by Frank Smith
‘What about more recently? Has there been any trouble at work? Any disgruntled employees, who . . .’ Paget stopped abruptly as he caught the look on Susan’s face. ‘Yes, Miss Chase?’ he said. ‘You’ve thought of something?’
Susan opened her mouth to speak, then closed it and shook her head. ‘It was nothing,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Sorry – it was just . . .’ She looked helplessly at Holbrook and fell silent.
‘If you know anything at all,’ Paget persisted, ‘please don’t hold back. It could be important.’
Holbrook was frowning, clearly puzzled. ‘Do you know something, Sue?’ he said.
Susan looked from one to the other, and it was clear she felt trapped. ‘I’m sorry, Simon,’ she said unhappily, ‘but it’s just that Laura told me Tim had confronted her in the car park again, and that’s the second time it’s happened. She said she thought he’d been drinking . . . I’m sorry, Simon, but it just popped into my head, and since the chief inspector did ask . . .’
‘Hardly what he meant, though, is it?’ he said dismissively. ‘That was just Tim blowing off steam, so let’s not waste any more of the chief inspector’s time on it.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Paget, ‘I don’t regard it as a waste of time, and I prefer to make up my own mind about things like that, Mr Holbrook, so I would like to know more about the person Miss Chase mentioned.’
‘But it’s so pointless,’ Holbrook insisted. ‘Tim Bryce is my nephew, and I’ll admit that he and Laura didn’t get along, but to suggest that he could even be considered as a suspect is absurd. In fact, if Tim had a grudge against anyone, it should have been me.’
‘Which makes it even more important that I understand the situation,’ Paget told him.
‘Oh, very well, then,’ he said, making no attempt to conceal his irritation. ‘Tim used to work for me – for us, for the firm. Laura felt it was a mistake to bring him into the company, but I insisted. Turns out that she was right and I was wrong. Tim seemed to think that being my nephew gave him special privileges, and his behaviour among the staff was disruptive. I talked to him and kept hoping he would straighten out, but when things didn’t improve, I had to agree with Laura that nephew or not, he had to go.’
‘When was that?’
‘Three weeks ago last Friday. And before you start jumping to conclusions, I’ll admit that Tim did not take it well, but he is not by nature a violent person. As for the encounter with Laura in the car park the other day, he was simply trying to persuade her to give him his old job back. As Susan said, he’d probably had a couple of drinks, but I’m sure that’s all there was to it.’
But Susan Chase was shaking her head. She’d been growing more and more agitated as she listened to Holbrook, and she could hold back no longer. ‘But that is not the way it was at all, Simon,’ she said emphatically, then softened her tone to add, ‘That may be what Laura told you, because she knew how you felt about Tim, but that is not what she told me. I’m sorry, Simon, I know you think of Tim as if he were your own son, but he is not the golden-haired boy you would like him to be. He threatened Laura. She still sounded shaky when she told me about it later that evening.’
‘Well, she certainly didn’t tell me—’ Holbrook began heatedly, only to be cut off by Paget.
‘What, exactly, did she tell you, Miss Chase?’
Susan glanced first at Holbrook, then back to Paget. ‘Laura said she’d just left work last Friday when Tim was suddenly there in front of her, blocking her way to her car. She said he’d been drinking – she could smell it on him, and he was extremely abusive.’
‘You said he threatened her?’
‘Yes, he did. I’m sorry, Simon,’ she said firmly as Holbrook appeared about to protest, ‘but it has to be said. Laura said Tim swore at her; called her names, and ranted on about how she had never liked him, and blamed her for turning his uncle against him, and said she would regret the day she sacked him, because he wasn’t going to let her get away with it.’
‘Did he say what he intended to do?’
‘Laura said he looked at her car and said, “Nice car. Bet it cost a bomb. Pity if it went up like one. You might want to have someone check it before you get in.” Then he laughed and staggered off.’
Holbrook stared at Susan, his face suddenly drained of colour. ‘Did she really say that, Sue?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘Honestly? Is that why she stopped using her car? She told me it had been acting up, and she was leaving it at home until the garage could come and pick it up.’
‘I know,’ Susan said quietly. ‘Laura told me she was going to do that. She said she thought twice before getting into the car after Tim left, but decided to take a chance because she didn’t think Tim would have told her if he had done something to the car already. She said she didn’t think Tim would have the guts to actually follow through on his threat, but she thought it best not to give him the opportunity in case she was wrong. That’s why she started taking a taxi to work. Laura likes to start work very early in the morning,’ she explained to Paget, ‘which is why she normally uses her own car rather than go in with Simon.’
‘Has your nephew ever threatened you, Mr Holbrook?’ Paget asked.
Simon Holbrook shook his head. ‘No – no, Tim would never . . . We’ve had a few words, yes, but . . .’ Words failed him. He looked completely shaken.
Tregalles, who had been quietly making notes, spoke up for the first time. ‘You’ve been referring to your nephew as a boy, Mr Holbrook, a youngster, but he can’t be all that young if he was working for you. How old is he?’
‘You might well ask, Sergeant,’ Susan said swiftly before Holbrook had a chance to answer. ‘I know Simon still thinks of Tim as a boy, but he’ll be twenty-seven next month.’
‘That’s quite enough, thank you, Susan,’ Holbrook said coldly. His voice was steady, and he appeared to have regained his composure as he looked at Paget. ‘I’m not saying that Susan is wrong about what happened, but I’m quite sure that they were idle threats, especially if he’d had a few drinks. Look,’ he went on earnestly, ‘Tim is my late sister Catherine’s boy. She and her husband died while on holiday in the Philippines twelve years ago. Drowned when an overloaded ferry sank. Tim came to live with Helen and me when he was fourteen. Helen was my first wife, but we were divorced a year after Tim came to live with us, so it was just the two of us after she left until Tim went off to university, and I became very fond of him. I’m not disputing that he may have made threats, but it would all be bluster, letting off steam. I mean it’s only natural that he’d be angry about losing his job, but he’ll get over it. He’ll get another job. And he’s married, now. He has responsibilities. I’m sure it was just the drink talking the other night.’ He looked to Susan as if hoping for her support, but she was looking elsewhere – deliberately, Paget thought.
‘For a man who’s just lost his wife, I don’t think Holbrook will have to look far for another one,’ Tregalles observed as they got out of the car in Charter Lane. ‘In fact, it looked to me as if she’s already moved in – or is planning to. Not that I’d say no if she wanted to move in with me. I like her.’
‘If she is planning to move in,’ said Paget, ‘I don’t think she did her case much good by the way she was talking about his nephew. And if Mrs Ballantyne is to be believed, Susan Chase was passed over once before when Holbrook married her sister, but I agree, I think you’re right about her wanting to be the second – no, the third Mrs Holbrook.’
Ten
Like so many of the older, once proud three-storeyed houses at the bottom end of Bridge Street, Hereford House had been made over into flats. The names of the tenants appeared beside the front door at the top of the steps, but there was an arrow pointing downward to the basement flat below street level next to the names of Bryce/Craig. The two detectives retraced their steps and made their way down to what had once been the servants’ entrance and rang the bell.
A young woman answered the door. Slim, pale, fair hair tie
d back in a ponytail, and wearing a flowered housecoat, she held a baby high on her shoulder. The baby was crying. The woman took her hand off the door and patted the child’s back soothingly. ‘He’s not here if it’s Tim you’re after,’ she said before Paget could say anything, ‘and I don’t know when he’ll be back. He’s gone to see about a job.’ She began to close the door.
Paget put out his hand to stop the door from closing. ‘And you are . . .?’ he asked.
‘Sally Craig.’ The young woman made another attempt to close the door, but Paget held it firmly while he introduced himself and Tregalles. ‘Sorry to trouble you,’ he told her perfunctorily, ‘but even if Mr Bryce isn’t here, we would still like a word with you. May we come in? We won’t take up much of your time.’
‘He’s in the middle of his feed,’ she said, indicating the baby, but when Paget failed to respond and didn’t move, she stepped back with an air of resignation and allowed them to enter. The baby’s cries grew louder. ‘He doesn’t like to be interrupted when he’s feeding,’ she said accusingly as she led the way into a small sitting room, sparse on furniture but cluttered nevertheless. A playpen full of woolly toys took up much of the space in the middle of the room; baby clothes were draped over a clothes horse in front of the electric fire, and a jumbled pile of sheets and underclothes filled one of the chairs. The ironing board, with iron still plugged in, sat in a narrow space behind the open door.
‘You can sit down if you like,’ she told them offhandedly as she took her own seat in a chair beside the fire, then opened the top of her housecoat, and settled the baby to one of her breasts. Tregalles took it upon himself to clear the sofa of cushions, toys, paperback books, bits of clothing and a jumble of brightly coloured wools and knitting needles.
‘Just put the stuff on the floor,’ Sally told him when she saw him hesitate. ‘It’s clean.’
He did so, and the two men sat down facing her. The room was warm, too warm for Paget’s liking. And humid. Steam rose from the clothes drying by the fire and, if Paget’s nose was anything to go by, there was a nappy that desperately needed changing.
But Sally Craig seemed not to notice. She drew the broad lapel of her housecoat discreetly over her breast, then looked expectantly from one to the other. ‘So what is it . . .?’ she began, only to wince and draw in her breath. ‘He’s teething,’ she explained as she pulled the baby’s mouth away from her breast. ‘Just watch it, you!’ she scolded, then smiled as the baby started to fuss and his little fingers clutched at her breast. She pulled him to her and he began to feed again.
She looked up. The unexpected smile had transformed her face; she was a pretty girl – and she was just a girl, thought Paget, barely out of her teens by the look of her. She looked tired, but there was a hint of apprehension in her eyes as well.
‘I take it someone told you we were coming?’ Paget said. ‘Would that be Mr Holbrook?’
‘That’s right,’ she said with a defiant tilt of the chin, ‘and he told me why. But what I don’t understand is what you want with Tim? He’s got nothing to do with what happened over there the other night when those robbers broke in, so why do you want to talk to him?’
Paget explained as he had done with Holbrook, but Sally Craig was shaking her head long before he had finished. ‘You’re wrong!’ she said emphatically, ‘and if you think you’re going to pin the murder of that bitch of a wife of his on Tim, you’ve got another think coming! Tim had nothing to do with it – not that he didn’t have good reason after the way she treated him. He worked all hours for that company, but did he get any thanks for it? No, he did not! He didn’t even get paid for it. I told him he should claim for all those extra hours he put in, but he won’t, though God knows we could use the money.’
Her eyes glistened, and defiant as she tried to sound, it was clear she was having trouble holding back the tears. ‘It’s a good thing I’ve still got my job, although what with babysitters and the price of everything going up in the shops, I don’t know how much longer we can keep going if Tim doesn’t find work soon.’
‘You work full-time?’ asked Paget. She nodded. ‘At Gosford’s Shoes in Russell Street. It’s not been easy, and having someone like you come round to accuse Tim of something he didn’t do doesn’t make life any easier, either.’
‘We’re not here to accuse Tim of anything,’ Paget told her. ‘But considering that Tim is alleged to have accosted Mrs Holbrook on more than one occasion, and threatened her on at least one of those occasions, we will be asking him to tell us where he was on the night she was killed. But perhaps you can tell us that Ms Craig. Last Wednesday evening?’
The question appeared to touch a nerve. ‘What I can tell you,’ Sally said heatedly, ‘is that he wouldn’t be anywhere near his uncle’s house, not after the way he’s been treated by him. Tim was out jogging. He goes out two or three nights a week because of the stress he’s under from losing his job, but he does a regular circuit, and I know that’s not the way he goes.’
‘Can you remember what time he left and what time he returned? Approximately?’
Sally looked off into the distance. ‘Wednesday,’ she said slowly. ‘He went out a bit after seven, same as usual, and came back around ten. I think the news had just started when he came in. Billy was fussing a lot, and didn’t settle down till well after nine, so, yes, it would be about ten when Tim came in.’
‘That’s a long time to be jogging,’ Tregalles observed. He was a swimmer, himself, but he’d done a bit of jogging in his time, although not recently – as Audrey was fond of reminding him. ‘Is he in training for something? A marathon, perhaps?’
‘No, it’s just that he likes to keep in shape, and as I said, it relieves the stress.’
‘And you say he goes out two or three nights a week?’
‘Pretty much every other night, yes.’
‘And he’s gone for something like three hours each time? That must be a bit hard on you, what with your job and the baby,’ Tregalles said sympathetically.
Sally blinked rapidly and looked away, then hoisted the child to her shoulder and began to rub his back. ‘I don’t mind as long as it helps him,’ she said. Her voice was muffled as she nuzzled the baby. ‘At least it’s better than when he was spending all of his time at work, till midnight sometimes. Not that they appreciated all the extra time he put in.’
‘Does he go with anyone?’ Paget asked. ‘When he’s jogging, I mean.’
Sally shook her head. ‘Tim likes to run alone. Says he can think more clearly out there on his own.’
‘So no one can actually confirm where he was that night?’
Sally Craig bristled at the implication. ‘I don’t see why anyone should have to,’ she said tightly, ‘but he has a regular circuit, and it doesn’t go anywhere near Pembroke Avenue, if that’s what you’re getting at. Anyway, I don’t know why you’re so dead keen on picking on Tim. What about the others over there at the lab? Have you asked any of them where they were? There are a good many there who won’t be sorry she’s gone.’
Sally frowned, and softened her tone as she said, ‘Not that I’m suggesting for a minute that she deserved to die in such a horrible manner, but she certainly had enemies. Tim will tell you. I mean, look what happened to Peggy Goodwin for a start.’
‘Peggy Goodwin?’ Paget echoed. The name was unfamiliar to him. ‘What happened to her?’
Sally grimaced as she eased the baby away from her breast and began to pat his back. ‘Pushed aside, wasn’t she?’ she said. ‘After all she’d done for Simon, keeping things running up front while he tinkered away in the back room with his toys. And then Miss Knowitall comes barging in to take over, and Peggy Goodwin is out in the cold.’
She flicked a strand of hair away from her eyes. ‘Funny the way things turned out, because Tim said Laura had some good ideas at first, and she did get them out of that dingy hole they used to work in. And she did bring in the customers, but Tim says they were mainly people she’d dealt with in h
er old job, so it wasn’t as if she had to exert herself, because the things that he and the others on the team were inventing would almost sell themselves once the customers got to see them.’
Tregalles stirred in his seat. ‘I thought it was Mr Holbrook who was the inventor,’ he said, but Sally shook her head. ‘That’s what everybody thinks. He’s even been written up in Hi-Tech News, and magazines like that, and Tim says he was good once, but he’s past it now. Tim says technology is changing and moving on so fast these days, that people like Simon are being left behind, and it’s really the younger people like Tim and the others who have the skills and the knowledge to keep up with things. I hate to say this about Tim’s uncle, because he has been good to Tim in the past, but he’s been riding on his reputation and other people’s coat-tails for years, now. Oh, they still use his name and his reputation, but Tim says he’s been more or less shoved into the background since Laura took over, and she’s running the firm now. See, that’s why she was so dead set against Tim,’ Sally continued earnestly. ‘It was because he could see what she was up to. He tried to warn his uncle, but he wouldn’t listen, because he was so besotted with her and wouldn’t have anything said against her.’
The baby burped loudly, spraying a mouthful of warm milk across his mother’s shoulder. A sickly, cloying smell filled the room. ‘Good boy, Billy,’ she said as she wiped the baby’s mouth and settled him to her breast again.
But it was too much for Paget. He looked at his watch, then rose to his feet and said, ‘I think that will be all for now, Ms Craig, and thank you for your time. No, please, don’t get up,’ he said quickly as Sally started to get to her feet. ‘We can see ourselves out.’
‘Got to anyway,’ she said. ‘Billy needs changing.’