There was a computer desk in the far corner of the room. On it was a laptop, a sleek new one. I opened it and turned it on but then needed a password I didn’t possess.
How had Vince hacked into the computer in Orion Print last night? A surge of memory had me looking under the laptop for a slip of paper. There wasn’t one. I expanded my search, checking under the desk and in drawers but finding nothing.
The drawers were on one side of the desk. On the other was what looked like a filing cabinet. Feeling wretched for snooping even though I also believed it was warranted, I nevertheless hesitated before sliding the filing cabinet open.
The files were the cardboard drop type, where a slim folder, or stapled sheets could be dropped inside. A plastic tab at the top showed the contents of each file. It was all very neat.
I pulled out the first file. The header claimed the file contained ‘Expenses’. Inside the drop file was a plastic wallet filled with receipts. It was Derek’s business expenses, neatly filed away for claiming later.
The next file as I worked my way back was nothing to do with work – it was their house insurance policy. I put that back and lifted out the next one. It was labelled Dream Home. There were cut outs from brochures listing properties in Barbados. I skewed my lips to one side and leaned back in the chair to stare at the ceiling. I had seen a Caribbean homes brochure in the house before but couldn’t remember Derek ever talking about wanting to move there.
That was clearly what this was and then it hit me – Joanne was going, but she wasn’t taking Derek and maybe she had never planned to. She was going with the doctor!
I put the file back and took out the next one. It was labelled ‘Minutes’. It turned out it was the minutes of the shareholder meetings and they went back years.
Guiltily, I knew I hadn’t bothered to read the minutes from any of those sent to me in the last decade. Derek always called to invite me to the annual meeting and lunch. I always declined and later he would tell me what happened and what was decided. I think if he had ever asked to buy me out, I would have handed over the shares at whatever price he offered. I had more than made back the small amount I invested to help get his firm off the ground.
I skimmed the most recent ones now for no other reason than because I had them in my hand. It was the same mundane, mind-numbing business I had always found them to contain and exactly why I stopped reading them in the first place. It was only when my eyes caught on Tarquin’s name that they stopped to read for a moment.
I had the most recent annual general meeting minutes in my hand and was reading where the shareholders agreed to bring Tarquin into the fold. They were offering him a small number of shares – a big thing for a small business.
Tarquin Tremaine, the man who was, according to John, taking the firm to the next level and who had won Tamara’s heart. I was yet to meet him, though I knew what he looked like from the pictures I’d been shown. I could see one now simply by turning my head to look at the wall. Tall and handsome, with a floppy Hugh Grant hairstyle, he was going to make Tamara very happy. Given how well he had done for the firm - I knew this only from Derek talking about him in excited superlatives – it was no wonder they had agreed to give him shares. They wanted to keep him and being invested in the firm would lock him in. That he was joining Derek’s family must have made the deal even sweeter and I knew they offered him the shares because he was the one increasing the share value.
Mindy and Buster came back into the room just as I was wallowing in how badly I was letting people like Tarquin down today. I had his wedding to plan, a rush job because of Derek’s ill health and … well, if Shane couldn’t make the charges against me go away then they were going to need to hire someone else.
‘Found it,’ said Mindy, holding aloft a carrier bag with several tubs of the cream in. ‘I grabbed some of the unopened ones as well. I figured it might be getting into the cream before Mrs Bleakwith touches it.’
‘Good thinking.’ I nodded and pushed back from the desk, folding the laptop closed again so it looked as it had when we came in.
Mindy asked, ‘Did you find anything else?’
I gave her a glum look. ‘No. I don’t know what else there might be to find, and I guess I don’t know how to find it. I’m not much of a sleuth.’
‘Don’t say that, Auntie. You figured out about the doctor and the wife having an affair. That wasn’t easy to piece together.’
I shrugged in response. About to say something glib, my thoughts were interrupted by my phone ringing. The unexpected and loud noise gave me a start.
Fishing around in my bag, I got to it before the caller found themselves diverted to answerphone, but my adrenalin spiked when I saw the name displayed: Tamara.
Oh, my goodness! She knows we are in her house!
Feeling weak with terror, I thumbed the answer button. ‘Hello,’ I stammered.
‘Mrs Philips, it’s Tamara,’ she replied brightly, her voice full of energy. ‘Um, I
