False Step (30 page)

Bea pressed both hands against hot cheeks.
Dear Lord, did I mess up, or did I! I am such a fool! Of course he doesn't want to be adopted by an old woman. If only Hamilton had been alive, he'd have known what to say to the lad. I am an idiot! What on earth made me lose my head like that?

She must turn her mind to something else or she'd die of shame. What should she do next? She couldn't think. Ah, the material Oliver had printed off from Matthew's computer? Matthew's appointments for the last couple of months. She started at the beginning, working out what the abbreviated terminology meant.

‘Bert'. That would be his old accompanist, Bert Cunningham. Bert cropped up three times; no, four, always an evening appointment. ‘Damrs' for Damaris. So Damaris
had
been seeing him regularly? Also in the evenings. ‘Dr' for doctor, obviously. After the second one there was, as Oliver had said, a big ‘C' with a query.

‘Hosp' – no prizes for working that one out. ‘Rehrsl' for rehearsal. Would that have been for
The Gondoliers
? The ‘Rehrsl' entries ceased after a couple of weeks. Probably after he'd learned he'd got cancer. Lots of doctor's appointments, lots of hospital appointments … a cluster of ‘Damrs' entries and then two for ‘Soltr'. Solicitor? Was that when he made his will and signed it? Probably.

Then ‘Hospital' written out in full, followed by ‘Op'. Ah, an operation. Another doctor's appointment followed by three exclamation marks. Why? A few days before he died, he'd typed ‘
The Gondoliers
' in full, followed by another exclamation mark.

There was an appointment for Bert the night before he died, and further notes for the future which he'd obviously not had time to cancel. Ah well. Pretty clear, then.

She checked on the living room, but all was still and quiet in there. Max hadn't returned and neither had Miss Townend. Bea stood at the window, looking down on the garden which was turning grey in an early twilight, and allowed herself a few moments of grief in which to remember her own dear husband.

She went up the stairs to the bedrooms. Oliver was in the guest bedroom, where Max's things were still piled up on the bed.

Miss Brook put the phone down as Bea opened the door into the master bedroom. ‘Another job brought to a satisfactory conclusion. Although of course it would have been better if the client had known exactly what they wanted in the first place. The funeral passed off all right? In my day we hustled suicides out of sight without ceremony.'

Bea sat on her bed, relaxing for the first time that day. ‘You should have been there. You'd have appreciated the sub-plots. Ex-wives bobbing up all over the place, grieving stepdaughter unavoidably absent due to a prior engagement with the mortuary, a surprise appearance from a woman who declares herself to be the new heiress, friends up in arms, no organist, no flowers, no order of service. And as for the wake; there wasn't one. At least, not unless you count a cat-and-dog fight over the remains. But there was a lot of genuine grief as well, if not from the immediate family circle.'

Miss Brook said, ‘You enjoyed it?'

‘In a way, yes. And in another way, no. A sad affair. Cancer. There's a lot I don't understand about the manner of Matthew Kent's death, but I hope to clear up one or two points tonight. In the meantime …'

Miss Brook tidied the papers on her desk. In anyone less self-assured, you'd have thought her nervous. ‘It seems to me that if Mr Hamilton had still been alive, God bless him, he would have prevented Mr Max from … I'm not quite sure how to put this, but—'

‘From making such a fool of himself? I agree, Hamilton would have handled the situation better. So, how did you manage to shift him?'

Miss Brook allowed herself a tiny frown. ‘I wouldn't have put it in those terms, precisely. I merely suggested that he was not serving his constituency well by having to work from such a makeshift office. At that point he discovered he was going to be late for an important meeting, and left. Which gave me unhindered access to the phone.'

Bea tried not to be disappointed. She'd hoped he'd gone for good. ‘Did you speak to Miss Townend?'

‘The poor wee soul. She's quite unable to make up her mind what she should do. Her eighty-seven-year-old mother, who lives in a nice flat on the South Coast, is pressing her to stop work and return home to look after her. Only, Miss Townend doesn't feel she can leave Mr Max at such a terrible time. She talked about rats leaving sinking ships and her mother not being able to access the care which she ought to be offered by the council. Perhaps you can help her see where her duty lies?'

Bea regarded Miss Brook with awe. ‘You certainly have a knack for dealing with people, Miss Brook.'

‘You would have been able to do the same, if you'd had the time to give to the matter.'

That was a dig at Bea for getting involved with Matthew Kent's demise, but she didn't take offence. After all, it was very true. ‘Have you any ideas about dealing with Max's files? Can we send them somewhere to have the information put on memory sticks?'

‘All in hand. And if you can convince Miss Townend of the benefits of retirement, I have drawn up a list of possible new secretaries for him.'

Bea almost laughed. ‘You think of everything.'

Miss Brook smoothed her back hair up into its dated but elegant French plait. ‘I must admit to enjoying myself, back at work. Early retirement did not suit. My friends always said I would be bored at home, and they were quite right.'

She gave Bea a quick look, almost a plea.

Bea responded, ‘Would it be too much of an imposition to ask you to return to working at the agency part-time? Oliver is a good lad and has many talents. He has really been carrying the agency recently, but we are getting so much work now that he can hardly cope by himself. And Maggie is—'

‘A delightful child; give her anything practical to do and she is in her element, but I fear she hasn't the tidy mind needed for paperwork. Perhaps we could have two desks in reception in future, one for me and one for her? Three days a week would suit me admirably. Thank you.' Miss Brook switched off the computer, and got ready to leave for the day.

Bea knew when she was being dismissed. She went downstairs to see if Miss Townend had returned, which indeed she had. The poor creature was engaged in picking up pieces of paper in aimless fashion, wandering around, and putting them down again.

‘Miss Townend, I'm so glad I caught you. Such a difficult time for my son, and I can't imagine how it must be for you, who has been his right hand ever since he was elected to Parliament. And to crown all, Miss Brook told me of your own personal problems. You must be feeling so torn.'

Miss Townend made a helpless gesture, files in both hands. ‘Of course I can't leave him now. Mother doesn't understand how things are, how necessary it is that I stand by him. Only, at her age she does get so confused, poor dear, and last night when she told me she couldn't work out which pills she ought to be taking … I must confess that I had a little weep.'

‘Of course you did, you poor thing.' Bea took the files from Miss Townend and pressed her to sit on the settee. ‘What a dreadful decision you have to make. Your loyalty is beyond question, but your mother … well, mothers take priority, don't they?'

A handkerchief came out, and muffled the next words. ‘Mr Max puts a good face on things, but his constituency chairman keeps ringing … that's dear Mr Max's wife's father, you know … and he positively shouts at me and I can't think what to say to him when Mr Max isn't here to take the call as he should be.'

‘Indeed. It is too much! My son has been under a lot of stress, I know, but that's no reason why he shouldn't consider your feelings.'

‘Oh, he does, of course he does!' She blew her nose, wiped her eyes.

‘He does?' Bea didn't think he did.

‘Well …' A half smile. ‘Perhaps at this time, it's too much to expect, though I did tell him about Mummy wanting me to stop work some time ago, and he said that he couldn't possibly manage without me. What he doesn't realize is that I served his predecessor at the House, and her predecessor before that. I've worked there for nearly thirty years, and although I'm still in possession of all my faculties, my migraines do seem to be getting more frequent, and I'm just beginning to feel that it would be nice to relax and not bother about work, and see that Mummy takes her pills at the right time, because that's important, too, isn't it?'

Bea nodded. ‘After all your years of devoted service, it's only right and proper that you should start to think of yourself for a change, and of course you want to be with your family when they need you. I know my son appreciates everything you've done for him, but I'm sure that, if you're really determined to go, we'll be able to find someone else to look after him. She won't have your years of experience in the job, of course, but she ought to be able to do his routine correspondence.'

‘The thing is, you'll think me such a coward, but I've tried to tell him that he should think about looking for someone else, but every time I start, the phone rings or someone calls. It would be such an upset for him, and I do understand why he can't deal with it at the moment. You wouldn't like to tell him for me, would you?'

‘My dear, of course.'

Miss Townend seemed to shed ten years. She looked at her watch. ‘Do you think I could go home now? I don't like to leave things in such a mess, but—'

‘I'll take care of it.'

‘I feel a different woman. I'll go home now and give my landlady notice. Then I can ring Mummy with the good news before she watches
Coronation Street
.'

Bea left Miss Townend getting ready to leave, and went upstairs to shower and change. Miss Townend's mother would probably be as hard a taskmaster as Max, and bully her daughter into an early grave, but some women are cut out to be carers, and there isn't anything much you can do about that.

She tried Max's mobile phone, but it was engaged. So she left a message to say that Miss Townend had felt it time to retire and look after her elderly mother, and that the agency would find him a temp next week.

As she shut off her phone, her landline rang. It was Piers. ‘So you're back at last, are you? Sorry I couldn't stop to talk at the crem, but something rather interesting came up.'

Bea wanted to reply that she hadn't been at all upset since she hadn't even noticed he was there, but held her tongue. With an effort. ‘I saw you leave with a woman.'

‘Yes.' He sounded unsure of himself. ‘Matthew's doctor. I didn't know her from Adam but she obviously wasn't one of the widows. What a turn-up, that Goldie woman! But Sylvester dealt with her beautifully, didn't he? Though I wasn't the only one who thought he was looking decidedly rocky.'

‘Yes, Piers? You chatted his doctor up, I suppose, seeing she was by herself. And what did you find out?'

‘You know, Bea, if it weren't for that suicide note, I'd be inclined to think that the coroner's verdict was wrong. But then again, these highly-strung types, up one minute and down the next … what else can one think?'

‘I'm being very patient, Piers. What did she say about Matthew?'

‘Oh, she couldn't. Patient confidentiality, and all that.'

‘You got something out of her, though?'

‘She said she was shocked to hear of his death. Which leads me to think that he'd no particular health problem when he died. It's a something and a nothing, isn't it? You can look at it either way.'

Well, Piers didn't know about the hospital appointments on Matthew's appointments schedule. The big C and all that. With one hand, Bea pulled down the zip on her skirt. ‘I'll be in a better position to talk to you about this tomorrow. I'm having supper with the widow tonight.'

‘Not Goldie?'

‘No, not Goldie.' She put the phone down. Was this another piece of the jigsaw, and if so, what did it mean?

Gail got to the restaurant before Bea, who'd been held up in traffic.

‘Do you mind if we eat before we talk?' Gail pressed her hand to her waist. ‘I don't seem to have eaten properly for ages, and I know I'll start crying when … do you mind?'

‘Of course not.'

So they talked of holidays abroad and books they'd read and television programmes they either liked or hated.

‘No coffee,' said Gail. ‘I'll make some back at my place, if it's all right with you?

Back at Gail's flat, coffee made, curtains drawn, comfortably seated, Bea waited.

Gail made a curiously helpless motion with her hands. ‘Of course you've realized that Matthew and I, quite recently …' She stopped, pressed her lips firmly together. ‘To begin at the beginning, if there is one. Matthew had a weakness for Gilbert and Sullivan and he was an enthusiastic supporter of the local amateur light opera group. He'd even take the alto part, if his engagements permitted. He was tremendous.

‘A couple of years back some friends asked me to make up a party to see one of their productions and after that I went to every one. It seemed so silly not to when they were so enjoyable. I mean, it wasn't as if Matthew and I were ever going to meet. He wasn't in the last one so, as we went to the bar in the interval, I asked my friends if they knew why. They said to ask him myself so I turned around, and he was standing right behind us. He'd been in the audience, not on stage.

‘We said the usual things; how are you, how've you been doing, what would you like to drink – only he couldn't have alcohol because he was on antibiotics. I said I'd retired, and he said likewise, that he'd been under the weather, they'd thought he'd got cancer but they'd operated and taken out a kidney with this tumour round it, but he'd just heard it wasn't cancer …'