9
For the first half hour of the drive back to Oxford, Lyssa found herself, when waiting in traffic, going over all that Janet had said.
Was it possible that Monty’s charity manager had somehow managed to get away with whatever had been left in the charity’s accounts after Monty had died?
She doubted it would be that easy to do nowadays, but back then?
The charity wasn’t a public one, she had learned that, but rather very much Monty’s child, so presumably it had not been as liable to independent financial checks as the bigger and more famous and established charities of the day.
And if Deborah Simmonds had had access to the accounts, then who was to say what she might have managed to divert into her own hands?
Especially since, after Monty’s death, there must have been an awful lot of paperwork to go through.
For a start, there were the dead woman’s own tax papers and inheritance issues to be sorted out.
Who inherited under her Will? And added to that, wouldn’t the Bannisters’ ongoing lawsuit to overturn their son Glen’s Will have been thrown into confusion too, with Monty’s death?
And would Monty’s inheritance from Glen even have been valid at that point?
Lyssa had a vague feeling that there was some legal clause involved that said someone who inherited money had to live for a certain period of time after the death of the person who’d left them the legacy. Or was that a more modern thing?
As she sat waiting at the inevitable roadworks for the traffic lights to turn red, her head almost ached with the amount of research she would have to do on that issue alone.
She’d have to get in touch with some of her friends who’d studied Jurisprudence at Oxford.
They might be able to at least point her in the right direction.
Then there was the whole issue about the Lucky Cuckoos that must have muddied the waters surrounding Monty’s finances.
Had her funding of the band continued, even after their successes?
Had the lovers, Glen and Monty, even bothered to set up some legal contracts concerning any possible repayment on her investment in the group?
And now, given the whole issue about Monty having possibly – or even probably?
– written some of their songs, had any acknowledgement of that been put in writing – and maybe conveniently lost?
If it had been well known among the band that Monty had ‘helped’ Glen write the songs, Lyssa couldn’t see any of the members of the Lucky Cuckoos being keen to let that stand unchallenged after her demise.
Least of all Racey, who already had so many issues with her.
And what of Monty’s family? According to Janet, it sounded as if they hadn’t wanted anything to do with their scandalous daughter – but Lyssa found it very hard to believe they wouldn’t at least put up a fight to make sure that Monty’s estate got everything that was coming to it as far as Glen’s considerable inheritance was concerned, as well as chase up the possibility of reimbursement for their daughter’s initial financial backing of the band.
With so many people having so many fingers in so many pies, and all, no doubt, with their own agendas, the in-fighting must surely have been riotous.
Easy, under those circumstances perhaps, for the charity manager to just quietly close down the YMT and slip away with the funds?
For, if the charity had had so few staff, as Janet Connor had contested, what was to stop Deborah Simmonds from claiming anything she liked?
She could say that Monty paid in a monthly amount to help support their unmarried mothers, and that she hadn’t got around to filling the charity’s coffers on that particular month when she died.
With only a small office to rent and, presumably, Deborah Simmonds’ employment to pay, the overheads couldn’t have been that substantial.
Which meant that there probably wouldn’t have been any need for a complex accounting of the money.
It might even have been part of Deborah’s job to do the accounts for the charity.
In which case, a clever woman could easily fiddle the books, given so much autonomy.
Or was Lyssa once again making too much of it?
If she carried on like this, would she start seeing conspiracy theories everywhere?
Lyssa met her reflection in the rear-view mirror and pulled a face at herself.
First, she thought she was being followed by that car, now she was seeing fraud and larceny at every opportunity . . .
As she remembered her earlier unease at the same car being behind her for so long, her eyes automatically slid from her own gaze to the car waiting behind her.
Or rather, the car that she could see waiting behind that.
Wasn’t it the same colour and make of car that she’d noticed before?
It was a little hard to be sure, having to make it out through the windscreen and rear window of the intervening vehicle.
‘Oh, get a grip, Lyssa!’ she said out loud. Then grinned, as she had a sudden mental image of Jason, lounging on her sofa and eating grapes and drawling at her the old chestnut about just because she was being paranoid didn’t mean . . .
‘Oh, cut it out. Nobody’s out to get me,’ Lyssa told her reflection firmly, and just then the traffic light turned green, and she turned her attention back to her driving.
Jonas Bannister looked across his desk at his security chief, Ian Gorman, and sighed. ‘So you’re confident she’s the real deal, then? This book thing isn’t some sort of shakedown in disguise?’
‘Yes, sir, her commission from the Grainger woman is genuine enough,’ Gorman said in his usual, precise way.
‘And she is very respected in her field.’ He glanced down at the gadget in his hand and reeled off a list of her credits.
‘All of them legitimate projects, some traditionally published, others privately published by the client who commissioned the book. The critics liked them too; she had good reviews from the academics (not surprisingly, given she’s an Oxford woman) and also gets good reviews from readers on . ’
‘Well, bully for her,’ Jonas griped. ‘I was rather hoping it would all turn out to be a damp squib. Who the hell wants to read about a rock chick from the 1960s in this day and age anyway?’ he asked, but Gorman remained diplomatically silent, considering – quite rightly – that the question had been purely rhetorical.
‘So, tell me exactly what’s she been up to so far, then?’ Jonas demanded.
Again, Gorman consulted his smartphone. ‘A lot of database searches, as you’d expect, and she’s spoken to her client, Elizabeth Grainger, obviously.
She’s also interviewed the widow of the Lucky Cuckoos’ guitarist, Ron Joiner, and she’s currently on the way back from the south coast after talking to a woman named Janet Connor.
Our man is keeping a close eye on her – and if she goes anywhere else, I’ll be informed. ’
‘Who’s this Connor woman?’ Jonas asked suspiciously.
‘We don’t know yet, but we will soon,’ Gorman reassured him. ‘I have a man who can hack the Moore woman’s emails. And if we need to, I can always find someone who can access her computer and all her notes and files. Even search her flat if need be.’
‘I don’t want to know about any of that!’ Jonas snapped, looking alarmed. ‘Just do what needs to be done, but don’t bother me with the sordid details, please.’ Then he sighed and shook his head. ‘I just wish I knew what was behind it all.’
‘You don’t think this Grainger woman simply wants to do what she says she does?’ Gorman asked mildly.
‘What? Spend good money on having a biography published about a woman that history has had the good sense to forget about long ago? I doubt it.’
Ian Gorman allowed himself a small smile.
‘Oh, I don’t know. The 1960s and its music are still very popular today – and nostalgia is everywhere, or hadn’t you noticed?
The 50s and 60s and mid-century stuff is all the trend – everything is “retro” now.
Furniture, fashion, you name it, it’s all the rage.
I can see there being a market for that kind of book all right.
And the biographies of the really big names have already been done – so finding a fresh topic that hasn’t been covered yet seems a legitimate project.
And Amelia Montrose was a tragic and controversial figure – beautiful and a bit of an icon in her own right.
There must still be a market out there for her story because the Grainger woman has already got a publisher interested.
And not one of these self-publishing outfits either. ’
Jonas merely grunted at this, in no mood to be mollified. ‘You might be willing to give Elizabeth Grainger the benefit of the doubt, but I’m not. That family never did anything unless it had an ulterior motive. There’ll be something in it for her, you mark my words.’
Gorman regarded his employer with genuine curiosity.
‘You don’t think you might be making this personal, sir?
I mean, it’s been sixty-odd years now since all that trouble.
And your family did win the original lawsuit, didn’t they?
The money went to Glen Bannister’s parents fair and square in the end.
The judge did right by you, despite the Montroses having all the political pull.
It wasn’t as if you and your family lost out. ’
‘That’s beside the point,’ Jonas said wearily.
‘Which is, sir?’ Gorman prompted.