False Diamond--An Abbot Agency Mystery (6 page)

‘Ah yes. You'll need those if we take out a mortgage.' He rubbed his hands. ‘Well, well. Glad that's settled. A good morning's work. I'll get Benton to fax through some paperwork for you; I'm sure he can lay any qualms you might have to rest. He knows the business inside out, after all.'

Bea nodded and saw him leave. He looked a lot less worried than he had. And she felt wretched.

Back at her desk she opened Leon's last email.

‘
The Ritz for lunch?
'

She typed back: ‘
I'm busy. Bring in some sandwiches for us both and I'll take a break for half an hour. I'll supply the coffee.
' She hesitated. Was this the right thing to do?

Yes, because Leon did not seem to have been drawn into Benton's plans but he might – just might – have some helpful information about how to thwart him. Well, he
might
.

She pressed ‘send' and picked up the telephone. Max was right. She ought not to have let the making of a new will slip out of her mind. She made an appointment for the morrow and turned back to her computer.

A
commotion in the big office. Bea could hear the girls laughing.

Bea opened the door to find that Leon had arrived and was distributing sandwiches for everyone from a cool box which also contained bottles of fruit drinks. ‘Sparkling apple juice? Blackcurrant drink? I thought I'd better not bring alcohol in … or not on my first attempt at storming the citadel, anyway. Sorry, they wouldn't let me have proper glasses. Hope you can manage with these plastic ones.'

‘What on earth!' Bea found herself laughing.

He spread his hands wide. ‘Why shouldn't we treat ourselves now and then?' He carried the cool box into her office. ‘Sandwiches. Smoked salmon and cream cheese, beef and horseradish, egg and cress. Hope there's something you like. Apple or blackcurrant? Apple?' He pulled up a chair and poured the bubbly liquid into a glass for her.

She felt herself relax. Smile. ‘You're after something.'

‘Pleasant company to while away an hour in an otherwise aimless life.'

‘Charm will get you nowhere.'

‘It usually does, you know.' He actually had a dimple when he grinned.

She grinned back. ‘Cheers. And thank you. It was a grim morning till you arrived.'

‘Thought it might be. I've been listening to my brother. He really believed that the archangel Gabriel in the form of Benton the Adventurer had been sent down from heaven to ensure that his latter years flowed with milk and honey … or steak and brandy, to be more accurate.'

‘Until he discovered his idol had feet of clay?' Now why had she said that? As she dipped into the cool box, she noted he'd stopped eating for a moment. So she was right and something major had disturbed Mr Holland's faith in his protégé. She said, ‘Yum. Are you sure you don't have any shares in Holland and Butcher? No axe to grid at all?'

‘None. I was going to keep well out of it but, despite myself, I feel some concern for my niece.'

‘What do you think is going on there?'

‘I'm not sure. Only just arrived. I expected a routine family visit. You know? How are you, lovely weather we're having, can I treat you to lunch sometime? I imagined I'd pay, pat the children on the head and leave. I could still do just that. I tell myself.'

Bea treated him to an old-fashioned look. ‘So why don't you want to get involved in the firm? Surely you're the best person to sort them out?'

‘Let me explain. I was an inconvenient afterthought for my parents, looked after by an au pair till I was old enough to be dumped in boarding schools, not good at games, not particularly clever, too scruffy to be of use in the training college. I got out as soon as I could. Do you blame me?'

‘Not at all.' The sandwiches were delicious. Not from the local corner shop.

‘A schoolfriend's father had a dry-cleaning business which he wanted to offload on to his son. Son refused to touch it, as he was set on going to university. My family didn't think it would be worthwhile supporting me after I'd turned eighteen …'

Bea narrowed her eyes. In her book he was more than bright enough.

‘So I needed to earn a living. I was offered a job and a room above the dry-cleaning shop and took it. I like smoothing out the creases in life for people. Spreading a little happiness. Returning clean clothes for soiled. I reorganized and repainted, I advertised, I made a success of that first shop, borrowed money to buy it, found another, got a loan to buy up the second shop's lease and did the same thing … and so it went on. I didn't tell my family that I was doing all right for myself, thank you, because they'd written me off as a dropout. In the early years I used to turn up for funerals but decided life was too short to spend time with people who kept referring to me as the Black Sheep of the family.

‘I wasn't invited to my niece's wedding. I gather it was a hurriedly arranged affair. The only Holland who's ever tried to keep in touch with me is my sister Sybil. She has a strong sense of family duty, which I lack. Despite her age, she is pretty spry and keeps up with the modern world. Better, in my opinion, than my brother does. She used to email me several times a year with news of the family. She says – and I think she's probably right – that my brother ought to have retired some years ago. He has some vascular problem, walks with difficulty, hardly ever leaves the house. Over the years he's expanded into different areas: car hire, laundromats, employment agencies, that sort of thing, which he runs under the umbrella of Holland Holdings. He and Sybil are the main shareholders in each of the companies, though a few friends and some of the senior staff have been given shares now and then. He employs a small staff at headquarters to manage the finances and the PR, and he appoints general managers to run each company. Recently he has, I believe, relied too much on a favourite few to run his organization … but there, he tells me he keeps them on their toes by swapping the managers around from one branch of the organization to another.'

‘Gracious!' Bea's mind went into free-fall, thinking of the manager of a hire-car firm suddenly being asked to run … ‘Ah. Is that what happened to Holland and Butcher?'

‘Correct. He relies on that particular firm for servants to keep his household running smoothly. For years he had a general manager who was reasonably competent and kept the house going. When that man retired, my brother appointed a man named Butcher, who turned out to be a poor choice.'

Bea grimaced. ‘Indeed. He's currently languishing in prison. And this man Benton came from where? Don't tell me! The hire-car firm?'

‘Exactly. My brother appears to promote people who promise him the earth, so long as he himself doesn't have to make any effort. His companies have done well enough for him in the past but they've all taken a dip in the recession, and this has affected the dividends upon which my sister lives. Holland and Butcher's results have been spectacularly bad. Sybil contacted me when she found that her dividend there had been cut to the bone. She wanted me to do something about it. I declined. She announced she was coming over from the States to sort things out. She ordered me to meet her to discuss it.'

‘So you did.'

He refilled her glass and his. ‘Cheers. Yes, that was a mistake, wasn't it? But I was at a loose end. I'd had a good offer for the dry-cleaning chain and was trying to decide whether or not to sell. I've always worked. What would I do with my time if I sold out? I'd almost decided to carry on when …' He looked into his drink.

‘Everything changed, overnight. I'd had a twenty-five-year relationship with a businesswoman who refused to marry me, didn't know how to cook and didn't care to try, but was a wonderful companion and great in bed. She had an aneurysm. Nothing could have been done. No one knew anything about it. The day after the funeral I signed the papers to get rid of the dry-cleaner's and put the house we'd shared on to the market. I took a short lease out on a service flat and moved into it, but didn't unpack. I thought I might take a long holiday. I thought it was probably stupid of me to look up the family, but when my sister actually phoned me – something she'd never done in all those years – I decided to look them up.

‘I rang my brother, said I was thinking of spending a few days in London. True to form, he said immediately that he didn't have any room for me – despite living in a country mansion – since our sister was going to be moving in with him for the duration of her visit. I didn't tell him that I'd fully intended to book myself into Claridge's or the Ritz and treat myself for once, because he seemed to think I'd need a bed and breakfast somewhere cheap. He said that his right-hand man, Benton, would make arrangements for me to stay somewhere suitable.

‘Benton duly rang and asked me to have lunch with him. A steak house. Medium rare, as you might say. Not first rate but middling. It was clear he'd been making enquiries about me, knew I'd sold my company. He went on about how H & B was in great shape but needed capital to take over a domestic agency. He said it was divine providence that I would be able to join the board of directors and invest in the family business at this point in time. I knew rather more about the poor balance sheet than he imagined and I'd taken a dislike to him so, in a moment of divine inspiration, I informed him that I was head over ears in hock to the Inland Revenue. That I was, in fact, an undischarged bankrupt. You should have seen his face!'

Bea felt her mouth curve into a smile. ‘His research hadn't been as thorough as yours?'

‘He's an idiot. I thought he'd brush me off and that would be the end of it, but no. After another brandy he said I must be finding life very uncomfortable, and he invited me to stay with him and Dilys. I must admit I'd envisaged a large detached house with a double garage, and guest bedrooms en suite. I thought my niece would be serving up home-cooked food and hanging on my every word. I'd never even met her children. I had nothing better to do, so I thought, why not? Just for a few days. Take them all out for a meal or something by way of payment. What he didn't tell me was that the house is tiny, shabby, cold and uncomfortable, that the two boys are badly behaved little hooligans, and that my great niece had been moved out of her tiny bedroom to make way for me. Oh, and there's only one bathroom for six people, though I believe there is a shower in the master bedroom.'

His tragic expression made Bea laugh. ‘So why haven't you moved out?'

‘I ask myself that a dozen times a day. I tell myself that I am not of a sentimental disposition. I do not turn soft when confronted with stray kittens and homeless waifs. I am a hard-headed businessman who has got along very well all these years without needing any contact with my family.'

‘You're concerned about Dilys?'

He threw up his hands. ‘The air in that house is full of cross-currents. Stinging retorts whistle past my back, morphing into smiles when I turn around. The two boys despise and taunt their mother and sister. They don't go so far as to hit them yet. I hope. But they jostle and push them around. All this originates with Benton, of course. He tweaks the little girl's hair. Both she and Dilys flinch when he gets close. He apologized to me for them, saying how stupid they are.

‘I tell myself this has nothing to do with me, that Dilys wouldn't thank me for trying to rescue her, that you can't help people who are born to be victims. When Sybil dragged us along to meet you, it did occur to me that
you
could save them if you wished, though I could see that you didn't want to. Naturally, I applauded you for that. Sensible, very.'

‘But …?'

‘Well, I fancy you something rotten, as you must realize. You remind me so much of my ex.'

Bea was amused and even flattered. She told herself to be wary of a man who used the best butter so lavishly, and who had just admitted to telling a thumping lie to Benton. She repeated, ‘But …?'

‘My niece was first down this morning. She switched on the toaster and got a nasty shock. It might have killed her.'

Silence. Bea froze in mid-chew. What was it with toasters? Might she have given herself a shock when she'd fiddled with hers that morning?

He took the last sandwich and bit into it. Poured them both out some more of the bubbly apple drink.

Bea finished off her mouthful. ‘You think he engineered it?' She tried to sound incredulous, and failed.

A shrug. ‘She had to sit down. She was shaking. He was not sympathetic. He let fly with a tirade about how stupid she was with anything practical. He said he's had to restrain her from poking into the toaster with a metal knife before now. She dissolved into tears, tried to hide them. He made her repeat after him that she was a silly little thing who ought not to be allowed out by herself. The boys almost choked with laughter. The little girl went so pale, I thought she'd vomit all over the kitchen table. Her name is Bernice, and she appears to be reasonably intelligent. Neither she nor her mother could eat any breakfast. My niece may be a silly little chit, but she doesn't deserve what's happening to her.'

Bea remembered what Max had said about Benton getting rid of Dilys. Bea had jumped to the conclusion that Benton planned to divorce his wife. She hadn't thought of murder. ‘Do you think that he planned to have you staying in the house as an impartial witness when an “accident” kills her?'

A level gaze from eyes which were more hazel than brown. ‘What do
you
think?'

She did not want to get involved. ‘I have no idea. There is always gossip, of course.' She brushed a crumb off her lap. ‘Supposition. Rumour. Slander.'

‘Who is your rumour-monger? You have proof?'

She shook her head. ‘A loose wire may be no more than a loose wire. Loose talk costs money.'