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Authors: Clare Curzon

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BOOK: Last to Leave
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Yeadings smiled grimly. ‘I'm investigating at least one murder, Mr Stone. Those films belong to me.' He held out his hand for Kate's keys. Stone smiled and dropped them into it.
‘Good. I suggest we later look at the films together.'
 
Robert Dellar and Marion Paige walked side by side down
Windsor High Street, under the shade of the looming Castle. There was no attempt by either to touch. Both were wrapped in private thoughts which permitted no intrusion.
‘Here?' the woman asked, stopping by the door of a restaurant.
‘It'll do. I don't feel much like eating, but maybe some soup …'
They had avoided the Castle Hotel in case there were press photographers there. The first of the swarm had turned up at the hospital as soon as the news of Sir Matthew's critical condition was known. Now that he was dead the paparazzi were eager for gloomy shots of the grieving family.
As if Maddie didn't matter, her brother thought. She was worth ten of him, the wicked old devil. Their early childhood had been partly shielded by Joanna, but once his mother died he'd felt the full force of his father's severity. Boarding-school had saved him. At least there he'd been buoyed up by the experience of already having been bullied by an expert. Nothing new the other boys thought up could penetrate his techniques for sliding out of trouble.
He had resisted the pressure to study law, but finally Matthew had so doubted his abilities that entering journalism had been accepted as
faute de mieux
. Then, to avoid living under the same roof, he had rushed into an unsuitable marriage and paid the price. Within a few weeks his divorce decree would be made absolute. He would be joined in the desirable flat in Regent's Park by Marion Paige, who wasn't an empty-headed blonde as Shelley had been.
He glanced sideways at her now. Marion's mouth had set in a hard line as if she were immersed in unpleasant memories. Upset, no doubt, by the double death in her fiancé's family. ‘All right, Mopsie?' he demanded.
She said nothing, smiled her enigmatic smile and flapped one hand towards a corner of the dining-room.
‘There's a vacant table over there. Let's snaffle it before we're headed off.'
Seated, she chose lamb cutlets for her main dish, with duck pate to start. Robert dithered, conscious that sticking with soup would leave him with time to fill when he didn't feel much like talking. Perhaps he should order the same that she had.
‘So,' she said when they had been served, ‘why are the police making such a fuss over the car crash? I heard they'd taken the Mercedes in for forensic examination. Is this some special show they're putting on because your father was a VIP?'
‘I suppose they have to cover themselves. The oil spillage at the scene was unusually widespread. Maybe they're expecting us to bring a civil case against whoever's found responsible.'
‘And who's that likely to be?'
‘God knows. Some lazy slob who didn't fix the tailgate of his truck, I guess.'
‘You think that's all they're bothered by? It struck me they were asking a lot of questions. As though they thought it might not have been an accident.'
Robert laid down his knife and fork. ‘Vandalism, you mean? That's an inner city problem. Highly unlikely out there in the wild.' He snickered. ‘No, it's a spectator sport. Why cause mayhem if there's no one there to see?'
‘You're probably right.'
‘I usually am.' It was said without a hint of humour. Marion looked sideways at him to make sure.
‘So you can go right ahead with the funerals?'
‘With my father's, yes. I don't know what Gus wants done about Maddie's. That's up to him.'
‘M'm. I wonder how her death affects the wills.'
‘It may simplify matters. Depends just how deviously my father screwed up the provisions. I doubt he'll have provided for the Railtons if Maddie pre-deceased him – as she did.'
‘Poor old Gus. He won't be very happy about that.'
‘He'll get whatever Maddie meant him to have. Which is probably the lot in her case. So he's been lucky. Another year or two and she'd have got wise to his womanizing and probably cut him out.'
‘Do you think so?' Marion chased a smear of sauce with the last forkful of broccoli. ‘I've yet to hear what you're expecting for yourself. As only surviving child, you must be old Matthew's heir.'
‘Must I?' Robert looked flummoxed. ‘We didn't really get on. It would be like the twisted old bastard to leave it all to a rest home for retired cart-horses. He played his cards close to his chest. There was never a whisper of what he intended. Except to go on for ever. I honestly believe he thought he was immortal.'
‘Well, he wasn't.' Marion surveyed her neatly cleaned plate. Perhaps, Robert thought, that accounted for her tone of satisfaction.
 
‘Mother?' Eddie whispered.
She had sat there holding his hand, talking quietly until sleep overcame her. His eyes opened on a glare of whiteness that was alien yet partly familiar. The sounds reaching him were of quick footsteps at some distance, quiet rushes of controlled movement with a purpose in them. Then, focusing, his eyes took in the bowed figure by his bed, the corner of an unlined floral curtain and its rail. There was a scent of something like pine trees but with a sweetness mixed in. Hospital, he told himself. Yes, he thought he remembered now. He had opened his eyes on something like it already. And before that – something much more terrible. He groaned quietly, aware now of the intrusions on his body, the paraphernalia of sickness.
‘Mother? Kate.'
She awoke in an instant and he felt the tremor of excitement from her hand into his own.
‘Hello, love.' She was fighting emotion, but it was too
much for her. She leaned forward and put her cheek against his, letting the tears run, wetting them both. ‘Oh, thank God, Eddie.'
‘Mother,' he said, turning his head away. ‘There's something … Tell Jess.' He stopped. Hadn't someone said Jess was missing?
‘Oh, my God!' It was a hoarse shout, bringing the nurses running. ‘
Nicholas
!'
Gradually they were building a picture of what had happened, or of as much as Eddie had understood at the time. He insisted on speaking. Despite the surgeon's veto on visitors other than his mother, Yeadings was there too.
He started with Jess waking him at Larchmoor Place and begging his help for someone injured in the garden. At first he spoke as if Nicholas was unknown to him, but when Stone quietly came in and took a seat alongside his mother Yeadings leaned forward and said, ‘We know who and what he was. Go on.'
‘Nicholas told me Signora … Sorry, it's a complicated name. Charles Stone's wife, anyway. She was behind it.'
He stopped to sip water from a tumbler which Kate held against his lips. ‘Someone meant to harm Jess and was coming to get her. I thought she'd be safe there until morning. Then I'd get them both away.' He sounded shaken and ashamed.
There was another pause while he closed his eyes to assemble his thoughts. ‘He'd been shot at; was shocked. Not much more than a flesh wound. We put a pad on it. The bullet had gone through. We made him comfortable in the cellar. It was warm down there. He couldn't get upstairs.
‘I must have been back asleep a while, but the radiator started knocking. It had run dry, air building inside. Then smoke – in the passage. I started shouting for everyone to get out. Downstairs – the fire – had really taken hold. I – went – for Nicholas.'
This time when he stopped, Kate protested. ‘No more, please,' and the nurse came between, ordering them all out.
‘Just one thing,' Stone insisted. ‘Did you see Jessica again?'
‘No.' It was no more than a whisper as his eyes closed.
 
 
‘And after all that?' Yeadings asked Stone.
The younger man shook his head. ‘We can only speculate. The house was already on fire. Do we assume whoever broke in was responsible? And had fought Nicholas off and ended up strangling him?'
‘If so,' Yeadings granted, ‘and the body was left in the kitchen, Eddie would have found it as he burst in. The door to the cellar was left unlocked, as we'd supposed. Eddie dived through to escape the flames, or was blown through by the blast which Railton described. The intruder must have been down there, trying to get out by the coal chute. They fought hand to hand and Eddie was knocked out. Still no mention of Jessica. Had she left by then? I think she must have. Willingly or forced.'
Yeadings confronted the other man. ‘You believe the intruder was in your wife's pay. So who did she know well enough to use for this?'
‘A thug called Jack Mortimer,' he said tightly. ‘I always warned her against him. His ambition makes him dangerous. He has a streak of madness when he's crossed. But he's been useful to her in the past. Now he's gone too far and must know it. I've had people looking for him since I first knew Jess was missing. He'll be lying low, or out of the country.'
‘And your wife?'
‘Lives in Venice. She's Italian. Mortimer works for her here in London alongside my accountants. That's how Nicholas would have got wind of what he was up to. If Mortimer went first to Jess's boat it gave Nicholas time to reach her before him. But he was just a finance man, not an operative in the field. He should have called in other resources.'
Yeadings digested his words. Stone, he decided, lived precariously on the thin line between the legal and the criminal. Only sanction from one of the intelligence agencies could be behind such confidence.
‘How did Nicholas know where to find her?'
‘He must have accessed my e-mail.'
‘With use of a password?'
‘I told you. I trusted him. It cost him his life.'
‘And this Mortimer got wind of his interest. Do you think he had him followed to Larchmoor Place?'
‘Almost certainly. After they missed shooting him down, Mortimer would have gone in himself. He's a powerful man. Maybe he never meant to kill, or he went berserk and then had to cover up his tracks. He almost certainly started the fire, using whatever accelerant was to hand. By which time he must have made sure of Jess, leaving her somewhere outside while he set about rendering the body unrecognizable.'
They sat in silence while Yeadings considered this. Only conjecture, but it sounded possible. Faced by such a vindictive woman and her unpredictable thug, hadn't Stone made any move to protect Jess? He said as much to him.
‘It worried me, but I never thought Giulia would dare … And Jess is such an independent young woman, I couldn't clip her wings. She wouldn't stand for that, and I love her too much. She insisted on living on the canal boat. What could I do, but see that her neighbour kept an eye on her? I gave him a mobile phone to use in emergencies.'
‘He never mentioned you,' Yeadings marvelled. Stone had an unusual gift for acquiring discreet allies.
‘He alerted my PA who phoned me in Washington. I flew back at once. It was still too late.'
Yeadings sat, chin on chest, and mulled over how this might connect with what had happened to Sir Matthew and his daughter. Surely a separate matter. As he'd suspected earlier, there was more than one villain behind the misfortunes that had dogged the Dellars. Stone's marital difficulties were recent. He believed a more ancient cause had brought about the death crash.
He rose and assumed a more formal manner. ‘Mr Stone, thank you. You've cleared up a lot of debris we could have
done without. I wish you had approached me sooner. We shall continue to make every effort to trace Miss Jessica Dellar and I expect you to share with us any information that comes your way. As, indeed, I'm prepared to do for you.'
He nodded grimly. ‘I have the matter of the car crash to clear up now.'
‘Thank you, sir.' Stone held out a card. ‘I'm leaving for Italy this evening. I know now where Jessica has been staying. She is still missing, but she did leave there by her own choice.
‘This is the number of my PA, Roger Beale. Please contact him if there is any news.' He turned to Kate. ‘You will stay on at my place, won't you?'
‘Thank you, but I'd rather get back home. I've things I can do there to keep myself busy. That way maybe I'll worry less.'
Stone saw her to his car and watched as the chauffeur drove her off, then he returned to Yeadings with a request to run through the films they had taken from Eddie's home.
Two of them were blank. ‘The cameras are only activated by movement,' Stone said. ‘It looks as though no one's been in those rooms since he was there himself.'
But the final film, taken from a point just inside the front door, showed Jess entering, walking the length of the passage and disappearing into the kitchen. With the door left ajar she came occasionally into view again, moving something to the kitchen table and a minute or so later removing it again. Shortly after that she returned via the passage and left. She hadn't entered any of the other rooms.
‘What was she doing?' Stone wondered aloud.
‘Helping herself to ice cubes from the fridge,' Yeadings suggested. ‘Wanting a cool drink. Except that she put them all back. Now, why that?'
The frames were electronically dated. Jess had visited Eddie's mews three days before they were both to meet up
for Carlton Dellar's eightieth birthday. There seemed no connection with her later disappearance.
‘Eddie Dellar doesn't appear on any of the films himself,' Yeadings pointed out. ‘But he had to be there, so I suppose he could de-activate the cameras as required.
‘I'll send Zyczynski to check what's been put in Eddie's freezer,' he continued. ‘In the meantime I trust you'll keep me informed of your progress.'
With Stone's departure he went down to the incident room which seemed disconcertingly quiet. The inquiry into the RTA at Woodside roundabout had reached an impasse. In the analysis room he searched the walls for fresh information. Only one item caught his interest: the report of a silver car having been seen parked on the verge to the far side of the island at about twenty minutes past ten on the night of the car crash. It had been pointing north and could have driven off without sight of the pile-up.
‘Which doesn't help much,' said the office manager who had just followed him in. ‘Silver is the colour of the moment. Everybody's new car is silver.'
‘Have you shown photos of car models to the witness?'
‘She's coming in this evening for that. She's a midwife and she had plenty on her mind at the time. Not that she's much upon cars. She's a Ford Escort lady.'
Which, according to him, must mean an inertia purchaser. Yeadings grunted and moved on. ‘At least we have a silver car and number eight shoes, narrow fittings, for our Cinderella search. That's all that supports it being a deliberate attempt on the Dellars' lives. If nothing comes of that, and the oil spillage leads nowhere, we'll have to let it go as an accident. It's enough having Kate Dellar paranoid, without us going the same way.'
‘That other Mrs Dellar's been in,' Sergeant Thomas reminded him. ‘And senior CID are all out. She's getting more than a mite impatient waiting to be seen.'
‘Ah, Claudia,' Yeadings recalled. Salmon had intended making her uncomfortable over the nuisance phone call.
Well, he supposed he might take that on himself. Could even get some satisfaction from it.
But for Jake having dropped out of the family group at the last minute, that malicious phone call would have been taken seriously. They could have hauled the boy in as suspect for a major crime. Spite like that didn't make the handling of difficult youngsters easier for anyone.
Sergeant Thomas had understated Claudia's present mood. Grim-faced and inwardly seething, she stood in angular silence, black against the light from the interview room's high window. Yeadings was reminded of the witch in Hansel and Gretel, except that the crone was depicted stooped, and Claudia seemed to have added a further two inches to her rigid height.
‘Mrs Dellar,' he said, sailing straight in, ‘we are interested in the phone call you made regarding a motorcyclist behaving in a drunken manner on the Windsor-Ascot road on the night of your brother-in-law's accident.'
She denied it scathingly: she knew nothing about any call; stared him out and expected him to wither. He overrode her protests. ‘It seems unlikely that, however longsighted, you should have witnessed this from a distance of some sixty miles as the crow flies, Mrs Dellar.'
‘I agree it's impossible. Which proves I did nothing of the sort. On the day of the accident I was at Cooden Beach with my husband and daughter. Maddie could have proved that if she had lived, because we spoke on the phone earlier that very evening. I know nothing of any motorcyclist.'
‘Because there was none. But you did make that call to the police. My colleague has checked it with the telephone company.' This was a wild misstatement, but he was sure of her now.
He watched as she controlled the tremor that ran through her body. She couldn't deny that she was caught out. Viciously she changed her stance. ‘It was my civic duty to report him. I knew how it would be. How he always behaved, full of drink, racing home on that infernal bike.
Irresponsible young people like that need to be caught and taught a lesson.'
‘Not on a false accusation. You are guilty of a public mischief, Mrs Dellar. And can be charged with wasting police time. I'm surprised that you were incautious enough to let prejudice override your considerable knowledge of the law.'
She darted him a sharp glance, then stared defiantly past his head. ‘I don't know what you mean.'
‘It's some years since you practised, Mrs Dellar, but not long enough for you to have forgotten the basics of law.'
She had not dreamed he knew her background. It struck her between the eyes, but she had an answer. ‘As you say, it was a long time ago.' She spoke bitterly, her cold, snake-eyes fixed on him again.
‘You haven't asked how it is that I'm so sure Jacob Railton wasn't near the crash scene.' He waited but she made no attempt to speak. ‘As it happens, he was in police custody elsewhere, for an unrelated offence. That might offer you some satisfaction, except that afterwards he was released with a caution.'
‘To terrorize the roads again.'
‘I hope not, but that is for him to decide. Meanwhile, I must warn you that you face a possible charge yourself, and will be hearing further about the matter.'
‘Is that all? You have caused me to travel all this way here for that?' She was still fighting to put someone in the wrong. As he nodded she sucked in her lean cheeks, drew herself to her full height and swept out of the room.
‘No,' Yeadings said aloud. He'd wanted her to be guilty of more than a malicious desire to put down a cocky young upstart. Since Z had come up with evidence of fraud from Claudia's files (taken illegally and so useless in court) he had fancied her for the arsonist at Larchmoor Place. But now it seemed almost certain that the intruder (possibly Stone's Jack Mortimer) had torched the house to destroy the murdered man's body.
BOOK: Last to Leave
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