by Val McDermid
Lindsay took a deep breath and stood up. “I seem to have wasted your time as well as my own,” she said, unable to keep an edge of bitterness out of her voice.
Polson gave her a look of shrewd appraisal. “I wouldn’t beat yourself up too much. I know you blame me for telling the police about Meredith, but I was upset. I don’t know Meredith very well, and it seemed to me she had a motive. I applaud what you’re trying to do and if I can help, I will. I’m sorry I was so unhelpful before.”
If she’d wanted to make Lindsay feel worse, she couldn’t have found a better way to do it. “Mmm,” she mumbled, looking everywhere but at Penny’s picture or her agent. “Okay.”
“There are more motives than money,” Catriona said. “There’s reputation for a start. Maybe Heart of Glass trashed somebody who lives by their name.”
Lindsay found a self-pitying smile from somewhere. “Like an agent, you mean?”
“It’s about an editor.”
Chapter 15
Back on the street in the suffocating late morning heat, Lindsay walked through the sweating tourist crowds towards Leicester Square, pondering Catriona Polson’s final suggestion. Whatever Meredith felt about Baz, she was going to have to have another confrontation with the editor. But Lindsay needed all the ammunition she could lay her hands on before then, and since Heart of Glass might contain some of the answers, it seemed sensible to wait until she’d spoken to Sophie and discovered whether there were any extant copies that the killer hadn’t taken.
Sensible had never been her strong suit, but for once she was able to possess her soul in patience, since she had something else on her mind that was sufficiently interesting to occupy her. She emerged into Leicester Square and waited for an empty phone box. The one she ended up in smelled of sour milk and strong aftershave, its windows papered with postcards advertising the services of an assortment of prostitutes. Lindsay found it as sexually alluring as the inspection pit of a garage. Trying to ignore the pathetic faces whose photographs stared down at her in a parody of desire from several of the cards, she called Helen. “I’ve got an idea,” she said. “Can you meet me for lunch?”
“I can’t really go out, I’ve got a million and six things to do and I’m expecting a phone call from New York that I don’t want to miss. Why don’t you come here?” Helen said. “Those two gobshites are out filming today, so you won’t have any embarrassing encounters. I’ll order in some sandwiches and we can have a picnic in my office, okay?”
“Perfect,” Lindsay said. “See you around one.”
Her next call was to Eleanor Purdey, a fellow alumna of her Oxford college. Although they’d both read English, Ellie had abandoned literature for the law, joining a large commercial firm just as the eighties had started to boom. Now she was a full equity partner, a profitable role since her company had avoided the worst excesses of the recession by moving neatly into rescue packages for companies facing financial and fiscal disaster. They’d never been close at university, but when they’d met a few years later at a party Lindsay had attended with her barrister lover, they’d discovered they were both gay. Coupled with their St. Mary’s connection, it had been enough to forge a bond. In spite of their widely differing political perspectives, Lindsay and Ellie had always stayed in touch. In Lindsay’s journalist days, Ellie had been a valuable insider contact. For Ellie, Lindsay suspected, she had provided a tad of street cred in a lesbian scene where establishment professionals like Ellie were mistrusted and often excluded.
Once she’d made it past Ellie’s secretary and they’d exchanged greetings and agreed to meet for a drink in a day or two, Lindsay got straight to the point. She outlined an idea that had dawned on her as a possible answer to Helen’s problems and was gratified to hear Ellie confirm what she’d thought to be the case. Not only that, but after a couple of minutes during which Lindsay could hear the tapping of her computer keys, Ellie was able to cite cases that would give Lindsay details of how to set up her little sting. “A couple of these cases got quite extensive coverage in the press,” she added. “Not the tabloids, but the Telegraph and the Financial Times. The Economist ran something as well, I seem to remember. If you can get Internet access, you can look it all up for yourself.” She gave Lindsay the necessary details, which she scribbled down in her notebook.
“I owe you one,” Lindsay said, after she’d double-checked she’d got all the dots and slashes in the right places on the Internet addresses Ellie had provided.
“And not for the first time. Give my love to Sophie when you speak to her.”
“Will do. Oh, and Ellie? Will you be at home this evening?”
Ellie made no attempt to hide her sigh. “Exploit-a-friend not done enough for one day?”
“Sorry, but no. I might need some practical assistance if what I’m planning comes off. Just by phone . . .”
“I’ll be here till around eight, then I’m going straight home to sit on my balcony with a very sexy futures trader and an ice-cold bottle of Chardonnay. So you can take your chances,” Ellie said, sounding amused.
Armed with the information from Ellie, Lindsay headed back across the square towards Charing Cross Road, stopping at a computer supplies shop to buy a few blank floppies. She cut through side streets until she found Cyberia, the Internet café she had read about but never visited before. A few pounds bought her an hour’s access to cyberspace and an icy Diet Coke, and she settled down at one of the table-top terminals to check out the sources Ellie had suggested to her.
It didn’t take long to unravel the web that took her to the heart of the information she needed, since America was still only waking up and there wasn’t too much traffic on the Net. Her initial idea had come from a distant memory she’d dredged up of a court case she’d heard referred to on the BBC World Service. With Ellie’s guidance and a little manipulation, she could see how it might be possible to use the bare bones of the case to construct a sting that would cut the feet from under Stella and Guy far more effectively than the Obscene Publications Squad could ever have managed.
She downloaded the relevant files on to her blank disks and closed down her terminal with twenty minutes to spare, which she passed on to a grateful youth who’d been hanging around looking wistfully at her and her fellow netheads. A quick glance at her watch told her she’d better get a move on, so she walked back to Leicester Square tube and endured the stifling and stale wind of the Northern Line tunnels until a train groaned into the station to jolt her to Camden Town.
Helen closed the door of her office behind Lindsay, who caught the look of surprise on her secretary’s face. “It’s not that I don’t trust her,” Helen said defensively, seeing Lindsay’s raised eyebrows. “It’s just that I don’t actually trust anybody in here as of last night. Isn’t that the pits? As if it’s not bad enough that they’ve done what they’ve done, they’ve got me so paranoid I think everybody’s in it with them. Toerags.” As she spoke, she unwrapped a series of soft ciabatta rolls with a variety of fillings. They looked like a row of mismatched children’s slippers arranged on a plate.
“Serious sandwiches,” Lindsay commented, settling herself in the canvas director’s chair facing Helen.
“They probably go through the books as stationery supplies,” Helen said sourly, opening a small executive fridge and taking out a couple of bottles of alcoholic lemonade and uncapping them. “So what’s new?”
“I had this idea of how we can screw Stella and Guy,” Lindsay said simply. A wide grin split Helen’s face. “Now I remember why I like you so much,” she said.
“What you do here at Watergaw, you work quite closely with ethnic minority groups, am I right?”
“That’s supposed to be our brief, yeah. Couldn’t you tell from the women in those delightful films we saw last night?” Helen asked savagely, grabbing a sandwich and biting into it as if it were Stella’s head she was snapping off.
“So would I be right in thinking that means you film abroad from time to time?”
Helen nodded, managing to look puzzled even with a mouthful of sandwich.
“Is there anywhere that Guy and Stella have been on a joint project, relatively recently?”
Helen swallowed, her brow furrowing. “The most recent trip they did was for a series of Channel Four documentaries. We had this idea of going back with immigrants from the subcontinent to the villages they left thirty years ago. We wanted to see how the villages had changed, and we thought it would be interesting to do it through the eyes of the villagers who had stayed and those who had left. Thirty/Three, I called it. It was my idea, but I couldn’t fit the filming timetable in with other stuff I already had booked in. It’s always the same in this game, feast or famine. I’ve either got three projects all demanding my attention or else I’m running around like a headless chicken doing a rain dance, trying to raise funding from anywhere to make the next film.”
“So Guy and Stella had to make the films for Thirty/Three without you?”
“That’s right. Why d’you want to know? Are you on to something?”
“In a minute. Which country were they in?” Lindsay asked through a mouthful of cream cheese and sun-dried tomatoes.
“India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. We made one film in each of the three of them,” Helen explained. “We took three families back, original immigrants and their kids, so that we could compare and contrast the achievements and expectations of both groups, as well as the straightforward lifestyle stuff. It wasn’t a particularly cheap or easy set of films to make. It’s never simple when you’re juggling that many people with their own separate agendas, but they got some good stuff.”
“Were you involved in the project at all after the early stages?” Lindsay asked.
“Are you kidding? I was in the middle of making a six-half-hour drama series for children’s TV about racist bullying. I hardly had enough brain cells to spare for going to the toilet. I just told them to bugger off and come back with enough film for three forty-minute slots.”
“Perfect,” Lindsay breathed.
“Linds, I know I can be a bit slow sometimes, but I’m obviously missing something here. Why does it matter where Stella and Guy were filming and whether I was there or not?”
“Kickbacks,” Lindsay said.
Helen managed to look both worried and suspicious. “What about kickbacks?”
“You know and I know that to operate any kind of business in certain developing countries, you need to pay nearly as much in backhanders as you do in legitimate fees.”
“More sometimes,” Helen interrupted gloomily. “If I live to be a hundred, I will never ever film in Sierra Leone again. But I don’t see what that’s got to do with stitching up that pair of gobshites.”
“You will, Oscar, you will. Okay, so we’ve got a scenario where Guy and Stella are off on their Asian tour, handing out kickbacks right, left and center. Which, of course, is against the law over here and therefore not a legitimate company expense.”
“Yeah, but hang on a minute,” Helen protested. “Every company that works in places like that has to pay kickbacks and bribes. You disguise it in the books. You make it look like something else. Guy told me once the accounts were done on the Asian trip, it would all look kosher. Just like everything we’ve ever done abroad in the past. You’re not going to get him for paying kickbacks.”
“I know that,” Lindsay said, calmly finishing her sandwich and mopping her lips with a paper napkin. Then she beamed at Helen. “What we are going to nail them for is defrauding the VAT and the Inland Revenue.”
For a moment, Helen was speechless. But only for a moment. “Do what?” she said weakly.
“Defrauding the VAT and the tax. If you disguise the kickbacks and bribes as something else in the books, you’re acting fraudulently. Inevitably, you’re making false declarations to the Inland Revenue and to Customs and Excise. It doesn’t matter that everybody does it—when it’s reported to them, they take action all the same. Guy and Stella are not going to know what hit them. You can mess with the law, but you never mess with the VATman and the taxman. Or woman. When I was a freelance, I remember one of the first things my accountant ever told me was never get clever with the VAT. ‘Take out a second mortgage if you have to,’ he told me, ‘but always pay the VATman.’ ”
“You’re out of your mind,” Helen said weakly.
“No, I’m not. Customs and Excise have more powers than the police. They can kick your door down in the middle of the night without a warrant. They can kick your mother’s door down in the middle of the night without a warrant if they have reasonable grounds for suspecting you’ve hidden your second set of books in her linen cupboard. They can freeze your bank accounts and make you a social leper faster than appearing on a daytime game show can.”
“I know all that,” Helen interrupted. “But you seem to be forgetting something here. I’m one of the partners in this company. They go down, I go down.”
Lindsay shook her head. “That’s the beauty of it.” She smiled. “Trust me. What time is this place empty tonight?”
Helen shook her head. “I’ve no idea. Stella and Guy’ll be coming back here after they’ve done their filming and they’ll probably hang around to take a look at what they’ve got. There’s no knowing how late they’ll be working. Whatever dirty deeds you’ve got up your sleeve, do they have to be done at night?”
Lindsay grimaced. “It’d be easier if I can get a straight run of a few hours when I can be sure there won’t be anyone else around.”
“Will it wait until tomorrow? Only, they’ve got a night shoot and there’s no way they’ll be back here before two or three in the morning. There’ll only be me here after about half past six.”
Lindsay winked. “Let’s make it seven tomorrow, then.”
“But . . .” Helen said.
“Like I said, trust me. By this time the day after tomorrow, they’ll be done up like a pair of kippers and you’ll be smelling of roses.”
“Oh, yeah?” Helen said dubiously.
“Yeah. One thing I will need is superuser clearance for your computer network. Can you get that for me? Your systems manager should be able to give you the codes, no trouble.”
“Superuser?”
“The systems manager will know what you mean, honestly. Now, can I use your phone? I have to speak to my stitching-up consultant. Oh, yeah, and then I need to speak to Sophie. If your phone bill will stand it.”
“She was a creature of habit,” Sophie said. “Just because she couldn’t get round to Half Moon Bay didn’t mean she felt she had to change her usual routine.”
Lindsay leaned back in Stella’s executive leather desk chair, a sharp contrast with Helen’s rather battered cloth seat. Helen had shunted her down the corridor because her New York call had come through just as Lindsay had finished making arrangements with Ellie to postpone her consultation till the following evening. Now Lindsay had privacy for her call to Sophie. “I can’t believe she trusted the post,” Lindsay said. “She wouldn’t even trust them to deliver a package from San Francisco. That’s why she used to bring the back-ups down to Half Moon Bay in person, according to Meredith.”
“She didn’t. But she did trust courier service,” Sophie said.
Lindsay gave a low whistle. “She wasn’t afraid to spend her money, was she? Transatlantic courier, eh?”
“In fairness, she didn’t go for the expensive overnight service. She just sent them by regular courier, five or six days, especially if the weekend got in the way.”
“So when did the last lot arrive?” Lindsay asked eagerly.
“Six days ago.”
“Have you got them?” Lindsay demanded.
“I managed to persuade Carolyn to let me make copies of them,” Sophie told her. “I also took copies of the previous disks Penny had sent since she arrived in England. The first disk has Heart of Glass from the beginning to Chapter 12, the second from the beginning to Chapter 15 and the last one goes up to Chapter 18. There se
em to be about twelve pages to a chapter. But bear in mind, these chapters must have been completed about a week before Penny died. They may not be current enough to be any help to your investigation,” Sophie cautioned.
“Have you looked at them?”
“I spent most of the night with a very awkward delivery,” Sophie protested.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m just a bit keyed up over this,” Lindsay apologized. “What’s the best way for you to get them to me? Express courier?”
Sophie chuckled. “You’re still a Luddite at heart, aren’t you? I thought you were supposed to have embraced the new technology now?”
“Eh?”
“If you pick up your e-mail, you’ll find them all there. In the few odd moments of calm during the night, I put the files into a format I could transmit, and sent you a bunch of massive e-mails.”
“Hellfire!” Lindsay exclaimed. “You are a fucking genius, Doc! Oh, God, now I’ve got to get right across town to Helen’s, I don’t have my laptop with me and she’s got a different network provider for her Internet connection and I don’t know how to use the software and I’ve got to read up on all the stuff Ellie pointed me at . . .” She stopped gibbering and subsided into thought.
“Carolyn reckoned there could be another delivery in the pipeline, if Penny was sticking to her usual weekly cycle. She was due to have sent another disk off the day she was killed,” Sophie said.
“Yeah, yeah,” Lindsay said, too distracted to take in what Sophie was saying. “That’s terrific. Soph, you’re the berries. The absolute berries. Listen, I’m going to have to run. I’ve got to pick up my laptop and start plowing through this stuff, plus Helen’s got a hell of a situation going on here that I’m trying to help her out with, so I’m going to have to steam off. I’ll call you, okay? I love you.”
“I love you too. Take care,” Sophie said. But she was already speaking to herself.
Chapter 16
Lindsay rubbed her eyes and drew the curtain a few inches further across her bedroom window to keep the sun at a distance. In vain she’d searched for a lead that would connect her computer to Helen’s printer, so instead of printing out the long files of text that Sophie had sent her so she could read them on paper, she was forced to struggle with a laptop screen that was perfectly adequate for normal use, but never meant for long hours of close scrutiny.
