Prescription for Murder

by David Williams

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered

  Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.

  At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

  We publish in ebook and Print on Demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.

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  Contents

  Introduction

  Martin Edwards

  PRESCRIPTION FOR MURDER

  David Williams

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  David Williams

  PRESCRIPTION FOR MURDER

  Introduction

  The popularity of crime fiction is enduring, but as the years pass, countless different writers and their mystery novels flit in and out of fashion. For every Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, whose detectives have become immortal, there are many hundreds of good writers, commercially successful and critically acclaimed in their day, whose names are now as forgotten as the characters they created. Once an author ceases to produce new novels for the shops and libraries, they soon blip off the radar screen, and their books start becoming hard to find. This is inevitable, but it is also a pity, since readers of succeeding generations miss out on a great deal of pleasurable entertainment.

  Thankfully, things are changing – and changing fast. Novels that have long been unobtainable (except, perhaps, to collectors with deep pockets) are now being discussed, read and enjoyed by crime fans who are more than happy to look beyond contemporary fiction. There are three key reasons for this, and they spring from modern technological advance. First, the internet and social networking have connected enthusiasts across the globe, and as they have shared their passions for writers of the past, the clamour for the reappearance of out-of-print titles has begun to be heard. Second, technical progress in printing has enabled books to be produced “on demand”, so that publishers no longer need to be confident of the saleability of a large print run before making an old book available again in hard copy format. And third, digital publishing has made ebooks instantly available at modest cost – a breakthrough that has appealed as much to older readers who may recall enjoying “forgotten books” as to their children or grand-children, who have never heard of some of the one-time household names.

  This omnibus volume brings together novels by three accomplished – yet very varied – practitioners. Of the trio, Francis Durbridge (1912–1998) was certainly a household name in his day. He was perhaps unique among crime writers in that although he wrote plenty of novels, some of them in collaboration with others, he earned greater fame from his work on radio, TV and stage. Leading contemporary crime writer Christopher Fowler has called him “first of the popular multimedia writers”. At the tender age of 25, the young Yorkshireman, not long graduated from Birmingham University, created the detective novelist and gentlemanly sleuth, Paul Temple. Send for Paul Temple was an instant hit, and Temple’s adventures, first on radio and then on television, spanned more than 30 years. The stories were later turned into books, but for Durbridge, the spoken word usually came first. A master of the cliff-hanger, he wrote some of the most popular crime serials ever seen on British television, and Francis Durbridge Presents .… achieved audience ratings that modern screenplay writers would kill for. It is easy to under-estimate the skill needed to keep viewers hooked as Durbridge did, but it is significant that a writer as gifted as Alan Bleasdale struggled to pull off the trick when he paid homage to Durbridge by writing a new version of the classic mystery Melissa more than 30 years after the original was screened. In his later years, Durbridge concentrated increasingly on work for the theatre, which suited his emphasis on dialogue rather than description. A Game of Murder, like some of his other novels, began life as a highly successful six-part TV screenplay starring Sixties heartthrob Gerald Harper as Bob Kerry. The story was first screened in 1966; the book came out nine years later, and shows the author’s flair for springing one surprise after another. Durbridge’s characteristic blend of pace and vivid action was a recipe for success in its day – and it still is.

  Paul Winterton, whose most successful crime novels appeared under the pen-name Andrew Garve (he also wrote as Roger Bax and Paul Somers), was born in 1908. His father was briefly a Labour MP, and Winterton was something of a radical. Intrigued by Soviet Russia, he visited the country, and published A Student in Russia in 1931. He became a journalist, first with The Economist and then for many years with The News Chronicle, for whom he spent a spell as a foreign correspondent, reporting the Second World War from Moscow. A visit to Palestine gave him the idea for his first crime novel, Death Beneath Jerusalem, published under the Bax pseudonym, in 1938. The first Garve novel appeared in 1950, and a year later, Murder in Moscow made effective use of Winterton’s inside knowledge of that historic and fascinating city and the Soviet way of life. Two years after that, Winterton became a foundermember, and first joint secretary, of the Crime Writers’ Association. His writing displayed exceptional variety, both in terms of plots and setting, although small boat sailing, one of his great interests, recurred in several of the books. Some of them were filmed. Came The Dawn, a Bax novel, was filmed in 1953 as Never Let Me Go, with Clark Gable and Gene Tierney in the lead roles. A Touch of Larceny (1959), boasting an excellent cast led by James Mason and George Sanders, was based on The Megstone Plot published three years earlier; it crops up regularly on TV schedules to this day. Winterton’s last book appeared in 1978, and by the time of his death, just before his 93rdbirthday, his books had vanished from the shelves. But as Murder in Moscow shows, he wrote well and with real authority.

  David Williams (1926–2003) was a Welshman who came to crime writing much later in life than either Durbridge or Winterton. Like Durbridge, but unlike Winterton, he was essentially an establishment figure. His university studies at Oxford were interrupted by the war, and he served as an officer in the Royal Navy for three years before becoming a copywriter and pursuing a highly successful career in advertising. At the age of 51, he suffered a stroke at a time when he was not only chairman of one of the country’s leading agencies, but also writing at weekends and hard at work on his third novel. Completing that book took another couple of years, and at that point, he decided to forsake the stresses of life in the fast lane of business for the calmer existence of a purveyor of fictional – and highly civilised – murder. He duly forged a notable second career, producing, in all, 23 novels as well as a string of posthumously collected short stories. His principal series featured Mark Treasure, who, along with Emma Lathen’s John Putnam Thatcher, must be one of crime fiction’s very few likeable bankers. Prescription for Murder, which utilises his knowledge of the world of commerce, is a typically urbane story; the puzzle is neatly plotted, although Williams claimed he rarely knew the
identity of his killer until the penultimate chapter. Two of his books were shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association’s Gold Dagger, awarded to the best novel of the year, and all his work is marked by good humour and charm.

  The welcome publication of this omnibus revives a trio of the lively mystery novels that have lurked in publisher’s archives for years, waiting to be rediscovered. Thanks to the enterprise of Bello, a whole host of lost gems are now being brought back to the surface. And as an ever-widening range of crime novels becomes available, it is safe to say that crime fans really never have had it so good.

  Martin Edwards

  Martin Edwards

  Martin Edwards is an award-winning crime writer whose fifth Lake District Mystery is The Hanging Wood. He has written eight novels about Liverpool lawyer Harry Devlin, which are now available as ebooks. He won the CWA Short Story Dagger in 2008, has edited 20 anthologies, and published eight non-fiction books.

  Visit www.martinedwardsbooks.com and www.doyouwriteunderyourownname.blogspot. com

  PRESCRIPTION FOR MURDER

  David Williams

  David Williams

  David Williams was a writer best known for his crime-novel series featuring the banker Mark Treasure and police inspector DI Parry.

  After serving as Naval officer in the Second World War, Williams completed a History degree at St Johns College, Oxford before embarking on a career in advertising. He became a full-time fiction writer in 1978.

  Williams wrote twenty-three novels, seventeen of which were part of the Mark Treasure series of whodunnits which began with Unholy Writ (1976). His experience in both the Anglican Church and the advertising world informed and inspired his work throughout his career.

  Two of Williams’ books were shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award, and in 1988 he was elected to the Detection Club.

  Dedication

  This one for Frank and Polly Muir

  Chapter One

  ‘Should I buy shares in Closter Drug?’ asked Sir James Crib-Cranton before blowing his nose. It was a large nose on a craggy, imperious face topped by snow-white hair in plenty. He thrust the linen handkerchief deep into a side pocket of the double-breasted pin-stripe jacket, then pushed a fragment of Stilton cheese on to a biscuit. The speaker’s searching gaze stayed on his lunch guest through most of these small manoeuvres. Crib-Cranton was after inside information and wasn’t about to miss a reaction.

  ‘What’s your stockbroker say?’ Mark Treasure responded easily, before consuming the last bit of his lemon pancakes.

  It was a Thursday in early May. The two were at a window table in the panelled first-floor dining room of Crib-Cranton’s club at the top of St James’s Street in London.

  ‘My stockbroker says yes to anything that earns him commission, including bets on horses, I shouldn’t wonder. All stockbrokers are the same these days. Not an objective thought between the lot of them. Too hard up, I expect,’ Crib-Cranton continued loudly. He turned the distinguished head in a token, defiant searching of the room for stockbroker members of the club, of whom there were several – all of them quite as affluent as he was. ‘I’m asking about Closter Drug because it says in the prospectus that you’re the Chairman. I’d forgotten that.’

  ‘Non-executive Chairman,’ replied the forty-four year old Treasure, Chief Executive of Grenwood, Phipps, the merchant bankers.

  Crib-Cranton – known as Jumbo to his intimates since international rugby-playing days – was considerably older than his companion, and the autocratic head of CCB, one of Britain’s largest construction groups. He was a corporate customer of Grenwood, Phipps, and an old friend of Treasure’s. His private portfolio of shares was handled by stockbrokers and not managed by the bank: this was because the self-made Jumbo begrudged paying the bank a management fee when he could have Treasure’s advice for nothing.

  ‘I’m a simple sort of chap, of course,’ he said next, without in the least meaning it. ‘But I’d have thought you needed to know a bit about pharmaceuticals to be chairman of a drug manufacturer. Even a non-executive chairman,’ he said, the tone speculative not disparaging.

  ‘I rub along.’ Treasure leaned back in his chair, wiping his mouth with his napkin. ‘I took it on for a special reason five years ago. When we agreed to finance the company.’

  ‘Management buy-out wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right. Closter was a subsidiary of Philer International. Philer bought it eight years before that, but it never really fitted. They needed to sell it to help fund something else.’

  ‘Philer are in sweets and soft drinks?’

  ‘And convenience foods,’ Treasure supplied.

  ‘Exactly. So why dabble in pharmaceuticals in the first place?’ Jumbo Crib-Cranton disapproved of what he termed over-diversification – meaning any diversification. He was in the construction business, and when he acquired other companies they were always in that business too. ‘People should stick with what they’re good at,’ he went on. ‘So the Closter managers came to you five years ago, did they?’

  ‘To the bank, yes. They wanted to go it alone. Rather than have the company sold over their heads to another drug manufacturer.’

  ‘And they’ve done well? Since they’re going public next Wednesday. The prospectus in the paper yesterday looked healthy enough. The shares aren’t cheap, of course. Ah, gracias, my dear. Muchas gracias,’ Jumbo’s big frame straightened, and he was pulling in his stomach. The look he was directing at the pretty, dark-haired waitress was shallowly benign but deeply lascivious. The girl, in a tight-fitting black dress, had brought the celery he had asked for earlier. His eyes followed the neat figure as she retreated. ‘Been here a week. Doesn’t speak English. Spanish,’ he assured Treasure in a confidential sort of tone. ‘I can always tell by the bearing. Did I mention it earlier?’ He had, though his companion thought the supposition wrong. ‘Delicious creature.’

  Treasure worried some breadcrumbs on the table with his finger. ‘But not cheap, you said?’

  ‘Good God, how should I know?’ Jumbo’s eyes narrowed speculatively. ‘Why? D’ you suppose she’d er—?’

  ‘I mean the Closter Drug shares. You think they’re expensive at a hundred and ten?’ said the banker. The appearance of a pretty girl regularly distracted Jumbo from any business on hand. Treasure usually overcame such lapses by ignoring them. ‘The Financial Times also says we’ve pitched the offer price too high.’

  After supporting the managers of Closter Drug when they had taken over the business, Grenwood, Phipps were now handling the public flotation of the company on the stock market. The prospectus Jumbo had referred to had been in four national newspapers a day earlier. It contained an offer to the public at large to buy shares in Closter Drug at a hundred and ten pence each, along with the ponderous information every such prospectus must carry by law, and covering four pages of newsprint.

  ‘I saw the comment in the FT. But you don’t usually get these things wrong,’ said Jumbo, abandoning his Spanish interest. ‘The Closter forecast looked tempting enough. Bit speculative still, is it? Four and a half million pre-tax profit on a turnover of twenty million? That’s reasonable in anyone’s language. Less debt than you’d expect, too. I read a good deal of the small print,’ he added, as if the action was deserving of credit.

  ‘It’s projected profit, yes. The company’s not hit those kind of figures yet. But when we’ve paid off the loan-stock holders— ’

  ‘Which you’ll do with the flotation money. That’s fair enough.’ Jumbo circled the air with a stick of celery. ‘I suppose the full-time Closter directors will be millionaires overnight?’

  ‘Directors who took a big holding at the time of the buy-out, they’ll do well, certainly. Ordinary members of staff will too. It’s why they’ve all been working their heads off for five years. There’ll be a few paper millionaires. The Managing Director for one. He’d staked everything he had. Mortgaged himself to the eyeballs to own a sizeable pi
ece of the action.’

  ‘Wise man,’ Jumbo scented a fellow entrepreneur.

  The banker nodded. ‘He ends up with ten per cent of the company. Eight million shares.’

  ‘Worth eight point eight million pounds.’ Jumbo did the easy arithmetic, his bushy eyebrows arching briefly as he spoke. ‘And the other directors?’

  ‘A bit over six per cent between the five of them. Not equally spread. The figures are in the prospectus. Incidentally, nearly half the staff became shareholders at the time of the management buy-out.’

  Jumbo beamed, while chomping on the celery. ‘How many people employed?’

  ‘Three hundred and twenty.’

  ‘Hmm. Wish half my staff was keen enough to own company shares. Different kind of animal, of course.’ The CCB payroll of mostly semi-skilled workers topped thirty thousand in Britain alone. ‘By the sound of it, Closter Drug is really a one man show,’ Jumbo went on. ‘This Managing Director – what’s his name?’

  ‘Larden. Bob Larden. Mid-fifties. He’s a chemist by training.’

  ‘And the driving force with the most at stake in the business. Thruster, who believes in himself?’

  Treasure frowned. ‘Maybe, but that’s not the impression he fosters.’

  ‘Which is why he got you to be Chairman. The special reason you mentioned.’

  ‘Larden doesn’t care to be in the spotlight.’

  ‘And while there are plenty of lesser directors of Grenwood, Phipps who could have taken the chair, he wanted the man with the biggest reputation and got him. Smart chap.’

  ‘That’s overstating it. But it may have helped the credibility of the outfit for me to be involved. We wouldn’t have put a director on the board at all unless they’d asked.’