Chapter 12
Two hours later, we’re late-lunching in Hampstead.
I suggested we stay in the house and rest there, because Mr Bowling Ball – aka the thug who’s been searching for us at the pub and at Mr Toad’s Motors – might walk by, but I have been outvoted again.
This is why I like working alone, by the way.
When it was just me, I was never outvoted once.
The others have taken pity on my nerves, though, and got us a booth where I can cower unseen.
From the outside, the four of us probably look like the team at a buzzy new fintech disruptor, rather than four wanted housebreakers trying to simultaneously avoid arrest and murder.
Something else is strange, too. I know that last night I was literally on the verge of leaving these three to their mad plan.
And yet I can’t lie, I had a lot of fun in the offices of Harcourt and Wallace, even if the arrival of the police gave me a coronary.
It’s been a while since I spent this long with anyone.
There are the people I meet through my day job, but they never ring, it’s all done via the photo agency app.
And I have a few professional contacts, of course, but they’re mostly glaziers and locksmiths scattered around the country who I can trust to be discreet when I need a window patching up or a deadbolt repairing.
I don’t know how many would call me a friend.
But eating lunch with these three feels almost …
normal. Nothing about this situation is normal, of course, and it’s probably a good rule of thumb that if being on the run from a murderer and the police in the company of three professional squatters is the first time you’ve felt normal in a few months, maybe it’s time to re-examine the choices that brought you to this point.
Obviously, if I’d known where things were going to go from here, I’d have got up and walked away, but that’s my magical hindsight binoculars talking.
‘So – this is what we have.’ Elle has written everything out neatly on index cards. She has strong ‘pencil case’ energy about her, Elle. The top card reads ODD MENTORING SCHEME, one says SECRET SEX NEST?, one says BOSS
FURY
ROW?, and one says WIFE DAUGHTER ESTRANGED?. All these surround a central card with DEAD MAN DAVY written on it, accompanied by a pencil sketch and a list of personal attributes:
– Gun owner
– Hair plugs?
– No manners
– Generous lover?
– Wine lover?
– Big hole in chest
‘So clearly Davy’s business partner, this Wallace guy, did it,’ said Jonny. ‘That would be my initial assessment. Or this Mrs P woman, in a jealous rage.’
‘What about Sami, the mentee?’
‘Nah. Not the type.’
‘Well, let’s try and keep an open mind,’ says Em. ‘Maybe we can track down the ex-wife and daughter. What was the ex-wife called, Al?’
‘Dunno. Wallace didn’t say.’
‘Charli,’ says Jonny, swivelling his screen and licking his fingers at the same time. ‘Charli Ray, previously Harcourt, before that Charlotte Raymond. Married twenty-six years ago, divorced seven years ago. They have one daughter, Lulu, who’s studying textiles in Brighton.’
‘Amazing. Where is Charli right now?’
‘Looks like she’s migratory.’ He taps a bit more, and an Instagram feed fills the screen.
‘Look at this. Mustique, Verbier, Fiji …’ Charli appears to have visited almost every luxury resort in the world, and from the look of her feed she buys a new kaftan each time.
In close-up shots of her face she’s an equal blend of sunglasses, skin cream and surgery.
Imagine a sentient set of cheekbones and you’ve got the vibe.
‘Dunno where she is now. Last post was a week ago in the UAE.’
‘All right, well, let’s put her and the daughter on the list.’
I’ve been a bit worried ever since the index cards came out, but I’ve bitten my tongue until now. I’d better say something. ‘Guys, are we sure we need to do more of this?’ They all look at me. ‘I mean, I don’t want to sound like a …’ I fumble for the word.
‘Coward?’ That’s Elle.
‘Pussy?’ That’s Em.
‘Faintheart?’ One nice thing about Jonny, I decide, is that you have no idea what word he’s going to say next.
‘I don’t want to sound lame, but we’ve been to Dead Man Davy’s workplace and found out there was a lot going on with him – rows with colleagues and family life and all that. Are we sure this is a good idea? Now we know there’s lots for the police to get their teeth into?’
‘Thinking of going somewhere, Al?’ Em throws me a wicked little glance.
Elle and Jonny look blank, and I suddenly feel a bit grateful to Em for not telling them about what happened last night, which is obviously insane. Is this how Stockholm syndrome starts? She continues: ‘Still got that notebook I showed you?’
‘Yeah, I think so,’ I say, as casually as I can manage.
‘What did you do with it after our chat?’ I get it out, and she nods. ‘Take a closer look.’
I look again, and realise it’s a page-per-week diary for the year.
Inside the first page:
If lost, please return to:
David.Harcourt@.
Reward: ￡15
Jonny asks, ‘What is this?’
‘It was on the desk in Davy’s home office, next to my phone,’ Em says. ‘I thought it might be useful.’
‘You appropriated an item that explicitly links us to the murder location?’
‘We’re already linked to the place about four different ways, Jonny. If they catch us, this won’t make any difference.’
‘I still think it’s a grave error.’
Em leans forward and taps the diary. ‘Let’s just let Al look inside.’
I flip through the diary, and notice a couple of things.
Firstly, what a skinflint. ￡15 for the convenience of recovering a year’s diary?
The main thing, though, is that there are hardly any appointments, across the entire year.
One is Pen Bday, one is Wed Ann, another is Div Ann, but in the coming month there are just two events.
The first is in two days’ time, and it says 215 Feathers.
The second is two days after that: BB AGM.
‘OK. This is clearly his personal diary, not work. So he was boring. So what? That’s just being in your fifties, isn’t it?’
‘Come on. Two appointments in the next month? He was hiding away in that house, Al, you said so yourself. He was waiting, with a gun, for whoever turned up because he thought they’d be coming to kill him. And he was right. These appointments are relevant somehow.’
I look at them. BB rings a faint bell. ‘I’ve seen those letters before. Recently, I mean.’
‘Where?’
I can’t quite scratch the itch just now. ‘Not sure. What about this one, day after tomorrow? 215 Feathers.’
‘Must be a sex thing. Dirty old man.’
‘I mean, maybe. Would you write a sex thing in your diary if you were in hiding in your country place in fear of your life?’
Em gives a shrug, as if to say, Men. But she has something else to show me too. ‘Look at the inside back page.’
I flip to it. Crossed out, there is a series of initials – none I can identify – with sums of money appended to them. ￡12.4m. ￡7.3m. ￡3.8m. ￡9.1m. I look up. Em gives me a nod, as if to say: That’s right, Al. Now you see what the stakes are.
‘Bloody hell. What is all this? What was Davy up to?’
‘Who knows. But there was clearly a lot of money sloshing around his life. Would it be the worst thing if we managed to work out where some of it went? Even if it means asking a few awkward questions?’
‘It won’t be in stacks of fifties in his flat.’
Em shrugs. ‘Only one way to find out.’
‘The police might be there.’ But even as I say it, I know that that detective won’t have got the address from Mrs P.
There was something conspiratorial about the way she told me, as if the place might contain some information that wouldn’t reflect well on Davy but which she trusted me with anyway.
God knows why people put so much faith in me.
Maybe I looked like her nice nephew or something.
‘I have a strange feeling I know which one of us will be going in,’ I say.
Em smiles again.
You’ve heard of ‘poor doors’, I’m sure? They’re the back entrances to the crap bits of swanky blocks of flats, the entrances reserved for you and me.
You won’t be surprised to hear that Davy’s secret London flat, a high-rise ultra-prime block of converted Battersea, has a poor door and a not-so-poor door (a splen-door? A Di-oor? Needs work).
Most of the building is fancy-pants flats.
I’d guess the starting-gun prices are ￡1m for a studio, double it if you want a couple of bedrooms. The poor doors tend to crop up when developers can’t get away with exclusively building luxe homes.
The council extracts a promise that on top of, say, five hundred swish apartments for the rich, the grudging developer will include fifty – all right, forty, thirty-five once we’ve left room for the triple-height aqua-gym – normal flats for normal people.
If you’re walking into the building on the fancy side, you’re walking among people who didn’t just pay silly money – this is Battersea, everyone did that – you’re now among people who have paid the kind of cash you only ever see written on giant prop cheques from the lottery.
I saw recently a Guardian long read all about how appalling poor doors were, because they were segregation, and actually disgraceful when you think about it.
The counterpoint: if it wasn’t for the flats they get suckers to pay big money for, most developers would be building no affordable flats at all.
I’d rather they knocked up at least a few places that some poor flipping nurse or teacher or whoever might be able to afford than none.
The real answer is a revolution, of course, but I haven’t the time to organise one, and even if I did, with my luck I would 100 per cent be the first one guillotined when the snake got around to its own tail.