Murder of a Silent Man

by Phillip Strang

  ‘Did you ever see Lawrence?’

  ‘Not me. Once I heard a noise from inside, as though something had fallen over and smashed on the floor, and once or twice the sound of footsteps. I’m not squeamish, far from it, but I never wanted to stay there for long. Do you reckon Molly’s all there?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s just the feeling that something wasn’t right. Now we know it wasn’t, but Molly, she must have known something.’

  ‘According to her, she hadn’t. She served the family all her adult life, that was all.’

  ‘I read in the newspaper that Lawrence had given her a house and money.’

  ‘He had. For loyal service to him and his family.’

  ‘But he never saw his children.’

  ‘Not since he locked himself away. Had you ever seen them there?’

  ‘I saw the daughter once or twice, but she only ever spoke to Molly from the footpath outside the front gate. The son, Ralph, he never came around, but Molly said he was a lovely child, not so good when he grew up.’

  ‘You never saw him?’

  ‘Not me. Molly may have, but she didn’t say much, although I could tell she was fond of the man inside the house. Supposedly at night, he’d come out into the kitchen, eat his meal and then retreat back to his place.’

  ‘For a postman, you seem to know a lot about Gilbert Lawrence and his family history.’

  ‘Just snippets over a few years. I saw him once shuffling down to the off-licence. I walked past him, said hello, but nothing.’

  ‘Why did you talk to him?’

  ‘Just curious. He didn’t reply, didn’t even look my way. What would have happened if someone got in his way? Would he have reacted?’

  ‘Porter, at some time we’ll find out the full story of Gilbert Lawrence, who killed him and why. We’ll also find out if you’ve been lying or failing to tell us the full story. If you didn’t kill him, then it would be better to be honest now. Later on, you could be charged with obstructing justice. Do you understand this?’ Isaac said.

  ‘I understand, but I’m just the postman, a bit too nosy sometimes for my own good. You’d be surprised what I’ve seen over the years, but Lawrence, I don’t know what to say. I didn’t kill him, and no doubt you’ve checked, but there’s no criminal record against me.’

  ‘We’ve checked. You’re clean, but you must have seen something of the man, seen something that would help us with our enquiry.’

  ‘Once or twice, when I was delivering letters along Lawrence’s street, I’d see a man standing by the post box, looking in the direction of his house.’

  ‘Checking the house?’

  ‘I don’t know. It only happened a few times in the weeks before his death, and it wasn’t always the same man. I know what I saw, but why they were there, and what they were after, I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Would you recognise these men if you saw them again?’

  ‘Probably, but if one of them is a murderer, I’m not too keen.’

  ‘We’ll give you protection if it’s needed.’

  ‘And when’s that? When you find me dead? Whoever they were, they weren’t there to make sure the old man was well and in good spirits.’

  ‘It’s more than that,’ Larry said. ‘The man did leave the house on an occasional basis. If they had wanted to do him harm, they could have then.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘His letterbox used to fill up occasionally, and I always pushed the letters through. I couldn’t go back to the post office and say that I couldn’t deliver them when there was a letterbox in the door of the house, could I?’

  ‘You could have given them to Molly Dempster.’

  ‘I could have if she would have accepted them, but she wouldn’t.’

  ‘Any idea why?’

  ‘She never said. Anyway, there was this one time. It was about a year ago, and don’t ask me the date, as I can’t remember back that far. The letterbox was full, and I’ve got a letter to push through. It’s thick and in a padded bag. So I give the letters a shove, and they fall out of the back of it and onto the floor inside. I kneel down to hold up the flap on the letterbox to push the letter through. Now, most letterboxes have a weak spring on them, but Lawrence’s is heavy duty, and it’s hard to hold open.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I’ve got the flap open, and I have the letter halfway through when it was snatched from me.’

  ‘Gilbert Lawrence?’

  ‘It had to be.’

  ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘I did. He was kneeling down on his side. Our eyes made contact. Nothing was said, he grabbed the letter, the flap closed, and I grabbed my bag and beat a hasty retreat. Not before I took a second look, though.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Maybe it’s too many horror movies, maybe not, but I was scared.’

  ‘But nothing happened.’

  ‘I know it didn’t but looking back at those eyes scared me.’

  ‘Did you see anything else?’

  ‘He swore, but to himself, not to me. I had seen inside the house, and I saw him standing ten feet, maybe fifteen, back from the letterbox.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just put the letter through and leave?’

  ‘Curiosity. I couldn’t help myself. I kept looking, and then he disappeared. After that, I never looked again.’

  ‘The men across the road, what about them?’

  ‘There’s not much more I can say. I’m paid to deliver the mail, not to speculate on who’s watching him.’

  ‘Molly Dempster, do you think she knows more than she’s saying?’

  ‘I would have thought so.’

  ***

  Ralph realised that with his sister he had to play it by the book. With her, he would act honourably, but he still had the issue with Gary Frost and that little man who appeared at regular intervals. If he was to assist his sister, he needed Frost off his back. He needed to meet with the man.

  Ralph had spent most of his adult life in the shadows between legal and illegal, and it wasn’t the first time that someone had been after him. He’d seen the man watching him outside the restaurant where he had met Caroline, and then at the bank, and the last time in the foyer of the hotel where he was now staying.

  ‘I’m not about to take a runner,’ Ralph said as he sat down next to Ted Samson on the seat in the hotel foyer.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ Samson said.

  ‘Tell Frost I want to meet with him in public. I don’t fancy my chances with his heavies.’

  ‘When, where?’

  ‘Here, two this afternoon. I could do with his help.’

  With that, the little man walked out of the front door of the hotel and melded into the crowd outside. Ralph walked up to the bar and ordered a whisky. He knew he was taking a risk, but he and Caroline needed help. They needed to understand what Dundas was up to, and they needed to follow up on the trail of deception he had created.

  Caroline had attended one of the meetings with Dundas; her voting rights were not needed. All Dundas and his daughter had spoken of were taxation liabilities for the current year, rental increases, and maintenance issues. It had been a smokescreen to confuse her, Caroline knew that, with superfluous nonsense, and yet the full extent of her father’s assets still eluded her.

  She had signed at the end of the will reading, agreed to take no further action to contest it. It had to be Ralph who would contest the will, and he had little credibility. It was a narrow line that they walked, Caroline and him. It was all or nothing. The thought of her mother propped up in her bed still gave her occasional sleepless nights.

  ***

  Leonard Dundas knew the truth, having spent more time with the reclusive man than anyone else, and now Ralph was threatening to cause trouble.

  ‘Father, we cannot let this collapse. All that you have built up, gone in an instant,’ Jill Dundas said.

  ‘How can it? You know the subterfug
e that we have created, the false trails, the hidden bank accounts.’

  ‘Admittedly it will be difficult, and we are open to criminal investigation.’

  ‘We are open to legal challenges, that is all. It will take them more than my lifetime, probably more than yours, to get to the truth, and then it will only be what we allow them to see.’

  ‘Caroline Dickson?’

  ‘We’ll ensure she has the sweeteners that we have agreed on. She’ll not want for money.’

  ‘Ralph?’

  ‘An idiot, dangerous though. The man’s savvier than his sister. He could cause us trouble.’

  ‘Are you suggesting…?’

  ‘Not yet. We have enough to deal with at this time,’ Leonard said. He knew that he had schooled his daughter well. Gilbert Lawrence may well have made a fortune, but that did not mean that it belonged to his offspring. It was a dog-eat-dog world, and he, Leonard, had been tutored by the best, by Gilbert Lawrence. When he had been at his peak he had been unassailable, and many had fallen foul of him, forced to sell their properties below their true value.

  Sometimes it had been Gilbert who had created the situation, sometimes it was the economy, but the man had profited at the expense of others, not caring as to their fate. Why should he, Leonard Dundas, a man who had put up with that dishevelled man of few words for the last thirty years, care if the man’s children were deprived of their inheritance? Caroline, he knew he could deal with. Ralph, he was not so sure. He would wait and see, but not for too long.

  Chapter 12

  Gary Frost did not appreciate being summoned to a meeting by someone he considered of little worth. ‘Lawrence, what is it?’ he said disparagingly once the two men were seated in chairs close to the hotel bar.

  ‘I believe the situation has changed, don’t you?’ Ralph said. ‘It is no longer me that needs you, it is you that needs me.’ Caroline would not approve of what he was doing, but then she was naïve in so many ways. Too many years of affluence had weakened her ability to see what they were up against.

  ‘I don’t see how,’ Frost said.

  ‘The money I owe you is unimportant,’ Ralph said with bravado. It was a habitual error on his part that had got him into trouble on a few occasions. He should have remembered Spain and what had happened there. But there he had been giving the spiel about how investing in Spain was low-risk, an easy way to secure a financial nest egg at a discount price, not knowing that the couple attentively listening to his advice were English civil servants, and not only that, from the inland revenue. Bob and Deidre Marshall, a couple in their forties, had considered buying a small house in Spain, not far from Barcelona. Deidre had the money from a favourite aunt who had just died, and they had researched the subject thoroughly. They understood the legal aspects of a foreign purchase, the taxation implications, and above all, the real cost, not what the man with the smooth tongue was telling them.

  It was they who had reported Ralph and his partner to the English authorities, who then passed on the information to their Spanish counterparts. The end result was that Ralph and his partner had been arrested and flung into a damp cell where the mosquitoes kept them awake at night, as well as the cockroaches that scurried over them once the light went off.

  ‘It’s still my money that I want from you, plus the interest,’ Frost said. He did not appreciate or trust people who were overly confident. They were the most likely to let him down. ‘I’ve given you time on account of who your father was.’

  ‘And what you could hope to gain from it,’ Ralph said.

  ‘I know Dundas has got you and your sister tied up. The man’s smart, smarter than the two of you.’

  ‘That’s why I’ve summoned you here.’

  ‘Summoned. I suggest you be very careful in how you talk to me. Your position is still tenuous.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll concede that you’ve come to see me at my request,’ Ralph said. ‘The problem is that Dundas had somehow managed to obtain certification that my father was sane.’

  ‘Your mother upstairs propped up in the bed, is that it?’

  ‘Not the act of a rational man, and then he signed over control of his fortune to Leonard Dundas.’

  ‘How much do you know of your father’s holdings?’

  ‘Not enough.’

  ‘And your sister?’

  ‘She will not play her hand at this time. I intend to contest the will, but Dundas has all the information, not me or my sister. We need to know more.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Five per cent of whatever you find over and above what we have already. Remember that not all can be liquidated quickly.’

  ‘Do you intend to liquidate?’

  ‘I want money, not property. If I have enough, then I’ll be overseas and enjoying life.’

  ‘Hustling?’

  ‘Not for me. I’ll be an upright citizen, may even settle down.’

  Frost knew the money that he was owed was inconsequential compared to what was on offer. ‘What do you want from me?’ he said.

  ‘Call off your dwarf, and then help me to chase what’s out there.’

  ‘It’s a deal.’

  ‘And cancel the money I owe you.’

  ‘It’s a lot of money.’

  ‘I’m offering you a fortune.’

  ‘Or nothing?’

  ‘As you said. It’s a risk on your part, on mine.’

  ‘Where’s the risk to you?’ Frost said.

  ‘I don’t trust you, Frost. You’re a man who succeeds through thuggery and intimidation. You could still have me kneecapped or killed.’

  ‘There’s no risk from me. You’re too valuable now. Keeping you alive is my only concern.’

  Ralph ordered a bottle of champagne to celebrate. For the time being, he and Gary Frost were united. But behind the smiles and the polite conversation both men knew that the other was treacherous, and neither would relax until their business arrangement had come to a conclusion.

  ***

  Caroline Lawrence attended the next meeting at Dundas’s office. It was clear that it was to be a repeat of the previous one: the minutes read, an update from Jill Dundas on profit and loss, tax liability, the year ahead. Caroline could see that she needed Ralph in the meetings.

  Caroline listened as Jill Dundas droned on about provisions for the next year’s projected downturn in rentals, and the possible selling of five per cent of the real estate, a shopping centre not far from London, where the vacancy rate was higher than the national average and only likely to get worse.

  ‘How much?’ Caroline asked. It was the first item in the otherwise dull meeting that interested her.

  ‘Forty million pounds, if we act now. If, as we suspect, the major tenant, a supermarket, pulls out, the value could go down five million.’

  ‘Won’t any purchaser know that?’

  ‘Not yet. The supermarket chain will not reveal what their long-term plans are.’

  ‘But you know?’

  ‘We pay to know.’

  ‘Someone on the inside?’

  ‘Someone who will keep it under wraps for the time being,’ Jill said.

  ‘How much will that cost?’

  ‘A lot less than the five million drop in value if we don’t act now.’

  ‘And the proceeds?’

  ‘After costs, twenty per cent to you.’

  ‘And the eighty per cent?’ Caroline asked. She had to admit that close to five million pounds excited her.

  ‘That will be invested, probably into another property, and then there are our costs.’

  ‘How much to you?’

  ‘It will be documented. After costs of sale, then approximately ten per cent to our account.’

  ‘The bribe?’

  ‘That will not be recorded.’

  ‘Illegal?’

  ‘Debatable, but Caroline, do you care? We are offering you a lot a money.’

  ‘But when and how often?’

  ‘The sale will tak
e some time, maybe four to five months. After that, we will make a payment to you.’

  ‘And after this, what then?’

  ‘Your father’s instructions were clear, no more than five per cent divesting of assets in any two-year period,’ Jill said.

  ‘But how can that be valid? He’s dead, and I am his daughter. Surely that decision belongs with me.’

  ‘Not according to your father’s instructions,’ Leonard said. ‘He named me as the executor of his will and his legacy, and I, as his friend, will uphold what he has requested.’

  ‘Even if it’s not legally binding?’

  ‘Any attempt to interfere will result in your immediate exclusion from this meeting and any subsequent ones.’

  ‘Are you taking over from my father,’ Caroline said.

  ‘The empire that he created will continue, and you, Gilbert’s daughter, will be provided for, but let us be clear here and now: it will be me and my daughter and this company that make the decisions.’

  ‘Is this legal?’ Caroline said meekly.

  ‘It is. I’ve spent half my life with your father. I know what he wanted, what I believe is correct. There is no further discussion. You, Caroline, in accordance with your father’s wishes, are welcome at these meetings. You will receive substantial sums of money for your compliance, but any attempt to take over from me and my daughter will result in your non-attendance, and no information as to what we are doing,’ Dundas said.

  ‘Which means you will make the decisions. It is for me to rubber stamp them.’

  ‘Stamp or otherwise, it makes little difference to us.’

  ‘You certainly screwed my father, and you say he was sane.’

  ‘He was, ask the experts. Let me know what your decision is. Either you are with us, or you are not, but I have had a long time to ensure that the Dundas family is in control. You may regard this as a hostile takeover if you like, but remember, the law is on my side, not yours.’

  Caroline looked over at Jill Dundas, could see the smug look on her face. Now, Caroline knew the truth. For all those years, as her father had slowly declined, her mother propped up in her bed upstairs, Leonard Dundas had been subtly engineering his control of the empire her father had set up. She could not speak, other than to weakly nod her head.