Murder of a Silent Man

by Phillip Strang

  ‘What is it, Father?’ Jill said as she came into his office. She had seen the glazed look in the man’s eyes, and him sitting motionless, almost like a statue. She also knew that he had pushed himself too hard in the last month securing Gilbert Lawrence’s fortune, making sure that the loose ends were tied up, and that his daughter had signing rights to all the accounts around the world, and that her name had been given on any proxies needed.

  ‘I’ve done what I can,’ Dundas said. And with that, his head fell forward. Ten minutes later, Leonard Dundas was in the back of an ambulance and on the way to the hospital, a mere formality, as he had been declared dead by the medic who had arrived with the ambulance.

  The first that Homicide heard was a phone call from Caroline Dickson. ‘Leonard Dundas has suffered a heart attack. He’s dead,’ she said. It had been just five minutes after he had left for the hospital that she had arrived at his office for another of the scheduled meetings.

  Bridget contacted the hospital to confirm it and then informed Pathology that they had another body to check.

  ***

  With Leonard Dundas dead, the scheduled meeting at his office was cancelled indefinitely. Not that either the man’s death or deferring the meeting concerned Caroline. To her, he had been the devil incarnate, the man who had engineered himself into her father’s confidence and then stolen everything he could lay his hands on. She knew how Dundas and his daughter lived, very well in fact. A house in town, better than hers, and a place in the country.

  With the senior Dundas out of the way, Caroline met with Ralph and Desmond to discuss the way forward. Desmond had to admit that his brother-in-law had changed. No more the flamboyance, the endless patter of the ‘what I can do for you’ and ‘to our mutual benefit’ jargon that he was usually only too keen to roll out.

  ‘It’s Michael,’ Ralph said. ‘He’s getting out in a few days.’

  ‘A problem?’ Desmond said.

  ‘You know it is. He needs somewhere to stay, and I don’t think that he and I should share, do you?’

  ‘Not here, if that’s what you are suggesting.’

  ‘We need Michael the way he is now. I went and saw him a couple of days ago. He’s straightened himself out, and he’s sure got my gift of the gab. He was charming one of the young nurses. I wouldn’t be surprised if the two of them haven’t got a thing going on when the lights are low.’

  ‘I thought there were rules about fraternising with the patients,’ Caroline said.

  ‘It’s not a hospital. More like a hotel with rules, that’s all. Good luck to him if he is. She was a cracker to look at.’

  ‘Has he said that he wants to stay with you?’

  ‘It’s either me or he’ll be back with Helmsley. He was back out there again, and this time they let him in.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He played their game, apologised for his previous outburst. Even gave them some cock and bull story about him suffering from an addiction.’

  ‘And they believed it?’

  ‘No reason not to. The man’s an oddball, and he can talk. No doubt they weren’t checking too hard either. There was another celebrity checking in, one of those holier-than-thou types. Outside there were some reporters and cameras. The centre was under pressure, and Helmsley took the opportunity.’

  ‘Any damage?’

  ‘To the centre?’

  ‘To your son?’

  ‘Michael started on about the cause again. I don’t know why, as he was a smart enough lad when he was young, and then there’s the nurse. If he could stay on the straight and narrow, she would do him a world of good, but there you are.’

  ‘Like father, like son,’ Caroline said. ‘You had it made with Ralph’s mother, but you blew it.’

  ‘There was more to it than that. You only saw one side. She used to play around, did you know?’

  ‘So did a lot of people back then, especially the crowd you hung around with.’

  ‘Maybe, but she left us high and dry. Michael wants to see her.’

  ‘What have you done about it?’

  ‘I found her. I don’t know why, but I thought she may have calmed down, not that I want to see her, but I had spoken to Michael’s doctor out at Waverley Hills Centre. He agreed, even spoke to her on the phone. She’s arriving in the country in two days’ time.’

  ‘Where’s she staying? Not with you, I hope.’

  ‘She’s booked herself into a hotel. Apparently, she’s got money, although not much else. She sounded upbeat, but it was a pretence.’

  ‘Is she pleased to be seeing her son?’

  ‘With Yolanda, it’s hard to tell. Maybe she regrets what happened.’

  ‘And maybe she realises that you’re on the cusp of a financial windfall,’ Caroline said.

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Dundas is dead, his daughter’s in charge. We can deal with her.’

  ‘How? She’s been schooled by her father, and she’s no pushover.’

  ‘We’ll find out. The next meeting, you’re coming as my adviser.’

  ‘And Michael?’

  ‘One week at the same hotel as his mother. We have the funds to do that. After that, we’ll meet with him, as well as Yolanda if necessary. Leonard Dundas’s death couldn’t have come at a better time.’

  ‘We still need to know where the money and the assets are,’ Ralph said.

  ‘We can afford to give it a couple of weeks. Jill Dundas may prove to be more flexible.’

  Chapter 16

  Graham Picket raised his eyes from the desk and let out a deep sigh. There, standing in front of him, DCI Isaac Cook and DI Larry Hill.

  ‘Wouldn’t it have just been easier for me to send you an email with my report attached?’ Picket, a humourless man of few words, said.

  ‘Probably, but you’re a busy man. Rather than waiting for the full report, we were just interested in your professional opinion,’ Isaac said. Neither Picket nor Isaac had much in common. Isaac was personable, the sort of person that people opened up to; with Picket, most people turned away, and the man knew it, but he had come from a dour family, and he wasn’t going to change, the reason he was a lifelong bachelor.

  ‘Seeing that you’re here. If Dorothy Lawrence had been murdered, there’s no way that I can ascertain the truth. Analysis of the bones reveals nothing, other than she had broken her left arm as a child and a leg in her thirties. Approximations though, and no doubt you can check the records. But you’ll not bring a case against her husband even if you wanted to. Unless you have any reason to delay, it would be possible to release what remains of her for burial.’

  ‘Cremation? Larry said.

  ‘I would suggest burial,’ Picket said. ‘That way if you need to exhume her remains, they’ll still be there. Gives me the creeps thinking about her in that house.’

  ‘Hold off for now with Dorothy Lawrence. What about Leonard Dundas?’

  ‘Apart from the normal ailments of a man in his late seventies, Leonard Dundas was in good health. He suffered a heart attack, nothing more. I’ll send you a report, more technical, but his death is not suspicious.’

  ‘His body can be released?’ Isaac said.

  ‘I’ll sign a death certificate and release the body to his family if that is what you want.’

  ***

  It was clear that Leonard Dundas’s death was going to have repercussions. As had been suspected by Homicide and the Lawrence family, the man had been calling the shots for a long time.

  Isaac and Larry visited Dundas’s house, found the man’s daughter dressed in black. ‘Sorry about your loss,’ Isaac said.

  ‘He was a great man, always cared for his family,’ Jill Dundas said. It was the first time for the two police officers in the house, and it was, as expected, impressive.

  The woman was on her own in the house, save for a cat asleep in one corner of the room.

  ‘You live here on your own?’ Isaac said.

  ‘With my father. I’m not married, but you know
that already.’

  ‘Your career took precedence?’

  ‘I was married once, but it didn’t work out. He wanted children, I didn’t. Nothing sinister, and we keep in contact, the occasional weekend away together.’

  ‘It’s unusual.’

  ‘Not to us, it isn’t. He’s still single, so am I. We should never have married, stayed as lovers.’

  ‘And his wanting children?’

  ‘He had them with another woman, but it was me he wanted, not her. She was purely the vessel.’

  ‘It sounds cold-hearted.’

  ‘I suppose you harbour illusions of romantic love, happy families, the children with their friends, birthday parties. None of that drives me, apart from the romantic love, and I have that from Carl.’

  ‘Do you have someone coming over to be with you?’ Isaac said. He had met the woman on a couple of occasions, but this time she seemed hard, as if she was pretending to be strong and resilient when she wasn’t. He wasn’t sure what to make of her, but then he had never been sure of her father.

  ‘My father knew his time was up. He had completed what needed to be done, and we had spoken about his death. It is not a time for overt displays of sadness or joy, just time to reflect on his passing, and what he and Gilbert Lawrence had achieved.’

  ‘Gilbert and your father?’

  ‘Yes. What else did you think? Gilbert was another great man, but as with Alexander the Great and Hephaestion, or as with Lennon and McCartney if you want a more contemporary reference, he needed someone with whom he had an infinity to implement his ideas, to deal with the legalities, the financial controls.’

  ‘And now you have the most complete knowledge of what Gilbert and your father set up.’

  ‘I do, and if the Lawrence family thinks I’m an easy touch, then they are very wrong. I was schooled by two great men. They taught me well and believe me when I say that I was a great student.’

  ‘Which means you’ll be walking into the lion’s den the next time you meet with them.’

  ‘With them, I’m the lion.’

  ‘Why are you telling us this?’ Larry said.

  ‘I’m telling you because you will be talking to Caroline and Ralph Lawrence, and no doubt Michael. If the young anarchist thinks he’s going to get special treatment because he’s cleaned himself up and because he’s a charmer, he can think again.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about Michael,’ Isaac said.

  ‘It pays to know who you’re dealing with, their foibles, their strengths, although with Michael, he’ll soon turn back to the easy road, even with Giles Helmsley in his ear.’

  ‘You know Helmsley?’

  ‘I know everything. Even Caroline and Ralph meeting, planning on how to take control, but it’s not going to happen.’

  ‘It’s a big challenge for you. Aren’t you frightened that whoever killed Gilbert Lawrence could target you.’

  ‘Why? I have the key to the vault, no one else. Gilbert never did, but his death brings the murderer closer to me, I realise that.’

  ‘Are you convinced that Gilbert was murdered for his money?’

  ‘What else? And none of the Lawrence family knew of the man’s will.’

  ‘You did, so did your father.’

  ‘Why would we kill him? We had access to every facet of the man’s empire.’

  ‘The man was getting older, possibly senile, dementia setting in. At some stage there was a risk that he wouldn’t be able to pass the sanity checks, and even if he did, they don’t hold much weight in law,’ Isaac said.

  ‘They’ve kept the family at bay, and even though Gilbert had met with no one for many years, except for my father, he was well aware that the rats were ready to pick over the bones.’

  ‘Did you ever speak to him?’

  ‘Yes. My father always said it was only him, but sometimes we would receive instructions, and I would speak to him, but only on the phone, never in person.’

  ‘And what did he sound like?’

  ‘Lucid, although a little slow, but his mind was sharp. Sometimes he’d even share a joke with me. He may have been eccentric, but he and I got on well. He once said that he wished I had been his daughter.’

  ‘Derogatory about Caroline and Ralph?’

  ‘Don’t get the impression that we had long conversations. They were always formal, business-related, but sometimes… It was almost as if he regretted the life he led, and he would make a personal comment.’

  ‘Such as his respect for you?’

  ‘Yes. And one day you’ll be in my office, or down at your police station, trying to get me to admit to the murder.’

  ‘Why would we do that?’

  ‘I’m innocent, and you would be clutching at straws. No one had any immediate gain on Gilbert’s death, and there was no clear direction as to who would benefit. The only two people who knew the contents of the will were my father and me. My father wouldn’t have killed him, but I could have.’

  ‘Is this pre-emptive? Assuming that by giving us the scenario we would have come up with, it will somehow exclude you from our investigation.’

  ‘In part. I did not kill Gilbert, I’m just letting you know. If you take me in for questioning, you will need to be sure of your facts. And now, if you don’t mind, I would prefer to be on my own.’

  ‘She would be capable of murder,’ Larry said once he and Isaac had left.

  ‘I liked her,’ Isaac replied. ‘The woman may be hard, but there’s a vulnerability about her. She misses her father greatly, and regardless of what she says, she is a woman who has forgone a lot for her ambition. In her quiet moments she must be very sad.’

  ‘She could still be a murderer.’

  ‘It’s possible that she is. She is, as she said, the person with the strongest motive.’

  Chapter 17

  Gary Frost, a man who had lent money to Ralph Lawrence when he was high-risk, did not relish taking a back seat. But that was what had happened. So much so that the man had chosen not to answer his phone calls. Ted Samson, the short man who had been tailing Lawrence, had been replaced. Now there were two, sometimes three and they were varying their schedules. Now his tails were a housewife in her forties, a retired army officer, and a schoolboy in his teens, all appreciative of the extra cash in hand.

  Frost phoned his men downstairs. ‘Bring Lawrence in but be careful. No witnesses, nothing suspicious, and no roughing up.’

  Yolanda, the former Mrs Ralph Lawrence, sat in her hotel room; she was bored. She had been in London for two days: the first, jet-lagged, the second talking to her former husband and preparing to meet a son she had not seen for a long time. As she walked down Oxford Street, her eager eyes on every shop window, her gold-plated credit card firmly in her handbag, Gucci, of course, she had to admit to feeling slightly better, although the climate was not to her liking.

  Easily solved, she thought, as she deviated from her route and entered one of the shops. Forty minutes later, a uniformed doorman opened the door as she left. She walked further on, no more feeling the cold, a fur-lined coat wrapped around her. She cared little for the man she had left behind in Antigua, but his credit card had not let her down. She knew she was callous, but if Ralph were about to secure the golden egg, to become almost as rich as Midas if he had his way, then she could see a change in her affections.

  Ralph had a talent for spotting people keeping tabs on his movements, his wife did not. From across the road, at two different vantage points, two people kept watch.

  It had been Frost who had seen the complication. The word was that Yolanda was no pushover. Ralph had made his money through his charm and his ability to set up plausible if ultimately worthless investment strategies. Yolanda had the looks and the ability, even in her early fifties, to seduce men, the richer, the better. The man in Antigua, pushing seventy, was barely able to keep her satisfied, but it was not what drove her. The fortune he had made in shipping or transport or something – she was never sure what, never cared eit
her – came with a credit card, the best jewellery, and an expensive car wherever she was. In London, the car wasn’t critical, although the jewellery was first-rate, and the credit card glinted each time she showed it. A jewellery shop beckoned, and she went inside. Outside were two people, neither aware of the other. Both took their phones out and made their calls.

  ***

  While Yolanda enjoyed herself, or as much as she could, knowing that the meeting with her son was scheduled for the following day, Ralph could not say the same for himself.

  As he left his flat in Bayswater a man that he knew came up to him. ‘Mr Frost wants to see you,’ he said. He was big, at least a head and shoulders taller than Ralph.

  ‘I said I would be in contact. Things are progressing,’ Ralph said, knowing full well that his dismissal of Frost’s request would have little effect.

  ‘Mr Frost, he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’ The tone was polite but menacing.

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  The firm hand on the collar, the bundling into the back seat of a BMW 7 Series was not violent, although sitting wedged between two burly men who looked like they were wrestlers at the weekend was not welcome.

  ‘I’ll have something to say about this to your boss,’ Ralph said, more sheepishly than when he had been standing out on the street.

  ‘Do what you want. We’re following orders. Mr Frost, he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’

  No more was said until the car pulled up outside Frost’s place. This time Ralph got out of the car on his own, no hands on him, and walked to the lift. He pressed the button for the penthouse.

  ‘Ralph, good to see you,’ Frost said as the door opened on Ralph’s arrival. ‘It’s been some time since we sat down for a chat.’

  ‘I thought we had an arrangement.’

  ‘And so we do.’ The man was effusive and overly friendly. Ralph knew that this was when he was at his most dangerous.

  The two men sat on comfortable chairs in the living room. A view of the River Thames, the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf on the other side of the river. Each man held a glass of red wine. Ralph Lawrence feigned relaxed; he was not. He knew the man to be vicious and able to impart pain through his heavies at any time.