Meltdown (43 page)

It was a school morning and Toby couldn’t find any socks.

Where
were
all the socks? She hated socks. Passionately. And she had to make him sandwiches because he hated the school dinner that day, which was a shame because they got free school dinners.

She found two dirty socks in the laundry basket which passed the sniff test, gave them to Toby and started to dress Cressie and Lillie. Meanwhile she was also trying to help Toby with his maths homework while he ate his cornflakes, except there was only dust left in the box so she had to make him toast. Then she remembered about it being gym day so she packed the sports kit which she had washed late the previous night and hung over a cold radiator but which was nearly dry, except that there were no plimsolls because Toby had left them at school. Monica did not relish the thought of rummaging through the school’s pile of left-behind gym kit looking for his runners but she knew that it would have to be faced. She looked at herself in the mirror and wondered if she could really go out without washing her hair and decided that she could, but she’d have to wear a hat.

Toby tried on the paper ruff that Monica had made and said that he’d rather poo a red-hot cannon ball than wear it and Monica said that was fine by her because it had only taken her an hour in the middle of the bloody night to make.

‘Can I just wear my Kaiser Chiefs T-shirt?’ Toby asked.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s not Elizabethan.’

‘Yes it is,’ Toby said triumphantly. ‘What do you think the Queen’s name is?’

Monica had to stop and think for a second on that one, but when she got it she couldn’t help but admire her son’s logic.

‘It’s Elizabeth-the-Secondian,’ said Toby triumphantly.

‘All right,’ Monica conceded. ‘If you think you can get away with it, wear it.’

‘Yes!’ said Toby, punching the air and looking just like Jimmy.

Eventually they all set off for school, where Monica found Toby’s gym shoes and then did some reading with the younger ones. Or at least she read with some of the younger ones and others she merely minded while they bounced from wall to wall, but at least it gave the teacher a chance to teach those kids who weren’t hovering three feet from the floor on sugar highs. It was generally agreed among the parents and teachers that this year’s Receptions and Year Ones were buggers.

Then, around mid-morning, the school secretary stuck her head round the door and said that there was an important phone call for Monica on hold in the school office. That it was the police.

It turned out to be the policeman who had come to interview Jimmy the day before. He wanted to know if Jimmy owned a Rolex watch.

‘I think I saw one on his wrist, Mrs Corby, but I need confirmation.’

‘Well,’ Monica said, perplexed, ‘it was actually a fake, but a pretty good one.’

‘I see. Did he also own a ring with a skull motif?’

‘Yes he did. It was his wedding ring. Can you tell me why you need to know, please?’

There was a silence over the phone. A silence which sent a chill to Monica’s very core.

‘Is Jimmy in any more trouble?’ she asked, trying to stop her voice from shaking. ‘Has anything happened?’

‘I would rather not say at present, Mrs Corby,’ Beaumont answered. ‘I will be in touch shortly.’

The line went dead and Monica replaced the receiver with a trembling hand. Suddenly the very last words Jimmy had said to her as he cycled off that morning came into her head.

‘
It’ll be all right
,’ he had said. ‘
I promise you I’ll make it all right
.’

What had he done? What had he
done
?

Sifting through the embers

It was one of the top-end squatters who had seen the flames first. She’d been practising her juggling in the street and smelt smoke. But even though the alarm was raised very quickly, it still hadn’t been quick enough. Number 23 was gutted.

As the chief assistant fire officer later concluded in his incident report, ‘The fire took hold with extraordinary speed and ferocity. Every floor was ablaze before our engines arrived and there was no possibility of getting anywhere near the building, let alone entering it.’

It had been very distressing for the firemen and women on the scene. The juggler told them that on most days a man called Jimmy was in the house all day painting and decorating and that it was definitely his bike that could be seen chained to the step railing and slowly succumbing to the flames.

Time and time again the brave fire officers had tried to penetrate the dense smoke and heat, and time and time again they failed. Soon it became apparent to even the most tenacious and determined among them that any sacrifice would be pointless, as by now anyone inside that inferno would long since have been consumed by it.

Eventually the fire brigade managed to put the fire out. After cooling the wreckage a little with their hoses, they were able to make a preliminary foray into what was left of the house. Very quickly they located what they had prayed they would not find. Charred human remains. A body, burnt to a crisp, scarcely anything left of it but the half-incinerated skeleton. Not a shred of clothing, of course. But on the corpse’s wrist could be seen the half-melted remains of what had clearly been a Rolex watch, and on its wedding finger a gold ring with a silver skull on it.

It was shortly after this discovery that Inspector Beaumont arrived on the scene. He was looking for Jimmy to try once more to persuade him to cooperate with the crown in pursuing Rupert.

Having learned from the chief fire officer of the discovery of the corpse and the jewellery found on it and having spoken to Monica to confirm the ownership of that jewellery, Beaumont was forced to the depressing conclusion that Jimmy Corby was beyond cooperating with anyone.

‘Suicide,’ a voice at Beaumont’s shoulder said. ‘Suicide, pure and simple.’

Beaumont turned round and found himself shaking the hand of a man who introduced himself as Andrew Tanner.

‘Of Wigan and Wigan Insurance,’ Tanner explained. ‘We insure these buildings.’

‘You’ve moved quickly, Mr Tanner,’ Beaumont said.

‘We have excellent connections in the Fire Service, Inspector, and as chief loss adjuster I attempt to personally attend any potential claim that I deem potentially suspicious. And to do so as soon as possible.’

‘Suspicious?’

‘This house was part of a failed property development, Inspector, a misguided financial speculation. However, when the property was insured the market was booming and the valuation was much higher than it would be today. This house is therefore worth considerably more burnt to the ground that it was when it was standing.’

‘You suspect arson?’

‘When negative equity which is heavily over-insured goes up in flames, Inspector, I
always
suspect arson. However, having arrived to find that there was a body in the building and having discovered that the former owner had been working on it, I’ve changed my theory.’

‘You suspect suicide.’

‘The man was desperate. If he simply burns down the building, the bank, as current owner, takes the insurance. If he burns it down
with himself in it
then his wife and family pick up the life insurance, which, incidentally, is another of our policies.
If
, that is, the fire is deemed to be an accident. I intend to make sure that it is not deemed so.’

Beaumont stared at the blackened remains of the house. He watched as the charred corpse was removed by police Forensics officers and taken away for further examination. As he did so, he considered what Andrew Tanner had said.

‘I don’t think it was suicide, Mr Tanner,’ Beaumont said eventually.

‘Please, Inspector, I know this game,’ Tanner replied. ‘Corby was a fit man. A strong man. His body was found on the ground floor. Are you seriously telling me that once that fire took hold he couldn’t have made it to the front door or a window? Of course he could. He just didn’t want to, did he?’

‘If I was going to kill myself I don’t think I’d choose to
burn
myself to death. I mean how agonizing would it be? Anything would be better, surely? Why not just dive head first out of the top window? That’d do it. Or drink a bottle of Scotch and open a vein. Anything but burning.’

‘Because he had to make it look like an accident,’ Tanner said with a touch of impatience.

‘Only a coward would desert his wife and children like that,’ Beaumont replied. ‘I knew Corby slightly. I don’t think he was a coward.’

‘Of course he wasn’t a coward, Inspector,’ Tanner said. ‘How brave would you have to be to pull off a stunt like this? A lot braver than most men, that’s for sure. He wanted to provide for his family and the last asset he had left on earth was his own miserable failed life and the insurance attached to it. Alive, he’d let his wife down totally. Dead, he could leave her comparatively rich and his kids provided for. Life insurance, Inspector. That’s what this is about. It’s what it’s
always
about.’

It certainly sounded plausible.

But Inspector Beaumont wasn’t happy. He simply did not believe that Jimmy Corby had planned to kill himself.

On the other hand, if it was an accident it was one hell of a coincidence, happening just when all Jimmy’s troubles were collapsing in on him at once. And, as Andrew Tanner had pointed out, Jimmy was very fit and still relatively young. Surely he could have got out in time?

But Beaumont knew something that Andrew Tanner did not. There was another possibility altogether.

Not suicide. Not an accident.

But murder.

Jimmy’s wife was not the only person who would profit from his death.

Someone else had a very real interest in silencing Jimmy Corby.

Grilling the lord

Early that evening Beaumont was once more questioning Lord Bennett.

‘Mrs Corby tells me you called her this morning trying to get hold of Jimmy Corby. She says she told you he was at 23 Webb Street. Is that correct?’

‘Yes it is, and I went to see him there this morning.’

‘You went to talk to him about Caledonian Granite?’

‘I went to see how he was.’

This time Beaumont was not meeting Rupert at the sumptuous new Maximalism office and they were not sipping creamy lattes served by a gorgeous PA either. Beaumont had had Rupert brought in to Scotland Yard.

‘I don’t think that’s true,’ Beaumont said. ‘I think you went to see Corby because you wanted to ensure that he would not talk, and when you decided that you could
not
be sure you took matters into your own hands.’

Rupert had of course brought his lawyer with him. The man began immediately to object to Beaumont’s leading statement in the strongest possible terms. But Rupert stopped him, angrily saying he wanted to speak for himself.

‘You’re crazy, Inspector!’ Rupert blurted. ‘I’m not a murderer, for God’s sake. I went to talk to him . . .’

‘About keeping quiet.’

‘As a mate. I went to
thank
him because I knew you’d pulled him in because you were trying to get to me. I was sorry to cause him any more bother than he was in already. We were friends. He was pleased to see me. We’ve been a bit distant lately but we made up. I knew he was broke so I took along a bottle of whisky and some beers. We had a nip or two and a chat, that’s all.’

‘In the middle of the morning?’

‘Jim Corby and I have had a drink or two on every single occasion we’ve met for nearly twenty years. The credit crunch ain’t gonna change that.’

Beaumont leaned forward over the desk so that his face came within a foot or so of Rupert’s.

‘You didn’t go to Webb Street to drink
or
to chat. You went there to get a guarantee out of your old friend that he would not talk to us about the Caledonian Granite share tips.’

‘Inspector, I protest at your—’ the lawyer began, but once again Rupert silenced him.

‘Inspector,’ he said, calmly, smoothly almost, ‘as I think we’ve discussed many times before, I have nothing to hide regarding Caledonian Granite and you have not shown me a single bit of concrete evidence to suggest that I do.’

‘My bit of
concrete evidence
, Lord Bennett, has been reduced to a pile of ashes and a half-melted Rolex!’

‘Inspector, you are talking about my oldest friend!’ Rupert snapped.

‘A friend who is very conveniently dead.’

‘A circumstance which I would appreciate being given time to mourn!’

Beaumont got up from his chair and paced the room for a moment.

‘So why did you go to Webb Street if not to discuss Caledonian Granite?’ he asked. ‘God knows you’ve had opportunity enough to buy him a drink without the trouble of going all the way to Hackney in the middle of the morning.’

Rupert’s poker face deserted him for a moment. Unless he was a very good actor, something in Beaumont’s question seemed to make him want to unveil a little truth.

‘I . . . I wanted to help him,’ Rupert said slowly and only after some thought. ‘Truly. I mean it. Jim and I were friends, real friends, not like with the others.’ There was a faraway look in Rupert’s eyes as he spoke, almost as if he was speaking to himself. ‘I never gave a toss about that fool Henry, of course, with his ridiculous quasi-socialist posturing. David was all right if a bit pretentious, and of course we all loved Robbo.’

Beaumont knew all of the people Rupert was talking about, but they did not concern him. He let Rupert go on, hoping that as he unburdened himself he might let something slip. Something that would give a clue as to what exactly had happened at Number 23 Webb Street.

‘Jim was my friend,’ Rupert went on. ‘You have to understand that, Inspector. I
am
capable of friendship, you know. We’d roomed together. Laughed together. We’d had a hell of a nineties and an incredible noughties. We were the boys and I just couldn’t stand the idea of old Lucky Jim Corby scarcely even being able to afford a bloody drink. I went back because I’d decided to help him out, if you really want to know.’