The Darkest Lies: A Gripping Crime Mystery Series - Two Novel Boxed Set (The DI Hogarth Darkest Series Boxed Sets Book 1)

by Solomon Carter

  “No. I’m beginning to get very worried,” she said. “What are you people going to do about it?”

  “The same as we’re doing now, Mrs Cruddas. Investigating, leaving no stone unturned, as they say. Do you mind if we come in?”

  This time the woman stayed blocking the door. “I don’t see how you’ll find him by coming back here so soon.”

  “Life throws up all kinds of surprises, Mrs Cruddas. Now, can we come in? Or do we have to conduct a private conversation out here?”

  The woman’s face tightened. “You must come in, of course.” She let go of the door and shuffled away in her big skirt towards the living room. Hogarth grinned at Palmer as they followed after her.

  Hogarth sat down without waiting for an invitation. The woman had lost the right to professional deference. She was the lying kind. She looked displeased at his lack of good manners.

  “Mrs Cruddas,” said Hogarth. “It appears there must have been a mistake.”

  “A mistake?” she said, her cheeks quivering.

  “Yes. You see, last time we were here you told us that you didn’t know Jake Drummond. I’ll remind you that Jake Drummond is the man who was stabbed to death at Club Smart the other night.”

  The woman met his eyes fleetingly, then placed her hands on her knee, one over the other. The woman’s posture reminded him of the queen posing for her royal portrait. The woman seemed stiff and awkward.

  “A mistake, you say?” she said, guardedly.

  “Yes. You see, Daniel Picton recalls that for a time after your husband’s tragic accident, Jake Drummond used to come to see you.”

  “Then Daniel is mistaken.”

  “Is he now? He seemed pretty certain to me, didn’t he DS Palmer?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “He even recalled the nature of the visits. He gave the impression that when he saw Jake Drummond here, which was before Picton and your son properly knew the man, that he was here as a listening ear, someone to give you a little tea and sympathy in your time of grief. It must have been a very difficult time for you. Drummond must have been a great help.”

  The woman nodded slowly. “Yes, yes, it was a difficult time.”

  “Yes… I hear that bereavement like that can cause deep shock. Shock can cause people to forget all kinds of things. How did your husband die exactly?”

  “Must we talk about this now? At the very point when you don’t even know what’s happened to my son.”

  “No, Mrs Cruddas. We don’t have to talk about it now. But it would help us better understand Mr Drummond, which could help us locate your son. And if you have information which would help us, now really would be the time to share it.”

  “What do you think I can tell you, exactly?”

  “That, Mrs Cruddas, is for you to say. Let’s start with your husband, may we?”

  The woman nodded “If we must… my husband, Wilbur, worked in insurance. He was a high-flyer. He served a portfolio of high-net-worth clients. They trusted him immensely. He used to make recommendations to them, and they would simply buy whatever he suggested. His job was the foundation of everything we had. But then we lost him in his prime. He was just fifty-five when he died in that awful car crash on the M25.”

  “Terrible. When did it happen, Mrs Cruddas?”

  “Two years back. Can it really be that long?”

  “Daniel tells me your family has struggled since then. Financially, speaking.”

  The woman’s face flushed. Her eyes filled with defiance. “My financial affairs are not for public consumption. I’ve never flaunted our wealth, and I have never sought a penny from anyone to cover any misfortune.”

  Hogarth felt Palmer’s eyes running over the fine china ornaments, the chandelier, and the antique wooden furniture.

  “So, there was misfortune, as you put it?”

  “Misfortune, yes. But does it look like we have struggled?”

  Hogarth looked around. “To be honest, madam, no. I don’t see much flat-pack Ikea furniture in this room. But appearances can be deceiving and in my line of work they often are…”

  As intended, Hogarth’s words hit a raw nerve. The woman stiffened again.

  “The reason I’m asking you about your finances… the reason I’m asking you about Jake Drummond, is because we know Drummond had a background in extortion. It looks like he made a career out of it, leaving plenty of people around who weren’t too sad about him being killed. It’s likely that someone who was being coerced by Drummond was the person who killed him.”

  “Well you surely can’t suspect me! I wasn’t in that awful nightclub. I’ve never been to such a place.”

  “No. But your son was there frequently, and he had good reason to dislike Jake Drummond. I wondered if you felt the same.”

  “Why would my son have any reason to dislike the man? He didn’t know him!”

  “Why would you think that, Mrs Cruddas? Maybe you’re beginning to recall a little the times he spent with you.”

  The women met his eyes. “Daniel Picton had no obvious reason to lie to us. Jake Drummond visited you here after your husband’s death, didn’t he?”

  The woman hesitated. She settled her hands on her lap. “Tell me. Do I need a solicitor?”

  “Not at present, no.”

  The woman sighed, and the stiffness sank out of her body. She leaned back and looked up at the ceiling.

  “Jake Drummond was once, for a while, a client of my husband. He was supposedly high-net-worth too, though Wilbur confessed to me once he didn’t know where the man ever got it all from. Wilbur believed in client confidentiality, but he told me about this one, because he seemed odd. He said Drummond had a string of businesses with rather odd modes of making money. Wilbur even guessed Drummond was laundering money, but only after he helped the man organise his insurances. But later, we both knew Wilbur had been wrong. Because Jake Drummond started visiting Wilbur while he was at work.”

  “Jake Drummond targeted your husband first?” said Hogarth.

  “Yes. When my Wilbur was at his peak, Jake Drummond started appearing. Wilbur even believed the man was following him around.”

  “Following…?” said Hogarth. He shifted in his chair.

  “Like a stalker,” she added. Hogarth’s face flickered with discomfort. He tried to hide it but DS Palmer’s eyes glanced his way.

  “What did he have on your husband, Mrs Cruddas?”

  Mrs Cruddas struggled.

  “Do we really have to do this, Detective?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Very well. My husband was having an affair. But worse than that, he was having an affair with two women at the same time. One of them was a friend of mine, a good friend. Lois and I led the local Women’s Institute together. I remember working with her during the time she must have been sleeping with my husband. We made jam together, can you believe it? We organised jumble sales for the needy… we shared a glass of wine. And she was sleeping with Wilbur the whole damn time.”

  “And the other woman?” said Hogarth.

  “One of his clients, of course. A high-net-worth harlot. I’m afraid the secretary was a little ordinary for his tastes.”

  “And you didn’t know about these affairs at the time? This was how Drummond was able to blackmail your husband.”

  “Yes, and later when Wilbur confessed I began to understand why our living standards had declined. The holidays were gone. The long weekend breaks. The house started to deteriorate, and our relationship came next. We had arguments, and I asked him if he was pouring our money into an affair. Wilbur was relieved – can you believe it? Relieved, when I found out he was sleeping with Lois. His ordeal was finally over. But mine had just began.”

  Hogarth nodded. “But after that Drummond couldn’t blackmail you anymore.”

  “He couldn’t blackmail Wilbur. But the harm had already been done. Wilbur was a wreck., his business was in tatters, and when I got hold of our bank statements, I saw we were sinking f
ast. It was only a matter of time until he lost the lot.”

  “And yet, here we are, Mrs Cruddas, surrounded by finery of all kinds.”

  “I only asked does it look like we suffered, Detective. But suffer we did.”

  Sharing her pain had made the woman look drawn and unwell.

  “Mrs Cruddas. Have you got anything more to tell us?”

  She met Hogarth’s eyes. He saw something of a haunted look. There was more, but the woman shook her head.

  “Wilbur wasn’t thinking straight anymore. He was a mess. It was only a matter of time, I suppose until he gave up the ghost. In the end, my poor Wilbur wasted his life, didn’t he?”

  “Forgive me if this sounds crass, Mrs Cruddas… but you make it sound like your husband just gave up the ghost or died from an illness. But he didn’t, did he? He died in a car crash. Are you saying you blame Jake Drummond for that?”

  “Yes. Most definitely. If not for Jake Drummond, Wilbur would still be with us. As it stands, I’m a woman growing old alone, at my wit’s end…”

  Hogarth sensed there was much more to come, but he wouldn’t get it by pushing today. The woman’s big face had become impassive, immovable, like a brick wall.

  “Please, find my son…” she said. “He wanted so desperately to live up to his father’s high hopes. Maybe the burden of expectation has been too much. If only he knew he was already a better man than his father ever was. Find him so I can tell him that, will you…?”

  “Oh, we’re looking for him, Mrs Cruddas. Don’t you worry. And we won’t stop until we find him.”

  Hogarth stood up and slowly navigated his way towards the front door. He opened it and looked back down the grand hallway. As expected, prim Mrs Cruddas was standing there, arms folded in front of her waist as she waited for them to leave.

  “And should you remember anything you’ve forgotten to tell us, Mrs Cruddas… if anything else has slipped your mind and you recall it later… do give us a call. It could save an awful lot of trouble later on…”

  Hogarth let his words sink in. Palmer nodded at the woman and closed the door behind them.

  “What do you think?” said Palmer.

  “She’s lied once. She could do it again. She’s up to something.”

  “Like what? You think she could have been involved in Drummond’s murder?”

  “Not likely. But she’s up to something. I’d bet your car on it…” said Hogarth with a faint grin.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Peter Deal, the mechanic with the lottery win was on the list. While Hogarth went to catch up with Marris and do some more digging into the Cruddas family, DS Palmer was left to catch up with the curious Mr Deal. Palmer had already formed a picture of a man who was something of a simpleton. An easy mark for a man like Drummond. The man had been given a cash windfall and wanted to get out of the grease-monkey business to find something easy and profitable. People like that had to be fodder for every scam going. Palmer wondered about the closed down garage. And she wondered about the stashed drugs. What did Deal know and what didn’t he know?

  Peter Deal lived in the low-rise block of private flats at the end of Princess Avenue, the very end of the busiest road in Southend. Further on, the four-lane road turned into the A127, one of the two main roads into London. Deal’s address was hardly millionaire territory. DS Palmer parked her dented Vauxhall Corsa in the front car park and walked into the stairwell of the flats.

  ***

  “So, how much did you win, if you don’t mind me asking?” said Palmer.

  “Strange question for a police lady to ask, isn’t it?”

  Police lady. That was a term Palmer didn’t hear very often. Peter Deal was a craggy-faced man with red skin and prematurely grey hair. He looked to be in his fifties, but the hair made him seem older. He wore a grey shirt with an unfashionable granddad collar, and sat leaning forward over his knees. His fingers were covered with gold rings, but none of them looked either expensive or recent buys. Deal had an out-of-town accent. He was either a Norfolk yokel or a man from the West Country. Palmer couldn’t tell the difference.

  “It could prove relevant to the investigation, Mr Deal.”

  The man nodded. “Well… okay. I got five numbers one week, but you don’t get a lot for that these days. Then the next week I won something on the smaller game. The raffle. I won more on that than I did with the lottery game, can you believe it? I picked up four hundred and fifty thousand all in all. Not too shabby for a few random numbers, eh?”

  Four hundred thousand quid. Palmer thought about the money for a few seconds. If she had won it, the police force wouldn’t have seen her for dust. In fact, Palmer wondered how little money it would have taken to prise her away from her career. A hundred grand maybe? Enough to start again. Fifty? Palmer shook the thought off and noted down the four-fifty k figure in her notebook.

  Looking around the flat, Palmer wondered if he’d spent any of his winnings at all. But Deal wasn’t as stupid as he seemed. The man read Palmer’s inquisitive gaze, and answered her thoughts.

  “It’s all in the bank at present. I draw a little to live from, just a little mind, and the rest is waiting for my next venture. I was glad to get out of the garage business. That place, that estate, was very downmarket. I always wanted to do something more. Hang on a minute. You brought your car in to my garage, didn’t you?”

  Palmer felt awkward at the reminder of her dented Corsa. Had Peter Deal been there when she dropped it in. Surely, she would have remembered a face like that.

  “That’s right,” she said, hesitantly.

  “Trouble with the alternator, as I recall”

  “Spot on. You have a very good memory, Mr Deal.”

  “Sometimes. I remember a pretty lady is all I’ll say.”

  DS Palmer hadn’t been referred to as a pretty lady for a long time. It was just a shame the compliment came from a man like Deal.

  “Do you know why I’ve come here today, Mr Deal?”

  “Because of Jake Drummond being killed.”

  Palmer nodded. “Pretty much. Though there are some other things we’ll need to discuss.”

  The man frowned.

  “Oh? You know I never had anything to do with his death. Me and Jake were about to embark on something. A joint venture. He was going to stump up half the cash and so was I.”

  “Doing what exactly?” said Palmer.

  “Buying and selling stuff on the internet. It was a no-brainer, the way Jake explained it. I had a huge empty garage, perfect for a storage and distribution centre. All we needed to do was set up the branding and pick our stock.”

  Recalling Picton’s boxes, Palmer wondered about that stock.

  “What stock were you looking at, exactly?”

  “Chinese. Anything Chinese, you name it. They sell the stuff for cheaper than it can be made! Anything you name they make it. Not only that, you buy their stuff in bulk and they give it away! We were going to flog it all on that auction site, EBay or whatever, but with a fixed price. No mucking around that way. I was going to look into hiring a lad to help us, someone with half a brain, then everything else would have been had as profit. It was a great idea. People today want those rock bottom prices, but no one wants to wait for delivery from China, see. Instead, we would do that, and they’d buy direct from us. We’d mark it up and sell it on. Sounds good, eh?”

  “It sounds like a great idea but there must be plenty of competition out there.”

  “Jake didn’t seem to think so. He showed me how it stacked up. He showed me the business plan. We talked about it for weeks. He was in no rush, that’s why I trusted him on it.”

  Palmer nodded. “Was this your idea?”

  “No. It was Jake’s. But it was sound. We were going to make a killing… what do I call you by the way? Detective? Officer? Madam?”

  “DS Palmer will do just fine.”

  The man nodded, but stiffly. Was he hoping for a first name, Palmer wondered. Well he wasn’t going to g
et one from her.

  She made a note. “Jake Drummond had the idea. And how much were you going to have to put in to get this business off the ground?”

  “Two hundred and fifty grand, with another hundred to follow.”

  Palmer winced. Peter Deal shrugged.

  “The numbers stacked up, miss. I’d seen the plan, and Jake had convinced me. He was going to invest the same, even stevens all the way.”

  “How did you know it was fifty-fifty?”

  “Drummond showed me his finances. He was in a better position than I was. I had nothing to worry about on that score.”

  There was something defensive, something false about Deal’s explanations. But as yet it didn’t feel like deceit. Not yet. So Palmer wondered what it was.

  “The finances. In what form did he show you them?”

  “Bank statements mostly. They were in his business plan.”

  Palmer nodded. “Bank statements can be easily forged you know.”

  “It was a good plan and it was ready to go. There’s no point disparaging the man now. He’s dead. It’s disrespectful.”

  Palmer decided to change tack.

  “The night Drummond died, DJ Gary Grayson was overheard telling you that you’d been kidding yourself about being business partners with Drummond. What did you think about that?”

  “That fella is nothing but hot air. He’s a bloody waster, content to let others pick up his mess. He spends half his life drunk. Why would anyone listen to a word he says?”

  “Mess? What mess?”

  Deal shook his head. “You’ve seen the man. Draw your own conclusions.”

  Idle gossip was no use to Palmer. She moved on.

  “So, you didn’t hear about Drummond’s reputation for taking other people’s money? Not a thing?”

  Deal shrugged. “I tend to make up my own mind.”

  “How much did you pay him – before he was killed?”

  “A little.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten grand. Just enough to order a selection of stock from China. For a test run.”

  “And did you actually see any of the stock you paid for?”