The team were in the office; Isaac had phoned ahead to ensure they would be there. Larry Hill, his DI, sat stunned, Wendy Gladstone, his sergeant, showed her disbelief, and Bridget Halloran, the office administrator par excellence, shed a tear.
‘Whatever we do, we play this by the book: no insubordination, no dereliction of duty, and no attempts to act any other than totally professional. Are we clear on this?’ Isaac said.
‘You don’t need to tell us, guv,’ Larry said. ‘We’ve been down this road before, but now to have Caddick as your senior, as well as ours. It smacks of stupidity.’
‘It’s not the first time, probably not the last, when the actions of our superiors make no sense. But, regardless, we’ve still got some murder investigations to wrap up.’
‘Rasta Joe was my best contact,’ Larry said. ‘I’ve someone else, but he’s not as reliable. According to him, Negril Bob’s in the area somewhere, but those who know are not talking.’
‘Scared?’
‘Not of us. They’re frightened of Negril Bob’s reaction if anyone talks.’
‘Did Rasta Joe?’
‘He was speaking to me.’
‘You were doing your duty. Rasta Joe must have known the risks.’
‘Maybe he did, but I feel some guilt.’
‘No point dwelling on it. People such as Rasta Joe have a short lifespan.’
‘How do we find Negril Bob?’ Wendy asked.
‘He’ll not stay hidden, and he’s unlikely to stray far.’
‘Why?’ Bridget asked.
‘Around here is his power base. If he goes anywhere else, what is he? Just give him a few weeks, and he’ll turn up.’
‘Billy and Charisa Devon?’ Wendy asked.
‘They’re taking the normal precautions.’
***
George Happold, regarded as an astute banker, was not what Isaac expected. He and Larry were in the same building as where they had met Quentin Waverley before, but now they were in the chairman’s office.
Isaac had expected to meet an upright man, greying at the temples, with a ready smile. The reality of the man standing in front of them was different: he had a pronounced stoop, his hair, what remained of it, was without colour, and there was no chance of a smile.
‘You’ve been threatening my daughter,’ Happold said.
‘I don’t believe that is correct, sir,’ Isaac said. He and Larry were standing up; no chairs were nearby for them to sit. Happold, however, was leaning forward on his.
‘My daughter is expecting another child. Your questioning is placing a lot of strain on her, on all of us. Amelia Brice was a cheap woman who slept with criminals. Why would you suspect my daughter?’
‘We are conducting a murder investigation,’ Isaac said.
‘Then question those she slept with. There’s plenty of suspects there.’
‘We deal in facts, Mr Happold. Your daughter and your son-in-law knew her intimately.’
‘In the past they did.’
‘We are led to believe that your son-in-law has continued to see Amelia.’
‘That is what my daughter suspects.’
‘Do you believe your daughter?’ Larry asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know why Quentin Waverley was still seeing Amelia Brice?’ Isaac asked.
‘You’d better ask him.’
‘We have. He denied it.’
‘That’s to be expected. He knows my views on such matters.’
‘You’re against any impropriety?’
‘I believe in the sanctity of the family.’
‘Are you aware of the circumstances when Quentin Waverley and Amelia Brice broke up?’
‘He was willing to waste his time on the Brice woman.’
‘Are you condoning your daughter’s action?’
‘She wanted Quentin. She did what was necessary.’
‘Would that include murder?’ Larry asked.
‘What do you mean? My daughter took Quentin Waverley for herself. She did not kill Amelia Brice, if that is what you are implying.’
‘You condone your daughter’s action, yet you are critical of others,’ Isaac said. He, like Larry, had seen the bank’s website, the beaming face of the founder, his loyal team around him. In that office that day, no one was beaming, and as for loyal team members, the only two they had seen on the way up to the man’s office had both had hangdog expressions, as though working for Happold was a chore, and loyalty was a one-way journey to oblivion. It was evident that Happold was loyal to his family but to no one else.
‘My daughter is a driven woman, the same as I am. Do you think this bank is here because I was not?’
‘I assume that you had to push hard,’ Isaac said. There was no doubting George Happold’s success in setting up the bank, and the wealth of the man was indicative of the drive that he must have applied to achieve it.
‘Sixteen, seventeen hour days, seven days a week, for years. Gwen understands the value of hard work and determination, never accepting no for an answer, doing whatever is necessary to win through, and so does Quentin. He was a willing partner.’
‘Do you mean that Amelia finding him and your daughter together was engineered?’
‘If you must be so crude,’ Happold said. Larry thought the man looked away at the thought of his daughter with another man. Isaac felt sure that Quentin Waverley was an innocent partner in the act, other than he was unfaithful to Amelia.
‘We’re police officers,’ Isaac said. ‘We deal in facts. Your daughter married Waverley, and Amelia Brice is murdered. We need to establish if there is any reason to connect the two.’
‘Gwen is a determined woman, not a murderer, and besides, look at her. She’s not in a condition to kill anyone.’
‘But her husband is, and for whatever reason, he was in contact with Amelia Brice, and she was frightened of him.’
‘What does he say?’
‘He denies that he’s been in contact with her,’ Larry said.
‘Then that’s the end of the matter. Amelia used to go around with criminals. Why don’t you check with them, instead of a respectable member of the community? A member who regards the prime minister as a personal friend.’ Isaac recognised the veiled threat; it wasn’t the first time either. One thing that Isaac knew: once they start making threats, it is proof that they are hiding something, but what?
Happold was right, his daughter could not have committed the murders of the two women. For one thing, she would not have had the strength to control Christine Devon. Gwen Waverley was slight in stature; Christine Devon had been a big woman, and there had been a struggle. And it was known that the same person had killed the two women.
‘Mr Happold,’ Isaac said, ‘your influence will make no difference, or who you regard as friends. Someone is hiding something from us. You profess to be a moral man, yet you condone your daughter’s actions. It is not something that most fathers would want to hear, that their daughter had used their promiscuity to achieve their aim.’
Steady on, Larry thought. He knew that Isaac was trying to break through, but implying that Happold’s daughter was a tart was pushing it too far.
‘DCI Cook, I am a strong believer in the basic structure of society, the importance of the family, not this modern fashion for living together and having multiple partners. Gwen believes in this as well, and for a time she was living with Amelia Brice, the daughter of a man that I despise.’
‘Why do you despise him?’
‘Let me finish,’ Happold said. ‘My daughter for a brief period fell into Amelia’s way of life.’
‘Your daughter played around?’
‘If that is a polite euphemism for sleeping around, then yes. She met Quentin through Amelia and decided that she wanted him. I checked him out, and he seemed suitable. Not only did he come from a good family, but he also had the right education and the skills to be brought into this bank.’
‘It sounds mercenary,’ Isaac said.
‘It is realistic. My time at this bank is coming to a conclusion. Another five to ten years and I will be dead or no longer capable. My daughter, whom I love, is ambitious, but mathematically dyslexic. Quentin, if he was married to my daughter, would be the ideal compromise, and Gwen’s children would be assured of a legacy.’
‘Is Waverley worthy?’
‘As my daughter’s husband, yes. He will run this bank as I have run it, with my daughter’s guidance.’
‘To ensure that this bank survives, you were willing to dispense with your values,’ Isaac said.
‘This is the real world, DCI Cook. Not some childish vision of utopia. Gwen did what was necessary, and I respect her for it. Quentin may think that he is still his own man, but he is not. He will not give this life away.’
‘A caged animal.’
‘Except for him the door is always open, but each night he comes back.’
‘Are you saying that if he were playing around with Amelia Brice, that would be alright?’
‘That is not what I said. It is not alright, but the occasional indiscretion will not mean an automatic exclusion from this family. Waverley represents a significant investment on my part; an investment I intend to realise.’
‘You’ve not explained the reason for your hatred of Jeremy Brice.’
‘It is not only Brice, but he is the most contentious. The man, a so-called social commentator, revels in digging into the dirt of every successful person in this country, in making scurrilous remarks about leading politicians, even about me.’
‘Have you met the man?’
‘On many occasions.’
‘Recently?’
‘Not since the death of his daughter.’
‘Is there any reason why not?’
‘We do not make plans to meet. Our paths cross unintentionally, and when we meet, we are civil. Does that answer your questions for now? I am a busy man, as is Quentin, and I would appreciate it if you leave my daughter alone for now.’
‘It’s still a murder investigation,’ Isaac said.
‘My daughter’s pregnancy is proving difficult, that is what I am saying.’
‘We will take it into account.’
***
It had not been a good day for Wendy. Her investigation into Shirley Rourke and the ABC Cleaning company had come to fruition, which meant one thing: she’d have to arrest the woman.
It had been the Fraud team at Challis Street, investigating the insurance swindle, who had solved the crime, finding that the destroyed painting, long known to be a fake, had its twin, the original, on the wall of a house in the United States. An appraiser had been dispatched. The painting was checked, found to be genuine.
The cleaner who had switched the original for the fake, stealing the first, destroying the second, had also been found and had admitted to the theft and to her and her employer’s involvement as well.
‘I’m not guilty,’ Shirley O’Rourke protested as Wendy arrested her at her house, although with some regret.
Once back at Challis Street, and in the interview room, Shirley O’Rourke, on legal advice, admitted to having known of the theft. The most she would get in prison would be two years, the maximum possible sentence avoided. Later, the woman confided to Wendy that it was a weight off her mind, and on release she’d go and live somewhere warmer, which interested Wendy, as her arthritis was being aggravated by the weather.
Chapter 19
Negril Bob paced up and down in his room. He knew that he had been a man about town, a man to be feared, and now he was a nobody in a nowhere place. He also knew that the evidence against him for the death of Rasta Joe was flimsy.
Negril Bob had grown up in a culture of violence. His father, a stern man, fresh off the boat from Jamaica, had embraced crime and gangs. At home, the father would fluctuate from adoring father and loving husband to being violent and hateful. At those times, he’d use his fists to bring some sense to his children, his wife trying to hold him off, only to receive a fist herself. He still remembered the time when his father had hit his mother one too many times, and she had collapsed. And then the rush to the hospital, the pronouncement of death, his father taken into custody, pleading that it was an accident, only to receive fifteen years for murder. The last time he saw his father was when he had been convicted and sentenced. Negril Bob felt sad remembering back to then. He had only been eleven. There were the years after that in foster care as he degenerated into a criminal. He had been a good student, even wanted to be a doctor, and he would have made it, he knew that.
Negril Bob looked around the room; it was comfortable. He could even get a woman if he made a phone call, but what he wanted most of all was Charisa Devon. He had seen her before they had threatened her brother, the honest Billy, who now was the manager of the shop that he was meant to steal from. His sister had only been the threat, but he had watched her on several occasions after that: sometimes when she was walking home from her college, sometimes with a white man. She moved in a way that excited him. There was an innocence about her that he found irresistible; he knew he had to have her, and staying confined in a room looking out over the street in an unfamiliar city solved nothing.
He packed his case and walked to the nearest railway station. He phoned his lawyer and told him to prepare his defence.
‘You’ll not stand a chance. The case against you is tight.’
‘Why, how?’
‘There was a witness, and the other two admitted that you were involved, that you were the leader.’
‘That’s not proof, that’s only an inconvenience.’
‘I’m your lawyer, don’t tell me.’
‘And if the person who saw us changes his story?’
‘Then the case against you would be weak.’
‘An arrest?’
‘Not for long, if there’s no proof.’
Negril Bob ended the phone call, regretted staying out of sight for so long. There was a solution, and then he would deal with Billy and his sister. He was a man who did not forget, and Billy had reneged on their deal. It was time for him to pay up. The train pulled into the station, and he climbed aboard. It was four hours to London, long enough to formulate a plan, long enough to make a few phone calls to people who owed him a favour.
***
George Happold had not appreciated the visit by two detective inspectors. His elevation to the peerage was near, and this Amelia Brice business was starting to impact it; questions were being asked as to his suitability, and all because of the one person he loved, his daughter.
And why? After all, it had been him who had created the most significant merchant bank in the country, he who had bankrolled the government’s latest election campaign, ensuring that it was financially sound. It had been touch and go at the last election, and the governing party were not likely to last long, eighteen months at most. If his peerage was not in the bag before then, he knew it would never come. The leader of the opposition and he did not see eye to eye after clashing at a Royal Commission investigating banking practices in the United Kingdom. The honourable leader of the opposition was all for stricter government control: more audits, the right to charge individuals who deviated from the rules laid down. Happold, a fervent believer in the need to maintain flexibility when deciding where to apply their funds, had argued with him.
It had been a battle that the leader of the opposition had won on political lines. Happold conceded privately to his daughter, his confidante in such matters, that the man had been right on a technicality. And now he had Waverley, the philandering son-in-law, causing trouble, and all because of a former flame. He was angry with his son-in-law, but his daughter was adamant that she wanted him, and that she could control him, which he knew she would.
After all, wasn’t she a Happold, and they never failed, although his father, a punctilious snob, had. Life as a child for Happold had been a succession of schools, some exclusive, some not. Holidays on the continent, or at homes which varied in size and quality dep
endent on his father’s latest business venture. The young George, mentally mature for his age, even if his body had been slow in developing, had seen it from his early teens. His father was a day-dreamer, the eternal optimist, believing that success was guaranteed if enough effort was applied. By the time of his nineteenth birthday, the young man’s father had ceased to exist, as had the family fortune.
George Happold, as he reflected on the past, did the one thing he thought he would never do: he phoned Jeremy Brice.
***
Richard Goddard came into Homicide on his last day. There had been a plan for Challis Street Police Station to have a farewell party for the detective chief superintendent, but as he had told Isaac, it was not goodbye, just au revoir. ‘If this works out, I’ll be back,’ Goddard said. ‘Although probably not here.’
‘How long?’ Isaac said, sorry to see this happen to the man who had guided his career, sometimes irritating him as well, a man who had been a good friend. Wendy had shed a tear when Goddard had come to say goodbye, even thrown her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek, which had embarrassed the normally formal DCS, although he should have expected it after Bridget had done the same. Larry Hill had shaken the man’s hand firmly, holding it longer than he should, remembering that it was the DCS who had got him out of his previous police station and into Challis Street with Isaac. ‘Sorry to see you go, sir,’ he said.
‘Just play the game, and it’ll work out. That goes for all of you,’ Goddard said. They all knew what he meant, although none were looking forward to the imminent arrival of Isaac’s previous nemesis.
And then DCS Goddard was gone. Isaac could sense, as did the others in the department, the strangeness when something so familiar is no longer there. The unexpected visits, the pep talks – ‘You’ve got five days to wrap this up’, or ‘I need an arrest soon’, or ‘It’s only one murder. It won’t take you long to find out who did it’.
DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 1 Page 138