False Charity (3 page)

‘Why would he have done that? He wanted to join us, not destroy us. He won't have told anyone.'

Richie pointed his finger at her. ‘He might have told the receptionist.'

Noel brushed that aside. ‘He told her he needed my number to check up on something for Saturday. She's too dumb to work it out. I'll take her out again, make sure she forgets.'

Lena was frowning. ‘That reminds me. We need to get rid of his mobile phone, if it's got Noel's number on it.'

‘What a fool he was,' said the boy, grinning. He put on a camp accent. ‘“I know what you're up to. I can help you, if you cut me in.”' The boy rocked with laughter. ‘He said, “Cut me in!” and we cut him up!'

Richie grimaced. ‘If you hadn't lost your temper, we could have paid him off and no one any the wiser.'

The woman shook her head. ‘I never liked the idea of cutting him in. This way is better.' She needed to convince herself of that.

Tuesday, evening

C
oral surveyed the mess left by the party. ‘Left you to clear up, have they? Not surprised. Give me an apron and I'll help you get things straight while we talk, right?'

‘Oh, come on, now.' Maggie put both hands on her non-existent hips, preparing to do battle. ‘Mrs Payne, you know Max said he couldn't help you.'

‘What young Max said is neither here nor there,' declared Coral, seizing an apron, and tying herself into it with little jerks. ‘Mrs Abbot is here now, and we don't have to take any more notice of Mr Hufflepuff.'

Bea repressed a grin. That description of Max was all too accurate, though of course she'd never hurt him by using it to his face. ‘Coral, dear, I'm delighted to see you, but I've only just flown in from the other side of the world and I'm shattered.'

Coral cleared a space on the kitchen table, though how she'd done it, Bea couldn't imagine, for it had looked impossible a moment before. ‘I told Max, why don't you get me and my team to cater for your mother's homecoming? But no, he wouldn't hear of it. That one always was penny wise and pound foolish. Maggie, make yourself useful; take a tray and start collecting glasses from the other room. Bea, you could do with a cuppa and a bite to eat, if I know anything about it.'

Maggie squawked, ‘You can't just come in here and—'

Coral began to rinse glasses and stack them in the dishwasher. ‘Mrs Abbot and I have worked together more times than you've had hot lunches, girl. She knows I wouldn't be invading her privacy like this unless it was important, and it seems to me it's just as well that I did. Can't you see she needs something hot inside her and a quiet sit down and chat before she sleeps off that terrible journey, because she didn't eat anything on the plane, I'll be bound? First she must eat; then we'll talk.'

Coral pulled out a kitchen stool, removed a couple of dirty plates, wiped the stool down, and gave Bea a gentle push in its direction.

Bea reached for a kitchen tissue, and blew her nose. ‘Thank you, Coral. Maggie, it's all right. Coral and I are old friends.'

‘Yes, but Max said that I wasn't to let Mrs Payne bother you now the agency is closing down.' The girl's chin stuck way out. Really, she was a very plain-looking creature.

Coral slapped the door of the dishwasher shut. ‘Tip the rest of those nasty little bought canapés into the bin, and let's see what we can find in the way of proper food in the cupboards, shall we? I remember how it was when my husband died. I kept myself so busy I forgot to eat properly, and then one day I tripped over the cat and sat down and howled for hours and hours. Then I made myself a big cottage pie, ate the lot, and felt much better.'

‘I'm just fine,' said Bea.

‘You're far too thin,' said Coral. ‘I always say that when a woman's head looks too big for her body, she's been neglecting herself. Or dieting too hard. Which is it this time?' The kettle boiled and she made Bea tea in a giant mug, sugaring it liberally.

Bea began to laugh, with a trace of hysteria. ‘After Hamilton died, I flew on to the South Island of New Zealand because we'd booked the flights and he'd been looking forward to it. It seemed logical at the time to carry on with our schedule, though now I think it was ridiculous. The scenery was spectacular but I couldn't eat anything. I'm so glad he managed to see so much of the world before he died. He enjoyed everything right up to the end.' She blew her nose again.

Coral nodded, emphatically. ‘That was Hamilton, all right.'

‘Coral, do you remember when you were doing that big wedding in the middle of the holiday season and we couldn't get enough help for love or money, and Hamilton filled in as master of ceremonies, and Max and I helped out? And Max emptied a tray of champagne flutes into the bin, and Hamilton took the blame?'

Coral was laughing. ‘Max wouldn't like his pals at the House of Commons to hear that he'd once earned money as a waiter, would he?'

‘Oh, I don't know. They might think it proved he understood the working man. Let's see what's for supper.' She checked the fridge and freezer. Nicole had stocked up for her with some frozen meals; a pleasant surprise. The child Maggie was looking thunderous, so Bea tried to defuse the situation.

‘Don't look so shocked, Maggie. In those days we turned our hands to anything. Silver service, escorting children around London, clearing houses when old people died, and worse!'

There was a tinge of mischief in her tone. Maggie looked stunned, but Coral giggled. ‘I remember when …'

‘Not in front of the child,' said Bea, mock serious. ‘It was hard work, Maggie, but it was fun, too. Or is distance lending enchantment? Will you join us in a scratch supper, Coral?'

Between them Coral and Maggie cleared up the mess left by the party, while Bea put some frozen meals into the microwave. She wondered if Nicole ever did any cooking; probably not.

Maggie declined to join them for supper, but insisted on dealing with the stains on the carpet next door while Coral and Bea ate at the kitchen table. Bea wondered if the child was a snob but reckoned she'd probably been trained by Max not to associate with ‘the help'.

Bea ate as much as she could. It wasn't as much as she should, perhaps, but better than she had been doing lately.

Afterwards she and Coral had some coffee in the sitting room, so that they could sit by the open French windows and look out over the garden in the quiet of the early evening. Planes droned on overhead on their way to Heathrow Airport, but they were never more than a background reminder of the world outside. Bea pushed back fatigue, eased off her shoes and sighed with relief.

‘I must try to keep awake for another hour, if I can. So, what's the matter, Coral?'

For the first time Coral looked unsure of herself. Her tiny feet hardly touched the ground, seated as she was in a Victorian button-backed armchair. ‘Maybe I should apologize, breaking in on you the day you got back. Truth to tell, I got my dander up good and proper and forgot you might be too tired to listen.'

‘It must be important or you wouldn't have come.'

‘It's important, yes. Max won't help, saying it isn't his responsibility, and maybe he's right in law. I know the difference between right and wrong, and I say he's wrong. Of course, now he's an important person with a salary in Parliament, he doesn't want to be tidying up loose ends from the agency, and maybe I shouldn't have come bothering you but I didn't know what else to do. I've tried ringing him, loads of times, and coming round to speak to him. All he says is that I can take it to the small claims court if I wish. But I can't do that, can I? No more than I can go to the police.'

‘Ah. No proof – of what?'

Coral shrugged. ‘It was always a bother to me, keeping the wages straight, so I got my son-in-law to look after that side of things.'

Bea jerked herself awake. ‘You let that no good son-in-law of yours keep your books? After the hash he made of costings for the open evening at the art gallery? I thought you said years ago, that you'd never let him loose on your books again.'

‘He's gone and done a business degree since then, and my daughter's pregnant and begged me to give him another chance. And it was for a big do, wasn't it? Charity organization. Proper letterhead and a cabaret and little pin things to give away. There was to be an auction and the guest list was to die for.

‘Max passed the job to me, said it would do me a lot of good, get my name known with a better circle of people, people who count. I'd just lost one of my oldest accounts when they moved out of London so I was looking for something to fill the gap. The function was to be held in the Garden Room at a big roadside pub down the Great West Road.

‘Silver service, of course. I had to call in a few extra to help, and my sister helped out with preparing the food and though I say it myself, it was a sight for sore eyes and not much left over, I can tell you. The place was packed. Loads of people complimented me on the food and I thought I was on the up and up. Till the charity's cheque bounced.'

Bea drew in her breath. She knew how much these events could cost. ‘How much were you out of pocket?' She'd noticed that two of her pictures were crooked on the wall, so she got up to straighten them.

‘Thousands. Far more than I could afford to lose. That wasn't the worst of it. I rang Max and told him what had happened and he said he was sure there'd been some mistake, that he'd contact the people who ran the charity about it for me. Sure enough, they rang me the next day to apologize. A woman it was. Nice as pie. She said it must be some glitch or other and the cheque had probably been taken from the wrong account. Their accountant was on holiday but they'd send me a replacement cheque as soon as he got back.'

‘And did they?' She plumped up some cushions.

‘Wait for it! She said they wanted to make it up to me. She could charm for Britain, that one. She said they'd another function coming up, even bigger. Would I be interested in doing that for them? Meanwhile she'd see that I got my money as soon as possible. Like a fool, I believed her.

‘The next function was at the Priory Country Club, much the same as the first one, only bigger. All bare shoulders and bling for the women and silk shirts for the men, if you know what I mean. It's true I got a cheque from the charity the day before the second event but of course there wasn't time for me to get it cleared by the bank beforehand. That bounced, too. As did their cheque for the second event.'

Bea felt dizzy. She climbed on to a low stool to straighten the mirror over the mantelpiece and had to hold on to it, to prevent herself from tumbling off. ‘So you didn't get a penny for either? Why didn't you go to the police? No, don't tell me. Your son-in-law wasn't up to date with his book-keeping?'

‘Something like that,' said Coral, in carefully neutral tones.

Bea surmised that he'd probably been paying the staff cash in hand without covering insurance or tax or keeping proper records. If that was the case, Coral couldn't go to the police without getting him and herself into trouble. Bea straightened the mirror, noting to her horror that there were gashes in the wall behind it. Was this where Max and Nicole had hung their plasma television? Well, the mirror would disguise the problem for the time being.

Coral attempted a smile. ‘I'd forgotten you could never sit still for five minutes.'

Bea got off the stool, and sat. ‘I'm listening. What did you do then?'

‘I didn't let it rest, of course. I came straight back to Max but by that time he'd got into Parliament and lost interest in the agency, and was hardly ever here. That holy terror of a woman that used to keep the books here, she'd retired, and that girl Maggie is good at polishing furniture but hopeless in the office. When I finally got to see Max he said he was sorry, he didn't know what had gone wrong, but the agency wasn't liable for anything other than introducing us to the client.

‘So I went round to the address on the charity's letterhead and, guess what … not a sign of them there! And their telephone number was out of service.'

‘Ouch,' said Bea. ‘A proper con job, and you can't go to the police.'

‘Then I heard you were coming back after poor Mr Hamilton, ah well, we all have to meet our Maker some time, don't we, and I was glad you gave yourself a bit of a holiday afterwards even if it was by yourself.

‘But the thing is, I've lost so much money that I don't know which way to turn. I help my daughter and son-in-law out with their mortgage, you see, and I haven't been able to pay it for four months. She, my daughter, is eight months pregnant and in a nervous state, and all my son-in-law will do is blame me for taking the job on. That's why, the moment I heard you were on your way back, I said to myself that you'd help me even if Max has washed his hands of it. I want you to find those dodgy dealers and make them pay up.'

Tired as she was, Bea shot up out of her chair. ‘Coral, no! I couldn't.'

Coral folded her arms. ‘Why not? If anyone can do it, you can.'

‘What? We're not a detective agency. We don't hunt down criminals or follow erring wives or husbands. Besides, the agency is being closed down.'

‘I'll believe that when the moon turns blue.'

‘What?' Bea put her hands to her head. ‘Which bit don't you understand?'

‘You've never in your life turned your back on a job half done. How long have we known one another? Twenty years, maybe more. You and Mr Hamilton, God rest him, you've never let a client down.'

‘Oh, come off it. There's been times when we've had to say we couldn't take a case, and when things haven't worked out quite as we'd have wanted them to.'

‘And were there times when Mr Hamilton asked me to do a job without vetting the client properly?'