[Lambert and Hook 21] - A Good Walk Spoiled

by J M Gregson

  ‘Well, there’s Priscilla Godwin, for a start.’

  Ben stopped for a moment, feeling guilty because Priscilla had been unexpectedly pleasant to him on the course during the golf day, had even told him to call her Pris. And he liked her, perhaps more than just liked her, now that she had given him a little encouragement. But you had to safeguard yourself: that had become a watchword to him, during the years he had spent concealing his All God’s Creatures background from everyone who worked with him. Ben put his elbows upon his kitchen table and leaned forward a little. ‘She’d been assaulted by Richard, you know - perhaps even raped - a week or two before the golf day. ’

  ‘We do know that there had been a serious incident, yes, Ben.’

  He felt a little deflated, as well as disloyal to the woman he liked, and moved on quickly. ‘Debbie Young has never liked him, you know.’ He looked into their non-committal faces. ‘She was passed over for promotion when Richard got the job. And last month Richard was the man behind the decision to make her husband redundant: I’m sure she didn’t like that.’

  Ben waited for the questioning that did not come and was drawn on. ‘Lucy Dimmock didn’t seem to like or dislike Richard.’ He seemed disappointed by that. Then his face brightened. ‘But I’m pretty sure that she used to be more friendly towards him at one time. And Alison Cullis didn’t like her husband: that was patently obvious at the dinner, when he expected her to be the company wife and she wouldn’t play his game. But to tell you the truth, I’m surprised they were still married. From what I’ve heard, Richard had given her ample grounds for divorce, over the last few years.’ Bert Hook leaned forward, encouraging the almost spinsterish figure on the other side of the table. ‘This is all valuable information for us. As Chief Superintendent Lambert told you, we’re trying to build up a picture of a dead man who cannot speak for himself. From what you say, the men at that table were not over fond of Richard Cullis, either.’

  ‘They certainly weren’t. Paul Young had just been sacked by him, in effect. I’d have felt pretty murderous myself, in his shoes.’

  ‘I expect most of us would.’

  ‘And Jason Dimmock has been very off with him over the last few months. They used to be quite close, but they’ve hardly spoken, outside the needs of the work in the labs.’

  ‘And why would that be, Ben?’ Bert Hook’s face was filled with an innocent curiosity.

  Ben was intelligent enough to know that the question could not be as innocent as Hook made it sound, but he was filled with the selfrelease of diverting their questions away from himself. ‘I don’t know, but it’s not my imagination. There’s been something between them: I imagine they must have had a major row about something - perhaps something to do with work. ’

  Bert Hook nodded, apparently accepting and valuing everything Ben said. Then he said, as if it were an afterthought, ‘And then there’s you, of course. I don’t suppose you liked him any more than the others at that table on Tuesday night.’ He nodded slowly, leaving the thought hanging in the air.

  ‘I’d nothing personal against him.’ That was maintaining the policy of giving them the truth whenever it was possible. ‘I’ve already told you that we weren’t close friends, but we had a good working relationship. I’d no reason to wish him dead. I didn’t hate Richard as some of the others round that table did.’

  Hook nodded, made a note, gave him a smile which Ben thought was encouraging. They took him through the routine stuff about knowledge of poisons and access to them, which he handled well because he’d expected it. He managed to convey that everyone at the fatal meal had knowledge of ricin and either direct or indirect access to it. Even the spouses of the people employed there came in and out of the laboratories on occasions. He intimated to them that he had reluctantly accepted that one of those people must have killed the Director of Research and Development at Gloucester Chemicals.

  He made himself a cup of coffee when the CID men had gone and reviewed the interview. It had gone rather well, he decided. He seemed to have created a good impression with them, without giving away anything he had wished to conceal. Perhaps the years of living a lie as he worked in the labs and waited his chance had prepared him for this.

  If you found yourself a patch of sun, it was still warm enough to sit outside at lunchtime, even in late October. They watched the waters of the Wye moving serenely below the patio outside the pub, eddying pleasantly as they reached the bend in the river a hundred yards below them.

  Jason Dimmock congratulated himself openly on his decision to bring his wife out for lunch. ‘There won’t be many more days like this before the winter.’ He took a pull at his pint of bitter, savoured the taste of it on his tongue and its passage through his throat. He glanced up at the motionless oak tree on the bank of the river, with its leaves still virtually untouched by autumn decay, then at the attractive, intelligent features of his wife in their frame of black hair. ‘It’s good to get away from the others for a little while, on a day like this.’

  Lucy smiled down at the table, saying nothing until the waiter had deposited their food and left. ‘We’re lucky with the day and this is a nice spot. I suspect you would have abstracted me from the works cafeteria whatever the weather.’ Jason smiled wryly and took another drink. ‘How well you know me, Lucy Dimmock. Other men tell women that their wives don’t understand them. My problem is that my wife understands me all too well!’

  ‘And just you remember it!’ said Lucy heartily.

  ‘Did Cullis tell you that his wife didn’t understand him?’

  The words were out before he could suppress them, almost before he knew the thought had been formed. He regretted it immediately and stared for a second at his wife and then, unable to meet her eyes, at the river. She said with immense weariness, ‘You can’t let it go, can you? Even with his corpse cut up and stowed away in the morgue, you can’t let it go.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not a matter of being sorry. It’s a matter of letting go. I’ve told you a hundred times that it was all over months ago. The truth is that it was for me, but not for you.’

  ‘We have to be careful, that’s all. We must be suspects. However innocent we may be, it’s important that we don’t make mistakes, in the circumstances.’

  ‘The circumstances being that I had an affair with him and you were and still are insanely jealous about it.’

  ‘All right. As a summary, I accept that. I don’t mean to be jealous, but it still comes out and surprises me. I still don’t know how—’

  ‘Leave it! If you don’t want to attract police attention, for God’s sake leave it!’ Lucy’s voice was harsh with strain.

  ‘You’re right. Of course you’re right. I know you’re right. Intellectually, I accept everything you say. It’s just that emotion still breaks out, sometimes when I least expect it and least want it.’ He took a bite of his sandwich, found it like ashes in his mouth. ‘They’ll want to speak to me again, you know, the police. I want to prepare myself for it. ’

  She gave him a look which mixed anger with concern. ‘You mean you want to know what I said to them, don’t you? That’s why you brought me out here. That’s the reason for this charade.’

  ‘I do need to know. It’s for both our sakes. I mustn’t contradict anything you said when they speak to me. That’s the way they work, exploiting discrepancies between what people say to them. They won’t believe anything we say, if they catch us out in one thing.’

  She wanted to ask him bitchily how he came to be such an expert in police methods. But she controlled himself and said between clenched teeth, ‘You needn’t worry. I didn’t tell them anything. I was just your dutiful wife, who was shocked and bewildered by this murder. I played what you men would call a straight bat.’ He didn’t think he’d ever used that particular cliche to her. The part of his brain which he wanted to suppress asked if it was Richard Cullis who had used that phrase. He reached out and placed his hand on top of hers. ‘It’s a bad time
, this, Lucy. But we’ll come through it all right, won’t we? With him out of the way, we can get on with our lives.’

  He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself, she thought.

  Soon it was time to return to work. They did not speak much on the way back into Gloucester. Though the October sun blazed down with uncharacteristic warmth on postcard scenes, their minds were occupied with darker thoughts. Each of the pair was reviewing the other’s motive for murder, trying to answer the question neither of them dared to put into words.

  Eighteen

  The managing director of Gloucester Chemicals was an American with English habits. He wore a dark blue Savile Row suit and shirt and a dark red silk tie. He was polite with all of his staff in public and he listened carefully to their concerns in private.

  Yet no one underestimated his clear-sightedness, his willingness to make even unpopular decisions swiftly, his ruthlessness in the pursuit of his goals. Marvin Hestler had been brought in to increase the international sales and presence of a company which had good products but which was only a sprightly minnow in the big pool of the major drug companies. Sales had trebled since his arrival in Gloucester three years ago and profits had quadrupled. The share price was now quoted in the FT top hundred on the London Stock Exchange. The board of Gloucester Chemicals was concerned not with the survival of the company, as it had been a decade earlier, but with protecting itself from takeover bids from the world players in the drugs field like Glaxo and Pfizer.

  One of the consequences of this success was that the death of the company’s Director of Research and Development made news in the financial press. This could have been an irritation for the managing director, but he shrugged it off with characteristic positivism: the paragraphs in the financial sections of the broadsheets were further evidence that the company had arrived.

  This was the reaction which Marvin Hestler conveyed to Debbie Young as she sat in his office. The room had prints of Braque and Modigliani; a portrait of the young Marie Curie was balanced by the standard Annigoni depiction of the young Elizabeth II, hung here as an assurance that this presence from across the pond was not about to jettison all things British.

  The room had a massive desk, but Hestler had come round it to sit in an armchair opposite the woman he had summoned to discuss the impact of this death upon the company. They had a tea tray with Worcester china on it on the low table between them; in the subtle ordinances of industrial procedure, this meant that this was an important meeting and Mrs Young a welcome presence here. The MD poured the tea carefully and offered Debbie the shortbread which he eschewed himself.

  ‘Richard will be a loss to us, there’s no doubt of that.’ Marvin knew the ritual which must be gone through, however truncated: in Britain, as in most other places in the world, you did not speak ill of the recently dead.

  ‘He knew what he was doing,’ said Debbie Young cautiously.

  Hestler divined that this muted phrase meant that she hadn’t liked her late boss. Nothing wrong with that. You didn’t have to like people to work efficiently with them: that was one of the mantras he regularly and breezily delivered to his staff. The absence of grief in this efficient woman could be a positive advantage to him. ‘It’s a tragedy, of course, and inconvenient for the company in this time of growth. But it’s our job to cope with things like this. And you’re going to be a key person in that process.’ Debbie gave him an acid smile. ‘I’m prepared for that. I’ve done the job before.’ No harm in reminding him of that.

  ‘Indeed you have. And by all accounts you got good work out of the research scientists. That was before my time, of course. And before the research laboratories were thought to warrant a director’s post.’

  ‘Yes. I’m aware that you had no part in the appointment of Richard Cullis.’

  ‘No. I understand, though, that you were considered for the post at the time. It was a close call, but the then board considered that a candidate with more varied experience would be an advantage to the company.’

  ‘And is the present board likely to replicate that view?’

  She was coming at him directly, telling him that she wanted to be considered, that it had been a mistake to bring in Cullis over her head two years ago. He doubted that: Cullis had been excellent at perceiving the connections between research and commercial success, at spotting those products which would have international possibilities. But Marvin Hestler was a forthright man himself; that made him respond to this directness in her. He also liked feisty women, and Debbie Young promised to be one.

  ‘I’ve noted your work. It’s been consistently good.’

  Debbie knew exactly what that meant. A managing director with a company-wide brief hadn’t time for detail. ‘I’m surprised that you’ve had the opportunity to look at what I do.’

  ‘I haven’t the technical expertise to estimate it, even if I had the time. But I got regular reports from Richard. He was impressed with what you were doing. The new Aids drug in particular has great potential.’

  One up to him in this little game: she hadn’t expected him to know about her work on the Aids remedy. ‘It still has a long way to go. But the early evidence is positive, as you say. I’m hoping it could alleviate a great deal of suffering, particularly in Africa. It also has the potential to make a great deal of money for the company.’

  They smiled at each other, two professionals together. Marvin said, ‘The two go hand in hand, you know. It’s the success of the drugs we market today which fund the research of today and tomorrow. The budget for research is in my view the most important budget in the company, but it is dependent on commercial success.

  ‘I appreciate that. It’s one of the things I constantly emphasize to people who come into the labs clutching their PhDs. Realism was one of the things I used to check out carefully when making appointments.’

  Marvin nodded amiably, aware that she was reminding him again of her claims to take over Cullis’s role. ‘Research and development is a much bigger department now than in the days when you were in unofficial control.’

  She didn’t like that word ‘unofficial’, but she could not dispute it. ‘Bigger but not essentially different. We do the same kind of work; we conduct the same kind of intensive research and testing, on a wider range of products; we have to resist the same kind of idiot opposition from the animal rights lobby.’

  ‘And you now have representation on the board of the company, which you didn’t have then. Success brings its rewards and its extra pressures, Debbie.’

  ‘Exactly. And I’ve been a part of that success and I appreciate exactly what is required in the new director.’

  ‘I’m sure you do.’ He rose with the ease of a very fit man from his armchair and looked her straight in the face as she followed him. ‘This has been a most useful conversation, Debbie. I have registered your interest in the replacement appointment compelled upon us by this unfortunate death. The decision will be the board’s, not that of any particular individual. If it is advertised externally, we shall of course have to consider the quality of the applicants we attract. But within those parameters, I am happy to assure you of my personal support.’

  He had fenced it about with the necessary jargon to protect himself, as he nowadays did automatically. But he was genuine about his support. Everything about her work and her attitude suggested that she could make the step up to director. But no one would expect the post to be filled immediately.

  There would be time to make sure that Mrs Young was not the murderer of the previous incumbent.

  Priscilla Godwin had been smiling ever since Tuesday night. That’s how it felt to her, anyway. She hadn’t troubled to disguise her delight in Cullis’s death. Most people seemed to know what he had done to her, so they should expect her to be pleased, shouldn’t they? Even when she had met Alison Cullis when they were finally allowed to leave the building at Belmont on Tuesday night, she had not been able to conceal her satisfaction in the justice of this death. Neither of th
em had spoken, but Priscilla was sure that her feelings had shown in her face. Come to think of it, she hadn’t noticed the bereaved wife shedding any tears.

  Two days later, Priscilla still felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She knew she must be a suspect, but the police hadn’t spoken to her since the young uniformed officer had taken her initial statement on Tuesday night. Perhaps even the police had sympathy with her situation, after what Cullis had done to her; perhaps that motherly Sergeant Fox who had been so embarrassed that it wasn’t going to court had leant on the CID people a little on her behalf.

  She was in this buoyant mood when she met Ben Paddon as they were both leaving work at the end of the day. He gave her the slightly uncertain smile that had so attracted her on Tuesday. ‘I enjoyed the golf,’ he said. ‘Pity the day had to end like that.’

  ‘I enjoyed the whole of the day,’ Priscilla asserted robustly.

  ‘Even the death at the end of it?’

  ‘Even the death at the end of it. I’m not going to pretend I feel anything else. I’ve no reason to regret what happened. I expect you heard what Richard Cullis did to me.’

  ‘I heard something about it, yes. None of the details, of course.’ Ben was glad to reach the door and pass into the twilight outside it. He had a horrid feeling that he might be blushing.

  ‘He was going to get away with it, you know. The police knew that he was as guilty as hell, but the Crown Prosecution Service was afraid of his lawyers. So I see a sort of justice in this.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that you would. You didn’t kill him, did you?’

  His hand flew to his mouth. It was the sort of gauche question which always seemed to get him off on the wrong foot with women, and this time the subject was surely too serious to be swept away.