*
Neil’s meeting with the bank manager had not gone particularly well; having been called upon to dig him out of similar predicaments in the past, Mr Latimer was not disposed to be obliging, and Neil had had to do a fair amount of begging, which had gone very much against the grain.
In the end, he had gained a little and of necessity agreed to sacrifice a lot, including the car and his membership of the golf club. But at least he was now in a position to repay the money he’d ‘borrowed’ from the client’s account before it was missed, which had been his most urgent worry.
Damn it, he thought, if old Malcolm had to die, it was a pity he hadn’t done so a month or two earlier; Sally’s share of the proceeds would have seen them over this hiccup.
As the thought registered, he felt himself go hot, wondering if it had also been in Webb’s mind. Still, he could think what he liked; the money would soon be in their hands, and with luck something might still be salvaged out of the mess. It was bloody infuriating that he was always hamstrung like this through lack of funds. If he’d had money to play around with, he’d have made a packet by now.
He stood on the pavement outside the bank, brooding on his position and reluctant to return immediately to the bustle of the office. It was Wednesday afternoon, half-day closing for the smaller shops, and the road was unusually quiet.
A sudden commotion a few doors down made him turn, in time to see three hooded youths come running out of the supermarket and into a van waiting at the kerb. As one of them climbed in, he ripped off his hood and stuffed it into his pocket; but in withdrawing his hand, something small and bright fell unnoticed to the ground, winking in the sunlight.
Neil moved forward instinctively. The van started up with a roar, and, as he stooped to retrieve the object, disappeared round the corner into Franklyn Road. In the same moment, a man came running out of the supermarket, shouting, ‘Which way did they go? They’ve got away with our takings!’
‘Round the corner,’ Neil told him, pointing. ‘I didn’t get their number, but one of them dropped this.’
But the manager wasn’t listening. Seeing a policeman across the road, he waved frantically and shouted, and the officer began to run towards him. Neil stood frowning at the ring in his hand, a gold ring, with a dull green stone. It looked familiar; very similar, he thought suddenly, to that which Una had given Malcolm for his birthday, and which they’d been called on to admire at that disastrous dinner party. But Malcolm’s ring hadn’t gone missing — had it?
He hesitated. Obviously he must hand the ring over, but first he had to be sure it wasn’t Malcolm’s. Una’s office was just down the road; he’d go and check with her first.
The policeman was now accompanying the manager into the supermarket, and, anxious not to be detained as a witness before he was ready, Neil walked quickly on to Lowther Building and went inside.
Ginger’s Cottage had proved interesting, and Una’d enjoyed wandering round it, Danny in tow, imagining her furniture in the different rooms.
There were, however, several drawbacks; the garden was larger than she wanted, though Danny insisted it would be a simple matter to pave it over and make it into a container garden. Also, the decoration was in a poor state and she suspected there might be damp in a couple of places. Nevertheless, on the drive back to Shillingham she was seriously considering its potential.
Until she saw the flat in Hampton Rise, which also appealed to her. Suddenly, Una found herself in the unexpected position of being spoiled for choice — and this when she hadn’t even planned to start house-hunting.
Furthermore, several of the other properties whose details she’d been given sounded promising, and before she parted from Danny, she asked him to arrange appointments to view those as well.
He dropped her, at her request, in Gloucester Circus. It was a quarter past three, and as a fitting end to her truancy, she’d decided to have tea at the King’s Head before returning to the office. She wanted to sit quietly and read through the particulars again, both of the places she’d seen and those she hoped to view.
Some forty minutes later, walking back along King Street, she found to her amusement that she was rehearsing explanations of her absence to give the staff. But, damn it, she owned the place! She didn’t have to tell anyone anything.
As she was approaching Dring’s superstore, a police car drew to a halt outside it and two uniformed men went inside. Someone caught shoplifting, she thought idly as she continued down the road to Lowther Building.
In the foyer, there was an unusual number of people gathered round the lifts. One had been out of service all day, and everyone was looking impatiently up at the illuminated number indicating where the other had stopped.
‘Seems to be stuck on the second floor,’ someone remarked.
Since she’d wasted enough time that afternoon, Una made her way to the other pair of lifts at the back of the building. She emerged on the second floor at some distance from her office and walked briskly along a corridor and round the corner which would lead her there.
And stopped abruptly. Halfway down the corridor she could see the figure of a man lying on the floor, half in and half out of the lift. Which, she thought, starting to run, would explain why it wasn’t responding to the bell. He must have had a heart attack.
Blurred memories of artificial respiration jostled in her mind and, as she reached the prone figure, instantly vanished. For this was no heart-attack victim. He was lying face down and, protruding from the centre of his back, was the handle of a knife.
Without thinking, frantic to help him, Una caught hold of it and tried, unsuccessfully, to pull it free. And in the same moment, the door of her own office opened behind her and she heard someone scream.
‘Get help!’ she gasped over her shoulder. ‘Dial 999!’ Abandoning her attempt to free the knife, she bent down, hoping to detect signs of life.
‘We’re getting help,’ she told the inert figure. ‘Just—’
Her voice tailed away in horror and, straightening, she backed away, her hand going to her throat. Someone took her arm and Eve Bundy’s voice said shakily, ‘Miss Drew — are you all right? What happened?’
Una shook her head speechlessly. A girl somewhere over to her left — the one who had screamed — cried hysterically, ‘She stabbed him, that’s what happened! I saw her! I saw her!’
Paralysed with shock, Una heard Rosemary say sharply, ‘Don’t be ridiculous; why should Miss Drew stab a man she doesn’t even know?’
‘But I do know him,’ Una contradicted through chattering teeth. ‘It’s my son-in-law, Neil Crawford.’
*
‘What?’ Webb started up out of his chair. ‘When? How?’
He stood listening to the voice over the phone, his face grim. ‘OK, Alan, I’ll be right over. Thanks.’
He dropped the phone on its cradle, strode into the outer office and beckoned Jackson on his way through it. ‘Come on, Ken, back to Shillingham at the double. Neil Crawford’s been murdered.’
Jackson hurried after him out of the building and over to their car in the forecourt. ‘We were just going to see him, weren’t we, Guv?’
‘We still are,’ Webb said shortly.
‘But—’
‘What I didn’t say in there was that he was found outside Una Bennett’s office, with her standing over him.’
‘Never!’
‘There’s some young girl at the scene who insists she saw her stabbing him. What the hell was Crawford doing there, anyway? He couldn’t stand the sight of her.’
‘She might have phoned and asked him to call.’
‘Then promptly murdered him? Hardly subtle.’
‘Perhaps,’ Jackson said tentatively, turning the car in the direction of Shillingham, ‘he’d found something which linked her with Mr Bennett’s death?’
‘Well, we’ve not ruled her out on that, as I was telling Jeff Carter this morning.’
They drove in silence for a while along t
he familiar country road. Then Jackson asked, ‘Where’s Mrs Bennett now?’
‘At Carrington Street.’
‘Under arrest?’
‘Helping with inquiries. At the very least, she’s a lot of explaining to do.’
‘Is that where we’re making for, Guv?’
‘Not immediately; we’ll look at the scene first.’
Having fought their way through the press into Lowther Building, they found a notice in front of the lifts stating that both were out of order, but that others could be found at the rear of the building.
On the second floor, a uniformed constable was waiting to escort them to the Drew offices. As they turned the final corner, they could see the pathologist kneeling on the floor beside the body. To one side, a couple of Scenes-of-Crime men waited for him to complete his examination.
‘Death instantaneous, I’d say,’ Stapleton remarked as Webb and Jackson came up. He rose to his feet and fastidiously brushed the knees of his trousers. ‘Roughly an hour ago.’
Webb glanced at his watch. ‘Making it around four?’
‘I said “roughly”, Chief Inspector. However,’ Stapleton permitted himself a thin smile, ‘since that was when the body was discovered, and, according to witnesses, still bleeding, I believe I may be fairly precise on this occasion.’
Alan Crombie appeared in the adjacent doorway and, nodding to the pathologist, Webb moved inside with him and followed him into one of the small rooms to the right of the foyer.
‘Just to bring you up to date, Dave,’ Crombie said, ‘we’ve called in a support team, and they’re visiting all the offices in the building, asking when people last used the front lift. Also, if anyone saw either Crawford or Mrs Bennett this afternoon; there’s an outside chance someone might have come up in the lift with him, say as far as the first floor.’
‘Who claims to have seen the stabbing?’
‘A messenger girl from the stationer’s in Duke Street. She’d delivered some stuff and when she opened the door to leave, she swears Mrs Bennett was plunging the knife in.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘In the next room, with Nickie Hunt. I thought you’d want to see her.’
‘Any corroborating evidence?’
‘The manageress was on the scene almost at once, alerted by her scream. By that time Mrs Bennett was backing away from the body.’
‘“By that time”, Alan? You believe the girl?’
‘I believe she believes it.’
‘What does Mrs Bennett say?’
‘She hasn’t said anything yet, in my hearing.’
‘Waiting for her solicitor?’
‘Simply in shock, I’d say.’
‘And the rest of them’ — Webb nodded towards the door ‘heard nothing until the scream?’
‘No, we’ve just finished interviewing them. One odd point, though: Mrs Bennett — or Miss Drew, as they call her — didn’t come back after lunch. Apparently this is completely unheard-of and had already caused no end of speculation.’
‘You mean she left for lunch as usual, and hadn’t been seen since?’
‘That’s right; not until she was “allegedly” found with the knife in her hand.’
‘Then where the hell had she been?’
‘We’ve not had a chance to ask her; this didn’t come up till after she’d been taken back to the station. Suppose she met Crawford, either by chance or appointment, and they had a row of some kind? He followed her back and into the lift, perhaps still arguing, and in a fit of temper she stabbed him.’
‘Happening to have a knife handy for just such an eventuality?’
‘Well, she could have, if she’d already topped her husband.’
‘Anyway, it’s been established that the lift was the scene of crime, rather than the corridor?’
‘It seems so, since he was lying half inside it. The hypothesis at the moment is that the murderer came up in the lift with Crawford and stabbed him in the back as he was getting out. The angle of the wound supports that.’
‘Or he — or she — could have stabbed him as they ascended, supported him till the door opened, then pushed him out?’
‘Same difference.’
‘But if the lift was the scene of the crime, and supposing for the moment that Mrs Bennett was the killer, why was she “allegedly” still bending over him when the girl saw her? It would have been more prudent to have got the hell out of it.’
‘God, Dave, you tell me. By the way, we’ve taken over this place as an incident room for the moment. Very convenient, as you can see, with everything laid on.’
‘How many staff are there?’
‘The manageress, the receptionist and six girls. And they’re all adamant that Neil Crawford’s never been here.’
‘Until now.’
‘Even now, he never made it inside.’
‘Any comments on Mrs Bennett’s recent behaviour, apart from skiving off for the afternoon?’
‘They were shocked that she came straight back to work on Monday, though not really surprised. She’s known as a disciplinarian and is as hard on herself as the staff. There was a row with one of them a couple of weeks ago; harsh things were said, but when she asked to come back, Mrs B let her.’
‘She hasn’t mentioned Crawford to anyone?’
Crombie shook his head. ‘Never discussed her private life.’
The two men moved into the foyer, watching through the open door as the SOCO photographer snapped the body from all angles. The corridor on either side of the lift had already been tested for shoe marks; if the killer were not Una Bennett, he must have made his escape in one direction or the other, since the second lift wasn’t working. The likeliest route was through a door farther along, which opened on to a flight of stairs. They, too, were being dusted for prints.
Webb said suddenly, ‘Crawford’s name hasn’t been released yet?’
‘No.’
‘Family been contacted?’
‘Someone’s gone to see his wife. I don’t know about the rest of them.’
Webb shook his head sadly, thinking of Sally and her baby. He’d have to see her, but he’d leave it till tomorrow, let her get over the initial shock.
‘Well, I suppose I’d better see this girl. What’s her name?’
‘Daisy Saunders. She was a bit hysterical but Nickie’s managed to calm her down.’ Crombie gestured towards the middle door on the right and Webb, after a brief tap, opened it and went inside. WDC Hunt rose from a chair.
‘Good afternoon, sir. This is Daisy Saunders.’
Webb nodded at her, introduced himself, and pulled up a chair. She was in her early twenties, with short, spiky black hair, and she was wearing leather trousers and jacket. A motorcycle helmet lay on the floor beside her. She returned Webb’s look dubiously from heavily made-up eyes.
‘Now, I’m sure you’ve been through this already, but I’d like you to tell me exactly what happened here this afternoon.’
She heaved an exaggerated sigh. ‘Not again! I’ve not remembered anything else, you know. There’s nothing more to remember.’
‘Just bear with me, please.’
‘Well, like I said, I brought some stationery over and left it with the woman in reception as usual. She signed for it, and I was on my way out when I saw them.’ Her voice faltered and she came to a halt.
‘Yes?’ Webb said encouragingly.
‘There was a guy lying on the ground and this woman bending over him with the knife in her hands.’
‘Hands, Daisy? Both of them?’
‘Yeah, both of ‘em. Forcing it in.’ She shuddered.
‘But you didn’t actually see her stab him?’
‘All but,’ she said defiantly.
Webb was silent for a moment, then he asked, ‘Did you know who she was?’
‘I knew she was a murderer. That was enough for me.’
‘You assumed she was a murderer,’ he corrected. ‘But had you seen her before?’
‘N
o, never.’
‘Were you surprised to learn it was Mrs — Miss Drew, the owner of the firm?’
‘Suppose I was, a bit. But her old man snuffed it last week, didn’t he? Must be getting to be a habit.’
‘Miss Saunders, I really must warn you against making remarks like that. As yet there’s been no—’
‘Look, my lover, you can warn me all you like, but I know what I saw, and I’m telling you the knife was in his back and she was holding it. That good enough for you?’
Nickie Hunt moved in embarrassment, avoiding Webb’s eye.
He asked impassively, ‘What did she do when you screamed? Did she look guilty or frightened?’
‘No, she just shouted, “Get help! Dial 999!”’
‘It didn’t strike you she might just as easily have been trying to pull the knife out?’
She stared at him for a moment. Then she said woodenly, ‘No, it didn’t.’
‘But with hindsight, would you say it was possible?’
The girl frowned. ‘You mean she might just have found him there?’
‘She might, or she might have seen someone else stab him. Suppose, just for a moment, that it was you who found him. You opened the door and there he was, lying in front of you. No sign of Miss Drew or anyone else. What would you have done? Tried to pull the knife out?’
‘Not likely! I’d have done exactly what I done anyway, screamed blue murder.’
Webb smiled slightly, leaning back in his seat. ‘Quite right, too. It’s very dangerous to remove a knife from a wound — you could do more damage than leaving it in place.’
She said acidly, ‘I’ll remember that, next time.’
There was a tap on the door and Jackson put his head round it.
‘Excuse me, Guv, SOCO have finished and the hearse is waiting.’
Webb got to his feet. ‘Thank you, Sergeant.’ He turned back to the girl. ‘And thank you, Miss Saunders. If you’ll call in at Carrington Street Police Station tomorrow, your statement will be typed up. Are you fit to bike back to Duke Street?’
‘Oh yeah, ta. I’ve had some tea and I’m OK now.’
‘Very well. Once the body’s been removed, you’ll be free to go.’
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