False Money (21 page)

Bea noted the effect they were having on one another and sighed. ‘But Jamie is expected to marry and produce children?'

‘That's so. We used to have a laugh, he and I, when some girl or other tried to get him interested in her. His father died last year, and he's been seeing a girl recently . . . She's very pretty, but I didn't think he was serious about her. But he popped the question yesterday. The idea that they might die soon has made both him and Duncan rush into action.'

‘You said Duncan had chosen a suitable girl; what about Jamie?'

A shrug. ‘As I said, she's a pretty little thing.' Hermia was neither pretty nor little. ‘She's, well, a man's woman. I think that would be the right way to describe her. I'm sure she'll suit him very well.'

Bea made a note that Hermia didn't like Jamie's fiancée. Perhaps she wouldn't have liked anyone who married her childhood friend?

Oliver said, ‘You're trying to tell us that Lord Fairley hasn't the brains to murder Tomi, Harry and Nick in the ways we know they were killed?'

‘Jamie hasn't that kind of mind.' No hesitation. She smiled to herself. ‘He's not a complicated sort of person. You'll see for yourself, won't you? I told him you'd want to meet him, and he says he'll be in later on this afternoon if you want to pop over.'

Bea put a query mark by Jamie. ‘Next on the list is Gregor.'

She dropped her eyes. ‘I don't know. He's tricky Dicky, wily as a fox. His father's Hungarian. He made a lot of money, though no one quite knows how. Gregor's handsome, charm incarnate, chucks money around, has a beautiful house, gave his ex-wife an adequate divorce settlement and is still friends with her. Everyone's good friends with Gregor; he won't let you be otherwise.'

‘Does he dream of millions to come?'

Again she shut down on them. She shrugged. ‘Possibly. He's got companies with offshore accounts, and they've got companies which have spawned yet more companies. He takes over this, sells that and buys Impressionist paintings. Some of his affairs are being investigated by the Fraud Squad, and yet he seems totally unconcerned, says they're not even warm and will give up soon. If this were a three-card trick, I'd say Gregor did it. But it's not a trick. It's deliberate murder. And somehow I can't see it.'

Oliver said, ‘He's the one who could mop up a few extra million without feeling it?'

An indulgent smile. ‘Oh yes. Diamonds for the latest piece of arm candy, a yacht in the Med, more visits to the bankers in Saudi Arabia. He has the ambition to buy a football club some day. But murder? I suppose I can see him arranging for someone to have an accident, but . . . No, I still don't see him knocking off old friends.'

‘But you want it to be him. Why?'

She stared into the distance. ‘It's like that old party game. If you have five people in a balloon and have to lose one of them so that the rest of you survive, then who do you throw out? You're right. My head says to vote for Gregor, even while my heart is saying he didn't do it. He's the only one who's refused to see you, by the way. Now, I really must go.'

She made as if to rise, but Bea stopped her. ‘You've missed out Claudine.'

Hermia picked up her handbag. ‘It's not her. She wouldn't have the time to think up such things. She's a practical, down-to-earth, deputy head of a secondary modern which always gets good Ofsted reports. Her long term, live-in relationship went sour last autumn, and she threw him out for getting drunk every night. She has someone else who seems a better match now, but I haven't met him. She said she'd be at home after school for a couple of hours if you wanted to drop by. Now, I really must go.'

This time she made it to her feet. She looked a question at Chris, who nodded. He said, ‘I'm superglue, coming with you. I'm serious; I don't want your money.'

She flashed a smile at him, waved goodbye to Bea, ignored Oliver, and swept out.

Bea's phone rang, and she answered it.

‘Your son,' said Miss Brook and put the call through.

Bea said, ‘Max? I rang earlier, but Nicole—'

‘It would be best if you didn't bother her for a while. I ought to have gone up north to the constituency last night, but decided to stay down overnight to look after her, so I'm in a hurry to get away now. Nicole's gone down with influenza, so we've got a nanny in to look after Pippin. Nicole needs bed rest and a quiet life. She asked me to phone you, to make it clear that she doesn't want or need visitors for the time being.'

Bea felt as if she'd been stabbed to the heart. She couldn't speak.

‘You do understand, Mother, don't you?'

She cleared her throat. ‘Max, I thought I was helping. What about the shopping and cleaning . . . ? Why won't you let me help?' She wanted to wail and cry, but knew that would only annoy him more.

‘The nanny is properly trained and up to date with all the latest methods in child care. Her references are beyond reproach.'

‘Is Pippin going to be all right?'

He barked, ‘Of course he is.'

‘How long do you think it will be before I can come over?'

He clicked off his phone. She put her receiver down. She was going to cry. But no, not in front of Oliver, who must be going through his own version of hell at the way he'd been ignored by his best friend. Think about Oliver, and perhaps you won't cry.

Oliver was sitting in his chair, hadn't moved since Chris and Hermia walked past him and out of the room. His fingertips were together, one leg was casually draped over the other. His eyes were hooded.

Chris and Oliver had been friends at school. Chris had been the only one from Oliver's past to keep in touch with him when he was thrown out by his adopted family. When Maggie had brought Oliver back home with her and he'd started working for the agency, Chris had drifted along, too. It was Chris who had introduced Oliver to the Health Club, which had made so much difference to his physical well-being.

On the other hand, Oliver had always been the steadying influence on the mercurial Chris's life. They'd partied, and helped one another out in every way you could think of. Chris had had girlfriends, which Oliver hadn't; at least, not to Bea's knowledge. But Chris had never taken a girl seriously until now.

Five minutes ago Chris had walked past Oliver and out of the room without so much as a nod in his direction. Oliver must be feeling as if he'd been cut in two.

Bea got out a handkerchief, went to stand by the window, looking out. Blew her nose. How could Max have . . . ? He didn't realize, of course, how much he'd hurt his mother. Of course he didn't. And poor little Pippin . . .

Bea blew her nose again. Told herself to face up to it. Young people didn't want grannies telling them how to manage their lives.

A rustle of cloth. Oliver came to stand beside her, also looking out on to the garden. ‘The snow's all gone and the sun's come out.'

So they weren't going to talk about Chris and Hermia. Nor about Max and Pippin.

She nodded, sniffing. ‘The leaves will soon be showing green. I really must try to get a walk in the park.'

‘I'll come with you. That is, if Miss Brook doesn't catch us first and tell us we can't go out till we've eaten up all our greens.'

Bea managed to laugh. Used her handkerchief one last time. ‘I suppose we ought to look at the junk room, see what needs saving and what we can throw away. Otherwise, Maggie will have the builders in before we can turn round.'

They almost tiptoed up the stairs to the first floor. Once there, they looked at one another and laughed. Bea said, ‘I think I promised to ring a client back this morning. Do you think Miss Brook will haul me back down to deal with it?'

‘I was going to have another look at Tomi's laptop.'

They climbed the stairs to the top landing. The door to the crowded box room stood open, and someone – Maggie? – had already pulled out some cartons to see what they contained. Bea inspected the first one. ‘These were Hamilton's. Early seventy-eight vinyl records. Do we junk them?'

‘I'll sell them on eBay for you, if you want to get rid of them. Some of them may be collectors' items. Do you think Hermia was being frank with us about her friends?'

‘No, I don't think she was. Some things rang true; she likes and trusts Claudine. I think. When people look you in the eye like that and swear someone's squeaky clean, I start wondering what magic tricks they're up to. Did you think Hermia was sincere about Claudine?'

‘It sounded to me as if Claudine's too much like Hermia for them to be close friends.'

‘Maybe they are just that. Hermia doesn't approve of Lord Fairley's very new fiancée, does she?'

‘There may be a touch of jealousy there. Even if she didn't want him herself, she might not be best pleased that he'd chosen someone else.'

Oliver had obviously decided not to speak of Chris. He pulled another box out. ‘Railway lines?'

‘Oh!' Bea smiled, remembering. ‘That's Max's toy train set. There should be three boxes of it. He was mad keen on it for a couple of years and ran it all over the floor up here. I'll ask him what he wants done with it.'

‘Next, two boxes of old paperbacks from the fifties, sixties, seventies. I wouldn't mind dipping into those some time.'

‘Then you'll have to build yourself some shelves.' She fingered some, thinking back to the days when she was married to Piers, straight from school. Long before she met Hamilton. ‘When we were young, we got planks of wood and some bricks from a builders' yard and made shelves that way for all our books . . . For everything, in fact. If you want to keep these books, we'd better get some shelving built into the new room for you.'

‘What did you think of the banker, Duncan?'

‘He's all right. Looks like a baby, but has a sharp mind. He seemed fond of Julian and genuinely distressed about Tomi. He wasn't really bothered about Harry and Nick, even though he was shocked by their deaths. He likes everything in its proper place, and this affair is upsetting to one of his temperament.'

‘Old curtains.' Oliver opened another box. ‘Any good? Oh, probably not.'

‘Moths or mice?'

‘Broken glass. Someone put some photographs on top of the curtains, and then someone else has put a box of books on top of them and smashed the glass.'

‘Oh dear. That was probably me. Hamilton took down some old photos of his aunts – the ones who brought him up after his parents died – because the frame had come unglued. He intended to have them reframed, but never bothered.'

Oliver tipped the broken glass to one side, so that Bea could retrieve the photographs from what had once been a double frame. Two black and white pictures of women of a certain age, with kind but firm expressions. Old-fashioned clothes and hairstyles.

She said, ‘These two sisters founded and ran the agency. They left it to Hamilton, who hadn't intended to take it on, but did. Then I came along, worked with him in it, and took it on when he died. I never knew them. A pity.'

Oliver looked over her shoulder. ‘We could have the photos repaired and blown up. We could get them properly framed – I know someone who does that – and hang them downstairs in the agency rooms, together with a picture of you. Our clients would like the idea that the agency carries on through the years, guided by people of integrity. Maggie's picture will hang there one day, too. Maybe mine, as well?'

She was going to say his photo didn't belong there because he was going to make his name in the academic world, but stopped herself just in time. Oliver needed to belong somewhere, and he had, after all, done as much as anyone to get the agency back on its feet after Hamilton's death.

‘Of course. And in due course of time, when you're hobnobbing with the great and good of this world, I'll ask Piers to paint you, and we'll put that picture up by Hamilton's in the sitting room.'

He coloured up, but said, ‘Nonsense. You can't discriminate like that. What about Maggie? She'd have my guts for garters if I were painted and not her.'

She managed to laugh. ‘Yes, of course. You're right. Can you get these photos done for me, please? And now –' she looked at her watch – ‘we'd better catch something to eat, shove something in the oven for tonight's supper, and be on our way, if we're going to see Lord Fairley today.'

THIRTEEN

E
state agents' eyes glisten when a Chelsea house – however small – comes on the market. Lord Fairley's house was early Victorian, and though not actually on the river, was a mere hundred yards away from it down a quiet street. Dark red brick, symmetrical large windows, three stories, idiosyncratic roofline. It was the kind of house Bea imagined Oscar Wilde might have lived in, or Macauley, or Dickens. It reminded her of carriages, ladies who wore crinolines, butlers in frock coats, nursery maids in caps, and parlour maids in black.