By the Light of a Lie (Thane & Calder Book 1) Page 10

  The eulogies were standard fare, with the usual overworked poems badly delivered and limp personal stories about contact with Erica. The only reading that stuck in Tire’s head was given by Erica’s boyfriend, Sebastian Crumley. There was no hint of nervousness from him as he read without notes in perfectly enunciated tones, with the occasional flick of a hand to brush back his hair. ‘Abiit nemine salutato,’ he intoned as he finished. Then he paused and, with a nod to the less-educated among the congregation, added: ‘She went away without bidding farewell.’ A mannered performance from a consummate Leo.

  You’d have made Erica very unhappy, she thought morosely. Why didn’t she have any sense about men? A first-class mind, super-competent, would probably have made judge and yet zero instinct about the opposite sex.

  It took her half an hour after the service ended to drag him away from the jostle of sympathetic pats, some awkward back-slapping and a few faux-teary kisses from the ladies whose mascara, Tire noted, slid not a centimetre. Cards were exchanged surreptitiously as professionals caught up with each other’s career moves.

  She finally lost her cool with the glad-handing and grabbed him by the elbow, steering him across to the crematorium garden, oddly exotic with traditional Greek and Japanese gravestones. His eyes lit up when he saw her and he put up no resistance to being manhandled.

  ‘Miss Haddington, what a pleasure.’ His brown eyes widened and he clasped one of her hands in both of his.

  ‘I’m Tire Thane, a close friend of Erica’s,’ she said flatly.

  He stepped back, the smile intact but less friendly. ‘An imposter, huh?’

  ‘The name tag at the press conference was for the travel editor.’

  Before she could continue, he clapped a hand dramatically to his forehead.

  ‘You’re the astrologer, aren’t you? Erica told me about you,’ he smirked and stood back to run his eye over her. ‘Rather classier than I expected.’

  ‘Not so classy I can’t slap you if you don’t stop flirting with me at your girlfriend’s funeral,’ Tire snapped back. ‘I’m a journalist and writer anyway. Astrology is just a hobby.’

  Her silk scarf half slid off as she tugged one end and for a moment she wondered what it would feel like to strangle him.

  ‘What I want to know is why was Erica in Hammersmith that night down by the river?’

  Was that a flicker of alarm or shame in his eyes? He raised an eyebrow and put on a practised look of puzzlement. ‘Why do you think I would know?’

  ‘You were in the same chambers and close friends. That’s why,’ Tire said.

  Ten more minutes of banter, as he parried every question about Jack Greengate’s trial with a polite deflection, produced no more information.

  Finally, he said: ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I was fond of her. But funerals, y’know, require a degree of detachment.’

  ‘Acting, you mean?’ she replied.

  ‘I can’t help you. Really, I can’t. I was gutted, we all were. But it’s in the police’s hands now and they think it was just an accident. The chambers are in constant touch with them.’ He looked away from her over the Japanese shrine, staring at the yew tree beyond.

  With a slight break in his voice, he said: ‘Try Simon Dunstan, he’s taken over Greengate’s defence. In the rumpled black suit, by the entrance. As to the other threats? Frankly, your guess is as good as mine. She never discussed them with me.’

  As she turned to leave, he put a hand on her arm. ‘You have a card? If I think of anything I could let you know. Perhaps we might meet for a drink?’ He moved closer to give her a cologne-doused kiss on the cheek. Slapping him was one option. Spitting in his eye another. Never slam the door on a lead won; she handed him her card.

  CHAPTER 20

  By the time she reached the Tudor-slatted opening that led out of the crematorium, Dunstan was just stepping into a taxi on his own. So she followed him in.

  A harassed-looking thirty-year-old with a receding hairline and slight paunch, he was not an inspiring figure. Clearly nervous around women, he edged closer to the end of the seat, holding the door handle tightly.

  ‘Terribly sorry, I’m not going to the City. Greenwich, well, Woolwich, Belmarsh in fact. One client to see and then back to the office in a rush. God, it’s all too much at the moment. Can I drop you somewhere?’

  ‘No, Belmarsh Prison will suit me fine,’ Tire said, trying to suppress her eagerness. Taking a deep breath fuelled by prayers, she said: ‘Are you going to see Jack Greengate?’ As he nodded, she added: ‘Sorry, I’m Tiresa Thane, a close friend of Erica’s. A professional friend and colleague.’

  ‘Oh god, so awful, so sorry,’ he stumbled out with a stutter.

  Great barrister he’ll be, thought Tire but usefully pliable. She stretched out the leg nearest him to touch the facing seat of the cab, moving one hand across the seat. This so unsettled him that when she announced she had a personal message from Erica to give to Jack Greengate in prison he barely argued.

  ‘Well, I suppose he’s pleading guilty, so not much more to be done. Not sure it’s very appropriate mind you, taking you in. But seeing as you’re a colleague... What chambers do you say you were with?’

  Ignoring his question, she murmured: ‘An act of mercy, really. Erica was quite fond of him and it will help him settle to what’s ahead.’

  ‘Yeah, ten years minimum and not in a comfortable prison either. Not what he’s used to. But what can y’do? Hit your wife over the head, you have to expect to pay the penalty.’

  ‘Erica didn’t discuss the case with you?’

  ‘No, I was just dragged in after – y’know – and he’d changed his plea to guilty. They don’t normally let me lead on defence.’

  Tire managed to sound surprised at this, thinking he’d come in handy later if she ever had to revisit Greengate or get access to the papers.

  ‘What chambers did you say you were with again?’

  She avoided the question again by raising her phone to her ear and then texting a message to Herk saying to pick her up at Belmarsh.

  The rest of the journey from Hendon to Thamesmead was taken up with constant calls on his mobile, at which he looked increasingly harassed.

  ‘I can’t stay long here, y’know. Too much on. They’re piling the work on me at the moment. Others taking on Erica’s cases and leaving me with what they don’t want.’

  She leant across and patted him sympathetically on the arm, which evoked such a sharp intake of breath she decided not to repeat it.

  Within twenty minutes they had reached the Blackwall Tunnel. Slowed by heavy traffic, Tire started to tense. She had been in several prisons in her adult life, visiting subjects for her books, but they always depressed her. A living grave was how one long-term inmate once described them and she knew exactly what he had meant. Even the modern versions with their tidy brick exteriors were soulless, designed to depersonalise all who entered. The architecture had changed from the old Victorian criminal warehouse she had once visited as a child, but not the spirit.

  The formalities at Belmarsh Prison were cursory, with bored, indifferent staff at the reception, who, having looked at Dunstan’s credentials, waved them through. Tire walked behind him in what she hoped was a suitably submissive way, through endless locked doors into a large interview room with barred windows and an overweight warder by the door.

  Greengate was already sitting behind a table, his eyes fixed on the scratched surface, hardly lifting his head to nod at them. They had just sat down when Dunstan excused himself to answer another phone call on his mobile. Tire sat quietly looking at the crumpled figure across from her. Now in his late fifties, he looked ten years older with sagging jowls and wrinkles of dark flesh below his red-rimmed eyes. His scalp underneath his wispy grey hair was flaking and he put his hand up every so often to scratch and then thought better of it.

  Looking at her, he said apologetically: ‘Psoriasis. I keep asking for some ointment. But it hasn’t come yet. There’s o
nly one thing ever works for me.’

  ‘Had it long?’ Tire asked.

  He sighed. ‘All my adult life. My wife... ’ His eyes filled with tears and he had to breathe in before he continued: ‘She said it was too much worry that brought it on.’ He grimaced, his eyes downcast.

  Tire heard over her shoulder Dunstan saying agitatedly he’d be at his next appointment in half an hour. He was so pressured he did not raise any objection when Tire said she’d stay.

  Having got Greengate to herself, she explained she was a friend of Erica’s and asked why he had changed his plea. A look of flustered alarm came over his face, the reddening on his cheeks and forehead becoming almost puce, shining with sweat.

  He said finally, in a hoarse voice: ‘I’m pleading guilty and that’s that. That’s the end of it.’ His knuckles were white as he held the edge of the table.

  ‘We both know that isn’t true,’ Tire said, tapping a finger on the table. ‘Why was Erica in Hammersmith that night?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, really I haven’t. I don’t know what you want from me. There’s absolutely nothing I can do for you.’ His tone was becoming desperate.

  ‘What I want is justice for Erica and, if her accident was connected to your case, I want to know.’

  ‘Guard,’ he shouted with surprising vigour. Then he looked at Tire with fear in his eyes. ‘Just leave it. Understand me. There’s nothing more to be said.’

  After he left, she paced up and down the barren room for a minute or two, cursing herself for mishandling the interview, before turning for the door.

  ‘Miss, your papers. You forgot them.’ The warder standing guard pointed to a chair at the head of the table. She walked back and picked up a thick folder, flicking it open to see Erica’s handwriting on the first page.

  ‘Many thanks. It’s the case notes. Mr Dunstan must have left it there. I’ll take it for him.’ She smiled warmly.

  ‘Seems a bit scatty, that one,’ the warder remarked with a wink. ‘Not like that poor Miss Smythson. Crying shame, that was. She was doing her best for him.’ He stood back, holding the door open for her, although showing no signs of wanting to end the conversation. ‘And she was much nicer than that first lawyer he had. Unpleasant sort and he really upset Greengate. He was sweating and shaking after that meeting the first day he was here.’ A podgy hand went up to scratch his ear. ‘Suppose that’s why he changed.’

  Don’t drive and talk appeared to be Herk’s rule, so she slumped in the backseat running over what if anything she had learned and what came next. This was still the string-pulling stage when hope and instinct were all that kept forward momentum afloat.

  Greengate was clearly scared and willing to take the fall of a long prison sentence, which meant the alternative was worse. He’d be killed? More likely someone close to him had been threatened. Who? She patted the file on the seat beside her.

  Crumley wasn’t saying everything he knew about the night Erica had been killed, she was sure of it. That flicker in his eye had been guilt about something. So drinks or perhaps a dinner – more time to get him to loosen up – would be in order. Wrighton fogged her thinking, since all she could see was his wretched child, shaking at the end of the couch. But there was no obvious next step with him. Even if his father’s scrap business had been sold on, what would it tell her?

  ‘What are you doing about the stalkers?’ she said, as they passed through Tower Hill.

  ‘Motorcycle followed you to Belmarsh. I lost him on the way back.’

  ‘Another blue Suzuki? Pity you couldn’t have squashed him against the tunnel,’ she said, flicking the door panel with a fingernail. ‘Get his number?’

  ‘Yes, but that won’t tell us much. He’ll just be scum for hire and until we know what’s behind all this there’ll be no sense in picking him or them up. We just have to look dumb for now and be careful.’

  ‘Sod it,’ she said with feeling and picked up Erica’s case notes on Greengate.

  She skimmed through the fifty pages of official documents and handwritten notes. Greengate said he remembered nothing after taking the train home that night, only coming to when the police found him slumped, drunk in an armchair with an empty bottle of vodka at his side in his house, his wife lying dead in the back garden, her skull smashed in by one blow. He said he drank infrequently, mainly sherry and wine, never spirits.

  He had described his marriage as old-fashioned and ordinarily happy against which Erica had jotted ‘faithful and boring’. He denied the affair with the Brazilian secretary, whom he said had been over-friendly towards him since she arrived, which he had found embarrassing. The emails on his office desktop to her made no sense, he said, and had not been sent by him.

  When Erica had quizzed him about problems with the company accounts he had said they were in good order and had been signed off by one of the big four accountancy firms in the City. But there were several question marks in the notes so she had clearly felt the need to check. His son, an Oxford student, had not visited him in prison, she had also written in the margin.

  Maybe he had flipped in a moment of crazed rebellion against years, probably decades, of a dull marriage, Tire wondered. His only child had left home, so he was facing a grey future stretching ahead. A late, explosive mid-life crisis. But his astrology chart had indicated nothing about a hidden urge to be free. He had a battened-down life, which suited his methodical temperament.

  His memory blank could be traumatic or could be a spiked drink on the train. The blood tests only showed his alcohol level, but they had probably not checked for other substances. She scribbled ‘Momo pathology’ on a Post-it note. The blood sample would have been held for the trial, although getting them to run further tests in the face of a guilty plea would not be easy.

  ‘I’ll drop you at the front door. No sense in acting out of the ordinary. You in tonight?’

  Was that a question? Too drained to argue, she said: ‘Yeah. There’s lasagne in the freezer and a box set of Better Call Saul. I feel like a laugh and other peoples’ problems I don’t have to fix will be relaxing.’

  CHAPTER 21

  Running away was beginning to feel tempting. Away from the grey confines of London, the tunnel vision of city life, the relentless grumble of traffic noise. Away from Herk? Probably. She wasn’t used to having a constant presence round the flat. Away from her guilt about having to solve Erica’s death or save Miranda. Repeat after me, ‘I am not God. I don’t have to fix everything.’

  Escape. Sitting on a cliff top staring out to sea with only fulmars, terns and a bracing wind for company. She felt the tension in her body melt away.

  ‘Coffee.’ Herk’s voice outside her door jarred her head. ‘You’ve got emails.’ Dammit, he was taking over her life. She levitated out of bed, splashed her face with cold water, threw on jeans and a jumper and was into the office at speed.

  His back was to her. ‘It’s OK, I didn’t read anything. Just noticed it when I came to check the window catch.’ A likely story.

  Among the twenty messages in her inbox, half of them spam, was yet another from a solicitor who had been pestering her recently, she’d no idea about what. It could wait. She homed in on Le Lorier. M with compte de vente in the subject line. She clicked open the attachment, which was the first page of a French sale document for a villa in Villefranche bought in 1966 by Paul Eric Stone. It listed his past address, date of birth, present and previous marriages.

  Her eyes widened. Obsessive bureaucracy and the Napoleonic succession laws had their uses. Born 16 July 1939 in Cairo, current address in Beirut, 1962 married Alessia Neroni, widowed 1965, 1966 married Souri Javadi, born Lebanon. Harman, she knew, had been born in 1967, so presumably after the purchase.

  She emailed Matt to see if he could start initial net searches for Alessia Neroni’s son and added as an afterthought to check her cause of death and any info on Souri Javadi.

  ‘Useful, then?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said cautiously, ‘if I’m writing
Paul Stone’s unauthorised biography. Not necessarily connected to Erica.’

  ‘So it’s classified, until you decide what’s relevant and what’s not?’ His sarcastic tone made her grin and she turned to offer him a cigarette.

  ‘Sorry, I’m not used to discussing as I go, well, not outside my head anyway. You read French?’ To her surprise he nodded, so she printed off the document and handed it to him.

  The inbox also listed a response from Jean Malhuret’s email address. There was no message, only a shortened URL. It clicked through to a French news website where a three-week-old story related briefly that Max Karimov, a Kubek lawyer, had been found dead in Marseilles. It was not thought to be a suspicious death since he had been in poor health with advanced cancer.

  She clicked print, gestured to Herk and slumped back in her seat. Was Karimov’s death natural? Unprovable at this distance and late stage. Would his death suggest it was less likely her stalkers were connected to his situation? They might still be worried that Erica held incriminating papers that she might have access to? Too many mights, maybes and uncertainties were stirring a headache into gear. The only way to draw them, whoever they were, into the open would be to stay a visible target, which was not an enticing prospect.

  ‘Hm. If you were asking my opinion, which I notice you were not, strikes me the Kubek connection is a dead end. With him being deceased. That would be all they wanted and natural causes so much the better.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘State security.’

  ‘You’re familiar with such?’ She turned towards him and swung her feet on the desk.

  His eyes narrowed and he stared steadily at her.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that’s makes two of us not so great at sharing.’