The Bursar's Wife (19 page)

* * *

On the way home I remembered that Elliot Booker’s funeral was taking place that afternoon. In true detective style I thought I would go out there to see who turned up. I particularly wanted a closer look at Quintin Boyd, perhaps even to speak to him and Sylvia together.

At home I had a half-filled bath that I couldn’t lie down in. I shaved and tried to look at my wound in the mirror, but was relieved when I couldn’t see it. I made a pot of coffee and a pile of toast. Then I switched on my computer and took out my notebook – Legacy Labs was the last entry. I typed it into Google, adding a plus sign and ‘Cambridge’ to it to narrow it down – something Jason had taught me. I hit the return button and was rewarded with a short list. I chose the one at the top.

One click and there it was, Legacy Labs, based in the Science Park. Specialising in confidential DNA testing by post. You ordered the tests online: paternity, ancestry, relationship and even tests to prove the pedigree of your dog. They sent you a kit, you took some swabs and sent it back. Then they posted you the results. It was that simple. I was an idiot – the logo wasn’t a bloody spiral staircase, it was a DNA symbol. I sat back in my chair and barked with pain.

But why had Elliot Booker ordered a DNA test? It seemed unlikely he was trying to trace his ancestry, so it had to be about Lucy. This must be the reason for his and Sylvia’s argument that night. Was it because she wasn’t his daughter? Why else would one have a test done? I took the envelope from my jacket, in case it offered up more clues. My mind was wild with speculation but I needed facts. There was a phone number on the website but I doubted they would give out any information that way. I could have given it to Sandra, the queen of the phone, but I felt I needed to do this myself. I would have to go back down there when they were open and see what I could find out.

* * *

On my way to the Science Park I called in at Sandra’s to see how Jason was getting on. But Jason was asleep, doped up on painkillers, so I told Sandra about the break-in at the office.

“So what were they after?” she said. I’d brought a bag of doughnuts with me and some sweets for Ashley, but Sandra had immediately confiscated them as he was about to have what Sandra called dinner, or what Olivia called lunch. He’d only just stopped sniffling and came to settle in her lap. She stroked his hair and he looked at me dreamily. “Just like his father,” she said. I wasn’t sure whether this was a compliment or not. Ashley’s father had disappeared one week into his new child’s life. He was another bloke I’d tracked down for Sandra and he now paid child support from his intermittent earnings as a bouncer.

“So tell me, what were they after?”

“Evidence from the Greene case, it looks like. They weren’t exactly subtle about it either. The place is a mess.” She said she would get it sorted out next morning and we talked about what we could put on the insurance claim.

“Who would be so interested in the Greene case apart from the Greenes?” she asked.

“Whoever killed Trisha Greene,” I said. “There must have been something there for them to be worried about.” She was going to say something but Ashley demanded that she stroke his head some more. When he’d stopped whining I asked, “Did you do backups, Sandra?”

She frowned in concentration. “It happened automatically I think. Jason set it up. Wasn’t there an external drive on the desk by the computer?” I tried to remember if I’d seen it but couldn’t – anyway, if it had been there it had gone this morning. “So we’ve lost everything?” she said.

“All the paper files seem to be there, apart from the Greene stuff obviously.”

“There’s a lot of other stuff though, on the computer I mean. Accounts and contacts. A lot of personal client details, George. It’s a bloody disaster.” She was right, but I wasn’t sure what we could do about it. I got up to go. “Will you be back later? I’ll change your dressing and you can stay for dinner. Jason will be sorry he missed you.”

I didn’t tell her I was having dinner with Nina. Maybe more than dinner if I was lucky. “Can I come by tomorrow?” I looked down at her stroking Ashley’s head.

“Come by when you like, George,” she said, without looking up.

* * *

At the Science Park I stood outside Legacy Labs and mulled over how to play it. Now that I was here I wasn’t sure about what I was hoping to achieve, except to get some source material rather than relying on what people were telling me. I stepped into reception, praying that they didn’t know Elliot was dead.

“Hello, can I help you?” A twenty-something receptionist gave me a smile she’d learnt on a customer care course. She sat behind a glass and steel desk on which rested a screen, a keyboard, an open copy of a celebrity magazine and a pink mobile phone. She had what Sandra called a muffin-top stomach; it bulged between the top of her trousers and the bottom of her shirt. There was a giant version of the DNA logo on the wall behind her and there were pictures of smiling families on the wall. Not just smiling but unnaturally happy show-your-teeth type of grinning you saw on the back of cereal boxes and vitamin packets – I lived in a world where the nuclear family was considered the standard; anything else was a deviation. The sound of an arriving text message came from the mobile phone on the desk and I swear the receptionist’s hands twitched as she gave it a glance then remembered she was supposed to be interfacing with a customer.

“Can I help you?” she repeated, closing the magazine in front of her. I decided a dose of reciprocated insincerity might bear most fruit.

“I’m sure you can; you look like a helpful person. My name is Elliot Booker and I have a bit of a confession to make.” I hesitated to see if she had read the Cambridge
Argus
and knew that Elliot was dead, but nothing registered on the foundation-plastered face. “It’s a bit embarrassing though.”

“That’s OK, we get all sorts coming to us,” she said, in an attempt to be reassuring; I suppose customer care courses can only go skin deep.

“I knew when I saw you that you were an understanding sort. You see I’m already a customer and you sent me a letter last weekend which I’ve stupidly lost. I was wondering if you could give me a copy, I need it for a legal document.”

“Was it a kit or results?” I made a crazy guess, as she could have, that it was the latter, since it had come in an envelope.

“Results.”

“What was your name again?” I gave her Elliot’s name and the Morley College address and her glued-on nails clacked on the keyboard. Her mobile phone announced another text.

“There’s nothing under that name, I’m afraid. Can you spell it for me.” I spelled it for her but she still found nothing. I shifted so I could try and see the screen but she twisted it round on its stand and gave me a look like I’d tried to grope her. She narrowed her over-painted eyes.

“What is it?” I asked. “Have you found my results?”

“No, results don’t come up on my screen. Have you got the reference number?”

“I lost the letter,” I reminded her, trying to stay on her right side by giving her a nice smile.

“It’ll be on the envelope, if you still have it.” I took the envelope from my jacket and looked at it. There was no number on it, back or front, so I handed it over.

She studied it. “That’s odd.”

“What is?”

“Well, there’s usually a reference number printed straight under the address so that it can be checked against the number on the results. Wouldn’t want the wrong person getting them, would we now?” I chuckled with her at the idea of someone’s results going to the wrong person.

“Perhaps there’s been some mix-up,” I said. She brightened at this obvious possibility.

“Yeah, that’s right, a mix-up. I’ll ring Mr Bloom, he’ll know what to do.” Before I could protest about the involvement of Mr Bloom she’d lifted the phone and dialled an internal number. While she waited she rubbed at the label on the envelope. “That’s odd,” she said. “Mr Bloom? Tania here. I’ve got a Mr Booker in reception but he’s not on the system, even though he got a letter from us. The thing is there’s no reference number…” She listened, pulling at the label until it started to come off. There was writing underneath. “Listen, Mr Bloom, there’s something… what? Elliot, Elliot Booker, it’s right here on the envelope, except I think there’s a problem with the address, it’s not—” She listened to some more of what Mr Bloom was saying and her eyes moved to me and became saucers. Her mouth dropped open and her voice dropped to a whisper. “But… that’s impossible. He’s standing right here in front of me… OK, Mr Bloom.” She hung up. “Mr Bloom will be right out,” she told me. “He’d like you to wait.” It was time to leave; Mr Bloom was obviously a reader of the
Argus
.

“I can’t wait I’m afraid.” I held my hand out for the envelope. She shook her head and clutched it purposefully to her bulging midriff.

“Mr Bloom said I should hang onto it.”

“You do everything Mr Bloom tells you?”

Given there was no time to charm the envelope off her I thought about going round the desk and snatching it from her fingers but it could have turned ugly so I left before having to explain myself to the mysterious Mr Bloom.

* * *

As I drove away from Legacy Labs I looked in the mirror and saw an obese man in an ill-fitting lab coat and a comb-over emerge from the unit. He watched me drive up to the end of the road. Unfortunately I had to stop at the junction to give way to traffic which gave him enough time to write down my licence number.

ELLIOT
’
S CREMATION WAS BEING HELD OFF THE HUNTINGDON
Road not three miles up from Morley College. I parked in the busy car park about 2:30 and scanned for Sylvia’s Mini. I couldn’t see it but did see the silver Mercedes with Mark the driver leaning against the door smoking. He was wearing his uniform, and looked round guiltily when he heard me approach on the gravel, like he wasn’t supposed to smoke. He relaxed a bit when he saw me and glanced back across the green slope that led to the crematorium. He wasn’t as gym-buff as I’d first thought from afar. He used to be but he’d let himself go. When I reached him he stared at me and I wondered if he recognised me from Royston or outside Quintin’s apartment. He had the same slackness of expression I’d seen on the woman who’d opened the door to me at his house.

“Is the Elliot Booker funeral still going on? I’m supposed to pick someone up.” He flicked his cigarette onto the well-groomed grass bank at the side of the car park and I resisted the urge to go and pick it up and put it out on his shaved head.

“Yeah, they’re still at it, be another fifteen minutes I guess.” He had the same nasal voice as the woman at his house. He studied me some more. “Do I know you, mate?”

“Not really, no.” I pointed at the Merc. “Nice car. Is it yours?”

“Nah, it’s a rental. I just do the driving. What about you?”

“Me? I just run a taxi, mate, nothing flash like this. Don’t have to wear a uniform though.” He squirmed as if reminded how uncomfortable his outfit was.

“The company insist on it, so do the people renting. Makes them feel big, know what I mean?”

I nodded sympathetically. “What do you drive yourself then, when you’re not in this?”

“I’ve got a Subaru Impreza 2.5 WRX,” he said, full of pride. He checked me expectantly for a positive reaction. I obliged by emitting a low whistle.

“Has a spoiler, tinted windows?” I asked. He frowned.

“Yeah, how would you know?”

“Maybe I’ve seen it around,” I said. His face took on the same expression of confusion the woman had when I’d doorstepped her. They must be related. She was old enough to be his mother. Bloody hell – I’d manhandled his mother. He stood up from the car and shuffled on his feet as if preparing to dance.

“I swear I know you from somewhere.”

“No, we don’t run in the same circle, you and I.”

He looked at me with narrowed eyes.

“Where were you Wednesday evening?” I asked.

“What?”

“Wednesday evening, you picked up a guy in a suit from the bus stop at the Parker’s Piece end of Mill Road. Thin guy from Essex, nasty piece of work, smokes for England.”

His face was a joy to behold but I wasn’t finished.

“He was camped out at your place yesterday, looking after your mum. Delightful lady.”

He looked angry enough to punch me but I held up my hand like I was stopping traffic. Unfortunately it pulled at my stitches and I made a face to suppress a cry. The face scared him and he took a step back. I opened the rear door of the Merc and gestured him inside.

“Let’s have a chat in here,” I said quietly. He studied me but got in. I got in behind him. It smelled of polished leather. The door closed with a satisfying clunk.

“You’re the guy that hit my mum,” he said.

“She was going to put me to sleep with a baseball bat. Anyway, I didn’t hit her, I pushed her out the way. Tell me though, what sort of man keeps a baseball bat next to the front door?”

“It’s hers, not mine,” he said.

“Does she live with you?”

“Sometimes. She gets lonely, see, since my dad died.” Unbelievable: he actually had a soft spot for the bat-wielding old slapper.

“Tell me about the thin bloke.”

“What thin bloke?”

“The guy that’s shacked up in your house.”

“Who the fuck are you? I don’t have to talk to you.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Much better we talk to the police about how you aided and abetted an assault and battery and are harbouring a criminal.” I opened the door.

“OK, OK, take it easy,” he said. I closed the door. He let out a breath. “He’s staying with me, is all, while he’s in Cambridge.”

“A friend of yours, then?” He shook his head. “Your mother’s toy boy?” He gave me a look of disgust.

“He’s there as a favour to my boss,” he said.

“You mean Quintin Boyd, the American guy you drive around?”

He looked over my shoulder and his eyes widened. I turned to see mourners approaching in the distance over the grass bank. He scrambled out of his side of the car and leaned back in.

“Get out,” he said desperately. “Please.”

“Tell your master I want to speak to him,” I said, taking my time getting out.