The Verge Practice by Barry Maitland

anything else, the Americans who won the Wuxang City project didn’t need to resort to anything like that. They won because they undercut our fee bid, that’s all.
    They wanted it more than we did, and cut their fee below what we were prepared to contemplate.’
    ‘What about other projects?’
    ‘No, it’s really not plausible. Knocking us out wouldn’t necessarily guarantee that a particular competitor would get the job. It’s not credible.’
    ‘How long have you worked with Mr Verge, Mr Clarke?’
    ‘Almost twenty-five years. I joined him in the early days, soon after he and his first wife, Gail, returned from America, when we worked from a couple of rooms in the house they’d bought in Fulham.’
    ‘So you know him very well. How would you describe him?’
    ‘Oh . . . totally committed, passionate about his work, tremendous energy, inspirational, a great persuader, very imaginative . . .’ The adjectives trailed off.
    Brock said, ‘I heard someone describe him as an egotistical bastard.’
    Clarke allowed himself a little smile. ‘He would probably have accepted that, a necessary part of the job.
    You see, to arrive at a design concept with absolute clarity, and then to sustain it through the years of challenges and difficulties of getting it built, you need a certain single-mindedness, a confidence in your own judgement that might be interpreted as arrogance. And we all accept that.
    Anyone coming to work here knows that they have to do things the Verge way.’
    ‘Yes, but in personal matters . . . a passionate man, you said. Capable of a crime of passion?’
    ‘Passionate about his work, I said. But he didn’t allow his emotions to run away with him. He was much more deliberate. That’s what I found so inexplicable.’
    ‘And you didn’t notice any changes in his behaviour in the months leading up to the murder?’
    ‘I’ve thought a lot about that. I mentioned that I’d seen him taking pills a couple of times, but I understand his doctor wasn’t prescribing anything, so they were probably just aspirin or vitamins or something. As for his manner, I thought he did seem more agitated lately, less inclined to concentrate, which I put down to overwork. And I was aware, the whole office was, of some undercurrent between him and Miki. More on her side, actually. She seemed less dependent on him, less willing to defer.’
    ‘Ms Norinaga was strong-willed too, was she?’
    ‘Oh yes.’
    ‘How did that work, if he was so used to being number one?’
    ‘At first she was his devoted disciple, hung on his every word. Then later, after they were married, he indulged her, encouraged her to express her own ideas.’
    ‘Well, I suppose it was natural that she’d want to do that. She was an architect in her own right, wasn’t she?’
    ‘It was hardly the same,’ Clarke retorted. ‘Charles was immeasurably more experienced, and talented. I mean, Miki had only been out of architecture school for a few years.’
    ‘Do you think he might have been losing his touch?
    I suppose architects can go off, like soccer players?’
    ‘It doesn’t usually work like that. Architecture is a long game, and architects tend to get better with age and experience. Frank Lloyd Wright designed one of his greatest masterpieces in his eighties. Charles wasn’t even approaching his peak . . .’ Clarke paused as if struck by some thought.
    ‘What’s the matter?’
    ‘It just occurred to me—Wright’s second wife was murdered, too. Their servant went berserk with an axe, if I remember rightly, killed her and burned the house down.’
    Brock sucked his mouth doubtfully. ‘You’re not suggesting a parallel?’
    ‘No, no, of course not. Only . . .’ He shook his head.
    ‘Goodness . . .’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Well, Miki Norinaga was the niece of a client of ours in Japan—that was how she came to work for us here in the first place, as a young graduate. And Frank Lloyd Wright’s second wife—I’m trying to remember