Excerpt of False Pretences by Veronica Heley

CHAPTER ONE

Bea Abbot ran a domestic agency which didn’t ‘do’murder – except that every now and then she found herself dealing with just that. At sixty years of age, she thought she ought to take it easy and let her two young protégés handle routine cases, but what might be routine to some could be murder to others.

Thursday evening

He told her the moment he got back. Scrambling down from his Range Rover, he confessed the lot, admitted he’d been found out. Perhaps, if she hadn’t that minute returned from decimating the rabbit population, she wouldn’t have thought of scaring him with the shotgun. But this latest mistake of his, added to his recent shenanigans, was too much.

She aimed at his head.

‘No, no! Honoria, no! I was ever so careful, I swear!’ A scream. ‘No, please! No one knows that it was you who . . .

Where’s my medication?’

He dived into one pocket after another but in his panic only succeeded in scattering keys, cash and the all-important pills on the ground around him.

She booted the pills beyond his reach.

He collapsed, clutching at his heart. Tried to speak. Something about having left messages on his computer? She lowered the shotgun to watch him die.

A week later, Friday afternoon

Bea couldn’t concentrate.

Sometimes she could go for a whole day and not think about Hamilton. For whole weeks at a time, she was able – just – to live with the fact that she’d never see him again. And then, wham! Down she went.

She stared at the email on her computer screen, trying to make sense of it. Her phone was ringing. She could hear it but couldn’t make herself respond.

Stop work? Walk away from it all?

No, she couldn’t. This was a working day, and if she didn’t work, she couldn’t pay her two assistants’ wages, or keep the house going. So work she must. Only, she couldn’t concentrate. She considered a crying bout and decided against it. Tears didn’t help; they only gave her a headache. Friends were no help, either. They said, ‘How well you’re coping. But of course you’ve always been strong.’

Aren’t strong women occasionally allowed a day off on which to weep?

No tears allowed in working hours. She got up, needing to move, trying to shift the depression that threatened to overwhelm her. She checked the collar of her plain white shirt in the mirror and saw that she was now looking every day of her sixty years. All the care she’d taken to have her ash-blonde hair cut in a becoming style, and her still fine ‘eagle’ eyes, couldn’t disguise the fact that she was over the hill.

The phone stopped ringing. And started again.

She put both hands over her eyes, and then moved them to her ears, trying to block out the sound.

It was no good. She would have to take some time off. She walked out of her office through French windows into the seclusion of the back garden. Wrestling a reclining chair into the shade under the sycamore tree, she collapsed on to it.

It was very warm. Almost too hot. She told herself there were only so many days in the year when the sun shone in a blue sky, unhindered by cloud, and that she should make an effort to enjoy it. She told herself to count her blessings, and couldn’t. In her head she knew that she had much to be thankful for, but in her heart . . . ah, that was where the trouble lay. She wriggled her toes free of her sandals and ordered herself to lie back, close her eyes and let the world go hang itself.

Only, as soon as she cleared her mind of one worry, another leaped into its place. At least there was no rain forecast, which was a blessing since she wasn’t at all happy about the guttering at the top of the house. Neither of her live-in assistants had complained about the drip-drip tack-tack noise outside their rooms when it rained, but Bea could hear it in her bedroom immediately below them, and she knew that some time soon the guttering would have to be replaced. At enormous cost, no doubt.

Then she was expecting a phone call from Max, her selfimportant Member of Parliament son. Had she really promised to go with him to a ‘do’ that evening? Unfortunately his wife was heavily pregnant, and Max had asked Bea to substitute at some important political function or other. Boring, boring. Bea wasn’t looking forward to it.

There wasn’t anything much she did look forward to nowadays.

An angry exchange of words streamed out of the French windows from her office.

What were the youngsters doing in there, anyway? Computer geek Oliver had his own office beyond Bea’s, while Maggie was supposed to be in reception at the front of the house.

A crash. Bea’s eyes flew open.

Maggie had dropped something? Maggie could be clumsy and, when upset, she did tend to throw objects as well as words.

Silence.

Bea was not fooled. Something had happened indoors, something that had caused Oliver and Maggie to have a shouting match. Except that eighteen-year-old Oliver did not shout.

That wasn’t his style.

Prompt on cue, Oliver appeared in the doorway; all brighteyed intelligence. His hands were raised to his shoulders in apology. ‘Sorry, Mrs Abbot. Maggie says you won’t want to know, but I said you should decide for yourself.’

Bea’s eyes went beyond Oliver to where another man of mixed race stood, holding a large cardboard box. A man perhaps ten years older than Oliver and several inches taller, a handsome man with a warm brown skin. Bea had never met him but knew immediately who he was: Zander, short for Alexander. Trouble.

‘Mrs Abbot. I must apologize for intruding without an appointment. Could you spare me ten minutes? I’ve been responsible for a man’s death, and I need help.’

His voice was pure chocolate cream. Maggie had gone overboard for this man last year, and had then taken fright and run away from him as fast as she could. Maggie wouldn’t want him in her life again. Zander knew that, of course. So it must be something important which had brought him here today.

Bea closed her eyes, hoping she’d been dreaming. Knew she hadn’t been. She pulled herself more or less upright. ‘Take a seat,’ she said, indicating a folded-up chair nearby. She realized she hadn’t anything on her feet and wondered vaguely what had happened to her sandals.

Zander set the box down on the flagstones, pulled up the second chair, opened it out and set it down nearby with a mastery over inanimate objects which Bea was forced to admire.

He seemed to have recovered well from the beating which an erstwhile colleague had inflicted on him. And the knifing, too. Maggie had said he was shaven-headed, but he’d allowed his hair to grow since then, possibly to cover his scars?

Oliver shrugged and padded back into the house, while from a first-floor window came the sound of pots and pans being crashed around. Maggie had retreated to the kitchen and was making her displeasure felt.

Her visitor also looked up at the kitchen. He laughed, a little self-conscious, oozing charm. ‘I didn’t mean to upset Maggie.’

Bea felt and sounded sour. ‘But you wouldn’t let a little thing like her being upset stand in your way?’

He looked down at his hands. Big hands, well shaped. ‘I did consider it, but you are the only person I could think of who might help me. I know Maggie often works out of the office. She might not have been here today. I decided to risk it.’

Her eyes went to the cardboard box. Something picked up from a supermarket? Not new.

He pulled open a flap and withdrew a bronze figurine of a dancer which he placed on the flagstones beside her chair. ‘Signed. French. Art deco. Worth a bit.’

She touched it with her fingertip. Smooth and classy, like him. ‘Stolen?’

‘Now why would you think that?’

They both smiled, for it was his innocent involvement in some stolen art treasures which had landed him in hospital and his assailant in a coffin.

‘No, not stolen. But not mine, either.’ He delved into the box again, and one by one he withdrew and placed on the table: a silver photograph frame, a gold pen, a leather diary, a Thermos flask and some other bits and pieces which must have cost someone a small fortune. The collection was the sort of thing which might normally be found on an executive’s desk.

Bea’s eyebrows rose higher. ‘Not yours, and not stolen?’ He sighed. ‘I need a witness, someone impartial but with a sharp mind, to go with me when I return these things to the dead man’s widow.’

‘The man whose death you brought about?’

He winced. From above came a burst of music. Maggie had turned on the radio. And the television too, probably. Maggie liked noise.

‘All right, you’ve earned yourself an interview. Let’s adjourn to my office so that I can take some notes. If I can find my sandals.’

He retrieved her sandals, and she eased her feet into them. He packed everything back into the box and followed her into her office, which was shady but still rather too warm on that fine summer’s day. She switched on the fan.

Seating herself behind the big desk that had once been her husband’s, Bea drew a pad of paper and a pen towards her and waited for him to start.

‘When I left hospital,’ he said, looking out of the window and not at her, ‘I found my balance had gone. Not my physical balance – that came back quickly enough – but my ability to live on the surface of life. I looked at myself in the mirror and realized that, though I wore the same clothes, I was no longer the same man.’

Bea nodded. A near death experience can do that to you. ‘Money and sex, that’s all my friends talked about. They expected me to join them in the usual round of parties and pub visits. I couldn’t. I rang Maggie a couple of times, but she didn’t want to know. Oliver intercepted my last call to her. He was kind enough to meet me at the pub and try to explain how she felt. I understood she wasn’t ready to see me again yet and left her alone.’

He hadn’t understood, of course. His forehead creased when he spoke her name. But this was not the time to try to explain Maggie’s complicated love life.

‘I’d lost my enthusiasm for my old job, couldn’t see the point of updating websites to sell expensive trivia any more. I gave my notice in at work, moved to a room in an elderly lady’s house. It’s quiet there. Healing. And I can make her life easier by doing odd jobs, mowing the lawn, changing light bulbs, that sort of thing. It seemed to me that if I’d been given my life back again I should try to do something useful with it. Someone at church told me of a temporary job that—’

‘Which church? St Mary Abbots?’This was her local church and the one her husband had loved.

‘Er, no. That’s a bit – elaborate – I suppose you could say. Beautiful but dark. No, I go to St Philip’s. Do you know it? It’s not so fashionable, of course, but I found it friendly and they’ve a beautiful garden. Anyway, I applied for the job and got it. It was for the Tudor Trust. Have you ever heard of it? It’s a charitable housing trust, very old established, very respectable. They wanted someone to create a website for them. I’d hardly started when the receptionist-cum-office-manager left in a flurry of hissed accusations and red faces. There was no one to answer the phone, so I did, and somehow I slid into taking over most of her work. They were pleased with me and asked if I would stay on till they could reorganize the office. I found out later that that was just an excuse. They hadn’t employed anyone of mixed race before, and though some of them thought it was the right thing to do, others took time to come round to it.’ His tone was ironic; he’d dealt with slurs about his background before.

‘The Trust was set up in the nineteenth century when some well-to-do members of the aristocracy built blocks of flats in the City to house deserving cases. They have an office down there to assess applications, collect rents, deal with everyday maintenance, but the headquarters is in an early-Victorian house overlooking Kensington Gardens and that’s where I work. It’s all very old-fashioned and upright and well meaning. I liked the feeling that I was working with good people, helping to make other people’s lives a bit easier.’

He stopped, his eyes flickering over Bea, into the garden, back to his fingers, and up again.

She prompted him. ‘It was your personal Garden of Eden. How long did it take you to realize there was a snake in the undergrowth?’

‘Months. I didn’t want to see the problems. I soon got to grips with the office manager’s job in addition to handling the website, and they made the post permanent. Yes, I was naive, but so were most of the board. Do you know, only one of the directors has ever had any business training, and the only one who has an enquiring mind is the oldest of them all and the frailest? The directors were all born with silver spoons in their mouths. They treat the premises like a club, come in for lunch most days – which does cost a lot, but they regard it as their perk – and only a few actually put in some time for the Trust.

‘They don’t take a salary; they’re entitled to an honorarium and expenses, but not all of them take even that. When one director retires or dies, someone of similar background is suggested to take their place. Noblesse oblige, they said. One of them was kind enough to explain it to me.’ A tight smile. He was probably as well educated as any public school boy. Bea grunted, all disbelief. ‘So because they were members of the privileged classes, they did it for love not money? Untrained? Not a sensible way to run a company. What happened? No, let me guess. Somebody from the real world exploded their bubble. Auditors?’

‘Yes. A new man. His father had retired, after having done their books for some twenty years or more. The son discovered the Trust was operating at a loss, and being a trust all the directors were liable to make up for the losses. He said they must bring in someone to sort it out immediately. What a tempest that raised! They had never, ever . . . couldn’t understand, etcetera. Lord Murchison – he’s the great granddaddy, the one on the wrong side of ninety – proposed bringing in a grandson of his to retrench, reorganize and resurrect. But this young man – who’s in his fifties, by the way – wouldn’t come without an appropriate salary. It sounded sensible to me, but the proposal split the directors. They couldn’t believe that a man should want to be paid to work for a Trust! Unheard of! Obviously not a pukka wallah.’

Again that tight smile. ‘Some of them really do talk like that, you know. Unbelievable. Anyway, the board fragmented, some wanting to bring in their own nominee, some wanting to wind up the Trust, sell the buildings and be done with it. The one thing they all wanted to avoid was publicity. I could see the whole thing dragging on without resolution for months. Meanwhile, we were haemorrhaging money.

‘So I started to look at the figures myself. My computer was linked with the one at the office in the City so I could access all the necessary information. The rents were coming in OK and were on a par with similar accommodation in that area. The staff in the offices – that includes those who manage the day-to-day work of collecting rents, the people who go out into the field to inspect the properties, and the ones at head office – are paid at slightly below the going rate, because they’ve been sold on the idea that it’s a privilege to work for a Trust. The Trust owns the Kensington HQ; the rates and utility bills are reasonable. True, if that building were sold and the Trust moved to a smaller place in the suburbs they’d save a mint, but the directors can’t imagine locating to a less prestigious venue.

‘The biggest outgoing – and it’s huge – is on maintenance, but the Director responsible was always saying that they need to do more, because elderly buildings need money spent on them to keep up with today’s Health & Safety regulations. Fire doors. Lifts. Heating. Rewiring, and so on.

‘I started to look at the cost of maintaining the buildings. For years the Trust had put all its maintenance work out to a building contractor called Corcoran & Sons. Recently Great Granddaddy – Lord Murchison – had suggested diversifying by splitting the work between Corcorans and another firm, in which he had shares. Naturally,’ his voice flattened, ‘they wouldn’t consider using a firm whose directors they didn’t know personally.’

‘As usual the directors had been divided in their opinion about using a firm new to the Trust, but he’d overridden them to arrange for this second firm to rewire one building while Corcorans rewired another. Both contracts had just been completed and the invoices received. As part of my job I opened the post and took the bills through to the Maintenance Director for checking and payment, and I happened to notice that one bill was for twice the amount of the other. For the same work.

‘We are not talking peanuts. The Maintenance Director saw that I’d spotted the discrepancy and remarked that it was always better to use good workmen, even if they were more expensive, rather than those who bodged the job. He sold that idea to the board, who agreed to continue with Corcorans, though they did murmur that perhaps they ought to ask one or two other firms to quote for jobs as well. The figures burned into my brain. I started to go through invoices from Corcorans for the past few months. They’d been charging astronomical sums for changing a couple of light bulbs. The repair of a door hinge would pay a family’s gas bill for a quarter.

‘There were a number of small maintenance jobs on hand waiting for attention. I arranged for half of these jobs to go to Corcorans as usual, but I asked the firm recommended by Lord Murchison to attend to the rest. Corcorans came in at roughly double what the others would have charged.

‘I didn’t know what to do. I’d overstepped the mark, I’d gone behind the director’s back, and I told myself that if there really had been anything wrong, someone else would have spotted it, and that if they continued to ask for quotes, the scam – if there was a scam – would die a natural death.’

Bea nodded. She could see how tempting it must have been to do nothing.

‘Only, the more I played around with the figures, added up a possible overspend here and there, the more I realized that, if someone had been fiddling the books, they might have got away with half a million, maybe more. I assume that Corcorans had either been greedy and been taking the Trust for a ride or, perhaps, that someone in the Trust had been taking a kickback for throwing work their way.’

He braced himself. ‘The only person who could have swung such a scam was the director in charge of maintenance, who was on excellent terms with the managing director of Corcorans, even had him in to lunch once a month. This particular director bullied the staff and fawned on the other directors. He referred to me by names that, well, if I’d wanted to make trouble, meant I could have taken him to a race tribunal. I told myself it was a cultural thing, that he’d been brought up to think the British were top dogs, the Empire lives on, public schools rule OK.’

Bea nodded. Oh yes, she could well believe that Zander would bend over backwards to avoid being thought prejudiced. ‘Don’t tell me; he was a public school type who wasn’t trained for the job but thought the world owed him a good living? Someone with a triple-barrelled name such as Montgomery-Peniston-Farquahar?’

A dimple appeared on Zander’s cheek. He really was a most attractive man. ‘You’ve missed something. The title. He’s an Honourable, and his wife is a Lady. He told me that, if we ever met, I must call her “Lady Honoria” at first and then

“My lady”.’

‘But in the end you did take your research to the board of directors. And . . .?’

‘I thought I might be laughed out of court, because the evidence was all circumstantial. He put up a brilliant defence. I wondered – I still wonder – if he was more stupid than sly. I can hear him now, saying that good workmanship always costs more but is economic in the long run. He pointed out that he’d given the best years of his life to the Trust and had never taken a penny more than the honorarium and expenses which they were all allowed.’

‘What did he live on, if he only took an honorarium from the Trust?’

‘Stocks and shares, inherited wealth. He said he’d done his best, had been tearing his hair out trying to make ends meet, and would of course resign if they wished. I could see the board of directors thinking that of course he’d meant well, and if he’d misjudged Corcorans, well, they might have done the same thing. One of them even started to blame himself that he hadn’t spotted the problem earlier.’

‘They preferred to think him incompetent rather than criminal? Hmm. Ignorance is no defence in law, and usually gets thumped for it.’

‘I could see they were going to close ranks against me and that I’d be out on the street in no time. So I chanced everything on one question. I asked if he’d show his bank statements to Lord Murchison, to prove that he’d not received any kickbacks from the builders. He collapsed, and I was sent home. ‘I don’t know what went on after I left, but that evening he had a heart attack and died. The verdict of heart failure was accepted with some relief by all and sundry, and no one uttered a word about people fiddling the books. ‘Unfortunately his widow is a formidable person. She said that we’d driven her husband to his grave. She vowed to sue the Trust for libel, slander and the cost of dry-cleaning the clothes he died in. The Trust couldn’t afford to pay her off and couldn’t afford to let it be known that one of their directors had been accused of embezzlement. Delegates of directors traipsed out to see his wife, trying to resolve the situation. Eventually they succeeded . . . but she’s asked for my head on a platter.’

He flicked a finger at the cardboard box. ‘These are the personal contents of his office. She’s requested that I take them out to her, when I understand she’ll decide whether or not I am to keep my job. The directors wipe sweat off their brows. Most of them would be happy to see me go in order to close the books, but one in particular would like to play fair. He advised me to grovel and said that, if I do get the sack, he’ll see that I get some kind of pay-off. It’s true that I do feel responsible for the Honourable Denzil’s death. If I hadn’t pointed the finger at him he’d probably still be alive and, even if he was as corrupt as I imagined, I couldn’t wish death upon anyone.’

‘It’s weighing on your mind?’

He lifted his hand and let it fall. Yes, it was. Bea remembered now that this man believed in a loving God, that he attended church and read his Bible. He was a man who tried to do the right thing in a world which didn’t much care about right and wrong any more. If it ever had done, which she thought unlikely.

Bea laced her fingers and leaned her chin on them. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I need backup, someone to come with me when I take this stuff back to his wife. I need an impartial observer. I understand that Lady Honoria shared her husband’s view of people of mixed race, and to be frank I’m not sure how much more racial abuse I can take. If she starts . . . No, I know it’s no good losing my temper with her. When I was first advised to grovel to her, I thought that I’d tell her to get lost. But I like the job, and I don’t see why she should be able to get me sacked for what I did. Then I thought that, if she tried to sack me, I’d say I’d go to an industrial tribunal and then all her husband’s little ways would come out into the open. She wouldn’t want that, would she? Oliver’s told me a lot about you and the problems you’ve solved for other people. I thought False Pretences 11 that if anyone could, you might be able to face her down, point out the law to her.’

And he wasn’t averse to seeing Maggie again. Hmm.

He said, ‘You don’t actually have to pretend to be a solicitor, but a hint of that might help?’ He produced a chequebook. ‘Your fee? I’m willing to pay in advance.’

Bea swivelled round to look out of the window. If Zander was right, and she rather thought he was, then a large-scale fraud had been perpetrated – and possibly was still continuing – on the people at the Trust.

Fatigue dragged her down. She simply hadn’t the energy to help him. In any case, what excuse could she make to accompany him to see the widow, and what difference could she make if she did?

It was his own fault that he’d got himself into such a mess. Such naivety was asking for it.

He exclaimed something, and she turned back to see a slow tide of red climbing up from his throat to his hairline.

Ouch. Had she spoken her thoughts aloud? ‘Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’

‘Yes, you did. And you’re quite right. I always want to give people the benefit of the doubt until . . . No, you’re right. Forgive me. I shouldn’t have come.’

Bea pressed her fingers to her eyelids. Her dear dead husband had always liked to look for the best in people, too. Although he’d often been disappointed, he’d always gone on hoping. But when he’d come across something nasty, he’d not hesitated to do something about it. So what would he have done in such a case?

She had a sudden vision of Hamilton wrinkling his nose, saying, ‘I smell Roquefort!’

Yes, she could smell strong cheese, too.

She said, ‘It was a very timely death, wasn’t it? What were the circumstances?’

‘I don’t know. I think he got home and just dropped dead. There’s to be a big funeral and then a memorial service.’ She said, ‘I don’t fancy pretending to be a solicitor, although I do agree that it might be as well for you to have a witness when you see her. I suppose I could carry a briefcase and look professional, but—’

‘That’s all I need. A witness with a cool head.’

 ‘When do you have to visit her?’

‘Tomorrow at eleven.’ He stood, smiling. ‘The only thing is, can you drive me? I haven’t a car.’

Friday evening

Honoria contained her rage with an effort. If only Denzil had been more careful! How often had she told him . . .! And now look where he’d landed her, having to do battle with the Trust to keep the manor going. Well, she could do it. Of course she could. Hadn’t she been the power behind his throne for ever?

The worst of it was, she’d have to find a replacement for Corcorans. Sandy thought they could continue as before. More fool him. On the other hand, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find another building firm sympathetic to her point of view, and if Sandy started to be difficult then . . . out goes he!

First get the practicalities out of the way. The funeral. No one had queried the death certificate. Dicky heart, natural causes. She must put in another stint on the phone, advising people about the funeral. Tiresome, but necessary. At least no one expected her to act the part of the grieving widow, since Denzil’s weakness for young girls had been well known.

Honoria grinned. In due course she was going to take her revenge on the little sluts who’d encouraged him to stray, but first things first. There would be time for pleasure once the business end of things had been tied up.

Tomorrow she’d deal with the coffee-flavoured troublemaker. She didn’t anticipate any difficulty. She’d teach him his place, and that would be that.