by Jill McGown
SCENE VII – BARTONSHIRE.
Sunday, September 28th, 7.30 a.m.
Little Elmley.
Judy felt as though they were mounting a dawn raid on poor Josh and Sandie Esterbrook as she drove up to the big house. It wasn’t exactly dawn, but it was very early. That hadn’t stopped Lloyd sitting up half the night reading the Esterbrook will; he had said, however, that he was only halfway through and no wiser for the experience.
There was no reply when Tom rang the old-fashioned bell-pull. Judy got back in the car after he had rung a second time. ‘He said he lived in a different part of the house from his stepmother,’ she said. ‘Let’s drive round and see if we can find another likely door.’
Tom and Lloyd got back in, Judy drove along the road which curved round the building, and they at last found a wing at the rear of the house with its windows curtained, and another door, this time with a modern doorbell. After a few moments, the door was answered by an unshaven, tousled Josh, wearing only a pair of jeans.
‘Sorry to call so early,’ Lloyd said, ‘but we would like another word with you and Mrs Esterbrook, and I wondered if I might have a key to your mother’s cottage in Penhallin?’
‘What for?’
‘A phone-call was made from there to your stepmother yesterday afternoon,’ said Lloyd. ‘I want to see if I can find out who might have made it. I’d also like to have a look at this break-in which your brother says he found when he went to your boat, Mr Esterbrook. You’re welcome to accompany me.’
‘Half-brother.’ Josh Esterbrook stepped back, shivering slightly as a breeze got up. ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Sandie’s still sleeping. I was just going to take her some coffee. I’ll come with you to Penhallin if you can wait until I’ve had some too. I’m not human until then.’
‘Certainly,’ said Lloyd. ‘You can even eat. The car’s not due for about an hour or so.’
‘No, coffee’ll do. Does anyone else want any?’
Tom and Lloyd did; they sat at the kitchen table while Esterbrook put the kettle on and got the mugs. Judy had declined the offer; she wanted to get the girl alone, in case she and Lloyd were wrong, and it had been Josh Esterbrook who had beaten her up. If she was still in bed, then that might present the perfect opportunity.
‘We would like to ask you some questions about your last visit to Penhallin, if we may,’ said Lloyd.
‘Fire away,’ said Esterbrook, back to being as relaxed as he had been last night, now that he had got over his mild irritation at being got up at this ungodly hour for a Sunday.
‘Paul was with you?’ said Tom.
‘Yes, but not for long.’ Esterbrook told them that on the Saturday there had been an accident to the boat, and they had had to cancel the weekend. He had returned home, but Paul had stayed until the Sunday. He was spooning coffee into the mugs as he spoke.
‘Where did he stay?’
‘The Excalibur Hotel in Plymouth, I suppose. He usually stayed there.’
‘Why? It’s a long way from where the boat was berthed.’
‘You’ll have to ask him that,’ said Esterbrook.
‘Did he go to his mother’s cottage that weekend at all?’ asked Judy.
‘Yes,’ said Esterbrook. ‘She wanted him to pick up a letter for her. That’s why he had to come back on the Sunday, rather than staying until Monday.’
‘Did you ring him at the cottage?’ asked Tom.
‘Yes.’ Josh poured boiling water into the mugs and turned to face them. ‘What’s this about? Why should what Paul did in Penhallin weeks ago be of any interest to you?’ He produced sugar, and milk from the fridge, and put three of the mugs on the table.
No one answered him, but Tom had a question.
‘If you thought he was staying at the Excalibur, why did you ring him at the cottage?’
Josh smiled. ‘Help yourselves to milk and sugar – I’ll just take this to Sandie.’
‘Could you ask her if she feels well enough to have another word with me about the assault on her?’ Judy asked. ‘She doesn’t have to get up – I’d be happy to talk to her where she is.’
‘Sure.’ He set off down the hall, then came back, and popped his head round the door again. ‘Was that you ringing the front doorbell?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Judy.
‘Did you see my brother’s car by any chance? His wife says he didn’t go home last night.’
‘There was an Audi there.’
He shook his head. ‘That’s Angela’s car,’ he said. ‘Paul’s got a Range Rover. Thanks, anyway.’ He disappeared again.
‘There’s a Range Rover parked in the wood by the road up to the house,’ Tom called after him. ‘I thought it might be an estate worker or something.’
Esterbrook didn’t answer. He was gone for a few minutes, and Judy kept a weather-eye out for his return as they discussed the situation.
‘I reckon his brother’s been here,’ Tom said. ‘Wherever he is now. Told him what to tell us.’
‘I don’t think they’re likely to be that friendly,’ Judy said.
‘Who knows?’ said Lloyd. ‘Families are funny things.’
‘But they’re not really a family, are they?’ said Judy. ‘He always insists on saying stepmother and half-brother.’
‘He could be doing that to put us off—’ began Tom.
Josh emerged from the bedroom, carrying a tee-shirt, and came into the kitchen, pulling it on as he spoke. ‘The groundsmen don’t work on Sundays,’ he said to Tom. ‘And they don’t have Range Rovers. It must be Paul’s car. And I want a word with my half-brother,’ he added grimly.
Judy didn’t think it advisable to allow that; Josh Esterbrook was very angry indeed, and she imagined that was because of what had happened to his wife. Tom and Lloyd seemed to be of the same opinion, she discovered.
‘I don’t think he’s there,’ said Tom. ‘The car looked empty.’
‘Well, he won’t have gone far without it,’ said Esterbrook, opening the door.
‘Why don’t we give you a lift down there?’ said Lloyd. ‘I would rather like to have a word with him too.’
‘Fine,’ said Esterbrook, after a moment. ‘Let’s all go and have a word with Paul.’
Three minutes later, all four of them got out of Judy’s car, and walked to the Range Rover. It looked empty, as Tom had said, but Judy could see from Tom’s reaction that it evidently wasn’t. His macho image – cultivated to offset his blond curly hair – would have been compromised by any show of revulsion, but he stood quite still, then blew out his cheeks, and that was eloquent enough. Judy steeled herself, and once again found herself looking at the result of a bullet in the brain.
Paul Esterbrook lay slumped across the front seats, a revolver lying on the floor beside his gloved hand.
SCENE VIII – BARTONSHIRE.
Sunday, September 28th, 7.50 a.m.
The Wood at Little Elmley.
Josh Esterbrook had melted away after the discovery of Paul’s body; Judy, anxious for something to do, walked in the direction he had taken, into the wood, finding him idly kicking up the first few fallen leaves. If he had had a reaction to what he had seen in the car, it was gone; he was back to looking nonchalant, and she actually found herself thinking that he looked as though this sort of thing happened every day, until she realized that it apparently did. His stepmother yesterday, his half-brother today, and Josh was behaving as though none of it touched him at all. But she ought to make sure before she started demanding answers to questions.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘For the moment,’ said Esterbrook. ‘But the family ranks are being depleted fairly rapidly. I might be next, so make the most of it while you’ve got me.’
Judy decided to take his line. ‘I take it that condolences aren’t in order?’ she said.
‘I’d rather he’d done it on his own doorstep.’
‘But this was his own doorstep, wasn’t it? Since last night?’
‘Very
good, Inspector Hill,’ he said. ‘You were paying attention. I expect it’s Elizabeth’s now.’
‘His death doesn’t alter your position?’
‘No. The entire Esterbrook Family Trust will form part of Paul’s estate now he’s dead too. And the bulk of that goes to Elizabeth – he was very conventional.’ He smiled. ‘He even took the traditional military way out,’ he said. ‘Paul was in the army, you know, where they know how to do these things.’
‘You’ve no doubt that he killed himself?’
Esterbrook shook his head. ‘I think his life had got out of control,’ he said. ‘Paul needed to be in control, like my father.’
Judy nodded. ‘Do you think he murdered your stepmother?’
Esterbrook looked through the trees to where the Range Rover stood, and back at her. ‘Either that, or he felt responsible in some way,’ he said.
‘Did you see him again after he left Little Elmley last night?’
‘No.’ Esterbrook smiled again. ‘I think the police were the last people to see him alive, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t you be interviewing one another?’
She might well find herself on the receiving end of an interview, if she had caused Paul Esterbrook to become suicidal, and had just let him leave. ‘You didn’t hear the shot?’ she asked.
‘No. But this is a very long way away from my part of the house.’
It was. They walked back towards the others, and Judy joined Lloyd and Tom, relaying the conversation, jotting down the salient points, then reproaching herself. Why hadn’t she hung on to Paul Esterbrook when she had the chance?
‘You couldn’t,’ Tom said. ‘His brief would have got him out anyway, like you said.’
‘But maybe if he’d seen his solicitor, he wouldn’t have blown his brains out,’ she said. ‘We didn’t really have anything on him. I just made him believe we had.’
‘Maybe he didn’t blow his brains out,’ said Lloyd, as back-up began to arrive. ‘Can I leave you to take care of this?’ he asked, before she had time to ask him what he meant, and rounded up Josh Esterbrook, inviting him to lead the way back up to the house.
Judy thought it would be best if Tom went to see Elizabeth Esterbrook while she tried to get the truth about the assault from Sandie. ‘Oh, and Tom?’ she added, as he got into her car. ‘Find out if she knows where her husband could have got hold of a revolver.’
‘Will do, guv,’ said Tom, cheerfully.
She wished she could feel as cheerful. Lloyd was treating it as a suspicious death, naturally, but it did look like suicide. Still – Lloyd had an almost uncanny habit of being right, and she hoped very much that he was right this time.
SCENE IX – BARTONSHIRE.
Sunday, September 28th, 10.00 a.m.
The Morning Room of a Georgian Terrace House in Barton.
‘I’m very sorry,’ Tom had said, when he told Elizabeth Esterbrook what had happened.
She hadn’t broken down, or fainted, or cried. She accepted what he said with a little nod, and invited him to sit down. But then that was the way the whole family had reacted to Mrs Esterbrook’s death, he thought, so it might not be significant. Perhaps they just had stiff upper lips. Despite what Lloyd had said, Tom thought that Paul Esterbrook had topped himself. They couldn’t all be going around bumping one another off. Could they?
‘Can you think of any reason why your husband would have taken his own life?’
She shook her head, then frowned. ‘Only if he truly believed he was going to lose his inheritance,’ she said. ‘I can imagine that he might kill himself then.’
‘And how could he have lost his inheritance?’
‘If I could prove he’d been unfaithful to me. His father was . . . well . . . eccentric, to put a kind construction on it. He believed almost ferociously in the sanctity of marriage, and Paul doesn’t, to put it bluntly.’ She frowned a little. ‘Didn’t,’ she said. ‘Anyway, he was going to get his inheritance on his silver wedding anniversary, but only if he managed to get there.’
It turned out that Paul Esterbrook had been unfaithful to Elizabeth all their married life. Not, she added, that they had had what you would call a married life for ten years, and very little before then, because Paul had been in the army, and had been away from home for long periods.
‘And would you have taken him to court?’ Tom asked. ‘If you had been able to prove adultery?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I had a considerable financial incentive, because I would have got fifteen per cent of the major shareholding. The other sixty per cent would have gone to benefit some project of his father’s, and Paul would have got nothing at all. Whereas if he’d made it to the silver wedding, he would have got the lot, and he would have tied everything up in a way that meant I couldn’t get any more of it than he was prepared to give me, you can be sure of that.’
‘And did you have evidence of his adultery?’ asked To m .
‘No. But even if I had, it would all have to go through the courts, and Paul would have fought it to the last gasp before he gave up.’
‘Would what had happened to his mother have affected him like that?’
‘No,’ she said.
Tom wasn’t used to being diplomatic, but he was having to tread very warily. You could never be sure of these people, what would offend them, what would injure them. Give him good honest villains any day. ‘Do you think he could have had anything to do with what happened to his mother?’ he asked.
‘No.’ She shook her head this time, to reinforce her answer.
‘If she was in some way threatening his chances of inheriting the business?’
Her head was still shaking. ‘No,’ she said again. ‘Paul had a very nasty temper. He could be violent. But he would never have hurt his own mother.’ She looked slightly embarrassed. ‘I . . . I might even be able to prove it.’
‘How?’
‘I’m not proud of it,’ she said, ‘but I finally resorted to a private detective. I had him watched when he went on the diving weekends.’
Tom’s eyebrows rose. She had employed a private detective? Kathy Cope? He frowned. The Copes’ file had had the Little Elmley address on it. Had her mother-in-law let her use her address? But no – the initial was wrong. The Copes’ file was for Mrs A. Esterbrook. There couldn’t be two lots of private detectives involved, could there? No. She must have employed the Copes.
‘I know what you must think of me,’ Mrs Esterbrook said, misinterpreting his puzzlement. ‘But you don’t know what it was like.’ She looked down at her hands. ‘He taunted me with it. Practically told me what he was doing, knowing I couldn’t prove it.’ She looked up again, her face defiant. ‘And I know you’ll think I’m mad,’ she said, ‘but I believe he even used Sandie as some sort of red herring. Made me think it was her, when it was someone else all the time.’
There was a pause before she spoke again. ‘And I think he beat her up,’ she said. ‘I think he must have found out she’d married Josh and he couldn’t use her as a decoy any more. Lost his temper with her, and—’ She gave herself up to the tears.
Tom didn’t think it was as complicated as that. Sandie had been Paul’s personal assistant, had an affair with him, then fell for his brother, if you asked him. That was why Paul had lost his temper with her. He didn’t speak; he would wait until Mrs Esterbrook felt able to continue the interview.
He presumed that Judy was trying to smooth some of his rough edges by sending him here; he had failed his inspector’s exam, and she thought if she took him in hand she could get him through it, but he wasn’t sure he was cut out for this sort of thing. Elizabeth Esterbrook had, after all, just lost her husband, and even if she had been humiliated by him, reduced to having him followed, she had been married to him for over eighteen years, and now she was having to face the possibility that he had killed his own mother and then himself. And even if it was self-pity, it was the first real emotion he had seen from an Esterbrook; Judy would be better at dealing with it than he
was.
‘I haven’t been able to get hold of the private investigator,’ Mrs Esterbrook said, her voice still shaking.
No, thought Tom. You wouldn’t have been, on account of she and her husband are both dead.
‘But his name’s Foster. His office is in Barton – I can give you the address. Perhaps you can get him at home, or something, because his report will clear Paul, I know it will.’
Not the Copes. Tom had to start rethinking his stance once more. Did everyone in this family reach for a private eye when things got sticky? Angela Esterbrook must have had some investigation of her own going on. Also into Paul? Maybe. But that could wait. Right now, Tom wanted to talk to this Foster person. Paul Esterbrook had said that he hadn’t gone into the house, that he had spoken to his mother on the doorstep. If he left her alive, then presumably Foster, whoever he was, would indeed be able to confirm that. On the other hand, if Esterbrook did go into the house, then they would know Paul had been lying. And he had a feeling, as he took Foster’s address, that this report would show just that. He was pretty sure Esterbrook had topped himself, whatever Lloyd thought, and he probably did that because he had topped his mother.
‘Did your husband own a revolver, Mrs Esterbrook?’ he asked, almost answering the question himself. A souvenir of his army days, just kept for sentimental reasons, didn’t even know it still worked . . .
‘No,’ she said. ‘But Josh keeps one on his boat.’
Tom’s eyes widened. He thought he’d better make sure Lloyd had that piece of information before he got to Penhallin. This was getting a lot more complicated than he’d thought. ‘Why does he keep a revolver on his boat?’ he asked.
‘He thinks that some man who went to prison with him might come after him,’ she said.
This time Tom’s eyebrows shot up.
‘Didn’t you know Josh had been in prison? He shot a man dead during a raid on a petrol station. Fifteen years ago. Josh pulled the trigger, but the other man got life, and he’s due out about now.’
