The Verge Practice (20 page)

It’s nothing, she told herself. It happens all the time, to everyone, at random. Nobody hurt, no harm done, just a bloody pest. She loaded her groceries into the boot and walked back towards the building, looking between the cars as she walked. There was no sign of her briefcase. It was scuffed and worthless, and they would chuck it once they realised it held nothing of value, no electronic organiser, no mobile phone—but probably miles away.

And it was just then that her phone, fortunately stowed in her shoulder bag, began to chirp like a hungry chick in its nest. Of all the people she least wanted to hear from at that moment, Robert the committee administrative officer was certainly one.

‘I’m sorry, who?’ she queried, trying to think who the hell he was.

‘Serving the Crime Strategy Working Party,’ he reminded her.

‘Oh, oh, of course. Sorry.’

‘We’re wondering if you could attend a special meeting, Kathy.’

She groaned inwardly. ‘Oh, I suppose so, yes. When were you thinking . . .?’

‘Now, actually.’

‘I’m in darkest Bucks at the moment, Robert,’ she heard herself snap. ‘And my car’s just been broken into.’

‘Oh dear,’ he said blithely. ‘Is it driveable?’

‘I assume so.’ The ignition switch hadn’t looked as if it had been tampered with. Why would they want to steal a vehicle like that, after all? ‘It’s just the window that’s been smashed and some stuff taken.’

‘Suppose I get a secure parking spot for you in the basement here. Will that help?’

Kathy was impressed. Anyone who could command a parking place beneath headquarters building was to be respected.

‘Just give my name. In an hour?’

Kathy continued into the hypermarket and found the manager’s office, where she reported her break-in to a pink-faced youth. As he painstakingly recorded the details in a book, she speculated that it might be his mates who were doing the cars.

‘Have there been others?’ she asked.

‘Erm . . . I don’t think it’s company policy to give out that kind of information.’

‘I’m a police officer.’ She showed her ID.

‘Oh . . . Yeah, one or two.’

‘I couldn’t see any cameras out there.’

‘Only at the doors of the building,’ he said.

‘What’s your local cop shop?’

She took a note of the phone number and gave him her card. ‘I have to go back to London now. Tell them to ring me if they need to talk to me.’

Within the hour Kathy was shown up to a private office, the door of which bore Robert’s name. He was expansive and quietly authoritative, quite unlike the reticent figure she’d seen in the committee meetings. She took the seat he indicated and accepted a cup of coffee.

‘Neither of us has time to waste, Kathy,’ he said, ‘so I’ll come to the point. We’re becoming rather concerned about the lack of progress of the CSWP. I don’t need to tell you that it has been less than productive so far. Now it may be that our choice of some of the members was unwise, but we can’t do anything about that now.’

Kathy was surprised by his frankness and wondered uneasily where this was leading.

‘The crucial point seems to be the chairmanship. It’s become clear, I think, that Desmond’s position as chair has become untenable. Would you agree?’

‘I thought that wasn’t negotiable.’

‘There may be a way around it that would satisfy everyone, at least sufficiently to allow us to move forward.

I’ve been canvassing opinion, and I’d like to run this past you.’

‘Fine.’

‘We’d like you to take on the chair.’

‘Me?’

‘It seems there is no other solution which the whole committee would support, and from our point of view it is crucial that the chair is a member of the service.’ He sat back and beamed at her. ‘So there we are.’

Kathy realised that her sense of confrontation was rather greater than it had been when faced with her robbed car. ‘That’s very gratifying . . .’

Robert nodded. ‘It won’t be easy, but you’ll have our full support.’

Kathy wondered about his continual references to ‘we’ and ‘our’. Did he mean himself or was there a whole hierarchy of senior management involved?

‘And I do appreciate the honour, but I’m heavily involved in a very important case right now . . .’

‘The Verge case, yes I know, but there are many others working on that. We’re sure you can be spared. Given the time that’s been lost already, the CSWP is going to rely on some intensive work by its chair, especially in the next few weeks leading up to the conference.’

The conference! A mild panic attack gripped Kathy at the thought of presenting the committee’s spurious findings to five hundred senior police and community figures.

‘The fact is, Robert, that I just don’t think I’m cut out for that kind of thing. I haven’t had any real experience.

I don’t speak well in that sort of setting . . .’

Robert chuckled and shook his head. ‘We think otherwise.’ Who the hell is ‘we’? Kathy thought. Does it include Brock? She recalled his throwaway remark about this being her big chance.

‘We have every confidence that you can handle it splendidly. And it will be a tremendous opportunity for you to
shine
, Kathy. To be
noticed
.’

That’s exactly what I’m terrified of, she thought. ‘Have you spoken about this to DCI Brock?’

Robert consulted a list. ‘Brock . . . Brock . . . no.

Should I?’

‘He’s SIO on the Verge case. I think he may feel he needs me there.’

‘Indispensable are we, Kathy?’ Robert smiled indulgently. ‘Well, no, but . . .’

‘DCI Brock will fall in with our requirements, I have no doubt. This is a crucial matter, Kathy. I don’t think I need to emphasise that, do I?’

‘No, of course not. Can I have the weekend to think about it?’

Robert looked disappointed, as if she’d failed a test.

‘What’s there to think about, Kathy? Will it help to clarify your thoughts if I tell you that the Deputy Assistant Commissioner has agreed to the change, and wants a quick resolution?’

Oh thanks, Kathy thought. In other words, it’s an order.

She hurried out of New Scotland Yard, leaving her car in the basement. They can keep it for another hour or two, she thought, looking at the cars exiting from the ramp, senior staff going home for the weekend. Her little wounded Renault had looked particularly pathetic down there among the BMWs.

Brock’s secretary, Dot, nodded her through as soon as she appeared. ‘He was trying to reach you, Kathy.’

‘I was in a meeting. I turned my phone off. Was it about the committee I’m on?’

‘No idea. Go on through.’

He was hunched forward in front of a video machine, Bren Gurney at his side. He looked up as she came in and jabbed the remote at the screen. ‘Kathy! Just the person.

Come in and look at this.’

‘Dot says you were trying to reach me.’

‘Mm. How did you get on with Charlotte?’

‘Okay. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t told anyone about Clarke being the father, and she was convinced he wouldn’t have either. He’s terrified his wife will find out.’

‘Yes, well, things have moved forward. An hour after he left us he came back with a lawyer in tow, wanting to make a new statement. Grab a seat and watch.’

As they waited for the tape to rewind, Kathy added, ‘It’s possible that Clarke raped Charlotte. She was equivocal, but I think that’s what it amounts to.’

Bren said, ‘Maybe he forced himself on Miki, too.’

‘That’s what I wondered,’ Kathy said. ‘His description of how they came to be lovers sounded odd, sort of mechanical.’

‘Yeah,’ Bren agreed. ‘Also, you’ve got to wonder about the relationship between Clarke and Verge. Why was Clarke deflowering his partner’s nearest and dearest?

Weren’t there any other willing women around the place?

Was his real motive to punish Verge?’

‘Interesting,’ Brock murmured. ‘Here we go. Watch this.’

The screen cleared to show four men sitting around the table: Brock and the Fraud Squad officer, Tony, and Sandy Clarke and his solicitor. After Brock’s caution and introductions, it was the solicitor who spoke. He was aiming to sound confident, Kathy thought, but somehow it wasn’t coming off, as if he were still wrestling in his mind with the implications of what his client had told him. He understood that a reward had been offered for information on the whereabouts of Charles Verge, and he wished to put a proposition to the police on behalf of his client. First, he wanted to remind the police that his client had an unblemished record, and that the catastrophic events of May had caused great damage to him personally and to his employees.

In light of this, he was willing to offer certain information to the police which might assist them with their inquiries, and he was willing to waive any claim to reward moneys to which the information might give rise, on condition that he be offered immunity from prosecution for failing to bring this information forward earlier.

‘What a load of crap,’ Bren breathed.

On screen Brock evidently agreed with this view, though he framed his refusal slightly more politely.

The solicitor began to say that he would have to consult with his client, but Clarke cut across him. ‘It’s all right. I’ll say my piece.’ He turned to Brock. ‘You asked me if the name Martin Kraus meant anything to me. It does, or at least M. Kraus does.’

Perhaps it was the lighting in the interview room or the quality of the tape, but to Kathy it seemed as if Clarke’s whole face had stretched tighter across his bone structure in the few hours since she’d last watched him from the observation room. His voice, too, seemed harsher and more strained in pitch.

‘On the morning of Saturday the twelfth of May, a couple of hours after we’d got back from the airport, I had a phone call in my office from Charles.’

‘That’s Charles Verge, your business partner?’ Brock asked, for the record.

‘Yes. He sounded rather breathless, as if he was in a rush.

He said that something had come up and he had to go out on an urgent matter. He didn’t explain what it was or where he was going, but he said he had a favour to ask me. He needed some funds transferred right away to the account of an acquaintance, and he didn’t have time to see to it himself.

It was a family matter, personal, and he didn’t want it to go through the firm’s accounts. He wondered if I could see to it for him from my own funds, and he would square it with me when he saw me for the Wuxang City presentation on the following Monday. He was apologetic because the amount was quite large for such short notice, thirty thousand sterling. I assured him it wasn’t a problem. He said it was a sensitive matter and he’d be grateful if I would keep it completely to myself. He had left the details of the account to be credited in a note on the desk in his office.’

‘Did you understand him to be phoning you from his apartment in the Verge Practice building?’

‘I got the impression he’d already left there, on his way elsewhere, and that was why he couldn’t give me the details over the phone.’

‘All right, go on.’

‘I went into his office and found the note with the details of the account he wanted credited. During the course of the day I made arrangements over the phone to transfer thirty thousand pounds from my personal cash management account to that account. I remember that it was at a Barclays branch, in Barcelona. I don’t have a note of the account number any more, but my bank must have a record. I had forgotten the name of the recipient until you mentioned it this afternoon. It was M. Kraus.’

On screen Brock was leaning forward to say something to Tony, who was shaking his head.

Brock said, ‘Yes, well, we’ll get you to obtain those details from your bank for us, Mr Clarke. Go on.’

‘That’s basically it. At the time I didn’t attach any particular significance to it. I expected to see Charles on the Monday. When he didn’t come to the presentation and then we found Miki’s body, the shock drove the business out of my mind for a while. It was only later that day, when I was actually being interviewed by the police, that I remembered it. I was talking about something else, and it suddenly hit me in mid-sentence that perhaps the thirty thousand Charles had asked for was for himself, to help him disappear. I had to decide right there, in the middle of talking about something else, whether to mention this. I remembered how insistent he had been that I tell no one about it, and I decided to err on the side of loyalty to my friend and say nothing until I had had a chance to think it through. Once I’d made that decision, of course, it became impossible to go back on it without making myself appear to be involved. I’m sorry. I suppose I assumed you’d find out where he was without my help anyway. I realise now I should have said something.’

Very glib, Kathy thought.

‘You’re suggesting that Martin Kraus is an alias for Charles Verge?’ Brock asked on screen.

‘I’ve no idea. Maybe it’s the name of an intermediary, someone who can pass the money on to him.’