Dying for Millions (23 page)

He clenched his fists and took a step towards me; he grabbed the glass and dashed it at the wall. ‘Just bloody shut up!'

Shutting up was the one thing I couldn't do. ‘They're losing drugs from the airport. Medicinal drugs. Your hospital is gaining drugs which worry the accountant. You turn up in Birmingham. You are evasive, deceitful. You codpiece for Africa! You'd die for Africa! You'd steal. That's it, isn't it? You'd steal for Africa. Jesus Christ, you're
right
to steal for Africa, I'd do it myself. I'd have helped you, if you'd asked. But the way you did it, you're going to be found out. It
has
been found out. Gurjit'll shop you. Where will your precious Foundation be then? And your job for the United Nations?'

‘It's only private hospitals. Never NHS ones. Anyhow, they'll never prove anything.'

‘Of course they bloody will! They've got the records of the German and Swiss companies. They've got computerised records saying that planes carrying X-amount of goods have landed. They've got invoices from the airport to the distributors, even if they haven't all been sent out yet because Gurjit is as slow as she's meticulous. Any moment now, someone is going to ask why goods they've been invoiced for haven't arrived. And I'll tell you why they haven't arrived. They've been nicked. You have an accomplice who unloads planes on Wednesday nights and transfers them. I'd bet this year's holiday there's a plane taking off on Wednesday nights to – where? Nairobi? Lagos? Somewhere you can bribe the airport authorities to let a couple of extra boxes through. Somewhere with transport to Mwandara. No. Don't tell me.'

‘Of course I shan't fucking tell you! You sleep with a policeman, for Christ's sake!'

‘I wouldn't tell Chris—'

‘Don't you talk in your sleep any more?'

‘Andy, listen to me. I reckon I can sort the computer and the invoices. There's always a chance you'll get away with this – but there's always the chance that Gurjit will tell. Christ, I've been begging her to go to the police!'

He bent to pick up the glass, gathering the shards with his left hand and dropping them into his right.

‘Andy – there's something else. Someone else knows, don't they? The person who's trying to kill you?'

‘
Kill
someone for doing good? Surely not –! Oh!' It was a cry of surprise, not pain; he looked at the blood welling up in his palm and held it out to me.

It was easy after that. Straight into big-sister mode, shooing him into the kitchen and grabbing a wodge of kitchen towel.

‘What the fuck are you doing? Get some gloves on, woman!' With his left hand he pushed me away.

‘What –?'

‘I said, put some gloves on. No holes in your washing up-gloves? Here!'

‘Andy – you haven't—'

‘Of course I bloody haven't! I had the test before – I mean, I wouldn't put Ruth at risk, would I? But there's all sorts of blood-borne diseases in the camps. I think there's still some glass in there – have you got any tweezers?'

He was downstairs, fully dressed and stirring the porridge, by the time I surfaced. He didn't lift his eyes from the pan: that was the nearest I'd get to an apology. I reached for bowls and spoons.

‘No need. I've already laid the table.' He reached out his arm to pull me in for a hug. ‘I've been out of order, kid, haven't I? Not just last night, but all along.' He kissed my hair. ‘Now, about your offer … Can you disguise things a bit? Muddy the waters so – you know, it isn't just me, but it's the guy who helped, and the Foundation, and—'

‘I'll do my best.' When and how?

‘No risks?'

What the hell did he think I'd be doing, if not taking risks? ‘No risks.'

He gave the porridge a final stir. ‘Right, that's ready. Breakfast is served, ma'am.'

I was impressed: he'd not only found placemats, he'd also put the Golden Syrup on a plate to catch the dribbles. I looked longingly at it, picked up the brown sugar and a tiny spoon, but finally cast calorific caution to the winds.

While he ate, he inspected the photographs: the river; the kids; the railway viaduct, Carl looking miserable; the cottages. ‘Good God. That was where some of Freya's relations used to live.'

‘Not really!' I was on my feet, looking over his shoulder.

‘See there – they used to have a swing from that tree. There's the rope.'

‘Tell me about her relatives,' I said, very quietly putting down my porridge spoon.

‘It was her father's side, I think. Cousins … No, her mother's. Must have been, because they had a different surname from Freya. Unusual. God knows what it was. Anyway, there was a family of them. The dad was in jail more than he was out of it because he couldn't keep his hands off other people's game – silly sod. The mother, she was a nice little thing, ever so tiny. You'd never have expected her to produce all those children. Five or six. Goodness knows when they were together long enough to beget them, what with his nocturnal activities and his time in jug. Tea?'

‘In a minute. Tell me about the children.' I tried to sound casual: the more relaxed he was, the more likely to creep up on long-lost memories.

‘Well, there were four girls. One was a bit simple – special needs, I suppose you'd call it these days. That was – God! – Catriona. Then there was Fenella. And Eleanor. She went off for nurse training but hurt her back and had to give up. The youngest was Genevora. Goodness knows where they got all those names from. They weren't really the fanciful type.'

‘What about the boys?'

‘Simon – they were spared the fancy nomenclature – how's that for a good bit of vocab, oh English teacher?'

‘Very impressive. Tell me about Simon.'

‘Went into forestry. There weren't all that many jobs round there.'

‘And—?'

‘Can't remember the name of the other one. He was only a kid. Pretty bright, as I recall. I remember he went to university – pride and joy of the family!'

Under the table I dug my fingers into my palms.
Sound casual!
‘What did he study?'

He shook his head. ‘He dropped out anyway, I seem to recall.
Craig!
That was it! But he hated his name – used some nickname.' He ran his spoon one last time round the dish. ‘Why all this interest, anyway?'

I pointed to an obscure plant in the corner of one of the photos. ‘Because that, Andy, is winter hellebore.'

There was no getting away from it. I had to set out for work, and the chances were I'd be late. All I could do was phone Ian, and equip Andy with that list of roadies he'd so studiously ignored, in the hope that he'd pick out a name – surname, nickname, whatever – that would jog his memory. Then the police could take over. No more nasty hints; no more crimes.

At least we wouldn't be on the receiving end. I'd be at the committing end, wouldn't I? Sooner or later, I had to talk my way into the airport, talk Gurjit out of acting as I'd advised her to act only days before, and undo all her good work. Oh, and not be detected in the doing.

I was just off to my first class when the phone on my desk started ringing. Obeying an imperative I always resented but was powerless to resist, I picked it up.

‘Miss Rivers' secretary, if you please.'

Me? A secretary? A photocopy card would be a start.

‘This is Sophie Rivers. How can I help?'

‘Ah, I didn't expect to reach you so easily, my dear Miss Rivers. Now, we've had a spot of bother here. I've found that Gurjit has got behind in her college studies and I will no longer be letting her work at the airport.'

‘Surely, Mr Bansal – all her lecturers said—'

‘My word is final. She must get those grades. She missed handing in the last Law assignment, and that put the tin lid on it. I would be grateful if you could notify the appropriate authorities. Good day to you, Miss Rivers.'

‘Mr Bansal! Mr Bansal? Shit!'

The bastard! How dare he mess around with the poor kid's life? Didn't she deserve a chance to run it herself? I would have loved to pick up the phone and tell him precisely what I thought of him, but even as I fulminated I realised that I might turn the situation to my – or at least, to Andy's – advantage. But it was still dangerous.

My plan was to go to the first part of the choir's rehearsal as usual, then feign a headache and ostensibly return home. In fact, I'd go to the airport and, using the passwords I remembered, get into the computer system. If anyone challenged me, I now had an excuse: I'd promised Gurjit that I'd tidy things up for her. Yes, I liked that. And tidying was precisely what I'd be doing. So I taught my way efficiently through the day, only breaking off to phone Andy to check on his progress.

‘Malpass,' he said, promptly and carelessly. There was no evidence that we had anyone listening in, but I was getting paranoid.

‘Don't tell me any more. Get Ian to come and collect you, OK? Don't say anything over the phone.'

I decided to take no chances. I phoned Ian myself. Surely no one'd bother to tap all William Murdock's calls, and surely to goodness a police line wouldn't have eavesdroppers …

‘There's a name on a list of the roadies who worked on his show that Andy knows. Malpass. And this guy just happens to have lived in a house with winter hellebore growing in the garden. From winter hellebore you get—'

‘Helleborin! Well done, Sophie. Right, I'll collect young Andy and see if we can dig up any motive. Any ideas?'

‘Well, Andy married this man's cousin, and she subsequently died. But other than that – none.'

‘Weird. Well, leave it to me. And remember we've got that wine-tasting tomorrow.'

‘
Tomorrow!
Ian, I—'

‘Just mind you don't get a cold. OK?'

I'd rarely known Ian so affable. It made my plans for the evening seem even more impossible.

We were trying to convince our music director that we simply couldn't sustain his tempi when someone's mobile phone beeped. The miscreant switched it off, blushing, but then retreated to the loo: he came back dramatically waving his arms.

Naturally our attention switched from the conductor.

‘You should see it outside!' he yelled. ‘And there's a severe weather warning from the police. They're expecting a foot of snow! They're stopping the buses at nine o'clock.'

It was fortunate we had no important concert the following day: as one person we got to our feet and prepared to leave. Oh, yes – me too. I was desperate to retreat to safety.

But I had that job to do first. Better grit my teeth and get on with it.

Gritting the roads would have been more apposite. The Renault was a sure-footed little car, but it didn't like the side-road I was parked on. It took ages to find a suitable rut for it, and then it was buffeted by the wind so hard I was constantly afraid of losing control. I sat in a mini-jam waiting to get on to the main road and thought.

It was a good job I'd always followed the dictum that there is more than one way of skinning a cat. On my desk at home, I had a modem: I also knew the access password. Right. Home, and hack from there. It was infinitely safer. I could alter the paper records on Monday, going in at a time when the airport staff would be expecting Gurjit and say I'd come to finish off her loose ends. It wouldn't take very long.

A set of tracks led away from my front door. Bad weather for burglars, this. They went straight across to a rectangle of thinner snow in which I parked my car. Or did they? There seemed to be a confusion of prints from the two houses opposite. Odd to be looking at a new house in this weather: the For Sale sign had been up long enough in more clement conditions without exciting any interest. And the people directly opposite me – a couple ten years younger than Aggie but with a tenth of her pzazz – had suddenly started to have a lot of visitors: their family developing pre-Will consciences, perhaps.

Andy had locked the door from the inside – it was unnerving to have him develop common-sense at this stage. So I unlocked both the Chubb and the Yale, and, kicking the snow back off the step, picked my way inside, knowing conclusively as I did so that my waterproof boots were leaking.

‘Can I watch you?' Andy asked as I outlined my plans. He was making more soup and promising to do wonderful things with pasta: he must be very penitent indeed. When he revealed the source of a rich fruity smell was pears baking in red wine, it was clear he was seeking absolution, pure and simple.

Which was one thing I couldn't give him. I'd seen hacking done, but had never done it myself; and even if I cleared the relevant bits, a real expert would be able to tell what I'd taken from the hard disk. It all depended how closely they looked.

‘Sophie? I said—'

I shook my head. ‘Hacking's not a spectator sport. Not the way I do it.'
The way I do it!
As if I made a hobby of it! ‘It's going to be slow and very boring, and I may not succeed at all. By the way,' I added, trying to take my mind off the whole affair, ‘who was your visitor?'

‘Griff.'

‘Where the hell's he been all this time? Shouldn't someone have been looking out for you?'

‘You've only just got round to asking? Call yourself my minder?'

‘I don't. So where's he been?'

‘The police relieved him of his duties for a bit. They thought he might interfere with their surveillance. Probably why I've escaped unscathed so far. Chummie must have seen them around, been scared off. Griff came to give me a letter from Ruth.' He patted it where it lay on the table: it was very long.

‘How is she?'

‘Fine! Voice back to normal. She reckons it was caused by the herb teas she's been drinking – some allergy. I don't see it myself. You can't go wrong with what's organic and natural.'