False Pretences (21 page)

‘I'll deal with him in a minute,' said Bea.

Maggie picked up her tote bag and hesitated. She didn't put her anxiety into words, but Bea did it for her. ‘You're worried about Zander. Yes, I am, too. A spot of prayer might help?'

Maggie nodded, squared her shoulders, and went out to do battle with the world.

Bea finished making an enormous shopping list for food. The phones were quiet. Hadn't CJ promised to ring? Oh well; promises, promises. Miss Brook rang to say she was going to be in a little late as she'd had a poor night but was definitely on the mend . . . which Bea took leave to doubt. But if Miss Brook was coming in, that would free her up for other things. Though not, of course, to look into Honoria's mind.

Cynthia arrived on the dot, and Bea spent a good hour with her, going through the systems. Cynthia was just a trifle too bright and breezy for Bea, but a godsend in view of the staff situation.

At eleven Bea made some strong coffee and took it upstairs to Oliver, who was still pretending to be asleep. The blinds were still drawn against the daylight, and she twitched them up.

‘Rise and shine, my lad. We've got work to do. Because if we don't put our minds to it, Zander goes to prison.'

Oliver burrowed under the pillow.

She clinked a spoon against his mug. ‘Strong coffee. A cold shower. Shave and dress. Ten minutes. Downstairs in my office, in your right mind and with that all-important memory stick in your hand.'

‘Dunno what you mean. What memory stick?'

‘Ten minutes,' she said. ‘Or I empty a bucket of cold water into your bed.'

‘I'm exhausted.'

‘So am I. You did well yesterday, and of course it tired you out. But you'll live. Ten minutes, right?'

She left him to it and went down to greet Miss Brook, who'd just arrived and was eyeing Cynthia rather as one might a slug found in one's lettuce. Soothing one and encouraging the other, Bea left them to work out how best to coexist and was rewarded by hearing Miss Brook graciously offering Cynthia a biscuit from her own personal tin of delicacies from Harrods.

Fifteen minutes after she'd left Oliver, he was in her office, showered, shaved, dressed and with a scowl on his face fit to shatter glass.

‘To work,' she said. ‘Between you and me and that illicit memory stick, we ought to be able to trace the history of Denzil's career and marriage. Mr Cambridge wants us to get inside Honoria's mind, try to work out what drives her, and above all, what she's going to do next.'

A shrug, shoulders to ear. A grunt. ‘What illicit memory stick?'

‘You were asked to download files from Denzil's computer on to memory sticks for Mr Cambridge and Zander to work on. You were then told to look at the first twenty files, which you did. Knowing you, you also downloaded everything else in sight: the history files, the photograph albums, everything down to what music he used to play. So transfer the files from the memory stick to your own computer and search for something we can use. Anything.'

‘I hadn't time to copy everything on to my own memory stick, but there was an icon I didn't recognize, and I did take a note of it because it's something I haven't come across before.'

‘So; investigate.'

As he left, Bea started pacing.

Honoria.
Lady
Honoria. A title which was possibly not hers by right?

Forty plus when she married Denzil? What had she been doing before that? Had she had any business experience? Was she computer literate?

What could she have seen in Denzil the Dangerous? To Bea's mind, he was a grubby-minded little so and so, fondling teenage girls, storing mild porn on his computer, playing games with computer files to hide information from a casual eye, taking rake-offs from Corcorans. A racist.

His marriage might just have been a screen behind which he could approach young girls.

Other people might have seen a different side to him. He'd had an excellent start in life as a godson of Lord Murchison with a public school education. He'd done a good job for the Trust for some years and been promoted for it. He'd known how to manipulate the other directors when discovered. He had been, presumably, presentable. He'd had a title of sorts. He had that indefinable asset: a good background.

He'd died young, of a heart attack. Funeral . . . when? Soon? Would all the directors attend, in spite of what they'd discovered about him? Probably, yes. There'd be a three-line whip from Tommy, who wanted everything kept under wraps.

Why had Honoria married Denzil?

Because she could dominate him, wear the trousers, dictate the direction of events? She'd been married before – or had Bea imagined that piece of gossip?

What did Honoria want out of life? Two things, perhaps: to restore the family home, and a husband. If she'd ever loved Denzil, that love couldn't have lasted, given his propensity for young girls. Equally, he probably hadn't loved her. Maybe it had been a marriage of convenience, each accepting of the other's failings, two oddities facing the world together?

What would she have got out of it? Status.

Honoria needed money for the house. Hence the fraud. Denzil's position was not salaried, but he was able to tap into the resources of the Trust. So she'd devised the scam, and he'd carried it out. Yes, that felt right.

So . . . come the dawn and Zander's enquiring mind uncovered the leak in the Trust accounts, forestalling Tommy's slower march of justice. Then Denzil died, and Honoria blackmailed the Trust into accepting her as Denzil's replacement. So far, so good. She must have been furious that a lowly employee had disrupted their plans.

Bea thought back to what she knew and had observed of Honoria and concluded that she was not only a snob but also – like Denzil but even more so – a racist. Hence she'd tried first of all to bully Zander into submission when he'd visited her in the country, and then endeavoured to frame him for theft of the valuable statuette.

Both attempts to discredit Zander had failed, which must have stoked her fires of vengeance against him.

Her position at the Trust must have seemed safe enough, until the bank statements had turned up proving that Denzil had been taking backhanders. Did Honoria know who found them? Better ask Tommy what she'd been told. She may have assumed it was Zander, fuelling her hatred of him even further.

Guesswork! Bea scolded herself.

Yes, but nothing else explains why she should have taken such a terrible revenge on Zander.

If it was her, said Bea.

You know it was her. It was a woman who phoned Zander at his office, inviting him to visit her in the suburbs that evening. Oh yes, it must have been her. Believing that she'd sent him on a wild goose chase, she went to his digs and killed Mrs Perrot.

Why would she need to kill Mrs Perrot? Because . . . because she wanted to punish Zander in some way, probably by framing him for theft. And then, on finding herself confronted with an elderly lady, realized she could also frame Zander for murder. It was neat; Bea had to admit it was neat. And it had worked up to a point: the point at which CJ had become involved. Bea thought it was odds-on that CJ would clear Zander, somehow or other.

So would Honoria now rest on her laurels? Unlikely. She had struck Bea as being a particularly single-minded individual. It would of course be sensible of her now to turn her mind to pastures new . . . but suppose she still burned to revenge herself on someone, anyone, who had thwarted her in the past? Remember, she'd lost her only means of support.

Well, she'd dealt with Zander. Who else would she wish to vent her displeasure on?

Mm. The previous office manageress, or the youthful niece who had attracted Denzil's attention? Can't quite see why, but . . . maybe. A little far-fetched, but Honoria might have resented a young girl's attempt to supplant her. If so, whatever had she thought about Kylie from the pub?

Or she might very well be angry with Bea and CJ, who'd helped Tommy find the proof of Denzil's fraudulent doings.

What? What nonsense! Bea laughed aloud. How ridiculous. Of course not.

Oliver frowned his way back into her office. ‘I think I've found something.'

TWELVE

B
ea was on her way to Oliver's office before he'd finished speaking. ‘I knew you could do it. So what have you got?'

‘I'm not sure yet. You know I said there was an icon I didn't recognize. Well, it was for a program I haven't used before. Steganography.'

‘What?'

‘It's for hiding data within pictures. The data might be text, or it might be another picture. So you could have a picture hidden within another. I looked the icon up, and now I'm downloading it from the Internet. The only thing is, I don't know which of his images he's actually hidden something in. I mean, there's dozens. Unless you can think of a short cut, I'm going to have to run the program on every single bare-assed picture on his computer to see if there's another message hidden inside it. It's going to take ages.'

‘Would your guru be able to help? Presumably he saw the icon, too.' She looked at her watch. ‘Which reminds me that he was supposed to ring me this morning, and he hasn't.'

Prompt on cue, the front doorbell rang. And it was him, looking greyer and less substantial than before.

‘I do apologize for not having rung. I hope you can spare me a few minutes now?'

‘Of course. Come into the sitting room. Coffee?'

‘No need. What I've got to say is . . . there's no good news. Tommy's back in hospital. The pain got too much even for him. He summoned me to his bedside and gave me power of attorney to deal with his affairs at the Trust. I arrived at the Kensington headquarters to find an extraordinary board meeting taking place. And I do mean extraordinary. Convened by the major, but with Sir Cecil in the chair. In short order they carried two motions: one, that Zander had forfeited his job by being arrested for theft; and two, that Honoria should be reinstated in her husband's place on the board of directors, since nothing can be proved against her.'

‘What!'

‘Yes, indeed. Both motions carried unanimously, though the major did express some qualms to me afterwards, saying that he didn't think Tommy would be a happy bunny to hear what they'd done. Honoria will officially take her seat on the board the day after the funeral.'

‘But . . .!'

‘Trimmingham declares her innocent of all charges and willing to work hard to put right the damage her husband has done. And that's that. I haven't told Tommy yet. He's not fit to hear any bad news.'

‘No, I can understand that, but . . . where does this leave Zander? In jail. Yet we know he didn't murder his landlady, and I'd stake my life on his not having stolen her jewellery.'

‘We can clear him of the murder; true. But the thefts . . . I don't know. I've got a good man working on it, but it wouldn't be the first time an innocent man's been fitted up for theft. That's out of our hands now. Honoria's another matter. I must warn you that, according to the major, she knows it was you who found the evidence of her husband's fraud. She declares there's a perfectly simple explanation for the monies that went into their joint bank accounts, and she's holding us personally responsible for his early death.'

Bea felt a cold tingle down her backbone. ‘You asked me to put myself into her head, and it's given me reason to fear her. What about you?'

He washed his face with both hands. He evidently wasn't going to admit to fear. He tried out for a laugh. ‘I fear that spineless board will let her get away with murder.'

‘If it hasn't already,' said Bea, thinking that she could do with some caffeine, even if he didn't need any. ‘Come into the kitchen. I need some coffee.'