Chapter 15
‘You know, when I saw it was you, I thought, “Ooh, I must’ve won the Postcode Lottery,” I was looking for the cameras.’
Georgie Glazier had recognized her. Thank the Lord himself. Still got it, Rosie.
‘I’ve never had a celebrity in the house before.
My neighbour, Jim, at number twelve, with the carport, he swears he saw Colin Firth in Hotel Chocolat in St Albans, but you’d have to ask yourself why, wouldn’t you?
And there wasn’t a peep on Facebook about it.
I said, “Jim, you’re full of bull-dot-dot-dot sometimes,” but he stuck to his guns, so who knows?
He can’t walk his dog now, because of his hip – Jim, not Colin Firth – so we take it in turns to walk him – the dog, not Jim – but it can’t do him good being cooped up like that, can it? Do you have dogs?’
‘No,’ says Rosie.
‘I have a cat,’ says Steve. ‘If that counts?’
‘Far less bother,’ says Georgie. ‘Mind you, you’ve to watch your furniture, don’t you? Scratch, scratch, scratch. Do you have to watch your furniture?’
‘Trouble’s not too bad,’ says Steve. ‘You give him a look and he lays off.’
‘Show me the look!’ says Georgie.
Steve narrows his eyes and purses his lips. He wags a finger.
‘Ooh, I don’t think that would stop me,’ giggles Georgie. ‘It’d encourage me if anything.’
‘Then you’d get no tea,’ says Steve.
Wait, thinks Rosie. Is Steve flirting? Heavens above. First time for everything.
Georgie pouts at him, and Steve wags his finger again. Rosie thinks she might vomit.
She’s never seen Steve flirt before, and if this is what it looks like, she never wants to again. He is going to need lessons. It’s like watching a penguin roller-skate.
‘Sorry to break up the cat talk,’ says Rosie. ‘We wanted to ask you a couple of questions about your ex-husband?’
‘Is Vern in trouble?’ says Georgie. ‘He’s not dead?’
‘Would that surprise you?’ Rosie asks. Rosie thinks of rainbows on plant pots and corpses on doorsteps. Two different worlds?
‘Being in trouble, no,’ says Georgie. ‘Dead, yes. He’s always been very careful. Always was, right from the start. I’ve wanted to kill him myself a few times, but it’s illegal.’
‘He’s not dead,’ says Steve.
‘Not yet,’ says Rosie.
‘But he’s been threatened,’ says Steve. ‘And we’re trying to find out who by.’
Georgie looks at him. ‘Are you going to interrogate me? Will you be taking everything down?’
‘Only if you scratch the furniture,’ says Steve.
Is this how people flirt now? It isn’t how Harrison Ford flirts, but, Rosie supposes, not everyone is Harrison Ford. Although Steve, if she’s being honest, in certain lights …
‘His bodyguard was killed,’ says Rosie, trying to disrupt the mood. ‘Shot in the head.’
‘He’s got a bodyguard, has he?’ says Georgie. ‘He didn’t used to have a bodyguard. But then they even have security guards on the door at Waitrose now. Because of the shoplifting.’
‘He’s actually got three bodyguards,’ says Steve.
‘Two now,’ says Rosie, miming a gunshot to the head.
‘We’ve just been out in Italy with him,’ says Steve. ‘Nice house.’
‘I don’t suppose you know it at all?’ Rosie asks. ‘Haven’t been there recently?’
Georgie shakes her head. ‘Never been. I love a Cornetto though, to be fair to me. Another cuppa, anyone?’
‘Wouldn’t say no,’ says Steve. ‘They don’t do tea in Italy.’
‘They do if you ask,’ says Rosie.
Steve shakes his head at Rosie as Georgie pours his tea. ‘I tried, in Lucca, and whatever they brought me, it wasn’t tea. That’s why I started drinking those tiny coffees.’
‘Are you thinking I might know who threatened him?’ says Georgie, smiling. Then she turns to Rosie and turns the smile off at the mains. ‘Or perhaps you’ve come all this way because you think it might be me?’
Well, that’s a bit more like it. A bit of steel in the cotton wool.
‘Tell us about you and Vern,’ says Rosie. ‘Then perhaps we can make our minds up.’
‘We met at school,’ says Georgie. ‘Kensal Rise, if you know it?’
‘Let’s pretend I do,’ says Rosie.
‘Lot going on in Kensal Rise,’ says Steve. ‘When I was in the Met.’
‘You were a copper?’ Georgie asks.
Steve nods.
‘I can see you as a copper,’ says Georgie. ‘He was always a cut above, Vern, always grew towards the sun, you know? Had plans. And I thought I might tag along with him, go where he was going.’
‘Legal plans?’ Rosie asks.
‘Sometimes,’ says Georgie. ‘Sometimes not. Knock-off perfume, that sort of thing. Hard to get out of Kensal Rise without breaking a few windows, you know? Did you ever have to struggle, Rosie?’
Well, wasn’t that a question? Why not be honest. ‘I did, yes.’
‘I can see it in you,’ says Georgie. ‘It never leaves the eyes. Even eyes as beautiful as yours, Rosie.’
Okay, that’s not terrible flirting, to be fair. Perhaps Georgie’s just a woman who knows her audience, and she has pegged Steve as being a little more basic than he is.
Some people do take Steve as a bit simple, and he rarely tries to discourage them. He makes it work for him.
‘We got married at eighteen,’ says Georgie. ‘And we’d made a million by twenty.’
‘Doing what?’ Steve asks.
‘Vern set up a boxing gym in the City,’ says Georgie. ‘Before everyone set up boxing gyms in the City.’
‘So far, so legitimate,’ says Rosie.
‘Well, no, the real money was selling steroids,’ says Georgie.
‘Ah,’ says Rosie.
‘Ah,’ says Georgie. ‘Illegal, but not as illegal as cocaine, which everyone asked him for too.’
‘He didn’t fancy that?’ Steve asks.
‘He fancied the money,’ says Georgie. ‘He just didn’t fancy the world that went with it. As I say, he’s always been careful. No one really cares if you sell steroids to bankers, but as soon as you start selling coke, you’re never far from a copper or a bullet.’
‘Or from somebody shooting your bodyguard,’ says Rosie.
‘You know what,’ says Georgie, sitting back, ‘this is a lot of fun for me. Thank you for coming to see me. I worry my world has got a bit nice and a bit safe recently. I don’t really have anyone to talk to about cocaine and bullets. The neighbourhood WhatsApp is mainly about recycling.’
Rosie sees that Steve is now itching to ask her questions about the recycling.
Georgie nods. ‘Yeah, this is nice. I’ve missed it.’
‘Our pleasure,’ says Rosie. Georgie seems to be a different human being when she is talking about Vern. Or talking about her own past, Rosie supposes. She might drive a ?koda and paint rainbows on crockery, but you don’t have to scratch too deeply to find someone else entirely.
‘He always knew how to stay just the right side of the line,’ says Georgie. ‘To protect himself. I know he was selling steroids, but at least he felt guilty about it. He even went to church a couple of times, but then he started selling steroids to the vicar.’
‘And how do you come into the whole thing?’ Rosie asks. Her phone buzzes with a message from Ernesto. He is saved in her phone as ERNESTO 10/10.
‘It was the beginning of all the “wellness” stuff,’ says Georgie.
‘Yoga and chakras and essential oils. Of people wanting to spend money on all that anyway. Some of the wives, it was wives back then in the City, started asking Vern for all sorts and he didn’t have a clue, so asked if I’d like a little project, and I looked into it, did a bit of research, saw that people were happy to pay a lot of money for basically nothing, and it was legal, and we were off to the races. ’
‘So the supplements, the tablets, the whole thing,’ says Steve. ‘That was your idea?’
Georgie smiles again. ‘I suppose so, but I wouldn’t have done it without Vern, would I? Takes two to tango, that’s what I say.’
‘That’s what a lot of people say,’ says Rosie. She is warming to Georgie, but she’s not going to lower her standards. ‘Vern takes the idea, runs with it, but the two of you split up?’
‘Got together at fourteen, didn’t we?’ says Georgie. ‘Split up at forty. No kids, no hard feelings, we went our separate ways and wished each other well. Still do.’
Steve pulls out an account of the court case. The dispute between the two of them. ‘This would suggest otherwise.’
Georgie waves it away. ‘Stage-managed. The cops found something from when we were together. We chatted, agreed that if we both blamed the other, threw a few accusations around, they’d be chasing their tails working out which one of us was guilty. And it worked a dream. We’re both free, eh?’
‘You stayed in the business though?’ Steve asks. ‘You’re still in the business now?’
Georgie nods. ‘More hardware now really. You know, LED face masks, all that? That’s a bit of me. You can have one if you like, Rosie?’
‘I have plenty of LED face masks,’ says Rosie. ‘Are you saying they don’t work?’
‘Oh, they work,’ says Georgie. ‘Mine don’t, but real ones do.’
‘But they still sell? How does that work?’ Vern had said this too, fake products but no complaints. ‘Don’t they just send them back when their skin doesn’t improve?’
‘If you’re buying an LED face mask for your skin,’ says Georgie, ‘then it’s not the only thing you’re doing, is it? If you’re making that investment, then you’re making sure you moisturize, you hydrate, you stay out of the sun, am I right?’
‘Well, I don’t do any of those things,’ says Rosie.
‘But a normal person does?’ says Georgie.
‘Oh, a normal person does, yes,’ concedes Rosie.
‘And so their skin gets better anyway. Who’s to know my mask is just a bleached Darth Vader mask and some lights from a Chinese toy factory? Everybody’s happy.’
‘It sounds,’ Steve says, ‘if you don’t mind me saying, like Vern isn’t happy. Cards on the table, he suggested we come and see you. Suggested you might have something to do with the murder of his bodyguard. Said you’d been asking him for money?’
Georgie laughs. ‘I don’t need Vern’s money.’
‘But you must resent him a tiny bit?’ says Rosie.
‘Not me,’ says Georgie. ‘I’m a simple woman, living a simple life, with simple needs.’
Georgie gives Steve a slow wink. Why be subtle, Rosie supposes. You have to shoot your shot sometimes.
‘I mean, doesn’t he have any better suspects?’ says Georgie.
Rosie looks at Steve. Speaking of which.
‘I want to show you a photograph,’ says Rosie. Might as well break the seal, now they’re all chatting.
She takes out the photo Ernesto had sent them yesterday after they’d met on the tarmac. The bald man. She hands it to Georgie. ‘I don’t suppose you know this man? He’s called Jakob Eriksson.’
Georgie leaves an almost imperceptible pause, then shakes her head. ‘Sort of face you’d remember, isn’t it?’
Almost imperceptible, but not quite. Rosie clocks it, and tucks it away.
‘And the name?’ Rosie asks.
‘I thought Jakob Eriksson was one of the dancers on Strictly,’ says Georgie.
She hands the photo back to Rosie with a tight smile. ‘They ever asked you to do Strictly?’
‘They have,’ says Rosie. ‘I told them I didn’t have the time to do all the training and have the affair.’
‘Who is he, then?’ Georgie asks. ‘This Eriksson?’
‘He’s in Vern’s business,’ says Rosie. ‘And yours. But if Vern’s a multimillionaire, this man must be a billionaire.’
Georgie looks at the photo again. For a little longer this time. ‘Billionaire? He doesn’t look like one, does he?’
‘You’re absolutely certain you don’t know him?’ asks Rosie.
‘I never forget a face,’ says Georgie.
That little pause though. Rosie wonders if Steve saw it too. Of course he did. When does Steve miss anything?
Rosie turns to Steve. ‘It seems Miss Glazier can’t help us.’
But Steve is looking out of the window. His face is showing the sort of concern Rosie sometimes notices when Steve is, for example, in a new place and isn’t immediately sure of where the toilet is.
‘Mmm?’ says Steve. So he hasn’t been listening. He will not have noticed the pause or seen the smile. He will have to take her word for it.
‘Are we boring you, Stevie?’ Rosie asks.
‘No, just thinking I wouldn’t mind being on the road before we lose the light,’ says Steve. ‘It’s a good hour and a half to Axley.’
‘It’s 4.15, Stevie,’ says Rosie.
‘Even so,’ says Steve, ‘you can’t be too careful.’
‘Google Maps will tell you to go through the village to get to the M25,’ says Georgie. ‘But if you go left at the end of the road you can take the B107, and that’ll take you to Junction 19, that’s ten minutes saved right there.’
‘Bloody Google Maps,’ says Steve. ‘It’s a liability.’
‘Man after my own heart,’ says Georgie.
Steve is jiggling the car keys in his pocket now, so Rosie knows she’ll get nothing more useful out of him.
Georgie was quite the conundrum. Rosie is sure she has been telling the truth for large parts of the conversation.
But not all of it. Why has Vern sent them here?
And why won’t Georgie admit to knowing Jakob Eriksson?
‘It’s funny, Georgie,’ says Rosie. One last shot at getting a foothold. ‘Coming from Vern’s house, a beautiful villa, to your house, a suburban semi. And all his money from your idea. I rather think I would be getting in touch with him? Asking for a contribution?’
‘Rosie,’ says Georgie, ‘I’ve lived in mansions, I’ve lived in tower blocks. God help me, I’ve even lived in Tunbridge Wells. But this house, on this street, in this village, is my home. And all I’ve ever wanted is a home.’
‘And you’re certain about Jakob Eriksson?’ Rosie asks.
‘This billionaire of yours?’ says Georgie. ‘Never heard of him.’
‘Didn’t recognize his photo?’ says Rosie.
‘I’ll see it in my nightmares,’ says Georgie. ‘But no. You’ll let me know, won’t you? What on earth Vern’s up to? I’m already looking forward to you coming back and filling me in, Steve.’
Steve, oblivious, shakes her by the hand. Georgie then drags her nails down the arm of her sofa and gives herself a slap on the wrist.
Rosie nods her goodbye to Georgie. Would a woman who has just dumped a corpse on an ex-husband’s doorstep really be flirting like a giddy teenager?
Probably, yes, to be fair. Rosie would. Murderers flirt too.
One way or another, Rosie is sure they will be seeing Georgie Glazier again.