A Killing Resurrected (7 page)

Grace kissed him, then wrinkled her nose. ‘You're right,' she said. ‘It
was
hot out there, and I think the sooner you get out of those clothes and have a nice cool shower, the better. You said not to bother about dinner, but I held off just in case.'

But Paget was shaking his head. ‘I had a big lunch,' he told her, ‘so I'm not very hungry, but a cold beer and a sandwich would go down well. Why don't you go ahead and have your dinner while I have a shower and change?'

‘To tell you the truth, I'm not very hungry either,' Grace said, ‘so I think I'll wait and join you. A cold beer and a sandwich sounds just about right. I'll have them ready when you come down.

‘Oh, I almost forgot,' she said as he started up the stairs. ‘Mr Alcott phoned. He wants you to call him back on his mobile phone. I have the number. He's at the hospital. He didn't say exactly what the problem was, but I gather Marion is quite ill. I told him you might be late in, but he said any time this evening would do.'

When Paget came down again, Grace had prepared a plateful of beef, lettuce and Swiss cheese sandwiches. ‘I thought we might take these outside and sit on the back steps,' she said as she took two bottles of beer from the fridge. ‘I could be mistaken but I believe I saw a leaf move out there, and I think it's cooling off a bit.'

‘Good idea,' Paget agreed, ‘but perhaps I should call Alcott first.'

He came out of the house a few minutes later and sat down beside Grace. ‘Marion Alcott has emphysema,' he said quietly, ‘and it sounds serious. Alcott sounded pretty worried and said he wants to be with her as much as possible while she's taking a series of tests, so it may be a while before he comes back to work on a regular basis. In the meantime, he'd like me to keep an eye on things for him. He says he's cleared it with Chief Superintendent Brock.'

‘Can you do that?' Grace asked. ‘Aren't you stretched to the limit as it is?'

A wry smile touched Paget's lips as he said, ‘No problem, according to Alcott. He said, “Don't worry, you won't have much to do. Fiona knows more about that job than either one of us. Just sign your name when she tells you to, and you won't go far wrong.” And I think he was serious.'

S
heep Lane was a crooked little street of black and white half-timbered houses, one of the oldest streets in Broadminster, and the Brush and Palette was halfway down on the left-hand side. It was sandwiched between a betting shop on one side and a dry cleaner's on the other. The front step was worn, the door frame was crooked, and Paget had to nudge the door with his shoulder before it would give way. An old-fashioned bell on a spiral spring above the door clattered rather than rang as he entered, and clattered even more when he tried to push the door shut.

‘Needs a bit taking off,' a man said as he came forward from the back of the shop. ‘I keep meaning to take a chisel to it, but I never seem to have time. Now, what can I do for you, sir?'

Paget introduced himself. ‘We spoke on the phone earlier this morning,' he said. ‘You are Mr Taylor, I take it?'

The welcoming smile disappeared. ‘That's right,' the man said neutrally.

David Taylor was shorter than Paget by an inch or two. His broad shoulders, short neck, and well-muscled arms made him look more like a rugby player than Paget's idea of an artist. Paget glanced around the empty shop. ‘Can we talk here or . . .?'

‘As I told you on the phone, I'm here alone, so if customers come in I shall have to attend to them.'

‘In that case, I'll try not to take up too much of your time.'

‘Good. So let's get to the point, shall we? Claire said she told you that Barry Grant and I were friends, but I'll tell you what I told her.' Taylor repeated what he had told Claire, concluding with: ‘I hardly ever saw Barry after I went off to Slade, but I heard about him from my brother, Kevin, who said he'd run into Barry at university in Leeds. Barry had always been crazy about cars, so the Grants packed him off to Leeds to take Mechanical Engineering. Kevin was three or four years older than Barry, but Barry sought him out and said he was a friend of mine and that I had told him to look Kevin up when he got to Leeds.'

‘And you hadn't?'

‘Lord, no. That's the last thing I would have done.'

‘Your brother is Kevin Taylor? A solicitor? Is he with Bradshaw, Lewis and Mortimer, by any chance?'

‘That's right. You know him, then?'

‘I haven't dealt with him directly, no, but I met him briefly when my father died. Mr Bradshaw was the one who dealt with my father's will.'

‘Who is also Kevin's father-in-law.'

‘Sorry?'

‘Ed Bradshaw is Kevin's wife's father. Kevin met Stephanie Bradshaw at university, and they were married at the end of their third year there. Kev was taking Law, and Steph was taking Business Administration. When Kevin got his degree, Ed offered him a job with the firm. Kevin is a pretty bright lad, and I expect he'll become a full partner in the firm when Mortimer retires at the end of the year.'

‘So, if I understand you correctly, you're saying that while your brother Kevin, Stephanie Bradshaw, and Barry Grant were all at university together, they weren't close friends?'

‘Far from it,' David said emphatically. ‘In fact I'm sure they went out of their way to avoid him, so there's no need to go pestering Kevin and Steph with your questions about Barry.'

Paget raised an eyebrow. ‘Pestering?' he said mildly. ‘I would have thought that, now we have been given a second chance to find out who killed your father, you and your brother would be only too happy to help us with our enquiries. Until Miss Hammond came to us with new information, the case was as good as dead, and the killers had nothing to fear. But now we know that Barry Grant and friends of his were involved – although “friends” might be too strong a word, considering the way he claims he was treated by them. Miss Hammond couldn't tell us who his friends were, but she thought you might know. So tell me, why are you so reluctant to talk to me?'

Colour darkened David's face. ‘Perhaps it's because I don't take kindly to being suspected of having killed my own father,' he said tightly. ‘According to Claire—'

‘Ah! So that's it, is it?' Paget broke in. ‘She told you that I had asked if she thought you might have been involved. Did she also tell you why I asked that? Did she tell you the reason Barry gave for the killing of your father?'

‘She said Dad recognized one of the robbers.'

‘And did she tell you that Barry said he couldn't face you after that?'

‘Yes, but . . .' David looked puzzled.

‘So I asked myself why he couldn't face you, and there were at least two possible explanations. One was that he couldn't face you because he was consumed with guilt for having been involved in the killing of the father of someone he regarded as a friend, but another possibility was that it was
you
your father unmasked. So, assuming for the moment that you were
not
involved, will you at least help me by telling me everything you know about Barry, and who his friends might have been back then?'

David shook his head. ‘It's not a matter of not
wanting
to help find out who killed Dad,' he said. ‘As I told you, I don't
know
who Barry's friends were at that time. Barry was still at school when I went off to Slade to study art, so, apart from seeing him on the street the odd time when I was home during the summer break, I had no contact with him. I'm sorry, but I really can't help you. But there is one thing I
can
tell you. If you'd done your homework before coming here with your suspicions, you'd know that I was out doing deliveries when Dad was killed. Kev and I did that when we were home during the holidays. It helped Dad out and sort of paid for our free board and lodgings throughout the summer, and we were usually finished by ten o'clock, which allowed us to take on another job for the rest of the day and make a bit of money towards our tuition.'

Paget frowned. ‘If I remember correctly, what you said in the statement you made to Inspector Rogers at the time was that you didn't return from your rounds until shortly after eleven that morning,' he said. ‘Some sort of delay in getting started, I believe you said? It wasn't altogether clear in your statement.'

‘There was an accident in the bakery that morning,' David said carefully. ‘I explained that to Rogers at the time, and if he didn't put it down, that's not my fault. As I said, I don't know exactly what happened, but an entire batch of bread was left in the oven too long. The loaves were burnt and we had to wait for the next lot to be done before we could go out.'

‘Had this sort of thing happened before?'

‘I wouldn't know. I wasn't there for a good part of the year.'

‘Was your father particularly upset or distracted that morning?'

‘No more than usual.'

‘You say, “no more than usual”, Mr Taylor. Was your father easily upset?'

David eyed Paget narrowly as if trying to decide where the questions about his father were leading. ‘Look,' he said, ‘my father was a hard worker and he worried about everything, and if things went wrong he would become very upset, and that's all I meant by what I said. It was not unusual for him to be worried or upset about something. That was Dad. We were used to it, and I don't see what this has to do with your investigation.'

‘Frankly, neither do I at the moment,' Paget told him, ‘but what I am trying to do is put together the sequence of events as they occurred that day, and I would appreciate your cooperation. Tell me, how well did you and your brother get along with your father?'

David sucked in his breath, then let out a long sigh as he shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘So
that's
what you've been leading up to, is it?' he said. ‘So what else did Claire just happen to mention?'

He glanced at the door as if expecting it to open, perhaps hoping that someone would come in, but the door remained firmly closed. ‘Very well, then,' he said, ‘let's get that out of the way. It was no secret back then that Dad and I were barely on speaking terms. He was so set on my following in Kevin's footsteps to university, and I was just as determined to become an artist; it was inevitable that we would clash over it. I've always thought of my father as a stubborn man, but I suppose I must have inherited some of those genes, because I can be pretty stubborn, too, especially when it comes to the way I want to lead my life. So, does that make me a suspect?'

‘To be honest, Mr Taylor, everyone is a suspect until proven otherwise in a case such as this,' said Paget, ‘so the sooner I know the whole story, the sooner I can make a rational judgement about who should remain on the list and who shouldn't. What I don't understand is why, if things were that strained between you and your father, you were there working for him in the bakery?'

Taylor looked down at the floor, and it was clear by the set of his mouth that he was in two minds about whether to answer the question or not. Finally, looking up, he said, ‘What you have to understand is that the one thing had nothing to do with the other. The argument about what I should be doing at university was one thing; work was another. And it was always made clear to me that, regardless of our differences, I always had a home and a job to come back to. But, when it came to my future, he expected me to be more like Kevin; he wanted me to become a solicitor or doctor or engineer – “something worthwhile” was the way he put it. He tried reasoning with me at first, then told me he would see me right financially, as he had with Kevin, if I would just buckle down and do something useful with my life. But when I said my mind was made up, and I wasn't going to be bribed into changing it, he told me I was a fool, and I could forget about any help from him, financial or otherwise in the future.

‘So, we both came back and worked for him whenever we could. We didn't get paid, but we did have free board and lodging, and that was a big help to both of us. Kev and I did the early morning deliveries, then went off to our other jobs the rest of the day. Me, I worked afternoons at the Midland garage on the Ludlow road, and I cleaned offices at night. It was a hard slog, but I made it through without his help.'

‘Although I imagine it must have been somewhat easier after your father died,' Paget suggested mildly. ‘With the money from your father's estate and the sale of the bakery.'

‘You can imagine whatever you like –' David walked to the door and opened it – ‘but you can do it somewhere else, because you'll get nothing more from me.'

‘There is just one thing I should mention before I go,' said Paget as he made his way to the door. ‘Miss Hammond told us nothing about you or your relations with your father. I merely asked the question as a matter of routine, so please don't blame her for that. But it was enlightening. Thank you for your time.'

On his return to Charter Lane, Paget stopped at Len Ormside's desk. The grizzled Sergeant, shirt clinging damply to his chest, waved Paget to a seat and held up a single finger to indicate that he was almost finished on the phone. Paget slipped his jacket off and sat down. A small fan on the floor beside the desk made rattling sounds as it laboured ineffectually against the heat. The room seemed unusually quiet, and no wonder, Paget thought as he looked at the empty desks. Apart from Ormside and himself, there were only two others in the room, and both were busy answering phones.

Ormside made a face as he hung up the phone. ‘The fire in Whitchurch Street last night was definitely arson,' he said, ‘so that's going to tie up more of my people, and what with holidays and Johnson off with a broken ankle, I don't know how I'm going to cover everything.'