Cold Relations

by Gerald Hammond

  He had begun to relax. Now she felt him tense. She felt it through the teak seat and saw the minute change in his posture. ‘Pleasant old lad,’ he said. ‘Friendly.’

  ‘Tell me about him.’

  ‘What’s to tell? I saw him on the shoot. We never spoke.’

  ‘You’d met him before.’

  He hesitated. She knew that she had startled him although he had himself well in hand. ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘I saw you look at him and I recognised recognition. When somebody answers a question with a question,’ she said, ‘I know they’re trying – unsuccessfully – to hide something. While you were down south, laying bricks at so much a thousand, you were technically self-employed. Did you ever make a tax return? And did you draw benefit?’

  ‘No!’ he said loudly.

  ‘No you didn’t make a tax return?’

  ‘You got me muddled. Look, what do you want to know?’

  ‘I want to know what you know about Henry Colebrook. Everything.’

  ‘I don’t know that much,’ he said plaintively. ‘I just didn’t want to let on that I’d ever known him in case you thought things.’

  ‘What things?’

  He managed a sort of smile. ‘The sort of things you’re thinking now. It was a long time ago, after I went south. I did a job for Mr Colebrook at one of his shops, that was all. I thought I recognised him and when somebody said his name I was sure. He didn’t want to let on that he knew me, so I didn’t bother. Satisfied?’

  ‘What do you think happened to him?’

  ‘How the hell would I know?’ he demanded irritably. ‘But if I was forced, really forced, to make a guess I’d say that he wouldn’t be the first man to make a fool of himself over a woman. Or a dog.’

  Chapter Ten

  Home, for Honey and her husband, was a well-built, medium-sized house dating from the tail end of the nineteenth century. There was no possibility of a garage, but most of the front garden had been laid with tarmac. The remainder was bright, in summer, with flowers in tubs and baskets. The Lairds had spent good money to bring the kitchen and bathrooms well up to date and had themselves worked hard on the decoration. Honey was a dab hand at papering and, because she could bend low more easily than Sandy, her services were also called on for the painting of skirtings.

  It was a good house in one of the pleasant small streets just off a main thoroughfare, and Honey was usually happy there. Now, however, it was one of Sandy’s periods for being called to London and the house was empty except for June, who was no real company and had interests of her own. June had been brought up on the periphery of an affluent household where her mother, being the housekeeper, had taught her not to be familiar with her employers. Honey spent the Wednesday and Thursday catching up with the fruitless efforts of her small team, writing reports and dragging the admin of the dog unit back on the proper track. Two of her earlier cases were approaching court and the depute advocate general was asking all the questions that he should have asked months earlier. The weather had broken and a slow-moving depression was said to be dropping rain, usually heavy, on much of Scotland and parts of England and Wales. (Her impression was that it was always raining in Ireland anyway.) She was therefore not displeased to be kept occupied in the warmth and comfort of indoors. She took work home with her in the evenings.

  On the Thursday evening she emailed Poppy.

  Your invitation reached your ex and his new love. They are thinking about it. Oddly enough, it is Andrew who is dragging his heels. Jackie might well have hesitated at taking her fiancé on a visit to his ex-wife, but either she trusts him totally or she is so besotted with him that she would give him up to you if she thought that you could make him happy – which, of course, you couldn’t. Andrew himself is listless. As I feared, he feels that he should be at home in case the dogs make a miraculous reappearance, but he has reached a state of depression in which he will go wherever he’s dragged. I still think that he’d be better away from here and from all the reminders of happier times. When I saw them today, I played on the fact that Jackie had never seen the south of France. I think that you’d better set your staff to airing the best guest bed.

  On the Friday morning she was studying a copy of Mr Colebrook’s will. It took an unusual form. Because much of Mr Colebrook’s fortune had been gifted to his sons, he had invested most of the remainder in annuities, which would die with him. There were bequests of personal property to the sons. The residual legatee was the housekeeper. This provision caused Honey to set the team searching for some unseen asset but not even a winning lottery ticket was to be found.

  She was interrupted by a summons to the presence of Detective Superintendent Blackhouse. She expected strictures about her failure to find the dogs or the missing Mr Colebrook, but Mr Blackhouse was pleased to be understanding. After enquiring about her health and the continued success of her pregnancy, he came down to business. ‘You seem to have covered all the possibilities,’ he said. He leaned back in his chair and prepared to pontificate. ‘Either the dogs will turn up or they won’t. The same applies to Henry Colebrook. But people usually appear. If they went of their own accord, they come back the same way; if they’re dead, human bodies nearly always surface. You can dispose of a dog’s corpse without the law taking much interest, but human bodies are different. One glimpse of a human bone and everybody starts running around in circles. While you wait for that to happen, you can have a look at this.’ He sat up straight and passed across a very thin file. ‘Initially, the case belongs to your friend Fellowes in Newton Lauder, but it has a strong Edinburgh connection. Liaise with him. And keep me posted. The legal establishment’s getting hot under its fancy collar.’

  She had almost reached the door when he spoke again. ‘One more thing,’ he said. He sounded hesitant, almost shy. ‘Somebody suggested that you would be looking for a godfather when your baby’s born. Or maybe two. I just thought I’d let you know that if you don’t have a queue of relatives lining up for the honour . . . if you like . . . if it would be of any help . . . well, I’m available.’ He humphed and became very busy with some papers on his desk.

  Honey muttered something about being honoured and made her escape, resisting the urge to turn and bang her head on the outside of the door. Who in hell had made a suggestion so unwelcome, so inappropriate, so altogether infuriating? She would find out and eviscerate him. Or her, of course.

  Back at her desk, it took another minute before she had stopped seething and was ready to look at the file. Immediately she saw why the legal establishment was getting hot under its collar. The only paper in the file was a terse and factual report, timed only an hour earlier.

  Julian Blakelove QC was a very senior advocate indeed and was believed to be next in line when a judgeship became available. It seemed that on the previous evening he had given a lift to a lady whose car had broken down in the rain not far from Newton Lauder. His main residence, Hollington House, was nearby and so he had offered the lady shelter until somebody could come and get her car going again. According to Mr Blakelove, they were hardly inside the door when he was set upon. This seemed unlikely in view of the fact that his housekeeper, who was slightly deaf and slept in a separate wing, had found him in the morning, tied securely to a chair, stark naked. His wife’s jewellery and two valuable paintings had been taken. There was no sign of the lady.

  At first glance it seemed to Honey that her liaison would probably be limited to ensuring that none of the Edinburgh fences would touch the goods with a barge pole. She picked up the phone. Newton Lauder advised her that Inspector Fellowes was out at the moment. She was offered his mobile number but she already knew it by heart.

  When she raised him on his mobile, he sounded delighted. ‘Honey!’ he said. ‘Can you come through straight away?’

  She looked out of the window at the rain still streaming down. ‘Is there anything I can do on the ground that I can’t do better from here?’

  ‘There certainly is. Th
e victim is being much less than frank but he did say at one point that he might open up to a woman officer; and I don’t have one of those available except for a youngster who was directing traffic not long ago. Come direct to Hollington House. Bring Pippa.’

  Honey sometimes suspected that her assistance was only requested because she usually brought Pippa along with her. ‘Why do you want Pippa?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. But she always seems to contribute something.’

  *

  She called at home. Pippa seemed relieved at the prospect of activity and change as opposed to merely being walked. Their road lay over the Lammermuirs again, where a brisk wind was hurling rain against the car. Even the heavy bodywork of the Range Rover could do little to damp out the shrapnel rattle of the rain.

  Between bouts of corrective steering she managed to muse. Rumour had it that Julian Blakelove was a bit of a goat. She knew that he was an exceptionally expensive advocate, habitually obtaining acquittals for kingpins of crime on the slenderest of legal technicalities, but from her occasional glances at the gossip columns she knew that he had also married money. His wife’s jewellery was said to form an exceptionally valuable collection. The house and his pied à terre near the Edinburgh law courts contained, or had contained, much other evidence of wealth. Hollington House had therefore been equipped with all the latest security gadgetry, connected by a secure line to the police emergency number. Mrs Blakelove was in the South of France, visiting relatives. And if Honey could gather that much information without even trying, a dedicated criminal could search out much more.

  Hollington House lay half a mile along a side-road leading to nowhere of the least importance. With it went several thousand acres of second-rate farmland but prime shooting territory. (She knew that her father and Julian Blakelove had at one time exchanged shooting invitations but no friendship had developed and contact had not persisted.) The house itself was a modestly commodious one of perhaps eight or ten bedrooms and a small servants’ wing, built about a hundred years earlier to accommodate some minor landowner and his family and guests. The gardens were small but well kept, melting into the surrounding woodland and the moors round about. The house was severely Scottish in manner but a porte-cochère in matching style had been included. This was already occupied by a car that she recognised as belonging to DI Ian Fellowes, but there was just enough space to allow her to squeeze the Range Rover under cover and to get out and ring the doorbell without suffering more than a few drops of blown rain.

  Ian Fellowes himself came to the door and admitted her to a large hall decorated with more extravagance than taste. The only smell present was of the most expensive polishes. For once Ian seemed to be less than his usual cheery self. He even omitted his customary greetings. ‘I’ll just introduce you to the victim,’ he said, ‘and then I’ll go and join PC Bright, who’s trying to squeeze a little extra out of the housekeeper and her husband, the chauffeur-gardener and manservant. I don’t hold out much hope. He’s as deaf as a post and she’s terrified of putting her foot in it with her boss. She untied him, by the way, instead of cutting the ropes, so we’ll learn nothing from the knots. That, I suppose, was her thrifty Scottish soul rebelling at wasting a perfectly good clothesline. He’ll talk to you, but alone.’

  ‘Have we any idea why?’

  ‘I’d be guessing. You’ll soon know. Probably.’ He led her along a lushly carpeted hallway and opened a heavy door. ‘Detective Inspector Laird. From Edinburgh,’ he added. He hurried away in the general direction of the servants’ quarters. From his tone and an almost inaudible hiss at the end of the introduction, she guessed that he had been quite unable to decide between protocol and prejudice and had eventually failed to arrive at a decision as to whether or not to add a ‘sir’.

  The room was handsomely panelled in oak. A vast but uncluttered desk, racks of books and comfortable chairs suggested that the room was a masculine study where he could feel secure and superior. Julian Blakelove QC was established in a large chair of buttoned leather. She had seen him in court. Now both the chair and his quilted dressing gown seemed slightly too large for him, which went along with her impression that he had shrunk slightly. He had always been slightly pop-eyed but now his eyes were also watery, which she put down to lack of sleep. His manner, however, remained larger than life. He did not bother to rise. ‘Come in, young woman,’ he said. ‘Come in and let’s have a look at you.’

  She recalled that his manner in court was as hectoring as a judge would let him away with, but even in his own home she was not going to let him get away with sexist arrogance. She crossed the floor and took a seat on a more upright chair, dug out her notebook and looked at him. He was distinctly corpulent. His face was flushed.

  ‘My appearance is irrelevant,’ she said. ‘Tell me, why did you insist on a woman officer?’

  ‘Quite right,’ he said gruffly. She guessed that he was covering a high degree of embarrassment by resuming authority. But embarrassment at what? ‘Let’s get down to business. Woman officer? I think you’ll see as we go along. But put that book away. This is off the record except insofar as I agree.’

  ‘You realise that you may be making a successful prosecution impossible.’

  ‘Young lady, please don’t try to tell me the legal implications of my own words. I will talk to you because without the detailed knowledge of the modus operandi your success would be even less likely. But I want certain parts of the story confidential and if that hampers your investigation so be it. I’ll argue the point with the Lord Advocate if I have to. Do I have your assurance that what I tell you is off the record and remains known to you alone until I say so?’

  In a few seconds of frantic thought she saw possible hazards ahead. ‘Provided that I get a letter to that effect from you. After all, you could drop dead or change your mind and I could be left in the position of having suppressed evidence.’

  He looked at her, more pop-eyed than ever, and then gave a single bark of laughter. ‘You’re no fool,’ he said. He heaved himself to his feet, moved to the desk and scribbled a few lines on headed paper, finishing with an elaborate signature. ‘Will this do?’ He dropped the page into her lap and settled back in his original chair without awaiting her reply.

  She read it quickly, folded it and dropped it into her bag. ‘I won’t deliberately spill your secret, but you understand that in the process of preparing a case it may not be possible to limit the facts to your fellow advocates. Now,’ she said, ‘suppose you tell me the story in detail.’

  ‘I had a client consultation yesterday evening,’ he said. His voice, always noted for its mellow resonance, was recovering its tone. ‘I left the solicitor’s office about nine-thirty. It was such a foul night that I was tempted to stay in the flat I keep in the Grassmarket, but I had a lot of reading to do in the morning – this morning – and I decided to do it in comfort and without having to make my own breakfast, so I set off for home. If I was followed, I was quite unaware of it, but the whole thing must have been brilliantly timed and organised. When I got to the junction with the main road, there was a sports car stuck at the side of the road. The electrics were completely out and the electric hardtop had jammed in the open position.

  ‘The bonnet was up and a woman was poking about at the engine. She was wearing a thin plastic mac over her cocktail dress but she looked pretty well soaked. She had folded a carrier bag to make a sort of hat, to protect her hair and make-up. She said that she had phoned for help but that other cars were stranded and the rescue vehicle might be another couple of hours. And to answer your next question before you ask it, no, I don’t know the make or model of the car and I didn’t notice the registration. I think the car was black or dark blue, that’s all.

  ‘It’s a rather desolate part of the road and that car was going to be no shelter for her, so I invited her to come into my car. Well, no gentleman could do less. Eh?’ He seemed to be asking for approval and understanding but Honey remained noncommittal. ‘I sai
d that I could provide her with a hot bath, a change of clothes and a comfortable place to wait. She quite agreed and said how thankful she was to be rescued. I spread newspapers to protect the leather and she got into the front passenger seat beside me. I noticed that she was wearing evening gloves, which I found rather alluring at the time, more fool me! Your forensic team has been and gone without finding a single fingerprint except mine, my wife’s, my housekeeper’s, her husband’s and those of the lady who comes in to help with the cleaning. But I’m jumping ahead of the story.

  ‘She removed the carrier-bag headgear. She was not particularly beautiful although her hair and make-up were skilfully done. I didn’t notice anything remarkable about her face. Her hair was fair and I think that the colour was genuine with only a very little assistance. She had large, brown eyes and her make-up made the most of them. Her figure was extremely good. We arrived here and I opened the front door, of course keying in the code to switch off all the alarms. That much I told your colleague and that’s about as far as the official version goes. From this point on, it’s off the record except when I say so.

  ‘As soon as we were inside she stood over the radiator and began to struggle out of the wet nylon mackintosh. But you know how those things can cling. She asked me to help her and I did so. You may believe this or not, just as you wish, but I swear that I was being a perfect gentleman. Then she started on her dress, which was thin and clinging and almost as wet and had to come up over her head. It also was clinging to her. She seemed very hesitant though I suppose she was playing a part. She never suggested being left in privacy. “You’ll have to help me again,” she said. I doubt if you could find one man in a hundred who could resist that sort of invitation.’

  Honey rather hoped that Sandy would be that one man but she was not inclined to put him to the test. ‘And is that why you wanted a woman officer? You thought that a woman would be less shocked by a little sex?’