Chapter 15
“Say what now?” was my reaction.
She grabbed my arm and, exhaling a huffy sigh, dragged me along the path. “God, it’s already boiling, this heatwave is a killer. But, yeah, you ’eard. I think they’re ripping off the company. Embossing—”
“Embezzling.”
“Yeah, that one.”
“Wait, why? What evidence do you have?” I leaned into her. “What’s brought all this on?”
She chewed her lip as we walked, Kennedy dancing in the fields around us. “Start from the beginning,” I said, trying to placate her.
She took a second to collect her thoughts and then launched into her story. “You know how Dad retired last year? He’s handed over the company to Trevor and me, fifty-fifty. Dhapinder was already a senior manager, and her being married to Trevor, what’s his is hers and all that.”
“Right,” I said. “Have they been freezing you out?” Sonia had always been anxious about her place in the firm.
She outranked several much older and established estate agents there, who thought little of her abilities, and from what I could tell, Trevor and Dhapinder didn’t exactly have her back during these spats.
She nodded. “Always have done, nothing new. I know the areas of the business to focus on, and what I want to achieve. They have plans and the vision, so I let them get on with it mostly. But I’m not a dummy, I know the books as well as Dhapinder does, even though she doesn’t know I do.
Mum used to do the books in the early days, and I learned from her.
I know all the ins and outs and what everything means. I’m really good at it.”
“Good for you, Son,” I said genuinely.
She blushed. “I’ve been doing classes online. No one knows except Mum.” She frowned again. “Since the whole … Arabella thing, Trevor has been acting well weird. Like, I know he was …”
“We don’t need to say it.”
“Screwing her,” she said with a grimace.
“Ugh, the bastard. Anyway, since then, he and Dhapinder have barely said two words to me, always off with their heads together in the corner. At first, I thought it was because they were having problems. But then I did some digging. Not on purpose, you know, by accident. I needed some numbers and went to the books. Well, I know what I’m looking for now. ”
“What did you find?” I asked. We were about halfway down the hill now; I glanced over at Simon’s street and held in a wistful sigh.
“Do you know how VAT works?”
“Er … let’s assume that I don’t,” I said.
“Okay, well, VAT payments are separate from main transactions and are kept on their own ledger. It’s quite easy to lose track of. If you hear about a business in trouble with the taxman, well, they likely cocked up their VAT payments.”
“Right.”
“It’s also the easiest to fiddle.”
“Oh.”
We came to a stop. I put my face up to the baking sun and felt it warm my skin. “So … they’ve been skimming off the top?”
Sonia nodded. “It looks it. Money going missing here and there. Payment amounts that don’t quite match up. But …”
“But?”
“I can’t be sure.”
“How could you find out?”
“Go through the books with a fine-toothed comb.”
“Can you do that without raising suspicion?” I asked.
She shook her head and yanked a piece of grass from the side of the path and fiddled with it between her fingers.
I looked out and watched Kennedy chasing bugs in the long grass. “Okay, well, a) you need definitive evidence of what is happening and b) that they’re the ones who are doing it.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“Do you want my help?”
She nodded again. “It’s been going on for months, Arden. I don’t think they’re planning on stopping anytime soon. And it’s small amounts. Small enough that the business isn’t noticing it – I mean, business is good, the company is doing well.”
It was my turn to nod. “In a way, that’s better. Gives us time to plan.”
She gave me a smile. “I knew you’d help.” She gripped my arm, and we started walking again. “Why are we going to Nigella’s?”
“Oh, you know, just a catch-up.”
“Her and her fella are having problems, innit?”
“Yeah— wait, what, how’d you know?”
“I’m very intuitive, I am.”
I glared. “Okay, but in reality, how do you know? Also, I don’t think she particularly wants it broadcasted.”
“I haven’t told a soul! Arden, how little you think of me.
They’ve kids, for God’s sake. I wouldn’t go around blabbing about her private life.
It’s against the code of ethics for a responsible estate agent.
But, yeah, I read between the lines when she was giving updates about you when you was all AWOL.
I thought to myself, there’s a woman with a lot of free time in the evenings for drinking wine and sitting in her big kitchen sending very long texts. ”
“Bloody hell,” I said.
“I’ll pretend to be ignorant to her marital strife. Like I am with Dhaps and Trev.”
I pursed my lips and said nothing. We entered the village and walked to Nigella’s house in time to see her emerging from her car outside.
“Hello! Aren’t you two a sight for sore eyes. You’ll never guess where I’ve been?”
“A branch of LK Bennett?” I said.
“Yoga for the over sixties?” Sonia said.
Nigella glared. “I am not over sixty,” she hissed. Her smile returned. “No, I’ve been to see Jed. His mum rang last night and said he could have visitors, so I popped over first thing this morning and spoke to him.”
I perked right up. “Really? How is he?”
Nigella beckoned us into her house and walked as she talked. “Groggy. Confused, but improving every day. He’s spoken to the police and said he can’t remember much, but between you and me, his doctors have said it’s likely he’ll remember more as he starts to improve.”
That was going to be my next question, so, instead, I nodded sagely.
Not that I needed to say anything; Sonia and Nigella kept up a verbal volley that was, frankly, staggering to behold, as the two of them could talk for England.
We’d been there twenty minutes before Nigella had finished telling us about Jed, and Sonia had gushed about Ade and asked for more details about how Guy was.
“This Ade chap of yours, I must say, a definite improvement on the last one,” Nigella said, pouring us tea.
I rubbed the spot on my head where I had a scar from being knocked into the road by The Last One and grumbled.
Sonia rolled her eyes. “One concussion and he thinks he’s Joan of Arc.” She paused. “Is that who I mean? One of ’em, whatchamacallit, Martians?”
“Martyr?” I offered.
“That’s the one.” She glared at me. “Yeah, that’s what you are.”
“I was assaulted.”
“You were milking it.”
“Oh, charming. Well, I take back my offer.”
“What offer?” Nigella asked.
“My brother and his missus are stealing from the company.” She gasped. “Oh my God, I can’t believe I said it out loud!” She clasped her hand over her mouth.
“Really? I can,” I muttered at the ceiling.
Of course, instead of being shocked, Nigella wanted details and for the next hour pumped Sonia for every facet of information she had.
There were flow-charts. The twins’ art supplies were raided so they could start making columns.
Sonia was reading out figures from emails on her phone when I eventually recovered.
“Don’t you have to get back to work? Your lunch break is heading for the two-hour mark,” I said.
Sonia looked at the time. “You’re right. I must dash. Bloody hell, I’ve got to walk up that hill in these heels.” She was running about getting her things when she noticed that I was sitting. “Coming?”
“Umm, got to talk to Nigella about … a thing. It’s boring, you won’t be interested.”
“What is it?” Sonia asked.
Nigella raised an eyebrow at me. “A book. About the Tudor period. I lent it to Arden. Oh, it’s fascinating. They describe the architecture. There are three chapters alone on gables.”
I saw Sonia’s eyes glaze over as she spoke. “Yeah, no, I’m not sticking around for that.” She gave us each a kiss on the cheek – even Kenny – and made her departure.
Nigella waited for the door to click. “Right, so what do you want to discuss? I mean, I am reading a book about the Tudors if you want to borrow it. Well, it’s a bodice ripper. But, from my online research, most accurate in the descriptions of the men’s jerkins.”
Sonia’s comment about having far too much time on her hands came flooding back into my mind.
I gripped my mug. “Simon visited me this morning.”
She put her teacup down. “No, Arden, please tell me you didn’t find more rooms in your house to sleep with him in. Where now? The bathtub?”
“What? No. I didn’t shag him. I wanted to, but that’s nothing new.”
“Good, because your house isn’t that big.”
“Are you listening? Anyway, he wants me to help him solve Riz’s murder.”
Nigella’s face fell.
“That was pretty much my reaction. What do I do, Gella? I can’t … encourage him, can I? And I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing. If the police can’t find the killer, how will I?”
“This is serious,” she said and tapped her finger on her teacup. “How did he seem?”
“Er, a mess. Like a guy whose fiancé was just deaded.”
She thought for a moment, tapping her cup again, then got up and walked around the room for a few seconds, seeming to work things out in her head. At least I hoped she was.
“Okay, here’s what you do.” She made eye contact. I leaned in expectantly. “String him along.”
“What?”
“I know. But it’s what we do for now. The grief … mania, I suppose, will pass eventually. He’ll go back to work; he’ll calm himself down. In the meantime, we hope the police make some headway. But you – you keep going, softly-softly, nothing major, nothing earth-shattering. Just little things.”
“Feed the crazy?”
“Ahhh, let’s not call it that.”
“This is a terrible idea.”
“Of course it is,” she snapped. “Our friend’s fiancé was just murdered. No one has any good ideas right now. Arden” – she sat back down and took my hand – “your job here is to keep him centred. You can let him work it all through in his mind. Let him process it in his own way.”
I nodded. That made a bit more sense.