‘How?’
She stumbles, searching for words. ‘He was so sure.’
Maureen looks away, seeking a distraction, no longer wanting to think about Gideon Tyler.
‘Helen’s mother sent me a get well message,’ she says, pointing to the side table. She directs me to the right card. It features a hand-drawn orchid in pastel shades. Claudia Chambers has written:
God sometimes tests the best people because he knows they’re going to pass. Our thoughts and prayers are with you. Please get well soon.
I replace the card.
Maureen has closed her eyes. Slowly her face folds in pain. The morphine is wearing off. A memory uncurls itself from inside her head and she opens her mouth.
‘Mothers should always know where their children are.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘It’s something he said to me.’
‘Gideon?’
‘I thought he was goading me, but I don’t know any more. Maybe it was the only thing he said that wasn’t a lie.’
48
The law firm of Spencer, Rose and Davis is located in a modern office block opposite the Guildhall and alongside the Law Courts. The foyer is like a modern day citadel, towering five storeys to a convex glass roof crisscrossed with white pipes.
There is a waterfall and a pond and a waiting area with black leather sofas. Ruiz and I watch a man in a pinstriped suit come floating to the floor in one of twin glass lifts.
‘See that guy’s suit,’ Ruiz whispers. ‘It’s worth more than my entire wardrobe.’
‘My shoes are worth more than your entire wardrobe,’ I reply.
‘That’s cruel.’
The pinstriped man confers with the receptionist and moves towards us, unbuttoning his jacket. There are no introductions. We are to follow.
The lift carries us upwards. The potted plants grow smaller and the koi carp become like goldfish.
We are ushered into an office where a septuagenarian lawyer is seated at a large desk that makes him appear even more shrunken. He rises an inch from his leather chair and sits again. It’s either a sign of his age or how much respect he’s going to give us.
‘My name is Julian Spencer,’ he says. ‘I act for Chambers Construction and I’m an old friend of Bryan’s family. I believe that you’ve already met Mr Chambers.’
Bryan Chambers doesn’t bother shaking hands. He is dressed in a suit that no tailor could ever make look comfortable. Some men are built to wear overalls.
‘I think we got off on the wrong foot,’ I say.
‘You tricked your way onto my property and upset my wife.’
‘I apologise if that’s the case.’
Mr Spencer tries to take the edge off the moment, tut-tutting Mr Chambers like a schoolmaster.
Family friends, he said. It doesn’t strike me as a natural alliance- an old money establishment lawyer and working-class millionaire.
The pinstriped man has stayed in the room. He stands by the window, his arms folded.
‘The police are looking for Gideon Tyler,’ I say.
‘It’s about bloody time,’ says Bryan Chambers.
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘No.’
‘When did you last speak to him?’
‘I speak to him all the time. I yell at him down the phone when he calls in the middle of the night and says nothing, just stays on the line, breathing.’
‘You’re sure it’s him.’
Chambers glares at me, as though I’m questioning his intelligence. I meet his eyes and hold them, studying his face. Big men tend to have big personalities, but a shadow has been cast over his life and he’s wilting under the weight of it.
Getting to his feet, he paces the floor, flexing his fingers, closing them into fists and then opening them again.
‘Tyler broke into our house- more than once- I don’t know how many times. I put new locks on the doors, installed cameras, alarms, but it didn’t matter, because he still made it through. He left behind messages. Warnings. Dead birds in the microwave; a gun on our bed; my wife’s cat was stuffed into a toilet cistern.’
‘And you reported all this to the police.’
‘I had them on speed dial. They wore a path to my door, but they were next to fucking useless.’ He glances towards Ruiz. ‘They didn’t arrest him. They didn’t charge him. They said there was no evidence. The calls came from different mobile phones that couldn’t be traced to Tyler. There were no fingerprints or fibres, no footage on the cameras. How can that be?’
‘He’s careful,’ answers Ruiz.
‘Or they’re protecting him.’
‘Why?’
Bryan Chambers shrugs. ‘I don’t know. Makes no sense. I got six guys guarding the house now, round the clock. It’s still not enough.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Last night someone poisoned the lake at Stonebridge Manor,’ he explains. ‘We had four thousand fish- tench, roach and bream- they’re all dead.’
‘Tyler?’
‘Who else?’
The big man has stopped pacing. The fire has gone out of him, at least for the moment.
‘What does Gideon want?’ I ask.
Julian Spencer answers for him. ‘Mr Tyler hasn’t made this clear. At first he wanted to find his wife and daughter.’
‘This was before the ferry accident.’
‘Yes. He didn’t accept the marriage was over and he came looking for Helen and Chloe. He accused Bryan and Claudia of hiding them.’
The lawyer produces a letter from the drawer of his desk, refreshing his memory.
‘My Tyler took legal action in Germany and won a court order for joint custody of his daughter. He wanted an international warrant issued for his wife’s arrest.’
‘They were hiding out in Greece,’ says Ruiz.
‘Just so.’
‘Surely, after the tragedy, Tyler stopped his harassment.’
Bryan Chambers laughs caustically and it turns into a fit of coughing. The old lawyer pours him a glass of water.
‘I don’t understand. Helen and Chloe are dead. Why would Tyler keep harassing you?’
Bryan Chambers slumps forward in a chair, his shoulders collapsing over his chest in a posture of abject defeat. ‘I figured it was about money. Helen was going to inherit the manor one day. I thought Tyler wanted some sort of pay-off. I offered him two hundred thousand pounds if he left us alone. He wouldn’t take it.’
The old lawyer tut-tuts his disapproval.
‘And he hasn’t asked for anything else?’
Chambers shakes his head. ‘The man is a psychopath. I’ve given up trying to understand him. I want to crush the bastard. I want to make him pay…’
Julian Spencer cautions him about making threats.
‘Fuck being careful! My wife is on antidepressants. She doesn’t sleep any more. You see my hands?’ Chambers holds them across the table. ‘You want to know why they’re so steady? Drugs. That’s what Tyler has done to us. We’re both on medication. He’s made our lives a misery.’
When I first met Bryan Chambers, I thought his anger and secrecy were evidence of paranoia. I’m more sympathetic now. He has lost a daughter and granddaughter and his sanity is under threat.
‘Tell me about Gideon,’ I ask. ‘When was the first time you met him?’
‘Helen brought him home. I thought he was a cold fish.’
‘Why?’
‘He looked as though he knew the secrets of everyone in the room, but nobody knew his. It was obvious that he was in the military, but he wouldn’t talk about the army or his work- not even to Helen.’
‘Where was he based?’
‘At Chicksands in Bedfordshire. It’s some sort of army training place.’
‘And then?’
‘Northern Ireland and Germany. He was away a lot. He wouldn’t tell Helen where he was going, but there were clues, she said. Afghanistan. Egypt. Morocco. Poland. Iraq…’
‘Any idea what he was doing?’
‘No.’
Ruiz has wandered across to the window, taking in the view. At the same time, he glances sidelong at the pinstriped man, sizing him up. Ruiz is more intuitive than I am. I look for telltale signals to judge a person, he feels it inside.
I ask Mr Chambers about his daughter’s marriage. I want to know if the breakdown had been sudden or protracted. Some couples cling to nothing more than familiarity and routine, long after any real affection has gone.