened to the first page. She took a breath.

  ‘A few weeks ago,’ she said, looking down at the pad, ‘Graham wanted me to invest in a concern of his.’ My mind went to a computer screen in Company House. ‘It was called the Buckner Group. Basically it’s a vineyard in Sussex.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Well, I was very interested to begin with. I am a very wealthy woman as you may already know, and it sounded like a good idea. Last summer was the best one ever, and with new techniques and cross-bred varieties of grape, England is becoming a viable place to produce wine.’

  ‘Then why change your mind?’

  ‘Well, it was my accountant really. He was always against the idea. He told me that investing in a vineyard is the best way to become a millionaire; if you’re a billionaire.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘Yes. I brushed him off but he did some research which I hadn’t asked him to do. He was my father’s accountant. He’s my godfather actually.’

  ‘And he came up with some dubious figures.’

  ‘Yes. Not in the vineyard in question but in two others that the Buckner Group owned. They’re close to bankruptcy as a matter of fact. They owe over a hundred and fifty thousand to various people.’

  ‘And you told Lloyd this?’

  ‘Yes. He tried to whitewash me but I am a businesswoman after all. I told him that it just didn’t make sense. Not for either of us. It would just be throwing good money after bad.’

  ‘And did he get angry?’

  ‘Yes, he did. It was our first argument. That was three weeks ago. Since then his passion for me … well, shall we say it began to cool a little.’

  The bitter smile returned, but it was accompanied again by the look of determination. She shifted in her seat.

  ‘Last night,’ she continued, ‘when he finally ended it, it got me thinking. He obviously wanted my money all along but did he want it so badly that he had my husband killed to get it?’

  I looked hard at her. What was this, jealousy? Revenge?

  ‘Divorce would have done that though,’ I said. ‘He would still have got your money.’

  ‘Yes, he would, though it would have taken longer. Maybe too long, and he would have had to marry me. More importantly, there wouldn’t have been as much. I collected a substantial sum from the life assurance policy Edward had taken out.’

  ‘I see. He may also have figured that a recently bereaved widow would not be too financially aware, not too careful about investing her money with the lover who had promised to marry her.’

  ‘Yes,’ Charlotte Morgan agreed, ‘he may very well have thought that. When he put the idea to me I was initially thrilled. For some reason I thought it was his way of committing to me, as if we were joining up all of our eggs into the same basket. And if that was his thinking he was right. If Miles hadn’t been my accountant and willing to go the extra mile for me I’d have willingly given Graham my money. Even before we were married.’

  Charlotte sat back. She picked up her cup but didn’t drink out of it
, holding it in her left hand with her right hand supporting her elbow.

  ‘Do you want to tell this to the police?’

  ‘I don’t know. For some reason I wanted to tell you first. I want you to talk to him about it. I want you to let him know that I’m aware of what he was trying to do. Whether or not he killed my husband. Will you see him? I’d gladly pay you.’

  ‘I have a client. Besides, why should he meet me? He’s already warned me off once. What have I got on him?’

  Charlotte stood up without answering me and walked into the living room. When she came back into the kitchen there was a packet in her hand. She set it down in front of me. On the front of the packet were the words ‘QUICK PRINT’. I pulled the flap open and took out a set of negatives and seven black and white photographs.

  ‘I had them developed,’ Charlotte explained. ‘At a one-hour place. Risky, I know. But I was curious. Graham told me to throw the film away and I told him that I had but I didn’t. I didn’t have a photograph of him, you see. Not even one. I didn’t have one of us together. I know it’s not the usual shot of a happy couple, and I hated you for taking it, but I wanted to keep it.’

  I laid the pictures out on the table. Two were of the car, clearly showing the number plate, and one was of the front door of the house. Another showed Lloyd coming out of the door while another showed him in Charlotte’s arms, kissing her, his hand up to her forehead. There was no doubt as to who the man in the picture was, and there was no doubt as to the nature of the kiss. The final two photographs pictured Lloyd walking to his Jag and then getting into it.

  Charlotte put her finger on the picture of her and Lloyd.

  ‘It’s funny,’ she said, straightening it out towards her. ‘It’s such an intimate picture. It’s touching. It’s odd to think it was taken by a snoop. No offence meant.’

  ’None taken.’

  ‘It reminds me of that photo in Paris, you know, of the lovers.’

  ‘Robert Doisneau. It’s on every schoolgirl’s wall.’

  ‘That’s the one. “The Kiss”. Look at Graham,’ she said. ‘He looks like such a tender man. He looks so concerned, so involved.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘he does.’ She was right. It was a surprisingly good shot and it really did convey a youthful, uncomplicated passion.

  ‘To look at this,’ Charlotte said, her lip curling down in disgust, ‘and then to think of him. The way he has been on the phone, evasive, slippery, and the way he was last night. I was just trouble, an annoyance to be brushed aside without any fuss. You wouldn’t know it was the same man. Here he looks, well, he looks like he’s in love.’

  ‘The camera always lies,’ I said. ‘That Doisneau shot was a set-up.’

  I asked Charlotte if she wanted to go to the police. She said she didn’t know. She didn’t know if she could handle the publicity which we both knew would follow.

  ‘At work,’ she said, ‘it would be impossible. I’m in PR. It would hardly help the image of the company.’

  ‘Do you care?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I do know what the tabloids would do to me.’

  I could see the story myself. They would crucify her, or at least the ones she hadn’t sold her story to would, out of spite if nothing else. The Widow and the MP. Suspect MP and the pilot’s wife. If Morgan was in the frame someone would be bound to speculate about whether she was in there with him. If he was innocent the mud would still stick to her for her infidelity, and if he was guilty no one would ever be completely sure she wasn’t a part of it.

  ‘I think I want you to handle it. Please. If it was Graham who did it then I don’t care, I’ll tell it all. But if he didn’t I can’t see the point. Can you?’

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘Except the police will roast you if they find you’ve been holding out on this.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘And I won’t hold out, not if you think they’ll be able to do anything you can’t. But can you try first?’

  ’Yes,’ I said.

  I thought about showing Lloyd the photographs. I would enjoy that.

  ‘And, Mr Rucker,’ Charlotte said. ‘I really do want them to catch whoever killed Edward. You know that, don’t you?’

  I looked at her.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  I scooped up the photographs and handed Charlotte the negatives.

  ’Keep them somewhere safe,’ I said.

  She showed me to the door and walked me to the end of the mews, on to Leinster Road.

  ‘Charlotte,’ I said, as I held my arm out for a cab. I wanted to ask her the same question I’d asked Sir Peter Morgan about her. ‘Do you really think that Graham Lloyd can have had anything to do with what happened to Edward?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Charlotte replied. ‘It sounds so outlandish. But then if you’d told me two months ago that he was screwing me for my money and would drop me as soon as he either did or didn’t get it, I wouldn’t have believed that either.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Cleaver Square was quiet. I sat in the pub, by the window, with a pint of bitter which tasted so good I had to stop myself having another, which would have led me to needing to stop myself having another one after that. I was sitting in the corner, by the window, and I stayed there until I saw a blue Jaguar drive past slowly and then park. No other car followed it. I waited another five minutes, stood up and took my empty pint pot back to the bar. Then I walked out into the street.

  I’d called Graham Lloyd from the phone in the back of the pub. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t want to talk to me so I told his secretary I was a policeman and gave her an imaginary warrant card number which was in fact the phone number of a woman called Sue, which someone else had written in biro on a beer mat next to the phone. When he realized it was me on the line Lloyd was very unhappy indeed and proceeded to mouth off some legal-sounding invective until I told him about the photographs I had. He shut up. I informed him that I would be going to his house on Cleaver Square and would be there in about an hour. I was then going to show the photographs I had to whoever opened the door; whether that was Lloyd himself, or his wife, was his choice.

  I crossed the square thinking that, apart from its location, I couldn’t imagine many more elegant spots in the whole capital. I walked past a green door and then a red door and up to a yellow door. The door, when I approached it, looked to be newly painted and I wondered if actually it had been a red door originally but with Lloyd hoping to rise in the Party he’d thought it politic to change it. No. In that case it would have been blue. Daft theory.

  A young girl opened the door. With her Scandinavian accent and the fact that a small child was hammering both of his fists against her legs I assumed she was the au pair. Would she be interested in the photos? I didn’t get a chance to find out. Graham Lloyd appeared from a side room.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, moving his hands like a lollipop man to indicate which room I was to go into. ‘Please, this way.’

  The child, surprised and pleased to see his father at such an unusual time, made a beeline for the door in front of me.

  ‘Not now, Thomas. Go with Kristen.’ Kristen picked the boy up and he had just begun a sustained bout of wailing at the fact when Lloyd closed the door behind me, shutting the noise out.

  Lloyd made no comment about the state of my face. Maybe that’s why the kid had started crying; he thought I was Frankenstein’s monster come to kill his daddy.

  ‘Please, Mr Rucker. Have a seat.’

  We were in a large room which looked like the cross between an office and a study. It was all old-school Chesterfields but there were two computer terminals that I could see, as well as a fax machine and a small photocopier. I relaxed into an armchair. Lloyd hesitated above me. He seemed uncertain of what line to take, how to deal with me. He was friendly, but brusque at the same time.

  Looking at him, in his public schoolboy only ever been to one tailor in his life outfit, I couldn’t help wondering what it was that a stylish woman like Charl
otte Morgan had seen in him. There must have been something though, and it wasn’t necessarily on show for me to see. Maybe if he took his glasses off. His glasses were not stylish. He can’t have been high enough up yet to warrant the attention of the spin doctors.

  It was after 3 p.m. and a pale winter sun was sloping through the Georgian windows, resting on an empty wineglass like a broken yolk. Lloyd plunged his hands into his trouser pockets and rocked back on his heels.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘I am to understand that Charlotte kept the pictures you took. Yes? Or you had another set?’

  I shrugged. ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘No. You’re right. It matters that you have them. You won’t mind me asking to check that, I presume.’

  I fished in my coat pocket and handed him the packet. He stood back from me and leafed through the pictures quickly. His face clouded but then he smiled.

  ‘She really is very beautiful, don’t you think?’

  Again I shrugged.

  ‘You can understand why I fell for her, can’t you? Anyone could. But you must also understand why I had to end it. After what happened.’

  ‘“What happened”?’

  ‘Yes.’ Lloyd shook his head. ‘Damned unfortunate. I know Morgan of course. Fine man. Very fine indeed.’

  Lloyd walked over to the far wall. I was surprised by his relaxed manner. He hadn’t mentioned our previous meeting, our hostility to each other, me and my swift exit. It was like a mad aunt, walled up in a room downstairs somewhere.

  Lloyd stood thinking. He opened a small cabinet and drew out a bottle of malt and two tumblers. He walked over and sat opposite me, resting the bottle and the glasses on a low coffee table.

  ‘I suppose she hates me,’ he said. ‘I don’t blame her. But how was I supposed to know all this was going to happen? A discreet affair, that’s what I thought was going on.’

  ‘Charlotte says you talked about marriage.’

  Lloyd looked uneasy. ‘Well, I won’t deny it. I was blown away, to begin with at least. That never happened to you?’

  Oh yes, it had happened to me.