In Vino Veritas lah-23

by J M Gregson

His satisfaction did not last for very long. Lambert glanced around the chef’s den, which was scarcely larger than a police station interview room, and decided its bare walls had nothing new to tell him about its occupant. ‘We’ve found out quite a lot more about Abbey Vineyards and its late owner since we last spoke to you.’

  It sounded ominous, as it was meant to do. Jason stalled with the opening he had planned. ‘I’m glad you now know more about the sort of man Martin was. Not everyone’s cup of tea, though all of us here have done well out of his enterprise.’

  ‘Well enough, no doubt. But some of you felt that it was high time the firm moved on. And apparently thought also that it couldn’t do that with the system Mr Beaumont was operating.’

  Jason Knight put his elbows on the small desk, steepled his fingers and smiled affably, trying to look thoroughly in control on his own territory. ‘Nothing wrong with that, is there? A little healthy debate about the ways we might go forward was very much in the interests of the firm, I should have thought. Particularly as we are becoming an ever larger concern, as a result of our success.’

  Lambert’s tone was equally pleasant. The bullets were in the words. ‘Nothing wrong at all, on the face of it, Mr Knight. But you chose to conceal not only that view but an acrimonious meeting with Mr Beaumont the day before his death. That is bound to interest officers conducting a murder enquiry. I think you should now tell us why you did that.’

  Jason told himself not to get annoyed, not to show that they had troubled him. This must have come from Gerry Davies. He’d known the bloke was too naive for his own good, that these people would get things out of him which he himself had been able to conceal from them. Why hadn’t Gerry told him, given him some warning that they knew? Too anxious to preserve his own skin, probably. Still, there was nothing to fear yet. They hadn’t anything to tie him directly to this death, and they wouldn’t find anything, if he handled this right. ‘I thought when we spoke on Saturday that my views on the way things should be run here were irrelevant to Martin’s murder. I still do. That is why I saw no reason to dwell on the subject when I talked to you then. I did agree with you at the end of our conversation that I had wanted a little more say in policy. I thought that would benefit the company as well as me personally.’

  ‘Very altruistic of you, Mr Knight. What we have to ask ourselves is whether an innocent man would have chosen to conceal from us a meeting initiated by Mr Beaumont two days before his death. A meeting in which he seems to have taxed you with plotting against him.’

  Jason nodded slowly. ‘Perhaps I should have mentioned it. But when you know you didn’t kill a man, you know also that it’s irrelevant.’

  Lambert’s smile said that he found this very hollow. ‘And you no doubt also thought it irrelevant that you had been enquiring about exactly what legal means might be available to force the issue on this matter, only a week or two before Mr Beaumont became a murder victim.’

  Jason forced himself to keep calm. He hadn’t anticipated this. The way the man had put it made him look bad, like a man who had been plotting against the dead man. But there was no way that it proved he had killed him. ‘I admire your research, Chief Superintendent Lambert. I wish our own research and development department had the personnel to produce this degree of detail. I merely took whatever advice I could gather. Martin Beaumont would have done exactly the same himself, in the same circumstances. He’d built the business up well, but he was a stubborn old sod. And a clever one, as I found out — he’d surrounded himself with all sorts of legal provisions which made it difficult to challenge the way he ran things.’

  ‘So the only way forward was to remove him from your path.’

  Knight ran a hand quickly through his fair, well-cut hair. It was his first visible manifestation of tension and he stilled it immediately. ‘I suppose that some member of the senior staff might have felt that way. I should tell you that there are others as well as me who wanted more power. I have to accept the possibility, with Martin lying dead in the mortuary, that one of us killed him. I can only tell you that it wasn’t me who thought murder was the solution. And whilst I see that extreme frustration with Martin’s autocratic methods is a motive, it is not the only motive.’

  ‘What other motives do you see?’

  He smiled, happy to have diverted them away for the moment at least from the immediate area of danger for him. ‘This is surely your area of expertise and your business rather than mine, Chief Superintendent Lambert. It is common knowledge that Martin had treated his wife abominably for years. It is common knowledge that Vanda North was once his mistress; she also feels as I do that she should be more than a junior partner in the firm. I told you on Saturday that Martin pursued an active and varied sex life outside his marriage: he must have made enemies there. Alistair Morton and Gerry Davies feel as I do that Martin could not have gone on being the sole wielder of the reins of power. Even our most recent senior executive, Sarah Vaughan, believes that.’

  Jason paused. He had expected to be interrupted before now, but Lambert was merely watching him attentively, his head a little on one side and the grey eyes unblinking, as if he was revealing more of himself than the people he spoke of. He sought desperately to seem not a denigrator of his friends but a person who had considered also the wider context. ‘From what I have heard, in the early days of the company, long before I was on the scene, Martin used some very dubious business practices to develop the firm. He trod on some dangerous toes to bring Abbey Vineyards to its pre-eminent position in English wines. He was still doing so at the time of his death. With your excellent research team at work, you no doubt by now know vastly more than I do about all of these things. I mention them only because you invited me to speculate.’

  Lambert caught the irony, but chose not to react to it. ‘Then speculate a little further, Mr Knight. Since you have plainly given the matter so much thought, let us now know the full extent of your thinking. It need go no further than this room. Who do you think put that bullet into Martin Beaumont’s head?’

  ‘I don’t know. If I did, be assured that I would tell you. I don’t find it pleasant being a suspect, which is plainly what I am. If you put me on the spot, I should have to opt for one of the people he has trampled on his way to success — perhaps quite recently, for all I know. Ethics went out of the window when he was acting for Abbey Vineyards. Martin regarded any action as justified if it benefited the firm.’

  He was pointing them towards Tom Ogden, thought Lambert, but he did not take up the hint. Instead, it was Hook who looked up from his notes and said, ‘You told us on Saturday that you had no one who could vouch for your whereabouts after you left Ross-on-Wye Golf Club at around eight o’clock last Wednesday night. Is that still the case?’

  ‘I am a single man, DS Hook. I was at home, relaxing after a round of golf and a couple of drinks. I dozed in front of the telly and went to bed some time after eleven. Does that seem unreal to you?’

  ‘Not at all, sir. If you had unearthed someone who could confirm that, it would have been useful for you. As you have just told us, it is very unpleasant to remain one of the suspects in a murder enquiry.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  The sound of laughter rang clear and high in Vanda North’s thatched cottage. Female laughter. A rare sound, because Vanda lived alone and in the last few years had done little entertaining. A rarer sound still, almost unique in the last decade, because it came from Jane Beaumont.

  It was seven o’clock in the evening, and the two women were eating in the conservatory at the back of the house. The May sun was still reasonably high in a cloudless sky, stealing towards the Welsh hills and its descent behind them. ‘Fine again tomorrow, set fair for the week,’ said Jane happily, as she watched the sun gilding the fresh green leaves at the top of the tall beech tree, sixty yards away at the bottom of Vanda’s back garden. She could not remember when she had last considered the weather. That was a banal thought, perhaps, but the fact was significant: she was sur
e of that now.

  Vanda brought in the strawberries and cream. She too was pleasantly surprised. She had enjoyed preparing the meal, when for years now cooking had seemed little more than a tedious chore. When she had felt it necessary to entertain friends, she had usually done so at a restaurant, making the excuse that she was no cook and they should be grateful to be spared her efforts in the kitchen. Today she had turned back the clock and felt all the better for it.

  ‘Better finish that red wine before we eat the strawberries,’ she told her guest.

  ‘I don’t know when I last enjoyed a meal so much,’ said Jane, running a finger reflectively round her empty glass as she put it back upon the table. ‘Mind you, you haven’t much competition: for months now, I’ve hardly noticed what I was eating. But I noticed everything tonight. And enjoyed everything.’

  Vanda brought two Benedictine liqueurs with the coffee. At her suggestion, they left the small square table she had set up in the conservatory and went back into the sitting room. The sun was dipping behind the big oak tree now, and the light here seemed dim after the brightness of the conservatory. But she did not put on the light, sensing correctly that both middle age and the pleasant lassitude which was overtaking them would be better suited by the twilight of a perfect evening.

  Jane subsided happily into the deep comfort of the sofa and said, ‘I shouldn’t drink this. I won’t be fit to drive home.’

  ‘You’ve passed that point already. You’ll need to stay the night. It’s no problem; the bed is already made up in the spare room.’

  Jane Beaumont nodded. They were close enough now for there to be no need for the ritual protest. She felt now that she had always known she was going to stay. She looked at the green liqueur in the glass, then rolled it around a little, relishing the rich colour and the moment without sipping the drink. ‘If anyone had told me a fortnight ago that I’d have been relaxing here after enjoying a meal with you, I’d have said they were crazy,’ she mused.

  Vanda nodded. ‘I had a very anxious hour after that first phone call of yours, wondering whether you’d cosh me when you arrived.’ She hesitated for a moment, then came and sank down beside her new friend on the deeply cushioned sofa. ‘Here’s to us!’ she said, clinking her glass against Jane’s and taking a ritual sip.

  She slid her arm round Jane’s shoulders and rested it on the bare flesh of the arm below the short-sleeved dress. She felt the body beside her stiffen for a moment, then slowly relax. She glanced sideways at the strong, newly animated features beneath the neat dark hair, then outwards again through the windows of the conservatory at the crimson sky behind the tree. ‘Perhaps I should say that I have always been of a strictly heterosexual persuasion,’ she said, after a full minute had passed in silence.

  ‘So have I,’ said Jane Beaumont softly. ‘Though I can’t say that the experience has been either frequent or varied over the last few years.’

  They giggled a little over that, then were silent again. They willed the companionable darkness to steal in softly around them, exquisitely content in their friendship, resolutely refusing to consider where it might go from here.

  Alistair Morton’s office at Abbey Vineyards was almost as anonymous as the man himself, Bert Hook thought.

  There were five photographs on the walls, but they were all of the vineyard and its buildings at different stages of their development. They spanned a period of over twenty years and were interesting enough as a record of the place’s history. But they told you nothing about the man who spent a lot of his life in this room. He only appeared in one of the photographs, the earliest one, in which a young Morton with precisely parted black hair stood just behind the more striking blond-haired figure of the young and handsome Martin Beaumont. The founder and owner of the vineyard beamed his confident, extrovert smile at the camera. The man behind his right shoulder looked more shyly at the lens, as if he could not wait to disappear back to his office and away from public view.

  It was eight o’clock on Tuesday evening, and Lambert wondered why Morton had been so insistent that they should meet here rather than in his home, where they had conducted their first meeting. It would be quieter here, he had said. But his house was in a sleepy suburb and he had no children. Had he wanted to keep them away from his wife? Did he fear that she might let him down under pressure? Hook decided to take up that issue later, unless the man proved cooperative.

  In the meantime, Lambert would set about piercing the carapace of privacy which this slight, self-effacing man had grown about himself. ‘We know a lot more about Mr Beaumont and his senior staff than when we spoke to you on Friday. This in turn means that we need information from you, Mr Morton.’

  ‘I shall be happy to help you, of course, as far as I am able to. I should perhaps warn you that I know little about the private lives of my colleagues.’

  ‘It is your own life, business and private, which interests me most.’ Lambert glanced through the window at the restaurant with its busy car park, at the now deserted offices and shop, at the fields of vines stretching away as far as the eye could see into the soft evening sunlight. ‘You were involved in all this from the outset. You have helped it to grow from a small, risky venture into a prosperous business. I believe you know more about the business methods of our murder victim than any man alive. Particularly the ones he used in those early days. You have so far told us very little.’

  Alistair had not been prepared for the directness of this challenge. He told himself firmly that he had known they would get on to this ground eventually, that he had answers ready for them. ‘It is a long time since those early days. I cannot see that they have any bearing on Martin’s death.’

  ‘You cut some very dangerous corners in the years when you were establishing Abbey Vineyards.’

  ‘Martin did that, not me. It was a difficult process, establishing an enterprise in a totally new field. We hadn’t really enough capital, but you can’t ask Martin about that now. He took a few risks — pretended at times that we had more money at our disposal than we had, claimed tax relief on a few items which may have been dubious.’

  ‘Claimed tax relief on items which did not exist. And you were his financial adviser. You not only went along with his lies but devised many of them for him.’

  It was strong stuff, much stronger than Alistair had anticipated. He hadn’t expected this to be thrown at him again after all this time. ‘That was never proved. The Inland Revenue investigated everything at the time and gave us a clean bill of health.’

  Lambert smiled the smile of the man who had made his point and put his adversary on the back foot. ‘You know as well as I do that it was very far from “a clean bill of health”. My interpretation of their findings is that they knew very well you were at fault but decided not to prosecute for lack of evidence. Mr Morton, you may be relieved to hear that I have no wish to reopen old wounds. We are interested in charging a murderer, not pursuing an ancient fraud case.’

  Alistair looked down. His thin, stricken face looking like that of a schoolboy determined to get out the words he had prepared for this. ‘Martin did things which I advised him not to do and said things which I advised him not to say. We were very much a two-man band in the early days; I went along with these things at the time because I felt I had to support him. I would not do it again.’

  ‘No doubt he told you that he would make it worth your while to do so.’

  Whilst Hook marvelled anew at his chief’s ability to make many bricks from little straw, Morton flashed an anguished glance at his questioner, then dropped his gaze again to his desk. ‘He said that once we were established as a going concern and had put those perilous early days behind us, I would become a partner in the firm.’

  ‘A promise which he failed to honour.’

  ‘He denied he had ever made it. And I’d nothing in writing to challenge him with, as he reminded me whenever I raised the matter.’ Alistair felt as if teeth were being drawn from him, without an anaesthetic. Even
with the assurance that he would not be prosecuted, it was agony for an accountant to admit crimes of financial deceit to a policeman. And it had all been for nothing. He had been a cautious financial man for many years now; it was agony to admit to such ancient naivety.

  ‘So you felt that Beaumont had led you into a Serious Fraud Squad investigation, with the possibility of a prison sentence and the certain loss of your professional status, without paying the price that he had offered.’

  It was a statement, not a question. Alistair Morton could see no way to deny it. He nodded miserably. ‘It remained a bone of contention between us until he died.’

  Lambert smiled at the mildness of the cliche. ‘A little more than that, Mr Morton. Mr Beaumont’s intransigence in failing to recognize your loyalty and the risks you had taken without reward became a motive for murder.’

  Alistair found himself drawn irresistibly into greater confessions than he had ever intended. He said in a monotone which seemed to come from someone else, ‘I thought about killing him. I don’t deny that.’ He stopped for a moment, remembering the long hours of the night he had spent considering the methods he might employ. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, ‘But I didn’t kill him. Someone else did that for me.’

  The CID men allowed the long silence to stretch as a tactic, so that this denial seemed increasingly feeble. It was into this atmosphere that DS Hook eased his first question. ‘You said on Friday that you were at home on the night of this death. That you did a little gardening, watched television, and did not go out again until the next morning. Would you now care to revise that?’

  ‘No. My wife confirmed that, didn’t she?’

  Hook shook his head sadly as he consulted his notes. ‘Mrs Morton was interviewed by a junior officer in uniform. He said she seemed a little unsure of the facts of the matter.’

  Alistair was suddenly weary of this, of the years of deceit, of the years of alternately wooing and badgering the man who had refused to concede his rights. He could picture his naturally honest wife trying to do her best for him and failing to convince. He was soiled goods. He didn’t want Amy to become soiled goods too, as a result of what he had asked her to do for him. He said dully, ‘I went out again, late in the evening, on the edge of dark.’