‘Why would Lashley want to run Wren’s into the ground, Fay? What was the object of the fraud?’
‘I assumed at first he was taking cuts of the overpayments and undercharging – backhanders from Wren’s suppliers and customers. But no. It was cleverer than that – and worse. There’s no actual proof, but the warm tone of letters Lashley received from Percy Faull, managing director of CCC and chairman of the china clay trade association, gives the game away. Wren’s had a good workforce and some of the most productive pits. Properly managed and developed, they could have been profitable enough to rival CCC and Faull knew it. So, he engaged Lashley to sabotage Wren’s. His reward was to be a prominent position in the merged operations, with a promise of further elevation in due course. Faull adopted Lashley as his successor at CCC and pushed the appointment through the board when he retired. That’s no secret. But why he favoured an outsider has puzzled me from the start of my researches. Now I have the answer. In a handwritten postscript to one letter, he says to Lashley, “Keep up the good work.” Oliver gives that double underlining and an asterisk. He knew what it meant. Thanks to him, so do I.’
‘You’re sure about this?’
‘Having seen what I’ve seen today, yes. Greville Lashley was employed by Wren’s. But he was working for Cornish China Clays. And he seems to have recruited Gordon Strake to assist him. The extent of Strake’s role is hard to discern, of course. That’s where we enter the realm of speculation.’
‘Go on, then. Speculate.’
‘There are memos from Kenneth Foster in the early months of 1959 that suggest he’d smelt a rat. Then, conveniently for Lashley, he killed himself. George Wren was fobbed off with smooth assurances that Foster’s concerns amounted to nothing and Lashley went on his merry way.’
‘Are you suggesting Strake had a hand in Kenneth Foster’s death?’
‘I’m suggesting Strake was Lashley’s fixer. And the problem with Kenneth Foster was fixed. Except that his son, Oliver, wouldn’t leave it alone and dug and dug until he worked out what was going on. Then he wound up dead too. Like Strake himself, within a year of the takeover. By then, I suppose, he’d outlived his usefulness.’
‘Francis Wren killed Strake, Fay. I know that for a fact. Strake was blackmailing him. It doesn’t matter what with. It was nothing to do with what you’ve uncovered.’
‘Really?’
‘Fraud’s one thing. Murder’s quite another. I can’t imagine Lashley resorting to that.’
‘Can’t you? Well, I bow to your superior knowledge where Strake’s death is concerned, but Kenneth and Oliver Foster both posed a threat to Lashley. And they both died before they could bring him down.’
‘Maybe so, but—’
‘All this has set me wondering about Muriel Lashley’s death, too.’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘It freed Lashley to make a very advantageous marriage to Jacqueline Hudson, didn’t it? You could see that as part of his master plan if you were so inclined.’
‘Are you so inclined?’
‘Maybe Muriel became suspicious about how her first husband and their son had died. Maybe she was asking too many questions.’
Or maybe she was planning to have Fred Thompson ask some questions on her behalf. There was more to support Fay’s theory than she knew. But still I couldn’t credit what she was saying. ‘If you’re right, why on earth would Lashley hire you – or anyone – to write a history of the company, knowing what might come out?’
‘Perhaps vanity got the better of him. Perhaps he thought I’d ignore the gap in their records.’
‘Then why send me to find out what had happened when you didn’t ignore it? And why not destroy the records, rather than have his unreliable son hide them – a son he was trusting with some pretty devastating information, if your speculations are correct? It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘No. It doesn’t, does it? Yet it’s what he seems to have done.’
‘I can’t believe it.’
‘I think you may have to.’
‘But why? Why would he do that?’
Fay shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I can’t imagine. I’d like to ask him, naturally.’ She leant forward, fixing me with her gaze. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
I stood up then, opened the window and leant out, breathing in the cool spring air. I felt stifled by the sense that I’d been a part, however unwitting, of Lashley’s machinations. I wasn’t sure yet what they amounted to – whether they really could have encompassed murder. But I was going to have to find out. I was going to have to force the truth into the open – the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
I felt Fay’s hand on my shoulder. ‘What will you do, Jonathan?’ she asked.
I looked round at her. ‘I’ll see him.’
‘When?’
‘As soon as possible.’
‘I’ve undertaken to present my findings to the police on Monday. I won’t be doing any speculating for them. But I suppose they might do some of their own.’
‘That’s up to them.’
‘Will you be telling anyone else what I’ve told you? About the fraud, I mean. I imagine you’ll want to keep the rest to yourself, at least for the time being.’
‘I’ll put Pete Newlove in the picture.’ Seeing her raise her eyebrows, I added, ‘He’s earned it.’
‘What about Vivien?’
‘I need to speak to her stepfather before I say anything to her.’
‘Are you sure he’ll speak to you?’
‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘I don’t intend to give him any choice in the matter.’
FORTY-TWO
THE VILLA ORCHIS HAD changed little in the twenty-six years since I’d last been there, though perhaps the pergola was even more heavily draped in wisteria. It was Monday afternoon when I arrived. The light was mellow, the air fragrant. It wasn’t hard to understand why Greville Lashley should want to spend his declining years in such a place, nor why, at his age, he would be reluctant to leave it for any reason. But he’d have to be iller than I guessed he was to miss his son’s funeral, unless, as Fay Whitworth’s speculations had implied, there were other reasons why he didn’t want to return to his homeland.
I’d done a lot of thinking since setting off from St Austell. None of it had clinched the issue in my mind. A fraudster? Evidently, Lashley was that. And, in a way, given the uncanny dexterity he’d always shown as a businessman, that wasn’t so surprising. But a murderer? I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. If not, though, how was I to account for all the unnatural deaths that had smoothed his path and now seemed, in the light of what Fay had discovered, so obviously suspicious? More to the point, perhaps, how was he to account for them?
There was a sense of time turning full circle as I walked along the drive. A slim, glossy-haired young man was washing a car in front of the garage. He didn’t have Paolo’s cocksure bearing and the car was an unremarkable Lexus rather than a white-wall-tyred Alfa Romeo cabriolet, but the echoes of the past were audible enough. And memories compressed themselves in the moment.
‘Buon giorno,’ I called, to get the young man’s attention.
He broke off from his sponging and looked at me without smiling. ‘Buon giorno. Desidera?’
‘I’m here to see Signor Lashley.’
‘You have … un appuntamento?’
‘No. But—’
‘Phone to make one. OK?’ He resumed sponging the car, as if he’d said all there was to be said.
‘I’ll do that.’ I moved away, dismissing him from my thoughts. I covered a short distance back down the drive, then diverted across the lawn, striding towards the French windows of the study that I could see were half open.
‘Eh, signor,’ the young man shouted after me. ‘Fermatevi!’
I didn’t stop, of course. And before I was overhauled, a figure stepped out of the French windows to greet me. ‘It’s all right, Toni,’ he called. ‘He’s a friend.’
A ravaged handsomeness clung to Grev
ille Lashley, even at ninety-two. He still wore his hair, white now where once it had been black, just a little too long and carried himself with the same jauntiness I’d always associated with him, albeit stiffened by age. The lines on his face were deeply incised and his eyes had lost some of their clarity, but his expression was authentically Lashleyan: wry, perceptive, genial, calculating. He steadied himself with a silver-topped cane as he stood in the doorway and smiled as if genuinely pleased to see me.
‘It’s been a long time, Jonathan.’
‘The annual conference three years ago,’ I corrected him. ‘Not so very long really.’
‘I meant since you’ve been here. To the Villa Orchis.’
‘Ah. Then you’re right, of course.’
‘Come inside. We can talk there.’
He headed back the way he’d come and I followed, moving from the glaring brilliance of the afternoon light into the wood-panelled subfusc of the study, where so little had been altered since the days of Francis Wren that it was easy to imagine him watching us from the shadows.
Lashley sat down at the desk, where a sheaf of papers with IK letterheading on them lay on the blotter, and waved for me to draw up a chair. He took a drink from a glass of water as I did so, a cough growling deep in his throat. He was breathing heavily. Simply walking to the French windows and back had taken a lot out of him. Physically, that is. Mentally, he was without question as razor-sharp as ever.
‘Old age is a confounded bore,’ he said, smiling wanly. ‘My doctor can’t decide whether my heart or my lungs will give out first. At this rate, it could be a tie. Or a dead heat.’ He chuckled drily at his own joke. I didn’t join in.
‘Jacqueline said you weren’t well enough to travel.’
‘But I expect you think I am.’
‘Adam was your son, for all his faults. I’d have thought—’
‘I despaired of the boy years ago. At my stage in life, I can’t waste my dwindling energy on a display of affection I don’t feel or an observance of conventions I don’t respect.’ There was an angry edge to his voice. He didn’t like having to justify himself. He never had.
‘You’re a hard man, Greville.’
‘I’ve never pretended otherwise.’
‘Then you won’t mind my pointing out that you may have had other reasons for declining to travel to Cornwall.’
‘Might I?’
‘I think you know what I mean. It’s why I’m here.’
He nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘You don’t seem surprised to see me.’
‘Presley Beaumont passed on the news that the police had asked Doctor Whitworth to examine the files they found in Adam’s car. When I phoned the White Hart yesterday and was told you’d checked out, I assumed she’d informed you of her findings … and that you were heading in this direction. It was what I expected of you, actually. It was what I’d hoped you’d do. So, welcome. Do you want something to drink, by the way? Elena isn’t here at the moment, so if it’s to be tea or coffee you’ll have to make it yourself, but there’s whisky in the cabinet.’ He flapped a hand towards it. ‘Go ahead.’
‘I’m fine as I am.’
‘Really? I think I’d like a tot. Would you mind?’
I went to the cabinet. There was a three-quarters-full bottle of Highland Park waiting. I poured Lashley a glass, then poured one for myself as well.
‘I’m glad you’re joining me,’ he said as I delivered it to him.
I sat down again. Lashley raised his glass, as if silently pro posing a toast, and took a sip. I looked at him, waiting, as I knew he knew I was waiting, for him to tell me what I’d travelled from Cornwall to hear: the truth.
‘You’re probably wondering why I hired Doctor Whitworth to write a history of our company, knowing she was bound to discover a gaping hole in Wren’s records; and why, after she’d discovered it, I sent you to search for the missing files, knowing there was no one better qualified, one way or another, to find them, and knowing also what the missing files contained.’
‘I am wondering, yes.’
‘Well, we’ll come to that by and by. Suffice to say for the moment that this outcome was what I both expected and desired. Not poor Adam’s death, of course. I never foresaw that. I simply had no inkling how … self-destructive … he’d become. I suppose some would blame me for the follies of my son, but I’m not inclined to. You knew him. His problems were of his own making. Or else they were flaws he was born with. I was sorry for him. But I was also disappointed by him. Many times. There you have it, I’m afraid.
‘So, to the nub of the matter. We’d better begin at the beginning. Francis Wren didn’t leave the company in 1949 because he was bored with the china clay business, though bored he may have been. He left because George Wren discovered he and Kenneth Foster were lovers. He discovered that because I told him. The information was supplied to me by Gordon Strake in exchange for the settlement of his gambling debts. George was a staunch Methodist and a widower of long standing. He disapproved strongly of all forms of sexual licence. As for homosexuality … need I say more. This was sixty years ago, remember. It was a different world. Francis was sent packing … to what ended up as a comfortable exile in this very house. Ken Foster, as the husband of George’s beloved only daughter and father-to-be of his first grandchild, was allowed to remain, on the strict understanding that he curb his homosexual tendencies.
‘As a result of the upheaval, I became George’s trusted right-hand man. I had big ideas even then. I reckoned – and I was right – that Wren’s was ripe for expansion. But George was as commercially conservative as he was morally censorious. He’d have none of it. Every well-reasoned proposal I made was rejected. I was given a seat on the board, but only a miserly number of shares, so I could never force any of my plans through. That wasn’t a situation I was prepared to tolerate in definitely. I had some discreet discussions with Percy Faull about going to work for CCC, but he made a more interesting and, in the long run, more rewarding proposal: that I set about bringing Wren’s to its knees, so that its capacity to rival CCC, if properly managed, would be nullified and it would become, in time, easy prey to a takeover on modest terms. I was to be rewarded with something I couldn’t realistically aspire to otherwise: Faull’s post as chairman and managing director of CCC when he retired. I accepted. We shook on the deal. And he honoured it. We both did.
‘I knew from the outset that Ken would be a problem. He had a keen eye for detail. Fortunately, and unsurprisingly, he hadn’t abided by his father-in-law’s injunction. There’d been other … dalliances … over the years. Strake had continued to act as my informant. A man with his taste for gambling was frequently in need of a supplement to his salary. I supplied it. He was useful to me in a host of ways.’
‘Such as dealing with the Trudgeons.’
‘Yes. Such as that. Anyway, the time came when I had to make it clear to Ken that I had chapter and verse on his liaisons and that he’d be wise to stop querying what I was doing. Muriel and I were already … close … by then. I think he was aware of that. And I think he was painfully conscious that I had a hold over him he was powerless to break free of. I’m sure that’s why he killed himself: because he couldn’t see a way out.
‘So, I married Muriel, Adam was born and my … strategy … proceeded satisfactorily. Very satisfactorily. Until Oliver started delving into the matter, in search of the truth about his father. At some point, he salvaged Ken’s briefcase from the lake at Relurgis Pit. That can’t have been easy. You have to admire his perseverance. He must have found the pig’s egg he gave you inside. It was a love token from Francis that Ken had hung on to. One small piece of the jigsaw puzzle Oliver began to assemble. I imagine he collected a few more pieces during his visit here in 1967. Then, when I unveiled the takeover plan the following year, after George had died, Oliver turned his attention to our files. He can’t have known what he was looking for, but I knew what he’d eventually uncover, sharp-brained lad that he was. I
tried to frighten him off by setting Strake on him. It didn’t work. But I wasn’t unduly worried. The takeover was essentially a done deal. It only required board approval. I could deal with Oliver at my leisure once it was signed and sealed.
‘Then, during the afternoon of the day before the board meeting, Oliver phoned me at the office. He was in a call-box – in Newquay, as I subsequently learnt from Strake. He’d been giving Strake the runaround all day. Oliver told me quite bluntly that he knew what I’d done and, if I wanted to prevent the information reaching the other board members, I should meet him at Relurgis Pit at eight thirty that evening. He hung up before I had a chance to reason with him.
‘I didn’t have much option but to go. By then Strake had reported that Oliver had lost him, thanks to your intervention. I intended to do my best to talk the lad round. Failing that, I had to hope Francis, Harriet and Muriel simply wouldn’t believe him. In the event, though, when I got to Relurgis, he was nowhere to be seen. But he’d been there. I knew that because his camera was hanging from the rail on the jetty, where I couldn’t fail to notice it.
‘It was beginning to get dark. I waited ten minutes or so, but I knew he wasn’t going to show himself. I wondered if he was watching me, from some vantage point in the undergrowth round the lake. I expect he was. Eventually, I took the camera and left.’
‘You didn’t see him?’
‘No.’
‘But he’d summoned you there to hear his accusation. Why didn’t he go through with it?’
‘One can only conjecture. I never expected him to take his own life. I was as shocked as anyone else when I heard the news. He must have decided on that course of action some time before. I think he’d painted himself into a corner, actually. To expose me, he had to expose his father. And he couldn’t bear to inflict the truth about Ken’s sexuality – not to mention his affair with Francis – on his mother and his sister. But he wanted me to know he’d seen through me. He wanted me to understand that very clearly.’
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