I PHONED LAURA and asked her to meet me. What I’d learned from Braithwaite and Eddie Hampshire had cast Rory the entrepreneur in a different light. He seemed more driven, self-centred and ruthless than I’d been allowed to see by the people who still worked for the company. Protecting his reputation, I thought. Also, I wondered if Laura knew anything about the extra-marital relationships that Braithwaite had suggested.
She walked me to a pub that had recently been converted into a modern wine-bar-cum-lounge affair, with large televisions blasting out music videos of black men wearing heavy jewellery surrounded by women in bikinis, and garish neon lighting attached to the plasterwork coving high on every wall. Even at late lunch time it was filled with a young, honking crowd who ate Mexican wraps with small crinkly French-fries and disposed of blue and green drinks at a frightening rate. She seemed perfectly at home.
I told her about my meeting with Braithwaite earlier that morning. She wasn’t impressed. ‘Andy never had any ambition,’ she said. ‘He needed someone like Rory to point him in the right direction and give him a kick-start.’
‘We know Rory could be hard to get on with. Might he have stiffed Braithwaite? Cheated him?’
Laura looked at me levelly. ‘We’re in business, Sam. When you enter a partnership like this you draw up a contract. Lawyers from both sides go through it with their eyes wide open. It’s not like spitting on your palm and shaking hands, you know.’
‘Braithwaite was genuinely upset. If everything was in a contract and dealt with rationally, why was he so arsy?’
‘Just because you have a contractual arrangement with someone, it doesn’t mean you’re not emotionally engaged. Andy loved the code. The stuff that he wrote. He’s probably sorry it hasn’t worked out as he wanted. What can I tell you? I’m not a psychologist.’
A chill had settled on the table between us. But I had another question to ask.
‘Braithwaite also suggested Rory was playing away.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Seeing other women. Did you know anything about that?’
She gave me that appraising look again. The one where the dark edge of her irises bored into you and let you know she was judging, thinking.
‘There are always rumours about powerful men like Rory,’ she said at last. ‘But I didn’t see any telltale lipstick on his collar. None of the girls walked into work wearing the shirt he was wearing the day before. I’ve seen that happen elsewhere. People cotton on pretty quickly.’
‘Is there anyone who would have known?’
She sighed. ‘Are you sure this is all relevant?’ she said. ‘We started with Rory’s murder and the threat to steal his business. We’ve moved onto Tara’s disappearance. Now we seem to be bringing in adultery. I don’t want to be telling you how to do your job, but shouldn’t you be concentrating on one of these at a time?’
‘Unless they’re connected. Second law of private-eye school: keep joining the dots until you make a pattern that you recognise. Then try and see what it means.’