Yes, actually he had the key, thank you very much. Taken from beneath Nellie’s mattress yesterday afternoon while she was out and copied by a locksmith in Bridle Mews and returned to the mattress within the hour. If Nellie knew what he had done, she would probably turn him into a goat or a lizard. If she knew what he was currently doing, he would disappear in a puff of smoke, never to be seen again. He was about to betray her, at Azzopardi’s behest, and yet he felt almost righteous. His mother didn’t care a jot for him, she had proved it with her will, so why should he care for her?
Although the whole endeavour was terrifying, Ramsay was also finding it exhilarating. He wasn’t just writing a crime novel—he was living one. Fiction had nothing on what it felt, after a lifetime of passivity, to be finally doing something.
Nellie had only one safe-deposit box, but it was big and heavy, and the teller who had accompanied him into the vault had struggled when taking it out and putting it on the table. Sneddon used his key, then Ramsay used his, and he was finally left alone to open the box.
He thought of Pandora.
He lifted the lid.
* * *
—
“What in God’s name were you thinking?” Niven growled at him. He had Ramsay by the collar, as if he were a schoolboy, and was propelling him towards the Hispano-Suiza, which was parked outside the bank with its engine running. “Get in,” Niven snapped, opening the passenger door and pushing Ramsay in the car and then roaring away down Aldwych as though it were a getaway. “And don’t whine.”
“I’m not whining!” Ramsay protested. “How did you know I was in the bank?”
Sneddon had phoned him, Niven said. He knew Nellie would never send Ramsay to root around in her private box, and anyway Sneddon had seen straight away that the letter Ramsay had written was a risible excuse for a forgery. The manager felt sorry for Ramsay, however, as he thought it must be some kind of stupid prank, “the folly of youth,” he said, rather than a criminal act, and not wanting to bring down the full wrath of Nellie on him, “He phoned me instead,” Niven said. “You should be grateful to Sneddon. And why did you need money so badly that you would engineer this farce? For dope? Gambling?”
“I didn’t take money, it was just papers and stuff.”
“What does that mean? ‘Papers and stuff’？”
Sheepishly, Ramsay took a sheaf of papers from inside his coat. Niven turned into Tavistock Street and parked the car so he could study them.
“Title deeds, lease agreements for the clubs? The freeholds?” Niven puzzled. “Why would you want these?”
Ramsay’s lip trembled and tears pricked his eyes. Not from fear or shame or remorse, but from the relief of confession. He could stop being afraid now, Niven would sort everything out. He reeled out the whole sorry tale.
“Azzopardi? You’ve got yourself tied up with Azzopardi?” Niven was thunderous. “You’re an even bigger idiot than I thought. You understand what this means? With this ‘stuff,’ as you put it, he would own all of the clubs. Everything Nellie possesses.”
“But they’re in her name.”
“He’ll change her name to his. There are plenty of forgers in London a lot better than you. Or perhaps he’ll blackmail her into signing them over. Threaten something she can’t afford to lose.”
“Well, don’t worry, it won’t be me,” Ramsay said. “Our mother would happily sacrifice me if it meant keeping her precious empire. I’ve seen her will, you know. You’ll be all right, but she’s more or less disinherited me.”
“I wouldn’t blame her after this stunt.”
* * *
—
“Mrs. Coker,” the teller greeted Nellie as she bobbed purposefully towards the counter. “I hope you’re feeling better?”
She ignored the question. “I would like access to my safe-deposit box, please.” She raised an eyebrow that sent the teller scurrying to find Mr. Sneddon.
Ten minutes later and she was back in the Bentley. Clamped to her knee was the box made of rusting metal that she had retrieved from her safe-deposit box. A war chest, Hawker thought.
* * *
—
“I think it’s time we both laid our cards on the table, don’t you think?” Niven said.
“Mine are laid out already,” Nellie said, nodding with some satisfaction at the Lenormand spread of cards that was in front of her. Niven looked at it with distaste. He often wondered if his mother really did believe in the occult or if she simply liked people to think she had some secret power she could use as a weapon if they crossed her. She was a showwoman through and through.