The verge practice

8

Leon was waiting for Brock as soon as he arrived at Queen Anne’s Gate. Kathy stayed out of the way as they disappeared into Brock’s office, Leon lugging the forensic files. After half an hour she and the rest of the available team were called together.

Leon looked grey and preoccupied, Kathy thought, while Brock appeared almost pleased in a grim sort of way, as he did when presented with some unexpected new evidence of human frailty.

He spoke to DS Moffat first, the woman who had come to them from Chivers’ team. ‘You remember your LO back in June, Linda? Paul Oakley?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, I remember Paul. He didn’t stay long. Left the force three or four weeks later. Got a better offer, I think.’

‘Right, well Leon has come upon a piece of forensic evidence that appears to have been overlooked, maybe due to the changes in LO around that time. We’ll have to do some more checking, but if it stands up it suggests that Miki Norinaga and Sandy Clarke were lovers. Has that idea ever come up before?’

People shook their heads, interested.

‘I don’t need to speculate on where that might take us. At the least it’d mean that Clarke has lied to us, at the most he might be involved in some way with the murder itself. Now I don’t propose to face him with this just yet. I want to find out as much as we can about him first.’

He began to spell out what they should do. The forensic evidence would be thoroughly reviewed again; the team investigating the financial affairs of the Verge Practice would focus their attention on transactions authorised by Clarke; the security video tapes harvested from the building and the surrounding streets would be pored over once more for possible sightings of Clarke on the weekend of the murder.

‘What else?’ Brock concluded.

Suggestions and counter-suggestions were offered and recorded on a whiteboard. The mood was becoming buoyant, Kathy sensed, as if everyone had been waiting for something like this, a fresh angle, a crack in the story that so far had led them nowhere. Miki’s infidelity, if it were true, might provide a motive for her murder, though Kathy doubted if it would help them track down Verge. But Brock seemed the most confident of all, beaming encouragement as they discussed options, in stark contrast to Leon at his side, silent and dejected. He’s taking it all too personally, she thought, and wanted to reassure and comfort him.

‘Kathy?’ Brock’s voice cut across her thoughts. ‘Any ideas?’

‘Jennifer Mathieson,’ she replied. ‘So far she’s given us the loyal PR story, but she’s been working there for nearly ten years. She must have a pretty good idea of what goes on inside that place. And she’s leaving them soon, so maybe we can get her to be a bit more frank.’

‘Good idea. See if you can talk to her today, will you?’

Kathy nodded, aware that she was supposed to be with her committee all day from ten o’clock that morning. She checked her watch and groaned. She was going to be late again.

The issue that day for the Crime Strategy Working Party was sexual orientation. Before lunch there were to be briefings and discussion papers presented by members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Advisory Group, followed in the afternoon by the formation of focus groups to consider the issues from the point of view of victims, perpetrators and police. By four o’clock each of these groups had presented long lists of objectives, strategies and targets, using felt-tip pens on large sheets of paper. Kathy felt she had become allergic to lists and their mind-numbing effect, although the other members of the committee seemed remarkably enthusiastic.

Finally, when the facilitators, experts and activists had gone, Desmond called the committee members together for a short meeting. Kathy, itching to get away to meet Jennifer Mathieson, was interested to see that Rex, the objector at the previous meeting, had rejoined the group and was now sitting at Desmond’s left hand, with the administrator, Robert, on his right.

‘Well, I think we’ve had a very productive day,’ Desmond began. ‘There are just a couple of pieces of committee business that I thought we should get out of the way before we break up. The first is that I’m pleased to report that we’ve sorted out the problem which Rex raised at our last meeting. The compromise we’ve worked out is that Rex will be appointed as deputy chair to the committee, to take the chair if I’m not available, and he will also have a casting vote in the event of a stalemate. Okay, then the next item…’

‘Hang on, Desmond,’ Jay interrupted. She scratched purple nails through her short hair and frowned doubtfully through her lozenge glasses. ‘Just go through that again, will you?’

Desmond patiently repeated himself, and added an explanation. ‘Rex’s point, which I believe you supported, Jay, was that it would send out the wrong signals to have a police chair. Well, this seems to be the best way to overcome that difficulty without compromising the original terms of appointment.’

‘Are you offering this as a proposal for discussion?’ Jay persisted.

‘Well, no. It’s already been approved, actually.’

‘I see, by the boys’ club, presumably.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Desmond, have you understood nothing of what was said this morning?’ Jay was speaking softly, but it was clear that she was angry. ‘The whole point of this exercise is to help the police reach out to the disadvantaged and underrepresented, right? Am I right?’

‘Of course.’

‘And what is the greatest single source of disadvantage and under-representation? It’s not sexual orientation, it’s not even race-it is gender. Men commit crimes and women are their victims.. .’ She rode right over Desmond’s attempt to modify this generalisation, and continued, ‘And now the boys’ club has decided to rig this committee so that two men will have the same voting rights as the whole of the rest of us put together!’

‘No, no, these are only casting votes we’re talking about, Jay,’ Desmond said soothingly. ‘I firmly intend that it will never come to that sort of situation…’

‘Look at you guys.’ Jay pointed at the three men sitting together across the table. ‘The men set the agenda, run the meeting and write the minutes. The women are window-dressing, as usual. Well, what do the other women say? Shazia?’

Shazia pursed her lips, hesitated, then said carefully, ‘I do agree with Jay, actually. It seems an unnecessary destabilisation of the original balance of the committee. And if the situation will never arise, why introduce it?’

‘Right,’ Jay agreed fiercely. ‘Kathy?’

Kathy felt the eyes of the committee on her. The sensation was remarkably similar to the feeling she’d had in her first confrontation with an armed assailant-that she was about to be mugged for no very good reason.

‘I think it might have been better for the committee to have worked this out together,’ she offered, ‘rather than be presented with a solution. After all, if we can’t work through this sort of difficulty, how can we be expected to make recommendations to anyone else?’

This seemed to defuse the situation a little. Several people nodded grudgingly, but Rex, who hadn’t yet spoken, decided to land the killer punch.

‘Well, the fact is that this solution has been approved by senior management, and it really doesn’t matter how it was arrived at. And if you want to press the matter, Jay, we can put it to a vote, and you will lose, with or without my casting vote.’

‘No she won’t.’ Nathan, the sixth member of the committee, spoke up. ‘I agree with her, and that would give a vote of four to two. I don’t see any point in belonging to this committee if it’s going to be run this way. I’d like to propose that Desmond stand down as chair so that we can have an election. I personally would be in favour of a female chair.’

This caused some excitement. Kathy wondered if Rex and Jay had each been planning their coups right from the beginning, waiting for the right moment to press their claims to be chair. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would have such an ambition. She tried to visualise them making the presentation to the Joint Conference in two weeks, and decided that both of them, in their different ways, would love it; the public exposure, the press interviews and photographs. As for herself, she couldn’t think of anything worse.

Robert, the bureaucrat, face expressionless, said nothing as the arguments ricocheted around the table. But when it began to look as if Desmond might agree to vacate the chair in the interests of peace, sounding rather keen to hand it over to someone else, Robert leaned over and murmured in his ear. Desmond listened, then nodded reluctantly and called the meeting to order.

‘Look, I think we’re all a bit tired after a demanding day. I suggest we adjourn now and meet again in the morning to continue the discussion in a calmer frame of mind. Can I just say that Robert advises me that the position of chair is not negotiable, unfortunately, so I suggest we work from that as a given.’

There was an angry response to this from Jay, then several people said they had appointments in the morning that they couldn’t break. The next meeting was finally arranged for lunchtime on the following day, sandwiches to be provided by the Met. As she made her way to the door, Kathy was stopped by Jay, who also had a hand on Shazia’s arm.

‘Can you hang on for a bit, Kathy? We need to talk.’

‘I’m sorry, Jay. I’ve got another appointment.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’m late.’

‘This is important, Kathy. This whole committee is becoming dysfunctional.’

Kathy eventually bought her freedom by giving Jay her mobile phone number, then hurried away.

When Kathy had phoned Jennifer Mathieson earlier that day, asking for an informal meeting, off the record, the Verge Practice’s information manager had been happy enough to agree, provided it was somewhere the other people in the firm wouldn’t see them. ‘I don’t want to be accused of leaking the gossip of the sinking ship,’ she’d laughed.

‘That’s good,’ Kathy had said. ‘It’s the gossip I’m after.’

The wine bar was in the City, not far from the offices of the property development company Jennifer was due to start work for the following week.

‘I wouldn’t have agreed to this if I hadn’t been leaving VP,’ she said, as they sat down at a quiet table with glasses of chardonnay. ‘I’d have felt disloyal.’

‘Are you saying you were holding stuff back before?’

Jennifer pursed her lips, looking disappointed. ‘You’re not trying to trap me, are you?’

‘No, of course not,’ Kathy said quickly, annoyed with herself for sounding like a prosecutor. She realised that the last twenty-four hours had left her tired and tense. ‘Sorry if I sounded like that. I just wanted to chat really.’

‘That’s okay. I don’t think I deliberately misled anyone, but it’s difficult to keep a sense of balance when you’re being questioned by police in a murder investigation, you know what I mean? At first I clammed up and just said yes or no. But then I felt this odd compulsion to talk, like a confession or something, about everything, and I had to stop myself and make myself remember that loyalty to the firm came first. Now I don’t care.’

Kathy raised her glass. ‘Cheers.’

‘Salud.’

‘Spanish?’

‘It’s what Charles used to say. Good luck to him. I hope he’s drinking something cool like this on some exotic beach right now.’ She sipped at her drink. ‘I suppose I’m doing what he did, getting out, and I’m just realising that it feels pretty good. I’ve been with them for nearly ten years now, my first really responsible job, and I’d forgotten how intense it is in there. Where I’m going they work hard too, but they’re so much more relaxed. They don’t worry every decision to death. If they like the look of something but it costs a lot, that’s fine. They don’t care if it’s not the height of good taste, or consistent with what they did last year, or cutting edge.’

Cutting edge. Kathy pictured the Japanese carving knife, like a small Samurai sword, with which Charles Verge had murdered his wife. Jennifer ran a hand through her hair. It was cut short, in a crisp, rather severe bob.

‘I’m going to let this grow out,’ she said, ‘and I’m going to get some new clothes that aren’t necessarily black, and maybe I’ll have a baby instead of a coronary. So, what gossip were you interested in?’

‘Anything that could help us with motive. What was she doing that caused her to end up dead? Could it have been an affair?’

Jennifer shook her head slowly. ‘There hasn’t been a whisper of anything like that. I suppose if she was very discreet, visiting some secret lover far away from the office, we may not know about it. She didn’t share intimacies with us.’

‘How about someone in the firm?’

‘Not a chance. Oh, when she first came there were plenty of young guys who thought she was really cool and just about the neatest style accessory for an ambitious young architect you could imagine. But once Charles showed an interest that all stopped dead. It would have seemed sacrilegious, I suppose.’

‘How about Sandy Clarke?’

‘Sandy?’ Jennifer looked at Kathy with surprise, then a grin spread over her face. ‘It’s a nice thought, but no. Mind you, I do remember him flirting with her when she first arrived, but Sandy flirts with everyone.’

‘Does he?’

‘Well, I’d call it flirting; he’d probably say it’s just being agreeable. Whatever, he likes to make women feel good, and like him.’

‘And go to bed with him?’

Something occurred to Jennifer, some memory that caused her expression to soften, but whatever it was she apparently decided not to share it with Kathy. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That happens. But nothing serious or dangerous. Nothing that need disturb his perfect family.’

‘It’s perfect, is it?’

‘Oh God, yes. Wife’s family are old county, a mansion in the Cotswolds. He has a married daughter and two sons, both at Oxford, and they live in this fabulous house on the edge of Greenwich Park. He was a navy flier for a couple of years when he was young, helicopters, and he’s still got some of that dash. Well, you’ve met him.’

‘And he still pulls the girls.’

‘Just as a diversion. He can be very amusing and charming, quite different to Charles.’

‘Charles being the fiery and dangerous one?’

‘Fiery, sometimes, and intense. Dangerous? Well, if Miki was having an affair he’d have been angry and jealous, certainly, but he wouldn’t have done that.’

‘So why did he?’

‘Opinion is divided. Among my staff, the secretaries and bookkeepers, the reason is that he just flipped, because all designers are basically a bit obsessive and demented, aren’t they? Among the architects the feeling is a) he didn’t do it and it’s all a terrible mistake, or b) she drove him to it.’

‘How did she do that, if it wasn’t with a lover?’

‘It’s to do with their work. Their lives are so bound up in their work that it would have to be that. Deep down they all care more about how to detail the next staircase than whether their wives are being screwed.’ She laughed and drained her glass. ‘Mmm, that’s quite nice, isn’t it?’

‘Have another,’ Kathy said.

‘Thanks. Does this make me a paid informant? A snout? A grass?’ She laughed again, enjoying herself.

Kathy signalled to a waiter. ‘Go on, then, how did the work drive him to it?’

Jennifer frowned as if trying to work out how to explain. ‘This is not spelled out exactly. It’s more like an undercurrent of belief or superstition that you pick up from time to time in the drawing office. And in a way it is sexual, but not as straightforward as a lover.

‘Did you notice the gender distribution at VP? Basically, there’s a divide. The admin staff are mostly female, while the architects are almost entirely male. I don’t know why it is. I’ve watched them recruiting and interviewing, and I never detected any bias, but not many women designers apply to work there, and those that come usually don’t last. Maybe all architects’ offices are like that, I don’t know; but you’d think it would be a good profession for a woman, wouldn’t you? I’ve wondered if maybe there’s some kind of suppressed aggression or competitiveness at VP that puts women off. Anyway, whatever the reason, that’s the general rule. But there are exceptions, like Miki, and before her Charles’s first wife, Gail.

‘I knew Gail Verge. I joined the firm the year before she left. I used to watch the way she and Charles worked together. Each evening, after the bulk of the staff had gone home, the two of them would tour the drawing office, going from board to board, or computer to computer. They would examine what each person was working on, and Charles would make notes and sketches on a pad of white paper he carried around with him, then he’d tear the page off and leave it for the designer to look at next day.

‘But the thing I noticed as I watched them was that it was almost always Gail who took the lead. She’d stare at the work for a while in silence, then point at something and they’d have a discussion. Then Charles would nod his agreement and do one of his famous little spiky black sketches to show the guy what he had to do.’

The second glass of wine arrived and Jennifer paused while Kathy paid.

‘I assume you’ll get expenses to cover this, will you? The prices are scandalous here.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Kathy said, trying to sound nonchalant. ‘So you think Gail was the better architect?’

‘I’m not sure. Maybe she was a more perceptive critic. Maybe her judgement was better. I think that must be very important for them, don’t you? I mean it’s one thing to be very creative and come up with lots of bright ideas, but it’s also important to be able to decide between them and pick the winner. She was a deeper thinker than Charles, and had a lighter touch. I think that they complemented each other’s strengths. Maybe you should talk to her, she might give you a different angle on Charles. I’ve got her number here.’ She gave it to Kathy.

‘Anyway, she must have decided she’d had enough of living in the shadow of Superman and she walked out, and suddenly Charles was on his own. And it showed; maybe not to the clients on the outside, but to Charles’s hot shot designers. There were whispers in the office that he’d lost his touch. At first we put it down to depression over Gail leaving him, but then it began to seem more than that, as if some kind of magic had left with her. The projects kept rolling in, bigger and bigger, and the discipline of the practice and its talent kept the show going, but something was missing. The rave reviews in the international magazines became more cautious and people began to say that VP was becoming mainstream.

‘Then Miki came along, and Charles came to life again, and everybody was hoping that she would be another Gail, a fresh young queen to rejuvenate the tired old king. I mean, she could draw like an angel and she looked the part, as if she’d sprung fully formed from one of his sharpest buildings, and although she was so young she had confidence and authority.’

‘I thought people didn’t like her.’

‘On a personal level, that’s true. She was arrogant and ambitious and cold. But that didn’t matter. The point was that she might restore Charles’s magic touch, turn the good back into the brilliant.’

‘Did it work?’

‘No. After they were married Charles began to give her more and more freedom in their design work together. It seemed okay, people were encouraged. Then came disaster.

There’s this building that nobody in the firm ever mentions now, the Labuan Assembly. Fortunately it’s a long way away and almost nobody goes there, but those that have all agree that it’s an absolute pig-out of scale, clunky and derivative. And it was Miki’s.’

‘But what about Sandy Clarke? Where does he fit into this?’

‘Sandy is the one who manages the teams who develop the production drawings for the buildings after Charles and his people have worked out the concept designs. You could say that Sandy’s talent is to bring Charles’s designs to life as faithfully as possible. When he realised what people were saying about the Labuan Assembly building, he persuaded Charles to keep the architectural press away. Effectively he buried it.’

‘How did Miki feel about that?’

‘She was furious, but Charles knew in his heart that Sandy was right. After that he insisted on making all the major design decisions alone.’

‘How did that affect their relationship?’

Jennifer shrugged. ‘That was the end of the honeymoon. Things got tense.’

‘What about the Home Office project, Marchdale Prison? Who designed that?’

‘Charles, one hundred per cent. I would say that Marchdale is Charles’s attempt to wipe out the shame of Labuan, his demonstration that he can still do it like in the old days. He was obsessive about it and took control of every decision, doing little sketches at night for the draughtsmen like he used to do with Gail. Mind you, to hear Miki talk about it sometimes, you’d have thought it was all hers.’

‘Are you suggesting that as a motive for murder? Professional jealousy?’

‘No. Everyone at VP knew whose work it really was. But if you were to look at their personal relationship as a reflection of their working relationship, you’d have to say that when he killed her she was already dead for him.’

‘You mean, she’d outlived her usefulness? That’s a pretty horrible idea.’

‘Yeah. It’s not a motive exactly, but when you’re looking for the thing that finally put the knife into her heart, you have to bear that background in mind.’