Final Venture

by Michael Ridpath

  Somehow I had screwed up. Even my father had managed to keep hold of my mother for more than six months!

  She had wanted to 'test her hypothesis'. Well, I would test her hypothesis for her. I'd prove to her that I was innocent.

  Perhaps I should go to Mahoney? It was, after all, his job to find Frank's true killer. No, that was a very bad idea. I was clearly his favourite suspect at the moment, and it would be difficult to persuade him to look elsewhere. And I definitely shouldn't tell him, or anyone else for that matter, about the gun. If Lisa hadn't lost her head and ditched it, then I could have considered taking it to the police in the hope that if my honesty didn't clear my name, forensic tests might. But Lisa's actions just served to implicate me more. No, I couldn't rely on Mahoney to find out who killed Frank.

  I would have to do it myself.

  'You said you'd only be a quarter of an hour,' John said, as I walked in the door.

  'Sorry,' I gave him a quick smile.

  'Your voice-mail has been working overtime.'

  'Thanks.'

  But I ignored the winking light on my phone, and asked myself the vital question.

  If I hadn't killed Frank, who had?

  Could it have been a burglar as I had suggested to Lisa? Perhaps Frank had surprised him, and been shot? It was a tempting idea. But as I thought it through, I realized it was unlikely. The police hadn't mentioned any signs of a break-in, nor had I seen any. Frank had been shot in the back some way inside the house. It seemed most likely that he had known whoever had shot him, or at least that he had voluntarily let his murderer into the house.

  I realized that I didn't know much about Frank's life away from Lisa and Revere. Presumably he had other friends, but I knew nothing about them. Lisa said there hadn't been any girlfriends since he and her mother had got divorced. She liked to believe that that was because her mother was the only woman Frank had truly loved, although he seemed to me to speak about his former wife with nothing more than indifference. Much of his time was spent at Marsh House. What else he did with it, I just didn't know.

  I thought about the gun. It must have been planted. But how? I had checked the apartment for signs of a break-in. I wasn't an expert, but there was nothing I could see. The chipped paintwork round the living-room window seemed to my eye to have natural causes. And no one had been in the apartment since the police had searched it apart from Lisa and me.

  In theory the police could have planted it. But would the American police really plant evidence on a suspect? Why? I didn't think Mahoney much liked me, but that wasn't much of a reason. Perhaps he wanted to improve his clear-up record? Perhaps a foreign national was an easy target? Anyway, if he had planted the gun, wouldn't he have 'discovered' it in his search of the apartment?

  I now realized the Boots bag didn't mean anything. It was undoubtedly mine, in fact I thought it might have held some old school and university photographs, but whoever had been in the closet could have spotted the bag and taken the opportunity to stuff the gun inside it.

  Ann and Eddie were on their way to San Francisco when the police had searched the apartment and found nothing. Not that I thought Ann could have killed her ex-husband. She seemed to me to have recovered from their separation quite successfully, and was now happily remarried. At the funeral, she spoke of Frank with a certain fondness rather than with passion.

  But Eddie. Eddie was much more likely. He had never forgiven his father for leaving the rest of the family, and had barely spoken to him for years. Despite his professed indifference to money, the prospect of Frank's legacy seemed very important to him, as he had shown so clearly that morning at the lawyer's offices. And he was very eager to blame me for the crime. Eddie was definitely worth considering.

  The other two 'family suspects' were Lisa and me. Lisa I just couldn't believe. Which left me.

  There were rivalries at Revere. Frank and Art didn't much like each other, vying for position as Gil's right-hand man. The only other conflict that I was aware of at work was once again with me. But Revere was generally a civilized, pleasant place to work. It wasn't the kind of place where people stabbed each other in the back. Or shot each other for that matter.

  With a sigh, I drew the same conclusion as Mahoney. I was the most obvious suspect.

  I needed to find out more.

  The first place to look was Frank's office. I walked down the corridor towards it. The door was locked. Hm.

  I sauntered further along the corridor.

  'Connie, I'd like to get into Frank's office. I need to see if he has some papers on Net Cop. Do you know who has the key?'

  Connie occupied a large desk just outside Gil's office. She was a well-groomed woman in her forties who had been Gil's assistant since before he had set up Revere. She seemed to like me, which was at times very useful.

  'I think Gil has it, Simon. Go right in, there's no one with him at the moment.'

  I went in. Gil was on the phone. I sat and waited. After five minutes or so he finished.

  'What can I do for you, Simon?' Gil smiled at me, his thoughts obviously still on the telephone call.

  'I need the key for Frank's office. There are some files on Net Cop in there I need.'

  For a moment, Gil looked at me half-suspiciously. Then, as if remembering his decision to trust me, he reached into his desk for a key.

  'Here you are. Please return it as soon as you're done with it.'

  I took it and unlocked Frank's office. It looked much the same as it had the last time I was there. My eyes were immediately drawn to a photograph of a seventeen-year-old Lisa, looking slightly gawky, but already with the smile that I loved so much. There was a smaller photo of Eddie graduating. Nothing of Lisa's mother. The office was reasonably tidy, but there were papers in his in-box, and on top of the wooden filing cabinets. Yellow Post-Its reminded him of things he would never now do. The office looked as if it were expecting him back at any minute.

  I had worked with him closely enough to know my way round his filing system. The first thing I did was to look for his Net Cop file and pull it out. The only papers in it were ones prepared by me. I ignored the bulging files on his other deals and concentrated on his more personal stuff.

  He didn't have any secrets. No locked drawers. No coded files. A very full diary, but none of the appointments seemed out of the ordinary. There was an interesting file labelled 'Recruitment'. In it was a sheaf of résumés, mine included. Curious though I was, I just skimmed it. And then there was a file labelled 'Fund IV'.

  I flipped through analyses of Revere's existing funds' performance, completely dominated by BioOne of course. This was no doubt supposed to impress investors into taking part in the new fund. Then I came across a single sheet of paper.

  It was a letter from Gil to Lynette Mauer, dated September 9. The second paragraph grabbed my attention:

  As you know, I am planning to reduce my involvement with the day-to-day management of Revere Partners and its investments. While I will continue to provide advice related to investments made by our first three funds, I will take no role in the new fund which Revere intends to raise next year. You know the strong team of partners that I have been fortunate enough to assemble over the last few years, and I am confident that the performance of our fourth fund will be as strong or stronger as those preceding it.

  I look forward to seeing you at our Monday morning meeting on October 19, when we can perhaps discuss this further.

  The letter was signed Gilbert S. Appleby III.

  So Gil was going to retire! With the twenty or thirty million that was his share of the BioOne loot, no doubt. Very interesting. And now that Frank was out of the way, his successor was obvious. Art Altschule.

  No wonder Lynette Mauer was worried. She didn't trust Art. She saw BioOne for what it was, a fluke.

  Art Altschule running Revere! I shuddered.

  I stuffed the letter back in the file and continued my search. I had just turned on Frank's computer and was beginning to fig
ure out how I might be able to get into his files when his office door opened. I looked up guiltily, half-expecting it to be Frank himself. It wasn't. It was Gil.

  'What are you doing, Simon?' he asked, his forehead wrinkled. 'You've been in here a long time.'

  'I'm looking for a memo Frank wrote when we originally invested in Net Cop,' I said, guiltily. 'I was just checking to see if I could get it off his computer.'

  The small brown eyes bored into me through those thick lenses. He said nothing. I sat still, trying to keep a keen-associate look on my face. Inside I squirmed. I'm sure he saw the inside.

  'I don't think you should be rooting around in Frank's computer. You've been in here long enough. If you haven't found it yet, you're not going to find it.' He nodded at the Net Cop file lying on Frank's desk. 'Why don't you take what you've got and go?'

  I switched off Frank's machine, grabbed the file, and left, feeling very small. I should be much more careful in future. Gil had promised me his trust. It might be very useful in the coming weeks. I would be foolish to throw it away.

  14

  I made my way slowly home that evening, delaying my return to the empty apartment. On an impulse I stopped at the absurdly up-market 7-Eleven on Charles Street with its cream-coloured porticos, and bought bacon, sausage, eggs, the works. Within minutes, the sounds and smells of a gigantic fry-up filled the apartment.

  The bell rang. I swore and answered the door. It was Sergeant Mahoney, accompanied by his trooper/detective sidekick. I let them in.

  Mahoney sniffed the air. 'Smells good.'

  He waited as if he expected me to offer him some. No way. That bacon was all mine.

  'Hang on a minute. Sit down, while I sort out the stove.'

  I rushed into the kitchen, and turned the cooker off. Supper would wait. When I returned to the living room, Mahoney was looking at Lisa's desk. His colleague stood in the middle of the room, shuffling from foot to foot. He was nervous, probably more of Mahoney than of me.

  'I thought you'd already searched the place,' I said. 'Worried you missed something?'

  Mahoney looked up. 'Oh, we don't miss anything,' he said. 'Nice uniform. A captain, eh?'

  Mahoney was holding a picture of me in my Life Guards uniform, complete with red tunic and breastplate. It was Lisa's really. She had appropriated it because she said I looked dashing. I wasn't sure how I looked to Mahoney.

  'Thank you,' I said. 'What can I do for you?'

  'We'd like to ask you some more questions about Frank Cook's murder,' he said, sitting on the sofa. His sidekick perched next to him, notebook ready.

  'I don't have to answer them, do I?'

  'No, you don't. And you can end the interview whenever you like,' said Mahoney.

  I thought about refusing to talk, or about insisting that I call the lawyer Gil had told me about, Gardner Phillips. But I decided to let him continue. Partly I still hoped that I would genuinely help him establish my innocence, and partly I wanted to find out certain things from him.

  'OK. Go ahead.'

  'Where's your wife, Captain Ayot?'

  I didn't want to answer the question, but there was little point in avoiding it. It was obvious Mahoney knew the answer already. 'She left me. She's gone to stay with a friend.'

  'Is this a permanent separation?' he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  'Oh, no,' I said.

  'You're expecting her back soon, then?'

  'Yes,' I said, trying to sound confident, but failing.

  'Why did she leave?'

  'She's upset by her father's death. She says she needs some time alone. Or at least without me.'

  'That's tough on you, isn't it?' Mahoney's voice was softer, almost kind. I didn't trust it.

  'Yes,' I replied simply.

  'But it's not what your wife says. She says that she's working on a big project with Kelly Williams, and it makes sense to stay with her for a while.'

  I sighed. 'She's just trying to keep up appearances, I suppose. It'll blow over. She'll be back here soon.' I tried to make my voice sound confident.

  Mahoney smiled. 'OK. I didn't believe her explanation, anyway. But then, I don't believe yours either.'

  My pulse quickened. I kept my voice calm. 'No?'

  'No, I don't.' He left the words hanging there for a while. 'Do you know anything about a gun?' he asked.

  Too late I realized my own eyes had flicked towards the closet. 'What kind of gun?' I replied.

  'A Smith and Wesson three fifty-seven Magnum.'

  'No.'

  'It was the gun that fired the bullets that killed your father-in-law.'

  'You told me,' I said.

  'Does your wife know anything about this gun?'

  'No, why should she?'

  'Why should she?' Mahoney leaned forward. 'You see, you and your wife had an argument last night. You raised your voice. You said,' here he examined his notebook,' "I've never even seen the bloody gun. I didn't kill your father." Did you say those words, Mr Ayot?'

  I closed my eyes. A neighbour must have heard me. This was a question I didn't want to answer. 'I think I'd like to talk to a lawyer.'

  Mahoney glanced at the other detective. 'OK. I can understand that. Have him give me a call in the morning. In the meantime we have a warrant to search your apartment and your car.'

  'What, again?'

  'That's right.'

  Mahoney handed me the warrant, and then he and his colleague efficiently took the apartment apart. It didn't take them long. It was a small apartment and they knew what they were looking for. I then led them the couple of blocks to the Brimmer Street Garage where my Morgan was stowed. There weren't many places you could hide a gun in that, and it only took them a few minutes to check them all. I was glad, after all, that Lisa had ditched the weapon.

  'We'll be hearing from you or your lawyer tomorrow,' Mahoney said as we stood on the street just outside my apartment. It was dark, but we were standing in the pool of yellow light thrown off by the gas lamp. The shadows of trees, lampposts and railings crisscrossed the street.

  I nodded. 'Before you go, I have a question for you.'

  'Yes?'

  'Yes. Who else are you investigating?'

  'Oh, we're keeping an open mind.'

  'Have you spoken to Frank's colleagues at work? To Lisa's brother?'

  'We've spoken to a lot of people. This is a murder investigation.'

  'Well? Have you found anything out?'

  'I'm sorry, but our conclusions are our own business, Mr Ayot.'

  I touched his sleeve. 'Look. Sergeant Mahoney. I didn't kill Frank. I want to help you find out who did. If you give me some information, perhaps I can help.'

  Mahoney turned his bulky frame towards me. 'I am very confident we will find Frank Cook's murderer. And we won't need any help from you to do it.'

  With that, he and his colleague walked a short way down the street, climbed into a car and drove off.

  As I unlocked the front door of my building, I turned and saw two more men waiting in a parked car a little way down the street. Policemen. I couldn't run, even if I'd wanted to.

  As soon as I was in the apartment, I telephoned Gardner Phillips's office. Fortunately he was still there, even though it was after eight o'clock.

  I told him who I was, and more especially, who had recommended me, and he suggested meeting me at eight o'clock in his office the next morning.

  Then I looked up Kelly Williams's number in the book and dialled it. She answered the phone with a cheery 'hello'.

  'Kelly, it's Simon. Can I speak to Lisa?'

  'Oh, hi Simon,' she said breezily, as though this was just a normal social call. 'I'll just see if she's around.'

  There was a clack as the receiver was put down on a hard surface, and a long wait. Finally Kelly was back on the line.

  'She's just stepped out, Simon. I'm not sure when she'll be back.'

  'No, she hasn't. She's there and she doesn't want to talk to me.'

  'Yeah, well. Yo
u're right. But that's what you expected, isn't it?' Kelly's reply was friendly but firm.

  'Kelly, just put her on the line for a moment. It's important.'

  'Sorry, Simon. I'm not going to spend all night running back and forth between the two of you. You want to talk to her, she doesn't want to talk to you, I don't have any say in the matter.'

  'OK, OK. But can you at least give her a message from me?'

  'Sure. What is it?'

  I thought for a moment. There was so much I wanted to say to her. I was angry at her for leaving me, for suspecting me of killing Frank, for not believing me. But I wasn't calling her to tell her how angry I was. I was calling to get her back.

  I thought of telling her about Mahoney, but then I suddenly realized the phone might be tapped.

  'Simon?'

  'Sorry, Kelly. Can you just tell her thank you for standing by me.'

  'OK. I'll tell her.'

  'Oh, and Kelly?'

  'Yes?'

  'Look after her, won't you?'

  'Don't worry, I will,' said Kelly, and rang off.

  I hoped Lisa would understand my message. It was clear she hadn't told Mahoney about the gun when she had spoken to him. I wanted her to know that I appreciated that. That there was still a lot between us. That I wanted her back.

  I was glad she was with Kelly. She would be looked after. And I liked the way Kelly seemed to be impartial in all this, or at least she didn't seem to hate me.

  My supper was cold and congealing in the kitchen. Cold bacon is bearable. Cold eggs aren't. I threw the lot away, and drank a beer instead.

  What would happen next? Mahoney seemed only a step away from arresting me. This was all going to get very serious. I could feel myself about to be sucked into the US justice system, and it scared me. I felt alone, and very foreign. I thought about what I knew about the American legal system, all taken from TV, of course. A murder trial was a long, gruelling process, I knew. And all those involved – police, lawyers, judges, juries, and above all, the press – would see me as an arrogant foreigner who had come to their country to murder one of their own.