Gone to Ground (16 page)

Helen laughed.

"I'm serious," Lesley said.

Helen looked her up and down. "Why aren't you about twelve stone?"

"I was."

"You're kidding."

"Only just."

"So what happened?"

"Oh, acupuncture, hypnotism..."

"Really?"

Lesley smiled. "No. Just plain old-fashioned willpower."

"You gave up altogether?"

"One bar of dark chocolate a week. I keep it in the fridge. Two pieces a night."

"Scary."

"What?"

"That kind of self-discipline." Helen tapped a funnel of gray ash toward the ground. "Upstairs, you find what you were looking for?"

"Not really. A few stray pages, mixed in with all the rest. But no, as far as the book's concerned, there's nothing."

"Maybe he kept it on his computer?"

"It's possible. But then why not make hard copies? He seems to have done that with almost everything else."

Helen angled her head aside and released a small scurry of smoke. "Bit of a wasted journey. I'm sorry."

"You don't think it could have something to do with what happened? The fact that's it all missing?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"Well, whoever killed Stephen, they were looking for something."

"We're not sure of that."

"The place was searched, you said so. At least, Grayson did."

"Trashed rather than searched."

"But things were missing. Taken."

"Yes. Laptop, wallet, probably cash."

"So why not the manuscript? However much he'd written so far?"

"But why? Who would do that? Why would it be so important?"

"I don't know. It just seems ... it seems more than a coincidence, that's all."

"Do you even know," Helen asked, "how much he'd written?"

"No."

"Or if he'd written anything at all?"

"Not for certain, no. But I think so. He must have."

"Couldn't he have been still—I don't know—putting it together? His research, whatever?"

"Then where is it? There's nothing."

Helen sighed and shook her head. "I don't know. I'm sorry."

Lesley shifted the balance of her bag on her shoulder. "I'd best go," she said. "Thanks for your help."

Helen squeezed out a smile. "There is one thing," she said. "Did Stephen ever say anything to you about McKusick losing his temper?"

"Mark? No."

"You're sure?"

"Quite sure. Why?"

"Oh, just checking."

Lesley took a step away. "Thanks again."

"Anytime."

Helen stood in the doorway, watching her go, taking one more drag on her cigarette.

Coincidence?

Coincidence or chance or nothing at all?

HELEN LOOKED OUT THROUGH WILL'S OFFICE WINDOW in the direction of the multi-story car park and the YMCA. Ugly buildings both, fading now into the dusk. Maybe in Cambridge, you noticed their ugliness even more. "I've been thinking about what Bryan's sister was suggesting..."

"The missing manuscript. So-called."

"Yes."

"What about it?"

"I got in touch with a couple of publishers Bryan had worked with before. One of them said Bryan had talked to him about the idea ages ago, come up with some kind of proposal, but they hadn't been able to come to terms. They're quite a small, specialist outfit, by the sound of it, and Bryan thought the book should have a wider audience. Wanted one of the bigger firms to take it on instead."

"He hadn't seen it? This publisher? The book?"

Helen shook her head. "Just an outline. A few notes, he said. Nothing more."

"He have any idea who else Bryan might have talked to?"

"He made one or two suggestions, yes, gave me a couple of names. I spoke to this editor who'd had a few meetings with Bryan, a year or so ago. Basically, told Bryan his firm would be interested and that he should let him see the first dozen chapters or so when they were written."

"And?"

"And nothing. Bryan never showed him anything."

"He could have taken it elsewhere, couldn't he? Looking for a better deal?"

"I don't think so. I checked."

"You've been busy."

"Yes."

"Getting nowhere."

Helen smiled and made a small shrugging gesture with her shoulders. "Police work."

"Absolutely."

"You're not convinced about all this, are you?" Helen said.

"Unless you can come up with something else, McKusick's still the best shot we've got."

It was Helen's turn to look unconvinced.

"What we should do," Will said, "have another run at McKusick's friends. Bryan's, too. Go further back. If Rouse's account of McKusick losing his temper is accurate, it's hard to believe something like it hadn't happened before. Any luck we'll dig up something that'll give us some more purchase when we lean on McKusick again."

It was not a good night. Susie had woken at one-thirty and a quarter to four; at a quarter past, Jake had come into their room, frightened by a dream, and refused to leave. All it needed was for the phone to ring and, just as both Will and Lorraine, Jake wedged awkwardly between them, had got back to sleep, it did just that.

Lorraine picked it up first.

"Will," she said, nudging him fully awake. "It's for you. Helen."

With a groan, Will pushed himself into a sitting position. "What's up?"

"I remembered. In among Bryan's correspondence. An exchange of letters with a solicitor. Some kind of an injunction. To do with his research. Wait—I've got it here."

"Where are you, anyway?"

"At the station."

Will looked at the bedside clock. "It's not even half past five."

"I couldn't sleep."

Join the club, Will thought.

"Listen," Helen said. '"In the strongest possible terms we are requesting that you abjure..."'

"Abjure?"

"That's what it says. 'Abjure from any further attempts to question or otherwise harass any members of the family.'"

"Which family?"

"Not clear. Stella Leonard's, I assume."

Will swung round so that his feet were touching the floor; now that he was awake he needed to go and pee. "Where's the letter from? Which solicitors?"

"Anstruther, Parks, and Quince."

"Local."

"That's right."

"Offices close to the Guildhall?"

"On Petty Gurry, yes. You want to go and talk to them?"

"You think we should?"

"I think we should."

"Okay. Why don't you give them a few hours, make an appointment?"

"Right. Give my love to Lorraine. Tell her I'm sorry I woke her."

"Absolutely."

But Lorraine was already in the bathroom, starting her day.

The student who nearly caromed off Will was wearing white tights under a strip of denim skirt scarcely as wide as the belt that supported it. The front wheel of her sit-up-and-beg bicycle had bumped against the curb as she pedaled along King's Parade, the subsequent wobble unseating her and delivering her, almost, into Will's outstretched arms. Instead of catching her cleanly, however, he found, to his surprise, that he was clutching an outflung elbow and a significant piece of white-clad thigh.

"Oh, God! I'm sorry. I'm sorry," the girl cried. The fact she was listening to her iPod beneath her knitted hat caused her to shout more than was necessary.

"Neat catch, Will," Helen said, amused.

Disentangling himself, Will was careful not to pitch the student to the ground.

"I really am sorry," the girl said again, pulling off her hat and slipping the small white headphones from her ears. "I don't know what happened."

"No harm done," Will said.

She had startling blue eyes and a complexion like milk.

"Will," Helen said, nudging him. "Your tongue."

"What about it?"

"It's hanging out."

Helen helped the student retrieve her bike and held the handlebars for her while she readjusted the small rucksack, then climbed back on board. A quick wave and another shout of thanks and she was on her way, easing out into the unsteady stream of cyclists moving between one college and another.

"Okay," Helen said, "I'll never accuse you of fancying Nick Moyles again. It's young nubiles you lust over, pedaling their way to lectures with their head full of Coldcut and Kierkegaard."

"Kierkegaard?"

"Just a name I picked up somewhere.
University Challenge,
probably."

"Sometimes," Will said, "you're too clever for your own good."

Not for the first time, Helen poked out her tongue, a habit that had become ingrained in childhood and which she'd never quite been able to break. One day, as her mother was wont to say, someone will bite it off.

Well, Helen thought, just let them try.

The offices of Anstruther, Parks, and Quince, as Helen had said, were on Petty Gurry, at the far side of the Guildhall. Intimations of old-fashioned Tudor intermingled with turn-of-the-century modern, sleek lines, and technological jurisprudence. Helen's request for an appointment had been successful: Mr. Quentin Anstruther at 10:45.

Anstruther's office was perched on the upper floor of the building, one wall lined with law books, mostly leather bound, another filled in the main with journals; the solicitor's desk was big enough for a decent game of Ping-Pong, a smart-looking silver laptop open at the centre, papers in some slight disarray to either side, a small bunch of purple tulips in a metal vase at one corner.

Despite his name, Anstruther was not in the least Dickensian, and Helen, who'd been hoping for at least a touch of Charles Dance's sexily repellant Tulkinghorn from the recent television adaptation of
Bleak House,
tried not to show her disappointment. This Anstruther, surely the third or fourth in line, was smooth jawed and whippet thin, a dark diagonally striped tie neatly knotted over a pink shirt that was turned back just once at the cuffs, a hint of dark hair curling out.

If the intended effect was to make both Will and Helen seem slightly down-at-heel and out of place, to some extent it worked.

"It's good of you to see us at such short notice," Will said. "We won't take too much of your time."

"A pleasure," Anstruther said. "After all, we do both..." A nod toward Helen. "We do, all of us, uphold the law."

"One way or another," Helen said.

"Quite."

Will retrieved a copy of the solicitor's letter to Stephen Bryan, taking it from the envelope in his pocket and passing it across the desk.

"You sent this?"

Anstruther gave it a cursory glance. "On behalf of a client, yes. Mr. Bryan, apparently, was being disturbingly insistent in his requests for information, telephoning my client at all hours, attempting to speak to other members of the family. The letter was an attempt to draw a line."

"And this all related," Helen said, "to the book Stephen Bryan was proposing to write about Stella Leonard?"

Anstruther nodded imperiously. "That is my understanding, yes."

"Your client," Will said, "there's no problem about disclosing their name?"

The hesitation was slight. "Howard Prince. Mr. Prince is married to Stella Leonard's niece."

"And acting on her behalf?"

"On the entire family's behalf, I believe."

"Can you tell us," Will said, "how Mr. Bryan responded to your letter?"

Anstruther smiled, showing teeth that were white at the edges, yellower towards the roots. "I expect you know that, Inspector. He called my bluff."

"That's what it was?"

"At this stage, yes. From what I could ascertain, the only enquiries Mr. Bryan had made in the course of his research, despite my client's complaints, had been unexceptional."

"So, in your view, Mr. Prince was overreacting?"

Anstruther smiled again. "I can advise my clients, of course. Indeed, it would be negligent of me not to do so. But, beyond a certain point, it is up to the client to decide how to proceed."

"Once Mr. Bryan had made it clear he was going to continue with his research, did you make any further efforts to dissuade him?"

"None at all."

"You didn't, for instance, telephone him?"

"No. Certainly not."

"Nor a member of your staff?"

"Nor a member of my staff." Discreetly, but not so discreetly that neither Will nor Helen could fail to notice, Anstruther looked at his watch.

"Why do you think," Helen said, "Mr. Prince proceeded as he did?"

"You're asking me to speculate."

"I'm asking for your informed opinion."

Anstruther smiled, a slight creasing of the skin around the eyes, a sideways twitch of the mouth. Perhaps in some respects, Helen thought, there was a little of Tulkinghorn in him after all.

"Mr. Prince," he said, "did not discuss his reasons with me in any detail and had he done so, I would, of course, be obliged to keep them to myself."

"So you can't tell us what he was afraid of?" Will said.

Anstruther smiled again and it was like cold light leaking out into the room. "I very much doubt if Howard Prince is ever afraid at all."

Back on the street, Helen adjusted her collar and refastened the scarf around her neck. "I suppose it's too early for a drink?"

"Just a little."

"Coffee, then?"

"Coffee it is."

Within ten minutes they were settled into a pair of leather chairs, comfortable, if not quite as comfortable as they looked. Helen had opted for a double espresso, fresh orange juice, and a blueberry muffin.

"Lunch?" Will asked.

"Breakfast."

Will stirred a half spoon of sugar into his regular latte. "I don't know what we expected to learn, but whatever it was..." He made a vacant gesture with his hands.

"I know," Helen said. "Still, sometimes it's nice to have your prejudices confirmed."

"Such as?"

"Upper class Oxbridge lawyers with cut-glass accents and hairy wrists." She shuddered. "I bet he's got hair all over his back and shoulders, too."

"Not a turn-on for you?"

Helen shuddered. Will remembered reading in some magazine or other of Lorraine's that the trend among certain young men was to have any excess body hair removed by electrolysis. At the same time, presumably, as their girlfriends were being prematurely nipped and tucked and having their breasts surgically reduced or enhanced. A parallel world, Will thought, and one he was happy enough to keep at one remove.