False Alarm (10 page)

‘To make sure I got the point, there was a tin of rat poison nearby, with the lid off. An old tin. Rusty. There wasn't much left in the tin.' She led the way back through the corridor and into the kitchen. A modern kitchen though not large by today's standards. She pointed to a work surface. ‘There. Rat poison. Remains of steak.' She pointed to the floor. ‘There. Dead cat. I suppose I should thank Momi for alerting me to the danger. I made Maggie get us takeaways last night, and I'm going to throw away everything I've got in the freezer and the fridge. Who knows what else has been poisoned?'

‘You believe it was a warning meant for you?'

Lady O cracked out a laugh. ‘Well, it wasn't meant for Lucas, was it? He's gone. And it wasn't a warning. It was pure chance that Momi ate what was intended for me. Someone meant me to die.'

‘You don't know who it was?'

Again, she wrung her hands. ‘I wish I did, but I don't.'

‘What does Lucas think of this?'

‘He thinks I'm “a little hysterical”. He's so sure he's the target that he can't even consider that I might be the intended victim. He thinks it's all part and parcel of the plot to drive him out of office. He says that if I'd eaten the steak, I might have been made ill, but that it wouldn't have killed me. I wrapped the remains of the steak in cling film, using new rubber gloves which I then threw away, and I sent it to him, asking him to get it analysed, together with the tin labelled “Poison”. He turned all patronizing on me, said that if I insisted of course he'd send it to the laboratory in due course, though I must remember that they are terribly busy and—'

She bent over, retching. Made it to the sink. Threw up.

Bea located some kitchen towels and put them at Lady O's elbow.

‘Thank you.' Lady O ran the cold tap, dunked a kitchen towel, wiped her mouth, removing her lipstick. She got a glass, poured out and drank some water. ‘I apologize. I don't usually give way like this. I can usually take things in my stride. Four husbands, a dysfunctional child, money difficulties . . . I've always managed to keep smiling. I keep asking myself, who have I offended so much that they want me dead? And what's going to happen next? Do you wonder that I can't bear to be left alone here?'

‘You should leave, go to a hotel, stay with a friend.'

‘I've thought of it. God knows I've thought of nothing else much these last few days. Lucas doesn't want me to. He's convinced I'm in no real danger. He says he's relying on me to stay here and pretend nothing is happening so as not to upset a volatile share market. He says he's closing in on the man he suspects is behind all this. He says that if I leave it will alert the conspirators, who . . . But I honestly don't think Tariq is capable of it!'

She rang the cold water tap some more and dabbed at her forehead with a wet kitchen towel, removing even more of her make-up. ‘I thought of getting a doctor's certificate to say I'm ill, but Lucas wouldn't believe it.'

Bea looked searchingly at Lady O. Conclusion; the lady was in awe of, if not actually afraid of her husband. ‘Don't try to rationalize it, but give me your gut reaction. Who is doing this?'

‘I don't know. I DON'T KNOW! Do you think I haven't thought and thought . . .? I mean, why would anyone want to . . .? Perhaps Lucas is right and this is all aimed at him and I'm collateral damage. But—'

‘Which member of your bridge party would be willing to become an accomplice to your murder? It must have been one of them who brought in the rat poison. Someone who went to the loo, saw the steak laid out in the kitchen and took the opportunity to poison it?'

Closed eyes. Head shaking. ‘Someone might have come in from outside. They must have gained access to the building somehow or other and sneaked into the flat while we were all playing bridge.'

Or arrived via the fire escape? Bea started back to the master bedroom, with Lady O at her heels. Bea opened the French windows and a gust of icy wind wrapped around her. She closed the windows. ‘Does the fire escape go all the way down to the ground? Could someone from outside have gained access that way?'

‘I don't see how they could. All the flats have access to the fire escape, but the bottom two stories are enclosed in a brick wall. When you reach the ground floor you're in a sort of well. There's a door with a bar on it that you push down to get out, and then you're in an alleyway, near the entrance to the garage. You can't get into the building from outside, not even with a key.'

‘I don't believe some stranger gatecrashed your party. The odds on their being seen would have been too great. Someone from the bridge party was responsible.'

‘That's impossible.' Lady O wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and inspected the result. ‘I must look a mess.' She opened a mirrored door into an elaborate en suite with gold taps on everything in sight. She switched on concealed lights and slid back a mirror to reveal a cornucopia of beauty products.

Reaching for a bottle of cleanser, she said over her shoulder, ‘You'll want to check the fire escape out for yourself. Take a torch from the first drawer on the right in the kitchen because it can get dark at the bottom of the stairs. Close the French windows behind you to keep the heat in. Tap three times when you come back, so that I can let you in again.'

Bea pulled on her big coat, found a torch in the place indicated, and went out into the wind and rain. Yes, it was now spitting rain. And clouding over. She rounded the corner of the terrace and came to the fire escape. Wrought-iron rungs led to the floor below. She could see through them to the next floor down. The gaps between would ruin the high heels of her boots if she weren't careful. Oh well.

One storey down and she was on a balcony which served the back doors and wide windows of the two flats directly under the penthouse. On one side there were a couple of wooden garden chairs and a table, which had been folded up and covered with plastic for the winter.

She tried to recall what the twins had said about the occupants on this floor. One side was Professor Jacobsen, whose cat Momi had been too greedy for his own good. No lights showed in the flat on that side. The garden furniture would belong to him.

She could see right into the other flat because someone had switched on the lights in both the kitchen and the bedroom beyond. A radio played pop music. The decorators were in. Stepladders, an awkward mound of furniture in the middle of the room, covered by dust sheets. Workmen moving to and fro. One window had been cracked; by the workmen? Another had been left open, and the scent of new, oil-based paint drifted out to her. The decorators had dumped some empty tins of paint and bags of rubble outside on the balcony. Tut-tut.

According to Lucy and Carrie, the people who owned that flat had gone off to their second home in France, taking the opportunity to have the decorators in. So far as they knew, that flat was not for sale.

Bea tested the back doors of both flats, noting that Professor Jacobsen's back door had a cat flap at the bottom. Neither door budged an inch. She shone her torch upon their locks. No signs of forced entry.

The iron staircase led on down. She caught the high heel of her best boots, wrenched it free. However careful she was, her heels were going to be ruined.

Another balcony, another set of doors. Carrie Kempton on one side. Tariq on the other. Neither flat showed a light. These doors hadn't been touched either, as far as she could see. An untidy heap of cardboard boxes mixed with polystyrene packaging occupied much of the balcony on Tariq's side. A couple of garden chairs and some large pots filled with ivies and polyanthus gave the impression that Carrie Kempton liked to sit outside in good weather.

Down, down, down. Bea caught the heel of her boot again and this time had quite a struggle to get it loose. Bother. Now who was on this floor? Lucy Emerson and . . . who? She couldn't remember. Mrs Emerson's back door and windows were both dark. There were garden chairs, pots
and
window boxes on her part of the balcony. The pots were filled with winter-flowering pansies, skimmias and ivies. Very pretty. No lights within; she must have gone out for the afternoon?

The other side of the balcony, including the kitchen door, had been shut off with bamboo screens so that no one could look in. Why? Bea tried to remember who lived opposite Lucy. Some words floated back to her . . . ‘
A Muslim family; very quiet.
' No lights showed within. It seemed that everyone on that floor was out, too.

Down and down. Bea was getting confused. More garden furniture on either side; one lot was plastic, the other wood. Who lived on that floor? Was it the woman in the fake fur coat? Lucy and Carrie thought she was a call girl, didn't they? They'd said, ‘She was a model, they say. Probably christened plain Carmel. Irish. She has men to pay the bills for her, if you get my meaning.'

Bea had nodded. She'd wondered as much, herself. ‘She's not on visiting terms with the Ossetts?'

Lucy and Carrie had both laughed, short and hard. ‘She comes to the bridge parties, but she's not exactly friendly, if you know what I mean.'

Down and down. Suddenly, she was plunged into darkness as a brick wall rose up around her.

Who was on this floor? She looked into the kitchens on either side. Tidy. Not much used on one side. A bit messy on the other. More garden furniture and what looked like a barbecue, well wrapped up against the winter winds.

Lucy – or perhaps it was Carrie – had said, ‘Two couples; yuppies, I think they call them. Out all day. Banking. Advertising. Striped shirts, three-piece suits, fold-up bicycles and the latest laptops or whatever they call them now.'

And the other one had said, in a tone of rebuke, ‘Except, of course, for dear Helen, but she wouldn't cause any trouble. She's been rather poorly.'

Poorly or not, Bea considered that Helen's kitchen could do with a good clean.

Bea switched on the torch and descended to the ground floor. She located the exit door, pushed down on the bar and let herself out into an alley which ran along the back of the building. To prevent the door closing behind her, she wedged it open with the torch.

The alleyway was kept clean. Each of the flats had a numbered wheelie bin, and they were lined up in strict order from one to fourteen. Mr Caretaker liked things to be neat, didn't he? Bravo.

Next to the fire escape door was a tunnel sloping down into the sub-basement. The garage entrance? Yes. There was a barrier across the tunnel which would only lift if you inserted a special card into a machine on the wall. Beyond the entrance to the tunnel was a lighted window and a door belonging, presumably, to the den of the disobliging caretaker.

Bea walked along the alley, her heels crunching along the gravel which had been laid on top of the concrete surface. The hum of traffic grew louder as she emerged into a busy thoroughfare. Buses screeched, taxis whirled, children in pushchairs demanded treats, mothers young and old negotiated pavements, youths lounged . . . Normality.

She retraced her steps to the other end of the alley, which petered out into a narrow space between two blocks of flats.

‘What you doing?' Mr Pancko, or Poncho? Narrow eyes and mouth, not much hair and that cut to a stubble, a big frame, well-muscled. ‘You, trespass. This private road.'

‘You are the caretaker? My name is Mrs Abbot. Lady Ossett gave me permission to check the security at the back of the building, as I have a client interested in buying one of the flats.'

‘I, security. You no move. I check.' Menacing.

Bea decided she wouldn't like to cross this man, not least because he was carrying a heavy wrench. She waited, huddling into her coat. The rain was not heavy but it was insidious.

He kept his wrench under his arm while he accessed a slender iPhone. Listened to the person he'd called. Nodded. With reluctance. Turned his phone off. ‘OK. You go now. I watch you, right? Security here good. Understand?'

She nodded. She now saw the point of the gravel laid on the concrete. It made the footsteps of anyone who walked along the alley easy to hear. It was indeed good security.

She retrieved her torch and let the exit door clang to behind her. A strong door, made of steel? Yes. She climbed the stairs again. And again. And again. And . . . She stopped for a breather only twice, which she thought was pretty good. Looking down into the yard, she saw the caretaker watching her progress, with his phone still in his hand. If she'd tried to access any of the flats on the way up, he'd have been after her in no time at all.

She reached the top – wow! Wind and rain together, how delightful! She tapped on Lady O's French windows and almost fell inside. Oh, her heels! She'd have to throw those boots away.

‘Satisfied?' Lady O had restored her appearance to its norm and banked down the panic that had overtaken her earlier.

‘Your caretaker is quite an ogre, isn't he?'

‘He's an excellent watchdog. Mrs Abbot, would you care to join me for a late lunch? I'm about to send out for something. What do you like to eat?'

‘Anything. I agree with you about the fire escape. Which means that, whether you like it or not, whoever tampered with your steak must have been a member of the bridge party. I also agree that you may still be in danger. If you won't leave—'

A bitter smile. ‘I can't argue with Lucas.'

‘Then you must have a bodyguard.'

‘Maggie would be perfect, but you say she's unobtainable?'

‘Maggie would not be perfect, as you very well know. Oh yes, she'd be easier for you to boss around, but she doesn't have the sort of suspicious mind that's needed to spot anything out of place; a missing light bulb, an improperly addressed package in the post.'

Lady O grimaced. ‘You're right, of course. The girl's made great strides. She was always such an ugly duckling, so unresponsive to all my efforts to help her, I hadn't realized that she'd become a swan. Well, not a swan, exactly; we mustn't overstate the case. But—'