Those Left Behind - 8. An Inspector calls

“The muppets couldn’t find Jacqueline Wilson, done a runner seemingly.”

On the other end of the line Detective Inspector Donaldson gave an exaggerated sigh, “Recently?”

“Yesterday, if the husband is to be believed. They had a bit of a barney, things not going well in the marriage stakes, evidently.”

“Convenient.”

Detective Sergeant Marcus gave a dry laugh, “Bloody convenient.”

“Anything on the husband?”

“Not a sausage, sir. Married 12 years, ten-year-old son, Damian”, a snort from DI Donaldson, he didn’t like poncey names. “Works for a big advertising agency, one that calls itself a media services facility”, another snort. “No previous, not even a parking ticket. So, why couldn’t those fuckers at the Serious Fraud Office give us a bit more notice. If Jacqueline Wilson’s involved in some sort of financial fraud at her employers, then surely the SFO could see she was a flight risk. If we’d known, we could have a least had her under surveillance?”

DI Donaldson gave another snort. “We’re only the local plods after all, there do the SFO’s bidding. If we used our own initiative, then we’d be compromising their investigation and all that.”

“My arse. Their laziness more like, didn’t occur to them.”

“She might have…”

“Done a runner?”

“Precisely. You’d better go over there, I’m afraid.”

“What about that hit and run case?”

“DC Cooper can deal with it. This one’s SFO, high profile. Our arses on the line, I’m afraid.”

DS Marcus sighed, “So, what do we have?”

“Pair of bank auditors. Jacqueline Wilson, age 34, married to Ludovic Wilson, living here. Andreas Huber, aged 52, married to Hannelore Huber, based in Germany but on secondment to the Strasbourg office where he was working a top-secret auditing project with Jacqueline Wilson.”

“So, she was working in Strasbourg?”

“Not a bit. Mostly done on-line with the odd visit, it seems. Modern sort of set up. SFO and their European counterparts have had their eye on Herr Huber for some time, but they have nothing concrete. Recently, there’s been interest in what Wilson and Huber are up to, together.”

“Auditing?”

“Possibly, but the SFO have interests in it.”

“Which they are not revealing.”

“Of course not, Graham.”

“OK. Just what I need, chasing rogue bankers.”

“And Graham, be nice. We don’t know what the spouse knows. Might be a lot, might not. Be his friend, lay on the charm.”

“Lay on the charm? Thanks a bunch, and a kid too.”

“Better get child services on board for Monday. The kid’ll need talking to.”

***

When the doorbell went again, Ludo assumed it was the two uniformed offices come back for a further go. After they’d left, he’d phoned no-one, done nothing; he’d just sat, staring at the garden, filled with a vague yet unspeakable dread. Jackie was involved in some sort of project at work and the police were looking for her. He’d never, ever been involved with the police, not even as a kid. The sheer idea of coming to their notice, dealing with them, filled him with unease, guilt, and panic. He already felt guilty of something, fuck knows what. He tried to think logically about what had happened, even to write it down, but all that happened was that sense dread came back.

The policeman this time was a tall, distinguished-looking bloke, early 40s, sandy blonde turning to silver fox with a neat goatee. A rather crumpled suit and less than perfect shaving hinted at an over-busy life.

“Good morning, sir. DS Graham Marcus. I understand you have talked to my colleagues. I was wondering if I could have a word?”

Shit, so they’d kicked the problem upstairs. They went in. Ludo was aware of Damian’s ears so took the Detective Sergeant out onto the terrace at the back.

There were no preliminaries, DS Marcus simply plunged straight in. “We want to chat to you about your wife, sir, but I understand that she’s recently left you?”

“It’s a bit complicated, officer.”

“Graham, please. Can you fill me in on some of the background?”

“Look what’s this about?”

“Ah. Well, you understand that I can’t give you much detail. The Serious Fraud Office is investigating an incident.”

“At Standard International Bank?”

“I can’t possibly say, sir”, DS Marcus’ studied, bland demeanour told volumes. “We just want to chat to your wife to get some background, nothing onerous, sir.”

Ludo was furious, with the police, with the Bank, and with Jackie for landing them in this. Still, no point in taking things out on the messenger.

“Look, Graham, if I begin at the beginning then it’ll take time. Can I make arrangements for my son, Damian?”

So, Ludo organised for Damian to go over to Adam’s, they were off out and would take Damian with them. Ludo returned to find the policeman exploring the books in the sitting room. Ludo made them coffee and tried to work out where to start.

“I work at home, which means that I can schedule things around Damian, whilst Jackie’s work at the Bank means she needs to work late. Look, how much of this stuff do you want?”

“It’s best you give me the full background and let me decide what’s relevant.”

“OK”. The policeman uncrossed his legs and as he did so, Ludo was aware of the significant bulge in his groin. Shit, what a time to notice the guys was hung (or well padded). Ludo remembered the conversation with Arthur about policeman’s underwear and suppressed an entirely inappropriate giggle. If he wasn’t careful, nervousness would make him break out in laughter, and that would simply make him look even more of an idiot.

“Jackie does special projects in different bank offices across Europe, all related to auditing, though that’s as much as I know. A few months back she started a new project with the Strasbourg office, there were a lot of late nights and overnights. I don’t think it was going well, she was stressed and working all hours.”

“Did this bother you?”

“Yes. We got snappy with each other. But she said it was temporary, there’d come an end, eventually, and a big bonus. Christ, I’m rambling.”

“Not at all, please go on. Did you meet the colleagues that she was working on, on the project?”

“I didn’t meet many of her work mates, to visit her office I had to go through hoops for security, so we didn’t bother. The only man she talked about was Andreas Huber, a German from the Strasbourg office. I met him once, last year at the firm’s annual Summer party. I must have met others, but she never mentioned names. Damian also noticed that Jackie was stressed and working hard, he told me a couple of times that his Mum was bad tempered and angry, evidently, he’d heard her shouting down the phone.”

“Did he say to whom?”

“No, he just heard bits I think and tried not to.” Bugger, they were going to want to speak to Damian. “You’re going to want to speak to Damian?”

“I’m afraid so. We’ll have a children’s specialist, and you can be present.”

“OK.” Ludo licked his lips and looked at the policeman, his eyes looked surprisingly warm and friendly. Dangerous. “Now for the awkward bit. Damian’s best friend at school is Adam. His Father, Arthur, has been a great help to us, looking after Damian after school and such. We became mates and when Jackie worked late, Damian would go there from school and I’d join them, we’d eat, watch a film.”

The policeman started to get a ‘what the devil is this guy on about’ look, but he remained polite and focused. “They live near here?”

“Yes. 10 minutes’ walk away. Arthur is not married, his wife died young. We never talked about sex or relationships except for me sometimes moaning about Jackie.”

“Things not going well.”

“Precisely. Then a month ago, we started an affair, Arthur and me. It wasn’t expected or planned. I’ve. I’ve never had a relationship with a man before.”

The policeman’s eyes widened somewhat. “I see. Did your wife know?”

“I don’t think so. Jackie is never backward in coming forward, if she’d known something like that was happening then I’m pretty sure she’d have said. But Damian knew, he saw us kissing a week or so ago. He said he was OK with it, he likes Arthur and even asked if I was planning on leaving Jackie and moving in with Arthur.”

“And are you?”

“I don’t know. I panic over Damian, losing access and custody and all that.”

“Did you and Jackie ever talk about divorce?”

“Not at all. She just wasn’t around or was far too tired to have a serious conversation with, though I was aware that it was something I was putting off. I also wondered if she was using work as an excuse for an affair elsewhere, but I’ve no candidates for a boyfriend.”

“Her colleagues?”

“As I said, the only one I knew about was Andreas; I got the impression the project was just the two of them. He’s 50 plus or more, grey, grossly over-weight. Not Jackie’s type.” The policeman made as if to speak but Ludo interrupted him. “Sorry, there’s more.”

The guy stared, perhaps wondering where all this was going.

“On Thursday, she was due to stay overnight in town. So, we, Arthur and I, decided to have a sleep over, both the boys at Arthur’s and I’d join them. The boys thought it a hoot. Then on Friday, God is it only yesterday! Well, I came home to change before a meeting in town and Jackie was there. She’d had to come back on an early train for some papers and was going straight back to London. Understandably, she wasn’t in a good mood and was nasty about the sleep over. I sort of lost it and told her that I was fond of Arthur.”

“And she was…”

“Shocked. Surprised. I don’t think she was faking. And then angry, furious, foul-mouthed, accusing me of fucking things up.”

“What exactly?”

“The project, I think. That’s all she ever worried about. I’m sorry, it was only brief, she stalked out immediately after. I figured we could talk later; she’d told Damian that she was planning to be home early on the Friday evening.”

“And how are you involved in the project?”

“I’m not. I don’t have any sort of security clearance at the bank, so there is no way I could get involved. As far as they are concerned, I’m nothing.”

“And the German gentleman, Andreas Huber?”

“Apart from meeting him last year, our interaction has been nil. I probably know him well enough to say hello to, nothing more.”

“So, what happened?”

“I went to my meeting, collected Damian from school then we came home. Damian was excited because of Jackie telling him she’d be early. She did make an effort sometimes, and even in the last few weeks there have been some great family times. Anyway, when I got home, I found she’d written me a note. Handwritten and left on our bed. It wasn’t there when I changed in the morning, so she must have returned and left it. And I checked later, all her decent clothes are gone.”

Ludo went to fetch the note and gave it to the policeman who put it in a folder before reading it. His eyebrows raised as he studied it.

“Do you know why she is so annoyed with you, what you’ve fucked up?”

“No idea, I presumed that it related to her outburst regarding the project, but none of it makes any sense.”

“And you think she’s left?”

“Well, she’s taken anything she really wanted to wear, spare make up and toiletries. Everything personal, really.”

They went round in circles, but there was nothing more Ludo could tell the guy.

***

“Do you believe him?”

“In essentials, yes. It’s such a crazy thing to invent.”

“He might know more about the project?”

“True, sir. But she could equally have kept him away from it. It doesn’t sound as if she involved him much in her work. She’s a bit of a cool customer, if you ask me.”

“Hmm. So, how did he fuck things up, or was that just an excuse for a homophobic rant?”

“Or a smokescreen? I need to go back and find out where she might be, press him in a few details.”

“When?”

“Monday, sir. Let him stew. Might get a bit more from the Bank by then too, would be good to know who her other workmates are and whether there was any office gossip about her.”

His boss’ response was a derisive snort, neither of the men had much faith in the Bank’s cooperation. “The boyfriend?”

“Precisely. Cynthia’s going tomorrow and we have someone from child services organised, so we can speak to the kid.”

***

The weekend was in some sort of stasis. Ludo had no idea how to proceed. He told Damian the minimum, but it was enough to worry the boy; that his Mum might have been doing something wrong. The police in Damian’s eyes linked directly to jail, and the problem was that Ludo couldn’t disagree.

Arthur took over, they had a quiet evening together on Saturday, and on Sunday drove over to the Nature Reserve. Plenty of trees for the boys, bracing walks and a chance to forget for the moment. Ludo and Arthur circled around the issues, never coming up with answers. Ludo could just about imagine Jackie caught up in a clever scheme to embezzle funds and get rich quicker. But her annoyance. Arthur reckoned that it was a front, covering something else, but then he’d not actually seen Jackie. Ludo was pretty sure she hadn’t been acting. She’d been furious.