by Frank Smith
“What about Bolen’s brother? He was up there about the right time, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he was. Harry Bolen claims his brother was out when he knocked, but he could be lying.”
“On the other hand,” he went on, “it wouldn’t be hard for someone to come up the back stairs without being seen. At the bottom of the stairs there are two doors: one leads into the kitchen, but the other leads directly out to the car-park. The door to the car-park is supposed to be a one-way exit door, and kept closed, but it was unlocked when I looked at it, and some of the staff admitted they come and go that way all the time.”
“And the corridor exit door is no more than ten feet from Bolen’s room,” Grace mused. “Very handy for someone who doesn’t wish to be seen.”
Tregalles rose to his feet. “I’d better get back,” he said. “Thanks, Grace. You’ve been a great help.” He moved toward the door, but Grace stopped him.
“One thing more. In going through Bolen’s brief-case, we found a copy of what looks like Lambert’s bid on this Ockrington project we’ve heard so much about. You might like to pass that on to Mr. Paget. I believe he was asking Charlie about it, but Charlie isn’t here today.”
But Tregalles shook his head. “I shan’t be seeing him until later,” he told her, “so why don’t you phone him yourself? Give it that personal touch.” He winked knowingly. “I’m sure he’d like that.”
CHAPTER 17
It was late in the afternoon when Tregalles knocked on the door of Norman Quint’s house in Trinity Street in the Old Town.
The woman who answered the door was small, trim, dark-haired, pretty, and at least ten years younger than Quint. “Mrs. Quint?” he ventured, and was mildly surprised when she nodded and said, “Yes, that’s right. I’m Kathleen Quint.”
“Detective Sergeant Tregalles,” he told her. “Is Mr. Quint at home?”
“Norman’s gone to the shops,” she said, “but he should be back any minute. You can come in and wait for him if you like.” She stepped aside and shut the door behind him as he entered.
The house was old, and the front door opened directly into a small sitting-room. The woman directed Tregalles to a chair from which she scooped an armful of socks, turned off the television, then sat down on the sofa.
“Just doing a bit of mending before tea,” she explained. She kicked off her shoes and tucked her legs beneath her. “I expect you’ll want to talk to Norman about that awful business at the hotel. Such a shame. Norman thought a lot of Mr. Bolen. He was one of his regulars.”
“Regulars?”
“Oh, yes. Norman has quite a few regulars. Some come every week, others come every three or four weeks, but they all want Norman to book them in.”
Tregalles frowned. “Do you mean they call him at the hotel at night?”
“Oh, no. They call him here. They used to call at all hours, but I soon put a stop to that. I told them straight that Norman needs his sleep, and they were not to call until after four. That’s when Norman gets up. It’s hard enough working nights all the time, without someone ringing up during the day. They were very good about it, I must say, but then I expect they like the personal service Norman gives them. They always ring him a day or two before, and he makes sure they’re taken care of. Books them in himself when he goes to work, and all that sort of thing.”
The corners of her mouth turned down. “Not that they appreciate all the extra things he does, nor the time he puts in.” She sniffed as she flicked her head in the general direction of the hotel. “Still, it’s a job, isn’t it? And to be fair, the money’s good. Mind you, I don’t like Norman working the night shift all the time. It’s a bit lonely being here all by myself every night, with nobody to warm the bed, if you know what I mean.”
The front door suddenly opened, and Quint came in carrying a bag containing two French loaves. He stopped dead when he saw Tregalles. “What’s all this?” he asked suspiciously.
Kathleen Quint darted to the door and took the bag from her husband. She smelt the bread. “Lovely,” she breathed. “And it’s still warm. I’ll just put it away. Oh, and this is Sergeant … Sorry, what was the name again?”
“Tregalles,” the sergeant supplied as he rose to his feet.
“I know who he is,” said Quint. “What I want to know is: What’s he doing in the house?”
“I called round to ask you a few questions, Mr. Quint, and your wife was kind enough to invite me in to wait for you.”
“Was she, now?” Quint looked anything but pleased. He waited until his wife had left the room before he spoke again. “What is it this time?” he demanded. “I’ve told you and that chief inspector everything I know.”
Tregalles raised a questioning eyebrow. “Everything?” he said. “I don’t recall you mentioning Stella Green, nor these bookings you take over the phone at home.” He made as if to sit down again, but Quint stopped him.
“Not here!” he hissed, glancing toward the door through which his wife had disappeared. “Look, I’ll tell her I have to go out again. All right?” He left the room, returning after a few minutes to lead the way out of the house. “I told her you wanted to go over a few things at the hotel,” he said as they got into Tregalles’s car, “so let’s at least drive around the corner out of sight.”
Tregalles pulled away from the kerb and drove down to the market square, where he pulled into an open parking space and stopped. “Now, tell me what happened when Stella Green went up to Bolen’s room on Saturday night,” he said.
Quint remained silent for some time. “Look, it’s not what you think,” he said. “Stella was a one off with Jim Bolen. I didn’t have any choice. He asked me to find a girl for him, and when I said I couldn’t do that, he made it clear that if I didn’t do as he asked, he’d make sure I lost my job. So I went along with it the odd time. I happened to know Stella, so I introduced them and it became a sort of regular thing.” He spread his hands. “I mean, what could I do? I was caught in the middle.”
Tregalles sighed. “Don’t come the innocent with me,” he said. “You’ve been rumbled, Quint, so let’s stop playing games. You’ve been running a string of girls in that hotel for years, and Stella Green is only one of them. When this case is over, we’ll have to have another chat about that, but right now I want to know why you sent Stella up to Bolen’s room that night? According to her, Bolen told her to piss off, and she reckons you were just trying it on.”
Quint was shaking his head violently from side to side. “He did want her,” he insisted. “Jim Bolen phoned me last Thursday and told me to have Stella there at eleven o’clock on Saturday night. So I sent her up. I don’t know why he sent her away again.”
“So why did you give her money if it wasn’t your fault?”
“She was making such a fuss that I had to do something to get her out of there. I didn’t want Stella making more of a scene than she already had, not with Brenda Jones out there at the desk. I thought I would straighten the whole thing out later with Bolen, but then he turned up dead.”
“You didn’t go up to his room to ask him for an explanation?”
“What, then?” Quint looked alarmed. “I never left the desk,” he protested. “Ask Brenda; she was there; she’ll tell you.”
“Is the manager, Mr. Landau, in on this business of yours?”
Quint looked horrified. “Good God, no!”
“You’re quite sure it was Bolen who phoned you on Thursday? You recognized his voice?”
Quint nodded. “It was him all right.”
“So why do you think he sent Stella away? Did he have another woman in there with him at the time?”
Quint thought about that. “No,” he said at last. “No, I don’t think so.”
“What about the girl you saw sneaking out of the hotel when you were getting into the lift? Could she have been in Bolen’s room?”
“No.” Quint was emphatic. “Bolen wouldn’t have had her. He liked them older, and he couldn’t abide skinny o
nes. He liked them more on the meaty side, like Stella.”
“Could Stella have gone back upstairs after she left you?”
“No. I saw her leave the hotel.”
“But she could have gone round the corner, through the car-park, and up the back stairs.”
“No. Besides, that door is a one-way door. It’s a fire exit. You can’t get in from the outside.”
Tregalles snorted. “You know as well as I do that it’s used all the time as a short cut by your staff, and probably by others when it suits them,” he said. “Isn’t that the way some of your girls come and go in order to avoid the lobby?”
Quint didn’t answer the question directly. “Stella was too pissed off to try going back upstairs again,” he said slowly, “but Harry Bolen was in the car-park that night. He could have come in that way. I mean, who would know their way around better than he and his brother? After all, they built the place.”
Stripped to the waist, Mark Malone bent his knees, straightened his back, and lifted the heavy tub containing a Blue Spruce into the back of his truck. Prudence Bolen, her slim young body propped against the side of her car, shivered with anticipation as her smoke-grey eyes caressed his rippling muscles, browned by the sun and glistening beneath a sheen of sweat.
“There, that’s the lot,” he said. “Time to go, I’m afraid. I promised I’d have these out tonight. Shall I see you tomorrow?” He pulled her toward him.
Malone was a head taller than Prudence. His hair was dark, curling naturally above finely chiselled features that could be traced directly to his Italian mother, as could the colour of his skin. But he had his Irish father to thank for his broad shoulders, slim waist and sturdy legs.
Prudence slipped her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his naked chest. She wished that they could stay like this forever. “Do you have to?” she murmured. She opened her mouth, and her small pink tongue moved sensuously against his skin. She could taste the salt. His broad hands slid down her body, curving beneath her buttocks as he pulled her to him. She lifted her head, straining upward as he bent to kiss her. Her tongue sought his open mouth; she wanted to immerse herself in him; become part of him. Her slender fingers sought his trousers, searching for the zip.
Malone pulled away. “For God’s sake, Pru!” he laughed. “You want it out here in the yard?”
“I don’t care where it is,” she panted. “I want you now!”
He grasped her fumbling hands. “I have to go,” he told her gently. He spoke to her as he might a child. “And you should be at home with your mother at a time like this.”
Prudence tossed her head. “She doesn’t need me. Besides, I’m sure good old John will be there to hold her hand.” The girl began to pull Malone toward an open shed. “You don’t have to go for a few minutes,” she pleaded. “We’ve got time.”
But Malone remained firm. “I mean it, Pru. You should be with your mother.”
Pru pouted. “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t want me to go. Please, Mark?” She took his hand and tried once more to pull him toward the shed.
“No, Pru.” His voice was sharp. “I have to deliver these trees tonight, and you should go home.” He turned as if to get in the truck, then paused. “Have they fixed a time for the funeral?”
“Saturday. Someone rang today to say that Daddy’s body would be released, so the funeral will be on Saturday. John and Uncle Harry are arranging everything. Why?”
“Because I need to be there,” he said, then held up his hand as Pru’s face lit up. “In the background,” he went on. “I know your father didn’t like me, but I should pay my respects.”
Prudence sighed. “I wish all this could be over,” she said petulantly. She put her arms around him again. “I want to be with you all the time, Mark. Not sneaking around like this.”
Malone caressed her hair. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything more from the police?” he said off-handedly. “Do they have any idea yet who killed your father?”
Prudence shrugged. “Not as far as I know,” she said, “but then, I don’t suppose they would tell us even if they did, would they?”
Malone rested his chin on her head, his eyes focused on some distant point. “No,” he said thoughtfully, “you’re probably right; I don’t suppose they would.”
Everyone had gone home by the time Keith Lambert returned to the office, but that was good; he needed time to think. He took everything out of his brief-case, sorted it into piles, and left them for Myrtle to file in the morning.
He was pleased with the way things had gone this second day of negotiations. Nothing had been settled, but even the chairman had been more amiable toward the end of the day. He was even more certain now that they wished to be done with Ockrington once and for all, and he was offering them a way out. They might balk a bit, and no doubt there would be some hard bargaining over price and tax concessions, but he couldn’t see them going back to square one and starting over again in the hopes that they could get a better deal.
As for Underwood, Lambert was almost certain that it was he who had been supplying Bolen with information, but first things first. With Bolen out of the way, a lot of things would change, and Underwood could be dealt with later.
Lambert unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a framed photograph of Laura Bolen when she was eighteen. Laura Preston, then, he reminded himself as he studied the contours of her face for perhaps the thousandth time. So young. So beautiful. He set the picture on the desk, leaned back in his chair and thought of what might have been if it hadn’t been for Jim Bolen.
“And might still be,” he said softly to himself.
The phone rang. He picked it up, wondering who would be calling him here at this time. “Lambert,” he said.
“Ah, Mr. Lambert. DCI Paget here. I was told you might still be at the office. I wonder if I could come round?”
“What, now?”
“Yes. It is important.”
“Well, yes, I suppose …”
“Good. Ten minutes, then. I won’t keep you long.”
“Uncle Gordon has agreed to be a pall-bearer,” said John Bolen as his mother came into the room. “I asked him about Uncle Albert, but he says he hasn’t heard of him in years, and doesn’t know where he is. I gather they never got on.” John put a tick beside the name of Gordon Cox, his late father’s cousin on his mother’s side. “So that makes three,” he said. “Harry, Uncle Gordon, and myself. What about Bob Newman? He’s been with the firm for more than twenty years, and he and Dad always got on well. I think he would like to be asked.”
Laura sat down at the table and looked blankly at her son. Was she doing the right thing? she wondered. Was she being fair to John?
“Mother?”
“Yes. Sorry, dear; I was thinking of something else. Yes, I suppose that would be all right,” she said. “Whatever you think, John.” She made a conscious effort to bring her mind to bear on the matter at hand. “And what about Terry Gardener and Bill Strickland? They were friends of your father’s. I think they might like to be asked.”
“I’ll give them a ring,” he said as he glanced at the time. “Didn’t Harry say he would be over to give us a hand? I wonder what’s happened to him?”
“Oh, dear! I’m sorry; I forgot to tell you.” Laura rose from the table to avoid looking directly at her son. “He telephoned. Said he was sorry, but something had come up, and he wouldn’t be able to make it this evening.”
“Funny, he didn’t say anything to me about it at work today,” John said as he began to punch in a number.
“No? Well, I expect it came up later.” Laura moved restlessly around the room, wishing that this could all be over. She was so utterly weary, and so tired of telling lies.
It was cold again tonight. The sky was clear and there was a cool breeze from the north, and business was slack. Tuesdays were always slack, and tonight Simone was on her own.
The rest of the girls had gone down to the Green Man t
o see if they could drum up some business there. But as far as Simone was concerned, the Green Man was nothing more than a hang-out for drunks and yobs, and you’d be lucky if you didn’t get beaten up, and even luckier if you got paid.
Cresswell Street was a quiet patch, unlike that at the bottom end of Bridge Street where the druggies hung out. Stoned out of their minds, half of them, and you never knew when someone would come at you with a blade, or worse still, a needle. The police were there at least once or twice a week to break up a fight or haul someone away. Up here, they tended to adopt a more liberal attitude of live and let live, although every now and again they would make a token sweep. Simone could live with that. It was the price of doing business.
She walked slowly down the length of Cresswell Street, then started back again. Ten-fifteen. If there wasn’t any action by eleven, she decided, she would pack it in.
A car slid into the kerb and stopped some twenty yards ahead, facing her with its headlights on. She continued walking at the same pace, hips swaying provocatively as she approached the car. No need to appear too keen.
It was hard to see past the headlights until she was abreast of the car. The driver sat there, motionless behind the wheel, watching her approach.
The window was open. Simone bent down and leaned inside. Perhaps this would be her lucky day after all.
“Can I help you?” she asked impudently.
The man smiled. “I think perhaps you can,” he said. “But you look cold. Why don’t you get in and we’ll discuss it further?”
CHAPTER 18
WEDNESDAY, 27 SEPTEMBER
Joanna Freeborn looked at the time. Ten past six. No need to get up just yet. Besides, she wanted to think about the picture she’d seen in the paper last night at the pub. Vikki’s picture, except the two short paragraphs below the picture said her real name was Julia Rutledge, and the police wanted to talk to her about the murder of James Bolen last Saturday night.