Off the Record (2 page)

Steve Lewis’s eyebrows shot up. ‘
More
serious? What the devil is it?’

‘I can’t tell you here,’ said Ragnall with a glance back at the house. ‘Let’s get further away.’

Lewis looked surprised but said nothing until they reached the sundial. Ragnall took a deep breath and, gripping the bowl of the sundial, braced his arms. This was going to be hard.

‘Do you like Mr Otterbourne?’ he asked eventually.

Lewis looked startled. ‘Of course I do.’ He glanced towards the house. It was a solid Edwardian building, long, low and comfortable in the sunshine. Ranged along the terrace, which ran the length of the house, were French windows, opening on to the various rooms. The room at the end was Charles Otterbourne’s study and, brief against the glass, a dark movement showed them Charles Otterbourne himself. ‘Besides that you’d be on to a hiding to nothing if you started finding fault with the man.’ There was a cynical twist in his voice. ‘The marble bust of him in the library was erected, so the plaque says, by his grateful employees. That tells you something. He’s universally beloved.’

‘Why?’ asked Ragnall quietly.

‘Why?’ Steve Lewis raised his eyebrows again. ‘You know as well as I do.’

‘Just tell me.’

‘You’re being very mysterious about this, Ragnall,’ Lewis complained. He shrugged. ‘All right, since you insist.’ He put a match to his pipe. ‘He’s a good man.’ Ragnall’s silence invited further comment. ‘OK, I admit it. I find him a bit hard to take sometimes. He knows what’s good for us and makes sure we get it, good and strong, but I’ll say this for him. He practises what he preaches.’

‘Are you sure?’

Lewis looked puzzled. ‘Yes.’

It was no wonder Lewis looked puzzled, thought Ragnall. He drew a deep, juddering breath. ‘He’s a crook.’

‘He’s a
what?
’

Ragnall swallowed. ‘I’ve been going through the accounts.’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘I’ve been meaning to sort them out for months. That old dodderer who was here before me left things in a dickens of a mess. I don’t think they’ve ever been properly tackled.’

‘What’s the problem?’

‘It’s the pension fund,’ said Ragnall wearily. ‘I don’t know how to tell you, but it’s a fact. I know the company’s gone through a rough patch, which probably explains it, but Mr Otterbourne has been taking money from the pension fund.’

There was a moment’s shocked silence. Steve Lewis froze, his eyes wide, then swallowed a mouthful of smoke the wrong way and broke out in a fusillade of coughing. ‘You old devil,’ he said, gasping for breath. ‘You had me going for a moment there. You looked so damn serious I nearly believed you.’

‘It’s true.’

‘Drop it, won’t you?’ said Lewis, glancing uneasily round the garden. ‘I know you’re pulling my leg but it’s not really very funny, you know.’

Hugo Ragnall sighed deeply. ‘I’m serious. The pension fund isn’t Mr Otterbourne’s money. Everyone who’s ever worked here has contributed to it and the fund is virtually empty. There’s enough in it to pay the weekly outgoings, but that’s it. The capital behind it, the capital built up over years, has vanished.’

‘You must be mistaken.’

‘I’m not!’ Ragnall lowered his voice urgently. ‘I tell you, Mr Otterbourne’s embezzled the funds. His signature’s on the cheques. I believed in him, you know?’ he said bitterly. ‘And he’s nothing but a hypocrite. A damned, white-haired, pompous old hypocrite.’

Lewis was pale. He was obviously finding it hard to speak. ‘It’s unbelievable,’ he said eventually. ‘Have you said anything to him? What’s his explanation?’

Ragnall looked horribly uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know. I took the accounts into the study before breakfast. I said there was a matter I needed to discuss but I simply couldn’t bring myself to speak. He was sitting there, looking – oh, looking so blinking
saintly
– that I just couldn’t find the words. He said, “Ah, Ragnall, the accounts,” and that was more or less it.’

Lewis put his hand to his mouth. ‘We’ll have to talk to him this evening,’ he said after a while. ‘Both of us. We can’t do anything before then, not with Dunbar and the Carringtons coming.’

Ragnall winced. ‘No, we can’t. If he could pay it back, then perhaps it’ll be all right, but there’s nearly seventeen thousand pounds missing and I know he hasn’t got that sort of money spare. The firm’s in a bad way, Lewis. Since the war, it’s hardly broken even. It looks prosperous, but it isn’t.’ He was silent for a few moments. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get through today. I can’t bear the thought of facing him with this hanging over us.’

Lewis sank his hands in his pockets. ‘It’s tough, isn’t it?’ he said after a pause. ‘I wish I could disappear for the day. You too, of course. You haven’t any ideas, have you?’

‘There’s always your Uncle Maurice,’ said Ragnall slowly.

Lewis snapped his fingers. ‘That’s it! Uncle Maurice! Of course! He’s still ill, ill enough to warrant a visit.’ He looked up with a relieved smile. ‘Well done. I’ll think of something for you.’ Lewis glanced towards the study. ‘I’ll have to tell Mr Otterbourne what we’re doing. Go round to the garage and get into the car. I’ll drop you off at the station.’

Lewis went up the steps into the study. Charles Otterbourne looked up as he came into the room. ‘Ah, there you are, Stephen. I’ve been studying an article by Professor Carrington.’ He tapped the papers on the desk in front of him. ‘Did I understand you to say the Professor is a relation of yours?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Lewis. His glance slid across the room to where the accounts lay in a manila file on the table. Did Charles Otterbourne have the slightest idea of what they contained? ‘As I said before, I’ve never actually met him. There was a family disagreement, you understand?’ His voice was deliberately casual. ‘I’ve run across his son, Gerry, a few times. According to Gerry, the Professor is nothing short of a genius. Apparently he’s a real absent-minded scientist and has the dickens of a temper.’

Mr Otterbourne looked startled. ‘That sounds rather alarming. I trust we will get on well enough. Mr Dunbar hasn’t given me any details of Professor Carrington’s work in his letter, but says I am bound to be interested.’ He obviously didn’t have an inkling of the bombshell contained in that manila folder. ‘I was going to send the car to the station but perhaps you would like to meet them instead.’

Lewis tried to look stricken. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I won’t be here. I’ve had a letter from my Uncle Maurice’s housekeeper. Apparently his chest is very bad again and I thought I’d run down and see him.’

Mr Otterbourne was clearly put out. ‘That is very inconvenient, Stephen.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, sir,’ said Lewis easily. ‘After all, you don’t really need me and poor old Uncle Maurice is pretty ill, you know.’

Charles Otterbourne’s lips thinned. ‘As you wish.’ He turned his head dismissively. ‘Ask Ragnall to come here.’

His tone, the autocratic tone of a monarch dispensing with his subjects, suddenly irritated Lewis. ‘Ragnall’s out for the day, too, I’m afraid.’ Mr Otterbourne looked downright affronted. ‘He seemed very seedy at breakfast,’ Lewis explained rapidly. ‘Molly was concerned about him. He told me he’d slept very badly and thought he might be coming down with something. I thought of packing him off to bed, but he said he’d rather not. I didn’t think he was in any fit condition to talk to either Mr Dunbar or the Carringtons, so I asked him to go along to Stansfields, the timber people. He’s already left.’

Mr Otterbourne drew himself up. ‘I should have been consulted first. You have overstepped your authority, Stephen. In future I would ask you to remember that Ragnall is not here to come and go at your say-so.’ He frowned. ‘Stansfields? We’ve not dealt with them before.’

‘No, but their quote was substantially lower than White and Millwood’s.’

Charles Otterbourne steepled his fingers together. ‘Quality needs to be paid for. That is one of my guiding principles. We cannot cut corners. You say Ragnall has actually left?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Lewis said. ‘You wouldn’t have wanted him around today. He was really under the weather.’

‘I would have liked to have judged that for myself. I am not at all pleased.’ He frowned at Lewis over the top of his pince-nez. ‘If you are going to see your uncle, you’d better be off. Do you intend to return this evening?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Lewis, involuntarily glancing once more towards the folder. He swallowed. ‘I don’t think I’ve got any choice.’

P
rofessor Alan Carrington was, thought Molly, one of the most alarming men she had ever met. Although his name was English enough, there was a sort of foreign arrogance about him, a scary, down-at-heel but aristocratic foreign arrogance. Like Count Dracula, she said to herself and immediately wished she hadn’t. Professor Carrington would make anyone nervous without thinking of vampires. He was tall and spare with high cheekbones, a beaky nose, brilliant blue eyes and nervous, thin hands that were continually in motion. His tweed jacket and grey flannels were shapeless with age, the pockets distended with papers, and bagged at the knee and elbow. Hamilton, the butler, took his shabby hat and coat with a barely perceptible lift of his eyebrows, but it was clear that he thought his master’s latest guest was a very odd fish indeed.

The Professor was abstracted and irritated to the point of rudeness by the conventional pleasantries. He was clearly far more interested in a wooden crate, about the size of a tea chest, which Eckersley, the chauffeur, together with Gerard Carrington, carried into the hall. He stood by it defensively, arms folded across his chest, Gerard Carrington and Andrew Dunbar on either side.

It was while Charles Otterbourne was sketching out the day – tour of the factory, tour of the village, lunch – the Professor shook himself impatiently and cut Mr Otterbourne off in mid-sentence. ‘Are you going to buy Dunbar’s firm?’

Charles Otterbourne, for once taken completely aback, stammered to a halt. ‘I . . . er . . .’

‘You can’t ask things like that, Dad,’ said Gerry Carrington, completely unruffled by his father’s abruptness. Dunbar, a short, stout man, pulled at his moustache in a deprecating way. His eyes, Molly noticed, were fixed on her father. In the face of Professor Carrington’s overwhelming personality, it was difficult to think of anyone else, but Molly was suddenly aware she didn’t like Mr Dunbar. Steve said he had a tough reputation, but she also sensed coldness about him, a wary, calculating quality. If her father did do business with Mr Dunbar, he would have to be very careful he didn’t come out the loser from the deal.

‘Well,’ demanded Professor Carrington. ‘Are you?’

Charles Otterbourne coughed in a bring-the-meeting-to-order way. It had never failed to obtain respectful silence but it failed now.

‘Because if you are, I suggest you cease to waste any more time and examine my machine forthwith.’

‘Your machine?’ queried Mr Otterbourne.

‘Yes, sir, my machine!’ the Professor barked. He put his hand on the wooden crate. ‘This machine. Great heavens, sir, you do know what I’m talking about, I presume?’ In the face of Charles Otterbourne’s blank enquiry, he whirled on Andrew Dunbar. ‘I understood this man was interested in my work. He seems completely ignorant of it.’

Andrew Dunbar’s accent, that unmistakable Edinburgh twang, grew stronger under stress. ‘You cannot talk to Mr Otterbourne in that fashion, Professor. You ken these things are not decided in minutes.’

‘Exactly,’ agreed Charles Otterbourne gratefully. ‘I shall be more than happy, Professor, to examine your machine.’ His gaze dropped to the crate. ‘You will understand, I trust, that I cannot possibly give a decision on these far-reaching commercial matters without careful examination of all the possible implications.’ Alan Carrington sighed mutinously and folded his arms again. ‘What does your machine actually do?’

‘It records and plays sound, sir!’

‘But we—’

‘Electronically!’ Professor Carrington ran an impatient hand through his hair. ‘It utilizes electronics.’

‘It’s unlike any other machine,’ murmured Dunbar.

Alan Carrington ignored the interruption. ‘I wish to know with whom I am dealing. If, sir, you are to be responsible for the money necessary to develop my machine, naturally you have a right to understand exactly how it works and what its capabilities are. If you are not, I will bid you good-day.’

‘Steady on,’ said Gerard Carrington easily. ‘You can’t go marching off, Dad. We’ve only just arrived.’ He smiled, a warm, friendly smile.

Molly caught her breath. Gerard Carrington had curly brown hair, mild blue eyes, rumpled clothes and gold-rimmed glasses and Molly suddenly realized he was a very attractive man.

Gerard Carrington must have heard her little intake of breath, for he turned to her as if eliciting her support. He pushed his glasses firmly on to the bridge of his nose with his index finger. ‘I know Steve’s been called away, Mrs Lewis, but I suppose we’re relatives too, in a manner of speaking, aren’t we?’ He smiled once more. ‘After all, Steve’s my cousin. As a matter of fact, as we are relations, I suppose you should call me Gerry. Everyone does.’

Molly couldn’t help smiling in return. ‘Of course I will. And you must call me Molly.’

Gerry looked at his father again. ‘You see, Dad? We can’t go yet. We’re with members of the family, and it would be very bad manners. Besides that, Mr Otterbourne wants to show us the factory and the village and so on, don’t you, sir?’

Mr Otterbourne was about to answer but Alan Carrington beat him to it. ‘Why on earth should I want to see the factory, let alone the village? I presume, sir, as you are a gramophone manufacturer, you are capable of manufacturing my machine. That is all I need to know.’

‘Let me have a word with Mr Otterbourne, Professor,’ said Andrew Dunbar in a conciliatory way. He drew Mr Otterbourne aside further up the hall. Professor Carrington scuffed his feet and taking his pipe from his pocket, stuffed it with an untidy wedge of tobacco, lit it, and dropped the match on the floor. Gerard Carrington looked at Molly in a resigned plea for understanding that seemed to make them allies. She liked the feeling. Molly heard phrases such as
difficult
,
genius
and
truly extraordinary
, in the mutter of words along the hall, but whether that referred to the Professor or his machine she couldn’t tell.