The newest building of the country club stretched long, low and glass-covered; MacAdams half expected to see planes landing on the tidy lawns. The new-modern sensibility followed them indoors, where a front desk stood to one side of a glass wall bubbled to look as though water cascaded down through it. The signage emblazoned upon pointed out the spa on the lower level, bar and restaurant to the rear in a portal of white marble and steel.
“Like Burnhope’s house,” Green mused. “I’m beginning to prefer Abington Arms.”
They had asked after Sophie and received a negative; she was a busy woman. Producing his police ID and mentioning a murder investigation had placed them on better footing. The guest clerk told them to await Ms. Wagner in the bar, which was, on balance, the best reception that they’d received so far. It also gave them opportunity to look about.
“Morning, sir. Can I get you a drink?” A youthful, tweed-vested barman had appeared before them.
“Not quite lunch hour. A bit early, isn’t it?”
“Depends on preference,” he said, tugging a bar towel over one shoulder. “And beverage—we’ve a coffee machine.”
“Thank you, no,” MacAdams said. “Instead, I’d like for you to tell me about the gala on Friday.”
He’d opened his identification once more, as did Green. The bartender examined their cards and seemed to warm to them both.
“Is something up? Everything went to plan, actually. We had everyone out before two, and that’s a feat. No problems at all.”
“So you were in attendance?”
“Sure. Did a lot of drink mixing—there’s a separate bar for events. You’ve seen the ballroom?”
They hadn’t, and he was keen to show them. MacAdams left Green to await Ms. Wagner and followed the young man down a corridor awash in daylight.
“Is this all part of an annex?” he asked.
“We were in the annex; this is actually the original club on this side. Needed a lot of doing up over the years.”
He pushed through a set of double doors, and whatever the building had been before, its afterlife presented only the shell. Bare stone walls reached two—maybe three—stories tall but with no floors between. The square wooden beam braces remained, securing the structure together, but seemingly without a roof. The timbers had been replaced by a vaulted glass ceiling, as though they stood in an enormous greenhouse.
A bit gutted, maybe, but far from empty; tables stretched down the length of both sides and several young women were draping them in linen.
“Rented out for a golf club awards ceremony on Tuesday,” the bartender-turned-tour-guide offered. “Then a wedding at the weekend. A stage goes up over there, and the rear doors are for the band. Tidy little setup, if I do say so.”
“You are surprisingly knowledgeable about the workings.”
“I should be! I manage the events.”
“And you tend bar?” MacAdams asked.
“When I’m needed,” he said, a smile breaking forth. “I’m Simon—Simon Wagner. I do a lot of the runabout for the family. Sophie Wagner is my mum. So, if something’s up, I like to know what.”
This perhaps made sense of the unusually helpful demeaner; he wanted to keep an eye on the prying police officers, no doubt. But someone else was keeping an eye on them, too. One of the women laying table service had been casting glances back at MacAdams.
“Anyone else here family?” he asked, subtly tilting his head in her direction.
“No, sir. You’re looking at Anje. She came through the charity.”
“Come again?”
“We sponsor refugees as a part of our employment program.”
“I thought there was supposed to be some separation between those who sponsor and the actual labor of sponsored refugees,” MacAdams said. “Otherwise it might look like you are bringing people over for your own benefit and profit.”
“Tsk. Do you know how difficult it is to start over again in another country, Detective?”
This reply came not from Simon, but from a voice behind him.
Sophie Wagner walked breezily through the rows of tables in a jewel colored kaftan with Sheila Green in her wake. A comfortable-looking woman, probably midfifties, with a pair of sunglasses hanging rather precipitously from an ample bosom; he gathered she suffered no fools.
“Many don’t speak English, or not well enough. And then you have racism, classism, visa bureaucracy and all the rest. Imagine trying to get gainful employment with all of that against you.” It was delivered flawlessly, artfully almost. MacAdams had the distinct impression she had given this speech before.
“Anje here and her mother both work for us; they also take courses to learn the language. And we have Dmytro and Artem as well. All four from Ukraine. So you see, Detective, we are trying to do our part, using wealth for the greater good.”
MacAdams heard all the words, but it was hard to miss what she wasn’t saying, too. We, the upper crust, the better half, reaching out to the lowly.
“No conflict of interest being the head of a charity and the lead employer of those you bring through?” MacAdams asked.
Sophie gave an easy laugh. “We aren’t the only employer—there are businesses all over Newcastle who support the work by bringing on wage earners. Is that what you’re here about? Another upstanding citizen upset they got their tea from an immigrant?”
It occurred to MacAdams that Fresh Start must have faced its share of bad press. Perhaps this was an attempt at a more magnanimous veneer?
“Not today, Ms. Wagner. I want to ask you about Stanley Burnhope—to start. You had a gathering here on Friday; did he attend?”
The laugh returned, renewed. “Stanley and I ran the event. He gave the opening and closing speech, an honor granted by his unwavering support for everything we do.”
“Can you take us through the day’s events, please?” he asked. Sophie was companionable and far more willing to bend than Burnhope’s wife, Ava, but he could see that she was growing tired of the game.
“There’s a brochure I can fetch you,” she said, leading them back through the corridor. “Open house at seven-thirty, silent auction, performance, dancing, etc. Why does it matter?”
“Because, Ms. Wagner, it provides an alibi.”
Sophie stopped so abruptly, he nearly tread upon the kaftan.
“An alibi? For what?”
“Murder,” Green said, coming up abreast of them. “Of Mr. Burnhope’s business . . . associate . . . Ronan Foley.”
Was that a flicker of recognition that passed through her wide-eyed stare?
“Foley,” she said slowly. “Murdered? Does Stanley know?”
“You knew him, then,” Macadams followed up, but she shook her head.
“Knew of; he works at Hammersmith. A sort of deal closer or something. That’s awful—but Stanley wouldn’t have anything to do with . . . Is that what you’re suggesting? That he needs an alibi for murder?”
“We’re just trying to log everyone’s movements,” MacAdams said by rote. “And to discover who was last to see him.”
Technically that wasn’t true, MacAdams couldn’t help but think. Apart from his murderer, the last to see him was Jo Jones.
* * *
“Christ, that place is all about the white man’s burden.” Green shook her head. “Imagine failing to see the problem of hiring the people you’re sponsoring.”
“Not very likely to report any bad dealings, are they?” MacAdams agreed.
“Or abuse, or extralong hours, or missing paychecks. But they must have good PR. Look at the headlines: ‘Local Businessman Is a Leading Light for Change.’ Oh God, they call him a thought leader.”
“Meaning others turn to him for business guidance?” MacAdams asked from the driver’s seat. It was technically Green’s turn to drive, but he hated reading on a tablet screen.
“Meaning he paid somebody to write the article, probably.” Green scrolled on. “Ava has done quite a bit in the way of charity, too; lots of events among the great and the good to drum up fiscals. Golden boy, blah blah. Sophie Wagner is more interesting.”
MacAdams reached for the toasty he’d picked up at Tesco. “She’s the charity’s originator, I take it.”
“Established in 2011. Been sponsoring refugees from Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan. Lately from Ukraine. Get this, though; she wasn’t lying about the job placement. It’s not just her golf club. They’re employing people all over the north, around ninety-five percent placement. That’s better than you get among local graduates, these days.”
“So the four people working for her—”
“Are a tiny fraction of the whole.”
“And Burnhope’s involvement?”
“That’s a little harder to parse, but to be honest? I’m guessing he’s just dollars. And according to Sophie, Foley never even made an appearance on that end of things.”
MacAdams took the exit for Abington. They could investigate all of this further on Monday—tomorrow, MacAdams reminded himself. They still had frustratingly little to go on, and despite establishing an alibi via Sophie Wagner, they hadn’t managed to actually meet Stanley Burnhope himself. Yes, he’d “golfed.” No, he wasn’t on the green when they arrived. Convenient, if coincidental; it also meant they lost the element of surprise. News of Foley’s death would be in the papers by morning, and of course, he and Green had played their cards already.
What happened between that four-thirty meeting and Foley’s trip to Abington? Why had he sold his house—and what did the oddly vacant flat tell them about the man’s future plans? There was an awful lot riding on the scarf, shoes and Foley’s inquiry at the Abington Arms. He hoped Andrews had more luck with CCTV.
“Not going to the station?” Green asked when he turned onto the High Street.
“Red Lion,” MacAdams said, patting his shirt pocket. “Jo said Foley seemed to recognize Tula’s name; I want her to see the photograph.”
The pub room was busy, boisterous and loud. A dozen people were gathered around the television and rooting for Man City, the partridge pie special was making rounds to crowded tables in the front room and a full line stood at the bar.
“I could eat,” Green told him as the smell of warm pastry and sizzling drippings drifted overhead.
“I’ll bet. Tula—when you have a minute?” MacAdams said as he approached Tula, who had three pints in her hand and was pouring another.
“Next week on Tuesday, love,” she replied and winked.
“We still have a full house,” Ben added. He’d come in through the kitchen with two baskets of fries. “Your usual, Sergeant Green?”
“I wish—my wife can smell curry a mile away.”
“You ate curry chips yesterday, didn’t you?” MacAdams asked.
Green gave him a pointed look. “And Rachel will have a fit if I do again today. Not healthy, and all that—Oh, look who’s here.” She bucked her head toward the door, and MacAdams followed her gaze over a dozen heads.
A flash of red—and a mustache straight out of The Three Musketeers. Gwilym. He looked wind-blown and muddy. MacAdams gave him a nod, but Tula had finally returned.
“I know you’re busy,” he started.
“Well spotted,” Tula said, sidling up to the bar where Green and MacAdams waited. “Talk quick.”
“As promised, the photograph of Ronan Foley, to confirm whether you recognize his face from the last couple weeks—or not,” he said, pulling it from his pocket. He’d barely handed it over when the Welshman tucked in at his elbow.
“The garden ladies had a lot of questions, you know,” he said. “I feared they might eat me when I didn’t know my Cambridgeshire from Canary Bird.”
MacAdams didn’t have a chance to ask what the hell he was on about; the Man City crowd shouted, “Goal!” Someone in a corner booth nearly overturned their chips—and behind the bar, a glass shattered.
“Shite,” Tula barked. She rushed toward the glass fragments and beer, the remains of a half-filled Imperial pint. “Ben, bring the dustbin, would you? And the mop.”
“You all right?” Green asked.
Tula ducked behind the bar for a moment; when she came up again, she had the photograph. It had been dropped in the momentary chaos. Tula pushed a mop of curls out of her pink and sweat-steamed face.
“Aye, sorry ’bout that,” She handed the photo back to MacAdams.
“You don’t recognize him?” he asked.
Tula shook her head. “Never met your Foley,” she said.
“It was a long shot,” MacAdams agreed.