Perfect Strangers (21 page)

She pulled out her keys and rattled them into the lock.

‘You’ll have to excuse the mess, I have been away since Thursday . . .’ Julia let out a little shriek. Stepping in behind her, Ruth immediately recognised that the mess she had seen through the back windows was not everyday domestic disarray – the place had been burgled. There were papers and broken ornaments all over the hall floor and, looking through to the living room, Ruth could see a sofa on its side, with the cushions slashed open.

‘No, no,’ gasped Julia, her breathing becoming heavy and uneven. ‘My home.’

‘I’m calling the police right now,’ said Ruth, pulling out her mobile.

The older woman put out a hand.

‘They are already on their way,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘The inspector in charge of Sophie’s case is due at twelve. He wanted to talk to me.’

‘Inspector Fox?’ said Ruth with a start.

‘That’s right.’

Ruth glanced at her watch – quarter to twelve. Damn, that didn’t give her much time.

Julia had walked through to the living room and was beginning to pick up some books strewn on the floor.

‘I don’t think you should touch anything, Mrs Ellis,’ said Ruth gently. ‘Why don’t you come through to the kitchen and I’ll make you a cup of tea while we wait for the inspector?’

Julia’s eyes were wide, shocked, as she sat down at the kitchen table and Ruth filled the kettle. She looked tiny and brittle against the big oak chair.

‘It’ll have to be Earl Grey, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘No milk you see. I told the milkman I was going to be away . . .’ She stopped and turned to Ruth, her mouth open. ‘You don’t think it was the milkman, do you? He was the only one who knew I’d be out of the country.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Ruth quietly.

Julia gave a mirthless laugh.

‘If whoever it was only knew we had nothing left to take. They should have tried the Hendersons up the road. She’s always boasting about her silverware.’

She shook her head.

‘You know, a few weeks ago, I was standing here with Sophie,’ she said. ‘It was just after my husband’s funeral, and my daughter said that things were going to turn a corner for us. She said it with such sunniness, such confidence, that I almost believed her. But she was wrong, wasn’t she? So wrong.’

Ruth rummaged around the cupboards, finally finding a set of elegant bone-china cups with a pattern picked out in gold. It was all very tasteful; in fact, from what she could see under the mess, the Ellis house was the epitome of upper-middle-class commuter-belt living.

She put the tea in front of Julia and took a seat opposite her. Julia appeared not to notice, too busy stabbing her fingers at the digits of her mobile phone. She tutted loudly when there was no reply from the person she was calling.

‘Sophie, where are you?’ she said, gripping her fingers around the tea cup.

‘I’ve been trying her all morning,’ said Ruth softly. ‘I think her phone is off.’

Julia Ellis shook her head and then focused her full attention on Ruth. ‘You said she spoke to you. Did she give you any idea about where she was going?’

‘I saw her outside her apartment in Battersea, then I followed her to Chelsea. She met a man on a houseboat by Stamford Wharf. Do you have any idea who that might be?’

Julia shook her head.

‘A houseboat?’ There was a subtle look of distaste on her face. ‘Will – that was her last boyfriend, a very nice young man – lived just off the King’s Road. Not in a
boat
. I hope she hasn’t got in with a bad sort. Ever since the troubles, she hasn’t been herself.’

‘The troubles?’ asked Ruth.

‘My husband lost a lot of money in a bad investment scheme,’ said Julia, looking away; it was clearly not something she wanted to talk about.

‘Please, Mrs Ellis,’ said Ruth. ‘We are all worried about Sophie. Anything you tell me could be relevant.’

Julia hesitated. ‘Well, you’re American, so I suppose you’ll know all about it,’ she said thinly. ‘We lost everything through the Michael Asner Ponzi scheme. The stress of it all killed my husband from a heart attack a few weeks ago.’

Ruth tried to keep her face straight, but her journalistic instincts were tingling. Peter Ellis had invested in the Asner Ponzi scheme? Immediately her mind began to see the story laid out in print: British family wiped out by financial sting, brokenhearted father suffers heart attack, distraught daughter subsequently becomes a murder suspect. She could feel her pulse begin to race. Even for the
Washington Tribune
, with its emphasis on politics and world news, this was a better story than she had imagined. But still something didn’t quite fit. The Asner scheme had been such big news when it was exposed twelve months earlier because Michael Asner, a supposedly genius investor, had preyed on the East and West Coast super-rich. It was an insiders’ club for the wildly wealthy, and Asner had used their greed against them, providing high returns on investments that nobody thought or wanted to question. The news piece on Peter Ellis’s funeral had mentioned that he was an accountant with a practice in the City. He was clearly a well-off white-collar professional, but he hardly fitted the Asner victim profile.

‘Yes, I read about that,’ she said carefully. ‘Your husband was in financial services, wasn’t he? Is that how he came to invest with Asner?’

‘You mean why was Peter playing with billionaires?’ said Julia tightly. ‘It’s a question I asked him many times, believe me.’

She took a tiny sip of tea which seemed to barely touch her lips. ‘Peter and Michael were good friends at Oxford. Michael Asner was a Fulbright scholar, would you believe? Furiously bright, but a horrid little man, if you ask me.’

‘So you knew him?’

‘I met him a handful of times in the early days of our marriage. I never really liked him; always so full of his own cleverness, as if he was doing us a favour letting us talk to him, even before he became super-successful.’

‘Had you seen him recently?’

She shook her head. ‘Peter and Michael drifted apart once Michael began to move in those powerful Wall Street circles. The last contact I was aware of was about fifteen years ago, when he left the firm of investment brokers he had been working for and set up his own wealth management business. He couldn’t be bothered with us in the years running up to that, but when he was fishing around for investments, suddenly we were good enough. Or at least our life savings were.’

Julia looked up. ‘You heard he died in prison, of course?’ she said. ‘I can’t say I was sorry. How could anyone do that to a friend? Peter was a quiet man. He kept everything bottled up inside him,’ she said, clutching her hand to her chest. ‘When the scheme collapsed and we lost the money, he seemed to be coping well, but then he had a heart attack on that little boat of his. We thought he was going to pull through, but he had another sudden cardiac arrest in hospital a few days later.’

Ruth glanced at her watch again. Fox would be here any minute, and she couldn’t imagine he would be pleased to see her again.

‘You said Sophie hadn’t been herself recently. How did her father’s death affect her?’

‘They were very close,’ Julia said quietly. ‘If I’m honest, I was rather envious of their relationship. It’s been tough for all of us, of course, but Sophie . . . We had to sell her flat in Chelsea, her boyfriend finished with her, and her other friends? Well, she was dropped like a stone. Do you know, only three of her friends came to the funeral?
Three!
’

‘People can be very judgemental,’ said Ruth.

‘People can be bastards, Miss Boden,’ said Julia, bitterly. ‘And you can quote me on that. We paid through the nose for Sophie’s education; she is a beautiful, refined young woman, and yet when it comes down to it, you realise what ultimately matters to people: money. They only care about money.’

She produced a tissue and dabbed at her eyes.

‘Sorry. This is all very difficult. I’ll have to sell the house, of course. We remortgaged to liquidate some cash, and now . . .’ She looked around at the devastation of the burglary. ‘I knew we should have kept paying for the alarm system,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘But Peter said it was an unnecessary expense. At least I took the Chanel on holiday with me,’ she added, clasping her handbag to her side protectively.

Ruth paused, wondering how to phrase her next question.

‘Sophie must have been very upset about losing the family home, too.’

Julia’s shrewd grey eyes locked on to Ruth’s.

‘Don’t start imagining motives where there are none, Miss Boden,’ she said, steel in her voice. ‘I read the papers, I know how the press can spin things: a young girl fallen on hard times tries to trap a rich man and it goes tragically wrong. That did not happen with my daughter, do you understand me?’

‘Honestly, Mrs Ellis,’ said Ruth quickly, ‘I’m really on your side. I just want to see justice done.’

‘Justice?’ she spat. ‘I don’t believe in justice any more. Not when Michael Asner’s wife is still sitting in some big house in upstate New York. Where’s the justice in that?’

Ruth looked up at the kitchen clock. Twelve on the dot – time was up.

‘I’d better be going,’ she said, stuffing her notebook into her handbag. ‘I’m sure Sophie will be in touch very soon. Perhaps the police will have more news.’

Julia went with her to the front door.

‘Do you have a photograph of Sophie I could take?’ she asked quickly.

Julia nodded. She went into the study and returned with a family snapshot.

‘You will help her, won’t you?’ she said. ‘Sophie’s a good girl and she’s already been through so much. I don’t know what’s happened with this man in the hotel, but she wouldn’t hurt a fly, you do believe that, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Ruth truthfully. Just then, there was the sound of a car turning into the drive and her heart sank.
Shit
.

She walked down the drive as Fox was getting out of his saloon.

‘We must stop meeting like this,’ she said, lifting one eyebrow.

Fox didn’t smile. ‘Why are you here, Ruth?’

‘Just doing my job, unlike you.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he frowned, slamming his door.

‘Mrs Ellis has been burgled, Inspector.’

Fox looked up at the house, concern on his face.

‘Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it, both mother and daughter burgled within a day of each other?’

‘I’ll let you know when I’ve examined the evidence,’ he said, clearly annoyed to be arriving at the scene after a reporter.

‘So any more details on Nick Beddingfield?’

He moved to walk past her. ‘As you say, I’ve got a job to do.’

‘Come on, Fox,’ said Ruth, invading his personal space. Fox sighed and took a step back from her.

‘We’ve tracked down his mother in LA. She’s distraught, understandably. She’s on a flight out to London, not that she can collect the body just yet.’

‘Where’s she staying?’

‘Oh, give me a break, Boden.’

‘You know I’ll find out, so there’s no point in not telling me.’ She batted her eyelashes at him. ‘For me, Ian?’

Fox gave a hint of a smile.

‘That’s the first time you’ve called me by my Christian name.’

‘I’ll do it again if you tell me where Mrs Beddingfield is staying.’

‘The Horizon Hotel, Paddington. Now get out of here before I accuse you of tampering with evidence. Again.’

She watched him walk up to the house, feeling a moment’s sympathy – for Fox, who had to deliver so much bad news; for Mrs Beddingfield having to fly twelve hours to see her son’s dead body; for Julia Ellis, who was all alone in a house full of ghosts. But as she turned and walked back towards her car, her thoughts were for Sophie Ellis, who had been dragged into this mess through, she suspected, no fault of her own.

‘You will help her, won’t you?’ her mother had said. And she would. Not only was this going to help Sophie, Ruth knew it was the story to help herself.

21

‘Get your bag, princess,’ said Josh, wiping his mouth with a napkin. ‘We’re off.’

‘Where are we going now?’ said Sophie. She had been enjoying their room service picnic – a club sandwich, fruit salad and a bottle of Badoit water. Lounging on the bed, eating off a silver tray, it all seemed decadent and slightly naughty, and she was in no rush to leave the relative safety of the suite.

‘We’re here to find out about Nick, remember?’ said Josh, picking up his jacket. ‘And the obvious place to start will be at his apartment.’

Sophie reluctantly stood and brushed the crumbs off her white ‘Jil Sander’ shirt – another of the fakes from the lock-up he’d brought along. It was a size too small and the buttons were straining slightly, but Sophie still liked the Parisian air it gave her.

‘Aren’t the police going to be there? Surely that’s the first place they are going to check.’

Josh pulled a face. ‘No, because the flat wasn’t his.’

‘Whose was it?’

Josh sighed and opened the door. ‘I’ll tell you on the way.’

They took a cab from the front of the hotel, turning down the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré with its smart boutiques and cafés. She saw a flower stall doing a brisk trade in sunflowers and a baker’s with an art deco frontage and a queue snaking out of the shop. She wound down the window and let the warm air roll over her as Paris passed before her. The honking traffic on the Place de la Concorde, the stateliness of the Tuileries Gardens, the waters of the Seine glinting and flashing as if she were in some Technicolor-drenched movie set.

‘Having fun?’

‘It’s better than wading through the Thames, yes,’ she replied, wishing she were in Paris under different circumstances.

Her companion looked cynical. ‘Just because we’ve crossed the Channel, don’t start thinking we’re safe, okay?’ he warned.

‘Don’t you think I know that? I know we’re in trouble, Josh. I was there, remember? I have a bullet hole in my bag to prove it, and for all we know, those Russians might be waiting for us at any point in this city. So yes, I wish we were on a minibreak, but we’re not, so I just want to find out what Nick was up to, report it back to Fox and go home.’

Josh turned away from her, relaxing back into his seat; she watched him stifle a smile. Did he really appreciate the danger they were in, or was this just an everyday occurrence for a man like Josh? He certainly didn’t seem to be as ruffled as she was.