The Victim in Victoria Station (16 page)

Who had a guilty secret?

I thought about them all.

Fortier, for a start, as the most likely person. I knew scarcely anything about him, really. He was rather young to hold an important executive post, which probably meant he was both intelligent and ambitious, as Mrs. Forbes had told me. It also seemed he was eager to cultivate the boss; I remembered those obsequious little nods punctuating his conversation with Mr. Spragge. Ambitious toadies can be dangerous people.

However, the description was unfair. I was basing it more on what I'd been told than on my own observation. No, the only real strike against Fortier was that he'd been scared when Nigel mentioned Bill Monahan on the phone. What did that mean? Was he a man with a secret? I didn't know enough yet to make a reasonable guess, so I passed on to the next candidate.

That would have to be Brian Upton, he of the violent temper, who was having some sort of quarrel with the boss. It didn't take too much imagination to come up with a secret he might be hiding. There could easily be some trouble lurking in his background, given that violent personality, and Mr. Spragge the churchwarden wouldn't like trouble. Certainly he didn't like something that Mr. Upton had been doing, or not doing, lately. I wished I'd overheard more of their little contretemps.

Definitely
he wouldn't like the affair that Vicki Shore and Lloyd Pierce were carrying on with so little effort at concealment. Did Spragge really not know about it? How could he not, if he had eyes? Unless they were such valuable employees that he preferred to close his eyes to what he didn't want to see. That seemed unlikely, with the sales situation at such a dismal pitch, and it certainly didn't square with the touch of tyranny I'd observed in his personality this morning.

Chandra Dalal. He ought to be able to sell the software to his own countrymen, but apparently he couldn't. Did that mean he was selling it on his own and pocketing the proceeds? He didn't look prosperous, though, and he seemed worried about his job. Of course, he did need extra money badly, with a wedding in the offing.

Pierce and Shore dressed very well, and very expensively, but then they both had working spouses.

That was the sales staff, except for the Grey nonentity, whom I dismissed for the moment. It was of course possible that he was hiding something under that bland exterior, but if so, he was hiding it beyond my ability to penetrate the screen. Nigel might be able to find out something.

Onward. Offhand, Terry Hammond seemed one of the least likely candidates—open, a bit brash, likable, neither especially affluent nor especially impoverished in appearance. But he had a drinking problem. That was another weakness the estimable Mr. Spragge might well frown on, especially if it interfered with Mr. Hammond's work. If he was the pirate, could he be drinking up all the extra profits? Surely not. He'd be in a perpetual coma. And he certainly didn't act like a man with a guilty secret.

I leaned back, tired. Obviously I needed to search Fortier's office. I needed to search everybody's office, and leave the computers to Nigel. And I would, as soon as I got a little energy back.

S
OMETHING WAS BUZZING
. An alarm clock? But why was it going on and off like that?

I sat up, trying to rub out the crick in my neck and understand why, if the alarm was ringing, there was so little light.

Silence. Then the buzzing again. Three times.

Oh, Lord,
Nigel!

I banged my knee into some obstacle and my elbow into another as I ran for the door.

“I thought you weren't coming!” he said in a furious whisper. “I thought something had happened to you! And you don't even look like you. My God, never do that to me again!”

“I'm not likely to!” I snapped. My knee and my elbow hurt. not to mention my neck and my back and virtually everything else about my person. We stood glaring at each other in the hallway.

I recovered first. “All right, Nigel, I'm sorry. I was asleep when you rang the bell, and I couldn't seem to wake up properly, and then I kept running into things. I'm going to have bruises tomorrow. The wig—well—the wig is supposed to be a disguise. I'm sorry you were worried.”

“I wasn't worried, I was bloody scared! There's a copper just round the corner!”

Nigel almost never swears around me. He must be in a real state. “All right, love, you didn't get caught, and I said I'm sorry. Did you bring the flashlight?”

“Yes, but it's only a small one. I didn't think we'd better risk a big torch.”

“And how right you are, with windows all over the place and only thin nylon curtains. We're going to have to be careful.”

We went into my inner hall, which had a little light coming from the window and the back door. Nigel shone his torch around, cautiously, and then sat down on the visitors' bench.

“Okay, what's the drill?”

“I hope you'll tell me. I haven't discovered a thing.” I settled in my own chair, rubbing my elbow, and explained about my abortive efforts earlier. “The only evidence I could come up with was negative, I'm afraid. There was nothing in Mr. Grey's desk of any conceivable interest. And then I panicked at the stupid cat and ate my stupid candy bar, and then I fell asleep. Not a good showing at all, I'm afraid.”

“That reminds me,” said Nigel. He reached into the backpack he always wore. “For you. My mate's local does good bar food.” The sandwich was somewhat squashed, but it smelled of good bread and roast beef and horseradish. My mouth began to water, and my stomach made eager little growls. “You are a lifesaver, my dear. Would you like to share?”

“No. I've eaten, and there's another if I get hungry later. Feel free.”

While I ate ravenously, he lectured.

“My basic idea is this. Our pirate is a businessman, and there are large sums of money involved, so he'll keep records of what he's doing. Obviously he's not likely to keep them on the company computer. Well, you'd have to be daft to put them where just anyone could access them, wouldn't you? But this is a computer age, and these are computer people. They won't keep the records on paper, either, I'm betting.”

“So what's left?”

“A personal computer, not connected to the company network. If it's a desktop in someone's house, we're out of luck. But if it's a laptop, there's just the bare chance it might be here somewhere. Did you see everyone leave today?”

I thought about that. “Yes.”

“Did they take briefcases?”

“I don't think—I'm not sure, but I don't think any of them did.”

“Then we have a chance. I brought a bottle of Bass, too. Sorry, but you'll have to drink it warm, the proper English way.”

“The proper English way,” I retorted, “is to serve beer at cellar temperature, and if you've been carrying that thing around next to your back, it'll be a lot warmer than a cellar. I'll pass for right now, thank you. You can have it.”

“There are two. Later, when we've finished?”

“Good idea.”

“Right. On our bikes, then.”

It would have been more efficient to divide the search, but with only one flashlight we had to work together. We started in my cubbyhole. A laptop computer can be hidden almost anywhere, and I hadn't been through all my filing cabinets yet.

We found nothing. No electronic gadgets, no software or data disks, nothing but memos, phone messages, old files, and the paper that somehow or other clutters up even the most resolutely “paperless” office.

On to the main office and Evelyn's files. Nothing peculiar. Some crochet patterns tucked away; a small stash of paperback thrillers and a collection of Sayers short stories in a file drawer; some pictures, probably of her grandchildren.

I'd already declared Peter Grey a washout, and Nigel, after a quick search through his computer, came to the same conclusion. In Brian Upton's office, we did find some interesting things.

We had gone through his desk drawers rapidly, looking for a computer. I tried to shut the top drawer, but it was messy, crammed full of junk, and the top piece of paper caught on something and didn't want to lie down. I picked it up to smooth it and replace it the way it was.

“Nigel, shine the light over here.”

“Something?”

“I'm not sure. Can you read it? I think I can make out a little, but English handwriting isn't my strong point.”

“Whew! What a beastly scrawl! I'm not sure if I can decipher it out, but let's see—oh, dear, dear, dear!”

“Then it's what I thought it was?”

Nigel read it aloud. “‘If you think'—there's no salutation, just starts off—‘If you think I shall peg'—no—‘pay a—a filthy blackmailer'—actually, it doesn't say ‘filthy,' but that's the idea—”

I smiled. “Go on.”

“‘—pay a filthy blackmailer a thousand pounds or any other bleeding'—sorry—‘amount, you can go straight to hell and'—” Nigel stopped abruptly and cleared his throat. “Well, it suggests what the blackmailer might do on his way to his destination. And that's the end of it.”

My smile broadened. Nigel really could be a love. “My dear boy, I've probably heard the words before. Not that I had any desire to hear them again, so thank you. Well!”

“Blackmail. What about? Is he our pirate?”

“He certainly could be. Except—would he draft a reply, in that case? This must be a draft, since he obviously hasn't sent it, and it sounds to me like ‘Publish and be damned.' He would only take that attitude for one of two reasons. Either he truly doesn't care if whatever it is comes out, which doesn't sound like high-end piracy, or he plans to dispatch the blackmailer, in which case he wouldn't write to him in these terms and leave the first draft lying around. Does that make sense?”

“Mmm.” Nigel, who had sounded excited, now sounded deflated. “I suppose so. Let's look through the drawers again.”

This time the back of a bottom drawer yielded overlooked treasure. Two plastic bags were stuffed inside a manila envelope.

“That's cannabis,” said Nigel without hesitation, pointing to one bag. “And that looks very much like crack cocaine.”

I didn't question how Nigel knew, but I thought it was probably through friends, rather than personally, especially in the case of the crack. Nigel drinks a bit more than he should at times, but since he has married, at least, he's been a pretty responsible citizen overall. My concern at the moment was more immediate. “Oh, my word, Nigel, and our fingerprints are on them!”

“Not to worry.” He pulled a wrinkled, but clean, handkerchief from a pocket and wiped the surfaces of both bags and, as best he could, the envelope. “Not that anyone is likely to look, but we might as well be careful.”

I wondered what Alan would say if he knew I had just handled controlled substances and then watched while evidence was destroyed. Oh, well. Alan was far away.

“I expect we now know what he was being blackmailed about, Nigel. And at the moment I don't care by whom. Let's continue, and for heaven's sake be careful with that flashlight. We do
not
need a bobby seeing a light in here and coming to investigate.”

Mr. Spragge's door was locked. I hadn't been able to figure out any way to get Evelyn to leave it open. I'd have to try to find a way to search his office myself, though I wasn't sure how.

There was no door to Mr. Hammond's office, only the open doorway to the left of where the drawing room fireplace would have been, so we had no trouble there, and very little trouble finding the bottle of vodka in the bottom drawer, under a few papers.

“So he drinks on the job, as well,” I said sadly. I rather liked Mr. Hammond, and alcoholism is one of the cruelest of the fists that can grip a man and choke the humanity out of him.

“Does he do his work properly?” Nigel wanted to know.

“As far as I know. I don't know a lot about bookkeeping, do you?”

“Not a farthing's worth. But he gets to his desk on time, that sort of thing?”

“Nigel, I've been here two days, and yesterday not till ten. How would I know Terry Hammond's attendance record? What does it matter, anyway? Except to him, poor man.”

“We're looking for a reason to steal. If a man doesn't work, he's sacked. If he's sacked, he has no income. Ergo, if this chap makes a habit of getting drunk on the job and being sacked, he has money problems, and a reason to steal.
Quod erat demonstrandum
.”

“All right, one for you, Nigel. But I don't know the answer.”

We found nothing else of interest there, and moved on, with a shiver on my part, to Mr. Fortier's office, which was never kept locked because of the others who used it casually.

This was a back room; its window looked out on what was once probably a fine garden but was now no more than a walled patch of scrubby grass with a rosebush or two struggling for survival. The houses behind it were either vacant or occupied by businesses, and were dark at this hour of the night.

Nigel shone his light around the room briefly and whistled. “Lot of rubbish in here.”

“Yes, and this is the most likely spot, Nigel. Mr. Fortier works in here, when he works at the office at all. So do the other sales staff. We need to make a thorough job of this.”

“It'd take all night, I reckon. Can we risk the light, do you think, so we can work independently?”

I looked dubiously at the rectangle of window through which murky twilight filtered into the room. “I don't know. They made windows awfully big back when this place was built. Maybe if—is there a desk lamp?”

There was. I moved it to the floor near Mr. Fortier's desk, shaded it around with some file folders, and crouched there, examining the contents of one drawer at a time while Nigel shone his torch over the apparently random piles of papers that occupied every desk surface and a good part of the floor.