False Impression Read online

  Bea drew back the curtains in her own office, booted up her computer, checked the latest batch of emails and dealt with the most urgent ones. She was about to lift the internal phone to ask Carrie to send Jennifer in, when her phone rang.

  ‘Mother?’ A male voice.

  Her son, Max. Of course. ‘Yes, dear. What’s the weather like up with you?’

  ‘It’s fine, which is more than I can say for … Mother, this is confidential information, keep it to yourself. A little bird informs me that Holland Training College is about to go bankrupt. He knew I had shares in it so …’

  Ah, yes. Was Briscoe working through the list of shareholders, to spread alarm and despondency? Probably.

  She said, ‘It’s quite all right, Max. One of the tutors was caught with his fingers in the till. He was dismissed and is now trying to stir up trouble. A storm in a teacup.’

  ‘It’s more than that.’ Urgent. Alarmed. ‘The thing is, I’ve been advised to offload my shares, and I thought that if you had any, you ought to—’

  ‘Max, did your informant specifically ask you to warn me?’

  ‘Yes, he did. But I would have done so in any case.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with the company now it’s been sold off. Anna will take it onwards and upwards. Check it out in the Financial Times, if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘You are so naive, Mother. Of course they’ll say that!’ He slammed the phone down.

  Bea took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She switched on her recording machine, asked Carrie if someone might make her a cup of coffee, and said to send Jennifer in.

  The woman wore a bright smile which was nervous around the edges. ‘Mrs Abbot, I expect you may be surprised to see me—’

  ‘We thought you’d left us.’

  ‘A misunderstanding, which I wanted to clear up. I don’t suppose you realize it, but someone has got it in for the agency. I’m very much afraid that your outside line has been bugged!’

  Bea leaned back in her chair. ‘Really?’

  Jennifer became agitated. ‘I tell you, Mrs Abbot, you are in danger … and so am I for coming to warn you!’

  ‘Suppose you start at the beginning. Who recruited you to spy on us?’

  Jennifer’s hand fluttered around her neck. ‘I don’t know his name.’

  ‘You agreed to spy on this agency without knowing who wanted you to do it?’

  Colour rose in Jennifer’s cheeks. ‘My instructions came over the phone.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘Well—’ reluctantly – ‘I knew he was employed at the big house.’

  ‘What “big house”?’

  A wriggle. ‘You know. Holland Holdings. The big house.’

  ‘In what capacity was he employed?’

  ‘I don’t know. Honest.’

  Bea reflected that when people say ‘honest’ like that, it means they’re lying. ‘Try again.’

  ‘He’ll kill me.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Well, he’s head of security. Mr Denver. He called me into his office and—’

  ‘You had a job, working at the big house?’

  ‘In the maintenance department. I thought I was going to get the sack.’ The woman gained confidence as she moved on to the story she’d prepared. ‘Mr Denver said that Mr Briscoe was working to get his properties back, the ones that had been stolen from him by his brother. It was criminal what Mr Leon had done. He said—’

  Bea checked herself. It would do no good to interrupt at this stage.

  ‘—that as my job was going to be merged with someone else’s I could do him a favour by getting information about where Mr Leon was going, and who he was seeing. I said, “How was I to do that?” And he said that Mr Leon had shacked up with his totty – meaning you, no disrespect, Mrs Abbot, but that’s what he said – and you’d taken his side and were helping him to evade justice – and I believed him because, well, I’d been working for Mr Briscoe for quite a while and …’ Her voice faded away.

  Perhaps Bea’s stony expression had caused her to falter. ‘And …?’

  ‘Mr Denver suggested I apply for a position here. He said you were always looking for girls who knew what they were doing. He said there was no need to be too friendly with the rest of the staff, but I should listen and pick up what gossip I could.’

  How long had that camera been advising the enemy of Bea’s visitors?

  Bea said, ‘But you soon learned that Leon was not living here?’

  Another wriggle. ‘He said I hadn’t tried hard enough. He said I needed to step up my game or he’d give me away to you, that I’d be out of another job and that he wouldn’t have me back. And I’ve an elderly mother to look after.’

  What, only one elderly mother? What about the usual three-children-under-five and an incapacitated husband who all rely on your wages?

  ‘So, you upped your game by stealing the office stamp and forging my signature on a contract so that someone could come in and bug the telephone?’

  A despairing glance around. ‘It didn’t sound so bad when he asked me to help him. You must see I didn’t have much choice.’

  ‘What on earth did they – whoever “they” are – hope to gain from bugging my phone? Leon doesn’t use our facilities.’

  ‘They said—’ she twisted and untwisted her fingers – ‘that you were behind his attempt to bring Mr Briscoe down. That without you, he’d have to give up.’

  Bea cast her eyes up to the ceiling. ‘They don’t know either me or him very well, do they? And, who are “they?”’

  ‘I don’t know, exactly.’ There was a note of desperation in her voice. ‘Mr Denver, of course. He talked about “orders from above”. It wasn’t Mr Briscoe. I thought it was and asked Mr Denver, and he told me not to be so stupid. He said, “Why would Mr Briscoe have to concern himself with such a trivial matter?” I thought he meant Mr Briscoe had asked someone else to get him to work on it. Mr Denver called it Operation Tabasco, although I haven’t a clue why.’

  Bea said, ‘So, Keith discovered the bug, we found the forged contract and you took to the hills. You didn’t mean to come back, did you?’

  ‘No.’ A small voice. ‘I realized you were on to me.’

  ‘So you hightailed it back to Mr Denver, admitting your failure. And …?’

  ‘He said I was on my own, that he’d never suggested I work for you, and that he’d deny it if I said he had. He refused to give me the bonus he’d promised and said I shouldn’t try to see him again. He was horrid! He had those other great apes with him—’

  ‘His security guards? How many of them does he have?’

  Jennifer counted on her fingers. ‘They do it in shifts, two at a time. Eight … no, seven at the moment. One is off sick. But two of them were there in the office when I saw him, and they were all laughing about something they were going to do, I don’t know what, and they crowded in on me till I felt quite frightened, and then they marched me out and told me not to come back. I had to walk all the way to the station to get a train back to London, and they didn’t even give me my fare!’

  Bea felt a moment of pity. ‘So what are you going to do now?’

  A toss of her head. ‘My information’s worth something, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not a penny. Carrie has a cheque for the wages that are due to you. Collect it on the way out.’

  A sniffle. ‘You wouldn’t give me my job back, would you?’

  ‘No,’ said Bea. ‘You knew I wouldn’t. You’d best go to the police with your story. I’m sure they’d be interested to hear it.’

  ‘You know I can’t do that. If Denver found out, he’d crucify me.’

  Well, they wouldn’t crucify her, as that particular punishment had gone out of fashion some years ago, but the camera in the porch would have told them that Jennifer had returned to the agency and they might well conclude she’d been trying to play both ends against the middle. They might beat her up? Denver and his security guards wouldn’t baulk
at that. Anna had been extremely lucky last night to have been rescued by two members of the team who still had a conscience and a regard for life.

  Bea said, ‘Who gets the pictures from the camera in the porch, and where are they based?’

  She watched Jennifer work out the implications of Bea’s knowing about the camera.

  Jennifer fluttered her eyelashes. ‘I don’t know anything about a camera.’

  ‘Try again.’

  She tried to sound indignant. ‘Isn’t it illegal to spy on people like that?’

  ‘Yes. It was supposed to cover the front door, but it’s now trained on the agency steps. Which means they know you are here.’

  Jennifer bit her lip. ‘That’s … awful.’ Her eyes skittered around the room. She was going to lie. She had known about the camera. She was nervous, but not scared. Which meant that she didn’t care who knew she’d returned to talk to Bea. Which meant that Denver had instructed her to return.

  The woman fought to produce a reasonable explanation. ‘I didn’t know about the camera, honest. I suppose they thought I wouldn’t always know when Leon arrived and left. You mean, it’s now covering the agency steps?’

  ‘We could put it out of action completely, of course. But, why should we? We have nothing to hide.’

  ‘Yes, but …’ Jennifer tried to smile. ‘What am I going to do?’

  ‘Go to the police.’

  ‘And tell them that I agreed to borrow your stamp and copy your signature? No way. You’ve got to help me. Find me somewhere to hide, out of London … anywhere.’

  ‘What about your elderly mother?’

  ‘Who?’ Jennifer shook her head. ‘Oh. That. I lied. I’ve no one to look after … or to look after me. My mother’s dead, and I never knew my father.’

  ‘Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll ring the police and tell them you want to confess what you’ve done. They’ll ask you to go into the nearest police station to file a report. We have our copy of the contract for which you forged the signature, and the bug you arranged to put on my phone, by way of evidence. If you do that, Carrie will see if we can find you a temporary live-in job out of town.’

  Tears spurted. ‘You can’t abandon me.’

  ‘After what you’ve tried to do to us? Be your age, Jennifer. I’m offering you a way out of the tangle you’ve got yourself into.’

  Jennifer turned on the self-pity. ‘If you knew how hard it is to work for a living.’

  ‘I do,’ said Bea, who did indeed know. ‘Now, do we have a deal?’

  Jennifer dabbed her eyes with a hankie. She clicked her handbag open and shut, considering her options. She straightened in her chair, ran a hand over her hair.

  She’s going to refuse. She thinks she can continue to play both sides against the middle. She’s going to go back to Denver to tell him we know about the bug and the camera.

  Jennifer stood. ‘I’ll be off, then. I can find my own way out.’

  Bea watched Jennifer stalk into the main office, collect and sign for her cheque from Carrie and leave, taking the stairs to street level.

  Carrie watched, too. ‘Where’s she going?’

  ‘I’ve got her confession – if you can call it that – on tape, but she refused to take my advice and go to the police with what she knows and what she’s done.’

  ‘Keith says he’s put the camera out of action. It’s dangling in the breeze at the moment. He thinks that’s safest.’

  ‘What a blessing that man is.’

  ‘He says that the range of such cameras can’t be great. He thinks someone’s getting the pictures close by, perhaps in a van in the street, or in someone’s front window. I suppose they send them on to … wherever.’

  Bea was worried. ‘When they realize the camera has stopped recording what they want to see, what will they do?’

  ‘They’ll come to see what’s happened. Keith’s put a buzzer under the doormat in the porch. If anyone stands on that, we’ll hear it down here. Also, he’s fixed us up with a mirror at the bottom of the stairs, so we can see who’s in the porch. Oh, and Mr Leon came down for a minute. He’s carrying it off well, isn’t he? Full of jokes. He said if you had a minute, he’d like to see you upstairs.’

  Leon full of jokes? Ah, he was putting a good face on it, wasn’t he? Bea took the tape out of her recording unit and took it upstairs with her into the sitting room. Leon was standing at the window, hands clasped behind his back. His laptop was on the big table, filling up with email messages. All from the same person? It looked rather like it.

  ‘Don’t read them,’ he said.

  Too late. She read out, ‘You’re a dead man.’

  And another: ‘This is your last day on earth.’

  A third: ‘You’re nothing but scum. You deserve to die.’

  He sounded amused. ‘Death threats. I’ve never had those before. Have you?’

  THIRTEEN

  Death threats? Bea steadied her voice. ‘How very … unusual.’

  He swung away from the window. He was smiling, his eyelids crinkling. ‘A new experience a day keeps the nerve specialist away. Or so they say.’

  ‘You have to involve the police now. You can’t keep on protecting your brother.’

  ‘I doubt if he’s doing it personally.’ A gesture of defeat. ‘You’re right, of course. I can’t stay holed up here all day. I have to go out. But if those threats are to be believed, I will be targeted the moment I step out into the road.’

  ‘Tell the police to come here.’

  ‘I could do that, but I have conference calls and meetings I have to attend in person. I have rung the police. I have to take my laptop in to show them. Then I have a meeting at the bank. Briscoe has stirred up so much trouble in that direction that I may have to lodge some more of my assets with them, to keep them happy.’ He shut down his laptop, checked that there were no messages on his mobile phone. ‘I think this is where I move out to a hotel, isn’t it?’

  Her knees were giving way. She sank on to a chair by the table. ‘This is all so sudden.’ Despite herself, her voice went up into a squeak.

  He sat beside her, placing his hand over hers on the table. ‘I feel like Alice in Wonderland. The cards are all falling on top of me and, though I shout at them to stop, they keep on coming. My flat in the Barbican was attacked last night. Petrol poured through the letterbox and set alight. Fortunately, someone saw the blaze and called the fire brigade before any great damage was done. But, it’s uninhabitable. I have a suite reserved for me at a hotel nearby. I’ll go there this evening.’

  She tried to speak lightly. ‘I’d prefer you under my roof. Suppose, at the hotel, you answered the door to someone you thought was room service, but wasn’t?’

  ‘I’ll have Hari with me. He can open doors and check taxis before I get into them. You’re not wearing your engagement ring.’

  ‘I forgot.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I want you to come back here tonight. You’re safe here.’

  ‘You want to share my danger?’

  She had to smile. ‘No, I don’t. I’m a coward in a physical sense, but I won’t have a minute’s peace till you get back. Surely, this must stop sometime? Jennifer turned up this morning, and I taped the interview with her. She confessed she’d helped to get my phone bugged, acting on instructions from Denver, head of your brother’s security. I think the death threats are coming from the big house, too. Briscoe’s office staff have been primed to think you stole your brother’s companies and are acting accordingly. You’d better take the tape with you when you go to the police.’ No need to mention the pressure from Max.

  He shrugged. ‘As for dividing up the Holland empire, everything was done legally and with Briscoe’s full consent. He said at the time that it was a relief to get rid of some of his companies. We dined together several times. We played chess. He agreed he might even come out with me in the car one day. He hadn’t been out of the house for months. He seemed almost affectionate.’

  ‘U
ntil …?’

  ‘I had to be away for a couple of days. Almost a week, as it turned out. I rang when I got back, asking if I might drop in to see him. He said he’d got a cold, had to take to his bed for a bit. I’d brought him back a box of his favourite chocolates. I wasn’t allowed in his bedroom so I handed them over, only to have them returned to me next day, with a message that he wasn’t eating chocolate any more. A couple of days later he sent for me. I thought he looked poorly. He was up and sitting in a chair by the window but not dressed. He started on me as soon as I got in. Said I was as bad as Dilys, wanting to hustle him into the grave. That’s when I made my big mistake and asked him to do something for her. He told me to get out, and after that he refused to speak to me even on the phone. You heard the message he sent me, saying I was a traitor. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s going round the twist. He didn’t show any signs of Alzheimer’s, but I can’t think of any other explanation for the way he’s been behaving.’

  She put her free hand on top of his. ‘Do you want any more money? I can mortgage this house.’

  ‘No. If I go down, I’m not taking you with me.’ He went to look out of the window. ‘I rather think our snooper is holed up in a van halfway down the street, on the other side. Facing this way. The florist’s van, with an aerial on top. I think it was there last night, too. Vans aren’t usually parked in this street overnight, are they?’

  ‘Certainly not. Purely residential. My agency is the only commercial premises in the road and that’s a historical anomaly, because my husband’s family started it way back in the last century.’ She joined him at the window. ‘Yes, I see it. You’ve been standing in the window so they can see you’re still here?’

  ‘So long as I am here, you’re in danger. I’m trying to work out how to draw them away from here without risking my own skin. Hari rides a motorbike. He’ll be here soon, and can park the bike nearby. I was thinking he and I could then leave by taxi. If they follow, I could leave Hari in the taxi, stop round the corner and run down into the Underground. That would make it difficult for them to follow.’