Faithfully: Chase & Halshaw #1 (13 page)

“Were all the calls to her mobile?”

“I think so, yes. I’m not sure, I’m afraid. Is that
important?”

“Don’t worry about it. And if I asked Amy about Wednesday
evening she’d say the same, would she?”

“There’s no reason why not. Why do you want to know,
anyway?”

“Because that was one of the other things I needed to ask
her, that’s all.” Chase noticed a frown begin to spread across Anna’s almost
unlined brow, and added quickly, “How about that drink now?”

Her smile erased the incipient frown. “Coming up,” she said,
bending forward to pick up Chase’s glass.

He sat back in his seat and watched her disappear into the
kitchen. A moment or two later he heard a phone ring briefly.

She reappeared in the doorway, holding a cordless handset
against her shoulder.

“Sorry Al, it’s my Auntie Edna. This might take a while.”

Chase sprang to his feet. “I’ll be on my way, then,” he
said.

She looked disappointed. “If you’re quite sure...”

“I’d better go,” he said, reluctantly, as he bent to tie his
shoelaces. “Thanks for everything, Anna.”

“It was a pleasure, Al,” she smiled. “We should do this
again sometime.”

“You’re right. We should.”

“You know where to find me, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. And you’ve got my number, haven’t you?”

She frowned prettily. “I don’t think so, no.”

He handed her a card. “You have now,” he smiled. “Goodbye,
Anna.”

“Bye, Al,” she replied. “See you again soon, I hope.”

Once out in the street, Chase took a deep breath and let it
out slowly. He closed his eyes, but all he could see was Anna Birkdale’s
brilliant smile, seared on to the inside of his eyelids.

Faith… must be enforced by reason

Mahatma Gandhi

Chase tossed the
Independent
on to the kitchen
worktop and poured himself another mug of filter coffee. Then he walked through
into the living room, and sat in the one armchair that wasn’t piled high with
folders and storage boxes from Lucy Faith’s office. On the coffee table in
front of him was a black ring-backed folder, with a shocking pink post-it stuck
to the front cover.

LF’s
client file. Enjoy! :o)

He took a sip of his coffee, then set the mug on the table,
on top of a pile of
Empire
magazines, and picked up the folder. Inside
were a number of clear plastic document wallets. He looked at the first one.
The first page was a legal disclaimer, signed by Lucy Faith and Arthur Fordham.
Attached to the next sheet was a passport-sized photo of a thickset, prosperous
man in his late forties. The page was a list of emergency details: contact
numbers, blood group, health conditions, and so on, again signed by Arthur
Fordham. The following page consisted of two columns of dates, one headed
“Due,” the other “Received.” Chase scanned down the list and noticed that every
received date was before the due date. The last page was blank, except for a
neatly handwritten note:

July 18
^th
, 2005. AF died of pancreatic cancer.
No flowers.
Donated £2000 to Macmillan Cancer Support.

The second wallet was for Bryn Lewis. It contained an
identical legal disclaimer and emergency details. One of the phone numbers was
crossed out and another handwritten above it.
Fiona’s new mobile,
a
handwritten note in the margin read, initialled
BWL
.
There were only four due dates, the last over two years before. Again, every
received date was before the due date.

The third was for Christopher Birkdale. Chase looked at the
photo, and saw a fleshier, angrier version of Anna’s alpha male staring back at
him. The format of the file was identical, except that the list of dates ran to
a second page. There were several gaps in the list of received dates, and some
of those that had been received were well after the due date. The last received
date was almost two years before. A note in the margin read:

CB finally moved to Spain.
Good riddance!
NB kept UK mobile number.

Chase looked at his watch, then took his mobile off the
mantelpiece, where he had left it to charge overnight, and dialled the number.

To his surprise, the phone was answered almost immediately.

“This is Chris,” barked a terse male voice, closely followed
by a burst of wind noise.

“Hello, Mr Birkdale,” said Chase, smoothly. “This is
Detective Inspector Allen Chase of the Metropolitan Police.”

“What do want?” demanded the voice. “And how the hell did
you get this number?”

“I’m calling about a former associate of yours,” Chase
continued. “I’ve got a couple of questions I’d like to ask you, if that’s OK.”

“Who’s that?”

“A woman by the name of Lucy Faith.”

“Let me think,” replied Birkdale. “Lucy? Yeah, I remember.
She was a Life Coach, or some such crap. My ex went to see her a few times, I
think.”

“Did you have any dealings with her yourself?”

“Me?” snorted Birkdale. “Why would I need a Life Coach, for
God’s sake?”

“What about My Lady Perdita?”

Silence followed, except for another blast of wind noise.

“Are you still there, sir?”

“Course I am! Hang on...”

Chase sipped his coffee. He could hear raised voices, but
couldn’t make out any of the words. Then he heard Birkdale bark, “Let ‘em play
through, Sven.” The voices seemed less agitated, and he could make out the
words
gracias
and
vale
repeated
several times.

Birkdale’s voice reappeared. “Sorry about that, Inspector.
I’m on the golf course with clients and the four behind us just caught up. We
had to let them play through.”

“We were talking about My Lady Perdita.”

“No, Inspector. You were talking about her. I’ve never heard
of her.”

“That’s very interesting, Mr Birkdale. You see, I’m looking
at her records, and I have a page in front of me with your name and phone
number on it.”

“Bollocks!

“Signed by you, sir. With a passport-sized photo of your
good
self attached
.”

Another blast of wind noise. “What about her, anyway?”

“She’s dead. Murdered. Where were you last Wednesday
evening?”

“My wife and I went out for dinner, with friends. At a
restaurant in Puerto
Banús
.”

“When were you last in the UK?”

“About three months ago. I was visiting clients, in Bristol
and Evesham. The night before I flew back I met my daughter for dinner at one
of the Heathrow airport hotels. I have to meet my lovely daughter in secret,
Inspector. Did you know that?”

“Why’s that, Mr Birkdale?”

“Because her mother’s a total bitch. That’s why!”

Chase bit his lip. Hard. “And you haven’t been back here
since?” he asked, hoping Birkdale couldn’t hear the tremor in his voice.

“No.”

“We can check with the Border Agency very easily.”

“Be my guest, Inspector. I’m telling you the truth. Now, can
I get on with my game, please? Sven’s looking thoroughly pissed off, and this
deal’s important.”

“I understand. One last question, if I may?”

“Go on.”

“How did you pay My Lady? For her services, I mean.”

“None of your fucking business!” snapped Birkdale, and the line
went dead.

That answers at least two questions, Chase thought, with a
satisfied smile, as he put his mobile aside and picked up My Lady’s client file
again.

“So what’s he like, this boss of yours?” asked Toby.

Halshaw ran a hand through her hair and smiled fondly across
the small table at her boyfriend. “Aggravating. Arrogant. Unprofessional. A
total, complete, and utter pain in the arse.”

“You enjoying working for him though, don’t you?”

She sighed. “I suppose I do, yes.”

“Why, if he’s such a pain?”

She stared out of the coffee shop window. “Oh, I don’t know,
Tobe. It’s hard to explain.”

“Try me.”

“OK. For one thing, he doesn’t talk down to me. He seems to
trust me. He leaves me to get on with things and expects me to do a good job.”

“He treats you like an equal, you mean?”

“Kind of, yes. He makes me think, too. And he even says well
done and thank you, just occasionally.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” She looked back at him and smiled. “Yes, it is.”

“He sounds like a nice guy.”

“He is, yes. Most of the time, anyway.” She dipped her
biscotti into her skinny latte and munched it thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t like to
get on the wrong side of him, though.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Not sure, really.”

“Has he got a temper?”

“Oh yes. He keeps it well hidden, but I’m sure he’s got a
temper.”

Toby nodded. “Is he married?”

“No. Divorced, I think.”

“Girlfriend, perhaps?”

“I don’t think so, no. He hasn’t mentioned one, anyway.”

“Gay, is he?”

“God, no!” she laughed.

“So should I worry?” he persisted.

She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “Of
course not,” she replied. “But I can’t help wondering what it would be like.”

Toby felt his stomach flip, and he was sure it had nothing
to do with the double espresso he had just finished. “You mean, being with
him?”

Halshaw burst out laughing. “God, no! I meant working for
the Met permanently, that’s all.”

He sighed with relief. “How would you feel about working for
him? What’s his name, your boss?”

“DI Allen Chase. And I very much doubt I’d be working for
him, unfortunately.”

“So...?”

“I love the idea of working for the Met. It’d be a fantastic
opportunity. And if I could be guaranteed having a boss like him I’d jump at
the chance.”

“Even though he’s a pain in the arse?”

“Even though he’s a pain in the arse. Trouble is, it’s a
total lottery. London’s so big, you could end up anywhere, with anybody.”

He smiled sadly. “I can’t see you spending your life as a
country copper.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied. “It has its attractions.”
She leant forward across the table and kissed him full on the lips. “Yes, it
definitely has its attractions.”

The rest of the morning did not exactly fly by. Chase
scoured the client file, but failed to find anything interesting beyond what
Halshaw had already told him. At eleven thirty he gave up, strolled down to the
shops and bought a baguette and a packet of salami from Budgens.

After an early lunch he started on Lucy Faith’s bank
accounts. It didn’t take him long to see what Halshaw had meant. There were no
mysterious transactions: every payment received was from a legitimate client,
supported by a neatly filed, printed invoice.

He got up and stared out of the window. A little girl was
playing on the swing in the garden opposite, watched by a fat, furry cat
perched precariously on the panel fence. He opened the window. After the first
rush of traffic noise, he heard birdsong, children’s laughter, and faraway
music, punctuated every couple of minutes by the drone of an aircraft on final
approach to Heathrow. All normal, all quiet. He closed the window again and
returned reluctantly to the sofa and the boxes of papers.

My Lady had boasted of her expensiveness. So there must have
been some way for her clients to pay her. But what? Another bank account? He
rifled through the boxes, but stopped when he realised that Halshaw would have
already done exactly the same thing. So if there was no other bank account....
Cash, perhaps? Unlikely. Storing large amounts of cash securely would have been
a headache. And there was no cash in the office, not even in the safe. Yet
there were meticulous lists of what looked like payment dates in the client
file.

It didn’t make sense.

He shook his head and laid the papers aside. Then he
retrieved his notebook from the jacket he had hung on the back of a dining
chair on Friday evening, and began to scan his notes from the interviews at
Logistical. The terse words conjured memories, impressions of people and
conversations: Frank Usher’s Blackberry, Paul McKinley’s beard, Priyanka Shah’s
smile, Lorna Hilton’s bone-dry humour. But nothing of any relevance to the
case. Am I missing something? he wondered. Or am I reading too much into the
mundane hopes and fears of a bunch of unexceptional people?

He paced up and down, shaking his head, and stared out of the
window again. The little girl on the swing had gone, replaced by a smaller
child being pushed by a man in a red fleece and olive green cargo shorts. The
fat, furry cat had come down from the fence and was basking in the one sunlit
patch on the patio.

His mind kept returning to Lucy Faith’s finances. Banks
often queried large payments, he knew. He remembered the grilling he had
endured when he paid his share of the money from the sale of his and Miriam’s
house into his current account. Once the counter clerk had finally satisfied
herself that the money hadn’t come from some nefarious activity, she proceeded
to spend the next twenty minutes trying unsuccessfully to sell him a range of
savings and investment products. How had My Lady managed to avoid all that? A
secret bank account, perhaps? Measures to combat money laundering made that
unlikely. Besides, there was no evidence of any other bank account, just her
business account and a joint account with her husband.

What about her customers? The vast majority of the invoices
in the box of financial papers were for small amounts, from individual clients.
But then he stumbled across a small number of larger payments, from well-known
companies: BMF Healthcare, Logistical Group, Portcullis Bank, and Delaney Associates.
My Lady averaged one or two corporate assignments per year, Chase realised.

And then there was the tax angle. He trawled through the box
of financial papers again and found a file of completed tax returns. It didn’t
take him long to realise that Lucy Faith had paid tax assiduously on the income
from her Life Coach activities. There were some deductions, true, but fairly
modest ones. Chase was convinced that an efficient accountant could have saved
her a hefty slice of her tax bill. He looked at the tax returns for earlier
years, and saw that she had received a significant amount of income from rents.
The rental income had peaked four years before, and then declined rapidly. The
most recent tax return was the first without any rental income at all. She had
detailed the amounts on her tax return, but not the addresses of the
properties.

That meant there had to be a box of property papers
somewhere. He scanned the labels of the other boxes, and riffled through those
that looked likely, but soon realised that there was nothing there. He
remembered what Dave Kelmarsh had said about the conversion of the three upper
floors of Adrian Balfour’s house into flats, and the subsequent sale. Maybe she
kept those papers at home, he thought. Not that he could see any relevance to
her murder.

He put the kettle on to boil and tidied the papers away.
Once the kettle had boiled, he made himself a cup of tea, and sat back on the
sofa to think.

Next to him, on the floor, were two boxes marked Clients. He
lifted the lid of the first box. It didn’t take him long to realise the
magnitude of the task: the box was crammed with papers, each sheet describing
another redundancy, another outsourcing, another divorce, another breakdown.
Every page described another drama, small from the outside, perhaps, yet
overwhelming to those affected. Any one of the hundreds of personal tragedies
could be the key to the murder. Or none of them, he thought, as he skimmed page
after page of neatly handwritten notes: concise, compassionate, and often
heart-breaking in their simplicity.

Chase sighed, and tidied the papers away. It was Saturday
evening, after all.