Nine Ten Begin Again: A Grasshopper Lawns affair Read online

  ‘So you are Simon Henderson.’ Vivian drew her dressing gown more tightly around herself and he nodded, his heavy lips twisting into a smirk.

  ‘He had a little accident. Seemed a shame to waste his banking credentials, considering I also had a banking background and we looked a fair bit alike. Especially seeing I have a few bank directors in my pocket. They got a little over-excited on a fun night out and owed me a pretty big favour for forgetting their names.’

  He grunted a mirthless laugh. ‘They warned me a few months ago that Saltire Standard is being taken over by mine and Si’s previous employers. I thought I’d pay myself a little parachute and bow out gracefully. Sorry I couldn’t see you the other day. Pressing business elsewhere. And actually I’m pretty busy now, but we could need a hostage or two to take with us. Seeing you’ve been so keen to see me, Doll, this could be your chance.’

  He looked towards Hamish and his voice sharpened. ‘Hamish, move. Out the chair.’

  The two big men crowded William as he flushed with rage. Edge glanced involuntarily at Donald, who was watching Thomas closely, his face expressionless as Thomas rounded the desk and sat down in the seat Hamish had silently vacated.

  ‘Well, that’s handy. You’re right in the payees, exactly where I want to be. So let’s start my little Christmas present to myself on its first step—hmm, hmm, three million even, I’ll leave you the shrapnel—enter.’ His face changed as the computer beeped. ‘What the fuck?’

  Donald casually clicked the end-call button on his phone and glanced over at her, and she understood. It was up to Hugh now. If he had heard as clearly as they had been able to hear him, and was quick-witted enough to call the police, and if Patrick had phoned Kirsty about the transfer, and the police put both stories together and reacted quickly enough . . . she felt a dizzying wave of fear. Half an hour at least. At least.

  Thomas looked up at Hamish, his face ugly with rage.

  ‘Where’s the money? You’d better get it back now, this minute. Do you rate your grandson’s life so low, you fool?’

  ‘I can’t get it back.’ Hamish had gone white. ‘I transferred it to the auditor’s account.’

  ‘Fetch the boy. He was in the conservatory with the Ruskie and the darky,’ Thomas ordered one of his big companions, who nodded and walked out the room. ‘Pull the money back, Hamish. Or you’ll regret it the rest of your life. You lost your son. You don’t want to lose your grandson as well. I know there’s a failsafe built in for accidental mispayments, Jemima told me. Use it.’

  Hamish hesitated, and Thomas looked round impatiently. ‘What will convince you quickest? Want us to chainwhip one of your friends?’

  The man standing by Edge stirred at that, and made a grunted objection, and Thomas shrugged. ‘Okay, not the broads. Unless we need to.’ He grinned mirthlessly at Hamish, who looked close to fainting. ‘Jake’s a romantic, but he’s right. If we’re taking them with us, they might as well be of some use. You never know. They say older women are grateful. And more biddable.’

  He pushed himself up from the chair and walked over to Vivian, stopping short of her.

  ‘I would quite like to make you biddable, Mrs Oliver. One way and another, you caused a bit of trouble for me. And you’re not bad looking.’

  William rose convulsively to his feet, his raised elbow crushing the Adam’s apple of the big man who was standing next to him. The other big man sprang for his back and William jerked his head back. There was an audible and sickening crunch and the man fell away, blood spurting from his nose as William surged forward. Thomas ducked round the desk and shouted breathlessly at Jake, who grabbed Edge from behind in a bear hug, one arm across her chest and one round her waist, pinioning her arms and half-lifting her off her feet. She jerked her head back, mimicking William’s move, saw stars as her head met chin instead of nose, then kicked at his shins. He grunted but convulsively tightened his grip. Donald lunged forward but Carl grabbed his arm with both hands and yanked him sideways and back.

  ‘Stop!’ Thomas shouted, ‘or Jake hurts the Cameron bitch really badly. Everybody freeze!’

  Edge, held so tightly she could barely breathe, managed a strangled wheeze, and her captor loosened his hold fractionally. She whooped for breath in the charged silence. William had reached Vivian, who was swaying, and lowered her into a chair with a searing glare at Thomas.

  Thomas looked bleakly at his two henchmen, one grey, both hands to his throat, hoarsely trying to draw breath, the other stemming the flow of blood from a nose grotesquely spread across half his face, and back at William.

  ‘Sputnik said that night at the club you were the most dangerous man in a fight he’d ever seen. Lethal, he said.’ There was a bizarre kind of respect in his voice and Edge suddenly remembered Angie’s comment about the hierarchy of power in the world of the clubs. ‘No need for this to get out of hand. Hamish. Move the money back. Now.’

  Hamish slipped back into the chair and started typing, his fingers trembling.

  Donald jerked his arm free contemptuously and leaned against Katryn’s desk. ‘Before you do that, Hamish, ask yourself, where’s your grandson?’

  Thomas pointed an outraged finger at him and Carl pulled open his jacket and started to unwrap a chain round his waist, grinning. Donald looked calmly at him and back at Thomas.

  ‘You want to make it worse for yourselves, okay. I can’t stop you. But your goon should have been back with wee Hamish by now. The polis have obviously arrived already.’

  ‘The polis?’ Thomas stalked over to Donald, who leaned slightly backwards, still calm, as the bigger man thrust his face forward.

  ‘It was their idea we switched the funds. They’re on their way.’

  ‘The sexy little sergeant.’ Thomas nodded and sneered. ‘She’s very welcome to join the party.’

  ‘Well, no.’ Donald looked impossibly remote. ‘You recognized William. He recognized you too. He’s told the polis he saw you with Jemima, that you were definately her handler. That ‘sexy little sergeant’ rang this morning to say the polis have now confirmed the link between Thomas Morrison and Simon Henderson. The bank gave them your loan portfolio, but the money had already been moved from the receiving accounts, couldn’t be recalled. The polis said to be on the safe side to transfer the money out of reach, and they’d be here to intercept you this afternoon. You’re a little earlier than anyone expected. But only a little. I’m guessing wee Hamish is safe right now and your goon is in custody.’

  ‘Tom—’ Carl paused, both hands on the chain, and looked nervous.

  ‘Shut up.’ Thomas ordered. ‘Go look for Dave. Don’t get seen. Back in five minutes, whether you find him or not.’ He worried at a bit of skin on his thumb, glaring at Donald who returned his stare impassively. ‘I don’t believe you. You’re bluffing. Nobody could possibly have worked it out in time.’

  Donald shrugged. ‘Twenty-one different loans, appearing on your portfolio today, how else could I know that?’

  Thomas reared back. Jake uncertainly tightened his grip on Edge and she couldn’t suppress an inarticulate sound of protest.

  Donald looked across, his blue eyes icy. ‘Let her go.’

  Thomas nodded to Jake, and she was suddenly free. Not for the world would she have spoken and intruded into this odd testosterone-heavy balance, but slipped quietly behind Katryn’s desk to sit down, not trusting her legs to keep her upright. Thomas’s brooding eyes followed her, but he said nothing. As her terror slowly subsided it was replaced by growing curiosity—where were the two missing goons?

  She risked a glance at Jake, who mopped the blood from his split chin with one knuckle, lifting it to his mouth to suck it clean, his resentful eyes never leaving her. She hastily looked away. William was eying Jake thoughtfully and Donald, seemingly relaxed as he leaned against her desk, was coiled like a spring. Thomas seemed to realize it at the same moment as she did and moved hastily backwards. The two men William had neutralized seemed completely out of action, still adr
ift in a sea of their own pain. Hamish sat at the computer at the other end of the room, his mouth half open as he stared at them. The potential for violence hummed in the air, but the balance had changed and no-one seemed willing to make the first explosive move. In the silence, the phone ringing on Katryn’s desk was shockingly loud.

  ‘Speakerphone,’ Thomas ordered and Edge pressed the button.

  ‘This is Detective Inspector Iain McLuskie.’ Iain’s familiar calm voice grew clearer as she quickly pushed the volume higher, almost gasping with relief. ‘I’d like to speak to Thomas Morrison.’

  Thomas squared his shoulders. ‘We’ve got five hostages.’

  His voice was belligerent, but Iain sounded as relaxed as though he were discussing an unpaid parking ticket.

  ‘Right now, Mr Morrison, you’ve got a little matter of attempting to defraud a bank of a bit of cash they can well afford, and of taking advantage of a couple of accidental deaths to intimidate a few gullible individuals. I suspect your banking career is over, but if the bank gets its money back they may not even prosecute. Escalating the situation isn’t really in your interest. Is Hamish Kirby with you?’

  ‘We’re all here.’ Donald stirred and looked at the phone, his voice as calm as Iain’s. ‘This is MacDonald. We’re fine. None of us have been hurt.’

  ‘Good.’ Iain’s voice tinged with satisfaction. ‘I congratulate you on keeping the head, Mr Morrison. We have a nice straightforward situation. Let the Lawns people walk out. Then you can call your lawyer from the local station. You could be out on bail for Hogmanay.’

  ‘MacDonald said you were trying to fix me up for Jemima’s death. I didn’t do it, she killed herself.’

  ‘It’s not illegal to drive someone to suicide,’ Iain’s voice took on a touch of steel, ‘although to my mind it should be. But it isn’t. Everything except the attempted fraud is circumstantial.’

  There was a long silence, then Thomas shrugged. ‘We’ll need an ambulance. Two of my friends are hurt. Can I phone my lawyer from here?’

  ‘Do you have a lawyer, Mr Morrison? If not we can get someone for you. But our list of the people available on Christmas Eve is at the local station. And an ambulance is already on the way.’

  ‘Okay. Go. Move it.’

  Thomas nodded at the others and glared at Jake, who seemed about to argue. William pulled Vivian to her feet, and Hamish took her other arm. Donald stepped lightly across to stand in front of Jake so that Edge, coming from behind the desk, wouldn’t have to pass the big man directly and she squeezed his hand gratefully as they followed the others.

  ‘How did you know?’ she asked in an urgent undertone as they went through the door. ‘How did the police know? How did they get here so fast?’

  ‘I was bluffing, playing for time, hoped that Olga or Jayenthi had taken wee Hamish to see the donkeys or something.’ His voice was as low as hers, warm with satisfaction. ‘But I suspect that when they first arrived and started milling round outside, they were recognized by an old friend who has a pretty good record of tipping the polis off before trouble can start. I think Horace just saved us again. What do you think?’

  Aftermath

  Thomas was indeed Joey’s nephew. His mother, Joey’s sister, had wrested a deathbed promise from Joey that he would protect his unsavoury nephew for the rest of his life. He couldn’t force himself to break that promise, and had very little idea of how corrupt his nephew really was, although he had indeed tried to covertly sabotage his nephew’s sudden insistence on having a job at the Lawns. He has offered the Trust his apology and his resignation. Only the former was accepted.

  Jemima’s murder was firmly tied to Thomas, who won’t be making bail. He had never had any intention of sharing his ‘parachute’ with her and her usefulness ended when she had completed the overrides. Vivian’s appointment with ‘Simon’ hadn’t altered his original plans in any way. Although there is no way of proving he had young James Kirby murdered and photographed, Jemima’s murder will be enough to convict him.

  Edge’s favourite Christmas gift was a tape deck and a mixer tape. He got the songs right.

  William’s gift to Vivian was a full-length flaring leather cape and hood. She gets the giggles every time she looks at it but hasn’t quite plucked up the courage to wear it out of the bungalow for their evening out. He’s hoping she never will.

  That’s nearly the end of the book, and for the first time I have published a whodunit without the next one already part-written. There is a Grasshopper Lawns book pushing through, but it takes a new direction—one of the reasons this book was called Begin Again. The nursery rhyme certainly allows for another five books and the likelihood is that the friends will trip across more murders yet. There are a few things I know for sure; one is that Vivian will never spend another winter in Scotland, which will probably mean she heads to Africa next Christmas. I suspect they’ll all go. There’s a final chapter still to come, for those who’d like a chance to bid the friends au revoir.

  I do hope you were caught on the hop a couple of times—the books don’t usually identify the bad guys so very openly. Classic whodunits, which is what the others in the series are, should present all the clues (and red herrings) fairly, and their authors hope readers will solve the mystery a hair’s breadth ahead of the characters. Or a beat behind. The main thing is that you shouldn’t be impatiently waiting for the characters to catch up or, worse, completely confused by the solution, so the nicest review you could put on a whodunit book was whether you hunted with the pack and were satisfied by the hunt. I hope you feel that the adventure made the slight departure from the usual format forgivable.

  And now, on to Hogmanay, to bring in the new year . . .

  Hogmanay

  The big sports screen was on, Edinburgh Castle massive in spotlights, as the countdown to midnight began. There was a handful of residents, some friends, a few neighbours. Matron was giggling and looking extremely pretty on the arm of the new local doctor, and Hamish had brought his family to bring in the New Year. The Major brushed up his moustache, looking around as though planning his campaign, and Edge and Vivian exchanged glances, then slipped away into the conservatory, propping the door open so they could still see some of the screen but escape the crush.

  Three. . .

  Two. . .

  One. . .

  Fireworks exploded into the clear winter sky as the iconic castle vanished in the fusillade. Through the conservatory windows the two friends could also see rockets going up from the clubhouse at the golf course. After the minutes-long crackling cannonade in the bar, the TV party started singing Auld Lang Syne and the drinkers in the pub joined in noisily. Edge joined Vivian at the window to watch the intermittent rockets exploding overhead.

  ‘It’s been quite a year,’ Vivian remarked idly, tucking her arm through Edge’s and squeezing it affectionately. ‘This time last year we’d just met William and Donald, just solved our first murders. I thought then it was nice to have had one last adventure before I settled down and got old.’

  Edge laughed. ‘You’ll never be old, not to me. You got taller, that’s all. You’re still eight years old. We both are. And we still will be when we’re eighty. Age is only a number.’

  ‘It’s a number that carries fair weight,’ Vivian said ruefully. ‘By the time we get there we’ll have arthritis and rheumatism and creaky joints, and that’s if we stay healthy. Who knows what else life has lined up for the next twenty or so years?’

  ‘I was beginning to think that way a year ago—well, before Betsy’s murder. That was the best thing that ever happened to us. You’d still have met William, somewhere along the line, and you’d have charmed him whether there was a murder to solve or not. You two were meant for each other, but you’d been neighbours here for a couple of years without meeting. Donald and I actively disliked each other when we met. Without William bringing us together we’d probably still be exchanging icy nods. Without the murder we’d never have all become the friends we
did.’

  She shivered slightly and hugged herself.

  ‘I was thinking of it in my bath this evening. Harriet might still be alive. Alison Martin would have died anyway, but we’d still think it a suicide. Sylvia for sure would be committed or dead. So would I be, if I had still have done the singles thing because of my resemblance to Susan. You’d certainly never have done Traviata without Donald, and that pulled us into the thick of the whole Fiona caper. At best, we’d be two placid middle-aged ducks totally riveted by Matilda having the occasional drink with Horace–or not even that, because he only became her neighbour because Betsy died.’

  Vivian smiled past her shoulder and she knew Donald was there. The man moved like a cat. She half-turned and he held up a bottle of champagne and topped up Vivian’s glass, then hers, and quirked an eyebrow at her.

  ‘You’ll never be a middle-aged duck. You’ll stay ageless almost for ever, and when you do get old you’ll be a bossy cackling harridan, terrifying everyone around you except the three of us. Happy New Year, Edge.’ He kissed her cheek lightly as she laughed at his description.

  William came through from the noisy pub, sank gratefully onto one of the sofas and patted the seat next to him for Vivian. Donald topped up William’s glass, then held up his own, his face serious.

  ‘Last year we toasted to new beginnings. If you’d told me a year ago that the year would end like this, that the four of us would be what we are, I wouldn’t even have laughed. I wouldn’t have believed it. So I’d like to propose a toast, to Betsy?’

  ‘It’s clear you never met her,’ Vivian said darkly, and Edge nodded ruefully, but they touched glasses and drank obediently.