‘What’s this?’ he asked, unfolding it to see a large architect’s drawing.
Erin snatched it back from him and folded it up, hiding it away under the coffee table. ‘It’s nothing, just something from work,’ she said briskly.
Chris looked at her curiously, but let it drop and turned back to the stove. ‘Listen, I don’t want to sound like a broken record,’ he said, putting a bacon sandwich on the table in front of her. ‘But I really think you should call that detective. And I’m not sure you should be going in to work today, given what we know about your boss.’
‘I
am
going to work, Chris,’ she said defiantly. ‘I’ll call Michael on my lunchbreak, I promise.’
Her voice sounded confident but she didn’t feel it. She was apprehensive about seeing Adam, but she felt drawn to the office. Besides, Michael Wright was possibly not going to take her seriously with a far-fetched notion about rare bottles of wine stashed on Karin’s kitchen counter. She needed more evidence, and she knew that the office was the only place she had any chance of finding it.
‘Erin. I’m serious,’ said Chris, touching her arm and seeking to meet her gaze with his. ‘This is getting dangerous. We shouldn’t be meddling. I don’t want anything to happen to you,’ he added softly.
‘It won’t,’ whispered Erin. ‘I’m just going to do my job.’
‘Well, if you haven’t called Wright by this evening, I’m going to call him myself.’
‘But what if Adam’s innocent?’ said Erin. ‘What if the wine theory is just bogus? We’re playing with people’s lives
here. If he’s suddenly a suspect, that will get out in the media; his reputation won’t ever really recover from something like that.’
‘And what if he’s guilty, Erin? What then?’
The Midas Corporation offices had been understandably sombre and quiet following Karin’s death. Adam seemed to have retreated into himself and spent the whole time in his office with his door closed.
Colleagues scurried around, but there was no chitchat in the kitchen or hallways; everyone just put their heads down and worked.
Erin had barely sat down at her desk when her phone rang.
‘Can you step inside a moment, please?’ said Adam, his voice low and flat. She’d had little interaction with him over the past few days and a flutter of nervousness appeared in her stomach. But why? Did she really think Adam was a murderer? As she walked to his office, she began to wonder. The police said that Adam had been with Marcus on the night of the murder, but where? And for how long? But surely Adam’s alibi must have been convincing, or wouldn’t DCI Wright have arrested him by now? The questions tumbled around her head as she sat down in front of Adam.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Adam, registering Erin’s mood.
She nodded.
‘Well, I appreciate you being here,’ said Adam. Erin looked away. His once-sexy chocolate eyes suddenly felt penetrating, cold and unnerving.
‘I’m sorry you had to find Karin,’ he continued. ‘I feel terrible about sending you around.’
‘You weren’t to know,’ she said, feeling herself flush. It was the first time they had talked about what had happened. Adam pushed his lips together in a tight line.
‘Well, the police tell me that the body may be released in the next few days,’ he said sombrely. ‘And I know Karin would have wanted an appropriate send-off. Could you find a hotel room for a reception after the burial? Something chic. She loved flowers. Let’s have lots of flowers.’
‘Lilies? Roses? She liked Verbena roses. Or did you have anything in mind?’
‘My ex-assistant Eleanor used a fantastic florist for an event at the beginning of the year. Phone them up, tell them what we want. I want it to look beautiful.’
Their eyes locked and Erin felt a wash of fear up her spine. She blinked hard to stop her eyes betraying her.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ asked Adam. ‘I can cancel my lunch and we can go to talk if you like.’
Erin shook her head a little too vigorously. ‘I have plans. I’m sorry.’
‘Well, how about later tonight? I’m on a site visit this afternoon and then going to Mikhail’s party tonight, but I don’t have to stay long. People won’t expect me to, anyway.’
She felt her heart beginning to beat faster and the adrenaline pump around her veins. He had never showed this much concern for her feelings or emotions before. She was only there to serve and make his life easier. Now he wanted to get her alone.
She stood up quickly and smoothed her skirt down nervously. ‘It’s fine, Adam. It really is,’ she stuttered. ‘Now
I had better go and find the number of the florist. As soon as you know a date for the funeral, can you let me have it? Thanks.’
She returned to her desk in silence and sat motionless in her chair, her head bowed, her fingers locked together on her lap, willing her heart to slow down. She had to stay normal, she didn’t want him to suspect anything. Keep working, don’t show him you’re flustered, she told herself. Taking a deep breath, she clicked on her computer to look for Eleanor’s wonder-florist. Luckily, Eleanor had been a very organized woman and had left a folder on Erin’s desktop of her contacts, diary entries, addresses and notes. It was the inside track into Adam’s life: where he went, what he did, his likes and dislikes.
Erin clicked on a folder labelled ‘entertaining’ and found the details of several florists. One name, however, was highlighted in bold, and Erin scribbled down the name and number. She was just about to close the folder when her eye was drawn to a file called ‘Christmas Gifts’. Intrigued, she clicked it opened and started reading a long list of presents that Adam had given to his family and friends the previous Christmas, all carefully documented by his former PA.
Well, it wouldn’t do to send Mummy a Hockney two years on the run, would it?
she thought. But it was an impressive lineup. Art, designer clothes, handbags, spa weekends; they had all gone to his family, assistants, godchildren and friends. Not to mention the cigars, wine and hampers that had gone to clients and contacts. It was only halfway down the page that she saw something that made her heart leap into her mouth. She looked around her anxiously and quickly closed the file.
Last Christmas, Marcus Blackwell had received a bottle of 1947 Château Henri Jacques.
Chris was having a very late lunch at his desk, a quiet booth located behind the newsroom. His cubicle was an untidy space, spilling over with papers, magazines, press releases and a mountain of chocolates, sauces, exotic spirits and brand-new soft drinks, all received from manufacturers and vintners vying for Chris’s attention and column inches. He had finished his stories for the week and was using the free time at his disposal to catch up on the last few days’ press, his mind wandering between the world’s events and thoughts of his own involvement in one particular news story. The Karin Cavendish story had cooled in the press at least, he noted, flicking through all the tabloids and broadsheets. Just a small piece in the
Mail
, nothing new. He was just scanning the
Financial Times
when a headline on page nine caught his attention:
Computer Giant Ginsui In Takeover Bid
.
His eyes widened as he tried to remember his conversation with Erin days earlier. When Michael Wright had interviewed Erin on the day she had found Karin’s body, he’d asked her if she knew who Ginsui was. Apparently Karin had written the name as a diary entry for the day she died. Wright had clearly assumed Ginsui was the name of a
person
, thought Chris, chewing the tip of his biro. But it was the name of a company, a large Japanese computer manufacturer. His mind began to ponder its significance but his thought process felt blocked.
Ginsui, Ginsui. Ginsui. Why would Karin have an appointment at Ginsui?
Over the top of his booth he could see some of his colleagues walking around the newsroom, fetching coffee, walking between departments; the usual semi-frenetic activity as deadlines loomed for the first editions of tomorrow’s paper. Out of the corner of his eye he could see City Editor Alistair Crompton heading to his office in the corner of the room.
‘Are you busy?’ asked Chris, popping his head round the door.
Alistair smiled up at him. ‘I’ve got a phone interview in about five minutes, but grab a chair.’
Chris grabbed a plastic cup and filled it with water from the cooler before sitting opposite Alistair, a balding man in his fifties with red cheeks and a jovial manner.
Chris paused a moment before he spoke. He knew he had to tell Alistair the facts as he knew them. ‘What would you say about a friend of mine who had the word Ginsui written in her diary four days before the takeover was announced?
‘Does this friend invest in stocks and shares?’
‘Let’s say they do,’ said Chris, taking a sip of water.
‘And is this friend connected? Do they have friends, contacts, advisers in the City?’ continued Alistair, pouring himself a cup of tea from a pot in front of him.
‘This friend is very rich and very connected. Her boyfriend owns a number of investment companies.’
‘Then I’d say it sounded a little suspicious,’ smiled Alistair.
‘Why?’ asked Chris, his heart thumping.
‘It could of course be entirely innocent. Maybe your friend was reminding herself to go and buy a Ginsui computer,’ he said, smiling cynically. ‘On the other hand your friend could have been tipped off to buy shares that were certain to rise in value. Maybe she’d written it in her diary to remind her to buy them.’
‘Insider dealing?’ asked Chris.
‘It’s rampant,’ said Alistair, sipping the tea. ‘Far more so than the FSA would care to admit.’
‘Where would somebody completely unconnected with the electronics industry get a tip-off about Ginsui?’
‘There can be hundreds of people who know market-sensitive information prior to a takeover. A banker, a broker,
a lawyer, a financial PR. Any connected friend could have tipped her off. It could even have come via the boyfriend if he’s a big City player and he’d heard something.’
Chris suddenly felt a cold chill. Had Adam been feeding Karin share tips? Could that have had anything to do with her getting murdered? Money was always a strong motive.
He thanked Alistair and headed quickly back to his desk. He had to get in contact with Erin. If she hadn’t contacted Inspector Wright already he was going to do it himself. This was getting serious.
Driving his navy-blue Ford down Knightsbridge, Michael Wright slapped the palm of his hand against the steering wheel with frustration. They had been forced to release Evan Harris twelve hours earlier and he just did not have enough evidence to arrest Molly. The forensic team working in Karin’s house hadn’t thrown up any strong leads, except that the murder weapon was a glass candlestick that had smashed on contact with Karin’s neck. Only half of the candlestick was on Karin’s floor in pieces around her body. The other half the murderer must have taken with him or her.
He was banging his head against a brick wall with this case. It was a high-profile murder; a rich, beautiful socialite beaten to death in her own home. It had dominated the newspapers for days. The powers that be would want a successful conviction, and Michael knew they did not have a strong enough case against either of the primary suspects. He was due to speak to Summer Sinclair at the hospital in a couple of hours; he was determined to find out who the father of her child was and where
she
was on Monday evening, because that could put a different complexion on everything. In the meantime, he was going to return to Karin’s house and look again. Long experience told
him that there was always something else, always something that had been overlooked. He had to find it. His mouth set in a thin, determined line and he stepped on the accelerator.
Erin had spent the last two hours staring at her computer screen wondering what to do. She had tried the phone number Michael Wright had given her, but she had only reached the incident room at Scotland Yard, where an unfamiliar voice had told her that Chief Inspector Wright would not be back until later. When Erin had been asked if any of the other officers could assist her, she had quickly declined. She knew that her wine-bottle information was just a theory, and she had a feeling that only someone like DCI Wright would take it seriously.
Adam had gone out immediately after their meeting, being unusually vague about where he was heading. She knew he had been invited to Mikhail Lebokov’s drinks party that evening, but that didn’t start for another two hours. She had a sudden thought and walked down the corridor to Marcus’s office. As she had suspected, the room was empty, but his PA Candy was sitting outside, making full use of her boss’s absence by applying a layer of topcoat to her freshly painted scarlet fingernails.
‘Hi honey,’ smiled Candy, ‘listen, I’m dying for a cigarette. Do you mind watching the phones for ten minutes.’
‘No problem. Where’s Marcus?’ asked Erin nonchalantly.
‘Gone for the afternoon,’ she smiled. ‘Place is like a bloody ghost town.’
Erin waited until the lift doors hissed shut, then stepped into Marcus’s office and pulled the door behind her. Her palms instantly felt clammy the moment she entered, but she forced herself onwards, not really knowing what to look for, but feeling certain that the answer was in here. Marcus’s
office was like Adam’s, only smaller. There was a row of expensive walnut shelving containing box files and property law books, back issues of
Fortune
magazine, big glossy coffee-table tomes on the great architects like Gehry, Rogers and Foster and, sitting on its own, in a silver frame, a picture of Marcus and Adam somewhere hot and sunny. They looked much younger and Adam had his arm around his friend’s shoulders. She picked it up and ran a finger over the glass, thinking. Marcus had given Adam his alibi, and in the process had given himself one; what if neither of them were where they said? Feeling more bold, she moved over to the desk, looking but not touching. It was a very ordered desk. Documents in neat piles. A black fountain pen sat at right angles next to a crystal paperweight. She glanced towards the door again, her ears straining to hear. Nothing. She opened the slim drawer at the top of the desk. More papers. Letters, bills and taxi receipts. And then she saw something. A wink of colour between leaves of white. She pulled it out between her thumb and forefinger and gasped. It was a picture of Marcus and Karin together. Karin was sitting next to Marcus by the swimming pool in Como, her head thrown back, laughing, her hand on Marcus’s knee, his expression one of pride and pleasure. Erin remembered thinking at the time how inappropriate it was for Karin to be flirting with Marcus.
What if he’d taken it the wrong way?
At that moment, the sun came out, sending a glare against the gloss of the photographic paper. Erin could see that it was smudged with fingerprints, as if it had been handled a hundred times. What if it was Marcus who had gone round to Karin’s house with his impressive, expensive bottle of red wine? Hadn’t witnesses reported seeing a grey sports car outside Karin’s around the time she was murdered? The police had assumed it was Molly, but Erin remembered the
two vehicles sitting on the gravel of The Standlings at the summer party. Molly’s dolphin-grey Maserati and Marcus’s silver Jaguar. To a casual observer they could be the same car. She shut the door and hurried out of the room with the photograph.