He Made Me (Booker & Cash Book 2)

by Oliver Tidy

  ‘When are you going?’

  ‘I said I’d call her back.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘London.’

  ‘I could drive you up today. We’d be there in two hours if we walk back now.’

  Jo beamed at me and I felt the radiance of her smile. ‘Would you?’

  ‘Sure. I’m as keen to tie up those loose ends as you are.’

  We turned back towards the village and started walking. Jo called Natalie and said she could be with her in two hours if that fitted with her plans. Apparently, it did. Maybe Natalie was hard up. They agreed a meeting place – the cafe opposite the gallery – and a time. All good.

  ***

  50

  Even though Natalie was sitting down it was quite obvious she was a tall woman and most of her height would come from the legs that were coiled around each other in expensive-looking leather knee-length boots, like highly-polished tree roots. Her passport photos didn’t do her justice. And they say the camera never lies. She was a stunning creature. No wonder coffee shop Paul had seemed more than a little interested in her. He wasn’t at work today, thankfully. Besides, Natalie looked out of his league to me.

  The three of us were sitting around the same table four of us had occupied one day before. It felt longer ago than that. Natalie had got there before us.

  As well as highly attractive, she looked a mixture of anxious, nervous, intrigued and suspicious. It couldn’t have been an easy look to pull off. Although on her fine features, the overall effect to someone like me was one of vulnerability, and judging by the way one or two of the other men in the place were stealing glances at her I wasn’t unusual.

  We knew what she looked like from the photos Jo had stolen from her flat, so we were able to identify her and walk right up to her table with some confidence. Clearly this disturbed Natalie, who hadn’t the first idea of what we looked like, or that there would be a ‘we’ turning up.

  Jo made the introductions in a professional way. She flashed her identification and then a cheeky private smile at me when she’d asked what Natalie wanted to drink. I knew what that meant; I was to do the honours.

  Jo didn’t wait until I returned with the tray of drinks to start on her questioning. They were engaged in conversation and it was Jo who was the one providing answers.

  ‘Broken into Saturday night, apparently,’ said Jo, and I guessed she was talking about the gallery opposite. ‘How long had you worked there?’

  ‘How are you know I work there?’ If the grammar hadn’t given it away there was a strong accompanying accent – Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, somewhere east of the old Berlin wall.

  ‘I told you, I’ve been looking for you. I’ve discovered things.’ If Jo wanted this statement to carry worrying connotations for Natalie it looked like she’d scored a hit. ‘Mind me asking where you’ve been for the last few days? You’ve had a lot of people worried and looking for you.’

  This seemed to alarm Natalie further, even though Jo had said it in a neutral way.

  ‘Why you want to know? What is it to do with?’

  ‘Just interested, that’s all.’ Jo smiled and took a sip of her drink. She was giving Natalie a void to fill if she so wished. She didn’t. ‘Do you know about Nigel?’ said Jo.

  Natalie’s face hardened and her eyes seemed to glint. ‘You are from his wife?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ said Jo.

  Natalie treated us to a sneer. ‘You lie to me then. This not about money. This about warnings. Am I right?’

  ‘Wrong.’ Jo took a thousand pounds in a bundle of used twenties from her bag and put it on the table. ‘It’s a thousand pounds,’ said Jo. ‘And it’s yours.’

  Natalie looked between us. ‘She is paying me to leave him?’ There was something almost victorious in it. ‘She will need more than this.’

  ‘No, Natalie. Nigel is dead.’

  Natalie looked like she’d been slapped. ‘You are liar.’ She looked angry but not tearful. She also looked uncertain. Her rebuttal lacked suitable emphasis.

  Jo shook her head, slowly. ‘You really don’t know?’ When Natalie didn’t answer, Jo said, ‘Take the money, Natalie, and put it in your bag.’ Natalie hesitated, sensing some kind of trap. I couldn’t blame her. It was all a bit odd.

  After a long few seconds she took it and slipped it into her handbag and I considered the fish had been hooked.

  ‘Natalie, all I want from you is some answers. You don’t have to give them to me, but let me tell you why it will be in your interests to do so. One: I’ll give you another thousand pounds if I think you answer me honestly. Two: if you don’t give the answers to me I’ll have no choice but to pass you on to my colleagues in the police.’ If I hadn’t known anything of Natalie’s life I might have considered this an audacious move by Jo. But I did know a few things. I knew she rented a couple of pokey little rooms in an unfashionable part of London that would still have been costing her a good few hundred a month. I knew she had worked in Nigel’s gallery and so was probably on minimum wage or thereabouts. I knew she didn’t have a position there any more because her boss was dead. And I knew she was eastern European and my stereotypical thinking didn’t paint a rosy picture of her future job prospects. Added to that, being a foreigner and from that part of the world, I very much doubted she would want any police attention. It would be a cultural and historical thing.

  ‘Nigel is really dead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Suicide. He hanged himself.’

  Natalie looked like she didn’t believe it. ‘When?’

  ‘Wednesday night.’

  Natalie’s eyes did fill then. And I couldn’t be certain she wasn’t mourning the loss of a meal ticket rather than the loss of a soulmate. Jo left her alone to recover and dab away the tears that threatened to ruin her make-up. No one said they were sorry for anything.

  After a little quiet, Natalie said, ‘It explains things. I thought Nigel dump me. I thought he too scared to run away with me, to leave her.’ She heaved out a heavy sigh. ‘Wednesday he call me. He tell me to go without him. He say he will come very soon but he was missing the plane.’

  ‘The plane?’

  ‘We were leaving UK to be together and start new life.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Spain.’

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ said Jo. ‘Nigel was leaving his wife and his life in the UK to run away to Spain with you?’

  ‘Yes. Wednesday. He call me and say he can’t make flight but I must go and wait for him and he would be coming soon.’

  ‘Did he say why he couldn’t come?’

  ‘Yes. His passport was missed.’

  ‘Missing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lost?’

  ‘I don’t know. He say he can’t find. He say me to go to hotel he booked for us and he will get flight in next day when he find his passport.’

  ‘When did you come back?’

  ‘Yesterday. I run out of money and he not come. I had choice – pay hotel or buy ticket back to UK. I come back. I call and call him but he never answer me.’

  ‘So you went back to your flat and your landlady told you I was looking for you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you know what he was doing?’

  It was a highly ambiguous question for a native English speaker let alone someone who did not have a mastery of English as a foreign language.

  ‘Doing?’

  ‘In the gallery.’

  Natalie frowned. ‘Selling the pictures.’

  ‘What did you do there?’

  ‘I talk to customers, answer telephone. Nigel say I good for business.’

  ‘I have to ask this, Natalie: were you and Nigel lovers?’

  Natalie reddened a touch, which is a hard thing to fake. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we were. He loved me.’

  She didn’t say whether it was reciprocated.

  ‘Your friend Irene has been worried
about you. You should let her know you’re all right.’

  Natalie nodded. ‘Why did Nigel kill himself?’

  ‘It’s a good question, Natalie. I don’t have the answer. I don’t think it was about you.’

  I said, ‘When did you last speak with him? Can you remember exactly?’

  Natalie thought. ‘Our plane it leave at six. Five, I think.’

  ‘Did you ring him, or did he ring you?’

  ‘I ring him from boarding lounge.’

  Jo took out the other promised thousand pounds and handed it over. Natalie took it more easily.

  Jo said, ‘Thank you, Natalie. You’ve been a big help. I’m sorry the way things turned out for you. If I have any further questions, is it OK if I call you?’

  ‘Is OK. Where does money come from?’

  ‘You mean this money?’ said Jo. Natalie nodded. ‘I have an expense account attached to my investigation.’

  We drank up and said our goodbyes. I offered Natalie a ride to the nearest Tube station but she said she’d walk.

  I was in the driving seat, again. The sat nav was issuing guidance and Jo was looking comfortable in the front passenger seat as we followed instructions that would get us out of London.

  ‘How are you going to explain the missing two thousand to your employer when you give her her husband’s ill-gotten gains back?’

  ‘She’s going to get her answers. I’m going to finish this job and then I’ll give her what’s left at the end of it. She’ll still have a good chunk of cash that she wasn’t expecting.’

  ‘So you’ll tell her about Natalie?’

  ‘Still haven’t decided. But probably.’

  ‘Any of those loose ends tied up for you?’ I said.

  ‘Possibly. Do you think Nigel intended to leave the country, or do you think he got cold feet? If he simply bottled the runaway it was a good ruse to get Natalie out of the country and his hair.’

  ‘Having never met the bloke I don’t feel qualified to make an informed guess. You could always ask Rebecca Swaine to look for packed luggage.’

  ‘I think he was intending to leave,’ said Jo. ‘That would explain why he had one hundred grand in cash in his case. We know he was expecting to be investigated for dubious business practices and we know he’d been rumbled in his sideline of art forgery. His world was falling down around his ears. Maybe he thought it was time to quit while he was ahead, while he still could and with a fair nest egg to make a start somewhere. Keep his head down. Maybe move on somewhere and start afresh with Natalie.’

  ‘Possibly. So why didn’t he go?’

  ‘You heard her: he lost his passport.’

  A thought occurred to me: ‘What if it wasn’t lost? What if someone knew he was planning to run out on them and decided to stop him the only way they could.’

  ‘Assuming Nigel kept his passport at home, then, that would mean it would be one of two people.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly.’

  ***

  51

  Once again we had Bookers to ourselves when we returned. Just a faint hint of floor detergent hung in the air to mix with the fading smells of the business day. Time was getting on; there’d been an accident on the M20. I couldn’t be bothered to plan, shop, prepare and cook dinner for one, let alone two. I offered to fund a take-away for us and gave Jo the choice of continent to eat from. Or, I said, we could go over the road for a pint and some pub grub.

  We went with option two. Being Monday and winter, we had the dining area pretty much to ourselves. There was a good fire going and the freshly pulled beer was always a welcome addition to any evening.

  ‘I had a call for another job while you were upstairs,’ said Jo.

  ‘Really? What doing?’

  ‘Surveillance.’

  ‘Exciting?’

  ‘Not really. Local business thinks one of his employees is ripping him off and selling his stuff elsewhere.’

  ‘Oh. Still. It’ll help keep the wolf from the door, won’t it?’

  Jo sighed and sipped her wine. ‘I suppose. My dad has a saying; he says if someone wanted his business you had to want all of his business, big or small orders.’

  ‘You never told me what he does for a crust?’

  ‘Builder. He’s wound things down a bit in the last few years. He’s getting on. But he still keeps his hand in with odd jobs.’

  ‘Well, he was right. Is right. He must miss your mum?’ Jo’s mum had died of breast cancer when she was in her teens.

  ‘Keenly. Even now. He’s not the man he was and I’m sure it’s because of mum.’

  ‘Shit. Sorry.’ I felt the need to change the subject, but Jo beat me to it.

  ‘I can’t waste any more of my time on something that Rebecca Swaine doesn’t want me involved in any more. I’m going to give her a call and ask to see her. I’ve my final account to submit.’

  Our food came and we both got stuck in. Clearly, it wasn’t just me who felt that they hadn’t eaten a square meal for a week.

  ‘How will you leave it?’ I said after a few mouthfuls.

  ‘I’m going to tell her I have new information regarding events and if she wants to hear it I’ll be happy to pass it on. Other than that, I’ve got the money to give her. I’ll call her tomorrow.’

  ‘What about what you’ve learned regarding certain laws that’ve been broken.’

  ‘You mean am I going to blab to my police friends about the art-forgery angle?’

  I had just rammed a large forkful of dumpling into my mouth and so had to nod and grunt for reply.

  Jo looked to still be wrestling with her conscience over that and for some reason it amused me. I smiled knowingly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Client confidentiality and ethical business practice versus the law of the land and maintaining good connections with those who can help you out in the future.’

  ‘Something like that. It’s an inner struggle. And one I haven’t settled, yet.’

  That was her business. Nothing to do with me and probably not something Jo would appreciate me sticking my big oar into.

  We finished up with another drink and then the recent buggering up of my sleep patterns combined with a bellyful of the daily special and a couple of pints took their toll on my system.

  Jo paid the bill with used twenty pound notes. She caught me looking at her and said, ‘What’s wrong? I get expenses.’

  ‘In advance?’

  ‘In certain circumstances. Talking of which, I’ll be claiming for your time and transport and reimbursing you accordingly. Just so you know.’

  ‘You don’t have to, Jo.’

  ‘Yes, I do. She can afford it and it’s not even about that. I’m a professional in business. Clients must appreciate that.’

  We walked home together and said our goodbyes. I headed straight for bed. I realised I was happy with my life.

  ***

  52

  That night I dreamt I went to Goldenhurst again. I stood by the wooden gate blocking the driveway. I could not enter. There was a padlock and chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to Mrs Swaine. No answer. Peering closer through the rotting spars of the gate I saw that the house looked uninhabited.

  No smoke came from the chimney, and the windows gaped forlorn. I climbed over the gate. The drive wound away in front of me all bendy. Things had changed; it was narrow and unkempt, not the drive that I knew from previous visits. At first I was puzzled and didn’t understand. It was only when I bent my head to avoid a low swinging branch that I realised what had happened. I was going the wrong way. I turned around.

  The drive was choked with grass and moss. On and on wound the poor thread that once had been Mrs Swaine’s drive. Sometimes I thought it lost, but it appeared again, beneath a fallen tree perhaps, or struggling on the other side of a dirty ditch. I didn’t remember it being so long. I came upon Goldenhurst suddenly; the approach masked by the unchecked growth of a vast shrub that had exploded in all directions. I stood, my heart
hammering in my breast, the strange prick, Sigmund Swaine, was glowering down at me from a dormer window.

  There was Goldenhurst, their Goldenhurst, secretive and silent. The white-washed walls shone in the moonlight of my dream. The replacement windows reflected the green lawns and the terrace. Generations of developers could not ruin the perfect symmetry of those walls, nor the site itself, a landmark overlooking Romney Marsh.

  And then Sigmund Swaine was almost upon me, from nowhere. His manic features contorted in his noiseless screaming as he bore down on me, bare-chested, his muscular torso glistening with the sweat of his poker-wielding exertions. I turned to escape, to run for my life. One of my flip-flops came off. Gravel got into the other, restricting my capacity for flight.

  I would never get away. I knew that. I turned to face him. He was gone. In his place Rebecca Swaine stood, arms outstretched towards me, dressed in a gossamer-thin full-length nightdress. Barefoot she walked towards me. It must have hurt her. Moonlight can play odd tricks upon the fancy, even upon a dreamer’s fancy. By the light of the silvery moon she exuded a radiance of blamelessness, of incorruptibility. She enveloped me and pressed her lips against mine. They were all rubbery and cold. I awoke to find I was kissing my now-cold hot water bottle, and I had an erection. I felt a bit stupid for it.

  Because I’d crashed and burned by nine o’clock the previous evening, I was awake by seven next morning. My head said go for a run, ventilate those images out of my mind. The rest of me said have a lie-in in the warm with Holmes and Watson. I compromised. I read a story and then chucked on my winter running gear and jogged across to the sea wall.

  The wind had switched and I had to run into it all the way to St Mary’s Bay. I ended up where I always ended up – standing on the covering of one of the outfalls that helped to drain Romney Marsh of its excess rain water, staring out at the English Channel and remembering my aunt who had been drowned there by psychopaths. The pain and anger I still felt regarding my aunt and uncle’s murders had diluted over the months. But it was still there. I accepted that as I had to. As I knew I always would have to.