False Alarm (3 page)

A single ‘For Sale' notice from a national agency advertised a three-bedroom apartment. Not ‘flat'. ‘Apartment'. Appealing to buyers with money to burn?

Glazed porch at an angle over two steps led up to wide, glass doors.

A speakerphone entry system. ‘Lady Ossett? Bea Abbot here.'

A tinny voice, ‘Who?'

‘Bea Abbot. Your daughter Maggie asked me to call on you to explain—'

‘She's late. Has something happened to her?'

‘She gave me a message for you.'

Pause. ‘Take the lift to the top, and then the stairs.'

Click. The front door opened and Bea entered the hall, which was lined with pale wood panelling, with bands of a darker wood in horizontal stripes. The floor was tiled in a geometric pattern; black, white, fawn. The ceiling lights must be original; fluted, understated elegance. Everything was design conscious. Perhaps too much so?

Directly inside the hall there was a rank of numbered letter-boxes, one for each flat. To left and right were doors leading to ground-floor apartments, while straight ahead there was a lift with a staircase winding around it. Up . . . and down. Down to a basement? A garage? The lift doors were panelled in the same light wood as the rest of the hall and embellished with marquetry panels.

Bea summoned the lift and rode it to the top. She got out and looked around. Here were doors to two more flats plus an arrow advising visitors to take the stairs one more flight up to the penthouse.

Why didn't the lift go up to the penthouse? Had it been added to the building at a later date? Or perhaps the original occupant had not wished to be disturbed by the almost noiseless whine of the machinery?

Bea took the stairs up until she reached a small landing. The stairs were uncarpeted, of polished wood. The banisters were of the same light wood. More geometric patterns. No expense had been spared, had it?

Bea scrutinized the newel posts at the head of the stairs. Feeling somewhat silly she produced the small magnifying glass she carried in her handbag for those occasions on which she'd forgotten her reading glasses, and . . . Yes, if you looked hard, you could see where a tack or a nail or something with a sharp point had been driven into the wood of the newel post and later removed. The hole was still there; and yes, there was another on the opposite side of the staircase. At ankle height. If you had a vivid imagination, you might think someone could have tied a nylon thread or perhaps a thin wire to one nail, stretched it across the stairs and tied the end to the other nail. In poor light someone might not notice and take a nasty tumble down . . . how many steps before the flight turned in a different direction?

Bea counted them. Eight. And then you'd come up against the wall. Or if you were very unlucky, you might continue headlong down the next flight as well. It was very quiet up here, well above the other flats. If he hadn't had his mobile phone on him, Sir Lucas might have had to stagger down the stairs by himself until he could thump on another occupant's door and summon assistance. He had indeed been lucky to get away with a broken arm and bruises.

Someone had come along afterwards to remove the thread and pull the nails out of the woodwork. Bingo. Nothing left to see, except two tiny tack holes.

Bea took a photograph of both holes on her camera and, standard practice kicking into action, checked to see that the evidence had been recorded and saved.

There was only one door at penthouse level. Beside it was a wrought-iron table holding a pot with an orchid in it. Bea checked. The flower was artificial but could pass for real. A stained-glass window offered a view of a busy street many floors below.

Bea put her magnifying glass away and rang the doorbell.

A vision in peaches and cream opened the door. ‘Mrs Abbot? I've been looking forward to meeting you so much, though not, of course, under such difficult circumstances. Is my daughter ill? I have been out of my mind with worry about her. Do put me out of my misery.'

Gush, gush, thought Bea. But found herself smiling, for Lady Ossett was quite charming, looking hardly a day older than her twenty-something daughter. Petite and sweet.

And, Bea reminded herself, lethal. Remember,
‘
My mother is a cow!
'

‘Maggie's quite well but couldn't come this morning. She asked me to make her apologies.'

‘Oh no! Oh, this is terrible. I was relying on her to . . . But please, do come in.' With a gust of teasing, expensive perfume, the vision ushered Bea into a spacious, cream-carpeted hall with archways leading off in different directions. Bea noted a telephone table, carved oak chair and a number of doors, one of which the vision opened to reveal a clothes cupboard with lots of space at one side. Had the gap been caused by the removal of Lucas's clothes?

A vacuum cleaner whined somewhere nearby. A cleaner at work?

‘My dear, ugly duckling of a daughter! She is the light of my life but I do worry about her, as I am sure you must do, having taken her under your wing, quite too charitable of you considering all the trouble she causes. Do hang your coat in here; my! How tall you are! I can never reach that peg, but my dear husband insists that . . .'

Here she applied a tiny handkerchief to the corner of her eyes. There was a huge diamond on her ring finger, and the hankie was lace-edged. Bea smoothed out a smile. Diamonds and lace; typical.

Lady Ossett led the way into one of the most stunning living rooms Bea had ever seen. It was huge, filled with light from windows on two sides, adding to the impression the building gave of being a luxury liner at sea. The room was furnished in a mixture of art deco and modern taste, with glass and steel and cream leather on areas of silk carpet in pastel colours. Very
Homes & Gardens
.

Had Lady O furnished it herself? Possibly. If so, then she was a very clever woman and not an ordinary cow. Or perhaps she'd employed a top designer to create a fitting background for her beauty?

There were modern lithos between fluted uplighters on the walls, and one striking portrait above a long settee. Everything was dust-free, vacuumed and polished.

Through French windows at the far end of the room, Bea glimpsed a prettily arranged terrace garden, decorated with huge pots, containing palms, and a water feature. The garden furniture had, very sensibly, been hooded for the winter. The view of the London skyline was amazing, even on this gloomy day. Central heating ticked.

Lady O waved Bea to a low-slung chair and seated herself behind a glass-topped coffee table, on which reposed today's paper and a lacquered, Chinese style tray holding a small cafetière and a gold-rimmed cup and saucer. One cup only. A silver bowl held lumps of sugar, with a pair of tongs laid on top.

Sugar tongs? When had Bea last seen those in use? Amazing!

‘Coffee?' The offer was made in perfunctory fashion and was not meant to be accepted.

Bea declined.

The vision said, ‘It really is too bad of Maggie to let me down like this. I shall give her such a scold when I see her! So, tell me; why the delay?'

‘I'm afraid work intervened. The client threatened to sue if Maggie didn't complete the job she was doing for him.'

Lady Ossett looked as if she couldn't make up her mind whether to be annoyed or indulgent. Indulgence won, by a narrow margin. ‘Oh dear. The scrapes that child gets herself into. However much is it going to cost me to get her out of this one, I wonder!'

Bea said, ‘Tens of thousands, I should think.'

‘Mm?' The teeniest of frowns disturbed the bland forehead. Botox? Undoubtedly. Lady O lifted her cup to her lips. ‘She does so exaggerate. Helping a neighbour out with some housework or typing up a bill or two; that doesn't sound very important to me. Surely you can find someone else in the agency to take on her jobs?'

Bea took a deep breath. Had Maggie never made it clear to her mother exactly what work she was doing? Or had she tried, and her mother not listened? The latter, most likely. Time to disabuse the little lady of her delusions. ‘A good project manager is worth her weight, and Maggie has a raft of contracts to fulfil.'

Lady O repeated the word, soundlessly. ‘Project . . .?'

Bea put the boot in. ‘You could do far worse than employ her professionally if ever you wanted to change the layout here, or put in another bathroom, or whatever.'

The cup in Lady O's hand rattled as she replaced it on its saucer. ‘Maggie is working as a . . .? My Maggie?'

‘Your ugly duckling is quite some businesswoman. I must congratulate you. She rents an office from me nowadays and has had to take on a part-time accountant and a secretary to help her keep the books straight. You know how particular the tax man can be if the accounts are not well kept.'

The wide blue eyes lost their focus. The finely-chiselled nose took on a pinched look. The make-up was too good to allow her to go pale, but the cords stood out on her neck as the lady took in what Bea had said.

‘You mean that she's refusing to help me in my hour of need?'

Bea tried to work out what was happening to Lady O. Was she truly in shock? Did she really have cause for alarm? ‘She can't abandon her contracted jobs without risking some nasty court cases. She did wonder if she could pass the work on to another firm, but—'

Lady O stood up in one abrupt movement. Ungraceful, even. ‘Excuse me for a moment. I must have a word with my cleaner. You'll have some coffee, won't you?'

Had she forgotten that Bea had declined coffee?

Lady Ossett left the room by an inner door. The whine of the vacuum cleaner increased, and then stopped.

So the lady really is afraid. Maggie said she was, but I didn't believe it. Whatever is going on here?

Bea looked around her. Next to the lacquered tray on the table, an iPhone sat on top of today's
Times
,
open and folded to a crossword which had been more than half completed in a fine blue biro. Beneath that was a paper whose colour gave away its title: the
Financial
Times
. Perhaps Lucas had placed an order for these papers, and Lady O hadn't yet got round to cancelling it? What would her own reading be?
Vogue
?
Hello
magazine? The
Daily
Mail
?

Restless, Bea stood and went to look out of the nearest window. Stunning view. Nearby an escritoire was open, supporting a netbook with Skype up and running, ready for use. And a letter from a stockbroker. She wasn't prying, exactly. The letterhead was easy to read from where she stood. She checked who the letter was addressed to. Was it Sir Lucas? No. It was Lady Ossett.

Did Lady O study the markets? Hm. Perhaps she wasn't quite as naive about money matters as her daughter had indicated. Also on the escritoire was yesterday's copy of the
Times
, again folded to reveal the crossword puzzle. Completed in the same blue biro. Bea bent over for a closer look. It wasn't one of those crosswords which you could polish off while you boiled an egg. It was one of the fiendish ones which Bea had never been able to cope with, although her dear departed husband had managed it most days.

Surely Lady Ossett hadn't the brain for crossword puzzles, had she? These must have been completed by Sir Lucas. Uh oh. It was today's crossword puzzle in the paper on the coffee table, filled in with the same blue biro as yesterday's, while Sir Lucas had been gone two days. So, if Lady Ossett had filled them in, then . . . rethink, Bea!

While she was still on her feet Bea walked over to inspect the fine modern portrait which hung over the largest of the settees. A spotlight had been trained upon it to underline its importance. A name came into her head. Lucian Freud.

The subject was a businessman. Lucas? If that picture were by Freud, it must be worth a fortune. She peered at it. Yes, definitely. Freud.

There was no other evidence of a man's presence in the room.

Books? None in sight . . . except for a couple of library books which were, unexpectedly, from P.D. James and the latest winner of the Man Booker prize. There wasn't a Mills & Boon romance or a copy of
Hello
! magazine in sight.

A superb leather handbag squatted on the floor by Lady O's chair. It lay open, disclosing the usual contents . . . and a pair of men's sunglasses. Not a woman's. Too large, too heavy, and totally unlike anything Lady O would wear.

Bea seated herself again as Lady O returned, bearing a second coffee cup and saucer. All traces of distress had been erased. She was even smiling. She reseated herself, poured out a cup of coffee for Bea and handed it to her. ‘No cream, I imagine. We older women have to watch our figures, don't we?'

Bea produced a polite smile. It was interesting that Lady O should put herself in the same age group as Bea, who was in her early sixties. Flattering, even, for the vision herself could hardly be more than mid-forties. She'd been born with an excellent bone structure and a mop of fair hair which only needed a little help from her hairdresser to retain its champagne colour. There was no sign of a facelift, though incipient lines had been erased with Botox. Her eyelashes had been dyed, her teeth whitened and her nails extended by experts. Her figure was delightful. A pocket Venus, no less.

Money played a part here, of course. Bea could make a guess at where Lady O had bought the fine wool dress and four-inch heels she was wearing because she'd seen – and considered buying – both in Harvey Nicholls in Knightsbridge.

The coffee was excellent.

‘You hinted,' said Lady O, with a sweet smile, ‘that my daughter might be able to turn her work over to someone else . . .?'

Bea set her empty cup down. ‘It would be difficult and perhaps have unpleasant consequences. Do you not have a friend who could keep you company for a while?'

Lady O lowered her eyelids and tried to look confused. ‘You must think me very selfish, but my daughter's letting me down like this . . . you can't possibly understand . . . and Lucas deserting me . . . though I really find it hard to have to beg, I must ask you to help Maggie reorganize her work schedule so that she may return home. I really do need looking after now that—'