by Frank Smith
“One of these days, Reg, you’re going to get down there to examine some poor sod, and you’re not going to get up,” Charlie warned. “What do you weigh, now? It feels like twenty stone.”
“None of your damned business,” Starkie growled. “I told you, it’s my knees!”
“It’s not so much the knees as all that weight on top of them,” Charlie shot back.
“Damn you, Charlie—” Starkie broke off in a coughing fit. His face turned even redder as he fought for breath.
Paget shot a warning glance at Charlie. What had once been friendly and amusing banter between two friends was no longer funny. In his attempt to make Starkie see what he was doing to himself, Charlie’s gibes had become more and more barbed, which only served to infuriate Starkie. The trouble was, Charlie was genuinely concerned about the doctor’s deteriorating health, and in his own peculiar way was trying to help.
But Starkie didn’t see it that way. He knew he had a problem. He knew he should do something about it, and he felt guilty enough without having his friend constantly remind him.
“Get Reg a glass of water,” Paget told the inspector as he led Starkie to a chair. The doctor sank into it gratefully. He was still wheezing heavily, but the redness in his face was slowly fading.
“Just sit still for a few minutes,” Paget told him. Charlie returned with a glass of water and handed it to Starkie without a word. The doctor sipped it slowly.
The wheezing subsided. “Touch of asthma,” he told Paget as he set the glass aside. He took an inhaler from his pocket, blew out his breath, put the tube into his mouth and inhaled deeply. The effort started him coughing again, but his breathing gradually returned to normal.
Charlie picked up the glass. “Sorry, Reg,” he said gruffly, “but you …” He stopped as he saw Paget’s warning look. “Sorry,” he muttered again, and abruptly left the room.
Starkie watched him go with smouldering eyes. “Sorry?” he scoffed beneath his breath.
“He’s concerned about you, Reg,” Paget told him. “We all are. It’s just his way. You know what he’s like. You should. You’ve been friends for God knows how long.”
“Yes, well, he’s got a damned funny way of showing it. Now, do you want to know about this body of yours, or—?”
Starkie gasped as a jolting shudder shook his frame. Colour drained from his face. He clutched feebly at his chest. His head jerked up as he tried to speak but no sound came out. Flecks of spittle formed on lips that stood out like purple slashes against his chalk-white face.
Paget caught him as the pathologist slumped forward in his chair, and lowered him gently to the floor.
CHAPTER 5
Harry Bolen came up out of a deep sleep. He couldn’t remember where he was; his jet-lagged mind refused to function, and it took him several seconds before he realized he was at home in his own bed.
And someone was leaning on the bell.
The house sounded strangely empty as he switched on the light and looked at the time. Ten minutes to five? And the bell was ringing again.
“All right! I’m coming,” he bellowed angrily as he grabbed his dressing-gown and staggered down the stairs.
The ringing stopped. Thank God for that, at least.
He paused at the door to rub the sleep from his eyes. Caution asserted itself, and he switched on the outside light and peered through the spyglass in the door.
A tall, broad-shouldered man stood there; rugged features, hair prematurely grey at the temples; thirty-five to forty, perhaps. Dressed neatly in a grey suit and navy tie. Open raincoat. As if he knew he was being scrutinized, he took out a card and held it up.
Harry squinted, but he couldn’t make out what it said.
He opened the door.
“Mr. Bolen? Mr. Harry Bolen?”
“Yes?”
“Detective Chief Inspector Paget. I apologize for waking you at this ungodly hour, but I’m afraid it’s necessary. May I come in?”
“Jim? Dead? Murdered?” Harry Bolen stared slack-jawed at Paget, then shook his head as if trying to clear it. “I can’t believe it. I was talking to him just a few hours ago. When? What happened?”
When Harry first opened the door, Paget experienced the eerie feeling of seeing a reincarnation of the man he’d just left with five stab wounds in his chest. The resemblance was startling, but now, facing him in full light, he could see that Harry was a somewhat leaner version of his brother.
“As far as we know, it was somewhere around midnight,” Paget told him, “but as to exactly what happened, it’s really much too early to say. Our people are still on the scene, and all I can tell you is that your brother was stabbed. As yet we don’t know by whom or why.”
“Stabbed? Good God! What … ? I mean, did someone break into his room? Someone trying to rob him? What?”
“Unfortunately, sir, as I said, we don’t know the answers to those questions, which brings me to one of the reasons I am here. I realize what a terrible shock this must be for you, but it would be a great help if you feel up to answering a few questions. We have tried to contact Mrs. Bolen, but no one seems to be at home. Would you happen to know where … ?”
“God! I still can’t believe it,” Bolen burst out. “I mean, Jim was fine when I left him.” He stopped and flicked a glance toward the stairs as if considering what to do next. “You’d better come through,” he said, and turned to lead the way.
The room to which he led Paget was part office, part retreat. A large desk, computer, filing cabinets, and a credenza full of books took up one side of the room, with framed photographs of Bolen Brothers projects, ranging from the New AquaCentre in Clunbridge to a block of flats in Hereford, all but covering one wall. The other half of the room was given over to comfort and relaxation. High-backed leather chairs formed a semicircle around a coffee-table in front of a marble fireplace. Bolen flicked a switch as he entered the room, and realistic-glowing coals instantly sprang to life. One side of the chimney-breast was filled with audio/video equipment, including a huge television screen whose baleful eye, even in sleep, dominated the room.
But it was to the glass-fronted cabinet on the other side of the fireplace that Bolen moved as he waved Paget to one of the chairs. “Would you like a drink?” he asked, “or isn’t that allowed in your job?” He opened the cabinet doors. “I’ve got most things here,” he offered.
The chief inspector sank into the cushioned softness of crushed leather. “Thank you, but no,” he said wearily. In fact, he would have loved a drink, a good stiff one. Starkie’s collapse had shaken him, and the fact that the doctor was now in the best hands possible did little to make him feel better. Even recognizing that Starkie was, at least for the most part, responsible for what had happened didn’t help. Charlie had tried hard enough to warn him, but those warnings had only served to make Starkie all the more stubborn. Now Charlie was feeling bad because he thought it might have been his nagging that had pushed his friend over the edge.
Bolen poured himself a large brandy, and drank deeply. “As you wish,” he said. He yawned and shook himself. “But I need something to wake me up. I’m still jet-lagged.” He glanced at his watch. “I don’t think I’ve had more than four hours sleep in the last couple of days. Never could sleep on the plane.” He closed the cabinet door and brought both drink and bottle with him as he took a seat facing Paget. He set the bottle on the table beside the chair, took another drink, and rested his head against the padded back.
“You are quite certain it is Jim, I suppose?” he asked abruptly.
“If there had been any doubt in my mind, I’m afraid it would have been put to rest the moment I saw you, sir,” said Paget. “You and your brother look very much alike.”
Bolen heaved a sigh. “It’s just that, you know, mistakes have been made in the past, and I thought perhaps …” He lifted a hand and let it fall in a helpless gesture.
“You mentioned jet lag,” Paget ventured. “You’ve just returned from where, sir?”
“Canada. My wife, Dee, and I were over there visiting our son and daughter-in-law in Vancouver. They’ve just had their first child; our first grandchild. Catherine Elizabeth.” His face softened, but only for a moment. “Dee is still over there, but I came back early. Business problems. Got in yesterday afternoon, picked up the car, drove straight down here and tracked Jim down at the hotel where he was having dinner.”
“Can you tell me what time that was, Mr. Bolen?”
“That I saw Jim? Eight, eight-thirty, somewhere around there.”
“You’re sure about the time, are you, sir? It could be important.” Norman Quint had said he’d seen Harry Bolen in the car-park behind the hotel around eleven.
“As I said, it could have been a few minutes either side, but you don’t have to take my word for it. There were plenty of witnesses.”
“Witnesses, Mr. Bolen?” Paget leaned back in his chair and waited. Harry looked as if he hadn’t slept at all. He was pale and hollow-eyed, and he kept rubbing the back of his neck as if it were stiff.
“That’s right, and I’m sure they’ll be only too happy to give you their version of events. They probably found it highly entertaining.” Harry eyed Paget thoughtfully over the rim of his glass as if trying to judge the chief inspector’s reaction to what he was about to say.
“You see, Jim and I had a row last night, a very public row in the middle of the dining-room in the Tudor Hotel. It was why I flew home early—not to have a row with Jim, but to try to get him to see reason.” He grimaced. “But I suppose I knew from the start that it would end up in a row. There was no way Jim was about to change his mind.”
“Change his mind about what, Mr. Bolen?”
“This damned Ockrington deal!” Bolen snapped, then immediately looked contrite. “I’m sorry, Chief Inspector,” he apologized. “I didn’t mean to … It’s just that now, with Jim dead, it all seems so … so bloody futile and unimportant.”
“And what, exactly, is the Ockrington deal, Mr. Bolen?”
Harry Bolen set his drink aside. “I’m sure you must have read about the Ministry of Defence closing the training camp at Ockrington at the end of this year,” he said. Paget nodded. “There are three square miles of land for sale, about one third of which is prime building land. The trouble is, the M.o.D. insists on selling it as a complete package, and between the pressure from the people in Ockrington, who will lose a lot of business when the camp closes down, and the environmental people, who want it returned to its natural state, they have put so many conditions on the sale that it would take years for any buyer to see a return on his investment.
“Quite frankly, Bolen Brothers hasn’t got anywhere near that kind of money, at least, not without mortgaging everything to the hilt, but Jim was determined to have that land no matter what the cost.”
Harry paused and picked up his glass. “Don’t misunderstand me,” he continued quietly. “My brother was the driving force behind Bolen Brothers. He was the one with vision; he’s the one who made us what we are today. But in recent years he has become obsessed—and believe me, Chief Inspector, I use the word advisedly—with having Bolen Brothers become the biggest developer in the area. He was prepared to do almost anything to accomplish that goal, and he saw the Ockrington project as a way to do it.
“But it was crazy, and everyone except Jim could see that. In this case he was dead wrong. If he had gone ahead with it, we would have been bankrupt within a year, and I told him that. So did John, his son. I thought I had his agreement to drop the idea before Dee and I left for Canada—I wouldn’t have gone, otherwise—but when Laura phoned me around ten o’clock Friday morning—that’s Vancouver time—to tell me that Jim was going ahead with the deal, I knew I had to get back to try to stop him. So I grabbed the first flight I could get on Friday evening and got in, as I said, yesterday afternoon.”
“Laura … ?” said Paget.
“Jim’s wife. She had tried to reason with Jim, but he—” Harry Bolen broke off and remained silent for several seconds, then shrugged. “He wouldn’t listen,” he ended simply, and drained his glass.
“How did the argument end last night?”
“It didn’t. Jim refused to see reason, and I’m afraid I lost my temper. I could see there was no point in trying to continue the argument there in the dining-room, not with everybody listening to every word. It was getting out of hand, and we were making a spectacle of ourselves, so I left.”
“And went where?”
Bolen poured more brandy into his glass. “I came home,” he said. “I decided that the best thing for me to do was to get some sleep, then tackle Jim again in the morning.”
“About what time did you get home?”
Bolen thought about that. “Around nine or just after, I should think.”
“You didn’t go out again?”
“No. As I said, I was dead tired, so I went to bed.”
Either Quint had been lying about seeing Harry Bolen later in the evening, or Harry was lying now. “Could you give me some idea of what your brother was like?” Paget asked. “A sort of thumbnail sketch, if you will. It’s very hard for us to put things in perspective if we don’t know something of the victim.”
Bolen stared into the middle distance. “Jim was a very dynamic man,” he said slowly. “He had a quick mind and was never happier than when he was in the thick of things—estimates, costing, scheduling, dealing with suppliers and sub-trades. He could tell you to the penny how much things cost, and he had a talent for estimating what others would be bidding on major projects, then sliding our bid in a few thousand under. Me, I’m more of a hands-on type. I prefer to be out there on the job, supervising and watching the projects take shape. Jim preferred the office.”
“What was he like away from work?” asked Paget. “He was married, of course. Happily, would you say?”
“Well … Jim could be a bit difficult to live with at times,” said Harry. “He and Laura had their differences, but then, who doesn’t?”
“Children? You mentioned a son named John.”
“Yes. John is the eldest. He works for us in the office. First came to work for us in the summer holidays when he was sixteen.” Harry smiled. “Dragged in kicking and screaming, as I recall. All he wanted to do was play tennis and become a pro, but Jim wasn’t having any of that. John went to university, did quite well and came into the firm full-time. Jim was planning on having him take over the accounting department at some point, but I don’t know what will happen now.
“Then there’s Prudence. She’s a bit of a handful, I can tell you. I can see a lot of her father in Pru. She’s twenty. She’s just gone back to university after the summer holidays. Good thing, too.”
“Why do you say that?”
Harry Bolen allowed a wry smile to cross his face. “Jim insisted that Pru take a course in self-defence while she was at home this summer. As I’m sure you know only too well, there have been a number of attacks on young women recently, and Jim wanted Pru to learn how to defend herself. Trouble was, Pru was only half-way into the course when she brought the instructor home and announced that she intended to marry him. God! You should have heard Jim! The chap’s name is Malone. Mark Malone. He owns or manages that garden centre on the Ludlow Road, but he runs the self-defence course in the evenings. He’s about ten years older than Pru.”
“What was your brother’s objection?”
Bolen shrugged. “He dismissed Malone out of hand as an opportunist who saw a way to get to his money through Pru. Mind you, I don’t think anyone who wanted to marry Pru would have gained Jim’s approval. I think—”
Whatever Harry Bolen thought, Paget was never to find out because he stopped in mid-sentence, eyes fixed on something—or someone, as it turned out—behind the chief inspector’s chair.
“Harry? What are you doing up? Do you know what time it is? I thought I heard you talking to someone.”
Paget, hidden from the speaker’s view by the high-backed chair,
rose to his feet, as did Bolen.
The woman advancing into the room looked and sounded half-asleep. Wrapped tightly in a full-length quilted dressing-gown, she was tall and slim and very pale. Her light-auburn hair had been pinned up, but now it hung in ragged strands around her shoulders. As she turned her head, Paget could see that the flesh around her left eye was bruised and swollen, and by the way she peered at him, that she was having trouble with her vision.
“I—I’m sorry,” she stammered, brushing her hair away from her face. “I heard noises. I didn’t realize … I left my contacts upstairs. I didn’t know you had someone with you.”
Bolen avoided Paget’s eyes as he brushed past and moved to the woman’s side. “It’s all right, Laura,” he told her soothingly. “I had hoped you would sleep right through, but now that you’re here, you had better sit down. This is Detective Chief Inspector Paget, and I’m afraid he’s the bearer of bad news.”
CHAPTER 6
Laura Bolen must have been a beauty when she was young, thought Paget. Even now, in her middle years, she was a very attractive woman. But at five-thirty in the morning and without benefit of make-up, she could hardly be expected to be at her best. Her face was pale and drawn, and as Bolen led her to a chair, Paget could see more clearly the large, crescent-shaped bruise and swelling on her cheek.
He sat down again. He had been about to leave, but this latest development required an explanation. Bolen had avoided the question when asked if he knew where his sister-in-law might be, and Paget had put it down to the fact that he was upset over his brother’s death. But now it seemed that Harry had side-stepped the question deliberately.
Laura clutched the collar of her dressing-gown beneath her chin. She held herself stiffly as she turned anxious eyes on Harry. “There’s been an accident, hasn’t there?” she said huskily. “Is it one of the children?”
“I’m afraid it’s Jim,” he told her. “I’m sorry, Laura, but Jim was … he was killed last night.”