by J M Gregson
After a few seconds of silence, she could not resist turning to examine the effects of her bombshell upon her husband. He said ruefully, ‘You know I am investigating the staff of Freeman Estates, then?’
‘Of course I do.’ Her smile was the nearest thing to a verbal caress. Neither of them used ‘dear’ in their conversations, still less ‘darling’. ‘I’d have to be pretty stupid not to, with Stanley Freeman’s death the local sensation and everyone probing me about your progress.’
‘It was murder.’ For him that was a revelation, but she dismissed it as an insult to her intelligence.
‘I guessed that from your continued interest; and I do sometimes read the papers. You may think that Emily Godson is on the way to becoming an old maid, but when Jim Harrison was disintegrating into Wino Willy she was an attractive woman.’
Lambert rallied before the feminist resentment he felt was imminent. ‘On the contrary, I think she’s an attractive woman still. If she finds it difficult to show herself as one, it may be because she’s cared for a dying mother and a senile aunt better than any man could have.’
Christine inspected him wryly, her head on one side. He felt he had just about passed. She said, ‘No doubt. Anyway, Emily was quite sweet on Jim, without eliciting a lot of response. Perhaps she still is. She was up on the moor last Sunday near Willy’s hideout.’
If she knew she had tossed in a second grenade, she gave no sign. She was spreading marmalade thinly across a small piece of toast, with a concentration which argued it was her sole concern in the world. Lambert registered that she had known of Willy’s remote lair on the moor when he himself had not. Perhaps he should ask her for information more regularly. ‘Did you actually see her with Willy?’
‘No. For all I know, Willy might not have been around himself. I didn’t go right up there: I was with Jacqui and the dog.’ Their second daughter had a high-spirited golden retriever that needed watching when there were sheep about. Christine hesitated, then decided to offer, ‘I rather think Emily takes him food sometimes: I’ve seen her up there with a shopping-bag, looking embarrassed.’
It might be no more than that: another kindly impulse from a woman who preferred to disguise her humanity. Perhaps offered this time with the residual warmth of an old flame. She had not mentioned it to him. But why should she have? He had not raised the subject of Wino Willy with her. The important thing was that he now knew she had some kind of contact with that strange injured mind up there which he was more than ever convinced had something to do with this death. What might a man who cared so little for his own future not do to repay old emotional debts?
Christine watched his conjecture with distaste. She put crockery noisily on the tray and said, ‘I shall be late if I’m not quick. Corpses may wait patiently for superintendents, but thirty-three small people will cause all kinds of mayhem if Mrs Lambert is late.’
‘I’ll do that,’ said her husband, removing the tray with a grandiloquent sweep. ‘Before you go, do you know any of these names?’
She looked quickly down his list of suspects as she picked up her car keys. There was shock in her eyes as she glanced sharply into his face, for she was quite shrewd enough to know why he was interested in these people. And one of them she did know. ‘Jane Davidson. I taught her when she was ten, and I’ve kept some track of her movements since then.’
‘Why would that be?’
She shrugged. ‘Jane was a bit of a problem girl. One-parent family; not much money around.’
‘She wasn’t the girl you used to take our kids’ shoes in for?’ He realized that her simple goodness, her determination to help lame dogs, which had once annoyed him, now filled him with tenderness in its recollection.
Christine shook her head. ‘No, nothing as bad as that with Jane. She was an able girl, but too disturbed to make the most of herself. She didn’t do as well as she should have done when she got to secondary school. She’s a good girl when you get through to her, but very stubborn. I must go!’
He watched her reverse her small white car down the drive with practised efficiency. She was between the high gateposts when she stopped and beckoned him urgently to her; no inspector would have dared to make such an imperious gesture. Lambert leapt forward like a sprinter.
‘Good!’ said Christine appreciatively. ‘I didn’t know you could still move so fast.’
‘I “started like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons”,’ quoted Lambert breathlessly.
‘Save those games for Sergeant Hook,’ she said with mock-severity. She was trying to use banter to lighten the impact of what she was going to say. ‘What I stopped my chariot to tell you was that I think Jane Davidson was very sweet on Willy Harrison’s son a few years ago. Right up to the time he was killed in that car crash. Whether she’s still in touch with Willy now or not, I don’t know. It should be easy enough to check.’
It should indeed. A chastened Superintendent determined not to neglect such obvious sources of information in future.
Chapter 19
‘A desirable small modern detached residence in a sought-after area,’ said Hook. He felt he was getting the hang of this estate agency business.
‘With distant views of the rolling Cotswold Hills,’ suggested Lambert, gesturing towards the strip of landscape visible between the roofs of the houses on the opposite side of the road. ‘A peaceful ambience where today’s young executive might relax after the stresses of a crowded working day.’ This was getting near to police prejudice. He assembled his features into careful neutrality as the electric bell-chime reverberated behind the mock-Georgian portico.
Simon Hapgood came forward with hand outstretched and wide, professional smile, the move he had practised on several hundred prospective clients of Freeman Estates. Only the eyes, light blue, brilliant and wary, were untouched by any sign of pleasure.
‘Do sit down,’ he said, gesturing with wide-flung arm at the leather Chesterfield sofa in the neat, uncluttered lounge. They placed their large feet carefully on the parquet floor between the two white goatskin rugs. Hapgood tossed his deep-gold hair back from his eyes in what seemed a habitual gesture. Then he positioned himself carefully opposite them in a brass-studded armchair, and so that the light was directly behind him.
‘I’m sorry I had to postpone our meeting yesterday; we had to change our plans,’ said Lambert. He wondered how much this young man knew of Emily Godson and the strange half-world of her ageing aunt.
‘No sweat,’ said Hapgood automatically: Lambert hoped his wince was not physical. The young man placed his right ankle carefully across his left knee in a gesture designed to show how relaxed he felt. Bert Hook made the mental note of ‘public school’ which was his own form of bias, resolving to check out this presumption later. He would have been surprised to know that Lambert, so cool and neutral on the surface, was having to resist a hope that this handsome, slightly effete young man would turn out to be their killer.
‘How long have you been with Freeman Estates?’ he began, without further preparation.
‘Two years. Just over,’ said Hapgood. He looked at his watch, decided it was too early yet to suppress a yawn; this was stuff he’d already been over in the preliminary inquiries.
‘You’re happy with the firm?’
‘I think I’ve been quite successful,’ said Hapgood; his smile revealed the full glory of his dentistry.
‘I said happy, though.’ Lambert’s smile just stopped short of mimicry of Hapgood’s dazzling effort.
‘I think I’ve settled in quite well.’ Lambert waited patiently, letting his silence this time make the point. Hapgood was certainly not as comfortable as he pretended. A more confident opponent would have left it at that and forced further prompting. Perhaps it was Hook’s deliberately elaborate recording of his words that rattled him into going on. ‘What’s happiness, after all? It’s a job, a job I think I do well. I know the property market round here. I’m good at selling. In a more go-ahead firm, I’d be doing even be
tter.’ He stopped with a nervous little laugh. His desire to push himself must be habitual by now, if he chose to indulge it even in this context.
Lambert was carefully ignorant as he said, ‘You don’t think Freeman Estates has moved with the times?’
‘It’s a cut-throat business nowadays. The best will thrive, the worst will go to the wall. That’s how I like it.’ Lambert wondered how much substance there was behind this bravado: he was aware that he was always prone to underestimate those who spoke in clichés. Unintelligence did not always accompany insensitivity.
‘So you think the procedures of the firm are not up to date?’ he said innocently. He knew where he was steering.
Hapgood was looking like a man who wished he had not ventured into these waters. ‘Sometimes one has to cut a few corners,’ he said sourly. He had his right hand placed over his left upon his crossed thigh. The middle finger began to tap a silent, irregular rhythm.
‘But not everyone is willing to do that?’
‘Stanley Freeman did.’ It was the reaction of a small man driven into a corner; Lambert did no more than raise his eyebrows. ‘Stanley was swift enough on his feet when he saw the chance of a quick buck. There are ways and means in this business, Superintendent.’ It was pathetic really, thought Hook, the way modern youth thought knowledge of the seamier side of life was closed to others, even policemen.
‘Like cultivating old ladies with their own properties?’ said Lambert.
It was as if Simon Hapgood had been hit in the face. His cheeks flushed red and his eyes filled with alarm for a moment at the knowledge that he had underestimated them.
‘You know about Emily’s Aunt Alice?’ He could not keep his voice even.
‘Among other things,’ said Lambert shamelessly.
‘It’s Emily’s own fault,’ said Hapgood defensively. ‘She should have known Freeman well enough. She’s been there twenty years. Stuffy old biddy.’ Lambert wondered what schemes of Simon’s the sturdy Emily had refused to condone.
‘What do you think of Miss Godson?’ said Lambert.
‘We haven’t a lot in common,’ said Hapgood, desperately simulating a neutrality which was too late.
‘This is a murder inquiry,’ Lambert reminded him impatiently, preparing to turn the screw a little tighter. ‘At the moment there appear to be five people who could have committed this crime, including yourself. The innocent, as they say, have nothing to fear. Naturally, I am interested in your views on the other four, which will of course be treated as confidential. I shall in due course be asking them about you. Indeed, I have already heard some interesting assessments of everyone concerned.’
Hapgood, as he had anticipated, did not relish that thought. His mind must be reeling; Lambert had watched him mentally enumerating the other four suspects. Surely he must have divined by now that Denise Freeman was the fifth possibility. Lambert said quietly, ‘I gather that you don’t get on with Emily Godson.’ He was prepared to prompt now that his quarry had been driven into the desired area of questioning.
‘She doesn’t like me. Self-righteous cow.’ He muttered the last words, then glanced up guiltily as he considered the impression he was creating. The public school veneer had been precious thin, thought Hook, with his own self-righteousness. ‘You must understand that I’m younger than Emily, and enthusiastic to succeed. She’s done nothing but put obstacles in my way. It took her a long time to become a Senior Negotiator and she doesn’t want to see anyone else moving up rapidly.’
Probably there was something in it, Lambert thought. If Emily had met old-fashioned male prejudice, she would he scarcely human if she was not jealous of early preferment for someone like Simon. Especially if his progress was built on unscrupulous short cuts, as he had already half-admitted it was.
‘Do you think Miss Godson killed Stanley Freeman?’ he asked simply. He felt Hook shift beside him on the sofa: it was a highly irregular question. He was more interested in Hapgood’s reaction than his opinion.
He tossed his head again, the sun behind him gilding his hair into an incongruous halo. He pursed his soft, small lips and folded his arms, as if giving the proposition serious thought. ‘I suppose she could have. She’d certainly no reason to love the boss.’ Then he brightened, as if a notion had suddenly struck him. It was impossible to be certain whether it really was a new idea, or something he had thought of earlier and was now eager to plant. ‘She knows all about EXIT. I remember her going on to us about people’s right to die with dignity and the good work EXIT was doing.’
‘When was this?’ said Lambert, carefully unexcited. He wished he could see Hapgood’s face more clearly.
‘Oh, a while ago. Six months, maybe more. She had their literature; I think she was going to join.’
In other words, Emily Godson had become interested in the harrowing question of how best to die after the long trauma of her mother’s illness, when her aunt’s senile dementia was becoming more marked. It was natural enough, but an area of questioning to be explored when he saw her again: the society’s material had clearly stimulated the idea of an ingenious murder in someone. Denise Freeman was the only one he had questioned about EXIT. He tried not to find Hapgood’s eagerness to incriminate a colleague distasteful.
‘George Robson?’ he said abruptly.
Hapgood was surprised but not thrown of balance by the sudden shift. His quick eyes switched back and forth between Superintendent and Sergeant, looking for any indication of where their suspicions lay. ‘I wouldn’t think so,’ he said eventually.
‘Mr Hapgood, I’m not asking you now to speculate about the culprit. I am looking for extra facts which may be significant. Things you may know but which we may not have discovered yet. You will hardly need telling that it is your duty to help us in this way.’
Hapgood looked sullen. ‘I don’t know anything about George Robson which would make him a killer. He didn’t like Stanley Freeman, but none of us did.’ He stopped, aware that the wrong pronoun had slipped out.
‘You didn’t like Mr Freeman yourself?’ said Lambert, wondering if he sounded smug. Hapgood looked carefully at the coffee table between them and said nothing.
Then Bert Hook, making one of his rare interventions, struck below the belt with ruthless precision. ‘You used to call him Joe Stalin, I believe?’ he said, without even looking up from his notes.
Hapgood reddened: his face was as revealing in this respect as a young girl’s. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a joke. I – I was letting of steam when he wasn’t there.’ They could see him conjecturing about who had revealed this. Lambert would be interested to know himself in due course; it was something Hook had picked up from the preliminary interviews by others.
‘Quite,’ said Lambert drily. He succeeded in making a perfectly natural reaction, the kind of safety-valve many employees indulge in in the boss’s absence, sound sinister. He was quite enjoying the embarrassment of this young popinjay. But that was an indulgence, unless he could use it in the rest of the interrogation.
‘He piled work on to me. Arranged appointments in the evening that he should have taken himself. He was exploiting me…’ Lambert let him run on with the petty catalogue. It was probably largely true, from what he had pieced together of the dead man, but hardly a motive for murder. Hapgood went on rather desperately with his self-justification, until the Superintendent wondered if he had some other, more real motive that he wanted to conceal. He let the petty list of grievances run out, feeling like an actor trying to time a good line perfectly.
Then he said, ‘Where were you on that Wednesday night?’ He was pleased with the effect he achieved. The blood drained from Simon Hapgood’s face as quickly as it had risen earlier. His eyes widened as he tried to divine what was going on behind Lambert’s impassive features. He must surely have expected to have to account for his movements on the night of the murder, but the abrupt appearance of the question in the midst of his evasions had thrown him off balance.
&nb
sp; ‘I – I was expecting to go to Lydon Hall. Then Stanley said he would show the Harbens round himself. They were important clients. He was good with Americans, he said.’
‘And you weren’t?’
This time Hapgood refused to rise to the bait. ‘Perhaps not as good as Stanley. He could be very persuasive with important people, when he chose.’ It was the second time they had heard this grudging acknowledgement of the dead man’s expertise: George Robson had said more or less the same thing. It marked a measure of recovery in Simon Hapgood. He was pleased with himself for his compliment to Stanley Freeman, as if he had compensated for his vituperative Joe Stalin nickname by this evidence of balance. He plucked the creases of his trousers precisely into position and worked hard at looking thoroughly composed.
‘You haven’t told me where you were on Wednesday evening yet,’ Lambert reminded him.
Hapgood produced a packet of tipped cigarettes. He offered them to his interlocutors, was refused, took one himself. He lit it with a butane lighter, pressed his shoulders against the back of his chair, blew a contemplative funnel of smoke at the ceiling. It was a caricature of relaxation and clear conscience. But as he arranged packet and lighter on the coffee table between them, the lighter slipped from his hands and clattered unnaturally loud upon the table’s smooth brown surface, destroying completely the effect he had striven so hard to create. Hook felt like jeering as he had when a small boy at a villain’s mistake in the cinema, but his solemn mask never slipped as he waited with ballpoint over his notebook.
Hapgood said, ‘I had a viewing of Milton Farm at six-thirty. I was rather at a loose end after I had left the clients. I had something to eat here and then went out to a pub, the Stonemasons’ Arms in Cornbrook.’ It was a well-known pub in a village three miles from Oldford, fashionable with the affluent younger drinkers; the car park was a perpetual temptation to thieves, with its sprinkling of Porsches and BMWs. It was within a mile and a half of Lydon Hall through the lanes: three minutes’ drive for a man in a hurry.
