by Roberta Kray
Throwing his damp towel across a chair, he went through to the bedroom and quickly got dressed. He was on his way out, the door half closed, when he had another thought. He could be caught up with the police for a while. Perhaps he’d better warn Richard. Ivor’s murder couldn’t have anything to do with the recent surveillance – he’d rung in sick and been off the job for the past week – but it was still the last case he’d been working on. If his death remained suspicious, and the police didn’t have any other leads, their next port of call could be Baxter & Baxter.
It took him several minutes to get through. The receptionist, her response on some perpetual and infuriating loop, kept repeating that he was in a meeting.
‘It’s important,’ he insisted. ‘I need to talk to him straight away.’
‘I’m sorry, but he’s—’
Frustrated, he glanced down at his watch. Time was ticking by and he didn’t want to keep the cops waiting any longer than he had to. He raised his voice a few decibels. ‘Then get him out of the meeting, now. Tell him it’s Paul Clark. Tell him it’s urgent. Tell him it’s more than urgent. I need to talk to him. Believe me, love, he’ll thank you for it.’
She didn’t reply. There was only a click before he found himself listening to some bloody string quartet. He spent another thirty seconds on hold. He paced the floor, softly cursing. Was she actually trying to connect him or just sitting back and filing her nails? He was about to hang up – he couldn’t wait around any longer – when the extension was finally picked up.
‘What’s the panic?’ Richard asked.
Relieved, Paul quickly passed on the news about Ivor Patterson.
‘What?’
‘He’s dead,’ he repeated for the second time. ‘They found him this morning. He was attacked but I haven’t got any details. I don’t know any more than that. I’m on my way in to the office now. The police are waiting. I just thought I should warn you, let you know, in case …’
‘In case of what?’
‘In case the London cops come round to talk to you.’
Richard’s voice took on an icy tone. ‘And why on earth should they do that?’
‘Because yours was the last job that he—’
‘I don’t see why you have to mention that.’
Paul’s hand tightened around the receiver. Fuck, he hadn’t expected this. ‘So what are you suggesting?’ he asked nervously. ‘That I shouldn’t tell them? You want me to lie about it?’
‘Of course not,’ Richard said slickly. ‘I’d never consider standing in the way of any police inquiry. All I’m asking is that you think very carefully about what you need to say. Do you really think this has anything to do with Baxter & Baxter?’
‘Of course not.’
‘So what exactly is the point in dragging us into it?’
Paul opened his mouth but swiftly closed it again. Just telling the truth was what he’d had in mind but there was no denying that Richard had provided enough work over the past five years (and enough fat cheques), to guarantee a few second thoughts. The London branch especially had made a healthy profit from the jobs put their way. He couldn’t afford to fall out with him. ‘Well …’
‘I thought we could rely on you,’ Richard said.
‘You can.’
‘So can we also rely on your discretion? We really don’t need this kind of publicity.’
Paul could have said that he didn’t need it either. Who the hell did? No one wanted to have an employee bludgeoned to death. No one wanted the cops crawling all over them either. He sighed. ‘Okay. I’ll try. I’ll do what I can.’
‘I’d appreciate it.’
Richard Baxter slammed down the phone and scowled. All he’d wanted were a few pictures, a discreet report on what Eve Weston was currently up to. Provided with the evidence – and it was bound to be damning – he could have finished her once and for all. It was what she deserved.
He’d been looking forward to the moment when he could watch her eyes widen into fear and disbelief. She’d have been sorry then that she’d ever crossed him. And thankful enough, once he’d ventured to suggest a compromise, to show her appreciation in the time-honoured way. He’d had a deeply erotic image of what she would do to prevent him from spilling the truth – but none of that was going to happen now. In fact, if Paul Clark didn’t hold his nerve, he could be up to his neck in one embarrassing pile of shit.
How was he going to explain to the cops why he’d had her followed? Because he hoped to gather enough dirt to be able to shag her? He’d look like some sort of twisted stalker. And if that ever got into the public domain he’d be finished.
It was typical that the idiot employed to watch her had managed to get himself killed. The fool didn’t deserve to be alive.
And as for that bitch – well, what could he say? – with luck, she’d rot in hell.
Eddie Shepherd blew his nose into a scrap of tissue. Was he coming down with flu? He felt like crap. And it was probably all down to standing around on freezing street corners in the early hours of the morning. That was the thing about corpses; they had a nasty habit of turning up not just in the most inconvenient places but at the most inconvenient times too. Being dragged out of bed before the sun had barely risen was a sure-fire invitation for any lurking virus to stroll straight over and kick you in the teeth.
He looked around for a bin but, failing to find one, thrust the sodden piece of tissue back into his pocket. Yeah, he was definitely coming down with something. That was all he needed. The lying, scheming twathead sitting in front of him wasn’t doing much to improve his frame of mind either. He’d been listening to Paul Clark for over half an hour and still wasn’t convinced that he’d heard a word of truth.
‘So he’d been off sick for over a week?’ he asked again.
‘Yes.’
‘And then decided to go on holiday?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you don’t find that odd?’
Clark lifted his shoulders and shrugged. ‘Why should I? He sounded convincing enough when he rang Jane. Everyone gets sick, especially at this time of year. And everyone needs a break.’ He gave a thin smile. ‘Come to mention it, you don’t look so hot yourself.’
‘I didn’t mean then,’ Eddie growled. ‘I mean now. Don’t you find it odd, looking back, that he chose to take time off so soon before he was killed?’
Clark frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What do you think I mean?’
Clark’s eyes gradually lost their confidence and took on that same expression he’d had when he walked in – cautious, uneasy, suspicious. Then he said, defensively: ‘I’m sure it’s completely unrelated to his work here. It was a mugging, wasn’t it? He was just unlucky, wrong time, wrong place. He certainly wasn’t working on a case that might have led to … well, anything like that. The last one he was dealing with was – God, it was weeks back, an insurance job, nothing serious. I’ve got the file if you want to look at it.’
He walked over to the cabinet, pulled open the door and retrieved a buff folder.
Eddie flicked through the pages inside but there was nothing to suggest any motive for revenge. In fact, the very opposite. His surveillance had only proved that the subject was still incapable of work, still walking on crutches. ‘And there’s been no other work since then?’
‘No, I’ve already told you. He signed off sick and that was it.’
‘But there’s a gap, a couple of weeks, between this job and then.’
Paul Clark sighed. ‘That’s the nature of the business, Sergeant. Sometimes there’s too much work, sometimes there’s none.’
‘So after his last job, before he got sick, he wasn’t doing anything?’
‘Nothing for us.’
‘Are you sure?’
Clark paused but only for a fraction of a second. ‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘Could he have been working for someone else?’
He shook his head. ‘I doubt it. I don’t know. How coul
d I?’
‘Or doing a spot of freelancing?’ Eddie found another tissue and blew his nose loudly. ‘Maybe he found out something and decided to go it alone. It must happen from time to time.’
Clark stared back at him grimly. ‘It’s not the kind of behaviour we encourage, Sergeant. And if there’d been any hint of it, we’d have fired him straight away.’
‘Well, no need to worry about that now.’ Bored by the exchange, Eddie lumbered to his feet. He stopped by the door and turned. ‘Oh yeah, if anything comes to mind, you know where we are. Don’t be shy. Feel free to call us any time.’
Eve rolled the pen around her fingers and stared down at the sheet of paper. She was trying to write to Cavelli, to compose an all-encompassing letter that would not only fulfil her obligations as regards their imaginary ‘relationship’ but also give him all the information he might want to hear about Jimmy Reece. That way, she hoped, she wouldn’t need to visit him in the near future. Unfortunately, she had only got as far as My dearest Martin. She’d been stuck on those three ungodly words for the past twenty minutes.
With a sigh, she stood up and poured herself another coffee. With everything else that was going on, constructing a love letter to a man you didn’t even like was a bridge too far. What was she supposed to say? I am missing you so much. It hurts so much to be apart. I wish we could … No, she couldn’t go there, she couldn’t even bear the thought of it. Perhaps she’d wait until later, try again this evening when a few glasses of wine might temporarily release her from her inhibitions.
But that was just delaying the agony. And the longer she left it the more difficult it would become. She sat down again, lit a cigarette, and stared down at the sheet of paper. It couldn’t be that hard. In the past, she’d spent more than enough time persuading men of her heartfelt affection, bestowing words that had slipped easily from her lying careless lips, but this all felt so much more complicated. It might still be a con but it was one of an entirely different nature. Back then she’d only had herself to worry about but now she was playing another game, one where she had far greater responsibilities. The stakes had been raised. She had Terry to think about.
She picked up her pen again.
My dearest Martin, It was lovely to see you again.
She stopped, striking a line through lovely and replacing it with good. She added, How are you? And then, with a frown, crossed that out too. Maybe she should stick with lovely. But what to say next? The intricacies of the perfect love letter were a mystery to her. She screwed her pathetic attempt into a ball and threw it in the bin.
She put her head in her hands and groaned. She would make some notes first, work out what to say about Jimmy Reece – luckily Patrick had given her a few ideas – and then go back and add the sweet nothings later. Quickly, she began to scribble, using Jimmy’s initials but inventing a completely new name.
I ran into my old mate Jason Reynolds the other day. You remember him, don’t you? He moved to Chelsea after all that trouble he had. He got married again but I don’t think it’s working out. He’s in a bad way, back on the booze and in a real mess. He hasn’t had any work for years and is certainly not his old self, rather a tormented soul if you know what I mean.
She stopped again. Was that enough? She wondered how closely the screws actually read the letters. Not very, she suspected. There must be hundreds arriving every day, all filled with mundane snippets of news from home. If she slipped the paragraph in, about halfway through, there was no reason why it should draw any unwelcome attention. But that meant she’d have to pad the letter out. What else could she say? What did other women find to talk about?
Eve wrote the word job down, followed by a large question mark. Maybe she could invent a new career for herself, a fascinating post in the City or, alternatively, a position of utter drudgery. All things considered, the latter was a safer bet. That way, if anyone was skimming through, they’d be less inclined to linger. She could bore them into submission before they reached the important part.
And then there was family of course. A couple of kids could easily fill half a page, the intricate details of what young Liam was doing last Tuesday and how his little sister was coping with nursery. Yeah, that could be good, and tedious enough, to lull any disinterested party into instant paralysis. She smiled, her pen hovering over the page. Suddenly, it didn’t feel like such a trial. She might have been forced into the position of having to write this ridiculous letter to Cavelli but he would have to endure the equally dreadful task of reading it – and it would serve him right for putting her in this position in the first place!
Eve glanced at her watch. It was almost three o’clock, not exactly a respectable time to open a bottle of wine, but now that she’d got the gist of what she was going to write she couldn’t see the harm. Having started the letter, she wanted to get it finished as soon as she could – and to do that she needed a little extra help …
She was on her second glass, with a reasonable rough draft of the letter laid out before her, when she was forced to stop and think again. It wasn’t looking too bad, a wonderfully boring rendition of her imaginary life, but she hadn’t touched yet on the trickier problem of their so-called ‘relationship’. Well, it may have been part of the deal but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of anything too sincere. In fact, if she was going to play along, then surely it was only right that she introduced a realistic element of angst?
It was wonderful to see you on the visit. I would like to believe what you said about your feelings for me but you have let me down so often, I have to ask myself why I should trust you now. Although I’m sure your feelings are genuine, perhaps we should wait a while before committing ourselves to anything more permanent.
She sat back and stared at the words. Not bad. She laughed but her smile didn’t last. For some reason she was thinking about Patrick again, about Friday night, about how she’d almost … Was there still something there between them? No, there wasn’t, there couldn’t be. It had all ended years ago. But for some reason, she couldn’t stop thinking about his eyes, the way he looked at her, the way his mouth curled up at its corners – and more than that, how he knew, how he always knew when she was in trouble.
There was a sharp knock at the door. For the first time since the breakin, too preoccupied by other thoughts, she didn’t jump but rose slowly to her feet. It was only as she pulled back the bolts that she felt a small jolt of trepidation but the person standing on the other side was the very image of respectability, a smartly dressed man in his fifties.
‘Eve Weston?’ he asked.
She nodded.
‘Vincent Player,’ he said shortly. ‘I’ve got some things for you.’
Vince. Lesley’s husband. She stared at him. What was he doing here? It was only as he glanced down, that she lowered her eyes too. There was a black bin bag lying at his feet. Compared to his crisp white shirt and nicely tailored dark grey suit, it seemed a touch incongruous.
‘Terry’s things,’ he said. His voice matched his expression, uptight, unhappy, and less than pleased to be there.
She was hardly overjoyed either. So Lesley had made her decision – and her answer was beyond doubt. She could have done it with a phone call but had obviously decided to drive the message home. And poor old Vince was the reluctant messenger.
They both looked up, and then down at the bag again. Well, if he expected her to carry it inside, he had another think coming.
She stood aside. ‘You’d better bring it in.’
With a scowl he picked it up and dumped it in the living room. ‘I hope this is the end of the matter,’ he said, rather pompously. ‘Perhaps we can view this as a clean break. I’d rather you – and Terry – left us alone in the future.’
‘The end of it?’ she said.
‘I think it’s for the best – for everyone.’
Eve frowned. ‘For God’s sake, she’s his mother. How can it possibly be for the best?’
He flinched, his fi
ngers sweeping over his jacket sleeves as if searching for invisible specks of dirt. ‘I’d rather you left my family in peace.’
She wondered what Lesley had told him about her visit. A somewhat distorted version she imagined. ‘So this is—’
‘Please don’t try and get in touch again.’ He nudged the bag with the toe of his foot. ‘And if you could make sure that Terry understands …’
Eve placed a hand angrily on her hip. ‘What? That his mother doesn’t want to know him any more? Oh, I think he’ll get that message, loud and clear. And don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll be fine about it. I mean, it’s perfectly understandable that you wouldn’t want him around, wouldn’t want the old offspring littering up your decent respectable lives.’ She gave him a full-on indignant glare. ‘You must feel very proud of yourselves.’
He faltered, looking almost ashamed. But her comments might have held more sway if he hadn’t chosen that moment to glance over her shoulder and to see the open bottle and the glass of wine sitting on the table. She saw his eyes focus on it. And, as if provided with irrefutable proof of her lack of moral fibre – she was obviously a lush to be on the booze at this time of day – any shame that he might have been harbouring instantly evaporated.
‘Well, I won’t keep you,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you must be busy.’
She would have liked to have had the last word, to provide one final stunning retort, but it was too late – he’d already turned on his well-polished heels and was heading down the stairs. Thirty seconds later the front door clicked shut.
‘Have a nice day,’ she murmured.
Slamming her own door, she retreated into the flat. How could Lesley have done this? How could she have decided to turn her back so finally on Terry? She picked up the black bin bag and shook her head. So this was the sum total of his possessions. It wasn’t much to show for twenty-one years on this earth. But then again, travelling light had always been a Weston speciality.
