False Alarm Read online

  Mrs Emerson let them into her flat. The air smelled stale. Windows weren’t often opened here. She led the way into the kitchen, neat and tidy with some chicken pieces defrosting on the side, ready for cooking that evening. She opened the door on to the balcony and closed it behind them, to keep the heat in.

  ‘We’re directly above Harvey’s flat now?’ said Bea. ‘And the other flat on this floor is for the Muslim family who seem to be invisible. Is that right?’

  ‘They’re probably in, dear,’ said Mrs Emerson, ‘but they don’t usually come to the door.’

  ‘This way to Harvey’s flat,’ said Eliot, impatient of delay. He started down the stairs, calling out, ‘Helen; it’s me. You really ought to be resting. Here’s Mrs Abbot to take charge now.’

  Mrs Emerson fluttered down the stairs after him, and Bea followed.

  ‘Hello there.’ Helen was huddled into a coat which looked too big for her, but there was a little colour in her cheeks. She’d been a pretty woman once and would be so again if the treatment worked. ‘Harvey’s been telling me how he ran a ship aground in the war.’

  Eliot said, ‘Humph!’ in a quiet voice.

  Bea grinned to herself. Harvey wasn’t old enough to have served in the Second World War, and she didn’t think he’d served in the Falklands either. He’d thrown his kitchen window open and was sitting on a chair on the far side of the sink below it, sipping a cup of tea. He looked to be in his early forties. He had ginger hair in a quiff above a plump, petulant face, unremarkable except for a pair of very bright blue eyes. Harvey was as gay as a flock of parakeets, and if he’d ever been nearer government headquarters than passing through Gloucester in a car, Bea would be very much surprised.

  ‘Ah-ha, the cavalry arrives!’ He had a high, light tenor voice. ‘I’ve been hearing all about you, Mrs Abbot, from my neighbours. They say you’re a proper little heroine and will get me out of here in next to no time. I shall have to go online and tweet about meeting you.’

  No hysteria. Harvey enjoyed being the centre of attention.

  Bea smiled because he was smiling. ‘Did you get any idea where the caretaker was going when he left you?’

  ‘I’m afraid I threw something of a tantrum when he departed. The shock, you know; he lifted my keys off me, calm as you please, and threw me across the room when I objected. Because I did object, my word I did. There I was, lying half on and half off the sofa, quite at his mercy, and he storms out muttering to himself. That long lad with the black hair that I don’t know what he has to do with anything though he said he’d come direct from Sir Lucas Ossett, which I cannot believe, but anyway, he apologized to me very nicely, that I will say, and off they both went, locking my own front door behind them. Naturally, I called them back, and perhaps I did lose my temper and thump the door, but to no avail.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘So I opened my window at the back here, and I hollered and I hollered for help, and Lucy very kindly came down, and Carrie, too, and Lucy went back up to see if she could raise the caretaker on his mobile phone, but she couldn’t. Carrie went back up to look for him, too, and that’s when I tried to get out of the kitchen window and gave myself a nasty scratch on the catch, but it’s no good thinking I’m the slender little thing I used to be, because those days are long since gone.’

  ‘Would you like another cup of tea?’ said Lucy.

  ‘Thank you. I don’t mind if I do. And perhaps a little shortbread biscuit? Must keep my strength up. Then Mr McIntyre came up, which I hadn’t expected, but then dear Helen is always so concerned about me, and she came up as well, and then there was such a coming and a going, I’ve quite lost count of the number of people trying to release me from durance vile.’

  Lucy took his empty cup and saucer and disappeared up the stairs. Eliot McIntyre looked at his watch. ‘Your ten minutes are up, Mrs Abbot. I don’t want to keep Helen out here in the cold any longer.’

  Bea made up her mind. ‘Helen, would you be so good as to check that Harvey doesn’t need medical attention for his scratch? Harvey, can you somehow put your arm out of the window so that she can see . . .?’

  While Helen attended to Harvey, Bea swivelled round and, since her head for heights was not wonderful, grasped the balcony railing with both hands before she looked over into the yard below. Nothing. Look to the right. Yes. Oh dear.

  Was she going to be sick?

  No. Breathe deeply. Stand upright.

  Eliot treated her to a disapproving look.

  Bea didn’t want Helen to look and be upset, too. She said, ‘Mr Eliot, would you care to walk a little way along the balcony with me? Right to the end. We’re outside Carmela’s flat now, aren’t we? I’m not good at heights. Would you look over the balcony and down into the yard for me?’

  He looked. Gagged. Coughed. Said, in a strangled voice, ‘That’s torn it.’

  ‘Don’t let Helen look.’

  ‘No.’ He ran the back of his hand across his mouth.

  Bea steadied herself and had another look. Straight down, past the McIntyre flat and the now empty flat of the old woman who’d died some months before. He’d been a big man, that caretaker. One arm was outflung, and beyond it a mobile phone. Smashed. There was a considerable pool of blood under the body, and beside it, half under the body, there was a large, flattened cardboard box.

  A high-pitched cry. A seagull?

  ‘Helen!’ Eliot dashed back to his wife’s side, pulling her away from the railing. She’d looked because she’d seen them do so. Bea cursed herself. She ought to have sent Helen back inside before she’d tested her suspicions.

  Someone would have to go down and check to see if the caretaker were dead or badly injured. Probably her. Who else got all the dirty jobs around here?

  TWELVE

  Saturday evening.

  ‘So,’ said Bea, looking at the menu without seeing it, ‘I went down to the ground floor and out into the yard and checked. He was quite dead. Cold. I called the police, who called the paramedics, who called the doctor, and they all agreed that it was a tragic accident. No one had liked the man, everyone was suitably shocked and a perfectly splendid time was had by Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.’

  The menu in this new restaurant was huge, and the dishes seemed to combine foods which were not usually eaten together. The evening would be expensive, but at least she didn’t have to pay. Her host, that grey man, CJ Cambridge, liked to be among the first to try out a new restaurant, and no doubt this place would live up to his high standards.

  CJ beckoned the waiter over. ‘You sound as if you need a drink before we eat. Scotch for shock? Gin and something?’

  ‘I have no intention of reeling out of the restaurant in these high heels. I’ve ruined one pair this weekend already. I’ll have one glass of wine with the meal, as usual.’ She put the menu down. ‘You choose what we should eat. Anything but shellfish for me.’

  CJ scanned the menu. ‘It’s lobster that upsets you, isn’t it? We’ll play safe with some game, shall we?’

  Normally, Bea would have resented his choosing for her, but tonight she’d had enough of being independent and clear-thinking and saving everyone else’s bacon.

  ‘I would like,’ she said, ‘to wipe today out of my memory banks. It’s a Saturday, and it ought to have been a time for recuperation from the day-to-day worries of running a business. I ought to have spent an hour going over the accounts and dealing with any problems that might have arisen in the office. Then I would have gone shopping, or taken a walk in Kensington Gardens, or perhaps even gone to bed with my Kindle this afternoon.’

  CJ was amused. ‘Instead of which, you kept your head while others were losing theirs, and were ready on time – looking as charming as ever, if I may say so – when I called for you.’

  Bea shot him a glance which ought to have skewered him to the wall. ‘You think I kept my head because I didn’t bring Sir Lucas’s name up when the police came? I’m not sure I was right to do so.’

  He smiled,
the all-powerful alpha male indulging the frail female’s quite unnecessary fears. ‘Now what possible good could have been achieved by dragging his name into what was clearly, as you say, a tragic accident?’

  ‘Pull the other one. How long had the caretaker worked there? Years. He was as familiar with the fire escape as he was with the lift. Judging by the way he was lying and the shape of the pool of blood beneath him, he’d fallen from one of the balconies on the right-hand side of the building. A higher floor, rather than a lower one.

  ‘It’s impossible to access the fire escape from outside the building unless someone inside opens a door to let you in. The same applies to getting into one of the flats from the fire escape. You can’t, unless someone lets you in. However, the caretaker had keys to all the flats and could get out on to their balconies at any time by letting himself in through one of their front doors and leaving through the kitchen. Are you following me?’

  ‘I am.’ Humouring her.

  ‘The police asked which flat, and we all chipped in to tell them which one it must have been. We worked from the bottom up. The ground floor flat where the old woman used to live is empty. True, the ground slopes away a bit at the back, but if he’d fallen off that ground floor balcony, the drop wouldn’t have been sufficient to kill him; to break a limb perhaps, but no more.

  ‘Directly above him were the McIntyres. They say the first they heard of something amiss was when Maggie and Oliver knocked on their door to see if they knew where the caretaker might be. They say they did not go out on to their balcony at any time that afternoon. I believe them.

  ‘Above them is Carmela, who had a client with her all afternoon. Knocking on her door failed to rouse her. She only came to the door, fully dressed and immaculate, when her client was ready to leave. They alibi one another.’

  CJ was amused. He steepled his fingers and looked at her over them. ‘You really think she needs an alibi?’

  Ignore that. ‘Above Carmela is the Muslim family. The father did come to the door eventually. He said they’d been in all afternoon. They’d been scared when they heard all the shouting but hadn’t dared to look out and hadn’t seen anything. See no evil, hear no evil. The police believed him. I’m not sure I did. To me, he looked like a man determined to avoid trouble.’

  CJ raised one eyebrow. ‘Perhaps, if you’d been through what they’ve suffered, wherever they’ve come from, you’d be frightened when a policeman knocked on your door.’

  Bea grimaced. ‘I know. I’m being uncharitable. Take no notice. I’ll feel better tomorrow. Now, directly above the Muslims is the empty flat once occupied by Tariq. I understand he left the place in a mess and, from my own observation, he’d dumped a pile of cardboard and other packing materials out on his balcony before he disappeared. The caretaker had told Oliver that he had some work to do after he left Harvey. I think he went into Tariq’s messy, unoccupied flat, let himself out on to the balcony from the kitchen and started to throw all the rubbish down into the yard, so that he could dispose of it in one of the wheelie bins. The police agree with me that this was what must have happened.’

  ‘Was there any packaging in the yard?’

  ‘Yes. He was lying on some. Everyone believes he fell from Tariq’s balcony.’

  He laid his hand on her knee and pressed it. ‘Good girl. That’s today’s problem solved.’

  She removed his hand. ‘It explains where the caretaker might have been, but it doesn’t explain why he fell.’

  CJ made a gesture as if drinking from a glass. ‘He’d drink taken?’

  Bea shook her head. ‘According to Oliver and Harvey, he was sober enough when he locked the latter into his flat and took the keys away. I’m told that on a Saturday afternoon he took time off work to watch the football on his television. It was his custom to turn the volume up so high that everyone in the flats could hear it, but no one heard it today. So it’s reasonable to assume that he died before the game started. I suppose he thought he had time enough to clear the rubbish from outside Tariq’s flat before he turned the telly on. And fell. I repeat; why did he fall?’

  A shrug. ‘He probably had a bottle of whisky in his pocket. Perhaps he found some drink in Tariq’s flat on his way through and helped himself? Perhaps he was startled by a bird or an aeroplane flying low, turned to look up at it, and lost his balance.’

  ‘They have to have a post-mortem in cases of accidental death, don’t they? That should show if he’d alcohol in his body.’

  The waiter served the entrée. It looked pretty. Mushrooms and something. The wine waiter proffered an appropriate bottle. Bea asked for water. She looked around. Low lighting, polished tables, spindly seating. The tables were set too close together for comfort. Were they expecting a full house?

  CJ said, ‘I assume you managed to release friend Harvey from his prison?’

  ‘Mm. I suggested that the caretaker must have a duplicate set of keys hanging up in his office in the basement. Lucy Emerson helped me look. We found them, properly labelled, and took them upstairs to let Harvey out. He’s enjoying the notoriety; Harvey, I mean. He’s as gay as all get out and takes pictures of young men for fun . . . or so he tells me. I sincerely hope that’s all he does take them for. He writes teenage pulp fiction and reviews films for one of the tabloids. Hence his fantasies about being the new James Bond. He also eats and drinks horror films. He’s going to let me have a list of his favourites. Mostly about vampires, I gather.’

  She tasted the starter. Pleasant enough.

  CJ attacked his mushrooms with enthusiasm. ‘So he’s none the worse for wear and all’s well that ends well.’

  ‘Except for Helen. I thought she’d pass out on us after she spotted the caretaker on the ground. She was white as a sheet. Eliot and Carrie Kempton got her down to their flat and, after she’d had a little lie-down, I helped her with her make-up and saw her off to their important function on her husband’s arm. And that’s another thing.’ She sighed. ‘I thought Eliot was a bullying bastard, but he turns out to be an over-anxious and caring husband, desperately worried about his wife’s health. I couldn’t have been more wrong about him.’

  CJ was amused. ‘So you jumped to the wrong conclusion again?’

  Bea gritted her teeth, but had to agree that she had done just that. ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Never mind.’ He patted her hand.

  She’d calmed down enough by now not to slap his hand away, but she did remove it from his grasp. ‘I’m sorry, CJ. I’m no sort of company for you tonight. Too much going on. Maggie in distress. She’s staying over at her mother’s again tonight.’

  ‘They don’t call you Mother Hen for nothing.’

  She tried to smile. ‘Oliver is another problem. You’ll say that I’m worrying unnecessarily but I don’t like the way he’s been drawn into acting – not exactly outside the law – but . . . No, let’s call a spade a spade. He did act unlawfully by helping the caretaker to lock Harvey into his flat.’

  ‘With the best of intentions, surely.’

  ‘Doing evil that good may come of it? That’s fudging the boundaries, and it makes me uncomfortable.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s just you, Bea. You’re frighteningly sure that you know what’s right and what’s wrong. You see the world in terms of black and white, but really it’s all shades of grey.’

  She blinked. ‘I know the difference between right and wrong, and so do you.’

  A tinge of red came into his cheeks.

  At that moment Bea realized how deeply offended she’d been by Sir Lucas’s manoeuvres. Too black and white, was she? Well, perhaps she was and a little flexibility might be in order. But there was something deep down within her that jumped up and down and screamed when she met up with a careless assumption that it was all right to transgress because, hey, didn’t everybody do it?

  Some of her other problems flitted through her mind. She could see now that they could all be resolved by taking the primrose path. Going along with what other people wanted m
ight make for a quiet life . . . but wouldn’t she be left feeling she’d acted against her better instincts?

  For instance; Max wanted a nominal directorship which meant paying him director’s fees, which would have to come out of the agency’s profits and hardly reduce her workload. It would mean a cut in the amount set aside for her pension, and the maintenance of the building, etcetera. Taking Max on board might be pleasant for both of them in some ways, but if it meant unbalancing the books, surely it was wrong to do so?

  On the other hand, if it advanced his career, ought she not to do it?

  Risk-taking. People said you stopped being fully alive if you never took a risk, but Bea was not of their way of thinking. Risk-taking meant hazarding everything she owned. Risk-taking meant putting the livelihood of everyone at the agency in jeopardy. And for what? So that Max – who already earned a decent living in the Commons – might gain a little kudos here and a director’s fee there?

  Which led her on to thinking about Holland and Butcher. She didn’t particularly want to think about them, but she could see that it was no good putting the matter off.

  Here was a different problem. The head of the company had employed a rotten apple as his managing director once. What was to prevent him doing so again? She did not feel happy about working with a firm whose CEO lacked judgement.

  On the other hand, as Max had said, a merger between the two companies would be to the advantage of both. And yes, she supposed she might even raise the money to buy them out, if she put her house up as collateral for the loan. She winced; that house was her shell, her protection against the world.

  She shook her head. She was not that ambitious for fame and fortune. Surely she was better off as she was . . . Except that if she did push the agency into the big time and it worked, then she could easily afford to pay Max a director’s fee.

  What was best to be done?

  She really didn’t know. And it was time to pay attention to her host, instead of drifting off into daydreams.