Legacy of Lies

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘Probably?’

  ‘Oh, not much doubt really. I’m just in pessimistic mode. Sorry.’ He reached across the table and took her hand. ‘The locket we found, it belonged to my mother, by the way. She must have left it here when they and Rupert were still talking. Now she’s fretting because she’d already claimed for it on the insurance.’

  Naomi laughed. ‘God, that must have been years ago.’

  ‘True, but you know Mum.’

  ‘And your London trip. Was it worth it?’

  ‘Worth it?’ Alec considered. ‘Let’s just say I discovered a great deal. Worth it … now, that’s another question.’

  Harry arrived back and went to tend to the coffee, asked if Alec wanted food as he was about to get breakfast for Patrick.

  ‘Lunch, rather,’ he said.

  ‘Not like Patrick to sleep this late,’ Alec commented.

  ‘No, but I suspect he was up all night with those blasted journals. I found one of them lying on his bed when I went in.’

  ‘Oh? Did he turn up anything interesting?’

  ‘Well, I’ll let him explain that, but yes, I rather think he has.’ There was no mistaking the pride in Harry’s voice.

  Gratefully, Alec took the mug that Harry proffered and sipped the sweet and scalding liquid. He glanced up as Patrick stumbled, bleary eyed and tousled haired, clutching three leather-bound books and a notebook.

  ‘Late night?’

  The boy nodded. ‘Yeah. You?’

  ‘Better believe it.’ He sighed, knowing that he’d better make a start. ‘Well, since we’re all here …’ Slowly and somewhat reluctantly, Alec began to tell them what he knew.

  ‘Kinnear and two others robbed three banks back in 1980. The first two, they got away free and clear, but it looks as though they got greedy. Bank number three was only twelve days after the first and it all went badly wrong. The police arrived. Armed. One of Kinnear’s gang was shot dead and the other wounded and a security guard called Fred Ritchie was also shot dead.’

  ‘What was their MO?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘Wait for the security van to arrive with the day’s delivery. Wait until the guards entered the bank, then grab the nearest person to use as a hostage, threaten to shoot unless the security men handed over their delivery and staff dished out whatever they had in the tills. Double whammy. They’d take the hostage outside with them, car would drive up, hostage released, men were away. They were fast and slick and it was all over in a matter of minutes.’

  ‘So, two or three men inside the bank?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘Three. The driver was never caught. Kinnear fingered someone he said was called Sam Spade.’

  Harry laughed. ‘Someone had a sense of humour,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘Sam Spade was a fictional PI,’ Alec explained. ‘It’s exactly the sort of thing that Rupert would do.’

  ‘Rupert!’ Naomi was as shocked as he knew she would be.

  ‘Rupert,’ he confirmed. ‘It was never proved but …’

  Slowly, he filled in the gaps, telling them what Billy Pierce had said and the assumptions they had both made.

  ‘But you don’t know for certain,’ Naomi objected.

  ‘Not for certain, no. But, Nomi, I’ve got to face facts here and all the facts point to this being so.’

  ‘And to Kinnear wanting his money back,’ Harry added.

  ‘Which explains, in part, what he was looking for.’

  ‘Surely,’ Harry objected, ‘he couldn’t possibly think that Rupert would keep the money here. How much would it have been anyway?’

  ‘About £25,000, they reckon.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like a lot,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Remember this was back in 1980. That would have bought a substantial detached house round where we live and still left change. It’s about a quarter of a million, I’d say, in today’s money.’

  ‘Oh,’ Patrick said. ‘So, if he’d invested it, it would be worth a lot more now.’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose it would. Kinnear probably assumed he’d taken it and spent the lot,’ Alec added. ‘I suspect he wanted a share of what Rupert still had. I went through the information the solicitor gave me last night and, from what my father told me about what their father left them and so on I can more or less account for everything there. I called the solicitor this morning and got the name of his stockbroker, called him and accounted for the figures I couldn’t match up last night and the references to the shares Harry found in the study. His broker said he’d talked about online trading but he didn’t know if Rupert struck out on his own or not. But, the fact is, without getting in a forensic accountant, I can’t see any trace of the money from the raids.’

  ‘Um, I think Patrick might be able to help there,’ Harry said.

  ‘Oh? How’s that?’

  ‘Patrick found out why he buried the journals,’ Harry said.

  An hour spent examining the letters and numbers Patrick had written down convinced Alec that they were on the right lines, but he also had no idea exactly what they might mean. He had a feeling that Harry might be right and the numbers may refer to offshore accounts. He agreed they needed an expert to look at this and wondered if one could be suggested by DS Fine.

  ‘Alec, if Rupert was clever enough to set this up, to cover his tracks so far, why didn’t he gradually filter this money back into his legitimate business?’ Harry asked. ‘I mean, the antiques business would lend itself to laundering, I would have thought. There are a lot of overseas sales and a number of transactions in cash. Both ways.’

  ‘And how accurately did he keep his books where they were concerned?’ Alec questioned.

  ‘Ah, well now, that’s a question,’ Harry replied. He paused, mind working. ‘You know,’ he continued, ‘I wonder if what I just suggested is precisely what Rupert was trying to do. You know the ledger we found buried with the other things? Well, it’s recent, only been kept over the past six months or so. From what I’ve seen so far it’s possible that at long last Rupert decided to bring that money in line, so to speak.’

  ‘Why now? He didn’t need it. His bank accounts were more than healthy.’

  ‘Because Kinnear came back on the scene,’ Harry said. ‘He was trying to pay him off.’

  ‘Obviously not fast enough for Sam Kinnear,’ Alec observed.

  Alec had gone to bed, exhaustion winning out over his desire to carry on puzzling this out. Naomi joined him and Harry went back to his examination of the ledger.

  Patrick took the laptop into the dining room and set himself up at the table opposite his father. The French doors were open and the sun streaming in. It was hard to equate the peace of the summer afternoon with the violence of men like Kinnear, though Patrick only had to look at the reinforcement and new locks on the doors to be reminded.

  ‘Dad, why do you think he hasn’t tried again?’ Patrick asked looking at the door. Kinnear seemed to have gone to ground since his attack on Alec. The routine phone call from Fine that afternoon had once again reported no further sightings. Fine wanted to talk to Alec about getting the media involved; so far his encounter with Kinnear had made it into the local paper only as an attempted mugging. It had made two paragraphs on an inside page, having been deliberately played down at Alec’s request.

  Fine had gone along with him, preferring to wait until they had more details to go on, but the hunt for Kinnear seemed to have stumbled to a halt.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Harry replied. ‘I can’t help but wonder if Kinnear deliberately exposed himself that day. If he made certain that Naomi heard him.’

  Patrick nodded. ‘The kid from the farm. He texted me last night.’

  Harry looked at his son. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He wanted to meet.’

  ‘And?’

  Patrick shrugged. ‘We met,’ he said. ‘In the meadow last night.’

  Harry took a deep breath and Patrick could see he was biting back words. He could guess wh
at they were. Something along the lines of: Don’t you realize how dangerous/stupid/irresponsible that was. And just when were you going to tell me about it?

  ‘I’m telling you now,’ Patrick defended himself against his father’s unspoken question. ‘First chance I’ve had really,’ he added as reasonably as he dared. He waited, wondering which way, as regards response, his father would decide to go.

  Harry closed his eyes, then opened them again. He’d decided, Patrick realized, to come down on the side of what’s done is done. ‘Not sensible, Patrick. I’m sure you know that.’

  Patrick shrugged, not quite able to concede the point. ‘He was upset,’ he said, ‘but he’s definitely the kid Marcus saw at the shop. He said he went to tell Rupert not to go to the farm again. His parents had been rowing about it.’

  ‘His parents? Why?’

  Patrick shrugged. Truth to tell he wasn’t sure. ‘He said his dad thought it was a big waste of time and got all resentful of how much attention his mam was giving it.’

  ‘You think he was lying?’

  Patrick shook his head. ‘I think that’s what he thought his dad thought. I think it was just one more thing and if it hadn’t been Rupert that made her leave then something else would. I mean, who’d want to live with a man like him?’

  ‘Rupert made her leave? I don’t understand.’

  ‘No. Not made her. Not like forced. Made her realize she wanted to leave, I suppose. But Danny – that’s the boy – he’s really cut up about it. She’s gone and not been in touch since and he’s convinced himself she’s dead.’

  ‘Dead? Does he have any reason for thinking that?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Patrick said. ‘Just that she didn’t say goodbye and she’s not been in touch.’

  ‘That’s sad,’ Harry said. ‘Sad and cruel, in my view, but it may be she thought a clean break would …’

  He paused, met his son’s gaze.

  ‘No, I don’t think she was right either, Patrick. But there’s one thing I don’t understand. Was he worried about coming to talk to Rupert at Fallowfields?’

  ‘No. I asked him that too. He says he came but that Rupert wasn’t here and the car was gone too.’

  Harry frowned. ‘And this was just a couple of weeks before he died, wasn’t it? The time Marcus identified when Rupert was behaving oddly, not going into work, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Marcus didn’t think he’d even wanted to leave the house,’ Patrick agreed.

  ‘But, obviously, on that occasion he did. Maybe his reluctance to go into work was not so much because he was afraid as because he was elsewhere.’

  Patrick shrugged. ‘Might have been coincidence,’ he said. ‘But, Dad, would you want to be on your own here knowing someone like Kinnear knew where you lived?’

  ‘No, but then I wouldn’t go and see him on my own either and it looks as though Rupert did just that the day he died.’

  ‘Do you think Kinnear killed him in a way that the post mortem didn’t pick up?’

  ‘I think Kinnear was responsible,’ Harry said slowly. ‘But as to what he did to cause Rupert to have the heart attack … It could be that, unless Kinnear tells us we will never know.’

  Twenty-Five

  Alec listened to Patrick’s account of his meeting with Danny Fielding.

  ‘Do you know the mother’s name?’

  ‘Sharon Fielding,’ Patrick told him. ‘I said I’d ask you what he could do.’

  ‘Well, technically, the police officer he spoke to was right. She hasn’t actually gone missing. She’s an adult and her husband hasn’t reported her absence.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘But I can have a word with Reg Fine. See if there’s any circumstances Danny didn’t know about. Did he say that she knew Rupert well?’

  Patrick thought about it. ‘They were working on some stories she told him but I don’t think she knew him before or anything.’

  ‘Right.’ Alec was thoughtful. ‘Patrick, I think we should assume then that this is a separate issue. I hope her disappearance has nothing to do with Kinnear.’

  He felt more alert now, rested after his sleep and his mind was working again.

  ‘What do we have, then? We have a set of dubious accounts. Some kind of code concealed in his journals. Money from two robberies that Kinnear wants back and evidence that Rupert was trying to settle with him. I’m forced to the conclusion that Kinnear didn’t want Rupert dead, at least not until he had his money, and it looks as though he may have been willing to give Rupert time to get what he thought he was owed. To legitimize it in some way. The thing in Kinnear’s favour is the number of years that have passed since the robberies. Handled carefully, Kinnear may well get away with the money, free and clear, if just a little late.’

  ‘Except that Rupert died before he could finish what he was doing.’

  ‘Well, yes, and that obviously pissed him off big time which is, no doubt, why he came here and started threatening, though quite what he expected Naomi to give him is still something of a moot point.’

  ‘The journals and the ledger,’ Patrick said. ‘He must have known about them and what Rupert planned to do.’

  Alec nodded. ‘You’re probably right. And his partner, this Reid fellow, he would probably be able to take care of the rest. Financial double-dealing seems to have been his speciality by all accounts.’

  ‘So,’ Naomi observed, ‘Rupert’s usefulness to Kinnear lasted only so long as he was transferring the money. After that … who knows? I can’t think that Kinnear would have had scruples about getting rid of him.’

  ‘How do you think he tracked Rupert down?’ Harry asked.

  Alec shrugged. ‘Probably pure chance. He may have seen the newspaper clipping. Rupert had got greyer, but he hadn’t changed that much. Kinnear would have known him.’

  ‘Who do you think Elaine might be?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘That, I don’t know, but I think you and Harry are right and the E in the ledger is probably her.’ He frowned. ‘So, we need to think about our next move, I guess.’

  ‘And that is?’ Naomi wanted to know.

  ‘Tomorrow, we talk to Reg Fine, see if there’s anything we should know about Sharon Fielding. I agree with him that we need to use the media. I was against it before; I thought Kinnear would run and we’d never get to the bottom of things, but now we know what he was after I think there’s too much at stake for him to do that. And we need to flush him out, shock him into making a move.’

  ‘Not sure I like the sound of that,’ Harry said.

  ‘No more than I, but I don’t see as we have a choice. Then, we try and track down the flat in London. My dad gave me what he remembered as the address, but I’ll make some calls. Don’t worry, Naomi, I think I’m more use here than trekking off south again. I might rope in Billy Pierce seeing as how his retirement is chafing on him.’

  ‘Is that wise? He’s not a young man, is he?’

  Alec recalled the way Pierce had towered over him, the firm handshake and square shoulders. ‘I don’t think he’s ready for the scrap heap, either. He’ll be careful.’

  ‘And what about this Elaine?’

  Alec shrugged. ‘We keep trawling through Rupe’s notes; see if she comes up anywhere else. And we see what else we can find on the laptop. He’s got to have buried it for a reason.’

  ‘OK, so that’s the morning taken care of?’ Naomi joked. ‘And after that?’

  ‘Oh, we’ll think of something for the afternoon,’ Alec told her. ‘I might even take another nap.’

  Patrick had said little during this later exchange and it was Naomi that noticed. ‘Patrick?’ she asked. ‘Something up?’

  ‘I’m not exactly sure,’ he said. ‘Dad and I agreed earlier that it was funny Kinnear hadn’t done anything since he attacked Alec. It’s almost like he thinks he’s got another way of getting to what he wants. I mean, I know we’ve had new locks put on and everything, but he could easily have broken in again if he thought we’d
found the books. He must think we’re still searching.’

  ‘You’re implying someone could tell him otherwise,’ Alec said.

  Patrick nodded. ‘I think if he thought for one minute we’d found the ledger and the books he’d do whatever he had to get them. I think he’s got a way of knowing. Or he thinks he does.’

  ‘Well, none of us would tell him,’ Harry objected. ‘He could threaten us, of course,’ he said anxiously. ‘Which is why, Patrick, I think you were so unwise last night.’

  ‘First he would have to be convinced we had what he wanted,’ Alec soothed. ‘No point in trying to extract information from anyone if they don’t have it to give. No, I think Patrick has a point. He’s holding back, giving us time to unearth what he’s looking for, relying on us being thorough and …’

  ‘Us telling Marcus Prescott when we’ve found it,’ Patrick finished.

  Twenty-Six

  Reg Fine welcomed them into the poky little office he shared with two other officers. ‘Good to see you both. Alec, how are you?’

  ‘Better, thanks. The bruises are now an interesting shade of green.’

  Fine laughed. ‘So, what can I do you for? Sit yourselves down. Alec, grab a chair from behind that desk. Bristow’s in court so he won’t be needing it.’

  Alec wheeled out a battered office chair from behind another desk, seated Naomi and found a wooden one that looked as if it had come out of an ancient school room for himself.

  ‘So, what do you have to tell me?’

  ‘First,’ Alec said, ‘I think we should up the publicity here. See if we can flush Kinnear.’

  ‘Oh? And what changed your mind?’

  ‘We now know what he was looking for at Fallowfields. He won’t run until he has it and, frankly, we’d rather have control of the situation than let Kinnear get impatient and do something we might not like.’

  Fine nodded. ‘Seems to be making a habit out of that,’ he said. ‘So what did you find? What was Kinnear so desperate to get?’

  ‘Money,’ Alec told him. ‘Or rather, the means of recovering it.’

  ‘And what money would that be?’