The Cold Hand of Malice

by Frank Smith

Paget nodded slowly. ‘We did wonder about that,’ he said, ‘but decided that even they wouldn’t have the stomach to stay around for the usual meal after killing Laura Holbrook, so they got out as fast as they could. Which, as I said earlier, could also account for the lack of damage in this case. But you’re suggesting it could mean that someone may have used the same MO as a cover to murder Mrs Holbrook. Right?’

  Grace gave a non-committal shrug. ‘All I’m saying is that it is a possibility,’ she said. ‘But if that should turn out to be the case, then the question is: who knew that Mrs Holbrook would be alone in the house at that particular time? I spoke to Tregalles this afternoon, and he told me that it was only a short time before they were due to leave that Mrs Holbrook said she had a migraine, and decided to go to bed. So, no one, other than Holbrook and the Ballantynes, knew she’d be alone in the house.’ Grace gathered the folders together. ‘But you’re the detective, my love,’ she said with a grin. ‘You work it out.’

  ‘All right, let’s assume for the moment that you’re right,’ said Paget. ‘Holbrook and Ballantyne were together the whole evening, assuming their stories check out. I understand there’s a bit of a discrepancy in their statements about the times, but unless they are both lying they have alibis. If they are lying, then both would be equally involved, and I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘Unless Holbrook hired someone else to do the killing while he was well away from the house and could count on Ballantyne and others for an alibi,’ Grace suggested.

  ‘Possible,’ Paget admitted, ‘but it’s not very likely, is it? That is unless he has criminal connections we don’t know about. Besides, he’d be laying himself open to blackmail. Either way, we need a motive.’

  ‘As I said, you’re the detective, darling. I just offer suggestions based on my findings.’

  As always, Paget had toyed with other possible explanations for the killing of Laura Holbrook, if only because it had become second nature never to accept without question what appeared to be obvious at first glance. But Grace had put some meat on the bones – not a lot, but enough to give him something to think about, and past experience had taught him not to treat her ideas lightly.

  ‘There was one other person who knew she would be alone in the house,’ Grace said slowly, ‘and that was Mrs Holbrook herself. What if the migraine was simply an excuse to stay behind that night? She could have arranged for someone to come round while her husband was out of the house. She knew approximately how long he would be gone.’

  ‘Someone? Such as?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. A friend, a lover, a blackmailer? It’s just a thought, that’s all. There may be nothing to it, but it is another possibility.’ Grace leaned forward to emphasize her next words. ‘Seriously, Neil, I am troubled by the fact that so little damage was done to things in the house in this case. As I said, a lot of stuff was strewn about on the floor, but it looked to me more like someone had tried to make it look like the others, but didn’t want to spend too much time doing it. But what I find most troubling of all is the theft of the rings. I don’t think they were taken because they were valuable – the thieves or vandals or whatever you want to call them, have always been more interested in trashing the place than they are in valuables. Yes, they’ve taken cash and one or two trinkets, but they’ve ignored cameras, laptops, credit cards and other things easy to carry, preferring to smash them instead. To me, taking the rings was something personal, especially if Laura Holbrook was wearing them when she died, and I think she was. Simon Holbrook says she rarely took them off. It simply doesn’t fit with the other burglaries at all.’

  Grace was right about that, at least, but there could be another explanation for that. ‘Let’s assume,’ he said, ‘that of the two people who have been trashing houses, one is the leader or instigator. He likes to smash things, and the longer it goes on, the more he enjoys doing it. But the other one, the follower, he’s a bit more timid, so let’s put these two in the Holbrook house.

  ‘Now, let’s assume that the leader goes upstairs leaving the second man or boy, whatever, to go to work downstairs. The second man pulls out a few drawers and knocks the odd thing over, but his heart isn’t really in it; maybe he’s getting tired of the game. Meanwhile, the leader has found Mrs Holbrook in the bedroom, and decides to smash her as well. The ultimate thrill for someone who loves to smash things.

  ‘But, once it’s done, he may have thought it best to get out of there, so he comes downstairs, collects his mate, and out they go.’

  Grace nodded. ‘It’s possible,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t explain the rings, so I like my idea better.’

  ‘I’ll keep both of them in mind,’ he promised, glancing at the time, ‘but that’s enough shop talk for tonight. I think I’d like to watch a bit of television for a change. What about you?’

  Grace grinned. ‘I thought so,’ she said. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on the clock, but your secret’s safe with me. I wouldn’t want anyone to find out that you’ve learned everything you know by watching David Jason in reruns of A Touch of Frost. That would really spoil your image in the office, wouldn’t it? Just don’t get any bright ideas about talking back to Alcott the way Frost talks back to Superintendent Mullett.’

  Eight

  Saturday, March 7

  The local papers were full of it, and the rhetoric was escalating. This morning’s editorial had started off by demanding to know what the police were doing to protect the citizens of Broadminster from the ‘marauding band of thugs’ invading local homes. It said that people were afraid to leave their homes for fear of it being vandalized, and since a woman had been murdered in her own bed, anyone living alone or left alone in the house, was at risk.

  Scaremongering, plain and simple. Probably no more than two people were involved in the recent burglaries, Paget thought as he drove in to work, but now they were being portrayed as a marauding band of thugs! The pot was being stirred, and no doubt there would be a stream of angry letters to follow, to say nothing of the pressure that would be coming from New Street.

  Headlines and editorials like that sold newspapers, but there was an unsettling kernel of truth in the tirade. People were concerned, and they had every right to be, which made it all the more maddening and frustrating to think that he couldn’t do a damned thing about it until the villains made a mistake. And that could mean waiting for them to strike again.

  The incident room was quiet as might be expected on a Saturday morning, but Len Ormside was there when Paget arrived, and Tregalles came in a few minutes later. Little, if anything, it appeared, had changed since the night before.

  ‘Don’t we have anything worth following up?’ he asked Ormside after reviewing the meagre information on file. ‘Whoever these people are, they’re not invisible; someone must see them come and go.’

  The grizzled sergeant shook his head. ‘We’ve talked to everyone in Pembroke Avenue and the surrounding area,’ Ormside told him. ‘We’ve put out an appeal asking anyone who was walking or driving anywhere in the vicinity to come forward, and we’ve interviewed those who have – including the usual number of glory-seekers who were nowhere near the place. About all we have so far are sightings by people walking their dogs of other people walking their dogs; a jogger in the next street over, wearing a dark tracksuit with a hood, who could be either male or female, and a man who reported seeing a young couple with a suitcase at the top end of Pembroke Avenue about nine thirty that night. He thought it a bit odd because it wasn’t a very pleasant night, and they just seemed to be hanging about, as he put it. The only description he could give us was that the girl was wearing a white plastic mac, had long hair and was “really built”. As for the man, he thinks he was tall, so you can tell what he was looking at.

  ‘The way I see it,’ the sergeant continued, ‘until these two villains make a mistake or try to flog those rings, I think there’s a good chance they’ll get away with it, because they’ve come up with an MO that works. It’s completely dar
k in the evening by half past six or quarter to seven, so they have most of the evening to work with when they break into a house. And they know ahead of time which houses are going to be empty – I think that’s obvious by the amount of time they spend inside – they know they won’t be interrupted. I’m no psychologist, but I think this business of taking time to sit down to a meal is simply their way of telling us how clever they think they are.’

  ‘Except they got it wrong in this case, didn’t they?’ Tregalles said.

  ‘Only because of a last-minute decision by Mrs Holbrook to stay home,’ Ormside pointed out. ‘So where do they get their information from? How do they know exactly when the house will be empty, and why, after going to the trouble of breaking in and leaving unseen, aren’t they stealing more?’

  ‘I’ve been asking myself those very same questions,’ Paget told him, ‘but perhaps it doesn’t make sense because our basic assumptions are wrong. SOCO has a theory that Mrs Holbrook was killed deliberately, and the vandalism was done to make us think she was killed by the people we’ve been looking for. They say the damage in the Holbrook house looks far worse than it actually is, and that is backed up by the insurance adjuster’s estimate. In fact, since the first burglary in Dunbar Road, the damage has escalated steadily, and yet the cost of replacement or repair in the Holbrook house, excluding Dunbar Road, is the lowest of the lot.’

  Paget sat down facing the two men, and summarized the case that Grace had made the night before. ‘And the more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to think she may have a point,’ he concluded.

  ‘So that’s what she was up to, yesterday,’ Tregalles said. ‘I did wonder. But if she is right, we need a motive. Like they say in France, Chercher la beneficiary – and I’ll lay odds it’ll turn out to be Simon Holbrook.’

  ‘Which reminds me,’ Ormside said. ‘I have some background information on the Holbrooks and their company.’ He rummaged into his pending tray, and brought out a memo containing pencilled notes.

  He scanned it to refresh his memory. ‘Simon Holbrook is forty-one. His wife is – or was – thirty-eight. The company is Holbrook Micro-Engineering Laboratories, and it’s doing extremely well. They specialize in miniaturizing equipment used primarily, but not exclusively, in surgical and dental procedures, using laser technology. They also do contract work for the government. They’ve only been in business for six or seven years, but what started out more or less as a local business has expanded to the point where they are now selling overseas.

  ‘Apparently, Simon Holbrook is something of a genius. He used to work for that Swiss firm, Drexler-Davies, but decided to strike out on his own a few years ago. He was born and raised here, which is why he decided to return to Broadminster to set up his business. That and to take advantage of some tax incentives the town was prepared to offer. But, according to my source, while Holbrook could turn out the product, he had trouble with the marketing and sales side of the business, so he was really struggling to stay afloat for the first few years.

  ‘In fact, I’m told he was on the verge of bankruptcy when Laura Southern joined the firm – that was her name then – a couple of years ago. Bought into it, actually, and she’s the one who’s credited with getting it on its feet.’

  ‘Must have had money,’ Tregalles observed. ‘And a fair bit of it if she was willing to chance it on a company that’s about to go broke.’

  ‘Inherited from her late husband,’ Ormside said. ‘Millions, according to my informant at the bank. He died eight years ago. Fell and hit his head on the ice while he was skating and died right there. But she has a pretty solid business background herself, so I think she knew what she was doing. University, London School of Economics, and something like seven years working for a forensic auditing firm in London before leaving for this job. Originally hired as a consultant, she bought into the company, in effect bailing them out, because they were sinking fast before she came along. And then she topped it off by marrying the boss and becoming an equal partner.’

  ‘When did she and Holbrook get married?’

  ‘About six months ago.’

  ‘Could be a motive for murder if he gets her share of the firm and her money,’ Tregalles suggested.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Ormside agreed, ‘but he didn’t commit it if Starkie has his TOD right, and Holbrook’s story checks out.’

  Paget shook his head impatiently. ‘We’re wasting time,’ he said as he reached for his coat, motioning for Tregalles to do the same. ‘We can sit here all day and theorize, but we don’t know anywhere near enough about the people involved, so let’s go and find out what they have to say for themselves.’

  Number 15 Pembroke Avenue was a solid-looking two-storey house set back from the road as were its neighbours. Large bay windows looked out over a patchy lawn bordered by shrubs, to the bare-limbed trees lining the street.

  ‘Must be worth a bit the way prices are these days,’ Tregalles observed as he pulled into the driveway that led to a detached garage at the rear of the house. The house wasn’t nearly as big or as expensive as the houses bordering the river valley two streets away, but it was still worth at least twice the price of the sergeant’s own modest home.

  Paget led the way to the door and rang the bell.

  A slim, petite, smartly dressed woman, opened the door within seconds. It was clear she was about to go out, a point emphasized by the car keys in her hand. ‘Yes?’ she said, looking faintly puzzled.

  ‘Mrs Ballantyne?’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said cautiously. ‘And you are . . .?’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Paget, and Detective Sergeant Tregalles,’ Paget said as they held up their warrant cards for her inspection.

  Moira Ballantyne took in a deep breath and said, ‘Oh!’ She looked anxiously at her watch. ‘I’m sorry, but I was just on my way out . . .’

  ‘Actually, it’s Mr Holbrook we would like to see,’ Paget explained. ‘Is he here?’

  ‘No. He left this morning. Went back home. He just lives up the street – well, of course you know that, don’t you. He said he wanted to get things sorted out and start tidying up the house, and Susan – Susan Chase, Laura’s sister – said she would meet him there to give him a hand.’

  ‘I see,’ said Paget slowly, and was about to thank her and leave, when he paused. ‘I know you said you have to go out,’ he said apologetically, ‘but I wonder if you could spare us a few minutes before you go? There are one or two questions we need to ask you, and I’d appreciate it if we could do that now.’

  Moira Ballantyne glanced at her watch again. ‘I’d like to help,’ she said, ‘but I really can’t think of any way I can. Trevor is the one who was there the other night. I was here all evening, so I don’t know anything about it other than what he told me.’

  ‘I realize that,’ said Paget, ‘but the questions I have in mind have more to do with your own relationship with Mrs Holbrook, since I gather the two of you were close friends.’

  ‘I really should . . .’ she began hesitantly, only to be cut off gently by Paget.

  ‘And as I was about to say, Mrs Ballantyne, it would save you the inconvenience of having to come down to Charter Lane later on.’

  Moira glanced around as if seeking help, then gave a sigh of resignation. ‘I had intended to do some shopping before my appointment with my client,’ she said somewhat ungraciously, ‘but I suppose I could do it on my way home. You’d better come through.’ She stepped back to allow them to pass before closing the door.

  ‘Meeting a client on a Saturday? Do you mind if I ask what sort of business you’re in?’ Paget asked as they made their way down the hall.

  ‘Trevor and I design security systems for businesses and private homes,’ she said. ‘We have our own company, but we work closely with some of the major security companies. Trevor is the clever one; he does most of the actual programme design, while I do the on-site inspections, layout, and customer requirements, then he designs the system
based on the information I give him. And, yes, I do sometimes have meetings on a Saturday.’

  ‘Yours must be demanding and exacting work,’ Paget observed.

  ‘It is,’ Moira agreed as she ushered them through French doors into a large front room. ‘A mistake by either one of us could prove costly to us and to our client.’

  It was a comfortable-looking room, inviting, with its chintz-covered chairs and delicate lace curtains. The feminine touch was very much in evidence, thought Paget as he took a seat facing his reluctant hostess, and one that complimented the woman herself, because Moira Ballantyne was a very feminine woman.

  Feminine or not, she seemed to have regained her composure as she said briskly, ‘Now then, Chief Inspector, how can I help you?’

  ‘As I said earlier, I gather that you and Laura Holbrook were close friends,’ he began, but paused when Moira shook her head.

  ‘We were friends in the sense that we spent time together and got on well enough,’ she said carefully, ‘but I can’t say we were close. Mind you, I’ve only know her for a relatively short time. Trevor knew her long before I did. They were at school together, but Laura left Broadminster something like twenty years ago, so she was almost as much of a stranger to him as she was to me when she came back for her mother’s funeral about three years ago.’

  ‘Even so,’ Paget persisted, ‘from what your husband told us, you did see each other quite regularly, and I imagine you would have visited one another from time to time, living as close as you do?’

  But Moira was shaking her head again. ‘We play badminton together on a regular basis – or we did,’ she amended quickly – ‘and this past winter we started attending such things as plays and films together, but that was about it. Even though we’re only a few houses apart, we’ve never spent time visiting back and forth the way some people do, if you know what I mean. But why are you asking me all these questions? What has it got to do with – with what happened the other night? I don’t see the point of this at all. I mean some maniac broke into the house and killed her, and I for one would feel a lot happier, Chief Inspector, if you were out there looking for him instead of sitting here asking me a lot of questions about my relationship with Laura.’