False Alarm Page 16
CJ was giving his approval of the Sauvignon Blanc which the wine waiter was offering to him. Their entrée arrived, looking – and tasting – delicious. CJ was becoming nicely relaxed. ‘Well, as you say; that’s all water under the bridge, and no great harm done.’
She couldn’t let that pass. ‘And no good done, either. Oliver wasn’t able to get through to Sir Lucas until after the caretaker’s body had been removed because our favourite tycoon was in meetings and not to be disturbed. When he did manage to speak to His Lordship, he was informed that the traitor in the Vicori camp had been exposed, had sworn he’d acted alone, and had been dealt with. So there was no need for Oliver to go on looking for an accomplice at the flats. Thank you for your efforts, dear boy, and goodbye.’
‘Poor Oliver.’ A gentle smile. ‘But Sir Lucas will no doubt remember him when he needs another clever lad. It was a happy accident that threw Oliver into Sir Lucas’s way.’
Bea wasn’t so sure. Oliver was beginning to realize that he’d been led up the garden path, encouraged to wade through a pile of manure and been dumped when no longer of use. Oliver was feeling guilty, wounded, and angry; and didn’t know who to blame for it. Perhaps he’d flee the commercial world, return to university and bury himself in academia. Bea didn’t know what to say to him, and so had said nothing – which had probably been a mistake. He’d refused to go back home with her after the debacle at the flats.
Please, Lord. Look after Oliver for me.
She couldn’t agree with CJ that there’d been no harm done. It seemed to her that a great deal of harm had been done not only on that day, but on previous days. The future didn’t look all that happy, either.
‘Cheers,’ said CJ.
‘Cheers.’ She sipped and put her glass down again.
CJ said, ‘Well, now you’ve cleared up that little problem, you can get back to normal. How is your son Max getting on these days?’
That touched another raw nerve. How much did CJ know of Max’s latest plans? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps a lot. Once she would have been happy to ask his advice, but not today. She dismissed his query with a smile. ‘Very well, thank you.’
She cleared her plate. There hadn’t been much of the venison in a fruit sauce, but it had been sufficient. ‘Delightful,’ she said. ‘Unexpected. This place should do well.’
‘Dessert? Or just coffee?’
‘De-caff coffee? Excuse me.’ Her phone was shuddering in her evening bag.
She recognized Piers’ number. ‘Piers? What is it? Can I ring you back?’
‘Where are you? Can you come over? I’ve got Oliver here, beating himself up. Too much teenage angst for one of my mature years. I’ve told him to make it up with you, but he’s convinced you won’t want anything more to do with him.’
‘Ridiculous.’
‘That’s what I said. He says he’s been walking around for hours, has tried CJ, but there’s no reply. He wants to stay the night here and go back to university tomorrow morning. He says his life is over, etcetera. Any more of this, and I’ll take to drink.’
‘I’ll be right over.’ She snapped off the phone. ‘Sorry, CJ. Oliver’s in a state and I’ve got to go and rescue him. Has he been trying to get through to you on your phone?’
He looked startled, got out his iPhone and checked. ‘I don’t normally turn it off, but . . . Yes, it looks as if . . . I’ll come with you, shall I?’
‘I think I’ll have to do this on my own. He’ll be in touch with you again soon, I’m sure.’
‘Nonsense.’ He signed to the waiter for the bill. ‘I expect he is a little downhearted with the way things have turned out, but it’s all good experience as I shall tell him. I’ll get us a taxi.’
Bea seethed, but it was true that CJ had the ability to conjure up taxis even in the heart of London and it was undeniably the quickest way to get around.
‘Top floor,’ said Bea, when they arrived at Piers’ address. ‘He never stays long in one place. He’s moving again soon, but I’m not sure where.’ She wondered which of them might have to take a breather before they got to the top, but though they both slowed down on the last flight of stairs, they arrived without too much puffing and panting.
‘Welcome.’ Piers opened the door with a glass of wine in one hand. He jerked his head sideways. ‘I told him you were coming over, so first he wanted to run away and now he’s locked himself in the bathroom.’
‘He’s making a mountain out of a molehill,’ said CJ. ‘Let me talk to him.’
‘Be my guest.’ Piers indicated where the bathroom lay and helped Bea take off her coat. ‘I’m getting too old for this. First Max, and then Oliver.’
‘Max?’
He shrugged. ‘Wanted me to persuade you to let him take over the agency, or something. I’m afraid I couldn’t follow all his arguments.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘It doesn’t matter what I think. You’ll do exactly as you please.’
‘CJ tells me I’m too inflexible.’
‘If he means you see things more clearly than most, then he’s right. Have a glass of something? This is quite a decent red.’
She shook her head, took a seat and, like Piers, listened to CJ trying to coax Oliver out of the bathroom.
On a scale of ten, CJ’s tactics didn’t merit more than a three. ‘It’s not the end of the world. I’ll have a word with Sir Lucas in the morning, and I’m sure he won’t hold it against you that your first job for him went awry. You did your best, but circumstances were against you. I’m going to suggest that he finds you an intern position at Head Office, where you can really show what you’re capable of . . .’
Bea switched off. If Oliver responded to this sort of blarney, then so be it.
She said to Piers, ‘The phone call you had this afternoon. Did you manage to tie your prospective sitter down to a date?’
‘Silly woman. She thinks Botox and face lifts will give her back her youth. She was a stunner in her day, I’ll give you that; but now her face is so stiff she looks as if she’s wearing a mask.’
‘So will you paint her now?’
‘I could paint her as an old crone, looking into the mirror and seeing her beautiful younger self. But I won’t. Let her keep her illusions. I really must get round to painting you one day, Bea.’
‘You say that every six months or so.’
‘I mean it. But she did come up with one piece of gossip which might amuse you; a friend of hers has just sold his multimillion pound mansion in Chelsea to Sir Lucas.’
‘Ah. Makes sense.’
They both turned to see CJ, his cheeks flying red flags of disappointment and anger. ‘The stupid boy won’t listen to me. Bea, you have a go.’
Bea sighed, stretched, and made her way to the bathroom door. ‘Oliver, the sooner you come out, the sooner we can start putting things right. Have you had any supper? Because if not, perhaps we can pick up a pizza on the way home.’
Silence. She waited. The door cracked open, and Oliver appeared. Blotchy-faced. His voice cracked. ‘I messed up.’
Bea nodded. ‘We all do, at times. You can do penance tomorrow.’
He tried to smile. ‘We frightened Harvey to death. No, I don’t mean “to death”, of course I don’t. But I keep seeing his face when he fell back over the settee. I ought to have stopped things right there.’
‘Uh-huh. You should. But he’ll forgive you if you spend some time listening to his stories tomorrow. You can call it your community service. I’d advise spreading it over several days or you’ll never get anything else done.’
CJ was not amused. ‘What are you talking about? What penance?’
Oliver winced, but faced him. ‘I’m sorry, CJ. I let you down. I let you both down. I was so taken up by the thought of Sir Lucas wanting me to work for him that I got carried away. Mother Hen did warn me. Maggie told me I was overstepping the mark, too. But all I could see was . . .’ He wiped his face with his hands. ‘All I could see was . . .’
CJ stared. ‘Sir Lucas has found the traitor at Vicori House. So what else is there to worry about?’
‘Well,’ said Bea, ‘I suppose we can put the keying of Sir Lucas’s car down to Tariq in revenge for the confiscation of his music equipment, but what about the rest of the odd happenings there? For starters; who poisoned Lady Ossett’s supper; who arranged the tripwire which caused Sir Lucas to fall down the stairs; and above all, who pushed the caretaker over the edge?’
‘What!’
‘Then,’ said Bea, warming to the task, ‘there’s the small matter of the call-girl cards; which is not such a small matter really, since it led to that nasty fight in the foyer. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind knowing more about the death of the old lady on the ground floor, as that seems to be the first of the unhappy events which hit the building. So, shall we get a pizza on the way, or shall I make you an omelette when we get back home?’
THIRTEEN
Sunday morning
Bea woke early and lay in bed, allowing the events of the last few days to filter through into her consciousness.
Maggie was sleeping over at her mother’s.
Oliver was asleep upstairs in his own bed.
Sir Lucas had unmasked the traitor in his camp but had not returned to his wife’s side.
Lady Ossett continued to be on good terms with the Professor. Long might that last.
Bea decided that she would have a leisurely breakfast and go to church for a spiritual refill. She’d heard that going to church wasn’t supposed to be like filling up a car with petrol but that’s how it appeared to her. She liked to hear God’s word interpreted and to join in songs of praise. She cherished the time of peace and quiet in which to worship God away from the stress of her busy life.
She didn’t think she was a particularly good Christian. Her dear dead husband had encouraged her to believe that if she talked to God, He would listen and respond. Well, she did find it a comfort to talk to Him and tell Him all her troubles, but she was the first to admit she wasn’t particularly good at listening to His replies.
Except . . . just occasionally it seemed that God did tell her things. A thought would pop into her mind from somewhere, she wasn’t sure where, and it would lead to her taking such and such an action. Or into holding her tongue about . . . whatever. She’d spoken to the minister at church about it one day, and he’d said she must be sure that these thoughts chimed with Jesus’s instructions for living.
She sighed. It wasn’t always easy to know what did or didn’t, was it? Except that just lately He’d been banging on at her not to have any dealings with the devil . . .
She giggled. She didn’t think Sir Lucas would normally be considered a devil. Or, would he?
She dressed and, as she’d plenty of time before the service, took a cup of coffee downstairs to make sure that nothing alarming had been left for her to deal with when the agency closed at lunchtime the previous day.
Oliver found her there, an hour later, looking ragged.
She put down the phone with a long sigh. ‘Lucky I caught that. Someone left a message on the answerphone yesterday, saying they’d been taken ill and couldn’t run a dinner party at one of the Consulates this evening. I must have tried everyone but the chef at Claridges, but I’ve finally managed to track down someone who could fill in. What a morning.’
‘We used to switch the phone upstairs when the agency closed at weekends.’
Bea lifted her empty cup, grimaced, put it down again. ‘We’ve got a recorded message which says that if the matter is urgent, to ring my mobile phone number. My phone got smashed at the flats, remember? I’ve re-recorded the message so they can contact me on my old phone, but in future I think we’d better have someone else taking back-up calls over the weekend. One of the office girls might be happy to do it for a consideration.’
She yawned and stretched. Shot upright. ‘Look at the time. I was going to go to church this morning.’
‘You’ve got other work to do.’ Oliver was steady-eyed. Serious.
She put her hands in her lap and swivelled her chair to look out of the window, across the paved garden and up through the bare branches of the sycamore tree to the spire of the church beyond. The words ‘important’ and ‘urgent’ came into her mind. Was it more important to go to church, or to deal with the problems at the flats? She could argue both ways.
Oliver said, ‘People don’t say “sorry” much nowadays, do they? But I need to get it out of my system. I’m sorry. You were right and I was wrong about Sir Lucas. I did know I was stepping over the line yesterday, but I got caught up in the excitement and . . . No excuses. I knew I was doing wrong. Then he dropped me, just like that. You’ll say, “What did you expect?”’ He tried to smile. ‘I’ve been naive, haven’t I?’
‘Don’t beat yourself up too much. Sir Lucas saw a bright young mind and made use of you for a while. No great harm done. Now, suppose we pool what we’ve both learned. For a start, can you fill me in on why you thought Harvey was scheming to kill Sir Lucas?’
He washed his face with his hands. ‘Looking back, I can’t think how I came to be so stupid. I got caught up in the excitement of the chase. I started at the top of the building and—’
‘Wait a minute. Did you start in the penthouse?’
‘Well, no. There’s no point suspecting Lady Ossett, was there?’
Bea gave him a grim smile. ‘Possibly not. I’ll fill you in on that complication later. Right; so you started with the Professor—’
‘Maggie had said his cat was missing, so I used that as an excuse to call on him. You know about his cat?’
‘Of course. You were amused by the Professor’s apps and decided he wasn’t the person you were looking for. Then you went down to see Tariq? He said he was poorly and you let him off the hook. What you didn’t know was that he’d already tried to leave that day, been fielded by the caretaker and knocked out for his pains. No wonder he was feeling off colour.’
‘I wasn’t to know that, was I?’
Bea refrained, just, from saying that if he’d listened to her, he’d have known all about it. ‘So next on your list was—’
‘Mrs Kempton. Carrie. Fluffy bunny. I made the excuse about looking for the cat, and I think she was glad to have someone to talk to and invited me in. I spotted her computer, an old one, not much cop, and she let me play with it because she said it was acting up and I discovered that somehow or other she’d got all the formatting marks to show, would you believe? So I put that right for her, and she was duly grateful. I whizzed through her files and there was nothing there which shouldn’t be, so I crossed her off the list. She said it was a bit late by then to be calling on other people so I stopped for the night.’
‘Then this morning you went back to Tariq’s flat.’
‘He opened the door in his pyjamas. He said he was feeling better but hadn’t seen the cat. He suggested that if I went and had a talk to the caretaker, in private, before he started on his usual work, he might take me around and help me look for the cat. I’d been thinking it would be a good idea to have the man at my side, anyway, so I took the lift down to where the caretaker was working in the foyer, and I asked if we could have a word in private and we went down to his flat which is in the sub-basement and—’
‘And Tariq slipped down the stairs and out of the building while you talked to the caretaker. Tariq used you as a decoy.’
Oliver flushed. ‘Well, I wasn’t to know, was I? I told the caretaker what I was doing, that I was acting on Sir Lucas’s orders, and he said we should go straight up and talk to Tariq about it. So we went up and, as you say, Tariq had gone. The caretaker threw a total strop. The mess in the flat, you wouldn’t believe! There were the remains of takeaway meals, discarded clothes, surfaces scratched, a curtain torn. It was only natural the caretaker
was angry. He said Sir Lucas would have to get some contract cleaners in to clear the place out and redecorate. He went out on to the balcony, and there was another pile of junk there. He said he’d try to deal with it later. Which I suppose is what he was doing when he fell over the edge. He said Tariq had a laptop and a PC. There was no laptop – he must have taken it with him. I looked at the PC but there was nothing incriminating on it.’
Bea nodded, non-committal. ‘Then . . . Lucy Emerson?’
‘Fluffy bunny with a steel core. The caretaker didn’t bother to accompany me when I knocked on her door, but as luck would have it Carrie Kempton came down the stairs just at that moment – apparently they always have coffee together in the mornings – so she introduced me to Lucy. Carrie said how clever I’d been, putting her computer right, and we had a nice cuppa and a chat. Lucy Emerson does have a laptop but doesn’t use it much. She let me see it and there wasn’t anything on it which shouldn’t have been there. I can’t see her plotting with a vice-chairman of Vicori to bring Sir Lucas down, can you?’
‘No, I can’t. So, what about the Muslim family opposite her?’
‘No surprise, they wouldn’t open the door. The caretaker said they didn’t talk to anyone in the flats and didn’t know Sir Lucas, so it wouldn’t be them. We didn’t bother with Carmela either because, well, Sir Lucas said it wasn’t necessary. So we got to Harvey.’
Oliver sighed. ‘He opened the door wearing silk pyjamas – it was well into the afternoon by that time. I thought he looked like a petulant cockatoo. He said he was just about to go out so we couldn’t come in. The caretaker asked if he’d seen the cat Momi, and the dear man shrieked and clapped his hands to his cheeks, defying any cat to enter his territory. We asked if we might look for ourselves, and he didn’t want to let us in, saying we’d disturb all his “Top Secret” papers, but we insisted that we had to look and there wasn’t any cat, of course. But his second bedroom is set up as an office, with a computer and printer and fax machine, and some rather nifty cameras.