Heirs and Assigns

by Marjorie Eccles

  ‘What sort of man was he? Unbiased opinion?’

  He thought about it for a moment, tapping the stem of his now empty pipe against his teeth. ‘They say he’d been a bit wild when he was a lad, but that’s not so unusual, is it? He was generally a good sort, good company, generous, very hospitable – and good-hearted, too. He sat with one of my patients, old Mrs Brewster, many a time so that her daughter, Carey, could have a break, and there’s not many would have done that, believe me. Off the record, Muriel Brewster could be a malicious old trout when she wanted to be, I’m afraid.’ His eyes had softened at the mention of Carey’s name. ‘But Pen? Well, for all that, he was a human being like the rest of us, he had his faults. And his share of the Llewellyn temper. He was inclined to manipulate people, too. By that I mean if things – and people – were not going the way he thought they should, he arranged it so that they were.’

  ‘People including his family?’

  ‘Too true, I’m afraid. As far as I’m aware, he never directly referred to what they stood to gain on his death, but they must have known. Hence their deference to him. That isn’t to say they kowtowed exactly, but they usually managed to find it convenient to fall in with his wishes.’ He stopped abruptly. ‘I’ve said too much.’

  ‘Do you believe any of them capable of killing him, Dr Fairlie?’

  He suddenly stood up and walked to the window. The room seemed all at once smaller. Yet for such a big man he moved easily, quietly even, as he marshalled his thoughts. He would be a good man to have about the place in a time of illness – a quietly dependable, reassuring presence. Practical, unimaginative maybe, but the sort who got on with a sometimes difficult job without fuss. He sighed as he resumed his chair. ‘We both know, in our professions, don’t we, that you can never know what anyone is capable of, until it comes to the sticking point? Yes, of course, I’ve come across cases like this before. You, too, I dare say. We know what can happen when a wife or a husband just can’t take it any more – a moment when someone decides to put an end to the suffering caused by an agonizing, terminal illness. A baby born not as it should be, an old person who’s lived too long and is in the way. Thankfully it’s rare enough.’

  How often had he turned a blind eye in those cases? Was he saying he’d done so this time? Professing to have seen nothing that would prevent him signing the death certificate with a clear conscience? But he’d known that Penrose Llewellyn hadn’t been a burden – to himself or anyone.

  ‘Are they what you’d call a close family?’ Reardon’s opinions about that were his own, and best kept to himself, considering what they were, but he wanted to hear what Fairlie would have to say about the Llewellyns.

  Again the doctor took his time in answering. ‘They were most of them grown up before I got around to noticing such things, but from what I gathered from my father, Pen and Theo used to be very close.’

  ‘Used to be?’

  ‘It’s all water under the bridge now, of course, but … I believe Cora, Pen’s wife, was originally engaged to Theo. She chose to marry Pen, however, instead. I suppose he was always a charismatic character and Theo … well, you’ve seen Theo. Cora was probably swept off her feet.’

  ‘It didn’t cause a rift?’

  ‘Not permanently. In fact, it was Pen who baled Theo out later when he got himself into a spot of trouble.’

  ‘That usually means money trouble.’

  ‘So it was, I believe. Expensive wife. Living beyond their means. The usual story. Thought he was marrying into money when he married Claudia, baronet’s daughter and so on. It turned out when the baronet died he’d been in a worse case than Theo was. When Theo needed help, Pen seems to have been generous enough to forget their estrangement. Blood’s thicker than water, after all.’

  ‘And nothing so hard to swallow as gratitude?’

  ‘Maybe. But don’t forget, I only heard about all that second-hand, years later, from my father, who might, if we’re being honest, have harboured certain prejudices against the family.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  Fairlie laughed shortly. ‘He once had hopes himself of marrying Penrose’s sister, Ida. He was a widower and more than twenty years older, so it wasn’t reciprocated, more’s the pity for her, because the one she eventually chose turned out to be an absolute rotter. She apparently had quite a following in her day, could have had her pick …’ Catching Reardon’s glance, he smiled slightly and added, ‘She wasn’t always like she is now. I don’t think she was ever a beauty but that isn’t always what counts, is it? And they’ve had a pretty rough time, she and Verity.’

  ‘We haven’t spoken to Verity yet. She doesn’t appear to have recovered from being taken ill at that supper party.’

  ‘Still? That’s odd. When she ran out of the room she looked as though she was going to be sick, white as a sheet, which I put down to one glass too many.’ He frowned. ‘She should have recovered from a hangover by now.’

  ‘I dare say she just doesn’t want to talk to us. We have that effect on people,’ Reardon said drily. ‘We’ll see her sooner or later. So, they seem to have been a quarrelsome lot at one time, the Llewellyns … what can you tell me about that row between Theo and the younger brother, Huwie?’

  ‘The prodigal son? Yes, there was some sort of bother, I believe, while I was away at medical school. Can’t help you there.’ He shrugged. ‘Huwie appears to have knocked them all sideways with his sudden reappearance. Especially since he hasn’t evidenced anything in the way of money, a settled life, or family of his own.’

  ‘He told us he was unmarried.’

  The doctor lifted an eyebrow. ‘So he says. I always had the impression he was … not the marrying kind.’

  Reardon tried to recall whether this had occurred to him but all Huwie had left behind had been an impression of general unsavouriness.

  As police, they weren’t allowed to own up to that thing known as intuition, even when it was called sixth sense. But they could have gut feelings, that told them when something didn’t smell right and Reardon was getting it right now. Something that he’d failed to grasp, and now was gone. Some dark thought that wasn’t going to rest until it was caught and pinned down. Unable to say what he really felt, he stood up. His time with the busy doctor had run out. Fairlie’s level-headed opinions on the other party guests might be useful to have, but that would have to wait.

  ‘I’ve taken up enough of your time, doctor, but there’s just one more thing before I go. You would be the last of the guests to leave that night?’

  ‘Yes, they’d all – apart from the family, of course – set off for home by the time I came downstairs, but I wasn’t long in following and in actual fact caught them up. Mrs Knightly couldn’t wait to lock up after me. Dead on her feet, I suppose, poor old duck.’

  ‘Thank you for being so frank with me.’ Reardon stood up and they shook hands before he left.

  TWELVE

  The look on the gaffer’s face as he’d gazed after that disappearing motorbike didn’t bode well, and as Gilmour made his way down to Bryn Glas after speaking briefly with Jack Douglas, he was still thinking about it, knowing Reardon’s wife was on the receiving end. He thought a lot of Ellen Reardon. He thought even more of Reardon, though, enough to fight with him on the barricades: it had been Gilmour’s ambition to be made up to detective ever since he entered the Force, and it was Reardon who’d had faith in him, made that possible and been his mentor ever since. He was a decent bloke, if he had a fault it was that he kept his cards too close to his chest. He wasn’t always easy to read and … there was no denying he could be, well, intimidating, on rare occasions. Not furiously angry, but a bit deadly all the same. Never to his wife, though, Gilmour was sure. He would have said they were the best-adjusted couple he knew. All the same … his motorbike! It was a brave woman who’d dare to do what she’d done.

  Putting these thoughts aside as he reached the house, he went along to the office that was now their base, bracing himself to
search the contents of that enormous double-sided desk. It wasn’t a task he was looking forward to, but when he enquired for the keys, he discovered they couldn’t be located. Nor could any of Pen’s other keys be found, for that matter. It didn’t seem to have occurred to anyone before that they were missing. Mrs Knightly, when consulted, was very much concerned that when she and Anna Douglas had undertaken the miserable task of sorting out his clothes, the key ring may have been left in a suit pocket. If so, they’d been dispatched to the church jumble sale, along with all the rest of his belongings. She was mortified. She could have sworn they had gone through the pockets very carefully before parcelling everything up and, intent on proving to herself that she hadn’t made a mistake, she announced she’d be off directly to see the churchwarden’s wife, who stored jumble donations until the next sale, which fortunately wasn’t due for several weeks.

  ‘Isn’t there a spare key?’ Gilmour asked, but no, it seemed not. Or if there was, no one knew where it was kept. He eyed the desk speculatively. He’d already tried several of the keys on the extensive bunch he routinely carried, but had found none that fitted. He had his pocket knife and wasn’t above picking a lock, but he decided that in this case the action wouldn’t be well received.

  ‘Miss Bannerman will probably know,’ Theo, who had appeared during the search, announced belatedly.

  ‘Miss Bannerman, who’s she?’

  ‘She was Pen’s secretary. There hasn’t been any need for her to come in, of course, not since he died, but she’s probably still in Hinton.’

  ‘Does she have a telephone?’ he asked, before remembering the dearth of them in Hinton.

  Mrs Knightly looked slightly scandalized. ‘She does not.’

  ‘Right. Give me her address, then, and I’ll go and see her.’ There was nothing else he could do until those drawers were open.

  ‘Prue will go,’ Mrs Knightly stated. ‘She knows her way and she’ll be there and back in a jiffy.’

  ‘No need to take her from her duties,’ Theo offered surprisingly. ‘I’ll take a walk up there myself.’ He didn’t at all look the sort to take walks, but his saturnine face gave no indication that it would be a penance on such a lousy morning. Perhaps he was glad of any pretext to get out of Bryn Glas for a while.

  The rain, however, had now eased off and Gilmour, left cooling his heels, decided he needed a smoke and maybe a look-see around the outside of the property, for which so far there’d been no opportunity.

  Bryn Glas sat on a wide natural plateau, a parcel of land scooped out of the side of the hill, at a point high above the river. Behind the hill the land rose even higher to the moors, the great windy spaces of heathland, where the undulating countryside became wilder, rockier and even dangerous at times, littered with disused quarry workings, they’d been told by those old codgers in the Fox last night. A great outcrop to the east was a place of cliffs, caves and precipitous drops down to the river. Reardon had pricked his ears up when told the area was great for walking, if you were careful, and Gilmour himself might have found some appeal in that, yesterday, with the sun out, giving a warm glow to the dying heather and bracken in the distance. Today, the aspect against the cold, colourless sky was bleak. He finished his cigarette and turned his back on it. It made you almost homesick for Dudley.

  Not wanting to think too much about home and start himself worrying about Maisie, so near her time, he walked round the side of the house towards the back, where the view was less grim. Given the hilly terrain, Bryn Glas’s sheep-farming history wasn’t any surprise, and although it hadn’t been a farm for decades now, various long-disused buildings in a poor state of repair still stood about on the periphery, presumably waiting for demolition in this new garden scheme there was so much talk about.

  The kitchen was situated in the opposite wing to the office, and as he turned the corner of the house, through the open door on to the flagstones gushed the contents of a bucketful of soapy water. He stepped back hastily, though not in time to avoid a copious dousing of his beautifully polished shoes.

  ‘Oh, rats, I didn’t know anyone was there!’ It was Prue, drying her wet hands on the sacking apron she wore over her white one. ‘I’m ever so sorry, your shoes are wet through. Come inside and I’ll dry them for you.’

  He could see she’d spread newspapers over the red, quarry-tiled floor she’d just finished washing. ‘Just bring me a rag or something out here, that’ll do. Don’t want to spoil your clean floors.’

  ‘No, come in,’ she insisted, ‘there’s nobody here but me. Let me give you a cup of tea to make up.’

  He stepped inside, careful to tread only on the newspapers. She produced a piece of old towelling and would have dried his shoes off herself if he hadn’t stopped her. Luckily, the water hadn’t reached his socks. ‘No harm done,’ he said with a grin when he’d finished with his shoes, ‘that’s why I keep ’em well polished. Helps to waterproof them, see?’

  She smiled, moving efficiently about the kitchen and quickly producing tea which she poured into two blue-ringed white mugs. ‘Like a biscuit to go with it?’

  ‘Er, no thanks. I’ve not long had breakfast.’

  ‘Oh, right. You’re staying at the Fox, aren’t you? You won’t be hungry then.’ She glanced at the big, loudly ticking clock, hesitated, then joined him at the table, pushing the sugar bowl across.

  ‘Don’t let me stop you from your work.’

  ‘That’s all right. I reckon I’m due a sit down,’ she said collectedly. ‘All these folk in the house, everything upside down, it’s keeping us on the go.’

  ‘Have you worked here long, Prue?’

  ‘Three years, since I left school.’ She stirred her tea. ‘It’s not much of a job, I know. Our Elsie’s left home and works in an office in Birmingham, has her own flat and all, but my mother’s not all that strong and she needs help with the little ’uns. My dad was gassed in the war and can’t work much, and my brother – well, he’s clever and he’ll be off soon, so they need my bit of money—’ She broke off, flushing. ‘Well, that’s how it is.’

  He wondered what Maisie, and Ellen Reardon, both of them ardent on the subject of women’s emancipation, would have had to say about the future for a bright, intelligent girl such as she seemed to be. She was a nice looking lass of about seventeen who got on with her work and didn’t say much and he guessed it was rare for her to confide in anyone as she had just done. The flush of embarrassment had deepened. She was annoyed with herself, surprised at what had come over her.

  He helped her out. ‘It must be a difficult time altogether, here in the house. Everyone seems to have been very fond of Mr Penrose.’

  ‘He was a lovely man. I can’t bear to think of him dying … especially like they say he did. It’s awful. He was really looking forward to his birthday, you know – and then he never got to enjoy it. The last time I spoke to him was that afternoon. He was asking after my dad. I was busy, what with the supper party that night, but he made me sit down and tell me how he was. And … and he gave me three pounds – made me take it.’ Her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘It’s a nice memory to have of him,’ he said gently. ‘And from what I can gather, he did enjoy the first part of his celebrations, that supper. I’m sure he appreciated how hard you’d all worked over it.’

  ‘You’re right, it was hard work, rushed off our feet we were, without—’

  ‘Without what?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, blushing again, ‘oh, nothing. It was all such a palaver, that’s all. I didn’t get to go home till after eleven.’ She lived in one of the little streets off the Townway and would have had to walk.

  ‘Alone? That’s a long way to walk, in the dark.’

  She shrugged. ‘Never measured it. Any road, I used the back lane, and it cuts a big corner off.’

  That dark, tree-lined lane. A seventeen-year-old girl. A possible murderer hanging about! ‘Weren’t you scared?’

  ‘No. Why should I be?’ She laughed at his town
ie sensibilities, making him feel a right softie.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘this isn’t getting the baby bathed, so if you’ve finished your tea …’ He had, and she picked the mugs up, took them to the sink and turned on the tap to rinse them.

  ‘Thank you for the tea, Prue. I’d better get back to my work, too. I think I’ve just heard the inspector.’

  As he left the kitchen, he wondered what it was she was keeping back.

  There was no sign yet of either Theo or Mrs Knightly with the keys, but Reardon had arrived, acting as if events in his personal life had never intervened.

  ‘His secretary probably knows where the desk key is,’ Gilmour told him. ‘She hasn’t been in since Pen died but she only lives a few minutes away and Theo’s gone for her.’

  ‘Secretary? What did he want with a secretary if he was retired from business?’

  ‘Nominally retired, from what everyone says. Seems he was the sort that doesn’t know when to pack it in.’

  Ten minutes later, the secretary arrived. Gilmour, who for some reason had expected a staid person of mature years, was somewhat taken aback to see the laughing girl who had nearly fallen into the shop doorway with the dog the day before. The yellow coat had been exchanged for a more sober-coloured one of olive green, but her hat was a flame-coloured cloche, decorated with ruched velvet, fashioned on one side into a huge, double rosette. Her vivid face, framed with tendrils of dark hair, peeped out between the coat’s huge fur collar. She wore a matching lipstick that accentuated a pale skin, echoed by the vibrant red of her nails. ‘Miss Bannerman?’ he asked, still not quite believing in her as a secretary.

  ‘Sadie Bannerman. Yes, that’s me.’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Gilmour. And this is Detective Inspector Reardon.’

  Reardon indicated the chair that stood on the opposite side of the desk. Shrugging off her coat, she arranged herself on the seat, crossing legs clad in flesh-coloured silk. The would-be sober coat concealed a wool dress of the same colour, worn with two long strings of large, coloured beads, a matching, chunky bracelet and a scarf of many colours draped fashionably, if precariously, from one shoulder. Tossing it back, she gave Gilmour a curious glance. ‘I’ve seen you somewhere before, haven’t I?’