The Rhyme of the Magpie (20 page)

I gathered a few essential items for my own larder—milk, eggs, butter, tea—and sat them on the counter before scanning the drinks shelf, searching for the real goal of my visit—that special something I could contribute to the picnic. Ah, there—I spied Bugg's Best on the top shelf. “Could I have a couple bottles of the cider, please? I met the maker last evening.”

Akash reached for them and said, “Adam is a fine young man and truly trying to make a go of this. He works as a librarian during the day, but cider is his passion.”

“I hope we can help him.”

“When I mentioned Adam to my son Daniel—look at what this young man is doing with his life, I said—Daniel told me the public relations firm he works for could help promote the cider. Public relations seems more of a whitewash to me—covering up what a person or a company is really like. Not terribly respectable, but it's a new post for him, and Daniel seems to love it. Thinks his managing director walks on water, he does. Look,” Akash said, and pulled out his phone. “He sent me a photo taken just the other day—that's Daniel standing next to his managing director—Miles Sedgwick is his name.”

It was a clear picture—not close up, but certainly close enough to see the two men in suits. That was Daniel, all right. And Daniel was standing next to a man with neatly combed black hair and a smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Michael,
I thought as I rubbed away the pricking sensation creeping up my arms. But no, I looked closer—this man was a few years older—I could see the gray at his temples. This may not be Michael, but there was no doubt Miles Sedgwick and Michael Sedgwick were quite close—it must be his older brother.

“What company is this?”

“Didn't I mention that? They're out of Cambridge—HMS, Ltd.”

My hands trembled as I pulled money from my pocket in an attempt to pay and leave as soon as possible. The coins spilled out and dropped to the floor, bouncing and rolling away under the counter and the adjacent sweets display.

“Sorry, how clumsy of me,” I said as explosions went off in my head. HMS, Ltd.—the new PR firm hired by Power to the People to make even their most egregious actions look good. And only now do I learn the boss of the firm is Michael's brother. Did he own the company? And more important—what does Michael have to do with it? Did he not think that it would be a conflict of interest—his brother owning the PR firm trying to make a mockery of Rupert's work?

I felt faint as it hit me that perhaps Michael didn't care about conflict of interest. Perhaps this was all part of a grand scheme. He was a spy infiltrating the enemy's camp to learn all he could and report back to Oscar Woodcock. Michael had even admitted to talking with Woodcock right here in Smeaton-under-Lyme on Friday—he'd just neglected to say what about.

I fell on my knees to get the blood flowing again as I began sweeping up the one- and two-pound coins that had skittered away.

“Don't worry about it,” Akash said, joining me. We counted out my money, and he dropped the coins in the till. “Are you all right?”

“Just not quite caught up with my rest, I suppose,” I said. At least, I think that's what I said as I threw my shopping into a bag—I couldn't pay attention to anything except the voice inside my head that screamed,
You knew he was keeping a secret!

Yes, of course I knew. He refused to tell me about his past, always deftly evading any questions. He'd been at the news conference where the video was shot—maybe he shot it himself and posted it, and then feigned shock that someone would do such a thing. But now that I recall, he didn't seem all that shocked. Now I saw how he worked his plan—taking the position as Rupert's assistant as an enemy agent in order to sabotage Dad's career, his life even. Does Dad know that he has a spy in his midst?

I'd made it back to my cottage before I even knew I'd left the shop, the fury inside me about to overflow. The door caught on the flagstones, and instead of pushing it open completely, I squeezed past. Dropping my shopping on the floor, I turned round and kicked the door with every ounce of energy I had.

A stab of pain shot through my foot and up my leg. I screamed and hopped on one foot, caroming off the wall, smashing into the shopping, and coming to rest against the sofa. Breathing hard, I gingerly put weight on my foot, and was rewarded with another jolt. My big toe began to throb, and my shoe felt tight. At least I was in trainers and not heels. I tried again, persisting until I found that if I shifted my weight to my heel, I could walk. Barely. I collapsed on the sofa, head in hand, and forced myself to think.

First, I would ring Dad and tell him of Michael's deceit. My God, he could be up to his ears in
everything—even
murder. Where had Michael been that Sunday morning Kersey was killed? Doing Oscar Woodcock's bidding by killing Kenneth Kersey? And the letter—a good way to point the finger at others, wasn't it?

Wait—first, I would find Michael and tell him his cover was blown and to expect a visit from the police. The thought crossed my mind that I used that threat with everyone but did little to follow up. No longer—I'd be delighted to see Michael behind bars for deceiving me.

Hang on—first, I would go have a chat with Miles Sedgwick, managing director. I'd squeeze every detail out of him about what HMS, Ltd., had planned. Yes, that's where I'd start, and then I'd have the facts straight to present to Dad and confront Michael.

I left the shopping where it lay, barely noticing the egg yolk leaking out onto the flagstones, and picked up my bag. Out on the pavement, I pulled the door closed firmly but carefully. Hobbling the few doors down the street to where I'd parked my Fiat, I climbed in for the journey to Cambridge.

Each time I depressed the accelerator, a fresh wave of pain ran up my leg, but it helped, because it kept my anger in check. Save that for Michael, I thought, not for other drivers on the road, as I lay on the horn at someone who took too long to turn onto the A1017.

I would be on foot in
Cambridge—there
was no way round that. A lighted sign on the way up Hills Road into the city displayed how many parking bays were available in which city-center lot. Monday morning, and it didn't look good, but I went straight to the Grand Arcade, closest to my destination, and circled through the many levels until I was at last rewarded when a car pulled out of a spot in front of me.

Limping out onto the pavement, I tried to get my bearings. I had come across HMS, Ltd., by accident and couldn't quite recall how I'd got there. I decided to start at the Guildhall—I'd walked out from seeing Fenny, and perhaps I could retrace my steps. I began my journey, overly careful to avoid anyone banging into my foot. As I lowered myself from the curb to cross the road, an older man with steel-gray hair pulled back into a ponytail came up behind me and touched my elbow. “All right there, luv? Do you need a hand?”

“No, thank you,” I said with dignity. “I can manage.”

“We all need help sometime,” he said. “It's no good denying it.”

I gave in and took his arm—it did make it that much easier to get to the other side.

“Thanks, I'm fine now.” I smiled; he nodded and went on his way.

I stood at the door of the Guildhall and took a deep breath, considering my route. University students strolled by in twos and threes; businessmen and -women walked by with purpose. I eyed each suited figure, just in case Miles Sedgwick might be among them.

“Julia?”

Here came Fenny up the street. No longer bursting into a big smile when he saw me, I noticed—now he had a wary, reserved, “not-her-again” look on his face.

“Hello, Fenny,” I said. “You're probably quite tired of me popping round, aren't you?” What he'd put Dad through, the never-published paper, and the messes that had been cleaned up for him—all of that shot to the top of my mind. I had enough anger to go round, might as well begin here.

“I never meant any harm,” he said, making it sound as if we were picking up in the middle of a previous
conversation—or
perhaps he had read the expression on my face. “But you don't know what it's been like, always being in the shadow of a man like your father.”

“Speaking of Dad, have you heard the good news? He's been nominated for the Queen's birthday honors. But of course you've heard. You must've been asked to write a letter of support for him—who better to know how hard he worked when he was a fellow?”

Fenny lowered his eyelids, but could not completely cover up the piercing resentment. “Rupert has never needed my help in garnering honors, now has he?”

“Is that what this is about—envy? You'll never get on the list, and so you don't want it for Dad, either. After all he's done for you? Is that why you wrote that letter?”

“I didn't write the letter—isn't that the problem?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Not the letter for the honors—the crank letter to Dad, the one filled with threats.”

Fenny frowned and pulled his head in like a turtle until a double chin appeared on his full face. “I wrote no crank letter, Julia,” he said, but the rising color on his face said he did. “What do you take me for?”

Cue Karloff. Dr. Peter Drabwell, walking as silently as any movie mummy, appeared at my elbow.

“He's telling the truth, Julia—for once.” Drabwell stood close and smiled down at us. I shifted away from him, and winced as my toe complained. “Giles had no hand in it. I thought it was a nice touch. Something to set Rupert on edge—a good foil to the usual sickeningly sweet portrayal.”

“Whatever do you have against him?” I asked. “What did he do to you?”

“He cheapened science, that's what he did,” Drabwell said, dropping the smile. “Popular science isn't science at all—it's television rubbish. He's tarnished not only his own reputation—he can do what he likes with that—but the preeminence of the academic life. That he would choose teaching children to make starling finger puppets over a respectable life of research is absurd. And to call attention to a person who does that by offering him one of the highest honors of the nation is criminal.”

“Criminal?”
I shouted, and then took a breath and lowered my voice. “I'll give you criminal, Dr. Drabwell—your threatening letter has been handed over to the police, so you can expect them to be calling at your high-and-mighty research office door any day now.” I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a young man with a satchel across his shoulder—one of Fenny's tutorial students, most likely, getting an earful. Fine with me.

Drabwell looked aloof and didn't answer, but I needed no provocation to continue.

“And not only that, but the hoax you've carried out on the
Varsity
—calling into question Rupert's paper on magpies—what do you think the staff of a student newspaper will do when they discover they've been had?”

“Ah, the student newspaper,” Drabwell said, his smile returned. “Did you know about that, Giles?”

I saw Fenny go red.

“There was nothing wrong with the research, was there, Fenny?” I asked. “And you didn't take your name off it voluntarily.”

“That paper could've made my career,” Fenny said, “but instead I end up here,” he said, and jerked his head back toward the Guildhall, where his student stayed put and continued to listen.

“And that was everyone else's fault but your own? Perhaps it taught you to choose your affairs a little more carefully. Dad should've let those wronged husbands have at you.”

Drabwell stuck his nose in the air. “In point of fact, Giles and I have no knowledge of an email sent to the
Varsity
. Nothing to do with us.” Even as he denied it all, he couldn't cover a smug smile.

The petty vindictiveness of their actions astounded me. They could be up to anything. And in a flash, my mind raced back to my lockup with me inside, and the rowdy boys saying they saw Frankenstein's monster running up the high street.

“Did you lock me up in my own garage last week?” I pointed a finger in Drabwell's face. “Were you looking for that letter to take it back, afraid it would be traced back to you?”

Fenny frowned and said, “We did no such thing.”

“I'm sure we don't know what you mean,” Drabwell replied, lifting one eyebrow. “It must've been an accident on your
part—mistakenly
letting the door close behind you like that. But no harm done, was there?”

Fenny's face contorted in anger as he turned on Drabwell. “You said no one would be hurt. You said it was only to worry Rupert. How dare you involve Julia in this.”

Drabwell pushed Fenny ahead of him toward the door. “No one was hurt, Giles. Don't be so soft. I wanted that letter back—only to save you the embarrassment of being found out, of course. Go inside now, before you make a fool of yourself again. No one can prove anything.”

I remained still for a moment, my disappointment in a man I thought a beloved uncle weighing me down. The student who had been listening in came over to me. He was older than I had first thought—a university student, most likely. He pulled a business card out of his satchel and handed it to me. “Oh yes,” he said, “someone can prove something.” I looked down at the card: “Teddy Randolph, Managing Editor,
Varsity
.”

“You printed that article about Rupert,” I said, on the verge of lighting into him as well.

“Yes,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the door of the Guildhall. “Caught out, weren't we? I was just round to see Fenwith for a follow-up. But now I've got an entirely new story. And it won't be difficult to trace the origin of the email sent to us. Thanks for this—and give me a ring when you have a chance.”

The run-in with Drabwell and Fenny had shifted the simmering anger I held for Michael to a back burner, but it moved forward again posthaste. Walking on my heel to favor my bad toe, I made my way like a peg-leg pirate, retracing my steps around the Corn Exchange until I spotted the door with flanking gargoyles. I turned and shuffled over to the front window with the gold lettering: HMS, Ltd. I looked inside—empty, apart from a woman at a desk on the far side of the large entry. She wore a mauve silk suit, pearl earrings, and her hair swept up into a French twist. I walked in and approached, trying my best not to hobble.

The receptionist ended a call as I arrived, and looked up at me. With a tiny flickering glance to my wardrobe, she smiled and said, “Hello, good morning, welcome to HMS. How can I help you?”

I pulled my cardigan around me. “I'd like to see Mr. Sedgwick, please.”

“Of course,” she said. “Do you have an appointment?”

“No, I don't, but if you tell him who I am, I believe he'll see me.”

I saw her hand slide smoothly over to a small red button at the side of her desk. I almost laughed—was I robbing a bank? What sort of people did they have coming in here that they would need an emergency call button? But when she pressed it, no alarm sounded, no guards came bursting out of doorways to whisk me out of the building.

“May I ask your name?”

“Julia Lanchester.”

“I'm not sure if Mr. Sedgwick is free at the moment, Ms. Lanchester. If you wouldn't mind waiting for a…” She was distracted by a tiny green light that had appeared on her phone console. She looked up at me and smiled. “Mr. Sedgwick can see you now. Would you follow me?”

We retreated down a hall on my left, passing closed doors with names on them; occasionally I heard a voice or a brief burst of laughter. She stopped at our goal—the door that faced us at the end of the hall with a sign that read: “Miles Sedgwick.”

The receptionist opened the door. “Here you are,” she said, and when I'd walked in, she quietly closed the door behind me.

The office was empty. It was an enormous room, the old brick walls contrasting sharply with the sleek modern desk, which sported only an open laptop. A window looked out onto a small walled garden, and a low leather sofa and chair hunkered in a corner. I waited for a moment, but when no one showed, I made my way to the desk and looked out the window before I glanced over my shoulder to see what was on the laptop screen.

It was a live feed—it showed the back of the receptionist's head and looked out onto the entrance to the building where people passed on the pavement; the camera must be set into the wall behind her. So that's how I got approval for entry—he saw me standing there.

I heard a noise behind me and stepped away from the desk. What had looked like a wooden panel opened. Miles stood in the doorway. I drew in a sharp breath.

They could be identical twins except for the age difference. Miles had the same black hair, although in a conservative style; it looked as if he'd had a haircut just yesterday. I saw a touch of gray at his temples. He wore a two-button dark suit with a blue tie—just the right blue, the shade that would make his eyes dance. Except his eyes didn't dance or sparkle. And the suit didn't look right on him—the jacket pulled a bit, and it gave his face a doughy look.

“Hello, I'm Miles Sedgwick. Very happy to meet you, Ms. Lanchester.” He stuck out his hand.

Well, here's one characteristic they shared, these brothers—the inevitable handshake. I glared first at the hand and then back up at him.

“The jig is up, Mr. Sedgwick,” I said, unable to raise my voice above a whisper as anger rippled through my body. “You and your brother have been found out.”

He took his time in answering, looking at me with that same smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. But it was a smile that had no joy in it.

“Well, and lovely to meet you, too. I can't say I'm surprised that Rupert would send you instead of coming himself. Are you the ambassador? The negotiator? Is he ready to call a truce and face up to the reality of the situation?”

“Did you kill Kersey?”

The smirk disappeared from his face.

“What do you take us for here at HMS?” he asked.

“Liars, cheats, kidnappers, murderers,” I said, ticking off the list on my fingers. “You spy on people.”

“We are in the business of making our clients and their firms look their best,” he said as he walked toward me, leaned over, and shut the laptop. “To achieve the goals that will benefit those who rely on the public's goodwill to acknowledge…”

“You're a fraud, that's what you are,” I said, inching closer and pointing my finger in his face. “Pretending to care and all the while covering up information that could help citizens make an intelligent choice for the world. You sent your brother out to hurt my father. But you won't get away with it.”

Miles watched me for a moment, and I thought if I cocked my ear I might hear his brain running through all its machinations. His smile became smug. “Oh, I see. It's Michael you're angry with, not me. Didn't you know this is a
family
business? HMS—named for our dad, Harold Michael Sedgwick. And as a family, we work together. No matter what fuss he puts up, this is where he belongs. Why, he was in here earlier today—I'm sorry you missed him. Did he not tell you?”

What Michael had not told me could fill an ocean. My throat felt tight. I suppose I had held out some hope that I was wrong, that Michael wasn't the duplicitous person I said he was.

“Well, naturally he's spoken of you,” I said. “He told me you gave him that scar.” I ran my finger along my own cheekbone.

Miles nodded. “A brotherly spat, as I recall. Dad broke us up.” He straightened his suit jacket. “My brother occasionally feels the need to tilt at windmills—I don't expect this latest foray to last.”

Maddeningly, I found myself defending Michael. “Perhaps your brother has found something useful to do with his life—something that benefits everyone.”

“Tell me, Ms. Lanchester, if you are not here to represent your father, then what is it I can do for you?”

“Why are you representing Woodcock—have you no conscience? He's irresponsible and money-hungry. Do you think he cares a tuppence about the environment? Are you lobbying the government on his behalf to get a deal? Something perhaps not completely legal? Something that Kersey knew about and was going to tell Rupert?”

Miles sighed. “Are we back to this again? The only underhanded dealing here as far as I can see is that Michael has stolen company information from HMS, Ltd., a company his own father started—and given it to Rupert Lanchester to subvert a scheme that is desperately needed in this country to supply green energy to our citizens.”

“Oh, shove it, Miles.”

His eyes first widened and then narrowed. “Rupert will not win. You can go back and tell him so.”

“This isn't a contest, and Rupert doesn't want to win. He wants people to understand that the choices they make have
consequences—he
wants the birds and the hedgehogs and the children to win. And they will.” I drew myself up, pivoted on my heel, and walked out, ignoring the stab of pain with each step.