by Janet Neel
‘When did the sale negotiations start? I mean, was that what triggered a reconsideration of your insurance position?’
She had got the point, he saw, as her hands went still and her neck tensed. ‘No. No, it was an annual routine. Delayed as it happens, because I was off site, but we did it every year. The auditors insist.’
Now that was true, in general, but a word with the auditors generally was well overdue.
‘Right,’ he said, having waited to see that she had said all that she was going to. ‘I’ll ask you to say all that again, as a formal statement. No, don’t move, I’ll ask Inspector Davidson to come up.’
Michael Owens had arrived much later than he meant to, but he was sleeping badly and having corresponding difficulty in getting up. If he couldn’t get in some days at nine thirty rather than the 8 a.m. start which was de rigueur for the younger directors it was ridiculous, he told himself as he went past the bank reception. It was a new man on the desk who insisted on seeing his pass, so he had to stop. He was feeling quite alienated and surly enough to have refused, but the bank’s head of personnel was there behind him, waiting for the lift. So he had to dig papers out of his briefcase and find the pass, with its annoying little tag with which the young and keen attached it to the pockets of their jackets, and then put it away again. The head of personnel, Peter Redfern, a sardonic forty-year-old, had just whisked into a lift, the doors closing in Michael’s face, so he had to wait for another one.
And when he reached his own office his secretary was there to remind him that he had a date with Simon in half an hour. He hadn’t forgotten but he had pushed it to the back of his mind, and no wonder, he thought self-pityingly. He looked again at the outline notes he had, of three ideas which just might work, but they looked even thinner and less substantial than they had on Tuesday when he had cobbled them together. A junior had done some research on one of them, but he had all too clearly not found the idea carried conviction and the three neatly typed pages and six tables got no one any further. He had read the Financial Times which seemed to be full of enviable deals being done by other people, but he flipped through the four papers that arrived for him every morning, hoping for inspiration, GIRL IN FREEZER CASE: HUSBAND DIES he saw on page two of the Mirror and read it carefully. It had a definitive elegiac quality, much more restrained than the paper’s original reporting of Selina’s death. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Force must have indicated pretty strongly that no one need expect any more excitement or new developments in this particular case.
‘Five to, Michael.’ His secretary came in to take his out-tray away, but he had not even looked at his morning mail. He fell on it, hopefully, but there was nothing there, except invitations, appeals for charity and booklets from solicitors on the latest developments in company law. Well, so what if he didn’t have a lot to say to Simon Rutherford, he could confess as much and creep, crawl, add that Simon had been quite right about the distraction potential of the Café de la Paix and ask for a week’s leave now to sort it out.
Peter Redfern was coming out of Simon’s outer office as he went in and gave him a constrained smile. Simon’s secretary was seated in front of her PC, watching the blinking light on the telephone, and he opened his mouth to say he would go away if now were not convenient. The light blinked off and she waved him in without looking at him. He checked, instincts alert, but there was no other place to go, so he went forward, heart hammering.
‘Come and sit down, Mike.’ The bastard wasn’t looking at him either. He took a chair and launched into his prepared speech, but Simon Rutherford held up his hand after the opening sentence. ‘Mike. That isn’t … well, it’s not what’s been agreed.’ He ploughed on, not looking at him. ‘I’ve consulted the rest of the Executive Committee and they are supporting my view that the department needs thinning out at the top. You’ve had a good run, your contribution’s been appreciated, but you’re obviously developing other interests, and I need to bring in some new people. And I need to make some space.’ He managed to look him in the face if not the eye. ‘We’ll honour your contract of course, help you as much as we can to find somewhere else, but it’s not working for us here, or for you.’
He sat, feeling ill with rage, staring at the man, wanting to hit him, but understood that he would have to salvage what he could. ‘I’m entitled to a year’s notice,’ he managed to say, fairly calmly. ‘I’d like to work six months of it; easier to get a job from here than if I’m sitting at home.’
‘You won’t be. We’ll pay for outplacement, to give you the best possible chance.’
‘I don’t want that. I’d rather be here.’ Under notice or not, if he made a deal work they’d keep him, they’d have to. The bastard was sweating, he saw, and he felt marginally, fractionally less desperate.
‘I’m sorry, Mike, that option’s not on offer. The Executive Committee are quite clear on this, we don’t want people who have every reason to be unhappy still sitting around. Bad for morale.’
He felt such rage overwhelming him that he had to grip the table. ‘So what is your plan?’
‘Peter Redfern is waiting to go through all that with you.’
He should have known that nothing short of firing a director got the head of personnel out of his cosy fifth-floor office. He sat, trying to assimilate what was happening to him. ‘You’ve got someone coming in?’
Simon Rutherford hardly blinked. ‘I was going on to tell you. Martin Withers. From Schroders. Young but promising, and a retail specialist. We’re announcing it tomorrow.’
‘And when are you announcing me?’
‘That’s negotiable, and Peter Redfern is the chap to talk to, OK? I’m sorry, but I hope you’ll come to feel it’s a new start.’ He stood and extended his hand, but Michael ignored it, he was so choked with anger that he knew he would pull the bastard’s arm off if he touched him. He walked blindly out of the door, into Peter Redfern; Simon’s secretary had vanished.
‘I can’t talk now,’ he managed to say.
‘Come and have coffee.’ The man was shielding him from the passers-by in the corridor and he understood that he would have to hit him to get rid of him, so he walked with him, dumb with rage and grief, to the lift.
‘I bet they’ve got this place wired.’
Tony Gallagher and Matthew Sutherland were having a conference in the tiny cramped coffee-bar just over the road from New Scotland Yard.
‘We don’t have time to worry about that,’ Matthew said, firmly. He had fixed up this meeting in a hurry, not thinking carefully enough. The place would not be wired, but given its location some of the customers probably worked at New Scotland Yard. But he had to talk to Tony; several elements of the confused recital he had already received over the phone worried him considerably. The vital thing was to calm his client down. ‘Tony. For a start, if Richard died of paracetamol poisoning, of course they’re going to check what he had. They do that even if they think he took them deliberately. They don’t think any different now, it’s just that the bloke’s dead, right?’
‘Came straight to me though. There was three of us took him home, got him to bed. Michael, Brian Rubin and me. It was Michael’s car, see, and Brian and me just wanted to get home, we both live that way, and he offered us a ride. ‘Course, once I got in the car they had a go at me about getting on with the sale, could I talk to Judy?’
‘Did you tell them? About the agreement?’
‘None of their fucking business.’
That was hardly fair as well as being literally untrue, but Matthew let it pass. It was true that the banker’s draft from Judith had only reached the client account that morning, and so the transaction had not formally been completed on Monday when this conversation had been held. The real reason for Tony not wanting to talk to Michael Owens, or Brian Rubin, was that he was feeling a fool, as he should more usefully have felt months ago. He was wishing to postpone, hopefully for ever, confessing the extent to which he had handed over control of his desti
ny.
‘Did any of the others give Richard anything to take?’
Tony hesitated. ‘Didn’t see them. We all went upstairs, but it was Michael who got him into bed – he’s strong, that bloke, carted Richard up the last bit where the stairs are narrow by himself. He said he’d left water beside him – Brian asked.’
‘Was Richard right out of it then?’
Tony thought. ‘I’ve seen blokes like that, they get up good as new after a few hours’ sleep.’ He took a mouthful of his coffee. ‘This is good, what machine are they using?’ He got up to peer over the counter while Matthew caught up with his notes. He waited while his client exchanged words with the proprietor and came back, tucking a slip of paper into his top pocket. The truly interesting thing about Tony Gallagher was that, by luck, he had found something that worked for him, that did not involve violence; a man who could check out a coffee machine while waiting to be interviewed by the police was truly interested in his subject. A thought struck him, sparked by the coffee.
‘When Richard was at the Caff, and you were sobering him up, did he have anything else to drink, or eat?’
‘Wouldn’t eat, but he had about eight cups of coffee. Michael kept feeding them to him, and walking him to keep him awake. Brian Rubin helped too. ‘Course, Richard had been in the office a lot of the day, we was too busy to care provided he was out the way. And he must have had a skinful there, but I don’t know what. We put the bar supplies up there, Sunday, so could have been anything.’
Matt looked at his watch. ‘I can’t think you’ve got a lot to worry about, Tony. Just tell them all that.’
His client looked at him sideways. ‘You’re saying I got you out of your cot for nothing? I don’t trust them buggers.’
‘No, I wasn’t saying that.’ He was watching his client’s hands, fiddling with a teaspoon. ‘Tony. Anything else you’re worrying about?’
‘Nah. Not really.’
‘You’ll break that.’ As he spoke there was a snapping noise and they both gazed at two bits of metal which had been a perfectly good teaspoon.
‘Jesus.’ Tony palmed the bits, one large hand swallowing them. ‘This whole thing, it’s got to me.’ He looked sidelong at Matthew, who froze. There was, as Peter Graebner had always reminded him, a real danger in being close to the clients. You could not do your real work of defending them to the best of your ability if they had honoured you with their confidence in a way that made it clear they were guilty as charged. ‘There is one thing.’
Matthew breathed again; no one prefaced a confession to murder in those terms.
‘Last time we saw the big chap, McLeish, he was going on about what happened the last night Selina was around. When we had a row in the kitchen. He didn’t believe what I’d said.’
‘About the row? No, he didn’t, but he didn’t think it mattered, did he? After all, she wasn’t killed then.’
Tony fidgeted, reaching for another spoon, which Matthew captured. ‘Fuck. Well, it didn’t have anything to do with Selina, but thing is I was in the office. Just for about twenty minutes.’
Matt waited but nothing seemed to be coming. ‘What were you doing?’
His client gazed at the sandwich counter. ‘Maria. This waitress. She was there too.’
Matt started to laugh. ‘Like when I came round that Saturday.’
Gallagher grinned. ‘Yeh. That’s right. Only on the bed. In the inner office.’
‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘’Cos she’s married.’
Matt gazed at him, trying not to let his jaw drop. ‘To one of my sous chefs. Yeh, I know. Anyway, I didn’t want it, you know, on paper anywhere. And I didn’t want her having to be interviewed, like. I mean he’d of wondered. Jean-Pierre.’
‘There’s a bed up there?’ Matt asked, to give himself time to think.
‘Yeh. It’s always been there. I wouldn’t like Judy to know either, know what I mean?’
From everything he read about successful chefs, this behaviour was probably not out of line. But involving, as it did, the wife of a sous chef, and coming on top of excessive and stupid gambling, it might indeed worry an employer and Matt could see why his client might prefer to keep it to himself. The police were not that careful about keeping information confidential either.
‘They want to talk about Richard Marsh-Hayden,’ he pointed out. ‘If they ask you again about Selina’s death you have to tell them. Better be embarrassed than nicked.’
‘All right.’ Gallagher, like all clients, was happy to put the responsibility for a decision on to his lawyer; that, as Peter Graebner used to observe, was the trap. ‘And talking of embarrassment, I signed the thing – the draft – and left it at your office, this morning. Can you hand it over today?’
‘I’ve got a date for tomorrow. They know it’s coming, don’t worry.’
‘They’re fucking dangerous, these people.’
‘Not if you don’t owe them money.’ Matt decided he was entitled to the last word. ‘Come on then, let’s get this over with, it’s half-past.’
Tony Gallagher turned his key in the back door of Café de la Paix, hoping that the massed building trades had not left something heavy against it. There were no lights showing in the floors above, and he grinned to himself as the door yielded, smoothly.
‘Come on Maria, it’s OK.’
The very tall, pale blonde behind him blinked at him and smiled, tremulously.
‘Or we could go back to my place? There’s no one there till the morning, but it’s a bit of a way out.’
‘No, Tony, I mus’ go home not too late. Jean-Pierre knows I finish at twelve at Caff 2.’
‘So we’ve got an hour and a half. Lucky if I can keep going that long.’ They were through the door, inside the silent, dusty building and he wrapped his arms round her, gently biting her ear while he listened for voices, or noises. ‘Come on then. No, hold on a minute, I’ll go up by myself just in case Judy’s up there working late – don’t think so, but you never know.’
He looked momentarily at the lift but he had not yet been able to bring himself to go in it after the police had indicated that it could be used normally. And now wasn’t the time to start, so he took off up the stairs, two at a time, arriving, chest heaving, outside the office. Another snag occurred to him, but the door handle turned easily and the door opened on to a darkened room, the shapes of the desks and filing cabinets illumined by the display boards of the theatre opposite, and by a street light somewhere to the right. He hesitated, then took two steps towards the left-hand side of the room and the door which was the only access to the smaller inner office, and froze, because the door was open and there was a faint light reflecting on the piece of wall he could see. He walked towards it, hesitantly. ‘Hello?’ I must be daft, he thought, but his pressing need for the little bed which was housed in the office overcame caution and he pushed on to see who had left a light on.
It was coming from a desk lamp, sat insecurely on the floor, and there was no one by it, or visible. Someone left it on, he thought, not stopping to examine why anyone would want a light placed so that they and whatever they were looking at would have to be on the floor with it. He reached for the switch at the right-hand side of the door when an appalling pain started above his left ear and he saw a string of stars as he fell to the floor and into unconsciousness.
‘Tony?’ The pale blonde girl, waiting in the darkness below, heard the heavy thud of his fall. She called again but there was no answer; she heard running steps, then the lift gates clash. She stood, stupidly wondering why Tony was coming down again, then realised, her danger understood, where the lift would stop and fled up the stairs, terrified, hearing over the gasps of her own breath the whine of the lift as it went down and the ping as it stopped. The back door banged as she pressed herself against the staircase wall, sick with fright, and it took several minutes of silence for her to be able to gather herself together and decide that she dared not run into the tiny back passage where h
orror might be lying in wait, but must force herself upwards. She was gasping with fright as she found the light switch, but there was no one there. She saw the light in the inner office and gasped for air, ready to run, but then she saw a familiar pair of legs on the floor.
‘Tony,’ she screamed, and ran to him, but he was limp and his head was covered with blood. ‘Oh Tony.’ She started to cry, helplessly, shaking with fright so that the task of dialling 999 eluded her trembling hands the first twice she tried. Then every word of English seemed to have deserted her and she poured out the story in a mixture of French and sobs, so that it was a good twenty minutes before ambulance men and an accompanying paramedic were thumping up the stairs, carrying their heavy equipment.
14
‘No, it looked much like this yesterday, except the safe was closed.’ John McLeish had been woken at one thirty that morning to be told that there was another development in the Café de la Paix saga, but on finding that Tony Gallagher was in St Thomas’s, unconscious but stable, that the young woman who had found him was also there, in shock, with policemen at both their bedsides, and that the office premises at the Café were properly secured, he had decided to get up at an ordinary time. As a carefree bachelor, he reflected, he might have made a different decision, but rushing to his post at one thirty in the morning now meant abandoning a pregnant wife to cope with a child who was probably not going to sleep through the night until he reached secondary school. His audience, Bruce Davidson, one sergeant and a DC, gazed at the mess in front of them; papers covered the bed and the whole of the floor in the inner office.
