The Victim in Victoria Station (19 page)

Indeed. It had been ten years, at least, since I'd seen it myself. I hoped it hadn't changed much, and that I'd remembered enough to sound convincing to people whose memory might be fresher, if anyone should ask.

“Oh, by the way, Louise, the sales staff will all be in this morning at nine on the dot. Mr. Spragge wants to go over some figures with them himself, so they're not to be interrupted until their meeting is over.”

“Got it,” I said. That was a piece of luck. I'd thought I might not get a chance to talk to them for some time, and though it was important that I learn about their Friday night whereabouts, I was beginning not to want to stick around Multilinks a day longer than I had to.

Mr. Pierce and Mrs. Shore came in together, and in a foul mood, both of them. My guess, from the glares they exchanged, was that they'd spent the weekend together and had a lovers' quarrel. Or some kind of quarrel, at any rate.

“
Good
morning,” I said with offensive cheeriness. “I hope you both had a pleasant weekend, what with the wonderful weather and all.”

Mrs. Shore rolled her eyes, said, “God!” under her breath, and passed me without another word. Mr. Pierce, whose charm appeared to be automatically extended to every female under the age of ninety, stopped and smiled at me.

“Feeling a bit fragile this morning, both of us,” he said in a low voice. “You'll have to excuse Vicki. I'm afraid we drank rather a lot too much over the weekend, and we had a filthy row this morning.”

Some devil made me say sweetly, “Oh, I didn't know the two of you were married. I mean, different last names and all—”

His smile vanished, and so did the charm. “We're not,” he said curtly.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon. Have I put my foot in it?”

“Look, you nosy old cow,” he said in a still-lower tone, but viciously. “If Vicki Shore and I choose to spend a weekend together, it's none of your bleeding business, right? If you want to know all the salacious details, we went to a hotel straight from work on Friday together and have been there ever since, and you can do as you like with that information, including passing it on to Mr. Sanctimonious Spragge! Got it?”

“I'm sure what you do in your own time is your own business, Mr. Pierce,” I replied almost as angrily, “so long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses. It certainly doesn't seem to have been a very pleasant experience, I must say!”

We glared at each other for a moment, then he shrugged. “Right. Sorry. Not coping too well this morning, am I? Ah, well, it's a great life if you don't weaken.”

He went into Evelyn's domain, and I was left wondering why he thought it necessary to go into all those details of what was, as he had pointed out, absolutely none of my business. Was there a slight smell of alibi in the air?

Mr. Dalal and Mr. Upton were the next to arrive, walking in a few seconds apart. Mr. Upton glowered at me but responded briefly to my greeting. Mr. Dalal ignored me and accosted Mr. Upton.

“Please, I must speak to you before we meet with Mr. Spragge. I am very troubled in my mind. You must understand that it is not my fault, this poor sales record. The price of the product must be lowered. Mr. Spragge must be persuaded to do so. The poor countries, they cannot afford to buy at such a high cost. They tell me this, they say they will buy a competitive product, they say—”

“I do not give a flaming fart what they say!” said Upton. “Spragge's not going to do anything about the price, so that's that. It's your bloody job to sell the bloody product, and so far as I can see you couldn't sell blankets to bloody Eskimos. I intend to tell Spragge just that!”

“But there is something peculiar, I tell you, I—”

“If you will come in, gentlemen, Mr. Spragge is waiting.” Evelyn had appeared in the doorway. She put just the slightest emphasis on “gentlemen.” The two quieted and passed into the office.

Evidently I was going to have to wait to find out how they spent their Friday night. If I ever did.

Mr. Hammond presented no problem at all. He came in a few minutes late, twirling his umbrella and doing a little dance step in the hallway.

“Well, you look as though you had a good time this weekend,” I said brightly.

“Ah,
mais oui!
” he said in a dreadful French accent. “Gay Paree and all that, you know?”

“You spent the weekend in Paris?” I haven't lived long enough in England to find the Paris weekend a commonplace.

“Ooh, la-la! Caught the night shuttle, got there before midnight. And then—” He rolled his eyes. “‘Thank 'eavens …'” He hummed a few bars of the Maurice Chevalier tune, excruciatingly off-key.

“And now you're all rested and ready for a week of work.” I grinned at him; he rolled his eyes again and went into the office. Blast it all, he was undoubtedly a reprobate and headed for a fall, but I couldn't help liking Terry Hammond.

Mr. Grey was half an hour late for work, an occurrence that struck me as highly uncharacteristic. He rushed in the door, panting. I suspected he'd run all the way from the Russell Square tube station.

“Goodness, Mr. Grey, you don't look at all well. Did you not have a pleasant weekend?”

“I—no.” And with that he vanished through the office door, and I was left with my next question on my lips.

I didn't feel I'd learned very much of interest, and of the two people I most wanted to question, Mr. Fortier probably wouldn't be in at all, and I wasn't sure I had the nerve to tackle the exalted and now highly suspect Mr. Spragge.

Evelyn, however, was another matter. Lunching together seemed to have become an established habit. That Monday being another perfect June day, we bought sandwiches and soft drinks from a little shop and ate our lunch in Russell Square. The pigeons were something of a problem. I despise pigeons and tried to shoo them away, but Evelyn scattered the crumbs of her sandwich, so of course they gathered in droves.

“Oh, I rather like them,” she said at my mild protest. “I like all sorts of birds. Just look at how beautiful they are. That lovely soft brown one, for instance, and the gray there, with the black bars on its wings! I've often thought of keeping pigeons, and perhaps racing them, but it takes time to look after them properly, of course. I had a cousin who kept them when we were girls in the country, so I know.”

“What an unusual hobby,” I commented. “I think people's hobbies can give one very interesting insights sometimes. You and I love to read mysteries, for example, and we both do some needlework, I believe. Very quiet, sedentary pursuits. But I wonder what a man like Mr. Spragge does in his spare time? Besides gardening, that is.”

Not very subtle, but where Mr. Spragge was concerned, Evelyn was usually willing to talk for hours.

Not this time. “I'm sure I don't know,” she said stiffly. “I have always been given to understand that he has very little spare time. He takes a great deal of work home with him.”

“Really? I haven't seen him taking more than a small attaché case when he leaves.”

Evelyn smiled acidly. “He does nearly all his work on a computer, of course, either his laptop or the home computer that is linked to the company network. Surely you realize that.”

“Yes, how silly of me. I'm not yet attuned to computers as a principal tool for business, I admit. But surely the poor man must have
some
time free! He can't work every minute.”

“I've always believed he spends a great deal of time with his family and his gardens, and of course his charities.”

“Oh. Oxfam and that sort of thing?”

“No, no.” She loosened up a little. “Perhaps I oughtn't to have said charities, for they're not that, exactly. It's simply that he's always taken a keen interest in the problems of the less fortunate, particularly the old colonial countries in India and Africa. Whilst he was up at Oxford, he made a number of friends among the foreign students and became interested in their problems at home, and when he became such a successful businessman, he felt he ought to provide what help he could for others struggling to succeed. So he volunteers his time, oh, hours and hours, in an advisory capacity to small foreign businesses trying to establish themselves, or to grow. Or so he tells me.” The stiffness returned to her manner. I didn't understand it.

“But surely not on weekends?” I persisted.

“As I told you, I have no idea how he spends his weekends. It's certainly none of my concern.”

She shut her mouth firmly, brushed the last of the crumbs from her lap for the ecstatic pigeons, and stood. I'd been put properly in my place, but it didn't worry me much. I might not have learned how Mr. Spragge had spent Friday night, but perhaps I had something more valuable—an excellent reason why Mr. Spragge might be stealing from his own company. Was his idealistic commitment to the struggling poor sufficient motivation for piracy? And was that piracy, or the need for keeping it secret, sufficient motive for murder?

I
was now more interested than ever in where Mr. Spragge had been on Friday after work. I felt several things were beginning to come into focus, but I needed some solid evidence. I was trying, between phone calls, to think of an excuse to go into his office when a small crisis arose. Evelyn developed a terrible headache.

I found her at her desk holding a cool cloth to her head. When aspirin and various other remedies did nothing to relieve the pain, I finally persuaded her that she was unfit for work and ought to go home.

“It'll be your hectic weekend taking revenge, I expect,” I said as she left. “Now, don't you try to clean up your flat or anything. Go straight to bed.”

She promised she would, told me to remind the last men out about locking their doors, and went, looking distinctly ill.

I was sorry she felt so awful, but it gave me the opportunity I needed. I was about to go in to see Mr. Spragge when he came out to see me.

“I'm quite helpless without Evelyn, I'm afraid,” he said with a rueful smile. “There was a great deal of dictation to be done, and various other matters for which a skilled secretary is essential.”

“Oh, dear,” I said, taken aback. “Well, I don't take shorthand, but I would be very happy to try—”

“I'm sure you would, Mrs. Wren, and I appreciate your concern. But Mrs. Forbes knows exactly the way I like things done. No, I've stacks of work to be done at home, and that is where I shall be, if anyone needs me. You do have my home telephone number?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “But isn't it hard to concentrate at home?” I added in one last desperate attempt to learn something—anything. “I mean, your family, your garden—”

He frowned. “A man in my position cannot allow himself to be distracted. My wife fully understands that, and assures me of the peace and quiet I need. Good afternoon, Mrs. Wren.”

So. A domestic tyrant as well, perhaps? Interesting, but irrelevant. And I still had no idea where he'd been on Friday.

I was now nearly alone in the office. The entire sales staff, including Mr. Upton, had gone out immediately after their meeting in the morning, presumably with new resolve to pursue customers. I could feel some sympathy for them. Their efforts were essentially doomed.

Mr. Grey and Mr. Hammond, though still working, were sequestered in their own domains. This seemed a good time to try to question Mr. Grey. I thought for a moment and then knocked on his door.

“Yes?”

“I was about to make some tea, Mr. Grey,” I said, poking my head into his office. “I thought a cup might make you feel a little better.”

“Thank you, no. I have had severe dyspepsia since Friday night. Tea would only make matters worse.”

He did look a little green. Could I write him off, if he'd had some sort of stomach flu all weekend?

Stress can upset the stomach. For a nervous little man like Mr. Grey, snooping around a deserted office would be very stressful.

I sighed. “I'm so sorry. I do hope you recover soon.”

No, he was still in the running.

With so few people around, there was (thank heavens!) no one to overhear when I got the phone call. It came in just before six, on Mr. Spragge's private line. I sprinted to Evelyn's desk and picked up the receiver.

“Good afternoon, Multilinks.”

“Thank God, an American voice! Who're you?” The voice at the other end was American, too, and extremely irritated.

“I'm only the receptionist. I'm afraid Mr. Spragge is out, and his secretary as well, but I'd be happy to take a message—”

“Not on your damn life! I've been leaving messages for days, and nobody ever calls back. Now listen, lady, whoever you are, I don't care what you have to do to make it happen, but I want to talk to Bill Monahan, and I want to talk to him now!”

For just a few seconds I was struck dumb.

“Hey! Are you there! I said—”

“Yes, I heard you. I'm not—quite sure where to locate Mr. Monahan at the moment.”

I wasn't, either. I presumed his body was still in the Thames, or wherever it had been dumped by his murderers. As to the location of his soul, if souls have locations, that was between Mr. Monahan and his maker.

The phone was making angry, frustrated noises. “Yeah, that's the line they've been giving me for two weeks! Now, you get this straight. I know you're just a flunky, but my name is Walt Shepherd. Got that?”

“Yes … and your telephone number?”

“I'm at the home office. In Palo Alto. You've got the number there, but I'll give it to you anyway.” The American sequence of numbers gave me a sharp, unexpected stab of homesickness. “And you can tell that boss of yours that unless I hear from Bill by the time I go to bed tonight—that'd be eight in the morning or so, your time—I'm climbing on a plane first thing tomorrow to see what the hell is going on over there!”