The Edge (18 page)

Read The Edge Online

Authors: Clare Curzon

BOOK: The Edge
6.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
When Daniel stood with his back to him he whirled him round. ‘Did you need telling how dangerous that was? Any solid object falling from that height … You could have killed someone below. For all we know you may have done. Aren't you in trouble enough?'
The boy flushed, biting his lips. He was trembling with outrage. ‘Take your hands off me. You can't speak to me like that!'
‘Daniel, the pilot's in charge,' Anna warned him, coldly angry. ‘What was it you dropped?'
‘Just my mobile. I'll not be getting any more death threats on that. Let someone else pick it up. They're welcome to it.'
Which didn't ring true, Barley thought. The boy had been too focused on what he was doing. They'd been passing across water at that point. It looked like a stretch of the Grand Union Canal. If the dropped object had hit target, it could take days of dragging to retrieve it. And, anyway, it wouldn't have been his
mobile: Barley had been in the job too long not to know a cover-up when he heard it.
Jeremy had given up on them and was phoning again, guiding in their pick-up. The collapsing balloon needed sorting. Anna joined the crewman who was dragging the sagged fabric out in a straight line, prior to beating out the residual air. They all lent a hand while Jeremy set about dismantling the superstructure.
A 4x4 with the flat-bed trailer appeared at the gate to their field, having tracked their route from ground level. Between them they gathered the fabric into horizontal folds and rolled it down tight, ready to fit again in the basket. The engine was hoisted alongside on the flat-bed. In the 4x4 there was room for them all, with bottles of drinking water provided.
Jeremy nodded to Barley. ‘I have to log it for the police.'
‘Likewise,' Barley confided. ‘It'll be my head rolling. I should have kept closer.'
No, Anna told herself: my fault. A stupid idea. It was intended as a pleasant outing, to divert him. Now it's complicated life further for the wretched boy.
They were driven back in silence to the take-off field. The striped marquee had already been dismantled, ready for transport abroad with the other gear. There was just a temporary table there laid with glasses, a bottle of champagne and nibbles.
Anna insisted that, out of courtesy, they accept the refreshments, along with signed certificates for the flight. It should have been a celebration but had gone seriously flat.
Still Daniel hadn't thought fit to apologise for his irresponsible behaviour. He drank the champagne as if it was gall. Barley refused it. They said goodbye to Jeremy and his assistants, then returned to Anna's car. Barley offered to drive but was stared down.
A little more than half an hour later they were back at Fordham Manor. Alma Pavitt hadn't returned and Anna was obliged to put together a meal, since they all seemed disinclined to eat out in a pub. She covered ready-made pizza bases with tomato purée, mozzarella, ham and chives, while Barley tossed a
salad. Daniel had disappeared upstairs, leaving them to discuss him if they cared to. Which they didn't.
Not a good day at all, Anna decided. I don't know what good I'm doing here. I've never been a success in dealing with family.
News of her mishap with the car had gone before her. When he picked Z up from the railway station, Yeadings looked rueful. ‘Are you up to the journey? Sure? In which case you drive. Best to get back in the saddle straight after a spill. We'll stop for a late lunch on the way and you can bring me up to date on the London end while we eat.
‘That explains Jennifer Hoad's access to drugs,' he commented when she told him, ‘and raises more questions about the firm in Knightsbridge. Young Halliwell will be lucky to escape a manslaughter charge if his “mule” dies.'
He sounded almost pleased. But then there wasn't much progress to report on any other aspect of the investigation.
At the Bristol foundry Yeadings and Zyczynski, with a video screen apiece and surrounded by a welter of paperwork drawn from Personnel and Wages departments, were both interrupted by calls on their mobile phones. For the superintendent it was a text message, which he read off without comment.
Z, recognising Anna Plumley's number, took her call. The news was interesting rather than startling. It seemed that no great harm had come from the boy's actions, but his grandmother was clearly upset. ‘I'm mortified,' Anna confessed. ‘I badly misjudged Daniel's state of mind, and I've let my friends in for a severe reprimand at the very least.'
Z sympathised. ‘Has the bodyguard arrived yet?'
‘A Charlie Barley, yes. He's a great deal more alert than he appears. Unfortunately we were both situated where we couldn't prevent what happened. We felt sure the object would have fallen into the canal, but couldn't agree on the exact location. Then again the DC disbelieves that it was Daniel's mobile phone he got rid of, but I'm quite certain it was. A compact metal object, smaller than any kind of handgun I'm familiar with, and too short for the knife you're looking for.'
‘Don't worry,' Z told her. ‘As promised, I'm dropping in this evening, and I'll have a word with Daniel. That should give him time to realise he's been acting very stupidly.'
‘Boy in balloon?' Yeadings queried as she closed her mobile. ‘I had Barley's version. He wasn't best pleased with himself. How's your list coming on?'
‘Four fictional employees to date,' she told him, ‘one metallurgical trainee, one furnaceman, two metalworkers in medium salary range. All with phoney National Insurance numbers. Somebody at this end has been seriously into creative bookkeeping.'
‘I guess we'd better check with Inland Revenue. The taxman will be losing out on this as well. “0 what a tangled web we weave …” I wonder was it worth it?'
‘Someone's made a quarter of a million to date,' she reckoned. ‘Kept up another year or so, Fallon, or another, could have bought himself a handsome country estate.'
‘Or paid off a whole load of debts. We need local investigators to go into Fallon's spending habits. There could be a bottomless pit he's been throwing money down.'
He flipped open his mobile and pressed in the contact number for DCI Salmon. ‘Yeadings,' he announced himself. ‘Hang on to Fallon until I get back. Ply him with tea and sandwiches first, then leave him under supervision. At that point you might let drop where I've spent the best part of the day. It should get him in the right mood for a heart-to-heart on my return.'
Their visit to the foundry had been unexpected and raised a certain amount of ruffled feathers, but nobody they'd met had appeared particularly uneasy. Before leaving, Yeadings spoke aside to a young woman in the human resources department, and Z assumed he'd sniffed out the informer.
 
Dusk had at first slid into starry dark. A nip of frost was in the air. When cloud cover began to obscure the moon there was little discernible rise in temperature. The girlie weather-forecaster with the local news was warning of sleet and snow over the Chilterns during the night with difficult driving conditions on motorways. Anna edged the central heating up a notch and checked that the second guest room was adequately prepared for the visiting DC.
Passing Daniel's door she paused, knocked and went straight
in. In view of his attitude to bathroom privacy he could hardly object. But he did, starting up at his writing desk, then hunching forward to cover a sheet of notepaper with both forearms. He stared coldly over one shoulder at her.
‘I'm serving Irish coffee downstairs,' she told him. ‘Come and join us when you're ready.' In the doorway she turned back. ‘Oh yes, I've almost run out of reading matter. Can I look through your bookcase for something to fill the gap?'
He let her request hang in the air, then shrugged. ‘Whatever.'
She knelt to review the titles she'd been through before. ‘Aleister Crowley; that's a bit old hat.
The Exorcist,
m'm. Might try that, I suppose. There was a film in the Seventies, which I missed.'
‘Load of rubbish,' he muttered. ‘They're not mine; they're hers.'
‘Jennifer's?'
There was a pause before he grunted. Anna took it for yes. He scowled, stabbing the desktop with one end of his pen. ‘D'you think the hulk would let me try out the Harley?'
‘With your track record? And then this afternoon's performance? What do you think?'
‘What a bloody waste, though, on a loser like him.'
‘I wouldn't write him off as that.'
‘No?' He was looking superior, implying that she had been nowhere, seen nothing, was no judge of character. She decided to walk out before the desire to box his ears put her on the wrong side of the law.
‘I noticed a snooker table in the gun room,' she mentioned, again at the door. ‘Maybe DC Barley would give you a frame or two if you've nothing better to do.'
‘Better? Like sprinting starkers down to the front gate and making their day for the paparazzi, you mean? God, I wish something would happen! I can't stand being penned in, and all this farting about over nothing.'
Nothing, Anna considered, going downstairs. How could he see all that had happened as nothing? One moment he seemed chillingly detached. The next he was almost in a cold sweat with
fear. And then mocking everyone. Were his attitudes all accountable to the aftermath of shock? You'd think the boy was growing up a monster. Jennifer had made an even worse job of mothering than herself. Small wonder Freddie had been so worried about the boy.
She cheered herself with the thought that Rosemary Zyczynski would be dropping in later. She was young, attractive, hadn't the drawback of a family connection. Maybe he would play along with her, open up, start to get things off his chest.
 
‘It's still not clear who's behind the scam,' Yeadings remarked as he took over the drive homewards. It had begun to snow by the time he dropped Z off by Fordham minimarket to pick up something for supper. When she emerged she saw Mrs Pavitt getting into her car at the pavement edge. She bent to say hello through the lowered window, sticky little snowflakes feathering her hair and the shoulders of her sheepskin coat.
‘You on foot?' the housekeeper demanded.
‘My Ford's in dock. I've a hire car booked at the station.'
‘Best jump in then, or you'll get soaked. It's coming on fast. Snow in October! We don't need winter this early.'
She appeared in a chatty mood, clearing the passenger seat of bulging carrier bags and swinging them back behind her on the car's floor. Z stepped in and clipped on her seat belt.
‘Poor old Huggett,' Mrs Pavitt said, inviting comment.
‘What's he done?'
‘It's what's been done to him. A brick through his front window. They told me in the post office. I guess that'd be Animal Rights nutters.'
‘Why them?' Z asked.
‘Oh, the badger thing, don't you know? Nobody ever made a fuss about him poaching, but baiting with savage dogs turns the stomach for most people.'
Z said nothing, wondering how word had got around about Anna Plumley's brush with the man. Huggett himself would be unlikely to broadcast it and Anna hadn't been out to the village earlier.
Mrs Pavitt's smile had a sly little twist to it. She could have picked up the story while waiting at table, and Z wouldn't put it past her to enjoy gossiping by phone. There were plenty agog for any titbits of news from the stricken manor house and Anna Plumley's arrival would have stirred up curiosity.
‘I'll be calling on Mrs Plumley later.'
‘Right. I'll tell her. I'm heading back there now.' For some reason she seemed suddenly uneasy.
Z glanced sideways, alerted by a change in the woman's voice. There seemed nothing to account for it. She was staring ahead, brushing steam from the windscreen with the back of one hand, then shot out into the evening traffic flow.
At the station yard she drew up alongside the courtesy car. Z thanked her, getting out. Some elusive half-observation disturbed her about the short encounter. Something Pavitt had said or done? Whatever, it wasn't coming through. It would remain one of those itchy little half-memories that wake you in the night and then you never get off to sleep again until morning.
Best to change gear mentally and allow it to surface in its own good time. There was enough to chew over in the update Yeadings had just given her. For the present she must visit Mrs Plumley and see how Daniel could explain his behaviour of the afternoon.
 
‘Why that?' Yeadings asked Salmon, echoing Z's curiosity about the brick through Ben Huggett's window.
‘Bit of lowlife flexing its puny muscles,' the DCI offered as his opinion. ‘Must be plenty of folks have a grudge against the man. Done someone down over his poached rabbits, I'd guess.'
Yeadings rubbed his chin reflectively. ‘More likely some connection with our having him in for questioning. It might be supposed he was grassing on someone. Maybe it's a threat to keep him stumm about something he'd observed on his nightly prowls.'
‘Because he might try blackmail?' Salmon queried.
‘Blackmail or pure spite. Anyway, it's worth having another word with him. Last time his wife came along too, as his ruling
conscience. So, better if Beaumont runs into him in the pub when the man's relaxed, alone and more inclined to talk.'
‘And the balloon incident; do we drag the canal?'
‘The rusted ironmongery retrieved wouldn't cover the cost of divers over a matter of days. No, the boy says it was his mobile phone he dropped and his grandmother agrees. Barley is more ready now to accept their word for it. For the present we'll leave it there. Daniel Hoad has enough to answer for on the Ascot end, and I guess it's time I saw Fallon about our enquiries at the foundry.'
 
Bertie Fallon was seething. ‘For God's sake,' he greeted Yeadings when he materialised, ‘what right have you lot to keep me hanging about like this? A whole working day wasted over some daft idea old Freddie had buzzing in his head. And what the hell did you need to go down to Bristol for? I could have told your man anything you needed to know right here.'
‘You were free to leave at any time,' the Boss told him. ‘You're not under arrest. Have you had anything to eat?'
‘I went to the canteen for lunch and they've brought me tea since, but that's not the point. I demand an explanation.'
Yeadings took the empty seat opposite and nodded Beaumont alongside. ‘For everyone's convenience we are taping this interview. You will receive a copy at the conclusion and be asked to sign a receipt.'
Beaumont switched on the recorder, stated date and time, and they identified themselves for the tape.
Yeadings resumed. ‘Now, Mr Fallon, I will repeat my colleague's question. What was the nature of Mr Hoad's phone conversation with you on Wednesday, October 18
th
?'
‘I've told your Inspector Salmon ten times over. Freddie ordered a meeting for the following Monday. As you know, we never made it. He'd been dead two days by then.'
‘Did he mention any agenda for this meeting?'
‘It wasn't to be that formal. We'd have lunch together at a pub midway, where we've met before. I booked a table for twelve-thirty.'
‘To discuss what?'
‘God knows. Finance, I guess. He saw to the business side. My line's production.'
‘You must have been curious. This seems to have come out of the blue.'
Fallon's forehead puckered. ‘I did wonder. He asked me to bring records from Personnel. Well, Human Resources they call it now. He wanted it kept quiet that I was removing them from the office. I wondered whether …'
‘Yes?'
‘If he was running short of capital; was he going to put on a squeeze, demand wholesale sackings.'

Other books

The Ghosts of Anatolia by Steven E. Wilson
Dark Companions by Ramsey Campbell
Border Lord by Julia Templeton
Blue Justice by Anthony Thomas
If Britain Had Fallen by Norman Longmate
Falling for Rayne by Shannon Guymon
Light Before Day by Christopher Rice
Callander Square by Anne Perry
Third Degree by Greg Iles