‘Our information is that she kept a record of everything that happened to her.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘The informant was very positive.’
Joanna gestured helplessly. ‘I didn’t know,’ she said again.
‘Who’s your informant?’ asked Sarah curiously.
Cooper was watching Joanna as he spoke. ‘James Gillespie,’ he said. ‘Mrs Lascelles’s step-father.’
This time the look of surprise lacked conviction. It was left to Sarah to make the obvious response. ‘I thought he abandoned Mathilda years ago,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘How would he know whether she kept diaries or not? Anyway, he’s in Hong Kong, or that’s what my receptionist told me.’
‘Not any more, Dr Blakeney. According to Mrs Gillespie’s solicitor, he’s living in Bournemouth.’ He addressed Joanna. ‘We’ll have to search the house again, and I’d prefer it if you were here while we did so.’
‘Of course, Sergeant. I’m not planning to go anywhere. This is my house, after all.’
Sarah caught her gaze. ‘What about Ruth? You can’t just abandon her.’
‘Ruth must learn to fend for herself, Dr Blakeney.’ She gave an eloquent little shrug. ‘Perhaps you should have considered the consequences a little more carefully before you persuaded Mother to change her will. You must see that it’s quite impossible for me to support her as things stand at the moment.’
‘It’s emotional support she needs, and that won’t cost you a bean.’
‘There’s nothing I could say to her that wouldn’t make matters worse.’ Joanna’s pale eyes stared unwinkingly at Sarah. ‘She’s had more opportunities than I ever had and she’s chosen to throw them away. You do realize she was stealing from Mother for months before this sordid little episode at school.’ Her mouth thinned unpleasantly. ‘You can’t imagine the resentment I’ve felt since Miss Harris telephoned to explain why Ruth was being expelled. Have you any idea of the money that’s been wasted on that child’s education?’
‘Miss Harris has given you a very one-sided view of what happened,’ said Sarah carefully, aware that Cooper was all ears beside her. ‘You must see that it’s only fair to hear Ruth’s side as well, at least give her the chance to demonstrate that what happened wasn’t entirely her fault.’
‘I’ve lived with my daughter on and off for nearly eighteen years, and I know exactly who’s to blame. Ruth is quite incapable of telling the truth. You would be very foolish to assume otherwise.’ She smiled very slightly. ‘You may tell her that she knows where I am if she wants me, although please make it very clear that, unless this business of the will is settled satisfactorily, then she can expect no help from me either in terms of her continuing education or of her living expenses.’
This woman was using Ruth as a bargaining chip, thought Sarah in disgust, but she reminded herself that in her own way Joanna was as desperate as Ruth. She tried again. ‘Money isn’t the issue here, Joanna, the only issue is that your daughter would like to see you. She’s too frightened to come to Cedar House because the man who persuaded her to steal knows this address and has made threats against her. Please, please, will you come with me to Mill House and talk to her there? She isn’t lying, but she’s deeply disturbed about everything that’s happened and needs reassurance that you haven’t rejected her. She has spent most of her time sitting by the telephone, hoping and praying that you would call. I don’t think you have any idea how deeply she cares for you.’
There was the briefest of hesitations – or was that wishful thinking on Sarah’s part? ‘You took her in, Dr Blakeney, so I suggest you deal with her. I can’t begin to condone anything she’s done. Worse, I’m inclined to think it was she who murdered my mother. She’s quite capable of it. Please don’t be in any doubt about that.’
Sarah shook her head in disbelief. ‘Ah, well, perhaps it’s better this way. The one thing Ruth doesn’t need at the moment is you downloading your hypocritical crap on her. You’re tarred with exactly the same brush, or have you forgotten the mess you were in when Mathilda rescued you?’ She shrugged. ‘I’d made up my mind to turn the bequest down and let you and Ruth have a fair crack at convincing a court you had more rights than the donkeys. Not any more. You’ll have to fight me for it now, and you’ll be fighting your corner alone because I intend to put money in trust for Ruth so that she doesn’t lose out whatever happens.’ She walked to the door, flashing Cooper one of the sweet smiles that made his elderly heart race around like a young spring lamb. ‘If it’s of any interest to you, Sergeant, I am still of the opinion that Joanna did not kill Mathilda. Arthritis or no arthritis, Mathilda would have legged it for the hills the minute this bitch came near her.’
Well, well, Cooper thought, gazing after her as she stormed across the hall, there was passion in Dr Blakeney after all. But he wished he knew what had happened to Ruth that was making her and Jack so angry.
Cadogan Mansions, implying as it did something grand and impressive, was a misnomer for the shabby neglect of the purpose-built block that greeted Cooper the following morning. Sixties architecture, drab, square and unstylish, squeezed into a gap between two suburban villas and constructed solely to provide extra accommodation at minimum cost for maximum profit. How very different towns might look, Cooper always thought, if planners had been prosecuted instead of praised for their urban vandalism.
He climbed the utilitarian stairs and rang the bell of number seventeen. ‘Mr James Gillespie?’ he asked of the rugged old man who poked his nose round the door and gusted stale whisky in his face. Cooper flipped open his warrant card. ‘DS Cooper, Learmouth Police.’
Gillespie’s eyebrows beetled aggressively. ‘Well?’
‘May I come in?’
‘Why?’
‘I’d like to ask you some questions about your late wife.’
‘Why?’
Cooper could see this conversation dragging on interminably. He opted for the direct approach. ‘Your wife was murdered, sir, and we have reason to believe you may have spoken to her before she died. I understand that you have been living abroad for some years, so perhaps I should remind you that you are obliged by British law to assist us in any way you can with our enquiries. Now, may I come in?’
‘If you must.’ He seemed quite unruffled by the policeman’s bald statement but led the way past a room with a bed in it to another room containing a threadbare sofa and two plastic chairs. There was no other furniture and no carpets, but a piece of net curtaining was draped in the windows to give a modicum of privacy. ‘Expecting bits and pieces from Hong Kong,’ he barked. ‘Should arrive any day. Camping out meanwhile. Sit down.’ He lowered himself on to the sofa, trying somewhat clumsily to hide the empty bottle that lay on the floor at his feet. The room was frowsty with whisky, urine and unwashed old man. The front of his trousers was saturated, Cooper saw. Tactfully, he took out his notebook and concentrated his attention on that.
‘You didn’t seem very surprised when I told you your wife was murdered, Mr Gillespie. Did you know already?’
‘Heard rumours.’
‘Who from?’
‘My brother. We used to live in Long Upton once. He still knows people there. Hears things.’
‘Where does he live now?’
‘London.’
‘Could you give me his name and address?’
The old man thought about it. ‘No harm, I suppose. Frederick Gillespie, Carisbroke Court, Denby Street, Kensington. Won’t help you, though. Doesn’t know any more than I do.’
Cooper flicked back through the pages of his notebook till he came to Joanna Lascelles’s address. ‘Your step-daughter lives in Kensington. Does your brother know her?’
‘Believe so.’
Well, well, well, thought Cooper. A panorama of intriguing possibilities opened up in front of him. ‘How long have you been back in England, Mr Gillespie?’
‘Six months.’
The bits and pieces from Hong Kong were eyewash, then. N
othing took that long these days to be freighted round the world. The old boy was destitute. ‘And where did you go first? To your brother? Or to your wife?’
‘Spent three months in London. Then decided to come back to my roots.’
Frederick couldn’t put up with an incontinent drunk. It was guesswork, of course, but Cooper would put money on it. ‘And you saw Joanna during that time and she told you that Mathilda was still living in Cedar House.’ He spoke as if it were something he had established already.
‘Nice girl,’ said the old man ponderously. ‘Pretty, like her mother.’
‘So you went to see Mathilda.’
Gillespie nodded. ‘Hadn’t changed. Rude woman still.’
‘And you saw the clocks. The ones she told you had been stolen.’
‘Solicitor’s talked, I suppose.’
‘I’ve just come from Mr Duggan. He informed us of your visit yesterday.’ He saw the old man’s scowl. ‘He had no option, Mr Gillespie. Withholding information is a serious offence, particularly where a murder has occurred.’
‘Thought it was suicide.’
Cooper ignored this. ‘What did you do when you realized your wife had lied to you?’
Gillespie gave a harsh laugh. ‘Demanded my property back, of course. She found that very amusing. Claimed I’d accepted money in lieu thirty years ago and no longer had an entitlement.’ He searched back through his memory. ‘Used to hit her when I lived with her. Not hard. But I had to make her frightened of me. It was the only way I could stop that malicious tongue.’ He fingered his mouth with a trembling hand. It was mottled and blistered with psoriasis. ‘I wasn’t proud of it and I never hit a woman again, not until—’ He broke off.
Cooper kept his voice level. ‘Are you saying you hit her when she told you you couldn’t have your property back?’
‘Smacked her across her beastly face.’ He closed his eyes for a moment as if the recollection pained him.
‘Did you hurt her?’
The old man smiled unpleasantly. ‘I made her cry,’ he said.
‘What happened then?’
‘Told her I’d be putting the law on to her and left.’
‘When was this? Can you remember?’
He seemed to become suddenly aware of the urine stains on his trousers and crossed his legs self-consciously. ‘The time I hit her? Two, three months ago.’
‘You went there at other times then?’
Gillespie nodded. ‘Twice.’
‘Before or after you hit her?’
‘After. Didn’t want the law on her, did she?’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘Why would you? Doubt you saw her till she was dead. Devious, that’s the only way to describe Mathilda. Devious and ruthless. Guessed I’d fallen on hard times and came here the next day to sort something out. Talked about a settlement.’ He picked at the scabs on his hand. ‘Thought I wouldn’t know what the clocks were worth. Offered me five thousand to leave her alone.’ He fell silent.
‘And?’ Cooper prompted when the silence lengthened.
The old eyes wandered about the empty room. ‘Realized she’d pay more to avoid the scandal. Went back a couple of times to demonstrate how vulnerable she was. She was talking fifty thousand the day before she died. I was holding out for a hundred. We’d have got there eventually. She knew it was only a matter of time before someone saw me and recognized me.’
‘You were blackmailing her.’
Gillespie gave his harsh laugh again. ‘Mathilda was a thief. D’you call it blackmail to negotiate back what’s been stolen from you? We understood each other perfectly. We’d have reached an agreement if she hadn’t died.’
Cooper allowed his revulsion to get the better of him. ‘It seems to me, sir, you wanted to have your cake and eat it too. You deserted her forty years ago, left her to fend for herself with a baby, snatched up what the clocks were worth in nineteen sixty-one, spent the whole lot’ – he looked pointedly at the empty bottle – ‘probably on booze, repeated the exercise with everything else you’ve ever earned and then came home to leech off the woman you’d abandoned. I’d say it’s arguable who was the greater thief. If the clocks were so important to you, why didn’t you take them with you?’
‘Couldn’t afford to,’ said Gillespie dispassionately. ‘Put together enough for my passage. Nothing left over to freight the clocks.’
‘Why didn’t you sell one to pay for the freight of the others?’
‘She blocked it.’ He saw the scepticism in Cooper’s expression. ‘You didn’t know her, man, so don’t make judgements.’
‘Yet by your own admission you used to beat her to make her frightened of you. How could she stop you selling your own property? You’d have thrashed her.’
‘Maybe I did,’ he growled. ‘Maybe she found another way to stop me. You think I was the first one to try blackmail? She was a past master at it.’ He touched his lips again and this time the tremor in his hands was more marked. ‘We reached an accommodation, the essence of which was no scandal. She’d let me leave for Hong Kong on the condition that there was no divorce and she kept the clocks. Mutual insurance, she called them. While she housed them, she could be sure of my silence. While I owned them I could be sure of hers. They were worth a bob or two, even in those days.’
Cooper frowned. ‘What silence were you buying?’
‘This and that. It was an unhappy marriage, and you washed your dirty linen in public when you divorced in those days. Her father was an MP, don’t forget.’
She let me leave for Hong Kong . . . Strange use of words, thought Cooper. How could she have stopped him? ‘Were you involved in something criminal, Mr Gillespie? Were the clocks a quid pro quo for her not going to the police?’
He shrugged. ‘Water under the bridge now.’
‘What did you do?
‘Water under the bridge,’ the old man repeated stubbornly. ‘Ask me why Mathilda had to buy my silence. That’s a damn sight more interesting.’
‘Why then?’
‘Because of the baby. Knew who the father was, didn’t I?’
Water under the bridge, thought Cooper sarcastically. ‘You told Mr Duggan that your wife kept diaries,’ he said, ‘that they were on the top shelf of her library disguised as the collected works of William Shakespeare. Is that correct?’
‘It is.’
‘Did you see them when you went to Cedar House or did Mrs Gillespie tell you about them?’
Gillespie’s eyes narrowed. ‘You saying they’re not there now?’
‘Will you answer my question, please. Did you see them or are you relying on something Mrs Gillespie told you?’
‘Saw them. Knew what to look for, see. I had the first two volumes bound for her as a wedding present. Gave her another eight with blank pages.’
‘Could you describe them, Mr Gillespie?’
‘Brown calfskin binding. Gold lettering on the spines. Titles courtesy Willy Shakespeare. Ten volumes in all.’
‘What sort of size?’
‘Eight inches by six inches. An inch thick or thereabouts.’ He wrung his hands in his lap. ‘They’re not there, I suppose. Don’t mind telling you, rather relying on those diaries. They’ll prove she set out to defraud me.’
‘So you read them?’
‘Couldn’t,’ the old man grumbled. ‘She never left me alone long enough. Fussed around me like a blasted hen. But the proof’ll be there. She’d’ve written it down, just like she wrote everything else.’
‘Then you can’t say for sure they were diaries, only that there were ten volumes of Shakespeare on the top shelf which bore a resemblance to some diaries you’d bought for her forty-odd years ago.’
He pursed his lips obstinately. ‘Spotted them the first time I was there. They were Mathilda’s diaries all right.’
Cooper thought for a moment. ‘Did Mrs Lascelles know about them?’
Gillespie shrugged. ‘Couldn’t say. I didn’t tell her. Don’t believe in emptying th
e armoury before I have to.’
‘But you told her you weren’t her father?’
He shrugged again. ‘Someone had to.’
‘Why?’
‘She was all over me. Wouldn’t leave me alone. Pathetic really. Seemed wrong to let her go on believing such a fundamental lie.’
‘Poor woman,’ murmured Cooper with a new compassion. He wondered if there was anyone who hadn’t rejected her. ‘I suppose you also told her about the letter from her natural father.’
‘Why not? Seemed to me she has as much right to the Cavendish wealth as Mathilda had.’
‘How did you know about it? It was written after you left for Hong Kong.’
The old man looked sly. ‘Ways and means,’ he muttered. But he saw something in Cooper’s eyes that caused him to reflect. ‘There was talk in the village when Gerald topped himself,’ he said. ‘Word got about he’d written a letter which his brother managed to suppress. Suicide’ – he shook his head – ‘wasn’t the done thing in those days. William hushed it up for the sake of the family. I heard the stories at the time and suggested Joanna look for the letter. Stood to reason what would be in it. Gerald was a sentimental halfwit bound to’ve mentioned his bastard. Couldn’t’ve resisted it.’
‘And perhaps you reached an accommodation with Mrs Lascelles as well. You’d testify in court to her real paternity if she kept you in clover for the rest of your life. Something like that?’
Gillespie gave a dry chuckle. ‘She was a great deal more amenable than her mother.’
‘Then why did you bother to go on negotiating with Mrs Gillespie?’
‘Didn’t rate Joanna’s chances much, not against Mathilda.’
Cooper nodded. ‘So you killed your wife to improve the odds.’
The dry chuckle rasped out again. ‘Wondered when you’d pull that one out of the hat. Didn’t need to. If she didn’t kill herself, then rather think my step-daughter did it for me. She was mighty put out to discover that her mother played the tart with her great-uncle.’ Abruptly, like some guilty secret he’d decided to unburden, he fished a full bottle of whisky from where it was tucked down behind the sofa cushions, unscrewed the cap and held it to his mouth. ‘Want some?’ he asked vaguely after a moment, waving the bottle in Cooper’s direction before placing it between his lips again and half-draining it in huge mouthfuls.
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