East of the City (37 page)

‘He needed the brokerage.’

‘Brokerage, my arse.’

‘All right, so after a few times I probably guessed. He was my lover, and I put things through the syndicate I shouldn’t have. What am I meant to do now, throw myself off the Lloyd’s Building?'

She knew she was in the wrong. It couldn’t have been too easy for her owning up to all this, the affair, then caving in to Sebastian when he pressured her to sign the lead on those policies. And if I thought back to those lectures she used to give me on ethics and etiquette in the market, I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed for her or very bloody angry.

I said, ‘Those clients, Nestrel and the others, did you meet any of them?’

‘No.’

‘But you knew they all had bad claims records. You must have guessed they were bent.’

Nodding, she sipped her drink.

‘Then you must have had a fair idea Sebastian was bent too,’ I said. ‘He had to be splitting the claims with these guys-’ I tapped the folder. She didn’t say anything to that. ‘Angela, you don’t want these deals to go to Allen now, do you?’

Her look hardened. ‘I’m not sure that blackmail suits you, Ian.’

‘I’m not sure going to prison for murder suits me either. And it’s whistle-blowing, not blackmail.'

Angela tapped her knee. I thought it was just nerves, but then the doberman got up and trotted over. She touched its back and it sat at her feet. Stroking his ears now, she said, ‘I’m not going to beg, but I don’t want those slips being passed on to Allen.’

'Then help me.’ I nodded to the folder. ‘Did Sebastian ever mention any names, people from those companies?’

‘No.’

‘No-one he’d had a falling-out with?’

‘Ian, don’t you get it? When I was with Sebastian, we didn’t spend our time talking business.’ Her gaze dropped. She stroked the doberman’s neck. ‘Anyway, I don’t see what good it could do anyone, you telling Allen. Not now.’

‘Angela—’ I spread my hands. ‘Sebastian was murdered. His bloody house burnt down on top of him, and then someone tried to pull a K and R stroke on us. And then Ottoman and Mehmet... if all that’s connected with these deals you were doing—’

‘You don’t believe that.'

‘I don’t want to believe it. But then again, I didn’t want to believe you were having an affair with Sebastian.’

She flinched. I wasn’t doing myself any favours.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to go to Allen. I just want to figure out what was happening with Sebastian before he was murdered.’

‘Then what happens to those?’ Angela pointed to the folder.

‘They go back into storage. They’ll gather dust for another twenty years, then get ditched.'

She considered my proposition, it didn’t take her very long. She shoved the doberman and it loped back to its place by the Aga. ‘That Blaxton’s policy,’ she said, ‘was the last I wrote the lead on for Sebastian.'

'That was almost two years ago.’

Angela nodded.

‘And that was the last time he asked you for the favour?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about Ottoman?'

She took her glass back to the cabinet. Pouring another tall one, she said, ‘The first I knew about Ottoman was when their claim came in.’

‘And you thought?'

‘I thought Justine had written a bad piece of business.’

She recapped the bottle and faced me. ‘And I thought you’d been rather slack in letting it slip through.’

Taking that one on the chin, I said, ‘So the first you knew about Sebastian and Justine was the photo?’

Closing her eyes, she nodded. And when I remembered how she’d reacted on seeing the photo, it seemed likely. And if she hadn’t known about Justine and Sebastian until well after Sebastian’s death, then the jilted-lover-turns-murderous idea was junk. Not that I could take it that seriously anyway. I mean, this was Angela.

‘I’m not proud of writing those leads for him,’ she said, returning to her chair. ‘And I don’t like the fact that he was sleeping with my daughter — even if, under the circumstances, I’m not in much of a position to complain. But believe me, Ian, when his house burnt down, and later when we found out he’d been murdered, I was more shocked than anyone.’ She stared over her drink at nothing. I felt embarrassed then, like some kind of peeping Tom. Just remembering Sebastian Ward was making Angela’s eyes cloud over; she wiped them with the back of her hand.

‘Angela, could either Allen or Justine have known what was going on between you and Sebastian?'

The meaning of my question seemed to sink in slowly. Did either her husband or her daughter have a motive for murder?

‘Now that,’ she said, tilting her glass towards me, ‘really is crazy.'

I was about to ask a few follow-ups when the doberman suddenly leapt to its feet. He barked at the windows, and a moment later we heard a car speeding up the drive. The dog pricked its ears then turned a circle and slumped by the Aga. A sound he recognized. I got up from my chair.

‘Justine,’ Angela told me as the car stopped out front. ‘And so you know, Allen and I haven’t let on to her  that we know about her and Sebastian.’

I got the message. I guess she and Allen had decided the best thing, now that Sebastian was dead, was to forget they’d ever seen that photo. Let Justine get on with her life ignorant of what they knew. All well and good for the Mortlakes, but what about me?

I said, ‘I already asked Justine about her and Sebastian.’

Angela looked pained. ‘And?’

‘And nothing. She didn’t want to hear.’

The front door opened and closed, there were footsteps in the hall. Justine came into the kitchen  saw me, and stopped cold. Her cheeks glowed.

She said to her mother, ‘What’s he been saying?’ and then, ‘Why’s he here?’

Angela gestured vaguely to the folder in my hand. She explained there was some syndicate business we were clearing up.

‘He’s been suspended,’ Justine said. The dog went and nuzzled up to her, she shoved it away with her knee. ‘The police are looking for him too, they came to the Room to arrest him.’

I told her to keep her shirt on. 

She said, ‘Does Dad know he’s here?’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake.’ Angela was annoyed with her daughter now. ‘Take your coat off,’ she said. ‘Have a drink and settle down.’

Justine gave me a withering look as she pulled her coat off and stepped back out to the hall. Angela took a very long drink from her glass.. Living in the same house as her daughter, after all that had happened, must have been hell for her. And those leads she’d written for Sebastian, given the kind of person she was, they’d be on her conscience forever. But I still wasn’t sure that I bought everything Angela had told me. Given the kind of person she was, how had she fallen so easily for Sebastian? Justine — stuck-up and vain — her I understood. But Angela? Something about it just didn’t ring true.

‘What’s she up to?’ Angela got up from her chair and looked out through the doorway. ‘Justine!’ she called.

There was no answer. We looked at each other. I think we both realized in the same moment exactly what was going on. Justine was busy on the phone.

I swore.

Angela said, ‘I’m sorry, Ian,’ but I didn’t wait for the rest of the apology. I knocked the painted chair over in my rush for the door, and as I ran down the drive I heard the doberman barking at me through the French windows.

Two miles clear of the Mortlake place I passed the first cop car. Its blue light was flashing, its siren wailed. It was headed the other way, answering Justine's call. Racing as fast as it could to arrest me.

W
hen I called Clive he just about chewed my ear off. What did I think I was doing, did I realize the position I’d put him in, wasn’t it time I came to my senses, the full bit. After a couple of minutes letting off steam, he calmed down enough to listen.

‘There’s been a development,’ I said, and then I told him straight out that Angela had had a long-term affair with Sebastian. I didn’t mention the deals.

After a few seconds’ silence, he asked cautiously, ‘How long-term?'

‘More than ten years.'

He groaned.

I said, ‘If either Justine or Allen knew—’

‘Stop right there.’

‘Maybe they had some kind of motive for murder.’

‘I don’t want to hear it.’

‘Shut up, for Christ’s sake. Ihere’s been what you might call a development this end too,’ Clive said. ‘But I think you should hear it from the witness’s own mouth.’

‘What witness?'

'The witness,' Clive said, ‘who was in Sebastian’s house the night of the murder.'

We met at a lay-by in Epping Forest. I drove past, once, in Tubs’s Mercedes. Clive’s car was parked there, waiting. As my headlights swept over his car I saw two figures in the front but I couldn’t make out their faces. Half a mile on, I turned and came back slowly. I pulled off the road and eased up behind Clive’s car, the whole business feeling completely unreal.

After switching off the ignition, I flashed my headlights. They got out of Clive's car. They looked around into the dark — the forest was thick and low just there — and after a moment they headed my way. Clive opened the door behind me, slid into the back seat without saying a word. Then the passenger door opened and the witness got in beside me. He offered me his hand but I just let it hang there. The hand finally dropped.

‘What’s up with you?’ he said.

I stared over the steering wheel, the muscles of my jaw clenched tight. ‘Nigel,’ I said, ‘you’ve got the brains of a fucking gnat.'

Clive leaned forward. He told us he hadn't come out to referee a fight.

Nigel Chambers turned to Clive saying, ‘Why does he have to know anyway? I told you I’d tell the cops.’

‘The cops,’ Clive said patiently, ‘haven’t had their lives turned upside-down by your failure to step forward and say what you saw, Nigel. But Ian here, he has. He’s owed an explanation. Give it to him, then we’re leaving.’

I glanced across at Nigel, he was frowning, clearly very unhappy that Clive hadn’t taken him straight to the cops. I said to Nigel, ‘You were at Sebastian’s place that night?'

He nodded reluctantly.

‘What for?’ I asked him.

‘This and that.’ WhenI looked at him, and he shrugged and said, ‘The WardSure shareprice was coming off a bit. I was borrowed up to the eyeballs and I’d committed to taking another truckload of shares. I needed some cash. Short-term.’

‘You were going to borrow it from Sebastian?’

‘Ahha.’

‘You’d done that before?’

‘Yep. Look, this is all beside the point anyway. It never got that far, I didn’t even get to ask him.’

Half-turned to Nigel now, I rested an elbow through the steering wheel. Clive was leaning forward, listening.

‘I got there late,’ Nigel said. ‘I don’t know, maybe ten?’

‘You'd phoned first?’ Clive asked.

Nigel shook his head. ‘No chance. I didn’t want him telling me to sod off before I put it to him about the money. Anyway, I get there the front gate’s open, so I drive up to the house. Up at the house, there’s plenty of lights on, but as I’m walking up the path I hear some noise round the side. When I go round there to look, it’s that guy Pike, Sebastian’s security man. He’s got his van backed up to the side door. When he saw me he just about fell over.’

‘What was he up to?’

‘Wait on.’ Nigel collected his thoughts for a moment. ‘I asked Pike, "Is Sebastian in?" and at first he looks lost, then he says, "In the library. You know the way, show yourself through.” Well I didn’t know anything had happened, and I’d come to see Sebastian, so I went in. The library door was closed, I knocked a couple of times but there was no answer, I thought Pike must have got it wrong. But just to be sure, I opened the door and looked in. Sebastian was there all right. Stretched out on the floor.'

‘Dead?’ I said. 

‘Dead,’ Nigel agreed. ‘But I didn’t know that at first. I went over, I couldn’t believe it, there was a gun lying under his arm, a pistol. I lifted his head and I pulled the pistol out, I guess I was trying to make him comfortable. Jesus, I don’t know.’ Nigel ran his fingers up through his hair, and stared out into the forest. I got the feeling he didn’t want to look me in the eye. ‘I was just like that,’ Nigel said, ‘when Pike came running in.’

I tried to picture the scene; Nigel and Sebastian and Pike. It wouldn’t come.

‘Then what?’ Clive said.

‘Then like I told you, I’m still shocked out of my head, Pike comes over and takes the pistol off me, holding it in some cloth. Then he starts saying he’s going to call the police.’ Nigel faced me. ‘Well I just freaked.’

‘You ran?’

‘How could I run? My fingerprints were all over the pistol and Sebastian’s body was just lying there. Pike had me by the balls. He knew it too.’

‘But you didn’t actually see Pike shoot Sebastian.’

Nigel turned to Clive. ‘While I was still completely freaked out, Pike got me to help him. You know how?’

I didn’t say anything. Neither did Clive.

‘The little bastard was robbing the place. That’s what his van was doing backed up to the house. He’d taken paintings, anything he could carry, but he couldn’t get the big stuff by himself. Some desk he wanted. So he made me help him load it. Little fuck'

I studied him for a while. ‘You’re saying Pike murdered Sebastian so he could rob Sebastian’s house?’

Nigel’s brow creased. ‘Well, what else?’

‘And he tricked you into leaving your fingerprints on the murder weapon.’

He nodded.

I took a breath. ‘Nigel, you knew the cops were trying to nail the murder on me, and you left this till now?’

He mumbled an apology into his chest. When I swore, he lifted his head. ‘Hey, I was set up too, remember. And between times I’ve been busy going bankrupt. It hasn’t been a picnic for me either, you know.’

‘Perhaps,’ Clive said quietly from the back seat, ‘Ian should hear the rest of it.’

Nigel turned on him. ‘You said we were going to the cops.’

‘Let’s finish up here first, shall we?’

‘So what about the fire?’ I asked.

‘I was already gone. Pike said he’d take the body away in the van, he said if I breathed a word he’d drop me right in it. He still had the gun.’