Dead Money (A Detective Inspector Paul Amos Lincolnshire Mystery)

by Rodney Hobson

  “Could easily have been a woman,” was Slater’s opinion, “and not necessarily a strong one at that. If she caught Jones sleeping she wouldn’t have needed to hit him hard. Just often.”

  Detective Sergeant Juliet Swift was organising a detailed examination of the apartment.

  “There’s no sign of a break-in, Sir,” she told Amos. “Either the intruder had a key or Jones let him in.”

  “He?” asked Amos.

  “This is a man’s work,” Swift commented curtly.

  “Jones looks to have been asleep when he was attacked,” Amos continued as if ignoring her remark. “So either he let the killer in then went to bed with her – or him,” he added in appeasement to the sergeant, “or the killer has a key.”

  “His housekeeper, Jan Morris, has one,” said Swift. “She came in at ten this morning, her usual time. Some woman called Sarah Miller was with her. She was in a right old flap. She was the one who found Jones’s body. She says she doesn’t have a key – that’s why she came in with the housekeeper.”

  “What do you mean, that’s why she came in with the housekeeper? Why did she come at all? Was Jones expecting her?”

  “No, she says she was worried about him. She was a bit hysterical. I gather he never missed evensong unless he was on holiday. When he didn’t turn up on Sunday she kept ringing him. He wasn’t at work yesterday, either. Oh, and she keeps going on about the police not doing their job. Something about refusing to break the door down.”

  Amos wandered over to the bedside light, which was switched on. He touched the bulb and withdrew his hand sharply. It was very hot.

  Swift butted in: “The bedside light was on, Sir, when the two women came in. They say the main light was off and the curtains were closed. We opened them so we could see what we were doing.”

  Amos nodded to Swift and she closed the curtains. The inspector then switched off the ceiling light. It was quite dark. The bulb in the bedside light was only 40 watts.

  Nonetheless, the attacker would have been able to see Jones distinctly if dimly. Satisfied, Amos switched the main light on and Swift opened the curtains again.

  Amos was apparently losing interest in Sarah Miller. His eyes were wandering to the telephone point in what was clearly a second bedroom converted into a home office.

  “Where’s the answering machine?” he asked. “Surely Jones would have one.”

  It was a young constable who supplied the information: “The phone’s linked into the computer, Sir. It’s on screensaver at the moment.”

  Before Amos had a chance to tell the junior officer to speak English, the lad touched the mouse and the computer whirred into life.

  “This is top bananas!” he called out appreciatively.

  A coupled of clicks and the screen proclaimed two old messages and six new ones. The unreliable software had not crashed.

  “I’ll play the old messages first, the ones Jones had listened to,” suggested the constable.

  Amos grunted assent.

  They were a couple of calls from Jones’s office, made the previous week and merely confirming business meetings. The new messages were more interesting.

  The first was a man’s voice: “Look, Ray, can we have a quick word over the weekend. I’m sure we can sort out whatever’s bothering you. I’ll pop over to see you this afternoon. No need to involve Joanna.”

  Then a woman: “It’s Joanna. I’ve been thinking about what you said. You could be right. I’m in Scunthorpe on Monday but I’ll drop in unannounced first thing Tuesday. Don’t worry, I’ll have a good excuse.”

  Then followed four increasingly frantic messages from Sarah Miller, each meticulously stating who she was, the time of her call and her phone number.

  “Get them transcribed,” Amos ordered. “Computers have a habit of losing things.”

  He moved on through the apartment. Killiney Court was built in an octagonal with four flats on each floor. They were identical except they were grouped in pairs that were a mirror image of each other.

  There were two bedrooms, a lounge, a bathroom, a shower, a separate toilet and a kitchen. Outside the kitchen was an open laundry area.

  Amos looked out of the laundry. The outside was like a large window with no glass. Directly opposite was a similar arrangement for the other flat in the pair, 4A.

  That’s a third way in, he remarked to Sgt. Swift. “I reckon a fit young man or woman with sufficient nerve – or sufficiently desperate – could jump across that gap. I think we had better have a list of all the residents in this block. We shall have to interview them all.

  “And I shall start with whoever lives in that flat opposite.”

  Chapter 4

  The owner of flat 4A was not conveniently at home. One of the constables found and produced the caretaker, who supplied the information that Scott Warren ran the Ace Plus Video recording studio in Gainsborough Road.

  “Did you get the impression that the caretaker was trying to get rid of us?” Amos

  asked Swift as they drove towards the north west corner of the town. “He practically gabbled out where Warren worked.”

  Swift agreed: “He was certainly keen enough to make out that Warren and Jones had a stand-up row on Friday evening then they arrived back at Killiney Court.”

  Warren received them anxiously. His perturbation at the mention of Jones’s name, however, gave way to apparent relief when Swift informed him that it was a murder investigation.

  “No, we didn’t have a blazing row on Friday evening,” he responded to a question from Swift. “Who told you that? We happened to arrive home at the same time and exchanged a few civil words. Jones invested in my firm. I needed his cash to set up and he needed my expertise to produce a profit.

  “Jones invested in dozens of businesses in this town – and further afield. Some were more successful than others. Mine was among his better choices.”

  So what had Warren done since that conversation, Amos wondered.

  “It was about quarter to five when I left Jones talking to Joanna Stevens. She’s his nosey parker accountant. She lives in the block two floors directly below Jones at 6B. You want to talk to her. I reckon Jones was making unwelcome advances to her. Maybe he went a bit too far.”

  “Your movements,” Amos prompted him.

  “I did a bit of paperwork, tidied up the week’s accounts, then I stuck in some oven chips and grilled a chop. I went down to the pub, had a couple of pints and a few games of darts with the usual crowd, and got back to the flat about 11.30 pm.

  “I always have a lie-in on Saturday mornings and play squash in the afternoon. I took a girl friend out in the evening - I can give you the name of the restaurant – saw her home and got back latish on.

  “Sunday I read the newspapers. It takes most of the day to get through the heavies. In the evening I had three friends round to play bridge until quite late.”

  “I shall need the names of the people you say you have been with,” Amos interjected.

  Warren hesitated for several seconds. Finally he replied reluctantly: “I can give you the names, of course, but I’d rather you didn’t approach them unless you really have to. I don’t greatly like the idea of my friends knowing that I’ve been interviewed in a murder inquiry.”

  “You live alone, I take it?” Swift said.

  Warren nodded.

  “So for large chunks of the weekend you were in the flat on your own?”

  “So was Joanna Stevens,” he ventured by way of a reply. “You should talk to her.”

  “We shall talk to all the Killiney Court residents,” Amos said sharply. He was annoyed at being told how to do his job and doubly annoyed because Stevens was the next person he intended to interview anyway.

  Nor was he best pleased when Warren added brightly: “You’re in luck. Here she is now.”

  Chapter 5

  Amos and Swift looked out through the internal glass window of Warren’s office overlooking the public area of the establishment. A woman
was already pushing her way past the protestations of a secretary.

  Warren squeezed out while the officers were momentarily distracted and opened his door to her.

  “Don’t worry,” the intruder was saying to the unsuccessful keeper of the entry barrier. “I shan’t disturb Mr Warren.”

  Then, seeing him at his office door: “Good morning, Scott. Just a routine VAT tidying up. I needn’t bother you. I know where the books are.”

  She seemed slightly suspicious that Warren was taking her arrival with aplomb. She had expected him to be nervous if, as she believed, he had something to hide.

  “No time for that now,” Warren answered cheerfully. “These people want to talk to you first.”

  Stevens was becoming increasingly perplexed. Warren was certainly good at escaping under a cloak of confusion.

  “VAT inspectors?” she asked with a frown. “I thought I knew everyone at the local office.”

  “Police officers,” Warren replied deliberately.

  Stevens glanced at the occupants of the small office. Had the police found out about something more serious than she suspected? Embezzlement, perhaps? Why was he looking so complacent? Had he blamed her as the accountant?”

  Warren was clearly amused at her discomfort.

  “It concerns our mutual friend,” he went on.

  There was no flicker of understanding in Stevens’ face.

  “Whatever you have to discuss, I’m sure you can manage perfectly well without me,” she said, flustered. The woman began backing out of the door.

  “You left your flat early this morning, I take it?” Amos asked.

  Stevens nodded.

  “Perhaps you had better sit down. We have rather a shock for you.”

  Warren pushed forward his own chair with a slightly exaggerated gesture of gallantry that allowed him to take possession of the doorway, as if he were preparing to make a run for it. Stevens, however, remained standing, although she leaned against the wall for support.

  Swift took up the explanation: “It concerns your neighbour and, we take it, business associate Raymond Jones. I’m sorry to have to tell you that he is dead. His body was found this morning. He had been murdered.”

  Stevens gasped audibly. Amos was torn between which of the two possible suspects to pursue first. Although annoyed that the flow of his interview with Warren had been interrupted, he decided it might be best at this stage to make a preliminary interrogation of Stevens, especially as she might throw some light on Warren’s activities.

  So he said: “Perhaps there is a spare room where we could have a quiet chat. As you know, Mr Jones lived in the same block of flats as yourself and you may have important evidence that could help us.”

  Stevens had recovered her composure.

  “Do I take it, then,” she asked, “that you don’t yet know who killed him?”

  “I keep an open mind.”

  Warren, ever eager to oblige in deflecting attention to Stevens, butted in again: “You can use my interview room. It’s small but there’s a table and a few chairs. Can I send you some coffee?” he asked sweetly of the other occupants of his room.

  “This way,” said Steven curtly. “I know where it is. Let’s get this done quickly.”

  Then to Warren: “No coffee for me.”

  Amos and Swift also declined.

  Ensconced in the interview room, Amos asked Stevens when she had last seen the dead man.

  “On Friday. It must have been just before 5 pm. Maybe a bit later. I drove into Killiney Court – as you apparently already know, I live there – and Ray and Warren were making their way to the lift. Ray broke off when he saw me and came over for a few words as I parked.”

  “Did you get the impression that Jones and Warren were falling out over something?”

  “Not at all. Ray gets a bit flushed in the face when he is angry. He was perfectly calm.”

  “What did he say to you?”

  “It was just some work he wanted me to do,” Stevens said unhelpfully.

  “Not personal?” Amos persisted.

  “Are you trying to imply something?” Stevens asked coldly.

  “You call Mr Jones ‘Ray’ and Mr Warren ‘Warren’. I am bound to enquire, therefore, if your relationship with Mr Jones went beyond work.”

  “No it didn’t. I just knew Ray – Mr Jones – better. I’d known him longer. And he was altogether a pleasanter person than Warren.”

  Apparently the video wizard was not going to get a handle to his name.

  Amos felt inclined to push the personal angle: “Perhaps Mr Jones felt otherwise. Perhaps he pressed his attentions.”

  The colour was rising in Joanna Stevens’ face but she was visibly controlling her anger. She’s a cool customer, Amos thought.

  “Ray was a business contact. I did a lot of work for him. He was also a not particularly close friend. And I mean, not particularly close.”

  “But he was on his own, his wife had left him, he was fancy free.”

  Stevens laughed.

  “Ray didn’t fancy his chances with me. I suppose Warren has been telling you this to take attention away from himself.”

  “And did the work Jones wanted doing have any bearing on your visit today?” Amos ventured with the benefit of the messages on Jones’s answering machine.

  “This is just a routine check of the books for the quarterly VAT return.”

  “I think it’s rather more than that,” Amos persisted. “You think Warren is cooking the books, don’t you?”

  Stevens was visibly taken aback to discover how well informed Amos clearly was so early in the investigation.

  Then it dawned on her: “I take it Ray did not hear the message I left for him on his answer machine. Or if he did, he didn’t erase it. Well, I don’t assume anything without evidence. I’m here at Ray’s request to check if everything is in order.”

  Something she had seen through the window in the door of the room caused her to say suddenly: “Does it occur to you that while we are talking here Warren is covering his tracks?”

  She rose as she uttered these words and her voice rose, too. “The sooner I get hold of the books, the better.”

  Stevens swept out of the room in search of the errant Warren.

  “She’s probably right,” Amos conceded to Swift with a shrug of his shoulders. “We’d better have the crime squad look at his books as well.”

  The two officers followed Stevens. They found her back in Warren’s private office surveying the cause of her disquiet.

  A shredding machine that had been standing unnoticed in a corner of the main office had been moved into the boss’s sanctuary and Warren was standing with a smirk over a pile of shredded papers cascading onto his feet.

  Chapter 6

  Amos determined to discover as soon as possible what evidence if any Jones had for suspecting Warren was up to no good. It was just a 10 minute drive to Jones’s office, where Amos and Swift found the office manageress, Jade Nolan, attempting to keep the wheels of business rolling.

  She produced Warren’s file with some reluctance and allowed the police officers to take possession of Jones’s personal office with even less enthusiasm. The fact that they were not, apparently, about to remover the documents partly assuaged her.

  Amos opened the file and saw immediately that Jones had put £500,000 into the venture.

  He looked for Nolan. She was slipping out back to the main office quietly but he caught her before the door closed.

  "Tell me," he asked, "what sort of sums did Mr Jones usually invested in businesses?"

  Nolan hesitated.

  "It varied," she finally said. "Some businesses were bigger than others. It could be £20,000, it could be £100,000. It depended on how much the business needed and how much Mr Jones had available for new investments at the time.

  "He turned a lot of people down, you know. Mr Jones had a shrewd business brain. He didn't just invest in anything."

  She was evidently fier
cely proud off her late employer. She stopped short.

  "Oh," she said looking at the file in Amos's hands.

  "Yes, oh," replied the officer. "Mr Jones seems to have put rather more into this one. £500,000 worth, in fact."

  Amos raised his eyebrows to indicate that he expected an answer.

  "Certainly that was more than Mr Jones usually invested but Mr Warren managed to persuade him that his business had great potential. You can see that he produced correspondence from business contacts in London interested in using its services. His bank references were very good. So were his references from former employers.

  “There are copies of everything in there. I'll leave you to it," she concluded and exited abruptly.

  Amos ploughed on through the file. The references were certainly good – a bit too good if anything. It was as if people were giving Warren references just to get rid of him.

  These business contacts, too. Their letters seemed to be offering work to Warren’s studio but when you looked at them carefully they really amounted to very little. No-one was committed to anything. Surely Jones, hard-headed businessman that he was, had not committed so much money to such a risky venture.

  “Perhaps Jones was just like the rest of us,” Amos remarked out loud as he passed papers to Swift. “Perhaps there were times when he chose to believe what he wanted to believe.”

  It was fascinating reading, containing as it did Jones’s intermittent notes to himself detailing his increasing doubts about the business. Jones had become almost paranoid about the case.

  Sure enough, the last comment indicated his intention to get Joanna Stevens to check the books - and the right set of books at that. It had become clear as Amos progressed through the file that Jones felt Warren was not above keeping a set of bogus accounts to satisfy Jones’s growing suspicions.

  Chapter 7

  Sarah Miles, the frightened little mouse whom Amos had seen at Jones's flat on the fateful Tuesday morning, had recovered much of her composure by the time Amos interviewed her. She still reminded him of a small timid creature, though, even in the safe retreat of her own modest home near the church.