Legacy of Lies (25 page)

‘I'm retired now.'

‘So …'

‘I'm doing a favour for a friend.' He didn't think Alec would mind the appropriation. It was something he hoped would become fact anyway. He liked Alec Friedman.

‘A friend? What kind of favour?'

‘Rupert's nephew. There are questions surrounding Rupert's death that need clearing up.'

For the first time concern rather than academic curiosity showed in the woman's eyes. Her eyes were almost green and her hair still quite blonde though he thought that these days it probably had a little help.

‘He had a heart attack. His solicitor called me.'

‘That's correct, but, well … May I come in?'

She thought about it and then finally stood aside and let him through. The door opened straight into the living room. It was at the front of the house and the large bay he had seen from outside added unexpected space. A sofa, overloaded with bright cushions, had been set there, separate from the rest of the room in which the furniture circled around the twin foci of gas fire and television.

A small shelf of books settled in the space between the sofa and the wall on one side and a tiny table – he thought of Victorian plant stands – squeezed into the gap at the other end. He could see a mug had been set down there when he had knocked at her door. Steam rose, carrying the scent of coffee.

She saw him looking. ‘Do you want one?'

‘Thanks.' He was already sloshing from too much tea drunk in the little café, but making him a drink would help to break the ice and give him a better chance to look around.

The kitchen was small, but very clean, leading off the living room and visible in its entirety from where he stood. Two closed doors he guessed led to bedroom and bathroom.

‘Sugar?'

‘Two, please. This is a nice flat.'

She handed him the coffee. ‘Yes. And now it's mine.'

‘Rupert left it to you?'

She nodded. ‘There was some weird thing in the will,' she added. ‘His nephew wasn't to be told. He was getting the rest but this was a separate thing.' She looked worried. ‘Does that mean he's a greedy bastard and might want it back?'

Billy Pierce smiled and shook his head. ‘He's already guessed most of this,' he said. ‘Alec feels he's already been given more than he could ever have expected.'

She wriggled her shoulders and crossed the room to retrieve her coffee. ‘Well, that's all right then. Rupert always said this was my place. Rupert was good to us. All the way through he was good to us.'

‘Us?'

She indicted that he should sit down and he chose the chair closest to the television. She took the one opposite.

‘I have kids. Two of them. This flat was too cramped, really. I slept out here for years and they had the bedroom. But it was somewhere safe after … after Fred was killed.'

‘You rented from Rupert?'

‘Rented,' she laughed. ‘I paid a pittance to him but I made sure I always paid.'

‘How did you meet?'

Elaine sipped her coffee and considered her response. Billy understood that he was going to get the expurgated version. He figured it would probably be enough.

‘After Fred died, Rupert turned up on my doorstep one day. Not here, of course, in the dump of a place we'd had to move to. Fred left us with nothing and the police were all over it. They thought he might have been in on it.'

‘Did you think he was?'

She shrugged. ‘I was never sure. We were flat broke, two kids, and his job barely covered the rent and heat. I worked behind a bar five nights a week while he minded the kids. It got so we passed in the hall. Anyway, we were broke and Christmas was coming and if he thought he could have got away with it … I suspected he might have passed on some information. Times they were due to do the pick up, that sort of thing. I was never sure and I never said. I figured he'd more than paid his dues and I wasn't going to let his kids think he was anything but what he'd always been to them. A decent man and a good dad.'

‘And Rupert?'

‘Turned up on the doorstep. Said he'd been trying to track me down, that Fred had set up a life insurance and we were the beneficiaries. Rupert said he'd sold it to him.'

‘You knew he was lying?'

She shrugged. ‘Of course I did. Fred didn't have two pennies to rub together, never mind cash to pay monthly for some policy he'd never have thought he might need. And Rupert as an insurance salesman? Pull the other one. But, he had all the paperwork and a big fat cheque and the promise of a monthly amount which would pay the rent and a good bit more and … so I chose to believe him.'

‘Rupert knew you doubted?'

She smiled. ‘Rupert knew, but we never broke our cover story. Not ever. Not even when we became friends. He was always the man who'd sold Fred the policy and I was always content to just let it ride.'

‘Did you ever wonder where the money came from?'

She was back into study mode now, examining him over the rim of her mug as she sipped her coffee.

‘Elaine, this is off the record. I have no authority to ask you now. If anyone asks me, I'll keep your cover story going.'

She nodded slowly. ‘I wondered,' she said, ‘but I didn't want to know. I had kids to raise and the money helped but it was still hard. Occasionally I wondered if it might be from the robberies. I knew the money had never been recovered but, then again, I figured we were owed.'

‘And did you never wonder why Rupert had offered help? Did that not strike you as odd?'

She looked away and he knew that she had wondered many times. Perhaps she even knew. ‘He was an insurance salesman,' she said at last. ‘I kept all the policy documents he gave me, all the insurance stuff he said I should hang on to. It has my husband's name, his signature, it's dated from six months before he died, that's all I've ever needed to know.'

‘Rupert was a clever man. When did you move in here?'

‘About two, three years after Fred died. The place we were in was damp and Vicky, our eldest, had asthma. Rupert said he was moving away but didn't want to sell the flat. He thought it might be a good investment in years to come. It was a bit small but, like I said, the girls slept through there and I had a sofa bed in here. It was warm and dry and the rent was so low I don't know why he bothered.' She smiled for the first time. ‘He'd taken to visiting us, once a month, the Tuesday closest to the fourth of the month. He carried on after he moved. He'd meet me for coffee somewhere.'

‘He didn't come here?'

She shook her head. ‘No.'

‘And you continued to meet?'

‘Right up ‘til the month he died. We'd meet in different places. He'd suggest somewhere and we'd both take the train. Have lunch, maybe go to the pictures. No strings, no romance, just two friends.'

‘Never any romance?'

She shook her head. ‘No, I'd have liked … I mean it wasn't that I didn't think about it but, I got the impression there was someone else but that maybe she was married. No woman wants to play second fiddle, you know.'

‘I know. Elaine, did Sam Kinnear contact you?'

She scowled, her expression hardening and taking away the residual prettiness. ‘That bastard,' she said. ‘Turned up one day, asking questions. He didn't come here, he went to my daughter Vicky's place. God knows how he found her.'

‘Ritchie isn't a common name. Is she married?'

‘No. He started sniffing round, asking about Rupert, demanding she tell him. Her boyfriend came home and they called the police. He cleared off but they'd let slip one or two things.'

‘Such as?'

‘She wasn't sure, he got her flustered and upset. She thinks she told him Rupert was in the antiques business and it was somewhere up north.'

‘How long ago was this?

‘Eighteen months. Sometime around that. I told Rupert when he phoned to arrange our meeting and he said not to worry and he was sorry Vicky had been upset.'

‘Vicky didn't tell him where Rupert lived?'

She shook her head. ‘She couldn't, she didn't know. Neither did I. You see it was the one thing Rupert was particular about. I paid the rent when I saw him each month and he'd tell me bits and pieces about his business, but he said Kinnear would come looking for him one day and he didn't want me to have to lie. I suppose he realized I wasn't strong enough, not to stand up to someone like Kinnear.'

‘He knew Kinnear would come looking?'

She nodded. ‘I suppose that's really how I knew,' she said. ‘How I really worked it out, but I knew him by then and I knew he'd never have had anything to do with the guns or with Fred dying, so I just forgot I knew.'

‘You knew what?'

‘That Rupert must have been involved,' she said.

B
y the time he awoke it was late afternoon, the sun had dropped below the level of the hedges and though it was still warm, Derek Reid shivered.

The headache was worse, a cracking feeling running from his temples through to the back of his neck. His shoulders had stiffened and he recognized the effects of whiplash. This added to his general misery and disorientation.

He did not know which way to go. Back towards the car was out. The police would be waiting for him, wouldn't they? He found it hard to remember why, but he knew that way was danger. So, he plodded on, circling the field, searching for a way out. A gap in the hedge gave access into the next field and he plodded on, grateful that here the massive open, fenland fields had given way to a smaller patchwork.

Twice he stumbled. His ribs hurt now and he found it hard to draw breath and it was getting cold. At first he thought it was just imagination or shock or confusion, but as he glanced upward, attracted by the sudden darkening of the blue sky to charcoal grey, he understood that it was not his imagination. It was rain, collecting in the heavy clouds, rolling in from the coast and getting ready to fall.

On him.

To his relief Derek spied a gate and beyond that a road. A car sped by, its driver no doubt wanting to be home before the promised storm began. He grasped the gate with both hands and tried to climb. It moved beneath his weight and he noticed, much to his relief, that this gate was not locked and chained, merely held closed by a loop of orange twine. Derek pulled it free and staggered through, wincing at the effort it took to close the gate behind him and loop the twine back into place.

He needed a lift. Needed to get somewhere. To Sharon. Yes, that's where he wanted to go.

He heard the car before he saw it and ran out into the middle of the road hoping to wave it down, his feet disobedient to the wishes of his brain and legs. He fell, heard the brakes squeal as the driver slammed them on. Heard footsteps and voices raised in anger and concern.

‘Sharon,' he whispered as someone bent down beside him. ‘Need to get to Sharon.'

Back at Fallowfields Billy Pierce had phoned and told Alec about Elaine.

‘That fills in so many gaps,' Alec said. ‘Billy, tell her we'll keep her out of this if we possibly can.'

‘Will do. So, what's happening with you?'

Alec told him about Marcus and Kinnear and Reid and the dramatic chase that had nearly lost him a porch.

‘So, we've got a police car parked up on the drive for now, but Fine doesn't have the resources to keep it there for long. I think the best we can do is move back to the hotel tomorrow. We might even head for home.'

‘You think Kinnear will have given up and gone away? That doesn't sound like him.'

‘Truth? I don't know what to think but I've got people to think about and responsibilities. Kinnear must realize that someone other than Derek Reid now has his phone. I can't believe he listed him by name, that's just too—'

‘Human? I don't suppose he even thought about it. Be interesting to know what else he's got in that phone. Hopefully your friend Fine will be able to enlighten you. Right, I think that's all from my end for now. Elaine's got my number in case she remembers anything else. I've told her to give me a call.'

Alec thanked him and went back to fill the others in about what he had said.

‘So, we still don't know exactly how Kinnear found Rupert,' Naomi said thoughtfully.

‘But once Elaine's daughter had told him north and antiques he was halfway there. Not knowing Rupert's real name must have been the biggest difficulty. Once he had that, he just had to look up north for an antiques dealer called Friedman. It's not a common name and not a particularly common occupation.'

Alec nodded. Harry was right about that. Whatever else Kinnear was, he was persistent and determined and that made Alec feel that Pierce was right.

‘He hasn't gone far,' he said thoughtfully. ‘I'll bet on it. He'll either dispose of his phone or leave it switched off so he can't be traced, but he won't have gone away.'

Marcus shifted restlessly in his seat. It had been decided that he should stay the night. He felt safer in company than he did about going back to the shop. ‘I hope you're wrong, Alec. I truly do. I know it sounds cowardly, but I just want him gone.'

Alec was right when he said Kinnear would not have gone far. He was in fact much closer than they realized.

He had driven his car to within a mile of White Farm, parked in a small copse of trees he had used before when he had gone to the farm, and walked the rest of the way, cutting across the fields on the opposite side of the road to the direction taken by Derek Reid when he had abandoned his crashed car.

Once behind the farm he had watched and waited. He'd seen the boy come round the back of the house and go in through the front door, heard him calling out to his father and get no response.

Satisfied that only Danny was there, Kinnear pushed through the low hedge behind the barn. It was dusk by the time he cracked open the small door set into the larger wooden ones and entered the dark and musty space beyond. He stood for a while, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness, the only light fighting its way in through filthy windows set high up on the wall. He had a small torch on his key ring and he risked flashing it once just to get his bearings, decided he'd be best up on the platform he spied that formed a sort of mezzanine floor.