by Gregson, J M
‘So far,’ said Lambert cautiously. ‘It’s early days yet. We haven’t unearthed a mistress for Jim Pritchard, which could have led him to a contract killing. We haven’t found a lover for his wife, who killed her when she wouldn’t break up her marriage for him — or simply when she ditched him. All things are still possible.’ He didn’t look as if the thought filled him with joy.
*
Brooke Office Services was a compact modern enterprise in a side street near the middle of Worcester.
A notice in the window, easily legible without being garish, proclaimed the firm’s ability to provide secretarial services of all kinds at twelve hours’ notice. A bright, intelligent woman of about thirty met them with an interrogatory smile. There were flowers as well as phones and a computer upon her desk, and the place smelt fresh and airy.
Once they had explained the purpose of their visit, she took them past a list of vacancies to the rear of the room and a door which carried the words ‘Sue Hendry, Manager’.
Ms Hendry was at first sight as crisp and efficient as the enterprise she directed. The policemen, who assessed age automatically and expertly as part of the normal process of observation, put her at about forty, though most people would have made her a little younger. She had red hair, and the sandy eyebrows beneath a square forehead argued that its shade was entirely natural. She pointedly refused to take a chair until her visitors were seated, and her firm nose and chin reinforced her determined, slightly aggressive air.
Lambert had been educated in an old-fashioned, single-sex, grammar school, with a similar girls’ establishment separated only by a high fence and a few straggling trees. It was a legacy of much surreptitious observation through that fence that he could now picture Sue Hendry playing tennis or hockey in a cheerful, no-nonsense way, full of brisk energy and swirling short skirts. He banished that inappropriate image almost as quickly as it arrived.
She sat down not behind her desk but in an armchair opposite the two CID men, so that her face was no more than six feet from theirs. And they saw that the skin beneath her bright green eyes was puffed and a little red. The efficient and composed Ms Hendry had been crying. Either the prospect of talking about her employer had distressed her, or something quite unconnected with Laura Pritchard had upset her during the morning. But she did not look the kind of lady who would easily be thrown off balance by events in her working environment.
Lambert said, ‘I expect Sergeant Hook here explained the purpose of our visit when he rang to make this appointment.’
‘To talk about Laura’s murder, yes.’
It was direct and simple. Yet it told them more than she realized it did. That she had been on first name terms with her deceased employer, for a start. That this business probably operated on the informal basis that this implied, with no exaggerated regard for the niceties of rank. And that the woman before them was not concerned to wrap up unpleasant words like ‘murder’ in some more anodyne packaging.
Lambert explained, as always, that their concern was to build up as full a picture as possible of the murder victim, and she nodded rather impatiently, as if anxious to dispense with the preliminaries as quickly as possible. He said, ‘Can you tell us when you last saw your employer, please?’
She looked as if she had been slapped across the face. He was left wondering what could have offended her in the simple, routine question. Was it the use of the term ‘employer’? Surely she could not be so thin-skinned. And the details which they had checked before they came specifically named her as a manager and not a partner in the firm.
She answered crisply enough when she spoke. ‘I last saw Laura on the Friday afternoon before she died. It was here. And she left at three-thirty precisely.’
‘Thank you.’ She had delivered it as though she had said it all before. But no one else involved in the inquiry had questioned her. She must have listed the facts for her own satisfaction. ‘How long have you worked here, Ms Hendry?’ The title still fell awkwardly from his lips, despite his resolute employment of it over the last few years.
‘It’s Miss.’ She allowed herself a small smile at his expense. ‘I’ve been here for three years now.’
‘And you did not know Mrs Pritchard before that?’
‘No.’
‘Did you find her a considerate employer?’
Again she looked distressed, and this time he was sure it was by the use of that word ‘employer’. He was at a loss to understand why; it seemed a neutral enough word to him. She seemed to be striving for calmness when she said, ‘She was extremely considerate, yes.’
‘And other people as well as you found her so?’
She flashed him a sudden look of molten dislike, then covered the emotion just as quickly. ‘I think so. You’d need to ask them.’
‘But at the moment I’m asking you, Miss Hendry.’ He had no objection to ruffling a few feathers; irritation, like other emotions, could lead to revelations.
She seemed to be striving for something — perhaps it was objectivity. ‘Laura never asked anyone to do what she could not have done herself. But she was a highly competent person, and not everyone found it easy to match her standards.’
So there had been high words in this immaculate office sometimes. And perhaps more. ‘Were there sackings?’
Sue Hendry was finding this more difficult than it should have been. ‘The only people we employ directly are the three in this building. One of them was replaced, about a year ago. There have been some office workers whose services have not been retained, when their work has not come up to the standards we think appropriate. You must understand that this is a business which operates very much on word of mouth recommendations. We provide people with reliable secretarial staff; in turn, they come to trust our standards.’
She sounded as if she was quoting someone else, rather than producing these sentiments from herself. Her source could only be the late Mrs Pritchard. Lambert felt at last that he was getting a fuller picture of that formidable lady. He said, ‘But you found her easy enough to work with yourself?’
She hesitated, so that for a moment he thought she was going to reveal more than he had expected. Then the green eyes flashed from him to Hook, whose head was bent dutifully over his notebook, and she said, ‘Laura was excellent to work with. Once she realized that I knew what I was doing, she allowed me to use my own initiative and very rarely questioned any decision I made. We discussed things together; she even allowed me to help formulate the future policy of the firm. We went through some difficulties together, shortly after I arrived as manager, in the midst of this recession, but we survived those and our reputation is now such that even in these times business has continued to grow.’
It was informative, but again the delivery made it sound almost like an evasion. It lacked the animation it should have had, and the monotone made it sound as if she was reading out a written testimonial. She spoke as if she could scarcely believe that she was saying these things herself. Partly because he was preoccupied with her odd manner, he prolonged the discussion of Brooke Office Services, saying, ‘That is a tribute to both of you. Not many businesses are expanding at present.’
She blushed, then looked embarrassed as she felt the blood rush to her cheeks. Probably, like most people with her colouring, she blushed easily. She said, ‘It’s easier to get good staff to work as temps nowadays, of course. A lot of efficient secretarial staff have lost their jobs in this area through no fault of their own over the last few years. We have a good list of competent staff available for temporary work now. Sorry, that sounded like a commercial.’ She seemed once more the professional, capable woman.
Lambert wondered why she had been so natural in this explanation, and so rigid in her previous one. The reason could only lie in her relationship with the dead woman, which was decidedly interesting. Perhaps he might find out more about Laura Pritchard here than he had done so far from her family. He said, ‘How often was Mrs Pritchard here? We understand that she no
longer worked full time in the business.’
‘No. Since she found that she could let go of the reins without the coach going off course, she felt less need to be here at all times. Over the last two years, she has gradually left more and more of the day-to-day running of things in my hands.’ She found it impossible to keep the pride out of her voice as she said it.
‘It must have been gratifying to find yourself trusted by someone with her high standards.’
He had intended it as no more than an emollient sentence to keep her talking, in the hope of eliciting more detail. But he found that she was blushing again, with an embarrassed, almost girlish pleasure. She clasped her small, perfect hands in her lap as she said almost eagerly, ‘It did, frankly. Laura didn’t suffer fools gladly. But she was also shrewd and perceptive; when I found that we were operating as equals in developing the firm, it gave me quite a kick.’
She sat upright and put her hands now on the arms of her chair. With her earnest, open face, her firm bust showing to advantage beneath the cotton sweater, her clear nail varnish accentuating the faultless fingers, she had the slightly aggressive air of a sixth-former determined to assert her rights. Like many people who have had no previous dealings with the law, she had found herself feeling vulnerable, even in her own environment. It was Hook, speaking for the first time, who reminded her that she had still not been precise in recalling her employer’s working week. ‘So exactly how much time did Mrs Pritchard spend here?’
It was a simple enough question, but she looked at him as if he was trying to trap her. It was a few seconds before she said, ‘She was usually here for two full days in each week. Not necessarily the same days each week: we decided when it would be most useful for her to be here.’ Suddenly, she was fumbling in the handbag she had put down beside her on the carpet. She dabbed at her eyes with a small plain handkerchief and said, ‘Sorry. I thought I was going to be all right, but —’ She dissolved into silent tears, unable to complete the sentence.
Lambert said, ‘There’s no hurry. I expect she came in for shorter periods as well as the full days.’
She nodded, grateful for his help. Eventually, she managed to say unevenly, ‘She popped in on most days. She didn’t always stay long, if we weren’t busy enough to need her efforts.’
Lambert remembered reading somewhere that writers should have a splinter of ice in their hearts, so that they could record things objectively when those around them were overcome by emotion. He had reflected that that splinter of ice was even more necessary for detectives. He knew that he had it, and sometimes despised himself in retrospect for the ruthlessness he showed in the face of grief. Now he watched the woman suffering before him and decided coolly that if he gave a little, he might get back more information from this employee than he had done from Laura Pritchard’s husband and daughter.
He said, ‘We have to learn everything we can about Mrs Pritchard, in the hope that the knowledge will suggest pointers to the way she might have died. In particular, we need all the detail we can find about her movements in the week or ten days before she died.’
Sue Hendry nodded seriously, as if forcing all her concentration into the understanding of his words. Her tearful and distressed face showed all of her forty years now, but her reactions and movements provided a strange contrast: they had the elaborate care of a very serious child. Suffering and shock strip us all bare of the pretences we adopt to shield us from the world around us, thought Lambert. He had seen similar effects to this often in those left behind after violent death.
Callously, he wondered why this woman, who was not a relative but an employee, should be so affected. He said, ‘It was you who first reported Mrs Pritchard’s disappearance to us.’
‘Yes. She hadn’t come in to work, and hadn’t phoned in to say that she was ill. That was quite out of character; she was always so — so reliable.’ She faltered as she searched for that word, then recovered determinedly to say, ‘I knew then that there must be something seriously wrong, you see.’
Lambert wondered if she knew how unusual it was for the report of a missing person to come from workplace rather than family. He said, ‘It appears that Mrs Pritchard had her secrets. As you would expect, we are bound to be interested in those during a murder inquiry.’
Her only response was to stare steadily down at the floor between them, convincing him that she knew something he had not so far discovered about the murder victim. He decided to feed her something more specific. ‘We know that Mrs Pritchard was a member of the Cathedral Choir at Hereford,’ he said. She looked up at him for a moment, then nodded sharply and dropped her gaze back to the floor. He said quietly, ‘But we know that for the last year and more, she has not been attending rehearsals, when her family thought that she was doing so.’
Again the little nod of understanding, this time without looking up at him. He gave her time, but she said nothing, so he went a little further. ‘The most usual explanation when people go in for deceptions of this kind is that they are meeting a lover.’ The head opposite him gave an even smaller, almost imperceptible nod. She lifted the little ball of wet handkerchief again and gave a little dab at each eye.
Lambert said, ‘I think you agree with that, Miss Hendry. And I think you know who that lover was.’
She looked up at him and held his gaze at last. The green, tear-washed eyes were clear and defiant. ‘Of course I do. If you were as sharp as you’re supposed to be you’d have spotted it by now. Laura and I were lovers, for the last two years of her life.’
Now at last her grief was audible. Her sobs rang loud in the small room, and neither of the awkward men could find anything with which to comfort her.
Chapter Eleven
There was brisk activity at Warner Plastics. The owner’s new-found air of optimism had run through the close-knit work force. No one now thought the firm was heading for extinction; no one looked anxiously at the tiny column of situations vacant in the local press.
As if the spirit was spreading out to customers too, there was confirmation of another order, and a couple of promising inquiries which could lead to contracts in the future. Mark Warner felt so buoyed up and energetic that he had to beware of seeming positively smug to those who had seen him so cast down only two days ago. He wondered if his voice rang a little too loud from his office; was conscious that he laughed openly several times as he moved among the men at their machines — that was a sound which they had not heard from him in months.
Yet at the back of his mind there crawled a tiny worm of disquiet. All was not yet concluded with the death of Laura Pritchard. He had looked for something at home that morning and been unable to find it. It was a small, innocent object in itself; indeed, he could scarcely think of anything more innocent. But if it was found in the wrong place, it could lead to disaster for him. And he was not even certain where it lay.
At eleven-thirty, when Lambert and Hook were beginning their revealing exchange with Sue Hendry in Worcester, Mark Warner dialled a number he knew by heart. He did not think there would be any reply. If there was, he would simply put the phone down. If no one picked the phone up, that would surely mean the place was empty. That would give him the chance to search it. He would have to take the risk of being disturbed.
He let the phone ring fifteen times, imagining it echoing round the empty room. There was no reply.
Three minutes later, he told his secretary he would be away until after lunch and hurried out to the big BMW. She noticed how clear were his blue eyes, how vivid his fair colouring, how he carried with him an air of scarcely suppressed energy. Like a consumptive in the grip of that disease, she thought. Being much given to the reading of historical novels with Victorian settings, she considered herself now an expert on the symptoms of this particular affliction.
Mark felt a moment of panic as he drove swiftly away from the place where he felt in control. Driving the BMW soothed his nerves. After the first few miles, he began to feel in control of himself again. Bene
ath the glittering blue eyes which had so impressed his secretary, his mouth was a straight, determined line.
*
Peter Brooke was still getting used to his old identity. He had worked so hard at being ‘Jake’ in the squat that his former name sat uneasily upon him now, like a jacket which had been long forgotten in an old wardrobe.
How should Peter Brooke behave in the place in which he now found himself? It would have been easier for Jake, he thought. As far as he could remember, Peter had never been in a police station in his life. Let alone in one like this.
Police stations in central London reflect the business they conduct. In the last decade, drugs and a violent society have had their inevitable effect. Brooke was put in a cell which had white tiles from floor to ceiling, many of them cracked. The whole corridor of cells had been swabbed out that morning, but the odour of stale vomit was still faintly discernible through the stronger smell of disinfectant. He had not been asked to empty his pockets or to surrender the means of killing himself; he decided that this meant he was probably not under arrest. They had even let him keep his violin, when they saw him wrap both arms protectively around the old case.
Could he demand to be released and walk out? It was a long time since he had stirred his brain with considerations like this, and he did not feel it was reliable. He had cultivated apathy for too long for it to release him easily now. In any case, he doubted that he could summon the force of will to assert his rights, if that is what they were.
When Brooke had sat on the wooden bench for an hour, glancing up occasionally at the single white light behind its wire shield in the ceiling, an eye studied him for a moment through the hole in the door. Apparently it decided he was not dangerous, because, a few moments after the flap had been slid shut, the door was noisily unlocked and he was given a mug of sweet tea. He did not take sugar, and the tea was warm rather than hot, but he knew better than to complain. When you lived as he did now, you did not have to respect authority, but you recognized the futility of challenging it.