One reason why I remembered her. . far from the only one, she’s a very memorable lady indeed. . was that she’s the Clerk to one of the City livery companies, the one which covers makers of fine furniture.
I didn’t know the name of Shirley’s family firm, but I’d a fair idea that it wasn’t called Gash Furniture. She did know it though, as soon as I mentioned John’s name.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I know them.’
‘A profitable business is what I hear,’ I ventured.
‘Believe that if you will,’ said my friend, a remark which told me nothing, but everything. I thanked her, looked forward to seeing her in L’Escala, and said so long.
Still, I kept Fortunato on the back burner, instead, I phoned his wife. She wasn’t exactly delighted to hear from me. ‘This isn’t going to become a habit, is it?’ she blurted out.
‘Vero,’ I promised her, ‘I’ve got enough on my plate without you. But I need to see you now, here at the house.’
‘Are Ramon’s people still there?’
‘Of course not.’
‘And is. .?’
‘That’s an even dafter question. They took him away last night.’
‘I meant your wife, you idiot.’
I felt like one; that notion had never occurred to me. ‘No. She’s been and gone; off to see her sister and mother in the US. What about Ramon?’
‘He’s at work,’ she replied. ‘I haven’t kicked him out yet, if that’s what you mean. I’m biding my time. Look, is this important?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay, I’ll take the baby to my mother and come over.’
She made it in twenty minutes; I had coffee ready and waiting for her, in the sitting room. She surprised me by kissing me as soon as I closed the door.
‘I thought you didn’t want this to be a habit.’ I murmured.
‘I don’t. I’m just indulging myself, that’s all. I still feel very strange.’ She walked over to the big couch and sat down.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Why do you think? The thought that yesterday, while we. . That Rey was lying beneath us all that time.’
‘Hey! I’ve been living with the bastard for a month, and he’s brought me nothing but grief.’
She shuddered, then smiled. ‘Poor you. You want me to feel sorry?’
‘A little consolation wouldn’t go amiss right now,’ I admitted.
‘We’ll see about that when you tell me why you had to see me. . Or was that the reason? It didn’t sound that way.’
‘No. How much has Ramon told you about what happened last night, and about what we found out?’
‘Nothing, other than that you had found Rey Capulet’s body, for real this time.’
‘Okay.’ I filled her in on the story from the beginning, then brought her right up to date. ‘I know who killed him.’
‘Who?’ she gasped.
‘John Gash; Shirley’s son. You met him at our New Year party. Remember the girl with him? Virginie?’ She nodded. ‘I’m betting she’s really Lucille, Rey’s sister.’
Vero gave a wee cry. ‘Ahh, yes!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s it. I remember her, and I remember thinking that she reminded me of someone I’d seen. Rey had her photograph, here and in Paris. But she was different in that; she wore spectacles and her hair was much darker.’
‘Good. I win the money, then. So, the score is that those two killed Rey and walled his body up downstairs. They also killed Sayeed, and left him as a sort of time-bomb in the pool, either to be identified as Capulet or as the reason for his disappearance.
‘But they didn’t just do it for the value of his three properties. They were after something else, something which they couldn’t find, after they killed him. They’ve looked for months, and they kept on looking even after Sergi sold me the house. . which he wasn’t supposed to do.
‘You were here, Vero, with Capulet, in this house. Do you have any ideas about what, or where, this thing might be?’
She stood up. ‘Take me to bed,’ she demanded.
‘Vero, I’m serious.’
‘So am I. Take me to bed and then I’ll tell you what I think.’
She made it up the staircase under her own power this time. I was quite pleased about that. She’s a bigger girl than either Susie or Prim.
I did my absolute best for Scotland, as they say, and she did hers for Catalunya. After a while we lost track of time, but eventually, when all the heavy breathing, sweating, shoving and shouting was over, I noticed that we’d been at it for a good forty minutes. I found myself wondering when Ramon usually got home for his tea.
‘Okay,’ I said to her, summoning up a threatening tone that I’d been practising for my next movie role. ‘You gonna spill the beans now, or do I have to do all that again?’
She laughed out loud and pulled herself up until she was sitting with her back against the shiny frame of the big brass bed. Then she reached up and over her shoulder with her right hand, grabbed the big knob which topped the post, and twisted it, clockwise, as hard as she could.
It began to unscrew, slowly and stiffly.
I watched her, fascinated, then jumped over her and out of bed, taking over from her. The big brass dome was screwed into the post, not just slid in there, but the normal thread pattern was reversed. Even if they had thought to look there, John and Lucille would have tried to unscrew it in the normal way, anticlockwise, and the thing wouldn’t have budged.
It took a while, but eventually the heavy knob came loose and I lifted it out. There was a chain attached to it, and on the end a cylindrical metal container, like the kind they used to have in some big department stores in the days before credit cards when all the cash transactions were completed and change given in a central counting house, connected by tubes to all the sales points. I’ve never seen that system, but my dad described it to me in detail, one day in Edinburgh. That’s what I thought of when I saw Reynard Capulet’s secret treasure.
The lid of the box unscrewed too, but in the normal way. I opened it and shook out on to the bed, eight long keys on a ring, and a single sheet of paper.
‘They’re for safe-deposit boxes,’ said Veronique quietly. ‘Rey turned all his real wealth into bonds and diamonds and kept it in locations all over Europe. Each box has two keys. Rey had one, his sister held the other. But only Rey knew where they all are, and that piece of paper there is the only record of the addresses of the banks where they are kept and the names in which the boxes are held.
‘I know this because I walked in on him once, while he was putting a new key into the box and adding its details to the paper. I thought he would be angry at first, but he just said, “Now you know where the Capulet riches are hidden. Of course, if you tell anyone, I will have to kill you, and them.” He smiled when he said it, but I knew that he meant it.’
‘Jesus,’ I whistled. ‘This is dangerous stuff.’
Vero’s right hand flew to her breast. ‘What if they are still watching this house?’
I looked at her. ‘I wish. I want to meet young Mr Gash again; I’ve got some real pain in store for him. But if they are, they’ll know we’ve found Rey’s body, and that they’ll be rumbled.’
I picked up the bedside telephone. ‘It’s time I called in your old man again. Better get your kit on and beat it home, unless you want to be here when he arrives.’
‘Maybe I do. And why not? He’s never going to believe that you found this hiding place all on your own, in a day, when other people have been looking for it for a year.’
‘Okay, but meet me halfway on this. Get dressed and be downstairs before he gets here.’
37
In deference to Veronique. . not that she was too bothered. . I changed the sheets and aired the bedroom for a good ten minutes after I called her husband.
He didn’t say anything when I let him in and he saw her there. He didn’t have to; his eyes did it for him. For an instant I thought we were going to have to do the macho thing right enough, but his wife crushed him with a few words.