Bea pointed. ‘What about the computer?’
Mr Cambridge said, ‘I’ve given it a quick once-over, but it’s password protected, and we don’t know what that is. I may have to take it home and have a thorough look.’
‘Did you look in the usual places? His diary, for instance? Most people keep a record of their passwords somewhere, in case they forget what they are. You’ve tried “Honoria”, I suppose.’ She pulled open the top drawer of the desk to disclose the usual muddle of pens, notepads, staplers, biros, etc. Pulling the drawer right out, she peered inside. A Post-it note had been stuck to the back of the drawer, with a series of names on it, all but one crossed out. The last one was ‘Kylie’. Ah, the schoolgirl in the pub.
‘Try “Kylie”,’ said Bea. ‘That’s the name of his latest.’
Mr Cambridge huffed out a laugh. ‘Clever girl.’
Bea did not like being patronized. ‘Had he no laptop or other notebook? In his position, I’d have expected him to flourish both, and that they’d be the very latest models.’
His Lordship seated himself with a grunt. Was his leg hurting? He wasn’t going to complain about it, though. ‘He had one of those dinky little notebooks, small enough to stick in his coat pocket, but we can’t find it. We assume it went home with him.’ His Lordship probably had the very latest gear himself, and he might have been as fast with it as any professional, until his fingers began to gnarl up with arthritis.
Bea turned her attention to the rest of the room. There was an old-fashioned metal filing cabinet behind the desk. She put a hand on it and looked her question at the men.
Lord Murchison shook his head. ‘Nothing helpful in it. They checked.’
The chair behind the desk was a giant swivel upholstered in black leather, and there were two other smaller chairs for visitors. A hatstand stood by the window, bare of the normal clutter of overcoats and umbrellas. A large bookcase completed the furniture. There was an old-style Venetian blind at the window and a Turkish-style carpet on the floor, which left about a foot of gleaming wooden floorboards all around it. The pendant light fitment was brass, solid and heavy. The shade was of etched glass. The light looked as if it had been installed when electricity was introduced to replace earlier gas mantels.
Mr Cambridge closed the door upon hearing the noise of a vacuum cleaner, which had started up somewhere nearby, and took a seat by the door.
His Lordship said, ‘The major went through every single book in the bookcase, and every drawer in the desk and filing cabinet. Nothing. Afterwards, Zander took all the outstanding paperwork through to his office and dealt with it. No bank statements.’
Bea tried moving the bookcase, but it was too heavy to shift and flush against the wall. It had probably been built into the building a hundred years ago and redecorating had been done around it.
She ran a fingertip across the top of the bookcase. Clean.
She checked the Venetian blind. The cords still worked. The slats were clean, too. ‘Your cleaning company is doing a reasonably good job.’ She could hear a second vacuum cleaner whining away upstairs.
‘There’s nothing you can think of . . .?’
She sat in Denzil’s big chair behind the desk, and gave it a twirl. ‘Oh yes. It’s obvious where he put them. Easy to retrieve. My mother used to press flowers that way. Was he right-handed?’
‘I imagine so. Yes, I believe he was.’
‘In that case, he’d have put them on this side.’ She went to the corner of the carpet on the right-hand side of the desk and flipped it up and over. It was a heavy carpet, hardly worn despite its great age. Up came the underlay, a soft brown felt. Between that and the floorboards were several large sheets of brown paper. She lifted up the top sheet and there, neatly laid out in rows, were a number of bank statements.
Lord Murchison tried to stand up, but even helping himself with his stick, he tottered and would have fallen if Mr Cambridge and Bea had not sprung to his rescue.
They restored the old man to his seat.
Bea patted his arm. ‘Let me. I’m still able to touch the floor with my fingertips.’ Click. She could feel both men accessing the date of her birth in their memory banks, and she realized they’d done their homework on her background. So they knew how old she was. So what?
She got down on her hands and knees, and picked up the statements one by one. ‘A joint current account, covering the past year only.’ She scanned the sheets quickly.
‘Allow me,’ said Mr Cambridge, removing them from her hands and taking them over to Lord Murchison. ‘Ah. Fifteen thousand pounds in here . . . Another twenty the previous month . . . Ten thousand five hundred here and—’
Lord Murchison snatched them. ‘Some months the totals are much bigger than others. Look at this. Fifty thousand in March.’
Mr Cambridge took the last statement from Bea. ‘Most of it goes out straight away, paid by cheque. The statement gives us the cheque numbers but no indication of who he paid the money to.’
Bea sat back on her heels, ignoring a twinge in her back. She was not going to let the men see that her position was causing her distress. ‘You’re forgetting something. It was a joint account, which I suppose has now been frozen pending probate. Either he or she could have taken money out. Money deposited means they were being paid for something, and we can guess what, but bank statements don’t tell us who paid it in, and we need his chequebook to find out who he paid money out to.’
She inched her way to the other side of the desk and bent the carpet back again. More bank statements; this time for the previous year. She picked them up and slapped them down on to the desk top. Mr Cambridge took them straight over to His Lordship.
Bea grimaced. Her knees were beginning to play up. Couldn’t Mr Cambridge join in the fun and investigate the other two corners of the carpet? Apparently not.
She pulled herself upright by hanging on to the desk and straightened the kinks out of her knees and lower back. Perhaps she could lift up the other corners without getting down on her hands and knees? She threw Mr Cambridge a dark look, which he ignored. She bent over to lift more corners. This time she drew blanks. ‘That’s it.’
His Lordship was disappointed. ‘It’s not enough. Unless we can prove that the monies concerned came in the form of kickbacks, we’re stymied.’
‘So where’s his chequebook?’ said Mr Cambridge.
‘Briefcase?’
The men looked at one another. Lord Murchison said, ‘Yes, where is his briefcase? He had one, of course. Initialled. My old friend gave it him for his twenty-first, and he always carried it with him. I suppose Zander sent it back to Honoria when he and the major cleared the room.’
Bea shook her head. ‘No, no briefcase. Zander’s an honest man. He said he hadn’t seen it, and he wouldn’t lie. Honoria seems to think it’s still here. Where did he keep it? By the side of his desk?’
‘Yes. Always. On his right.’
Bea thought about it. ‘How old did you say it was? Twenty-odd years, perhaps? Did he look after his things properly, or was he one of those whose belongings are always getting scratched and torn?’
Mr Cambridge looked bewildered, but Lord Murchison replied, ‘Somewhat battered, I seem to recall.’
Bea sighed. Couldn’t they see what was under their noses? She went out into the hall and looked around her. Someone was vacuuming upstairs, but the door to Reception was open, and someone was vacuuming away in there, too.
The heavy-set cleaner – what was her name? – looked up as Bea tapped on the door. ‘Yes?’ Not particularly friendly.
‘So sorry to interrupt,’ said Bea. ‘Particularly since I think you’re doing a really good job here. These old houses are a lot of work, aren’t they? I’m in the domestic agency business myself, and I know a good job when I see it.’
‘We do our best. No one can’t say otherwise.’ Folded lips, brass-bright hair, wedding ring sunk into a fleshy finger.
‘The thing is, you know one of the dire
ctors died recently? Well, his widow’s going spare, trying to find his wretched old briefcase. Fit for nothing but the dustbin, I know, but there were some papers in it which she needs. I hoped you might have come across it?’
‘Oh, that old thing.’ There was a flicker of intelligence in her eyes which Bea recognized. The woman knew what had happened to it, had probably taken it herself. ‘Broken strap. No good to man or beast. When we was cleaning the room, we asked Mr Trimmingham what to do about it, him poking around like he does . . .’
‘Mr Trimmingham was in Mr Denzil’s room?’
A nod. ‘Poking around. “What’s this, who’s that, what are you going to do with that?” Sir Cecil, too. And then he gets a mite too close to Ruby and, well, you know. Nasty habits some gents have, don’t they?’
‘They do,’ said Bea, remembering the hand on her thigh at lunch. ‘So he told you to give it to him?’
The woman bridled. ‘We knew better than that, didn’t we? It’s not his to say what should be done with it. There were papers in it and all. So we said we’d lock it away safely till the widow could say what she wanted done with it.’
‘Quite right, Violet. Absolutely on the ball,’ said Lord Murchison, appearing in the doorway. ‘Your finding the briefcase quite rejuvenates me.’
She laughed, as he intended she should.
‘Paperwork.’ He shook his head. ‘When someone dies, the paperwork seems to multiply. And when one of our directors goes . . .’ He sighed. ‘The minutes of the last board meeting. We’ve looked everywhere. Do you think they could have been in his briefcase?’
Violet almost stepped on her own feet in her willingness to oblige. ‘I’ll fetch it for you, my lord, and then you can see for yourself. Tell the truth, I’ll be happier in my mind to get rid of it. I was hoping to see Lady Honoria myself, but she was just leaving when we arrived and couldn’t spare the time to talk to me.’
Thank God for small mercies.
Violet disappeared to her cubbyhole across the hall, only to return minutes later carrying a battered-looking briefcase with Denzil’s initials on it.
‘Thank you very much,’ said Lord Murchison, taking the briefcase and pressing a twenty-pound note into her hand as he did so. ‘I’ll ring Honoria tonight and tell her it’s been found. Good work. Yes, very good work. Thank you, Violet.’
Talking still, he backed away and returned to Denzil’s office.
‘Trimmingham again,’ said Mr Cambridge, who’d been listening, of course. ‘And Sir Cecil.’
‘Cecil’s all right in his way, but Trimmingham is a nuisance,’ said Lord Murchison, upending the contents of the briefcase on Denzil’s desk. ‘Trimmingham can be circumvented, I think. Ah. One chequebook, hardly started. One chequebook, stubs only. Luckily he’s filled out the stubs. I do hate it when people fail to do that. They think they’ll remember what they’ve done, but they never do.’
Bea went through the rest of the papers in the briefcase as the two men compared cheque stubs with bank statements.
‘The writing on the stubs is all in his hand,’ said Mr Cambridge, ‘so presumably this was his chequebook and she had another. None of these cheques tally with the amounts withdrawn from his account, and he didn’t fill in the paying-in slips. Do you think he had a separate paying-in book that we haven’t found? Either that, or someone else paid the money into the account direct.’
‘There are no cheques covering those amounts in this book, either,’ said His Lordship. ‘It follows that if he didn’t withdraw those large amounts, then Honoria must have done so. I suppose she put them into another bank account which he had no access to, or perhaps she put the money into another bank or a building society. I think we’ve enough to make her back away from us.’
Mr Cambridge was frowning. ‘We really need the bank statements from her own personal account before we can prove that.’
‘We’ve got enough to prove that he was receiving large sums of money from sources unknown.’
‘He or she. She might have a source of income that we don’t know about.’
‘Then let her prove it,’ said His Lordship, collapsing into Denzil’s chair. ‘My leg’s playing up again. Old age is no joke.’
‘I wonder,’ said Bea, in her most angelic voice, ‘if the income tax people know about these dodgy payments. I agree that you’ve probably got enough to make her back off, but if that fails, you could always mention the words “Inland Revenue” and see what happens.’
‘Mrs Abbot, I love you dearly,’ said His Lordship. ‘Why didn’t I meet up with you when I was in my prime?’
She laughed. ‘I was happily married then. Were you?’
‘Adequately so,’ he said. ‘Is there anything else of interest in that pile of papers?’
She shuffled them together. ‘No minutes of meetings, surprise, surprise. A memo pad with lists of things to do. Photocopies of correspondence with Corcorans which you might like to look through. I don’t know enough to say what’s important and what’s not.’
‘Put it all back in the briefcase. I’ll lock it up in my office now and ring Honoria, tell her not to bother to come in tomorrow and ask her to return her husband’s keys as soon as possible. And then I’ll run you both home.’
Mr Cambridge helped His Lordship to his feet, looking worried. ‘You ought to see the quack again, you know.’
‘What good does he do? No, I’m as worn out as that old briefcase, but I’ll see this through, God willing. After that, who knows?’
Monday evening
She answered the phone, to hear Tommy killing all her plans for the future. The bank statements showing Corcoran’s payments into the joint account had turned up at the office. Tommy had said that, unless she could prove these payments had been legitimately made, he must sorrowfully, and in some distress, assume, etcetera. He said it would be best if she didn’t go into the office tomorrow. Someone would return Denzil’s briefcase and anything else that belonged to her in the next few days, and collect his keys.
With apologies for having broken into her evening.
She set the phone down with care.
No way was she going to accept this turn of events quietly. Rage took hold of her, making her tremble.
The Chocolate Boy! That’s who must have found the briefcase and taken it to the old man. She could just see him gloating over her downfall.
Well, two could play at that game, and she’d have his hide for this.
She booted up Denzil’s mini-notebook. The staff addresses? Ah, here they were. Now, where did the Chocolate Boy live? Got it! Now, how should she go about getting even with him?
EIGHT
Tuesday breakfast
‘So that’s that,’ said Bea, sweeping the cat Winston off the central work surface and dishing out toast and tea to her two assistants next morning. ‘Zander’s job is safe, the baddies have been exposed, and I think we can trust Lord Murchison to mop up any other problems which may arise.’ She listened to herself. Was she being too emphatic? It was all over, wasn’t it?
Maggie had coloured her hair pink today, and she had outlined her eyes with thick black lines. Bare legs, criss-cross thongs on high-heeled sandals, and a psychedelic top. Colourful.
Maggie said, ‘You told him I wasn’t interested?’
‘Zander? Yes, I told him.’
Oliver grabbed the last two pieces of toast and, with his other hand, pushed his empty mug towards Bea for a refill. ‘I like Zander.’
‘Yes,’ said Bea, ‘but Maggie’s not ready for a grown-up relationship.’
Oliver said, ‘Ouch!’ giving Maggie a sideways glance. ‘That’s a bit thick.’
Maggie filled her mouth with toast and shrugged. If Bea’s words hurt her, she didn’t show it.
Oliver finished off the last of the honey. ‘I’d like to have a go at the Dishonourable’s computer. It would be interesting to see what I could find on it.’
Bea waved her hands in dismissal of the affair. ‘As far as we’re concerned,
the matter’s finished. I suppose we could invoice Lord Murchison for finding the bank statements and unearthing the briefcase, but on the whole I think not. Zander will probably want to pay us something for saving his job. Keep it low, Oliver. I don’t suppose he can afford that much.’
Maggie ignored this. ‘I may be late tonight. There’s a problem at the flat I’m doing up that I want to check out, but the plumber can’t get back there till after he’s finished another job. So if someone else can get something in for supper? I propose that Oliver takes a turn at putting something on the table.’
Oliver raised his eyebrows and ignored the suggestion.
‘Point taken,’ said Bea. ‘I’ll do it. It’s time I filled the freezer up again, too. I need to see my daughter-in-law sometime, otherwise it’s business as usual.’
Oliver slid his dishes into the sink instead of the dishwasher. ‘Lady Honoria ought to go to prison for what she and her husband have done.’
‘Are alleged to have done,’ said Bea. ‘There’s no proof, and no point proceeding with it, now her husband’s is dead. The Crown Prosecution Service wouldn’t look at it.’
Maggie retrieved Oliver’s dishes from the sink, rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher. ‘Will you never learn?’
Oliver shook his head, frowning to himself. He went off to start work as the cat Winston leaped back on to the table to see what he might be able to lick up. Maggie aimed a slap at him, then picked him up to give him a cuddle, which he endured knowing full well that she was the likeliest person to give him titbits.
In a voice muffled by fur, Maggie said, ‘The thing is, I didn’t go off Zander because his looks took a bashing, though I expect that’s what you think. No, it’s not that. I mean, I do think he’s all right in his way, and you can hardly see the scars nowadays. It isn’t about looks. It’s about him being a loser. I know all about being a loser. I’m a champion loser. I can’t team up with another loser or I’ll always be at the bottom of the heap.’
Bea blinked. So that was it? Tread with care. ‘I agree that you had a bad time. Both you and Oliver. Some people sit down under misfortune for ever, while others get up and get on with it. Some people need a helping hand to get going again. You gave Oliver a helping hand, didn’t you? Even though you’d been through a bad time yourself, you picked him up, dusted him down and set him back on his feet. And look at him now. He’s bobbed up again nicely, don’t you think? You couldn’t call him a loser now.’
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