‘You mean, she’d outlived her usefulness? That’s a pretty horrible idea.’
‘Yeah. It’s not a motive exactly, but when you’re looking for the thing that finally put the knife into her heart, you have to bear that background in mind.’
9
That Wednesday evening Kathy sensed that something had changed between herself and Leon, although the feeling was so indefinite that she hesitated to make an issue of it. She had returned to the flat to find him working on his university assignment on his computer, the rest of the table covered in textbooks and notes. He’d apologised stiffly, as if they were two strangers temporarily sharing a railway compartment and sensitive to territorial rights, and had begun to clear things away. She said it didn’t matter and tried to make conversation about their day, but he didn’t join in, pointedly returning his attention to the screen. Then her mobile phone rang, and she became locked in an interminable and one-sided conversation with Jay about the importance of having a woman chair for the committee, and of the women members acting as a caucus.
Later she went out to buy takeaway for them both, which they ate in silence. Eventually she said, ‘You’re not angry with me are you, Leon?’
‘Why should I be?’ he said, not meeting her eye. ‘I don’t know. Because I spotted the mix-up with Clarke’s DNA?’ ‘No, of course not. I just… I’ve just got to concentrate on this work, okay?’
‘Yes, of course. I can’t help, can I?’
Suddenly he sagged as if he’d been punctured, the anger or frustration or whatever had been simmering inside him gone. ‘No, thanks. I’m sorry, Kathy.’
‘What for?’
He took a deep breath. ‘For everything,’ he said, and wouldn’t elaborate.
Later that night, across the other side of town, Brock turned restlessly in his bed, sleep eluding him. He had always enjoyed the luxury of lying alone in a wide bed, the freedom to stretch and turn without disturbance, but lately this feeling had been replaced by an uneasy sense of loss and isolation. To take his mind off this he forced himself to recall the pages of the Verge scrapbook which Suzanne’s grandchildren had given him. He could picture most of them quite clearly, the images of success and scandal. As he finally slid towards slumber his brain focused on one of them, a colour magazine photograph of Charles Verge standing beside the nose of his silver glider, dressed in black leather jacket and jeans. In Brock’s torpid imagination the picture seemed to come to life, Verge breaking into a smile and walking jauntily out of frame, to reveal behind him in the shadowy space of the aircraft’s cockpit a second figure, a dark outline only, handling the controls.
Kathy woke to find herself alone in bed, the smell of toast and coffee coming from the other room. She found Leon propped against the door of the kitchenette, flicking through a paper he must have gone out to buy. The computer was alive and he looked as if he’d been up for some time.
‘Hi,’ he said, not looking up from the page. ‘Want some coffee? Your horoscope says you’re going to be doing some travelling.’
Kathy wasn’t sure, but she thought she detected a note of hopefulness in his voice.
They were making progress. She could sense it in the animated murmuring around the room as they waited for Brock to start the team meeting the following morning. As they each gave their reports it was apparent that everyone had something to offer, some suggestive little bit of fresh information, though where it all led Kathy still couldn’t make out.
First it was reported that Sandy Clarke had been asked for a new DNA swab, and this request had apparently been met with something like panic. ‘Went white as a sheet,’ the officer said with satisfaction. ‘Then demanded to know why, and when I said routine elimination he wouldn’t believe me, then said he’d refuse and call his lawyer, then finally apologised and did the doings. Something to hide, I reckon.’
Kathy described her conversation with Jennifer Mathieson, and her assessment of Clarke’s attitude to women. ‘But she reckons that they couldn’t have been having an affair without the office inquisition getting wind of it, so either they were very discreet, or it had only just started.’
It had not been possible to identify Clarke’s car on the tapes retained from security cameras in the streets near his offices for Saturday the twelfth of May. Statements made by his staff had confirmed that he was present throughout the day, supervising the team preparing for the presentation to the Chinese on the following Monday, although it was also said that Clarke had been absent for extended periods during the morning; he was mainly in his own office, according to his statement, working on correspondence and other paperwork. It would have been quite possible for him to have gone up to the Verge apartment during this time, or even to have left the building, if he had avoided the routes covered by the cameras.
But it was the group working under Tony, the Fraud Squad officer, who had the most intriguing material to offer. Tony stroked his notes with loving fingers and eased his neck a little in his stiff white shirt collar, with his customary air of an undertaker presenting his estimate of funeral expenses. ‘We haven’t been able to get access to his personal accounts as yet, chief. We should progress that today, with any luck. But a couple of things have come up that may be of interest.’
He cleared his throat, for theatrical effect Kathy guessed, as if he were about to offer a special on the oak casket.
‘We ran his name through the accounts we have had access to, and came up with two payments from him of ten thousand quid each, to the account of Verge’s daughter Charlotte, in July and August of this year.’
‘Mmm…’ Brock scratched his beard ruminatively. ‘Understandable. Helping out the daughter of his old partner. She’s had extra expenses lately with the new house, and a baby on the way.’
‘True enough. Or the money might be intended for Charles. But it does raise the whole interesting question of who’s entitled to what out of the Verge Practice. Talking to the accountants, it appears that on May the twelfth ownership of the firm was shared between the three equity partners, Charles Verge and Miki Norinaga and Sandy Clarke, in the ratio 45:25:30. Now only one of them is left.’
‘What about Charles and Miki’s successors?’
‘The firm had an insurance policy to cover the sudden death of a partner. But Miki left everything to Charles, assuming he outlived her, and so Charles now theoretically owns over two-thirds of the business. If he were to turn up dead, his estate-principally his daughter Charlotte- would have his share paid out by the insurance company. But he hasn’t been declared dead, so his assets are in limbo. Either way, dead or alive, Sandy Clarke effectively controls the firm one hundred per cent.’
Brock shrugged doubtfully. ‘By all accounts business has been terrible since the murder. If you’re suggesting Clarke had a financial motive to murder his partners, it hasn’t turned out to be a very smart move.’
‘Maybe that wasn’t the motive, chief.’ Tony’s face took on a look of cunning. ‘Maybe he had no choice.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘The accountants are only now getting around to finalising the books for the last financial year, and they’ve come across something interesting. In the twelve months leading up to last May, the Verge Practice made a series of payments to a company that nobody seems to know anything about: Turnstile Quality Systems Limited. The thing that alerted the accountants was the size and number of the payments, sixteen in all, amounting to a couple of million quid. When the accountants asked the bookkeeper at VP she knew nothing about the payments, which had been authorised directly by Sandy Clarke and not entered into the monthly accounts.’
‘What does that mean, Tony?’
‘Well, this only came up yesterday evening, so we haven’t had time to do a proper check on Turnstile Quality Systems yet, but when we tried to phone them the number didn’t work, so I took a drive out to their address, in an industrial estate in Neasden, number 27 Poplar Lane. It turns out that the last building on Poplar Lane is number 25, and nobody around there has ever heard of this company. The accountants wanted to take it up with Clarke, of course, but I told them to hold off until they get the all clear from us. The possibility is that he was using a dummy company to siphon money out of his own firm.’