Reeve assured them that both he and his wife understood the gravity of the situation. “Darling … ?” He nodded Tricia on her way. She'd been standing hesitantly next to his desk, a massive affair of mahogany and brass with burgundy leather inlaid in the top. At his nod, she made her exit, but not before he stopped her for a goodbye kiss. She was forced to bend to accommodate him. With stilettos on, she was a good eight inches above his height.
That didn't cause them any difficulty, however. The kiss lingered just a bit too long.
Barbara watched them, thinking what a clever move it was on their part. The Reeves were no amateurs when it came to gaining the upper hand. The only question was: Why did they want it?
She could see that Nkata was growing as uncomfortable as they wanted him to be with their unexpected, extended display of affection. Her colleague shifted from one foot to the other as, arms crossed in front of him, he tried to decide where he was supposed to look. Barbara grinned. Because of his impressive height and his equally impressive wardrobe and despite his adolescence spent as chief war counsel with Brixton's most notorious street gang, she sometimes forgot that Winston Nkata was in fact a twenty-five-year-old kid who still lived at home with his mum and his dad. She cleared her throat quietly and he glanced her way She gave a nod to the wall behind the desk where two diplomas hung. He joined her there.
“Love's a beautiful thing,” she murmured quietly. “We must show it respect.”
The Reeves eased up on their mouth-to-mouth suction. “See you later, darling,” Martin Reeve murmured.
Barbara rolled her eyes at Nkata and inspected the two diplomas hanging on the wall. Stanford University and London School of Economics. Both were made out to Martin Reeve. Barbara eyed him with new interest and more than a little respect. It was vulgar to display them—not that Reeve would ever stoop to vulgarity, she thought sardonically—but the bloke was clearly no slouch when it came to brains.
Reeve sent his wife on her way. From his pocket he took a snowy linen handkerchief, which he used to wipe from his face the leavings of her pale pink lipstick.
“Sorry,” he said with a boyish smile. “Twenty years of marriage and the fires're still burning. You've got to admit that's not too bad for two middle-agers with a sixteen-year-old son. Here he is, by the way. Names William. Favours his mom, doesn't he?”
The appellation told Barbara what the Stanford diploma, the antiques, the silver frames, and the careful mid-Atlantic pronunciation had only suggested. “You're an American?” she said to Reeve.
“By birth. But I haven't been back for years.” Reeve nodded at the photo. “What d'you think of our William?”
Barbara glanced at the picture and saw a spotty-faced boy with his mother's height and his father's hair. But she also saw what she was meant to see: the unmistakable cutaway and striped trousers of a pupil at Eton. La-dee-dah-dah, Barbara thought, and handed the picture off to Nkata. “Eton,” she said with what she hoped was the right degree of awe. “He must have brains by the bucketful.”
Reeve looked pleased. “He's a whiz. Please. Sit down. Coffee? Or a drink? But I suppose you don't while you're working, do you? Drink, that is.”
They demurred on everything and got to the point. They'd been told that Nicola Maiden had been employed by MKR Financial Management from October of the previous year.
True enough, Reeve affirmed.
She worked as a trainee?
Equally true, Reeve agreed.
What was that exactly? What was she training for?
Investment advisor, Reeve told them. Nicola was preparing herself to be able to manage financial portfolios: stocks, bonds, mutual funds, derivatives, offshore holdings … MKR managed the investments of some of the biggest hitters in the marketplace. With complete discretion, of course.
Lovely, Barbara told him. It was, then, their assumption that Nicola had remained in his employ until she'd taken a leave of absence to work for a solicitor in Derbyshire for the summer. If Mr. Reeve would—Reeve stopped them from going further. He said, “Nicola didn't take a leave from MKR. She quit at the end of April. She was moving home to the North, she said.”
“Moving home?” Barbara repeated. Then what of the forwarding address she'd left with her landlady in Islington? she wondered. An address in Fulham was hardly north of anything save the river.
“That's what she told me,” Reeve said. “I take it she told others something else?” He offered them an exasperated smile. “Well, to be honest, that doesn't surprise me. I discovered that Nicola sometimes played a bit fast and loose with her facts. It wasn't one of her finer qualities. Had she not quit, I probably would have let her go eventually. I had my …” He pressed his fingertips together. “I had my doubts about her ability to be discreet. And discretion is critical in this line of work. We represent some very prominent players, and as we have access to all their financial data, they have to be able to depend on our ability to be circumspect with our information.”