‘Five grand?’ says Ron.
‘I say I don’t want money, come on, if you’re in trouble, let’s get started. So I make her up, like the picture. I get one of my wigs, fit it, give it a bit of a trim, and, ninety minutes later, it ain’t bad. Really not bad. She’s happy. She’s looking at her watch the whole time, and now she says, Pauline, that’s us, wish me luck, and I say where are you going, and she says, if you don’t hear from me by tomorrow morning, call the police, anonymous though, and I said I don’t want you going out there, I’m calling Mike, and she says, I have to. She gives me a hug, which she never does, and she gives me a bit of paper with numbers on it and says, “That’s the money for you,” and she takes off.’
Ron drums his fingers. ‘That’s the story?’
‘That’s the story,’ says Pauline. ‘You believe me, Ronnie?’
‘I believe you, Paul,’ Ron says. ‘I believe you’re telling me the truth. But you’re missing something out, darling. You’re missing out why you’ve never told anyone all this before. You knew where she was those missing hours. You knew she was heading off to meet someone. And you never told a soul? That doesn’t make any sense. You’d have been straight on to Mike, and straight on to the police. Come on.’
Ron sees Pauline glance towards the advancing walkers.
‘There was one more thing,’ says Pauline. ‘When we were fitting the wig. I have my wigs and a few costumes on dummies see, you know, mannequins, and before she leaves, Bethany says, can I borrow one? And I say, borrow a mannequin, you mad? But the whole thing’s been mad, so in the end I say go ahead.’
‘A mannequin?’
‘The next morning, they find her car at the bottom of the cliff, release the CCTV, all that, so I’m ready to ring Mike, but before I do, I have a little think. I think about the make-up, the photo she showed me, I think about the wig, I think about the mannequin, and the CCTV of the two figures in the car. I think about the clothes she’s wearing, Ronnie. I think I even said to her, “I wouldn’t be seen dead in those.”’
‘So, you think –’
‘I don’t think, I know. And, Ron, Mike was destroyed when Bethany died. He loved her, she loved him. And I took the view, for better or for worse, it would be a hundred times worse for him if he knew she’d faked the whole thing, run off to goodness knows where, with goodness knows what money, and not told him a dicky bird. Why on earth did she do it? I’ve never worked that out.’
Pauline looks out to sea.
‘There was no comeback. No one was accused of the murder, no harm done to anyone, and I kept quiet. Then you lot showed up, and there’re people dying left, right and centre, so I tried to drop a few hints. I knew I couldn’t tell the truth after all this time, but I thought you lot might figure it out, and Mike might have to face the truth. Thought it was about time.’
‘Stone me,’ says Ron.
‘I just tried to do what was best,’ says Pauline.
‘And the money?’
‘Never touched it,’ says Pauline. ‘Threw the piece of paper away, never thought about it again. Robert Brown Msc was Bethany’s joke, not mine.’
‘A pretty good one too,’ says Ron.
‘Yeah, you’d have liked her,’ says Pauline. ‘Can you forgive me, Ron?’
‘Nothing to forgive,’ says Ron.
‘Massage tomorrow? Little treat?’
‘Don’t push it,’ says Ron.
The others are nearly with them.
Ron looks over at Pauline. ‘Where do you think she is now?’
Pauline smiles, and stands to welcome the walkers back. ‘I think she’s in heaven looking down on us.’
Joyce takes Pauline’s seat next to Ron.
‘That was bracing,’ says Joyce. ‘I can’t believe you missed the whole thing.’
Ron puts his arm around his friend, and sees Pauline do the same with Mike.
86
For years she has had Google Alerts on her phone. If anyone anywhere mentioned the name ‘Bethany Waites’, she would know about it. She would take a quick look, assess any risks, and then continue on with her new life. Around the anniversary of her death, there would usually be a few mentions, but every year there had been fewer and fewer, until they eventually dried up altogether. To all intents and purposes, Bethany Waites had ceased to exist.
Until three days ago, when Bethany Waites suddenly became one of the most famous people in the world for a whole afternoon. Bethany Waites had seen all the fuss, of course she had, how could you miss it, even in Dubai.
She had stayed indoors, cancelled her appointments. There was no real need though, she knew that. Bethany has been Alice Cooper for many years now. People laughed at her name, but it serves a purpose.
Back when she was investigating the VAT fraud, Bethany had been learning everything she could about money-laundering. Taking professors and criminals out for lunch. Bothering all the experts. A German police investigator had told her that the best alias for a fraudster was that of a famous person. ‘It makes you impossible to Google,’ he had said. And he was quite right. Google ‘Alice Cooper’ now, and you will have to scroll through an awful lot of pages before you get to her ‘Media Training and PR Solutions’ company on the eighth floor of an office building in the Dubai Marina.
She learned an awful lot more than that little trick too. Learned so much, in fact, that not only could she follow the trail of the VAT money, but also access it herself.
And then Andrew Everton sent her the bullet. The bullet with the name scratched, crudely, into its side.
That’s when she knew she was in danger. Knew Andrew Everton had discovered she was on his tail. Knew that he meant her harm. He must have been bugging her phone. Seen the ‘absolute dynamite’ message to Mike.
So she had a choice. Keep digging, keep investigating, be brave. Or find a way out?
Was she ever going to be able to beat Andrew Everton? A high-ranking police officer. Someone with the resources to access her messages, someone with a heart cold enough to send her a bullet.
Really she had no choice at all.
So she did the next best thing. Over the next few weeks, using what she’d learned, she started to channel Andrew Everton’s money into new accounts. She didn’t take any out, that’s the real danger time, but she diverted it. She hid it.
After her death, poor Andrew Everton and Jack Mason had spent so long trying to retrieve their money, but the web they had devised was so opaque, and so clever, that they had no way of seeing that the money had already gone.
She had her plan in place. Her murder, her disappearance, the new passport with the new hair and make-up, taking her own blood with home-testing kits to smear in the car. She had picked up all sorts of tricks. But she didn’t believe she would really go through with it. Until the night she had received the email from Andrew Everton. ‘Come and meet me. I just want to talk.’
Bethany knew it was time to say goodbye. To her life, to her story, to Mike. And hello to Dubai, to a new life, and to ten million.
Bethany had waited a year or so before she started collecting her money. She’d siphoned off a hundred thousand from an obscure account in Panama, just to see her through, and to pay for the surgery. She’d reported, many years before, about a woman from Faversham who had made her fortune in plastic surgery, and the woman was only too glad to help, for a hefty cut. You could get pretty much anything you wanted in Dubai if you had ten million pounds in your pocket. And what Bethany Waites bought was anonymity.