His e-mails to her tended to be more prosaic. “The new ‘Ivan-hoe’ is going to be a four-bedroom terrace, integral garage, we’re trying to nail down sales before construction begins. Make a point of the laundry room. It’s a big selling point.” Everything was business, even love.
Gloria couldn’t have a pink sink, but his mistress could have a pink diamond as big as the Balmoral. It seemed a shame now that Graham’s imminent demise might rob Gloria of the satisfaction of watching him squirm in the divorce courts. Half his income, half his business.
“Half of nothing, Gloria,” Tatiana said to her. “Remember, Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.”
Somehow Gloria wasn’t surprised that Tatiana was up to date with the criminal justice system.
“It’s all there, Gloria,”Tatiana said, and she was right, it was- the false accounting, the illegal bank transfers, the shell companies, the tax evasion. The money that Graham had passed through Hatter Homes’ accounts, not just for himself but for other people- the man was a money launderer for hire, washing and scrubbing away at the filthy lucre as if it were a vocation. There were codes and passwords for bank accounts in this country and in Jersey, in the Caymans, in Switzerland. The breadth and sprawl of it all was astounding. He owned the whole world.
“He owns Favors?” Gloria asked, squinting at the screen. “With Murdo?”
“Everything is business, Gloria. Business and lies. You’re old woman, you should know that by now. Move,” she commanded. Gloria shifted out of her seat, and Tatiana took over at the computer, her hands poised above the keyboard like those of a virtu-oso pianist about to commit the performance of her career.
Gloria was intrigued. “What exactly are you doing? Are you transferring money? Into the housekeeping account?” she added hopefully.
“If I tell you, I have to kill you,” Tatiana said. She was like a comedy Russian. Gloria wondered if she really was Russian. There was no reason why she should be who she said she was. No rea-son why anyone should be who they said they were. People believed whatever they were told. They believed Graham was in Thurso. In the future, the future that was just beyond the path edged with antirrhinums and salvias, Gloria could be whoever she wanted to be.
Tatiana burst out laughing, slapped Gloria on the arm (quite hard), and said, “Just joking, Gloria. I’m moving it into one of the Swiss accounts. Take fraud cops forever to find it, long after other accounts are frozen, and by then you and me”-she snapped her fingers in the air-“pouf! We are gone.”
“But how will we get the money out?” Gloria puzzled.
“Gloria, you are such idyot! It’s Hatter Homes’ account, you’re director of company, you can take what you want out. You’re im-portant businesswoman.You better phone them and tell them we’re coming because this is lot of money. Don’t worry, Gloria. remember, I work in bank.”
The doorbell rang. It was Pam.
“This isn’t really a good time,” Gloria said.
“Your security gates are wide-open,” Pam said, walking into the hallway. “Anyone could walk in. I’m just on my way back from the Book Festival.” She made her way, without being invited, into the living room and sat on the peach-damask sofa. Gloria followed, wondering how to get rid of her, perhaps she could just snap her fingers and pouf!-she would be gone.
“I have to say, you didn’t miss much,” Pam said. “As events go it was very unsatisfactory, it managed to be both argumentative and lackluster at the same time. And I wasn’t convinced by the filled rolls. Dougal Tarvit was all right, but as for Alex Blake, what a disappointment.”
“Oh?”
“So short. Definitely something suspicious about him. I’m surprised the police don’t have him in custody yet for Richard Mott’s murder.”
“Oh?”
“I bought you a signed copy.”
“Oh?”
“Stop saying ‘oh,’ Gloria, you sound like a walking zero. Are you going to put the kettle on? I hear poor old Graham got stuck in Thurso.”
The doorbell rang again. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Gloria said.
“Inspector Brodie,” the man said, stepping forward and shaking her hand.
“An inspector calls,” Gloria said. She presumed he was a fraud officer, but didn’t they hunt in packs? He followed her into the living room. She wished she had kept him on the doorstep, like a Jehovah’s Witness. All these unwanted visitors were an unwelcome distraction from the international banking fraud that Tatiana was committing in the kitchen, overseen by Gloria’s red KitchenAid and Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course.
“Tea?” Gloria offered politely, trying to remember if he had shown her any ID. Where was his warrant card? He was saying something about road rage when Tatiana glided in from the kitchen and said, “Hello, everybody,” like a poor actress in a farce.
“Oh,” Pam said.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” the policeman said to Ta-tiana. “People will begin to talk.”
Whatever else might have been said after that was never spoken because Graham’s golem chose that moment to put in the French windows with a baseball bat, and Pam started screaming as if she were trying to summon all the demons out of hell, and she didn’t stop screaming until the stranger appeared in the garden and shot the golem in the heart.
45
Jackson hadn’t intended to impersonate a policeman, yet when the door was opened and he said, “Mrs. Hatter?” and she said, “Yes,” it came out automatically. It had seemed the most natural thing in the world to say “Inspector Brodie.”
Gloria Hatter was dressed in a red tracksuit that reminded him, in a distant pocket of his memory, of Jimmy Savile on Jim’ll Fix It. Luckily she wasn’t wearing a medallion or smoking a cigar. She seemed to think he was with the fraud squad, and he didn’t go out of his way to disabuse her of this notion.
When he mentioned the Honda and the road-rage incident, she said, “I didn’t see anything,” and he said, “You were there as well?” in disbelief. A vaguely familiar woman with orange hair was sitting on the sofa, holding a copy of Martin’s latest book, The Mon-key Puzzle Tree. That detail alone sent Jackson’s brain spinning. Boxes within boxes, dolls within dolls, worlds within worlds. Everything was connected. Everything in the whole world.
The phone rang and an answering machine somewhere kicked in. A woman’s hysterical voice that could have been announcing an alien invasion shouted, “Gloria! It’s Christine! They’re here.They’re taking the computers!”
Jackson was distracted from this message by Tatiana’s entrance. He thought, This is too much, it really is. When Honda Man, complete with baseball bat, appeared at the French windows like a character in a horror movie and created air where previously there had been glass, Jackson began to wonder if he was on some new kind of reality television show, a cross between Candid Camera and a murder-mystery weekend. He half-expected a presenter to leap out from behind the sofa in Gloria Hatter’s living room and shout, “Surprise! Jackson Brodie, you thought you found a corpse in the River Forth, you thought you witnessed a man being assaulted with a baseball bat, you thought this little Russian lady here whispered clues in your ear (Yes! She doubled as that mysterious corpse), but no, it was all a fiction. Jackson Brodie, you are live in front of an audience of millions. Welcome to the future.”
They were all here, Tatiana, Honda Man, the only person missing was Martin. But, lo, he had thought too soon because here came Martin, striding with more purpose than hitherto across Gloria Hatter’s admirably well-kept lawns. “And also starring Martin Canning as the deceptively bumbling writer!”