The Reckless Engineer (6 page)

Edwards and Hansen sullenly refused Jeremy’s offer of a drink. He poured himself one and returned to his watch, leaning on the mantelpiece on his left elbow. There were animated voices outside, somewhat hushed and muffled by the walls in between such that only the tones and none of the words reached him. Jeremy paced to the window and back to the mantelpiece. The discussions outside had continued for over twenty minutes. He could see Edwards getting impatient.

‘Harry said that you are waiting for a post-mortem report and a toxicology report. When do you expect to have them, Chief Inspector?’ Jeremy probed the Inspector’s by now fragile patience.

‘Both. It will take at least a week from last Thursday,’ Edwards snapped.

Hansen switched her radio on. Intermittent police communications punctured the impatient tensions in the room. They had been out for a good forty minutes by the time Harry walked back in.

‘Detective Chief Inspector Edwards, that was a call from the McAllen’s family solicitors and Mr. Douglas McAllen, Caitlin’s father. They want you to adjourn this interview until her solicitors reach us with Mr. McAllen tomorrow afternoon.’ Harry remained standing by his former seat, making it clear that he was about to conclude the interview.

‘Hold on a minute, Mr. Stavers.’ Edwards sat up from where he had been stewing, growing more and more red in the face, particularly for the last twenty minutes of Harry’s absence. ‘We need to proceed with this interview forthwith even if it means that we have to take Mrs. Connor to the station.’

He couldn’t do that, could he?

‘The line of questioning you have been taking means, Inspector Edwards, that there is a conflict of interest in my representing Mrs. McAllen-Connor any longer while also representing my client, Mr. Connor. So you
will
have to wait for her own solicitors even if you take her to the station,’ Harry explained.

Good. The position Harry had likely agreed to take to buy Caitlin the time she needed.

‘Besides, Caitlin’s father, Mr. Douglas McAllen, will also be here tomorrow afternoon. No doubt you would like the chance to interview him also.’ Harry sweetened the deal. He would deliver two for the price of one.

Edwards took the bait.

‘Very well, Mr. Stavers. We shall be here tomorrow afternoon to continue the interviews of both Mrs. McAllen-Connor and Mr. Douglas McAllen.’

Edwards picked up the slab of papers that had lain ominously on the coffee table since its startling appearance, and stood up. Hansen followed suit and gathered up her files.

‘In the meantime, I’m going before a Magistrate to get an extension to the time I can keep Mr. Connor detained.’ Edwards threw
his
trump card on the table: the sooner they cooperate, the sooner Jack might get out of custody.

‘Two-thirty p.m. again, please, Chief Inspector. Their flight arrives late tomorrow morning at the Southampton airport.’ Harry stood back and let Edwards and Hansen walk out.

‘Jeremy.’ Harry briefly took him aside once they reached the hallway, letting the officers walk ahead. ‘I’m going to accompany Edwards to the police station to have a word with Jack, and then I shall be heading home. I’ve agreed to be here again about 12 noon tomorrow to advise Mr. McAllen and to sit in on the interviews. I could give you a ride home, but Caitlin would like you to stay. I know Jack does too.’

Jeremy nodded as he accompanied Harry and followed the officers out to their vehicles. He owed Jack what little he could do to help. Besides, things were happening out here and he was curious. With an empty portfolio of engineering projects, he had fuck all to do back in his office. It was a good excuse to drop by Maggie’s place while he was in the area. He also wanted the opportunity to at least speak to Jack in private before he left. It was clear, however, there was no chance of getting Jack out of custody that evening either. Jeremy sighed.

CHAPTER 8

Saturday, October 16 — One Day Later

What a day it had been! Right through the eventful afternoon Jeremy had sipped two cups of tea and many glasses of water and wine. A touch of a headache at his temples was threatening a full on migraine. He needed a splash of icy water on his face and two paracetamol. He rushed into the guest washroom even before the cars pulled off, not stopping to close the front door. He was about to turn the washroom light on when Caitlin’s voice, hushed but clear words, came in through the washroom door that was still ajar. Something in her tone, a hint of secrecy and panic, made him freeze.

‘Listen. The police have some of your reports, K.C. I hid a few copies in the attic and there was no time to get rid of them. I didn’t think anybody would find them there.’

So Caitlin
had
commissioned the reports! There was a pause. K.C., whoever he was, was assessing the information.

‘No, there are no other records linked to you in the house. Even my calls to you have all been through this pay-as-you-go mobile only and I’ve kept this phone on me. The calls were always to your disposable mobile anyway.’

More silence as Caitlin listened to K.C. at the other end of the line. This was getting more intriguing by the second.

‘Very well, I shall get rid of the SIM chip at once, stick it in some cheese and flush it down.’

Jeremy held his breath. She could walk in here to flush down the mobile phone SIM any moment.

‘Listen, K.C., many of your original reports are in my office at BlackGold. You’ve got to send someone out there right away before the police search our offices. You will have to replace my computer and copy over only the accounts. Make backup copies of the disks in case the police decide to take the PCs. Clean out Jack’s PC and the server disks also. The admin password is “design4life”. Take away Jack’s laptop into storage also. Some copies of your reports are in the locked filing cabinet by the safe in my office. There’s some stuff in the safe. The combination is 1-19-0-16. The lab, gosh, Jack might have something in the lab. Clean out the lab as much as you can.’

Pause.
She’s ordering a full clean-up of BlackGold. Bloody hell!

‘No, no money transfers are directly traceable to you. I paid you in cash, remember? That cash was off the books or covered up as company expenses in small amounts. Have everything stored in a bank safe or somewhere that cannot be traced back to you or me.’

Pause.
Untraceable cash payments?!

‘The police may be onto you sooner or later now that they’ve got their hands on those reports. So please cover your tracks, K.C.. Send one of those external men you use who cannot be traced back to you. It is best to use a storage space that is not in your name or mine.’

Pause.
Men to do her shady bidding.

‘Please clean out my office SUV. We might have dropped something in there and I want all fingerprints off it. I shall contact you again using a new pay-as-you-go SIM. I shall buy a few new ones in town. I have eight thousand pounds in the safe, all clear off the books. Take it all as your payment on account. I sent the stash of cash I had here and my laptop out with my son-in-law when the police arrived here Friday, hidden in the boot of the car.’

Caitlin’s voice faded into the kitchen opposite the family room that she had come out of. She would need to get a piece of cheese first to embed the chip in to flush it down. He needed to get out of here.

The hallway connected four main rooms. There were two living rooms to the left of the entrance, the front room that they had been occupying with Edwards all afternoon called “the reception”; the rear living room, “the family room”, with French patio doors that opened out into the grounds, was the main living room for family use. It was from the family room that Caitlin had come out into the hallway.

On the right, the room at the front was a large “boardroom” with a massive table, which would occasionally be transformed into a dining room for formal dinners. The large rear room on the right was the kitchen with a breakfast bar and a more intimate dining area for up to eight. The guest washroom Jeremy was in was sandwiched between the Reception and the living room. The grand stairwell stood opposite the main entrance and led upstairs to the first floor in two flights.

The hallway forked and extended right between the boardroom and the kitchen, aligned with the washroom he was in. It led to the part of the house Jack and Caitlin had had extended, containing, on the ground floor, a twin master suite with a luxurious shared bathroom, another en-suite bedroom, a library, and a ‘Sitting Room’ extended with a conservatory. A second stairwell ran up to the extended part of the first floor turning right from the end of the extended hallway.

The twin master suite was reserved for Mr. and Mrs. McAllen for whom the stairs to the upper floors were beginning to be a challenge. The Sitting Room and the conservatory were decorated in Scottish style as a living room especially for their use. The library was used mostly for business. Gillian liked to study in it and Peter studied there occasionally when Jack needed to concentrate on something and kicked him out of his workshop.

The second en-suite room was reserved for Jack’s mother, his father having passed away some fifteen years ago from a heart attack. Mrs. Mary Connor, however, lived in the Connor family home in Portsmouth and hardly ever visited her son in Guildford. She did not approve of Jack’s divorce from Marianne and remained loyal to her first daughter-in-law, whom she adored, and her two grandsons. She preferred her son to visit her at the Connor family home. Hence, the ground floor en-suite room was adapted by Peter as his room. There was another twin suite dedicated to Jack’s two boys, Peter and Marc, upstairs.

Jeremy slipped quietly out of the washroom and out the front door, and came back in making some loud noise. Bubbles was on the steps, watching Félipé locking the gates, and bounced himself in as he closed the door. He walked into the front reception, poured himself a scotch, and called out, ‘Caitlin, they’re gone. Are you okay?’

Caitlin emerged from the kitchen as he walked back into the hallway, sipping a scotch. A scotch! Caitlin was definitely panicking.

‘Are you okay?’ With a little effort he met her glance with a concerned look.

She nodded and turned back towards the family room.

‘I think so. Come in.’

He followed.

‘My God, they have turned this place inside out. I don’t know where any of my things are. I need Hannah to straighten out the house, and I need to put my office together upstairs.’

She sank into the corner-unit sofa and buried her face in her hands. Jeremy perched himself on the armrest of an armchair. He wanted to sympathise with her, but she was up to something shady.

‘So Michelle called you a lot here, did she?’

‘Yes, starting about three months ago when we first found out and asked Jack to stop seeing her. During the past month she has called at least once every other day. She would say things like: Jack has had no children with me because he does not love me and is only with me for the money and the career; that it was Michelle and their unborn baby that Jack loved; that I had my kid with the love of my life, and I do not love him like she does; that I am cold, frigid, and controlling and Jack’s private name for me was “the Ice Queen”; that she was 29 and Jack is looking for a younger model; that their sex was explosive and earth shattering . . .’

She put her head in her hands again. Did Jack know Michelle had been calling and harassing Caitlin, clearly trying to break up the marriage?

‘Jack has simply refused to talk about Michelle for the past four or five weeks. Initially he cried, made promises, and we fought about her; but lately he has just refused to talk about it. Certainly Jack has withdrawn from me since the child came into the picture. All he’s been saying is he “doesn’t know”. He didn’t know what to do about the child, he didn’t know if he could stop contact with Michelle, and he didn’t know what he wanted. The calls were upsetting Gillian. I told her to stop, but she wouldn’t.’

‘I’m very sorry Michelle was badgering and taunting you, Caitlin. I’ve seen her behaviour at Marine. She was a very forward, stupid, manipulative, brash, ill-mannered, and selfish woman.’

Yet Jack had loved her. Michelle could do no wrong in his eyes. She was “outgoing” and “vivacious” to him.

They remained silent for a few moments.

‘That file they had, Jeremy, Papa had stored it up there so that Jack or I would not come across it. He says they are papers from the private detective he’d hired to find out about the affair. Papa gave Harry the detective firm’s contact details. I didn’t know it was up there.’

These Jeremy knew were outright lies. It was hard to tell when Caitlin was lying and when she was not! Douglas McAllen was either protecting or colluding with his daughter. At the first sight of the police arriving at the gates Caitlin had, with a cool head, got her stash of cash and her laptop out of the property though the side gates with Gillian and Peter. How did she know right away that there might be a search? What did she pay for covertly with untraceable cash? What was on that laptop?

‘Can your father get up there easily? I mean, there’s a ladder that falls down from the loft to the third floor he would have to climb, right?’ Jeremy alerted her to the flaws in her story and immediately thought:
Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.

A pause. She looked at him, a sharp, searching, and tense look.

‘There’s a stairwell up to the roof terrace from the third floor. Papa loves to get up there with a beer sometimes, sit in the sun, and take in the views. He steps into the attic through the low set window. We leave it ajar in the summer, or he gets Félipé to open it. Besides, Papa’s okay with the stairs. It’s mom who’s having difficulties with them.’

Lies, more bloody lies! And he wouldn’t know if he had not overheard the call.

Jeremy’s mobile vibrated in the back pocket of his trousers and reminded him how desperately he needed the loo.

‘Caitlin, I have to give Maggie a call. She sometimes comes up to my place in London during her weekends off. She’s in the flat now, wondering where I am. I have just received a text.’

He was lying too. It was merely a text from his mobile service provider. Maggie had not made any effort to connect with him for months. He looked at his watch; 4:12 in the afternoon.

‘Later I can continue putting Jack’s lab back together and I can also help you put your office back in order. Harry should like a set of copies of the papers they took so that he knows exactly what the police have got their hands on, if you don’t mind.’

‘That’s fine, and thank you, Jeremy. I think I shall take Jasper out for a ride into town. I need some fresh air and I need to clear my head.”

Off to buy some new untraceable mobile phone SIMs, you mean.

Caitlin had five horses in the stables close to the house. Jasper, the black thoroughbred, and two grey Lippizans, the filly Blue, and the gelding Ash; and two Arabians, the chestnut female, Quill, and the brown male, Cantor. There were more out on the paddocks and the stables further out.

‘Félipé.’ Caitlin slid the French patio doors open and called out. ‘Saddle up Jasper for me, will you.’

Jeremy bounded upstairs to his room two steps at a time. It was Harry’s mobile that he dialled as he stepped into the bathroom.

‘Jeremy, what’s up? I’m about to see Jack at the police station.’

‘Hey did Caitlin and Douglas McAllen explain to you about the portfolio that the police had?’

‘Yes, Douglas said he hired a private detective to keep an eye on Jack to see if the affair was still going on. I—’

‘What’s the name of the detective firm? Who was his contact?’ Jeremy interrupted.

‘The firm is Blackmoon Investigations, based in Acton, London. Their guy’s name is John Smith, although it sounds like a work alias.’

‘Anyone with the initials K.C.?’

‘Not that I know of, but it could be someone who works there. How did you get the name, or rather the initials?’

‘I have to go now. I shall talk to you later about this, Harry.’ Jeremy hung up.

Out of the window he could see Caitlin leading Jasper out of the stables.

He opened the window and shouted, ‘One minute please, Caitlin.’

She was on Jasper by the time he got to her. How powerful and majestic she looked, blending into one with the grand creature with effortless elegance and empathy. Jasper brushed back damp earth with his hooves in anticipation and nodded his head at Caitlin’s show-winning bearded Silkie birds strutting their pristine white and blue-silver plumage in the large open pen in the backyard to his left. A few yards on his right the heated pool made steam into the cool air.

‘Maggie’s driving herself back home. I’m on thin ice with her, having forgotten our anniversary this weekend. I need to drop by her place at Southampton to make amends,’ he lied. ‘I can take the train and I should be back by 10:00 p.m. Is that okay, Caitlin? Will you be okay for a few hours?’

‘Of course, I should be fine, Jeremy. Thank you for spending your time here. You have been a rock, and I don’t know what I would have done without you.’

You would have had everything under perfect control without seeming so
.

‘You and Jack pretty much kept me alive when Maggie first left me, and Jack covered for me when I was drunk senseless for months and saved my job. It is the least I could do.’

‘Take one of Jack’s cars, Jeremy, the Audi or the Golf. Félipé will get the keys for you. Please, we’ve dragged you away from your life out here. Take one of the cars. I insist.’

‘Thanks, Caitlin.’ He smiled and nodded.

She moved her heel lightly against Jasper and he watched them fly into the distance with magnificent elegance and power. He waited for them to reach the pond and take the turn into the woodlands adjacent to the back of their land, moving out of sight, and slipped into Jack’s workshop.

The keys he was looking for lay on a key ring with the McAllen logo etched in black and gold onto a silver disc where he had put them while tidying the lab in the morning. He pocketed the keys and shuffled things on the desk back into a state of disarray so that the keys would not be missed.

He had been counting on borrowing one of Jack’s cars. If Caitlin hadn’t offered first, he would have asked. He would take the Golf. He needed a car that was swift but one that would also blend in without attracting attention. Jeremy ran upstairs and quickly grabbed his case that he never went anywhere without as Félipé fetched the car keys.