Not Quite Nice (31 page)

The only one she could imagine serious enough to warrant their presence was murder.

Oh, God! Poor Carol!

26

Next morning they all met, bright and early, at the railway station, wearing their Sunday best, ready to go to Monte Carlo for Faith’s birthday lunch.

Faith had specifically asked for Zoe to come to the lunch, so Sally tried to keep a quiet distance and hoped, for today at least, to be able to put all their differences aside.

Theresa had decided that although the newspaper article had made fun of her jewellery she would not be bullied into becoming someone else, and therefore arrived in her brightest kaftan, with chunky necklaces and earrings of pink, mauve and turquoise.

‘Before we go any further,’ said Faith, taking her seat in an upper-deck section for four, ‘I just want to say that I will not accept any payment or offers of money towards this lunch. You must please realise that it had always been my dream to go to this restaurant, and, although I could have gone alone, what fun would that have been?’

‘Lots of fun,’ said Zoe, ‘if you’d gone on your own you might have got off with one of the waiters.’

Everybody laughed.

‘And we have another fun outing tomorrow,’ added Faith. ‘I think Tom has invited us all, and the boys, to some mystery thing he’s whipped up for your birthday, Sally.’

While Zoe gave a Cheshire cat grin, Sally blushed, and said: ‘I wouldn’t get that excited. Tom has a weird sense of humour.’

While they were on the train Theresa’s phone rang.

It was Imogen.

‘The girls have been suspended from school for a week.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Theresa. ‘What did they do?’

‘They bared their bottoms at a visiting netball team.’

Theresa had to bite her lip to stop herself laughing.

The party of ladies arrived in Monte Carlo and they strolled from the station to the restaurant, the Louis XV in the historic Hôtel de Paris, where the maître d’, a handsome dark-haired man in a tail suit, ushered them into the dining room, a perfect baroque salon with dove-grey panels, tall mirrors swagged with ivory curtains and framed with gilt boiserie, and crystal chandeliers.

‘Would you prefer the dining room, or the terrace, Mesdames?’

‘Oh, the terrace,’ said Faith. ‘Then we can people-watch.’

‘They would do better to watch us, I think,’ said Zoe. ‘What will we see but a lot of blister-red, fat backpackers, and pretentious poseurs showing off their garish lime-green Porsches and their sunshine, yellow Lamborghinis, oh-so-carefully parked outside the casino? But look at us! We’re gorgeous.’

Her trout-pout wobbled ever so slightly, as she tried, and failed, to raise her eyebrows up into her glassy smooth forehead.

They walked through the French windows on to the terrace.

‘Wow!’ said Theresa, looking out towards the magnificent Garnier opera house and casino. ‘There’s a view! I blame that building for my moving to Bellevue-Sur-Mer.’

‘I don’t think your tiny flat quite compares, Theresa,’ said Zoe.

‘I had a little flutter. It put me in such a good mood I went mad and bought the flat.’

Zoe had another attempt at getting her eyebrows up. ‘You won
that
much?’

‘No!’ Theresa laughed. ‘A couple of hundred. That’s all. But it gave me a kind of wild optimism.’

A waiter with a trolley topped with a mound of ice advanced towards their table. From holes in the ice, necks of champagne bottles protruded.

‘Could I interest you all in an aperitif?’ he asked. ‘
Une petite coupe de champagne
?’

‘Certainly,’ said Faith. ‘One each, please, Monsieur. And let’s all have pink.’

Sally and Theresa made to protest, but Faith raised her hand.

‘Please, ladies, remember that if things had turned out a little differently I might be in my coffin now. This is important to me. I’d like us all to raise a glass . . . to life.’

The regal and impeccable luncheon proceeded: course after course of culinary perfection were laid before them.

Everyone agreed that the whole experience was faultless, this even in spite of a buck-toothed child at the next table who kept banging her doll on the table and whining loudly every few minutes that she was ‘bored, bored, bored’.

‘They should let her go play with the traffic,’ said Zoe. ‘She wouldn’t be nearly so bored if a bloody big pink Alfa Romeo was coming down the hill towards her at sixty miles an hour.’

Despite themselves, they laughed.

‘Are we really all going to pretend we don’t know the contents of David’s letter?’ asked Zoe.

‘Yes,’ they all replied in unison.

‘I have to say, he was the best-looking woman I ever saw,’ said Zoe. ‘Despite the size twelve feet.’

‘Change the subject, please,’ said Faith.

‘And don’t use the past tense,’ added Sally. ‘We really have to hope that Carol’s all right.’

‘I’d love to see inside the Opera House,’ said Theresa as they ate dessert. ‘It’s where Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes were based.’

‘Not to mention Mr Lermontov, Moira Shearer and
The Red Shoes
,’ said Sally.

‘Nellie Melba sang there too,’ said Theresa.

‘Really,’ said Sally. ‘When did you become such an expert on her?’

Theresa blushed, and was silenced. She had a little secret with Tom, which he had arranged with her weeks ago. It was especially for Sally’s birthday tomorrow.

‘I think we should all go to the casino, and be done with it,’ said Zoe. ‘We could come out millionaires.’

‘Or lose the shirt off our backs,’ said Faith.

‘I’d be in trouble – my clothing today is a one-piece!’ said Theresa.

‘I think you have to have your passport, before they let you inside,’ Sally added hesitantly.

‘Really?’ exclaimed Faith. ‘Why’s that?’

‘The casino is the engine of the principality. Instead of taking tax from the inhabitants, I think the place gets the bulk of its income from the losses at the gaming tables. And in order for that money not to get frittered away, I believe no Monégasque may enter.’

‘What’s a Monégasque?’ asked Faith.

‘A person who lives here in Monaco.’

‘A tight-wad tax-dodger, you mean,’ said Zoe.

The lavish cheese trolley was wheeled to the table.

‘Isn’t it sad?’ said Faith. ‘I couldn’t eat another thing.’

Theresa was still admiring the casino, with its tri-umphant verdigris statues, its shiny glass doors and blue-suited bellboys. Then she saw someone she recognised coming out of the shining doors.

‘I say, Faith,’ she said, pointing towards the casino steps. ‘Isn’t that your son?’

‘Alfie’s in Switzerland,’ said Faith.

‘It
is
him,’ said Sally rising and waving in his direction. ‘Alfie!’ she called loudly, making the bored child at the next table sit up and stare at her.

But Alfie seemed preoccupied and dejected. He slumped down the steps and into the street, squeezing past the closely parked Bentleys and Ferraris.

‘I’m going to get him,’ said Sally, throwing down her napkin, and running back through the restaurant.

‘But he’s away on business, in Switzerland, Zurich,’ Faith called after her.

‘Well, Faith,’ Zoe peered out into the crowded square, scrunching up her face to focus. ‘It certainly
looks
like him.’

Sally ran through the lobby of the hotel and down the marble steps into the square.

She could see Alfie, heading round the side of the Opera House, on the wide curving pavement which sweeps down to the Condamine.

She followed.

About halfway down Alfie flopped on to a bench and sat gazing out to sea.

Sally came and sat next to him.

He looked up with a weary shrug.

‘It’s your mother’s birthday, today, you know.’

Alfie made a face as though to say ‘OK, you win, I surrender.’

‘She saw you. We all saw you, coming out of the casino. And let’s put it this way: you didn’t look as though you’d broken the bank.’

‘That’s putting it mildly,’ said Alfie.

‘Ah, I am understanding now, Alfie? I realise that you could easily prove where you were at the time your mother was attacked, because you were here, and they had registered your passport. Am I right?’

‘What do you want?’ said Alfie savagely. ‘Why won’t you ever let up?’

Sally took a deep breath. ‘Because I am very fond of your mother, and I have a interest in her well-being.’

Alfie was puzzled. He turned and looked at Sally but said nothing.

‘You need money from her to pay for your addiction to gambling. The big question is, how far are you prepared to go, to get more money?’

‘I have borrowed from some pretty mean people,’ he replied. ‘I keep thinking that if I win more I could get myself out of the hole.’

‘But you never will, though, Alfie, will you? Not this way.’

Alfie slumped forward and put his head in his hands. ‘All I need is just a little luck.’

For a moment Sally left him to his thoughts.

‘You still haven’t explained why you wanted her to buy that house, which, as you know, is way too big for one person. Why couldn’t she simply rent somewhere? Somewhere smaller? It would have left more money . . .’

Alfie sat up and turned to face Sally.

‘Do you really want to know? You read the papers. We all know that old people are fleecing us, the young. They’re all frittering away our inheritance.’

Sally winced. ‘What you like to think of, Alfie, as “your inheritance” is in fact your mother’s life savings. Why can’t she have a bit of life now that she’s old? You are fit and healthy and have a whole life ahead of you, and if you stopped wasting your time and money at the gaming tables, you could have a bit of a nest egg too. If your mother’s lucky, she’s got twenty years . . . maximum.’

‘She tried to write me out of her will,’ Alfie interrupted. ‘But, over here, she can’t do that. Parents
have
to leave the house to their children, it’s the law.’

Sally smiled, and wondered whether she should tell him, or keep Faith’s secret to herself. She decided she would tell him how his mother had kept all her money in an English bank and that she herself had actually bought the house in Bellevue-Sur-Mer. But not today. In a few days’ time, calmly and privately, once Alfie had taken steps to control his urge to gamble, Sally would tell him the whole truth.

‘We’re all enjoying a birthday party for your mum,’ she said. ‘I think you should come and join in the toast to her life.’

She stood and held her hand out to him.

Sheepishly, he too rose from the bench.

Sally linked arms with Alfie, ‘The other thing you should do is talk to William and Benjamin, they might have a few ideas to help you deal with your addiction.’

‘I don’t have . . .’

Sally grabbed him by both wrists and said calmly: ‘You do, Alfie. You are addicted to gambling, and you act like a little baby, always running to your frail mother for money. No more faked suicide bids, please.’

‘But I—’

‘I know exactly what you did, and it’s unforgivable, Alfie. It’s nothing but a pathetic form of blackmail, the kind that only little kids can get away with. Be a man, for God’s sake. Now, come back with me to the restaur­ant and tell her you came here to Monte Carlo on purpose, looking for her, to celebrate her birthday with her. She adores you. Now go on and deserve it.’

27

Detectives Thomas and Wilton were waiting on the terrace of the bar for Theresa to come home.

Despite the fact that she was tired from the excitement of the day in Monaco, also from eating and drinking so much, she went over and sat down with them.

She wanted some answers.

‘We were in the dark till that newspaper article came out,’ said DCI Thomas. ‘One of the lads saw the photo and recognised Ronald Arthur right away.’

‘And that’s why we’re here,’ said DI Wilton.

No, they had not yet located Stewart McMahon, but had spoken to people here who had had dealings with the man. They had also put the local police on alert. Having gone through various files with them, much evidence pointed at Ronald Arthur and Stewart being responsible for the serious attack on Mrs Faith Duckworth. There was a bloody fingerprint. The MO was the same as another case they were working on back in the UK. It also appeared that the pair had used the new smartphone, stolen in the second raid, for calls to one another.

Theresa remembered Faith having talked about buying the phone for Alfie. She also remembered Brian holding a brand-new green phone that afternoon, just before he ran off with Carol, which must have been shortly after he had attacked Faith. Stewart was holding an identical phone – probably the same one – when she accosted him in the bar in Nice.

Theresa told them.