Deadly Intent (Anna Travis Mysteries)

by Lynda La Plante

  “So did your son arrange monies to be paid to you?”

  “He opened an account, and I just withdrew any money when I was required to pay for work done. The cottage needed to be renovated, and I only have my pension.”

  “What name is the account under?” Anna asked.

  Mrs. Eatwell became wary, and said that it was her personal account. Anna whispered to Gordon and he left the room. He went to talk to Wendy to ask about Mrs. Eatwell’s bank accounts and access to any statements. In the meantime, Anna pressed on, asking about the time her son came to stay, when he was injured. Mrs. Eatwell said that he had turned up very late one night, and she had wanted him to go to hospital, as the wound to his shoulder was infected.

  “Did he seek medical advice?”

  “No. I bathed it with disinfectant, and replaced the bandages; it was a deep flesh wound, and he was in a great deal of pain.”

  “How long was he here with you?”

  “Just a few days. He slept in the spare bedroom; in fact, he slept most of the time. He hardly touched his food, then he showered and dressed and said he would be leaving.”

  Anna flicked the pages in her notebook back and forth as she worked out the time frame of when Alexander Fitzpatrick had stayed; she knew it had to be directly after the shooting of Frank Brandon. “During the time he was here, did he have any visitors?”

  Mrs. Eatwell conceded that Honour had been to see him.

  “What about Damien Nolan?”

  “What about him?”

  “Did he also visit your son?”

  “No.”

  “Was there anyone else?”

  Mrs. Eatwell pursed her lips, trying to think.

  “What about the visit from the antique dealer?”

  “Oh yes—he came. He wanted to know if I had any other furniture to sell. He asked about the table I had sold to the local antique shop.” She continued to explain that she had not been aware of the table’s value; it was outside the kitchen door and she used it to stack firewood. When Sudmore had seen it, he paid her two hundred and fifty pounds for it. “It was in a dreadful state. I couldn’t believe that it would have had any value at all, so I agreed to sell it.”

  “Did you know that it was Georgian?”

  “Good heavens, no—then Julius D’Anton came to the cottage. He said he had seen the table at an antique fair and wondered if I had any other pieces. You see, there was quite a lot when I moved in here, but I didn’t like it. A lot I gave away to the local charity shops, and I also burned some of it to make way for all this nice modern furniture.”

  Anna let her continue talking as she underlined in her notebook Julius D’Anton; the fact that Mrs. Eatwell knew his name made her suspicious. “This man, Julius D’Anton…”

  “Yes? I’ve been asked about him before. As I just said, he came round.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “I didn’t. Even when he told me who he was, it didn’t mean anything, but he said that he remembered me.”

  “Remembered you?” Anna repeated.

  “Yes. He said that he had known Alex, and that he had met me numerous times when they were undergraduates together, but I didn’t remember him. To be honest, I didn’t really like him; he seemed rather seedy.”

  Anna asked if Fitzpatrick had also seen him, as he was in the cottage recovering.

  Mrs. Eatwell shrugged. “He could have seen him, I don’t remember. When he came back, I wouldn’t open the door. He said that his van had tipped into a ditch, so I gave him the number of the local garage.”

  “And where was your son?”

  “Upstairs, I told you: he was sleeping.”

  Anna couldn’t get any more details as to whether or not Fitzpatrick had confronted Julius D’Anton, as Mrs. Eatwell maintained that he did not leave his room. However, she suspected that he had; he must have been very wary that D’Anton was sniffing around. She knew that D’Anton had got a lift from Adrian Summers in the Mitsubishi; that he had tried to buy the table and had cash enough to pay for it; then he was driven to London and, according to Adrian, had taken the drugs that were stashed in the back of the jeep.

  Gordon returned and bent to whisper to Anna: all Mrs. Eatwell’s accounts had been checked. She had one for her pension to be paid into, which was also topped up by her late husband’s pension; there was also a mortgage account, but they had found no other accounts or checkbooks.

  “Mrs. Eatwell, we have your pension account, but we do not seem to have any others. You said that your son opened an account for you. Could you give me these particulars?”

  Mrs. Eatwell said that was all that she had, and Anna must have been mistaken.

  Anna joined Wendy in the kitchen. The accounts were laid out on the kitchen table. Looking down the deposits and withdrawals, she could see no large sums of money. There was only eighty pounds in her pension account. The mortgage account had monthly withdrawals, and was virtually empty.

  “She’s got to have another account. We need to know how much she has, and if her son is also a signatory. Get onto the local branch and see what they can tell you.”

  Anna returned to questioning Mrs. Eatwell, eager to put more pressure on her. She was certain that Fitzpatrick had to have been unnerved by seeing Julius D’Anton, especially when D’Anton had recognized his mother. It was a coincidence that they had not even considered, but it made it more likely that Fitzpatrick had played a part in D’Anton’s death.

  Anna sat down as Gordon picked up Mrs. Eatwell’s empty teacup. “Would you like a refill?” he asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Right, Mrs. Eatwell, can I just go back to the time your son was staying with you?”

  “I’ve told you all I know.”

  “Maybe you have, but there are just a few things I need clarified.”

  “I don’t feel like answering any more questions. What I would like to know is when I can see my grandchildren. As their mother is dead, I should be allowed to have access to them. They can come and live with me.”

  “Your grandchildren? Are you aware that Damien Nolan is the father of the youngest child?”

  She looked shocked but recovered remarkably quickly.

  “We’d like to take a DNA test from you to determine if the first child is your son’s, as we were informed that this child was conceived by IVF treatment.”

  “You can take whatever tests you want; it doesn’t alter the fact that they are my grandchildren.”

  “I think it does, Mrs. Eatwell, because Damien Nolan, as the child’s biological father, will also have a claim—unless he is also related to you.”

  Mrs. Eatwell remained silent.

  “Is Damien Nolan related to you?”

  Again, there was no reply, but the old lady was now becoming very agitated. She began twisting her gnarled, bony hands in her lap, and she suddenly snapped out, “That woman, that Julia, was a money-grabbing whore! I don’t believe for a second that Damien would have had anything to do with her. She is a liar. I know it’s not good to speak ill of the dead but she was a nasty, vicious little bitch.”

  “We have it verified that Damien is the father, Mrs. Eatwell, so it seems not only did your son Alexander have a relationship with her, but so did Mr. Nolan.”

  “I don’t believe you; he wouldn’t have done that to Honour.”

  “Well, apparently he did. Honour was having a relationship with Alexander. They were living together in Julia’s house in St. John’s Wood.”

  “No! She wouldn’t do that—she wouldn’t do that to Damien! She loves him.”

  “She has said to me that she was in love with Alexander and that her marriage to Damien was a sham.”

  “That is not true!” The old lady’s voice was becoming shrill.

  At this moment, Wendy tapped on the door and gestured for Anna to join her. The local NatWest had refused to give any details, bar the fact that there were other accounts with Mrs. Eatwell’s signature, along with that of a Mr. Anthony Collingwo
od. Anna instructed Gordon to drive to the bank and show his ID to get more information; she then turned to Mrs. Eatwell.

  “I think, Mrs. Eatwell, you should start telling me the truth. Do you know where your son is?”

  “No, I do not.”

  Frustrated, Anna began to show Mrs. Eatwell the photographs of the victims they knew to have been killed by Fitzpatrick. Last of all, she showed her Frank Brandon’s photograph. “This man was with your son the night he got injured and came here to you; he was shot dead. Your son left this man, Donny Petrozzo, dead in his jeep. This man was Julia’s financial adviser, David Rushton; we know your son killed him. This woman was strangled—”

  “Stop it! Don’t do this to me!”

  “Mrs. Eatwell, I need some answers from you. I need to find your son.”

  The old lady broke down and started crying, repeating that she didn’t know, as she plucked a tissue from a box beside her. “I swear to you, I don’t know where he is. To be honest, even though he is my son, if I knew I would tell you. He has been nothing but trouble from the time he was a student. I have been through hell because of him.”

  “But you took money from him?”

  “Yes, because I didn’t have any medical insurance for my husband. I was desperate. You cannot imagine what I felt when he just turned up, as if all the years between meant nothing.”

  “Had he kept in touch with Damien and Honour?”

  “No, no, he just topped up the account for me. We never mentioned him; it was too painful. I had the police morning, noon, and night when he was first arrested all those years ago; they hounded me and I swear it was because of him that my husband got so ill. The strain of it all was terrible.”

  “So when he came to the cottage, before he came here injured…”

  “I didn’t know what to do. I said I didn’t want to see him after what had happened to my husband and he just laughed at me; said that I was living very comfortably for someone who didn’t want anything to do with him. Sometimes it felt as if he hated me, blamed me for everything, and I had such guilt. You see, he was such a lovable little boy and he worshipped his father; having to bring him up on my own was difficult. It’s strange, but the older he got, the more he became like his father; he could still turn on the charm, and he had this manner to him. He could draw people to him like a magnet but, underneath it all, he was very cruel.”

  “But he knew Damien and Honour, didn’t he?” Mrs. Eatwell was now very distraught. Anna felt bad about continuing to put pressure on her, but she carried on nevertheless. “Mrs. Eatwell, your son kept in contact with them, didn’t he?”

  “He had to, because of the money. It was the only thing he ever cared about—money, and that nasty little bitch.”

  “Julia?”

  “Yes! She was the reason why he came back. She had done something with his accounts and he had lost all his money in America. You don’t seem to understand that we were frightened of him.”

  “I don’t think Honour was frightened of him.”

  “She was—we all were. Whatever she is saying now isn’t the truth. I had to have him here. I had no option, because he was sick, and if you think I wasn’t scared about what would happen if anyone found out, then you are wrong. Telling me all these terrible things about what he has done gives me even more reason to have been frightened.” She wiped her eyes, and blew her nose, slowly calming down. “I did not know what was in those crates, but it wasn’t hard for me to guess. I had no option but to let him store them in my garage, just as poor Honour had to let him put them at the farm; she was as frightened as I was.”

  “Damien had to be aware of what they contained,” Anna said.

  She refused to agree, repeating that only she and Honour knew, and that Damien was innocent. Anna’s mobile rang and she moved into the hallway. It was Gordon calling from the bank.

  Mrs. Eatwell’s account, under the joint signature of Anthony Collingwood, had been cleaned out of seven hundred thousand pounds. The money had been transferred to an account in Geneva and subsequently moved on from there; the transaction was done by Anthony Collingwood. When asked if he had been to the bank in person, they admitted that he had; it was the first time they had actually met him.

  Anna cut off the call; this was really bad news. It meant that Fitzpatrick, far from being cornered and broke, was now fully financed. With that much money, he could be anywhere. It also meant that Mrs. Eatwell had only her pension left.

  When Anna told her, instead of being angry or even upset, the old lady said she felt nothing but relief. “I told you that all he ever cared about was money. Well, now you can see he’s taken everything—even from me, his mother.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Perhaps it was the relief of knowing her son had taken the money and gone that made Doris begin to give Anna more details of her past. “You know, he blamed me for everything—even blamed me for his obsession with wealth. You see, his father, my first husband, was a very well-off, aristocratic man. Never did a day’s work in his life. We lived a life of luxury: beautiful house, chauffeurs and staff, holidays abroad. Alex went to an expensive prep school in Kensington; he was exceptionally clever. Even as young as six, he had such a charm, but he was very spoiled. He got whatever he wanted from his father.”

  “You were divorced?”

  “Yes, it was very unpleasant. Alex blamed me; he was too young to understand what had happened. We went from having everything to nothing. I had to take him out of Eton because I couldn’t afford the fees. In those days, there was no real protection for divorcées and even though I was awarded alimony, it was never paid.”

  Anna sat at the kitchen table as Mrs. Eatwell made some toast, then spread a cheese slice on top and put it under the grill. She sliced up tomatoes and some ham, and then put the slices together, carefully cutting off the crusts. She got a plate and placed the sandwich onto it, and sat unfolding a napkin.

  “I was pregnant,” she said quietly.

  Anna said nothing. Then, after a long pause, while Mrs. Eatwell stared at her sandwich and cut it into small neat pieces, she spoke. “You were pregnant?”

  Mrs. Eatwell eventually whispered, “Damien,” and pushed the plate aside. Anna had been right.

  Damien Nolan had been adopted at birth, as Doris had been unable to care for him since she had to go out to work. She explained how, ten years ago, Damien had contacted her. He had become everything that Alexander was not. Honour had looked after her; without them, she doubted she would have been able to cope with the death of her husband. Her second marriage had been very loving, but Alexander had loathed his stepfather, who was the antithesis of Alexander’s own father: a simple, quiet man who tried to care for his stepson, only to have to go through the public outcry when it became known he was an international drug dealer. With the press over the arrest of her son, her husband lost his job, then was diagnosed with throat cancer. She was once again financially insecure, until money started to come in from Alexander to pay for medical bills.

  The sandwich remained untouched. She asked Anna if it was possible to keep Damien’s relationship to Alexander secret as, if it was to get out, he would lose his job at the university. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I love him, and to have him back in my life meant so much. To have Alex back was a nightmare. Part of me hopes that you will find him, but the other part prays that you won’t because, if you do, it’ll start again; the press will hound us and I don’t want Damien hurt.”

  Anna said she would try, but couldn’t make any promises. She did not mention that Mrs. Eatwell would still be charged with perverting the course of justice, along with various other charges.

  As Anna walked down the pathway of the cottage, Gordon was just pulling up. “DCS Langton is on his way; he said we should meet up at a fish-and-chip restaurant in the village. He does not want you to interview Damien Nolan.”

  “Bollocks to that,” she said, and started to walk up the lane. “Tell him you just missed me. I’ll be at the f
armhouse.”

  Gordon watched her for a moment before he reversed into the driveway of the cottage to turn and head back to the village.

  It was farther than Anna had remembered and, in some places, almost impassable, as there were deep muddy potholes. She hopped over a few and then sank into a deep one she hadn’t noticed. Turning a bend in the lane, she saw two men digging a trench; they had reels of steel pipes and a trailer parked in a field. She watched them covertly for at least five minutes. They immediately reported the sighting of Anna, unaware of who she was.

  Anna guessed that the two men were surveillance officers; at least they appeared to be hard at work. Langton had not mentioned that the farm was still under surveillance—typical of him, she thought—and at the same time realized that he too must have had suspicions about Damien Nolan.

  Anna did not go toward the front door, but headed around the side of the farmhouse, as she had done previously. She could see the stable door to the kitchen was open at the top end, and there was a distinct smell of burning toast. As she approached, charred bread was hurled out and she could hear swearing.

  “Hello,” she said as she came closer.

  Damien appeared with a mesh toasting rack in his hand. “I didn’t hit you, did I?” he asked.

  “No, just missed me.”

  He waved the rack. “I always forget how fast toast does on the Aga. You want to see me?”

  “Yes.”

  He opened the bottom of the stable door and wafted the rack like a tennis racket to indicate she should enter. “Are you hungry?”

  Anna stepped into the kitchen. There was a roaring fire in the grate and the lid of the hot oven open on the Aga.

  “I can offer you cheese on toast, or scrambled eggs and bacon, or a BLT,” Damien said as he went to the big pine table and began to cut two slices of bread from a fresh crusty loaf.

  “I’d like a BLT,” Anna replied.

  “Right, you keep an eye on the toast. The bacon should be ready any second.”

  Like Doris, his mother, he sliced tomatoes, moving back and forth to a big, old American fridge to fetch some lettuce. He appeared to be totally at ease and in no way alarmed by Anna’s presence.