The Cold Hand of Malice (11 page)

‘Dad’s been in a nursing home for years, Alzheimer’s,’ Susan explained, ‘so he couldn’t help, but it was relatively easy for Laura because of her job as a forensic accountant. She’d been involved in auditing the books of some of London’s biggest companies, so sorting out mum’s finances was no problem for her, whereas it was nothing but a headache to me.’

She said it was while Laura was staying with her that Moira Ballantyne broke her wrist, and Susan persuaded her sister to take Moira’s place in their badminton foursome. ‘I forget how it came about, but something was said about Simon’s cash-flow problems. Laura became interested, and the next thing I knew, Laura said she was staying on to see if she could help Simon out.’

‘She understood exactly what our problems were,’ Holbrook broke in, ‘and she didn’t mince words. She said we needed to do three things in order to survive, and the first thing I had to do was get back in the lab where I belonged and lock the door. She was pretty blunt about it, too. “You’re a scientist, an innovator, and a good one,” she told me, “but you have absolutely none of the skills required to run a business, so get back to your bench and let someone who knows what they’re doing take over.” I must say it rankled a bit at first, but I knew she was right.

‘She said she’d been looking for an opportunity to get out of her present job and start a business of her own, but after looking at what we were trying to do here, she felt confident that, properly run, the firm had potential for growth and expansion, and she would like to be part of it. She said she’d be prepared to put up enough cash to pay off our debts and carry us through the next couple of years – Michael Southern, her late husband, was a financier in the City, and he left her very well off when he died – but only if I would agree to certain conditions.

‘She was prepared to buy into the firm in return for a twenty-five per cent slice of the pie, but she insisted on being given a free hand to run the administrative and marketing side of the business. In effect, she was asking me to turn over the running of
my
company to her, and I must admit that it took a leap of faith on my part. But I didn’t have a choice, so we agreed on a one-year trial period, at which time we would assess the situation.’

Holbrook leaned back in his chair. ‘Best decision I ever made,’ he said, ‘because from that day on we never looked back. Laura went through the company from top to bottom, and one of the first things she did was move us out of our old cramped quarters into the building we’re in now. But best of all, she had contacts everywhere, some through her previous job, and some through the social circles in which she and Michael had moved, and orders began to roll in. Laura was . . .’

He stopped speaking in mid-sentence, and the faraway look in his eyes faded.

‘What
is
the point of all this?’ he demanded. ‘Because as far as I’m concerned, it isn’t getting us anywhere. None of this has anything to do with finding Laura’s killer.’

‘I realize it must look that way to you, but it does help,’ Paget told him, ‘because if we are right, and this burglary was staged to cover the killing of your wife, we need to know as much as possible about your wife, her background, her work, her friends and so on. And speaking of her work, I suspect there must have been quite an upheaval when she first joined your company. How did that go down with your employees?’

Holbrook made a face. ‘I’ll admit it wasn’t easy, those first few months,’ he said, ‘but people adapt; they realized that change had to come if their jobs were to be saved.’

‘Even so, sometimes people resent change, even when the objective is to save their jobs. And some can harbour grievances for a long time. Did anyone lose their job?’

‘No. Besides, that’s all in the past, so you’re wasting your time going down that road, Chief Insp—’ He broke off as the muffled sound of ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ interrupted what he was about to say.

‘BlackBerry,’ he said tersely. ‘Turn the damned thing off, Sue. It’s in the jacket behind you. I’ll get it later.’

Dutifully, Susan reached into the pocket of his jacket and switched it off.

‘As I was saying,’ Holbrook continued, ‘if that is where this so-called evidence of yours is leading, it’s a non-starter. It may sound like a cliché, but I regard the people who work for me more like part of my family rather than employees.’

‘What about more recently? Has there been any trouble at work? Any disgruntled employees, who . . .’ Paget stopped abruptly as he caught the look on Susan’s face. ‘Yes, Miss Chase?’ he said. ‘You’ve thought of something?’

Susan opened her mouth to speak, then closed it and shook her head. ‘It was nothing,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Sorry – it was just . . .’ She looked helplessly at Holbrook and fell silent.

‘If you know anything at all,’ Paget persisted, ‘please don’t hold back. It could be important.’

Holbrook was frowning, clearly puzzled. ‘
Do
you know something, Sue?’ he said.

Susan looked from one to the other, and it was clear she felt trapped. ‘I’m sorry, Simon,’ she said unhappily, ‘but it’s just that Laura told me Tim had confronted her in the car park again, and that’s the second time it’s happened. She said she thought he’d been drinking . . . I’m sorry, Simon, but it just popped into my head, and since the chief inspector did ask . . .’

‘Hardly what he meant, though, is it?’ he said dismissively. ‘That was just Tim blowing off steam, so let’s not waste any more of the chief inspector’s time on it.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Paget, ‘I don’t regard it as a waste of time, and I prefer to make up my own mind about things like that, Mr Holbrook, so I would like to know more about the person Miss Chase mentioned.’

‘But it’s so pointless,’ Holbrook insisted. ‘Tim Bryce is my nephew, and I’ll admit that he and Laura didn’t get along, but to suggest that he could even be considered as a suspect is absurd. In fact, if Tim had a grudge against anyone, it should have been me.’

‘Which makes it even more important that I understand the situation,’ Paget told him.

‘Oh, very well, then,’ he said, making no attempt to conceal his irritation. ‘Tim used to work for me – for us, for the firm. Laura felt it was a mistake to bring him into the company, but I insisted. Turns out that she was right and I was wrong. Tim seemed to think that being my nephew gave him special privileges, and his behaviour among the staff was disruptive. I talked to him and kept hoping he would straighten out, but when things didn’t improve, I had to agree with Laura that nephew or not, he had to go.’

‘When was that?’

‘Three weeks ago last Friday. And before you start jumping to conclusions, I’ll admit that Tim did not take it well, but he is not by nature a violent person. As for the encounter with Laura in the car park the other day, he was simply trying to persuade her to give him his old job back. As Susan said, he’d probably had a couple of drinks, but I’m sure that’s all there was to it.’

But Susan Chase was shaking her head. She’d been growing more and more agitated as she listened to Holbrook, and she could hold back no longer. ‘But that is
not
the way it was at all, Simon,’ she said emphatically, then softened her tone to add, ‘That may be what Laura told you, because she knew how you felt about Tim, but that is not what she told me. I’m sorry, Simon, I know you think of Tim as if he were your own son, but he is not the golden-haired boy you would like him to be. He threatened Laura. She still sounded shaky when she told me about it later that evening.’

‘Well, she certainly didn’t tell me—’ Holbrook began heatedly, only to be cut off by Paget.

‘What, exactly, did she tell you, Miss Chase?’

Susan glanced first at Holbrook, then back to Paget. ‘Laura said she’d just left work last Friday when Tim was suddenly there in front of her, blocking her way to her car. She said he’d been drinking – she could smell it on him, and he was extremely abusive.’

‘You said he threatened her?’

‘Yes, he did. I’m sorry, Simon,’ she said firmly as Holbrook appeared about to protest, ‘but it has to be said. Laura said Tim swore at her; called her names, and ranted on about how she had never liked him, and blamed her for turning his uncle against him, and said she would regret the day she sacked him, because he wasn’t going to let her get away with it.’

‘Did he say what he intended to do?’

‘Laura said he looked at her car and said, “Nice car. Bet it cost a bomb. Pity if it went up like one. You might want to have someone check it before you get in.” Then he laughed and staggered off.’

Holbrook stared at Susan, his face suddenly drained of colour. ‘Did she
really
say that, Sue?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘Honestly? Is that why she stopped using her car? She told me it had been acting up, and she was leaving it at home until the garage could come and pick it up.’

‘I know,’ Susan said quietly. ‘Laura told me she was going to do that. She said she thought twice before getting into the car after Tim left, but decided to take a chance because she didn’t think Tim would have told her if he had done something to the car already. She said she didn’t think Tim would have the guts to actually follow through on his threat, but she thought it best not to give him the opportunity in case she was wrong. That’s why she started taking a taxi to work. Laura likes to start work very early in the morning,’ she explained to Paget, ‘which is why she normally uses her own car rather than go in with Simon.’

‘Has your nephew ever threatened you, Mr Holbrook?’ Paget asked.

Simon Holbrook shook his head. ‘No – no, Tim would never . . . We’ve had a few words, yes, but . . .’ Words failed him. He looked completely shaken.

Tregalles, who had been quietly making notes, spoke up for the first time. ‘You’ve been referring to your nephew as a boy, Mr Holbrook, a youngster, but he can’t be all that young if he was working for you. How old is he?’

‘You might well ask, Sergeant,’ Susan said swiftly before Holbrook had a chance to answer. ‘I know Simon still thinks of Tim as a boy, but he’ll be twenty-seven next month.’

‘That’s quite enough, thank you, Susan,’ Holbrook said coldly. His voice was steady, and he appeared to have regained his composure as he looked at Paget. ‘I’m not saying that Susan is wrong about what happened, but I’m quite sure that they were idle threats, especially if he’d had a few drinks. Look,’ he went on earnestly, ‘Tim is my late sister Catherine’s boy. She and her husband died while on holiday in the Philippines twelve years ago. Drowned when an overloaded ferry sank. Tim came to live with Helen and me when he was fourteen. Helen was my first wife, but we were divorced a year after Tim came to live with us, so it was just the two of us after she left until Tim went off to university, and I became very fond of him. I’m not disputing that he may have made threats, but it would all be bluster, letting off steam. I mean it’s only natural that he’d be angry about losing his job, but he’ll get over it. He’ll get another job. And he’s married, now. He has responsibilities. I’m sure it was just the drink talking the other night.’ He looked to Susan as if hoping for her support, but she was looking elsewhere – deliberately, Paget thought.

‘For a man who’s just lost his wife, I don’t think Holbrook will have to look far for another one,’ Tregalles observed as they got out of the car in Charter Lane. ‘In fact, it looked to me as if she’s already moved in – or is planning to. Not that I’d say no if she wanted to move in with me. I like her.’

‘If she is planning to move in,’ said Paget, ‘I don’t think she did her case much good by the way she was talking about his nephew. And if Mrs Ballantyne is to be believed, Susan Chase was passed over once before when Holbrook married her sister, but I agree, I think you’re right about her wanting to be the second – no, the
third
Mrs Holbrook.’

Ten

Like so many of the older, once proud three-storeyed houses at the bottom end of Bridge Street, Hereford House had been made over into flats. The names of the tenants appeared beside the front door at the top of the steps, but there was an arrow pointing downward to the basement flat below street level next to the names of Bryce/Craig. The two detectives retraced their steps and made their way down to what had once been the servants’ entrance and rang the bell.

A young woman answered the door. Slim, pale, fair hair tied back in a ponytail, and wearing a flowered housecoat, she held a baby high on her shoulder. The baby was crying. The woman took her hand off the door and patted the child’s back soothingly. ‘He’s not here if it’s Tim you’re after,’ she said before Paget could say anything, ‘and I don’t know when he’ll be back. He’s gone to see about a job.’ She began to close the door.

Paget put out his hand to stop the door from closing. ‘And you are . . .?’ he asked.

‘Sally Craig.’ The young woman made another attempt to close the door, but Paget held it firmly while he introduced himself and Tregalles. ‘Sorry to trouble you,’ he told her perfunctorily, ‘but even if Mr Bryce isn’t here, we would still like a word with you. May we come in? We won’t take up much of your time.’

‘He’s in the middle of his feed,’ she said, indicating the baby, but when Paget failed to respond and didn’t move, she stepped back with an air of resignation and allowed them to enter. The baby’s cries grew louder. ‘He doesn’t like to be interrupted when he’s feeding,’ she said accusingly as she led the way into a small sitting room, sparse on furniture but cluttered nevertheless. A playpen full of woolly toys took up much of the space in the middle of the room; baby clothes were draped over a clothes horse in front of the electric fire, and a jumbled pile of sheets and underclothes filled one of the chairs. The ironing board, with iron still plugged in, sat in a narrow space behind the open door.

‘You can sit down if you like,’ she told them offhandedly as she took her own seat in a chair beside the fire, then opened the top of her housecoat, and settled the baby to one of her breasts. Tregalles took it upon himself to clear the sofa of cushions, toys, paperback books, bits of clothing and a jumble of brightly coloured wools and knitting needles.