False Impression Read online

  Bea tried not to shout. ‘Break a window or a door. Get out of the building.’

  ‘Yes, of course. How silly of me …’ A pause. And then, ‘Will you hold on while I …?’

  Bea said to the others, rapidly, ‘Anna’s got herself locked in the college by mistake, and she can smell gas. She’s called British Gas, but it’s miles out in the country and—’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ said Leon, taking out his phone. ‘I’ll get Lucas to take me out there in his taxi, but he’ll have to get here first to pick me up.’

  ‘I’ll come, too,’ said Keith, pulling on his jacket.

  Dilys launched herself at Keith. ‘Don’t go!’

  Bea shouted, ‘Stop! Both of you! You’re not thinking straight. It would take you nearly an hour to get there. And what for? It’s a trap!’

  Leon grimaced. ‘You’re right. It was Anna herself speaking?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Bea, still holding her phone to her ear. ‘I can hear her trying to break some glass. She’s coughing. Why don’t you phone the police!’

  Keith had his mobile out. ‘What’s the name of this place? The postcode?’

  Leon had his phone out, too. ‘Can we get hold of your friend in the police, Bea?’

  ‘No,’ said Bea. ‘He’s not available. Keith, give the phone to Leon when you’ve got through. This place is way out in the sticks, but a local policeman could—’

  Dilys shrieked, ‘Ring Daddy, for heaven’s sake. He can get someone out there quicker than anyone.’

  Keith spoke into his phone. ‘Which service do I want? Police! Hurry!’

  Leon hesitated. She could see him thinking it would do no good to ring Briscoe, if it was he who had set the trap for Anna. But worth a try? ‘You’re right. If I can get through to him …’ He turned away to make the phone call.

  Keith was not panicking, but he was near it. ‘Yes, a woman, trapped in a building, locked in by mistake. It’s … Dilys, what’s the postcode?’

  For a wonder, Dilys was able to cope. She took the phone from Keith and gave the code. Keith put his arm around her shoulders saying, ‘Clever girl!’

  Dilys, breathlessly giving information to the police, kept checking with Keith, making sure he thought she was doing the right thing.

  Leon was barking into his phone. ‘I must speak to him! He needs to send the security guard out to the college! There’s someone trapped in … No, I know the college hasn’t anything to do with my brother now, but—’

  ‘Hello?’ Anna was back on the phone, sounding groggy. ‘I’ve broken a window, but I’m feeling more than a bit odd—’

  ‘Get close to the window,’ said Bea. ‘Or lie down by the front door if there’s a gap there. The police are on their way, but—’

  ‘The thing is …’ said Anna. And repeated herself. ‘The thing is … my car’s just been serviced, so it should have started first go.’

  ‘Anna! Stay with me!’

  Dilys said, ‘The police want to talk to Anna. What do I tell them?’

  Bea said, ‘Tell them that they’d better hurry if they want to catch her alive. She’s fading out on me. Anna! Anna …!’

  Leon clicked off his phone. ‘They won’t put me through to Briscoe. They say the college is nothing to do with them any more.’

  Dilys held Keith’s phone out to him. ‘The police say they’re sending someone as quickly as possible. Shall I try to get through to Daddy?’

  ‘You can try,’ said Leon, stabbing at his phone. ‘What’s the British Gas emergency number, anyone?’

  Bea tucked her phone under her chin and dived for the telephone directory she kept in the kitchen. ‘I think I’ve got it somewhere. You want to check they’re on their way?’

  Dilys got out her own phone and keyed numbers. Waited for a response. ‘I’ve heard that one spark and a building can be blown up.’

  Bea found the book, thumbed pages, couldn’t find the number. ‘It should be here, somewhere.’ And, into her phone, ‘Anna, stay with me.’ No reply. Bea slid into a chair. ‘Anna?’ She pushed the book over to Keith. ‘Anna …?’

  Keith took the phone book from her, leafed through it, found the right page and held it up for Leon to see.

  Dilys spoke into her phone. ‘May I speak to Daddy, please …? No, I do understand he has to go to bed early, but it is rather important … No, it can’t wait till morning. There’s a lady who’s been locked into … Oh. Yes, I see that, but when it’s a question of life or death, surely … Yes, yes. I understand. Thank you.’ She put the phone down. Was she going to cry?

  Bea said, ‘Anna, can you hear me?’

  Someone rang the front doorbell. Keith said, ‘Shall I go?’ and went to answer the door … returning with a bedraggled Orlando, who was in no mood to hear about other people’s troubles.

  ‘I thought you were going to take my things upstairs for me? I’ve had the filthiest day imaginable, and …’

  Keith took him by the shoulders and pushed him out of the room. ‘I’ll help you up with your things. Don’t bother Mrs Abbot. There’s a bit of a crisis on. Here, let me take the heaviest bag.’

  ‘Crisis?’ They could hear Orlando complaining as he creaked his way up the stairs. ‘What do you think I’ve been up to …?’

  ‘Anna?’ said Bea, more to herself than to the phone.

  Leon paced backwards and forwards into the hall and back again, trying to get through to British Gas.

  Dilys bit her nails. An unattractive habit.

  Winston leaped on to the table, and for once nobody shouted at him.

  ‘Anna!’ A crash at the other end of the phone brought Bea to her feet. ‘Anna, is that you?’

  A man’s voice, faintly, came along the phone line to Bea. ‘Hey, there she is. You got her, right?’

  ‘Hello! Hello!’ Bea shouted into the phone. ‘Is someone there?’

  A tinny voice said, ‘Looks like she was on the phone.’ Crackling noise as the phone was picked up. ‘I’ll answer it, shall I? Hello, is anyone there?’

  The gas people? The police? Bea said, ‘I was on the phone to my friend. She said she smelled gas, but she got locked in by mistake.’

  ‘My mate’s just lifting her out. She’s still breathing.’

  ‘Is she going to be all right?’ Bea signalled to Leon, who suspended the phone call he’d been making.

  The voice on the phone said, ‘Hold on a mo, while we get her into the fresh air.’

  Heavy tread of feet. Noises off. Voices saying something about propping doors open to clear the gas. Where would the gas be coming from? The kitchens? Was the central heating at the college run on gas?

  Bea hung on to the phone, waiting.

  ‘They’ve found her?’ That was Leon.

  ‘Is she all right?’ Dilys, wringing her hands.

  The voice returned, sounding perturbed. ‘Some stupid whatsit has left the gas taps on in the kitchen at the back here. We’ve turned them all off and opened some windows, but it’ll be some time before the gas clears. In fact, we’d better get out … now! Phew!’

  Bea said, ‘Is Anna all right?’ No reply.

  Keith clattered down, collected some more of Orlando’s belongings and toted them back upstairs. Dilys dithered, then disappeared to help him.

  The voice on the phone returned. ‘Look, no one should come back in till we give the all clear. We’ll be back in the morning to check things out.’

  ‘What about my friend?’

  ‘She’s coming round, but we’re taking no chances. Straight to hospital.’

  ‘Can I speak to her? Which hospital?’

  The line went dead. Bea terminated the call and laid the phone back in its rest. ‘Leon, you heard? She’s come round, but they’re taking her to hospital. Gas taps had been left on in a kitchen at the back. I don’t understand. I thought they were all fitted with fail-safe knobs nowadays.’

  ‘They are,’ said Leon. He dropped into a chair beside her. ‘Someone must have turned them on, waited a while and bl
own out the flames. They meant the building to go up, didn’t they?’

  ‘And Anna with it. Don’t tell me she was locked in by mistake. The police will have to take notice now, won’t they?’

  Keith and Dilys came down the stairs. He had his arm around her shoulders. ‘You did good there, girl.’

  Dilys blushed with pleasure.

  ‘Now,’ said Keith, ‘would someone like to tell me what this is all about?’

  Everyone looked at Bea, who took a deep breath and said, ‘I’ll give you the highlights as I know them, but I can’t pretend to understand what’s really going on here. A couple of days ago two people were murdered in a car park in West London. It was in the news. One was Orlando’s father. Another was a woman going through a bitterly fought divorce.’

  Keith nodded. ‘I do read the papers.’

  ‘Leon and Orlando were lured to the site with false text messages and …’ She ended up saying, ‘No one is sure who the primary target was. There is another complication. When he was in the car park, Leon spotted Adamsson’s car. There wasn’t anyone in it. That car later turned up, still empty, burned out in a run-down council estate. Mr Adamsson’s office says it was stolen that morning and that he has rented a car and is off on holiday in France. The police think a joyrider stole the car from wherever it was, that it was in the car park by coincidence, and that said joyrider then took it away and burned it.’ She took another deep breath. ‘All right so far?’

  Keith nodded, frowning. ‘I don’t like coincidences.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ said Bea. ‘Though I know they can happen. On to the next phase. Dilys gave Orlando shelter. He handed her his smartphone and asked her to charge it up. She did so, and infected the agency system with a virus … which we asked you to clear for us.’

  ‘So the smartphone you gave me to clean up was Orlando’s? The one with the virus on it?’

  Bea said, ‘It looks as though whoever sent the text messages to Orlando and Leon followed it up by sending their phones a virus to wipe out everything on them. This meant they couldn’t prove they’d been asked to go to the car park.’

  Leon nodded. ‘I gave my smartphone to the police, with all the messages on it. I have no idea whether or not they managed to ignore the virus and retrieve the texts which took me to the car park.’

  Keith said to Bea, ‘So infecting your system was an accident?’

  ‘Yes. A lucky one for us, because you were on the spot to help us when one of our agency staff arranged for a bug to be placed on my phone … which must be a separate matter. Mustn’t it?’

  ‘Why target you?’

  Bea felt herself colour up. ‘Either because I had given Orlando refuge or because I was offering support to Leon.’

  Leon got up. ‘Excuse me. A phone call to make …’ He went off into the hall.

  Bea said, ‘That’s not all. This afternoon I was sent a box containing a toy cat who looked like Winston … Winston! Get off the table! You naughty boy! Give him some more of his biscuits, will you, Dilys?… The cat in the box looked like him, only smaller, and it gave me a horrible fright. It was addressed to me personally. Now you could say that I’d upset a client who’d sent it to me by way of revenge but, added to the other “coincidences”, I don’t believe it. Someone is trying to frighten me and, I’m ashamed to say, they’re succeeding.’

  Dilys gave a squeak of distress. Keith put his arm around her shoulders.

  ‘Consider what’s just happened,’ said Bea. ‘A friend of mine who has just taken over the running of one of Leon’s companies – one which used to belong to Briscoe Holland – couldn’t start her car, was locked into the building, smelled gas and has ended up in hospital. And the building itself, which employs dozens of people and trains hundreds, has been put in danger. Is that a coincidence, too?’

  Leon came back in, shutting up his phone. ‘I didn’t want to bring in the heavy squad, but I can’t see any alternative. My immediate reaction on hearing that Anna was safe was to rush out there to make sure she was all right. Also, to check on the building, because its front door is currently open to all-comers. Then I had second thoughts.’

  Bea noted that Leon was not holding it against Keith for putting his arm round Dilys.

  ‘I wondered if whoever is orchestrating this vendetta might well think it a good idea to hang around, waiting for me to show up. So I decided against it. I have a decent regard for my skin and don’t want to end up in hospital. The taxi-driver Lucas gave me the name of a man who supplies bodyguards for film stars and politicians. I had a long talk to him earlier today, and I’ve just been on the phone, asking him to check things out for me. He’ll go out straight away to make sure the college building is secure.’

  Bea had her head in her hands, thinking hard.

  Leon said, ‘Bea? What have I missed?’

  ‘So much has been happening that doesn’t make sense. I’m beginning to question my own judgement. Suppose … no, how could it be? But just let’s suppose for one moment … who was it who picked up Anna’s phone and told me she was coming round and that they were taking her to hospital?’

  ‘Well … the British Gas people,’ said Leon.

  ‘The man didn’t identify himself. Aren’t they supposed to do so, straight off? And to ask me who I am? Suppose it wasn’t someone from British Gas?’

  Silence.

  Then, ‘The police?’ from Keith.

  ‘Could they have got there in time?’

  Leon frowned. ‘I suppose they could. Couldn’t they?’

  Bea lifted her hands. ‘I’m imagining all sorts of things. Suppose the person I spoke to was in fact the security man who’d put the chain on the door after Anna went back into the college.’

  Keith said, ‘But if it was him, why did he go in again to get her out?’

  ‘Perhaps because he saw her smash the window and use her mobile to call for help? Perhaps because he hadn’t realized he’d locked her in and wasn’t prepared to let her die?’

  Leon grabbed the phone book. ‘What was that number for British Gas again? I’ll ring them, ask them for an update on our emergency call—’

  Keith keyed numbers. ‘I’ll check with the police, same thing.’

  ‘And I,’ said Bea, ‘will try the hospitals. If she’s been taken to one and is fit to be discharged, we could go to get her. I think Windsor might be the nearest.’

  Dilys said, ‘If we can find where she is, Keith and I could drive out there and rescue her. After all, she does know me.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Bea. ‘Good thinking, Dilys.’

  Orlando stumped down the stairs and into the kitchen, looking aggrieved. ‘Did anyone think to save me some food? I’ve had the worst day of my life and—’

  Dilys put her finger to her lips. ‘Shush! I’ll get you something in a minute.’

  His voice rising, Orlando said, ‘I don’t see why I should hush. If you’d been badgered by the police all day as I have, you’d—’

  Dilys pushed him on to a chair. ‘Just shut up. You’re not the only one who’s had a bad day. A friend of ours was locked into a building that was going to get blown up any minute!’

  Oh, thanks, Dilys. Nicely put. And how about Dilys telling Orlando off? Dilys is flexing her muscles, isn’t she!

  Bea rolled her eyes at Leon, who was otherwise occupied. Bea got through to directory enquiries. ‘Can you give me the numbers for hospitals in the Windsor area? A friend has been in an accident and I want to find out where she could have been taken … Yes, I’ll hold.’

  Winston jumped up on to the table again and plumped himself down, furrily, in the middle of it. Clearly, he thought some more food might be forthcoming and wanted his share. Bea pushed him off. He got back on again. She gave up and let him be.

  Leon held his phone aloft. ‘British Gas say they’re trying to get an engineer out to the college, but they’re currently suffering a heavy demand for their services, etcetera. They want to know if we’ve vacated the building, leavi
ng all doors and windows open. I said we had. They said they’ll get there as soon as they can. Tomorrow morning, probably. So it wasn’t them who rescued Anna. I’ll ask them to get there as soon as possible.’

  Keith was taking longer on the phone to the police. ‘Yes, yes. I understand. Yes, that’s the postcode … You’ve sent someone out to have a look? Good. Yes, I’ll hold on, but if you could give me a contact number …?’

  Orlando said, ‘What’s going on? If it hadn’t been for the fact that I don’t benefit in any way from my father’s death, I’d be locked up in a cell right now.’

  Dilys handed him some bread. ‘Tell you in a minute. Pop it in the toaster for me, will you?’

  Directory enquiries gave Bea the numbers of hospitals in the Windsor area. She scribbled them down and tried the first one. ‘Can you tell me whether a friend of mine has been admitted to …?’

  Leon walked out into the hall, still talking on his phone.

  Dilys scrambled eggs.

  Keith hung on to his phone. ‘Yes, I’m still holding …’

  Bea ended her call. ‘She’s not there. I’ll try the other. They say there are only two hospitals which would take people from that area.’

  Dilys rescued the toast, buttered it, poured on scrambled eggs and plonked the plate down in front of Orlando. ‘Eat.’

  Keith shut off his call. ‘The police are ringing back.’

  Leon returned, looking grim. ‘Suppose whoever Bea spoke to – and presumably they were the people who set the trap – but suppose they didn’t really bother to turn the gas off and open the windows, but have let the building continue to fill with gas? Any spark could send it sky-high. I’ve warned the heavy squad.’

  Bea replaced her receiver. ‘Anna has not been taken to either of the hospitals in that area. Our only hope is that the police have taken her to the nearest station in order to take her statement.’