Femme Fatale

by Dominic Piper

  ‘Tansil, Gable and Footitt have all fucked up in their careers in one way or another, but they’ve all fallen on their feet. Relatively, at least. That may be due to their membership of this lodge, which could mean that each of them is indebted to Chudwell in some way, or to the lodge as a whole. Tansil was charged with corruption, among other things, but the charges were dropped, he walked free then resigned from the police.

  ‘Gable attacked two people when pissed out of his head, seriously injured them both, got thrown out of the police, but only got a four-year suspended sentence, which is nothing.

  ‘Footitt was strongly suspected of selling off donated transfusion blood. It’s thought he’d been doing it for years. This was just a rumour, but if it was true, it would have led to him being struck off the medical register and probably sent to prison. There was also a rumour about him assaulting a nurse. As it was, he flourished and is now a consultant, albeit one that no one seems to have any professional respect for.’

  ‘None of them got their just deserts.’

  ‘Possibly. We also have to assume that these incidents could be the tip of the iceberg. Then there’s Declan Sharpe.’ I point at his name on the list. ‘He’s also ex-police and was in the Serious Crime Division in Manchester, which means it’s likely that he knew Gable who was in the same division in the same force. He’s younger than Gable, but their paths could just have crossed. A surly individual. Bad attitude. Unprofessional and resentful. Didn’t like Paige at all. He’s somewhere in his early to mid-thirties I would guess, which means he left the police – or was asked to leave – well before his career would have normally ended. Let’s just make an assumption for a moment. We can dump it later if it doesn’t fit.’

  Caroline nods her head. She’s got it. ‘Declan Sharpe was also booted out, which means Temple Security is a safe haven for former bent cops, yeah?’ she says. ‘Particularly if they’re freemasons and particularly if they’re aggressive woman-hating fucks maybe, yeah? They’re probably grateful for their jobs. They have nowhere else to go. This will make them malleable and obedient. If someone at the top of that company asks them to do something, er…’ She pauses for a moment, searching for the right word. ‘…untoward, they’ll probably do it without question.’

  ‘Sure. Now let’s take the link with this masonry thing into account,’ I say. ‘If – and we still don’t really know what’s happening here – if Chudwell wanted to ask Tansil to do him a little favour, it would probably be through the lodge rather than from his position as a company director. That would just be too risky, too conspicuous, possibly difficult to arrange, not private enough and it looks as though he doesn’t go into work much anyway. Probably a non-executive director of all of them apart from Quadrivium, and it seems like he does most of that from home.

  ‘Tansil then delegates to people who work with him that he can trust. He probably chose Gable because he was an ex-cop, a fellow freemason, an effective heavy and he was known to Chudwell, but I don’t know about Sharpe. His job was simpler, Tansil may be his boss in some way and he may not even be aware of the existence of Chudwell, let alone Tansil’s connection with him outside the company. It’s doubtful he knows the whole story. He didn’t strike me as a trustworthy person or especially bright.’

  Caroline picks up the two tickets for Emma Antonsen’s show at Volupté next week and casually inspects them, turning them around with her slim fingers. ‘Can we go to bed again now? I’m feeling romantic.’

  ‘Sure. But let’s get this all clear first.’

  ‘Can we do that thing again?’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK.’

  She lights another cigarette and looks at the list of names in front of her. ‘You reckon it’s likely that Chudwell got Tansil and Gable their jobs in Temple Security? Or at least pulled some strings?’ she says.

  ‘Yes I do. If I was looking to employ people for a big, prestigious security company like that and looked into their past, I sure as hell wouldn’t employ those two and certainly not in high-up positions. No one in that line of business would. This would explain why their official CVs don’t give any details of their police service. It might also explain why their history is so difficult to find on the internet. It makes sense that someone influential would have got them those jobs and then whitewashed their pasts.’

  ‘OK. So can we agree that Chudwell probably has those two over a barrel?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, but if he got them their jobs at Temple, directly or indirectly, they’d unquestionably owe him. And as fellow freemasons, it would be a duty to assist him in whatever way they could.’

  ‘What about the doctor?’

  ‘He wouldn’t have needed to know precisely what was going on and why Jamie Baldwin was injured. He just had a job to do when Jamie turned up. It’s a probability that Tansil would have called him and let him know.

  ‘I think it was just a belt and braces job. My instinct is that it wouldn’t have mattered that much if they had no one at the Chelsea. Jamie Baldwin had been pretty much stitched up on a number of levels and wouldn’t be squealing to anyone.’

  ‘So maybe someone had the doctor over a barrel, too?’

  ‘Or he may have been meeting his obligations and helping out a fellow mason. It wouldn’t have done Footitt any harm, you know? I’m sure Chudwell, if he was behind all of this, would have been aware of Footitt’s rôle and duly rewarded him in some way, if not now then sometime in the future.

  ‘Perhaps Footitt’s career had been helped by people in that lodge in the past. Maybe by Chudwell himself. He’s a big man in pharmaceuticals whatever his actual involvement in the company is. Perhaps he has some clout in the medical world that we couldn’t possibly know about.’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘I still don’t think we’re seeing the big picture yet,’ I say. ‘We may have enough or we may not have enough.’

  Then something clicks. It may be a wild goose chase, but I don’t want any gaps. ‘Hold on.’

  I walk back into the bedroom and fetch my mobile. Doug Teng is costing me (or Mr Sheng) a fortune, but at least he got so drunk the other day that he paid for lunch, even though I said I would. I’ll still charge it to Sheng, though.

  ‘Mr Beckett! Are you still in that place? Was there a problem? Are you trapped?’

  ‘It’s all OK. This is something different. I need a high-speed hack. It’s an NHS database.’

  ‘Oh, man. Won’t be easy nowadays. Five, ten years ago – piece of cake, but now…’

  Yeah, yeah.

  ‘You can name your price.’

  ‘Three thousand?’

  ‘Done. Have you got a pen? It’s the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. The guy we’re after is a psychiatric consultant called Dr Barnaby Footitt. Let’s go back five years. No. Let’s make it ten years. I want to see if he’s treated a patient called Hugo Chudwell aka Viscount Ombersley.’ I spell all three proper names out for him.

  ‘Got you. How soon d’you want this?’

  ‘About three days ago.’

  This gets a laugh. ‘Red Buddha Temple Computer Hacking – Miracles are our business!’

  ‘Call me the moment you find anything. See you, Doug.’

  ‘What’s that all about?’ asks Caroline, suspiciously. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Never you mind. Might be nothing. I want to see what the connection is between Chudwell and Footitt. I’ve got a strong feeling that Footitt supplied the girl that I found in Rikki’s flat. I’m not saying that he killed her, but even supplying her is a pretty big high-risk thing. Without being overly dramatic, I think we’re dealing with violent, corrupt people who think they can get away with serious assault, murder and who knows what else. This may not be the first time stuff like this has happened. I don’t like walking into things blindfolded.’

  ‘So what’s the next step?’

  ‘I’m going to have to speak to Chudwell.’

  ‘You just go
ing to knock on his door and ask for a chat?’

  ‘What else can I do? Until we find out otherwise, he’s simply another lead on the way to discovering what happened to Rikki, just as much as Jamie Baldwin or Paige McBride were. OK – he’s linked to the lodge, to Temple Security and to Fly a Kite, and it looks pretty suspicious, but we still don’t know exactly what’s been going on; who’s been talking to who. I want to meet him face to face. I want to look into his eyes.

  ‘We know that Tansil, Gable and Footitt are complicit in the shitstorm that Jamie Baldwin pulled on himself, but we have no idea who told them to do it or why. We need explanations. That’s the only way we can push this forward. It’s the only way we can find out what’s happened to Rikki.’

  ‘And hey, Mr Detective. Don’t forget you haven’t had your second warning yet. Be careful.’

  ‘You’re not concerned about my welfare are you, Caroline?’

  ‘Very funny. How you going to find out where this guy lives? He’s probably ex-directory and ex-everything.’

  ‘No problem.’

  I take Cordelia’s business card out of my wallet and tap the number into my mobile. While I’m waiting for her to answer, I pick up one of the Volupté tickets that Emma gave me.

  ‘Hi, this is Cordelia Chudwell. How can I help you?’

  ‘Hi, Cordelia. It’s Daniel Beckett. We met this morning.’

  There’s a couple of seconds’ pause. Has she forgotten already?

  ‘Hi. Um. It’s funny. I was just thinking about you.’

  I put a smile into my voice. ‘In a good way?’

  ‘Hmmm. I think so. Yes.’

  ‘It’s weird you should say that. I was thinking about you as well.’

  Caroline rolls her eyes at this, then proceeds to take her bra off, very slowly, and lets it drop onto my lap.

  ‘Were you? Really?’

  ‘Listen. This is an amazing stroke of luck, but you know you were talking about going to see a burlesque concert sometime?’

  ‘Of course. Have you changed your mind about taking me to one?’

  Caroline removes her heels and places them next to each other, on the desk, then stands in front of me and starts to unclip her stockings from her suspender belt.

  ‘Not at all. It’s just that a friend of mine had tickets to a burlesque evening next week, but can’t go, so he gave them to me. It’s at a club called Volupté. It’s near Chancery Lane. I was just wondering if you’d…’

  ‘Oh wow. That would be great. Really? What sort of burlesque is it?’

  Caroline starts work on the first of her stockings, her foot resting on my knee. She should be onstage at Bordello. Once it’s off, she drapes it over her shoulder.

  ‘Well, one of the girls performing is called LouLou DuBonnet. I’ve heard that her act verges on the pornographic. I hope you won’t find it too offensive.’

  ‘Oh no. I – I’m sure I won’t. That’s so kind of you. Thank you.’

  ‘I think the entertainment starts at nine o’ clock. If you like, I can pick you up at eight and we can go there together.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘It’ll be no problem. It’s next Wednesday, if that’s convenient for you.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is. I’m free on Wednesday. I’ll be back at my parents’ house by then.’

  The second stocking is now draped over Caroline’s shoulder. She points at her suspender belt, raising her eyebrows for permission to remove it. I shake my head.

  ‘That’s great. I’ll look forward to seeing you, Cordelia.’

  ‘What should I wear?’

  ‘Something sexy. You have a great figure. Wear something that shows it off. The audiences are always very glam at burlesque shows.’

  Slight pause. Her voice drops to a provocative whisper. ‘I’m not exactly busty.’

  ‘That won’t matter,’ I say gently. ‘In fact, that’s all the more reason to wear something tight-fitting.’

  I hear her swallow. ‘I’ll have to go shopping.’

  ‘Oh, just one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  I put a laugh into my voice. ‘I just realised. I don’t have the address. For when I pick you up.’

  ‘It’s Berkeley Square. Number one hundred and fifty-one. It’s the only house on that side with a blue plaque on the wall. David Garrick once lived here.’

  ‘Did he really? OK, Cordelia. I’ll see you next week. Looking forward to it.’

  ‘Me, too.’

  I click off. Caroline laughs.

  ‘You are such a slimeball, Mr Beckett.’

  ‘She told me she lived with her parents. Now we’ve got Chudwell’s address.’

  ‘Detective work like that needs to be rewarded.’

  ‘I’ll leave the type of reward up to you.’

  ‘Dangerous words, honey, dangerous words.’

  She flicks her hair back and heads for the bedroom.

  36

  BERKELEY SQUARE

  As I walk up Berkeley Street on my way to the square, I decide to give Anastasija from Zhodzina a call. I fish out the serviette with her number on.

  ‘Anastasija? It’s Daniel Beckett.’

  ‘Oh, hi! I thought you weren’t going to call me.’ I can hear her customers ordering in the background.

  ‘I’ve been a little busy. Look. I’ll make it up to you. How would you like to come out for dinner next Monday?’

  For a second I consider taking her to City of Willows, where I won’t have to pay, but then decide that’s a little ungracious. Besides, I want to spend Tansil’s money on something worthwhile.

  ‘Oh, wow! That would be fantastic.’

  ‘There’s a great Japanese place in Sackville Street, off Piccadilly, called Benihana. Have you ever been there? They do a fantastic Wagyu beef.’

  ‘No. No, I haven’t. It sounds cool. I love Japanese food. Wow.’

  ‘OK. Let’s meet in Graphic. It’s a cocktail bar in Golden Square. You can find it on your mobile. Will seven-thirty be OK for you?’

  ‘Oh, wow. Yes. I know Golden Square. I’ll see you on Monday. I am so looking forward to this, Daniel.’

  ‘Me, too. See you next week, Anastasija.’

  I click off. It’ll be an expensive night out, but I think she’ll be worth it.

  When I turn into Berkeley Square, I sit down outside an itsu and order a coconut water and some salmon sushi. Despite all the road works, noisy construction and traffic pollution, this is still considered a classy place to live, and to be fair, it’s pretty central and close to a lot of interesting stuff. Most of the buildings are businesses of one sort or another and less than a quarter of the houses look residential.

  I can see a big, six-storey townhouse across the square with a blue plaque outside. I can’t read what’s on the plaque. I wonder if that’s number one hundred and fifty-one. If it is, I wonder if Chudwell is in.

  Just as my food is being served, Doug Teng calls.

  ‘Hey, Mr Beckett. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking how could he be that fast, right?’

  ‘You never fail to amaze me. What did you find?’

  ‘Well, you know, er, nothing, but at the same time, something.’

  ‘Well that’s great, Doug. Your cheque’s in the post, with a hefty bonus. Thanks for calling.’

  ‘Ha, ha. What I mean to say is that Dr Footitt hasn’t been treating Viscount Ombersley, he’s been treating Lady Ombersley. The real family name is Chudwell, yeah?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, there’s tons of stuff. Your girl has been a patient of Dr Barnaby Footitt for six years, six months and two weeks. Two appointments per week, more often than not, each one lasting for one hour. Sometimes there are gaps, anything up to a fortnight, which could mean that either she is on holiday or he is. Of course, it could not mean that at all. That’s just my guess. Take it or leave it. A couple of spikes in the graph; a shitload of appointments in April, May and June, then it levelled off to the usual.

&nb
sp; ‘She was referred to him by another doctor called, er, Donald A. Durham. There’s no one of that name on the hospital database. I cast a wider net to cover all London hospitals and private practices, but still nothing. This would usually indicate that Durham is either dead, living abroad or retired.’

  ‘What was she seeing Footitt for?’

  ‘It’s a bit difficult to understand. There are a lot of abbreviations and things that mean nothing to me. His typing is crap, as well, which doesn’t help. All of this was in his private patient file, by the way. Maybe he can be a bit sloppier if it’s not NHS.

  ‘I keep seeing the name de Clérambault, which I guess is another doctor, and a reference to bipolar 1 disorder with a question mark in front of it and there’s the word telepathy in brackets, whatever that’s about. There are abbreviations like MSE, SQ and IOT. There are a lot of words with symbols in front of them or behind them. No idea what they mean. Some more medical-looking words: Seroquel XL, Invega, Risperdal and Latuda. Any use? I’m guessing they’re drug trade names. There’s a shitload of blood test results I’ve come across, but it’s all gibberish to me. I can read some out if you like.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Go on.’

  ‘Footitt rents rooms in Harley Street twice a week for a couple of hours and it looks like a lot of the consultations were done there, but that doesn’t seem to indicate anything. There are invoices and payment details for each consultation and separate payments for the pathology. You wouldn’t believe the prices. Don’t ever go private, Mr Beckett. Big rip-off. It’s only a guess, but I would think there are probably actual written notes somewhere. Proper doctor’s notes. On paper, you know? Some people still do that. The stuff on here is too bitty. Maybe he keeps it all in his head. Who knows?’

  ‘And there’s nothing on Viscount Ombersley at all.’

  ‘Nothing. If he’s ever sick he certainly doesn’t see Footitt and he’s never been admitted to this hospital.’

  ‘That’s really useful, Doug. Thanks. I’ll get the payment to you shortly.’

  ‘Okeydoke. Hey – let’s meet up for another drinking session soon. I was pissed as a pudding after that one the other day. I had to take the afternoon off work. Told them my brother had been in a car crash. Cool, yeah?’