Private Lives

60



‘You sure this is where you want to go, love? I thought you said Richmond.’ The cabby pulled up outside an anonymous-looking block of flats behind the Tate Modern.

‘This is just fine,’ said Anna, handing him a fistful of tenners.

‘Ride is on me, love.’

‘You sure?’

He nodded. She could tell he was relieved that she hadn’t taken his insurance details and done him for whiplash.

She looked down at Amir Khan’s address, which he had sent by text message. She had called him on the taxi ride home, partly because she was so shaken, and partly because she had become even more determined to nail Peter Rees for what he had done. If the car had slammed into her taxi intentionally, then Rees had sent it. Perhaps it had been because he was angry that she had run away from their bedroom tryst. Or perhaps it was because the mention of Amy Hart had rattled him. Why? Anna asked herself. Because he had something to do with Amy’s death?

She felt a shiver of worry for her own safety. Thankfully the South Bank was still busy, despite the late hour. Wanting to get off the street, she pressed the intercom of the building in front of her and was buzzed inside.

Inside, it was just as blank-looking as outside. Long cream corridors lit up by fluoro strip lights.

A door at the end of the corridor creaked open and made her jump.

‘You looking for me?’ Amir asked, smiling.

Relieved, she almost ran into his apartment.

‘Don’t creep up on me, I’m jumpy enough as it is.’

‘I hope you don’t mind coming to my flat after dark,’ he said politely. ‘But this is where I work most of the time.’

Anna nodded. Andy had filled her in on how Amir worked. Apparently he was the master of the long-range sting, which meant adopting new personas for weeks, sometimes months at a time. He couldn’t be seen coming in and out of the Media Incorporated offices too often, as it would mean blowing his cover.

He made her a cup of coffee and a piece of toast and she was grateful for the hospitality. She told him what had gone on at James Swann’s mansion. Clutching their mugs, they went from the living space into a large office.

‘Bloody hell, Amir, it’s like MI5 HQ in here,’ she said, looking at a large whiteboard covered in words and photographs.

He grinned, his coffee-coloured eyes dancing.

‘This is the whole story of Amy Hart,’ he said, walking over and tapping a large picture of the dead girl. ‘The flow chart takes us from Amy leaving Doncaster to go to uni, then all the way . . .’ his finger traced the direction of the arrows, ‘to here.’ At the far right was a picture of Amy’s riverside flat.

Anna walked up to the chart, examining the material. She was impressed with the level of detail Amir had gone into. He had worked out a range of possible scenarios labelled ‘Murder’, ‘Accident’, ‘Suicide’ and so on.

‘So where does all this get us?’

‘Okay,’ said Amir. ‘First let’s start with what we know, putting aside the most likely explanation.’

She frowned.

‘Which is?’

‘A tragic accident. Amy was on her own, she got drunk and slipped down the stairs.’

‘But given that we know she was blackmailing Peter, I’d say that’s looking less and less likely,’ said Anna, disappointed that Amir thought a fall was still the most likely option. ‘There’s also the fact that Rees was so rattled tonight. If he’s innocent, we have to ask ourselves why.’

‘The other problem is that we have no way of knowing if she was pushed or if she just fell,’ said Amir. ‘I’ve had a medical expert look at the findings of the inquest, and the injuries sustained are consistent with a fall down the stairs: broken bones, fractures, bruising and, in this case, a broken neck. But push or fall, who knows. No coroner will ever be able to tell the difference.’

He walked over to the board and studied the photos.

‘Have you looked into Peter Rees since I texted you?’

Amir nodded.

‘What made you sure that Rees was Amy’s Peter?’

‘Well he confirmed that he knew her. And he just looked guilty.’

Amir laughed.

‘You of all people should know that a guilty look isn’t going to hold up as evidence in court.’

Anna wanted to scream in frustration. All that work, all those leads she’d followed; finally she’d found Amy’s lover, the person that Amy was blackmailing, and still she could do nothing about it. And at the same time, she had alerted Peter Rees to the fact that she was on his trail, and might have put herself in danger.

‘I think Rees is Amy’s Peter too,’ Amir said more quietly.

‘Why?’ she asked excitedly.

‘When you texted me his name, I checked him out, although he was already on my radar anyway. All of Swann’s friends are. I found this . . .’

He went over to the printer, pulled out a news article and stuck it on the whiteboard. Anna speed-read the item. It was headlined ‘Oil Chief Found Dead’, and detailed how Douglas Faulks, the chief executive of Pogex Oil had been discovered hanging at his Gloucestershire country home, along with the background to the story: how there had been a huge oil spill off the coast of Newfoundland six months earlier and how the executive had taken tremendous flak from the Canadian government. A series of terrible PR gaffes, where Faulks had denied responsibility, then tried to blame the rig’s management, had led to him becoming the company fall guy. Anna remembered reading about it and thinking that it seemed unfair that one man should be singled out for all these attacks. She also remembered that Peter Rees worked in oil and gas.

‘Did Peter know Douglas?’ she asked, piecing things together.

Amir nodded. ‘I’ve found dozens of pictures of them together at society and trade events.’

‘Bloody hell, Amir. You don’t hang about, do you?’

‘There’s more,’ he added. ‘Pogex Oil and Dallincourt work closely together. Dallincourt basically build and repair most of Pogex’s rigs and refineries.’

‘Remember what Louise Allerton told me about Amy? That she’d found Peter sobbing about a friend’s death. He told her he thought it was his fault.’ Anna looked up at Amir, desperate for answers. ‘How can that be?’

Amir shrugged. ‘I don’t know yet.’

‘So what else do we know about Douglas Faulks?’

‘We know it was a tragic death. Lots of people in the City thought that Faulks had been set up. You know, let one man take the blame instead of the entire company.’

‘He should have got himself a better publicist,’ she said sombrely.

‘Pogex have a good PR company. Auckland PR. They are usually experts at keeping bad news out of the media, although they had a job on their hands stopping the Pogex Oil share price going into freefall. They act for Dallincourt Engineering Services as well. They are the bigger client actually, as Pogex are a relatively small oil company.’

‘Auckland PR?’ Anna repeated. She’d heard that name in the last few days. She took a minute to think where. ‘Auckland’s chairman. What’s he called?’ she said, remembering.

‘Paul Morgan.’

‘No, not him.’

‘Simon Cooper? He’s the CEO.’

‘That’s him,’ she said. ‘Apparently he’s having an affair with our senior partner Helen Pierce.’

Anna felt her whole body tingle as she connected all the evidence. She began to think out loud while Amir started furiously writing her thought processes down on his whiteboard.

‘Simon Cooper acts for Dallincourt. Peter Rees, who works for Dallincourt, thinks he is responsible for Douglas Faulks’s death. Amy Hart is blackmailing Rees, possibly about Douglas’s death. Amy is found dead but the story goes largely unnoticed because of the Sam Charles affair.’

For a second she hardly dared think where this was all leading, but one glance at Amir told her that he had made the connection too.

‘I think we know who leaked your Sam Charles story,’ he said quietly.

She closed her eyes and nodded, knowing that she had come here to solve one mystery, and had somehow solved two.