The Verge Practice (21 page)

‘And what about the payments to Martin Kraus’s company, Turnstile Quality Systems, that we asked you about earlier?’

‘I know nothing about those. That’s the truth. I acknowledge that it looks like my signature on the cheques, but I have no recollection of writing them, and I can’t believe I could have done so on such a frequent basis and for such amounts without remembering. The whole process was irregular. Why were the invoices not processed in the normal way through the office?’

‘Indeed. They were addressed directly to you.’

‘But I never saw them!’

‘You’re suggesting fraud?’

‘Well, what else can I suggest?’

‘By your partner, Charles Verge?’

Clarke pursed his lips in frustration and fell silent. At last he said, voice weary, ‘It doesn’t make sense. If Charles wanted to draw large sums from the firm he only had to discuss it with his partners, Miki and me. We could have come to some arrangement, restructured the capital so he could liquidate some of his share against future earnings.

But he never said a word, not to me anyway.’

‘But the fact remains that, according to you, Charles knew Martin Kraus, the nominal beneficiary of these payments.’

‘Yes. But it just doesn’t make sense,’ he repeated. ‘I mean, it was bound to come out, wasn’t it? I’m surprised the accountants haven’t picked this up before now.’

‘They say,’ Tony broke in, ‘that’s because it was done by someone at a high level in the firm. Someone who could bypass the normal processes.’

‘Well, it wasn’t me.’

‘Have you anything else you want to tell us, Mr Clarke?’

Brock asked.

‘There is something else, yes. When I decided to keep quiet about the thirty thousand, it also led me to, well, sanitise my account of Charles’s recent behaviour, out of the same sense of loyalty. The fact is that I was becoming increasingly concerned about his mental and physical state.’

‘In what way?’

‘It’s hard to specify a precise event, more a gradual change. Something was going badly wrong with his marriage. I can’t say exactly what, and I’ve learned over the years that it’s unwise to interfere, but there was a certain tension that developed, and quite heated arguments about design directions, almost violent and sometimes embarrassingly public. Miki increasingly adopted the pose of an injured prima donna, while Charles sank into a kind of angry despair.

‘I tried several times to suggest that he see his doctor for help, but he shrugged me off. He threw himself into the Marchdale Prison project as if it were a life raft, but he was so manic about it that that alarmed me too. He became more and more moody and erratic. It got to the point where I was nervous about him dealing with our clients on his own.’

Clarke reached for a jug on the table and poured himself some water. It was hard to see on the video, but there was the sound of a slight rattle of glass against glass as if his hand were unsteady. He drank deeply, then blew out his cheeks. It was a gesture of relief, Kathy guessed, as if he’d reached that stage in an interview where the subject has got the main business off his chest. Now he gets chatty, she thought, happy to offer cooperation just to get out the door.

‘You said you were concerned about his physical state, too?’

‘Well, he changed, looked different. Sort of puffy around the face, and grey from lack of sleep. He began to dress carelessly, as if he wasn’t bothered any more how he looked. Most unlike him. Towards the end he seemed to find no pleasure in anything. Well, except Charlotte’s . . .’

His voice tailed off into a bout of coughing, and his face became red.

‘Charlotte’s child, yes,’ Brock said drily.

‘No, I mean, as if he really didn’t belong any more, not following the details at meetings, forgetting appointments, driving his secretary mad.’

‘Any signs of violent behaviour?’

‘Anger, yes. Especially towards Miki.’

‘Did she ever talk to you about their deteriorating relationship?’

‘Not directly. Sometimes, when they were having a quarrel over some point of design, she would try to draw me in on her side, talking as if it was common knowledge between us that Charles’s judgement was becoming unreliable. I found it acutely uncomfortable.’

‘But she didn’t mention threats or violence towards her?’

‘No.’

‘And on the evening of the eleventh of May, Miki didn’t say anything specific about his return?’

‘I told you, I had a feeling that there was something she wanted to tell me, but she never got it out. Just that reference to having married the wrong partner, as if she’d discovered that Charles was flawed in some way.’

Brock leaned forward with the remote and stopped the tape. ‘There’s a bit more but nothing new. What do you think?’

‘I think Clarke is good at presenting facts to his advantage. He realised he had no choice but to tell you more about Martin Kraus, and to shift the blame onto Verge, who can’t speak for himself.’

‘We’re checking what we can at the moment, phone and bank records, passport and immigration, but it’s the first solid lead we’ve had. Depending on what Barclays can tell us, I’m thinking that I may send Tony over to follow the money trail at that end, with Linda Moffat as interpreter of course.’

‘Lucky them,’ Kathy said automatically.

‘And I’m thinking that if we really can establish a link to Barcelona, then the McNeils’ supposed sighting becomes particularly important. If they did see Verge, on the run, what was he doing there, who was he meeting? If it wasn’t the travel agent, who was it?’

‘Yes,’ Kathy said doubtfully. ‘I wish I could be more confident about them.’

‘You think they’re mistaken?’

‘I think, between them, they may be confused about exactly where they saw him, even which side of the street.

And if there’s doubt about
where
they saw him, there’s got to be doubt about
who
they saw.’

‘Then we’ve got to eliminate that doubt, one way or the other. Which means taking them over there and walking them up and down that street until they stop being confused. And for that they’ll need a chaperone, a detective to jog their memories and follow up anything that looks promising.’ He looked at her, raising an eyebrow.

‘Me? Oh . . . well, that would be great, but . . .’ She thought bitterly of her meeting with Robert, and explained to Brock, ‘I’ve just agreed to take on the chair of that bloody committee I’m on. I’ve been told it will require a full-time commitment for two or three weeks.’

‘What?’ Brock looked annoyed. ‘Why the hell did you do that? You didn’t talk to me about it.’

She didn’t remind him that he’d suggested it to her earlier. ‘I didn’t have much choice. It was put to me that I had to agree on the spot. I said they should discuss it with you, but he said it wasn’t necessary and that it had already been approved at DAC level.’

Brock’s face darkened. ‘Who said this?’

‘The admin guy who services the committee. Robert.’

‘Damn cheek!’ He gave a low growl, like an old bear contemplating an unruly pup. ‘Have you got this character’s number?’

Kathy handed it to him.

‘You might step out of the room, would you, Kathy?

You too, Bren.’

‘I’ve got things to do,’ Bren said, getting to his feet.

Kathy closed the door carefully behind her and went out to chat with Dot. After a couple of minutes they stopped in mid-sentence at the sound of Brock’s bellowed voice, muffled through the heavy door. Dot smiled.

‘That’s good. I haven’t heard him do that for a while. He’ll feel much better afterwards. I’ve been a bit worried lately that his friend might be mellowing him. What do you think?’

His friend
. Kathy knew Dot was referring to Suzanne and assumed that she was about to be pumped. ‘I haven’t noticed it,’ she said tactfully.

‘You don’t think she’s trying to get him to leave the force?’

Kathy was saved from answering by Brock’s face at the door. ‘All sorted. You’ve got leave of absence from the committee until next Thursday, when you take up your position there full time. Okay? You’d better get on to the McNeils and persuade them to leave with you tomorrow.’

In the event the McNeils, who jumped at the chance of an expenses-paid trip to Barcelona, couldn’t leave until the day after, Sunday. While Dot started booking flights and hotel rooms, Kathy spoke again with Brock.

‘Just make sure they understand about the subsistence rate,’ Brock said. ‘We’re not paying for their bloody bar bills.’ Then he added, ‘Maybe you should get Leon to go with you.’ He said it diffidently, and Kathy wasn’t sure if it was a serious suggestion or just a probe.

‘He’s up to his ears in an assignment for his uni course.

I doubt if he could afford the time.’

‘Ah yes.’

‘To be honest, it’ll probably be a relief for both of us for me to get out of the way for a few days. The flat’s a bit crowded since he moved his computer and books in.’ The words came out without thought, and it was only when they were spoken that Kathy wondered with a small shock whether she really would be relieved to leave him.

‘It’s not a big flat, is it? Must be a bit tight for two.’

‘Yes. We’re thinking about finding somewhere bigger,’ Kathy said, puzzling over Brock’s tone, as if he were looking at the question from a completely different point of view, one which Kathy wasn’t aware of. She decided to change the subject. ‘On my way back from seeing Charlotte this afternoon, I stopped at a supermarket and had my car broken into. They took my briefcase, among other things, with the transcript of Clarke’s interview.’

‘Would anyone be able to identify him?’

‘I don’t think so. I didn’t have the cover sheet, with the names.’

‘Better send a report to the local boys, make sure they take it seriously. Was there much damage?’

‘The side window was smashed. I’ll get it fixed while I’m away.’

Brock nodded. ‘Keep your eyes open over there. You never know, someone may have missed something. That’s really why I want you to go. You speak some Spanish, don’t you?’

‘Very little. I started learning it last year.’

‘I wish I was going too.’ Brock looked regretfully around his office, at the files piled on his desk and the table by the window and spilling over the floor. ‘Maybe if you find something you’ll have to call me over.’

‘I’ll do my best.’ Kathy grinned and headed for the door.

13

K
athy accepted the small plastic container of orange juice and stretched her legs as far as she could under the seat in front. The other two seats in the row beside her were occupied by the McNeils, who were discussing something offered in the in-flight magazine. DI Tony Heron and DS Linda Moffat were several rows ahead, having checked in together before Kathy and the McNeils had arrived at the airport. In fact it now seemed to Kathy, although she hadn’t noticed anything previously, that Tony and Linda might have something going between them, or else were taking advantage of the trip to get something started. She had seemed positively flirtatious towards her Fraud Squad colleague when they had all eventually met up, while he had miraculously shed his funereal aspect and was transformed in a lightweight bomber jacket and navy T-shirt, and even, Kathy suspected, a touch of gel in his hair. Linda, too, was dressed for leisure rather than work, with white cotton slacks, a bright orange top, espadrilles and a pair of dark glasses propped optimistically on top of her head. The McNeils had also come in their Mediterranean holiday gear and Kathy, who had packed on the basis that this was a serious business trip, felt, in her black suit, as if she’d turned up at the wrong party.

But that didn’t matter. She tilted the seat back, tuned the headphones to a jazz channel and closed her eyes. This was an unlooked-for break, a welcome change from the routine and familiar. Leon could take over the whole flat while he finished his assignment, and she wouldn’t have to feel guilty about making a noise or spilling things on his precious papers, as she had with Madelaine Verge’s romesco sauce on the Friday night when she’d told him about the trip. The coincidence of the Spanish food and the visit to Barcelona had made Kathy feel awkward, as if he might think she had been secretly planning to go away without him, but he had been pleased for her, and, as expected, turned down her suggestion that he come along.