Time to Pay

by Lyndon Stacey

  ‘You sound half asleep.’

  ‘That’s because I am. What’s doing?’

  ‘Not a lot. I called in a favour and got one of the CSI boys to dust the fencer and battery but they didn’t turn up much – a few partial prints but nothing very recent. It looks as though your guys kept their gloves on the whole time. I ran a check on the serial number and apparently that particular model went out of production in ’78.’

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘How’re you feeling? Been to see a doctor?’

  ‘No. It’s getting better all the time,’ Gideon said truthfully.

  ‘Nothing else you feel you want to tell me?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  ‘Done any more detective work?’

  ‘Not really . . .’

  ‘Listen, Gideon, you want to be very careful. Someone on your list of suspects has obviously got a great deal to lose. I’m within an inch of giving what I’ve got to Rockley and letting him drum it out of you, and if I didn’t know how stubborn you can be, that’s probably what I’d do.’

  Gideon felt Logan overrated his resilience. Having experienced the hours of questioning on the day of Damien’s murder, he wasn’t at all sure he wouldn’t just hand everything over to Rockley, if it came to that, and let Lloyd take his chances.

  ‘I don’t intend taking any unnecessary risks,’ he assured him. ‘And I promise that as soon as I can tell, you’ll be the first to know.’

  ‘Well, I hope you know what you’re doing, mister.’

  I wish I knew what I was doing! Gideon thought.

  Gideon finally made it to the Priory around midday and got a mild shock when he found Giles in the yard, in company with a man dressed in a navy blue uniform. Even though he had so recently spoken to Logan, he thought for a moment the policeman had reneged on his word and told Rockley after all. Then he noticed the dark blue van parked by the house wall with Norris Security Systems in white script on the side.

  ‘Gideon. Glad you’re here,’ Giles said, seeing him. ‘Could do with your input. Pippa’s out exercising with Lloyd. This is John Norris, from Norris Security – you know – come to see about the new alarm system.’

  ‘Hi,’ Gideon said, walking forward and offering a hand. ‘John Norris? Family, then.’

  ‘Yes, Julian was my brother.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  John Norris pursed his lips and inclined his head. ‘It happens.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure what good I can be,’ Gideon said. ‘But I’ll give it my best shot. Pippa’s the one with the plan.’

  ‘My fault,’ the man confessed. ‘I’m early. Finished this morning’s job sooner than I thought.’

  He proceeded to run through the basics of yard security, giving his opinion of what was necessary, and sensibly joining with Gideon in toning down Giles’ more far-fetched suggestions, until Pippa and Lloyd returned twenty minutes later.

  Gideon had gone to the Priory with the idea of spending an enjoyable hour or two riding and working with Nero, who was due to go home within the week, and joining Pippa and Giles for lunch somewhere along the way, as was his habit. It soon became clear that, with the exception of the lunch part of it, this plan was doomed to failure. After John Norris had surveyed the yard and the house, and accepted their invitation to bring his sandwich lunch into the warmth of the Priory kitchen, Giles suggested that Gideon show him the Gatehouse.

  ‘I’d do it myself, but I’ve got someone coming about a possible Sparkler order.’

  ‘So have we actually decided which level of security to go for?’ Norris enquired, patting his bewildering sheaf of price lists, order forms and brochures.

  ‘Well, more or less, but if you leave the details with me I’d just like to go over them again, to get it all quite straight in my mind,’ Giles said.

  ‘Ah,’ the security man said. ‘Normally I would, but for some reason I’ve come out without any copies and I’ve got another customer to see after I finish here. I’ll have to mail them to you.’

  ‘Oh. OK.’ Giles hated to have to wait once he’d set his mind on something.

  Probably because he’d never really had to, Gideon mused, watching him. Just now, though, it had worked in Gideon’s favour. Ever since he’d found Norris with Giles he’d been grappling with the problem of how to wangle a visit to Julian Norris’ widow, and now he saw his chance.

  ‘Actually, I could drop in and pick them up, if you like. I’ve got to go out that way this afternoon,’ he said, with a shameful disregard for the truth. He’d already gleaned the information that John’s sister-in-law ran the company from an office at her home in Sturminster Newton.

  ‘Oh, OK then. I’ll give Marion a ring and let her know you’re coming,’ Norris said, plainly a little bemused by the unexpected urgency of events.

  When Norris had finished at the Gatehouse, Gideon set out for Sturminster Newton with a scribbled note of directions to the office of Norris Security Systems and absolutely no idea of what he was going to say to Julian Norris’ widow.

  The office was in a single-storey, flat-roofed extension to Marion Norris’ modern detached home, and reached by a green-painted wrought-iron gate in a wall on the right-hand side.

  As Gideon let himself through the gate he was greeted by a pair of snuffling Pekinese dogs, who thoroughly investigated the hems of his jeans and then accompanied him down the path to the office, yapping alternately to announce his presence.

  They stopped yapping when he pressed the buzzer beside the office door, standing with their heads on one side, as if waiting to see who came. Gideon had to press it again before it was answered, and then a stocky, thirty-something woman with a shock of frizzy red hair appeared, a phone wedged between her ear and her shoulder.

  ‘Listen! I have a customer waiting for us to complete their installation before they go away on holiday; what am I supposed to tell them?’ She stood back and waved Gideon in. ‘No, don’t give me that! We promised we’d be finished in time on the strength of your promise to deliver the unit, and now my company is in danger of failing to honour its contract because of some cock-up at your end! . . . I don’t care; that’s your problem, not mine . . . Well, try somewhere else then. Send a courier to pick it up. If you want to keep our account, you’d better do whatever it takes, because I don’t intend letting my customers down . . .Yes. Well, see that you do . . .All right, Jim. Speak to you later. Bye.’

  She took the receiver away from her ear, glared at it as if it were the inefficient Jim, and said, ‘Bloody cowboys! I won’t use them again.’

  Gideon wasn’t sure what to say, so he merely waited, looking around the square room at the desk, chairs, cupboards and filing cabinets that were common to all businesses, small or large. On one wall was a display of various alarm components and warning notices, one other was lined with shelves bearing row upon row of box files, and most of the floor was covered by a pile of cardboard boxes and paper packages, apparently just delivered.

  After a moment the red-haired woman put the handset down, shook her head and held out her hand, smiling briefly.

  ‘Marion Norris. Sorry. I’m just having one of those days. You’ve come for the brochures, haven’t you? Well, I’m afraid I haven’t got round to sorting them out yet.’ She indicated the chaos on the floor. ‘They’ll be in one of those. Are you in a dreadful hurry?’

  Gideon assured her that he wasn’t.

  ‘Well, then, would you mind very much if I made a cup of tea first? I haven’t had one since before lunch, and I’m parched. You’ll have one too?’

  ‘Well . . . thanks.’ Gideon didn’t really need one, but the chance to linger was too good to miss. He’d been afraid that Marion Norris would open the door, hand him the leaflets and expect him to be on his way.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ she said, going through an inner door into her kitchen, and Gideon followed her, thinking she was remarkably trusting – if not foolhardy – to invite a complete stranger into her house, even if she had bee
n expecting him to call.

  At a table in the adjoining breakfast room two young boys sat doing their homework, surrounded by textbooks, pens and crayons. Gideon was impressed, and said so.

  ‘They know they have to do their homework before they do anything else,’ Marion said. ‘If they know where they stand, they knuckle down quite happily. I use the same system for kids, horses and dogs, really, and it seems to work.’

  ‘Do you ride?’ Gideon asked, seizing the opportunity to steer the subject into fruitful territory.

  ‘I do, but not as much as I’d like to. I have a horse at livery, half a mile down the road, but there never seem enough hours in the day. And now there’s this . . .’ She was wearing a long denim skirt and a loose tunic, which she smoothed down before patting her abdomen.

  ‘A baby? I’m sorry, I thought . . .’ Gideon stumbled to a halt, wondering if he’d been mistaken, and this wasn’t Julian Norris’ widow after all.

  ‘John and I are planning to get married next year,’ she stated, with just the merest hint of defensiveness in her eyes. ‘We thought we’d keep it in the family, you know. Don’t have to change the letterheads that way.’

  The jokey declaration made Gideon think that Marion had become used to dealing with a measure of censure over the matter.

  ‘Congratulations! He seems like a nice guy,’ he said, wondering if the new development had any bearing on the list. He couldn’t see how it could have, for the fact remained that Julian’s was the one name that had been crossed off. The initials could have been those of John Norris, but the fact that they had been crossed off appeared to indicate that Damien’s beef had been solely with Julian.

  ‘He’s a smashing guy,’ she said, but without the shining-eyed enthusiasm of the newly infatuated.

  Gideon supposed that she must have known her brother-in-law too long for that, especially if they had worked together.

  ‘I don’t think I could have got through last year without him,’ she said frankly, pouring hot water into mugs. ‘Well, the last few years really. Julian wasn’t the easiest man to live with – not that it was his fault,’ she added loyally. ‘Depression is an illness, just like any other, but . . .’

  ‘But it’s not, is it?’ Gideon said. ‘Not like any other, I mean. It affects everything, your relationship, your social life, and it changes everything. Chronic depression is more like alcoholism or Alzheimer’s.’

  Marion Norris paused in the act of fishing a tea bag out on a spoon and turned to look at him.

  ‘That’s it. That’s exactly it. Friends are very supportive at first, but after a while they stop dropping in and the invitations stop coming. You can’t blame them, can you? The last thing you want when you arrange a dinner party is someone who’s uncomfortable to be around. And he’d started to drink, too. The family became more and more segregated. It was no wonder I looked to John for support, was it?’

  ‘It would have been more surprising if you hadn’t,’ Gideon agreed.

  ‘Exactly,’ she said, and then seemed to remember that she was talking to someone who was, to all intents and purposes, a complete stranger. She blushed slightly and turned back to the mugs on the worktop. ‘Oh, God! I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, you must think me very odd.’

  Gideon didn’t know why she was telling him either, but it wasn’t the first time it had happened to him by any means. It was as if there was some kind of label pinned to him that he couldn’t see, which proclaimed, ‘Over here! Shoulder to cry on!’

  ‘No, I don’t think you’re odd,’ he said. And then, because this was a chance such as he couldn’t afford to pass up, ‘Had he been drinking the night he died?’

  ‘No.’ She handed him a mug. ‘Oh, sorry! Sugar?’

  ‘No, thanks, that’s fine.’

  Marion led the way back into the office, and Gideon thought she wasn’t going to elaborate any further, but after clearing a seat for him to sit on, she did.

  ‘No. He hadn’t. It’s the first thing they check, isn’t it. That and drugs. But he hadn’t been drinking; he never did when he was working. It was the only time he really held it together.’

  ‘He’d been to visit Damien, hadn’t he? Tilly told me.’

  ‘Oh, you know Tilly? God! That was a terrible thing, wasn’t it?’ Marion sat in another seat, wedging herself between two packages.

  ‘I was with Damien when it happened,’ Gideon told her, more to ensure that the thread of conversation continued than for any sensation value. ‘I was helping him with one of his horses.’

  ‘Were you? What a horrible shock. They have been unlucky, haven’t they? What with Marcus and now this. I mean, it’s so easy to feel sorry for yourself, but there’s always someone worse off, isn’t there? I knew them quite well at one time. Julian used to be very friendly with the family and Marcus’ death hit him very hard. Especially as there was a kind of understanding that he’d keep an eye on the boy while he was away from home. Not that Damien ever blamed him, but he blamed himself. He was like that. Dwelt on things far too much.’

  ‘Wait a minute – your husband was at the training camp with Marcus?’

  ‘Yes, he was. It was his last year in competition. After what happened, he lost heart and gave up pentathlon.’

  She sat silently for a moment, apparently lost in her memories.

  ‘It was suicide, wasn’t it?’ Gideon prompted.

  ‘What was?’ Marion asked sharply.

  ‘Marcus.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Sorry. The thing is, after Julian’s crash, somebody started a rumour that that was suicide, but there was absolutely no evidence. I mean, I know he was depressed, but that doesn’t automatically mean that he took his own life. I didn’t want the kids growing up with that hanging over their heads, but in the end they got to hear of it anyway from other children at their school. Of course, they were devastated – you know how cruel kids can be – and that made me really angry.’

  Gideon had an idea that Marion Norris in a rage would be a force to be reckoned with.

  ‘Anyway, the police were quite satisfied it was an accident,’ she added with a touch of defiance. ‘The thing was, he was supposed to be on his way home, but the accident happened in Winterbourne Whitechurch, and nobody knows why he was there. But he must have had a reason; maybe he was visiting a customer or something, who knows?’

  ‘People are always looking for something to gossip about,’ Gideon said soothingly.

  ‘Yeah, and now it’s me and John,’ she said, confirming Gideon’s earlier supposition. ‘Oh, well. You certainly get to know who your real friends are. But you were asking about Marcus; yes, he jumped off the top of some building after they’d all been out drinking one night. Some kind of ruin in the grounds of the castle they were staying at. No-one quite knows why, even to this day. He was the youngest at the camp and a couple of the other guys said he’d been a little homesick, but I can’t see that that’s a reason to kill yourself, can you? I mean, if the worst comes to the worst, you can always ask to go home, can’t you?’

  Gideon shrugged. ‘Kids tend to get things way out of proportion, don’t they? Maybe he was scared of letting everyone down, or maybe it was the drink that got to him; it can affect some people that way, especially if they’re not used to it. Did Julian ever talk about it?’

  Marion shook her red frizz. ‘Not much. All I know is that they’d been out drinking and on the way home the boy went off on his own. Nobody knew what had happened until he didn’t turn up back at their rooms and one of the coaches went looking. It was a horrible shock, but nobody’s fault, as far as I can see. I never did succeed in getting Julian to see that, though.’

  ‘Do the names Sam Bentley or Garth Stephenson mean anything to you?’ Gideon asked. They were so far into confidences that he didn’t feel that subtlety was called for.

  Marion frowned. ‘They do seem familiar. I think I’ve heard Julian mention them in the past. Sam Bentley, definitely. In fact, I think he might have been on that same
course. Why?’

  ‘Well, Tilly found a list of names in Damien’s things and she has no idea what it’s to do with, or even whether it’s important or not. I said I’d try and find out, that’s all.’

  ‘Are you saying Julian was on it?’

  ‘Yes, but crossed out.’

  ‘Because of the crash.’

  ‘I imagine so.’

  ‘And what have you found out?’

  ‘Not much.’ His recent experiences had made Gideon cautious. ‘I think I shall have to admit defeat.’

  Marion put her cup down, apparently losing interest.

  ‘Well, I suppose I’d better try and find those brochures for you – no, you sit there and finish your tea.’

  She rummaged among the parcels, keeping up a running commentary, and, after a minute or two, pulled out a medium-sized cardboard box from the middle of the pile.

  ‘This could be it. God! They really went to town on the sticky tape, didn’t they? Anyone would think they were being dropped in by helicopter, the way this is wrapped! It’s always one extreme or the other. Would you be a love and pass that knife from the shelf behind you?’

  Gideon turned to locate it, and his eye fell on a row of box files, each labelled neatly in black ink. He picked up the Stanley knife that lay in front of them, and then paused to give the files a second look. The writing touched a chord in his memory but – like meeting someone where you don’t expect to – he couldn’t remember where he’d seen it before.

  ‘Whose handwriting is that on the files?’ he asked, leaning forward to hand the knife to Marion.

  She looked.

  ‘Julian’s. Why?’

  ‘It’s beautiful. I wondered if it was yours.’

  ‘I wish! No, mine’s very ordinary. Julian did quite a bit of calligraphy – even the illuminated stuff. I’ll show you some in a moment, if you like.’

  ‘Thanks, but actually, I’d better be on my way. I’ve taken up too much of your time as it is.’

  ‘Not at all. It’s been nice to talk.’

  As Gideon left the NSS offices five minutes later with a handful of brochures, Marion Norris was already back to business, sorting through paperwork with her mobile phone tucked under her ear. She didn’t even look up when he raised a hand before shutting the door.