‘No. I’m Mr White’s housekeeper. Who are you?’
‘I’m a friend of Alan Conway. Actually, I was his editor. I need to ask Mr White about what happened. It’s quite important.’
I think she was about to tell me to get lost but at that moment a man appeared behind her, in the hallway. ‘Who is it, Elizabeth?’ a voice asked.
‘It’s someone asking about Alan Conway.’
‘My name is Susan Ryeland.’ I was addressing him over her shoulder. ‘It’ll only take five minutes but I really would appreciate it.’
I sounded so reasonable that it would have been difficult for White to refuse me. ‘You’d better come in,’ he said.
The housekeeper stepped aside and I went past her into the hall. John White was standing in front of me. I recognised him instantly from the funeral. He was quite small, very slim and rather nondescript in appearance with close-shaven, dark hair that was reflected by the permanent stubble on his chin. He was wearing an office shirt and a V-neck pullover. I found it hard to imagine him behind the wheel of the Ferrari. There was nothing aggressive about him at all.
‘Can I get you some coffee?’ he asked.
‘Thank you. That would be nice.’
He nodded at the housekeeper who had been expecting this and went off to get it. ‘Come into the sitting room,’ he said.
We went into a large room that looked over the back gardens. There was modern furniture and expensive art on the walls including one of those neons by Tracey Emin. I noticed a photograph of two attractive-looking girls, twins. His daughters? I could tell at once that, apart from the housekeeper, he was alone in the house. So either his family was away or he was divorced. I suspected the latter.
‘What do you want to know about Alan?’ he asked.
It all seemed so very casual, but I’d been on Google that morning and knew that this was a man who had run not one but two of the most successful hedge funds for a big city firm. He had made a name for himself and a fortune for everyone else by predicting the credit crunch and had retired at the age of forty-five with more money than I would ever dream about, if I had those sorts of dreams. He still worked, though. He invested millions and made millions more – from clocks, car parks, property, whatever. He was the sort of man I could easily dislike – in fact, the Ferrari made it easier – but I didn’t. I don’t know why not. Maybe it was those orange Hunters. ‘I saw you at the funeral.’
‘Yes. I thought I ought to pop along. I didn’t stay for the drinks though.’
‘Were you and Alan close?’
‘We were neighbours, if that’s what you mean. We saw quite a bit of each other. I read a couple of his books but I didn’t much like them. I don’t get a lot of time to read and his stuff wasn’t my sort of thing.’
‘Mr White …’ I hesitated. This wasn’t going to be easy.
‘Call me John.’
‘… I understand that you and Alan had a disagreement, shortly before he died.’
‘That’s right.’ He was unfazed by the question. ‘Why are you asking?’
‘I’m trying to work out how he died.’
John White had soft, hazel eyes but when I said that I thought I saw something spark in them, a sense of some inner machinery clicking into gear. ‘He committed suicide,’ he said.
‘Yes. Of course. But I’m trying to understand his state of mind when he did it.’
‘I hope you’re not suggesting—’
I was suggesting all sorts of things but I backtracked as gracefully as I could. ‘Not at all. As I explained to your housekeeper, I worked for his publishers and, as it happens, he left us one last book.’
‘Am I in it?’
He was. Alan had turned him into Johnny Whitehead, the crooked antique dealer who had been sent to prison in London. That was the final finger raised to his erstwhile friend. ‘No,’ I lied.
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
The housekeeper came in with a tray of coffee and White relaxed. I noticed that after she had poured two cups and offered cream and home-made biscuits, she made no effort to leave and he was happy to have her there. ‘Here’s what happened, since you want to know,’ he said. ‘Alan and I had known each other from the day he moved in and, like I say, we got along on fine. But it went wrong about three months ago. We did a bit of business together. I want to make it quite clear to you, Susan, that I didn’t twist his arm or anything like that. He liked the sound of it and he wanted to come along for the ride.’
‘What was it?’ I asked.
‘I don’t suppose you know much about my sort of work. I’ve been dealing a lot with NAMA. It stands for the National Asset Management Agency and it was set up by the Irish government after the crash of ’98, basically selling off businesses that had gone bust. There was an office development in Dublin that had caught my eye. It would cost twelve million to buy and it needed another four or five spent but I thought I could turn it around and when I mentioned this to Alan, he asked if he could join the SPV.’
‘SPV?’
‘Special Purpose Vehicle.’ If my complete ignorance annoyed him, he didn’t let it show. ‘It’s just a cost-effective way to bring six or seven people together to make this sort of investment. Anyway, I’ll cut a long story short. The whole thing went belly-up. We were buying the development from a man called Jack Dartford and he turned out to be a complete rogue – a liar, a fraud – you name it. I’ll tell you, Susan, you couldn’t meet a more charming man. He’s sat where you’re sitting now and he’d have the whole room in stitches. But it turned out he didn’t even own the property and the next thing I know is he’s gone west with four million quid of our cash. I’m still looking for him now but I don’t think he’s going to be found.’
‘Alan blamed you?’
White smiled. ‘You could say that. Actually, he was bloody furious. Look. We’d all lost the same and I warned him, going in, you can never be 100 per cent certain in these things. But he got it into his head that I’d somehow ripped him off which was well out of order. He wanted to sue me. He threatened me! I couldn’t make him see sense.’
‘When was the last time you saw him?’
He had been about to take a biscuit. I saw his hand hesitate and at the same time he glanced in the direction of the housekeeper. He might have learned how to keep a poker face when he was at business school but she hadn’t been to the same class and I saw her nervousness, naked and obvious. It signalled the lie that was to come. ‘I hadn’t seen him for a few weeks,’ he said.
‘Were you here on the Sunday when he died?’