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‘That was a set-up.’
‘Some set-up! It’s got the police fooled.’
‘Damned right it has!’
He was shaking his head, regarding her with rising anger. How could she believe this crap?
‘Are you seriously telling me,’ he leapt off the sofa, finding it hard to conceal his contempt, ‘that Jacob Strauss ordered the murder of one of the City’s leading analysts?’
‘Him or one of his thugs.’
‘What was the motive?’
‘Merlin knew too much about Strauss,’ she shot back, ‘like the fact that he’s a crook and that every business he’s ever run has gone to the wall.’
‘That’s a bloody lie and you know it!’ he exploded, unable to restrain his rage a moment longer. ‘I won’t have you standing here in my house,’ he jabbed his hand at her furiously, ‘talking about my clients as though they’re a bunch of gangland mafiosi—’
‘But they are.’ Any thoughts she’d had about treating Chris with kid gloves this evening were forgotten in the tide of indignation that swept her away. ‘What’s the matter with you – have you stopped thinking for yourself? Just because they give you a BMW do you believe every piece of crap they churn out?’
She wasn’t standing for him wagging his finger at her like some complacent fat cat. ‘You want evidence? Well, go and look through the accounts of Ultra-Sports. You’ll see that your great client had his fingers in the till – five point seven million dollars unaccounted for in the last year’s trading. And Trimnasium never even recouped its R&D expenditure. Seventeen million down the pan!’
‘A point entirely missed by the financial community on both sides of the Atlantic’ Chris’s sarcasm was bitter.
‘It wasn’t missed by Merlin de Vere.’
‘And I suppose Jacob’s business associates were all ecstatic about being ripped off?’
‘He only had one business partner, William van Aardt,’ she sneered, ‘and as you all too evidently don’t know, he was found hanging from his belt in his garden shed, a week after Jacob sold the companies. Strange behaviour for someone who’s supposedly just become a multimillionaire.’
At that moment, the doorbell sounded.
Judith took a final drag of her cigarette and flicked the butt clear of his window, before collecting her handbag, and making her way back through the hallway.
‘For God’s sake, not a word to anyone. You could put me in serious danger.’
‘Don’t think you can chuck bombs at me then just walk away.’ He was following her, in high dudgeon. ‘You’ve made serious allegations—’
‘And I’ve got a taxi to catch.’
‘But you can’t just—’
‘Watch me!’ She opened the front door and gestured to where the cab driver was back behind the wheel.
‘I’m calling you to discuss this further.’
‘Only after hours,’ she insisted.
‘I don’t see what’s wrong with—’
‘All Lombard calls are recorded.’ She was stalking across to her waiting taxi, slinging her handbag over her shoulder. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know that.’
Actually, he didn’t. And he had no idea if it was true. But as with all her other accusations, Judith had delivered this one with such unshakeable authority that he couldn’t help wondering. After watching her taxi rattle down the street, he closed the front door and returned inside, realising that despite being infuriated, yet again, by this latest confrontation with Judith, he couldn’t dismiss all she’d said. She was right that he knew nothing about Ultra-Sports and Trimnasium apart from what Lombard had put out; and he’d never even heard of William van Aardt. But what about Merlin de Vere? The notion that the City analyst had been the victim of some corporate cover-up seemed as ludicrously farfetched as it was perverse. How could it possibly be true?
10
‘Bit of all right, ain’t she?’ Harry Denton leaned forward as d’Andrea flicked through the photos. It was Sunday evening in The Hounds and Horses, a pub near d’Andrea’s home, which he used for meetings with Denton. They were sitting at a small table in the rear corner of the pub, a table almost completely concealed behind a row of fruit machines. D’Andrea paused at one of the photos taken the night before, bringing it up to within six inches of his eyes. Chris Treiger was walking down the street with the girl. No hand-holding, d’Andrea noticed.
‘You reckon he picked her up?’ he asked, scrutinising the picture.
