Barry Maitland - The verge practice

‘I get the impression that you didn’t like Charles’s choice much, Madelaine.’

The other woman seemed about to make some frosty remark, but then she raised her twisted hands in a gesture of resignation and sighed. ‘Miki was an arrogant and manipulative young woman. But Charles fell for her, and there was nothing that I or anyone else could say to dissuade him.’

‘Others tried, did they?’

‘His colleagues were concerned. Sandy Clarke had the unenviable task of voicing their reservations to Charles, but he swept them aside.’ Then she added wistfully, ‘He always had the courage of his convictions, my Charles.’

‘Mr Clarke said that Miki became much more assertive as time went on. Do you think that Charles had begun to have second thoughts?’

Madelaine Verge sighed, as if weary at being dragged from the golden memories of her son’s youth to the sordid complications of the present. ‘He said nothing to me. And no matter how difficult his wife might have been, he would never, never have resorted to anything so grotesque and stupid as murdering her like that. And that really is the nub, isn’t it, Kathy? You must see that. That’s why you must come round to my point of view.’

‘I have to tell you that from the information we’ve got, your idea about the American competitors just doesn’t seem plausible.’

‘You’re direct, Kathy. I like that. Superintendent Chivers was always so tactful in dismissing my ideas that he ended up being patronising and offensive. I didn’t say it was the Americans necessarily, just that it must be somebody like that; a rival, a resentful enemy.’

‘Charles was obviously a strong personality. Did he have enemies as resentful as that?’

‘Clearly he did, and it’s up to you to find them.’

Kathy asked if she could have a few words with Charlotte before she left. She found the young woman in a small room fitted out as an office, working at a computer.

‘Hello, Charlotte,’ Kathy said. ‘Can I have a word?’ The other woman grunted but didn’t shift her attention from the screen. While she waited, Kathy looked around the room at the shelves of computer manuals and files, some rather impressive glossy computer printouts pinned to the wall, a calendar, and a framed lithograph which caught her attention. The geometric figures, three red squares on a fading yellow background, reminded her of the large painting in the Verges’ apartment, and she thought she recognised the small black signature at the bottom. She asked Charlotte if it was the same artist.

‘Yes,’ Charlotte muttered, still not turning from the computer, and then, reluctantly, added a name, which Kathy thought was Ruth Diaz until she examined the signature more closely and realised it was Luz Diaz.

‘Your grandmother mentioned that you have a Spanish artist as a neighbour, at Briar Hill.’

Charlotte finally turned away from her work and looked at Kathy with a resentful glare. ‘Yes, it’s her. She gave me that as a house-warming present, when I moved in.’

‘She’s a friend of your father?’

‘That’s right. You’d know all this if you’d read your own reports. She was interviewed…’ she gave the word a bitter emphasis, ‘… like everyone else. No wonder no one wants to know us any more. No one except the press, that is.’

‘I’m sorry, it must have been very difficult for you.’

‘There’s several Charles Verge websites, have you seen them? All the latest sightings from around the world, the latest sick theories. He was in a three-way relationship with Miki and a lover of hers, did you know that? All three of them were heavily into cocaine, apparently, or LSD. That’s where they got their ideas for buildings from. Or he was inspired by Jack the Ripper, and he’s still stalking the East End with a carving knife.’

She turned away with a sigh. ‘Just go away, will you? We don’t want you here.’

Kathy had had enough of being dismissed by Charlotte. ‘Well, I can understand that. But it won’t go away until we discover the truth. You do appreciate that, don’t you? There will never be any resolution to this until we find your father. Your child will grow up in the shadow of what he did, just as surely as you’re living in it now. When she goes to school, when she applies for a job, people will go on whispering about her.’

Charlotte had gone pale and motionless.

Kathy went on remorselessly, voice low so that Madelaine wouldn’t hear. ‘In the end, you’ll have to make up your mind about whether you can live with that, Charlotte. Hard as it may be to face this, you’re going to have to help us find your father, so that your child can be free of what he did.’

‘Get out…’ Charlotte’s voice was a low hiss. ‘Get out, you fucking bitch.’

Kathy’s face was flushed as she returned to her car and drove off. She felt guilty, annoyed with herself. Maybe she would have been less brutal if Charlotte hadn’t been quite so complacently pregnant, so obviously fecund.

On the outskirts of the village she pulled in to the roadside and made a call on her mobile to Scotland Yard. She got herself put through to the team’s data manager and asked her to check the name. ‘L-U-ZD-I-A-Z, pronounced “Looth Dee-ath”.’ She heard the rattling of a keyboard at the other end, a pause and then, ‘Yes, here she is. Born 18.01.53, unmarried, Spanish citizen, two home addresses, one in Barcelona, Spain, the other in Buckinghamshire, England. She was identified as a possible person of interest on June 14 last and interviewed on July 20 by two officers of the Spanish CGP, and again in London by DI Heron and DS Moffat on August 17.’

There was a pause as the officer scanned the reports, giving Kathy a summary of the main points. ‘Says she’s been a friend of Charles Verge since 1993, when he bought one of her paintings… They met from time to time when he was visiting Barcelona… She claims not to know his relatives there, and she denies ever having a closer relationship with Verge.’

‘We haven’t spoken to her again since the seventeenth of August?’

‘Don’t think so… hang on… no, but both we and the Spanish police did checks on her telephone contacts and bank accounts through May, June and July. Nothing suspicious. And the Spanish police did a search of her Barcelona apartment in July, without result.’

‘What about her purchase of the house in Buckinghamshire from Verge?’

‘Yes, it’s here. Contracts exchanged just over a year ago. All quite legit.’

Kathy considered all this. Luz Diaz was one of hundreds of friends, colleagues and acquaintances who had been checked, and it sounded as if the degree of interest in her had been appropriate. They had discovered nothing incriminating in her behaviour. The only thing that marked her out from all the rest was the fact that she had bought a house from him, which now happened to be close to the daughter he was expected to contact. And, perhaps, that she was single, close to him in age, commuting between Barcelona and Bucks, and artistic. Kathy wondered if she was attractive.

‘Do we have a phone number for her?’

‘Sure.’

Kathy rang off and dialled the number. After some time there was a reply. ‘Allo?’

‘Ms Diaz?’

‘Yes.’

‘My name is Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla from the Metropolitan Police. We’re updating our files on the Charles Verge inquiry, and I’d like to have a talk to you if I could.’

There was a deep sigh from the other end. ‘I’ve told you everything I can. I don’t know what else I can say.’ The voice sounded husky, a smoker’s voice, Kathy thought.

‘It won’t take long.’

Another sigh. ‘Well… hang on, I’ll get my diary.’

‘Actually, I’m in the neighbourhood now, if that would be convenient.’