Plots and Errors

by Jill McGown

  He turned back, and took a wad of notes from his back pocket, peeling five off. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘A bonus.’

  Debbie took the money, her eyes widening. ‘A hundred quid?’ she said.

  ‘For holding the fort yesterday, and—’ He made his mind up about one thing, at least. ‘And for telling Mrs Esterbrook that I’m away sick. Came down with it on Saturday, and wasn’t able to let her know. I was unable to fulfil my commitment to her, so to speak.’

  ‘You never went to Penhallin?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Foster. ‘I did. But I lost him, and I don’t want to admit that.’

  ‘So where did you get this from?’ she asked, holding up the money. ‘You lost him because you were in the bookie’s, is that it?’

  ‘I told you where I got it from. I was working. Earning. Putting food on your table, unlike your estranged husband.’

  ‘You had a win on the dogs,’ she said with near total accuracy, folding the money and stuffing it into her purse. ‘Unlike my estranged husband.’

  ‘Oh, I meant to tell you – I saw him,’ said Foster. ‘In Plymouth. Having lunch with Kathy White in the hotel Esterbrook stays at.’ That would make her sit up and take notice, he thought. It was high time these two were back together, and he couldn’t think of a quicker way of bringing that about than by warning Debbie that she had competition.

  Debbie stared at him. ‘Kathy White? The woman he was once engaged to? Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. We all worked together.’

  ‘What was he doing in Plymouth?’

  ‘I don’t know! I wasn’t investigating him, was I?’

  ‘You weren’t investigating anybody! You were at some dog-track. Was it my wages you were gambling with?’

  He winked at her. ‘I felt lucky,’ he said. ‘And I still do. Better times are coming – you mark my words.’

  ‘What the hell was he doing in Plymouth with his ex-fiancée?’ she asked again, her brow furrowed.

  Foster shrugged, and this time, with Debbie thus preoccupied, he escaped. He wanted to do a little bit of checking up before he took the big gamble, if he did take it. How lucky did he feel? How big a gambler was he?

  SCENE XVI – BARTONSHIRE.

  The following day, Thursday, August 28th.

  The Managing Director’s Office of Industrial and Medical Gases in Stansfield.

  ‘There’s a call for you, Mr Esterbrook,’ said the telephonist. ‘The caller wouldn’t give his name, but he said to tell you it was about Sunday morning in Cornwall, and you’d know what that meant.’

  Paul went a little cold. ‘Thank you, Trish,’ he said. ‘Put him on.’ Perhaps it was Josh again, messing around.

  ‘Mr Esterbrook?’ The voice was slightly nasal, conjuring up in Paul’s mind an image of the archetypal second-hand car salesman. It was also a little sinister. And it wasn’t Josh.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, guardedly.

  ‘Have you seen your mail this morning, Mr Esterbrook?’

  He craned his neck to look at Sandie, who was making a neat pile of the opened letters. She would be answering them, not him. He very rarely had to see any mail these days. ‘Not yet,’ he said.

  ‘You should have a package marked private and personal,’ he said.

  A very unpleasant sensation caused Paul’s pulse to quicken, and his skin to become moist. ‘What is this?’ he said.

  ‘I suggest you open the package first, and then I’ll be pleased to explain why I’m ringing.’

  Blackmail. It had to be. When in doubt, say nowt, as his old drill sergeant used to say. He hung up.

  Moments later, the phone rang again, and Paul took a breath, picked it up.

  ‘Mr Esterbrook, it’s the gentleman you were just speaking to. He says he thinks you were cut off.’

  ‘Put him through,’ said Paul, and heard the click. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.

  ‘I want you to open the package, that’s all. It’ll give you some idea of what I’m offering.’

  The sensation moved to the pit of his stomach. ‘Hang on,’ he said, and put down the phone. He sat for a moment, gathering his wits, then walked into Sandie’s office, feeling light-headed. ‘Do . . . do you have a package for me?’ he said. ‘Marked personal?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and picked up an unopened envelope with a stiffened back, handing it to him.

  It was indeed marked private and personal. It had been delivered by courier. The address label was printed. Across the top in red letters were the words PHOTOGRAPHS: DO NOT BEND. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and walked, dazed, back into his own office, and closed the door.

  Unable to get his thumb in between the flap and the envelope, he tried to tear it open, but there was no slack to get hold of. He looked round for something to use as a paper-knife. Why didn’t he have a paper-knife, for God’s sake? Picking at the corner with a paper-clip finally made enough of a space for him to rip the rest of it open, and the torn packing revealed the photograph, which confirmed his worst fears.

  It was a fuzzy video-still, by the look of it; it wasn’t of itself worth anything, but the blackmailer had clearly got a video of the entire proceedings, and Paul knew what was on it.

  He stood quite still for a few minutes, the photograph in his hand, looking out of the open window at the industrial landscape, drabber even than usual on this hot, overcast day, trying to come to terms with what was happening to him. Should he call Sandie in, see what she thought he should do? She thought much more quickly and clearly than he did in a crisis.

  Tentatively, he opened the adjoining door again. She was busy with the word-processor; she didn’t notice him. No, he thought. No. She seemed quite innocent, but for all he knew, she was behind it. You couldn’t trust anyone. But that was paranoid, he knew that even as he thought it. It was his own actions that had brought this about; it had had nothing to do with her. All the same, he thought, he’d leave her out of it. Just to be on the safe side. He closed the door again, and walked round the desk, pausing to look out of the window.

  Traffic moved along the dual carriageway, stopping and starting at the traffic lights which had recently been deemed necessary, and across the wide road stood the IMG bottling plant which had been here even longer than the sixties office block in which he stood; in this youthful town, it was practically an ancient monument. An IMG tanker was pulling up in the delivery area as he watched, just as they were pulling into IMG bottling plants all over the United Kingdom. Most of the gases were actually produced by subsidiaries of IMG these days; his father had bought up the suppliers whenever he could, taken a stake in them when he couldn’t.

  This company was big, and he had worked for it for ten years. He had another seven to go, and then his controlling interest would mean that he could sell, float the company on the stock market, retire from it, do what he liked with it. Whatever was the most attractive option. He would have real, serious money to work with, to play with, to invest in projects that interested him, to do what he wanted to do, not what his father wanted him to do. He looked at the video-still that threatened that rosy future, tore it into tiny pieces, stuffed them into his pocket, and picked up the phone again, but the line had gone dead.

  He hung up, and five minutes later, the phone rang, and once more, he got the perplexed operator.

  ‘It’s the same man again, Mr Esterbrook. He says—’

  ‘Yes. Put him through.’

  ‘I hope you weren’t trying to get the call traced. It would be a waste of everybody’s time.’

  No. It hadn’t occurred to him to get the call traced. He needed time to think about this. ‘What do you want?’ he demanded.

  ‘I think you can tell from the photograph I’ve sent you that I am in possession of more – shall we say explicit? – material concerning your activities on Sunday morning. I’m prepared to sell you that material, Mr Esterbrook. It’s yours if you meet the asking price. It is an exclusive offer.’

  Paul shook his head. ‘It’s a still f
rom a video, right? You can copy videos. I don’t call that an exclusive offer.’

  ‘Providing you meet the asking price, Mr Esterbrook, you can rest assured that no one will never know the material existed. Or find out by any other means what was taking place while the camera was recording. Because if I did that, you would then have no reason not to tell the police about our little transaction. I would be putting my head in the noose, and why would I want to do that?’

  Paul could see that it wasn’t worth his caller’s while to double-cross him, but they said that blackmailers never stopped with the first payment. Then again, blackmail was a risky business, with ample scope for being apprehended while picking up the payments, or delivering the merchandise. A one-time hit was obviously the likeliest way to get away with it. Besides, it wasn’t the cash he was worried about.

  ‘How much?’ he asked.

  ‘Well . . .’ he said. ‘I know what you stand to lose, and how you stand to lose it.’

  ‘How do you know?’ As if he didn’t know how the bastard knew. Elizabeth had employed him, that’s how he knew. He could deal with him once he’d flushed him into the open, but he still needed time to think about his strategy.

  ‘Wills are public documents, Mr Esterbrook.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘A hundred thousand pounds.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Come on! What’s that to you? Two months’ salary? Three months’?’

  Something between the two. Paul would have no trouble raising the money, and suppressing that tape was worth infinitely more to him than that. But he wasn’t going to agree to anything when he’d been put on the spot like this. This was a situation for which he hadn’t bargained; now, he needed time to look at it with a cooler head. Play for time, Paul, he told himself, play for time.

  ‘I haven’t even seen what’s on the video yet,’ he said. ‘How do I know it’s worth that sort of money?’

  ‘You know what’s on it,’ he said. ‘You’re starring in it. And the only way you’re going to see it is if you buy it, Mr Esterbrook. I’ll leave you to think it over, and I’ll ring you at lunchtime.’

  Paul cancelled two appointments, diverted all his calls to Sandie, and spent the morning thinking it over, as advised. Paying him was probably the wisest course, but the blackmailer would, of course, keep a copy of the tape with which to come back for more when he ran out of money. He could happily keep the blackmailer supplied with cash for the next seven years, but he really didn’t think he could live with that hanging over him as well.

  Two words from that telephone conversation had stuck in his head. Rest assured. He hadn’t done that for years, and certainly not since his father’s will had been read. And he worked out how he really could rest assured. It would take a fair bit of organizing, but it could be done. When Sandie went for lunch, he took the divert instruction off the phone, and locked the adjoining door. At half past one, his phone rang.

  ‘Have you thought it over?’

  Paul took a breath. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I can get the money. How do we do this?’

  ‘I thought you’d see the advantages of accepting my offer. We do it in Penhallin, this coming weekend. Go to your usual hotel, and have the cash with you. I’ll take it from there.’

  ‘I won’t be there this weekend,’ he said. ‘The boat’s out of commission. And I couldn’t get that kind of money that quickly anyway – even I can’t get a hundred thousand from a hole-in-the-wall machine.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘All right,’ said the voice, reluctantly. ‘But you’d better not be messing me about.’

  An amateur. This was going to work out just fine.

  ‘When will you be in Penhallin next?’

  ‘The last weekend in September.’ When he fully intended making up for the fallow weekends he was going to have to endure while the boat was being made over. That had seemed like a disaster, but not any more. Without having to come up with anything clever, he had got the time he needed to work out how he was going to deal with this, and by then it would have been made abundantly clear to the blackmailer just who was calling the shots. In fact, he would start now. ‘But I have better things to do in Penhallin,’ he said. ‘And my time there is limited. We do it on the Friday.’ He flicked over his calendar. ‘Friday the twenty-sixth of September. Here. In Bartonshire. Anywhere you like, any time you like.’

  ‘All right. I’ll be in touch.’

  SCENE XVII – BARTONSHIRE.

  The following day, Friday, 29th August.

  The House at Little Elmley.

  Sandie had been desperate to talk to Josh since yesterday, but he had been in Penhallin dealing with the boat, staying overnight at The Point, and she hadn’t wanted to tell him on the phone.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, as soon as he saw her.

  Sandie took a deep breath. ‘I think Paul’s being blackmailed,’ she said.

  Josh stared at her. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, no – I’m not sure. But there was an envelope in the mail yesterday morning with photographs in it, and it was marked private. Then he’d only been in his office two minutes when he got a call, and he seemed to hang up on whoever it was. Then he got another, and he came in and asked if he had a package marked private. Then he went into his office and closed the adjoining door, and he never does that unless he’s got someone with him, and—’

  Josh held up a hand. ‘Whoa,’ he said.

  ‘But what are we going to do?’ she said. ‘We can’t do all that again.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Josh. ‘Even Paul wouldn’t fall for it twice.’

  ‘So what are we going to do?’

  ‘What can we do?’ Josh smiled. ‘Nothing, except wait and see.’

  How could he be so calm? After all that planning, all that work? She had been worried sick all day about telling him. Maybe he hadn’t quite grasped the implications. ‘But Josh,’ she said. ‘If he’s being blackmailed—’

  ‘I do understand what you’re telling me,’ Josh said. ‘But I learned in prison that there is no point in getting agitated about something you can do nothing about. And it might not be what you think. You might have got the wrong impression.’

  She might. But she doubted it. ‘But if I am right, what are we going to do? Oh, Josh, it’s not fair!’

  He came over to her, put his arms round her. ‘If you’re right,’ he said, ‘then we’re stuck with it. So we’ll just bide our time, and devise a new plan.’ He kissed her, and smiled. ‘If he is being blackmailed, he’ll tell me all about it sooner or later. He always does.’

  Sandie couldn’t see how that would help. ‘What good will that do?’ she said.

  ‘Everything Paul tells me about his sordid little life makes it easier and easier for me to manipulate him,’ Josh said. ‘So don’t you worry. If we can’t do it this way, we’ll find another way.’

  He held her close, and she wanted him so badly that she wanted to cry. She had never felt like this with anyone before. Never.

  ‘Even if you’re right, we’ll have other chances,’ he said.

  Oh, she hoped so. She hoped so. She couldn’t bear to see Josh lose.

  Act IV

  THE MURDERS

  O proud death

  What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,

  That thou so many princes at a shot

  So bloodily hast struck?

  Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2

  SCENE I – BARTONSHIRE.

  Four weeks later, Friday, September 26th, 4.45 p.m.

  The House at Little Elmley.

  Josh popped his head round the patio window in Angela’s office. ‘I’m just off,’ he said.

  She frowned. ‘Off where, dear?’

  ‘To the club for an hour with a pupil and then to Penhallin. I’ve got the boat back, remember?’

  Oh, of course. She’d forgotten. ‘Is Paul going to join you tomorrow?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I imagine so. Why?’

>   Angela sighed. ‘Because Elizabeth’s going to London tomorrow, and she’s going to come home to an empty house, if he’s off with you. And he’ll be giving a Sandie a lift down, won’t he? She’ll only start getting suspicious again.’

  ‘Not this time,’ said Josh. ‘Sandie isn’t coming to Penhallin. A group of divers are doing a night-dive in the reservoir before they go off to do it for real in the Red Sea. Sandie wants to do it with them.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ Angela smiled. ‘I’ve had an idea,’ she said. ‘How about if I invite Sandie and Elizabeth for dinner? That way, Elizabeth will see for herself that she’s not with Paul. It’ll be the next best thing to telling her the truth.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Josh. ‘Sandie might not be finished until quite late, though. Anyway – I’ve got to go. See you on Sunday.’ And he was gone.

  Angela smiled. It was almost like the old days at Little Elmley now that Sandie was here. Not since he was a small boy had she seen Josh so relaxed, so content with life. She really wanted Josh to be happy, and it seemed that at last he was. That was the principal reason that Angela herself was happier than she had been in years, because she had always felt she owed Josh some of her happiness.

  Perhaps, at last, she had repaid her debt.

  SCENE II – BARTONSHIRE.

  Friday, September 26th, 5.20 p.m.

  The Managing Director’s Office at IMG.

  Sandie put the post-dated letters between the leaves of a book for Paul to sign on Monday, and sighed. Josh’s boat was seaworthy again, and she wished it wasn’t; she had spent the last few weeks at Little Elmley, and it had been wonderful. There was something perfect about her and Josh; nothing could ever spoil or harm it, not even her having to continue to accommodate his half-brother’s urges, as Josh called them. But her weekends with Paul were utterly boring, and she wasn’t looking forward to this one.

  Working with Paul wasn’t just as boring; she liked the job, and she was good at it, but the boat having been out of commission had not made her job any easier. Today had been all right, because he hadn’t been in the office, but the last few weeks had been sheer hell, with his temper getting worse and worse, and the air turning bluer by the day. Josh said it was all part of the softening-up process, and that it would be worth it.