Matt, tactfully, hadn’t entered the conversation. He sat in the chair to which Jane had waved him, with his head tilted back and his eyes half closed. Emma, who had been doing her best to comfort Jane for the last half hour, sat forward on a sofa with her chin in her hands.
Jane was on her feet, aiming sporadic, angry thrusts with a poker at the fire which blazed in the large iron grate.
I turned back to look at her. ‘Jane, I’m sorry to be the one telling you this, but I’m only passing on what the police think. And I have to be frank – when we walked into the flat this morning, it was the first thing we thought,’ I said, trying to convince her despite myself.
Jane pulled herself up to her full five feet seven, standing a couple of paces in front of the fire. ‘Toby wouldn’t have taken his own life for anything. He was far too confident of his own abilities – and too fond of himself, for that matter. He was well able to handle any crisis that came along – emotional, financial or . . . sexual.’ She faltered a moment and looked at me with an unfamiliar, hunted expression in her eyes.
‘You must know, Simon, there were aspects of his private life of which I did not approve . . .’ Her voice tailed off as she seemed to be struggling with her conscience. She sat down heavily in an armchair by the fire where she gazed into the flames for a few moments.
When she was ready, she took a deep breath and turned to look at me. ‘I presume you knew that he was gay?’ She glanced at the two other people in the room, then quickly turned her face to the glowing logs once more.
Emma, Matt and I didn’t speak for a moment. Not because we were shocked but because it had obviously taken such a lot for his mother to admit to Toby’s homosexuality.
‘No,’ I said eventually. ‘I didn’t know – not for sure. He never said or implied anything about it to me.’ I slowed down to choose my words carefully. ‘I wouldn’t deny, though, that the possibility had occurred to me. I don’t remember his ever being involved with a woman.’
Emma nodded. ‘He must have been very discreet.’
When Jane looked up at us, tears glistened in her eyes. ‘Can you imagine how much he suffered, pretending to us – to all his friends? I think he was terrified of its getting out – even in this day and age, when most people don’t seem to care about that sort of thing. Of course, he knew I knew, but we never said so openly. And I believe he tended to go for chaps a long way from his own social milieu.
‘I may not have approved of those aspects of his life-style,’ she went on, speaking more firmly now, ‘but, God knows, I loved him and knew him very well. And I can tell you categorically that whatever else he might have done, Toby did not commit suicide.’
She breathed in deeply through her nose and squared her jaw. ‘He must have been murdered. And if the police aren’t going to treat it as murder, then you two are going to have to.’
Neither Matt nor I spoke as the gold carriage clock on the mantelpiece ticked on another ten seconds.
Jane looked sharply at each of us in turn. ‘Well? I’m asking for your help – for your professional services.’ Her voice was rising. ‘I’m instructing your company to find out who murdered my son.’
I looked at Matt. His eyes swivelled from Jane to me. Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head.
I looked at Emma. She gave no indication of her opinion.
I took a deep breath. ‘I’ll do what I can, Jane, but it won’t be on a professional basis. I’ll do it for you.’
I saw her face almost sag with relief. I hadn’t realised how badly she needed my support, or how much she’d had to force herself to keep strong, to convince me that she wasn’t becoming hysterical.
‘Thank you, Simon. You’re a good friend.’
Chapter Fourteen
We drove several miles across the wet and windswept downs in silence but as we dropped into the Thames Valley, Matt spoke. ‘I’m not promising anything, but if the Jockey Club decides to retain us, I’m prepared to treat Toby’s death as murder, as part of that investigation.’
I glanced at him gratefully. ‘Thanks. I think I’m going to need all the help I can get.’
‘Let’s get on with it then, at least until Tintern takes us off the case,’ Matt said, resigned to losing the rest of his Sunday, though probably glad of the action. ‘But this has all turned a bit nasty,’ he added impassively. ‘I wonder why Toby did it?’
‘Why are you so sure he took his own life?’
‘That’s obviously what the police think. I hardly knew him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was involved with a lot of fairly unsavoury people. Or maybe his new bosses had seen through him or found him out, and he couldn’t face the consequences. You knew him better than I did but how well was that? Did you have any real idea how he ran his private life?’
I shook my head with a sigh. ‘No, of course not. He talked to me about horses, and sometimes pictures and furniture, occasionally about his mother, but never anything about his private life.’
‘So you really can’t say, one way or the other, if there might have been good reason for him to top himself?’
We talked around Toby’s death for half an hour. As we reached the edge of London, I dialled the number at his flat. No one answered, not even a machine. I guessed the police had already taken away the answerphone tape for analysis. Fortunately, we didn’t need it; we had our recorder in the basement.
We drove on to Hay’s Mews and, after a few minutes, raised Mr Tilbury from his lair again. He was still looking queasy and deeply shocked. The police had gone, he said, but he wouldn’t show us up to the flat this time – simply handed over his key with a request that we give it back on the way out.
The police had tidied away most of the mess they’d made in the course of their investigations, but the broken chair was still propped against a table, with a single, dusty footprint on its brocade upholstered seat.
Elsewhere, on the furniture, windows and doors, the forensic team’s powder still lingered.
‘I should think the police have helped themselves to any interesting paperwork,’ I said.
‘They could have missed something.’
But, after a thorough search, we found nothing significant. It was only after we’d given up and I was in Toby’s bathroom that I noticed one curious item on the wall.
It was a regimental photograph – the sort of group shot that hangs above thousands of loos, only ever gazed at for a few brief minutes by male visitors. I saw that it had been taken thirty-five years before and scanned the names underneath. In the third row, fourth from the right, was Major Gervaise Brown. My eyes flicked back to the faces, and I found Toby’s father. There was a marked similarity between him and his son but, if pressed, I’d have said Toby was more like Jane.
I went back to the list of names. Sitting behind Major Brown was Captain The Hon. Gerald Birt, Emma’s father – young, determined, and easily recognisable. Fascinated, I studied the rest of the names and faces for a while, but found no others that meant anything to me.
In the mews outside, Matt got into the car beside me.
‘Right. Where now?’
‘I thought we might go and pay a call on Mrs Hackney.’
‘Toby’s cleaner? The one I met when I delivered the wine?’
I nodded. ‘That’s her.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Jane gave you her number didn’t she?’
For answer, I pulled my notebook from a pocket and passed it to him.
‘I’ll get it,’ he said, ‘but you speak to her. You’re better at that sort of thing.’
‘’Ullo?’ a sleepy, female voice answered.
‘Mrs Hackney?’
‘That’s right.’
‘My name’s Simon Jeffries. I’m a friend of Toby Brown’s.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Her voice suggested that she had, at least, heard of me.
‘Sorry to have woken you.’
‘What’s the time?’
‘It’s eleven-thirty.’
‘Oh, gawd!�
� she wailed. ‘I was up ’alf the night with me sister at the ’ospital. Didn’t get back till five in the mornin’.’
‘Then I’m very sorry to trouble you, but I wanted to come round and see you – it’s to do with Mr Brown.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s had an accident and we’d like to talk to you.’
There was a moment’s silence before she answered. ‘Why? What happened?’
‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’
‘Oright then. ’Ow long’ll you be?’
‘Fifteen minutes.’
There was another long pause. ‘Is Mr Brown oright? Can I speak to ’im?’
‘No, I’m afraid you can’t. They took him off in an ambulance,’ I added, glad to have lied only by omission.
‘That’s lucky,’ Matt said when I’d finished. ‘It sounds as if the police haven’t been to see her yet.’
‘Maybe they don’t even know about her. Perhaps Toby paid her in cash. He was passionate about evading tax where he could.’
‘I should think Tilbury would have told them. Anyway, let’s hope we get there first.’
Matt read the map and directed me to Mrs Hackney’s address in a block of council flats near Victoria station. Although it was only a few hundred yards from several famous London landmarks, it was a grimy, disintegrating monument to shoddy sixties architecture.
‘I’ll mind the car,’ Matt said.
Inside the block, the lift to the seventh floor wasn’t working. I took the faintly urine-scented staircase, and was grateful for a life that had spared me living conditions like these.
Blowing a little, I pressed the bell push and was answered by a five-note chime. This prepared me for the unsophisticated but well-polished ambience of the small flat into which I was invited a few moments later.
Mrs Hackney was a homely, grey-haired figure of about sixty, dressed in a powder blue track-suit and a pair of pink fluffy slippers. From the look of concern on her face, I guessed she was very fond of her eccentric boss.
I accepted her offer of a cup of tea, and looked around the cheap, cherished souvenirs and mementoes strewn around the surfaces of her living room where she had left me on a wood-framed sofa. There were plates and mugs depicting the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana; a poorly painted Swiss weather house, in which both man and wife lurked indecisively in their doorways. A vase of silk lilies and a real four-trumpeted amaryllis sat on the two low tables in the room.
Mrs Hackney moved the lilies to place my tea, in willow pattern china, within reach.
She proffered biscuits, took a couple herself, and sat down opposite me expectantly.
I composed my face into a sympathetic expression. ‘I’m afraid I’ve come with some very sad news.’
She reacted at once with a collapsing of her face and a visible tensing of her fleshy frame. ‘Oh, no? What’s happened?’
‘Mr Brown was found dead this morning in his flat.’
‘Oh my God!’ she almost shrieked, and put down her tea cup.
I let her take a moment or two to recover from the shock. She looked around distractedly. When our eyes met again, I saw that hers were wet with tears. ‘Poor Toby,’ she muttered, though I guessed, knowing Toby, that she hadn’t been encouraged to call him that. ‘How did it happen? Was it ’is heart?’
‘No, it wasn’t. It may have been suicide, but we’re not sure.’
‘Oh, my gawd!’ she wailed, even louder, and I regretted that I’d told her so soon. But it was out now, and I had a job to do.
‘I’m really sorry to have to tell you, but my partner and I went to the flat this morning and found him hanging from one of those great beams in the drawing room.’
She stared back at me in astonishment. ‘’Anging? How? Why?’
‘The police think it was suicide.’
‘Toby – suicide? Never! He’d never do ’isself in, not in hundred years,’ she said with utter conviction.
Here was someone else adamant that Toby wouldn’t have taken his own life.
‘No,’ I agreed, ‘his mother didn’t think so either.’
‘’Is mother?’ Mrs Hackney scoffed. ‘I reckon she was’alf ’is problem!’
‘How do you mean?’
She looked at me to see if I was being serious, or just naïve. ‘Well, ’e were an iron-’oof, weren’t ’e? And I always reckon that takes a bit of living with.’
‘Yes, of course, I knew he was gay,’ I said, primly. ‘But what particular problems did that cause him?’
‘The boys,’ she sighed. ‘Well, not boys, like children or anything – he never went in for that sort of thing – but they was always younger, and never ’ad any money. The times I heard him telling ’em – no, they couldn’t’ave nothing – then giving in. Of course, if he turned the tap off, they just went, didn’t they? And that upset him. “They only want me for my money, don’t they, Mrs H?” he used to say to me.’
I took the opportunity to push her a little. ‘If you don’t think Toby took his own life, do you think it is possible any of these boys was responsible? Who was the latest, for instance?’
‘Miles? No, it wouldn’t have been ’im. He wouldn’t’urt a fly. He was a nice, gentle little chap, and ever so good on the piano. That’s what he did, played the piano for them ballerinas to practise to. He seemed to have left Toby, though, but not over money, I don’t think. He wasn’t the sort to ask.’
‘This Miles, did you know his other name or where he lived?’
Mrs Hackney’s gaze swept around the small, cluttered room as she grappled to dredge a name from her subconscious, but gave up. ‘No, sorry.’ She shook her head. ‘I think I knew it, but it won’t come back. I’m sure he wouldn’t have done that anyway. Poor old Toby, he was well upset when Miles went.’
‘Perhaps there was another friend, from before that?’
‘There were quite a few, I can tell you, and like I said, some of them right little chisellers. There was the one he went into business with . . . talked Toby into that telephone line that brought him all the bother . . .’
‘What was he called?’ I asked, trying to control my excitement at the promise of so much more useful information.
‘Lincoln – Steve Lincoln.’ She spat the name out. ‘Nasty feller, always trying to squeeze money from Toby. I reckon he was a gambler who believed he could get his hands on inside information. He helped with the tipping line – Steve was part of that, I’m sure. Then they fell out. It was just after that, every blessed nap Toby gave started coming in.’
‘Hold on a minute,’ I said, sure of the connection now. ‘Did Toby call him “Linc”?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ She nodded her over-permed grey curls.
‘I see. Was he still on the scene then, in any other sense?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Toby’d seen him for what he was and got rid of ’im by then. Didn’t stop him coming round, though, ’specially when the line really hotted up. He reckoned he should have been on a cut, being as ’ow ’e talked Toby into it in the first place.’
‘When did he last come, then?’
‘I wouldn’t know for sure. I only does four days a week there. Toby paid me, mind, like it was a full week, and no tax, and nothing to stop me drawing me Social.’
‘All right, but when did you last see him yourself?’
‘Let’s think.’ She adopted her mind-searching posture again, eyes ranging back and forth across the room. ‘He certainly come up Friday. Just after dinner, it was, and ’e was well pis—drunk,’ she corrected herself. ‘Yellin’ and shoutin’ and telling Toby he knew what had been going on and how he had to have some money. Poor old Toby tried to shut ’im up so I wouldn’t hear, then he sent me out to go shopping at Fortnum’s for ’im, which ’e often did if he was ’aving a conversation he didn’t want me to ’ear.’
‘So on Friday, this Steve turned up, still thinking he could ask for money?’
‘Yes.’
‘And do
you know if he got any?’
‘I wouldn’t know, but I doubt it. One thing Toby could be was stubborn as a mule if the mood took him.’
‘Do you know where this chap lives?’
‘Nope.’ She shook her head decisively. ‘His mum had a flat up Kilburn but as far as I can tell, he used to doss down around the place. That’s one of the reasons Toby couldn’t stand it no more.’
‘Never mind, I’ll see if I can find him. Now, you said earlier that Toby’s line was causing him trouble. What sort of trouble was that?’
‘I don’t know, really. I don’t know much about what went on – only snippets I’d hear. He just seemed worried – not about Steve, but just before he packed it up. He thought the bookies was gunning for ’im. Then I think he agreed with them to stop.’
‘Did he tell you that?’
‘Well, no, not exactly. But, you know, I was in there quite a bit when he was, and he trusted me not to blabber – and I never did, not till now, when he’s gone and you’re his friend.’
‘Do you know who I am, then?’
‘Oh, yes. He mentioned you from time to time – you’re not a very good jockey, are you? You was at school with him, wasn’t you? There’s a picture of you and him, when you was both kids.’
I was amazed that Toby had talked of me to this woman who, by the sound of it, was a close confidante, though she probably didn’t know it.
‘Yes, we go back a long way,’ I agreed. ‘I know his mother well, too, and my girlfriend Emma has known him all her life,’ I added, wanting to make it clear to her that my concern over Toby’s death was sincere. I put my empty tea cup down and got to my feet.
‘Thank you so much for helping me. I’ll let you know what’s going on. Of course, if you think of anything else, just ring me or leave a message and I’ll come right round. But I suggest, for the moment, you don’t go back to Toby’s flat. If he was paying you in cash, without tax, it’s probably best not to let the police know, eh?’
She nodded. ‘You won’t tell them, will you?’
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