The Secret Dawn

by Solomon Carter

  Then he re-read the cryptic text message from Simmons:

  Saw Mr Tall with disreputable type near Civic Centre. Need to discuss.

  It read like one of those crossword clues he’d never had the patience for. Mr Tall? That was the Long Man, DCI Melford, no doubt about it. Simmons was using his police mobile and was playing it cautious. With Mr Tall sussed, the message was clear enough. Melford had been caught out again – and this time by Simmons. It seemed uncovering Melford’s personal problems had become more than a one-player game. But with a player like DC Simmons on board, something was bound to go wrong. Hogarth shook his head, gripped the wheel hard and roared away into the darkening evening. By way of catharsis, he drove as fast and wild as Grant Dawn ever had. And it didn’t help one bit.

  Seventeen

  An evening without booze should have seen Hogarth bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning, but it was not to be. It was seven fifty-five when Hogarth arrived on Sabine Dawn’s doorstep, tired from a night of bad dreams; some sordid, some stressful. His eyes felt small and weary and his body craved rest. But Hogarth knew his time was almost up. The forensics on the Capri would be due in anytime, and there would soon be some news on Reville too. If the collision forensics came down in favour of sabotage, the case would escalate, and there was every chance their prior involvement would be exposed. It was almost certain. Hogarth had a matter of hours to fix it all.

  Every moment counted and Mrs Dawn was making him wait. He prodded at the doorbell again, and waited with gritted teeth, hoping Sabine would snap out of her hangover and answer the damn door. Gurney’s latest photographs were in his hand. As he held his finger down on the doorbell, Hogarth heard something in the background. He released the bell button and the grandiose door chime faded to reveal other background sounds. A noise of bickering came from above. Hogarth looked at the upper windows and listened closely as the sound of an argument rose like and fell in frantic waves. He pressed his ear to the wood and listened, trying to tune in to the voices. He made out the estuary-tones of Sabine Dawn, and then he heard another voice a familiar female but it was hard to distinguish. He hit the doorbell again and finally heard a set of feet thud down the wooden stairs, with another following close behind. There she was. Sabine Dawn, face made up, hair neat. Her eyes rolled as soon as she saw him. This morning her face looked just as moody as Grant Dawn had described. The other woman’s voice followed Sabine Dawn as she opened the front door. Hogarth was about to ask her what was going on, but it soon became plain. Emily Flount dropped off the last step to appear in the hallway. She’d barked and whined the whole way down the stairs, but as soon as she saw him, she fell silent. She looked at him differently this morning. She was less friendly, but there was still a sparkle in her eye. Flount blinked, folded her bare arms and turned away, striding into one of the doorways leading off from the hall. Hogarth had to give it to her, the woman had character all right.

  Sabine Dawn opened the front door a little. He smelt last night’s booze on her minty-fresh breath. But toothpaste and mouthwash could only do so much. She kept the door ajar, but certainly not wide enough to let him in.

  “Inspector?” she said. “Has there been any news?”

  Hogarth lifted Gurney’s manila files.

  “Of a kind, yes – and I wanted to discuss it with you. In private. What’s going on in there? Is everything alright?”

  Hogarth cast an eye down the hall. A new loud banging followed by a string of expletives came from one of the back rooms.

  Sabine looked back across her shoulder. “Keep it down, Emily! We’ll sort it out in a minute. I’ve got a visitor.”

  “You mean that policeman? I wouldn’t bother getting too excited about him, Sabine. The police have been totally useless so far.”

  Yes, he was out of favour, alright. Hogarth had no useful purpose any more. Which, as Hogarth saw it, made things far easier. A source of devilish temptation had just left the field of play.

  “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion,” called Hogarth. “Do you need help, Mrs Dawn?”

  He watched the woman search for a guarded reply. It took her a moment to find the right words.

  “Oh. That’s only Grant’s cousin, Emily. She means well – most of the time, but not today. Today I just wish she’d leave me alone.” Sabine raised her voice so cousin Emily would hear her final words.

  “I’ll go when I’m done and not before!” called Flount. “Invite him in. Maybe your policeman could lend me a hand.”

  “What’s she on about?” said Hogarth, playing down his suspicions.

  “She’s looking for something… and I’d quite like to be there if she finds it. So, it might be best if you came back in a couple of hours.”

  “Sorry, no can do. This is an important matter, Mrs Dawn,” said Hogarth. He gestured to the file in his hand.

  “Let him in,” called Flount. “He doesn’t bother me.”

  “I wasn’t worried about you,” Sabine retorted.

  “Mrs Dawn,” said Hogarth, losing patience. The woman sighed and relented. She let go of the door and let it creak open.

  “Fine. Come in. But I’m really under enough pressure at the moment as it is, so please keep it brief.”

  “Let’s see, shall we,” said Hogarth.

  He walked into the house and closed the door behind him. He heard the chaotic sound of moving furniture, squealing loudly as it was shunted across floors, and saw some cushions land in the doorway of the noisy room.

  “Stop it, Emily!” called Sabine, stopping at the door in question. “At least stop until I’m done with the policeman. Please.”

  “I’m not stopping anything. With Grant gone and now Brett, someone’s got to deal with this business. It’s Monday morning. Your clients will be waiting. Contracts could be lost.”

  “Then why are you ransacking my house,” replied Sabine. “With Grant gone the business is shot anyway.”

  “Don’t be so defeatist,” said Flount. “Is that what Grant would want to hear?”

  Hogarth drew up at Sabine’s back and peered into the room where Emily was creating chaos. He looked at Emily Flount; her intensity, her flushed face, and gave her the full beam of his cynical eye. Flount gazed back at him, the merest tinge of embarrassment in her eyes. The drawers of the coffee table had been left wide open, papers, magazines, old newspapers and letters had been unceremoniously dumped across the table top and floor. The fancy cushions and leather sofa seat pads had been removed and dumped at all angles. And now Flount held the back of the flat screen TV, as if she was going to pull it over along with the rest. Hogarth gave her a look of warning, but Flount raised her eyebrows at him dismissively. Sabine tutted and moved down the hall.

  “You won’t find anything,” said Sabine. “Grant always kept business separate from home. And you’d better tidy up before you leave here.” Her voice echoed angrily down the hall before she walked into the kitchen at the end of the corridor.

  “This would have been far easier with two,” muttered Flount, eyeing Hogarth with a faint flicker of a smile.

  “I know what you’re up to, even if she doesn’t. What the hell do you think you’re playing at? She’s grieving.”

  “I’m looking after Grant’s interests,” she said, her eyes glinting.

  “You think I’ve got a memory like a goldfish? I know exactly whose interests you’re looking after.”

  “You can’t stop me. I’m here by rights. I’m family.”

  “The jury’s out on you, Miss Flount,” said Hogarth.

  “Last chance, Inspector. After this, the only place you’ll see me is on my Instagram feed.”

  Hogarth’s brow dropped over his eyes. He cast her a withering frown.

  “Inspector?” Sabine called from the kitchen door. “Just ignore her. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

  “I’ll do my best,” said Hogarth.

  Flount tutted as he left her to press on with her search.

  He followed Sabine
Dawn into a luxurious kitchen of white tiles and black marble worktops. The woman had moved two chrome stools from the breakfast bar. She perched on one and offered Hogarth the other. He dumped his heavy frame on it and almost slipped off. When he righted himself, he noticed two ripped-open boxes full of empty wine bottles. Even so, Sabine Dawn seemed an alcoholic of the functioning kind. But Hogarth had known a few coppers like that in his time and had learned that functioning was just a phase, as was the falling apart which soon followed. The noise of Flount’s search was so loud and persistent that Sabine Dawn stood up and closed the kitchen door.

  “What is she looking for, Mrs Dawn?”

  “Something she won’t find.”

  Hogarth’s eyes glinted. The woman knew more than she’d let on.

  Sabine tilted her head left and right. “The money Grant withdrew from the business. Emily says she needs it to help keep the business going, but she’s far too keen for my liking.”

  “And I thought she wasn’t even part of the business. She’s freelance, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. But Emily seems to think that I’m so overwrought with grief… or so drunk, that I can’t see the wood for the trees. I’m beginning to think everyone Grant was involved with was an opportunist, even his own cousin.”

  “Can’t you tell her to go? I could tell her for you, if you like.”

  Sabine shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. She won’t find it.”

  “Because you know where it is?”

  “No. Because I don’t know where it is. The only person who knew was Grant. And now he’s gone we’ll probably never find it.”

  “Funny. You don’t seem bothered, Mrs Dawn.”

  The woman threw her hands up in the air. Her eyes misted with tears, but she swallowed and kept her voice in check. “My husband’s dead. Brett Reville’s dead. I don’t know what the hell is going on. Why would I care about anything anymore?”

  Hogarth nodded in sympathetic silence. The woman regained control with a sniff and slowly met his eyes.

  “Sorry.”

  “You’ve nothing to be sorry for, madam. But I don’t like to see that woman causing you added problems.”

  “It’ll pass. Emily’s like a little fire. She’ll soon blow herself out. So long as she tidies up, I couldn’t care less how long she looks. Provided she keeps it down. Okay. You said you had some news for me?” she said.

  Hogarth wrinkled his nose and stopped to consider his words. In the end, no words seemed apt. The woman’s grief quelled his eagerness to confront her. Her tears seemed genuine, but he’d been duped before. Maybe her reaction to the photographs would give him a better guide to the truth. Hogarth opened the folder and picked out the two most damning photographs. He slid them onto the marble top. He pointed at the first with a nail-bitten finger.

  “This one here was taken late on Saturday afternoon,” he said, tapping the image of Sabine Dawn behind the stencilled lobby door, her wrist caught in Brett Reville’s grasp. Hogarth pointed at the next image along. “This one was taken yesterday afternoon. And it’s this one I’m most concerned about.” He looked into the woman’s teary eyes.

  Sabine Dawn bit her lip and shook her head. “Who took these?” she said. “Have you been following me?”

  “No, Mrs Dawn. Not me, not the police. These came from an anonymous source.”

  The woman screwed up her face. She looked angry, indignant, and upset. “But who would do that? Aren’t I suffering enough already?”

  “All the same, I think these photographs show you have some questions to answer, don’t you?”

  Sabine’s eyebrows raised in an arc above her eyes. She took on an earnest, fearful look.

  “What does it look like to you, Inspector?”

  “That you had a personal, private relationship with Brett Reville. Something you haven’t disclosed to us before.”

  The woman shook her head. “A relationship. That’s not how it was at all.”

  “Then what was it?” said Hogarth. “You know Brett Reville is dead, so you know why I’m asking you these questions?”

  Sabine Dawn chewed her bottom lip. She said nothing but neither did she shake her head.

  “You were very likely the last person to see Brett Reville alive,” he said. “Not long after you were photographed here” he tapped the second image, “Brett Reville was found dead in his car, in Clarence Road car park.”

  He let the meaning of his words sink in.

  Sabine Dawn nodded once. “I know what it looks like,” she said.

  “Tell me. What does it look like?” said Hogarth quickly.

  “As if—as if— we were having an affair…”

  “And that’s not all it looks like, Mrs Dawn. You said there was no relationship, no affair. Do I take it you’re sticking with that? This is a very important business, Mrs Dawn. Awkward and unpleasant as this is, I must know the truth.”

  Sabine shook her head and the first tear fell. It dropped and landed onto the corner of Gurney’s photograph.

  “There was no affair. Brett Reville wasn’t my type, not in the least. I found the man repugnant.”

  “Repugnant? Then why are you pictured here alone with him twice in the last two days. What’s going on in these photographs? And why, after drinking all day on Saturday did you drive four miles to see him?”

  “I had no choice,” said the woman. “Brett called to arrange the meet-up. He said he wanted to talk to me about some problems with the business. Imminent payments due to go out, stuff he said Grant had been neglecting. He said the business was about to fail even though we had all this big money owing to us. He said he needed a stop gap payment to tide things over until the big money came in. He made it clear that the business was about to go under.”

  “But I’d already seen him here on Saturday morning. He came in with Yvette George, chocolates and flowers. Didn’t he mention it then?”

  “Oh, yes. But that was the first wave of the attack, Inspector. As you may know, I sent them packing. Yvette is easily led, but Brett should have known better. And I wasn’t going to be controlled just because of the shock of losing Grant like that.”

  “Controlled?”

  “Yes. I saw it for what it was. Reville got together with Yvette. Why? Because she runs the admin, which is one half of the business. Then Grant disappeared, and the very next morning they came to ask me for day-to-day control. But they already had that because Grant was so hands off. What they really wanted was to own the business. That was their first step. Brett kept saying he could turn the ship around. He was always a big ego type. But it wasn’t only that. I guessed he knew those cash flow issues wouldn’t be a problem forever. Brett had his eyes on the prize. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  Hogarth nodded.

  “So you think he had a plan?”

  “Of course he did. And when phase one – flowers, chocolates, and all that didn’t work—he went to phase two.”

  “Which was?”

  “The first call. He demanded I come and see the mess Grant had made of the business, so I would release some money. He appealed to me to try to save it for Grant’s legacy, for my future, for the employees, for the clients, all that jazz. It was a well-rehearsed pitch, Inspector. But he overdid it. While he was trying to butter me up, he put a foot wrong. He was careful about it – sleazy as hell, but careful too. He implied that we could be partners – and he meant in more ways than one. That hand grasp in the photograph was the first hint of what was to come. When he started running through the business problems upstairs, I knew he was after the one fifty k to prop up the business. But the way he tried to get my buy-in, was sickening. He made a play for me. He said he could wait a while, until I was better, until I’d grieved, and then he would be there for me. He said that we could save the business and build a new life together. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was in shock, flabbergasted. But he must have thought I was thinking it over. He went to take a leak. While he was out, I did something I never did.
I went onto one of the PCs and copied the full business accounts to my home email address. I wanted to see what he was seeing, the good and the bad. I’ve not been in business a long while now, but I can still read a set of numbers.”

  “What happened after that?” said Hogarth.

  “He came back and I smiled at him and told him it was all very interesting, but I’d need to think about it. He seemed to think that was a good sign. Then I got out of there as quick as I could and went home. You’re not going to do me for drink driving, are you? The man gave me no choice.”

  “It was a bad decision, Mrs Dawn. But that’s not my focus here. You went home. Did he call you? Did he harass you? Did he visit you again, unannounced?”

  “I came home and I took a shower. I felt disgusted. He was awful. He made a play for me with my husband’s body still lost in that river. Brett made me feel physically sick at the best of times, but after that…?! I showered and had a coffee… then I opened up those accounts’ files. I wanted to read them with a clear head.”

  Hogarth nodded. “And?”

  “And I saw what Grant should have seen all along. Brett and Yvette had been right about one thing. Grant had been too hands-off in the business. He’d let it become his hobbyhorse, had let Brett tell him what was happening rather than look for himself.”

  “Why? What did you find?”

  “Two sets of accounts. There was one set, all nice and neat, which showed the business just about ticking by. There was credit here, debt there, and it all amounted to a black hole to the tune of about ten grand. Not dire, but enough to wipe out a business if that debt stays unpaid too long. Then there were all these unpaid jobs. Jobs we’d done, that the big clients hadn’t paid us. The same old story, but the money was always going to come. But then I saw another blank tab right at the back of the last five years accounts. It wasn’t dated or named like all the others. Just an innocuous blank spreadsheet tab. I opened it and scrolled down miles of empty squares until I came to a list of so-called expenses. Six hundred and fifty here. Seventeen hundred there. One payment for two thousand and thirty pounds taken as recently as last month. I totalled it all up, and found the business was down by corresponding amounts shown on the real accounts. But those same sums were buried under a whole variety of costings. Credit charges. Client costs. Advertising. Corporate entertaining. Consultancy. You name it, it was there, and every one of those costs had been overblown and there was never a reason for it. But that hidden spreadsheet had the same amounts listed as personal expense withdrawals.