Exit

by Belinda Bauer

  He got up and limped to the doorway and shouted again. ‘HAYLEY!’

  There was no response and Skipper whined like a dog at a door. This was no time to quibble.

  Felix gave Skipper two pills. He was about to drop the third back into the bottle but put it in his pocket instead. Miss Knott had been a nurse. He’d show it to her.

  Skipper tipped the pills into his mouth, then looked around vaguely for his water glass, which was empty, so Felix gave him his rum to wash the pills down. Felix was past caring about safety. He just wanted Skipper to be pain-free and breathing again – even if that was a temporary state.

  ‘Breathe,’ he said. ‘Breathe.’

  ‘I’m coming!’ Hayley shouted, and Skipper gasped, ‘Promise me,’ and Felix leaned forward to hear him.

  ‘Promise you what?’

  Breathe. Breathe.

  ‘Promise me, don’t tell the police about Reggie . . .’

  ‘But . . .’ said Felix miserably. ‘For your sake.’

  Hayley was coming up the stairs with a heavy tread, and Skipper gripped Felix’s arm so hard that it hurt. ‘You owe me!’ he hissed. ‘You owe me!’

  Felix hesitated.

  He did owe him. He owed them both.

  ‘I promise,’ he said.

  Paperwork

  The colder the body, the colder the case.

  It was an old saying but a true one and, by the start of the third week of the investigation, they were all starting to feel the chill.

  ‘Something will turn up,’ said King. ‘Something always turns up.’

  But for the first time since he’d known her, Calvin Bridge could hear a little note of desperation in the DCI’s voice.

  So he decided to take a flyer. He abandoned HOLMES and just Googled the Canns.

  It was an old Devonshire name, and most of the hits were about local councillors, or businesses having sales, or the sponsoring of youth soccer teams, but there had been a fair share of less worthy Canns too, getting drunk, shoplifting and swindling rugby clubs out of their subscription fees. There was even an alleged rape by a Cann near Shebbear, to which he could find no reported resolution.

  The only specific reference to the Abbotsham Canns that Calvin could find was a five-year-old photo of Albert. He was being awarded for what the Bideford Gazette had called ‘thirty years of faithful service’ at the carpet shop in Bridgeland Street. Calvin blew the picture up onscreen and looked into the eyes of the man he’d only known as a corpse. In the photo Albert Cann was standing between a colleague and a six-foot plush giraffe, in some apparent joke that the reporter had failed to refer to in either the copy or the caption, so that it would never make sense now. Albert was unrecognizable. Hale and hearty. He was dapper in a suit and tie and sharp white collar, and was holding the carriage clock that Calvin recalled had been on the table beside his bed. It was fake gold and quartz, and he felt suddenly sad for the man who’d obviously treasured it as a symbol of his entire working life.

  After a minute’s thought, he decided to use Google alongside HOLMES to see what he could discover about the other clients of the Exiteers in life as well as in death. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for – or even whether there was anything to find.

  Picking out the more unusual names, he started looking anyway.

  Raymond Timothy Arlow, IT consultant, showed no police involvement before his death two years ago in Avonmouth after what his family obituary in the Bristol Evening Post called ‘a short, brave battle against the Big C’.

  Julia Jane Barnes, shop manager, had no police record. All Calvin could find on Facebook was a request from her family for donations to the Guide Dogs for the Blind in lieu of flowers.

  Tharindu Barraratne had no police record or obituary that he could find. There was a picture on Facebook of Tharindu holding a cocktail at a beach bar. He had lovely teeth.

  Jasmine Casper had died of complications of a brain aneurysm. Her obituary made her sound like a saint, and there was no hint of police involvement.

  And so it went on. Normal everyday deaths of normal everyday people. Nothing that looked suspicious about any of them, which Calvin supposed was a testament to the discretion of the Exiteers, at least.

  Then came Paula Marie Max of Borough Green in Kent. Mrs Max had apparently died of stomach cancer, although of course Calvin knew better now. There didn’t seem to be anything remarkable about her life or her death. He found an obituary in the Kent Messenger, which stated that she’d worked in a cake shop, and would be missed by all at the badminton club where she’d been a regular member.

  That last detail rather depressed Calvin. Paula Max had been a regular member. Not a talented member or a popular member – just a regular one. As if her attendance had been noted, and – in the absence of anything else to mark her out as memorable – had been stated for posterity in the obit pages of the local paper.

  But Max came up on HOLMES. Not Paula but Leonard Max. Also from Borough Green. Calvin checked Paula’s will and found that he was her brother and had inherited a static caravan and five thousand pounds. There was a photo of Leonard, who was in his fifties and looked unshaven and tired. The only familial trait they appeared to share was regular appearances – hers at badminton and his in the local magistrates court.

  Petty theft. Common assault. ABH. Cheque fraud.

  Who commits cheque fraud any more? thought Calvin idly. Might as well steal a pig!

  At the end of each court report he found the classic line about taking x number of offences into consideration. Over several years, the total of xs showed Leonard Max to have been a devoted crook. Calvin wasn’t sure what it added to his sum of knowledge about Paula Max, but he put the file to one side.

  Then he hit two more in quick succession. Harry Neal had died ‘quietly at home, surrounded by family’ – which may or may not have included his son, Duncan Neal, who had several convictions for drugs. And Lucy May Powell, who had a niece called Shona who had done eighteen months for fraud.

  DCI King came in and ate olives while Calvin told her what he’d been doing.

  ‘So what’s the significance of relatives with criminal records?’

  ‘There might be none,’ he admitted. ‘Maybe blackmail? Or maybe there’s someone who’d . . . you know, encourage the death of a relative for personal gain. I was thinking of the tea towel, you know? And after the vicar, I thought there might be more to find out about Albert and then moved on to these others. But it could all come to nothing.’

  ‘Everything does,’ she winked at him. Then said, ‘Were any of them named in the wills?’

  ‘A few of them, yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Did Albert Cann have a relative with a criminal record?’

  ‘Not one that I can find.’

  ‘Still,’ she nodded, ‘keep aside the files that show those relatives with criminal records who were also beneficiaries and we’ll see if it adds up to a significant number.’

  ‘Will do, ma’am.’

  She raised her jar of olives in a toast. ‘To Operation Tea Towel.’

  Calvin smiled. He was glad DCI King was pleased with him, although it made him think that if he didn’t want another bite of the cherry, this was a very poor way of showing it.

  By lunchtime, Calvin had collated a short pile of eleven slim folders.

  Each one represented a deceased client of the Exiteers who had left money or property to somebody who had a criminal record. Now he needed to delve more deeply.

  He started at the top. With the big money.

  With Bruce Macdonald Bruce. His parents had given him that name, and his wife had given him a stroke.

  In July 2014 Vicky Bruce had pleaded guilty to six charges of false accounting totalling over £400,000 – by far the biggest cash amount that Calvin could find connected by blood or marriage to any of the Exiteer clients. Vicky Bruc
e had spent like a sailor before being caught and sentenced to two years, which Calvin thought seemed lenient. She’d served only twelve months in Askham Grange, as well as being ordered to pay restitution in full to her thirty-two victims who had variously lost between a thousand and forty-five thousand pounds. Near the end of the trial Bruce Bruce had suffered a massive stroke, and was thereafter confined to a wheelchair until his death two years later, from what Calvin could only ascertain had been ‘complications’. A coroner had recorded death from natural causes.

  But the coroner didn’t know about the Exiteers.

  The will he’d found in Skeet’s file stated briefly that Mr Bruce had left everything to his wife, apart from a twenty-thousand-pound ISA which was to be divided between the two children of his first marriage – Lauren and Sarah.

  Calvin thought that seemed unfair, but it wasn’t uncommon.

  He got Vicky Bruce’s number and address from a helpful desk sergeant at Basildon nick, and called her. She answered right away and he introduced himself. He decided not to play games; he didn’t have the time.

  ‘I’m calling about your late husband,’ he said.

  ‘Are you now?’ said Bruce, in a tone that meant she thought he had some nerve.

  Calvin glanced at the police file photos. The woman he was talking to was maybe fifty. Stocky and manicured, with bottle-blonde curls and big hoop earrings. Her husband was pictured with her outside Reading Crown Court and looked much older – even before the massive cerebral event that had eventually killed him.

  Although it hadn’t. They both knew that now.

  ‘He left you almost everything in his will, didn’t he?’

  ‘Almost nothing, you mean. Everything he had was swallowed up by his care after his stroke.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ he faux-sympathized, ‘that can be very pricey. How much was left?’

  ‘After funeral expenses?’ She took a breath as if she’d told it many times and knew it off by heart. ‘Nine hundred and eleven pounds and seventy-five pence.’

  Calvin gave a low whistle. ‘Wow. Right down to the wire.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The home care alone cost over a hundred thousand.’

  ‘My goodness,’ said Calvin. ‘Did his daughters help?’

  ‘Did they shit,’ she said – still cross about it five years later, even though they’d only inherited a measly ten thousand pounds each.

  ‘I’m assuming you received the house in his will?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘It was my home.’

  ‘Right,’ said Calvin. ‘And how much did you sell it for?’

  ‘I really can’t remember,’ she said vaguely.

  No matter, Google did . . . Calvin quickly found her house on Zoopla and discovered it had been sold the past December for £510,000. It looked worth a lot more than that. Mock Tudor, four bedrooms, nice garden and in Newbury. He looked down the list at nearby property prices. Nothing in the immediate area had gone for under £750,000 in the previous year.

  ‘Did your husband have a life insurance policy, Mrs Bruce?’

  ‘It’s Mrs Cornish now,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Cornish. Let me amend that here . . .’ And while he pretended to amend the file he Googled her new name and searched HOLMES.

  Nothing to see there.

  ‘How much did you receive from your husband’s life insurance policy?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business.’

  ‘I’m a police officer, ma’am,’ said Calvin, ‘so maybe you should let me be the judge of what’s police business and what isn’t. If you don’t want to talk to me, that is your right, but I can subpoena the insurers and find out that way, so you could save me time and you trouble . . .’

  Another grudging silence. ‘Two hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds.’

  Calvin scribbled the sum along the top of the first sheet of the folder marked BRUCE and glanced at the notes he’d made while on the line to Basildon. In fact Vicky Bruce had paid off her £400,000 restitution in a lump sum a few months before her case had even gone to court. That was unusual but Calvin thought her counsel had probably advised it, and used it to mitigate her sentence. Judges loved crooks who paid up, pleaded guilty, made amends . . . Nothing wrong with that on the face of it, he thought. It was the way these things were supposed to work, although they rarely did. A criminal had not only done her time, but also paid back her victims in full.

  But how ? Calvin literally scratched his head. The court report said Vicky Bruce had blown through most of the money she’d stolen.

  ‘Where did you get the money to pay the restitution, Mrs Cornish?’

  There was a short pause. ‘I borrowed it.’

  ‘From?’

  ‘Family. Friends. People were very kind.’

  ‘People usually are,’ he agreed. ‘Can you give me their names?’

  ‘Whose names?’

  ‘The names of the people who lent you the money.’

  ‘Absolutely not!’ she snapped.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, because I don’t want them dragged into this. Whatever this is! People helped me when I needed it and I’m not about to repay them by giving their names to you so you can badger them the way you’re badgering me. It’s very rude and unpleasant.’

  ‘I’m sorry you feel that way, ma’am.’

  ‘I do! Look, sergeant—’

  ‘Constable.’

  ‘Whatever. Look. I made a mistake and I did my time and I paid back every penny I owed and had to sell my house to do it! I’m not saying I deserve a medal or anything, but I do think I deserve to be left alone, thank you very much!’

  Calvin was losing her. He wouldn’t be able to ask her much more before she clammed up or hung up. His mind raced from one random fact to the next. She’d come out of prison broke and facing big care bills. The longer her husband stayed alive, the bigger the bills got.

  Luckily he’d died . . .

  ‘At what point did you contact the Exiteers?’ he asked.

  There was a gaping silence on the other end of the line, and then she hung up.

  Calvin bounced to his feet and punched the vending machine so hard that it shrieked, rocked, and vomited an array of snacks at him.

  Vicky Bruce had murdered her husband. And used the Exiteers to do it!

  Of course, he couldn’t prove it. Wasn’t even sure how he’d reached that conclusion. It was all just a game of dot-to-dot and right now Calvin had only the vaguest idea of what picture might emerge. But that didn’t mean he didn’t know it in his gut.

  The vending machine alarm howled.

  Tony Coral’s top half tilted into the doorway – uncommitted to an entire entrance, as was his wont. ‘What’s all the noise?’

  ‘I punched the machine,’ said Calvin, flushed and defiant.

  Coral nodded soberly and said, ‘Somebody had to,’ then tilted out of view again.

  Calvin unplugged the machine and in the ensuing silence he scooped out his spoils and dropped them on to the desk in a random pile, then sat and stared at it as he analysed the data he’d just collected from the former Mrs Bruce.

  She’d borrowed money immediately after her arrest in order to reduce her sentence. All fine and dandy. She and her husband had probably thought they’d be able to pay it back reasonably quickly. But then he’d had a stroke and instead of bringing in an income, he’d needed round-the-clock care, which would have burned through their savings like wildfire.

  By the time he’d died, she was desperate for cash.

  Right down to the wire.

  It might have been a lucky coincidence that Bruce Bruce had passed away less than a thousand pounds from being too broke to afford further nursing care. But his wife hanging up on Calvin told him a different story. It told him the Exiteers had made it easy f
or her to dispose of her costly husband before his care started to eat into the life-insurance money. £225,000. Enough to live and to start paying back the friends and family she’d borrowed from.

  Calvin frowned. And yet she’d sold the house within a month of inheriting it, and considerably under market value. For a woman who was starting over in her fifties, that didn’t add up.

  Calvin ate a Starbar from the pile while he thought about it.

  DCI King appeared. ‘What happened here?’ she said, nodding at the snacks.

  ‘I got hangry.’

  King plucked a Walnut Whip from the motherlode with the reverence of Indiana Jones discovering a relic. She sat down and put her feet on the desk to unwrap it.

  ‘Catch me up, Calvin.’

  He did. When he’d finished, she mused: ‘Why would she sell the house under market value? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Unless whoever lent her the money demanded immediate repayment. Maybe with interest?’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like family and friends who’d been so kind,’ she said, making quote marks in the air.

  He nodded. ‘Or like a bank or a building society . . .’ They looked at each other meaningfully.

  ‘Loan shark,’ he said.

  ‘Sounds like it,’ she said.

  Then she took half the files off his desk, opened the top one, and picked up a phone.

  Over the next few hours King and Calvin spoke to a dozen bereaved relatives who fell neatly into two camps – those who had inherited large assets, and those who had not. The responses of the latter group were hurt and angry.

  What Dad doesn’t realize is that that’s our HOME . . . !

  What gave her the right to just dispose of a house that belonged to the whole family . . . ?

  Sandra would be turning in her grave if she knew what she’d done.

  The house had been in the family for over a hundred years. And now it’s gone, just like that. Everything inside it too . . .

  Those who had inherited property had all sold up.