Thread of Evidence

by Frank Smith

  “What, exactly, is your position in the company, Mr. Bolen?”

  “Cost accountant. Actually, I spend most of my time doing cost analysis and projections, and frankly I was appalled at what my father was about to do. God knows how many hours I spent working up charts and graphs to try to convince him that Ockrington was a bad investment. The M.o.D. has put far too many conditions on the sale for it to be viable, but he wouldn’t listen.” Bolen smiled ruefully. “Ask my fiancée. She’ll tell you how much time I’ve spent in the office these past few weeks.

  “Mind you,” he continued, “it was always difficult working with him when we were bidding directly against Lambert. I would spend weeks, sometimes months, costing out large jobs, and I’d cut it as fine as I dared, because I knew Dad would accept nothing less. And then he would come along at the last moment and cut it further.

  “At first, I made the mistake of arguing with him. I told him we couldn’t possibly make a profit if we used his figures. But he was adamant, and I finally realized that it wouldn’t matter what I or anyone else said, so I learned to live with it. We made money on other jobs, but we barely scraped by on some of the big ones. If Dad had only …” He lifted his hands and let them fall again. “But that’s water under the bridge,” he said firmly. “It makes no difference now.”

  “Do you have any idea how he arrived at the figures he told you to submit instead of your own?”

  “No. And he would never explain. Sometimes they would be just a couple of thousand under, but in some cases it could be as much as twenty or thirty thousand.”

  “Did you always win the contract based on your father’s figures?”

  John Bolen’s sudden laugh sounded harsh in the tranquil garden. “Clients jumped at it,” he said. “Why wouldn’t they? They were getting a bargain.”

  He paused at the edge of the pond, then turned and began to walk back toward the house. He walked, thought Paget, at the sedate pace of a much older man, hands clasped behind his back, eyes on the ground as if in deep thought.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “that was the last thing we talked about when I went up to his room in the hotel on Saturday evening. I thought I would give it one last try before the meeting on Monday, but he refused to listen. Kept insisting it could be done.”

  “You went to see him Saturday evening?” said Paget sharply.

  Bolen nodded. “I did indeed. He’d just come up from dinner; in fact, I arrived just as he was letting himself in.”

  “What time was that?”

  Bolen thought. “Shortly after nine. Say ten past.”

  “Was anyone with him?”

  Bolen looked puzzled. “No. Why?”

  “Did you see anyone you knew while you were there?”

  “No.”

  “How long were you with your father?”

  “Fifteen, twenty minutes at the most. Not that it did any good. He became quite belligerent. Kept telling me to get out, said that he’d made up his mind, and that was that. I tried, believe me, Chief Inspector, I really tried, but I had to throw in the towel in the end. There was simply no point in talking to him when he was like that, so I gave up and left.”

  “Did anyone see you leave?”

  “I stopped at the desk. After almost shoving me out of the door, Dad told me to stop and tell them he wanted to be called at seven-thirty the following morning, and I was to tell them they’d better not forget!” A faint smile hovered around John Bolen’s mouth. “I relayed the message as it was given to me to the woman at the desk, and I remember she smiled and assured me it would be taken care of. She had obviously dealt with my father before.”

  “Where did you go when you left the hotel?”

  “Home. Well, that’s not strictly true. I didn’t go straight home. I drove out onto Riverview Road and parked the car overlooking the bridge and just sat there trying to decide what to do next. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a damned thing I could do, so I went home and tried my best to stop worrying about it. Of course, I couldn’t.”

  “What time did you get home?”

  “Ten-fifteen, ten-thirty. I’m afraid I can’t be more precise.”

  “What was your father doing when you left him?”

  “Muttering a lot. He had his papers spread out on the table, and he was upset about something. He wasn’t listening to me, and finally he told me to get out because he had a phone call to make. I was pretty angry myself by that time, so I asked him what was so damned important about a phone call that he couldn’t listen to me. But all he kept saying was, “He’s given me the wrong figures. The bastard’s given me the wrong figures!” That’s when I gave up and left him to it.”

  A shadow crossed John Bolen’s face. “And that’s the last time I saw my father alive,” he ended quietly.

  Paget waited a moment before asking the next question. “Do you have any idea who he was talking about?”

  “No. Why? Do you think it might be important?”

  Paget side-stepped the question. “Just one more question, Mr. Bolen, if you don’t mind, and then I shall leave you alone. Are you familiar with the terms of your father’s will? And if so, would you mind telling me who is the main beneficiary?”

  John Bolen’s face darkened as he turned to face Paget squarely. “I’m not sure I like the implication of that question,” he said harshly.

  “There is no implication, Mr. Bolen,” Paget told him. “It is simply a question that must be asked in a case such as this. If I don’t ask it, someone else will.”

  John’s expression didn’t change as he considered Paget’s answer. “My mother,” he said curtly. “Not that it has any relevance in this case, but my mother will inherit everything.”

  The MG was gone when Paget left the house. He was in a thoughtful mood as he drove back into town. The evidence suggested that Jim Bolen had died as a result of a fight with a prostitute, and he was probably wasting his time looking in other directions for a motive. But he couldn’t escape the thought that the timing of Bolen’s death was extremely fortuitous for a number of people, not the least of whom was Bolen’s wife.

  Laura Bolen had been assaulted by her husband and thrown out of her own house. No matter how separate their lives might have been up to that point, they had maintained the façade of a united family, and she must have felt utterly humiliated.

  Harry Bolen had flown back from Canada in a desperate last-ditch attempt to persuade his brother to drop the project, because he had a lot to lose if Bolen Brothers failed. As did John. But then, so did Keith Lambert if Bolen should be successful in his bid. His business had to be suffering for him to have approached Laura as he had. In effect, he was admitting that Bolen was winning, and that must have been hard for him to swallow.

  Still deep in thought, he passed the entrance to a narrow lane when a flash of red caught his eye. He glanced round just in time to see a red MG and a truck parked side by side. Their drivers stood between the two vehicles, heads together, arms around each other. He’d never seen the man before, but in the split second before they disappeared from view, he recognized the girl.

  CHAPTER 13

  Paget stepped out of the lift into the fourth-floor corridor of the Royal Broadminster Hospital and made his way along to the office of Andrea McMillan. He knocked and heard her call, “Come in.”

  He opened the door and stepped inside.

  Andrea sat hunched over a stack of forms on which she was scribbling furiously. Before he had a chance to speak, she said, “Be with you in just a second. Take a pew.”

  Paget sat down and looked around the small office. It looked exactly the same as the first time he had come here to seek an explanation from Andrea about the death of her former husband, and things had gone so terribly wrong. Same overflowing desk; same bookcase with books and magazines piled high on top of it; same narrow window overlooking the car-park.

  But was it the same Andrea? he wondered. They had seen each other only briefly in the past few months, and those en
counters had been almost entirely professional. Formal, polite, not at all the way it used to be before that business at Glenacres had come between them. Yet he sometimes had the feeling that Andrea herself wished things to be the way they had been in the past. It was nothing he could put his finger on—a fleeting expression in her eyes, something in her voice … He shrugged the thought away. Probably just wishful thinking on his part.

  “There!” Andrea McMillan signed her name with a flourish. “Thank goodness that’s done at last,” she breathed. “And thank you for being so patient, Nurse.”

  Her eyes widened with surprise as she looked up and realized he was not the nurse she’d been expecting. She felt a little foolish, annoyed that he had not said something. Paradoxically, she was pleased to see him.

  Paget shrugged apologetically. “You seemed so absorbed in what you were doing, I didn’t like to interrupt. If you are expecting someone else, I can come back later.”

  “No. No, it’s all right.” Now that he was here, Andrea didn’t want him to go. “It’s just that one of the nurses said she’d pop into the office later, and I assumed …” She smiled and made her own apologetic gesture with her hands.

  He looked well. A bit tired, perhaps, but well. And when he looked at her like that she found herself questioning why she’d been so determined to keep him at a distance all this time. But once bitten … She put on her consultant’s smile. “What can I do for you, Neil?” she asked. “Is this a social or professional visit?”

  “I’m looking for help,” he confessed. “I’ve been trying to find out how Reg Starkie is doing after his operation, but not being a relative, I could barely get anyone to admit he’d had an operation, let alone tell me how he is now. Do you think you could find out for me?”

  Andrea rolled her eyes heavenward. “Rules,” she said, and shook her head. “You must have run into a nurse or a doctor who’s had a particularly bad day. Almost anyone in the hospital could have told you how he is. We’ve all been concerned about poor old Reg.”

  “Is he going to be all right?”

  Andrea hesitated. “Considering the condition he was in, he came through the operation very well,” she said slowly. “But he’s grossly overweight and he smokes like a chimney. If he hopes to avoid another attack, he’s going to have to shed a lot of weight, stop smoking and drinking, and exercise regularly.”

  Paget grimaced. They both remained silent for several seconds. It would mean a complete change of life-style for Starkie, assuming he could be persuaded to stick to it. “He doesn’t know this yet, I take it?” he said.

  Andrea shook her head. “He’s still out of it, and will be for another forty-eight hours, more or less. We’re all pulling for him, of course, but …” The doubt in her eyes was plain to see.

  Paget silently agreed. He couldn’t see Starkie taking kindly to that sort of advice, nor could he see the man following it.

  Andrea glanced at her watch. “Look,” she said as she stood up and pushed her chair away. “It’s three-thirty, and I haven’t had any lunch, so I was about to go downstairs for a cup of tea and a bun. Why don’t you join me? After that we can check on Reg again before you leave.”

  “What about the nurse you were expecting?”

  “She can come back later,” Andrea said carelessly.

  “You’re on if you’ll allow me to buy.”

  Andrea smiled. “In that case,” she told him as she preceded him through the door, “I shall have a very large bun.”

  In the event, Andrea had to make do with a very small jam tart, as there was little left from which to choose. She sighed as she poked dejectedly at the sad confection on her plate. “And I was so looking forward to something nice and gooey and horribly unhealthy,” she said. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes.

  Paget sipped his coffee. “Hard day?” he asked.

  Andrea opened her eyes. “Not really. Just trying to juggle too many things at once. Not that I should be complaining; it’s my own fault for becoming involved in the first place.”

  “In … ?”

  “This parade on Saturday, for one thing,” she told him. “That’s what I was doing when you came in. I’m on the committee charged with sorting out the placement of each group in the procession. It doesn’t sound like much, but you wouldn’t believe the things people will do to have their particular entry placed ahead of someone else’s.”

  Paget frowned. “How did you become involved with that?” he asked.

  The parade on Saturday morning was an annual event, signalling the beginning of Broadminster’s Festival Days. Saturday afternoon was given over to sports events, a fête and garden walk in the grounds of Redford Grange, and there was a concert in the evening. Sunday featured a display of local arts and crafts at the Civic Centre, followed by a series of short one-act plays put on by the local schools in the evening. A series of concerts continued throughout the rest of the week, while the following Saturday would feature the annual traction-engine fair, always a popular event, ending with a fireworks display in the evening.

  “Through the riding club,” she told him. “I spoke up at the wrong time and found myself on a committee. Some of the juniors will be riding in the parade, including Sarah.” Her voice softened. “It’s the first time for her, and she’s terribly excited about it.”

  “Sarah would be, what … ? Six, now?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And she’s riding already? Isn’t she awfully young?”

  Paget had never met Andrea’s daughter, but he had seen a picture of the fair-haired girl with laughing eyes and cheeky grin. She was sitting astride the top rail of a wooden gate, her long hair blowing in the wind, and her mother was standing beside her, hands ready in case she fell. He remembered all too clearly where and when he’d found the picture—and the countless times he’d wished he hadn’t.

  Andrea smiled indulgently. “Sarah’s been riding since she was four,” she told him. “At least,” she amended, “she’s been learning since she was four, and she’s coming along very nicely.”

  “At Glenacres?” The words came unbidden and he could have bitten his tongue as soon as they were out. It was the last thing he wanted to bring up right now, and his heart sank as he saw the bleak look in Andrea’s eyes as she shook her head.

  “No, of course not,” she said sharply. “I haven’t been back there since … well, not since last winter. We use Fairfield now.” Andrea pushed her plate aside and picked up her coffee.

  Paget searched for something to say. “You’ll be riding with Sarah, I suppose?”

  “No, she’ll be riding her own pony, Pixie. Lovely little mare. I’m not riding at all, but I shall be right behind her with …” Andrea paused and eyed him speculatively. “What are you doing next Saturday morning?” she asked.

  Paget shrugged. “A lot depends on how we are doing with this Bolen murder,” he told her. “Why? What did you have in mind?”

  “But you could probably get a couple of hours off if necessary?”

  “Oh, yes. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Good! How would you like to come along and give me a hand, then?”

  “I’d be happy to,” he told her. There was nothing he would like better than to spend some time with Andrea, and he didn’t much care what it was she wanted him to do.

  “Helping you with what, exactly?”

  “We have a young woman in our club who has MS,” she said. “She’s riding in the parade. She used to be an excellent rider, but now she has trouble with her balance, and her legs are very weak, so someone has to walk alongside in case she starts to slip. It’s best if there are two people, one on either side. You don’t actually have to do anything at all except be there just in case. Her condition is getting worse, and this may be the last chance she has to ride in the parade. She’s only twenty-three. Will you do it, Neil?”

  “It will be my pleasure,” he told her. “Just tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.”

 
Paget was in a buoyant mood as he drove back to Charter Lane. He had used the excuse of not being able to find out how Starkie was progressing to seek out Andrea, and he was glad now that he had. For whatever reason, Andrea had been more relaxed and easier to talk to than on previous occasions. It was as if some invisible barrier between them had been removed, and the prospect of spending time with her on the weekend was one he looked forward to with pleasure.

  He found Ormside and Tregalles with their heads together as they studied the autopsy report on Bolen. “It came in a few minutes ago,” Ormside told him, “and we also have a name for our phantom female. Which would you like first, sir?”

  “Let’s have the post-mortem results,” said Paget.

  Ormside grunted. “In that case, I’ll give you the bad news at the start. The PM was done by a man named Martindale, and the best he can do on time of death is somewhere between nine o‘clock Saturday night and one o’clock Sunday morning. Unfortunately, the lab can’t do anything with the tape that Starkie made, so we don’t know what his conclusion was. Two of the five stab wounds pierced the heart. The others did a lot of damage, but might not have been fatal by themselves. However, Martindale did say that all of the thrusts were very deep, powerful thrusts. His impression is that whoever killed Bolen really wanted him dead.

  “So,” Ormside concluded, “I asked him about the call for help Bolen is supposed to have made to the desk, and he said it is extremely unlikely that Bolen could have made that call himself.”

  Which merely confirmed what Paget had begun to suspect. “Anything else?” he asked.

  “Yes. The knife found at the scene matches the wounds perfectly, but the interesting thing is this: several pieces of white thread were found inside the wounds, which suggests that the victim was wearing a shirt or possibly pyjamas when he was stabbed. The fibres have been sent on for further examination, but he seems pretty sure they come from a shirt.”