The Conspiracy Theorist (7 page)

In this case, they were as follows:

1.
 
A disappears at sea after buying a boat
from B.
 

2.
 
B is accused of not showing a duty of
care to A, who is an inexperienced sailor.
 

3.
 
B investigates A’s disappearance which
B thinks is not due to inexperience at all, but foul play—as A’s company
is going through some kind of corporate merger or hostile take-over.
 

4.
 
B is killed under suspicious
circumstances.
 
The police computer
flags the two events or crimes as linked in some way and yet the police does
not seem investigate either case, despite having sound leads.
 

I looked at my notes, got myself
another beer and read them again.

A’s
company is going through some kind of corporate merger…

I closed the document and took the iPad
over to the sofa.
 
I lay back and
rested the screen on my chest, as Clara used to.
 
With numb fingers, I punched in the words ‘Prajapati’ and ‘Merger’
to see what I got.

Sunil
Prajapati’s company was called PiTech and it was registered in Mumbai.
 
Its main manufacturing base was in
Crawley, West Sussex.
 
From the
available information it seemed it made surveillance devices for the military
and security forces.
 
It had been
in the news most recently owing to the developing of biodegradable or ‘born to
die’ implants that gradually disappeared after prolonged contact with water.
 
I watched a promotional video of a
scientist feeding pipette droplets onto a circuit board the size of a
fingernail.
 
Although it was just
water being dripped onto the circuit, the effect was like acid.
 
The chip fizzed and unpeeled before my
eyes.
 
In thirty seconds it looked
like someone had stepped on a very small snail.
 
The microchip sat in its own pool of green gunk.
 

I read on for an hour, fascinated by
both the science—how out of date I was
!—
and
the increasing number of business reports appearing about PiTech.
 
How the company had attracted the
attention of some bigger defence contractors in the USA and China.
 
How concern was expressed in some
quarters—of the UK media that is—that PiTech had ‘significant
contracts’ with the Ministry of Defence.
 
Most recently an FT report talking about the
possibility of a hostile takeover from a Russian company, Vassiliov Holdings.

All fascinating stuff.
 
All very hi-tech at PiTech.
 
At some point I fell asleep.

It
was after midnight when my daughter rang.
 
I couldn’t see the clock but it was still dark and she said she was
having breakfast.
 
Hong Kong time.
 
I was not sure if I had nodded off or not.
 
Clara’s voice came through the veils of sleep like a
memory.
 
I imagined her sitting on
her tiny balcony having a coffee before she went to work.
 

‘Hi, Papa!
 
Mum’s not picking up.
 
Is everything okay?’

For a moment I was struck by
panic—like I needed to go and check—before I remembered Meg did not
live with me anymore.
 

‘I think she’s away.
 
At a conference with Professor Plum.’

Clara laughed and adopted a
mock-serious tone.
 
‘
Doctor
Philip Hammonde.’

‘Ham
monde
,’
I hammed.
 
‘With an ‘e’ at the
end.’

Clara was snorting.
 
I had forgotten the peculiar texture of
her laughter.
 
‘C’mon, Papa!
 
He’s not all that bad!’

‘Oh, yes,’ I said.
 
‘He is a terrible man.
 
A terrible, terrible man.’

‘Mum said you were actually quite civil
to him when you last met.’

‘I’m always civil, darling.
 
You know that.
 
Extremely civil.’

Now she was indignant.
 
‘No, you are not!
 
You can be a real grouch!’

I could tell my daughter’s mind was now
at rest.
 
She knew where her mother
was, and why she was not answering her phone.
 
She had always worried about her parents in that way.
 
Was it an only child thing?
 
After a few more jokes and mild
insults, she said she really must get to work and apologised for waking me.

‘You did not wake me, darling.’
 
I said.
 
‘I’m still asleep.’

The
next day I awoke early—I was still on the sofa—showered, dressed
and left for the office.
 
Everything
felt fresh again after last night’s rain.
 
I stopped for a coffee and croissant—the almond variety, Clara’s
favourite—and reviewed my case notes.

Pretty soon I realised I was searching
for something that wasn’t there.
 
What was missing was a complainant.
 
In most cases, there is someone, however misguided or
deluded, who was prepared to pursue a case.
 
It was not the money.
 
I often undertake cases where there is very little chance of getting
paid.
 
But at least there is
someone around who is
not
going to
pay me sooner or later, someone who might or might not be grateful.
 
In this case I had nobody, not even a
bad debtor or potential ingrate, and I wasn’t even sure what Sir Simeon
Marchant was going to ask me.

Perhaps
it was to do with the PiTech Merger
,
I read in my case notes
.
 
Mr Prajapati might or might not have
been in favour of the take-over of the Russian conglomerate, Vassiliov
Holdings.
 
There is nothing in the
public domain either way.
 
We
do
know, however, he was going to take the
opportunity to sail around the world with his wife.
 
But that in
itself
is no indication
of his position in relation to the proposed take-over.

True,
concern was expressed in some quarters that PiTech
had
‘significant contracts’ with the Ministry of Defence, but there was nothing the
British Government could do, as the company was Indian owned and registered in
Mumbai.
 
It was possible
that—given his connections—Sir Simeon had some inside track on
this, but only he would know that.
 
He had not told his daughter, who seemed more exercised by the potential
loss of the £75,000.
 
The rest is
supposition.

Perhaps
if my potential client were still alive, he would be able to tell me.
 
But, as he is dead, what have I to go
on?

I
was pleased with the notes—I batted the croissant crumbs from them in a
protective manner—but they still led nowhere.
 
I would keep them in my file for potential cases that were
taken no further.
 

This decided, I tucked them away in my
jacket pocket and meandered down the High Street.
 
The sun was warming up the old stone already.
 
An ancient city, I thought, a city to
grow old in.
 
I went into WH Smiths
and bought a
Telegraph
.
 
The woman at the counter asked if I
would like any of the range of special offers that came with it.
 
I felt sorry for her, some marketing geek
back at HQ making her hawk
Milky Bars
and
Tangfastics
to people coming in
to buy newspapers or stationery.
 
No wonder there’s an obesity crisis, I thought.
 
If it isn’t chips with everything, it’s
chocolate.

The phone was ringing as I entered my
office.
 
Even with its stained
glass window, the place always looked small and poky after a day out.
 
Perhaps now would be a good time to get
my own place, I thought.
 
But deep
down I knew I wouldn’t.
 
The truth
of the matter was: I was already set in my ways.
 
Already old…

‘Becket,’ I said wearily.

‘Ah, Becket.
 
At last!’

And there it was: that familiar nasal
tone at the other end like he had not trained himself to breathe and talk at
the same time.

‘Richie,’ I sat down.
 
‘What can I do for you?’

‘I understand you have been bothering
one of my witnesses,’ he paused as if to read from his notes.
 
‘Mrs Jennifer Forbes.
 
You met her yesterday.’

At least it wasn’t Reuben Symonds who
had contacted him, I thought.
 
But
that would have at least made sense.

‘I wasn’t aware she was witness to
anything,’ I said.

Richie stopped in his tracks.
 
I went on, ‘So there is an
investigation, is there?’

‘Becket, I told you—no, I
asked
you politely—to stay out of
it.
 
You're not even working for
anyone, as far as I am aware.’

‘As far as you are aware, that is
correct.’
 
I said.
 
‘Might I remind you she contacted me
the day before yesterday.’

‘But she did not ask you to come up to the
inquest and ask her questions.’

‘Richie, she spoke to me under no
duress whatsoever, I assure you.’

I thought of the three large G&Ts
I’d bought her and wondered if that was strictly true.
 
And yet it was interesting that Jenny
Forbes-Marchant had not told Richie that she had rung me after her father’s
inquest.

‘The woman is grieving, you dumb fuck,’
Richie was saying.
 
‘Even you
should understand that, Becket.’

Even
me
, I thought.
 
I took a deep breath.
 
People like Richie were impossible to argue with.
 
There were no handholds, no common
decency to them.
 
They were as
slippery as eels with about as much moral sense.
 
I counted to ten.

‘I understand what you are saying, DCI
Richie.
 
What I am unclear about is
why
you are saying it.
 
Did Mrs Forbes-Marchant make a formal
complaint?’

There was a beat before Richie said, ‘I
rang her.
 
She told me that you had
been to see her.
 
She was upset.’

‘She was upset because she had seen
me?’ I asked.
 
‘Or she was just
upset?’

‘It is a difficult time for her.
 
I understand she has just gone through
a rather painful divorce.’

‘Richie, this compassion,’ I asked, ‘is
it a new side to your character?
 
Or had I missed it before?’

Richie laughed bitterly.
 
‘You never knew me, Becket.’

I waited for him to finish what was on
his mind.
 
But he didn’t.
 
He contented himself with his heavy
breathing routine.

I said, ‘Look, pleasant as it is to
reminisce, DCI Richie, I am busy right now.
 
With
other cases.
 
And I
really do not have the time for this.’

‘I’m pleased,’ Richie said.
 
‘That you do not have the time for this,
Becket.
 
That you
have other cases.
 
Just
don’t talk to her again.’

And he put the phone down.

As
it happened, there were actually some case-files to review on my desk.
 
Mainly small tasks
for Anthony Carstairs.
 
Matrimonials where the other side had employed a private investigator
whose approaches needed checking out.
 
It was routine stuff.
 
I
would have enjoyed it on another occasion, but suddenly I found it all very irksome.
 
But what was the alternative?
 
To go across to the
pub at nine thirty in the morning?
 
Sit in the park and read a book?
 
Wander around the Cathedral with the tourists?
 
No, it is better for Becket’s soul to wade through these
files, I thought.
 
Immeasurably so.

And so I did.

By
mid afternoon, I had emailed my notes to the head clerk.
 
After a while, I wandered downstairs
with the files piled on an arm.
 
As
I stood there, the great man breezed into chambers full of some tale of
adjournment and some circuit judge’s cock-up.
 
It was what Carstairs called ‘entertaining the troops’ but
his small army of interns and admin folk looked like they just wanted to get on
with their work so they could leave while it was still light.
 
As I was speaking, Carstairs checked
his watch several times.
 
In
response, I checked mine.
 
Then I
went back upstairs to wait for his call.

It was our little code.
 
Carstairs would go into his office and
phone the golf course, and then he would call me with the tee off time.
 
We tried to keep business and pleasure
separate in such ways, or at least maintain the charade in front of the juniors.
 

When the phone rang, however, it was
not Carstairs.

‘Mr Becket.
 
Jennifer Forbes-Marchant.
 
I’m ringing to apologise.
 
There seems to be some sort of misunderstanding.’

That
evening, after a long round of golf, one strewn with many errors and at least
two balls lost to the heavy rough, I got home, showered and packed an overnight
bag.
 
In the lounge the answer
machine was blinking.
 
I listened
to the message twice.
 
It went
something like this.

‘This is a message for Mr Becket.
 
I would like to advise you to keep your
nose out of our business.
 
We won’t
warn you again, Mr Becket.
 
Your
actions could have serious consequences.’

At least it sounded professional.
 
They were using a voice distorter so
there was no accent, no giveaways.
 
But I pressed ‘save’ anyway.
 
An electronic voice—female this time—informed me that my
message would be stored for five days.
 
It sounded like the caller’s sister.

I wondered who it could be.
 
I had received any number of threats
over the years, but you generally knew who they were.
 
Not that it mattered.
 
The really dangerous people tend not to call ahead.

I made a quick call and left my own
short message.

Then I left the flat.

I
went to the garage where the Spider was stored and opened up.
 
I struggled to recall the last time I
had used her for a long journey.
 
I
checked the oil and the plugs, topped up the radiator and the screen wash, and
being Italian, I checked her brake fluid.
 
After several attempts, the engine fired and I ran her for a few minutes
while she cleared her throat, and asked me where the hell I thought I’d been.

We were on the road by seven, and
missed most of the traffic.
 
Outside the city I put her hood down and a cap on my thinning locks.
 
We headed towards Rye across Romney
Marsh where the road dwindled to a single track that splintered at its edges.
 
Out on the marshes, there was a sense
of impermanence.
 
The feeling that
our civilisation built around oil and the motorcar would come and go.
 
The icecaps would melt and the sea
would reclaim the land.
 
But right
now the Spider was the only car in sight: a red blur on the grey-green
landscape.
 
Only
a few sheep for company.
 

There is nothing better, I thought,
than travelling westwards on an English summer’s evening.
 
The sun was still relatively high but
had already begun to blur in its transit from yellow to orange to red.
 
For some reason, I thought of the
Mondrian doors on the Alconbury Estate.
 

How fortunate I am not to have that
kind of existence, I thought.
 
I
have a freedom of sorts.
 
Freedom
to pursue whatever interest I want.
 
Whether people want me to or not.

In the Met, quite often I had been told
to give up on a case, abandon it, told to wind my neck in, not be so damned obsessive;
get some treatment for an obvious case of autism or OCD.
 
The fact that I would not—or
could
not, in some cases—had made
me unpopular.
 
Perhaps they really did
all hate me there, as Richie said.
 
Or those that remained did: those that had stayed and been able to
withstand the increasing bureaucracy, back-protecting and political
interference.
 
There was no reason
for people like that
not
to hate
me.