False Pretences (3 page)

And he wasn't averse to seeing Maggie again. Hmm.

He said, ‘You don't actually have to pretend to be a solicitor, but a hint of that might help?' He produced a chequebook. ‘Your fee? I'm willing to pay in advance.'

Bea swivelled round to look out of the window. If Zander was right, and she rather thought he was, then a large-scale fraud had been perpetrated – and possibly was still continuing – on the people at the Trust.

Fatigue dragged her down. She simply hadn't the energy to help him. In any case, what excuse could she make to accompany him to see the widow, and what difference could she make if she did?

It was his own fault that he'd got himself into such a mess. Such naivety was asking for it.

He exclaimed something, and she turned back to see a slow tide of red climbing up from his throat to his hairline.

Ouch. Had she spoken her thoughts aloud? ‘Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean—'

‘Yes, you did. And you're quite right. I always want to give people the benefit of the doubt until . . . No, you're right. Forgive me. I shouldn't have come.'

Bea pressed her fingers to her eyelids. Her dear dead husband had always liked to look for the best in people, too. Although he'd often been disappointed, he'd always gone on hoping. But when he'd come across something nasty, he'd not hesitated to do something about it. So what would he have done in such a case?

She had a sudden vision of Hamilton wrinkling his nose, saying, ‘I smell Roquefort!'

Yes, she could smell strong cheese, too.

She said, ‘It was a very timely death, wasn't it? What were the circumstances?'

‘I don't know. I think he got home and just dropped dead. There's to be a big funeral and then a memorial service.'

She said, ‘I don't fancy pretending to be a solicitor, although I do agree that it might be as well for you to have a witness when you see her. I suppose I could carry a briefcase and look professional, but—'

‘That's all I need. A witness with a cool head.'

‘When do you have to visit her?'

‘Tomorrow at eleven.' He stood, smiling. ‘The only thing is, can you drive me? I haven't a car.'

TWO

B
ea climbed the stairs from the agency rooms to the kitchen, pulling herself up by hanging on to the banister. Whatever was the matter with her? She knew, really. Age and grief.Sixty wasn't old, but grief was a killer.

Maggie, tall and gawky, was crashing around the kitchen in a scorching temper. Bea braced herself; she did not feel like taking on Maggie in a tantrum.

Oliver was laying the table for supper but as usual had put the knives and forks the wrong way round, irritating both Bea and Maggie. He hadn't even the excuse that he'd been brought up in a family that ate off its knees in front of the telly, since the first eighteen years of his life had been spent as the adopted son of an English headmaster and his wife. He hadn't fitted in there very well, and on discovering something nasty on his father's laptop, had been thrown out of the house . . . only to be rescued and brought to Bea by Maggie, rather as one brings home a stray cat. Since then he'd become Bea's right hand at the agency and was turning into a handsome young man.

Bea failed to understand how Oliver could make a computer juggle statistics but become a cack-handed idiot when faced with domestic chores such as laying the table. Personally, she blamed Maggie for mollycoddling him.

Maggie, on the other hand, could only perform the most basic functions on a computer but had developed into a successful project manager, while at the same time running their four-storey Kensington house with noisy efficiency. And she knew how to lay a table properly.

Winston, their long-haired black cat, made as if to jump up on to the work surface . . . and nearly got swiped by Maggie with a pan. Winston knew when it was best to make himself scarce. He plopped out of the cat flap on to the iron staircase that led down into the garden.

Bea wished she could do the same.

Maggie shot evil glances at Oliver as she dished up some of her special meatballs in tomato sauce, with spaghetti and baby courgettes.

‘. . .  and I thought I'd made it quite clear that I did not, repeat NOT, want Zander hanging around with his tongue out. I hope you told him I was going out with a rich property developer. Make that the owner of a football club, or better still, a polo-playing South American. What excuse did he make this time?'

Oliver lifted both shoulders as she brandished a pan close to his head.

‘He's in trouble,' said Bea, pushing herself to defend him.

‘So why come here?' Maggie thumped a bowl of grated Parmesan on to the table. ‘Unless, of course, Oliver told him to. That's it, isn't it, Oliver? You've been sneaking out behind my back to go to the pub with him. Do you think I'm blind and deaf? You make arrangements to see him on your mobile late at night, when I'm trying to get to sleep.'

Oliver rolled his eyes, and held his tongue. Wise lad.

Bea said, ‘Zander's been subjected to a lot of racist abuse. He blew the whistle on his boss, who then died. He's got to see the widow tomorrow, and he wants me to drive him there and see fair play. He's afraid he's going to get the sack.'

‘If you believe that . . .!' snorted Maggie, winding spaghetti round her fork as to the manner born. Her make-up was imaginative, her short hair was bright orange this week, and she was wearing a sequinned top, the clashing colours of which made Bea blink. Oh, and scarlet shorts. A sight to terrify . . . which was probably her intention. Maggie's pushy mother and ex-husband had made her feel worthless. Was this extreme get-up her way of fighting back?

‘I believe he could do with a spot of good luck for a change,' said Bea, forcing small mouthfuls down.

‘So do I,' said Oliver, clearing his plate and looking for seconds. ‘I like him, I sympathize with what he's had to go through – all the racial slurs and that – and I'd like to help him.'

‘Oh, you!' said Maggie, her fury evaporating as fast as it had arisen. Maggie was pretty well colour-blind as far as race was concerned, as was Bea. But they both knew racial prejudice did still crop up in social life and in the workplace.

Bea put down her fork, her food half-eaten. ‘Sorry, Maggie. I don't seem hungry.'

Maggie switched from virago to mother hen. ‘I thought you were looking a bit off colour. Throat sore? Glands up? There's a lot of it about. Why don't you go to bed early and I'll bring you up some of that stuff which is supposed to stave off colds for twenty-four hours, though what happens after that I've never been able to work out. Does the cold come back again? Or go away for good?'

‘I promised Max I'd go with him to some reception or other at the House of Commons.'

Oliver reached for his mobile. ‘He won't want you there if you're incubating flu. I'll give him a ring, make your excuses.'

‘Yes, but . . .' The prospect of not having to talk to anyone for a couple of hours was enticing. Let Oliver make her excuses. She wasn't tired, exactly. Just screaming with pain. ‘I suppose I could do with an early night, but then tomorrow I've promised to take Zander out to wherever it is, somewhere in the country. Don't let me oversleep.'

‘I'll drive you,' said Oliver. ‘No problem. Now if only I had a cap and uniform jacket, I could pass as your chauffeur. I'd like to see this famous old house that Lady Honoria owns. Zander says it's been in the family for yonks, should be handed over to the National Trust but Her Ladyship won't let go of it. What price her husband's death turns out to be murder? I do like a good murder.'

‘Shut up, you!' said Maggie, tipping Bea's half-eaten plateful of food on to his. ‘Can't you see she needs to be quiet for a bit?'

Bea shook her head at him. ‘Behave yourself, Oliver. Nobody's hinted at murder.'

‘That's what you've said before, and each time you were wrong. Murders mean extra work for us; that means a bonus, and I'm saving for a car.'

Maggie said, ‘Lunkhead!' and swiped a hand at his head. He ducked, smiling.

Bea produced a wan smile, too. She knew what they were both thinking. Yes, they were both fond of her in their own way, but they also knew that if she were ill their jobs with the agency would evaporate because she
was
the agency. If they could do something to help her back to her normal self, they would.

She climbed the stairs to her bedroom but was too wound-up to go to bed. She was beginning to wear a track in the carpet from the front windows overlooking the tree-lined Kensington street, to the back window overlooking the garden. At each window she paused, now looking out over the quiet street, and now across the back garden and up through the branches of the sycamore tree to the steeple of St Mary Abbot's church. Hamilton had loved that view. She liked it, too.

Backwards and forwards . . . The house was quiet around her. The youngsters went out; she heard the front door bang once and then again. Good. She didn't want them coming in with cups of tea, asking if they could do anything to help. To and fro. The church clock marked the hours, and so did she.

Would she sleep tonight? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Only, if she didn't, she'd be good for nothing in the morning.

‘Pretty around here,' said Oliver, in the driving seat. ‘It's what I think English countryside ought to look like.'

‘A painting by Constable?' said Bea. ‘Complete with broken-down cottage and poverty-stricken but happy peasants?' She'd slept for a few hours, but her mood was still on the cusp of dangerous.

Oliver grinned. ‘Define “peasant”.'

‘Someone on social security?'

Oliver laughed out loud. ‘Come off it. The peasants worked hard and received a wage and a tied cottage in return. By that definition I'm the modern peasant, and you're my tight-fisted employer.'

Zander, sitting in the back, didn't smile. Lost in his own thoughts, he may not even have heard the exchange.

Oliver had bullied Bea into getting a satnav, so he was threading his way through the country lanes without any difficulty. Substantial, brick-built stockbroker type houses flitted past the car windows. Tall beeches almost met shadowed lanes. There were passing places here and there for the occasional car, and horses at pasture. Down an escarpment they went, past an inn which looked popular. Up a steep, curling hill. They hung a sharp left by a church squatting among ancient yew trees and passed along a tree-lined lane to be met by a gate marked ‘private'.

Zander would have got out to open the gate, but Oliver insisted it was his job as acting chauffeur. The gate swung open without a sound. The immaculate private drive now branched right and left. To the right you went through an archway which was decorated with a charming blue-faced clock – unfortunately not working – into a stable yard. There were no horses to be seen.

To the left, you swished round to the front of a building which looked as if it might have started in Saxon times as a large farmhouse and thrown out a wing here and a wing there in subsequent generations. The roof had recently been re-tiled, and the lath and plaster walls had been painted white between silvery-grey oak timbers.

There was a stunned silence in the car.

Zander shook his head. ‘I thought it would be a small stately home with a portico, perhaps Georgian.'

‘I imagined a Tudor building with barley-sugar chimneys,' said Oliver, peering up at the uneven roofline.

Bea got out of the car, and stretched. ‘Manor house, umpteen generations, the owner probably owned all the land around here at one time. I wonder if the doorbell works.'

She told herself she could go through with this, of course she could, and put out her hand to steady herself on the oak front door with its original studs. The door was the genuine thing, accept no substitute.

There was a heavy iron bell pull, which roused the neighbourhood. The sound seemed to echo from the surrounding hills. At that point she realized she had a ladder in her tights and had chosen the wrong shoes for a foray into the country. And of course, it was a bad hair day. Well, there was nothing to be done about her appearance now. And did it matter, anyway?