The Worried Widow

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘Posted it last night. Duff cartridge, no doubt about it. He’ll probably want me to go and argue the case with the Huddersfield Cartridge Company.’

  ‘Let me have your time-sheet and I’ll get an account out to him. He may as well square up as we go along. His m-money’s as good as anybody else’s,’ Wallace said. ‘Even Mrs Hendrickson’s.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Keith said glumly. ‘I’d rather hoped you were going to set a fee which would put the lady off. It’s not the kind of work I like.’

  ‘I wish you’d told me so earlier,’ Wallace said. ‘I don’t know, though. This time of year, we have to take what we can get. Just for God’s sake handle it tactfully, your efforts mustn’t look like muck-raking. Have you made any progress with the suicide?’

  ‘The alleged suicide. Yes, I think I have. But it’s too early to talk about it. Wal, did we ever take in one of Sam Hendrickson’s guns for overhaul?’

  ‘Not since I’ve been with the firm,’ Wallace said.

  ‘And according to his insurance papers he only bought it five years ago. From the serial number, I’d guess that he bought it new. And if that’s so, whatever this was I don’t think it happened quite the way the sheriff said it did.’

  *

  Keith borrowed a pair of twelve-bore snap-caps out of stock, lugged the two shotguns awaiting overhaul out to lock in the car and then walked across the Square to the hotel. Deborah, sitting quietly for once, was already perched on a stool at the smaller bar beside her mother. Each had a glass of what Keith took to be sherry in front of her. There were no other customers. The hotel had been built at a time when solidity was still affordable and successive managements had ever since set their faces against the intrusion of music. There was a hush as of an empty church.

  Mrs Enterkin, the plump wife of the pre-eminent local solicitor, was behind the bar. She had been a barmaid before her remarriage and her husband was content for her to continue working. He set no great store by his dignity, while her vocation helped her to remain a fountainhead of that local gossip which can prove invaluable in a legal emergency.

  Keith caught her eye and, behind Deborah’s back, looked at the sherry-glasses. Inconspicuously, Mrs Enterkin tapped the water jug. Keith nodded. He should have guessed. He ordered a pint of Guinness.

  ‘Ralph phoned,’ Mrs Enterkin said in her gentle, West Country voice. ‘He got your message and he should be here in a few minutes.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Keith said. He settled himself on to a stool beside his daughter. ‘You’re very quiet in here for a Saturday.’

  ‘There’s one or two in the lounge, but most of them are in the public bar for the finals of the darts championship.’ She looked up from the task of nursing the last few drops into his pint. ‘They say that Mrs Hendrickson’s hired you to look into her husband’s death.’

  ‘What else are they saying?’

  Mrs Enterkin put the cool glass in front of him and collected his money. ‘They say that, what with his stroke and all the trouble that was coming to him, the poor man had reason enough to kill himself.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Keith said. ‘That’s very true. But people do manage to lead full lives after strokes. And, besides, if we all did everything we’ve got good reason to do it’d be a strangely uninhibited world.’

  Mrs Enterkin laughed, sending ripples around her plump body.

  The solicitor arrived a few minutes later, greeted his wife and the Calders and accepted a glass of malt whisky. He was a man of jovial appearance, as plump as his wife and, outside of confidential business, just as talkative. They considered the menu and placed their orders. Deborah was allowed to choose the most exotic and expensive dishes – a privilege, Keith decided, which would cease as soon as the learning process was over.

  ‘If you can get away,’ Keith said to Mrs Enterkin, ‘please join us.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Thank you all the same. But there’ll be nobody else coming in here. I can have yours served on the bar if you like.’

  ‘Splendid!’ the solicitor said. ‘Just where I’d want it. My natural habitat, as you wildlife enthusiasts put it. Now, Keith, to what do I owe the pleasure of a free lunch instead of a more valuable fee?’

  ‘Sam Hendrickson,’ Keith said.

  ‘I supposed as much.’

  ‘I want everything you can tell me about him. I have his widow’s authority,’ Keith showed Mr Enterkin the letter. ‘First, his will. I didn’t like to question her about it. She’s in an emotional state.’

  ‘Small wonder, poor thing,’ Mrs Enterkin said. ‘Not that anyone else seems sorry at his going.’

  ‘His will was deposited with me when they moved here,’ Mr Enterkin said. He looked from his wife to Molly. ‘This is not yet for general circulation, although the provisions are fairly mundane. I am, in fact, his executor. He seemed dissatisfied with his Edinburgh solicitors and he made me his executor when they moved here. The will –’

  ‘One moment,’ Keith said. ‘Before you go on, and while I think of it. When they moved here, he’d already had his stroke. How did he manage to change his will?’

  ‘Without the least difficulty. His wife relayed a message to me. I visited him. It was not easy to make out a word that he was trying to say, but he typed his instructions left-handed on that machine of his. Even then, our discourse was fraught with misunderstandings. He was not the world’s foremost southpaw typist and was inclined to rattle on without bothering to correct any typographical errors. At first I thought that he was trying to consult me about his willy, which was a little outside my field.’ Mr Enterkin glanced apologetically towards Deborah, but that young lady only looked mildly amused. He coughed and went on. ‘When he got his message across, I prepared fresh documents which he signed, left-handed, but in front of two witnesses. Perfectly legal, I assure you.’

  ‘And the provisions?’ Keith asked.

  ‘Much as you would expect, except that he was including his insurance policies in the total. He left large, fixed sums to the children, but in trust until each reaches the ripe age of twenty-one. Fortunately for his widow, he was old-fashioned enough to believe – rightly, in my view – that the young cannot be trusted to deal wisely with money until that age, if then. When those dates arrive, the widow, who has to make do with the balance, may find herself in somewhat straightened circumstances unless the insurances are paid off after all or unless her offspring, in the light of the unexpected shortfall, each makes her an allowance. I have advised her to contest the will on the grounds that her husband neither expected nor intended to leave her in straightened circumstances, but she feels that his wishes were sacrosanct. And she has a touching faith in the generosity of her offspring which I hope may not prove as ill-founded as I fear it might. Her only other hope is that you will prove that he did not, after all, make away with himself.’

  A waitress brought three soups and a smoked salmon. Mrs Enterkin, who was also in charge of the tiny bar in the residents’ lounge, was summoned away through the back-bar door.

  Keith waited patiently until the waitress was gone.

  ‘What can you tell me about the scandal that was brewing up in the union?’

  Mr Enterkin looked surprised. ‘Very little more than what’s been in the papers, plus a modicum of scuttlebutt which has been going around in legal circles. You must know almost as much as I do.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Keith said.

  ‘Dad gets through the morning papers in about ten seconds,’ Deborah explained.

  ‘In that case, I shall expound,’ Mr Enterkin said. ‘It had been an open secret for some time that all was not well within the union. The newspapers had to be careful as to the allegations which they reiterated, but the general picture was becoming clear.

  ‘Many of the shorter-sighted members would have supported Sam Hendrickson all the way, even had he sprouted horns and a forked tail, because their standard of living had shot up, aided by his personal brand of fertiliser and because he had an unde
niable charisma in public speaking, especially for those whose upbringing inclined them towards his left-wing views. A policy of screwing the bosses always goes down well with those who have been brought up to see that as the order of natural justice. What they were unable to see was that he was enforcing his demands far beyond the point at which the survival of their jobs became endangered, and whenever a firm went to the wall they preferred to categorise it as an act of spite on the part of the management.

  ‘But there was a sizeable lobby which wanted him out, totally and soon. His misbehaviour was only too obvious and was bringing not only his own union but the whole union movement into disrepute.

  ‘On the other hand, his grip of the union’s activities, aided by a hard core of personal supporters who had every financial incentive for his continuance in power, made it very difficult for the disaffected to do anything about it. Indeed, anyone whose voice was raised too loudly in opposition was liable to find himself expelled from the union, for reasons which appeared sound enough, and thereby bereft of his right to a voice.

  ‘Recently, however, there was an outcry about intimidation and ballot-rigging, and demands for an independent enquiry.’

  Keith had hitherto been spared involvement with trades unions, and he was floundering in the solicitor’s wake. ‘But an enquiry into specifically what?’ he asked. ‘Misappropriation of funds?’

  ‘As to misappropriation,’ Mr Enterkin said, ‘who could tell? Such matters, if cleverly contrived, are not easily dragged into the light of day, and unions are notoriously coy about washing their dirtier underlinen in public view. What was very evident was that he was feathering his own nest from somewhere, and the incidence of strikes just where the biggest money would want them suggested very strongly that Mr Hendrickson’s services were up for sale.’

  ‘You mean,’ Keith said, ‘that one firm could pay him to scupper a rival by fermenting a strike?’

  ‘Unless the rival cared to top the offer. Don’t forget that the operations of a firm can be brought to a halt by a union quite unconnected with its immediate affairs. It needs only the cutting-off of supplies, transport, mains services, fuel, maintenance or any one of a dozen other essentials. But,’ said Mr Enterkin, ‘such surreptitious dealings can be more subtle than that. The biggest and most recent scandal arose out of the high probability that he had accepted money from a company to foster the strike which brought that selfsame company to a standstill.’

  Keith was a good enough businessman at his own level, but his experience was limited to the management of a firm which had never had more than four persons engaged directly in its affairs. ‘You’ll have to explain,’ he said.

  Mrs Enterkin had returned. Her husband gestured to her. ‘Before expatiating any further,’ he said, ‘I require another drink. How about yourselves?’

  ‘I’m meeting the police this afternoon,’ Keith said. ‘I’d better not.’

  ‘I, on the other hand, can expect to spend the afternoon listening patiently while an indignant client tells me how he has been wronged and begs me to pursue the matter as far as the highest court in the land. Being more scrupulous than some of my brethren, I shall then tell him, in about three words, that he would be throwing good money after bad, or, as the French say, beating the water with a stick. I shall endure more easily and sleep more soundly through it all with another drink inside me. And you, young lady?’

  ‘Could I have a glass of white wine?’ Deborah asked.

  Keith and Mrs Enterkin exchanged a wink. The wine would be watered.

  ‘Three steaks and a cassoulet,’ said the waitress, arriving with a tray.

  Keith waited again until the door closed. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘The most open of the open secrets to which I referred,’ said Mr Enterkin, ‘was that, when Netherclyde Shipbuilders found themselves without contracts, they embarked on the building of two trawlers on spec. Just as the money was running out, a most convenient strike bridged the gap until the recent announcement of an order for three bulk carriers. But for that, they would have been liable for redundancy payments on a scale which would have put them into bankruptcy. Idleness due to industrial action, on the other hand, does not constitute redundancy.’

  ‘And Sam Hendrickson was suspected of having arranged the strike for a fee?’

  ‘More than suspected. Some previous employees of the shipyard were prepared to swear to it.’

  ‘That’s the lousiest trick I’ve ever heard of,’ Molly said indignantly.

  ‘Then you’ve led a very sheltered life,’ said the solicitor. ‘But for the strong evidence of a substantial bribe, he might well have been able to defuse the situation, morally if not legally, by pointing out that a major employer had in fact survived instead of going under. This was not the first such crisis to befall him, but in the past he had always managed to slide or coerce his way around them. This time his stroke, whether or not it was provoked by the stress induced by the crisis, left his flank exposed.

  ‘When Mrs Hendrickson telephoned me to seek my help because hostile lawyers had come for her husband’s papers, I was in two minds. But I decided that, whatever his sins, Mr Hendrickson was entitled to his rights under the law. However, I had to advise the lady that they had obtained a perfectly proper commission and diligence; and the police who, coincidentally or not, probably not, arrived separately but simultaneously, were similarly endowed. There was nothing I could do to stop them.’

  ‘They were ganging up against him?’

  ‘So one would suppose.’

  During the lawyer’s rolling periods, Keith had been thinking. ‘There had been a break-in at the summerhouse shortly before that,’ he said. ‘Some papers had been taken.’

  ‘That, no doubt, would have been at the instigation of his own cronies,’ Mr Enterkin said. ‘It explains why the arrival of the police and of the lawyers representing the hostile elements in the union caused less of a fluttering in the dovecot than I would have expected. Presumably anything exceptionally compromising had already been removed. But even that sensible if illegal move would not have helped if witnesses to the corruption were already coming forward.’

  ‘He was in deep trouble, then?’

  ‘None deeper. Although, of course, the state of his health might have averted actual prosecution. Or the consequences, in the event of his prosecution and conviction.’ Mr Enterkin, having had his say, tackled his meal. ‘This steak’s cold,’ he said.

  ‘You couldn’t expect it to keep hot while you talked your head off,’ his wife said. ‘Now, what you were saying about Mr Hendrickson. Some of his members live around here and I’ve heard them talk in the bars. He did no good to this part of the country. They blamed him for the collapse of Border Weavers and for long strikes at Lowland Fabricators and at the print-works, neither of which gained the workers as much as it cost them. They hadn’t a good word to say for him.’

  Mr Enterkin, having made some impression on his steak, was prepared to talk some more. ‘Be that as it may,’ he said, ‘I really couldn’t visualise Sam Hendrickson committing suicide. I never knew him before his stroke and God alone knows what effect that might have had on his mind, but he had risen high in the trades union movement. You don’t do that unless you have the same sort of moral stamina that distinguishes politicians – the ability to take all that the world can throw at you and to let it roll off your back. Some, like yourself, Keith, have it. Others don’t.’

  Mrs Enterkin served them with coffee. They fell silent. A cheer was heard faintly coming from the public bar.

  ‘The widow,’ Keith said, ‘speaks about him as if he was a particularly caring sort of saint. Yet, from what I’ve heard, he was an abrasive character who rode roughshod over everybody.’

  ‘Sarcastic,’ Mrs Enterkin confirmed. ‘That’s what they were saying after the news of his death, those who’d known him. From what they said, he had a tongue that could skin a fox.’

  ‘Even the most abrasive personality,’ said Mr Enterk
in, ‘unless he’s a total misanthrope, needs a haven where he can convince himself that he is both loving and loved. Many outright villains are downright sentimental. IRA gunmen have been known to sing songs of motherhood and to shed real tears in the process. In Hendrickson’s case, his haven may have been his family. Or possibly just his wife.’

  ‘Now there’s a thought,’ Keith said. ‘I wonder how his kids felt about him. It’s not always so easy to be polite and caring towards your own children. Sometimes I wonder how I manage it.’

  ‘Do I only get coffee?’ Deborah asked. ‘I was wanting to try the profiteroles.’

  Keith looked at her appraisingly. ‘If you go on eating like this,’ he said, ‘you’ll be as fat as a pig before you’re twenty and we’ll never get you married off.’

  *

  As Molly pointed out, threats or no threats she had to do the shopping. Keith, after assuring himself that she still had the little Derringer in her handbag and did not intend to stray from the more populous part of the town, let her go off with the car while he and Deborah visited Superintendent Munro.

  Behind the frontage of the Square reared the only tall, modern building in Newton Lauder, the extension to the police headquarters building. Superintendent Munro’s office, however, was in the old part of the building which fronted directly on to the Square. Here he was close to the daily comings and goings and to the area where the general public, it was to be hoped, came to help the police with their enquiries or to solicit their help.

  Munro’s office, which Keith remembered as having resembled a classroom in a Victorian orphanage, had been revamped. The tall, narrow windows had made it impossible for the architect to improve the proportions of the room, but it had otherwise been transformed and could now have been mistaken for the waiting-room attached to a television studio. The tall and loose-jointed superintendent with his long and knobbled face could well have been a character actor waiting to audition. He had managed to imprint his own ego, while destroying the decor, by hanging many personal photographs around the walls – some of them groups of unidentifiable people from Munro’s past, but many being equally grim landscape shots of his native Isle of Lewis which not even the sympathetic photographer had been able to soften.