by Janet Neel
‘I’ll be back.’ She lay, eyes half shut against the light, concentrating on getting breath past the painful swelling in her throat.
‘I would not give a flying fuck if you snuffed it, here and now.’ That was Matthew Sutherland, but why was he here?’ ‘But it could be awkward, so just you stay there where you can breathe.’ There was a scuffling noise. ‘Try that again and I’ll put the sofa on top of you.’ Then he was by her side again, moving her head to get another pillow under it. ‘Better? No, OK, I’ll take it out again. I’m here, Annabelle, I’m just getting an ambulance, hold on.’
She heard the tinkle of the phone, then the sound of trampling feet, somewhere across the room. ‘Matt.’ It was an inhuman croak, but he was there, holding her hand.
‘It’s the fucking cavalry, isn’t it? About fifteen minutes too late.’ He lifted her tenderly, cradling her in his arms so that she could see several sets of knees, in navy and grey.
‘Is the lass all right?’ She knew the voice, but could not focus her eyes on the man kneeling beside them.
‘Only just. I was getting an ambulance.’
‘We’ll do that.’ She could see black hair now as the man turned to shout orders. ‘Two ambulances. What’s with Dr Price?’
‘You mean why is he lying on the floor? When I arrived he was strangling Annabelle, so I did my best to kill him.’
‘You shouldna say those things, lad, causes nothing but grief.’ She flinched from the gentle touch on her throat. ‘We’ll need a statement.’
‘You can bloody wait till I’ve got her into competent hands. Why did your lot let that bugger loose?’ It was clear from the way the other man’s knee jerked that Matt had scored a point.
‘Aye, well, there’s a story to that, but we can’t arrest people just because we’ve got our doubts.’
‘That’s not my experience.’
‘Ye’re speaking of yourself?’ Annabelle could see a bright blue eye now, edged by long dark lashes. ‘Less said the better there, I would have thought. Ye’re a lucky lad. Ah. The medical help is here. No, not the lass, take the young man over there, he’s worse off.’
‘Something accomplished then,’ she heard Matthew mutter, and realised he was shuddering and the hand she was holding was suddenly cold.
‘You’d better take the lad as well in the second ambulance,’ the Scots voice said, with resignation. ‘I’ll mebbe get my statement later.’
Thank God for the car telephone, John McLeish thought, without impiety. He had been on his way to Antony Price’s flat, siren going, his sweating driver cursing his way through traffic so thick that even the most co-operative members of the public could not physically find space to give them passage, when he got the call. He had told the driver to turn around and make for the Yard; he did not have to face Bruce Davidson’s reproaches just this minute. They had been lucky, Annabelle was not seriously hurt, and this wretched case might finally be cracking open. He walked into his office with a sense of reaching sanctuary, called in Detective Sergeant Roberts to tell him the latest developments and waved away questions on the basis that Davidson would be back soon to do a full report. He called for coffee and stared at the wall, reminding himself that he was one of the youngest detective chief superintendents in the country, and that he had a long and largely successful track record. The assault on Annabelle Brewster that morning ought not to have happened, he ought to have kept surveillance on Antony Price, and he and everyone else owed the dogged Matthew Sutherland one. All he had to do was to think as he was paid to. He sat, coffee cooling disregarded, concentrating, occasionally making a note, just conscious of his secretary deflecting phone calls and visitors.
He came out of this process, shaking himself, an hour and a half later, and called his secretary to consider his resources. Davidson was at St Mary’s, and Stewart at Price Fleming’s offices, so he sent Roberts off to get the answer to his question, and dispatched another sergeant to get Francis Price.
Then he rang Susie James, but found himself talking again to the over-smooth, over-compliant male voice which changed to something rougher and sharper when he gave his rank and demanded to know Ms James’s whereabouts forthwith.
‘I’ve got a number, yes, but I do know she’s not there. Will you leave it with me and I’ll ring round and make sure she gets in touch. No, there’s only me here, I wouldn’t tell you a lie.’
McLeish put the phone down and rang Miles Arnold; he had no time to waste and not causing embarrassment to Members of Parliament had got to the bottom of his priority list. ‘I must speak to him,’ he said, briskly, to the secretary. ‘Where is he?’
‘In his constituency, Detective Chief Superintendent. I can find him for you in five minutes and he will ring you.’
‘Give me the number.’ There was a pause and he looked at the phone incredulously.
‘This is going to sound rather strange, but I am afraid he may not come to the phone except for me. May I try first and then give you all the numbers if I can’t get through? In the next ten minutes.’
Thoroughly taken aback, McLeish agreed, eyed his cold coffee and asked for fresh, drank it and was just about to snatch up the phone when it rang.
‘Miles Arnold.’
‘Sorry to trouble you. I cannot find Miss James at the number you gave me.’
There was a short, smarting laugh. ‘Not surprised. We think that she’s with the News of the World people.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m sorry I can’t help. I’m sure she’ll talk to you sooner or later, once she’s finished with the paying customers. Doesn’t really matter though, does it? I could see from your face I hadn’t been there at the right time.’
‘We need to talk to you about another matter.’
‘What other matter? I’m bloody not coming into town today. We’ve got the press parked three deep outside here and I’m not putting my nose out until I’ve got a statement released. So you’ll have to come here if you want to talk. What? No, I didn’t beat up Sylvia Price, though I cannot imagine why not. We were taught not to hit girls, but as far as I can see I’d have done better to lay about her with a bat. Where was I? At what time? Well, I left the office about … what … six o’clock, and I went for a drink. I needed one. Where? At the House, where else? Then my secretary found me and told me the solid matter had hit the air-conditioning and I came back here. I left the House about seven thirty – Jim Waters suggested I take a lawyer with me, so I did.’
‘You were having a drink with Jim Waters?’
‘Did I not say? Yes.’
Well, that settled that. Whatever else his involvement with the death of Bill Price, Miles Arnold had not thrown Sylvia Price down the stairs last night. McLeish gritted his teeth and asked without further preamble about the £80,000 Arnold had apparently invested in the company.
‘I’m suing,’ the telephone informed him. ‘I don’t know how you know but I gave that money to Bill Price to invest for me on the stock market, not to put into the company. He was going to give it back. I’d told him I’d sue otherwise, and the twenty grand that may or may not have been in the safe – no way of knowing if Bill was telling the truth – was the first installment. Sylvia Price wouldn’t do anything, so I’ve told my solicitor to put a writ in to wind up the company. Not that it’ll do me a lot of good, but I’m probably going to need the money. Yes, I could make time to talk tomorrow, but I don’t know where I’ll be. Read your papers, I’m afraid.’
McLeish, seeking for a silver lining, hoped that the issue of a writ might hurry matters on at Price Fleming. Or, with the way this case was going, cause another of the participants to try and dispose of one of their associates. He went into the day’s team meeting to report Arnold’s phone call.
‘Does that put him in the clear, sir?’ Roberts asked hopefully.
‘For the attack on Mrs Price, yes. Leaves him as a murder suspect. He had urgent need of the £20,000 in the safe. How urgent we’re all going to see tomorrow.’
/> He was relieved to be called out to speak to Bruce Davidson, who told him Annabelle Brewster was being kept in hospital till the swelling on her throat went down, but was all right. Antony Price had a minor skull fracture – Matt Sutherland had hit him with a chair, apparently – but had been compos mentis enough to be charged with assault, and left where he was under guard. And Matt Sutherland himself, rapidly restored with the aid of nothing more medically advanced than sweet tea and biscuits, was demanding to make a statement.
‘Bring him here, if he’s got the time.’
Davidson indicated that Matt was prepared to go a good deal further than SW1 to ensure that Antony Price was put away where he could do no further damage, so all McLeish had to do was to eat a belated lunch at his desk and get down to an interview room to meet Davidson and his witness as they arrived. Matt Sutherland was looking pale, and had a bandage over one eye. He scowled unwelcomingly at McLeish and behind him Davidson shook his head to indicate, unnecessarily, that no break in ranks had taken place.
‘We’re all grateful to you, Mr Sutherland,’ McLeish said, bluntly. ‘But for you we’d be in a very nasty situation.’
‘He’d have killed her.’
‘I hope you’re not right. Can we take your statement? You’ll have to appear whatever he pleads, of course.’
They took his statement and McLeish understood they had been even luckier than he had realised.
‘I don’t know if I could have got through a closed door in time.’ Matt, who had been answering questions in a bleak and unyielding manner, suddenly looked very young. ‘But it was open – Annabelle said she’d been airing the place.’
‘Ye’d likely have distracted him enough just by breaking down the door,’ Davidson said, soothingly, but no one in the room was convinced, and Matt finished his statement on a very subdued note. Davidson went off with the tape to get the typing done, leaving McLeish and Matt Sutherland together in a difficult silence.
‘You let him away after he’d assaulted Mrs Price.’
‘I “let him away”, as you put it, because I didn’t have the evidence to charge him. You’re a lawyer, or you soon will be, now you’re not being prosecuted.’ It was a low blow and the scarlet flush on Matthew’s cheekbones, clashing unbecomingly with the dark red hair, told him he had got home.
‘You need to disentangle me in your mind from Francesca’s siblings,’ Matt said, surprising him.
‘Yes, yes, all right, fair point. I don’t dislike them, you know.’
‘You don’t take them seriously either.’
‘All right, I’ll take you seriously. First you have to distinguish in your mind between Antony Price’s behaviour to Annabelle and the question of whether he murdered his father and attacked his stepmother.’
‘And gave his brother enough cash to kill himself with, knowing that he would buy drugs.’
‘Did Francis ever tell you himself that Antony gave him cash?’
Matthew’s head went back, and he tipped his chair in thought. When he came back to the vertical he was looking quite different. ‘No, as a matter of fact he didn’t. Quite the reverse. When he came round in hospital he said Antony hadn’t, but I assumed he was either lying or confused – druggies tend to be – because he’d been up to see Antony.’
McLeish nodded. ‘So what about a touch of the Oliver Cromwells, could you consider the possibility that Antony Price may have been telling the truth throughout about his dealings with his father and his stepmother?’
‘No need to patronise. I’m capable of considering a hypothesis put to me straight. And I know about Cromwell. “Consider if you will, I beseech you, in the blood and bowels of Christ whether you might not be mistaken.” I even know who he said it to …’ He cocked a challenging eye at McLeish.
‘Who? To whom, rather?’
‘The gentlemen of the Covenant, in Edinburgh. They were, as usual in the Scots Church, about to divide brother against brother on tenuous religious grounds.’
‘Thank you so much, Mr Sutherland. I had forgotten that. So. Try it my way and assume Antony Price was telling the truth. This is not a proper discussion to be having but you know it all from Annabelle. You know that he told us he went to the offices on the Saturday around nine thirty and found his father hanging dead and the safe empty. And he, being a doctor, thought his father had been dead for twelve hours. If all this is true then he was with Annabelle when his father died.’
‘I thought it too pat to be true.’
‘Remember that the murderer cleared out the safe with £20,000 in it. If it had been Antony Price who had got to the safe he would have been able to pay his debts. And he couldn’t.’
‘Or he meant to pay his debts but gambled the cash over the weekend? You can lose £20,000 pretty quickly.’
‘Indeed, but he didn’t. Or not anywhere in the UK. And all these people would have accepted cash. And remember, he was desperate to get some money from Sylvia Price.’
Matt gazed at him. ‘So he did push her down the stairs?’
‘He says he didn’t, try believing him. It’s no good constructing a case wrongly; not only do you come unstuck trying to make a face fit, but the bloke who really did it is on his way past you.’
‘Who do you think? Ah. You’re not going to tell me.’
‘I can’t yet,’ McLeish said, soberly.
‘Fair enough. Unless you have Francis in mind in which case you need to take your own prescription. He’s telling the truth and you should believe it.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘I’m glad you understand that I didn’t leave him alone. He’s with a mate of mine, in a library.’
‘In a library?’
‘The degree he didn’t finish is in Maths. We reckon – this mate and I – a quick go of computer science and he’s off into the job market.’
McLeish considered him, deciding that he could easily be one of Francesca’s siblings, improvers all. ‘Is Francis Price going to stay off drugs?’
‘Won’t be for want of trying.’
Davidson came in, carrying pages of typescript, and McLeish rose to go. ‘I’ll leave you to it – sorry, but I need to get something checked. I’ve asked to see Francis, but the man I sent won’t find him if he’s in a library. It’ll do tomorrow. Get him to ring me, or any of the team, will you? No, he can bring his solicitor with him if he likes, I just want a couple of answers.’
At the Kensington Church Street house, Luke Fleming and Sylvia Price sat opposite each other at the small round table in the front room office. It was a fine evening, the sun still high in the sky and warm, and the lime tree outside the window had put on the piercing clear green of new leaves. They had, jointly, seen the accountants and Catherine Crane off the premises; and Margaret Howard was still finishing up in the outer office. The conversation had started awkwardly and was proceeding in fits and starts.
‘So, you’re planning to come to Majorca, Sylvia. Why now when we’ve decided what to do about everything there?’
‘I must see our bank manager out there, and I must also talk to the people in the office.’
‘You mean Constancia, or Pedro? They don’t know anything I don’t.’
Sylvia Price uncrossed her legs, recrossed them and glanced towards the door. ‘They also do not know why there is this difference? Where the extra money is?’
‘I told you. I’ll get all that sorted when I get out there. The police can’t stop me, the company’s solvent and they can’t prove I had anything to do with Bill’s death.’
She was plainly not listening, the corners of her mouth tight, frowning impatiently, and he reached over to take her hand. ‘Sylvia, love, do listen. You’ve got nothing to worry about in Majorca. The accountants didn’t understand one entry and it’s wrong, and I know where the rest of the balance is. I just wasn’t going to tell them.’ He ran his thumb over the back of the hand that lay passive in his own. ‘You knew Bill – I mean, you were married to him, you knew he was a bugger about m
oney, so I just kept a little cash somewhere else to pay the bills. I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d be better off not knowing. It’ll all be fixed as soon as I get there.’
‘I do not like this … this way of going on with money. I hated it with Bill.’
‘Yeah, well, you weren’t going to change him, were you? But I’m not the same. I don’t like ducking and weaving every time there’s a bill to pay which is why I kept an account he didn’t know about.’
In the outer office, Margaret Howard heard his voice go up and hurried to finish what she was doing. She would be late for dinner and for the seven o’clock news. She listened for a minute; she could not distinguish any of the words but she could hear Sylvia Price’s cool, even, accented tones. She hesitated and decided it would be more tactful to go home without saying goodnight to her employer. She would bang the door as she left as a signal that she had gone, and also an indication that she had been kept twenty minutes beyond her normal time of leaving.
In the big office, Luke Fleming was angry and uneasy. ‘What do you want me to do, Sylvia? I’m the only person who can draw out the cash. Why don’t you wait for a few days and we’ll have a bit of a holiday. I mean, we know there’s some cash there. And you’re looking washed out – well, no wonder. The police might even find out who’s being doing all this while you’re away for a few days.’
‘Excuse me, Luke.’ She got up and opened the door to hear the definitive slam of the heavy front door to the house. She stood, poised, by the door. ‘Luke, I do not wish … I have not yet thought … but I believe I have not understood how much shock I have over Bill’s death.’
His shoulders relaxed, and the hands spread expansively. ‘Well, of course it was a shock. You didn’t get on that badly … well, I mean in spite of us.’
‘So what I am saying is that I am not wanting yet to decide what is to come. What I must do is put the company in order and get in all the money I can.’ She paused. ‘John Pope – you know, the company solicitor, he tell me that if you write a letter to the bank in Spain asking them to give the money to the company they will do that, you do not need to be there yourself.’