Exposure (16 page)

Felix said flatly, ‘“Exposure” wouldn't touch it.'

‘You sure about that?' The blue eyes focused on him, gutter bright with cunning.

‘I know who's in charge of it,' Felix retorted. ‘She wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. And I'm the wrong guy. I cover the political scene. I've nothing to do with this new feature.'

‘How do you know they wouldn't be interested if you haven't asked?' Joe persisted. ‘Why don't you give it a buzz and see what she says. It's a
lady
, is it?' He made the noun sound like a sneer.

‘A very clever lady,' Felix snapped. ‘She's already got someone in her sights, and it's a much bigger fish than some dirty old pervert.'

‘Oh? You sure about that?' Felix was irritated by the repeated question. ‘Course I'm bloody sure. I'm her boyfriend, for Christ's sake!'

Joe noted the present tense. Pride still touchy …

‘I've got a bloody good idea who it is, too,' Felix insisted.

‘You could be wrong,' Joe mused. ‘The kid fancier's in line for a job at the next reshuffle …' He let the sentence die.

‘I told you, it's not a politician! She's going to do some expose on the Honours List. Shits like Harold King getting a peerage. If that crook gets a seat in the Lords, I'll give up on this lousy country. Here, I brought some cash with me. Fifty quid, but there won't be any more. No story for us. Sorry.'

Joe took the packet of notes. ‘Pity. Next time maybe. I'll keep you in mind.'

‘Yeah,' Felix said, ‘do that. Thanks for the beer.'

He elbowed his way out. Joe, out of a lifetime's habit, counted the tenners and then put them in his inside pocket. He'd got the information like squeezing milk out of a full tit. The boss was right. Joe didn't know how he knew things before they happened, but it wasn't the first time. He was right. This cow Hamilton was out to make trouble for him.

The contact in Stuttgart was not a veteran. He had been ten when the war ended, and, luckily for him, his family were still together, their home intact. He owned a small engineering business which was thriving.

His father had been invalided out of the German army after the defeat of France. A civilian sniper's bullet had left him in a wheelchair.

He had brought up his three children to believe that only treachery from within had deprived Germany of victory. His eldest son left university with an engineering degree and a secret commitment to the outlawed neo-Nazi movement. He was a fund-raiser and supporter of a political renaissance that was in the open now, encouraged by resentment of the influx of Turkish migrant workers, busy organizing violent opposition to the thousands of refugees from Romania and the Balkans. Jobs were short and times were hard for Germans after the euphoria of unification. Restructuring the shattered economy left by the Communists was crippling, despite the strength of the Mark and the industry of the people. Resentments grew and the movement fed on such feelings.

The engineer from Stuttgart was one of a chain of contacts throughout Germany, with links in France, and Italy, and Spain. Fascism was not dead, and it had many sympathizers prepared to help its cause.

One of those causes was the protection of ex-German soldiers who had found a haven abroad after defeat. The report had come in from Nessenberg.

He read through it, bitter at the interference from the old enemy, still hunting patriots after forty years.

He knew where to send it, but, like the shopkeeper in Nessenberg, its ultimate destination was unknown to him, except that it was tied to generous donations to the movement from abroad. The report was packaged and sent off by airmail to an address in Dublin.

It arrived by special messenger at King's house in Mayfair. It was marked
PRIVATE
,
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL
. No-one but King was allowed to open anything labelled in that way.

Gloria put it in his desk drawer in the study. It would have to wait till her father got back from his latest trip to New York.

He talked his plans over with her; she understood the complexity of his financial dealings, and she was a good sounding-board. Sometimes her sharp instincts had an idea to contribute. She treasured that intimacy, not least because her mother had always been excluded. She was too stupid, Gloria thought triumphantly. And one day she knew Daddy would take her onto the board of his conglomerates and she'd be like his son. She had wanted to be a boy since puberty; rejecting the female image in favour of father imitation, Gloria didn't like men. At school she discovered the pleasures of sexual activity with other girls. She was not very motivated; the lesbian affairs were short lived and very discreet. Her father didn't know about them, because she chose her lovers from her circle of friends. They were usually married, and dissatisfied.

She'd gone up to Oxford where she got a two/one in economics and modern languages, and then spent two years at the Harvard Business School where she graduated with Honours. Everything was geared to her succeeding her father; she wasn't brilliant, but she was intuitive and she worked relentlessly to succeed. For five years she had been investment manager in the London office of a firm of merchant bankers in American ownership. She was disappointed he hadn't taken her to New York with him. Lately they had started making business trips together. This time he had refused her, explaining that it meant a series of confidential meetings with bankers and money brokers where she couldn't be present. She'd be bored out of her mind with nothing to do all day. Unlike her mother, Gloria wasn't interested in shopping.

‘I'm never bored with you,' she wheedled, but she couldn't move him.

‘You would be this time, sweetheart. I'll bring you something special back. Tiffany's? How about that?'

‘I'd rather come,' she persisted. ‘I'll miss you. Two whole weeks. Call me, won't you?'

‘I always do,' he had protested. He would bring her something spectacular from Tiffany's, and an equally expensive present for his wife, just to keep both women at each other's throats. He was pleased with Marilyn at the moment. She was looking more beautiful as a result of some discreet surgery, and she was getting a lot of coverage in the social columns. It was all crap, but it was good ground work for the coveted peerage. He flew by Concorde to New York. It was a heavy schedule. He was going to get the crucial financial structuring he needed to launch his attack on William Western.

It took the research team four days to track down the records, but they found them in the basement of Hammersmith Hospital. In April 1950 a Mrs Phyllis Koenig had been admitted with severe head injuries following a fall. She was in a coma. The case notes said she had been transferred to a private nursing home after regaining consciousness and severely limited speech and movement. The impairment was permanent and the prognosis poor, as she had a blood clot on the brain which was impeding the blood supply. The nursing home had long closed but it was in the Sussex area, near Midhurst.

They began another search for the death certificate going forward for five years from the time of the accident, and found it in 1954. The unfortunate woman had lived until then, little more than a vegetable if the hospital prognosis was correct, and had died in the nursing home from a cerebral haemorrhage.

Julia went over the details and rang Ben through. She couldn't keep the excitement out of her voice. ‘We're getting somewhere,' she told him. ‘Phyllis Koenig didn't die in 1950, she was brain damaged and she ended up in a nursing home in Sussex. She died there four years later.'

‘Why Sussex?' Ben said. ‘Was King keeping her hidden?'

‘Looks like it. We'll have a copy of a will by this afternoon. You know, I really think we're on the right track!'

‘It's about time,' he said. ‘Take my advice J, don't wind up the boss till you've got something more. He'll only lean on you.'

‘Like he did before,' she agreed. ‘I haven't forgotten the lesson, teacher. Same place tonight – what time?'

The pub round the corner from their office building was their staging post. They met there, had a drink and then went home, sometimes to her flat, sometimes to Ben's. Julia had made great friends with the cat. It liked sitting on her knee, digging claws into her skirt and purring.

Their affair was common knowledge now; the clientele at the pub were mostly
Herald
men and women, and they were used to seeing Ben Harris and Julia Hamilton closeted in a corner. Nobody bothered to comment any more. They were an item, like other couples working on the newspaper.

Ben said, eight-thirty, and she promised to call if she learned anything significant from the will.

As soon as he saw her he quickened; he knew that expression and what it meant. Bright eyes, a slight colour and an air of expectancy. He knew her moods and her foibles and he couldn't fault anything. He sat beside her. She'd ordered him a whisky.

‘Come on, what've you got?'

She opened her bag. ‘This,' she said. It was a photocopy of the last will and testament of Phyllis Koenig, née Lowe. Dated 29 March 1950. Ben read it and said, ‘Christ,' under his breath at one point, and carried on reading to the end. Then he looked up.

‘She cut him out,' he said. ‘She left everything to her niece. The house in Fulham, the stocks, shares, everything. Over a hundred and fifty thousand pounds of estate. That was a fortune in the fifties!'

‘We've traced the niece,' Julia said. ‘She lives in Sussex, that must be why Phyllis was in that nursing home. I talked to her on the phone this afternoon, and she's agreed to see me tomorrow morning. Ben, I
know
we're on to something now. All the dead ends, all the damned blind alleys, but at last we're seeing light!'

Ben said, ‘Phyllis must have sussed him out when she made that will. She knew she'd made a bloody big mistake by then. And a couple of weeks later she has a fall that nearly kills her. My guess is she probably told King she'd looked after him, just to keep him sweet. So he decided to collect before she changed her mind.'

‘We'd never prove it,' Julia said.

‘No, but it's got his stamp on it. Nobody proved who murdered Hayman in the Bahamas, or drove Lewis off the road. But I know King was behind it.'

On the way back to her flat Ben said suddenly, ‘We had a bargain, remember?'

‘Now Ben, you're not going to start that—'

‘I'm just reminding you, that's all. When I think we're getting too close, you back off this thing.'

‘
When
we get close,' she agreed. ‘But we're not close enough yet.'

Next morning Julia drove to Midhurst. The address was just outside the charming town, with its narrow streets and antique shops. It was a mid-Victorian house just off the road. Her appointment was for eleven o'clock and she was ten minutes early.

When she rang the bell, it was opened by a small, plump woman in her sixties. She had bright blue eyes and short, crisp grey hair.

‘Mrs Adams?'

‘Miss Hamilton? Come in. You're very punctual – no trouble with traffic? Midhurst can be a nightmare with all these awful lorries blocking up the roads. I've got some coffee ready for us.'

She was brisk and confident in manner. Very on the ball, as Julia had expected. The sitting room was pleasant, comfortable and chintzy. A black labrador lay in front of the fire which was lit; it raised its head briefly and then went back to sleep.

‘Poor old Daisy,' she said. ‘She's fifteen now, and nearly blind. Can't bear to think of losing her. Do sit down. Milk and sugar?'

‘Just milk, please,' Julia answered.

‘Now,' Jean Adams said, ‘before I tell you about my aunt, I'd like to ask you exactly what kind of feature on that dreadful man you've got in mind.'

‘I'm not sure,' Julia admitted. ‘I'm trying to find out the truth about him. He's built up a legend and backed it with every lie under the sun. So he must have something to hide, Mrs Adams, and I want to find out what it is. All that nonsense about your aunt dying of cancer – I suppose you read that biography.'

‘I did,' she said. ‘Pack of lies. As I expected.'

Julia said quietly, ‘But you did nothing to disprove it.'

‘No.' The answer was sharp. ‘To what end, Miss Hamilton? To show up my poor aunt as a woman who took to drink because she'd fallen victim to a wicked man young enough to be her son? That she died brain damaged and bedridden. No thank you. And anyway he was too powerful, too rich. I couldn't have fought him. He'd have dragged us through the courts and ruined us before I got a proper hearing. I let Aunt Phyl rest in peace. I still feel the same. That's why I want to know what you're planning to do before I tell you anything.'

‘I hope to expose Harold King for what I believe he really is. His relationship with your aunt is the tip of an iceberg. It only confirms what a lot of people suspect about him but can't prove: that he's very bad news and he's becoming more and more powerful. You called him wicked, didn't you?'

‘Oh he was,' Jean Adams agreed. ‘Poor Aunt Phyl knew it. That's what destroyed her. She told me he was a war criminal. More coffee?'

The pieces were fitting in, one by one.

‘Aunt Phyl was rather a rebel, I knew that even when I was a child. Unconventional – wouldn't marry and settle down. And she was well off too. She lived – well I suppose it was a raffish life in those days – wouldn't raise an eyebrow now. She liked the men, and they liked her. She was terribly smart and good-looking. Great fun. She joined the Red Cross in the war, worked in London all through the bombing and the VIs and those frightful rockets. Then she simply couldn't settle down. It was too dull, she said, after all the excitement. So she joined UNRRA and went off to Europe to work with the refugees and DPs, displaced persons. You know, Miss Hamilton, it changed her.'