Like False Money

by Penny Grubb

  If only she’d sent the original with Maz, she wouldn’t have tried to return it to the grate and been caught by the colonel who, in what must have been a panicked bout of quick thinking, made up the message from Mally to get Laura up to the prison where he could first subdue and then kill her.

  Annie fought to get her head round the cold calculations of the man who’d set himself up as a pillar of the community. Events had snowballed on to him. Just as he felt confident enough to use Elizabeth Atkins’s money, Terry Martin came on the scene asking awkward questions, then Tremlow saw more than he should. While he dealt with him, Annie was in his face and Laura showed up with the incriminating page. If he hadn’t been prepared to throw in the towel at that stage, nothing would have stopped him, and what had happened at the cliff’s edge was for the best.

  And now, there were things she must do.

  ‘Could I borrow your phone?’ she asked Mr Tunbridge, hoping his mobile would find a network up here by the road.

  She called Pat to tell her what had happened, to let her know where she was.

  The right thing for her to do now was sit tight with the Tunbridges until the confusion eased. The police would want to question her, to get all she knew. She was pretty sure they hadn’t yet figured out why Colonel Ludgrove had done it, but she could tell them that. First thing though was her duty to the Martins.

  It was far too late at night, but she couldn’t leave it. The ring tone buzzed in her ear for a long time before Martha’s voice, befuddled by sleep, said, ‘Hello. Who’s that? What is it?’

  ‘It’s Annie Raymond. I’ve news for you. Can I come round?’

  A pause, then, ‘We’ll be waiting.’

  Annie handed back the phone. ‘Mr Tunbridge, could I ask you to do me another favour?’

  With his help she was able to slip away unnoticed. He drove her back to where she’d parked the car in Milesthorpe. She thought back to the colonel’s kitchen. Those two cups of tea. After he heard Pat was outside waiting, he’d changed his mind about the nip of brandy – was that to mask the taste of what he’d already put in it? He’d carried the cups through and hadn’t touched his.

  Would she have disappeared and turned up two days later dead in Pat’s car with a pipe from the exhaust? Pat might have wondered, but could only have said she didn’t know Annie well. Cursory enquiries would have shown her virtually penniless and homeless; the product of a fractured childhood. Yes, the colonel had lost his one chance there.

  As she pulled up outside the house in Withernsea, the door opened to reveal Martha wrapped in layers of cotton nightdress and the rough sack-like material of a long bulky dressing gown. For just a fraction of a second she paused and stared hard at Annie. Then she pulled the door wide and said, ‘Come through.’

  Annie glimpsed her own profile in the hallstand as she stepped inside. Her hair stuck out like a spiky halo framing a face smeared with mud. No wonder Martha had had to check to be sure it was her. As she followed her to the small sitting room she became aware of the huge clods of clay that still clung to her shoes, the swathes of mud that stiffened her clothes. Dirt and grass rained down on to the carpet with every step.

  She stopped. Surely Martha hadn’t meant her to come in, to violate the pristine neatness of her home.

  ‘Come and sit down, love.’ Bill’s voice summoned her from where he sat in his usual armchair, bundled in the same rough material as his wife and with striped pyjama trousers emerging from beneath the identical dressing gown.

  She stared at them, felt the damp that seeped through to her skin, looked at the spotless moquette of the empty armchair.

  ‘You said you had news,’ Bill prompted.

  They didn’t care about the mud, or the state she’d leave the furniture in; all they cared about was that she had news. She stepped forward carefully trying to dislodge as little loose stuff as possible and picked up a newspaper from the table. Spread open, it was reasonable protection for the fabric of the chair. It crackled as she sat down on it.

  ‘I don’t know when it started,’ she told them, ‘but Terry had worked it out. He’d confronted Mr Tremlow with evidence that the work on the house next door was paid for from the money Elizabeth Atkins left to Milesthorpe Church.’ Annie imagined Tremlow horrified, rushing to the colonel for reassurance that Terry had it wrong.

  ‘Tremlow wouldn’t have suspected the colonel, not at that stage. And I don’t think Terry did to start with. He thought it was Edward Balham, the other church warden.’ As she spoke, Annie thought of the still unidentified body in the building on the cliff. She intended having the full story now from either Scott or Jennifer. And if they wouldn’t play ball then there were plenty of things she wouldn’t tell them in return.

  As she unravelled the tale for the Martins, Annie saw it more clearly in her own mind. Terry’s obsession with the church wardens, the ones who’d been left in control of Elizabeth Atkins’s legacy, made sense now.

  ‘It was just the right focus,’ she told them. ‘No one else had spotted what was going on.’

  ‘Why didn’t the others know? Weren’t they all in charge of that money?’

  She told them about the elderly trio; Last of the Summer Wine; a bit of a joke. Balham, who was retired from everything except some nominal oversight of the farm that operated as efficiently with as without him. Whether Balham’s extracurricular activities in that building by the cliff had any bearing, she didn’t know. Tremlow, nervy, ineffective, happy to do as his assertive friend told him until he found himself covering for a murder. Then there was the colonel. A leader of men, whose daughter brought shame on the family and near bankruptcy with her high living and divorce settlement. Likely the colonel had killed Elizabeth Atkins once the paperwork was straight enough for him to get hold of the money. Doris was probably right. No one would ever know now.

  Yes, she thought, Terry had been on the point of uncovering the fraud, until his ill-judged pursuit of Balham had derailed him.

  ‘Terry must have had the whole story ready to roll,’ she said, ‘but Colonel Ludgrove caught up with him.’

  ‘How did he kill our Terry?’

  Annie’s mind raced over what she now knew, sorting fact from supposition. The Martins didn’t want theory, they wanted facts, so she presented it to them that way. She was pretty sure she had it right.

  ‘Terry bumped into Melissa Fletcher that Sunday in Milesthorpe. He asked her about Edward Balham and she directed him to her grandfather. She ran wild but she knew where her grandfather’s boundaries lay. She was wary of crossing his friends and Balham was one of his friends. One of the other girls had told Terry about the building on the cliff, but Melissa had found him some paperwork on Elizabeth Atkins’s legacy. She had no idea what it meant.’

  ‘So what happened that Sunday?’

  ‘Terry went to confront the colonel.’ That was the theory that made Terry look brave and decisive. More likely he’d gone to dig for detail on Balham.

  She told them how the colonel had knocked Terry out and fed him alcohol to keep him comatose as he came round, and noted a rapid nod of agreement from Bill. They knew he wasn’t a drinker and this lifted the slur. She wondered what other drug the colonel had used. Something that made him keep his victims alive for two days to get it out of their system. She’d need to find out about that.

  ‘Where was he those missing two days?’

  ‘In the Fletchers’ house. The colonel took him there unconscious from his own house.’ Having felt the colonel’s strength, Annie had no problem with presenting this theory as fact. Terry had probably been bundled into the boot of the car. The house next door to Tremlow’s, like Tremlow’s own, had an integral garage so no problem getting him in. And, of course, the colonel would be an expected visitor looking after the place while his daughter was away. Even with its ever-open doors, Milesthorpe was the sort of place where everyone had everyone else’s key. The colonel had a key to Balham’s, including to the shed on the cliff. It must have been a nas
ty moment for him when Annie produced a copy he hadn’t known existed.

  And it was Annie who’d signed Tremlow’s death warrant when she’d rung the colonel about his friend. As she and Pat searched the house, poor Tremlow must have been next door drugged, maybe in his own car in the Fletchers’ garage.

  ‘So the man who confessed? He didn’t kill our Terry?’

  ‘No, but the colonel got him to go out in a panic with a weapon that night and hit out. He might have thought he’d done it at first. The colonel must have been there all along. That business about Tremlow ringing him up, about him struggling his way across the fields was just lies. Tremlow knew by then that Terry was right about the church legacy. The colonel tried to keep him quiet by persuading him he’d killed Terry.’

  Annie wondered what the colonel had said.

  We’ll leave him in the hole. Pretend he fell from the scaffolding. Look, there’s a loose bar up on the platform.

  But Tremlow had seen the colonel up there. The shock of it all had made him a wreck.

  Annie thought back to what Scott had said about Tremlow’s confession. ‘The way he told it, it could have been an accident. He hit out. Didn’t realize what he’d done.’

  Didn’t realize because he hadn’t done it. The colonel must have had a terrible shock when Doris Kitson turned up so suddenly and promptly. Luckily for him Tremlow was in too bad a state to unburden himself to Doris and her version backed up the colonel’s story.

  Annie thought she might have a final cup of tea in Doris’s immaculate kitchen. She’d like to bet it was the colonel himself who told her Mally’s father had been seen heading for the ex-marital home the day of Annie’s first visit. Annie hadn’t seen the small blue car because it had never been there to see. It was the colonel who’d upset Mally by claiming his ex son-in-law had talked to Laura. All along he’d strewn the seeds, just in case.

  And it might have worked.

  Yes, she’d prise some dates out of Doris. When did Mally’s parents’ marriage hit the rocks? When was it clear they were about to slide into the financial mire? She’d like to bet there was a correlation with Elizabeth Atkins’s promised legacy. Doris had been right. Annie felt ashamed now she’d ignored her theories about a suspicious death just because the victim was in her nineties.

  ‘The man who killed our Terry, he’s dead now? He fell off the cliff?’

  ‘Uh … yes.’ Annie didn’t meet Bill Martin’s eye. ‘Yes, he lost his footing when he tried to push me over the edge. There’ll be media interest in all of it,’ she went on. ‘But if you want to you can refer the newspapers to me, I’ll verify the facts with them.’

  ‘How will the papers treat him now?’

  Annie thought of all the things she’d uncovered about Terry Martin, about all the ways the truth might be spun. She thought about the main players. How would pensioners from the rural wasteland to the east of Hull fare against news stories from the more accessible parts of the country? Terry Martin couldn’t compete for coverage in the nationals. There was too much real news about. And, as the slightly unsavoury character he’d been, the respectable local press would ignore him, but Pat had contacts. Annie felt confident she could seed a good local interest angle with them.

  ‘As a dedicated journalist who died for his craft,’ she said.

  It wouldn’t last. It wasn’t real consolation. But Annie would remember the smile of satisfaction on Martha’s face that had found some reflection in Bill’s when he looked at his wife. And she knew she’d done the best it was possible to do for them.

  When she arrived back at the flat in the small hours, Annie found both Pat and Barbara in the living room sitting opposite each other with a tray on the table between them. It was clearly one of Barbara’s creations with a lace cloth, neatly arranged biscuits on a plate and coffee in a pot.

  Barbara looked Annie up and down. ‘Coffee? Or d’you want to get showered first?’ Although she didn’t quite smile, she managed not to look unfriendly.

  ‘Uh … thanks. I’d love a coffee.’

  ‘She’ll clog the drains,’ Barbara said to Pat, as she leant forward to the tray. ‘Go on. Tell her.’

  Pat sat up straight. ‘Barbara and I have had … what shall we say? A frank exchange with Vince. We’re parting company.’

  ‘What’s happening to the agency?’ Annie surprised herself at how much she cared what became of Pat’s family business.

  ‘Unfortunately Vince gets to keep the business and the name, but we had enough of a legal stake left to screw a financial settlement out of him.’

  ‘Another few months’ leeway and we wouldn’t have got that.’ Barbara narrowed her eyes at Pat as she spoke, and handed Annie her coffee.

  ‘Well, don’t look at me. It was never my bag to keep an eye on that side of things. You were supposed to do that.’

  ‘Not after I’d left. Don’t be ridiculous—’

  Annie interrupted. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘We’re going to set up on our own, go for the jobs that the big boys aren’t interested in. It’s what Dad did in the first place. He always said there was a market to be carved out if you worked at it. Vince isn’t bothered. He just wants the money to keep rolling in.’

  Annie pretended not to see the glance that speared between Pat and Barbara. She thought about the roof of the tower block. With aerials that size, their transmissions could reach out to the estuary and beyond, but she’d bet if she went back to the roundabout now she’d see nothing on that roof. Vince would have shifted the whole operation. And right now she could see the sense in leaving him to it, but maybe one day the sisters would go head to head with him again. For now, it was enough that Pat had seen through him.

  Pat glanced at Barbara and nodded towards Annie. Barbara cleared her throat before she spoke. ‘We’ve no security to offer, but the money we’ve screwed from Vince’ll keep us afloat a while. We’re going to give it a go. If you want to come on board, you can, but all we’re offering is hard work, crap money and no security.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Don’t answer now. Have a think. Oh, and by the way, the law’s after you.’

  ‘The law…? Oh right, yes, they’ll want a statement, I suppose.’

  ‘Your faithful plod was going spare; thought you’d done something stupid.’

  ‘Why would I do something stupid?’

  ‘I told him he was being a prat. Anyway, I said I’d ask you to call him when you turned up.’

  ‘Well it’s far too late now. I’m knackered. I’m going to have a shower and go to bed. I’ll go down tomorrow.’

  *

  Annie gave her statement the next morning to a police sergeant she didn’t know and an unsmiling PC Greaves.

  Scott turned up at the flat soon after she arrived back. She assumed he’d been waiting for her. He’d taken the trouble to change out of his uniform. Even his trousers looked normal. He sat in the chair next to Annie. Pat sat opposite them rummaging through her big bag, not looking inclined to move.

  After a moment, he spoke, his tone diffident. ‘Uh … I’m sorry, Annie. I said things I shouldn’t have.’

  He didn’t quite manage to meet her eye, but then she couldn’t quite meet his as she said, ‘That’s OK, I expect I deserved some of it. Um … how are those girls? Kay Dearlove wasn’t well at all.’

  ‘OK. They’re all OK.’

  ‘And what about Mally? Has anyone found her mother yet?’

  ‘She was never lost. Her grandfather was in daily contact, so was the girl. They didn’t breathe a word to her of what had happened. Melissa told us it was so her mother wasn’t worried. That was the line her grandfather gave her.’

  ‘So her mother wasn’t a part of it?’

  ‘Oh no, doesn’t look like it. Ludgrove handed her the chance of a break when he decided he had to be rid of Terry Martin. Told her to go off for a fortnight with the new boyfriend. I don’t think he’d acknowledged the guy before so she snatched at it. She should have
been back this weekend but he told her to stay on, said that Melissa was going to spend a week with her father.’

  Pat looked across at Scott. ‘I wonder why he didn’t send Melissa with them.’

  ‘I doubt they’d have stayed away five minutes crammed in a mobile home together. I gather the mother’s boyfriend was daggers drawn with the girl. She wouldn’t acknowledge his existence. And I think her grandfather found her useful. She did as she was told. We won’t dig too deeply there. She’s only a kid.’

  Annie digested this without comment and asked, ‘Where was her father?’

  ‘He’d been away on business.’

  ‘Just like he said. I heard the colonel imply to Mally that he’d made that up so as not to have to take her.’ And he’d seeded various sightings over the week. He’d had his fall guy prepared if anyone veered away from the idea of Terry Martin having died in a fall and Tremlow being a suicide.

  ‘How far away is Mally’s mother? Will it take her long to get back?’

  ‘She’s back already. She was on a campsite further up the coast. A bit of a dim cow, if you ask me. The daughter has more to her.’

  She certainly does, thought Annie, remembering the chaotic scenes at the cliff top. Aloud she said, ‘That’s hardly fair, Scott. It must have been an awful shock for her. What about the ex-husband, is he on his way back?’

  ‘He’s back, too. He got some garbled message from his ex-father-in-law about his daughter being in trouble and rushed back.’

  ‘He was supposed to be on the spot to take the rap, wasn’t he?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  Annie let the sequence of events run through her mind. She wanted to move the conversation away from Mally. ‘Did Colonel Ludgrove know what Balham got up to in that shed?’