A Timely Death

by Janet Neel

  ‘Would any of them have lost money personally?’ McLeish asked, for general elucidation.

  ‘They’d have lost any money they had lent to the company.’

  ‘But the sons were not in the company?’ McLeish was making sure the meeting was up to speed.

  ‘True, but they might have lost money too. Dr Price – and his brother – are alleging that their father took money from the trust left by his first wife and converted it for the use of the company. If all this is true – and it looks as if it is – they have a claim on the company’s funds, which could not be paid if the company were insolvent.’

  ‘They all lost if the company couldn’t pay up, but some lost more than others. Who had most to lose? Who would have gone to jail, for instance?’ McLeish asked.

  Catherine Crane sighed. ‘Assuming the company was insolvent, we would have been able to prosecute Bill Price as MD, and Luke Fleming as an active director. Whether either of them would have got a custodial sentence I wouldn’t like to say. We probably wouldn’t have prosecuted Mrs Price. And we couldn’t prosecute a consultant, like Mr Arnold, unless he had been drawing unauthorised monies from the company and there’s no sign of that.’

  McLeish left a pause for further comment, then asked the chairman’s question. ‘What do you expect the accountants to say, DI Crane?’

  ‘That while the company may well have been insolvent while Mr Price was alive it isn’t now, provided always the expected £2m insurance payment on the life of William Price is received. As is expected.’

  ‘In that case you would not be able to prosecute?’

  ‘Not under the Act. We would, of course, have a case against the directors of the company if an individual had been defrauded. And we thought we did. But I don’t doubt that the man who complained to us will take the money if it’s offered and withdraw his complaint.’

  Two of the team started to speak when McLeish lifted a hand for silence. ‘Are there any more questions for DI Crane? No? Thank you very much, Catherine.’

  She nodded to him and rose, picking up her papers in one contained movement, and got herself out of the room, every man’s eye following her regretfully. Comment and questions rose the minute the door closed behind her until McLeish silenced them.

  ‘That makes Fleming the one with most to lose.’ It was Roberts, a newly promoted detective sergeant, who was pink with excitement. ‘He’d have been prosecuted as well as losing his job. And, if the info from Spain is right, he wanted Mrs P too and he wouldn’t have got her.’

  ‘What about Mr Arnold, the MP? Being in with a bunch of crooks wouldn’t have been good for him.’

  McLeish pulled the meeting to order. ‘Right. Let us just briefly consider the assault on Mrs Price last night. We know that she had a row with Mr Arnold – or rather we have Miss Howard’s word for that. Mr Arnold has given me an account of where he was at the time of the assault and I have no reason to suppose that won’t be confirmed.’ His team looked at him hungrily, but he was not going to say more until he had talked to Miss James in whose company Miles Arnold had been whiling away a couple of hours between votes. ‘We know from Miss Howard that Mrs Price also had an argument with Mr Fleming and we haven’t been able to interview him yet.’

  ‘What about Francis Price?’ Roberts asked.

  ‘Has an alibi. Matt Sutherland left him with a friend. And Antony Price, you all know about. He says he found Mrs Price and he certainly called an ambulance and I find it difficult to believe he assaulted her.’ He saw that Jenny Martin, the only woman on his team, who had done such good work on finding the trust file, was trying to catch his eye. ‘Jenny?’

  ‘We did a general check on everyone involved with Mr Price, with his family as well. Dr Price – Antony Price that is – owes Ladbroke’s £7,000. He’s paying it off but he’s had an account with them a long time, and I wondered … I mean, if he’s a betting man he’d have other bills or debts somewhere else.’ She reddened under the appalled attention she was getting from the whole table. ‘I’m sorry, sir, we only just got the information this morning, just before I came to the meeting, and Chris – Sergeant Stewart – said I should tell you. He’s out, looking for Luke Fleming.’

  ‘Yes,’ McLeish said, heavily, managing not to look at Davidson. ‘I’d have been glad to know that before. That was why he was so fussed about his mother’s trust. He was furious with his father but he really needed the money, did he?’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘Lesson to us all.’ McLeish wasted no time on public recrimination; he would have words with Sergeant Stewart who should have made sure that this sort of information was in his hands in less than sixteen days after a murder.

  The group looked at him hopefully, but he had nothing useful to say; they knew a lot more than they did sixteen days ago, but they still had the same five suspects in the frame. He suppressed a sense of discomfort at the thought of Antony Price.

  ‘What about the assault on Mrs Price though, sir?’ Roberts asked. ‘Doesn’t that put her out of the running? As well as the MP and Francis Price?’

  ‘Not necessarily. That may have been about something else entirely. We haven’t been able to interview Mr Fleming yet. Might have been a lovers’ quarrel.’

  ‘Dr Price must be favourite.’ It was, inevitably, Davidson. ‘And if, as Jenny here says, he’s a betting man, he’d have known what to do with the cash that was in the safe the night Bill Price died.’

  That was a sound point, McLeish conceded silently, as his secretary came in and laid a note before him. ‘Ah, right. Sergeant Stewart has found Fleming. I’ll see him. Thank you all. Jenny, will you make sure all the personal stuff on our suspects is in and checked, and get it round all of us. Bruce. A word.’

  Davidson waited stolidly while the team filed out.

  ‘Go and pick up Antony Price, will you? Wait till he finishes operating, but bring him then.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t want to come?’

  ‘Charge him with assault on Mrs Price.’

  Davidson rose without comment but it was unfair to leave it like that.

  ‘It’s the gambling element that has rattled me. Gamblers can also dispose of cash without going near a bank.’

  ‘Rather than his record of violence?’ Davidson could be a grudging sod and this was one of the occasions.

  ‘I still don’t think he assaulted her and I don’t quite believe he murdered his father. But you’re right, there’s enough against him. Better safe than sorry.’

  A sidelong look reminded him that this had not been the basis of his argument, but having carried his point Davidson wasn’t going to argue. Or complain that he was not going to sit in on the Fleming interview.

  ‘Can I sort my desk, just?’

  ‘Oh yes. Price is safe enough. He’s started his operating list – and he’ll be there till one o’clock at least.’

  Luke Fleming, it transpired, had turned up at the Price Fleming offices at the usual hour for the commencement of business and had expressed forcibly a preference to stay where he was. He had pointed out that he was the only principal in Price Fleming still on his feet, one being dead and another in hospital. If the company was to have any chance of carrying out its commitments to its customers, someone had to mind the shop with the assistance if necessary of the two detectives on the premises. McLeish, acknowledging the justice of his comments, agreed to meet at Kensington Church Street.

  The driver got him there in fifteen minutes, during which he slept; he had arrived home at 2 a.m. to find Francesca awake and miserable, having been sick twice. He had left her uneasily asleep that morning.

  He opened his eyes, blinking in the bright April sun as the car stopped outside the house in Kensington Church Street, and waited a minute to gather himself. Stewart came down the steps and slid into the front passenger seat, craning round to speak.

  ‘Sir, Mr Fleming is here.’

  ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘He’s in a meeting with the acco
untants, I understand.’

  ‘I’d have been glad to know what they were saying to him.’

  ‘Oh.’ Stewart looked disconcerted.

  ‘No matter. He might not have asked the same questions with you there. How is he behaving? In a rage?’

  ‘No, sir. Not at all. Like … well, like anyone who wants to get on with the day’s work. We told him about Mrs Price.’

  ‘And? What did you think?’

  ‘That he was really surprised. He asked what time it had all happened, but I played stupid.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll see him – if, that is, I can detach him from the accountants. Come and take the note.’

  ‘Sir? I’m really sorry we didn’t get the stuff about Dr Price and the gambling. We didn’t look for it because the financial check on him was slow coming in. But there were credit card debts and all sorts when it did.’

  ‘Mm. The point is, Stewart, you need a routine so you know if something hasn’t arrived.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  They went up the stairs, stopping in the outer office to greet Margaret Howard. McLeish realised from her response that he must be looking more approachable than usual. It was, he reflected, natural relief at meeting the only person in the Price Fleming équipe who could not have murdered William Price, or pushed Sylvia Price downstairs. Margaret Howard’s attendance upon an aged aunt over the night of William’s death had been confirmed by two irreproachable witnesses apart from the aunt herself. And last night she had chosen to attend one of the Lloyd Webber musicals in the company of a woman friend, being halfway through Act 1 at the point where Sylvia Price was measuring her length on the stairs. He gave her the latest news of her employer.

  ‘She’ll be back today? Oh, I am glad.’ She looked anxiously at the closed door to the inner office from which the noise of raised voices could be heard. ‘Mr Fleming dictated lots of letters today and he has signed them but I thought … well, that Mrs Price would want to see them before they went…’

  She was holding a large leather-covered signature book, letters visibly interleaved between the blotting paper pages, and McLeish’s fingers itched.

  ‘Well,’ he said, judiciously. ‘I’ll be talking to Mr Fleming myself in a minute, and I could have a word if you’d like to give me them.’ She put the book into his hands with the speed of relief and he understood that she was going to back away from any goings-on that threatened to involve her. Anyone who had worked for five years for the deceased would have needed to preserve some detachment from the inner reality of the Price Fleming business. He expressed, wistfully, the hope of coffee. She hesitated and explained that she had been making coffee in the little kitchen in the flat, which Mrs Price had kindly said she could use, but the stairs had been roped off by the police. She was, she knew, being silly, but she had not yet managed to use the kitchen downstairs. She would most willingly go down to the corner for them.

  McLeish apologised for his thoughtlessness, and accepted promptly, instructing the young constable on the door to go with her, and as the door closed after her he and Stewart fell on the correspondence file, hunched over it shoulder to shoulder.

  It was a very businesslike set of letters, and McLeish understood that he had not fully appreciated Luke Fleming’s qualities. Twenty of the letters were the same, to different addressees; all explained that despite Price Fleming’s best efforts it was not now realistic to assume that three apartment blocks in Spain would be ready by the end of June. No reference to the death of William Price was made. The tone was apologetic but there was careful reference to the terms of the contract which stopped short of a full guarantee. Nineteen of the customers were offered alternatives and the twentieth, whom McLeish recognised as the young man who had gone to the Fraud Squad, was also offered, ex gratia, the option of full reimbursement of the capital sum he had paid if this was his preference. Of the remaining three letters one was to a Spanish firm of solicitors with workmanlike instructions for a six-month lease on a substantial apartment block in Majorca, one to the National Westminster Bank in Brompton Road, confirming that what was proposed had been discussed with them, and asking for monies to be transferred to cover the deposit on the lease and expenditure on refurbishment. Another letter directed a firm of Spanish contractors to prepare themselves to quote for creating three apartment buildings described as ‘being built to foundation level’, the job to be complete for end September.

  A change of tone, and the scrape of chairs from the inner room, made them shut the book and arrange themselves in waiting posture. The door was flung open and Luke Fleming emerged in a vile temper, flushed on the cheekbones, eyes narrowed, the big hands clenched round a substantial bound volume of paper, on which only the word ‘DRAFT’ stamped top and bottom of the cover was visible. He nodded to McLeish, took a paper cup of coffee without thanks from the hands of the returning Margaret Howard, then put it down to snatch up the correspondence book.

  ‘I’ll take that. When did you say Mrs Price would be back? Right. Let me know the minute she gets here. I’ll be in the waiting-room if that will suit you,’ he added to McLeish.

  They followed him across the corridor, Stewart carrying his coffee for him, and settled themselves while he banged about putting down papers.

  ‘You would not believe I was a director of this company,’ he said, surveying the pile of papers and books. ‘And I’ll tell that popsy from your lot the same, I’m the one who has been keeping the place going in Majorca; Sylvia had that accountants’ report for twenty-four hours, would you believe? And I was in this office most of yesterday.’ He spread his hands in furious appeal.

  ‘Mr Fleming, as you know, Mrs Price was injured in a fall last night. She claims that she was pushed down the stairs.’

  ‘Pushed? Your man said she fell.’ He glared at Stewart, who gazed fixedly at his notepad. ‘I didn’t push her downstairs. I never even went up to the flat yesterday, Sylvia was down here when I was. What time was all this?’

  ‘What time did you leave here yesterday, Mr Fleming?’

  Luke Fleming stared at him. ‘Right. I see. Another person keeping their cards so close to their chest that some of us don’t even know what game we’re playing.’ He took a deep breath, clenched both hands together and sat back. ‘I left about five thirty. Then I went to my flat, had a drink and a shower and watched the telly – the Channel 4 news till whenever it finishes. Then I had another drink or so and I went at about … what … nine o’clock. Had dinner at Café Pelican – big place in St Martin’s Lane. When was Sylvia attacked?’

  ‘Did you see anyone at your flat or on your way out?’

  ‘No. It’s supposed to be a serviced block but you never see any service.’ He hesitated. ‘I met someone at Café Pelican, though. There’s always a few people there to talk to. I’ve got her phone number. And no, I didn’t bring her home, I thought I’d got enough on my plate. But she could be asked, I suppose.’

  Sylvia Price had been attacked at seven thirty the night before, and Fleming’s flat was not more than twenty minutes away.

  Fleming tried his question again. ‘So what time was the attack?’

  ‘Seven thirty, or just before.’ Someone was going to tell him that in the course of the day.

  ‘So I was alone with the TV.’

  ‘What are your immediate plans, Mr Fleming?’

  ‘Talk to Sylvia. Mrs Price. Doesn’t she know who did it, for heaven’s sake? It wasn’t me.’

  McLeish concluded the interview after a few more questions destined to elicit any detail of Fleming’s journeyings the night before, and let the man go back into his office. He told himself that Fleming was hardly going to assault Sylvia Price, in the presence of Margaret Howard and at least two accountants.

  He suppressed an urge to ring Davidson and tell him to go now and wait outside the operating theatre for Antony Price – it would be an inefficient use of time, of course it would. He would wait until Stewart got the statement typed up for signature and meanwhile try
to find Susie James on the telephone. By Miles Arnold’s own statement she would not be providing him with anything approaching a secure alibi, but whatever she had to say ought to be recorded, and he had undertaken to deal with her himself.

  He thought for a moment he must have got the wrong number because it was a man, unctuously smooth-spoken, who replied. No, Miss James was not available but a message could be passed to her, and would be, if he liked to leave his own name, an indication of whom he represented and a number where he could be reached. McLeish left his name, shorn of its rank, and the number at New Scotland Yard, but he was puzzled. Nothing about Ms James, or her business surroundings, had suggested that she could afford assistance of the calibre suggested by the man’s voice. Still, he had been saved a wasted journey and the call had only taken five minutes.

  And a very useful delay too, he realised, as he looked out of the window for his car. It was there but so was a taxi and another unmarked police car from which Catherine Crane was emerging. She stopped, the fair hair shining in the sun, to wait by the taxi which Sylvia Price was paying off, left arm in a sling, a large plaster on her left temple, her eyes hidden by dark glasses. Despite the sling and the bandage she did not look dishevelled; her blonde streaked hair was immaculate and her beige mackintosh swung fashionably clear of the injured arm. Nor was she in a hurry; she had stopped to greet Catherine Crane in a leisurely way, and the two women sauntered up the steps together chatting in the sun, Catherine carrying Sylvia Price’s bag. If he played it right, he could take Sylvia Price through her statement of last night again, and get a look at the accountants’ report or, at the worst, a digest of its contents from Catherine. And it would be interesting to see how Luke Fleming would receive Mrs Price.

  Like a valued associate, it turned out. Fleming appeared on the doorstep carrying his copy of the accontants’ report to embrace her in a comradely way, to commiserate on her injuries and to welcome her to a meeting with the accountants. Catherine was greeted in much the same spirit, and McLeish almost hesitated to destroy the general accord by emerging from the waiting-room. Luke Fleming simply wanted him to go away, and Sylvia Price was not altogether pleased to see him. Catherine, however, just before she got her professional mask back in place, looked as if her prayers had been answered.