See No Evil

21

Calder could tell the woman sitting opposite was Cornelius van Zyl’s daughter. She was tall with his square jaw and his blue piercing eyes surrounded by crows’ feet. She also had his broad shoulders, but her body was lean and sinewy, angles rather than curves. She was wearing tight jeans and a light sweater, her blonde hair was cut short, revealing ears that were pierced with three sets of gold earrings. Calder calculated that she must be in her early forties, but apart from the wrinkles around her eyes, she looked younger.

They were in a restaurant on the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, a large redeveloped area of wharves, shops, restaurants, yachts and fishing boats. The wharf in front of them was heaving with the tourists and citizens of Cape Town, almost all of them white, enjoying the late-autumn sun. A cacophony of music drifted in from the open windows as gospel singers, a saxophonist and a group of four electric guitarists wearing kilts launched a combined assault on the crowd. Behind it all were the glass and steel towers of the city centre, and behind them Table Mountain, a long high wall of grey, pale in the soft sunlight, supporting its mysterious plateau 3,000 feet above the city.

Calder had caught his first glimpse of it that morning, when he had looked up from his airline breakfast to see the great mountain silhouetted black in the gunmetal-blue dawn light, rising like an island out of a broad sea of white cloud which stretched out to the jagged profile of more mountains to the east. As the plane drew nearer he could see the cloud moving and swirling about the summit, like waves hitting a rocky shore. Now, seven hours later, it had all burned away to leave the sky bright blue and the mountain shimmering.

Still feeling muzzy from the broken sleep of his flight, Calder squinted at the menu, trying to decide between springbok pie and ostrich. In the end he went for the springbok. Zan chose pasta.

‘So you’re the only van Zyl to stay on in South Africa?’ Calder said.

‘That’s right,’ Zan replied. She had a much more distinctive South African accent than her siblings or her father. ‘I like it here, especially Cape Town. You have to admit, it’s a beautiful city.’

‘It certainly beats mid-winter in London,’ Calder agreed.

‘I know. I spent a year there and the long nights got me down. That, and the way everyone wore black; it’s the last thing you need in such a grey country. I was supposed to be studying at the LSE but I spent most of my time doing my bit for the struggle. I dropped out after the first year and went to Mozambique for a spell. It was all very exciting, but when we won and Mandela came to power I decided to come home. A free South Africa was what we had all been fighting for, after all.’

‘What are you doing now? Something political?’

‘Oh, no. After 1994 the political urge sort of left me. It’s up to others to figure out what to do with the country now. I came into an inheritance from my mother which I invested in property. That’s how I met Piet, my husband. Now I’m a suburban housewife with two kids and I’m very happy with that.’

‘Do you think your father was wrong to leave South Africa?’

Zan glanced at him. ‘Yes. Yes, I do. He always used to make such a big deal about how important the country was to him, and then he changed his mind. I know that bugged Martha too.’ She sighed. ‘I’m afraid I’ve lost touch with the rest of my family since she died. They say that something like that either pulls a family together or forces it apart. I guess in my case it forced me away. I still talk to Edwin every now and then, and I saw Todd and Kim when they visited here just after they were married, but not my father.’

‘Who do you think killed Martha?’ Calder asked.

‘You mean do I think my father killed her?’ Zan looked at Calder sharply, her blue eyes, Cornelius’s eyes, piercing.

Calder held her gaze and shrugged.

She relaxed a touch. ‘It’s a question I have asked myself many times over the years. The police story was that it was ANC guerrillas. Obviously you couldn’t trust anything the police said in those days, but it is possible, I suppose. The guerrillas would cross the Kruger Park and then the game reserves on its western edge, like Kupugani, before losing themselves in the towns and villages on the other side. Normally they wouldn’t make trouble on the way; the whole idea was to infiltrate the country quietly. I asked around when I was in Mozambique the following year, but no one knew anything about Martha’s murder. It could have been poachers: there were quite a few of those about then. Todd seems to think it was a cover story. Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps the security police killed her. Or, well—’ She hesitated ‘— perhaps it was my father. That’s what you’ve come here to find out, isn’t it?’

Calder nodded. ‘I’m trying to keep an open mind. Someone tried to kill Todd and me, and someone maimed my sister—’

‘I heard about that,’ Zan said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Calder smiled quickly. ‘Someone is trying to prevent Todd or me finding out what happened to Martha. And yes, your father is a possibility.’

Zan frowned. ‘He and I haven’t got along for a long time, but even so it’s difficult to think of him actually killing her. Or Todd, for that matter.’

‘You were living with them when she was murdered. I understand that their marriage was going through a rocky period?’

‘That’s right, I stayed at Hondehoek for part of that winter, although I had just left for London a couple of days before Martha was murdered. But to answer your question, yes, the atmosphere in the house was terrible. Some of it was to do with Pa’s decision to close down the Cape Daily Mail. Martha really didn’t like that idea. But there was more to it than that. My guess is that one or other of them was having an affair.’

‘Really? Which one?’

‘I don’t know,’ Zan said. ‘At the time I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to get on with them both. You see I’d grown away from them when I was at university. My politics had become pretty radical, much more radical than theirs, and I suppose I was rebelling. But then my uncle was killed, I knew my relationship with my mother was irreparable, and they were the only family I had. I was worried for their safety if the revolution came and it was violent. I wanted to build bridges.’ She paused, bit her lip and looked away from Calder towards the mountain. When she turned back she was blinking. ‘I think I succeeded. I was very fond of Martha. She was a wonderful stepmother to me when I was a kid, more of a mother than my real mother — much more, and I pushed her away when I was a teenager. I’m so glad we spent that winter together before she died.’

‘I’m sorry to bring this all back,’ Calder said softly.

‘No, that’s all right,’ Zan said. ‘Someone has to. My father won’t. Todd tried and look what happened to him.’

‘Was there anyone else who could have had a reason to kill Martha? Anyone who hated her?’

‘My mother hated her,’ Zan said. ‘Understandably, really. She never forgave her for stealing her husband. And she was angry that Pa kept the newspaper business after they got divorced. Her father had staked him the money to buy it.’ Zan saw Calder struggling to ask his next question tactfully, and put him out of his misery. ‘But I really doubt she did it. If Martha had been found hit over the head with a gin bottle, maybe, but Mom was drunk most of the time. She certainly wouldn’t have been capable of killing her herself, and I doubt she was organized enough to arrange it. She’s dead now, anyway, so you can’t ask her.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Zan shook her head. ‘I’m glad in a way. She was getting worse and worse.’ She ran her hand quickly through her short blonde hair as if trying to brush the memory of her mother away. ‘But to go back to your original question, perhaps it was the security police. Although Martha was always against the apartheid regime, she never did anything political about it. I think she didn’t want to embarrass Pa. But towards the end she asked me a couple of times whether she could join me on a protest march. She went to a huge funeral for our maid’s son, which at that time was a political statement. And she was a good friend of Libby Wiseman.’

‘Libby Wiseman?’

‘They were on the board of a charity together, a literacy project in Guguletu. Libby Wiseman was a lecturer at the University of Cape Town and quite a radical. She was probably a member of the Communist Party at that time, she certainly was a member of the Party later on. She became a junior minister in the first post-apartheid government. Martha might have done some things with her, things that the security police disapproved of. In fact I remember a couple of policemen came round to warn her to be careful who she spoke to.’

‘Do you know where I could find Libby Wiseman now?’

‘No idea,’ Zan said. ‘But she was relatively well known a few years ago. It should be possible to track her down.’

‘Did you ever get in trouble with the security police yourself?’ Calder asked.

Zan smiled. ‘A few nights in jail when I was a student in Jo’burg. But I didn’t get involved in anything heavy until I went to London.’

‘And Mozambique?’

‘And Mozambique.’

Calder wondered what doing something ‘heavy’ in Mozambique entailed. Zan looked as if she could handle herself, even now. ‘Do you still swim?’

‘Yes, I do. What made you ask that?’

‘Someone told me you used to be an Olympic-class swimmer. And you look in good condition.’

‘I swim. I run. I do the triathlon. In fact I’m training for the Comrades Marathon in Durban in a couple of weeks. Eighty-nine k’s.’

‘Jesus! And you run all that way?’

Zan smiled. ‘Oh, yes. I’m getting older, but I’m not slowing much, especially over long distances.’

Calder, who usually prided himself on his physical fitness, felt like a slug as he mopped up the last of the springbok gravy. The waitress took away their empty plates and brought some coffee. The sun shone brightly on the multitude thronging the wharves. The darkness of apartheid seemed a long way off, although Calder still couldn’t see many black faces in the crowd.

‘No one seems to know why Martha chose to go to Kupugani that weekend,’ he said.

‘You’re right, it is a bit of a mystery. I remember her telling me she was going. She said she just wanted to get away. We used to stay at a game reserve as a family when I was a kid, a place called Mala Mala. It’s quite upscale, quite famous, I know Martha enjoyed going there. But I’d never even heard of Kupugani before. Perhaps a friend recommended it.’

‘Just another one of those things that doesn’t quite make sense,’ Calder said. ‘I know Todd asked you this, but did you ever see Martha writing anything in a diary?’

‘No, I didn’t. Nor have I ever heard of the Laagerbond.’

‘Oh, well. Is there anyone you know who I could ask about it?’

Zan fiddled with the row of rings in her ear. ‘Actually, I might be able to help you there,’ she said. ‘The National Intelligence Agency merged the old regime’s security forces with those of the ANC. I’ve never quite figured out how they managed that. A lot of documents relating to the security forces’ activities were destroyed in the early nineties, literally tonnes of them. I don’t know whether anything about the Laagerbond will have survived. Or the ANC might have some information in their files. I can ask a couple of comrades from my days in the struggle who work there now.’

‘Let me know what they say.’ Calder scribbled down his mobile phone number. ‘If you can get in touch with them in the next few days while I’m still here, that will be a great help.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’ Zan looked at her watch. ‘I must go. I’ve got to pick up the kids from school. It’s going to be difficult, you know. To find out what happened. There were many crimes committed in those days, and this country has become expert at forgetting them. It’s had to to survive.’

‘I know. But I’m quite determined. This isn’t about history for me, it’s about today, about what happened to Todd and my sister. Whoever it was who tried to kill them, I’ll find them.’

‘I believe you will,’ said Zan.

Sandy brushed the breadcrumbs off the documents in front of her. It was three o’clock and she had just finished what was supposed to be lunch, although her body clock was so messed up she didn’t really know what meal it was. She had arrived at Heathrow on an overnight flight from New York that morning and she was due to return the following evening after a big meeting with the client.

The clause in front of her blurred as she read it for the third time. It was one of those badly drafted legal sentences where the distance between subject, verb and object could be measured in vertical inches on the page. But the reason she couldn’t concentrate was the thought of the meeting she was due to have with the senior London partner that afternoon.

She still wasn’t absolutely sure what to do: whether to try to withdraw her request for a transfer to the London office, or whether to leave it and hope that it would be turned down anyway. She was quite sure that there was no future in her relationship with Alex, and she couldn’t believe that she had been so stupid as to think that there might have been. But she would look a total loser if she told the partner that, sorry, she had made a mistake, she didn’t have an English boyfriend after all. How unprofessional was that?

The anger welled up again. Damn him!

The phone rang a couple of desks away, and a moment later a secretary called over to her. ‘There’s a Mrs van Zyl downstairs to see you.’

‘Van Zyl? As in Cornelius van Zyl?’ The Times takeover was all over the business press, and Sandy had been following it with passing interest.

The secretary shrugged.

‘OK. Tell her I’ll be right down.’

Sandy took her jacket off the back of her chair, went to the bathroom to check herself in the mirror and headed for the lifts. The man at reception nodded towards a pair of slim legs beneath an open copy of The Times.

‘Mrs van Zyl?’ Sandy approached, an expectant smile on her face.

The newspaper was lowered. It took her a moment, but Sandy recognized the dark curly hair, the pale face, the lively eyes.

‘You!’

Kim smiled nervously and scrambled to her feet. ‘Hello, Sandy.’

Sandy’s mouth hung open. ‘Are you who I think you are?’

‘Probably.’

‘Then what the hell are you doing here?’

‘I want to talk to you. About Alex.’

‘You must be crazy.’ Sandy turned on her heel.

‘Wait! Please. For Alex’s sake.’

Sandy stopped. ‘For Alex’s sake! And just why exactly would I do anything for Alex’s sake?’

‘OK, for your sake.’

‘What can you have to say that could be of any interest to me?’

‘Look, I know you must be angry,’ Kim said quickly. ‘I know I would be in your situation, but listen to what I have to say and then you can walk off. Please.’

Sandy hesitated. The other woman looked sincere, troubled, honest even. She shrugged. ‘There’s a Costa Coffee around the corner. Let’s go.’

They walked quickly out of Trelawney Stewart’s offices and on to the pavement.

‘Your secretary in New York said you would be over here for a couple of days,’ Kim said. ‘When are you going back?’

Sandy resolutely ignored the small talk. They walked in rapid silence to the coffee shop, both ordered skinny lattes and sat down.

‘OK,’ Sandy said. ‘Talk to me.’

‘Alex was absolutely devastated after you discovered us the other day.’

Sandy shrugged. She was a tall woman with short wispy blonde hair, high cheekbones and clear blue eyes and she could look cold when she wanted to. She looked very cold.

‘I’ve been a friend of Alex’s for a long time, since university, a very good friend, but that’s the only time we’ve ever...’ Kim hesitated searching for the right euphemism.

‘Screwed each other?’ Sandy suggested.

‘Yeah, well. And it hasn’t happened since. I know Alex would like nothing more than to see you again. So I’ve come to ask you to give him another chance.’

‘Did he send you?’

‘God, no. He’d be too humiliated. I’m humiliated. But I am fond of him and I don’t want to be responsible for messing up his life as well as my own. We talked about you; he told me how important you are to him. He thought you weren’t interested in him any more, but you must have been to appear at his house so suddenly like that.’

‘Perhaps I was,’ said Sandy. ‘But I’m certainly not now.’

‘Please give him a chance. He’s in South Africa at the moment, but when he gets back, call him.’

Sandy studied Kim, her face impassive. ‘Didn’t you say your name was Mrs van Zyl?’

‘Yes,’ Kim said, lowering her eyes.

‘Are you related to Cornelius van Zyl?’

‘He’s my father-in-law.’

‘I see. And where was your husband when you and Alex were rolling around in the grass?’

Kim looked down at her coffee and mumbled something.

‘Sorry, I didn’t catch that.’

Kim raised her head and looked straight at Sandy. ‘In hospital,’ she said, her voice quavering.

‘You’re not serious?’ Sandy said, unable to keep the contempt from her voice.

Kim tried to hold Sandy’s gaze, but her chin wobbled and a tear ran down her cheek. Without a word, she dabbed her eyes with her knuckle, sniffed and blundered for the exit.

Sandy watched her go.

Benton glanced around the small conference table. One of the few good things about being head of the London office of Bloomfield Weiss was that he rated a large desk, leather sofas and chairs, a corner view of Broadgate Circle and his own little conference table. He had managed to manoeuvre Dower into coming up there to make the call, rather than traipsing down to Investment Banking. It wasn’t a question of convenience, it was much more important than that; it was a question of status, who was leading the deal. They had bad news to deliver to Cornelius van Zyl, and Dower wanted Benton to do it. Coward. And fool. Benton would become more indispensable to the deal. So now Benton, Dower and two bag-carriers huddled around the speaker phone.

Benton punched out Cornelius’s number in his Madeira Quay office. Since the Times deal had become public Cornelius had decamped from his home to the Herald offices in Docklands.

‘Morning, Cornelius,’ Benton began. ‘How are you today?’

‘I’m fine, Benton.’ Cornelius’s voice was loud, clear and impatient. ‘What’s up?’

‘I’ve got Chris Dower here and a couple of his colleagues,’ Benton said. ‘We’ve just heard from Gurney Kroheim. Laxton Media have received another bid.’

‘Shit,’ said Cornelius. ‘From Gill?’

‘That’s right. Eight hundred and seventy-five million. Cash.’

‘Shit, shit, shit. I thought you said you didn’t think Gill could get access to more funds?’

‘It looks like we were wrong,’ said Benton.

‘Will the Laxton board recommend it?’

‘According to Gurney Kroheim, “they are minded to”.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘It means if we are going to come up with a higher offer, we’d better do it now,’ said Dower.

‘Shit. Can you get over here now?’

‘We’re on our way,’ said Benton.

It was a twenty-minute taxi ride. The four of them were squeezed into the back of the cab. Benton’s long legs stuck into the thigh of the more junior bag-carrier on the jump seat.

‘Can we raise our offer?’ Benton said.

‘It’s going to be tricky,’ said Dower. ‘The Capital Markets guys were talking to me yesterday. They’re not as sure as they were that they can get the three hundred deal away we were talking about originally. A bigger deal at a higher price would be very difficult.’

‘What? I thought you said the junk market was improving?’

‘It looked like it was. But we had that Matzin Industries default last week. It was a biggie. It’s got people scared. And there’s several billion of new deals lining up for the summer. Our guys are not convinced the demand is there from investors.’

‘I don’t understand you people,’ Benton said. ‘Two weeks ago you told the client that the market is strong. Now you change your minds. You can’t tell a client one thing one day and another the next, especially when he’s basing all his plans on what you say.’

‘Markets change, Benton,’ Dower said. ‘You’ve been around long enough to know that.’

‘What changes is you people’s willingness to take risk,’ Benton said. ‘One default and you run scared. Junk-bond issuers go belly up all the time, that’s why they pay such a high coupon. There are times when Bloomfield Weiss has just got to stand up and be counted, and this is one of those times.’

‘Benton, you know that that’s not something for you or me to decide, it’s for the Underwriting Committee.’

Benton didn’t reply but stared out of the window at the Canary Wharf tower, growing ever taller as they approached Docklands.

This was a problem. Approval from the Underwriting Committee was required before Bloomfield Weiss could write Zyl News another letter committing to a larger bridge loan. The committee included managing directors from sales and trading, as well as some of the firm’s most senior executives. They wouldn’t approve a bridge loan unless they were confident that the loan would be repaid from the successful launch of a junk-bond issue some time in the next few months. The committee was often willing to take big risks, but if the junk market was looking wobbly perhaps they wouldn’t this time.

If Cornelius didn’t raise his offer, they would lose the deal, it was as simple as that. Benton couldn’t afford that. For several years now as head of the London office he had been away from the sharp end of investment banking, away from the big deals and the big bonuses. He was paid a substantial salary, but the lifestyle he and his family had built up in expatriate London required big bonuses to fuel it. During the last few barren years he had borrowed to pay the bills, but that couldn’t go on for ever. He needed a big bonus, and a high-profile deal like The Times could get him one.

In the past he had succeeded through subtlety and contacts, but as the corporate world became ever more aggressive this had not been enough. The sad truth was that a successful investment banker was one who persuaded his client to pay the highest price. Those were the guys who earned the big fees and the big bonuses. Benton was determined to be one of them. Dower could go screw himself.

The taxi pulled up outside the all-glass building which housed the Herald’s offices and the investment bankers were whisked up to the executive floor. In a moment they were in the chairman’s office, with its expensive modern American artwork and its views of the Thames, the Millennium Dome and the gleaming architectural melange of the new Docklands.

A harried-looking Edwin was sitting in front of a laptop, surrounded by a mess of papers on the long conference table. Cornelius was pacing.

‘Sit down, gentlemen,’ he said. But as Benton and his colleagues took their places, he stayed on his feet. ‘We have to decide whether to come up with a higher offer. Any sign of the other potential bidders?’

‘Nothing,’ Dower said. ‘We know the Telegraph people have been talking to Laxton, but their offer would be certain to be referred to the Competition Commission, and Laxton don’t have time to wait for that. The price has become too high for the Germans and the Irish. So it’s just us and Gill.’

‘I’m not going to lose to that bastard,’ Cornelius said.

‘I assume there is no way you can get your hands on some more cash?’ Dower asked.

Cornelius shook his head. ‘No. Nothing significant, at any rate.’ He scowled. ‘I’m not like some other newspaper proprietors I could name. Everything I’ve got is already in this bid. There are no secret stashes in Switzerland or the Caribbean.’

‘I was not suggesting there were,’ Dower stuttered.

‘If you weren’t, you should have been, right, Benton? I know Edwin thinks the family should have a nest egg ready for a rainy day, don’t you, Edwin?’ Edwin ignored his father. ‘But no, if we pay more, we’ll have to borrow the money.’

Benton was just about to speak but Dower got in ahead of him. ‘There might be a problem—’

‘That’s what we thought—’ said Benton talking over him.

Cornelius raised his hand to silence them both. ‘A problem?’ He stared at Dower.

Dower swallowed. ‘The junk market is not recovering as strongly as we had hoped. There was a big default last week and investors’ confidence has been dented.’

‘Wait a minute.’ Cornelius bent over the table, leaning his large frame on his hands as he stared at the banker, his jaw thrust forward. ‘You gave me your assurance that we would have no trouble raising three hundred million pounds only the other day.’

‘I said it would be tight.’

‘But you gave me a letter.’

‘I know we did,’ said Dower. Beads of sweat had suddenly bubbled up on his brow, and around his fleshy neck. He was glistening. ‘We committed to fund the offer at eight hundred and fifty million. But we can’t commit to higher.’

‘The cash flow is very tight at eight fifty,’ Edwin said, looking up from his papers. ‘Much higher and the whole thing falls apart.’

Cornelius glared at Edwin. Although Edwin and Dower avoided each other’s eyes the bond between them was almost palpable. The numbers didn’t stack up.

There was silence around the table. Cornelius frowned. He looked at Benton. ‘What do you think?’

Benton paused. He had to get this just right. He was glad now he hadn’t said anything. It meant he had retained some authority, whereas Dower had blown his. He looked Cornelius straight in the eye. ‘At nine hundred million can you make the deal work?’

‘There just isn’t enough cash flow to service that amount of debt,’ Edwin said.

Benton raised his eyebrows at Cornelius.

Cornelius sat down. He perched his half-moon spectacles on his nose, picked up one of Edwin’s spreadsheets and studied it. Then he tossed it back on to the table. ‘I know you’ve worked hard at the numbers, Edwin, and I know what they say. Normally I hate to overpay. But sometimes... sometimes you have to take a leap of faith. The Times is a unique property. With us in charge it will be a great one. It’s going to be worth more than a billion in a few years, much more. We took a leap before, with the Herald, remember? That worked. I have a feeling,’ he glanced at his son, ‘no, more than a feeling, a conviction that this is another one of those times. So, yes, Benton, I can make the deal work.’

‘In that case, so can we.’

‘Hold on, Benton,’ Dower interrupted. ‘We need to chat to some people back at the office about this.’

Benton ignored him and returned Cornelius’s stare. ‘You have my word.’

Edwin stalked back to his own office and slammed the pile of papers down on his desk. His father was overreaching himself. Sure, he could get his MBA grunts to alter the assumptions about circulation, advertising rates, cost cutting: 1 per cent here, 2 per cent there, the numbers could be made to add up on paper, but not in real life. In real life the deal wouldn’t work unless Cornelius performed some kind of miracle once he took over the paper. This was possible, Edwin admitted to himself. But it was probable that they just wouldn’t generate enough cash from the business to service their interest payments, and that would bring down not just The Times, but the whole of Zyl News.

If his sister-in-law and Alex bloody Calder didn’t tear the whole thing down anyway.

Edwin didn’t want that. He believed that in the last few years he had made himself indispensable to the company. Cornelius couldn’t carry on much longer; although he still seemed to have limitless energy, he was seventy-two. Todd had practically taken himself out of the picture when he decided to become a teacher, he was certainly out of it now. Zyl News would be Edwin’s in a very few years’ time.

Unless Cornelius bankrupted it through one last misjudged leap.

The phone rang. It was Jeff Hull, his pet journalist.

‘How was our superintendent friend yesterday?’ Hull asked.

‘Very polite, very respectful,’ Edwin said. ‘You could tell his sidekick was itching to ask difficult questions, but he wouldn’t let her.’

‘What did I tell you? There’s nothing that scares a policeman more than a whiff of a paedophile scandal.’

Edwin smiled. ‘You were right. I’ll get your bonus paid into your account tomorrow.’

‘You might want to increase the figure.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve got something else for you, Edwin.’ Hull sounded excited. ‘I’ve been doing a little extra snooping up here in Norfolk and I’ve discovered your brother has a little secret.’

‘Go on.’

‘Did you know he had a squeeze on the side?’

‘No. Talk to me.’

‘Apparently a young, very attractive American woman named Donna was hanging around the hospital for a few days. She would creep in to see Todd when his wife wasn’t there. She said she was a colleague from work, but the nurses had their doubts that that was all she was, especially when his wife discovered her and went ballistic. They didn’t see her around after that.

‘I checked with Todd’s school in New Hampshire. A Miss Donna Snyder is a member of the faculty there. Teaches art, apparently.’

‘Now that’s very interesting.’

‘I thought you’d like it. I don’t know how you want to use that information, but I’m sure you can figure out a way. In the meantime, you can rely on my discretion.’

‘Well done, Jeff.’

‘No problem. But put a little extra on that bonus, won’t you?’

‘I will,’ said Edwin. ‘Good work.’

As he put down the phone, he went through the angles. This kind of knowledge provided leverage. It was a question of where exactly to apply the lever. Edwin knew. He summoned a couple of his strategy grunts into his office to get them to rework the forecasts, and then left the building to grab a taxi across town.

He found Kim where he expected, at Todd’s bedside. In the gleaming private hospital to which he had been transferred, Todd had his own room with television, armchairs, flowers and nice curtains, although the bits and pieces plugged into him looked similar to the equipment in the Norfolk hospital. He was asleep. Kim was sitting in a chair next to him, staring into space through reddened eyes.

She looked up as he came in and gave him the barest trace of a polite smile.

‘How is he?’ Edwin asked.

‘Better,’ Kim said in little more than a mumble. ‘A lot more lucid. But he sleeps a lot.’

‘Good. Can we have a word?’

Kim indicated another armchair.

‘No, not here.’

‘He’s asleep,’ Kim said.

‘I think it would be better to talk somewhere else.’

Kim shrugged and followed him out of the room. They found an unoccupied waiting area down the corridor.

‘I know about Donna Snyder,’ Edwin said.

Kim shook her head, more resigned than angry. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

‘I understand that Alex Calder is in South Africa rooting around into Martha’s death.’

‘So?’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘Why not?’

‘Zyl News is in a delicate position at the moment. Calder might make the position even more delicate. It wouldn’t take much to tip everything over.’

Anger flickered in Kim’s eyes. ‘What are you afraid he might find?’

‘I have nothing to hide,’ said Edwin. ‘But the timing is not good. I think you should ask him to return to England.’

‘I will do no such thing. Someone nearly killed Todd, someone nearly killed Alex’s sister. The answer as to who it is lies in South Africa.’

‘Do the police know about Donna Snyder?’

‘I don’t think so. Why would they be interested?’

‘Oh, I think they’d be very interested. You see they asked my father and me all kinds of questions about you and how much you stood to inherit if Todd died.’

‘They asked me those questions too,’ Kim said. ‘But it was just routine. I don’t think they seriously suspected me.’

‘Not then,’ said Edwin. ‘Because then they didn’t know that your husband was cheating on you.’

‘That wouldn’t make any difference,’ said Kim with contempt.

‘Oh, I think it might,’ said Edwin. Then he had a brainwave. ‘And what about you and Alex Calder?’

‘What about us?’ Kim said, but her face flushed bright red.

Edwin smiled. ‘Tut-tut. While your husband was in hospital, too.’

‘There is nothing going on between me and Alex Calder,’ Kim said, the anger rising in her voice.

Edwin raised his hands. ‘All I’m suggesting is that you get hold of Calder and tell him to come home.’

‘Piss off,’ Kim said.

‘It’s the easy answer,’ Edwin said. ‘It will avoid all kinds of unpleasantness.’

‘I said, piss off!’ Kim was nearly shouting now. ‘Get out of here. I’m going back to Todd.’

She turned on her heel and began walking down the long corridor away from her brother-in-law. ‘I’ll give you a day to think about it!’ Edwin called after her. ‘One day!’

Kim entered Todd’s room and slammed the door behind her.