Knowing the frequency with which initial registrations were often used as cut-outs in much the same way as she was using the hotel chain’s computer set-up, she surfed all the Caribbean offshore islands for minimal variations on the three parent companies she was trying to penetrate but found nothing she considered a possibility. Alice spread the search further afield, to Switzerland and Israel, but found nothing. She entered the market registrations in London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Singapore and on Wall Street – even though any listing should have shown with her first search entry of the names – with the same lack of success. Which was the same when she hacked into the newspaper reference archives of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and The Times in London, the Washington Post, London’s Financial Times, Fortune and Forbes.
Alice recognized that the surfeit of subsidiary but linked names risked overwhelming her, certainly in such public surroundings. She needed the quiet, reflective security of Princes Street. And to try to evolve a way to get past the Grand Cayman hacking shield. As she, with forced patience, printed out the state-by-state and international listings, Alice conceded to herself that it was not the first time she’d drawn such a total blank. But she couldn’t remember it happening more than twice before. And both of those had eventually emerged under police investigation to be criminal enterprises, which objectively she further acknowledged had no real bearing on this attempt but which nevertheless inclined her to regard it in that light. It took her a further thirty minutes to print out.
As Alice paid for her time the manager said: ‘You’ve been working hard.’
‘Not sure what I’ve got,’ complained Alice.
‘There’s good days and bad days.’
‘Today’s a confused day.’
‘Come back again: better luck next time.’
‘I think I’m going to have to come back a lot,’ said Alice. After all, she had a new Trojan Horse password in an unsuspecting host system and John might come up with something that would give her a short cut. How long would it be before she and John could get together again? Not long, she hoped.
Jack Jennings was in the hallway, waiting for him, when Carver got back, and he said at once: ‘Mrs Carver’s just woken up. The doctor’s with her. And Manhattan called. The helicopter will be here by eleven thirty.’
Carver held back from going directly upstairs, instead gesturing the other man towards the study and going immediately to the desk holding the unidentified keys, which he laid out close to the wedding photograph of Muriel Northcote. ‘I need your help with these, Jack. You know what the unidentified ones fit?’
Jennings stared down for several moments, separating some from others with a finger before isolating a second country-club locker, the pool house and several garden-equipment outhouses. One had housed the fatal tractor. Three were left unnamed and Carver thought one, oddly coloured red, could have been a safe deposit or left-luggage locker.
Carver said: ‘You don’t know these three?’
Jennings shook his head. ‘Don’t mean anything at all.’
‘Something else,’ encouraged Carver. ‘Where did Mr Northcote keep things: things that needed to be carefully looked after?’
Jennings indicated the bookcase cupboard. ‘The safe, I guess.’
‘Nowhere else? No special place?’
There was another head shake. ‘No, sir. Nothing like that.’
‘What about yesterday?’ persisted Carver, sure he was right about how Northcote had been tortured. ‘It’s a long way from the house, I know. But I think you might have heard if Mr Northcote yelled out, when he fell?’
‘If he had and I’d heard it – if anyone had heard it – I’d have gone looking. I didn’t hear any cry for help. Nor, obviously, did anyone else in the house.’
‘Anyone visit Mr Northcote yesterday? A stranger, maybe? Someone you didn’t know?’
‘No, sir. No one came all day.’
‘So there was nothing.’
The other man considered the question. ‘There was a phone call.’
‘What phone call?’
‘Just after lunch. It was a man who said he wanted to talk to Mr Northcote. I asked for a name but he said it didn’t matter: that Mr Northcote was expecting the call. Which seemed to be right. Mr Northcote heard the phone and came out into the hall behind me. Would have got it first if I hadn’t already been there.’
‘Did you hear the conversation?’
The butler’s face stiffened. ‘I don’t listen to other people’s telephone conversations, Mr Carver. Anyway, Mr Northcote took it in here, in the study.’
‘Had he told you before then that he was going to take the mower out?’
Jennings frowned, in recollection. ‘No, not before then.’
‘So he wasn’t dressed for it: wasn’t in his usual work overalls?’
‘No.’
‘How’d he seem, after the call?’
Jennings shrugged. ‘Just like always.’
‘Were you with him when he left the house? See him?’
Jennings looked curiously at Carver. ‘I wasn’t with him. I saw him through the kitchen going towards the tractor lock-up.’
‘Was he carrying anything… anything like an envelope?’
The man paused. ‘Has something come up with the sheriff, Mr Carver?’
‘No,’ said Carver. ‘Just one or two things I need to get sorted out in my mind.’ When Jennings didn’t speak Carver said: ‘So, was he carrying anything like an envelope in his hand?’
‘No, sir,’ said the other man. ‘He was just setting out to drive his tractor!’
Jane was still in bed, propped up against the backboard, when Carver got to the room. Jamieson was in a chair alongside.
She smiled up wanly and said: ‘Hello.’
‘Hello.’
‘You OK?’
‘Yeah.’
‘It all go OK?’
‘I guess.’
She nodded towards Jamieson and said: ‘There’s a helicopter coming?’
‘Everyone’s coming in for the conference.’
‘Sure.’
‘I don’t want to leave you here by yourself.’
‘I don’t want to stay here by myself.’
‘Take your time.’ There was at least an hour, Carver knew, without needing to consult his watch.
‘How was it?’
Carver instinctively looked to the doctor for guidance. Jamieson remained turned too far away for any facial hint. ‘I had to say it was George, that’s all. A formality.’
‘Would it have been bad?’ There were no tears and her voice was quite even. It almost sounded like a casual enquiry.
‘Pete Simpson was positive about that…’ Carver nodded to the half-turned figure of the local doctor. ‘Charlie thinks it’s possible your father had a stroke: that that’s how the accident happened. If it wasn’t that way, he would have been knocked out, hitting the cover guard of the mower. Either way he wouldn’t have felt a thing.’
‘It was blood pressure,’ came in Jamieson, supportive at last. ‘It was bad.’
‘I’m glad he wouldn’t have felt any pain.’ Jane straightened, against the headboard. ‘If I’ve got to get dressed I need space.’
Outside in the corridor, where they’d been the previous night, Carver said: ‘She seems OK. Looks OK.’
‘Remember what I said about denial.’
‘This it?’
‘I’d have liked her to be more obviously grieving.’
‘Maybe she’s more resilient than you guessed. Than any of us guessed.’
‘Maybe,’ said the doctor, doubtfully.
‘You examined her?’
‘Physically she’s fine.’
Jane came downstairs with the arrival of the helicopter. As they walked out towards it she said: ‘We’ve got a lot to talk about.’
With the exception of one subject, thought Carver.
Stanley Burcher had a trained lawyer’s objectivity and from every angle from which he examined the idea that had immediately come to him in the Queens restaurant the more he became convinced that it was perfect. He had actually raised with the consiglieri of the New York Families the problem of Northcote’s age and impending retirement. Now there was no longer a problem. Northcote’s informed and therefore complicit successor could simply continue to act as Northcote had acted for so long in the past. The man more than likely knew where Northcote had kept the withheld documentation, too.