and I was living at home there were times when we had people in every night.’
Would Northcote’s real paymasters have been among the guests, wondered Carver. ‘They can’t all live in, here in Manhattan.’
Jane turned more fully towards him. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘None. I just think you might have mentioned it to me first.’
‘I told you, I didn’t decide until we were on our way to Burt Elliott’s office. I’m sorry.’
She didn’t sound it, thought Carver. ‘So where will they live?’
‘We keep on the apartments Dad set up for them here in Manhattan. It’s tax-deductible, isn’t it?’
‘I’ll have to see the scheme he used.’
‘If Dad devised it, it works. So we’re agreed, there’s no problem.’
‘OK.’
‘What were you talking about to Burt as we left?’
‘Thanking him, that’s all,’ said Carver.
Carver endured more tears and gratitude from Northcote’s office staff and asked Janice Snow to stay when everyone else began filing out of the office, their bequest envelopes in hand. Janice said: ‘I’m glad we can talk. The girls are worried about what’s going to happen to them… and I’d like to know what’s going to happen, too…’
He should have anticipated it, accepted Carver. But it was a convenient opening. ‘I haven’t had time to discuss it with the other partners but I’m not planning to let anyone go. Most certainly not you. You’re going to have to help me a whole lot for the transition to be as seamless as possible.’
‘What about Hilda?’
‘We’ll have to work it out,’ improvised Carver. ‘Off the top of my head I don’t see why you can’t both work in tandem. The work’s going to be there.’
‘I’m grateful. Very grateful. The girls will be, too.’
As she made to stand Carver said: ‘That’s not all I want to talk about…’ and placed Northcote’s three unidentified keys on the desk between them. ‘You recognize any of these?’
The woman did get up, to pick through the tiny collection. She at once separated one and said: ‘That’s his personal safe key, in the vault downstairs…’ She isolated another. ‘And that’s my safe key, here in the office. I’d got another from security, thinking I’d lost it. I don’t know what he was doing with it…’ She smiled up. ‘He was getting very absent-minded about things lately… leaving things unlocked.’
Didn’t he know it! thought Carver, feeling a warmth of satisfaction surge through him. Everything had to be in Northcote’s personal safe! That’s where he’d seen the inflated draft accounts for Mulder, Encomp and Innsflow and that’s where they’d still be. When he found… With difficulty Carver halted the thought, bringing himself back to the woman, who’d sat down again. What he’d imagined at Litchfield to be a security key remained unidentified on the desk. ‘You don’t know that one?’
‘I’ve never seen it before,’ said Janice, positively.
Genuine ignorance or what he’d suspected to be avoidance on the telephone? Carver breathed in deeply, preparing the new approach. ‘I want to talk some more about those three companies that George kept very much to himself.’
‘There were others,’ announced Janice at once. ‘One’s called BHYF, the other NOXT.’
She wouldn’t have offered them like that, if she were part of it, Carver thought. ‘Five, in all?’
‘That’s all. I’ve checked.’
‘Anything retained, of George’s copies?’
‘Not on the computer: I did the computer filing for him, remember? I would have known.’
‘What about hard copies?’
‘They’d be in his personal safe, in the vault, if there are any. He would have run them off himself if he’d wanted to.’
‘You haven’t looked?’
The woman shook her head. ‘With so much uncertainty now I waited for you to come back.’
‘Good,’ nodded Carver. ‘To do the independent audit George would have needed the books… invoices… how did they get here?’
‘I don’t know,’
‘You don’t know! You dealt with all his mail… all his deliveries, didn’t you?’
‘I never received anything in the mail. Or by personal delivery. Mr Northcote met a lot of clients personally. I told you that on the telephone. I always assumed that’s how he got the accounts, handed over personally.’
‘You handled his appointments diary – which I need to go through with you – so how often did the Mulder people come here to see George?’
‘I don’t remember anyone actually coming here, to the office. Although it could easily have happened. People often gave just their names, without saying who they represented.’
Or even initials, like S-B, and rarely lunched with Northcote in the same place twice, thought Carver.
‘Why are you asking me about these special clients?’ Janice demanded, abruptly.
‘Because they are special: different from the rest,’ said Carver, deciding he was giving nothing away by being honest. ‘I need to know why they were dealt with like this, which isn’t usual.’ He hesitated. ‘I got the impression that George was thinking of ending the firm’s association. He say anything about that to you?’
‘Never,’ said Janice.
He was trying too hard, too quickly. Unless, that is, Janice Snow was part of the conspiracy. It would make sense to have someone else in the firm, ensuring Northcote stayed in line. And explain her vagueness now, despite her earlier giving him the names of the last two companies. Who had been Northcote’s PA before Janice? And how had Janice Snow come to be employed? Personnel would have her records. Maybe even those of her predecessor. And if… Carver once more consciously halted the drift, realizing how easy it was becoming to make shapes out of shadows. George Northcote’s personal office safe wasn’t in the shadows any more. The key was right there in front of him on the desk, waiting to be used. He said: ‘It’s going to take a while for me to understand how George worked: to understand his special relationship with his special clients. Time we haven’t got today. Why don’t you go and tell the girls that they’re all OK? And try to remember some names. You think you could do that?’
‘I’m sure I could,’ promised Janice. ‘And thank you again.’
It was not until he actually got to the gates of the vault that the analogy occurred to Carver. They were exactly that, floor-to-ceiling metal-barred gates that looked, unnervingly, like the cell doors in every prison movie he’d ever seen, quite often with a man shouting through them that he was innocent or had been framed. For the first time Carver realized that George Northcote’s personal safe was an old-fashioned, key-operated twin to that in Litchfield, differing only in the shape and cut of the key that opened it. All the other safes worked by combination – standing like an honour guard beside it in the vault.
Carver had every right to be going through Northcote’s personal records but he still looked uncertainly around the vault, even though he already knew himself to be alone, and even turned to the similarly empty corridor before turning back to the heavy safe casing secured to the floor. The door swung easily, soundlessly, open to reveal a half-filled interior, the shelves much more tidily arranged than he remembered from his accidentally stumbled-upon discovery a few short days ago. The files then for Mulder Inc., Encomp and Innsflow International had been strewn haphazardly upon the uppermost shelf. They weren’t now.
Carver worked his way methodically through everything, page by individual page, to ensure a cover or a section hadn’t been utilized to hide what he was looking for. None had. Refusing to accept defeat – refusing in his switchbacking desperation to accept Northcote had denied him yet again – Carver went just as carefully through every manila folder, binder and paper yet again, recognizing each totally legitimate client.
Carver slammed the safe door closed so violently that it bounced open again, unsecured, and was at once embarrassed at his own petulance, although the fury still burned through him. As he closed and locked the door more properly he thought, why? Why, having promised – given an undertaking at least – to provide the documentary protection, had Northcote reneged, exposing them all to danger? Because he’d thought he had time, Carver supposed. Insufficient. Everything was insufficient. What he knew – or didn’t know – was insufficient and ways to find what he didn’t know and how to protect the firm and Jane and himself were insufficient. Alice, too, he supposed, although she was not directly in danger. What about the handwritten, still unread notes in Northcote’s nightstand? Hurriedly, angered at himself for not including it in his previous searches, Carver went yet again through everything in the safe, seeking references to companies named BHYF and NOXT. Once more, there was nothing.
