Hung in the Balance (Simpson & Lowe Detective series Book 1)

by Ormerod, Roger

  ‘But that’s ridiculous!’ I burst out. ‘How can I be divorced, and not be aware of it?’ Which seemed logical to me.

  He beamed at me in pure delight. ‘Spoken like a true daughter of your father. Straight to the nub of it. How? I’ll tell you how. By advertisement.’

  I sighed. He was quite determined to drain the situation of every dry and dusty detail. ‘Explain, Harvey, please.’

  ‘It is necessary, by law, that in a divorce action the respondent — that would be you — should have a chance to dispute the action. That the marriage had broken down was obvious, but you had never taken any action to terminate it, so the assumption had to be that you might intend to return to him.’

  ‘There was no point in divorcing him. If I’d wanted to remarry, yes, I’d have gone ahead.’

  ‘Now allow me, then, to digress. And Philipa, please, do stop sighing. All this is for your own good and your peace of mind. May I digress?’

  ‘Do so, Harvey, by all means.’

  ‘Graham always came to me as his solicitor. I acted as legal representative for both of you. There was no conflict of interests. But for his divorce he quite rightly went elsewhere. In fact, to my friend Charles Peters, just up the road from here. And he told Graham, as I’m sure he would, that it would be necessary to serve the petition on you, so that you could agree or dispute the claim. Apparently, Charles was told by Oliver that he didn’t know where to contact you, because —’

  ‘Of course he knew!’ I put in with exasperation. ‘Or at least, he knew you would know.’

  ‘Exactly. Oh, you’d have made a lovely lawyer! In any event, the notice was served, as one might say, by inserting the necessary advertisements in the newspapers you were thought to read. The Daily Telegraph and The Times. Failing a response, it was accepted that the petition had been served, and Graham was granted a decree nisi on an undefended petition.’

  I let out my breath in a heavy wuff of annoyance. It was clear what had happened. Anna had pressured him into that action. And who could blame her, after all? It didn’t matter, anyway, I decided. I’d already stated that Anna should have the cottage. The only difference was that now she would have it as a legal right.

  ‘All right, Harvey. So I’m a divorced woman. Divorced widow. It’s academic. Do you have to make such a big thing out of it?’

  He inclined his head, tapped his lips with his entwined fingers, and said, ‘Yes, perhaps I do. I hadn’t finished, though. You see, to obtain a divorce in that way — by advertisement — Graham would have needed to make a deposition that he didn’t know how to trace you. A legal statement, Philipa. And we both know that he knew very well how to do that — by walking into this office. He therefore took an action that makes the legality of the divorce at least questionable. Certainly arguable.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Harvey. Please. You were going to take me to lunch. If you go on like this it’ll be for evening dinner. Which will cost you more,’ I warned him.

  ‘It’s in your best interests.’

  ‘You keep saying that! As though…’ I waved a hand impatiently. ‘As though he was a millionaire. Is there much more?’

  ‘Well…yes,’ he admitted. ‘You see, on January the 10th, four days after the decree absolute, he came to me, because I held his original will, and said he wanted to amend it.’

  ‘We made mutually beneficial wills, as you well know. Of course he’d want to change it.’

  ‘But let me read you this. His new will.’ He picked it up, put on steel-rimmed spectacles I knew he didn’t need, and went on, ‘This is how it originally read. Blah, blah, blah…to my beloved wife, Philipa Marjorie, all of which I die possessed…etc., etc.’ He blinked at me over the spectacles, to silence any interruption. ‘He deleted one word, and inserted one word. It now reads, blah, blah, blah…to my beloved Philipa Marjorie Lowe, all of which I die possessed. Now…’ He took off the spectacles and gestured with them. ‘Now isn’t that really fascinating!’

  ‘But…but… I don’t…’ I clamped a hand over my mouth, which was likely to gabble away with a lot of nonsense.

  ‘Fascinating,’ he murmured.

  ‘But he can’t…couldn’t…oh damn it, the whole thing’s ridiculous. And Harvey, all this doesn’t matter. Surely you see that.’

  But he continued to stare at me, and through me, with the beatific glazed look that came on him whenever he encountered a legal complexity. To me, he had always been a dear friend and a constant comfort, but oh dear me, he could be tiresome.

  ‘I hadn’t finished,’ he told me.

  ‘You hadn’t?’ Lord, what next?

  ‘There’s a very interesting legal point involved.’

  ‘There would be.’

  ‘As his ex-wife, you inherit. As per his will. But that will could be disputed by a common-law wife of more than two years’ standing. And I feel, these days, that a probate court would uphold her claim. She was living with him, after all, though they do not appear to have married. But you, my dear Philipa, are in the position of being able to dispute the legality of the divorce, on the grounds of a wrongful deposition, and if successful your legal claim to the inheritance couldn’t be disputed, because you would again become his legal wife.’ He scratched his neck and pouted ruefully.

  ‘And aren’t you pleased with yourself, Harvey!’ I couldn’t resist telling him. ‘You could have two actions going in two separate courts. Divorce and Probate. And two barristers for each, a leader and his junior…oh, that’d be just dandy. No, thank you. I want no part of it. In fact, I don’t care what happens. Sort it out, Harvey. Give it away. But don’t expect me to get myself trapped in legal proceedings that I don’t give two figs for.’

  And, somewhat breathless, I realized that I no longer cared whether it’d been suicide or not. Why the devil was I wasting time in this country, when Cornel was probably having fits trying to locate me?

  ‘I hadn’t finished,’ he said plaintively.

  ‘With me you have.’ I made fidgeting movements with my shoulder bag.

  ‘I’ve had time, you see,’ he went on placidly. ‘Time to claim Graham’s papers and documents, as his solicitor, and time to make some sort of sense out of them. He was an accountant, and he knew how to complicate things. Hide them, even. There are seven different bank accounts, to start with.’

  ‘Seven! He didn’t have any money. What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘The total sum involved is, by my reckoning, though the accounts are gathering interest every day, a figure of £237,000. Give or take.’

  ‘I…what…why…?’

  ‘Plus the cottage. Freehold. In his name.’

  ‘He can’t! He didn’t!’

  ‘Plus the insurance on his life.’

  Gratefully, thankfully, my tottering mind seized on something I could accept. ‘He kept it going?’

  ‘You knew about it?’

  ‘Of course. We insured each other’s lives. When we were married.’

  ‘And you kept your premiums going?’ he asked.

  I glanced down at my hands, white and entwined. ‘Yes,’ I whispered. It’d been a somewhat sentimental action.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The premiums weren’t much.’

  ‘That’s not the reason.’

  ‘Because I knew he had nothing,’ I said sharply, angry at his persistence. ‘Thought that.’

  ‘And you didn’t change the indemnity?’ asked Harvey, unimpressed by my flash of aggression.

  ‘No. It was only ten thousand.’

  ‘Pounds?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For your information, my dear,’ he said gently, as I was already on the edge of shock, ‘Graham increased the indemnity on his own life.’

  ‘How much?’ I hated myself that it came out as a croak.

  ‘To one hundred thousand.’

  ‘Pounds?’ I could hardly get that out.

  ‘Yes. English pounds.’

  ‘Oh dear Lord!’

  And
abruptly all my tangled emotions involving Graham scrambled themselves together and surged over me like a hot wave of confusion. The blood rushed to my face, and suddenly, to my horror, I burst into a torrent of tears and had to clamp my hands over my face, swaying backwards and forwards, more in anger that I couldn’t control it than for any other reason. And Harvey, the great fool, rushed round the desk, shouting out for his secretary, and surprisingly going down on his plump knees and his perfectly pressed trousers so that he could place his arm round my shoulders.

  ‘There, there. It’s not that bad!’

  I managed to choke a few jumbled words at him.

  ‘Brandy, Florence,’ he said over his shoulder. And, ‘What did you say, my dear?’

  I lowered one hand, gulped to clear my voice, and said, ‘Get off your knees, you idiot, you’re ruining your pin-stripes.’

  Trying to hide a smile he did so, groaning at the effort. Florence appeared with brandy in a cup, and I choked over it. My throat was burning. Then, with a weak smile at Harvey, I handed it back to her.

  ‘The rotten bastard,’ I said, with a sudden affection that tasted strangely bitter. ‘Why did he have to do this to me!’ Then, ‘Oh Lord! I must look a mess.’ And Florence took me off to see to my face.

  It gave me time to see to other things — to retrieve my composure, and to realize that — looking back at it — Harvey had managed his exposition very neatly. He had planned every revelation, balanced one against the other, and run them out in front of me so that I could see how I was fixed.

  And fixed was exactly the word. How could I walk away from it now? How could I reject Graham and walk away from him? I simply couldn’t go on existing without knowing the truth, and that meant I would have to unearth it myself. Harvey had known that. He’d intended it. Why? Was there something in it for him? Well, of course there was. Litigation. Fees. And the almost manic delight with which he stood aside and watched the law working in all its guises. And these he had been to some trouble to lay out before me, I was not to forget. Every bitter fact was available to me.

  He turned from the window as I closed the office door behind me, now completely in control of myself and presenting a professional face of confidence.

  ‘Harvey,’ I asked, ‘is there a suicide clause in the policy?’

  He chuckled out loud. ‘Of course there is. As in your own insurance policy. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because it was brought in as suicide.’

  ‘Oh dear me, I quite forgot.’

  ‘You’re a liar, Harvey, and you owe me a lunch. A good lunch. Expensive. Where are you going to take me?’

  He realized I was putting legal problems behind me for the time being, and smiled his agreement. ‘I’ll drive you out to The Esperanto. New to you — four miles out of town.’

  ‘I shall be needing my own transport,’ I told him.

  ‘I thought you might.’

  ‘Did you? A mind reader as well.’

  ‘As well as what?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘As sorcerer, Harvey. Or warlock, perhaps.’

  He frowned. I didn’t enlarge on it. We drove out to The Esperanto, on the Southerton road, where we ate congenially, and he told me that Potterton’s Garage was now hiring out cars. If I still held my British driving licence. I did. It had another three months to run.

  ‘There you are, then,’ he said. Being polite, he didn’t ask me where I intended to go in this rental car. I told him nothing.

  Eventually he dropped me outside the hotel at around three. This suited me fine. New York was four hours behind British GMT, so that I ought to be able to contact Cornel before he went to lunch. Miss him, and he’d be lunching until three o’clock or later, which would be seven here. So I wanted to do it now. Suddenly, I had to do it now.

  In my room I asked for an international call and gave them the number. Before I had time to kick off my shoes the phone tinkled.

  ‘Your call, Mrs Tonkin.’

  I didn’t know whether or not I welcomed that name.

  ‘Executive Enterprises.’

  ‘Marie! Lovely to hear your voice.’

  ‘Where are you, Phil?’

  ‘England. And don’t ask — the weather’s miserable.’ I heard Marietta laugh. It was our standing joke together. ‘Is he in?’

  ‘He is. And in a foul mood.’

  ‘Hmm! Better put him on, anyway.’

  ‘When’re you coming back?’

  ‘That is what I want to speak to him about.’

  ‘Mama mia! He’ll burn out the line. Just a second, Phil.’

  He must have snatched up his phone. His voice came through as crisp and clear as if he’d been in the next room. I could see him, lolling back in his padded chair, phone to his ear and swivelling it to stare sightlessly over Manhattan, his dotted bow tie (bow for lunch — a striped ordinary tie for business), his limp six feet-three draped in loose grey fine worsted from Brooks Brothers, his feet in cordova leather moccasins, and the short nylon socks that revealed a foot of thin, hairy legs. Standing and moving, he always gave the impression of a loose-limbed lack of grace, and with his thin wrists and huge hands, his long neck and his too-big head with the shock of pure white hair, he looked a freak. But his voice could be a soft and beautiful instrument, on which he played his own tunes, and to which he watched others dance. He had command, had Cornel, authority. He never lost his temper.

  Except now, apparently.

  ‘Phillie? Where the hell are you?’

  ‘In England,’ I said calmly. ‘As you very well know. I can’t be everywhere at once.’

  ‘Sorry, Phillie. Christ, I’m bushed.’ I could imagine the free hand running up the back of his neck. He played hell with his hair-style. ‘While you’ve been trolling around Europe —’

  ‘Working, Nel,’ I reminded him. I was the only one who shortened his name, and the one who recognized his tricks. This was his harassed act. It usually meant he had things in hand. ‘Scouting Europe for talent. Remember? And Nel, it’s a goldfield over here. They talk about the brain-drain! Heavens, the brains are queuing up. When I mention the salary scales in the dear old US of A they go green and quiver all over. We must have a European office. I’ll get back to it. Nel? You still with me?’

  That was because he’d failed to interrupt. Which was unusual.

  ‘With you,’ he said. ‘Ahead of you. But it looks like being a no-no. And that’s flat. I can’t get the financial backing. Jesus, I’ve crawled. Grovelled. But you try squeezin’ a buck outa those jerks… Phillie, I went to the First National in Detroit. To the head man. That Alvin K. Lakin, the lousy creep! You remember, we got him the friggin’ job as Vice President, so I saw him personally. And d’you know what the fat slob said? Can y’ guess? It was too big a risk, an’ the money was going outa the country. How’d ya like that! Jeez, I could’ve crowned him. And Maugin. Remember him? Rufus Renfrew Maugin. We got him that job. Financial Director at Premier Investments. In Washington. Refused to see me. Refused! I hadda crawl to some drip in a green suit. Green! And he said no. I’ve just about had it. If I’d had a gun I’d of shot somebody. Myself, most likely. Are you gettin’ this, Phillie-girl? Am I gettin’ through?’

  ‘Loud and very clear. And it’s costing me money.’

  ‘When’re you coming back, my cherub? I need you. Sweet Jesus, I need you.’

  Cornel had a tendency to exaggerate. I ignored it. ‘It’s why I called you, Nel. I’m stuck here for a while. Things have cropped up.’

  ‘You’ve had the funeral, ain’t you?’

  ‘We’ve had that.’

  ‘Then come back to poppa. We gotta reconstruct this whole scenario. Y’ know what I mean?’ And so on. I allowed it to flow.

  The snag was that our work always left us on the periphery of big money. We got to think big money, but not much of it drifted in our direction, a very small percentage of the first year’s increase in our client’s new salary. Or a fixed fee, if we were searching for the right man for a s
pecific job. Sometimes, we managed two fees for one effort. Sometimes. But mainly we worried about our own money. Nel worried, and I let him get on with it. I could see his point, though. To operate at all, we had to use very expensive offices on Third Avenue, and we had to chase opportunities all over the USA. There’s a lot of territory involved, and huge overheads. So new initiatives had seemed to be the answer, new outlets, and Nel had fallen in love with the idea of a branch office in Europe.

  I allowed him to drone on until I thought the time had come to stop him in his tracks. When it did, I stopped him. I mentioned money.

  ‘There could be a few dollars involved, Nel,’ I said, trying to justify remaining here for a while.

  ‘Huh? You’re not foolin’ your old mate, kiddo?’

  ‘Not kidding, Nel.’

  ‘You said there’d be nothing.’

  ‘Seems I was wrong. It’ll take time, of course, so I need —’

  ‘What’re we talkin’ about here? Dinner for two at Luchow’s?’

  I hadn’t wanted to get him involved, to raise any hopes and then dash them away, and there was, in any event, something very iffy about Graham’s money. But I needed time in England, and I didn’t want to be made to feel guilty.

  ‘Got a pencil, Nel?’

  ‘With you.’

  ‘Write down a four. Then add five zeros. Got it?’

  He whistled softly. ‘Dollars?’

  ‘Yes. Possibly more.’ If I allowed him to nibble at my life insurance, that is. If I ever saw it.

  ‘When?’ he asked, getting right down to basics.

  ‘It’ll take a time. Work to be done on it. Probate to be settled, as they call it over here. Two months at least for that, and —’

  ‘Two months! Phil darlin’, we could be dead by then.’

  ‘Can’t rush the law, Nel. You know that.’

  ‘Then come to poppa, and go back there later.’

  ‘There’re things to be done. Other things, Nel.’ Such as proving that Graham hadn’t taken his own life.

  ‘Such as? Give me a f’rinstance.’

  ‘Nel, I need to prove my husband didn’t commit suicide. That means I’ve got to prove he was killed, and to do that I need to produce a murderer. It’ll take time, Nel. Sure to.’