The Catch (25 page)

‘No,’ Dan said. ‘But Cate’s tried to have them changed to look less like us.’

‘Yeah, she told me. Smart cookie, my big sis.’

‘She is, and she’s really gone out on a limb for us. You can’t afford to keep upsetting her.’

‘Ah, it’s just sibling stuff.’ A sly smile in his voice. ‘How was little Louis this morning?’

‘Suffering. And it serves him right.’

‘A man after my own heart,’ Robbie declared. ‘Anyway, I was gonna call you. Guess who’s after my services? Only the delightful Mrs Cheryl Wilson ...’

‘Who on Earth is she?’

‘Cheryl Wilson,
née
O’Brien. Sister to the late unlucky Hank.’

Dan was crossing a road; he stumbled on the kerb and nearly fell back into the traffic. ‘What are you on about?’

‘She wants me to rent out the farmhouse.’

‘Tell me you turned her down.’

Robbie’s laughter sounded distant, as though he’d moved the phone away from his ear in anticipation of Dan’s outrage. But Dan was too shocked, too weary to shout.

‘Oh, Robbie ...’

‘What reason did I have to refuse? Chances are, she knows nothing about the film company or the deal I did with Hank. She found the paperwork from last time and thought we’d be the obvious choice.’

‘But what if she
does
hear about the deal? Surely the police will mention it when they explain where he was the night he died?’

From the way Robbie sniffed, Dan had the impression that this hadn’t occurred to him.

‘I’ll deal with that if it arises.’

‘You’re playing with fire, Robbie.’

‘Maybe, but I’d still argue it would look more suspicious if I’d said no. The cops could well make something of that.’

Dan sighed. ‘It isn’t just the police. There’s the man who jumped out on us the other night.’

‘What about him?’

‘If he’s trying to find out who killed Hank, don’t you think he might be watching the farmhouse?’

****

Robbie was in Preston Park Avenue, having visited a tenant whose boiler was playing up. He’d expected Dan to go apeshit about taking on the farmhouse, and felt almost let down by this subdued reaction.

A good point about the mystery photographer, though. Robbie should have thought of that himself.

‘I can’t really see it,’ he said. ‘Does make you wonder what sort of things Hank was up to, though.’

‘I don’t want to speculate.’

‘No? Well, I think there’s something to be said for knowing your enemy.’ Before Dan could give him grief, he said, ‘Your car. I should be able to sort it this weekend.’

‘You’ve found a repairer?’

‘Ah, well, I’ve come up with a contingency plan.’

He was saved from further interrogation by the news that Dan was back at work, with Willie Denham in the vicinity.

‘That senile old git?’ Robbie joked. ‘I’d swap my boss for yours any day of the week.’

Ending the call, he pondered for a while. It seemed to him that there were all kinds of opportunities opening up here. Sure, he’d have to be careful, but he had no shortage of confidence in his own abilities.

Keeping those plates spinning; it was what Robbie excelled at. Cate, Bree, Hank’s sister ...

And Mr X, the mystery photographer.

Everyone had something to hide: experience had taught Robbie that. So what were
Hank
’s little secrets?

Their day began badly, as Gordon had feared it would; and then grew steadily worse.

It promised to be a long and gruelling job, reviewing the contents of the hard drive that had extracted the guts from Hank O’Brien’s computer. Gordon insisted they take a proper break for lunch: to hell with time constraints.

First there was a call from Stemper, checking that Jerry had delivered the hard drive. He also added some detail to Jerry’s barely credible account of the break-in.

‘Thank God they were there to stop it,’ Gordon said afterwards. But Patricia was in no mood to be reassured.

****

Jerry Conlon delivered the next blow. ‘Don’t blame the messenger, but access to the house just got tricky. This woman’s turned up in a Lexus. I reckon it’s Hank’s sister.’

To Gordon’s relief, Patricia greeted this news with equanimity.

‘That had to be expected. I’m sure Stemper will have another chance to go in soon.’

‘But if she hangs around ... do we approach her?’

‘As a last resort. Not if we can avoid it.’

The Blakes had encountered the sister only once, at a party thrown by O’Brien to celebrate his divorce. Gordon remembered a handsome, forthright woman, a little too similar to Patricia in both manner and appearance to be of much interest to him.

Patricia, needless to say, had loathed her on sight.

****

Back to the computers. Gordon was reviewing the files recovered from Hank’s spare laptop. It was mostly porn.

Jerry’s warning about the nature of the material had made him sound laughably prim.
Don’t tell me you’ve never watched the sick stuff
, Gordon had thought – but hadn’t quite dared to say.

Watching it cold wasn’t much fun, although inevitably there were one or two moments that produced an involuntary response. Nothing he could do to ease the pressure when he had Patricia sitting opposite him. There was no hope of persuading her to take a break and retire to the bedroom: not in the midst of a crisis. Not in daylight.

Instead Gordon had to file away a few beguiling moves for re-enactment on his next visit to Alexia, a high-class escort based in Kingston-upon-Thames. Over the years he’d auditioned a wide selection of female talent, gradually reducing them in number in the manner of those Simon Cowell TV shows, and Alexia had emerged the winner.

The
X
factor, indeed.

****

He finished with the porn, deleted it with a military-grade destruction program, and was making a fresh pot of coffee when Stemper phoned with a positive report.

‘There’s no wider conspiracy. The barmaid has confirmed the burglar’s story. He’s strictly small-time, an opportunist.’

‘Any danger to us, going forward?’ Gordon asked.

‘I don’t believe so. Neither of them wants anything else to do with this. Or with me,’ he added.

Patricia took her coffee from Gordon and cupped it in both hands, smiling into the steam as it warmed her face. ‘That’s a marvellous relief.’

‘In fact, Patricia, last night’s intervention proved a godsend. The barmaid had some very interesting news.’

‘She was willing to cooperate, then?’

Stemper chuckled. ‘Let us say she was quickly convinced. As you’d expect from the company she keeps, she’s no ally of the police. She held back from them a very significant point.’

‘Go on.’ Patricia flashed a look at Gordon:
This is more like it
.

‘She thinks the woman with your chap may have known the men who broke up the fight.’

‘Accomplices,’ Patricia murmured. ‘But
why
terminate him in the way they did?’

‘I’ll find out. I have basic descriptions of all three, and I’d venture that the men in the pub were the same pair in the BMW.’

‘If only that photo had been clearer,’ Gordon said.

‘It was a setback, but I do have some clues as to what the men were doing there.’

‘Oh, really?’ Patricia was so thrilled that she overlooked the sound of Gordon slurping his coffee.

‘It’s no more than a theory at present. One question, though. Do you know where your man was based during the summer and autumn of 2010?’

Patricia flapped her hand at Gordon, who called up the Microsoft Project document that detailed – in code – Hank’s movements, objectives and results.

‘Travelling far and wide. In fact, the whole year he was barely in the UK for more than a week at a time, and he stayed in a London hotel.’

‘Not at the farmhouse?’

‘No. He’d put it on the rental market following his divorce.’

A brief silence. Somehow they both understood that it boded well, for once.

‘Does that help?’ Patricia asked.

‘Absolutely,’ Stemper said. ‘Remember to watch the film. Before tonight, if you can.’

‘We’ve not forgotten,’ Gordon told him. And when the call had ended, he said crossly: ‘I do resent the way he doles out orders. As if we have nothing better to do than lounge in front of the TV.’

Patricia was unmoved. ‘As far as I’m concerned, he’s earned the right. He gets results.’ Then an excited smile. ‘Something’s put a spring in his step.’

Gordon shuddered. He doubted that Patricia had given much thought to the methods that Stemper might have employed to extract information from the barmaid. The girl, as pictured in Gordon’s imagination, was a sweet vulnerable little bird, terrified by Stemper’s raptor-like demeanour.

‘Whatever the reason,’ he said, ‘in my book it fully justifies a proper lunch.’

Patricia pursed her lips, but he added sternly, ‘No arguments. Love, honour and
obey
, remember?’

****

He drove them into Dorking, to a charming Italian restaurant where the management knew them well. The food was simple, unpretentious; perfect for a not-too-heavy lunch.

As they sat down, Gordon surveyed the diners at surrounding tables and was struck by how similar everyone looked: nearly all couples, nearly all in late middle age and sleekly prosperous.
We’re the golden generation
, he thought.
The last of the lucky baby boomers
.

It prompted a plaintive question: when will it be
my
time to relax? With Patricia so driven to succeed, he found it hard to imagine being granted a life of unlimited leisure. As became clear during the meal, her ambitions were undiminished by the dreadful setbacks this week.

‘It’s the children I feel for. If somebody else has appropriated our scheme, you can bet they won’t have our good intentions at heart.’

Gordon, who’d taken to researching yachts in the three-to-six-million price bracket, swallowed a mouthful of fettuccine and said, ‘I know. It was a fabulous idea.’

‘And so it remains. We made a pledge, Gordon. A promise to ourselves. And if we don’t find a way to see this through ...’ He was greeted by the remarkable sight of a tear rolling down her cheek. ‘We can’t fail them. We simply can’t.’

‘I know. But if Stemper’s right, and these three were working together in the pub, it occurs to me that they were planning something else. What the Americans call a shakedown.’

Patricia frowned. There was a dab of cheese sauce on her lip. Fifteen – perhaps even ten – years ago, Gordon could have kissed it away without fear of censure.

‘Explain,’ she said.

‘We know he was a randy bugger. Maybe they’d set him up to allege sexual assault, then blackmail him.’

‘So why kill him?’

Gordon threw up his hands. ‘That’s what makes no sense. Unless that was never their intention. Perhaps something went wrong.’

‘Then we’re back to square one. The fact is, we still have no clear idea what’s going on.’

‘I’m sorry. Just thinking aloud.’ Gordon took another mouthful of his delicious pasta. Looking around at all the silver hair, the pearls, the golfing attire, he doubted that any of the other patrons were having a conversation quite like this one.

Patricia was studying her phone: a text had come in.

‘Templeton’s on his way to New York. All still on track, according to our man in Delaware.’ She stared at Gordon, suddenly animated. ‘Maybe this isn’t about us, or Templeton Wynne. What if it’s the American angle? A disgruntled shareholder, or even a rival bidder ...?’

Gordon shook his head. ‘There are easier ways of sabotaging the deal than this.’ He went to take a final sip of wine and found the glass was empty. ‘Now, I know we said only a single drink ...’

‘No. We need to return to work. Any more wine and we’ll be dozing off mid-afternoon.’

Reluctantly Gordon agreed. The job of reviewing the hard drives was soporific enough on its own.

The next stop was W.H. Smith to purchase the DVD of
Entwined
. Patricia studied the case and said, ‘Looks like utter pap.’

‘That will get us dozing, I bet.’ They walked on, and Gordon was struck by a fanciful thought. ‘Could Hank have been caught in a background shot, perhaps when he was with someone he shouldn’t be—?’

‘Oh, Gordon,’ Patricia said. ‘That sounds like the plot of a movie itself. A bad one.’

****

Back home, they spent an hour reviewing the hard drive, scanning through dozens of dreary emails, before accepting that they were beginning to wilt. Gordon made non-alcoholic fruit cocktails as a pick-me-up, and then they retired to the living room and slipped the DVD into the player.

Jerry called when they were about twenty minutes in. Hank’s sister was still at the farmhouse, and there were other visitors.

‘Two geezers turned up in a van. They’re loading up all the stuff from Hank’s filing cabinet. They took his laptop and the PC as well.’

‘Templeton’s people,’ Patricia decided. ‘Are you sure you found nothing incriminating?’

‘No. Everything they’ve got is clean.’

‘Then it’s no cause for alarm.’

When she’d put the phone down, Gordon said: ‘Quick off the mark, isn’t it?’

‘Understandable. Hank did have access to sensitive data.’

‘Funny that the sister was so eager to oblige them.’

‘Why should she care?’ Patricia sighed. ‘We
have
to find those documents.’

Gordon said nothing. He leaned forward, almost toppling off the sofa. As Patricia spoke his name he raised his arm, jerkily, like a marionette, indicating the screen.

‘Gordon, what’s wrong?’

‘There!’ He fumbled for the remote control, found the pause button, took it back a few frames. ‘Look at that.’