By the Light of a Lie (Thane & Calder Book 1) Page 13

  Her mother’s death certificate was included, which she patted softly as well as the marriage certificate. Herk was right, she thought, best get it all laid out and then file it away for good. Her mother’s maiden name she saw was St Clair, which sent her rifling back through the papers. Same as the guardian she never knew she had. Perhaps a relative? Her heart jumped momentarily until she clamped it firmly back down. He’d probably be dead.

  She had lived as an orphan for so long the prospect of living relatives was unsettling. Probably just a coincidence. Otherwise they would have taken her in over the holidays, given her a home to go back to.

  There were dozens of letters from Jackson St Clair to Fennington indicating agreement for payments and investments over twenty years. The final one, from nine years ago, was from a different address near Sandhurst, Berkshire. In it he confirmed the winding up of the trust, mentioning he had now retired.

  That was the point Tire remembered guiltily she had instructed her lawyer to handle all the paperwork and leave the remaining £650,000 in shares with the stockbroker, which brought in a small additional income every year. Thumbing back through the old receipts, she reckoned there must have been a considerable sum of money to start with. She had known almost nothing about her father, wanted to know nothing, except he had been described, in the one old newspaper report of his trial that she had geared herself up to read, as an aircraft engineer. Maybe it had been her mother’s money. That would make it easier to stomach.

  She did feel different, not in any way she could put her finger on, but lighter in spirit and more solid. Collecting all the papers into a neat heap, she found an empty box file on the shelf and dropped them in, clanging the lockspring on top and shutting the lid. Then she dropped the box at the far end of the office. It could go into the spare room once Herk had left.

  There was a morning stretching ahead with nothing pressing. Rewrites for the Sanchez book were wanted by the month’s end and there was no sense in delivering ahead of the deadline. Russell’s financial background on Paul Stone would need to be read before they left for Spain. Her hand reached across the desk then stopped. She was focusing too much on Stone when there were still question marks over Rupert Wrighton. Reluctant though she was, making friends with his secretary Felicity was the only option she could see.

  She lifted the phone. ‘Felicity. Good morning. This is Tiresa Thane. I met Mr Wrighton the other day. How are you? I was so interested to read the articles and papers he gave me and wondered if you had more?’

  The sound of a door clicking shut at the other end filled a pause before Felicity said in a shaky whisper: ‘How nice to hear from you. Can I phone you back in five minutes?’ Her voice resumed its normal high-volume squeak. ‘Ah, no, he’s left.’

  ‘Left?’

  ‘He’s gone to a conference in Leeds for two days.’ The relief in her voice echoed down the line as well as her desperation. She sounded exhausted and near cracking point.

  ‘How’s Miranda?’

  ‘She’s gone to stay with a college friend. Her father doesn’t like her to be in the house by herself.’

  Better and better. Felicity was on her own. But she couldn’t go out. Herk would shoot her if she went walkabout without him. Having established there were other papers, she took a deep breath and ladled out apologies for being presumptuous, but could Felicity possibly bring them over to Soho since she was up against time pressures?

  Half an hour later they were sitting at a corner table in Lavazzo, just round the corner. A quick glance as Tire left her front entrance did not spot any suspicious lurkers or motorcycles. Felicity was wearing a shapeless camel jacket over a billowing russet skirt, with a faux fur scarf round her neck and matching hat, giving her the air of a badly stuffed teddy bear. She sat with her handbag on her lap, her small, bird-like hands constantly moving.

  As Tire pondered the best way into the conversation, she noticed tears filling the older woman’s eyes and spilling down her cheeks. She pushed a paper napkin towards her and put a hand on her arm.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I just can’t cope any longer. Miranda is so unhappy and I’m scared she’ll go the way her mother did.’ Her desperation and despair were palpable.

  ‘Get her away from her father.’ The words came out before Tire had time to consider. ‘Is there no one she can stay with? An aunt, grandmother, boyfriend?’

  Felicity shook her head, scrunching the napkin against her nose. ‘She’s run away a couple of times to stay with other students and he always found her and brought her back. She has no close relatives. There was a nice lawyer who was helping her. But now she’s gone.’ She put both hands across her face and sobbed.

  ‘How…?’

  Felicity stopped her and said with an anguished look, ‘You won’t print any of this?’

  ‘Lord, no. Absolutely. I promise.’ She felt like moving round to give her a hug.

  ‘She is finishing her music studies next week and I had hoped she would go away to a three-month course in Cornwall, but he refused to pay for it.’

  Trying to keep her mind off Miranda, Tire said: ‘Tell me, this lawyer, how did Wrighton react to her?’

  ‘He hated her. He used to go off on rants about what he’d do to her. How he knew people who would sort her out. It was dreadful.’

  ‘What sort of people?’ Tire moved closer.

  A frown crossed Felicity’s face and she shuffled in her seat. ‘Are you sure you won’t write about this?’

  ‘Believe me, I won’t do anything that makes this worse for Miranda. She needs to be away somewhere safe. Publicity wouldn’t do her any good. You have my word on that.’

  The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and she half-turned to see Herk standing at the corner. They exchanged glances and he checked his watch as if waiting for someone and leant against the wall.

  ‘I should leave.’ Felicity made to stand up, sniffing noisily.

  ‘Not before you tell me where Miranda can go. That’s one. Second is what sort of people did Wrighton know? And how did he react when he heard Erica Smythson was dead?’

  ‘You knew her?’ The question came out in a breathless squeal as an accusation.

  No sense in lying at this stage. ‘Yes, she was a good friend. I’m trying to find out what happened to her.’

  This brought on a fresh round of sobs and Felicity buried her face in her scarf, pulling it half over her head, as if wishing she could disappear. Sally, the café manager, arrived with two more cups of coffee and winked sympathetically at Tire.

  Eventually, Felicity’s face reappeared and she pulled down her jacket, sitting up straight. ‘What am I going to do?’ It was a straight request for help, Tire knew, but Herk’s words about not being social services were echoing in her head.

  ‘Take the questions backwards,’ she said firmly. ‘How did he react?’

  The twitch across her forehead had turned into a tic that made one eye blink. ‘Surprised, really. And pleased. He said a friend must have been listening to him.’

  ‘Which friend?’

  ‘I don’t know, really I don’t. There were some rough types he knew from childhood. They were never invited to the house. Eddie, the driver, told me he went occasionally to a pub near Tower Bridge to meet them.’

  That’s one for Herk.

  ‘Any others?’

  ‘A few of the men in the fathers’ organisation were really unpleasant.’ Her brow creased. ‘Though some were nice and had been badly done by.’

  ‘Unpleasant?’

  ‘Angry, vengeful. Horrible. I got the impression they hated women.’

  That was not an enticing prospect, having to infiltrate a group of misogynist neanderthals. Felicity’s eyes appealed to her across the table. The gazelle in the conversation. Miranda.

  A loud scrape as a van misjudged the kerb, followed by a stream of curses out of an open window, provided a moment’s grace.

  ‘Right,’ she said, more authoritatively than she felt. ‘You’ll ne
ed to stay till she finishes next week. Will she go on this residential course without her father’s permission? I can probably rustle up a patron who would pay.’ Tire thought, what am I doing? This is terrible stupidity.

  Felicity nodded, putting one hand up to stop her eyelid twitching. ‘She’s desperate to go. I really think she’s at the end of her tether.’

  A loud cough from Herk carried across the traffic noise, indicating he was getting impatient.

  ‘Email the details and your personal mobile number. I’m away for two or three days, but I’ll let you know before I go.’

  After a heartfelt hug from Felicity, she walked back to the apartment. Expensive or not, it would give three months’ breathing space with Miranda off her conscience. Perhaps her absence might rattle Papa into... quite what she didn’t know. But getting people off balance usually helped.

  CHAPTER 26

  In the kitchen Herk was brewing up in a large white teapot with ‘Where There’s Tea There’s Hope’ on it in red lettering. Despite herself she laughed, as she opened the fridge to find a bottle of water.

  He stirred the tea with a large spoon. ‘Now, tell me, I see from your desk you’ve opened these papers about your father. Is that all sorted in your head?’

  ‘And this is your business?’ she snapped, wondering where his sensitivity about intruding on personal matters had gone.

  ‘We’re partners, right? Whatever gets in the way of the job interests me,’ he replied, turning round with a level stare. ‘I’ve had to work with guys whose marriages were falling to bits or their mothers had died and there were some near disasters. There’s too much confusion about as it is, and risk, so I need you focused.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ she admitted. ‘Sort of.’

  She explained about the money and her courtesy aunt who had been paid to look after her and the old executor, now living near Sandhurst, who had her mother’s maiden name. He leant back against the counter with both hands wrapped round a red mug with a crown motif and ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ written down one side.

  ‘Are you restocking my kitchen with market tat?’ she asked.

  ‘Nah, just making myself feel at home. Your mugs are too thin and delicate. It’s not important,’ he said irritably. ‘You’re inclined to go off in all directions, aren’t you? Focus.’ He tapped one toe down on the tiled floor and sniffed. ‘Sounds quite a set-up, the St Clair chap having lived in Albany Mansions. Very exclusive that, as I recollect.’

  She frowned uneasily. ‘Odd. I had this notion of my father as a kind of car mechanic, well of aeroplanes. I assumed the money came from my mother.’

  ‘And what’s your intention now?’ he said, looking out of the window.

  She answered promptly with some emphasis: ‘Focus. Remember? Erica’s flat. Ancient family history can wait.’

  He chuckled. ‘Touché. OK. We’ll leave in thirty minutes.’

  Back at her desk, on impulse she googled Jackson St Clair. There were only two brief mentions of his name, referring to him as government civil service pensions, and no photographs.

  ‘Here, put these on.’ Herk was standing behind her, holding a blue workman’s overall and a baseball hat. ‘We’re the cleaning and removal people.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake. Are there people watching?’

  ‘Don’t think so. But the only way in is through the front door. So best be on the safe side.’

  The uniform smelt faintly sweaty, which made her wrinkle her nose, was too large and slightly too short, so she pulled out her heavy walking boots with thick socks to cover the gap round her ankles. Stuffing her hair under the cap and pulling down the brow, she thought she looked suitably unattractive and anonymous.

  Outside the tradesman’s entrance at the back of her apartment was parked a small white van with ‘Charlie’s Speedy Clean and Move’ labelled on the side.

  ‘You’re a constant source of wonder, Herk,’ she said, having climbed in. ‘Where do you magic up all these... accessories?’ He grinned and didn’t reply.

  Neither said much on the twenty-minute drive to Belsize. The closer they got, the heavier Tire felt. Even the exotic golden dome of the Regent’s Park mosque, which usually lifted her spirits, passed by unnoticed. The Swiss Cottage traffic lights, for once, sailed them through on green. She found herself clinging to the door handle as they turned right off Fitzjohn’s Avenue past the Tavistock Clinic and Freud’s statue.

  Herk fished a parking permit out of the glove compartment, indicating she should prop it against the window as they pulled into Wedderburn Road. The long row of converted Victorian mansion houses, set back from the road with small, well-kept front gardens, gave off an air of genteel solidity. The plane trees lining the pavement cast shade well beyond the second floors.

  Following instructions, Tire retrieved a large pail full of cleaning materials and several rolls of plastic rubbish bags. Herk grunted slightly under the weight of a large cardboard box. Tire unlocked the front door, which clicked shut behind them. They avoided the lift and walked up to Erica’s first-floor apartment.

  Once inside, she looked around. The interior hall was exceptionally tidy with white walls, a glass console table and fitted beige carpets. In the spacious sitting room, taupe armchairs and a long sofa were positioned precisely on three sides of a square coffee table, neatly piled with design, garden and fashion magazines. The high, corniced Victorian ceilings should have given it character, but it felt soulless.

  An image she had been trying to block out for days of Erica’s body, bloodied, torn and dumped in a muddy river, surfaced with a jolt. A friendly hand on her shoulder made her open her eyes and Herk nudged her towards an open door.

  In a matter-of-fact tone, he said he’d clear the bedroom into suitcases, which surprised her, but he said it would be easier for him since he had never met Erica. She should concentrate, he said, on finding any bills, documents or diaries that might be useful.

  The spare room, which she walked into with reluctance, overlooked the gardens at the back and had been turned into an office with a white desk by the window, two small, matching filing cabinets and the single bed pushed back into a far corner. There were shelves of books up one wall, mainly spy thrillers, biographies and political memoirs.

  On the wall to the left of the window, which the desk faced, was a framed, coloured copy of Erica’s birth chart. She smiled wanly, remembering her saying: ‘If it’s good enough for Teddy Roosevelt to hang his in the Oval Office, then it’s good enough for me.’

  ‘Yeah, but that was to remind him of his tendency to lose his temper. You never do,’ Tire replied.

  ‘No, but I do procrastinate. I think things round and round till I’m dizzy. My Libran failing.’

  The cordless phone was flashing on its stand. She picked it up, ignored the twenty-five messages and fiddled to find the call list. The night of Erica’s death there were four calls just before midnight, when she must have been home after the theatre. The first three were from blocked numbers and were logged as missed calls, which may well have been because Erica never answered unless she knew the caller. The fourth was from an 07 mobile number, which had been taken.

  Tire’s finger hovered over the screen, wondering whether to call. Then hearing Herk’s voice in her head urging caution, she found her own phone and noted down the number. The prospect of finding who had lured Erica out to kill her brought on an attack of shakes so she sat down. She buried her head in her hands, with panic threatening to surface. With an effort of will, she forced her feelings into a corner in her mind. Drawing a trembling breath, she looked around the room. Do something. Get moving.

  The laptop in front of her on the desk looked inviting, but almost certainly needed a password so that would have to wait. One filing cabinet held house and car insurance, income tax forms, bank statements, stockbrokers’ reports, a family personal folder. The other had tabs labelled with the names of different Middle and Far Eastern countries and foreign names. That must be her human rights p
apers.

  ‘Right,’ Herk’s voice cut in behind her, ‘that’s me finished and packed. Nothing in the bedroom of interest. I’ve kept the jewel box separate.’ Her anguished expression had no effect on him although he touched her lightly on the shoulder, which was strangely reassuring. He continued briskly: ‘We’d best start packing the documents into the fold-up cases I brought. And you can look through them later at your leisure.’

  In half an hour he had the office contents stowed into cases. By 3.30 pm they were on their way back with the van piled up with cases, boxes and bags. The books, Herk, said, could be picked up in the morning by Speedy Charlie and kept in store if she wanted.

  ‘You mean he actually exists?’ Tire asked, surprised.

  ‘Of course. You didn’t think I rattled this up out of nowhere, did you?’

  On his insistence, she delayed testing the number on the phone until he had it checked by a mate who worked in telecoms. Tire was beginning to doubt whether his sources were as straightforward as he made out. But she didn’t care, as long as they found a name.

  She stepped with relief out of the sweaty overalls and busied herself stowing Erica’s clothes in the box room and the document boxes in the office. The jewel box lay on the desk and she took a deep breath before lifting the carved wooden lid. Probably her mother’s, she thought, feeling tearful and uncomfortable about prying. Neat boxes with rings, brooches and necklaces lay on one side with velvet pouches piled up on the other. Tucked in the pleated silk at the back was a memory stick. That would contain family photographs. And now there was no one to remember or hand them onto. Her head drooped.

  ‘Well, not a huge amount out of that,’ Herk came in with two mugs of coffee. ‘It was a sim card bought for cash in Notting Hill five months back, topped up by pay-as-you-go, so no contract and no name, which is what the police would have found. Assuming they bothered, of course. I got someone to try the number.’ Tire tensed.