Chapter Fifteen

The Son Also Rises

What Lynda had in mind was obvious: A story raising questions about how Phillimore knew his empire of fraud was “coming apart,” as the putative suicide message put it. A few new facts, a few quotes, and a lot of background would do it. After picking up some innocuous on-the-record comments from Heath to throw in, she could barely wait to get out of his office and start writing.

Just outside the building, though, we heard, “Mr. McCabe!”

Mac turned around.

A guy about my age, dressed in a tailored three-button black suit was walking our way. In a cartoon or a slapstick comedy, his appearance would have called for me to do a double take. He looked like a younger version of the late Arthur James Phillimore to a startling degree, but with dark hair instead of gray. He even had the dimple, although he had skipped the pencil mustache.

“Yes, I’m McCabe.”

“I thought I recognized you. Saw you on the telly once. My name is Roger Phillimore. I understand from The Daily Eye that you’re caught up in this mess with my father.”

What’s a GQ dude like you doing reading that rag?

Mac raised an eyebrow. “Caught up? Yes, that seems to be all too true. You have my sympathy, Mr. Phillimore.”

“Sympathy?” He seemed taken aback. “Save it for somebody who needs it. If my father wasn’t dead, I’d be tempted to kill him myself.”

You wouldn’t say that if you knew he’d been murdered. Or would you? Those British mystery writers like Agatha Christie always love the old double bluff - the murderer doing just what everybody figurers the murderer wouldn’t do.

Lynda pulled out her notebook and started scribbling.

“I imagine that a lot of your father’s investors feel that way, Mr. Phillimore,” Mac said. “Oh, meet my brother-in-law and his wife.”

Hurried handshakes ensued.

“I didn’t have a penny invested with my father, but I’m one of his biggest victims,” Roger Phillimore said. “He’s ruined the Phillimore name, and in my business reputation is everything.”

“Your business?” Lynda prodded.

He seemed to really notice her for the first time. Maybe he’s not into tall, stacked, pretty women with curly hair the color of dark honey. It takes all kinds.

“I’m the managing partner of a private equity firm, RJP Capital,” he said. “We acquire troubled companies, usually with a leveraged buyout, introduce efficiencies to make them successful, and then either sell them or take them public.”

I can see where you might want to change your last name before you try to put your next deal together.

“Were you coming to Scotland Yard or did you just happen to be in the neighborhood?” Mac asked dryly.

“I want to talk to whomever is investigating my father’s so-called suicide. I think they should take a close look at my stepmother. And if they don’t, then maybe you should since you’re reckoned to be quite the amateur sleuth.”

“You suspect murder?” Lynda asked, in a skeptical tone that suggested the idea was a novelty, the furthest thing from anybody else’s mind.

“My father viewed obstacles that stopped others in their tracks as nothing more than annoyances to be overcome. Why would a man like that kill himself? He always believed he would win in the end.”

Well, the end has come and he’s not looking like a winner right now. I saw the pictures.

“How do you arrive at the conclusion that Heather O’Toole is responsible for what you believe was your father’s murder?” Mac asked.

“It adds up. She’s his sole heir and they haven’t been getting along, from what I hear.” He shook his head in an attempt to look doleful. “I never thought that marriage was for the long haul - Heather’s younger than I am.”

“But still, murder?” Lynda said. “Isn’t that a bit extreme?”

“I know that woman. I wouldn’t put anything past her.”

“What makes you so sure she’s your father’s only heir?” I asked. That kind of thing isn’t usually public knowledge, unless Phillimore chose to bandy it about.

Phillimore tried to get taller. “I disinherited myself when he divorced my mother two years ago. I told him I didn’t want anything to do with his money. I have enough of my own. I’m sure he was only too happy to honor my wishes. Since he had no favorite charities except himself, I presume the money went to her.”

“But there’s probably nothing for her to inherit but what you yourself called a mess,” Lynda pointed out. “This could drag through the courts for years as the investors try to salvage something, possibly even going after personal assets outside the company.”

“I’m sure Heather didn’t bother her pretty little head about my father’s business. She didn’t know it was all a house of cards just waiting for a good wind to blow it over.”

Nice metaphor. I made a mental note of it.

“Heather O’Toole has a substantial income stream of her own,” Mac pointed out. “Actresses of Bond girl stature do not get paid minimum wage. And surely there was a prenuptial agreement that would settle a sum of money on her if they divorced.”

“Right.” I love the way the British say that. “But prenup or no, working through that kind of thing takes an army of lawyers and lots of time. Heather isn’t a patient woman.”

“What about your mother, the first Mrs. Phillimore?” Lynda said. “If somebody killed your father, it seems to me she’d have as good a motive as anybody - woman scorned and all that.”

Phillimore shook his head. “No, no, no. You don’t know my mother. I would swear that she was totally faithful to my father for thirty-six years, but she took a sizeable settlement from him at the divorce and hasn’t looked back. She’s not the wife you need to look into.”

“I do not suppose you have anything to offer Scotland Yard - or us - in the way of proof,” Mac said, “or you would have mentioned it.”

“Proof is your department. You’re the detectives and I wish you good luck with it.” He turned around, heading toward the building from which we’d come, but then faced us again. “I do have one suggestion: Trout.”

“The butler?” I said.

Phillimore smirked. “Butler my arse! If he’s a butler I’m the Queen’s gardener. Did you ever see a butler with biceps like that? I think you’ll find that the service he’s been rendering my step-mother is of quite a different nature.”