Page 17

Arthur

At 10:59 a.m., Arthur stood outside the tall, nondescript building on Pudding Lane, staring at the names on the buzzer. In between Ros Stewart: Psychodrama Psychoanalysis and Top Thai Massage was a faded handwritten label for Pierce Security. Arthur’s stomach churned.

It had all been very well volunteering yesterday, when he was full of bravado having listened to Phyllis’s spying exploits at the funeral. But now he was standing here, about to meet a possible contract killer, Arthur felt considerably less confident. He was a farmer, not some bloody amateur sleuth.

“Maybe we should just have a phone chat with him instead?” he said to Ash.

“We’ll never discover anything on the phone. We need to get into his office so we can have a look around,” the teenager said, and before Arthur could stop him, he leaned forward and pressed the bell.

For about ten seconds nothing happened, and Arthur sighed with relief. “I knew he’d be unreliable; he must have forgotten about our—”

He was interrupted by a click as the door lock opened. Bugger.

“Okay, remember our plan?” Ash whispered as he stepped inside.

“I think so,” Arthur said, although in truth he was so nervous he could barely think straight. What if he got something wrong and the private investigator worked out who they were? Esi’s historical romances often featured assassins and spies, and they were all volatile, dangerous men able to kill a person with their bare hands. What if this Graham Pierce was the same?

Pierce Security had their office on the fourth floor, and Arthur spent the slow climb running over their cover story in his head. After much deliberation, he and Ash had decided to go with a story inspired by another of Esi’s much-loved Bridgerton books, On the Way to the Wedding . It was a slightly far-fetched plot, but Arthur hoped that it would be unusual enough to catch Pierce’s attention and get him talking. Still, his heart was hammering, and not just because of the stairs. When he reached the fourth floor, he saw Ash standing in front of a gray door. He glanced over his shoulder at Arthur.

“Ready?”

Arthur grabbed hold of the banister to stop his legs from shaking. “Ready.”

Ash knocked, then moved back to stand next to Arthur. A moment later the door opened to reveal Graham Pierce.

Arthur wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from an ex-British intelligence officer; perhaps someone tall and dark, with an angular jaw and brooding eyes. But the man standing in front of them looked like a middle-aged accountant, with balding hair and sandwich crumbs in his mustache. He didn’t look like he was capable of tying his own shoelaces, let alone killing anyone.

“Come in, come in,” the man said, stepping aside and holding the door open.

Arthur walked through to find himself in a small, cramped office, in the middle of which was a desk covered in piles of papers and old newspapers. Shelves ran along the back wall, crammed with files, and a dirty window on the right wall looked out over the street below.

“Sorry, remind me of your names again?” the man said as he ushered them in.

“I’m Gregory Benedick. And this is my grandson, eh…”

Christ, what name had they come up with for Ash? Arthur wracked his brain, aware Graham was staring at him.

“Eh, Ben,” he said, throwing out the first name that came into his head.

“Ben Benedick?” Graham blinked in surprise and Arthur kicked himself. “Well, please take a seat.”

Graham indicated two chairs, one of which had an empty McDonald’s bag on it. He hastily scooped the rubbish up and retreated behind his desk.

“Do you mind if I take notes?” he said, nodding at his computer.

“No, go ahead.”

“Thanks. So, how can I help you both?”

Arthur opened his mouth to speak but his mind had gone blank again. What was he supposed to say? His skin was getting clammy and he felt nauseous. Oh God, was he going to be sick? If only Esi were here, this would all be so much easier. Everything had always been so much easier when his wife was by his side.

“We’re here about my mum.”

Arthur looked at Ash in surprise. The teenager had insisted he didn’t want to do any talking in the meeting, and yet here he was now, his voice calm and steady.

“She’s getting married to this guy, Ricky Haselby, who my grandpa and I don’t trust at all. He’s much older than her and super sleazy and we think something weird is going on.”

“Eh…yes…we’re concerned about why she’s marrying him,” Arthur said, picking up the thread of the story. “She doesn’t seem to love him, or even like him very much, so we’re worried something dodgy is going on. Like maybe he’s blackmailing her to marry him…or something.”

Graham was tapping away on his keyboard. “What makes you think it’s blackmail?”

“Well, it just doesn’t make sense why she’d go ahead with this marriage. They barely know each other. And we think she might actually be in love with someone else, which is what makes her engagement to Haselby all the stranger.”

Pierce looked up from his computer. “Is this Mr. Haselby very rich?”

Arthur gulped. Had Pierce read the Bridgerton books and recognized the story, and now he was toying with Arthur before he hurt him?

“Erm, yes,” Arthur said, carefully.

Pierce nodded. “I thought as much. Do you think it’s possible that your daughter is marrying him for his money? I see it all the time, women settling for men far below them just because the guy offers financial security. Maybe it’s nothing more sinister than that?”

“I don’t think it’s that. My daughter isn’t short of money, you see; she’s very wealthy.” Arthur saw the PI take in his frayed jumper and ancient trousers and added, “She’s done well for herself in business, she’s one of those entrepreneurs.”

“And I assume you’ve tried asking her if there’s anything untoward going on?”

“We have but she won’t tell us what’s wrong. She just keeps saying she knows what she’s doing, but we can tell something’s up.”

“I see. And how would you like me to help?”

“We were wondering if you could do some digging and find out more about Ricky,” Ash said. “And also, maybe find out if there’s anything in my mum’s life that she might be being blackmailed about.”

“I can certainly try,” Graham said. “I’d suggest that with a case such as this, you’d want to start with some surveillance work of the two of them, both physical and digital. Depending on how that goes, we can then consider other approaches. Is there a date for the planned wedding?”

“Eh yes, next February,” Arthur said.

“Okay, so that only gives us a couple of months,” Graham said, typing another note.

Arthur glanced over at Ash and caught the boy’s eye. This was going well so far; the PI didn’t seem to be suspicious. But now was the trickier part.

“If you did manage to find evidence that Ricky has been blackmailing my Lucy, what would be the next steps?” Arthur hoped this question sounded more innocent than it felt.

“Well, I suppose I’d suggest you confront your daughter with the evidence and see how she reacts,” the PI said. “If that still doesn’t make her change her mind about the wedding then you’d have two choices: either take the evidence to the police, assuming it was enough to get him prosecuted, or let the wedding go ahead.”

“We don’t want the wedding going ahead,” Arthur said. “That man is a scumbag, and I know he’ll make Lucy unhappy. Are there any other ways we could stop it happening?”

Arthur didn’t dare look at the PI as he asked this. Phyllis had been adamant about this line of questioning; once they’d got Pierce to believe their story, they had to try and get him to open up about his other services, those he didn’t advertise on his website. The same services he might have offered Cynthia Watkins to deal with Eve and Michael.

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean, Mr. Benedick,” Graham said.

Arthur clenched his hands together in his lap to stop them shaking. This was his big moment; if he got this next bit wrong then Pierce might realize they were here under false pretenses, tie them up and interrogate them until they confessed the truth. And Esi always joked that someone only had to tickle Arthur and he’d give up his life secrets.

“Well, say we didn’t have enough evidence to go to the police, but we knew Ricky’s been blackmailing Lucy,” he said carefully. “Are there any other ways we could stop the wedding happening? Any ways we could make Ricky…go away?”

Graham didn’t answer and Arthur felt the question hang in the air. He glanced at Ash and could see the boy’s face was pale. The seconds ticked by, and Arthur waited for the moment Graham pulled out a gun and pointed it straight at Arthur’s head. Or worse, at Ash’s. He closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

A loud noise shattered the silence and Arthur leaped in his chair. He opened his eyes, terrified of what he was about to see.

“Is that…‘Blaze of Glory’ by Jon Bon Jovi?” Ash asked, as music blasted out from somewhere on the desk.

“I’m sorry, it’s my phone’s ringtone,” Graham said, rummaging around to try and locate it. “I thought it was on silent.”

The music continued to blare out.

“I think it might be here,” Ash said, and he pushed aside some paper and produced a buzzing mobile, handing it to Graham.

“Thanks, let me just turn that o—”

“No!” Arthur shouted. “I mean, please feel free to take the call. It might be important.”

The PI shrugged but then pressed answer and the music abruptly stopped. “Hello, Pierce Security.”

The room fell silent as the person on the other end of the line spoke and Arthur found he was holding his breath.

“Calm down, please, and say that again. You think someone has done what?”

Arthur could make out the sound of a voice on the phone but not what they were saying.

“Hang on a second.” Graham moved the phone away from his ear and turned to Arthur and Ash. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, do you mind if I take this call in private?”

“Go ahead,” Arthur said.

Graham looked between the two of them, clearly waiting for them to leave his office.

“Oh, you want us to go out?” Arthur began to push himself up from his chair, making grunting and groaning sounds.

“Here, let me help you, Grandpa,” Ash said, jumping to his side.

Graham was watching them impatiently.

“Be careful. Take it slowly so you don’t hurt yourself,” Ash said, as Arthur puffed and panted.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take this outside,” Graham said, and he stood up and strode toward the office door. “Sorry, madam, please start that again,” he said as he stepped out.

A moment later, Arthur heard the office door click shut. Immediately, he jumped to his feet as Ash rushed round to the far side of the desk.

“Yes, he left his computer unlocked!” the teenager said.

Arthur started to shuffle through the mess on the desk, grabbing pieces of paper at random. Most of it seemed to be old receipts and bills. Giving up on the desk, he moved to the shelves on the back wall, running his eyes along the files, looking for Cynthia Watkins’s name. Like with the desk, there seemed to be no obvious order or system here, with some files labeled by date and others by name.

“Anything on the computer?”

“I’ve searched his e-mail and there’s nothing coming up with Cynthia Watkins’s name,” Ash said. “I’m doing a search of the files now.”

“This is chaos, it’s like looking for a needle in a bleedin’ haystack,” Arthur said, turning from the shelves in dismay.

“Try these drawers,” Ash said, nodding to the desk without taking his eyes off the screen.

Arthur pulled the first one open to be confronted by a mass of discarded KitKat Chunky wrappers.

“This man needs a better diet, or he’ll die of a heart attack.” He tried to open the drawer underneath, but it was locked. He was about to start looking for a key when he heard a gasp from Ash.

“I’ve found something!” the boy said. “There’s a folder with Michael’s name on it.”

“Blimey, Phyllis was right!” Arthur hissed.

Ash reached into his pocket and pulled out a memory stick, then bent down to slot it into the computer.

“I’m not sure I’m the best person to help you.” Graham’s voice floated in through the door. “Perhaps you’d have better luck with the police.”

“Quick, it sounds like he’s finishing up.”

“I’m trying!” Ash’s feet were tapping urgently on the floor. “It’s copying now.”

“Madam, this really isn’t my line of business. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m in the middle of a meeting.”

Arthur gave up on the locked drawer and hurried back round to the other side of the desk. “Ash, you have to come now!”

“One more second!”

“If you’re going to talk to me like that then I definitely won’t help. Good-bye!”

Arthur heard the sound of the door handle creak. At the same moment, Ash jumped up and charged back round the desk, collapsing into his seat the second the door swung open.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Graham said as he strode back in. “That was some crazy woman who claimed eight people are stuck on an island off the south coast of Devon and are about to be murdered one by one. She said she knows who the murderer is and wants me to help her prove it.”

Arthur stifled the smile that was threatening to emerge as he recognized the plot from And Then There Were None , an Agatha Christie novel Phyllis had described in detail at a previous book club meeting.

“You wouldn’t believe the number of weirdos I meet in this line of work, conspiracy theorists who want me to investigate the strangest things,” Graham continued. “Thankfully, after ten years in this business, I’ve got pretty good at weeding out the time-wasters early on. Now, you were asking me if—”

“You know what, you’ve given us plenty to think about,” Arthur said. “Ben and I will have a chat about how we’d like to proceed and be back in touch soon.”

He pushed himself up, giving a quick groan for effect, and Ash leaped up too.

“Would you like to discuss my price structure before you leave?” Graham asked. “I’m willing to offer discounts if you use more than one of my services.”

“Thanks, but we can chat about that next time,” Arthur said as he moved toward the door. “We appreciate your time, Mr. Pierce.”

“Okay, well you know where I am if you need me,” Graham said, but Arthur didn’t wait to hear any more as he was out of the door and moving down the stairs as fast as his eighty-one-year-old legs would carry him.