Christmas Cat Blues, page 15
Suddenly he sat up straighter. Was that Aubrey out in the grounds? What on earth was he doing out there? And surely, that was Vincent with him? He watched as they slid from view and then replaced his cup and saucer carefully on the coaster which Dick had ostentatiously placed in front of him, as if he was the kind of barbarian that put hot cups down on polished surfaces. Standing up, he held out his hand.
“Well, Dick. That all sounds extremely promising. No doubt you’ll bring all the trustees up to date at the next meeting.”
36
Glancing up at Dick’s office window, Jeremy could see him watching suspiciously, eyes narrowed, as he walked along the snowy gravel path. He resisted the urge to turn and wave at him. He had managed to keep up the façade of politeness and he wasn’t about to drop it now. Dick might be stupid but even he would recognise a provocative action when he saw one. On reaching the ground floor, Jeremy had told the receptionist that he had a slight headache and would take a turn in the grounds before he left, and it was half true. He did have the beginnings of a headache, probably brought about by being out manoeuvred by a half-wit like Dick. That was the problem with stupid people, he thought. In spite of appearances to the contrary, they were actually much more difficult to deal with. It was something to do with their complete lack of sensitivity. He smiled ruefully as he thought of Dick’s actually rather admirable strategy of getting him out of the main office. It was instinctive and cunning and relied on Jeremy not making a fuss. Which of course, he hadn’t. He sighed. So much for getting any information out of the staff. He had barely been in there for more than three minutes before Dick had swept him out as effectively as a mine-sweeper.
He turned the corner and walked deeper into the shrubbery, partly to explore the grounds but mostly to escape Dick’s prying eyes. It was, he thought, actually rather romantic out here. The shrubs were thick and luxuriant, even under their jackets of snow, and seemed to have been planted to give maximum privacy. Perhaps they had been, he thought. He let his imagination run free for a moment, an escape from his worries of moments earlier. This could have been where lovers had met in Sir George Renton’s day, a servant girl tiptoeing out from the house to meet a boy from the town. A breathless kiss before she raced back to the kitchen, one hand holding up her white apron to keep it clean as she ran. Or perhaps one of Sir George Renton’s daughters, perfumed and powdered, sneaking out to meet a stable lad, fearful of discovery by an outraged parent. Ah well, if all else failed, he could always try his hand at writing a romantic novel. He smiled and turned another corner, and then stopped.
Just ahead of him Lettie appeared to be leaning over something, a plastic carrier bag in her hand. He coughed loudly. He didn’t want to walk up behind her and startle her. The girl had recently suffered enough shock to last her a lifetime. She turned as she heard him approaching.
“Oh, Mr Goodman.”
She smiled. A fresh smile that showed her small white teeth and Jeremy thought again of the servant girl of his imagination going out to the shrubbery to meet her lover. He smiled back. He found himself suddenly wondering what she would do with her life. Whether she would stay at the Foundation, as many of the other women had. Or perhaps she would do something else, something different. He wondered how many GCSE’s she had gained at school and if she had considered going to college, or evening classes perhaps, with a view to gaining further qualifications. Perhaps he ought to talk to her about it. He gave himself a mental shake. Once a teacher, always a teacher. Although, to be fair, the words staff and development were unlikely to have ever cropped up in any sentence uttered by Dick.
“What are you doing out here, Lettie?”
“Oh, nothing wrong, Mr Goodman. Honestly. I asked Yvette if I could and she said that it was all right. She’s watching from the window,” she added.
Her cheeks flushed as she spoke and she moved aside slightly to reveal a small stone statue of a cherub, its outstretched arms holding a bird bath above its head, its chubby little body covered in grey green lichen. Jeremy glanced across and saw Yvette framed in the downstairs office window.
“I was putting some feed out for the birds.” The girl spoke in a rush, anxious to explain herself before she was accused “Annie always did it and I remembered it this morning and thought that probably nobody else had thought of it. I was worried that the birds would be missing it. What with the snow and everything.”
She trailed off and stared at him.
“That’s very thoughtful of you, Lettie. I’m sure that the birds will appreciate it. Do you get many birds in the grounds?”
Lettie relaxed slightly and dropped the bag of bird food at her feet.
“Mostly robins at this time of year. And magpies,” she added. She looked around as she spoke as if searching for proof to verify her story.
As if in answer, a magpie flew to a branch above Jeremy’s head and began to clack loudly. Together they watched the bird in silence for a few moments.
“One for sorrow,” said Lettie. “That’s what my mum says. And two for joy,” she added brightly as another magpie joined its mate on the branch.
We could all do with some of that, thought Jeremy. But out here, away from listening ears, it might just be the perfect time and place to get some information.
“Lettie,” he spoke slowly, feeling his way. “What is that you actually do at the Foundation? I mean, do you deal with the people that the Foundation house? Or other charities perhaps?
“Oh, no.” Lettie sounded shocked. “I just input stuff on the files and things like that. And sometimes make phone calls, to get information and so on when Yvette asks me to.”
“Right.” Jeremy nodded encouragingly. “And do you see all the files?”
“I think so, yes.”
“So would you know, for instance, when a property has been purchased?”
Lettie nodded enthusiastically.
“Yes, because I have to open up a new file and input all the details.”
Jeremy looked at her thoughtfully. He didn’t want to push her too far. She seemed like a bright kind of girl and might very easily start wondering why he was asking her all these questions. On the other hand, he might not have a chance like this again.
“What sort of details?”
“Oh, the address. And how many bedrooms it has and so on. Whether it requires any alteration or renovation and then who we’ve invited to quote for the work. And then I have to keep it updated, like when any work on it is finished and it’s ready to be let, who the tenants are, what the rent is and so on.”
“And do you make a note of who the Foundation purchased it from?”
“Yes. That’s the next thing after the address.”
“I see.” He tried to keep his tone casual but he could feel his excitement mounting. “And is it always the same people?”
“There’s one company that the managers often buy property from.”
“Ah. And what’s the name of that company?”
He held his breath.
“Henry Holdings.”
37
Aubrey, Vincent and Eric watched from the shadow of the ice house as Jeremy and Lettie walked towards them. Lettie’s clear high voice drifted across the cold air
“It’s called an ice house. I found it when I was out here exploring one day during my lunch hour.”
Jeremy glanced sideways at her. Lots of girls of her age would spend their lunch hour reading magazines or shopping. Compared to most of them, she really was hardly more than a child. It probably wasn’t that long ago that she was still playing with dolls.
“I asked Yvette what it was,” Lettie continued. “They used to keep ice in it,” she added.
Jeremy nodded as they approached the low squat building. The cats moved further back into the bushes.
“What’s it used for now?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think that it’s used for anything.” She glanced back towards the house, her expression slightly worried. “I think I’d better get back. Yvette will be wondering what I’m doing.”
“Yes, perhaps you better had.”
It wasn’t Yvette that he was concerned about though. If Dick discovered that she’d been out here talking to him she’d probably get into trouble. Not only for talking to him but for being outside at all during working hours. As far as Dick was concerned, the place of the office staff was in the office unless and until told otherwise.
He watched as she ran towards the house, her small figure flying across the snow. Her face, when she had uttered the words Henry Holdings had been completely innocent. It obviously didn’t ring any alarm bells with her. Or indeed any of the other staff who presumably also had access to the files. So why had the mention of purchasing properties made the senior managers so uncomfortable? Were they somehow involved in this Henry Holdings company? But why would they be? They were all successful. They were all paid well. They had all, as far as he could tell, landed a pretty cushy number at the Foundation.
He swept the snow from a small bench and sat down, feeling the damp chill of the stone as it rose up through the fabric of his coat. The cogs in his brain began to gently spin and whir as he stared down at the small paw prints in the snow. His own experience of life had taught him that the most unlikely people were corruptible. The amounts didn’t even have to be that big. In fact, the temptation to steal was not so much on the amount gained as on what could be done with it. For somebody who couldn’t pay a fifty pound parking fine, the temptation to put the hand in the till might be considerable.
The face of Beth, the erstwhile school secretary of Sir Frank Wainwright Comprehensive, floated before him. A mild-mannered, gentle woman of indeterminate years, she wore glasses and had the kind of hair that looked as if it was carefully curled once a week at her local hairdresser. She was popular with both staff and pupils. Always kindly, always ready to lend a listening ear, even when some of the most outrageous school scoundrels claimed to have lost their bus fare home and needed a quid from school funds, which they then promptly spent with the school fag barons. And yet she had quietly and systematically siphoned off several thousand pounds from the school accounts. As a consequence, she had been sentenced to four months. As the magistrate had said, it was the breach of trust as much as the theft that had influenced his decision to impose a custodial sentence. She hadn’t even been particularly sorry as far as Jeremy could tell. She had certainly failed to express any remorse even if she hadn’t felt it, a gesture which might have made the magistrate a little more sympathetic towards her.
At the time they had all been completely astonished. Beth, of all people. Nice sweet-natured Beth who could always be relied upon to hand out a cup of tea and a few paracetamol to staff with a hangover. Even the kids, most of whom weren’t averse to cutting out the middle man when it came to paying for goods, had been appalled. The Head, with her usual talent for ineptitude and getting things wrong, had forbidden all discussion of the subject. Mostly, Jeremy suspected, in an effort to deflect any criticism of her own role in the debacle. In any event, it was an edict which the pupils, and most of the staff, had simply ignored. From the heated debates that had taken place in his own classroom Jeremy had gathered that stealing from your own was not done. It had actually been quite gratifying to discover that the pupils considered Sir Frank’s as ‘one of their own’ and for a short time there was something that might even have been considered a truce between staff and pupils. It hadn’t lasted long. In fact, only until the Head had banned the annual coach trip to the seaside in revenge for Year Ten pupils being caught breaking into a cupboard and stealing chemicals from one of the labs. Wisely, nobody had asked them what they wanted the chemicals for.
The most galling thing was that what Beth had done hadn’t even been all that clever. All it had taken was a lack of managerial eyes on the ball and the willingness to take a risk. It had been acknowledged later by the Head, albeit reluctantly and in the face of incontrovertible evidence, that the school’s financial affairs were wide open to abuse. Beth was responsible for ordering stationery and other sundry items. Staff simply passed their requests to her which she then processed. Nobody checked on anything, himself included. As long as the right amount of exercise books or art materials arrived, as long as any equipment was properly serviced or updated when required, that was all that they were interested in.
Without fail, the right amount of materials did arrive, along with appropriate servicing and updating of all equipment. From Beth’s brother, who owned a school’s supply and servicing business. It was so simple that it was almost laughable. The brother simply whacked fifty percent on top of the real cost and the pair split it between them. Beth hadn’t been stupid though. The items had been genuinely ordered. There was a proper paper trail. Everything was neatly filed. It was just, given what Sir Frank’s was paying for them, they should have come gold-plated. And what had she wanted the money for? A conservatory apparently and a holiday ‘somewhere nice’.
And she would have got her wish if a new governor hadn’t started looking at the school accounts and queried why Sir Frank’s seemed to be paying so much for standard items. He had asked why they didn’t cast around a bit more to see if they could get a better discount. Following which, a little digging into the brother’s company had revealed that Beth was a director, after which the wheels had started to fall fairly rapidly off the bus. It was a simple method, but it worked. Had it also worked for Henry Holdings? Jeremy thought that it had. Using the same formula, albeit on a bigger scale, it seemed likely that this Henry Holdings company was buying property and then selling it to the Foundation at a considerable mark-up and that the managers were somehow involved. They had certainly looked uncomfortable when Adam had mentioned it. So what, he wondered, was the lure for them?
He thought about what he knew about them. Like the office staff, it was actually very little. What he did know, because Adam had told him, was that they were all earning enough to pay for most of life’s little luxuries without feeling the pinch. Perhaps it was just greed. Perhaps whatever they had, they wanted more. Also, he knew, some people just couldn’t resist an opportunity when it presented itself. Like when he had asked Tommy Wade, having been caught on camera stealing fifty pounds from a handbag that had been left at a bus station, why he had done it. He had been met with a look of pure astonishment and the simple yet eloquent reply, ‘well, I had to Sir, didn’t I? I mean, like, it was there’.
And perhaps the same answer was true of the senior managers. Had they been syphoning off funds from the Foundation simply ‘because they were there’? Suddenly Dick’s lack of managerial skills and obvious lack of grasp of the affairs of the Foundation, seemed rather more than just tiresome. If what he suspected was true, then it was downright negligent. But if he was right, if the managers were somehow involved in this Henry Holdings company, surely the fear of discovery wouldn’t be sufficient to lead to murder? Despite his doubts, he was beginning to have a horrible feeling that it might be. As ever, it would depend on what the ultimate reward might be.
The headache that he had pleaded to the receptionist earlier began to take on more reality. He got up from the bench and turned towards the ice house. The entrance, only half-blocked by the broken iron gate, was easily accessible. He pushed aside the branches and stepped inside, followed seconds later by the three cats.
Aubrey turned to Vincent.
“What’s he doing?”
Vincent shrugged.
“Exploring?”
They watched as Jeremy walked further into the ice house, his hands touching the walls as he felt his way forward.
38
Harry reached across the table and poured himself another glass of red wine. Tomorrow. Definitely. Tomorrow he would cut down. Start counting the number of units he was drinking, start making a conscious effort. Although the last time he had looked at the NHS guidelines it had been something that, in his opinion, was frankly ludicrous. A maximum of fourteen units a week? That was only two glasses a day and sometimes he felt so stressed that the first two glasses didn’t even touch the sides. But tomorrow. Tomorrow he would start to change his ways. Because, after all, tomorrow was another day and he had everything to look forward to.
He looked back down at the map spread out on his lap. He could do this online, he knew, but there was something very satisfying about a paper map. It had a permanence to it that gave his dream a reality. His finger hovered over the town of Northampton again. He had narrowed his choices down to three but the more he had thought about it, the more he was starting to feel that Northampton might be just what he was looking for. It seemed to be a fairly vibrant place; it had good transport links, some of its traditional industries seemed to have died off but other decent businesses had sprung up. It also had a university which presumably contained business students as well as some creatives. Lots of students wanted an industry placement, somewhere they could gain some practical experience. Well, he was in a prime position to give it to them. He’d learned a lot in his years in the business. They wouldn’t be disappointed, they would get as much from him as he did from them. Also on the plus side, he didn’t know anybody there, he wasn’t even sure that he’d ever been there, but that was all to the good.
Everything would be new. He could start again with a fresh slate. Starting again with a fresh slate was meat and drink to him. He’d done it often enough in the past. On the coffee table next to him his mobile began ringing. He ignored it. It wouldn’t be anybody that he wanted to speak to. Probably a text telling him that someone had just tried to access an account that he didn’t have, with a bank that he’d never banked with, but all would be well if he just clicked on the link and provided them with a few personal details. Such as his date of birth and pin numbers. Did anybody still fall for that, he wondered? He guessed that they must do or the scams wouldn’t keep coming. Like much else in life, he supposed. It was a numbers game. You didn’t need lots of trusting innocents, just some.
