The Verge Practice (16 page)

But it was the group working under Tony, the Fraud

Squad officer, who had the most intriguing material to offer. Tony stroked his notes with loving fingers and eased his neck a little in his stiff white shirt collar, with his customary air of an undertaker presenting his estimate of funeral expenses. ‘We haven’t been able to get access to his personal accounts as yet, chief. We should progress that today, with any luck. But a couple of things have come up that may be of interest.’

He cleared his throat, for theatrical effect Kathy guessed, as if he were about to offer a special on the oak casket.

‘We ran his name through the accounts we have had access to, and came up with two payments from him of ten thousand quid each, to the account of Verge’s daughter Charlotte, in July and August of this year.’

‘Mmm . . .’ Brock scratched his beard ruminatively.

‘Understandable. Helping out the daughter of his old partner. She’s had extra expenses lately with the new house, and a baby on the way.’

‘True enough. Or the money might be intended for Charles. But it does raise the whole interesting question of who’s entitled to what out of the Verge Practice. Talking to the accountants, it appears that on May the twelfth ownership of the firm was shared between the three equity partners, Charles Verge and Miki Norinaga and Sandy Clarke, in the ratio 45:25:30. Now only one of them is left.’

‘What about Charles and Miki’s successors?’

‘The firm had an insurance policy to cover the sudden death of a partner. But Miki left everything to Charles, assuming he outlived her, and so Charles now theoretically owns over two-thirds of the business. If he were to turn up dead, his estate—principally his daughter Charlotte— would have his share paid out by the insurance company.

But he hasn’t been declared dead, so his assets are in limbo.

Either way, dead or alive, Sandy Clarke effectively controls the firm one hundred per cent.’

Brock shrugged doubtfully. ‘By all accounts business has been terrible since the murder. If you’re suggesting Clarke had a financial motive to murder his partners, it hasn’t turned out to be a very smart move.’

‘Maybe that wasn’t the motive, chief.’ Tony’s face took on a look of cunning. ‘Maybe he had no choice.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘The accountants are only now getting around to finalising the books for the last financial year, and they’ve come across something interesting. In the twelve months leading up to last May, the Verge Practice made a series of payments to a company that nobody seems to know anything about:

Turnstile Quality Systems Limited. The thing that alerted the accountants was the size and number of the payments, sixteen in all, amounting to a couple of million quid. When the accountants asked the bookkeeper at VP she knew nothing about the payments, which had been authorised directly by Sandy Clarke and not entered into the monthly accounts.’

‘What does that mean, Tony?’

‘Well, this only came up yesterday evening, so we haven’t had time to do a proper check on Turnstile Quality Systems yet, but when we tried to phone them the number didn’t work, so I took a drive out to their address, in an industrial estate in Neasden, number 27 Poplar Lane. It turns out that the last building on Poplar Lane is number 25, and nobody around there has ever heard of this company. The accountants wanted to take it up with Clarke, of course, but I told them to hold off until they get the all clear from us. The possibility is that he was using a dummy company to siphon money out of his own firm.’

‘A couple of million? Surely someone would have noticed?’

‘VP authorised well over a billion in payments to contractors last year, chief, and their own profits were very healthy. The invoices were VAT exempt, apparently, so there was no discrepancy in the VAT returns. They were bound to surface eventually, of course, but by then Sandy Clarke was the only partner left to worry about it.’

They discussed what they should do next, Brock allocated tasks and the meeting broke up. As she was leaving, Kathy found that she had a text message on her phone, postponing the committee meeting until the following Monday. Her first reaction was relief that she would have time to work with the team on the Verge case, but then irritation as she realised that all the important jobs had now been allocated. She hurried over to Brock and explained the situation.

‘Oh, that’s good, Kathy,’ he said, sounding preoccupied and not overjoyed. She felt marginal, hanging around on the edges. ‘And how is the committee going? I haven’t had a chance to talk to you.’

‘Pretty hopeless. Apart from a day’s workshop on gay rights, we’ve spent the whole time quarrelling about who should be chair.’

‘Maybe you should step in and take over.’ He smiled at the idea. ‘Yes, why not? This may be your opportunity.’

‘I’d rather quit and work on the case full time. Is there anything interesting I can do today?’

‘Interesting? Well . . .’ he consulted the sheaf of papers on his clipboard, ‘. . . there’s a lot that needs doing. There’s a list of car numbers from the CCTV cameras needs checking . . .’ He caught the look that crossed her face and stopped. ‘Or . . . well, how do you fancy a trip up to Peter-borough? That’s where the couple live who thought they saw Verge in Barcelona on the Monday after the murder.

We haven’t reinterviewed them yet. It’s always possible they may remember something else.’

A very long shot, Kathy thought, but better that than another list. So the horoscope in the paper had been right.

She hid her disappointment and took the details. After a couple of phone calls she had set up meetings with the

couple and made for the door, passing Tony and his fraud team. DI Bren Gurney was with them, chuckling at a joke someone had cracked. He looked alert and cheerful in the unfamiliar company of the Fraud Squad officers, and Kathy thought, that’s where I should be, I’ve worked with SO6 before, then told herself not to be petty. She took the tube to Finchley to pick up her little red Renault and headed for the Great North Road.

Weaving among the trucks thundering north out of London on the A1 motorway, Kathy experienced a familiar sense of anticipation, of heading towards a foreign country, the one to which she and her mother had moved after her father died—the strange and intimidating Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire where, after her mother, too, had passed away, she had been taken in by her aunt and uncle. She thought guiltily that it was some time since she’d been up to see them, elderly now and frail in their little Sheffield terrace house. From Peterborough she’d be halfway there; she considered continuing north after she’d seen the McNeils, then dismissed the idea.

She followed the directions Audrey McNeil had given her, turning off the A1 at the first Peterborough sign and coming to an area of new detached houses on the outskirts of the city. From the welcome that Mrs McNeil gave her, she got the impression that the excitement caused by their possible sighting of the runaway had been thoroughly appreciated. Both women were prepared with documentation; Kathy with a file of the earlier interview transcripts and the plans and photographs supplied by the Barcelona police, and Audrey McNeil with her own collection of holiday snapshots, city guides and souvenirs.

‘It’s a wonderful city, so exciting, so much to see,’ Audrey enthused. She was in her early sixties, Kathy guessed, hair silvering and eyes sharp. ‘Wonderful buildings, the street life, the food . . . Well, to be honest I think tapas is overrated, and Peter says I do a better paella than any of the restaurants we tried, but anyway . . .’ She poured tea as she rattled on. ‘I have a Barcelona bridge partner now. We get on like a house on fire. Play practically every day. A grandmother like me, and the same age.’

It seemed Audrey spent much of her days, and nights too, playing bridge on the internet. She handed Kathy her pictures of Barcelona, describing each in turn and eventually coming to the only one that seemed relevant.

‘Now this is the Casa Milà, which is on the same street where Peter saw Charles Verge, the Passeig de Gràcia. You see the sculpted shape of the balconies, almost like it’s made of clay, or bones? It was designed by Gaudí, the famous Barcelona architect, who was run over by a tram. Peter is a great fan of Gaudí. He took pictures of all his buildings, including the great church of the Sagrada Família of course, dozens of them.’ She turned to another packet but Kathy stopped her and guided her attention back to the Casa Milà.

‘That was taken from right outside the building?’

‘Yes. Peter was insistent that we cross the street to try to get further back, to get the whole building in, but the trees got in the way and he didn’t take that shot in the end. So we crossed back over again and continued down to a café near the metro station, and it was on our way there that we saw him.’

Kathy unfolded her plans and got Audrey to trace the route. ‘We worked out that it must have been this block here that we saw him, going into the entrance on the corner, there.’

‘Okay, now in your earlier statement it’s Peter who really describes the figure you saw, and you agree with him.

I wondered if you could try to picture the scene again now and tell me what you saw.’

‘Well, the trouble is that I took no notice until Peter said something like, “Oh, look at that chap over there, it’s the famous architect Charles Verge”, and then I looked and just caught a fleeting glimpse of him as he disappeared into the shadow of the entrance. I wouldn’t remember it at all if Peter hadn’t gone on about how important he was, and I got a bit irritated because frankly I’d never heard of him, not then. Now, of course, everyone has.’

‘All the same,’ Kathy persisted, sure she was wasting her time, ‘could you close your eyes and picture the scene, and just replay it in your mind? Don’t say anything, just try to visualise it, then tell me what you see.’

Audrey closed her eyes and sat motionless for a moment. Her lips pursed as if recalling the memory of her irritation with her husband, then her face relaxed a little and she made a gesture with her hand, as if tracing a movement in front of her. She opened her eyes and shrugged.

‘Not much help, I’m afraid. I got a glimpse of someone dressed in black, that’s all.’

‘Black jacket?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. Peter said afterwards it was a black leather jacket.’

‘Forget about what Peter said, Audrey. I just want your impressions.’

‘Well he was probably right. I think it may have been a bit shiny in the sunlight, just before he disappeared inside the building. And black trousers and black hair.’

‘Length of hair?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Just now, when you had your eyes closed, you moved your right hand to the right, as if you were following his movement. Is that what you were doing?’

‘Yes.’

‘Only, if you were walking down the Passeig de Gràcia here . . .’ Kathy pointed to the map, ‘. . . on the same side as the Casa Milà, surely he would have passed in front of you going from right to left, from the kerb to the building, that way, yes?’

Audrey frowned in thought. ‘I suppose so. Well . . . maybe he did. I don’t know.’ Her irritation was surfacing again. ‘You’ve got to realise that I didn’t take much notice at the time. I mean, if Peter had said it was Elton John or Fergie or someone interesting I’d have paid attention, and anyway, it was a whole week later that we realised it might be important and had to think back. I mean, our whole time in Barcelona was packed with interesting sights, and this was just one little incident, over in a flash.’

‘Of course,’ Kathy said, conciliatory. ‘Police hope for the impossible from eyewitnesses.’ It was quite obvious that Audrey McNeil could tell her nothing new. ‘So Gaudí’s church is impressive, is it?’

‘Actually, it’s very weird,’ Audrey said, and opened the packet of photographs.

After a decent interval Kathy said she would have to go to keep her appointment with Mr McNeil. He had officially retired from his structural engineering practice, Audrey had said, but still went in one day a week, to the irritation of his partners. Kathy followed her directions to the city centre and found the offices in a neat Georgian terrace not far from Peterborough’s cathedral. The place was very different from the Verge Practice’s glossy building. A receptionist and a couple of other staff were packed into a series of small rooms along with a purposeful jumble of hard hats, surveying equipment and computers.

‘Audrey any help?’ her husband inquired, lifting a pile of files to the floor so that he could sit on the other side of the desk.

‘Oh, it’s always useful to hear it direct, rather than just reading it from files,’ Kathy lied.

‘Nothing, eh?’ he beamed smugly, and in that smile Kathy thought she might have seen the source of his wife’s irritation. ‘Well, I doubt if I can add anything new either, but fire away.’

Kathy got him to repeat his account, then said, ‘So you saw him get out of a taxi over to your right, then walk across in front of you from right to left.’

‘That’s it, yes. I was concentrating on his face, trying to decide if it really was him. He looked younger than the photos I’d seen in the magazines, and his hair was a bit longer, but when your people showed me the most recent picture they had of him, I knew he was the one.’

‘It’s just that Audrey seemed to feel that she saw him go into a doorway to her right, not her left.’