Illegal Tender (Three Oaks Book 12)

by Gerald Hammond

  Ian must have been thinking along the same lines. He nodded again. ‘It’s an automatic transmission and the lever was in D for Drive. He was coming down the hill, then?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So he’d have been driving towards Newton Lauder. Where had he phoned from?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘Never mind. We can get it from the caller display.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ I told him. ‘Hamish phoned me after that. You’ll have to find out from Telecom. Of course, he could have been coming from his home. He lives — lived — with his son in a house that stands on its own just outside the industrial estate where his business is, at the southern edge of the town. There’s a country road from near there which curves round the top of the hill. The road past the driveway here climbs up and joins the other road at the top. It makes a way here which bypasses the middle of the town.’

  ‘The middle of the town would be quiet on a Sunday afternoon.’

  ‘If he’d had a drink, he might not have wanted to pass the front door of your police building. Are we assuming that he was driving himself?’

  ‘We’re not assuming anything, but if there was foul play it seems highly probable that he was killed elsewhere and the driver was then picked up by an accomplice.’

  ‘I think I’d have heard any other vehicle,’ I said.

  ‘You might have heard. But would you have remembered?’

  ‘I think I would. I was conscious of the silence.’

  ‘Another vehicle could have come and gone before you were within earshot.’ Ian paused and sighed. ‘You really should have said something to my colleagues from Traffic.’

  I tried not to sound defensive. ‘And have been kept standing there for the next three hours? I was confident that somebody else would come to the same conclusions. Or the pathologist would be dissatisfied. If not, if you hadn’t sought me out by tonight, I was probably going to have a word with you.’

  ‘Probably?’

  ‘I might have decided that I was letting my imagination run away with me.’

  ‘As it happens,’ Ian said, ‘one of the ambulancemen was suspicious, but not until the body had been taken up to the road. If any evidence has been lost or disturbed, I’m going to be very cross with you. Very cross indeed.’

  ‘I shall try to bear your strictures with equanimity,’ I told him.

  *

  Ian and his helper spent a few minutes closeted with Elizabeth while Duncan and I had a quick drink in the sitting room. Joanna made a fretful appearance, insisting that dinner would be utterly ruined if not consumed immediately; but when the two officers departed in Ian’s official Range Rover the meal appeared on the table, less fanciful than Mary’s cordon bleu productions but wholesome, appetizing and certainly unspoiled.

  We were three to dinner. Beatrice Payne had made a trip to inspect the accommodation which had been offered to her as a perk of her new job and to unpack the first cases of her possessions. She had returned, Elizabeth said, with her two empty suitcases, less gloomy than previously and perhaps a little hyped up, but seeming a little daunted by the changes rushing at her. She had said that the flat seemed perfectly habitable. She had dodged any questions about her destination, promised to send a forwarding address, packed the remainder of her few possessions, thanked her friend quite fulsomely, and made her departure.

  ‘Actually,’ Elizabeth said, ‘there was rather more real affection in her farewell to the two dogs, but I’m not complaining. I’m too thankful to be rid of her.’

  Miss Payne disposed of, conversation naturally turned to the demise of Maurice Cowieson.

  ‘Ian seemed very concerned about how Mr Cowieson’s voice sounded,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Drunk or sober? Happy or depressed? I couldn’t tell them. What did you think?’

  If Ian was continuing to imply that the crash had been either accident or suicide, it was not for me to mention murder. That word would surface soon enough. But I had seen Ian in action and heard tales from Keith Calder. It was Ian’s habit, whenever circumstances allowed, to represent any death as probably natural or accidental to his superiors for as long as he could get away with it so that he would be left in peace to pursue his own enquiries on his own patch. And I could guess that his superiors in Edinburgh would accept for as long as possible the fiction that there had been no foul play so that Ian could continue the investigation without being able to make demands on their overstretched resources.

  ‘I couldn’t help them,’ I said. ‘I don’t think that you could read any emotion into his voice even if you still had the recording available. He was one of those people whose voices go toneless when they have to speak into anything mechanical.’

  Elizabeth thought that over and then nodded acceptance. ‘I suppose that’s true. But Ian was very insistent on knowing why I erased the message. I told him that I always delete messages as soon as I’ve heard them, unless I’ve got a good reason not to. Otherwise the thing gets bunged up. Or else I have to listen to a lot of drivel before I can get to the latest call. But Ian couldn’t seem to see that.’

  ‘He’ll have seen it all right,’ said her husband. ‘It’s just one of the questions that he has to be able to show that he’s asked, in case it turns out that you did it of malice aforethought.’

  ‘Well, I thought that it was a bloody impertinence,’ Elizabeth said with a touch of her old imperiousness. ‘I asked him if he’d still be able to give enough time to the little matter of our fraud, but he said that a couple of phone calls would start that ball rolling and after that there would be nothing for him to do but wait. He didn’t seem to be holding out a lot of hope.’ She sat up and squared her shoulders. ‘Frankly, I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that I’ve been stupid and that the money’s gone for ever. I can live without it. After all, the rent from one farm after tax, in this day and age, isn’t worth wringing my hands over and pining for.’ She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘It’s not every woman that’s been swindled out of more than a million quid. That should make a useful dinner table conversation-stopper.’

  This saintly resignation might be one way to avoid stress but it was not in the spirit of determined action which I had been trying to foster. ‘But the land?’ I said. ‘And the investment in jobs? And what you’ll have to sell to fulfil your obligations? You may write them off but as your trustee I have to take a more serious view. Nothing’s worth fretting over or pining for, I agree, but aren’t those things worth a little effort?’

  She looked at me with her old haughtiness. ‘What effort? What could we do?’

  ‘You’re the two electronic whiz-kids,’ I pointed out. ‘If the police aren’t going to get around to hunting for your money until your case gets to the front of the queue, maybe you should start doing whatever they’ll do when they’ve cleared their backlog.’

  Elizabeth gave me another of her looks but decided to change the subject — for which I was thankful because I had only the vaguest idea of what I was talking about.

  ‘I also asked,’ she said, ‘whether he’d thought to inform the next of kin but he said that they hadn’t been able to reach his son yet. Ian implied that it was none of my damn business, but I have a business relationship with Miles Cowieson through Agrotechnics as well as knowing him socially, so I think I had a right to ask.’

  ‘Miles spoke to me at the shoot,’ I told them. ‘He said that he would be going away for a few days. Or that he might go — I forget which. They’ve probably managed to get a message to him by now and in the morning they’ll certainly inform the staff at Cowieson’s when they turn up for work.’

  ‘But if there’s nobody there to take charge . . .’ Duncan said.

  ‘I’ve been thinking around that,’ I said. ‘I want to chase up some bridging finance for you and I can drive a better bargain face to face than over the phone, so I’ll have to go into Edinburgh in the morning. It wouldn’t be much of a detour to call in past the yard and satisfy myself that all’s as well as
it can be. If we’re going to call up the floating charge in the near future, we don’t want the asset to be deteriorating any further than it already has.’

  Elizabeth nodded. ‘I can’t quarrel with that,’ she said.

  I was beginning to talk myself into a state of anxiety. ‘When somebody dies or a firm goes bust,’ I said, ‘the vultures gather. Assets go missing. People seem to think that they’re free to help themselves. I’ll make sure that somebody’s in charge and responsible. Can I have Ronnie to drive me? The prime advantage of having a chauffeur is that people lend you money more readily if you arrive behind one.’

  Elizabeth and Duncan conferred silently. ‘No reason why not,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Take the Range Rover.’

  It was a generous offer but I had reservations. Sir Peter had been inclined to destroy his vehicles with ill-use and I would have known if a replacement Range Rover had figured in the accounts. ‘Your grandfather . . .’ I began.

  They knew exactly what I meant. ‘It’s been resprayed,’ said Duncan. ‘And cleaned out. And there are new seat-covers.’

  ‘In that case I’ll be delighted to take the Range Rover.’

  *

  Before retiring, I made my customary phone call to Isobel. It seemed that they had continued to manage without my assistance. When I mentioned, as obliquely as I could, that I had found another body, her sigh came over the wire like the squall before a gale. ‘So I suppose I’ll be sleeping alone for another fortnight,’ she said, ‘like last time?’

  There were too many answers to that one and none of them politic. It would be a brave intruder who faced up to Isobel in her curlers. To change the subject I told her, in strictest confidence, of Mrs Ombleby’s venture.

  ‘But that’s brilliant,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to subscribe.’

  ‘I agree. I was thinking of selling a few pictures and investing what I can get for them.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of investment,’ she said. ‘I meant that we’ll have to take the service.’

  ‘I don’t suppose they’ll deliver outside Dundee.’

  ‘They can put it on the bus and we’ll meet it at the crossroads,’ Isobel said.

  Chapter Five

  During the night, my worries subsided into something more worthwhile. I awoke in the morning to a feeling which was half-forgotten. It took me the several minutes while I brushed off the remnants of sleep to identify that feeling. Since my retirement, most days had been much of a muchness with few real demands on my time or mental energy. I had forgotten the Monday morning feeling, the awakening to realize that this was not to be another day of insipid rest but one for meeting challenges. I had almost forgotten about challenges but there had been a time when I thrived on them and some of the old zest remained. The first shock had worn off. I was stiff from the previous day’s walking and concerned that I might have allowed Elizabeth to shoulder too much responsibility too soon, but the weight of years seemed a little less. I nicked my lip while shaving because I was trying to whistle at the same time.

  The dark suit which I had worn for Friday’s visit to Edinburgh seemed the obvious choice. I ate breakfast quickly and alone. The household had slipped into gear, by my standards, rather early. Duncan had already left for business and Elizabeth was pecking desultorily at the computer keyboard. Rather than break any concentration which she might have managed to summon up, I gave her a quick wave through the open door of the study. I phoned Gordon Bream from the sitting room and gave him a brief rundown of events. He agreed to keep the middle of the day clear for me.

  Ronnie was waiting for me at the garage. He had added a chauffeur’s cap to his everyday clothes, which I supposed was a step in the direction of the impression I wanted to make. Another and much bigger step was that the Range Rover was no longer the misused and scruffy vehicle which Peter Hay had left but now shone — and smelt — like new.

  It was less than four miles to Cowieson Farm Supplies Ltd. The shortest route would have begun with a descent of the hill, but that route would have taken us through Newton Lauder at a time when the narrow streets would probably be full of traffic which would have included learner-drivers, cyclists, articulated lorries and farmers on tractors. Preferring a slightly extended journey with less risk to the Range Rover’s renovated bodywork, I told Ronnie to turn right outside the arched gateway and set off up the hill.

  At the place where Maurice Cowieson’s car had crashed, a bend in the road had at some time been partially straightened, leaving a rocky embankment at one side and, on the other, a twenty-yard verge of compacted earth with weeds and coarse grass pushing through. The verge was already too much cut up by the recovery vehicle and those of the emergency services to show any useful traces so, on an impulse, I asked Ronnie to pull across the road and park roughly where I thought Cowieson’s Rover had come to grief. My guess was good. When I got out of the car and looked over the brink, I was looking down on the crushed and broken bushes and a puddle of oil where the car had landed. I turned to look back at the road. I was looking straight up the next section of road, which climbed for a hundred yards before the next bend.

  I described the scene as I remembered it to Ronnie. ‘What do you make of it?’ I asked him.

  Ronnie had spent much of his life as a stalker. He studied the ground carefully. The fine weather had given way to an overcast, but it seemed that he could make out signs which were hidden from me. ‘I jalouse you’d the right o it,’ he said at last. ‘Gin the mannie suddentlie realized he was ower fast tae mak the bend, there’d be cahootchie left on the tarmac jist aboot here.’ His gnarled finger described a line on the road. ‘But mebbe he had a shock or a hert-attack?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ I said. ‘A pathologist told me once that a heart attack is an event, not a condition, and that unless an infarction lasts for some hours before death he wouldn’t expect to find any signs of it. I’ll tell you what bothers me. His seat belt was fastened and the air bag had inflated; but even if those hadn’t saved him, I think the bash on his head would have been in a different place.’

  For answer, Ronnie got back into the driver’s seat of the Range Rover, lowered the window and leaned forward until his head was against the window frame.

  ‘You’re taller than he was,’ I said, ‘but this car’s higher than his, so it would about balance out. Can you swivel your head to the right?’

  Ronnie did his best, but no contortion that we could contrive brought the area of contact to where I had seen the wound in Maurice Cowieson’s skull. ‘Leave it,’ I said. ‘The police will have gone through all these steps. I just wanted to be sure in my own mind.’

  Ronnie grunted.

  Back in the Range Rover, we resumed our journey. No doubt Ian would have anticipated me but I kept an eye on the roadsides, watching for places where another car might have been parked.

  The road climbed between tall trees for nearly a mile. Then it emerged at a T-junction onto open moor. We turned right onto an equally narrow country road, passing a house by the roadside — but Ian would certainly have enquired there. Our road descended through more moor, a corner of farmland, a cluster of houses and a small beech-wood. After two miles or so, the road brushed past a large house standing on its own beside the chain link fencing of the industrial estate and joined the old road south of Newton Lauder which still linked the town with one of the main roads between Edinburgh and Newcastle.

  The house, a substantial dwelling of slate and granite which, long before the creation of the industrial estate, would have housed the family of a prosperous local tradesman, was almost hidden by a garden wall and a screen of trees, but there was no hiding the fact that the gateway was sealed with police barrier tape and guarded by a uniformed constable. I caught a glimpse of figures conducting a fingertip search in an otherwise neat garden transected by an open trench bordered by long heaps of excavated clay.

  The gateway of Cowieson Farm Supplies was only a few yards along the road. The firm occupied a large corner of the indust
rial estate. It was not a major employer. Agrotechnics furnished the employment and Cowieson’s Farm Supplies Ltd was one of the strategically located firms the bulk of whose business was in demonstrating and retailing the products of Agrotechnics. Even the sales force was miniscule, usually comprising no more than Maurice and his son. Other sales staff never stayed for more than a few weeks because, I had heard, Maurice Cowieson was in the habit of taking over any sales discussions and thus robbing the salesman of his commission. In a well-run business, many of the sales would have entailed goods being despatched direct from the factory but I was saddened and yet relieved to see that the big yard, which should have held nothing much more than demonstration machinery, was more than adequately stocked. At least the assets were there. The large warehouse building was presumably full. I could see a yardman polishing a tractor but he did not seem to be treating the task as urgent.

  The smaller office block was fronted by parking for a dozen cars, but only three spaces were occupied. One of these was a red Mini. The main door, when I reached it, was of teak, well made and expertly polished. It stood open and I saw an inner glazed screen, also of teak. It was a small matter but I sighed at the misplaced extravagance of the late Mr Cowieson. Farmers mistrust expensive buildings.

  The quality of the doors did not extend far into the building. The entrance hall was large but plainly decorated and severely furnished with hard chairs and a few tables covered with brochures. Behind an equally utilitarian counter, a young girl was attending to some filing. An older woman looked up from a keyboard. Her round and unlined face had a cast of features suggesting patient confidence but her expression was very serious. I recognized her type immediately, the devoted spinster who can form the backbone of a firm, unnoticed by her employers and often unrewarded.