A Ghost in the Machine (51 page)

 

Andrew was packing. He had left all his stuff over the bed, careless of Gilda noticing. When he had spent years concealing every move he made and every penny spent, she had watched him, hawk-like, pouncing on each real or imagined misdemeanour. Now, as he slung the few good things he had managed to steal or wheedle out of her into a holdall she lay downstairs, becalmed on the huge sofa, guzzling a tub of Funky Monkey and ogling Kilroy.

Andrew checked his briefcase. Passport, plane ticket, English money plus euros and all the evidence of his recently opened private bank account. These documents, in the first instance sent to his office address, had then been stored in the garden shed along with seed packets and plant markers in an old biscuit box. There they rested secure from investigation by anyone who valued the shape and varnished perfection of their work-shy fingernails.

The cab was due in five minutes. He'd already opened the gates. Andrew had decided against taking the Punto because a) he hated it, and b) he wouldn't put it past her to report it stolen and set the rozzers on him. Hell hath no fury and all that jazz. Humming “Come Fly With Me” he trotted down to the lounge.

“You'll be late for work,” said Gilda, still glued to the box.

“So?”

It took a moment for this to register. Then there was puzzlement followed by outright disbelief. Surely she must have misheard. “What did you say?”

“I don't go to work, Gilda.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“You surely don't expect me to exert myself for the pitiful scrap of money you dole out?”

“Don't worry.” Still gazing hotly at Robert the smooth, Gilda snorted her contempt. “I never thought you earned it.”

“Not earn it?
Not earn it?
You try humping a lard mountain five times a week for ten years. You'd soon find out if I bloody earned it.”

She looked at him then all right. Turned her great moon face round, widened her little eyes so much the electric-blue lids all but vanished.

“No, what I do the minute you're not around is come back here to drink and watch the telly. And not always alone.” He smiled cheerfully. “You'd be surprised the number of playmates available to a lonely man.”

Now her mouth was opening. Opening, closing, Opening, closing. Andrew affected concern.

“Don't worry, they were never serious. Just something to take the taste of you away.”

“Uz…uz…crawke…” Her lips were working now, jumping in and out like lively little sponges. “Fay…fay…”

“What's that?”

“I…fay…foo…”

“Of course you've been faithful. What man in his right mind is going to fuck a woman the size of an elephant with one brain cell and a neck wider than her face?”

This time there was an even stranger sound. Rather like someone gargling on broken glass.

“Too late now to say you're sorry. And do close your mouth. The view from here is disgusting.”

Gilda was struggling now, rocking and wrestling with the sofa, trying to rise.

“Don't look at me for assistance,” said Andrew. “I've suffered my last hernia. Get yourself a fork lift.”

More heaving and shaking and then—

“Oh, not tears? That's what comes of having your own way all the time. I've spoiled you – that's what I've done. But now I plan to make amends. I'm offering you your freedom. Think of it. You can do anything you like. You could do a tiny stroke of work for the first time in your useless life. You could find some other wretched bloke to torture. You could hire yourself out as a bouncy castle. The possibilities are—”

Damn. There was the cab drawing up and three-quarters of his long-nurtured eulogy still undelivered. With a brisk, jolly swing of his hand Andrew picked up the bag and prepared to leave. In the doorway he looked back, savouring the final moments of victory.

Gilda did not look at all happy. In fact she looked incredibly wretched and also rather ill. Andrew hesitated, then did something he was to regret for the rest of his life. He took the telephone from the far side of the room and placed it on a little table near her hand.

“Cheer up, fatty. Talk to someone – get it off that gargantuan coal heaver's chest. Try The Samaritans. Better still –” over his shoulder, closing the door – “Save the Whales.”

 

It must have been about forty-five minutes after this that the police car drove up to the first set of electronic gates at Mount Pleasant and was admitted. Barnaby saw the ambulance, turning in the drive of Bellissima, straightaway.

“Bloody hell!” Troy pulled up as close as he could to the nearest flowerbed, leaving room for the larger vehicle to manoeuvre. The siren howled and the ambulance shot by as Barnaby got out and ran across the grass.

A youngish man stood in the porch. Pale, alarmed, smartly suited. Barnaby produced his warrant card and started asking questions. The man was Simon Wallace, a solicitor. The Berrymans' solicitor.

“Perhaps we'd better go inside,” said the chief inspector. Then, when they were, “You look as if you could do with a drink.”

“Yes.” He helped himself to a whisky, his hands shaking. “God – what a day.”

“What happened?”

“She had a heart attack.”

“Is Mr. Latham here?”

“No one's here. We had a call from Mrs. Latham. She sounded…extraordinary. Somebody had to come out immediately. She was almost screaming.”

“And when you arrived?”

“The front door was open. I found her on that sofa. She couldn't move.”

“So what was the call about?”

“She wanted me to bring her will over.”

“Did she say why?”

“The usual reason. To change it.”

“Was this a habit?”

“Not at all. It was made just after she was married. She'd meant to make a new one long ago. Just hadn't got round to it.”

“The details?”

“Oh, come on. You know I can't—”

“I'm involved in a murder investigation, Mr. Wallace. We can go through the proper procedure but, to be frank, time is not on our side.”

“It's not as if I'm a senior partner—”

“Then I'll talk to a senior partner. Your number?”

“Well…” Simon could just hear them at the office. Unable to handle heavy stuff. Can't take decisions. Better not risk him on the new Ainsley account.

“She cancelled the will, which left everything to her husband. Then made a new one and signed it.”

“Leaving everything to…?”

“Charity. She couldn't think which one – she was in such a state. But it had to be animals. People were vile – those were her last words. I suggested the Cat Protection League, my wife and I being members of the Fancy.”

Blimey, thought Sergeant Troy, some mogs have all the luck. This place alone must be worth over a million.

“There was also mentioned a nuptial agreement drawn up years ago by her father. In case of a separation it was supposed to stop her husband getting any of the spoils.”

“But they're not valid over here,” said Barnaby.

“Mr. Berryman hoped he wouldn't work that out.”

“So when did Mrs. Latham become ill?”

“Directly after the business was concluded. To be honest I got the impression she was just hanging on till I got there. The ambulance men said things didn't look too good.”

“I see. Thanks very much, Mr. Wallace.” Barnaby got up. “You've been very helpful.”

“Can I go now?”

“Of course. But leave a card, if you would.”

Barnaby watched the solicitor's Mercedes negotiate the drive and the small but select gathering of neighbours just beyond the boundary wall. He thought human nature didn't vary much. Whatever the locale – run-down sink estate, neat suburban terrace or gated enclosure of the super-rich, curiosity as to the business of one's neighbours seemed endemic.

“See what you can find out from that lot,” said Barnaby. “I'll look over the house.”

He started at the far end in the larger of the four bedrooms. Men's clothes were strewn everywhere. Some on the bed, some on the floor, over an armchair. An empty suitcase lay by the dressing table with its lid open. Some drawers had been tipped upside down.

Barnaby tried to open the sliding wardrobes running the length of the room. He had just discovered the electronic button when he heard Troy running through the hall. Racing up the stairs.

“It's Latham, sir.” Troy stopped on the threshold staring at the mess. “He's gone.”

“Tell me.”

“Hour, hour and a half ago. Left in a black cab carrying a large holdall. Cab was advertising Britannia Building Society.”

“Right. Get a search call out. Railways, air and seaports. Full description. And get a trace on the taxi.”

Troy seized the phone. Barnaby abandoned his investigation into the wardrobe and set about a more systematic search for Latham's passport. He started in the library. He knew it was the library because there were red and gold book spines glued to all the shelves. There was also a framed picture of Shakespeare, quill poised, gazing gloomily at an astrolabe. But he had hardly started on the Chippendale desk before Troy was calling out again. Tetchily the chief inspector returned to the bedroom.

“For heaven's sake, man. Can't you do a simple—” Then took in Troy's expression. “What is it? What's happened?”

“I think you should hear this direct, sir,” said Sergeant Troy, and passed over the telephone.

 

The offices of Brinkley and Latham were almost deserted. The receptionist was still there, her eyes grossly red and swollen with weeping. A wastepaper basket at her feet full of sodden tissues. When Barnaby and Troy arrived she began to speak, then started to cry again. They made their way through to the main office.

Leo Fortune sat in his cubbyhole staring blankly into space. His desk was cluttered with papers and notes and letters as if, only moments before, he had been lively and busily engaged. There was also a cup of tea, stone-cold with a congealing skin.

When Barnaby said, “Mr. Fortune?” he brought his head up with great difficulty, as if it were a lump of rock. He looked years older than when they had seen him last, his mouth a miserable jagged line.

“This is a bad business, sir.”

“Have you found her?”

“Found…?”

“The Lawson girl.” His voice was cracking all over the place. “Have you arrested her?”

“I need to clarify certain things. The message I got—”

“What's to clarify? You know what's happened. You know who's responsible.”

“I still need to—”

“Haven't you done anything?”

“Calm down, sir,” suggested Sergeant Troy.

“Calm down?” He stared at them both in turn, his face such a mask of absolute incredulity it verged upon the tragic. Which made it, to Troy's mind, also comic. He turned away, fumbling for his notebook.

Barnaby sensed the man struggling not to cry. He said quietly, “If we could just take some details, Mr. Fortune…?” Then sat himself squarely in the comfortable chair facing what used to be Dennis Brinkley's desk. His stolid, phlegmatic presence and the silence that gradually took over the room eased Leo Fortune back into some sort of composure.

“Money has been stolen from nearly all of the accounts held here. Thousands of pounds. Hundreds of thousands.”

“But you're insured?”

“Of course, we have to be. But this will still finish us. When you're dealing with other people's money, once trust has gone you've had it. God knows what Mrs. Latham will say.”

Barnaby thought this was perhaps not the time to pass on the news that Gilda was in intensive care and not expected to last the day.

“Have you any way of tracing the money?”

“It'll be out of the country by now. Some offshore slipperiness. Ghost accounts, more than likely.”

“Ghost?” Barnaby looked up sharply. “How does that work?”

“It's an old scam. You find a child's grave, the child being the same sex as yourself and, had it lived, roughly the same age. Apply for a copy of its birth certificate. Using this and an up-to-date photograph, apply for a passport. You can then open an account and start putting money in. And the owner of this account can never be traced because they don't exist. Hence, ghost.”

“Surely it's not as simple as that.”

“If it was,” decided Sergeant Troy, “everybody'd be doing it.”

“There's quite a risk. Checking procedures have been tightened up a lot, especially when presented documents are copies. And you can be in serious trouble just for trying it on.”

Barnaby became briefly distracted then by the phone in reception. It had been ringing quite often since they arrived. He wondered if such frequency was the normal traffic of the day or whether the news of the disaster was already leaking out. With a dozen or so distressed staff on the loose it would hardly be a surprise.

“Are you going to close the office, Mr. Fortune?”

“I can't decide. If I do it's going to look as if I've scarpered—like one of those dodgy types you see on
Watch-dog.
And if I don't, when this really gets out we'll be practically lynched.”

“Aren't you going to tell people yourself?” asked Sergeant Troy.

“Of course.” He waved a sheet of foolscap at them. “It's what I've been working on all day. Trying to warn clients that something untoward has happened without actually telling them how bad things actually are.”

“A fine line,” agreed Barnaby.

“So you see why I jumped on you about getting hold of the Lawson girl. Every minute counts.”

“We don't think Polly Lawson is responsible for this, sir.”

“Not…? But she must be. I mean – we know she did it. You said yourself—”

“We believe these thefts to be something quite separate and unrelated to the earlier incident.”