The Verge Practice

by Barry Maitland

  ‘In any event,’ he added, ‘you’ve surely got nothing to be worried about.’

  ‘You don’t think so? Chief Inspector, if Charles has been crazy enough to slaughter his wife in May, and then come back to kill Sandy now, I don’t think anyone connected with him can feel safe!’

  Brock sipped his coffee thoughtfully, then said, ‘You were talking just now about too much data. One of the problems in my line of work is false data, people who tell us lies. You lied to my sergeant, didn’t you, Ms Lewis? You told her you hadn’t seen Charles Verge in eight years.’

  She looked startled, then guilty, her face turning pink.

  ‘How did you . . .? Yes, you’re right, I did lie. I felt bad about it afterwards, but I just wanted to get back to my meeting, and there was no point . . . I thought there was no point.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  The woman sighed, shaking her head. ‘I bumped into Charles one evening about a year ago, at the opening of an exhibition. He was at his most charming, the champagne was flowing, and he suggested we have dinner together, for old time’s sake. God knows why, but I agreed. He was a little drunk, and a little tired, and during the course of the meal he came out with all this stuff. His marriage was finished, Miki was a nightmare, Sandy was a shit, the partnership was doomed. The thing was, he was laughing all the time he said it, as if he was describing some ridiculous comedy he’d seen at the movies. He was quite witty, almost boasting about his disasters, and I laughed along with him.

  He said that he’d like to wipe the slate clean, do away with them all, and start afresh.’

  ‘He said that, that he wanted to do away with them all?’

  ‘Yes, something like that. I didn’t think it meant anything, and forgot about it until Miki’s murder. Then I decided I didn’t want to remember what he’d said that evening. I didn’t want anything more to do with the story of Charles Verge. Then I read that it was Sandy who had killed Miki and Charles. But if you’re saying now that Charles may have engineered the whole thing . . .’

  ‘All the same, you’re surely not in any danger.’

  ‘Aren’t I? I was one of the people who let him down, perhaps the most, in his eyes. And I remember something else he said that evening, when he dropped me off and said goodbye. He said that in a year’s time we might meet up again, and I should remember what he’d said.’

  There was no panic in her eyes, but certainly there was fear.

  ‘But surely,’ Brock felt himself being dragged into confidences that he didn’t really want to share, ‘in the unlikely event that Charles did kill Sandy Clarke, his purpose was much more deliberate than just getting even?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The death of Sandy Clarke cleared Charles Verge’s name, re-established his reputation.’

  ‘His reputation . . .’ She thought about that, sipping absently at her coffee. ‘Yes, you’re right.’

  And yet, Brock thought, that wasn’t quite the whole story. Like Gail, he felt as if his thinking had been slow, unwilling to pursue the implications of a scenario he didn’t want to believe. But if Verge, officially cleared and dead, was still alive, any program of vengeance would be open to him. He thought again of the suicide note on Clarke’s computer. Whoever had written it had known that Clarke was the father of Charlotte’s child. Did that betrayal precipitate Clarke’s death, and did it now put Charlotte herself at risk? Who else?

  ‘I mean, he was a rational man, yes? Not unstable.’ He tried to make it sound like a positive statement, rather than a plea.

  Gail drew the shape of a cone on her pad, frowning. ‘He had mood swings . . . periods of depression. I don’t think they were properly diagnosed then. Charlotte said he had one for a year after I left. Maybe he’s had better help since then.’

  Or none at all, Brock thought, and watched her add a small creature peering out from under the bottom edge of the conical shape, legs and eyes and one lopsided claw.

  She looked up suddenly and said, ‘It’s funny you mentioning that Spanish woman just now, the artist. Charlotte told me about her buying Briar Hill at the time that Charles was buying the cottage nearby for her, and I thought it was an odd coincidence. Knowing that Charles and Miki’s marriage was rocky, I wondered if there might be something going on between Charles and this other woman, almost as if he were establishing an alternative happy little family down in Bucks. Then there was Miki’s murder, and Charles disappeared, and another thought came to me. In retrospect, it was almost as if Charles had set about taking care of everything before the tragedy happened—getting Charlotte settled, and establishing the Spanish woman nearby, like a kind of chaperone or proxy parent.’

  ‘He’s never contacted you, since May?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘You’re absolutely certain of that? No unexplained silent phone calls, no indirect approaches? He would have needed help after it happened, and he might have thought of someone from the past, like you, who we wouldn’t necessarily consider.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have come to me. And I haven’t the faintest idea where he would have gone. I thought of Spain, like everyone else, but I don’t know of any secret boltholes.’

  ‘There was speculation that he might try to make contact when Charlotte has her baby. Do you think that’s plausible?’

  ‘I guess it’s possible. He’d want to know, of course, but he wouldn’t be stupid enough to make a direct approach.

  You think Charlotte might know how to send him a message? Or the Spanish woman? Or Madelaine, of course . . . Formidable Madelaine.’ She thought for a moment, then said, ‘Actually, if I’d been asked what would make him come back, it wouldn’t have been Charlotte’s baby.’ She reached over to the table beside her and handed Brock a thick magazine. The front cover showed a dramatic glossy photograph of a building, so geometric and brilliantly coloured that at first glance it looked like an abstract graphic, two squares, red on the left side and blue, fretted with shadows, on the right. Beneath the name of the magazine was the issue’s title, ‘Il Carcere Nuovo’.

  ‘Marchdale,’ Gail said. ‘ “The New Prison”. It came out last week, ahead of the opening, and before they knew about Charles’s reinstatement. That didn’t bother the Italians one bit. In fact, from the text you’d say that the fact that the architect was a famous murderer only increased the building’s glamour. But they also give it a very detailed appraisal, and the conclusion is that it’s brilliant.’

  Opening the magazine, Brock found pages of dense text interspersed with plans and lush photographs. He wondered how they’d been able to conjure such blue skies, such beautiful raking shadows, in the fen country.

  ‘I have a friend at the Architectural Review who tells me that their special issue is about to come out, equally glowing. It seems Marchdale really is Charles’s masterpiece, and I can’t imagine how he’ll be able to stay away, especially now, with this sort of publicity.’

  He thanked her for her time and she led him to the front door. The rain had stopped, a weak sun forcing through the cloud. As he walked back to his car, several streets away, he felt rather as if he’d been through a Turkish bath, like he sometimes did after a particularly probing conversation with Suzanne. The effect was both exhausting and rejuvenating. He wondered what story he could use to mobilise the security services and local police at Marchdale to be alert for a man who no longer existed.

  22

  Kathy tried the home number on file for the former laboratory clerk Debbie Langley. She wasn’t expecting a reply in the middle of the day, but the phone was answered by Debbie’s mother, with whom she apparently lived.

  ‘Debbie gets home from work at six,’ the mother said.

  ‘Well, would it be convenient if I called tonight at, say, six-thirty?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the woman said defensively. ‘Does she know you?’

  ‘We’ve never met. I’m with the police. It’s not a big matter, and it only indirectly affects Debbie, so it’d be easier
me seeing her at home rather than asking her to come to a police station. It won’t take long.’

  Debbie’s mother agreed, and Kathy put the phone down, feeling a squirm of guilt.

  The house was a rather gloomy dark-red brick semi, not far from the local commuter rail station and shops. The paint on the garage door was peeling and the concrete path cracked. Debbie Langley opened the door looking worried.

  Her make-up was fresh, her cheeks flushed as if she’d rushed to get ready to face this unexpected complication to her day. From the back of the house came a smell of cooking and the sound of a child’s voice. She closed the front door after Kathy and led the way into the front sitting room, the furnishings spotless but worn.

  ‘Could you tell me what this is about?’ she demanded anxiously, clutching her hands. Kathy had the impression of someone who had faced a fair bit of bad news lately and was bracing for another little smack from fate. ‘It’s not my car is it? Only I told Cheryl when I lent it to her that I’m not going to be responsible . . .’ She stopped, seeing Kathy smile and shake her head.

  ‘No, it’s nothing like that, Debbie. It’s just a loose end I have to tie up on a case I’m on at the moment, and it’s absolutely nothing for you to worry about.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ She drew a cautious breath of relief.

  ‘It’s in connection with your work at the laboratory.’

  ‘But you know I don’t work there any more, don’t you?

  I’m on the clerical staff at the hospital now, full time. I was only part time at the lab, you see, and I really wanted full-time work. If it’s about the same thing they came about before, about the internal review, well I thought I’d done everything needed.’

  ‘Yes, it probably does overlap with that. When was it, that they spoke to you?’

  ‘Oh, a week ago? Maybe more.’

  ‘And what exactly did they ask you about?’

  ‘He had a report he was writing, about tightening up procedures. He just wanted my signature.’

  ‘Did you read the report?’

  ‘Oh no, it was too long, and he was in a hurry.’

  This sounded wrong. Kathy wondered what kind of inquiry they’d carried out. She herself had only seen the summary of conclusions, not the background documents.

  ‘But he explained what was in the report?’

  ‘Not really. He said he just needed to get everyone who’d worked there in the past twelve months to sign off on it, and frankly I wasn’t bothered, now I don’t work there any more.’

  ‘Did he talk about last May, about some work the lab was doing then, on a case for us?’

  ‘May? I don’t think so. Which case was that?’

  ‘The Verge case.’

  ‘Oh, I remember that one! We were all fascinated. Well, everyone was. I remember telling Mum when I was typing up the forensic schedules, you know, about the bloodstains and that.’ Debbie suddenly looked anxious again. ‘That is all right, isn’t it? I mean, we could talk about our work . . .’

  ‘No, it’s fine. And did the man who saw you last week mention anything about your work on that case?’

  ‘No, I’m sure he didn’t.’

  ‘He didn’t say that was what the report was about?’

  ‘Oh no. I mean, I wouldn’t normally have signed something without reading it, but he was in a hurry, and since I knew him and everything . . . Why? Is something wrong?’

  ‘There’s been a suggestion that someone made a mistake in the original forensic report for the Verge case, Debbie,’ Kathy said carefully. ‘I just thought he might have mentioned that to you, maybe asked you if you knew anything about it.’

  ‘A mistake? Oh dear, was it serious?’

  ‘It caused a bit of delay.’

  ‘Well, it certainly wasn’t me. I was always very careful, especially with the big cases. I was just a keyboard operator, you see, mainly transcribing reports. All those lists! It would have been easy to skip an item. Some of the girls would copy them by eye, but I had my own method to make sure I didn’t make a mistake. If I couldn’t transcribe electronically, I’d make a photocopy and strike out each item in turn after I’d entered it, to make sure I didn’t miss any. It was slower, but it avoided errors.’

  ‘And he didn’t ask you about the Verge case, about this mistake?’

  ‘No, he never mentioned it.’ Then she added plaintively, ‘I am very careful, you know. I’ve learned the hard way.’

  ‘Okay.’ Kathy got to her feet.

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘I think so. You say you knew this person who came to see you? Someone you’d worked with at the lab?’

  ‘Yes. He was one of your people, one of the LOs.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Kathy felt a surge of shock. ‘Not an Indian guy?’

  ‘No. It was Paul. Paul Oakley.’

  On the way home Kathy stopped for a hamburger. She felt dirty, as if she’d been caught peeping through keyholes.

  Oakley had obviously engineered some kind of cover-up of his mistake back in May, so that his consulting opportunities wouldn’t now be blocked. He had stabbed Debbie Langley in the back, and she didn’t even know it. He must also have inveigled people still working in the lab to accept the ‘confession’ he’d tricked out of her. Maybe he’d persuaded Leon to help. But it was all internal to the lab, none of Kathy’s business. If Leon wanted to get involved, too bad. It was all too personal, too messy.

  All the same, she found it hard to leave it alone. That night, lying awake, she decided that there was one last thing she could do, just to make sure it really was none of her business.

  The Crime Strategy Working Party was scheduled to convene at ten the next morning. At nine Kathy was standing in the stark reception area of the Verge Practice offices. She asked for the personal secretary of Sandy Clarke, and gave her name and identification to the receptionist, who entered the details into the computer on her glass table.

  Kathy remembered Clarke’s secretary from her visit with Brock two weeks earlier. She introduced herself and followed her to the lift. Close to, her face seemed frozen, and Kathy recalled an article on botox injections she’d read in the paper, but the woman’s eyes showed a glazed immobility, and Kathy decided she might be on sedatives.

  ‘Had you worked with Mr Clarke for long?’ she asked, and the woman, not shifting her gaze from the flicker of steel passing beyond the glass walls of the lift, gave a little sigh.

  ‘Fifteen years.’

  In her office she offered Kathy the desk diary she had kept for Clarke, and Kathy sat down and began to work through it, taking notes from time to time. As she worked she was aware of the other woman sitting motionless at her desk, watching. The phone didn’t ring.

  Eventually Kathy said, ‘There are a number of entries where the names of the people aren’t recorded, just their organisation. I suppose the receptionist downstairs will have a record of everyone who came?’

  ‘Yes.’ The woman blinked, and Kathy imagined a frozen brain behind the frozen face. Then she added, ‘You can access that on my computer.’ She swivelled in her seat and slowly brought the machine to life.

  The firm had an awful lot of visitors, Kathy realised, seeing the names scrolling down the screen, and thinking of her ten o’clock meeting. She began giving the secretary dates and times, checking the column with the names of organisations. Eventually the woman seemed to realise the pattern.

  ‘These are all visits by the police?’

  ‘Yes. There’s a mix-up in our records. I just have to check for our reports.’

  ‘Oh.’ She gave a sigh of deep disapproval and continued to the next entry.

  At last, the minutes ticking away, they came to the twenty-third of May, a Wednesday, nine days after Miki Norinaga’s body had been discovered. The name Sergeant Paul Oakley jumped out of the screen at Kathy with an almost physical impact. ‘You remember this one?’ she asked calmly.

  The woman thought, then she checked the appointments in the desk diary. ‘I do
n’t remember him particularly, but I remember that morning, because the next appointment was with the Mayor, and Sandy kept him waiting.’

  ‘According to the reception record, Sergeant Oakley arrived on time for his appointment, and left forty-three minutes later.’

  ‘That’s right, he overran his time. You see there . . . the Mayor arrived ten minutes before your sergeant left, and Sandy kept him waiting . . .’

  Kathy thought she was going to say more, but when she looked at her face she saw tears welling out of her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. The woman just stared back at Kathy, saying nothing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Kathy said softly. ‘But just let me be clear.

  Sergeant Oakley stayed talking to Mr Clarke in his office all that time, did he? He didn’t go up to check the apartment again, or anything like that?’

  After a long moment’s silence Kathy didn’t think she was going to get a reply. Then the stiff lips whispered, ‘That’s right.’

  She was late for her meeting, but nobody seemed to mind.

  The mood had changed, and everyone was cooperative and enthusiastic. They had all prepared their presentations; some on laptops, others on alarmingly thick sheafs of paper.

  As the first presentation got under way, Kathy’s heart sank.

  It seemed pretentious to her, and ridiculously remote from the reality of policing. Soon her attention began to drift, and she turned her mind to the problem of what she was going to do about Paul Oakley.

  When the afternoon session finally came to an end, everyone except Kathy seemed highly satisfied by their efforts. Robert beamed smugly as he gathered up his papers, and even the reluctant Rex was full of good humour. Kathy hurried to the door, anxious to get back to the office, but she was intercepted again by Jay.

  ‘Hi. That went really well, didn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  Seeing Kathy turn to go, Jay added, ‘There’s something I wanted to ask you.’

  ‘Can it wait, Jay? I need to get back to the office before people leave.’

  ‘I’ll come down with you.’