by Janet Neel
‘I’m so glad you’re here, sir,’ she said, in her super-efficient personal assistant persona, he noted, appreciatively. ‘I’m carrying some papers DI Davidson wanted you to see. Look at the back in the notes first, he says.’ She excused herself prettily to the others and sifted papers rapidly, so that he received, unblinking, a note on the Metropolitan Police Pension Fund and a photocopy of the accountants’ report tucked into a copy of the Police Gazette.
‘If I may,’ he said, generally, ‘I’ll stay here and wait until Mr Fleming’s statement is ready and until Mrs Price is free for another word.’
All assured him with varying sincerity that it would be no problem, and Margaret Howard offered him more coffee. He closed the door and fell on the report, starting from the back as he had been directed. The conclusions, he was unsurprised to find, were that, provided the £2m proceeds of the insurance policy on Bill Price’s life were received within the next month, the company was solvent, in the Companies Act sense of being able to pay its creditors as they fell due. The accountants had been thorough; in the list of creditors appeared the names of people who had hoped to holiday in the unfurnished apartments and the cost of the alternatives being offered to them. The total list came to £700,000 odd. The unwritten corollary was clear; without that £2m the company would have had to find some £500,000 odd in cash in the next two months to pacify non-bank creditors. They could not have looked to their own bankers; the agreed £1.5m facility had already been exceeded. Had Bill Price not died, thus handsomely insured, the company must have failed with serious legal consequences to its two surviving directors, Luke Fleming and Sylvia Price, and serious reputational cost to Miles Arnold MP. And none of its unsecured creditors would have been paid; the bank had all the security there was. So both Price brothers would have been unable to recover any of the money they were expecting from their mother’s trust. If ever there was a timely death this was it, the classic case of a man worth a great deal more dead than alive to his family and associates. This could not be regarded as a quirk of modern insurance practice, or bad luck on Bill Price since it was also clear at whose door the insolvency of Price Fleming should be laid. Bill Price had paid himself £300,000 a year and drawn expenses of the same again, between holidays, cars, the upkeep of three racehorses and a yacht which appeared, conservatively valued, among the assets of Price Fleming Ltd.
But Catherine had already told him much of this. There must be something else, some new fact or facts which she had wanted him to get hold of immediately, presumably involving some of the people currently present in the building. At the back, she had said, and he started to flip through the appendices. Francesca, who had taught him to read accounts, had said that you always looked at the Notes, that’s where all the bodies were buried. And there it was at Note 19. There was £43,219 less cash in the bank in Majorca than in the books of the Majorca subsidiary. Various explanations had been offered by Local Management, but the note made it clear that it had not found them convincing. And Local Management was Luke Fleming.
He sat back to think about Luke Fleming. With Bill Price alive he might not have been worried about being found out abstracting cash from the company. Bill Price had after all done a great deal in that line. Nor were Sylvia Price’s hands clean; she had taken a salary of £40,000 a year and shared, presumably, in all the goodies her husband had looted from the company. But somehow, even if Luke Fleming was her lover, McLeish could not see her receiving with understanding his attempts to secure rainy-day money by stealing from the company. Catherine, sound detective that she was, had wanted him to understand that Luke Fleming had a reason for incapacitiating Sylvia Price. It should have given him a chance to get the money out of wherever he had put it, assuming he still had it, and, as Local Management, triumphantly restore it to the accountants, but for the fact that Sylvia Price had got hold of their report first.
He shifted uneasily, but recalled he had a few hours yet to make any decisions; Luke Fleming was in a room with three accountants as well as Sylvia Price. He read on through the notes, just to make sure there was nothing else that Catherine had wanted him to see. Another pencilled cross caught his eye and he read the entry twice to be sure. A cheque for £30,000 and another for £50,000 to William Price signed by Miles Arnold had been countersigned in favour of the company. So Miles Arnold was a shareholder – no, the note said the purpose of the payment was unknown, but there was no record of any share issue. Time and beyond to talk to Miles Arnold again, but he would check his alibi – such as it was – with Miss James before he did that.
‘You look tired.’
‘I am a bit. I was sick in the night. I don’t know why. It’s nice to see you, Matt. I’m not sure I can make you anything to eat but please help yourself. There are some more biscuits in the cupboard. Or have an egg.’
‘It’s just that I missed breakfast. Francis has to eat all the time so he had the rest of the cereal.’
Francesca, still feeling very peculiar, had woken finally at eleven o’clock much relieved that William was still away and opened the door to Matthew Sutherland, who was fidgeting with anxiety.
‘Is he all right? I hear you’ve been “Helping with Enquiries”.’
‘He’s doing bloody well, no thanks to his brother. Sit down, Wonderwoman, I’ll make you something to eat. What made you sick? Where’s your fridge?’
‘To what do I owe the honour, Matt?’ she asked, watching him boil milk. ‘I didn’t think I was going to see you today.’
‘I can’t find Annabelle.’
Francesca accepted a mug of hot milk and sipped it carefully, her stomach heaving uneasily. Matthew was on his knees, going through her refrigerator, sniffing suspiciously at everything.
‘Should you be able to?’
‘Yes. Francis and I had a late supper with her last night. She was sick too. I went through her fridge but it wasn’t food – Francesca, this chicken is off, you’ll poison everyone – it was oldfashioned stress. As I told her.’
‘And you a qualified doctor too.’ Francesca was conscious of pure jealousy.
‘So she said she’d consider taking the morning off. She rang in sick, but she isn’t at home.’
‘She decided to go shopping to cheer herself up.’
Matthew shot her a look of mixed indulgence and scorn. ‘She isn’t like that.’
‘Get off. We’re all like that if push comes to shove.’
‘Antony Price is unstable, in the literal meaning of the word. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do. He isn’t safe.’ He rooted out another two plates from the fridge and scraped their contents into the bin, rinsing his long hands under the tap, his back to her. ‘He’s operating this morning however, which ought to keep him out of mischief.’
Francesca, wanting his attention herself but conscientious, considered the point. ‘If she’s not at home, and not in the surgery, where else do you think she is? His flat?’
‘We saw her back to her place last night. And he was operating first thing this morning. I rang up disguised as a worried GP.’
‘Then she’s out somewhere.’ She watched his back as he washed up, very tall in her kitchen.
‘Yes.’ He swung round, long jacket flapping. ‘It’s usually a cockup not a conspiracy, isn’t it?’ He did not sound at all convincing.
‘Why don’t you just check her flat and the surgery again and then go up to Antony Price’s flat, see what you can see. It’s better than standing here mucking out my fridge, I mean, don’t think I’m not grateful, but…’
He stood, irresolute. ‘Am I being an idiot, Fran?’
Francesca, queasy and tired, in a torn dressing-gown, gazed at him. ‘Better make a nonsense than waste your day.’
He nodded, took her cup away from her and bent and gave her a brisk kiss on the cheek, standing back to look at her. ‘You look a bit better.’ He rose to go and she remembered a conversation in the early hours of the morning and clasped at his jacket.
‘Matt, I forgo
t. John told me last night or rather early this morning. The drugs case against you is being withdrawn.’
He looked down at her blankly, then suddenly sat down on the nearest chair. ‘What?’
‘You’ve gone green now.’ She gave him the rest of the milk, anxiously. ‘You’re not to tell anyone, but the two who arrested you are both being suspended. Nothing to do with you, they’re thought to have been doing awful things with other cases. So you won’t be prosecuted.’
He was still pale, the eyes unnaturally wide, and she hooked an arm round him. ‘It doesn’t mean you’ll get your stash back, I’m afraid,’ she said, deliberately watching his head jerk back. She saw he was unable to speak and got up shakily to boil a kettle, and give him time to regain his composure. ‘Isn’t that good, though – John was pleased,’ she said, her back to him. She heard him draw a long painful breath.
‘He must be one of the fuzz who thinks it’s a nuisance prosecuting for marijuana.’
‘Quite the contrary. He believes that hash is often a step on the way to Class A substances.’ She reached for the tea-bags. ‘We have not discussed your case, Matt, or not in words, there have to be some limits. But he approves of you, he admires how you’ve stuck to Francis, and thinks you’ll make a good solicitor.’ She turned, cautiously, and sneaked a glance at him; his head was bent and he was scrubbing at his face. ‘And so do I, and I’m sure you can manage on some less contentious, recreational drug, like booze. Tea?’
‘Yes, please. And about half a packet of sugar.’ He rose to stand with his arm round her and reached for a handful of kitchen towels, so that he could blow his nose, noisily. ‘Now I know what it’s like not to be hung,’ he said, soberly. ‘Thanks, Fran.’
‘Didn’t do anything as it turns out. I had a few ideas, and one or other would have worked.’
He wrapped her in a bear hug. ‘Can I tell Peter?’
‘Why not? It is OK, though you may need to wait another ten days while the warning order expires. But someone at Notting Dale will confirm. Now go and see if you can find Annabelle, since you’re worrying, then you will be a totally happy bunny.’
He kissed her on the lips and thumped up the stairs, leaving her to wash up his cup in a state somewhere between misery and relief.
In Kensington Church Street, John McLeish was trying to arrive at a rational view on whether to arrest Luke Fleming and sweat him. Several facts pointed to Fleming as a murderer and as Sylvia Price’s attacker. The murder had been opportunistic and Fleming was a chancer. There had been £20,000 in cash in the safe and Fleming knew exactly where to find a home for that in Spain. He had no real alibi either for the murder or the attack. But the trouble was, none of it quite jelled; the evidence was highly circumstantial and would not do for the percentage players of the Crown Prosecution service.
The phone rang, and as he picked it up, he heard Bruce Davidson shouting at the other end, and the anxiety that had haunted him all morning clenched his stomach.
‘John? Sorry, just getting the lads out. Antony Price isn’t here. He walked out after the first operation this morning, said he wasn’t well. His number two carried on, with everyone saying how wise to stop if ye weren’t feeling quite the thing.’ Davidson was sounding savage, ‘I should have gone down there right away.’
‘I should have charged him.’
‘Ah. Aye, well. Perhaps, but it didnna look cast iron, did it? And he may just be ill, John.’
‘No. Something’s gone wrong. Get someone to his flat – you have? Good. I’ve got a driver here, I’ll meet you.’
He scribbled a note for Catherine, gathering up the papers she had given him, observing distractedly that the sum payable on the death in-service of a detective chief superintendent was now five times his annual salary. Perhaps, like the late Bill Price, he was more valuable dead than alive, particularly if he was going to let dangerous suspects roam free.
14
Wednesday, 27 April
The flat looked dusty and smaller than Annabelle had remembered it and somehow dated like an old photograph. Nothing had been changed in the three weeks since she had moved out, but the solid mahogany furniture Antony inherited from his mother looked heavier and seemed to take up more space. The place was grubby; well, she herself had always spent time cleaning up and without her Antony’s Spanish cleaner must have been losing the battle.
‘Sorry I’m a bit untidy,’ Antony said, behind her, ‘but I thought it was better than the caff. I’ll get the coffee, you sit down, Anna.’
She did not want to sit down, indeed she did not want to be here at all. Antony had appeared at her tiny flat at ten thirty that morning, just as she had finally got out of bed and dressed. He was unkempt and not coherent, and it had been she who had suggested a walk through the park to his flat as something that would do both of them good. Antony was a bit calmer but he was ill, not managing to finish sentences, and changing subjects at random. And he had abandoned his operating list, that much he had managed to tell her, without seeming to know why. The kitchen suddenly seemed very small and airless. She propped open the flat door to ventilate the whole place and bustled about, putting things into the sour-smelling dishwasher, in which several flies were also trapped.
She made the coffee, gave Antony a cup and slipped into the bathroom to give herself a minute alone. It was dirty too, a tide-line of several days’ stubble in the basin, and the towels were damp and musty. Antony, like any surgeon, had always been fastidious, and she looked around with increasing anxiety. But she had determined not to be afraid of him and she was not going to go back on that.
She went through into the living-room where Antony was sitting, slumped on the sofa, and removed six cups and five glasses from the coffee table and took them through into the kitchen.
‘Annabelle.’ He had come up behind her. ‘Do stop tidying. We have to talk.’
She turned to face him, stepping back because he was crowding her, and noticing that he had shaved but that his shirt was at least two days dirty. ‘Let’s sit down,’ she suggested, as calmly as she could, and waited a long moment while he turned and went to the living-room. She followed, placing herself the other side of the coffee table on the other little sofa.
‘I’ve been a complete bloody idiot,’ he said, finally, not looking at her. ‘And I’m in real trouble.’
‘At the hospital?’
‘No. Though that’s only a matter of time. I walked out this morning because I couldn’t remember what I was doing.’
‘Was the patient all right?’
‘I expect so. Gall bladder. Bill was there, he could finish up.’ He got to his feet, cautiously, in one disjointed movement and went to the window. ‘I’ve … I’m … I owe money.’
‘Who to? What for?’
‘I’ve been going to the clubs, since you went away.’
She let this pass; she knew he had always made occasional visits to the London casinos. She had thought it glamorous five years ago, and although disillusioned, had been too terrorised by him in the last eighteen months to argue. The memory of that fear made her angry.
‘How much did you lose?’ she asked his back.
‘Don’t sound like that. A lot. I owe about £20,000.’
He swung to face her and she quaked. She knew that expression, a sort of blind, inturned look which meant he was going to lash out. She was awkwardly placed, her knees too close to the coffee table to get up and run.
‘Oh dear,’ she said, as flatly as she could. ‘I am sorry. I’ll get some more coffee.’ She got up slowly, holding her breath.
‘Don’t fidget about,’ he shouted and she froze. ‘Ladbroke’s are going to sue me. The other people I owe came round to Wigmore Street, as if I wasn’t already in enough trouble with the clinic. I’m being screwed.’ He was scarlet and shaking, and she measured up the distance to the door. He saw her eyes shift and moved between her and it. ‘Sit down and bloody listen,’ he shouted, but heart hammering, she stood her ground.
&nb
sp; ‘Not if you’re going to scream at me. I’ve had enough of that. You sit down. Over there.’ It worked, she saw, sick with relief. He moved to the other side of the table and sat down heavily, so she sat too, making sure she could get up, fast. ‘Now. You’re £20,000 in debt and they’re pressing you. What about your bank?’
‘I’m over the limit there. What I need is my money, that Mum left. And that bitch Sylvia won’t give it to me, though my bloody father put it into the company. She’s got all the insurance money, she can afford it. I could kill her.’ He looked into her face. ‘Oh, you needn’t look so bloody shocked. I would have if I’d thought I’d get away with it.’
‘What shocks me is the state you’re in, Antony,’ she said.
‘Annabelle, I’m in a state because I’m in a mess, and because I don’t have you. Come back. Please come back. I’ll do anything.’ He was crying, looking about sixteen, and she felt only the need to get out of the room. He saw it and was across the intervening space and on his knees in front of her, holding her arms so she was pinned to the sofa. ‘You must. You have to.’ He was rocking her back and forth, teeth set, hands clenching painfully round her upper arms.
‘I can’t. Let me go,’ she said, frightened, and understood she had made a fatal mistake. He slapped her so hard her whole head snapped sideways before she could react. ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ she heard him say, and then his hands were on her throat and she was fighting to breathe and the light was going and she thought as she blacked out sadly of her mother and of Matthew Sutherland…
She choked and tasted dirt and the light came back. Someone was pressing on her chest and she croaked, hoarsely, in protest. A face loomed above her, dark red hair, bright in the sunlight, and she felt her head being lifted and something soft put under it. She could hear groaning coming from somewhere, but she couldn’t move.
