The Loyal Servant (26 page)

36

After Pam had had her little chat with Prior, he called Lisa in. Then after Lisa left Greg from IT turned up for an audience with the head of the academies division. When Greg emerged his expression was grimmer on the way out than it had been going in.

At 11:15am Caroline’s pay-as-you-go mobile rang.

‘Just thought I’d let you know, the paper’s leaving the depot right about now.’ Tate sounded almost breathless with excitement. ‘I'm still waiting for copies to arrive in the office.’

Caroline couldn’t think of anything to say.

‘This
is
what you wanted.’

When Caroline didn’t comment Tate hung up.

Was it what she wanted? There was no going back now. She buried her face in her hands.

‘I do know the way.’ Tracy’s voice. ‘I didn’t actually need an escort.’

Caroline looked up to see a small procession led by a security guard she didn’t recognise. He was followed by Tracy Clarke clutching a laptop to her chest. Ed Wallis was bringing up the rear. His limp seemed to be getting worse. Tracy went into Prior’s office, Ed and the other guard stood sentry either side of the door. It looked as though she was under arrest.

Ed gazed unashamedly straight at Caroline. He pointed two fingers at her, shaped in the barrel of a gun. Then he pulled an imaginary trigger.

What the hell
?

Caroline got up and hurried towards him. His colleague nudged him with an elbow. Caroline followed his gaze and watched as a smiling Tracy Clarke reached over Prior’s desk and shook his hand. It looked for all the world as if they were concluding a deal.

‘What’s going on?’ Caroline tried to control the waver in her voice but failed.

Ed looked at the other guard and winked at him. The door opened and Tracy emerged from the room minus her laptop.

‘Jeremy’s ready for you now,’ she said and smiled at Caroline.

‘Sorry?’

‘Jeremy asked me to tell you to go straight in. I wouldn’t keep him waiting.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘Oh I think I should leave him to tell you that.’

A gathering weakness in Caroline’s legs spread to the rest of her body in an instant. She tried to smile at Tracy, but Tracy was already turning away, chatting amiably with Ed’s colleague as they all made their way towards the exit.

Deny everything. Plead ignorance. If all else fails, act stupid.

She cleared her throat and tapped on the open door.

‘Tracy said you—’

‘Yes, yes. Come in.’ Prior perched on the edge of his huge desk. ‘Have you seen the paper?’

Caroline hesitated. He knew already. Before the paper had hit the newsstands.

‘Paper?’

Caroline looked longingly at the chair on her side of his desk. He hadn’t asked her to sit down.

‘Oh come now, Caroline. How long are you going to keep this up?’

For as long as it takes.

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Jeremy.’

Prior smiled. He looked her up and down. ‘You know, I almost admire your bravado. Did the journalist suggest this approach, or is it a strategy you came up with all by yourself?’

Caroline shrugged. ‘Journalist?’

Deny everything.

‘If this is the way you want play it, fine.’ His tone had sharpened. The muscles around his eyes tightened. ‘I’ve had my diary cleared for the rest of the day. I’m all yours! We can take just as long as you want.’

She stared at him. He was leaning forward, balling his fists and breathing heavily. He had the look of a man about to take flight. Or pick a fight.

Caroline concentrated for a moment on her own stiffening muscles. She consciously willed her shoulders to relax. She loosened her arms and hands. The terror she’d felt coming into Prior’s office was beginning to subside. He was getting rattled. She needed to stay calm. He was fishing for a confession. She would give him nothing.
All day? Why not
?

‘Well?’ Prior said, casting his arms wide.

‘Well?’ Caroline mirrored his open gesture.

He let out a long breath, reeled his arms back in and rested his hands, one on top of the other, on his narrow thigh. ‘I had a very interesting chat with Ed Wallis – the security guard – earlier today.’ He smiled. ‘He’s a charming chap. Salt of the earth, men like Wallis. Made this nation what it is. Always interested in the greater good, never thinking of themselves.’

Salt of the earth?
Ed was obviously a much better actor than she’d given him credit for.

‘He told me about your... foraging expedition last night. How he found you in the dark… rummaging, I think was the word he used, through someone else’s belongings. Is that something you make a habit of?’

‘I can’t imagine what Ed thought he saw. But I know I certainly wasn’t “rummaging” through anything.’

‘Tracy’s belongings, it seems.’

Admit only as much as you have to.

‘Oh – that. I packed up Tracy’s stuff – that’s probably what he means. I put it all in a crate so it wouldn’t get lost in the move.’

‘Why were you in the office so late?’

‘I had some personal items I wanted to pack myself. You know – women’s stuff. Didn’t want burly great removals men mauling them. You understand, I’m sure.’

Prior shook his head. ‘I do wish you would make this easier for yourself, Caroline. Let me have the whole truth, without my having to prise it out of you piece by piece. If nothing else it’s embarrassing – for both of us.’

Caroline shrugged again.

Plead ignorance.

‘Very well, let me attempt to curtail the agony. As you are aware, I have also spoken to Tracy Clarke this morning.’ He clasped his hands together and shifted his position, making himself a little taller. ‘Tracy was deeply shocked when I told her about the story in the newspaper.’

‘What story?

‘You see, she supposed the CD-ROM was safely stored in her box of belongings. The belongings she remembers specifically asking you to look after for her.’

Caroline’s heart started to beat faster.
Your word against hers. Stay calm.

‘She had no idea we’d been hunting for it all this time,’ he said. ‘It would be almost farcical, if it weren’t so desperately serious. Don’t you think?’

‘I don’t understand. You’re telling me Tracy had the CD-ROM all this time?’

If all else fails, act stupid.

‘As I say – high farce.’ Prior had adopted a mocking tone.

‘I still don’t know what this has to do with me.’

‘I’ve joined the dots, Caroline. I’ve made the connections.’

He has nothing. He’s bluffing. Stay calm.

‘Though of course, this helped me draw my conclusions.’ He reached an arm behind his back and produced a mobile phone. He hit a few buttons and turned it around so that the screen was facing Caroline. The image was not much bigger than a postage stamp, grainy and dark.

‘Can you stand there and deny that’s you?’

‘I can’t really tell what it is.’

‘I’m sure technology is available to enhance the image.’

After a few seconds the tiny movie ended and froze on the last frame – an image of Caroline leaning over a plastic crate.

‘Would you like to see it again?’ Prior asked.

Caroline slowly lifted her gaze from the phone to his face. He was smiling.

‘You know, I think it showed great presence of mind to record this for posterity,’ he said. ‘As I said before, Wallis really is concerned to do his bit.’ He put the mobile back on his desk and reached for his landline. ‘In fact,’ he said, picking up the receiver and punching numbers into the keypad, ‘why don’t I ask him to come back up here right now? I’m sure he’d take great pride in personally escorting you from the building.’

37

Angela stepped out of the lift into a dimly lit corridor that stank of ripe sweat and stale deodorant. She followed the smell and found herself in the men’s changing rooms.

Just as Frank had promised, a row of metal lockers ran the length of one wall. She checked the numbers printed on the doors until she found number 64. Before she had a chance to open it, a naked man dripping water onto the floor appeared from the gap in the wall opposite the lockers. He was towelling his hair dry as he walked towards her. She stared first at his face then his crotch then back up again to the scowling expression contorting his mouth. He stared right back at her, making no attempt to cover himself up.

‘Don’t mind me, love,’ she said, turning back to the locker. ‘Really – I’m like a nurse. There’s nothing I haven’t seen before.’

Angela shoved the key into the lock and pulled open the locker. A cycle helmet tumbled out and bounced across the floor.

‘Well that’s buggered now.’

She looked up to see Frank standing in the doorway, hands on hips. ‘I don’t need a minder,’ she said.

‘It wasn’t you I was thinking of.’ He smiled at the naked man who didn’t smile back and scooped the helmet from the floor. ‘No wonder he suffered fatal head injuries if his helmet was still in his bloody locker.’

God only knows what really happened to him.

Angela tugged at a pair of panniers wedged into the narrow space. They wouldn’t budge. She removed a water bottle, a towel and a toilet bag and tried again. One of them weighed a ton. She opened it. It was full of second-hand paperback books.

Frank peered into it. ‘What exactly do you think you’re doing?’ he said.

Angela removed several novels with no particular connecting theme. ‘Maybe he was planning a trip to Oxfam.’ She reached into the second bag and groped around in the bottom. She could sense Frank leaning over her, breathing his tobacco breath onto her neck.

‘You know what I was saying about Karma?’ he said.

‘Give it a rest, Frank, for God’s sake.’

‘But aren’t you getting a shivery feeling up your spine?’ Frank said. ‘Doesn’t it feel a bit like walking on his grave?’

‘As you so helpfully pointed out not four weeks ago, Jason Morris was cremated.’ Her hand struck something solid at the bottom of the long bag. She dragged out a small digital video camera and dipped her hand back into the saddle bag. It was empty. She quickly slipped the camera into a pocket, shoved everything else back into the locker and locked the door.

‘I can feel my hair frizzing in the steam,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to get out of here.’

She reached the lifts just as a flushed-faced Dominic Evans, wearing snug Lycra shorts and a sweat-soaked vest, stepped out. Journalist and editor eyeballed one another for a moment, both lost for words. Unfortunately for Angela, Evans recovered the power of speech first.

‘My office, fifteen minutes,’ he said and pushed past her into the corridor.

Little bastard.

Angela went straight back to her desk, grabbed her handbag, coat and shoes and took the stairs down to street level. She stood in the ground floor foyer and crammed her beleaguered feet into her shoes. Sitting behind the high reception desk, the security guard was shaking his head and laughing at her.

‘If anyone asks,’ she said, easing her heel into a shoe, ‘you haven’t seen me all day.’

He gave her a conspiratorial wink and waved her out of the building. Outside, on Blackfriars Road, she considered making for the nearest pub, but quickly decided that would be the first place Dominic Evans would check after discovering she wasn’t at her desk. She looked up and down the street and spotted a black cab approaching. She flagged it down, jumped in and told the driver to head south.

‘I was just heading back to Camden. How far south?’

‘It’s all right – you won’t need inoculations.’

Angela pulled the video recorder from her pocket and switched it on. A half dozen film roll icons appeared on the screen, a date underneath each one. She selected the video Jason must have recorded the day before he died and immediately his worried face filled the small screen. He ran a hand over his buzz cut and stared with grim eyes into the camera. A low battery symbol blinked over his chin.

‘OK,’ he said, his voice distorted as it came out of the tiny built-in speaker. ‘I guess this is just a bit of a sanity check. Talking to a camera makes talking to myself a bit less weird. And weird is what I’ve been having trouble with lately. Everything’s just too fucking weird.’ He paused and took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, after what happened last night I think it’s safe to assume that the gloves are off. Now I know who’s involved…’ He stopped and rubbed a hand over his face. He let out a grunt. ‘
Involved
. Such a fucking understatement.’ He paused again. ‘Now I know that I need to get some proper—’

The screen went black.

‘Oh come on!’

‘You all right back there?’ She glanced up to see the cab driver looking at her in the rear view mirror.

She didn’t bother answering. She tried the power switch again, but all that appeared was the image of a battery with a red lightning strike running through it.

‘Fuck!’

The driver glanced at her again. She collapsed back on the seat and looked out of the window. They were just approaching Southwark tube station. An
Evening News
vendor was doing very little business just outside the entrance. Angela tried to make out the headline on the poster propped up against his stand. It wasn’t the one she was expecting. The cab was just pulling away from the traffic lights.

‘Turn into The Cut!’ she hollered at the driver.

‘I’m in the wrong lane, love.’

‘Do it!’

The cab swerved across the path of a double decker bus, swung right and stopped outside the pub on the corner. Angela jumped out and ran across the road to the newspaper stand. She grabbed a copy of the
Evening News
.

‘That’ll be 50p, darling,’ the vendor said.

The front-page headline was something about William King visiting a school in Dollis Hill. Angela flicked through the inside pages.

‘This isn’t a reading library, you know.’ The vendor tried to grab the paper.

She snatched it out of his reach and eventually found what she was looking for buried on page eight. Two measly columns. Even the headline wasn’t the one she’d asked for. Evans had promised her the front page and a double spread inside for the CD-ROM story.
Two columns
? She shoved the paper under her arm and ran back across the road.

‘Oi!’ the vendor called after her. ‘I’ve got four kids to feed.’

She clambered back into the cab. ‘Turn around.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Back to Blackfriars.’

Fucking Evans
.

She stared down at the heavily edited, watered-down version of her piece and shook her head. A ringtone chirruped in her bag. She grabbed it and stabbed the answer button.

‘Have you seen the paper? That little bastard has pissed all over my copy.’

‘Take it from me, Ange. Evans is the least of your worries. What have you got yourself into this time?’ Frank spoke in an echoey urgent whisper, the sound of rushing water almost drowning out his voice.

‘Frank? What’s that noise in the background? You sound like you’re calling from a urinal.’

‘That’s because I am,’ he hissed.

‘What’s going on? I’m on my way back in right now. The fucking jumped up little—’

‘You can’t come back to the office.’

‘What?’

‘Two nasty looking blokes in cheap suits, claiming to be detectives, are waiting for you in Evans’ office.

‘Why?’

‘As far as I can make out they’re very interested in that CD-ROM of yours.’

‘What’s it got to do with the police?’

‘Shit! Someone’s coming.’

‘Frank?’

The line went dead.