by J M Gregson
For all he said was, ‘It’s about Stanley Freeman. We’re investigating the circumstances of his death.’
Chapter 12
They sat in armchairs big enough to accommodate even their frames with room to spare. It was a comfortable room, slightly old-fashioned perhaps, with its huge, heavy suite, Indian carpet and big tiled fireplace. And none the worse for that thought Bert Hook, still resentful that the Superintendent had refused their third offer of refreshment in the day. He looked past the etchings of nineteenth-century Whitby to the oak corner cupboard with its gleaming brass fittings, and speculated upon its contents.
‘It’s most unlike George to forget an appointment,’ said Audrey Robson as she rejoined them. She carried herself well, walking with poise to the vacant settee between them, as if she were making a stage entrance. Lambert wondered if she had paused outside the door for a moment, gathering her resources to make this effect. The soft cashmere caressed rather than concealed the still shapely breasts, the plaid skirt was modestly long, but her carriage depended on legs he would have had to describe as shapely rather than sturdy: if professionally called upon, of course. She must be around fifty, but she remained attractive without fighting the years. Her carefully coiffured hair was silver, almost white, an agreeable frame for her strong features. It set off the rather large nose and high cheekbones, and deepened the colour of the widely set grey eyes. In the brief interval when she had left the policemen alone, she had applied the lightest of make-up. So her surprise when they arrived had been genuine: she had not been expecting them.
‘George is on the common with Fred,’ she said. For a moment, the unwelcome possibility of another suspect flashed through their minds. Perhaps she saw it, for she said with a little smile, ‘Fred’s our dog. George walks him on the common nearly every night at this time. You’re privileged he arranged to meet you now. But perhaps you’re a little early?’
By this time, it was twenty minutes past the appointed time, but to say so explicitly seemed a criticism. They chatted awkwardly, with Lambert carefully preserving his news that the death was murder until he had Robson present. He began to wish he had accepted the offer of yet more tea. Policemen’s small talk is notoriously ineffective, principally because their audiences, waiting for the large talk they know is the real purpose, refuse to join in the game. When Hook gallantly enlarged upon the virtues of housing plots large enough to accommodate decent kitchen gardens, Mrs Robson’s polite, half-amused agreements were not the returns to keep a conversational rally going. All three of them were glad to hear the sounds of movement in the rear section of the house. The hiatus was terminated abruptly by the arrival in their midst of a golden labrador. He burst open the unlatched door, circled with whirling tail among the visitors he assumed had come to see him, checked expertly for evidence of food and was disappointed. He had the unerring eye of his breed for a soft touch, for he settled eventually by Bert Hook, set his chin upon the Sergeant’s sturdy knee, and fixed soft brown eyes unblinkingly upon the rubicund face above him. ‘There’s a conversation-stopper!’ said Lambert, pleased to imply that they had been in the middle of an animated exchange.
George Robson stood apologetically in the doorway behind him, battered trilby in hand, green anorak unzipped, gumboots unmuddied on this balmy evening. ‘Terribly sorry,’ he said breathlessly. ‘I forgot completely about our appointment until Fred and I were way up beyond the common.’
‘I told them it wasn’t like you,’ said the wife. ‘Everything else, including my birthday, but never a business appointment!’ Hook, stroking Fred, wondered if she would emerge as one of those middle-aged women charitable towards all human nature except their husbands. It was a side-effect of monogamy which CID investigations seemed often to illustrate, and Hook, who had married late and regarded himself as a novice to the state, found it disturbing. Mrs Robson was looking at her husband with her head slightly on one side, as if estimating the progress of a garden plant and finding it barely satisfactory. Bert was too inexperienced to divine the deeper current of affection, which ran beneath with no surface sign of its existence.
George Robson, having divested himself of his outer garments, subsided into an armchair beside Hook, still panting a little. Lambert reflected that it was as well that he had the dog to give him exercise, for his strong frame was everywhere running a little to fat. Robson was certainly not gross; indeed, he was physically still a powerful man. His wrists and forearms were as strong as a manual worker’s, and his deep chest gave him a barrel-like torso. There was an early suggestion of blood pressure in the colour of cheeks that were just too full. Though his small features had no longer the precision of youth, he remained a good-looking man.
‘Would you like me to withdraw and leave you alone?’ Audrey Robson sounded as though she was recalling them to business after the diversions of Fred. She did not trouble to conceal her pleasure when Lambert said there was no need. Hook was well enough versed in the irregular ways of his chief to raise not even a figurative eyebrow. Wives added another dimension to a husband’s portrait, often stripping away the very image the subject was trying to create for himself. Robson sat looking relaxed and untroubled. His spouse’s intelligent, unguarded presence might well test the role. If role it was.
‘When did you hear of Stanley Freeman’s death?’ Lambert began. He would take them through all the preliminaries, studying reactions: neither of them seemed very distressed, and that in itself was interesting.
‘Late on Wednesday night. We were getting ready for bed when the phone rang. It was Denise Freeman about Stanley’s suicide.’ Did Robson assert the word with just a touch of self-conscious stress? Lambert allowed a pause to stretch after it, but it was impossible to deduce whether it was a murderer testing the ground or an innocent using the word without subterfuge.
Audrey Robson broke the silence, as if it was painful to her. ‘It was twenty past eleven. I had the clock in my hands, adjusting the alarm for an early start in the morning.’
Her husband did not even look at her. He said, ‘The police had just left Mrs Freeman’s house.’
‘She sounded upset?’ Lambert wanted to see how he would react to the deliberately foolish question.
‘Of course she did. Wouldn’t your wife sound upset, if a policewoman had just been telling her how you killed yourself?’ Again the assertion of suicide, again dropped perfectly naturally. Lambert could hardly ask yet if Denise Freeman had sounded like a murderess, which would have been the only real point of his question. It was time to release a little more information.
‘Mr and Mrs Robson, what I have to tell you now may distress you. We are fairly certain that Stanley Freeman did not kill himself.’ His linguistic instincts rebelled against the imprecision of that ‘fairly certain’, but it was his professional skills which had chosen the expression. Sooner or later, he would be questioning a murderer: perhaps he was doing so at this moment. He would do everything possible to keep his subjects feeling their way, so that he could observe the process; there was always the chance of a false step.
Here there was none. The Robsons looked at each other in amazement. Between them, Lambert saw their wedding photograph on top of the television set. If they no longer looked the striking couple of a quarter of a century ago, they had nevertheless worn well. Young beauty has an openness and a vulnerability about it. The Robsons now had the poise and watchfulness of experience. It would not be easy to draw from this intelligent and supportive couple anything they did not want to reveal.
Audrey Robson said dully as the news sank in, ‘You mean he was murdered.’
George, suitably shocked, said accusingly, ‘When you asked me if Denise was upset, you wanted to know whether she sounded like a killer.’
Lambert shrugged away the distasteful necessities of his vocation. ‘If you like, but it’s a little melodramatic. Once a death becomes a murder inquiry, any reaction is interesting, especially from the next of kin. People in shock are unguarded. If, for example,
Mrs Freeman had revealed that she had been half-expecting something of this kind, that would be significant in itself. It might also mean she had some thoughts on who planned this death.’
‘It was planned?’ said Audrey Robson numbly. Her husband glanced sharply at her.
‘Oh yes. This death was not the result of sudden, impulsive violence. It was premeditated, even ingenious.’ He was firm and definite, looking for evidence of fear as he firmed up the story. But he told no more than he needed to: they would know the place of the death, but he had revealed neither the time nor the method. He watched the Robsons for any evidence of more knowledge than they should have. He felt his pulse quickening, his senses at their most acute as he confronted the enigma familiar now from so many investigations: was this the perfectly innocent exchange it so far seemed, or an elaborate game of ploy and counter-ploy with a murderer on his guard?
Robson was calm enough to try now a touch of irony. He said, ‘Denise seemed shocked but quiet. Remember I only heard her on the phone. I don’t know how a murderer should sound.’ He had not ruled out the possibility of Denise Freeman as murderer, had indeed brought the question back into focus after his wife’s distraction.
Lambert said formally, ‘I have to ask you, Mr Robson, as I shall ask everyone close to the deceased, to give me an account of your movements on Wednesday night.’
As Hook flicked to a new page of his notebook, Audrey Robson looked horrified. The reality of a murder inquiry was beginning to bite: a lock of the neat silver hair had somehow escaped and hung down over her left eye, looking quite wild against the exactness of the rest. Her fingers trembled just enough to draw attention to the delicate pink of her nails. When she turned protectively towards her husband, he chose to seem oblivious of the concern he must have remarked in her as he accounted for his movements on the night of the murder.
‘That’s easy enough. I had a viewing at six-thirty. A Mr and Mrs Swanton – a semi near the centre of Oldford. They would confirm that; I don’t have their phone number but we’ll have it on file at the office. I got home at about seven-fifteen, I think.’ His wife nodded an eager confirmation. Robson had the air of a man being careful about serious matters. ‘We ate more or less straight away; Audrey had the meal ready.’ As his wife brushed her stray curl distractedly back towards its place, he brought his hands together and contemplated them. They were broad, short-fingered hands. Hands that could easily have restrained the arms of a dying Stanley Freeman: Robson held them up before him with finger-ends steepled together, as if displaying how steady they were at this key point in his story.
John Lambert’s wife Christine would have been appalled to see him in action at this moment. For he was enjoying his work, and she knew him well enough to know it, even when he scarcely realized it himself. He prompted his subject with, ‘And between eight and nine?’ If Robson guessed this was the crucial time, so be it: he would find out soon enough, and he was committed now to the account he had begun. Lambert was quite prepared to stoke the tension and study his reactions.
Robson was smiling. ‘You’ll need a statement from Fred here.’ The labrador, prone at Hook’s feet, lifted his head at the sound of his name. ‘I was up on the common with him as usual. Always between about eight and nine in the summer. We have to go earlier as the nights close in, of course.’ He leaned over towards Hook and fondled the dog’s ears, looking down at him indulgently. ‘He’s a one-man dog, is Fred.’
‘I presume Mrs Lambert can confirm the time you left and returned,’ said Lambert neutrally. It was the kind of alibi normally confined to the innocent: the guilty often contrived apparently watertight stories. This was more convincing than having spent the evening entirely at home with his wife; spouses’ evidence was always suspect, though it could not always be disproved. The diligent police checking which was integral to a murder inquiry would no doubt throw up someone who had conversed with Robson, or at least seen him on the common with the dog.
Hook was dutifully on cue as usual. When he asked, ‘Did you speak to anyone up there?’ Audrey Robson looked at him as if he had accused her man of lying.
Robson took it calmly enough, as a logical extension of his story. He pursed his lips and thought for a moment, then said, ‘Wednesday night. It’s difficult, because one night merges with another when you go up there all the time. I can’t remember actually speaking to anyone on Wednesday, though I may have done. The regular dog-walkers often have a chat up there: but it was a lovely evening – like tonight. We went right up on to the moor, I think. Wednesday is Audrey’s bridge day so Fred had been in for most of the day and was ready for a run. He was chasing rabbits; he never catches any but he enjoys the chase.’ Fred sat up and scratched, then put his head on his master’s knee and stretched out a large fawn paw, as if he had been offered the highest canine acclaim.
‘He was back here about nine,’ said Audrey Robson.
‘And then here for the rest of the evening. You can examine me on the telly programmes if you like.’
‘Except that he probably fell asleep as usual!’ said Audrey. Both of them seemed relaxed now, as if they knew they were past the most important time in the evening. George stood up, went across to the alcove by the fireplace, and picked up a handsome decanter.
‘Glass of port? Or do you have to say, “Sorry, sir, not on duty”?’
Lambert saw from the elaborate ormolu clock that it was twenty past nine: Robson must have come in at nine o’clock as he said he normally did. He said, ‘When we get beyond a twelve-hour day, the rules seem less important. Thank you very much. Sergeant Hook may dutifully refuse, being a puritanical beer drinker.’ Audrey Robson eased her elegant frame from the chair and insisted on fetching a can of bitter, as if glad of the release afforded by physical movement.
Hook studied the foaming tankard appreciatively, then solemnly intoned in defence of his choice,
‘Malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.’
Lambert fought to control the descent of his lower jaw before his Sergeant’s urbane smile. He said rather desperately to his suspect-turned-host, ‘Lovely decanter.’
‘Golfing prize,’ said Robson as he returned it to the shelf, and the Superintendent, a struggling golfer himself, tried not to give too much respect to this Hercules who had scaled the cut-glass heights he might never conquer. It was a fine port; he savoured the effects of the wall-lights upon the rich crimson in his glass.
Then he said, ‘I have to ask you, Mr Robson, if you can think of anyone who might have had a reason to kill Mr Freeman.’
Audrey Robson looked at her husband in alarm, but George was as calm as he had been throughout. After a few seconds he said, ‘I wouldn’t describe Stanley as a popular man. Rather the reverse, in fact. That doesn’t mean I suspect anyone of killing him.’ He sipped his port, watching the sparkling effect of light breaking in myriad facets off the cut glass on to his fingers, as if demonstrating anew how steady those fingers were.
Lambert, wanting suddenly to break that composure, asked bluntly, ‘What were your own relationships with the deceased?’ Robson seemed unshaken, but his wife gasped, her wide grey eyes shocked at such directness.
‘He treated George abominably!’ she said, her voice rising with anger at the recollection. She was too involved to notice her husband’s admonitory glance. ‘He’s exploited George for years, and done less and less himself. Old Austin Freeman must have turned in his grave!’ Belatedly, she saw her husband’s face. Lambert waited, knowing the matter could not be left thus.
George Robson looked down at the dog dozing at his feet and sighed. ‘Austin Freeman was Stanley’s father and the founder of the firm. I joined in nineteen-sixty. At that time, my public school background seemed to help.’
‘George is a Harrovian,’ said Audrey Robson. She tried to make it a neutral, explanatory statement, but the pride and wonder of it still seeped in after all these years. When young George Robson had driven into her remote va
lley in the Dales, he had seemed as exotic to the people there as any sheikh. And he had carried her off just as effectively in his MG. Sergeant Hook, sitting beside this romantic figure with a face of stone, looked into his beer and controlled as best he could the racing emotions of a Barnardo’s boy.
‘My father had a double DFC and had only just left the RAF when I went to Harrow. Those things counted in the years just after the war,’ said Robson. Hook warmed to a man who seemed to be apologizing for his schooling. ‘I was in the firm for two years before Stanley arrived, and the elder Mr Freeman was kind about my work.’
‘You carried the firm as he got older,’ interrupted his wife, resentful of his British understatement.
Robson said, ‘All right, Audrey,’ with a stillness which did not conceal its authority. Lambert thought her a woman not often silenced, but she did not speak again until her husband had finished.
‘Fifteen years ago, Austin took Stanley and me into his office one morning and told us he was leaving the firm between us. I think he had already told his son, because Stanley seemed to accept it readily enough. I was delighted to be rewarded for my work.’ For the first time since he had joined them, George Robson looked embarrassed.
There was a lengthy pause. Lambert said, ‘Perhaps I should tell you that I shall be seeing Stanley Freeman’s solicitor tomorrow. It’s standard practice when foul play is suspected.’
Robson smiled ruefully. ‘Austin Freeman never made it official. At least, no record of his wishes was ever discovered. He died suddenly of a heart attack a month later without making a new will. The old one had been made years earlier when I was starting work as what we would now call a junior negotiator. It left the family business to Stanley as the only child.’
Audrey Robson chewed her lower lip and kept silent. It was Hook who said, ‘And Stanley Freeman didn’t honour the gentleman’s agreement?’