*
4. I leave to my nephew, Bernard William Gillie of Dorchester in the County of Dorset, the sum of £10,000 and a similar sum to his wife, Marion Ruth Gillie, in recognition of their many kindnesses to me. To my great-nephew, Martin David Gillie, a minor, I bequeath the sum of £5,000 to be held in trust until he reaches the age of twenty-one years.
5. The residue of my estate, I leave to my great-niece Daphne Elizabeth Gillie, a minor, also of Dorchester in the County of Dorset, to be held in trust until she attains the age of twenty-five years, provided and absolutely that she is a married woman and living with her legal spouse at that time. I hereby appoint Messrs Goode and Wilson, solicitors, of Macclesfield in the County of Cheshire, trustees of these monies, together with all sums realised by the sale of property, goods, chattels and all and any other appurtenances, to be invested taking best advice as and when the occasion may arise according to their best judgement until Daphne Elizabeth Gillie shall be of age under the terms of this Will and fulfil the obligations herein.
6.Should my said great-niece, Daphne Elizabeth Gillie, fail to fulfil absolutely the terms above, any and all monies are to be distributed to the following charitable causes …
*
Maltravers sighed with satisfaction and a certain disbelief. He had been prepared to draw a blank; discovering how right he was surprised him. But how much was involved? Constance had handed down twenty-five thousand pounds to three relatives and nearly another five thousand pounds in minor bequests; what had that left for Daphne? He copied out the vital paragraphs and returned the will to the desk where he asked if it was possible to discover how much someone’s estate was worth. It would need an initial inquiry to the solicitors who had drawn up the document and then an approach to the Inland Revenue. There should be no difficulty; like the wills themselves, such information was a matter of public record.
Back in the Strand, Maltravers walked towards Trafalgar Square and took his thoughts into a Pizza Hut for lunch. He doubted that a solicitor would open his heart to a stranger who strolled in with a murder theory and going through the tangles of official channels would take time. It was obviously possible that the police would take action on what he could already tell them, but it would be satisfying to be able to present them with as full a story as possible. Perhaps … he glanced at his watch. His own solicitor would probably be at lunch himself. He could try later. As he ate his lasagne, self-satisfaction was deflated by the knowledge that separating Caroline Owen’s death from that of Barry Kershaw may have been inspired, but still left the question of who had asked Alan Bedford for Jenni Hilton’s address unanswered. And that, he was convinced, was more serious.
*
Tess spent Tuesday morning in an echoing, cavernous hall which had eventually had its direct line to God cut off, because of a marked decline among Baptists in Paddington, and was now used as a meeting place for the area’s Asian community. It had been hired by the director of a new stage adaptation of Mrs Henry Wood’s East Lynne, a book which Tess had found hilariously readable, and she relished playing it in serious high-camp style. She was auditioning for the part of Lady Isabel, whose little personal problems reach their climax when she returns home to become resident nanny to her own children, so altered by life’s vicissitudes that neither they nor her remarried husband, who thinks she is dead, recognise her. In the best traditions of nineteenth-century melodrama, one of the children is marked to die and duly does.
“Dead!” Tess’s agonised scream sang round high walls of grubby green paint. “Dead! And never called me mother!” Victorian anguish in black leggings and Indian cotton smock, she flamboyantly raised her hand, pressed the back of her wrist against her forehead, and fainted.
“Very good!” The producer smiled from the back of the hall as she sat up and looked at him inquiringly. “Can you give it some more over-the-top spin? All the stops out.”
“If that’s what you want.” Tess stood up and brushed dust off with her hand. She flicked back through the script she was holding and turned to the other two actors, playing the scene with her, who had already been cast. “From the start of page a hundred and forty-three? I’ll collapse on my knees earlier this time.”
By lunchtime they were becoming slightly insane, adding lines of their own as they tried to make the preposterous even more outrageous. Tess finally delivered her immortal remark in a tripe-thick Lancashire accent and rolled about the stage, drumming her heels in hysterics as they all cracked up.
“And there’s trouble at t’mill, an’ all!” she choked out. “Ee, life’s a real bugger at times, innit?”
She dropped her script and wiped away tears and she sat up, weak with laughter. “If I get this, don’t anyone bloody dare say that to me before I go on. Gavin, that’s it. I can’t do it again at the moment.”
“No need to, darling,” the producer told her. “All you had to do was convince me you could play melodrama and you’ve done it. What’s your availability?”
“I’ve got a couple of days dubbing with London Weekend at the end of the month and a short-story recording for the Beeb,” she told him. “Apart from that, I’m clear.”
“Fine. I’ll call your agent and fix the contract.”
“Thank you.” Tess sighed, half with satisfaction, half with alarm at what she had done. “Remember what Larry Olivier said about acting? It’s no profession for adults. God, what have I let myself in for?”
“A super part. Don’t knock it. See you at rehearsals.”
Tess would have liked a drink, but everyone had other engagements and she wandered down to Bayswater Road wondering what to do. Maltravers had said he expected to be out most of the day. On impulse she hailed a taxi and went to Syllabub, deciding to treat herself to a celebration. The shop was empty and Louella Sinclair sent one of her assistants out to buy fruit and cheese which she and Tess shared in the back room.
“How’s Gus getting on?” Louella asked. Maltravers had called her a second time the previous evening to explain what he had worked out.
“Digging through musty wills at Somerset House.” Tess helped herself to smoked Austrian. “I’m not convinced he’ll turn up anything, but I’ve got to agree that his theory makes sense.”
Louella suddenly looked very unhappy. “If he’s right, it means Caroline was killed because someone wants even more money than they’ve got already. That’s disgusting.”
“I know,” Tess agreed sympathetically. “Gus was quoting from a Father Brown story last night. Something like, ‘If he’s clever enough to make so much money, then he must be stupid enough to want it.’”
“He?” Louella queried. “It’s possible that Ted doesn’t know what happened. Daphne could have acted on her own.”
Tess shook her head. “Gus suggested that, but I don’t know that I can go along with it. If Daphne did do it without telling him, he’d suspect her more than anyone else. Hardly a basis for a marriage.”
“That depends what sort of basis you want,” Louella said. “This one will be based on Daphne’s desire to claw her way to the top in the advertising business, Ted’s conceit at pulling a girl young enough to be his daughter — classic middle-age fantasy — and both of them being very rich. I know that’s cynical — but I think it’s true.”
“Then let’s just hope that Gus is right and he can prove it. That’ll take the gloss off.”
“Will it? I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think it through,” Louella told her. “I have. Even if Gus finds some money somewhere that depended on Caroline’s death, how can he — or anyone else — prove that Daphne actually murdered her? She could just go on denying it.”
“Yes, but both she and Ted told the police there was no panic about getting married,” Tess argued. “If there is, because it would mean she would inherit money, it means they lied — or at least she did. The police are going to lean on them like crazy.”
“Lean certainly,” Louella agreed. “Bu
t break? Don’t count on it. Whether Ted planned it with Daphne or she’s kept him in the dark, they could both just deny it and challenge the police to come up with some proof. If it came to a court case, Ted could afford the best QC there is. All there’d be would be suspicion.”
“Hell of a lot of it.”
“Yes, but that could be all. A good lawyer could knock down any prosecution case based on that.”
Tess squeezed crumbs of cheese together on the plate with her fingers, thinking as she ate them. “So you believe that even if Gus turns up everything he’s hoping for, Ted and Daphne could still brazen it out and get away with it?”
“I’m certain they’ll brazen it out — and, yes, I think they’ll get away with it.”
“How do you feel about that?”
Louella’s mouth twitched with distaste. “Resentful, I expect. But nothing’s going to bring Caroline back … and I’m in no position to get on my high horse about justice. Don’t forget that I’ve been at least some sort of accessory to murder. I could have told the police that Barry Kershaw never took drugs. But I didn’t.”
“That was rather different. He deserved it, Caroline didn’t.”
“I don’t think the law would look at it like that,” Louella said. “And do you? Who else doesn’t deserve to live, Tess?”
*
Maureen Kershaw gloated over her A-Z Street Atlas of London, a thick circle drawn with a ballpoint pen around Cheyne Street, a bright red fence through which Jenni Hilton could not pass. Her first instinct had been to go there immediately, but then she had stopped herself. Think it through again. Sleep on it. Savour the taste of it, the anticipation that it was finally going to happen after all these years. The bag was just the right size to hide the bayonet, she had worked out exactly how to get there. Take a taxi into town — not to Cheyne Street of course, the driver might remember her. Then the Underground to Sloane Square; that seemed the nearest station. Walk down the King’s Road where Barry had sometimes taken her. She had memorised the map completely. The eighth turning on the left was Flood Street; down there and then right. Not a long street, not many houses. The sort of area where neighbours kept themselves to themselves, didn’t peer out of windows minding other people’s business. Not taking any notice of a woman walking past on her own, probably not even seeing her. They wouldn’t see her leave either. Within minutes she could be on the Embankment near the Royal Hospital where the Chelsea Pensioners lived. She might have to risk another taxi then to get away from the area quickly; they’d be busy and he wouldn’t remember her. Get out somewhere near the station, catch a train home. Barry would be proud of his mum working it all out. Barry had always been proud of her. She turned pages in one of the photograph albums, frozen images already looking old-fashioned, of the time when she had been happy. She would never really be happy again, but at least she would be content that she had done right by her favourite boy.
*
Terry Kershaw had certainly not expected contrition, but he had been prepared for denial; he received amused contempt and resentment.
“I don’t interfere with your private life, just stay out of mine,” Stephanie told him. “If I want to make friends, I’ll do so.”
“We’re not talking about friends. We’re talking about spending the day with a man. In his house. You weren’t there just for coffee.”
“Actually we did have coffee.” She taunted him with eyes of hungry recollection. “Before and afterwards.”
“You bloody cow! I’ve never given you any reason for this.”
“Oh, yes you have. You’re doing it now. Why don’t you hit me? Go on.”
She stood right in front of him, inviting and challenging, and pointed to her face. “Right there! Have the god-damned guts to hit me where it will show.”
Inflamed, he raised his hand then dropped it and turned away, defeated by the defiance in her face. All the Kershaw violence had been given to Barry.
“Can’t you see?” she demanded. “I told you before we married I needed a strong man like my father. At the time I thought I was getting one, but you’re only strong at the office, not here where I need it. You’ve let me down so many times.”
“And your toy-boy doesn’t of course.” A sense of self-contempt, of not being able to do what he knew he should, drove him to fight on with sarcasm. “He’s playing with you, you know. Getting a kick out of laying the boss’s wife.”
“Do you think I don’t know that? I’m playing with him as well. It amuses me.” She turned away indifferently. “I always quit while I’m ahead.”
Kershaw felt a deadening shock as the truth of a suspicion he had been pushing away was casually hurled at him. “He’s not the first?”
“The first?” she mocked. “You don’t understand anything, do you? I’ve been screwing around for the past five years. Do you want the full list? It began with … ”
“Shut up!” He grabbed her shoulder and for one moment she really thought he was going to hit her, but he let go as though frightened at what she was driving him to. “I don’t want to know. Let’s just start divorce proceedings and get it over with.” “Divorce? No way, Terry. You start that and I’ll tell Daddy you’ve been flaunting your girlfriends at me. I’ll say you’ve been spending your money on them instead of me and the twins.”
He stared at her in disbelief. “You lying bitch!”
“I know that, you know that. Daddy will listen to me. He always does. You’ll be out of Insignia Motors so fast you won’t believe it. And I’ll make sure the best you’ll get will be selling second-hand wrecks in … I don’t know … the bloody East End where you come from.” Her face changed from threats to a sudden realisation. “You can go and live with your mum again, can’t you? I never got you out of there, so you might as well go back.”
He was unable to comprehend. “You want this to go on? What for?”
“Because it suits me. Because I don’t want the mess of us splitting up at the moment. It would upset the girls. Don’t worry, we’ll probably do it eventually. In the meantime we put on the act, right? Plenty of other people do.” She gave a fast, impatient sigh of annoyance at the reaction she saw in his face. “Stop being so … so working class! You always said you wanted to put that behind you. Use a bit of the sophistication you were so anxious to learn. You fought your way into this lifestyle, now start living it!”
She glared, then turned her back on him and started to walk out of the room. “Make the best of it, Terry.”
The door closed and he heard her calling their daughters’ names, asking what they were doing as though everything was completely normal in their home. He remembered a woman when he was a teenager who had been caught having an affair — not that phrase in the East End, of course; she “had a fancy man” — and her husband found out. He belted her half-senseless and sorted out the boyfriend before getting drunk. After that the marriage had continued, the wife defeated, but in some perverse way respecting him. That had been Etruria Street’s way of handling the situation; apart from the violence, was it all that different from how such matters were arranged in Highgate? The end result was the same — no divorce and the pretence remained intact. Terry Kershaw could not hit his wife, so that solution was impossible. Could he accept hypocritical social convention instead? He wasn’t sure — he wasn’t sure of a lot of things any more. Certainly not his motives in yielding to his mother’s demands to be told where Jenni Hilton lived. It was just another failure to defy the first woman who had controlled his life.
Chapter Seventeen
When Maltravers returned to Coppersmith Street on Tuesday afternoon, there was another phone message from Alan Bedford.
“I’d like to talk to you again about this Jenni Hilton business,” he said after introducing himself. “I can’t explain on the phone, but I’m not very happy about the situation. I’m out for the rest of the day, but I’ll be in tomorrow morning if you’re free. I think it’s better we talk at the office if that’s possible. I’ll exp
ect you unless you call my secretary and say you can’t make it. Goodbye.”
“And what have you found out, I wonder?” Maltravers murmured. There was no indication that Bedford was prepared to be any more forthcoming over the identity of his client, but he would not waste time for an idle chat. It was vaguely worrying but, with Jenni Hilton still in Exeter, there was no reason to imagine that anything dangerous was about to happen. Maltravers rang his solicitor to pursue the other half of the problem.
“David, it’s Gus. Odd request time. I assume lawyers talk to each other fairly freely and I’d like you to try and find out how much someone’s estate was worth.”
“Think you’ve been cheated out of a fortune?”
“Nothing like that, I’m afraid. I forgot to ask for rich relations when I was born. It’s someone called Constance Elizabeth Gillie who died in … ” He explained the background without going into unnecessary details. “If you call these Goode and Wilson people in Macclesfield, is there a chance they’ll tell you how much she actually left?”
“It’s possible,” Shirley acknowledged. “If they can’t or won’t, we could always chase it through the Inland Revenue.”
“I was told that at Somerset House, but I’m trying to short circuit the system.”
“What’s the big hurry?”
“It’s too complicated to explain. Can you have a go at it?”
“Well, you’ve certainly got me fascinated. I’ll call you back.”
“Thanks … and don’t charge me a fortune. I’m broke.”
“I might settle for a decent lunch and the full story. You’re at home? OK, it shouldn’t take long.”
Murder in Waiting (Augustus Maltravers Mystery Book 5) Page 17