The Devil in Disguise (6 page)

To judge by the crimsoning of his leathery cheeks, Jonah had experienced increasing difficulty in keeping quiet throughout these exchanges. Finally the old curmudgeon could bear it no more.

‘Stephanie's my sister's daughter, you see.' Harry had never heard him sound so defensive. ‘She's always been keen on the idea of coming into the business.'

‘And you've said no for the past two years, haven't you?' she said with an amused glint in her eye. ‘But in the end you saw it made sense.'

‘We'll have to wait and see, won't we?' he said grumpily.

Stephanie winked at Harry. ‘He's expecting me to fall flat on my face. But the fact is, Mr Devlin, he isn't getting any younger. He has all the experience and contacts, but he needs another pair of hands. I may not be an ex-copper, but I'm brimming with enthusiasm and I'm full of ideas.'

Harry organised the food and as they ate he learned a little more about the odd couple's plans. Stephanie was a geography graduate, but since her teens she had always had a yearning to follow in her uncle's footsteps. It offered, she said, a perfect opportunity to satisfy her natural curiosity about people and to be paid for the privilege.

By the time he was pouring out the tea, Harry decided that he liked Stephanie very much. She had the same square jaw as her uncle and he guessed that she would be as resolute in the pursuit of an inquiry, although she might not take such pains to make her clients aware that she was doing them a favour by taking on their case.

As he told the story of Vera Blackhurst, Stephanie asked frequent questions. ‘What do we know about her?'

‘Very little. Until Charles's death, I was scarcely aware of her existence. I met her once, at the funeral. She was about as inconspicuous as Sharon Stone in widow's weeds. And her hat was the ugliest I've ever seen. Like a rejected exhibit from the Tate.'

Stephanie grinned. ‘Can't say anything about that. The Deegans are hardly famed for their sartorial elegance. Tell me - was there anything suspicious about his death?'

Jonah had become a little restive and now he could contain himself no longer. ‘Stephanie has this idea that she'd like to help solve a murder mystery.'

‘It's a weakness we have in common,' Harry said.

‘One of the reasons I asked her along,' Jonah said gloomily. ‘I thought you two would get on like a house on fire.'

‘Unfortunately, the answer to her question is no. Charles never enjoyed good health. Miriam, his mother, pampered him from infancy. He was always overweight and he suffered from diabetes as well as a variety of other ailments. During the last few years, he ate to excess and it put a heavy strain on his constitution. He had a heart attack a little while ago. But in the end the diabetes did for him. He had a couple of toes amputated, but it was too late to prevent gangrene setting in. Even if he hadn't suffered a second and fatal coronary, he wasn't likely to have survived. No possibility of foul play.'

Stephanie rubbed her chin. ‘And the will was found amongst Charles's effects at the nursing home after his death?'

‘Correct. Vera was present when he died. Holding his hand, by all accounts. Of course, his death was not unexpected. There is no doubt that it was a case of natural causes.' Harry's eyes narrowed. ‘Apparently the body had no sooner been wheeled away than Vera was asking the matron to look through Charles's effects to make sure that his important papers were looked after. By which she meant, of course, the will. He'd kept it in his bedside cabinet during the last forty-eight hours of his life. Vera said that Charles would have wanted the trustees to be informed of his passing. Luke Dessaur had called in to see him several times and I gather that most, if not all, of the trustees had visited to pay their respects.'

Jonah grunted. ‘Hypocrites.'

‘Vera said she was too upset to ring round herself, but she asked the matron to let Luke have the news. And it was the matron who told him about the new will. She said she'd caught sight of its contents. By accident, of course. She hadn't meant to pry.'

‘Oh yeah?' Jonah said. ‘I expect she was hoping for a mention.'

‘If so, she was disappointed. She told Luke that Charles had left the Trust his treasures - I suppose she assumed they were valuable - and that the rest was going to Vera. You can imagine Luke's reaction. He was appalled and consulted Jim Crusoe right away. Jim advised the trustees to lodge a caveat. Which was duly done.'

‘And what's the effect of that?'

‘I won't bore you with all the legal technicalities,' Harry said. In truth, he was far from sure that he could remember them. ‘But it prevents Vera from sealing a grant of probate for up to six months. So she can't pay herself a large slice of Charles's fortune and then skedaddle. Even if she wants to. It slows everything down.'

‘Sounds like every other legal process I ever heard of,' Jonah grumbled.

‘Useful for the trustees, though. Charles was a wealthy man with a wide variety of assets. Stocks and shares, property and so on. Sorting out a complex estate always takes time. Even so, we won't be able to hold off Geoffrey Willatt for ever.'

‘Fascinating,' Stephanie breathed. ‘Vera sounds like a mystery woman.'

‘Something else happened last night.' He described seeing her leave the restaurant and his fruitless chase after her companion. ‘I did wonder if the man with her was the chairman of the Kavanaugh trustees. It seems unlikely, even though there was a resemblance. But it prompted me to looking through the file again and I've started wondering about the language used in the will. Geoffrey Willatt has given me a copy. It's written out in shaky longhand but it's simple and legally sound. In other words, very suspicious.'

‘Why?'

Harry grinned. ‘Any lawyer will tell you, do-it-yourself wills are almost always badly drafted.'

Jonah coughed. ‘You just want to drum up more business.'

Stephanie shushed him. ‘Are you saying Charles was too stupid to draft a will properly?'

‘Not exactly. What I am saying is that I wouldn't have expected him to use the briefest valid attestation clause. That is, the bit before the signatures. He used the phrase:
signed by the testator in our presence and by us in his
. Very neat. But it's not a form of words that would spring naturally to the mind of a dying man.'

She opened her eyes very wide. ‘Could he have copied it from his old will?'

‘No. His lawyer, Cyril Tweats, had many qualities, but brevity was never one of them. He always used a more verbose formula. It was part of his style. My guess is that Vera checked out the wording in a book and dictated the terms of the will to Charles.'

‘I agree,' Stephanie said eagerly. ‘I'm sure you're on to something.'

Harry chuckled. Jonah was quite right: Stephanie was a woman after his own heart. ‘So it's over to you two. If you can give the trustees any information which will help them to drive a suitable bargain with Vera, they will be delighted.'

‘We'll do our best,' she said, reaching for her bag. ‘Thanks for the instructions. We'll report back as soon as possible. Just one more thing I ought to mention.'

‘Yes?'

‘We've had to increase our fees. Forced on us by the level of overheads. I've often told Jonah, he's been selling himself short for years. Don't think of it as a price rise so much as a long-overdue correction. See you.'

Jonah winked at Harry, who mouthed at him, ‘Bloody answering machine.' Whatever her qualities as an investigator, it looked as though Stephanie was intent on becoming the acceptable face of her uncle's brand of capitalism.

Ten minutes later he was walking back into Fenwick Court. As he stepped into reception Suzanne hailed him. The pleasurable alarm on her face filled him with foreboding: she loved nothing better than to be the breaker of bad news.

‘Mr Crusoe wanted to see you. Urgently.'

‘Any idea what it's about?'

She shook her blonde locks. ‘All he said was that he wanted me to make sure you got the message. At once. He doesn't trust you to check your e-mail.'

Harry made straight for his partner's room. ‘A problem? Or is Suzanne simply enlivening her afternoon by turning on her best shock-horror manner?'

Jim looked up from the pile of title deeds in front of him. ‘I think you would call it a problem. Luke Dessaur has been found dead.'

Chapter 5

He called Frances Silverwood right away. It was evident from her muffled tone that she was choking back tears as she gave him the brief details of which she was aware.

‘Luke had booked into the Hawthorne Hotel down on the Strand. God knows why. He had a single room on the third floor and he fell from the window about half past midnight. As far as I can gather, it's not clear whether it was an accident - or suicide.'

‘
Suicide
?' Harry's head was spinning. ‘Surely that's not possible?'

‘That - that's what I would have said. But apparently it is a strong possibility.'

‘Why? Did he leave a note?'

‘I don't think so. It's just unbelievable, Harry.' He heard her taking a deep breath at the other end of the line. ‘Sorry. I'll pull myself together soon, but this has come - as rather a shock, to say the least.'

‘If there's anything I can do.'

‘I - I don't like to ask this,' she said.

‘Go ahead.'

‘I realise you're a busy man. I trespassed on your time yesterday and I don't want to make a nuisance of myself. But I wonder - could we have a word about this, once I've had a chance to collect my thoughts? I'd like to talk to someone. If that doesn't sound foolish in a grown woman.'

‘Of course it doesn't. Are you free later this afternoon? I have a meeting at Empire Dock after work.'

‘I could be at your office for five thirty, is that all right?'

After ringing off, he felt a twinge of conscience, aware that his motives were not purely altruistic. The news of Luke Dessaur's death was not merely startling. It saddened him. They had never been close, but he had always respected the older man. The waste of a good human life always made him feel dismay. Yet he had the honesty to admit to himself that he was also intrigued. It was impossible to understand what had happened to Luke, to think of a reason why he should have left home for a hotel and then finished up dead. But he needed to make sense of the mystery. It was a feeling with which he was familiar, one that perhaps he should resist - but could not. Even if he did not give in straight away, it would continue to tease him like a seductive woman, nibbling away at him until he had no choice but to surrender to his instincts.

When Frances arrived, Harry was shocked by the change in her. Her shoulders were hunched and her voice croaky. He'd never seen her eyes so red and she kept blowing her nose. Although she gave the excuse that she was going down with a cold, he did not believe her. Luke's death had left her desolate.

Darkness had fallen and it was cold outside, but she suggested that they walk for a little while along the waterfront. Harry was quick to say yes. He loved the river and in times of trouble often sought to calm himself by watching the waves as they lapped against the shore. They paused in their stroll near the ferry terminal and stood by the rail, looking out towards the straggling lights of the Wirral peninsula. For a while neither of them spoke.

‘Thank you for sparing me your time,' she said at last.

‘It's the least I could do.' After a pause he said gently, ‘Would you like to take me through what happened, as far as you know?'

‘Yes, I must have sounded pretty incoherent when we talked earlier. Sorry. There isn't actually a great deal to tell. I tried ringing Luke's home number one more time today and a policewoman answered. She was tight-lipped at first. Needless to say, I was bewildered. But I was able to put a few pieces together partly through talking to her and partly through having a word with Don Ragovoy, the manager at the Hawthorne Hotel. He's been involved with the Museum as a sponsor and I know him slightly. I called there before coming round to your office.'

‘And?'

‘Don said there was no record that Luke had ever stayed there before and he had no idea why he should suddenly have decided to do so yesterday.' She frowned. ‘It makes no sense. Why should he pay good money for a room in a hotel when he lives only a few miles away?'

‘Had he been drinking?'

‘So Don says. After picking up his suitcase, he seems to have driven into the city and left his Rover in the hotel's underground car park. If he was planning to meet someone in town and have a few drinks, why not simply take a taxi? He had an evening meal alone in the restaurant.'

‘Ah.' So one mystery was solved. Luke had not been Vera's dinner companion at the Ensenada.

‘Apparently the waitress who served him said he seemed tense and preoccupied. In his room they found an opened whisky bottle and an empty tumbler.' She swallowed. ‘Nobody saw him fall. His room overlooked an inner courtyard, according to Don Ragovoy. A night porter whose cubby-hole is on the ground floor heard a thud outside and went to investigate. He found Luke's body stretched across the gravel.'

Harry flinched. More than once in his life he had seen the body of someone dead before their time. One corpse had belonged to his wife. The memory of his last sight of her always swamped him with nausea.

‘An accident, perhaps?'

‘Don Ragovoy claims it couldn't have been. Although Luke's room had a window opening out on to a tiny balcony, it would be very difficult for someone simply to slip to their death. The balcony isn't for everyday use, it's a design feature. Don showed me the corresponding room on the floor below. To get out, one would have to open the window to its fullest extent and then haul oneself over the railing. Not as difficult as Don made out, but far from easy.'