‘Well she’s not going to want to hear that he killed himself because their marriage was so bad. No one wants to hear that. So where do you want me to start?’ asked Ross.
‘Check out this woman in Washington.’ She reached into her bag and pulled out a fat envelope. ‘You should also look through these. Copies of Julian’s bank statements from various accounts. I want you to see if I’ve missed anything.’
‘What did you find?’
‘Apart from my astonishment at how someone can spend £4,650 at a cigar shop, there were a couple of interesting things.’
‘Payments to a Washington lingerie store? A transvestite brothel?’
She laughed. ‘Wouldn’t that make life so much easier?’
‘Well, if we’re settling in, I’d better get myself another drink.’
‘Ross, go easy.’
‘You sound like my ex-wife.’ Ross had separated very shortly after his imprisonment and divorced twelve months later.
‘How is she?’
‘Okay,’ he replied without conviction. ‘Getting ready to move to Cape Town. She’s got married again; they’re all moving out there.’
Rachel frowned. ‘That guy Phillip? She’s only been with him two minutes.’
‘Try two years.’
‘But what about the kids?’ she said, glancing at a picture of two teenagers on the TV cabinet. ‘Don’t you have any say in it? She can’t just take them to South Africa, surely?’
‘Sure, I could object. I could spend the money I don’t have on lawyers’ fees, but the truth is, Phillip’s a nice guy. Good job, stable, everything Kath’s always wanted. And, well . . . the kids don’t like coming here. You can’t really blame them, can you?’
His expression wasn’t bitter, just sad, like a man defeated. She wondered if this was the right time to tell him about her life in Thailand. How she had turned things around, made a new life for herself without the people she loved in it.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she asked.
‘I want to work,’ he said simply. ‘Work gets you through.’
She could only nod in agreement.
They sat down at his cramped dining table and Ross cleared the piles of magazines and papers to make a space. Dark had fallen while they were talking, so he switched on an old anglepoise lamp, reminding Rachel of the newsroom late at night when she had burnt the midnight oil for a story.
‘Let’s have a look,’ said Ross, bending over the statements.
Rachel pointed to an entry she had underlined in black ink. ‘This is one that jumped out at me. A payment to Flypedia, the travel booking company, on one of his credit card bills.’
‘Why is that unusual?’
Rachel had given this some thought. ‘Well, why was he booking flights himself? He travelled a lot, but there’s hardly any other payments to anything travel-related. Diana told me that Denver Group have a travel agency and everything went
through that, not his personal account – besides which, the company has a private jet; why not just use that?’
‘Family holiday? Romantic mini-break for him and Diana?’
Rachel smiled. ‘Men never book holidays, Ross, it’s always the wife or girlfriend. Anyway, Diana told me they use a concierge service. Look: there’re dozens of payments to them.’
‘You’re right.’ He frowned. ‘This one does seem random. Maybe he had to book something himself quickly.’
‘Exactly – but it feels like an off-the-books payment, doesn’t it?’
‘Hack’s instinct – it doesn’t leave you, does it?’ smiled Ross.