The short walk back calmed me, even though the wind swirled restless and uneasy litter, ominous as in a forties movie. I had time to tell myself that everything was in Chris’s hands now. With evidence, not mere suspicion, he could pull in the enormous resources of West Midlands Police. All I had to do was act my way through the dinner – not hard, since I’d be behind the scenes. In any case, no one would be dim enough to harm me in his own home, and Tom Bowen was an intelligent man. As soon I could, I’d go home, pulling up the drawbridge as I went in. Oh, and popping a few piranhas into the moat, by way of further deterrent. In truth, my home was better defended than most: I’d had unwelcome attentions before, and a former colleague of Chris’s had turned it into a small version of Fort Knox. He’d done the same for Aggie’s house lest anyone ever thought of getting access to my place via hers.
So if I left Bowen’s before the end of the meal – and I was quite entitled to – I should be all right. I’d better get paid before things got underway, things being either his party or the police one to which I suspected he’d soon be invited.
And what about Jago? Was he involved? Jago had managed to talk to Bowen at a time when I’d been locked out. No, that was trivial – they might have met in the loo or the car park. Certainly Jago had failed to pass on that phone message from Chris. But he’d forgotten the garage messages too. Jago had been running near Carla’s boat. Jago had wanted information about Carla’s Ph.D., but she’d failed to provide it – probably because it didn’t exist. Never had existed.
Despite the lack of hard evidence, all in all – and not least because the man was an arrogant little bugger – I’d like him to be involved. It would be a wonderful coincidence if he were on the guest list tonight.
Bowen was all solicitude when I got back. Did I need aspirin or brandy? A hot-water bottle? Assuring him quite truthfully that I was fine, I turned my attention to the food. That was fine too.
‘Now,’ I began, ‘what about—’
‘Oh, it’s all here. Cash. I thought you’d prefer cash.’ He counted it out. It made quite a satisfactory bundle. At moments like that I always forgot that really this was paying for meat and other things I’d bought and already paid for. So not a lot of that fat roll was profit.
‘Thanks. But what I was going to say was, what about the serving staff?’
‘All sorted out. They’re getting changed now. Bless you, you’ve hardly left them anything to do. All that washing up, laying the table – you could have left that to them. You know, it’s like I said over your dissertation: you’re too conscientious for your own good.’
Why did such an innocent comment make my flesh creep?
Two neat, smiling Malay women in their early twenties – faces strangely familiar although I could have sworn they weren’t currently part of that wretched class – appeared at the top of the stairs as if on cue. They walked down singly. The cliché would have had them graceful; in fact, they both walked in a rather lumpen way, despite their slender, indeed slight, frames. I stood shoulder to shoulder with them as Bowen addressed us.
‘Now, Sophie is in charge in the kitchen. You will do whatever she tells you. You will be on duty first in the lounge, where you will circulate with drinks and canapés – circulate? Walk round? OK?’
They nodded as one.
‘You will stay there until I usher everyone in to dinner. Then you will go straight to the kitchen. Don’t attempt to tidy the lounge at that point. Sophie will give you the soup to serve from those big tureens.’ Why, having originally spoken to them as if their English was minimal, did he risk quite complex sentences and unusual vocabulary?
I said nothing, just nodded.
‘While the guests have their soup, you will collect the dirty glasses and plates quickly and take them to the kitchen. You will immediately return to the dining room to collect up soup plates. You will then serve the main course. You will remain – one of you at either end of the dining room – to pass more food, more wine, or whatever. You will stand, of course.’
They nodded.
‘When I give the signal, you will collect the dirty plates – serve from the right, collect from the left, isn’t that right, Sophie? – and take them to the kitchen. You will then bring the sweet—’
‘Sweets,’ I said. ‘There is a choice.’
‘Did we agree two sweets?’ He didn’t change his rather brusque tone, but I’d clearly exceeded my role.
‘No. I know I mentioned it when we had the initial discussions, but we never followed it up. But it is usual, these days.’ I gave a rueful grin. ‘Since nothing was agreed, I didn’t invoice you for it.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ll settle up in a minute. You offer a choice of desserts. You pour wine. Then you will collect dishes and bring in cheese and biscuits—’
‘And bread.’ I added.
‘And serve that. At last you will serve coffee and liqueurs. Then, her work nobly done, Sophie will pack her gear and go home.’ He smiled at me with apparent kindness. The smile left his face as he continued, ‘And you two will wash up and put away. From time to time one of you will come in to offer more coffee and more liqueurs.’
They nodded. So did I. What I couldn’t fail to notice was that at no time would we women be able to exchange more than the most perfunctory word. Had he intended that?
The good news, though, was that at certain moments I could guarantee that I would be perfectly free to prowl uninterrupted about the house. If Bowen were giving them explicit orders like that, I was damned sure he’d keep an eye on them to make sure they obeyed them.
‘Everything OK, Sophie?’
‘I’d just like to make one more check – make sure I’ve got the right number of spoons and forks. Last-minute nerves, Tom.’
He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
I stopped on the threshold. If I’d been busy in my few minutes away from the house so had he. Or someone acting on his orders. The table had been reduced to two-thirds of the earlier size, with proportionately fewer place settings.
‘A few last-minute cancellations,’ he said airily.
But not casually.
He’d known about them, hadn’t he? So why had he let me go ahead and cater for so many more? All that food left over – enough to keep him in cold roast pork for a week. Or more. I hoped his guests were hungry and that they’d pig themselves.
‘How much would the second dessert be?’ He dug in a back pocket.
‘How about what it cost me? There’s no effort involved.’
‘So why bother?’
‘Because it’s delectable and will impress people by its very simplicity.’ I did a couple of sums in my head and told him the price.
‘Is that all? Are you sure?’ Shaking his head, he counted it out in coins.
So what was the key to the man? That he wanted show? Expensive display? Certainly he’d have preferred the wine to come with famous labels. But the rest of the house wasn’t ostentatious, just expensive. Furniture, carpets, curtains, piano – all the same good quality as the kitchen. No expense spared, in fact.
So just how did he pay for it all? Not on a lecturer’s salary, that was for sure. I’d just have to be thorough when I searched his house.
The first floor of the house was just as well appointed as the parts I’d already seen. A bathroom with new suite and tiles: there was enough room to have separate bath and shower. Then there were three good-sized bedrooms, and another room which was locked. That would repay a further visit, if only I could find a key lying round. Two of the bedrooms were simply but classically furnished: one of them held the unused chairs. The third disconcerted me to say the least. A very low bed, a sunken bath, a Georgian towel-rail laden with thick fluffy towels: fine. Pity about the mixture of mirrors in strange places and sexually explicit Japanese prints. One or two were already slightly foxed – all that steamy heat, no doubt.
Funny, I’d never have imagined Bowen with that sort of sex life. No time to surmise now, however.
Yes! Keys! There in the heap of small change by the modern phone on the bedside table. But there was not time even to pick them up. I should be downstairs, carving the pork.
I’d no idea, of course, who his guests were. I’d been firmly ensconced in the kitchen throughout their arrival. Their voices were a funny mixture, though. There were some of those carrying ones – both sexes – that I associate with public school educated people. A couple of roughish Brummie accents. The extremely correct tones of someone educated abroad in another language but very well taught: that was a woman. Not Lola’s contralto, but a much lighter one. Could it be … surely it wasn’t Jenny Lee’s? But I couldn’t pick up anything that sounded like Jago’s. What a pity I’d drawn the curtains: I’d have been able to sneak a look from outside, like a groundling goggling at a play. I’d seen dinner parties hosted that way last time I’d walked through some of the posher parts of Edgbaston. I fancy Bowen would have preferred that sort of scene – the public display of fine linen, fine glass and fine company.
As soon as the doors were shut on the waitresses, I was back upstairs. The attic storey, this time. Still no sign of that mythical cat. Or was it cats? A couple of cheap beds stood side by pathetic side. The room was occupied, I guessed by the students acting as waitresses. God knows what warmth those thin duvets would provide. And those poor women came from hot, steamy Malaysia. Two wardrobes – fifties stuff, the sort you could get cheap anywhere. No dressing-table, no mirror, no bookcase. The bathroom was spartan – no radiator, even. I couldn’t believe that. No one would be so short-sighted as to leave unheated an attic bathroom. The bath enamel had long since been scoured through. The towels were threadbare.
Back to the bedroom. Hardly anything in the wardrobes, and what there was was cheap. No pictures on the walls, no photos of families. Two copies of the Koran, however, although the heads of the girls serving this evening were uncovered. There was enough for me to conclude they lived here and had not been hired just for the evening. Bowen had said he’d arrange the unskilled staff, but he hadn’t explained they were already on the premises.
I’d never have made a decent burglar: terrified of detection, I was back downstairs in the kitchen long before I needed to have been. Long enough to make a swift dive into the cellar. Nothing, absolutely nothing. I sniffed. Was there a sickly smell in the air? No, it was simply damp. Wasn’t it? As I turned a corner, the smell took me straight back to school. Rotten eggs. Stink bombs. But although there was a wooden bench, and even some test tubes in a wooden rack, there were no chemicals in the ranks of glass bottles on the shelf behind. There were enough stains in the old porcelain sink, however, to make me wonder what sort of cocktail had found its way into Birmingham’s sewers.
Back up to turn on the grill, and spread mascarpone and sprinkle sugar on to the shallow bowls of raspberries: thank you, Nigel Slater.
No, I wouldn’t leap into action as soon as I heard the dining-room door open. I would give the guests a little time to digest. They’d had a nourishing country soup and a main course designed for hungry peasants. They’d need a breather. And it would give me a moment to speak to the waitresses. In fact, I ladled a couple of bowls of soup and passed them with a smile.
‘The grill’s not quite hot enough for me to finish the dessert yet,’ I said. ‘You’ve got plenty of time.’
They exchanged alarmed glances, but tucked into the soup. If I’d asked them questions, they couldn’t have answered them, so quickly were they dispatching it. The first to finish plunged a thin arm into a cupboard. She poured the remaining soup from the tureen into a basin.
She muttered something to her colleague, who put the tureen into the sink and filled it with water.
The latter smiled at me. ‘So he not know how much left,’ she said.
‘Are you only supposed to eat what he gives you?’ I asked.
They nodded.
‘That meat?’
They nodded.
‘But it’s pork!’ And they had Korans on their beds. I’d have liked to ram the pork bones down his throat, his gratuitous malice made me so wild. He’d deliberately overstated the number of guests so I’d cook extra to feed these women!
‘That’s what he give us to eat. No eat, go hungry.’
And maybe spend hard-earned money on sandwiches from Marks and Spencer, like the student I’d never managed to speak to. But that didn’t make sense. The food was so much cheaper in the refectory. Some of it was even halal.
‘Does he pay you properly?’ Perhaps the last word was redundant. ‘Does he pay you?’
They looked anxiously at me. Then at each other. ‘Vouchers. For shops.’
One thing I hadn’t mentioned in my lesson on shopping! So poor Shazia had been forced, for one reason or another, to get food that way.
One pointed at my watch. I slid the dishes under the grill. They sighed with relief.
While the sugar bubbled and browned, I tipped the upside-down cakes on to plates. The golden syrup swam enticingly round it. The pineapple smelt good. I had an idea there wouldn’t be much left of that for these young women. I ran a finger round the cake-tins and licked the syrup from it. I passed them to them. I had a sense that it was bravery that enabled them to do likewise.
Time to retrieve the dish from the grill. I laid it gently on the table, and handed over the oven gloves. Eyes like a frightened rabbit’s, the student I’d offered them to shook her head. At last she folded the napkin at her waist into as thick a pad as possible. Synchronising her movements with those of her colleague, she picked the dish up and set off back into the dining room.
Much as I’d have liked to head straight back up to the study, I stayed put. The dessert was the shortest course. I’d provided a very fine dessert wine which would do equally well with the cheese course, where it would be joined by a visibly expensive port. Yes, they’d linger over the cheese. Which was itself very good – I’d tasted it. Twice to be honest: once, when I’d chosen it, and again this evening. I nibbled enough to keep my own grubs from biting, and then cut enough to ensure that those girls had a little protein today. I put their slices on a couple of plates and covered them with kitchen towel.
Then I finished washing and stacking the last of my boxes and trays: no reason, I supposed, why I shouldn’t take them out to the car. It would mean I could make a quicker getaway. And I had a feeling that when I’d checked out that locked room that was exactly what I’d want. Not that I was going to touch, let alone take anything. No, this one I was going to play by the book. Apart from borrowing the set of keys from the master bedroom, of course.
I picked them up using tissues – no jingle of metal, no fingerprints. The third opened the locked room. Yes! Bowen’s study!
According to Chris, the instruction to police officers checking out any crime scene is to put their hands into their pockets. If it’s good enough for the professionals, it’s good enough for me. So I couldn’t log on to his computer or go through the floppy disks. Or check out those tempting filing cabinets, one with the enticing label UCWM. No, I had to.
Still holding the keys in a tissue, I selected one that looked as if it might fit the cabinet. It did. I left the keys in the lock, and slipped the tissue between my fingers and the drawer handle.
This man and his love of good quality! Even the files were new – not like some of the scruffy specimens in my own system. Or perhaps they just indicated his scam was recent. I slipped a couple of them out and flicked through them.
If only I had time for a proper read. But what my skim through told me was clear enough, even if I didn’t grasp all the details.
He recruited overseas for legitimate, properly qualified students. For UCWM. He helped them get visas, and established them in Handsworth Wood, charging them more or less standard full-time fees. He then inserted them as part-time students at UWM, saying they were UK residents, with the Church Lane address. And pocketed the difference between the full-time overseas student’s fee and the much lower UK part-time one. Between three and four thousand a year per student, minus his expenditure on the Church Lane building. Not all that much profit, then.
But then there were the ‘bursary’ students. All from the sticks, none with much in the way of qualifications. This time his procedure was slightly different. He enrolled them in courses for which they were obviously unsuited. Then somehow he pulled them out of UWM and apparently replaced them. So what …?
Hell! How long had I been engrossed in these? Longer than I ought! I slipped everything back into place and locked the cabinet. On impulse, using a fingernail, I eased the UCWM label out of its holder and slipped it into my jeans pocket. A little bit of paper that might encourage Chris to act more quickly. If he still needed that sort of encouragement.
Time to exit.
Too late! There was a sudden billow of chatter from downstairs, quickly cut off. Out, fast? Or stay put? I locked myself in, switching off the light. Footsteps started up the stairs. Surely Bowen wasn’t looking for me? But the footsteps, so muffled by the thick carpet that over the pounding of my heart I could hardly hear them, went past. Of course, the only thing this house lacked was a downstairs loo. I’d have to wait until the process happened in reverse. There! The loo was being flushed. The bathroom door opened and shut. But the feet didn’t go back downstairs. They came towards me.
I froze.
The door handle turned. Backwards. Forwards. And then was still. The footsteps went back down the stairs.
Out, now. Back to the master bedroom. And get those keys back where they should be. In my haste I knocked a five-pence piece off the bedside cabinet. I let it roll. And zapped into the bathroom. I slid the bolt. Yes, after that, I needed the loo in good earnest.
Someone rattled the door. My hands barely dry, I opened it.
‘Why!’ I exclaimed, as if delighted to see her. ‘Jenny! I didn’t know you’d be here tonight!’
Jenny Lee didn’t even bother to feign pleasure. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Didn’t Tom tell you? I’m the cook. I was just tidying myself up before I left, actually. See you Monday, no doubt.’
‘See you Monday.’
Oscar-winning or not? Probably not. And if her work at UWM were anything to go by, Jenny was far too intelligent for anything other than a top-class performance. I would have thought that she’d be too polite not to say something nice about the food, but perhaps it hadn’t been to her taste.
Maybe a really quick flit would look suspicious. Perhaps it would be better to see the coffee safely in and then be on my way.
The only question on my mind as I eventually let myself into my car, locking myself firmly in, was whether I should phone Chris or drive straight to his house. Sitting on Bowen’s drive while I decided was not, however, an option. Slotting quickly into reverse, and finding a mercifully empty road, I was sure I saw someone open the front door. But I didn’t wait to check.