by Iain Cameron
‘What are you thinking, gov?’ Walters asked as they walked back to the car.
‘Given there’s no sign of an intrusion in their offices, or even in the building, the CCTV is going to show the intruder, but the camera is so obvious, any idiot would know to shield their face. If we don’t get a good image, we’ll need to trawl through Martin Turner’s life, with the added spice of a big list of criminal clients. I think with this one, we’re in for the long haul.’
THREE
The village of Woodmancote was located in Mid-Sussex, ten miles north of Brighton. Henderson and Walters found Blackhouse Lane without too much trouble, but locating the house occupied by Joanna Turner was proving a little more difficult. None of the houses displayed numbers, only names, and some of those were obscured by overhanging branches, or accumulated dirt.
At last, Forest House appeared. They stopped the car and the DI leaned out of the window and pressed the buzzer beside the gate. Henderson had decided that if Mrs Turner wouldn’t open the gate until she knew why they were there, he would try to be circumspect with the details. He would give her enough information to believe it was important business, but nothing more. No one wanted to hear bad news over an electronic loudspeaker, no matter how sophisticated the system might be.
His concerns became academic when the gate slid open. Henderson drove in. He had driven into boutique country hotels smaller than this. The house was arranged in an L-shape. On the long arm, he saw what looked like the main reception rooms with bedrooms on top, and on the small arm, a triple garage with accommodation above, perhaps a granny flat or studio.
The door opened and a woman appeared, drying her hands on a towel.
‘Good morning, Joanna Turner?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you?’
She was tall, of slim build with short, dark hair, and an outdoor, ruddy complexion. Her accent wasn’t Sussex, somewhere further north.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Henderson, and this is Detective Sergeant Walters, from Sussex Police.’
‘Can I see some identification?’
Henderson walked towards her holding out his ID. Walters did the same. She took them from the detectives and gave them a studied look. This was unusual, as most people, once they’d spotted the Sussex Police logo, would hand them back.
‘A Detective Inspector, eh? I’m honoured. My father only made it to sergeant.’
‘We’d like to talk to you about Martin, Mrs Turner. Can we come in?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She handed back the warrant cards and stood to one side to allow them to enter. She closed the door behind them. ‘I’m no longer a Turner or a Mrs, Inspector. I call myself Woodford now, my maiden name, even though I do think it does sound ghastly. For the purposes of your visit, please call me Joanna.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t think I’m blasé about letting strangers into the house, despite the official-looking ID. There are two big dogs in the kitchen and, if I tell them, they would do anything to protect me.’
‘I’ll need to remember that.’
Part way down the hall Henderson reached what looked like the sitting room.
‘Just go in,’ he was told.
Henderson ducked under a low beam and walked into a traditional living room. It was large, taking up the whole width of the house, and full of dark, solid wood furniture with chintz patterns on the chairs, settee, and curtains, and at the centre, a large open fireplace with an ornate mantlepiece.
‘Before we start,’ Joanna said, ‘let me make you both some tea. In my experience, police officers always like something to drink before discussing anything of importance.’
In a situation like this, Henderson would normally ask the officer accompanying him to make tea while he imparted the bad news. However, Joanna was gone before he could do, or say, anything.
‘It looks a traditional sort of room, this,’ Walters said. ‘It’s a bit old-fashioned for my taste, but this settee is comfy. You just sink into it.’
‘It is, but watch you don’t get too comfortable. So many of those modern, stylish ones are either as hard as a brick, or you find yourself sliding down the cushions.’
Several pictures were dotted around the room, but Henderson didn’t need to leave his seat to look at them. Most were large, including two framed portraits of a girl aged about sixteen, and a boy about twelve, blown up beyond life-size. Haldane had told them that the boy, Seb, was now sixteen and a pupil at Hurstpierpoint College, a fee-paying boarding school in the locality, while his sister, Lidia, was twenty, and a psychology student at Nottingham University.
Joanna entered the room bearing a tray. Henderson stood, took the tray from her and placed it on the table.
‘Thanks, it was killing my arms. Note to self, must do more exercise.’
Henderson waited until the drinks were poured and Joanna was seated.
‘You said when you arrived, this was something to do with Martin. We’ve been divorced for over two years now, and I have to tell you, I’m over him. In fact, I was over him about five years after we married. He married me, but I didn’t realise he was already married to his work. In my mind that makes him a bigamist.’
‘Joanna, I’m afraid I am the bearer of bad news.’
‘How bad?’
‘In the early hours of this morning, Martin was found dead at the offices of Jonas Baines. He’d been murdered, stabbed by an intruder, we think.’
‘Oh, my Lord,’ she said, a hand shooting to cover her mouth.
Walters rose from the settee, intending to comfort her, but a raised hand waved her away.
‘Don’t waste your empathy training on me, Sergeant, I’m made of stronger stuff. I was just shocked to hear the word murder, that’s all. I mean, I’d heard it often enough at home when Daddy was in the force, but I didn’t expect to hear it in this house about someone I know.’
‘You and Martin weren’t close?’ Walters asked.
‘Let’s just say the news has saddened me just as much as it would if we were talking about our former next-door neighbour in Hove, although I admit, the children are less stoic and it will be hard breaking it to them. I suppose the great Robert Haldane has filled your heads with stories about my infidelity with Seb’s piano teacher?’
Henderson nodded.
‘He’s such a misogynistic prig, that man. My so-called affair happened after we were separated and lasted less than a month. No, what caused our eighteen-year marriage to break down was his continual drinking, and afterwards going to clubs where he would sleep with any girl who was stupid enough to have him. The final straw came when he picked up an STD, a Sexually Transmitted Disease if you will, and gave it to me. Syphilis, to be precise.’
Henderson wasn’t expecting to hear this and was momentarily taken aback. Regaining his composure, he said, ‘I see.’
‘So, you can no doubt tell, my ex is not high up on my Christmas card list. In fact, he isn’t even on my Christmas card list.’
‘Did he have any enemies?’
‘Beyond me, you mean?’
‘I wasn’t suggesting…’
‘I know. I didn’t much like the man he had become, but that doesn’t mean I’d wish him any harm. As long as he didn’t come near me, I was fine.’
‘What about other enemies?’
‘Hmm, I wouldn’t call him an enemy, but he thoroughly disliked the guy he worked beside and shared an office with, Trevor Robinson. They were buddies for a time, and happy drinking companions, but something happened. I know no more and only heard it second-hand from Lidia, after she had been to visit her father.’
‘Is there anyone else you can think of?’
‘No, not among his friends, the likes of Will Slater and Stephen Bradshaw, or any of his acquaintances.’
‘Slater and Bradshaw, they are close friends of his?’
‘Oh, yes, and have been since school. You see, Inspector, men like Martin have attended good private schools, and are fans of t
he same things: cricket, sailing, drinking, and eyeing up young women, all the things they did when they were young men. When the likes of houses and children come along, wives change and become carers and act accordingly, but those men stay the same. As a result, it’s all laughter and bonhomie. People like that don’t make enemies, Inspector, they form alliances. They have friends, associates, and a wide network of contacts, but never enemies.’
‘What about his client work?’
‘The rogues and scoundrels, as he called them. Yes, there are some serious criminals on that list. Let me think.’ She paused. ‘He defended John Pope, who I think is dead now, Bruce Nolan, Dominic Green, Raymond Schofield. There’s more I’m sure, but someone at Jonas Baines can tell you better than me.’
Henderson knew the name Bruce Nolan, but couldn’t remember the crimes he had committed. Dominic Green was a well-known drug big shot Henderson had been responsible for sending to prison. Raymond Schofield was a mega-rich businessman who was acquitted of murdering a business rival, Allan Blake. Blake died in the middle of negotiations to sell his chain of health clubs, after falling from Schofield’s yacht and drowning. He was sure the list that Jonas Baines supplied would have others on it. However, the fact that Joanna could still recall those four without much trouble suggested they were in the Premier League and the rest were playing in the lower divisions.
‘One final question. Robert Haldane mentioned an apartment Martin owned in Haywards Heath.’
‘Yes, it’s in a modern block near the station. I was surprised he bought it, as you can see from this house he prefers the more traditional. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, as he didn’t stay there often. He had a serious drink problem, you see, and when things started to become a bit sticky, he would often be found surfing on friends’ couches or sleeping in the office.’
‘That was a weird one,’ Walters said a few minutes later when they had returned to the car and were driving away.
‘You don’t think maybe she’s a private person and is saving her tears for a time when she’s alone?’
‘I’d like to think so, but the rift between her and her ex seems to have cut too deep. They were married for eighteen years, according to Joanna, but she said herself the spark had been lost after five.’
‘He must have had some constitution to drink all night and then perform like a professional lawyer the next day. I know I couldn’t do it.’
‘I’m sure you could manage it gov, you just need to put in a bit more practice.’
FOUR
‘Here boy. Here boy! What the hell are you doing?’
Raymond Schofield ducked under the branches of an alder tree to see what the damn dog was up to. He was digging as if his life depended on it, and a few moments later found what he was looking for: a bone. At first glance it looked like the leg of a fox, but before he could take a closer look, Viper scampered off with his booty.
He sighed. When the dog was younger, Schofield was assiduous about not letting him eat strange things he came across in the garden. He knew enough about plants to understand that pretty plants such as foxglove, hemlock, and wolfsbane, could kill. He had instructed his team of gardeners, who maintained the seventy acres around Mayfield House in Warninglid, to pull out any poisonous plants they found, and to bury any bones and dead animals.
However, now that he had reached the ripe old age of fifty-five, and his Cocker Spaniel, seven, his concern for the dog’s wellbeing had waned with the passing of the years. It was Schofield’s birthday today, and perhaps the reason why he was feeling more reflective than usual. When he had set out in business all those years ago after leaving school, he had big dreams. He wanted, by the time he reached fifty, to be the boss of a large multinational company, have a big office overlooking the rooftops of central London, and be jetting off several times a month to far-flung destinations to review his business interests.
His younger self would be delighted to see that he had fulfilled all his ambitions, but perhaps not so thrilled to know the ink was now dry on the contract to sell the last remaining part of his former burgeoning business empire. It was Marilyn Monroe who once sang ‘After you get what you want you don’t want it.’ No truer words were spoken.
He picked up the ball launcher that Viper had been so interested in before finding his snack, and walked through the woods towards the house. With the sale of a hotel chain in Spain, the last of his brick-and-mortar businesses, he wasn’t the Chief Executive of anything anymore. Now, perhaps the big fuck-off twelve-bedroom house set in seventy acres of picturesque Sussex countryside wasn’t a statement he needed to make any longer.
If he was being honest, it wasn’t his age, or the closure of a major chapter in his life that was encouraging his reflection; it was his impending divorce. It wasn’t the fear of losing the love of his life that so vexed him, as Rebecca had been living her own independent life for many years, but handing her a substantial slice of his recently liquidated fortune.
She was demanding fifty percent of the whole caboodle, claiming that she had been integral to the success of the business. It was her idea in the first place, she maintained, to start an Italian coffee business in the UK, and then to open a chain of boutique hotels in quirky locations: beside windmills, water towers, and inside former railway stations.
In an effort to leave his old life behind and start anew, he had, by accident, done her and her rapacious lawyers a very big favour. No way could he have stumped up the one-hundred-and-seventy-five million plus she was claiming, or the lower amount being proposed by his legal team if his money was still tied up in hotels, coffee bars, marinas, and health clubs.
He had worked hard to build up that fortune, and no matter who had the idea in the first place it was his drive, ambition, and ruthlessness that made sure it became a success. No way was Rebecca going to take the lion’s share just to piss it away on an over-priced condo in Florida, and on the young guys she met on Palm Beach, entranced by her remodelled wares, courtesy of the surgeon’s knife.
He walked into the house and headed over to the worktop in the kitchen, where he poured himself a cup of coffee. He took a seat at the table overlooking the garden. The garden was still in winter mode, the trees bare, the bushes hunkered down against the cold, and the grass glistening with overnight frost. Viper was lying out there gnawing at the bone as if he hadn’t been fed for weeks, his damp brown coat looking like a pile of dead leaves the gardeners had forgotten to take away.
Suddenly, the dog looked up, his ears cocked. He leapt up and raced towards the driveway, barking. Minutes later, Schofield’s former financial director and now business partner, Clare Mitchell, walked into the room. Raymond got up and greeted her, giving her a warm hug and kissing her with unrestrained passion.
‘Happy birthday, darling.’
‘Thank you.’
A few moments later, they stepped apart. ‘What’s that you’re carrying?’
‘Something special for the birthday boy, but we’ll open it later, we’ve got work to do this morning.’
‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘What do you fancy for breakfast?’
‘Whatever you’re having.’
‘I fancy scrambled eggs with a generous chunk of salmon. Okay for you?’
‘Ideal.’
As if on cue, his housekeeper, Lyn Malone walked into the kitchen. ‘Did I hear scrambled eggs for two?’
‘You did indeed, Lyn.’
‘Coming up.’
Raymond and Clare moved to the kitchen table and took a seat. ‘Did the deal go through?’ Clare asked.
He nodded. ‘I received a confirmation email this morning.’
‘Fantastic! Congratulations, Ray. It’s a champagne breakfast we should be having.’
‘We’ll sit down to one of those just as soon as the money hits my bank account. You know what they say, It ain’t over ’till the fat lady sings.’
‘I’ll look forward to that.’
Lyn put a pot of tea on the table for Clare,
and topped up his coffee.
‘How does it feel,’ Clare asked, when Lyn had departed, ‘to no longer be the captain of your own ship?’
‘It’s taking time to sink in. I think I’ll notice it,’ he said, smiling, ‘when I have a problem with my laptop, and I shout for Alex or Mel and no one comes.’
‘They say it’s the hardest part to get used to, not having staff.’
‘It’s so easy to forget all the things people did for you, until you have to do them yourself.’
A few minutes later they were both tucking into breakfast. ‘Tucking’ was perhaps a relative term in Clare’s case, as she was slim and never ate much. That didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy food, she knew more about food preparation than most, but she didn’t eat large quantities of anything. Lyn was aware of this, and while she gave Ray a good helping with two bits of toast and plenty of salmon, Clare received about half that amount.
Clare’s thirty-ninth birthday was two weeks before his. She had been his financial director when he ran Raybeck Leisure, the holding company for all his business interests. In that time she had not only been his aide-memoire, reminding him of meetings, giving him a précis of reports he had failed to read, or offering him a quick bio of people he was about to meet, but also his lover.
To those that didn’t know and were prone to making snap judgements, they would say he had traded Rebecca for a younger model. On the face of it, they were both blonde, slim, good-looking, smarter than average, and took care of themselves. This was where the comparison ended. Clare was intellectually as sharp as a knife, and business savvy in a way that Rebecca never was. She would challenge Ray’s decisions and advise him on the best course of action, while his former wife was good at coming up with suggestions, but not at developing them or persuading him to implement.
‘This is good, Lyn,’ Schofield said to his housekeeper. ‘Don’t you think, Clare? It’s even better than what they serve at the Savoy.’
