Elizabeth George - In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner

They demurred on everything and got to the point. They'd been told that Nicola Maiden had been employed by MKR Financial Management from October of the previous year.

True enough, Reeve affirmed.

She worked as a trainee?

Equally true, Reeve agreed.

What was that exactly? What was she training for?

Investment advisor, Reeve told them. Nicola was preparing herself to be able to manage financial portfolios: stocks, bonds, mutual funds, derivatives, offshore holdings… MKR managed the investments of some of the biggest hitters in the marketplace. With complete discretion, of course.

Lovely, Barbara told him. It was, then, their assumption that Nicola had remained in his employ until she'd taken a leave of absence to work for a solicitor in Derbyshire for the summer. If Mr. Reeve would-Reeve stopped them from going further. He said, “Nicola didn't take a leave from MKR. She quit at the end of April. She was moving home to the North, she said.”

“Moving home?” Barbara repeated. Then what of the forwarding address she'd left with her landlady in Islington? she wondered. An address in Fulham was hardly north of anything save the river.

“That's what she told me,” Reeve said. “I take it she told others something else?” He offered them an exasperated smile. “Well, to be honest, that doesn't surprise me. I discovered that Nicola sometimes played a bit fast and loose with her facts. It wasn't one of her finer qualities. Had she not quit, I probably would have let her go eventually. I had my…” He pressed his fingertips together. “I had my doubts about her ability to be discreet. And discretion is critical in this line of work. We represent some very prominent players, and as we have access to all their financial data, they have to be able to depend on our ability to be circumspect with our information.”

“The Maiden girl wasn't?” Nkata asked.

“I don't want to say that,” Reeve said hastily “Nicola was quick and bright, no mistake about that. But there was something about her that needed watching. So I watched. She had an excellent hand with our clients, which was certainly to her credit. But she had a tendency to be a bit… well, perhaps overawed is the best way to put it. She was rather overawed by the value of some of their portfolios. And it's never a good idea to make how-much-Sir-Somebody-is-worth the topic of lunchtime conversation with your pals.”

“Was there any client with whom she may have had a special hand?” Barbara asked. “One that extended after business hours?”

Reeves eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

Nkata took the ball. “The girl had a lover here in town, Mr. Reeve. We're looking for him.”

“I don't know anything about a lover. But if Nicola had one, you'll more likely find him at the College of Law.”

“We've been told that she left the College of Law to work full-time for you.”

Reeve looked affronted. “I hope you're not suggesting that Nicola Maiden and I-”

“Well, she was a fine-looking woman.”

“As is my own wife.”

“I'm wondering if your wife had anything to do with why she left. It's odd, you ask me. The Maiden girl leaves law college to work for you full-time, but she leaves you practically the same week. Why d'you think she did that?”

“I told you. She said she was moving home to Derbyshire-”

“-where she went to work for a bloke who tells us she had a man in London. Right. So what I'm wondering is whether that London man's you.”

Barbara shot Nkata an admiring glance. She liked that he was willing to cut to the chase.

“I happen to be in love with my wife,” Reeve said deliberately. “Tricia and I have been together for twenty years, and if you think I'd jeopardise everything we have for a one-time romp with a college girl, then you're wrong.”

“There's nothing to suggest it was a one-off,” Barbara said.

“One-off or every night of the week,” Reeve countered, “I wasn't interested in a liaison with Nicola Maiden.” He seemed to stiffen as his thoughts suddenly took another direction. He drew in a shallow breath and reached for a silver letter opener that sat in the middle of his desk. He said, “Has someone told you otherwise? Has my good name been slandered by someone? I insist on knowing. Because if that's the case, I'll be talking to my solicitor.”

He was definitely an American, Barbara thought wearily. She said, “Do you know a bloke called Terry Cole, Mr. Reeve?”

“Terry Cole? C-o-l-e? I see.” As he spoke, Reeve reached for a pen and a pad of paper and scrawled the name. “So he's the little bastard who's said that-”

“Terry Cole's dead,” Nkata cut in. “He didn't say anything. He died with the Maiden girl in Derbyshire. You know him?”

“I've never heard of him. When I asked who'd told you… Look here. Nicola's dead and I'm sorry she's dead. But I haven't seen her since the end of April. I haven't talked to her since the end of April. And if someone out there is besmirching my good name, I mean to take whatever steps are necessary to rout the bastard out and make him pay.”

“Is that your usual reaction when you're crossed?” Barbara asked.

Reeve set down his pen. “This interview's over.”

“Mr. Reeve…”

“Please leave. You've had my time and I've told you what I know. If you think I'm going to play police patsy and sit here while you attempt to lead me down the garden path towards some sort of self-incrimination…” He pointed at them both. He had, Barbara saw, inordinately small hands, his knuckles cross-hatched with myriad scars. “You guys need to be less obvious,” he said. “Now, get out of here. Pronto.”

There was nothing for it but to accede to his request. Good expatriate Yank that he was, his next move surely was going to be to ring up his solicitor and claim harassment. There was no point pushing anything further.

“Nice work, Winston,” Barbara said when her colleague had unlocked the Bentley and they'd climbed inside. “You put him on the ropes quick and proper.”

“No sense in wasting our time.” He examined the building. “I wonder if there's a real Children in Need do going on at the Dorchester today.”

“There must be something going on somewhere. She was dressed up to the nines, wasn't she?”

Nkata looked at Barbara. His glance traveled over her clothes sorrowfully “With all respect, Barb…”

She laughed. “All right. What do I know about the nines anyway?”

He chuckled and started the car. Pulling away from the pavement, he said, “Seat belt, Barb.”

Barbara said, “Oh. Right,” and turned in her seat to reach for it.

Which was when she saw Tricia Reeve. The assistant director of MKR had taken herself nowhere near the Dorchester, as things turned out. She was skulking round the side of the building, hastening up the front steps, and heading straight for the door.

The moment the cops were out of his office, Martin Reeve pressed the call button that was recessed into one of the shelves on which his collection of Henley photos were arranged. Just as the phony college diplomas were part of the Martin Reeve Story, the Henley photos were a vital piece of the Martin and Tricia Reeve Romance. It was part of their manufactured history that they'd first met at the Regatta. He'd been telling the apocryphal tale of their introduction for so long that he'd begun to believe it himself.

His call was answered in less than five seconds, a record. Jaz Burns entered the room without knocking. “A real cow, she was,” he said with a smirk. “Fancy shagging her, Marty. You'd not soon forget it.”

From his lair at the back of the house, it was Jaz's habit to play Peeping Tom with the surveillance equipment in Martin's office. He had an annoying tendency to voyeurism, which Martin was willing to overlook in the cause of employing his other talents.