by Frank Smith
It wasn’t much, but it was worth pursuing, Ormside decided, and arranged to have the area cordoned off for further examination.
It was clear from the beginning that Moss was trying to please, but after more than half an hour of looking at pictures of cars, he shook his head. “They all look the same these days, don’t they?” he said to the young policewoman who was with him. “Sorry, miss, but I can’t tell one from the other.”
“What was it that drew your attention to the car in the first place, Mr. Moss?”
“It didn’t look right—not parked on the grass verge under the trees like they were trying to hide it. It’s not as if anybody lives there, you see, so I wondered why it had been left there.” He chuckled. “I didn’t give it much mind the first night; I thought it was probably some courting couple who’d stopped there for a bit of you-know-what, but when I saw it there the second night and I couldn’t see no one in it, I took a closer look. Shone me torch inside, but I couldn’t see nothing.”
“You told the police at the site that it was a light-coloured car. Was it actually white? Or was it a light shade of some other colour? And what can you tell me about the seats and the colour of the upholstery? Were there two separate seats in the front, or was it a bench seat?”
“Two separate seats. I remember that, and there was this case, a brief-case, on the seat. As for the colour, well … See, I’m what you might call a bit colour-blind, so it’s difficult. I think the seats were darkish—well, sort of—and they were leather or some such. Could’ve been that other stuff that looks like leather, I suppose. Hard to tell these days. Sorry, miss, but I that’s the best I can do.”
“And you didn’t see anyone about who might have been the driver?”
“No, there was no one about, and that was what got me thinking when one of your lot called round and asked if I’d seen anything suspicious.”
“What time was it when you saw the car?”
“About five past ten both nights. See, I always leave the pub at ten, so that’s how I know.”
The policewoman thanked him for coming in. “If you should think of anything about the car that might help,” she told him, “please ring us immediately even if it doesn’t seem very important to you. Now, if you’ll come with me, I’ll have someone take you home.”
A few minutes later, Ormside glanced through the policewoman’s notes and grunted. “Not a hell of a lot we can do with that,” he muttered. “Pity he didn’t think to look at the number plate. Still, it’s all grist for the mill, I suppose. Depends on what Charlie’s people find.”
CHAPTER 31
“If you think I’m paying up on the grounds that a ride in a car together means there’s something going on between them, you’ve got another think coming,” Ormside growled. “I’ll need more than a bit of gossip from Charlie before I believe it. Circumstantial evidence based on hearsay? No, you’ll have to do better than that, Tregalles.”
“It’s more than that,” Tregalles protested. “You should have seen Paget’s face. You know that look he gets when he’s annoyed? I mean really annoyed. Sort of a set to the mouth and eyes like flint. Well, that’s the way he looked last night, and he wasn’t too pleased with Charlie for mentioning it, either. I’m sure there’s something going on between them. See,” he went on earnestly, “if she gave him a lift back from Worcester and stopped at his house, she wouldn’t have come on to Broadminster by herself in that storm. She’d have stopped there. Stopped the night. Stands to reason, doesn’t it? And I saw them with my own eyes the next morning when she dropped him at Mickey’s Garage to pick up his car.”
“Look,” said Ormside patiently, “all we really know is that she was already down there giving lectures long before Paget even knew he was going down. I was here, remember, when Alcott told him he was going. It’s only natural she’d offer him a lift when his car broke down. Even assuming they did stop at Paget’s house, she’d driven all that way from Worcester in the storm, and she probably wanted to get home. Then, on Sunday, she went back out and drove him into town to pick up his car. It’s not that far.”
“I dunno,” said Tregalles doubtfully. “I’ll bet I’m right. I know I wouldn’t miss a chance like that.”
“You?” Ormside scoffed. “You’re all talk, Tregalles. If somebody like Grace Lovett so much as smiled at you, you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself. Besides, Audrey would kill you. Now, can we get off the subject of Paget’s sex life and get on with what happened on Rutherford Hill this morning?”
It had taken more than two hours to free Malone from the wreckage and get him to hospital, and the doctors were still assessing the damage. At the house, Jane Gage described in graphic detail the chain of events from the time Malone pushed past her at the door to the moment when Paget appeared on the scene. The police doctor confirmed what had been obvious to anyone who’d viewed the body—that Veronica Beresford’s neck was broken, and cautiously offered the opinion that this was the probable cause of death.
Trevor Beresford, who was on his way to Birmingham in the car, was contacted on his mobile telephone. Stunned by the news, he said he would return immediately.
At the house, Paget took the opportunity to examine the bedrooms and found, contrary to Malone’s assertion that Trevor and Veronica Beresford had separate bedrooms, that there was every indication that the main bedroom was shared by both of them. The massive bed was still unmade, and it was apparent that two people had slept there recently. Paget poked his head inside two other bedrooms, neither of which matched Malone’s description.
“They’re guest bedrooms,” Jane Gage told him. “Mr. Beresford’s son and daughter-in-law and their two children used them just last week. His son by his first wife,” she explained.
“What about these other two rooms?” asked Paget. “The ones that are locked. Are they bedrooms also?”
“No. One is Mr. Beresford’s office, and the other is his darkroom. He’s quite an accomplished photographer, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know,” said Paget absently, still puzzled by Malone’s insistence that he’d been having an affair with Veronica Beresford. Perhaps they had had an affair at one time, and he’d hoped that she would give him the alibi he needed. It had been a vain hope at best, and now the only person who might have cleared him was dead, and he had killed her.
It would be nice to think that Bolen’s killer was now in hospital under guard, but apart from the fact that he had no alibi for that time, there was no real evidence to connect Malone to that killing. Neither was there any evidence that it was Malone who had attacked and almost drowned the girl last night, so again their only real hope was to find Julia Rutledge. She had to be the key. Why else would Bolen’s killer pursue her so relentlessly?
When Paget returned to Charter Lane, Ormside greeted him with a report from the hospital. “Malone is on the critical list,” he said. “Besides both legs being broken, he has a cracked pelvis, dislocated hip, head and facial cuts, and as yet undetermined internal injuries. He’s still in the operating room, and the prognosis is not encouraging.
“The good news is that Bunny Brown is doing better than expected, although she has some congestion in her lungs, so they’re keeping her in a special observation unit for a couple of days. And we have nothing back from Forensic yet.”
The sergeant tilted back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “And that, sir, is it, I’m afraid. Apart from knowing that it was Malone who killed Mrs. Beresford, we’re no further ahead than we were ten days ago. And if you ask me, this whole damned case is going cold; I can feel it in my bones.”
“I’m enquiring about the girl who was brought in last night. The one who was almost drowned in the canal. Can you tell me how she is? I’m one of the people who rescued her, and I’d like to know if she can have visitors yet.”
A moment of hesitation, then, “Oh! You must mean Bunny Brown. I’ll transfer you to ICU.”
He waited. “ICU.” A young voice. He repe
ated what he had said before. “I’m not a relative or anything, but I am concerned,” he said worriedly.
The voice softened. “She’s a very lucky girl,” said the nurse, “and I’m sure she must be very grateful to you, but I’m not allowed to give out any information on a patient. Besides, she’s not here now. She’s been moved to SOU on three. You’ll have to talk to them.”
“SOU?”
“Special Observation Unit,” the nurse explained. “We put people in there who can be moved from ICU, but who are not quite ready for a general ward. It’s a monitored room, and we—”
“Nurse!” He heard the sharp command in the background, and the nurse dropped her voice to a whisper. “Sorry, sir, got to go.”
“Right. Thank you.”
He hung up the phone and stepped out of the call-box. Bunny Brown? Bunny/Vikki; Vikki/Bunny. Not the most imaginative pseudonym he’d ever heard. Clearly he’d been right; there never was another girl. He certainly hadn’t seen any sign of one when he’d followed Vikki and Joanna back to the boat that first night, and he’d stayed there until they’d turned the lights out.
So, now that he knew where she was, it was simply a matter of getting to her, and this time there would be no mistake. The girl would be in bed, so the rope would be no good. Better to use the knife. Hand over her mouth, throw the bedclothes back—one quick thrust should do it—then cover her again to make it look as if she were sleeping.
Harry and Laura Bolen had been waiting for half an hour when Paget and Tregalles joined them in the interview room. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” said Paget as Tregalles switched on the tape recorder and entered in the details.
“First,” said Paget, “let me ask you, Mrs. Bolen, and you, Mr. Bolen: Did you come here of your own free will to correct an earlier statement you made to the police?”
“I did,” said Harry, “but I don’t think Laura has anything to correct. She is here primarily to corroborate what I’m about to tell you.”
“Very well, then. Please go on, Mr. Bolen.”
“First, let me say it was never my intention to mislead,” said Harry, “but I had promised not to tell anyone where I was or what I was doing almost every evening last week. But I knew Sergeant Tregalles didn’t believe me, and when my wife’s car was taken in for examination, I realized I had to set the record straight.
“Last week, on the Monday when I returned from Manchester with my wife, I had a call from Laura asking me to go over to her house immediately. When I got there I found Keith Lambert there as well.” He looked at Laura again. “I think it might be best if you told them how he happened to be there, Laura.”
Laura Bolen picked up the story. “If you recall, Chief Inspector, I told you that Keith Lambert had proposed sharing the cost of the Ockrington venture between the two firms. That was before Jim died, of course, but the more I thought about Keith’s proposal, the more convinced I was that there was merit in the idea. But time was running out. So, when he rang on Monday morning to say how sorry he was about Jim’s death, I brought the matter up again.”
Laura leaned forward across the table. “I know how this must sound,” she went on. “My husband had been killed less than two days before, and I was discussing business with the man he hated most, but there was a reason for that. Keith and I had spent a lot of time talking about the Ockrington project prior to his coming to the house the Friday before Jim died, and I believed—and still do—that a joint venture would be a sound business proposition. Combine the assets of the two companies to provide the capital that would be needed, especially in the early stages of development, and halve the risk.
“Of course, as we all know, Jim would have none of it, but that didn’t really change anything. The problem was, Keith was already into negotiations with the M.o.D., and while he felt that, assuming they accepted his proposal, his company could manage the financing required, it would still be a heavy drain and he would feel much more comfortable if he knew he had some outside backing.
“But that in itself posed another problem. So long as the M.o.D. believed they had only one bidder on the Ockrington property, they either had to lower their expectations or abandon their attempts to sell the land. If they got wind of a joint venture, where more capital would be available, they might be inclined to sit back and rethink their position.
“Up to that point, Harry hadn’t been involved in any of these discussions with Keith, but now it was vital that he should be. So I arranged for Keith to come to the house after John had left on Monday night, and Harry came over as soon as he got back from Manchester. We began by talking about Ockrington as a joint venture, but the discussion took another turn when Harry announced that he was thinking seriously of retiring.”
Laura took a deep breath and looked at her brother-in-law. “And that prompted me to put my own cards on the table. Until then, my life had been so governed by the business that I’d never really thought about what I wanted. But when Harry spoke of getting out, I realized that I wanted to get out as well. I was sick of it. It has dominated our lives, as has Jim’s obsession to drive Keith out of business, and I wanted nothing more to do with it.”
Harry was nodding agreement. “It’s as if we’d all been carried along on Jim’s energy, Jim’s dream, Jim’s goal,” he said quietly, “and now Jim’s gone, there is no reason to continue. So we found ourselves talking, not only about a joint venture, but a phased-in amalgamation of the two companies over the next few years. Laura and I will still be part owners, but the idea is that Keith will have the option to buy us out over a period of time. I’m prepared to stay on for another year or two to ensure a smooth transition, but after that I’m leaving. And that’s what Keith and I have been working on every evening for the past week or so.”
“You weren’t there?” Paget asked Laura.
“No.” Laura glanced briefly at Harry. “I had other things to do, and John’s been coming over in the evenings to help me sort through Jim’s papers and things like that.”
Paget looked surprised. “I should have thought he would be involved in your negotiations with Mr. Lambert,” he said.
Harry looked uncomfortable as he exchanged glances with Laura, and it was she who answered. “John hasn’t been involved because I wanted it that way,” she said, “and to be honest, this is where it gets a bit difficult. You see, John has always idolized his father, and I’m very much afraid he would see this move as a betrayal. We have, of course, made it clear to Keith that John is to keep his position, and no doubt he will continue onward and upward in the new company, but for the moment, and especially while Keith is in the middle of negotiations with the M.o.D., I decided it would be best to say nothing to John. I hate to be working behind his back, but I feel I must until this Ockrington business is settled. We simply can’t afford to have anyone making waves until that is done.”
Harry nodded. “Neither of us wanted to exclude John, but as Laura said, we felt it was a necessary precaution until the Ockrington deal is signed and sealed.” He grimaced. “And that meant not telling my wife as well, and she’s not going to be very happy when I do. You see, Dee thinks the world of John, and I don’t think she would approve of keeping him in the dark. She’s my wife and I love her dearly, but she doesn’t understand business, and, well … to be honest, she can’t keep a secret worth a damn.”
Harry stopped speaking, and they both looked at Paget.
“I see,” he said. “I take it that Mr. Lambert will confirm what you’ve just told us?”
Laura nodded. “I spoke to him in London this morning,” she said. “He’s meeting with the M.o.D. today, and hopes to have an agreement in principle by tomorrow at the latest.”
“Anything else you wish to tell me?” asked Paget. They both shook their heads. “Please answer for the tape,” he said. “Mrs. Bolen?”
“No. Except to ask you not to tell John what we have told you here today.”
“I see no need for it to go any further,” said Paget. “Mr. Bole
n? Anything to add or change?”
“No.”
“Any questions, Sergeant?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. In that case, this interview is terminated at four thirty-three P.M.” He nodded to Tregalles, who switched off the tape recorder.
After they had gone, the two men made their way upstairs. “I wonder if they realize what they’ve done?” Tregalles said. “We know they were both there at the hotel about the time Bolen was killed, and we know they had a motive, so this makes their motive even stronger.”
“They’ve also strengthened someone else’s motive,” Paget observed. Tregalles gave him a sidelong glance. “I’m thinking of Keith Lambert,” Paget continued. “Laura Bolen told us that it wasn’t until they met after Jim Bolen’s death that they talked of a complete merger with Lambert. But what if she and Lambert had talked this through earlier? With Jim Bolen out of the way, Lambert would not only rid himself of the man who had spent his life trying to destroy him, but he could have the whole package. I wonder … he ended thoughtfully.
“Wonder what?”
“I was wondering if the package includes Laura Bolen.”
CHAPTER 32
The sun had dropped behind the hills, and thick, dark clouds were moving in. It was time to go, if for no other reason than to find some water and something to eat. The dust from the hay seemed to have drawn every last ounce of moisture from Vikki’s body, and she felt as if she hadn’t eaten for a week.
But go where?
It was a question she had wrestled with throughout the day. Self-preservation was urging her to continue on, to get as far away from Broadminster as she could, but her conscience was telling her something entirely different. It was telling her to go back.
The trouble was, she doubted very much if Joanna would want anything to do with her after the way she had run off at the first sign of trouble, deserting Bunny the way she had.