EQMM, September-October 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "You worked for him for a long time, then?"

  "Ten years. Long enough to get to know someone."

  "Did he have visitors?"

  "A few. He worked from the house. I don't know the nature of his business, he didn't have a factory or anything, did a lot of telephone work, got a lot of mail . . . mostly business stuff . . . brown envelopes, never saw any letters which looked personal."

  "A bit socially isolated, would you say?"

  "A bit. Never saw any indication of him having had friends round for the evening, if that's what you're asking. His only contact seemed to be his business friends."

  "Anyone in particular?"

  "Alf Noble."

  "Alf Noble?” Hennessey repeated as out of the corner of his eye he saw Yellich scribble in his notepad.

  "Yes. Don't know who he was, but Mr. Street always spoke warmly of him, and when he mentioned his name his eyes seemed to light up. He really had a lot of time for him. I may have seen him. Occasionally men called at the house, driving their Rolls Royces and laughing loudly, dare say life's all right for some folks, me, I rent a little house and cycle to my work. But Alf Noble might have been one of the visitors. I really can't say."

  "So you've no idea of an address?"

  "No, but Mr. Street's study, he's bound to have an address book."

  Hennessey and Yellich smiled at each other.

  * * * *

  Alf Noble revealed himself to be a short, neatly dressed man, who received Hennessey and Yellich in the office of his factory at the York Business Park. Behind his desk was a framed aerial shot of York Minster, whilst the real Minster was a solid square on the skyline about a mile from Noble's office window. He sat, paled, clearly shocked by the reason for the police officers’ visit. “Murdered,” he said, twice, three times, four times. “Who . . .?"

  "That's what we hoped you'd be able to help us with, Mr. Noble."

  "Well . . . Tom had his enemies, what businessman doesn't? It goes with the territory. But to murder him. . . . Can I ask how?"

  "Battered to death. In his garden."

  "Doing what he loved. Tom and his garden . . . people visited Tom, he was probably chanced on by an opportunist thief."

  "The house didn't look as though it had been burgled, Mr. Noble, and there was no indication of a struggle. In fact, Mr. Street seemed to have been holding a plant pot when he died,” Hennessey said matter-of-factly. “We infer from that, that he knew his attacker and was not in fear of him."

  The phone on Noble's desk rang. He excused himself, picked it up, listened, and then said, “I'll call him back directly. . . . I'm tied up at the moment.” He replaced the phone and glanced across his desk at Hennessey and Yellich, who had sat, as invited, in the chairs in front of his desk. “Dare say that would narrow it down . . . oh dear . . . oh my . . . “

  "Mr. Noble?” Hennesey sat forwards. “Something has occurred to you?"

  "Yes, yes it has. Phil Arrowsmith died last month, about three weeks ago, a hit-and-run, but there was a witness who said the vehicle stopped and reversed over the body, as if making sure."

  "I remember that incident,” Yellich said. “I was on duty that evening. As you say, Mr. Noble, a witness was waiting in a doorway for his lady friend and saw everything. A large car drove at the pedestrian, Mr. Arrowsmith, impacted without slowing down, then stopped, reversed over the body, then drove over it a second time before speeding off. A black Mercedes Benz."

  "Not many of those in York, but the police were unable to trace it.” Alf Noble offered. “But the point is that Phil Arrowsmith was a friend and business partner of Tom Street's."

  "He was?"

  "He was. Phil made a fortune in retailing stationery. You've seen the shops, Office and Study, in every major town."

  "I have."

  "That's Phil's baby. It was his. All belongs to his wife now. She's distraught, poor woman. Me, I've jumped on the electronics bandwagon, we make chips for the computer industry. Tom, well, Tom was a venture capitalist. Put money into new firms, bought a fifty-percent stake when the shares were a penny each, sold them when they were worth a pound . . . that's an exaggeration, but you get the idea. There were four of us, Phil Arrowsmith, Tom Street, myself, and Bernie Moss. We were having a drink at the golf club, I can't tell you the business deals that have been put together in the golf clubhouse bar."

  "I can well imagine,” Hennessey smiled.

  "Well, Tom had information about a new company with a winning sure-fire product. He was putting money in and invited us to do the same. He was putting in one hundred thousand pounds and reckoned on a full return within five years, plus twenty-five percent being the interest rate charged."

  "Nice."

  "Not without risk, though, but Tom said it was reasonably safe, and in fact we all thought it was a good venture, young man, good product. The only reservation was raised by Bernie Moss, who pointed out that all of us, all four of us, are in our mid sixties, high-stress occupations, we all drink like fishes and I mean whisky, vodka . . . two of us smoke cigars, we are all in the High Sierras of heart-attack country. Bernie's a realist, that's why he's a successful man. He was pointing out that there's no guarantee that we'll live to collect the debt. It was a straight loan, you see, we were not buying shares that we could bequeath to any descendants. If we die, the loan dies with us. The person to whom we loaned the money is responsible for repaying the debt to me, and me alone. He's not obliged to pay it to my next of kin. As is normal and lawful."

  "But you did loan the money?"

  "Yes. We each loaned one hundred thousand pounds at twenty-five percent."

  "Steep."

  "He needed the money, nobody else was prepared to advance it. Had him over a barrel. That's business. But once Bernie pointed out that because we'll all be in our seventies before we collect, and those years up to our seventies will be high-risk years, healthwise, we ought to protect ourselves in some way, so he suggested we form a tontine."

  "A what?"

  "Tontine. Pronounced tonteen but spelled with an i'. I'd never heard of it either, but apparently it's a system of debt recovery that was developed in Italy in the seventeenth century, the aim of which was to ensure that a debtor paid his debt in full and that one or two individuals became very rich: possibly. It worked like this. A group of people would form themselves into a consortium and each make a loan to a second party, either an individual or an organisation. Now, should any member of the consortium die before the loan was repaid, then his share of the debt was paid to the surviving members of the consortium. That form of arrangement of loaning money is known as tontine. Bernie told us that a lot of European banks were started by tontines in the seventeenth century. The gamble was that you'd be one of the last one or two people left alive out of the original consortium when the time came to repay the debt. You got your money back with interest, and also you got the money plus interest owed to the deceased members of the consortium. It had its attraction when death was much more commonplace than it is today."

  "Interesting. So you formed a tontine?"

  "Tontine is the method or agreement in respect of repayment, you can't form a tontine. We four formed a consortium and the method of repayment was by tontine."

  "I see."

  "Confused our solicitor, he'd never drawn up an agreement like it, but he did it, and it was acceptable to Henry Collum, the young businessman. He said he agreed to repay four hundred thousand pounds within five years, so it didn't make much difference to him so long as he cleared his debt."

  "So where does that leave you?"

  "Well, it leaves me and Bernie set to come into the money that should have been repaid to Tom Street and Phil Arrowsmith. I'm not sure I like it now. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it's tainted money. I think Bernie will feel the same."

  "Powerful motivation, though.” Hennessey floated the notion. Alf Noble's eyes narrowed. His face hardened. “Tom Street was a friend of mine. So was Phil Arrowsmith. I was h
ere in my office all morning, my secretary will vouch for that. I don't know where I was when Phil was killed, but I'll be able to find out. I keep a personal journal. And I don't need the money. If you want a man with a motive, go and talk to Henry Collum. If he bumps off the right four people, he'll not have to repay four hundred thousand pounds plus twenty-five percent. He'll get to keep half a million pounds. Now you ponder how much motivation you can buy with half a million quid, especially if you're just starting out in life. You'll find him at Longmarsh Business Park, just this side of Selby."

  * * * *

  Hennessey and Yellich returned to Micklegate Bar Police Station. In Hennessey's pigeonhole was a handwritten note. Dr. D'Acre had phoned from York City Hospital: “The deceased, believed to be Tom Street, died, as first thought, because of massive head injuries. There was no indication of poisoning or any other substance in his bloodstream. A full report will be faxed shortly."

  Hennessey handed the note to Yellich and asked that he file it in the case file. He then signed out and drove home to Easingwold, to his detached house on the Thirsk Road, to the tail-wagging welcome from Oscar and to a meal cooked and eaten in solitary silence. He took tea on the rear patio and enjoyed the last few moments of the heat of the day, at that point that day dissolves into evening. He placed the mug on the concrete and stepped onto the lawn and walked across the grass to the privet hedge which ran from side to side of the garden, to the gate set in the privet, and walked into the orchard. He picked an apple from one of the trees and began to eat it. The garden had been designed by his wife, who had never lived to see it. She had succumbed suddenly to natural causes just three months after the birth of their son. He had scattered her ashes in her garden, “Jennifer's garden,” and each day he walked in the garden, rain or shine, and talked to her, told her what he was doing, did what he could to sound interesting and confident, never telling her about difficult times. “Interesting day,” he said, eating the apple. “Found out what a tontine’ is, after a quiet start, quiet for a Monday, not much to pick up from the weekend, then a fella gets his head battered in with a spade. Possibly linked to a murderous hit-and-run a few weeks ago . . . pick it up tomorrow."

  He tossed the core of the apple into the area of waste ground at the bottom of the garden, where he had dug a pond for amphibia, keeping strictly to Jennifer's design, and was pleased when he saw the pond was supporting a thriving colony of frogs and newts. He turned and walked back to the house, took Oscar for his walk, then read an account of the Battle of Waterloo from the perspective of an ordinary soldier. Then he walked into Easingwold for a pint of stout at The Bluebird Inn. A pleasant way to finish the day and really enjoying the walk more than the beer.

  Yellich too returned home, less of a drive home for him, living as he did in the York suburb of Huntingdon. Sarah greeted him warmly, as did Jeremy, slobbering a kiss on his face and delighted that he could now tell the time. That evening Yellich spent time with his son, because his son needed the attention and because Sarah needed the space. Jeremy was twelve years old and the Yellichs had been told that with love, stimulation, and encouragement, their son might achieve a mental age of eleven or twelve when he was in his early twenties and could live semi-independently in a supervised hostel. So Yellich settled down for an hour or two with his beloved son, and expressed delight when he was able to move the hands on the imitation clock face to the requested times, and could point confidently to the different letters of the alphabet.

  * * * *

  TUESDAY

  "Well it was a dark night, late at night, I was keeping well out of sight. My lady friend, she's a married woman and she thinks her husband suspects something. He's a cunning guy, won't say anything but he'll hire a private detective to watch and get a photograph or two, then hit her with a divorce petition with him as the wronged party. The point is that because I was concealing myself, I also didn't see much."

  "So what did you see?” asked Yellich patiently.

  The man shifted in his chair. He was a tall, well-built man and his build served to make his small council house look even more cramped.

  "I can't think of anything that I didn't tell the police at the time. The man was walking across the road, the other car started up, it was parked, drove at the guy, headlights full on, knocked him over, reversed over him then drove over him again and sped off. I ran to the guy, he was groaning, oldish bloke, there was nobody about, it was a quiet street, offices and business premises. That's why Jane and I meet there, you can't really tell if someone is spying on you in a crowded pub, but you can always tell if someone is watching you in a remote location."

  "Yes, yes . . . “

  "Well, I didn't want to leave him in the road, but I knew I had to call for help. I know you're not supposed to move injured people, but you've also got to know when it's appropriate to break the rules.” Sid Penge shrugged.

  "I'd go along with that."

  "So I dragged him to the side of the road. He was still alive, but I thought, one more car coming along will finish the job. He was a bit of weight, but I work out and I managed it, got him into the gutter, then I ran to find a phone box. Met Jane coming the other way, told her what had happened. She ran to the injured guy. I ran to a pub and used the pay phone, ran back. Jane said that she thought he'd just died. She said he groaned and shuddered, then was still and quiet. When the ambulance arrived, the paramedics said they thought he was dead but they rushed him off anyway, blue lights flashing."

  "The car was a Mercedes Benz, I believe?"

  "Yes. I've dreamed about owning a Merc since I was at school, some hope. I'm not even working at the moment. It's why Jane is so good . . . her husband's a wealthy man. He's a monster, treats her like dirt, but the house they live in..."

  "Yes . . . can we keep to the point, Mr. Penge, a black Mercedes?"

  "Yes. I couldn't tell which type."

  "Well, was it one of the large ones, the limousines, or a more compact type? Or one of their sports cars?"

  "Wasn't a sports car. I'd say it was a compact type, not one of the really huge ones."

  "Right, that narrows it down a mite. Anything about the car that was distinctive?"

  "I think, I only think, that it had a spoiler on the boot, a thing like a wing that ran from side to side across the rear of the car. But I'm not positive. I see plenty of Mercs, about half have spoilers, so I could be getting confused."

  "The manner of the hit-and-run sounds deliberate."

  "It looked deliberate to me, like the driver wanted the pedestrian cold. Like I said, he was really making sure. But whether there was bad blood between the driver and the pedestrian or whether the motorist just wanted a victim and any pedestrian would do, and that guy was in the wrong place at the wrong tlme . . . But that's really your area of work."

  "As you say. Did you see where the man, the pedestrian, came from?"

  "I didn't see, but I did hear a door open and the sound of a lock being locked, a jingle of keys, like there were two locks. A lot of business premises about, a man working late, I assumed. Then there was the headlights and the sound of a racing engine . . . really high-pitched. Then thud."

  "Did you see how many people were in the car?"

  "Again . . . I'm sorry, looked like just the one, but I only glimpsed the car as it was driving away. I wish I could be of more help."

  "Thanks anyway.” Yellich stood as he closed his notepad. Sid Penge also stood and escorted Yellich to the front door of the house.

  * * * *

  "I still have difficulty believing it.” Grace Arrowsmith was a pale, tawny woman who sat in a large high-backed chair in a vast sitting room, the French windows of which were open and looked out onto an expansive and closely cut lawn. “He had phoned me to say he was leaving. He'd been working late, he often did. I'd complain, but he'd say if I wanted to continue living in this house I had to accept his working late. I heard a car on the gravel at the front of the house, I thought it was him, but instead of the door bein
g unlocked, the doorbell was rung. . . . It wasn't Philip, it was the police. They said he'd been involved in an accident . . . that he was dead."

  "I'm sorry, Mrs. Arrowsmith.” Hennessey sat opposite her, hands held together between his knees. “I don't want to put you through this, but we believe your husband was murdered."

  "Well, of course he was murdered, that's been plain all along."

  "No, I mean he wasn't a victim of a hit-and-run, even a deliberate but motiveless hit-and-run. We have reason to believe his murder was linked to the murder of Tom Street. You may have read about it . . . ?"

  "I heard it on the television news. Tom Street . . . it's not a name I know, but my husband didn't tell me much about his business dealings."

  "Alf Noble, Bernie Moss, do those names mean anything?"

  "They don't ring any bells at all."

  "Henry Collum?"

  "No. Never heard that name, either. I'm so sorry."

  "No matter,” Hennessey pressed gently. “Who would know that your husband was working late?"

  "Whoever he chose to tell. Me, I knew he was working late, opening a new shop in Huddersfield, there's a new university there and he wanted to capture a slice of the student market, he had some paperwork to do in readiness for the shop opening. But who else knew . . . ?"

  "Any enemies that you know of?"

  "Not that I know of. He had business rivals, but actual enemies . . . I genuinely believe that he was blessedly free of enemies. He never showed fear of anyone."

  * * * *

  "A Mercedes Benz.” Yellich glanced out of Bernie Moss's office window at the car parked beneath it. “Yours?"

  "Yes.” Moss had revealed himself to be a bald-headed man who wore a serious expression. Yellich sensed the man's hostility towards him. He returned his attention from the car to the man. “I understand you know Alf Noble, and knew Phil Arrowsmith and Tom Street?"

  "Yes,” Moss nodded. “I heard about the deaths of Phil and Tom. Bad news."