Echo

*6*

There were two Christmas cards on Deacon's desk one morning. The first was from his sister, Emma. "Hugh keeps seeing your byline in The Street so we're assuming this will find you," she had written. "We are none of us getting any younger, so isn't it time we called a truce? At least ring me if you won't ring Ma. Surely it's not that difficult to say sorry and start again." The other was from his first wife, Julia. "I bumped into Emma the other day and she said you're working for The Street. Apparently your mother's been very ill this last year but Emma has promised she won't tell you because Penelope doesn't want you coming back out of guilt or pity. As I've made no such promise, I thought you should know. However, unless you've changed radically in the last five years, you'll probably tear this up and do nothing about it. You were always more stubborn than Penelope."

As Julia had predicted he tore up her card, but stood Emma's on his desk.

Despite spending long hours on Paul Garrety's computer in an attempt to make a match between Billy Blake's image and James Streeter's, Deacon got nowhere. Paul pointed out that it would always be a waste of time unless he could find a better picture of James. "You're not comparing like with like," he explained. "Billy's shots are full-face and the one of James is three-quarter. You need to go back to his wife and see what she's got in the way of old snapshots."

"It's a waste of time, period," said Deacon in disgust, tilting back his chair and staring at the faces. "They're two different men."

"Which is what I've been telling you for the last three days. Why can't you accept it?"

"Because I don't believe in coincidences. It makes sense if Billy was James and none at all if he wasn't." He ticked the points off on his fingers. "James had a reason to seek out his wife-a stranger didn't. Amanda paid for his funeral out of guilt, but her guilt is only logical if she was burying her husband-illogical if she was burying a stranger. She's obsessed with finding out who Billy was, but why if he was completely unknown to her?'' He rapped out a tattoo on the desk. "I think she's telling the truth when she says she didn't know he was there. I also think she's telling the truth when she says she didn't recognize him. But I'm convinced she rapidly came to the conclusion afterwards that the man who died in her garage was James."

Paul was doubtful. "Why didn't she tell the police?"

"Out of fear that they'd think she locked him in the garage on purpose."

"Then why get you interested? Why not let the story die?"

Deacon shrugged. "I can think of two reasons. The first, simple curiosity. She wants to know what happened to James after he walked out of her life. The second, freedom. Until he's declared officially dead, she'll always be tied to him."

"She could divorce him tomorrow on the grounds of desertion."

"But as far as everyone else was concerned he'd still be alive, which means people like me would always be turning up on her doorstep asking questions."

Paul shook his head. "That's a crap argument, Mike. Now if you'd said she wanted him declared dead for mercenary reasons, I'd probably go along with you. Let's say he spoke to her before he died and told her how to lay her hands on his fortune. As his widow she'd inherit the lot. Think on that, my friend."

"My theory only works if she didn't speak to him," declared Deacon mildly. "We're into a whole new ball game if she did. In any case, it looks to me as if she got her hands on the fortune a long time ago."

"You've never been in the ball game, chum. That guy-he tapped the photograph of Billy Blake-"is not James Streeter."

"Then who was he and what the hell was he doing in her garage?"

"Get Barry on to it. He's your best bet."

"I've tried already. He doesn't know. Whoever Billy was he's not in Barry's files."

Paul Garrety looked surprised. "Did he tell you that?" Deacon nodded. "Then how come he strings me along for weeks before he'll admit defeat?"

"Perhaps you've upset him," said Deacon with unconscious irony.

With time on his hands the weekend before Christmas, Deacon telephoned Kenneth Streeter, mentioned his conversation with John, and asked if he could drive out to Bromley and have a chat with James's parents. Kenneth was friendlier and more amenable than his younger son, and made an appointment for the Sunday afternoon.

They lived in a tired-looking terraced house in an unfashionable road, and Deacon was struck by the contrast between this and Amanda's house. Where had her money come from? He rang the doorbell and smiled pleasantly at the elderly man who opened the door. "Michael Deacon," he said, offering his hand.

Kenneth ignored the hand but gestured him inside. "You'd better come in," he said ungraciously, "but only because I don't want our neighbors listening to what I have to say." He closed the door but kept Deacon pinned behind it in the dark hallway. "I don't take kindly to being tricked, Mr. Deacon. You gave me to understand that John would approve of my talking to you, but I spoke to him this morning and discovered that the opposite is true. I will not allow the press to drive a wedge between me and my remaining son, so I'm afraid this has been a wasted trip for you." He reached for the door handle again. "Good day to you."

"Your son misunderstood me, Mr. Streeter. He assumed that because I said James played a part in his own destruction I was referring to the theft of the ten million pounds when in fact I was referring to his wife's rejection of him." He moved forward as the door met his back. "In simple terms, if you want your wife to stand by you when the chips are down, you don't lose her trust by having affairs."

"She's the one who was having the affair," said the other bitterly. "She never gave de Vriess up."

"Are you sure about that? The evidence is very flimsy." He hurried on when the pressure on his back relaxed slightly. "I suggested to John that he's been firing at the wrong targets, which is not the same as saying that James was guilty of theft. Let's say he was murdered as you and John believe, how will you get at the truth if you keep denying that James had an affair with Marianne Filbert. If the evidence was strong enough to convince the police, then it ought to be strong enough to convince you."

A tear glittered in the other man's eye. "If we give in on that point, we have nothing left except our knowledge of James. And what use is a father's word about his son's honesty? Who would believe me?''

"No one that matters," said Deacon brutally. "You'll have to prove it."

"In this country it's guilt that must be proved, not innocence," said the old man obstinately. "I fought for that right fifty years ago and it's outrageous that James has been condemned without any proper hearing of the evidence."

"I agree with you, Mr. Streeter, but to date his defense has been poorly focused. You can't fight a campaign based on a lie. If nothing else, you've alienated the one person who's best placed to help you."

"Meaning Amanda?" Deacon nodded.

"We believe she was party to his murder."

"But you've no proof that he was murdered."

"He never contacted us. That's proof enough." Deacon took the mug shot of Billy Blake from his breast pocket. "Does this man remind you of James at all?"

Bewilderment furrowed Kenneth's brow. "How could he? He's too old."

"He was in his mid-forties when this photograph was taken six months ago."

Streeter pulled the door wide to examine the picture in daylight. "This isn't my son," he said. "What on earth made you think it was?"

"He was a down-and-out, using an alias, and he died in your daughter-in-law's garage. He didn't speak to her or reveal that he was there, but she paid for his funeral and she's been trying to find out who he was ever since. The only obvious explanation for her interest is that she's afraid he may have been James."

There was a long silence while Streeter stared at Billy Blake's face. "It can't be," he said at last, but there was less certainty in his tone. "How could he have aged so much in five years? And why would he live as a down-and-out when he was always welcome here?" "He would have been arrested if he came here. You couldn't have kept him hidden from your neighbors." "Are you trying to tell me that this is James?" "Not necessarily," said Deacon. "I'm saying that for your daughter-in-law to think it might have been, she had to believe he was still alive when this man turned up dead in her garage in June. And that means she can't have been a party to James's alleged murder five years ago."

"Then what happened to him?" asked the older man in despair. "He wasn't a thief, Mr. Deacon. He was brought up to earn money honestly, and it simply wouldn't have occurred to him to take shortcuts. You see, he wanted the status that wealth brings, just as much as he wanted wealth itself, so theft and the danger of imprisonment would never have attracted him." He gave another bewildered frown. "At the time he disappeared, he and Amanda had just sunk all their capital into an old school on the Thames at Teddington which they were planning to develop into luxury flats, and James was as excited about it as she was. They stood to make a handsome profit if the project went through. But why would he be excited by half a million if he was already sitting on ten?"

Because it represented a legitimate way to start laundering the rest, thought Deacon cynically. "What happened to the project?"

"It was completed in 'ninety-two by a construction firm called Lowndes, but we can't find out if Amanda saw it through herself or whether Lowndes bought the property from her. We've written several letters of inquiry, but we've never had an answer. Either way, we'd like to know how she put together enough money to buy her present house in 'ninety-one. If she sold the school first, she couldn't have raised more than the four hundred thousand she and James put towards the purchase of it. But it was probably a great deal less after nine months' interest on bank loans, and certainly not enough to buy into an expensive estate on the Thames. If she didn't sell the school but saw the project through, then she'd have had no capital at all in 'ninety-one." He smiled unhappily. "You see now why we're so suspicious of her."

"Perhaps she and James had other investments which they never told you about."

But Kenneth wouldn't accept that. Four hundred thousand was already more spare capital than most young couples could lay their hands to, he pointed out, and it was honestly earned. James had cashed in his stocks and shares to support the project. Deacon acknowledged the point with a smile while his mind pursued its own line of thought. It would explain why Amanda hadn't wanted a divorce. If the investments were jointly owned, she had access to everything as long as she didn't dissolve the partnership before he could be legally presumed dead after seven years. And if there were other investments in James's name-dishonestly earned?-then she had another two years to wait before she could inherit as his widow.

How much simpler if he'd died in her garage six months ago...

"'Do you have a photograph of James that you could lend me, Mr. Streeter? Preferably a full-face one. I can let you have it back by Tuesday."

...and how frustrating if she couldn 't prove it...

"The police must have searched James's bank accounts at the time he disappeared," he said, taking the snapshot Kenneth Streeter produced for him. "Did they find anything that shouldn't have been there?"

"Of course not. There was nothing to find."

"Have you told them your suspicions about Amanda's newfound wealth?"

A look of weariness crossed the older man's face. "So regularly that I've had an official caution for wasting police time. It's harder than you think to prove a man's innocence, Mr. Deacon."

He phoned an old colleague, now retired, who had spent most of his working life on the financial desks of different newspapers, and arranged to meet him that evening in a pub in Camden Town. "I'm supposed to be off the bloody booze," growled Alan Parker down the wire, "so I can't invite you here. There's not a drop worth drinking in the house."

"Coffee won't kill me," said Deacon.

"It's killing me. I'll see you in the Three Pigeons at eight o'clock. Make mine a double Bells if you get there first."

Deacon hadn't seen Alan for a couple of years and he was shocked by the sight of his old friend. He was desperately thin and his skin had the yellow tinge of jaundice. "Should I be doing this?'' Deacon asked him as he paid for their whiskies.

"You'd better not tell me I look like death, Mike."

He did, but Deacon just smiled and pushed the Bells towards him. "How's Maggie?" he asked, referring to Alan's wife.

"She'd have my guts for garters if she knew where I was and what I was doing." He raised the glass and sampled a mouthful. "I can't get it through to the silly old woman that I'm a far better judge of what's good for me than the blasted quacks."

"So what's the problem? Why have they ordered you off the booze?"

Alan chuckled. "It's the newest form of tyranny, Mike. No one's allowed to die anymore so you're expected to live out your last months in misery. I mustn't smoke, drink, or eat anything remotely tasty in case it kills me. Apparently, dying of boredom is politically correct while succumbing to anything that gives you pleasure isn't."

"Well, don't peg out here, for God's sake, or Maggie will have my guts for garters. Where does she think you are as a matter of interest? Church?"

"She knows exactly where I am, but she's a tyrant with a soft center. I'll be hauled over the coals for this when I get back, but in her heart of hearts she'll be glad I was happy for half an hour. So? What did you want to talk to me about?"

"A man called Nigel de Vriess. The only information I have on him is that he lives in a mansion in Hampshire which he bought in 'ninety-one, and was on the board of Lowenstein's Merchant Bank, which he's since left. Do you know him? I'm interested in where he got the money to buy the mansion."

"That's easy enough. He didn't buy it because he already owned it. If I remember right, his wife took the marital home in Hampstead and he took Halcombe House, although I can't recall now if it was his first divorce or his second. Probably the second because it was a clean-break settlement. It was the first marriage that produced the kids."

"I was told he bought it."

"He did, when he made his first million. But that was twenty-odd years ago. He went belly-up in the eighties when he invested in a transatlantic airline that went bust during the cartel war, but he managed to hang on to the properties. The only reason he joined Lowenstein's was to buy a period of stability while the market recovered. In return for a damn good salary, he expanded their operations in the Far East and gave them footholds round the Pacific rim. He did well for them, too. They owe their place on the map to de Vriess."

"What about this guy, James Streeter, who ripped them off for ten million?"

"What about him? Ten million's chicken feed these days. It took eight hundred million to bring down Baring's Bank." Alan took another mouthful of whisky. "The mistake Lowenstein's made was to force the guy to run and bring the whole thing into the open. They recouped their ten million within forty-eight hours trading on the foreign-exchange markets but the bad publicity set them back six months in terms of credibility."

Deacon took out his cigarette packet and proffered it to Alan with a lift of his eyebrows. "I won't tell Maggie if you don't."

"You're a good lad, Mike." He took a cigarette and placed it reverently between his lips. "The only reason I stopped was because the silly old cow kept crying. Would you believe that? I'm dying in misery so she won't be miserable watching me die. And she always said I was the most selfish man alive."

Deacon found a laugh from somewhere-though God only knew where. "She's right," he said. "I'll never forget that time you invited me out to dinner, then made me pay because you claimed you'd left your wallet at home."

"I had."

"Bullshit. I could see the bulge it was making in your jacket."

"You were very young and green in those days, Mike."

"Yes, and you took advantage of it, you old sod."

"You've been a good friend."

"What do you mean, been a good friend? I still am. Who bought the whiskey?" He saw a cloud pass over Alan's face and changed the subject abruptly. "What's de Vriess doing now?"

"He bought a computer software company called Softworks, renamed it de Vriess Softworks or DVS, sacked half the staff, and turned the damn thing round in two years by producing a cheaper version of Windows for the home-computer market. He's an arrogant S.O.B., but he has a knack for making money. He started with a paper route at thirteen and he's never looked back."

"You said he became a cropper in the eighties," Deacon reminded him.

"A temporary blip, Mike, hence the job with Lowenstein's. Now he's back to where he was before the crash. Shares have recovered, and he's found a nice little earner in DVS."

"There was a woman who used to work for Softworks called Marianne Filbert. Does that name mean anything to you?"

Alan shook his head. "What's the connection with de Vriess?''

Briefly, Deacon explained John Streeter's theory about the conspiracy against James. "I suspect his whole argument is based on wishful thinking, but it's interesting that de Vriess bought the company where James Streeter found his computer expert."

"It's highly predictable if you know de Vriess. I imagine Softworks was put under a microscope to see if the bank's money had found its way into their books, and in the process de Vriess spotted an opportunity. He's as sharp as a bloody ferret."

"You sound as if you admire him."

"I do. The guy has balls. Mind, I don't like him much-few people do-but he doesn't lose sleep over trifles like that. Women love him, which is all he cares about. He's a randy little toad." He gave another chuckle. "Rich men often are. Unlike the rest of us, they can afford to pay for their mistakes."

"You always were a cynical bastard," said Deacon affectionately.

"I'm dying of liver cancer, Mike, but at least my cynicism remains healthy."

"How long have you got?"

"Six months."

"Are you worried about it?"

"Terrified, old son, but I cling to Heinrich Heine's dying words. 'God will forgive me. It's His job.' "

Barry Grover held the snapshot of James Streeter under the lamplight and examined it carefully. "It's a better angle," he said grudgingly. "You'll have more chance of making comparisons with this than with the other one."

Deacon perched casually on the edge of the desk, looming over Barry in a way the little man hated, and planted a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. "You're the expert," he said. "Is that Billy or not?"

"I'd rather you didn't smoke in here," muttered Barry, poking fussily at his "In the interests of my health please don't smoke" notice. "I have asthma and it's not good for me."

"Why didn't you say so before?"

"I assumed you could read." He shoved a folder against Deacon's hip in an attempt to dislodge him from the desk, but Deacon just grinned at him.

"The smell of cigarette smoke is preferable any day to the smell of your feet. When did you last buy yourself a new pair of shoes?''

"It's none of your business."

"The only color you ever wear is black and, believe me, if I've noticed that then the whole damn building's noticed it. I'm beginning to think you only have one pair which probably explains your asthma."

"You're a very rude man."

Deacon's grin broadened. "I suppose you were out on the razzle last night? Hence the lousy mood."

"Yes," lied the little man bitterly. "I went for a drink with some friends."

"Well, if it's a hangover I've got some codeine in my office, and if it's not, then buck up for Christ's sake, and give me an opinion on this picture. Does it look like Billy to you?"

"No."

"They're pretty alike."

"The mouths are different."

"Ten million buys a lot of plastic surgery."

Barry took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. ' 'If you want to identify someone, you don't just compare a couple of photographs and dismiss anything that doesn't fit as plastic surgery. It really is a little more scientific than that, Mike."

"I'm listening."

"Lots of people look like each other, particularly in photographs, so you have to examine what you know about them as well. It's quite pointless finding similarities in faces if one belongs to a man in America and the other to a man in France."

"But that's the whole point. James went missing in nineteen ninety, and Billy didn't surface at a police station until 'ninety-one, with his fingers like claws because he'd been burning off his prints. It's certainly possible that they're one and the same."

"But highly improbable." Barry looked at the photograph again. "What happened to the rest of the money?"

"I don't follow."

"How could he become a penniless derelict within months of having his face altered by plastic surgery. What happened to the rest of the money?''

"I'm still working on that." He interpreted Barry's expression correctly as one of scathing disbelief, although as usual it looked rather silly on the owlish face. "Okay, okay. I agree it's improbable." He stood up. "I promised to send that snapshot back today. Do you have time to make a negative for me?"

"I'm busy at the moment." Barry shuffled pieces of paper around his desk as if to prove the point.

Deacon nodded. "No problem. I'll find out how Lisa's placed. She can probably do it for me."

After he'd gone, Barry drew his own full-face photograph of James Streeter from his top drawer. If Deacon had seen this version, he thought, there'd have been no stopping him. The likeness to Billy Blake was extraordinary.

Purely out of curiosity, Deacon phoned Lowndes Building and Development Corporation and asked to speak to someone about a block of flats they'd converted on the Thames at Teddington in 'ninety-two. He was given the address of the flats, but was told there was no one available to discuss the mechanics of the conversion. "To be honest," said a flustered secretary, "I think it may have been Mr. Merton who saw it through, but he was sacked two years ago."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure. Someone said he was on cocaine."

"Any idea how I can contact him?"

"He emigrated somewhere, but I don't think we have his address."

Deacon penciled Mr. Merton in as someone to follow up after Christmas, alongside Nigel de Vriess.

It was the twenty-first of December, Deacon was crawling in a slow-moving traffic jam and his mood grew blacker as the compulsory office party drew nearer. God, how he loathed Christmas! It was the ultimate proof that his life was empty.

He had spent the afternoon interviewing a prostitute who, under the guise of "researcher," claimed to have had regular access to the Houses of Parliament for paid sex romps with MPs. Good God almighty! And this was news? He despised the British thirst for sleaze which said more about the repressed sexuality of the average Briton than it ever did about the men and women whose peccadillos were splashed across the newspapers. In any case, he was sure the woman was lying (if not about the paid sex sessions then certainly about the regular access) because she hadn't known enough about the internal layout of the buildings. He was equally sure that JP, who was of the "never let the facts get in the way of a good story" school of journalism, would have him chasing the sordid little allegations for weeks in the hopes there was some truth in them. AH, JESUS! Was this all there was?

He put his depression down to Seasonal Adjusted Disorder-SADness-because he couldn't face the alternative of inherited insanity. Every damn thing that had ever gone wrong in his life had happened in bloody December. It couldn't be coincidence. His father had died in December, both his wives had abandoned him in December. He'd been sacked from The Independent in December. And why? Because he couldn't steer clear of the booze at Christmas and had punched his editor during a disagreement over copy. (If he wasn't careful he was going to punch JP over the very same issue.) In the summer, he was objective enough to recognize that he was caught in a vicious circle-things went wrong at Christmas because he was drunk, and he got drunk because things went wrong-but objectivity was always in rare supply when he most needed it.

He abandoned a congested Whitehall to drive up past the Palace. The bitter east wind of the past few days had turned to sleet and beyond the metronome clicking of his windshield wipers was a London geared for festivity. Signs of it were everywhere, in the brilliantly lit Norwegian spruce that annually supplanted Nelson's domination of Trafalgar Square, in the colored lights that decorated shops and offices, in the crowds that thronged the pavements. He viewed them all with a baleful eye and thought about what lay ahead of him when the office shut for Christmas.

Days of waiting for the bloody place to reopen. An empty flat. A desert.

JP decided the prostitute's story had "legs" and told him to rake as much muck as he could.

If there was any gaiety about the office party, then it was happening in another room. Feeling like a trespasser at some interminable wake, Deacon made a half-hearted pass at Lisa and was slapped down for his pains.

"Act your age," she said crossly. "You're old enough to be my father."

With a certain grim satisfaction, he set out to get very drunk indeed.