False Money by Veronica Heley

chatted for a long time about that, and I got quite a lot of names. She even gave me some telephone numbers.
    â€˜Then I tried other people I’d met with Tomi. Mostly they were from your team, Chris, people who’d been involved in making the film. Some I knew quite well, and some I didn’t, but they all go to parties, or nearly all of them, so I yakked on and got more lists of people they invite, and one or two more names, people who have a reputation for pushing drugs. I started a new list with each person I spoke to.’
    â€˜Good grief!’ Chris was impressed. ‘That must have taken hours.’
    â€˜You’ve been away for hours. Some names come up on everyone’s list; some, I’ve never heard of.’
    Bea picked up a couple of lists and compared names. ‘There must be a hundred names here.’ She spotted a discrepancy, looked at Maggie, who was all wide-eyed innocence, and decided not to mention what she’d seen.
    Maggie shrugged. ‘We need Oliver and a computer. He could sort it out. He rang, by the way. I said you were out and told him what had been happening. He’s mad keen to get back to help us, said could you collect him about noon tomorrow instead of waiting till Wednesday, and I said I thought you might. He’ll ring back later to confirm. Oh, and Nicole rang, too. I said you were out and she sounded really angry; wanted you to go over there and cook a meal for her or something. I said you’d ring her when you got back, but that might not be till late and she should get a takeaway.’
    Oh dear. Bea’s hand went to the phone. If Nicole really needed her, she must go. At once. She hesitated, took her hand away because it was too late for her to go over there today. She’d ring Nicole back as soon as she could.
    Maggie realigned her pile of paper. ‘I spotted a couple of names of possible drug pushers which come up fairly regularly, but I don’t know either of them. In fact, I got two different spellings for each one, so there may be four people there or two or three, or . . . whatever.’
    CJ bent over her shoulder, lifted up the top couple of sheets and glanced down them. If he’d noticed what Bea’d seen, he said nothing about it. ‘This is incredible. It would have taken the police hours to find so much out, and these people probably wouldn’t have talked openly to police, anyway. You haven’t got phone numbers for everyone?’
    â€˜No, and a lot of it is hearsay; two people said they’d heard that if you wanted something to liven you up, you could invite so-and-so because he had some pretty good stuff for sale, but then they’d say they hadn’t tried it themselves, of course. They’d probably deny it if asked direct, or if they were asked tomorrow. It was the shock of Tomi’s death which made them indiscreet. Also, I suspect that those who denied all knowledge of drug availability might know a lot more about it than some of the others. Might even sell it themselves. Maybe I’m being fanciful.’
    â€˜You’re a wonder,’ said CJ. ‘May I have these?’
    She got up to fetch a large envelope for him from the side. ‘I’ve run off some photocopies for you. I liked Tomi. I’m not much good at office work or computers or anything, but I thought this was something I could do for her. So the police finally let you go?’
    Bea shuddered. CJ pinched in his mouth. Chris said, ‘We had to give statements to the police because we found Harry, dead. It looks as though he committed suicide.’
    â€˜What?’ Maggie couldn’t believe it. ‘He’s the last person, I’d have thought.’
    â€˜What makes you say that?’ CJ, putting her under a microscope.
    Bea dished out plates, knives, scones and butter. Put the kettle on.
    Maggie looked bewildered. ‘Well, I suppose I oughtn’t to say that, but Tomi did talk