Murder of a Silent Man Read online

  ‘Where have you been? I’ve been trying to contact you,’ Caroline said.

  The siblings met at a restaurant. Caroline knew she would be paying.

  ‘I was occupied,’ Ralph said.

  ‘You didn’t pay for the hotel. I phoned them.’

  ‘Did you pay?’

  ‘Hell, I did. What sort of trouble are you in?’

  ‘Money trouble, the usual.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’ Caroline could see that her brother was looking the worse for wear and that he had a tired, faraway look about him.

  ‘A cheap hotel. It’s not much good.’

  ‘Why? You could always check into somewhere better.’

  ‘The deal in Spain has gone all wrong. It’s left me in a predicament.’

  ‘You’re hiding out. Why?’

  ‘Some people want their money. The sort of people who don’t take no for an answer.’

  ‘I need your help,’ Caroline said. ‘Dundas has got us over a barrel.’

  ‘Didn’t you figure that out when he was reading the will?’

  ‘I wanted the five million first.’

  ‘You signed the clause at the bottom, no contesting the will?’

  ‘It’s not enforceable. The tests of our father’s sanity are invalid. We can dispute that.’

  ‘Caroline, supposing I agree to go in with you, what’s in it for me?’

  ‘Two hundred thousand pounds today, and forty per cent of whatever we find.’

  ‘Assuming the will is invalidated, and we become the sole beneficiaries?’

  ‘We’ll never find it all. Dundas will have covered his tracks well. That’s why we need you,’ Caroline said.

  She called the waiter over. ‘Another bottle of wine, please,’ she said. This was a time to celebrate.

  ‘We? You and Desmond?’

  ‘Regardless of what you and he may think of each other, he realises that he’s not up to what’s required.’

  ‘And I am?’

  ‘You know the tricks, what Dundas could have done. Where the titles to the properties are, the bank accounts.’

  ‘It will cost.’

  ‘I’ve offered you two hundred thousand pounds.’

  ‘We’ll need a top-notch computer hacker, someone to go through Dundas’s office, check the files, take copies.’

  ‘Illegal?’

  ‘Do you think he’ll respond to a legal demand?’

  ‘We need to know before we force him. How much for the additional help?’

  ‘Probably another three hundred thousand pounds.’

  Caroline was suspicious. He was her brother, and she knew him better than anyone else. Give the man an inch, he would take a mile, and then disappear, brother or no brother. ‘You want me to give you more money?’ she said.

  ‘Not this time. Our father owes us a lot more than a pittance. I’ll play it by the book, but I need your assurance that you’ll help out if I can’t fend off the money lenders.’

  ‘Violent?’

  ‘I was desperate. I had no option. But now, with you and me, we’ll deal with Dundas. Our father was crazy, you know that?’

  ‘I know it. Our mother up there in that room. Have you seen the body?’ Caroline said.

  ‘I’m not sure if I want to.’

  ‘I have. It’s ghoulish. Whether it was her death or not that turned him, there’s no way to know. And are we sure he was making the decisions all these years, with Dundas implementing them?’

  ‘How can we be? How can anyone be?’

  ‘We’ll never know. The will, we are assuming, is genuine.’

  ‘Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but whatever you do, don’t dispute it for now. You, Caroline, need to be with Dundas. He must never know of our meeting here today.’

  ‘Agreed. I’ll transfer the money to your account when I have the details. Play this fair, and we’ll deal with that bastard Dundas and his scheming daughter.’

  Chapter 10

  Homicide still wrestled with where Molly Dempster fitted into the investigation. There was no reason to believe that she was involved in her employer’s death or that of his wife, but she had spent more time in the house than any person other than Gilbert.

  Isaac and Larry found her at her house. There were signs of her new-found wealth: the two men at the front of the house painting the windows and the door, another man tending to the garden.

  ‘I had to do something,’ Molly said. ‘Mr Lawrence gave me the money to look after myself.’

  She seemed to be unaffected by the wealth of her lifelong employer and spoke of him and his children in a loving, almost childlike manner, as though they were her family. Not unusual, he supposed, as checks into the woman had revealed a life of modest means: no man in her life, no pets, nothing.

  Inside the house, also being subjected to modest renovations, Molly Dempster sat in the small living room. Isaac and Larry sat nearby. A tray of tea and biscuits on a table in front of all three.

  ‘Miss Dempster, for all those years you were in that house with Mrs Lawrence upstairs,’ Isaac said. He had helped himself to a cup of tea and a biscuit. Larry, conscious of the need to keep his weight down, only had a cup of tea.

  ‘I know. Somehow, I find it romantic, but then I was always the first to cry if there was a love story on the television, you know the type, where one of them dies young, the other left on their own.’

  ‘Do you understand why Mr Lawrence would have wanted his wife there?’

  ‘Oh, yes. They never wanted to be apart, neither of them. If he was late coming home, or she was, the other one would be fretting.’

  ‘But what concerns us is that you were there twice a week, and Mrs Lawrence was buried in the cellar. After that, Mr Lawrence had to prepare his wife’s body, and that is not the easiest of the processes. There must have been some odours, and not pleasant either.’

  ‘Maybe there were, but I wouldn’t have taken any notice.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Hyposmia, virtually no ability to smell. I’ve had it since I was young. It’s no use talking to me about the smell of a flower. Once, I nearly gassed myself. The oven hadn’t lit, and I was trying to find out why. I almost passed out until Mrs Lawrence came and pulled me free.’

  ‘Your friendship with Mr Lawrence?’ Larry said.

  ‘Ralph was trying to make something out of it, but he was young and adolescent. His hormones and his imagination were getting the better of him. And besides, I had no need of a man or a woman. Never have, never wanted to. I just want my routine, the chance to sit down at the end of the day and turn on the television.’

  ‘How could the man have kept away from you? You must have seen him occasionally.’

  ‘Maybe I did, but he wanted to be alone. Once he left the door unbolted, so I snuck in for a quick look.’

  ‘How long after he had gone into seclusion?’

  ‘One, two years. I don’t remember exactly, but it was a long time ago.’

  ‘And what did you see?’

  ‘Nothing. It was dark with the shutters closed and very dusty. I might not be able to smell very well, but my hearing was fine. I could hear a sound from upstairs, so I returned to my part of the house. After that, I never tried to look again.’

  ‘Did he know you’d been in there?’

  ‘It was never mentioned, although, as I said, he always wrote his instructions down for me. The door was never open again while I was in the house.’

  Both Isaac and Larry could not fault the woman, although no physical contact, no conversation, made no sense.

  ‘Let’s go back to when he needed a dentist. What did he sound like, look like?’

  ‘He was quiet, as though he hadn’t spoken in a long time, which I suppose he hadn’t. I made the appointment, and he left when I wasn’t in the house. All I know is that three hours later, he was back in the house. After that, I never spoke to him again.’

  ‘The dentist?’

  ‘Brian Garrett. I’ve got hi
s phone number. I suppose he must have seen more of Mr Lawrence than me.’

  ***

  Gary Frost, unscrupulous and on the periphery of crime, knew what he had with Ralph Lawrence. A man who had come to him five months earlier needing money. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen men such as Lawrence, men who lived on the edge, scoundrels more than criminals.

  Frost understood that Ralph Lawrence was weak, not like his father, Gilbert. He did not tell the son that he already knew of the father. Frost had done further research, not difficult considering the amount of interest in the man’s murder. It made for great headlines – England’s own Howard Hughes, dead with a knife in the back. The reclusive billionaire with his wife dead in her bed, the battle for his fortune.

  The estimates of the dead man’s wealth varied from one billion up to somewhere close to infinity. No one, certainly not Ralph and his sister, knew precisely how much. The only person who seemed to have any idea was the father’s former solicitor and his only confidante.

  Frost was reclining on a chair, taking in the sun through the window in his penthouse flat. The flat was big enough to double as his accommodation and his place of work. It was on two levels, the lower one for his office and his support staff. With Frost, an agreement to lend money came with a handshake and an email setting out the terms and conditions: the money to be transferred to any nominated location, either a deposit into a bank account or cash. The payment schedule, principal plus interest of ten per cent per week, payable on demand. Default penalties, not included in the email but given in person or by phone, were simple. Non-payments or delays in adhering to the agreement would be settled by extreme violence.

  ‘It’s sure-fire, can’t lose,’ Ralph had said when told of the conditions of the loan.

  Frost remembered his words only too well. If it was sure-fire, it could only mean that it was not strictly legal, and it would either make a fortune or it wouldn’t. But then men such as Lawrence were all too ready to play into the hands of men such as him. And now he had the son of Gilbert Lawrence. What could be achieved? He needed his man in the prime seat, but there were problems. Even without the media, Frost could see delays, also the possibility of Ralph being sidelined and receiving none of the fortune, or so little as to render him irrelevant. Frost could not allow that to happen. If Lawrence was entitled to half of his father’s wealth, then that was what he would get.

  Ted Samson, small, barely five feet four inches, his name not indicative of the man, stood before his boss. He was dressed casually, yet expensively. The ideal man for going here and there without raising suspicion.

  ‘I’ve got a job for you,’ Frost said.

  ‘Whatever you want,’ Samson said.

  ‘Ralph Lawrence. He’s not seen you, has he?’

  ‘Nobody sees me unless I want them to.’

  ‘Good. I want you to keep a watch on him, never let him out of your sight.’

  ‘Twenty-four hours, seven days a week?’

  ‘Exactly. Your brother can take over when you need a break.’

  ‘And what do you want, boss?’

  ‘Don’t let him out of your sight, report back all that he does. And if he attempts to do a runner, well, you know.’

  ‘Call you, and then grab him.’

  ‘Exactly, but don’t let him know that you’re keeping watch.’

  ‘You can trust me, boss.’

  ***

  Chief Superintendent Goddard was under pressure, which meant that Isaac Cook and the entire Homicide team were as well.

  ‘It’s like this,’ Goddard said as he sat in Isaac’s office. ‘Gilbert Lawrence is receiving a lot of press interest, understandable given the man’s lifestyle, and his wife upstairs.’

  ‘Not to mention the fact that he owned a lot of property,’ Isaac said.

  ‘The man’s will, has it been resolved?’

  ‘Not to everyone’s satisfaction. The only problem is that the main beneficiary appears to be Lawrence’s solicitor.’

  ‘Complicated, but why? Normally the children would inherit the majority.’

  ‘That’s the problem. Lawrence wasn’t normal, was he?’

  ‘Who gained from the man’s death?’

  ‘The solicitor. Lawrence’s daughter inherited five million pounds, and her two children one million each. Ralph Lawrence, his son, nothing, although there were conditions under which he could inherit.’

  ‘Cut out of the will?’

  ‘Without question, and Ralph’s son is an anarchist, as well as a drug addict.’

  ‘Dead within a month, if the drug addict got hold of some of the money. Anarchists would have no issue with Gilbert Lawrence being murdered.’ Goddard said.

  ‘They’re only pretend anarchists. A brick thrown at a bank, a demonstration somewhere else. Just assorted ratbags, although their leader, Professor Giles Helmsley, is a unusual character.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Academic, well-spoken, and up until six years ago, a member of the faculty of the London School of Economics.’

  ‘Any reason to suspect him of the murder of Gilbert Lawrence?’

  ‘No proof. That’s the problem, the man is killed, nobody sees anything, nobody hears anything. The housekeeper comes in later and discovers the body, but she’s hardly a suspect.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘No motive. She’s been working for the family for decades, even before Lawrence went crazy. And she received a million pounds in the will.’

  ‘If she knew about the wife upstairs, she could have felt the need to do something.’

  ‘No one had been up there, not for a very long time, apart from the dead man. The CSIs have been over the place with a fine-tooth comb. We had a concern about what Molly Dempster may have known, but we’ve not come up with anything. The off-licence where he used to go once a week is not in the best area. Someone could have followed him home, seen the opportunity to accost the man, steal some money.’

  ‘Did the people in the street, the off-licence, know who he was?’ Goddard asked.

  ‘Some would have.’

  ‘And nothing from the CSIs?’

  ‘There was a clear sign where the housekeeper had walked, as well as the postman, but nothing more.’

  ‘Then it’s not someone off the street, is it?’

  ‘Gilbert Lawrence sent a letter to everyone important outlining certain facts, including why his wife was upstairs. No document has been received with accounts, real estate holdings, passwords. Everything is with Dundas.’

  ‘And Lawrence is certified as sane?’ Goddard said.

  ‘We’re checking, but we’re expecting Ralph Lawrence to dispute the will. He may be a con artist, but he’s got a point. An evaluation of sanity can only be based on the facts presented. And not one of these experts knew about how he had taken his wife, buried her in the ground underneath the cellar floor for some months, and then exhumed her, removed what he could of the excess skin and internals, and then had her remaining body eaten by dermestid beetles until she was virtually only bone.’

  ‘But she could have been murdered?’

  ‘It’s possible. Unprovable, though.’

  Isaac realised he’d given his senior very little. As soon as he’d left he called in his team.

  ‘What do we have?’ Isaac said.

  ‘Ralph Lawrence met with his sister,’ Wendy said.

  ‘How do we know?’

  ‘I’ve been keeping a watch on him after I found him at another hotel. Since meeting with her – they met at a restaurant – he’s moved out of the hotel and back into something decent.’

  ‘What about Dundas and his daughter? Any movement there?’

  ‘They’ve done nothing wrong that we can see,’ Larry said.

  ‘Yet they have gained the most from this.’

  ‘On the face of it.’

  ‘Larry, we need to go and interview the postman who found Gilbert Lawrence,’ Isaac said.

  Chapter 11

  �
�I still had to deliver the mail,’ was not the comment that Isaac and Larry were looking for.

  Jim Porter, the postman, had been found at his home five miles from where he had discovered the body of Gilbert Lawrence. Judging by the condition of the flat he lived in, he was a slovenly man. He had not been pleased to see two police officers at his door, although it was a block of flats which the local police would have been only too familiar with. It was grim, low rent, and definitely not the sort of place that Isaac liked. His small flat in Willesden was not much larger than the postman’s, but it did have a pleasant outlook, whereas the view from where the three men stood was of an old industrial site.

  ‘They’re putting up some fancy high-rise for the wealthy, not for us,’ Porter said as he looked out of the window.

  ‘Gilbert Lawrence was wealthy,’ Isaac said. ‘You must have been tempted.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t be? I’d heard stories about the man: reclusive, never spoke, the smell of rotting fish.’

  ‘Rotting fish?’

  ‘That’s what they said at the off-licence.’

  ‘Who else have you spoken to about him?’ Larry said. He looked around the flat, realised his wife wouldn’t have crossed the threshold. He had to admit his wife looked after him, the children, and the house well, and with her, there were no dirty cups in the sink, no magazines thrown haphazardly across any vacant space.

  ‘Nobody, not really, but sometimes people liked to talk, and old man Lawrence was as good a subject as any other.’

  ‘Molly Dempster?’

  ‘She liked to talk, but if I asked about him inside, she’d clam up. I was never sure what to make of her.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve been in the house; didn’t you feel it?’

  ‘Feel what?’

  ‘As though it was evil, which I suppose it was.’

  ‘You had been in?’

  ‘Only as far as the kitchen. Sometimes she’d ask me in for a cup of tea. I always got the impression that she was glad of the company.’