by Frank Smith
There could be little doubt that, despite Simon’s unique talents and hard work, his company, Holbrook Micro-Engineering Laboratories, would have gone under if Laura hadn’t come along at just the right time. Investing so much money had been a huge gamble on her part, but one that had paid off. Paid off for Moira and Trevor as well, because Simon was so pleased with the new security system that he had steered more business in their direction.
But it wasn’t just the money. Without Laura’s business acumen, her background as a forensic auditor, and her contacts in both private and government circles, chances were the company would still have gone under. Simon Holbrook might be a genius in his field of micro-technology, but without the ability to market what he had to offer, the business was bound to fail.
Laura had literally taken charge, and Simon had been only too happy to leave the marketing and sales side of the business to her while he went back to the bench to get on with what he and his hand-picked team did best: developing new, miniaturized products and modifying old ones.
The results spoke for themselves. In the short span of two years, the company was not only well on its way to recovery, but Simon’s name and the work he was doing had appeared in at least two high-tech journals recently. Laura’s doing, no doubt, thought Moira, but she had to admire the woman’s drive and dedication to her work, even if she didn’t like her.
Laura was a beautiful woman, and Simon was an attractive man, so Moira had never doubted for a moment that the two of them had been sleeping together from time to time, but it had taken everyone completely by surprise when he’d announced, quite casually last October, that they were married.
Simon? Married? Surprised? Gobsmacked would be closer to the mark!
Moira had always thought that if anyone could snare Simon it would be Susan Chase, Laura’s older sister, although even that seemed unlikely after his experience of being dragged through the courts when his first wife Helen divorced him. Even so, Moira felt sure that Susan had been living in hopes, so it was ironic that she should be the one to introduce Simon to her sister.
It was hard even now to think of Simon as a happily married man. Well, he’d seemed happy enough in the beginning, but Moira wasn’t so sure about now. He’d made a couple of remarks to Trevor about the amount of time Laura was spending away from home, and the way she seemed to have completely taken over control of the business. And if there was anything behind those remarks, it was quite possible that Simon might use that as an excuse to seek solace elsewhere.
But for Laura to accuse her – and at the club, of all places! Moira had been taken so completely by surprise that she hadn’t been able to find the words to respond, so she’d been left standing with her mouth hanging open as Laura marched away. Now, reliving the scene of the night before, Moira felt the anger rising once again. If Laura really thought Simon was having it off with her, then the sooner she set her straight the better.
She looked at the time. Ten past nine. The letter to her mother wouldn’t be picked up until tomorrow morning, but she could do with a breath of fresh air before bed, and Trevor and Simon wouldn’t be back for at least another hour, so she might as well take the letter to the postbox at the end of the street now. At least it was better than just sitting there fuming about Laura.
The wind had been blowing steadily from the north throughout the day, but now it had shifted around to the east, which was never a good sign. It was trying to rain, and Moira kept her head down as she walked to the top of the road. Pembroke Avenue wasn’t very long; eight houses on either side, single, detached, each with its own generous plot of land, screened from its neighbour by trees, a tall hedge, or a stone wall. Solid, well-built older houses, many of which had been completely renovated and modernized over the years, each with their own driveway and garage. And yet there were still cars parked on both sides of the avenue. Signs of an affluent neighbourhood, Moira thought, and wondered if that would change with the skyrocketing price of oil and the falling price of houses.
The Ballantynes’ house was the last but one on the odd-numbered side, and Moira had to pass the Holbrook’s house on her way to the postbox on the main road at the top end of Pembroke Avenue. She hadn’t given it so much as a glance on her way there, but with the wind behind her on her way back, she paused outside the house and looked up at the light in the bedroom window.
Odd, she thought. Laura would never have the light on when she had one of her migraines, but that had been her excuse for not going to see the film tonight. Either she had recovered more quickly than usual, or she’d pretended to have a migraine to get out of going to see a film that neither she nor Moira had been keen on seeing in the first place. Not that she could blame Laura for that after begging off herself when Simon phoned to say that Laura had a migraine and had gone to bed.
Moira started to move on, then paused. Why not? she thought. If the light was on that must mean that Laura was all right, so why not go in and have it out with her right now?
Moira took out her key ring as she mounted the steps to the front door. Simon had given her a key when she’d offered to keep an eye on the house while he and Laura were away for a week just after Christmas, so she might as well make use of it now. If Laura was in bed, she might not come down to answer the doorbell, and even if she did, she might not let Moira in. No, better to take the woman by surprise and tackle her in her own bedroom. Moira stepped over the sill and closed the door behind her. She reached for the light switch, then withdrew her hand. Why put the light on and forewarn Laura? A faint light glowed at the top of the stairs, so why not just go up quietly and walk into the bedroom unannounced? It would surprise the hell out of Laura, Moira thought with some satisfaction as she mounted the stairs; Laura had blindsided her last night at the club, so now it was her turn to do the same.
Grace reached blindly for the alarm clock as she struggled to come awake; found it, hit the cut-off bar and wondered why it continued to ring. ‘Phone,’ she mumbled as she recognized the sound. Paget stirred beside her. He opened his eyes and squinted at figures on the digital clock. 11.28. He groaned softly as he picked up the phone and said, ‘Paget.’ The conversation was brief, less than a minute before he swung his legs over the side of the bed and said, ‘I’ll be there in half an hour. Let’s have that address again.’
Grace propped herself up on one elbow. ‘Do you really have to go?’ she asked sleepily. ‘What is it this time?’
‘Another burglary,’ he told her. ‘Same MO as the others, except this time there was a woman in the house.’
‘Dead?’ Grace asked, although by the look on Paget’s face she was sure she knew the answer.
He nodded. ‘Afraid so,’ he said. ‘Bludgeoned to death in her own bed. Poor woman didn’t stand a chance by the sound of it.’
Four
Three patrol cars, and two scenes-of-crime vans were drawn up in front of the house, and Paget recognized Tregalles’s car parked a short distance away.
A uniformed constable by the name of Roberts met Paget on the path leading to the house. ‘The name of the deceased is Holbrook,’ he told Paget. ‘Laura Holbrook. The husband is Simon Holbrook. They own that firm we’ve been hearing so much about lately, Holbrook Micro-Engineering Laboratories. Seems like Holbrook and a friend, a Mr Ballantyne, had been out to see a film, and they found her when they got back. It was Mr Holbrook who found her, according to Ballantyne, but I couldn’t get much out of Holbrook himself. He’s pretty shaken up.’
The constable consulted his notebook. ‘Mr Ballantyne lives three doors down at number 15. Normally, Mrs Holbrook would have gone with them tonight, but she had a migraine and went to bed. When the two men returned, Ballantyne came in with his friend for a nightcap before going home, and when Mr Holbrook went upstairs to see how his wife was, he found her on the floor beside the bed with her head bashed in.’
The constable closed the book. ‘We’ve had a look around, sir, and it appears the thieves broke in through the back door the same wa
y they did with all the others. Probably expected the house to be empty, but when they went upstairs and found her in bed . . .’ The man grimaced and drew in his breath. ‘Well, you’ll see for yourself, sir.’
‘Any sign of a weapon?’ Paget asked.
‘No, sir, but I heard the doctor tell Sergeant Tregalles it was the proverbial blunt instrument.’ Clearly shaken, the constable drew in his breath once more before trusting himself to speak. ‘There was a lot of blood, sir,’ he said quietly.
‘Is Sergeant Tregalles inside?’
‘Out the back, I think, sir. Like I said, it looks like that’s the way the thieves came in.’
Paget thanked the man. The constable and his partner, first on the scene, had done a good job of calling for back-up and cordoning off the area. Even so, considering it was almost midnight, a surprising number of people had gathered in the street to see what was going on.
‘Take a couple of your colleagues and get the names and addresses of those people,’ he said. ‘Find out if they saw or heard anything suspicious. And note down anything they have to say about the Holbrooks.’
‘Right, sir.’
A uniformed constable standing at the bottom of the stairs recognized Paget when he stepped inside. ‘The doctor and the photographer are still upstairs,’ he said, ‘and Mr Holbrook and his friend are in there.’ He pointed to closed French doors across the hall. ‘And watch out for the sick halfway up, sir,’ he warned as Paget started up the stairs. ‘Seems like Mr Holbrook spewed his guts out when he saw what had happened to his wife. Not that you could blame him; felt like doing that myself when I saw what they’d done to her. Bastards!’
‘You and Roberts were first on the scene? Is that right?’
‘That’s right, sir. Got the call at 22.58, and we were here within four minutes—’
‘Never mind that for the moment,’ Paget told him. ‘Come upstairs with me; I may want to ask you some questions when I’ve seen the body.’
‘Right sir.’
The door to the bedroom was open. It was a large room, much of it taken up by heavy dark furniture, old and well-used by the look of it, but Paget’s eyes went immediately to the king-size bed. The bedclothes had been dragged to the far side where the body lay half concealed on the floor.
Starkie was standing beside a bureau, filling out forms attached to a clipboard. ‘Bad one,’ he said without looking up. ‘Come and see for yourself.’ He slipped the clipboard into his case and closed it before leading the way around the bed. The photographer, who had been squatting down at the foot of the bed, changing lenses, stood up.
Paget drew a deep, steadying breath.
Laura Holbrook, dressed only in a satin nightgown, looked more like a broken doll than someone who had been a living, breathing human being a few short hours ago. It was impossible to tell what she had looked like in life, because beneath the tangled hair and crusted blood, her features had been almost obliterated by repeated blows.
Slim and firm-bodied, Laura Holbrook was quite small. Her height, recorded by Starkie, Paget learned later in the day, was 157 centimetres – with 5’ 2” in brackets for the benefit of people like himself, who still tended to think in feet and inches. Her hands were smooth and well cared for, and her nails were painted a delicate metallic blue.
The bedclothes, Starkie explained, had been dragged from the far side of the bed, and were partly covering the body when he arrived. A bloodstained pillow lay askew on the bed, and there were more bloodstains on the sheets. A small lamp with a bell-shaped silken shade stood on the bedside table, while a telephone, a radio-alarm clock, an empty glass, and a small brown bottle lay on the floor beside the body. The cap of the bottle lay some distance away, and several small white tablets had been crushed into the carpet.
‘Sleeping pills,’ Starkie said as Paget bent to examine them. ‘Looks like someone trod on them. Could have been the killer or it could have been one of your men.’
Paget turned to the constable who was standing by the door. ‘Was this bedside light on like this when you arrived?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir. We didn’t touch a thing except to make sure that the lady was dead.’
‘So everything is exactly as you found it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Paget studied the scene. The radio-clock lay on its side against the wall, still showing the correct time. The telephone appeared to be undamaged, but the connection had been pulled from the wall, and there was a damp patch on the carpet beside the glass.
‘That lamp,’ he said with a frown. ‘It strikes me as odd that it remained where it was when everything else is on the floor. Are you quite sure that neither you nor your partner moved it?’ he asked the constable again.
‘Quite sure, sir. Maybe the killer – or Mr Holbrook . . .?’
‘Possibly,’ Paget said without conviction. He turned to Starkie. ‘I’m assuming death was caused by the blows to the head,’ he said. ‘At least until we get the results of the autopsy,’ he added before Starkie could say it himself. ‘Is there any reason to believe otherwise?’
Starkie shook his head. ‘There were at least five blows, possibly more,’ he said, ‘and she didn’t die right away. It took several blows to kill her, possibly because the force of the blows was absorbed by the pillow beneath her head. The killer struck again and again with considerable force, as you can see by the pattern of blood spatters on the bed and on the wall. Time of death was between eight thirty and nine thirty, so you won’t go far wrong if you assume she was killed around nine o’clock.’
‘When can I expect the results of the autopsy?’
‘Depends on what I find waiting for me when I go in tomorrow morning,’ he said. ‘I could have something for you by late afternoon, if you’re lucky.’
Tregalles appeared in the doorway. His face was grave. ‘Same as the others,’ he said cryptically. ‘Same entry; same marks on the door; same sort of damage in all the rooms . . .’ He broke off, frowning as he looked around the room. ‘Except in here.’ It was true; apart from what had been done to Laura Holbrook, there was no evidence of any physical damage anywhere in the room. His eyes settled on the broken figure on the floor. ‘Bastards probably couldn’t get out of the house fast enough after doing that,’ he muttered as much to himself as to the others in the room.
Paget drew a deep breath, mentally bracing himself for what was to come. He couldn’t put it off any longer; it was time to go down and talk to the dead woman’s husband.
It wasn’t hard to tell which one of the two men was Simon Holbrook. He sat slumped forward on the edge of a big armchair in front of the gas fire that was going full blast, elbows on his knees, hands wrapped around a steaming mug of tea.
He looked up as Paget and Tregalles entered the room. His face was pale and haggard, and he looked as if he might collapse at any moment, but Paget recognized him immediately. His picture had been in the local paper a couple of months ago – something to do with his company – and Paget recalled Grace saying he reminded her of Hugh Grant. ‘He must be forty at least, but he holds his age well. He has that look about him that makes women want to take care of him,’ she’d elaborated as she studied the picture – and told him he had no romance in his soul when he’d said he couldn’t see it himself.
But, looking at him now, Paget had to concede that the man did have the sort of handsome-but-helpless look about him that some women might find attractive.
There was less damage in this room than Paget had observed in the other rooms on his quick tour of the house before coming in here. Shards of glass, jagged and glittering, clung to the frame of a shattered mirror above the mantelpiece, like teeth in the gaping, ugly mouth of a shark, while the rest of the mirror lay in pieces on the tiled hearth and surrounding carpet. A painting had been ripped from the wall, leaving a jagged hole in the plaster and a torn strip of wallpaper where the hook had once been. It lay on the floor, frame broken, canvas torn out and crumpled.
In the curve of the bay
window, a small drum table lay on its side amid the shattered remnants of what must have been a handsome vase, and the flowers it had once contained.
Nothing else in the room seemed to be out of place as far as Paget could tell, and he wondered if the intruder had been interrupted, perhaps by his accomplice who had panicked and come running down the stairs after killing Mrs Holbrook.
The room was overly warm and stuffy, but Holbrook still wore a mackintosh, and he pulled it even tighter around himself as Paget introduced himself and Tregalles.
‘Would you like to see a doctor, Mr Holbrook?’ Paget asked. ‘Dr Starkie is still in the house and—’
‘Already taken care of,’ the second man told him. ‘Trevor Ballantyne,’ he said as he rose to his feet. ‘Simon and I have the same doctor, so I called him on my mobile phone just before you came in. My wife and I live just down the street, so Simon will be staying with us tonight. When I explained what had happened, he agreed to meet us there as soon as you let us out of here.’
Paget sat down facing Holbrook. ‘I know how difficult this must be for you, Mr Holbrook,’ he said quietly, ‘but I would like to ask you one or two questions, if you feel up to it.’
Holbrook blinked rapidly, drew in a deep breath, then nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, of course,’ he said huskily.
Holbrook more or less repeated the story his friend had given to Constable Roberts. He said that Ballantyne had picked him up about ten minutes to seven; they had stopped for a drink at the Fox and Hounds on the corner of Bridge Street and Fish Lane, something they usually did before going across the road to the cinema, he explained. Time? He stared blankly at Paget as if he didn’t understand the question.
‘About a quarter to eight,’ Ballantyne supplied. ‘Film was supposed to begin at eight, but it was late starting. Ended about ten thirty, something like that.’
Paget turned back to Holbrook. ‘And you came straight back here when it ended?’ he prompted.