The Verge Practice (31 page)

‘Thank you, Bren,’ Brock said heavily. ‘Is there anywhere you haven’t been to yet that you were desperate to check?’

‘Not really, chief.’

‘Officially we go on looking. In reality, we stop as of now.’

‘Right.’ Bren sat down with relief.

They moved on to the money trail, the hunt for the assets of Martin Kraus and TQS Limited, which had gone cold somewhere between the Marshall Islands and Nauru.

By now it was apparent that Brock, far from trying to wrap up the whole thing neatly, seemed more intent on goading them into self-criticism, prodding them into suggesting weaknesses in their approach and lines of inquiry that they may have missed along the way. Some time during the course of this the door opened and Leon Desai walked in.

Kathy watched him, unblinking, as he gave a little nod of acknowledgement to Brock and slid into a seat at the back of the room. As he turned his head to scan the people present she dropped her eyes and stared unseeing at her notes.

By the time the report on financial matters was finished, Brock was drumming his fingers with impatience. ‘Leon,’ he called out, ‘we need a little illumination in all this fog.

Can you help us?’

‘Yes, I think I can.’ Leon rose to his feet with a ghost of a smile. The sound of his voice, soft and so familiar, made Kathy’s insides shrivel. ‘We’ve pretty well completed the forensic examinations relating to Clarke’s death, and they’re unambiguous.’

He summarised the autopsy results and the examination of the death scene. The fingerprint evidence in particular was overwhelming. He passed a book of photographs to Brock, showing ringed and numbered fingerprints in various locations in the dead man’s house.

‘The trail is very clear,’ Leon said. ‘The computer, the door to the garage, the doors and window of the car, the tape on the hose, the brandy bottle, the CD in the car player, all clearly printed.’

‘Hell,’ Brock growled. ‘I asked for a little illumination, not a bloody searchlight. It’s almost too blindingly clear.

So there’s absolutely no indication of anyone else being present?’

‘No. There are some extraneous traces, but they’re probably irrelevant.’

‘Like?’

‘There’s a heel mark on the step down into the garage from the kitchen, not made by Clarke’s shoe. Probably made at an earlier date. And there are some organic fibres adhering to the adhesive on the tape used to secure the hose to the exhaust pipe which we haven’t been able to match.’

‘Organic? What kind of organic?’

‘We’re not certain. Possibly fibres of leather.’

‘Well, make sure, Leon. Make bloody sure.’

Leon frowned at the tone in Brock’s voice. ‘Yes, of course.’ Then he added tentatively, ‘And there’s one negative result. Clarke’s widow has confirmed that the driving glove left in Charles Verge’s car did belong to her husband. It was a new pair, a birthday present from his grandson. Only they’ve run the tests on it again, everything they can think of, and they still can’t find any traces on the inside. The lab people would argue it’s never been worn.’

Brock stared at him, expression indecipherable. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I don’t know.’

Tony from Fraud, bolder than the rest, piped up.

‘What’s the deal, chief? According to the press statements we’re totally satisfied that the case is closed. Is there a doubt?’

‘There’s always a doubt,’ Brock said balefully.

‘But the confession, chief,’ Tony persisted. ‘No one knew all that about Clarke apart from Clarke himself—and us, of course.’

‘Even so, I want your reports to spell out what we haven’t done, as much as what we have, okay?’

‘Fire insurance?’

‘Something like that.’

When the meeting finally broke up, the word went out for a celebratory drink after work at the pub around the corner. Kathy overheard someone ask Leon if he’d be there, and his reply that no, he was tied up that evening. She went off to write up her report feeling bleak. It was Friday, and the void of a lonely weekend loomed ahead. It seemed incredible that it had been only last weekend that she’d flown to Barcelona. Between then and now, the whole world had changed. Then she began to feel angry with herself. Self-pity was a waste of time. There were lots of things she could do this weekend. Probably. She could get the car window repaired for a start. Then it occurred to her that Leon had left behind the door key to her flat, but not to her car. Was it a Freudian slip, she wondered? Was there some rebellious part of him that knew he was making a fool of himself and wanted her to know that?

Shortly before five p.m. Kathy was standing on a corner opposite the nondescript office block where he worked, near to the Forensic Science Laboratories. She hesitated, trying not to feel furtive. She asked herself, why not phone? Why not march across to reception and demand her key back? But she did neither. Soon a stream of people began to emerge from the building, Leon among them. She watched him turn to his left and pace away, yet still she held back. He seemed so self-contained. The thought of a scene made her feel sick. She began to follow, thinking, now I’m stalking him. If he turned around he’d recognise her pale blonde hair immediately, but he strode on, oblivious, until he came to a pub she remembered, where they’d had a drink once, long ago. He took the door with ‘Saloon Bar’ etched on its frosted glass panel, she the one marked ‘Public Bar’.

It was busy with Friday night office drinkers, and she had to work her way through the crowd before she could see him. She had no sooner caught sight of him talking to a man standing at the bar, when he looked over and spotted her. She was aware of him staring at her, disbelieving, as she pushed through to where they stood.

‘Hello, Leon.’

He looked angry and embarrassed. ‘What are you doing here, Kathy?’ he asked in a low voice.

‘I needed to speak to you. Aren’t you going to introduce me?’

The man standing at Leon’s shoulder smiled. ‘This isn’t the amazing DS Kolla, is it, Leon?’ He offered her his hand.

‘Paul Oakley.’

She took it. It felt soft and moist in hers. She was disturbed by his appearance. Her immediate reaction was a kind of relief that he seemed so unimpressive, with a rather doughy complexion, plump features and eyes that were too small. How can Leon find him more attractive than me? she wondered.

Paul chuckled—a rather smug chuckle, she decided— and said, ‘Well, let me get us all a drink. What’s yours, Kathy?’

‘Scotch,’ she said, aware that she was talking through her teeth. ‘With water.’

‘Fine.’ He turned to the bar, waving a twenty.

‘Kathy, for Christ’s sake . . .’ Leon muttered under his breath.

‘Sorry, but I had to see you.’

‘Not here —’ ‘You’ve got my car keys.’

‘What?’ This threw him.

‘You left the key to the flat, but not the car.’

‘Oh God.’ He began digging in his pockets. ‘No, these are mine. Are you sure?’

‘Positive.’ She wanted to add, and what the hell do you see in him? But she didn’t.

‘Well . . . Oh, hang on, I put them in my jeans pocket to go down to the basement, but then I never went. They must still be there. Sorry. I’ll drop them in to Queen Anne’s Gate.’

So there had been no rebellious corner of his psyche sending an SOS.

Paul handed around the glasses. ‘Well, cheers. I’ve heard so much about you, Kathy.’

‘And I’ve heard almost nothing of you.’

‘Is that right?’ He shot a conspiratorial look at Leon, who was staring unhappily at his glass of chardonnay.

‘Hasn’t Leon told you about our plans?’

Was he talking about a wedding? Kathy felt nauseous.

Paul took a card from the top pocket of his suit jacket and handed it to her. She read:
Independent Forensic Services, Paul Oakley B.Sc., Managing Director
.

Cocky bastard, Kathy thought, then wished she’d thought of another word.

‘What, is Leon joining you?’ she asked.

‘That’s the plan.’

‘Well, we’re discussing it,’ Leon said defensively.

Paul gave his chuckle. ‘Leon’s a great one for keeping things close to his chest, right, Kathy?’ For an awful moment she thought he might be going to give Leon a cuddle. ‘Big market, Kathy. Lots of opportunities.’

‘Who are your clients?’

‘We’re just at the initial marketing stage, but potentially the whole range—commercial, defence counsels, coroner’s court, even the Met, who knows?’ He grinned.

Leon seemed to pull himself upright with an effort.

‘Kathy,’ he said softly. ‘I’d like you to go now.’

She met his eye for an extended second or two, then nodded, downed her whisky in one gulp, managing not to choke, and turned on her heel.

That night she couldn’t sleep. Twisting from side to side in her bed, she worked through the things she should or shouldn’t have said, debated whether she should or should not have ever gone near that pub. The only positive thing was that she could now put a face to the man, but in some ways that only made it worse, more drab, more sordid.

She forced herself off this track by thinking about work.

Distracted by Leon, she had been unable to finish her report for Brock, which now seemed pointless anyway, with her theories of Spanish plastic surgery disproved. Why was Brock so reluctant to close the case? Did he really think it possible that Clarke’s suicide might have been staged? Who would have had a motive? No one in the Verge Practice, surely, for the scandalous death of the third senior partner would be the final blow to their chances of recovery.

Someone, then, with an interest in restoring Charles Verge’s reputation, perhaps? The thought of Verge’s mother and pregnant daughter trying to drag a comatose Clarke into his car to stage a suicide brought a grim smile. Or what about Charles Verge himself, lurking somewhere in the shadows?

But no, it made no sense. She remembered Tony’s words to Brock: ‘No one knew all that about Clarke apart from Clarke himself—and us, of course.’ The idea of one of ‘us’ being responsible produced another flicker of a smile in the darkness, cut off by the sudden thought that it wasn’t really funny. After all, if Kathy herself hadn’t spotted the discrepancy in the forensic reports, Clarke would probably still be alive. Should she put that in her report to Brock? It certainly wouldn’t do Paul Oakley any good, she thought maliciously, to underline the mistake he’d made on his last job with the Met, especially if he was now hoping to get work or a recommendation from them.

Maybe Paul Oakley murdered Clarke, she thought, aware that her mind was meandering into fantasy now, at the outer perimeter of sleep. Hard to see a motive, though.

Oakley had done Clarke a good turn, after all, by overlooking the forensic test on the pillow. The oversight had been extraordinarily damaging to the investigation as it turned out, and almost inexplicable, given the checks in the system. But suppose he hadn’t overlooked it—suppose he’d deliberately hidden it?

Kathy’s eyes snapped open. Now that was an interesting idea. There had been a case the previous year, of a civilian scene of crime officer who had supposedly approached a thief with an offer to lose the fingerprints he’d found at the site of a robbery. Oakley had been on the point of leaving the force; suppose he’d seen the opportunity to make a bit of extra cash by offering to bury an embarrassing bit of evidence that placed Clarke in Miki Norinaga’s bed? And when it finally came to light, what would Clarke’s reaction be? Would he contact Oakley? Threaten him with exposure?

Kathy sighed and turned over again. It was nonsense, of course, but a satisfying fantasy. Maybe sleep would now be possible.

21

B
y eleven on Sunday morning, Suzanne Chambers had decided that enough was enough. Brock had arrived at lunchtime the day before, and it was soon clear that all was not well. Her grandchildren had picked up the signs quickly, and made themselves scarce after the first few threatening growls. She didn’t regard him as a moody man, nor especially self-indulgent, though living on his own was bound to have its effect. So she put his current behaviour down to exhaustion after the climax of his big case, and lack of sleep compounded by an inevitable sense of anticlimax.

Yet that night she was aware of him twisting and turning, sleepless in the bed beside her. Overtired, she thought, and tried not to be disappointed by his perfunctory and preoccupied gestures of affection.

Over Sunday breakfast things were no better. He brightened briefly over bacon and eggs, and produced a couple of comics that he’d bought for the kids and forgotten to give them when he’d arrived. But when Stewart, encouraged by this, asked him eagerly about the Verge case, he was met with an ominous silence. Suzanne didn’t like the hurt look in the boy’s eyes. Then later, when they were reading the Sunday papers together, he abruptly threw the pages aside and jumped to his feet, marching out into the back garden with a muttered comment about fresh air.

She picked up the page that had apparently provoked this, and saw the articles on Charles Verge, detailing the triumphant restoration of his reputation, the excitement in architectural circles over the revolutionary design of his last great building, and the latest rumours about the death of his partner.