East of the City (33 page)

I told her, ‘I never said thanks. For the other night.’

She glanced at me over her shoulder, one eyebrow cocked.

The driver was out of earshot, so I said, ‘You don’t have to leave.’

She returned her attention to the boxes.

‘Lee?’

She slapped her hand against the last box. ‘This one.’

I went and picked it up, she turned her back and led me inside. She didn’t head for her desk, we took the stairs.

‘So how was court? Not good?' She opened a door from the stairs into a corridor. 

Stepping past her, I said, ‘We settled.’

‘Settled, as in, "case over"?’

I nodded.

'Why?' she said.

‘This box’s getting heavy, Lee.’

We went left. A short way along she pulled out a key, glanced up and down the corridor, then unlocked the room and herded me in. There were no windows, and when she locked the door behind us the place was pitch dark.

‘Don’t make too much noise.’ She hit the light switch.

The fluorescents flickered on. We were standing in some kind of utility room, one wall was covered in shelves. Plastic bottles of cleaning liquid were lined up over rolls of hand towels and toilet paper. At the end of the room, a row of vacuum cleaners was buried under a pile of towels and blue tubing. I dropped the carton onto the bench by the sink.

I said, ‘What’s the big secret?’

Squeezing past me, she slid back a low cupboard door on the other side of the sink. Then, crouching down, she reached inside. ‘How much does Ottoman get?’ she asked. ‘For the settlement.'

‘The lot.’

She looked up, surprised. ‘Full payout?’

When I nodded, she said, ‘Let me guess. You showed Allen Mortlake the photo?’

'Ahha.'

‘He panicked and pulled the plug?’

'That's not quite the whole story,’ I said. But this wasn’t the time to try explaining about Dad's big punt.

Lee found what she was reaching for, she pulled it out. A green folder.

‘You asked me to check out some of those earlier deals,’ she said, ‘Remember?’

Justine’s deals, the ones brokered by WardSure. But what good were they going to do me now?  I started turning my head, telling Lee things had moved on, but she tapped the green folder with a finger. ‘I think you should read it,’ she said.

She went across to the box I’d put on the bench. She started pulling papers out, running an eye over them, then putting them aside. It seemed pretty pointless, I wanted to get back and see Allen; but after setting Lee loose on this stuff, I couldn’t just toss the lot in the bin now and walk out. So I pulled over an upturned bucket and sat down. Five minutes, I thought. I owed her that. Just show willing for five minutes, I thought, then I’m gone.

After flicking through the first few pages, I looked up. ‘This is the wrong folder.'

‘I don’t think so.’

‘But these aren’t Justine’s deals.’

‘That’s right,’ she said. When I opened my mouth again, she pointed to the folder in my lap and told me to get on and read it.

There were only three deals, it took me less than ten minutes. When I looked up again, Lee had the papers from the box all sorted. She handed me a wedge of pages, saying, 'Three more.’

I spread them out on the folder. And while she stood over me, I read through the three older deals, the documentation that had just been brought by the van. Lee didn’t say a word. When I was done I stared at the pile of pages. Six policies in total, six different leads, all of them written by Syndicate 486. Every one of them a loser. Lee had pinned her own notes to the first three, she’d discovered that the insured party on each of them was as dodgy as hell. And two of those names appeared on two of the policies that had just arrived in the van, it wasn’t just a whiff of something wrong, the whole thing absolutely stank.

At last Lee said, ‘No comment?’

I stared at the signature on the first slip, the same signature that appeared on all six policies. The A and M were big and looping, they hadn’t changed at all in the past twelve years. Angela Mortlake.

‘I don’t believe it,’ I said.

Lee made a snorting sound. I dropped the folder on the floor beside the bucket, then stood up to get the circulation back in my legs.

I said, ‘I didn’t ask you to check Angela out.’

‘Well, Justine’s hardly written any big leads,’ Lee said. ‘I zapped through hers, they looked okay, so I spread the net.’

‘To Angela?'

‘And Burnett-Adams,’ she said, then her glance slid past me.

I got a nasty feeling. ‘Anyone else?’ 

She frowned.

‘Lee,’ I tapped my chest, ‘you checked up on me?’ She didn’t answer. ‘I can’t believe you’d do that. I ask you to help me, and what? You try to put me in the frame?’

‘That wasn’t it at all.’ Lee bent and picked up the folder. ‘At all.’

‘No?’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ she muttered.

It wasn’t anger in her voice, more like she was dealing with some young kid she’d just about given up on. I felt I the blood rush into my face.

‘Ian,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m thirty-four years old. You know. An adult. You asked me to help you, fine, but that doesn’t make me your puppet. You wanted me to check for bad deals coming into your syndicate through WardSure—’ she waved the green folder — ‘this is what I found. Angela Mortlake. Take it or leave it.’

Voices passed along the corridor outside. Lee glanced back over her shoulder and signalled for me to be quiet. The voices moved on.

She said softly, ‘I have to go.’

I asked her for the folder. Lee turned her head, no.

‘I need it, Lee.' There didn’t seem any way round it, so I told her, ‘In court today no-one mentioned that photo of Sebastian and Justine. They had a better idea.’

Her forehead creased. ‘Angela?’

‘Me.’ I told her, briefly, about Sebastian and my old man.

She was shocked. ‘This came out in court?’

‘Courtesy of Detective Sergeant Fielding. I’m hanging onto my job by the skin of my teeth. Fielding’s still crawling all over me, and he’s not that interested in finding alternative suspects for Sebastian’s murder. As far as he’s concerned, I’m it.’

Her eyes dropped to the folder in her hands. 'And you think you need this,' she said.

I did. I wanted that paperwork because I thought it might give me a chance to figure things out. But Lee’s hesitation made me see just how much I was asking of her, how far she’d stuck her head out for me already. Here we were standing in an LCO utility room, whispering together like a couple of thieves frightened of being sprung. It was obvious what was in it for me; but for Lee? And now I was asking her to surrender the paperwork? To be a party to the theft of legal documents entrusted to her care?

Finally I raised my eyes from the folder to her. ‘Not if it’s going to screw things up for you. And I really appreciate it, Lee, everything you’ve done. I mean that.'  I wanted to reach out and touch her; but I wasn’t quite sure how she’d take that. So instead I said, ‘You’re still going to leave, aren’t you. To the States.’

She gave me a direct look, and nodded. After a moment she said, ‘You know, I never asked my mother to send me those letters. Or the photos. That was her idea.’ More voices passed outside, she glanced nervously around. Then facing me, she seemed to make up her mind about something. She pushed the folder into my hands.

‘I’m on the four o’clock flight from the City airport tomorrow afternoon. If you get there early, maybe we can talk. At least say goodbye properly.’

As she went to the door I said her name and she turned. But there was too much to say and this wasn’t the time. So all I said right was, 'Thanks.'

She told me I had a real way with words. Then pointing to the folder, she added, ‘And I’ll need that back tomorrow. No excuses.’ Lifting my hand, I crossed my heart, and she hit the lights and left me in the dark.

B
ack in the Room, I sat at my desk on the 486 box and tried to concentrate. Business had been building up while I’d been away, brokers who’d been waiting for me to sign their slips suddenly moved in. I spent an hour working my way through the queue and every fifteen minutes I rang Allen’s secretary upstairs. But every time she told me he was still in that meeting with Piers Crossland and the Chairman.

Across the box from me, Frazer Burnett-Adams was grinning his fat head off, chatting with the brokers and generally behaving like he owned the place. When I’d arrived from the 58 Building, he’d taken me aside for a quiet word.

Heard about the settlement, he said. Suggest we play a straight bat.

What you talking about, Frazer?

No need to confirm or deny anything, he said. Then he raised an eyebrow. Did your father really owe Sebastian that much?

I thanked him for his support and returned to my desk.

Fortunately, news of the settlement - and my public skewering in court — hadn’t spread yet among the brokers. Most of their gossip was still tied up with Sebastian Ward’s death and WardSure, and because of my connection with Sebastian’s K and R policy they all seemed to think I wanted to hear their theories. I signed the slips and let the bullshit wash right past me.

Angela wasn’t on the box, but Justine was. I’d dealt with most of my queue of brokers when I saw her go over to the coffee machine. I slid out of my chair and went up behind her.

‘White,’ I said. ‘Two sugars.’

‘Fuck off`, Ian,’ she said, without turning.

I reached past her for a cup. ‘You heard we settled. You think that makes you look bad?’

‘It does make me look bad. And actually, what I heard was that you dropped us in it.’

‘Who told you that? Clive? Your old man?’

She pulled a face, spooning coffee into her mug. She said that what her father told her was none of my business.

‘No? What about your mother?’ I said.

She was annoyed now. One of our junior people headed over for a coffee, but I waved him off.

I said to Justine, ‘When you signed the Ottoman slip, Angela was off having that mastectomy.’

Her brow wrinkled. ‘Do you mind?’

‘Did Angela discuss the Ottoman slip with you?’

‘No.’ She reached past me for the milk. ‘What’s your problem?’

‘You’re sure you never discussed it with her?’

Swearing, she poured the milk into her coffee. She’d already given me her answer and she wasn’t going to repeat it. Worse, I had a feeling she was telling me the truth. Those six bad deals of Angela’s, and Justine’s rotten Ottoman deal, they might not be connected at all. But I’d taken more than enough of Justine’s holier-than-thou attitude, I was fed up with her. 

Leaning a little closer, I said, ‘You signed the Ottoman slip because Sebastian told you to.’

Her eyes shot up. In that moment before she recovered, I saw that I’d shaken her.

‘If I remember rightly,’ she said, ‘you approved it.’

‘And if I remember rightly, Justine, my parents died the week before. I was approving anything anyone waved in front of me.’

‘If you were that bad you shouldn’t have been working.'

‘Probably not.’ When she went to step past me, I blocked her. She did that brow-wrinkling thing again, put her hand up to push by. I said, 'Then again, if you were signing leads on WardSure business, you probably shouldn’t have been screwing Uncle Sebastian.' She froze, like some weird statue, one hand holding the coffee mug, the other up and ready to push me out of the way. ‘You were screwing Sebastian, and he asked you to sign the Ottoman lead, and that’s what you did, Justine.’

‘No.’

I looked over her shoulder. Frazer and some of the brokers, out of earshot, were glancing across at us. ‘The only thing I’m not sure about is whether or not you knew there’d be a claim.’

She set down her mug. Then brushing past me, she grabbed her handbag from the back of her chair and stalked out towards the Ladies. The heads turned to watch her go by. But the appeal of that firm arse of hers was completely lost on me now. She was a brat, she’d cost the Mortlake Group a heap of money, her parents a lot of pain, and me the only chance I'd ever have of getting into the syndicate underwriter’s chair. And it crossed my mind that maybe she’d cost Sebastian more than he’d bargained for too.

Frazer came over to gloat. Smiling, he reached for the sugar. ‘No luck with the boss’s daughter then?’

I got back over to the box just in time to take the message from upstairs. It was the PA: Allen Mortlake was free.

As I stepped out of the lift I saw the doors of the lift opposite closing. The Lloyd’s Chairman, inside, nodded to Piers Crossland who remained out on the landing, When the doors had closed, Piers pressed the button for a lift going down. Then he glanced back and saw me. ‘Bad day at the office?’

‘In court,’ I corrected him.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘So I heard.’

The only person he could have heard it from was Allen. And the only time he could have heard it was just now, in the meeting he’d come from with Allen and the Chairman. Which meant that the Chairman had heard it as well.

Piers asked me if he should order a transcript. I told him not to bother. ‘How it looks in the transcript’s not how it was.’

‘Oh?’ The lift came, the doors opened, but Piers didn’t get in. Then the doors closed, and the lift went down without him. He said, ‘So how was it?’

I looked away through the glass doors, and on down the corridor towards Allen’s office. Normally I would have kept my mouth shut. But since Allen seemed to have blabbed already, I said, ‘Is the Crossland-Mortlake Group merger going ahead?'

‘Does that matter?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I think it does.’

He considered. ‘And you don’t want to talk out of shop?’

I waited for an answer.

He glanced down the empty corridor, then said,‘We’ve just informed the Chairman that we expect to make the armouncement on Monday. An agreed merger. Good enough for you?’ His openness caught me flat-footed. So the merger was going ahead. Piers Crossland would have a say in the appointment of the new Syndicate 486 underwriter. While the implications went zinging round my head, he said, ‘So what really happened on that Ottoman policy?’

‘We should never have written it.’