Chapter 6
"Where have you been?"
She had barely entered the room when Lightman barked his question.
"Where's Turner?" she shot back, ignoring his question in favour of her own.
"He's gone to see if he can get a lead on the accountant. We're hoping he can lead us to something we haven't thought of yet, but it seems unlikely at this point" came Loker's helpful reply.
"Oh. Ok, well, I just saw something interesting," Torres began.
"Oh yeah? Well go on then, don't keep us all in suspense," Lightman teased, curious to hear what his protegee had discovered.
Mark Turner made his way towards the same building that Torres and Foster had been to earlier that day. It was nearing the end of the work day for any normal person and he was hoping he might bump into the accountant or, better yet, have an opportunity to follow him unseen. Mark wasn't comfortable with the idea that he might get caught effectively stalking a young businessman in an uptown area, but he knew that if he could pull it off then they would have as good chance as any to get a lead to work with for the following days in terms of how to get closer to the man. without being able to get the cops involved, playing private detective was the only way they were going to be able to figure out what was going on with Brackly's finances. They would do similar work tomorrow with Pickford, although they would have to send Loker or maybe Anna. Pickford would easily spot most of the rest of the Lightman Group employees.
Biding his time, Mark sipped his iced coffee and smiled politely at the occasional glance thrown his way from passers-by. This work came easy to him. He was used to watching people, and more particularly he was used to spotting certain behaviours in people. People who were uncomfortable in their settings, people who were hiding something, people who just stood out for one reason or another. It wasn't much of a stretch for him to prime his talents for spotting specific people without being obvious about it. He had been seated outside the small café for about half an hour, feeling like he was on the brink of loitering, when someone caught his eye. It wasn't who he had expected to see. Even further from expectation was the man's companion, walking arm in arm and looking very cosy.
Mark took his phone out and dialled quickly, impatiently waiting for Torres to answer the phone, and noticing that he had a missed call from her too. She didn't take long to answer, and he didn't wait for her to get the preliminary greeting out of the way before he cut across her.
"Hey, you are never going to believe what I've just seen," he started.
"Yeah, me too. I tried to call you," she replied.
"Sorry, I was busy. Didn't hear the phone."
"No problem, but you should get back here. We've got a little development in the case to go through."
"No kidding," he tried to go on but Torres interrupted. As she spoke, Turner watched in confusion as the next revelation was made.
"Yeah, I saw Owen Pickford having coffee with Bill Brackly's wife", Torres continued, "and they looked pretty friendly…"
"No kidding," Mark repeated, half distracted as he watched Pickford walk away from Mrs Brackly with a parting kiss and turn a corner out of sight, just in time for the accountant to exit the office building and greet the woman. Sparing a fleeting glance around him, the young accountant turned back to her with a smile as she reached up to lay a kiss upon his lips in a strange repeat of her interaction with Pickford. "I've just seen Mr Pickford drop Mrs Brackly outside our accountant friend's office building, looking more than friendly. And you are not going to believe this…"
Four tired scientists sat around Cal Lightman's office trying to make sense of the events of the evening. Loker had managed to drag up a selection of video footage and it played, projected on the wall of Lightman's office, while each of them tried to spot the signs for what seemed to be unravelling before them.
"Ok, so if Jane Brackly is having an affair with both Pickford and the accountant, what does that mean? It doesn't make sense," said Torres.
Lightman and Foster were staring intently at the projected images on the big screen on the wall, while Torres paced the room and Loker siphoned through printed pages and his laptop screen in the hope of finding the loose thread that would unravel this whole case.
Lightman and Torres had been right in that their client hadn't been fully up front with them about his relationship with Brackly. It seemed obvious now that the man's clandestine affair with Brackly's wife and his apparent suspicion of his business affairs must somehow be linked. It would be easy to presume that Jane Brackly had spilled the beans on her husband, but with the added element of her interaction with Tom Meadows, the Brackly's accountant, it couldn't be so simple.
"Well, we've got nothing on this accountant guy. He's got no trace other than a really basic LinkedIn page and no other online presence. No record, nothing news-worthy, and no footage or photos at all of him at any of these events," Loker advised the group.
"I think we should ask them to come in here," Torres suggested.
"Ask who exactly," asked Lightman.
"All of them. All four of them," she explained. "Pickford, the accountant, and the Brackly's. Get them all together and ask them what's going on."
"I'm not saying I don't like the idea of it, obviously, but doesn't that go directly against the wishes of the client?"
"You're telling me this isn't what you would do?"
Lightman began to protest but caught Fosters knowing look and decided on a shrug instead. "Hey, look, it's your case," he offered. "It's not like you're going to bankrupt us if you mess it up," he continued before throwing a look at his partner, "right?"
Foster refrained from answering the question, instead settling on one of her own, "Are you guys planning on doing this tonight?", she asked browsing her own laptop distractedly.
"Why not?" asked Torres.
"Ok, well, I have an early start tomorrow, so I'll leave you all to it, but with Mark following Jane Brackly and the accountant don't you think it would be easier to get Bill Brackly and Owen Pickford to go where they are?" she replied as she closed down her laptop and stood to gather up her belongings.
"Mr Pickford, thank you for meeting us here on such short notice," Lightman greeted the man with his usual down to business approach.
"No problem Dr Lightman. Glad to finally have a few minutes of your time to address my situation," the man replied looking around the casual setting in confusion. "But I have to ask, why here?"
"Eh?" Lightman deflected, directing the man to sit with him at the small table near the entrance of the cosy bar & restaurant.
Just as Pickford took his seat, Ria Torres entered with Bill Brackly in tow.
"Thank you so much for agreeing to meet me here on such short notice," she said as the pair entered the venue.
"Of course, I'm happy to meet with a potential business partner on a new opportunity," he offered. "You mentioned something about this place being a prime opportunity?" he asked, looking around in doubt.
"Yes, well about that," she began as she led the man towards Lightman and Owen Pickford.
Polite confusion filled the man's face in the moment he recognised his old friend. he would never have expected to see Owen in a place like this without a good reason. He approached the table with a smile and a wave, trying to get the attention of the man.
"Owen?" he greeted.
Pickford's face darkened briefly, then his eyes widened in alarm before he pasted a tight smile on his lips. Standing from the table to greet Brackly he shot a micro expression of pure rage towards Lightman and Torres.
"Bill. What a surprise. What brings you here?"
"I do," said Torres.
"Is that so?" Pickford shot at her, the scathing tone barely concealed.
"This is Maria," Brackly explained, oblivious to the truth at hand. "I met her and her fiancée this morning at the gala. Shame you couldn't make it, Owen, it was quite lovely. Anyway, Maria recently began branching into the world of business entrepreneurship and after we got talking this morning about investments, she called this evening to ask if I'd be interested in an…" he trailed off, distracted by something across the room. Confusion lit his face again and his reaction drew the gaze of all other members of their party.
Across the room, where the small bar became a restaurant, sat Jane Brackly and Tom Meadows, dining at the same table, leaning intimately towards one another.
"What the…?" he attempted.
In a burst of action, Lightman stood and declared. "We were hoping you might be able to enlighten us on that one."
In a tizzy of obliviousness, Bill's attention spun between his old friend, his new one, this new British stranger who had just interloped on his evening and the strange sight of his wife sharing a quite cozy dinner with their accountant.
"But you can't," Ria continued on behalf of her boss, "Can you?"
Bill turned back to her with a creased brow and a protrusion of his lower jaw.
"What the hell do you think you're playing at Lightman?" spat Pickford.
"You know this man, Owen? What is all this?" asked Bill.
At the bar, Mark Turner turned to face the scene, quietly observing.
"I don't have the first clue what's going on here, Bill," Owen Pickford declared. "Honestly, Dr Lightman asked me to meet him here, I had no idea you would be here never mind…" he left the end of his sentence unspoken but gestured toward the scene in the restaurant section while doing his best to shrink back into hiding.
"You here that, Bill?" Lightman asked. "That 'honestly'? that means he's not telling you the full story. But, that last bit? The bit about him not knowing what he'd end up finding here? That's true. He had no idea you'd be here. Or your wife."
"Who are you? What the hell is going on?"
Amid the commotion some patrons began to take notice of the small gathering and the noise they made. Among them, Jane and Tom began to stir, their attention drawn first by the noise. Ria, watching for their reactions spotted the exact dawning of realisation that struck the pair. First Mrs Brackly, having spotted the tall figure of her husband with fear rising up upon her face, then spotting Pickford, confounding the terror but adding an element of something else. A resigned acceptance perhaps? Then Tom Meadows, first spotting Ria with a flash of confused anger, and when he looked further beyond her presence he must have spotted Pickford or Lightman first because the next flash of emotion was diluted by confusion before the same expression of fear struck him down upon the sight of his dinner partner's husband. Both went pale, a widening of the eyes and slackening of the jaw. A bead of sweat forming on Tom's forehead, and then Ria's attention was drawn back to her own company.
Brackly had addressed everyone in his second question, but he was now looking at Ria, having spotted Mark too, with a look of betrayal.
"What are you playing at here?"
"Allow me to interject, if you don't mind," Lightman said to the man, clearly not asking permission nor concerned if anyone was of a mind to object. He noticed Ria's annoyance but carried on regardless, unable to resist. "Do you know why your old mate Owen here has been dodging you lately, Bill?"
Bill's face sobered, turning again to look across the room at his wife for a split second before looking straight at Lightman. "No. I don't."
"You've got an idea though, don't you?" Lightman forged on, "I saw that", he said with a head nod in the direction of his wife, showing the man that he hadn't missed his distraction.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Mr Pickford," Lightman said with a short swivel towards the other man, "Can you explain why Mr Brackly's wife is over their getting all cosy with his accountant?"
Pickford blustered, "How on earth would I know that?"
"Well you did give her a drop off earlier this evening right outside his offices." The information had come from Mark Turner who had chosen this moment to join the furore.
"Excuse me?!"
The exclamation had come in stereo from both men.
"Owen?" Bill followed up with hurt lacing his tone.
"Bill, this is ridiculous."
"You got that right," came the retort from Ria.
"Ms Torres," Pickford's stern voice began. "What on earth made you think…"
"You know her?" asked Brackly.
Pickford fumbled his words, stumbling and stuttering over his response.
"Mr Brackly." It was Lightman once again this time. "How's business?"
Brackly's face scrunched up once more, at a loss as to how to reply to this odd man and this chaotic situation.
"Let me elaborate," Cal continued. "You seem like that rarest of things, Mr Brackly. An honest business man," he paused. "And yet, you seem to have become the subject of suspicion for some reason. From your fellow board member. From your charity chairman no less. He reckons you've been cooking the books."
"That's ridiculous. Owen Pickford and I have known each other for two decades. There's no way he could suspect me of any such wrongdoing. My accounts are pristine, I make sure of that."
"Exactly. So he'd have to have pretty solid evidence that your finances aren't in good nick before he'd come to a private investigation firm looking to catch you out."
Lightman paused again, then spared a look towards his two protégé naturals.
"Feel free to jump in at any time here, this is the fun part."
Frustrated by glad to be handed back the reigns, Torres and Turner stepped closer to each other, standing shoulder to shoulder.
"Mr Pickford, why is Mrs Brackly having dinner with Mr Meadows?" asked Torres.
"More importantly, what were you doing with Mrs Brackly earlier this afternoon before she met up with him?" Turner added, gesturing to the couple seated at the table across the room who were doing their best to ignore the scene and remain unnoticed, unaware of the futility of that particular exercise at this point.
"We happened to bump into each other and…" Pickford began before being interrupted.
"That's a lie", all three human lie detectors declared at once.
"You and Jane?" Bill asked, seeming to finally understand something. "How could you?"
"Bill, no," Pickford tried.
"But, then why…?" Bill's thoughts drifted to the contradiction of his realisation of why Pickford must have become so distant with him of late and the apparent relationship that his wife was having with Tom.
"You see the way she's looking at poor Tom over there?" asked Turner.
"I'm trying not to," Bill said with a wry tone, incredibly seeing some humour in the situation.
"No really, look at them," Torres added. "There's no sincerity in how she looks at him." She then turned to Pickford, "Now, earlier on? When I saw her with you? She actually cares about you. A lot. Maybe enough to help you to ruin her own husband's reputation."
Pickford almost spat with rage, nonsensical and nonverbal in his anger.
"It's gotta be tough to get dirt on a guy who's clean as a whistle though, huh?" asked Turner.
Pickford's face tightened further.
"So, you get some help. A good money guy. But a guy like him doesn't just turn on a valued client. Not without incentive." Torres and Turner were taking turns now, completely in sync an unravelling the case in quick succession.
"You wanted Jane back so badly that you had to what? It wasn't enough for you just to have an affair? Just to rekindle a high school romance? You thought you needed to ruin me too?"
"Oh, there it is! There's the motive" Turner declared.
"Bill, I don't know what they're talking about. Jane came to me to suggest something wasn't right. I went to the Lightman group in the hopes of clearing your name."
"That is also a lie, in case you were wondering," Turner leaned in towards Brackly to conspiratorially impart his wisdom.
"Here's what I think happened," came the final interruption from Lightman, "and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here," he accented to Pickford, "you used to go with her," he gestured between each party as he referred to them, "and then he came in, all tall and charming, and got the girl. You never got over it. So, while you all stayed friends, you eventually managed to claw your way back into her good graces. But, you hate him. Don't you? So it wasn't going to be enough to just get the girl back. You had to ruin him. But there's nothing there to expose. So, you, having convinced his missus that she's either in love with you or (more likely) able to get a good bit of dosh out the deal, talked her into seducing the accountant so that he'd fix the books. Then, you get us in, expecting us to expose the whole scandal. Then once it's out in the open, the cops come in and your old mate is up in court, bankrupt, blacklisted."
Pickford's face said he was caught.
"Right. Yeah. Thought so. It's just that, you messed up. You hired the wrong people. Because, when we tell you that our job is to find the truth, we really mean that. My people are trained experts in finding the truth, not just what the evidence tells you."
He paused again to take in everyone's faces, looking around each person to allow them time to absorb every word.
"Right then," he concluded, "We'll send you the invoice, Mr Pickford. Leave you to it."
With that, Cal Lightman left a trail of emotional destruction in his wake, leaving the bar and trusting that Torres and Turner would scramble out the door after him.