Millie's Game Plan (26 page)

I had no intention of trying to solve the crime myself. I may be a spinster but I’m no Miss Marple.

The most approachable person I knew was Nick Ryan. Plus, I felt he had some sympathy for Josh. If Nick was involved with the crime too (spot the paranoia) I’d be putting myself in danger. So I sent myself a letter marked
Personal
, addressed to the office, and detailed everything that had happened and what I was planning to do.

On Saturday afternoon, I found Nick sitting on the bench at Oldersbury cricket ground where Marshalhampton were playing. He acknowledged me with a nod and a wary smile.

‘Can I have a quiet word, please?’ I asked.

He considered it for a moment before getting up and guiding me away from the pavilion.

‘You do understand, I may not be able to help you,’ he said quietly but not unpleasantly.

‘Do you think Josh is innocent?’ I asked.

‘What I think is of no consequence, it’s my job to help find the facts so someone else can prove it.’

‘So you do think he’s innocent.’

‘Professionally speaking, I cannot comment.’

‘If he is innocent – how can I help his case?’

Nick smiled in a benign, oh-bless-your-heart way. ‘Millie, unless you can come up with evidence to prove it, the best thing you can do is pray.’

‘I want to talk to someone who’s on his side.’

Nick nodded. ‘Then best you speak to his brief.’

‘And that is...?’

He studied me through narrowed eyes. ‘Rupert French of Becket, Thorpe and French.’

He waited while I punched the name into my mobile phone. ‘Don’t suppose you know their number?’ Nick shook his head. ‘Right, well, thanks anyway.’ I squeezed his arm in gratitude.

His eyebrows lifted and his smile softened the weary look in his eyes. ‘You be careful. We’re not messing around with somebody who just stuck their hand in the collection plate, you know.’

I did know. That very thought had kept me awake last night.

It was a treat to go home and NOT have to share Sacha with Marcus. He was playing cricket and she was ironing in her underwear.

‘Oh Millie,’ she wailed when I came through the door, ‘I’ve been worried about you. Why didn’t you return my messages?’ She put the iron down and gave me a hug.

‘Sorry, I meant to reply but I didn’t know what to say.’

‘What’s happened? Marcus said you were really strange last night. But when I came out to talk to you, you’d gone.’

I told her everything about last night.

She thought my assault on the flower tub was hilarious. ‘Oh Millie, I’ve missed you,’ she said, hugging me.

‘Me too.
You’ve been so into Marcus, I’ve felt like a complete outsider.’

‘Sorreeee.
I promise you’ll have my undivided attention all week.’

‘Why, where’s Marcus going?’ I wasn’t daft enough to think she’d make a sacrifice just for me.

‘Oh, some family thing in Cyprus. To be honest, I’m getting fed up with him.’

‘Sex not so hot, then?’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Comme ci, comme
very
ça. Don’t suppose you got the numbers of any of Lex’s rich mates, did you?’

‘Now that would have been a smart move. What was I thinking?’

‘Right,’ she said, unplugging the iron. ‘We’re going out tonight, just you and me, to take your mind off it. And tomorrow,’ she announced, coming over and holding my hands, ‘I’ll let you drag me round some more of those cricket matches. We could go and see a proper game and bag you a professional.’

‘The thing is…I’m not sure I want to. I’m not really in the mood. I can’t get Josh out of my mind.’

‘What?’

I shrugged.

‘Millie, are you mad? He might be cute and he might be loaded – I mean Marcus reckons he’s probably got a massive villa somewhere in Marbella – but Millie, he’ll never get away with it. He’s been caught red-handed.’ She looked straight into my eyes. ‘Don’t forget what he did to you.’

I shook my head. Trust Sacha to get the wrong end of the stick. ‘Don’t
worry, I’m not falling for him. I mean, that is soo not on the cards but…well…this whole business feels wrong. It’s completely out of character for Josh.’

‘You’ve only known him a few weeks.’

‘Maybe somebody’s trying to frame him?’

‘Oh, yeah.
Like he dropped a baby in the font so the parents are out to get him? You’re not thinking straight. If he is being framed – then he must be hanging around with the wrong kind of people.’

‘You might have a point. He does spend a lot of time with homeless people. Any one of those might be on the drugs circuit.’

‘I’m sorry, Millie, but I think you’re kidding yourself. The evidence is there. And let’s face it, it’s not like he was truly
vicarish
was he? Think about it – a guy that cute?’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘Forget him, Millie and let’s go down to Pharoah’s tonight and get hammered.’

I shook my head and sat on the sofa.
‘Just not in the mood. Sorry.’

‘Okay,’ she said, sitting on the arm of the sofa. ‘I know, how about I give you a nice, relaxing Indian head massage?’ She rubbed one hand over my neck muscles. ‘Ooh, Millie, it’s like concrete.’

I could feel myself succumbing to her touch. ‘Go on then. Be gentle with me.’

‘But tomorrow, we go out for a boozy lunch, okay?’

‘Okay,’ I murmured, wondering if it would be wrong to suggest The Eagle in Marshalhampton.

I was at work on Monday by eight. Our IT manager usually arrived by half-past and I truly hoped he could get my laptop functioning first thing. While I waited, I called the office of Becket, Thorpe and French and left a message for Rupert French. The practice was in Southampton – Josh’s old home town.

Hal, our IT guru, appeared still in his cycle helmet. I shot across the office. ‘Hal, I’ve got a major problem with my laptop.’

His face lit up. It was nice to know my disaster could brighten someone’s day.

After I’d fired it up, he looked at it for barely more than a second. ‘Aha…the blue screen of death.’

‘What?’

‘Needs a complete re-
install. Probably won’t get it back to you till tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’

He shook his head, pulled his mouth taut and finally, sucked his teeth. ‘Although I might have a spare hard-drive I could pop in there.’ He brightened. ‘Yeah, I’ll get you up and running today.’ He set off with my laptop and a spring in his step.

At ten past nine, my mobile rang. It was Rupert French saying he had time to see me at the end of the day, if I could make it to his office. Of course I could.

Rupert was imposingly tall, with shortly cropped, auburn hair. He wore a navy striped shirt, navy tie, charcoal suit and highly polished shoes. But the dourness of his appearance was lifted by a welcoming smile. ‘Millie,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘Thank you for getting in touch.
Saved me having to find you.’

‘Oh?’

‘You may be a key witness for the defence.’

‘I hope so.’

He gestured to two leather armchairs. His face was handsome, in a super-hero kind of way – square jaw, square forehead, straight nose and perfect teeth. ‘Millie, I need to put forward the strongest case for proving Josh’s innocence, and I understand you believe he is innocent.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t exactly stake my life on it, but I find the alternative hard to believe. I guess you don’t have to believe in him, do you? You just have to make other people believe it.’

‘Oh, don’t worry. I totally believe in Josh’s innocence.’

‘You do?’

‘I’ve known him all my life.’

I felt something around my midriff loosen – in fact it
was
my midriff – I’d been so tense, Pilates had taken a grip on me. ‘I’m really glad to hear you say that.’

He smiled again. ‘Now, what do you have to tell me?’

I described the rogue email. ‘Do you think somebody is trying to scare me? Warn me off?’

‘Was there a threatening message with it?’

‘No. Just the attachment.’

He tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. ‘What kind of files do you have on your laptop? Anything somebody might want to get rid of?’

My first thought was Simon Sodding Ostler, wanting to sabotage my performance. But he could do that to my replica files on the office server. In any case, what could he know about Josh? ‘The laptop belongs to work, so it’s nearly all client stuff. Although…’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, I did have a brief relationship with a client, which ended rather abruptly. And he dropped the ad campaign I was working on for him. I had some photos on my laptop which he might have wanted.’

‘Intimate ones of the two of you?’

‘No. Nothing like that.’ As if I would? Although, pictures of me and Lex in flagrante could hardly be more shocking than those of his middle-aged mother flashing her giblets. I explained about the pictures I’d taken for Vonnie’s gentleman friend. ‘Lex knew about it. Maybe he was worried I might seek revenge for him dumping me; in case I brought shame on the family. And he certainly doesn’t like Josh.’

Rupert huffed in amusement. ‘You’re talking about Lex Marshal, aren’t you? Vonnie Marshal used to be Evonne Brooke; glamour model and soft-porn star, who dated half the B- and C- list celebrities of her time, till she bagged Piers Marshal.’

‘Really? No wonder she was so…flexible.’

The corner of Rupert’s mouth twitched. ‘Do you have any prints or back-ups on disk?’

‘Yes. Could that be the motive?’

‘I doubt it although they might have some bearing on the case.’

‘But what’s it got to do with Josh? Why frame him over those? I mean, it’s not like he was in them.’

Rupert looked at me as if deciding whether or not to tell me something. ‘You say you met Josh when you were photographing a cricket match. Who else did you get to know?’

I ran through the few names I could remember.

He wrote them down. Finally, he looked at his watch. ‘Thank you, Millie. I have to advise you, all the information you’ve given me, you must give to the police. We can’t present any evidence in court that takes the prosecution by surprise.’ I must have
curled my lip because he said, ‘Sorry, but that’s the law of the land. And if you could let me have copies of any photos you took at the cricket, I’d appreciate it.’

He handed me his business card. ‘Here, this has my mobile number. Do leave a message if it’s switched off.’

Instead of driving home, I went straight to the office. I let myself in and kicked the door closed behind me and punched my code into the alarm. We all had free access to the building. When projects had tight deadlines, the creative team sometimes needed to work through the night.

I headed to my desk, pulled out my laptop and flicked it on, unlocked my top drawer and felt around for the memory stick. I needed to copy those photos I’d stored on it for Rupert. I went straight to the pictures I’d taken on that first day of my cricket tour – well, the eight shots of Josh and one in particular. There was the golden picture of him, with his generous, open smile. I saw all the humour and fun of his character, not just the attractive outer-shell. There was an amiability and honest charm about him. Maybe that’s all it was – charm. I remembered his laugh; it was like a warm, burbling stream of mirth. Surely, wasn’t he the kind of man who cared about people and wasn’t afraid to show it? In the crypt, he’d comforted me through an extraordinary experience and somehow, made it good. Now, I had to wonder, was that purely evidence of a guilty conscience?

No. Rupert was convinced of his innocence. He showed a loyalty to Josh, borne out of life-long friendship and yet…could that friendship include dodgy business dealings? I leaned back in my seat and gazed at the ceiling. But why would a lawyer need to earn more money through drug dealing? It didn’t make sense.

I looked again at Josh’s smile…remembered him holding me as I’d cried over my father…and as we’d waltzed around the crypt on that crazy night…and how his own eyes had softened at the memory of his mother. Josh was a good guy. He had to be.

My eyes prickled. I sniffed. This wasn’t helping anybody. I needed to get all those photos onto disk, and off to Rupert. I returned my attention to the photos, stepping through them one by one. I went beyond the Josh shots to ones of the village, taken after tea; the pub with its hanging baskets; two quaint thatched cottages with straw birds on the eaves and the line of trees leading to the old wooden gate into the back of the churchyard. Two men were standing beyond the gate.

Two men.

Something about them was familiar. I zoomed in and gasped. It was Charles Crowe, Lex’s business partner. But Charles had told me he’d not been to Marshalhampton in years. He said he hadn’t been since Vonnie’s husband had died, yet there he was, less than two months ago, right outside Josh’s church. He was wearing a check shirt and beige trousers and I suddenly realised I was looking at the man Marcus had met in The Eagle on the night I’d nearly smashed into his tractor. No wonder I’d thought Charles was familiar when I met him at the office. But what did he have to do with Marcus? My heart began racing as I tracked across the image to study the other guy. He was tall and skinny, his shoulders hunched over as he talked down to Charles.