A Murder of Magpies (27 page)

My mother was quick, and she wasn't seeing it. I began to have doubts. “What do ‘FStH' and ‘Br' say to you?”

She considered. “‘FSTH.' Nothing. ‘BR.' Still nothing.”

“Not ‘FSTH,' all run together. ‘FStH.' And ‘Br.'” I spelled them out. Helena squinted at the book and gave a dubious murmur, so I prompted. “If ‘St' is for ‘Saint,' then how about Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where Vernet's offices are?”

“That puts him in Paris. We'll be able to check that, but surely it's not unusual that one of Vernet's British solicitors should go to Vernet's office.”

“Not unusual, no, and he did that regularly. It's always in the diary as ‘Vernet,' followed by a name or initials. And the day before ‘Vernet' appears there are always travel times marked in. Wright usually went by train, but there's the occasional flight, too. That's always marked before and after a ‘Vernet' entry. When ‘FStH' appears, there's no indication that he's in Paris.”

“Mmm,” she said, thinking. “But how do you get to Alemán's murder from there? This still has money laundering written all over it.”

“If ‘Br' is ‘Bristol'…”

“Where is this going, Sam? He can't have been in Paris and in Bristol on the same day.”

“No, but he can have been in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré and at the Hotel Bristol—coincidentally, on the Faubourg Saint-Honoré—on the same day.”

She nodded, not convinced. “Then what?”

“That confirms that he's in Paris. And it gives him meetings with people he's not willing to indicate even by initials, in a city he's not willing to indicate, although he does at other times.”

“And then?” She was not doubting now, but not willing to jump to a conclusion, either.

“The days that he's there match up with either the commencement of the property deals for the most part, or with their failure, when Vernet pulls out suddenly and the money comes back from Wright's clean solicitor's account. There are no similar visits when the deal proceeds smoothly.” I was getting more sure as I laid out the connections. “This is the important part, though. There are another three ‘FStH' trips that don't link to any deals we've found in the files. The first comes the day before Alemán was killed. There's a notation next to it: ‘1/3.' The day after there's another meeting indicated by time, and another ‘1/3.' Then there's one final one, four months later, also a time and ‘1/3.'”

“A street and flat number? A meeting from one to three o'clock? I can't see why you're linking this with Alemán.”

“Or one-third. A fraction. A payment that is made one-third on the day before Alemán died, one-third the day after, and one-third—”

She broke in. “How do you explain the last third, if that's what it is? If you're a contract killer, you don't wait months to be paid.”

“You do if you're going to get more if the inquest produces a verdict of accidental death. The ‘1/3' is noted the day after the inquest. That's not all. A week before Alemán's death, there's an A with a circle around it. The next day, there's a meeting without initials.”

Helena sat, thinking. Then she looked back at her notes, and spoke slowly, piecing it together. “Wright was not working with Intinvest in any of their money-laundering scheme. That's why Conway and Lambert-Lorraine are focusing on the false invoicing coming out of Eastern Europe. And that's why the material Diego Alemán brought them doesn't refer to the property scams. Intinvest is not involved in those. This is a separate operation, run by Kenneth Wright on his own, probably with someone inside Vernet.”

I picked up again. “Exactly. Then Alemán comes to see Wright, which is the circled A entry. Either he has found out, and threatens to expose Wright, or he has found out and wants to be cut in on the deals. The next day Wright is in Paris meeting his contact, and a week later Alemán is dead. The inquest verdict has nothing to do with Wright's money laundering, but is simply a result of Vernet, entirely unknowingly, using their PR power to muffle any subsequent questions in order to protect their reputation. However, Wright and his contact have promised a bonus to their hitman if no charges are laid, and they pay it after the inquest.” I knew I was on the right track now. “The clincher is the thing we've left out all along: the missing manuscript. From the beginning we knew that stealing it from the courier was not an attempt to destroy the work, otherwise Kit would have vanished earlier, or the manuscript would have been taken before it got to his typist. It was an attempt to
see
the book.”

“And why does that point to Wright?”

It wasn't often I moved faster than Helena. “You told me, right at the beginning.”

“I did?”

“What happens to a solicitor whose name is brought to NCIS's attention, money laundering is proved, or even just strongly indicated, and the solicitor is found not to have reported it?”

“Of course.” Helena stood up. “If Wright was named in the manuscript, even if his tracks were covered substantially better than he has in fact managed to cover them—” she gave a contemptuous look at the papers littering the kitchen table—“even then, he would be reported to the Law Society, and probably struck off. It's more likely that they'd keep after him and he would, eventually, end up in jail.”

“That's got to be the answer. The manuscript theft makes no sense otherwise. After the publication of Kit's book, Intinvest, or any money laundering run by professionals, would simply close up their operation at Vernet, and move on somewhere else. From what I heard at Conway's meeting, what Intinvest was doing was not unusual in method—it's not as if they wanted to keep the
way
they were washing the money secret. It didn't matter to them. It was business, and if this business folded, they'd begin operations somewhere else. And as far as consequences go, even if arrests are made, with an operation running out of Eastern Europe and Italy, they'll game the judicial system until everyone concerned grows old and dies in their beds. No one of any importance would ever go to jail. So why kill someone?”

Helena tilted her head, thinking. “How did Wright know about the typist?”

I thought, too. “Kit's burglary. It must be. He said he had no notes in the house, but I'm sure he wouldn't think a bill from his typist, or her name in his checkbook, would qualify as material that needed to be locked up at his solicitor's. There was an attempted computer hack at T and R, too. It may have been connected, or not. Why, if they had the manuscript from the courier, I don't know, but then, I don't know why I was burgled either, if they had the manuscript. Just to keep an eye on our e-mail? To see what else we knew? When they found no documents at Kit's, that might have been the next step.”

Helena was pacing up and down, something I had never seen her do before. “So we're saying that Wright was responsible for the courier's death as well?”

“Got to be. There is simply no reason for Intinvest, Vernet, Conway—anyone else, in fact—to worry about the manuscript at that stage. Earlier, yes; later, absolutely. But not at that point.”

Helena stopped. “We need to phone Jake. I'd like to warn Conway, but I can't. He'd take action, the Vernet contact will run, and the whole house of cards will collapse.” She was putting on her coat.

“We need to call Jake wearing our coats?”

“No,” she said tightly, “we need to put the diary back before we call him. It's the only evidence there is, and it was obtained illegally. Unless the police go in tomorrow with a search warrant and find it again, the case will never come to court.” She looked at the diary I was still holding and handed me a dish sponge and a pair of washing-up gloves. “Sit down and wipe every single page. Don't forget inside the cover and the edges. Jake took your prints for elimination after your burglary, and all prints are now kept on file automatically.”

I started to wipe. “How are we going to get back into the building?”

“Good question.”

 

13

We were silent on the drive back to the City. It was still raining, and Helena drove carefully. An accident while in illegal possession of documents that proved murder seemed like a bad idea. I couldn't see a way past the security guard, and while one visit could be explained away, just, as coincidence, two would be disastrous, particularly when one was at two o'clock in the morning.

Although the streets were deserted, Helena parked two blocks down and one across from the building where Wright's office was.

“Do we have a plan?” I asked, hopelessly.

She nodded. “I'm going to get mugged.”

“Oh. Is that going to be helpful?”

“It's weak, but it's the best I can come up with. I'll scream and run past the door. Arnie Leavitt is a good man. He'll come to the door, and when he sees me, I'll tell him I've been mugged, my bag is gone, and I've twisted my ankle. When he helps me to the car, you'll slip in and replace the diary. The whole thing won't take five minutes. If he stays to watch me drive away, I'll circle back and meet you there.” She pointed to the corner behind us. “I'll make sure to hold him long enough for you to get out.”

“Isn't there a closed-circuit camera?” I hadn't thought of this when we went in that morning, but it was all I could think of now.

Helena was amazed that it hadn't occurred to me earlier. “That's why I spent so long talking to Arnie this morning. I wanted to have a look at its range. If you keep your head turned to the right and down, your features can't be picked up in the front hall. There's nothing in the lift, and I stuck an adhesive label over the lens of the camera upstairs while you were opening the door. I think it's unlikely anyone's found out what's wrong with the fourth-floor camera yet—not on a Sunday.”

“Can you keep the guard, Arnie, for long enough? Will it even
be
Arnie? That's a long shift.”

I was asking dumb questions. Again. “I asked him this morning. He does two eighteen-hour shifts, with twelve hours in between, then two days off. Weren't you listening?” And I had thought she was simply being nice. I took the gloves and the keys from her silently, and separated out the one I thought I'd used that morning, and stuck my hands in my pockets. Helena locked her bag in the boot, held the car keys in her hand and we went off. We walked silently around the block to come at the entrance from the far side. I felt Helena take a deep breath, and then gave a scream that made the hair on my neck stand on end. She sprinted away from me as I stepped behind a pillar near the entrance, and stopped outside Wright's building, facing away from me. “Stop! Thief! Help!”

On cue, Arnie ran out. He didn't leave the shelter of the doorway, calling instead, “Who's there? What is it?”

“Arnie. Thank God! I've been mugged. Please. Help me.”

“Wait a minute, Mrs. Clair. I'll just go and call it in.”

I hadn't thought of that. Helena had. “Please, Arnie. I've been hurt. Help me, and then I'll call and give a description. He jumped into a van and he's gone.”

If I had said something as feeble as that, no one would have paid any attention, but Helena has a will of iron. When she tells you to do something, she sends thought waves into your brain, until you think that what she wants you to do is exactly what you had decided to do from the beginning. Arnie was not immune either. He walked over to her, and after a minute's discussion put his arm around her to steady her while she limped off toward her car. I ran.

Those five minutes were the longest of my life. I swear that every gray hair I have from now to eternity will be caused by my career as a criminal. How people do this for a living I have no idea.

By the time Helena drove up to the appointed spot I thought I was going to be sick. She didn't say anything, but took me back to her house and made me tea with a generous slug of whiskey. She didn't ask me, she told me: “You're staying here tonight.”

I was too cowed to fight. Wright, Kit, even my abortive foray to Gloria Ramsay's, were all combining to give me nightmares while I was awake. I couldn't imagine ever sleeping alone again.

*   *   *

By the time I came downstairs in the morning, Helena was halfway through a pot of coffee. The sun had finally broken through, and fresh, scented air was pouring in at the open window, the first really spring-like day we'd had. It was the kind of weather that after months of gray skies and sheeting rain makes Londoners think their climate is really pretty good after all, but I shivered when I saw it. Helena looked at me critically. “You look like you haven't slept for a week.”

“You
slept
?”

“Why not?”

“Just a few minor details: murder, breaking and entering, planting evidence.”

“Not the latter, I think. I'm not sure how a judge would rule, but since the diary was replaced where it had been earlier—”

I broke in on her legal musings. I wasn't up to a discussion on the finer points of evidentiary law. “Have you called Jake?”

She nodded. “He'll be here any minute.”

There wasn't anything else to say, and we sat quietly, waiting.

Jake arrived, looking even more tired than when I'd last seen him. I kissed him on the cheek, gave him some coffee, and sat again.

He wasn't any more interested in social niceties than I was. “What is it that couldn't wait?”

Helena pulled out her notes. “First, you need to hear this from me, with no witnesses, and no notes.” She looked sternly at the notebook in his hand.

Jake didn't budge. “Tell me.”

“If there are notes, this will be useless to you.” Helena was implacable.

So was Jake. He repeated, with an edge to his voice, “Tell me.”