False Charity (10 page)

Bea brought her eyebrows down from her hairline, and managed to close her mouth, which was agape. She smoothed out a smile and tried to frown but didn't quite make it. Coral choked on her yoghurt. Piers hid a grin behind his fist.

Maggie's expression passed through astonishment and horror to reluctant admiration. ‘You'd do that for me?'

‘Well, and for me, too.'

Bea knew she'd sound prissy but felt she had to say it. ‘You do know that using someone else's credit details is wrong, don't you, Oliver?'

He met her eyes steadily. ‘What would you have done, Mrs Abbot?'

‘Found someone to get your certificates from your father, I suppose. If you'd gone to your friend's father, wouldn't he have helped you?'

‘Yes, he might. But I'd have had to say what I'd found on Dad's computer, and he might or might not want to believe me. If he did believe me, he'd have to do something about it, wouldn't he, because he's on the board of governors for the school. Then Dad would lose his job. I don't care about him, but I do care about Mum, even though she's a bit of an idiot sometimes. She'd have to divorce him, wouldn't she? They'd lose their house and then what would Mum do? And if my friend heard that I was supposed to be into porn, he probably wouldn't speak to me, anyway.'

‘No, I see that. You haven't tried to buy things on anybody else's account, have you?'

Oliver shook his head. ‘You mean on Mr Abbot's account? No, I wouldn't. Even though I don't think he treated Mrs Payne right.'

Piers pushed his plate forward for second helpings. ‘Eat up, lad. What you did was wrong, of course. But, well, perhaps Mrs Abbot can get you those all-important certificates in due course. If she can't, then I will. Right?'

Oliver gave Piers a look of such gratitude that Bea was taken aback. He'd never earned that look from his own son. She wasn't sure that Piers even liked Max. Perhaps that was the key to it, that he liked Oliver and would put himself out for him? For a lad who ought by rights to be handed over to the police for retribution? Well, if not for retribution, he ought perhaps to be given a caution. No, he didn't deserve to be given a police record for what he'd done. Or did he?

She was too tired to think straight, and it was only half past two in the afternoon.

She said, ‘Well, I'm glad that's straightened out. I don't know about you lot, but I'm bushed. I'm going up to my room to have a little rest. After that, we'll have a chat about what we do next. Agreed?'

She didn't wait for their agreement but set off up the stairs. At her age she oughtn't to be needing a nap after lunch. But there it was. She shucked off her outer clothes and her shoes, slid under the duvet, wriggled about a bit, and tried to drift away from all her problems.

She woke slowly. Bars of sunlight were finding their way through the window and making patterns on the carpet. There was a scatter of videos on the floor beside the collapsed cardboard box. She'd put them back later.

The room was warm. High summer in London can be rather too hot for comfort. She found a white cotton top and chinos that didn't look too creased, made a face at herself in the mirror, tidied her make-up and went down the stairs slowly. She didn't feel particularly refreshed by her nap.

The house was very quiet. Had she heard Maggie's high-pitched laugh while she was dragging herself back to consciousness? She rather thought the phone had rung a couple of times. Well, if it had, Maggie would have dealt with it. She stifled a grin, thinking of the cleaning woman trying to get into the House of Commons to see Max. What a laugh! The woman must be off her rocker.

Tea. Hot. Strong. She made herself some in a mug, and took it out through the sitting room and down the outside stairs into the garden. The sycamore tree provided shade there, and on one of the loungers lay Piers with a glass of wine at his elbow. He'd opened the bottle of wine he'd brought. Naturally.

He said, ‘You're up, are you? Still feeling jet lagged?'

Which meant she must be looking her age and more. She let herself down on to the other lounger, and sipped tea. ‘Where are the others?'

‘Playing cops and robbers. You'll have to watch young Oliver. Got an imagination that shocks even me. Playing detective's keeping Coral off the booze. No news from the hospital, which is good news, I suppose. Wouldn't a glass of wine do you more good than that stuff?'

She shook her head. The tea was just right. How she'd longed for a really good cup of strong English tea while she was abroad. It was one of the last things that Hamilton had asked for.
Oh, dear Hamilton, I miss you every minute of the day
.

Piers sipped wine. ‘I'm amazed at myself, I really am. There I was, thinking I could drop in on the grieving widow, pat her hand a few times and perhaps conduct a light flirtation before going on my way. Instead I find myself encouraging a caterer to flout the tax laws, coming the heavy father over a computer fraudster whose activities will undoubtedly land him in jail some time, and consoling a runaway bride that I don't even want to get into bed with. Old age has suddenly overtaken me.'

‘Is Maggie a runaway bride?'

He snorted. ‘Who knows? Who cares? They're your problem, not mine.'

‘Then why are you still here?'

‘Because Maggie promised to cook supper for us and then book me into a hotel. I want to do a couple of quick sketches before I leave, if my wrist doesn't pack up on me.'

Bea wondered if he would want her to change before he sketched her, and if so, what she should wear.

He said, ‘That flaming hair against bilious green. Pure rag doll. Maybe I can work it up into something.'

He wanted to sketch
Maggie
? Not Bea? She swallowed tea, and calmed her heartbeat. Luckily she hadn't said anything to reveal the fact that she'd thought he meant to paint her.

Maggie came bustling down the garden with a tray of sausages and kebabs. ‘Thought we could eat out here. Max often had a barbecue here in the evenings. Eat it with our fingers. No washing-up. Mind if I light up now?' She pulled the cover off a gas barbecue, and started it up.

‘That's new,' said Bea.

‘I expect they'll want to take it away, but we might as well use it while it's here.' She fiddled with controls. ‘Can the others come out now? We've got something to report.'

Bea nodded. ‘I'll watch, if you like.'

Maggie gave her a doubtful look, clearly wondering whether Bea could be trusted. Then went off, calling to the others that it was safe to come out now.

‘Are we such ogres?' Bea wondered, shifting her chair so that she was nearer the barbecue.

Piers poured himself another glass of wine. ‘If you want to play cops and robbers, it's nothing to do with me.'

Maggie chivvied Coral and Oliver out into the garden, bringing a bowl of tiny red tomatoes and some fresh bread rolls with her. Coral carried pickles and her mobile phone, but Oliver carried a sheaf of papers.

‘Any news of June?' Bea asked Coral.

Coral shook her head. ‘Jake rang. No change. They're putting her on bed rest to try to stop the contractions. Jake'll let me know if anything happens, and in the meantime, playing detective takes my mind off things.'

Bea nodded. ‘So, Oliver. What have you found out?'

‘It's all three of us, working together, Mrs Abbot.'

‘Call me Bea, please.'

He blushed. Couldn't quite manage it. ‘Well …'

Bea wondered if the generation gap really was so great he couldn't manage to call her by her first name.

Maggie produced a barbecue fork which looked as large as a trident, and started to lay food out on the grill. She nudged Oliver. ‘Go on. You start.'

Oliver said, ‘I thought the first thing to do was to make a list of everything we knew about them, which is quite a lot, really. We've got their letterheads and their brochures for a start.' On the table he placed a folder. ‘This is all the stuff Coral kept.' He extracted some returned cheques and several pieces of paper, some of which had been folded in three to act as fliers, and others which looked like covering letters.

Piers languidly reached out to feel the quality of the paper. ‘Not quality paper. Laser printed. Not embossed.' He held one piece up to the light. ‘Common watermark. Home-produced, I'd say.'

‘That's what I thought,' said Oliver, eagerly. ‘Given a quarter of an hour I could turn out a copy of that letterhead on any computer with a scanner and laser printer attached.'

‘A forger in the making, eh?' said Piers, removing his attention.

Oliver flushed.

Maggie shot Piers a dark look, but nudged Oliver to continue. ‘Go on. Tell them what else we found out.'

Oliver addressed himself to Bea. ‘It was a false address. Coral, you tell it.'

‘It's a good address, just north of Notting Hill Gate,' said Coral. ‘Most of the houses have been turned into flats with speakerphone entry, but there's one or two businesses as well. Discreet plates beside the door, that sort of thing. That particular address had two flats above a convenience store, on the corner of the main road but not actually on it. I looked for the name of the charity, but it wasn't there. I rang the bells for the two flats, but no one had ever heard of them. So I gave up. Oliver tried a different tack.'

‘I looked the address up on the Internet,' said Oliver. ‘The ground floor is a corner shop and newsagent and I wondered if they might act as an accommodation address for a fee. So I primed Maggie with what to say and she rang them on her mobile.'

Maggie flourished her trident, turning sausages over. ‘I gave a false name, said I'd let my flat and was going away for three months on business. I said I needed someone I could trust to look after any letters that might come for me in my absence. They quoted a price, and I agreed to it. I think the shop acts as an accommodation address for the charity. Letters sent there would be held till … whoever … came to collect them. That's how the charity manages to fool people into thinking they've got offices in a decent street.'

‘What we could do,' said Oliver, ‘is write a letter to the charity and try to deliver it by hand, see if they accept it. If they do, we'll know I'm right.'

‘Good for you,' said Bea, surprised at how thorough he'd been.

‘I expect he can do crosswords as well,' said Piers, looking bored.

Oliver decided not to hear him, though his ears went pink. ‘Next, the phone number on the letterhead. If you look closely, you'll see that the original number has been crossed out and a mobile number put in its place. I rang the original number. It's the Bolivian Embassy.'

‘Someone has a sense of humour,' said Piers, sitting up and taking notice.

‘What about the mobile number?'

‘Out of service. I've heard that it's easy enough to get a mobile. You steal it or buy one in a pub or at a car boot sale, or in fact just go to Woolworths and buy a pay-as-you-go phone. You use it for a short while and then throw it away so it can't be traced back to you.'

‘What about the charity number at the bottom of the paper?' asked Bea.

‘Bogus. Yes. By one numeral. That's clever, that is. If challenged they could always say it was a misprint.'

‘What about the names of the people who were supposed to be on the board of the charity?'

‘All well-known names, celebrities of the older generation, people with titles, that kind of thing. You can't speak to them except through their secretaries, or agents or whatever. I only managed to speak to two, but neither of them had ever heard of this charity. I left some messages on the websites for two more, and they may get back to us or they may not, but I think we can assume their names were taken in vain.'

‘Particularly,' said Maggie, triumphantly, ‘since Oliver worked it out that one or two of the names have been misspelled. Coral agrees with him.
They
can both spell,' said Maggie, with the awe of one who couldn't.

‘That's true,' said Oliver, eyes shining as he got into his stride. ‘Once we saw that, it showed me the way forward. You see, the eye glances over a misspelling. The brain records what it expects to see. I read down that list of names and at first I was impressed. Then I began to check up. Coral helped here.'

‘I read all the glossies,' said Coral, looking embarrassed. ‘Who's having whose baby and stuff like that. I see these people from time to time when I'm catering, and it's nice to know who they are.' She pointed out a name on the letterhead. ‘This man here is not a Sir but a Lord. This woman spells her name without an “e” at the end. There should be a hyphen between this double-barrelled name. Do you see?'

‘And the well known comedians who were supposed to supply the cabaret?'

Coral said, ‘Never turned up. Either time. They got substitutes in at the last moment. Not much cop.' Her enthusiasm ebbed away, and she looked tired. ‘I don't see that this gets us any further on.'

‘Oh, it does,' said Oliver, full of enthusiasm. ‘I'm beginning to get the
feel
of how these people think. There's one last thing; the letters were signed by a man calling himself Graham Briggs. There's no-one of that name in the phone book, but I tried Directory Enquiries and they didn't know of one either. Of course, he might be ex-directory.'

‘Supper's ready,' cried Maggie, and they all gathered around, eating with their fingers, saying ‘Mm,' and ‘This is good.' Even Coral perked up with food inside her.

The French window upstairs was thrown back against the brickwork, and the newcomer said, ‘So there you all are!'

Wednesday, early evening

For all her pretended calm, Lena was ready to bite someone by the time Noel returned in mid-afternoon.

‘Noel, wherever have you been?' she demanded.