‘I know someone who might stand in for you while you’re in hospital. I’ll ask my au— er, Ms Walcott if you like.’ Bill’s eyebrows shot up.
‘Thanks, you’re a mate,’ said Jim.
‘I don’t think she’ll care who’s doing the job as long as someone is.’
‘Yeah, people like that don’t know who does the real work.’ Jim went gloomy again. ‘They drive around in their fancy cars and go to fancy board meetings while the rest of us work our arses off. To them I’m just a nobody.’
Bill said nothing, but kept his eyes on Helen, and she read the mixture of horror and amusement in them as if he’d discovered the missing link.
Talk about putting your foot in it. Or rather a scuffed Doc Marten boot.
‘I should’ve known,’ said Bill when they left the hospital. ‘You have your mother’s chin.’
Helen sent him a sideways look as they crossed the road. ‘The cat’s out of the bag, then.’
‘The cat most certainly is.’ Bill stopped in the middle of the road and got hooted at. Ignoring the irate driver, he swept her up in a bear hug, swung her around, then put her down again as if she was made of porcelain, wiped his eyes on a handkerchief and blew his nose noisily. ‘To think you came back, after all that.’
‘I have a stake in the company, as it happens.’
‘My, my, Mimi’s daughter. You know, I knew your mother from when she was this high.’ Bill put his hand out at around hip height. ‘That little love was always with her father. Sitting on his desk, painting and drawing while he worked. Pretty as a picture. Never knew her mother, as far as I recall.’
That makes two of us, thought Helen. Why did people insist on creating this fiction that a relationship between a widowed father and his daughter was something enchanted when in reality not having a mother was a pretty shitty situation for a little girl to be in?
‘Of course, I went with your grandfather when he and your gran merged the companies,’ Bill went on. ‘It was an exciting time, though not easy for your poor mum. Them other two were a right pair of witches. Didn’t like their mother marrying again or some such.’ He sniffed. ‘But you couldn’t keep Mimi down. I think they came to respect her in the end, especially your aunt Letitia. The other one hated her guts, but obviously she was too much of a nob to show it.’
Lost for words, Helen stared at him. One more link to the past. Bill had known her mother and, like Mrs Deakin, actually liked her. The permanent ache inside her grew a little weaker as she fitted another piece into the puzzle.
She had a million questions, and hardly knew where to start, but since Bill had known her mother in a work capacity, maybe this was the place to begin.
‘You knew her well?’
‘So-so,’ he said with a little hand gesture. ‘First she was the boss’s daughter, then she was the boss. We didn’t socialise. She was nice to work with, though.’
‘What was her involvement with the company?’
‘As involved as you can get in a family business. Knee-deep. Had great plans for it, although her plans didn’t always go down well with the other two.’
This squared with what she’d learnt from Aggie. But there was more, so much more, and before she could stop herself, the questions spilled out of her like water from an overflowing tub. She bombarded Bill in the taxi and out of it, and he answered what he could.
‘What were her work practices like? Am I anything like her? To work with, I mean?’
‘As you might expect. And no, you’re nothing like her.’
Bill clammed up all of a sudden, and she chewed over his guarded reply. The company had meant a lot to her mother, that much she’d understood, but where Mimi’s commitment was concerned, whether driven by family pride or just making money, she was none the wiser. Just because money meant very little to herself that didn’t mean her mother had been the same.
When they got back, an auction selling Dutch masters was in full swing, but Helen managed to pull Letitia aside to talk about Jim’s predicament.
Her aunt listened with only half an ear, distracted by the sales for which Ransome & Daughters would earn a hefty commission. Helen glanced over Letitia’s shoulder. As always the chauffeur wasn’t far away, and it struck her that he seemed more like a bodyguard than a driver. It made sense for Letitia to have one, if she was associated with people like Jason’s father, but his presence made her prickle with irritation.
‘Yes, fine.’ Letitia waved her hand dismissively. ‘Do whatever is needed. Does this friend of yours have her own transport?’
‘Jim’s scooter hasn’t been damaged. Bill checked it earlier. Charlie could use that if it’s okay with you.’
‘Sure. Just don’t bore me with paperwork. Speak to Mrs Deakin.’
Helen left her and hunted down Mrs Deakin who promised to prepare the paperwork in case Charlie took the temporary job.
‘She’s been unemployed for a while, so I think she will.’
Mrs Deakin sent her a look suggesting that there was a reason unemployed people stayed unemployed, and it wasn’t an approving one.
At the house she sought out Charlie and told her the good news. Charlie tossed the TV remote aside and flung her arms around Helen almost violently. For a moment Helen went rigid, then allowed herself to enjoy the contact.
‘When do I start?’
‘Tomorrow, if you can. And you’ll need to spruce up a bit. Get some of those rings out of your nose.’
‘If I can? Are you joking? I can start now!’ She skipped to the cupboard and pulled out two shot glasses and a bottle of vodka. ‘Let’s celebrate.’
‘Not for me, thanks.’
‘Well, I’ll have one.’ Charlie filled a glass to the brim.
Helen moistened her lips with her tongue. She didn’t particularly like vodka, but the idea of being able to have a drink, just like that, without second thoughts, filled her with envy. She may be fabulously wealthy now, certainly by her own standards, but money couldn’t cure her epilepsy or remove the restrictions it imposed on her. Nothing could.
It was a pain in the butt.
Charlie knocked back the vodka, and instead of making her high as a kite, the alcohol seemed to bring her down to earth. ‘What sort of job is it?’
‘Courier, mainly, and general dogsbody. Can you drive a scooter?’
‘I’m sure I can learn.’
‘It doesn’t bother you that Jim fell off it?’
‘No. It’ll be fun.’
‘God help us!’ Charlie’s optimism was infectious. Grinning, Helen shook her head.
It took Charlie only two days to charm everyone she came into contact with, and she quickly settled in with the dull, daily routine, which seemed less dull now that she was there. She went with Helen and Bill on their visits to Jim, to talk about scooters, but more likely because it broke the monotony.
Jim found common ground with Charlie as words like throttle, ground clearance and carburettor flew across his hospital bed, and his mood improved dramatically. Helen experienced a pang of jealousy, not about Jim, but Jason.
She hadn’t spoken to him since he’d confronted her about the file, but he’d kept his promise about not saying anything, which must mean that he didn’t mistrust her completely. Which was a good thing.
Even so, she stayed out of his way in case her presence somehow provoked him to go back on his word, and that meant brooding alone in her room. Which was a bad thing.
She enjoyed travelling to and from work with Charlie. Charlie had an ability to talk about everything and nothing at the same time, not really expecting an answer, and it gave her some head space without being separate from the rest of the world.
Leaving work on Friday evening, she looked around for Charlie, checking both the staff room and other back rooms, then ducked inside the auction room in case she was there. Bill emerged from the dark with his bundle of keys.
‘I’m about to lock up out back. You’ve finished out there, haven’t you?’
&nbs
p; Helen nodded. ‘I’m looking for Charlie. Seen her anywhere?’
‘Nope. Must’ve left.’
Bill continued out the back, muttering to himself.
Charlie wouldn’t have left without telling her, so she had to be around somewhere, and the only place left to check was upstairs. Charlie was probably chatting to Letitia’s secretary, although how she’d managed to charm that sour lemon defied all reason.
But the secretary’s office was empty, the furniture and computer just boxy, dark shapes. A thin blue light coming from underneath the door to Letitia’s office caught Helen’s eye. Had Letitia forgotten to switch off her PC, or was Charlie stupid enough to make herself at home in the big boss’s office? Anxiety mingled with exasperation made her glance over her shoulder before she opened the door, but Ruth’s office to the other side was empty too.
Letitia’s office looked much like it did during working hours. The floor length curtains were drawn, though, and the only light came from a large flat screen monitor. Charlie was tapping away with her eyes fixed on the screen, and didn’t take any notice of Helen when she came in. Her irritation rose.
‘What are you doing? You’re not supposed to be in here.’
‘What’s it look like I’m doing?’
‘Trespassing.’
‘I’m working,’ she said. ‘Entering the data of the shipment we had yesterday.’
‘You don’t need the boss’s computer for that. Use the one in the packing room. That’s what it’s there for. We all use that one.’
‘Someone else was doing something on it, and I was bored.’
Helen sat on the desk and watched Charlie’s fingers move at a furious pace across the keyboard, a fingertip version of Riverdance. ‘How did you get in anyway? It must have been password protected.’
‘Social engineering.’
‘Eh?’
Charlie rolled her eyes. ‘Social engineering. You know, when you find out what people’s children or pets are called, or what their birthday is, where they were born, their favourite colour and so on. Lots of people use names and dates for their passwords.’
‘Oh, I forgot. That’s your area of expertise. So what’s Le— Ms Walcott’s birthday, then?’
‘Haven’t a clue.’ Grinning wickedly, Charlie nodded towards a glossy photograph on the desk. ‘But she likes her car. That creepy chauffeur of hers told me she’s named it Amanda.’
‘Amanda?’
‘Yes. She-who-must-be-loved.’
‘Who? Letitia?’
‘It’s Latin,’ Charlie explained. ‘That’s what Amanda means in Latin. I did learn something while I was banged up. Anyway, her password is Amanda1. It wasn’t difficult to work out. Besides, it’s just for a laugh.’
‘Seriously, though,’ said Helen, ‘you could get us both in a lot of trouble if Security finds us in here.’
‘Not as much trouble as I could land our precious boss in. Have a look.’ Charlie turned the monitor so Helen could see more clearly.
‘What am I looking at?’
‘You tell me.’
Helen leaned closer. On screen was an Excel spreadsheet, the sort they all used for their entries, with columns for date entered, item number, owner, description, auction estimate, as well as date sold and the actual sum the item fetched. Everything looked exactly like on the main computer, except here an extra column with alternative figures had been added which didn’t correspond to the figures entered when the items were sold. Helen was sure about this, because she remembered marking some of these items herself.
‘She’s on network like the rest of the PCs in the building,’ said Charlie, ‘except her hard disk is partitioned. The C: drive is her own, the D: drive is shared. This file was on her C: drive.’
A peculiar heat spread in Helen’s face. Why was Letitia marking items which had been sold at a set price with a higher price in her own files?
‘You say you could land her in trouble. How exactly?’
‘It’s obvious. She’s selling for more than she declares to the tax man. Trust me, I’ve seen some scams in my time.’
‘Maybe that extra column is just wishful thinking on her part,’ Helen suggested. ‘You can’t be sure.’
Charlie sent her a look which told Helen precisely what she thought of that theory.
‘But where does the money come from and go to?’ Helen asked. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Does it have to? Isn’t it enough to know that something’s going on?’
A murmur of voices rose up from the hall, and Helen started. She didn’t fancy getting caught in here.
‘I really think we should go. If these are Letitia’s personal files, she’ll know when she last looked at them and notice if someone else has as well.’
‘No, she won’t. I know this cute little tool which changes timestamps.’ Charlie pressed a few buttons faster than Helen could follow with her eyes.
‘Yeah, what does that do? Delete all traces?’
Charlie shook her head. ‘It means that if you’re going to cover your tracks, you make a note of the timestamps of the directories and files you’re going to access, and then after you’ve accessed them, you can reset the time stamp.’
Helen jumped down from the desk. ‘All the same, I’d rather not know about it, so if you don’t mind, could we get out of here, please? I expect you’d like to keep your job even if it is only temporary.’
But when they left Letitia’s office, Helen regretted that she hadn’t printed out the file.
Chapter Seventeen
Head whirring, Helen trundled after Charlie. On their way out they ran into the security guy, another one of Charlie’s slaves, and Charlie said something that made him laugh. Listening to their banter, Helen wished she could just get on with everyone like Charlie did. There had to be a special knack to it.
A dark car was parked across the road, on a double yellow line. Someone was inside having a cigarette, a thin grey line of smoke escaping from the open window and rising straight up in the evening air. It looked like the same sort of car as the one she’d seen outside Jason’s house on the night of her uncle’s party, and although it probably wasn’t, she couldn’t prevent a tight feeling in the pit of her stomach.
‘I might go and see Jim,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s back home now.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I wanna say hello to Jim.’ Charlie twirled one of her matted dreadlocks around her finger. ‘He gets a bit grumpy, being cooped up with only his mum fussing over him.’
‘Sure.’
‘Are you okay about us not going back on the train together?’
A strange noise buzzed in Helen’s ears, and she found it hard to take in what Charlie was saying. ‘Yeah. No problem. I’m absolutely fine.’
‘You don’t sound fine.’
‘I am.’ She forced a smile. ‘Off you go. By the way, I think Jim likes you.’
Charlie grinned. ‘Jim’s all right, I suppose.’
‘Yeah, he is.’
Charlie dashed in the opposite direction to catch a bus, and Helen headed for the tube station. When she crossed Berkeley Square, under the shade of the trees, she noticed that the dark car was following the road around the park. At the end the driver stopped as if waiting for her, revving the engine aggressively, and suddenly sped off towards Piccadilly.
Staring after it, she took it as a warning. The only problem was, she didn’t know against what.
Her feet took her to Aggie’s house. On the path in front of the house she stumbled across a soft bundle, picked it up and saw it was a cardigan. She checked the pockets for identity of the owner, but found only a sterile plastic wrapper with a syringe and an unopened sachet of antiseptic wipe.
‘You dropped this,’ she said to the loathsome Mrs Sanders when she let her in, this time without protest.
‘Not mine,’ said the nurse and disappeared down the hall. Helen checked the grandfather clock. EastEnders was about to start. So much for the around-the-clock care
her grandmother needed and presumably paid a lot of money for.
‘Well, what am I supposed to do with it?’ she muttered. She held the cardigan up in front of her and caught the faint scent of lemon verbena. Ruth’s perfume. Perhaps Ruth was helping Aggie with her insulin injections?
None of my business.
Aggie was asleep in her hospital-like bed. Helen dropped Ruth’s cardigan on a chair, pulled the curtains back and opened the window to banish the familiar stuffiness in the room. Aggie stirred lightly but didn’t wake, and she drew up a chair and sat down by her grandmother’s bedside. Her insides were churning with more questions and uncertainties, and she resisted the temptation to shake her grandmother awake.
The minutes ticked by, and the sound of Aggie’s raspy breathing and the curtains swishing slightly calmed her and enabled her to apply some logic.
Letitia was involved in something not quite right, and Aggie really ought to know, but she didn’t have the heart to tell her. Or did Aggie already know? Her aunts and Mimi had squabbled over the company, in Aggie’s own words. And Aggie had been equally tied up with the company at the time of Helen’s mother’s death, perhaps more so than her aunt Letitia …
Was it all just one big nasty conspiracy to do away with Mimi and ruin Helen’s life?
Her paranoia had it making sense, then she pushed the thought aside because the idea was frankly ridiculous. Why would Aggie urge Helen to come home, suggest she find out more about Fay, if she’d been involved herself? It would be more logical for her to avoid the subject and leave Helen to rot in India. And if Letitia, Aggie’s own flesh and blood, had had something to do with it, and Aggie knew about it, she’d do everything to protect her daughter instead of stirring things up.
That’s what mothers did, protected their children.
Except instead of protecting her daughter, Mimi had unwittingly exposed her to a killer.
She went back to that fatal morning. She’d had a seizure in the car and woken up to find Fay covered in her mother’s blood. There’d been no doubt in her mind who was to blame.
The Elephant Girl (Choc Lit) Page 19
