False Alarm Read online

  Bea tried to see into the lift. There was no light on inside, and she thought she could see . . . but couldn’t be sure. ‘Can we open the door by pressing the call button?’

  They tried it. No, it wouldn’t open. The power seemed to have been cut off.

  Bea said, ‘Can we force it? If I pull the door, and you put your weight behind the broom?’

  Together they heaved. The door flew open, and though there was no light on inside the lift, they both spotted the body.

  ‘I’ll call the police,’ said Bea.

  Somebody or something plucked the mobile phone out of her grasp. She cried out, and turned to face . . . The damaged heel of her boot snapped. She stumbled and fell. And lost interest in the proceedings.

  EIGHT

  Friday afternoon

  Sound returned first.

  ‘. . . in here, that’s right . . .’

  She was being lifted up and deposited . . .

  A face swam into view.

  A face which she recognized, but which shouldn’t be there. Should it? Would it be stupid to ask, ‘Where am I?’

  She’d been laid out full length on . . . what? A settee with bumpy cushions. Not at home. So, ‘Where am I?’

  She coughed. Cigarette smoke.

  The man she recognized said, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Oliver? What are you doing here?’

  ‘Rescuing you, it seems. I turn my back for five minutes . . .’

  She struggled upright. Her head clanged, and she put her hands to it. ‘Oh!’

  ‘You banged your head when you fell. Lie still, and we’ll get the paramedics to have a look at you.’

  She forced herself to sit upright. The room went fuzzy, and then came into focus. ‘I’m all right. I think. Oliver, what are you doing here?’

  Another face swam into view. A girl with hair all over the place, wearing a scared expression. ‘Are you all right? What a fright you gave us!’

  Ah. She was in the dark-haired girl’s flat, which was on the ground floor of a building she’d been visiting. There’d been something about . . . No, it had gone. ‘What happened?’

  Another woman’s face. Older. Marred but intelligent. Bea knew her, too; didn’t she? The woman said, ‘The heel snapped off your boot, throwing you off balance. You banged your head as you fell and suffered a momentary blackout. Do you feel sick at all?’

  Bea consulted her stomach. She started to shake her head, learned it wasn’t a good idea and said, ‘No. I’m all right.’

  ‘Well, if you get any odd symptoms, you’d best go straight to hospital.’

  Carmela. That was the woman’s name. Silly name. Bea tried to think back. Couldn’t remember. She had a flashback to . . . She’d caught a glimpse of something, some dark shape huddled into a dark corner . . . No, whatever it was, it had gone.

  ‘Let’s get you home,’ said Oliver. ‘Maggie’s breaking off work early so she can look after her mother, so I’ll get you home and tuck you up in bed. You’ll be right as rain in the morning.’ He helped her to her feet. She wobbled, one heel off and one heel on, diddle-diddle-dumpling, my son John.

  She sat down again. Plump. Tried to take off her boot, but it was laced up tight and her fingers weren’t responding to commands. Tried to laugh. ‘Can’t walk. If you call a taxi, I’ll take my boots off and walk to it.’

  Carmela snapped on her mobile. ‘I’ll call you a cab.’

  The dark girl said, ‘I’ve got a pair of slippers I’ve hardly worn. I’ll get them for you.’

  Oliver knelt to unlace Bea’s boots.

  Bea held on to her head, which was throbbing. ‘Sorry to cause such a . . . What a nuisance I’m being. Oh, where’s my mobile phone? I thought I—’

  The dark girl said, ‘You dropped it when you fell. I’m sorry, it smashed to pieces on the tiles.’

  Oh, thought Bea. Something’s wrong here. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but . . . ‘There’s a body in the lift.’

  ‘No, no.’ Carmela laughed, and the laughter almost convinced. ‘Not a body. Honest. The decorators had put bags of rubble into the lift. They’re supposed to take them down the fire escape at the back, but of course it’s easier for them to put them into the lift. Only, this time they didn’t get away with it. The caretaker heard them and cut the power to the lift, leaving a note on the door to say it was out of order while he went up to tell them off. All sorted now.’

  ‘Decorators,’ said Bea, remembering. ‘Flat number twelve? They’re in France at the moment.’

  ‘That’s right. Here, put these slippers on. Take my arm. Oliver, you take the other side, and we’ll get her home in no time at all.’

  As Bea was steered out of the room into the foyer, she caught a glimpse of a boy with a shaved head chewing his fingernails. Connor, that was his name. What was the girl’s name? Bea couldn’t remember. If she’d ever known it.

  The lift door was closed now, the ‘Out of Order’ notice removed.

  Bea’s head ached, and her legs seemed not to belong to her body. But there was a taxi waiting and Oliver helping her into it.

  Don’t let’s start an argument now, because you are not up to it, Bea.

  Not yet, anyway.

  Friday late afternoon

  Home again, safe and sound.

  Well, not too sound, but safe.

  She shivered. Her head ached.

  ‘Paracetamol and bed for you,’ said Oliver. ‘No argument.’

  She wanted to say, but there was a body . . .

  She stopped herself just in time, because if Oliver thought there wasn’t a body, and the others backed him up then . . . was she going mad, or the victim of a conspiracy?

  She let him take her into the living room and deposit her on the settee. With a sigh she arranged cushions behind her head and winced at the sore spot where she’d hit her head on . . . whatever. As he drew the curtains against the dusk outside, she said, ‘A cup of tea would be wonderful.’

  ‘Coming up.’ He glanced at his watch, frowning.

  Was he due somewhere else? Was she being a terrible nuisance, falling over and cracking her head like that? And seeing things.

  But if she had indeed seen something and the others – three people, count them; Carmela, the girl and Connor – had conspired to hide the fact then . . . then what? ‘Conspiracy’ was a big word, wasn’t it?

  She said, ‘I thought you were being shown over the Vicori empire this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh, yes, a quick guided tour. Sir Lucas wants to keep an eye on me, says he’s impressed and all that. Did you think he’d offer me a job there and then?’

  She had thought just that. So why hadn’t he? She attempted a smile. ‘Did he send you back to look after Lady Ossett?’

  ‘Mm. She’s gone a bit doolally, I’m afraid. He doesn’t want her doing anything silly. I’ll get you some tea.’ He disappeared, and she half closed her eyes against the light from overhead. If she had the energy she’d get up and switch to side lights. She didn’t have the energy.

  Oliver set a mug of tea at her side. Had she dozed off for a moment? Perhaps.

  ‘Thanks. Did you actually see me making a fool of myself, falling about like a clown?’

  ‘No, I arrived just in time to see them trying to pick you up off the floor.’

  ‘How alarming for you. And my poor mobile. Did you happen to rescue that, too?’

  ‘I didn’t think of it. It was in pieces.’

  She sipped tea. Wonderful. Restorative. ‘You say Maggie was stopping work early, to look after her mother? She won’t be back for supper, then. So what is it that Sir Lucas wants you to do next?’

  ‘Be his eyes and ears. He knows now who’s masterminding the attacks on him at work, but he needs some hard evidence linking him to his accomplice at the flats.’

  He’s testing you, Oliver. He wants to know if he can get you to provide that evidence. And if, as I suspect, there is no hard evidence, then he’ll want you to manufacture it, and in the process
– not that that would worry him – he’ll mould you into being a creature of his.

  She must tread carefully. ‘He’s adamant about not handing this over to the police? Not even to CJ?’

  ‘One word of this leaked to the press and millions would be knocked off the share price. He can’t risk it.’

  ‘The caretaker at the flats is in his pay already. Presumably Sir Lucas doesn’t suspect him.’

  ‘No. He believes it’s someone who gets his orders via computer.’

  ‘Ah, so that’s why he wants you, you clever boy. Well, now; that rules out several people in the flats. I’ve met quite a few of them by now, and I can tell you that some are hardly capable of reading the time off a digital clock, never mind surfing the net. How will you find out who’s capable?’

  He reddened. ‘Sir Lucas owns the flats and, under the terms of the contracts, he can have access to them to check for water leaks, that sort of thing. He’s given me a piece of paper which appoints me his representative, and he’s told the caretaker to take me round, and introduce me . . . or I may borrow his keys.’

  ‘And you’re going to search every apartment?’ She was appalled, but struggled to hide it. ‘Well, that’s very . . . ingenious of him.’

  He was defiant. ‘It’s justifiable. It gives me the right to search for and check all their computers.’

  ‘Checking for leaks is not the same thing as checking what a computer might hold. You’ve no right to do that.’

  ‘Once I’m in, I shall chat them up, and they’ll let me see what they’ve got. If they’re innocent, that is.’

  ‘And if they’re not? Will you wait till they’ve gone out and use the caretaker’s keys to enter their flats and spy on them? Oliver, you can’t be happy about doing that.’

  ‘If that’s the only way to trap the man, then of course I’m going to do it.’ A defiant look, but Bea felt – hoped – that he was disturbed by what she’d said, even if he wasn’t yet able to see the morass into which Sir Lucas was trying to draw him.

  Her head ached, and she wanted nothing so much as to take some painkillers and go to bed. ‘Dear Oliver, you’re going to have to be as wise as a serpent to get to the bottom of this. You’ll have to be careful not to point the finger at an innocent person, who might have no defence against such a powerful person as Sir Lucas.’

  ‘Of course I’ll be careful.’ Tetchy. Not amused. Another glance at his watch.

  ‘Are you so anxious to get cracking? If you leave it till tomorrow, I can come with you, introduce you around. Then you won’t have to tell any lies to get in.’

  ‘Not lies.’ But he ducked his head so she shouldn’t see his face.

  She closed her eyes . . . and the next thing she knew, someone was stroking her face. Not Oliver.

  She opened her eyes. A shock of dark hair, greying at the temples, bright dark eyes, a long nose, a humorous twist to the mouth.

  ‘Piers!’ She tried to sit upright and fell back. What was her long-divorced first husband doing here? True, they were good friends now, but he wasn’t exactly the kind to nurse a sick child, never mind a sick wife, as she knew from experience. They hadn’t been married for a year before he’d been tom-catting around the neighbourhood, and though he was now a nationally renowned portrait painter, he hadn’t changed his ways.

  Perhaps she was hallucinating again?

  He said, ‘Oliver called, asked me if I’d look after you tonight, make sure you haven’t got a concussion. I was intrigued by his story of high jinks in society and cancelled an evening with a DVD to fly to your side. You’re looking peaky, my love.’

  ‘Feeling it.’ She swung her legs to the floor, noting she was still wearing a pair of incongruous beaded Indian slippers. They belonged to the dark-haired girl, didn’t they? ‘Oliver shouldn’t have bothered you. I’ll be all right after a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘So you say. Here, let me carry you upstairs.’

  She fended him off with a weak laugh. ‘Who are you kidding? You couldn’t carry me over the threshold when we got married, so what chance have you now?’ She got to her feet, staggered, and was glad to have his arm around her.

  ‘I have my orders.’ He half-carried and half supported her up the stairs. ‘Paracetamol and more tea. Put you to bed. Wake you every hour to shine a torch into your eyes, and get an ambulance if you slip into a coma. Oliver also said that if you started rambling about corpses and corruption, I was to take no notice because you’d had a bang on your head.’

  He let her collapse on to her bed. Putting his hands on his hips, he asked, ‘Do you want me to undress you and put you in the shower?’

  ‘Heaven forbid.’ She was half appalled and half . . . No, she didn’t really want him to . . . No. Of course not. NO. Definitely Not.

  There was no denying the fact that age had not withered him, and he was still the most charming, delightful, charismatic . . . untrustworthy, unfaithful . . . Oh well.

  ‘I’ll manage,’ she said, ‘if you could shut off all the lights downstairs and find me some painkillers. Kitchen cupboard, first on the right.’

  By the time she’d managed to get herself undressed, sort of washed and under the duvet, he was scraping some slopped tea from saucer to cup and handing her some Paracetamol. No fuss. No bother. As to the manner born. He even stroked her cheek as she lay back and closed her eyes.

  ‘I’ll dowse the lights and sit in the chair by the window.’

  Her head thumped. It would pass. She could hear him rustling newspapers. Tiresome. She wished he wouldn’t. It took her back to the days when they’d been married. He’d been earning a pittance, while she nursed Max and tried not to realize she’d married a man who couldn’t resist a flirtatious glance from another woman . . .

  She woke with a start. It was one o’clock. She’d gone to sleep without having her nightly dip into her bible or saying her prayers. She reached out for the bible on her bedside table but it was no longer there. She lifted her head from the pillow – ouch – to see that it had slipped to the floor and she couldn’t reach it.

  Dear Lord, I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch today. Yesterday. I suppose I should thank you for looking after me, and I do. I’ll get back to you when I feel better. Promise.

  Someone was snoring, lightly. Piers had fallen asleep in his chair, reading glasses slipped sideways on his nose, the newspaper around his feet.

  She was amused. She hadn’t known he’d started to wear reading glasses. He wouldn’t want her to know that she’d seen them. Dear Piers . . .

  At four she woke again and was aware she’d cried out, just as she’d cried out when her heel had broken and someone had snatched the phone from her hand.

  ‘What is it?’ Piers scrambling awake.

  She sat upright, breathing hard. Shaking.

  He put his arms around her. ‘There, there.’ His glasses had disappeared.

  She cried a little. ‘I saw something. A man, bent over, lying on the floor in the lift. But they said it was some bags of decorators’ rubble.’

  ‘Bea, if you say you saw a leprechaun, and six other people said it was decorators’ rubble, I’d back you.’

  She held on to his arm. Her breathing slowed. ‘Thank you.’

  He released her, patted her shoulder. ‘Back to sleep. You can tell me all about it in the morning.’

  She lay back, closing her eyes. ‘I thought you were supposed to wake me every hour on the hour.’

  ‘I did at first; and let me tell you, I was shocked by your language.’

  She yawned, turning on her side. ‘Why don’t you sleep in the spare room next door?’

  ‘I’m not leaving you. Of course, I could always . . .’ He lifted a corner of the duvet.

  She slapped him down. ‘No, you don’t. We’ve been divorced far too long for that. Take a duvet and pillows from next door, then.’

  Silence. Did he tiptoe away? She slid back into sleep.

  Saturday morning

  A bright morning. Some red
streaks in the east, but for the rest, a clear true-blue sky. She threw back the curtains and thanked God for a sound constitution, a hard head, and Piers . . . who was still asleep, awkwardly awry in his chair. She felt a little wobbly, but nothing that a good breakfast wouldn’t restore to normal.

  She showered and dressed, by which time he was stirring and checking the shadow on his chin.

  Breakfast. Orange juice and cereal. Scrambled eggs. Marmalade on brown toast. Coffee for him; tea for her because coffee might raise her blood pressure and that wouldn’t be good for her headache, which wasn’t too bad really. She took some more paracetamol and eased it away.

  ‘Want to tell me what’s been happening?’

  She brought him up to date, starting with Maggie’s plea for help with her mother, continuing through her own visit to Vicori House, Oliver’s involvement and her visits to the flats.

  He was thoughtful. Nodded now and then. ‘You don’t think Oliver will find the culprit?’

  ‘I think it’s more than a simple case of industrial espionage emanating from Vicori House. It seems to me that some of the happenings at the flats can be put down to spiteful mischief, but others are dangerous. I don’t say I’ve got the half of it yet, but I’m getting there, and now – after what happened yesterday – I have a lever to prise out some more of the truth.’

  ‘It’s Saturday and I’m at a loose end. Shall we make a list of who lives where and why you think they’re implicated in . . . whatever?’

  Together they worked on a chart and found a gaping hole where information about the people in number six ought to be.

  ‘I don’t think anyone mentioned the people in that flat. The two old biddies went on a bit about the old lady who died of a heart attack on the ground floor, but that seems to have happened before any of this started. Or . . .’ She frowned. ‘Maybe that started it? No, I’m being fanciful. That was a death from natural causes.’

  ‘Who said so?’

  ‘Mm? The biddies. Oh.’ She struck her forehead. ‘I am so stupid! I lapped up everything they told me but I didn’t check any of it. I thought they were just two elderly ladies without an axe to grind, but . . . Let me get my notes out.’ She scrabbled in her handbag for her notebook.