Rattling the Bones (33 page)

‘Nor to Lilian’s!’ snapped Lottie.

Adam was still in full flow. ‘It doesn’t give you any, either, Jessica! I don’t care what a lawyer might say about the law regarding illegitimate children. Gramps didn’t even know you existed until comparatively recently. I, for one, shall be insisting on a DNA test.’

‘You’re a fool,’ said Jessica to him in that kindly tone which I now realised she knew was far more devastating in dealing with opposition than any shouted words. ‘As it happens, I have made it clear to Henry I don’t wish to be named in his will. I don’t need the money. When my husband and I divorced years ago he made me a very generous settlement. I still earn money of my own from teaching dance and mime. My reason for contacting Henry was only ever to meet my natural father. That we get on so well together is a bonus. I couldn’t ask for anything more.’

‘That’s very noble of you!’ Adam sneered.

‘What about me?’ Lottie burst out. ‘I didn’t think Duane would find Edna! No one knew anything about her! She might even have been dead, after all. Living rough all those years, her health ought to have cracked up years ago like her brain. But Duane was so damn efficient and dedicated. He reckoned she’d be in the London area because that was where she’d last been released from hospital all those years ago and where she’d grown up before that. He checked out retirement homes, the Salvation Army, charities, council records, the lot! And would you believe it? He found her!’

‘And he wouldn’t damn well keep quiet about it!’ Adam almost howled. ‘We pointed out to him he might after all have found the wrong woman. Until Gramps identified her, we couldn’t be sure. The next move would be to persuade the mad old crone to meet my grandfather. It gave us time—’

He broke off.

‘To engineer some kind of fatal accident for Edna?’ I asked.

He stared at me coldly. ‘It gave us time to think what we should do next. Gramps didn’t deal with Duane directly so if I said nothing, it should have been all right for a while. All we had to do was keep Duane’s success from Gramps and from that family solicitor dealing with Lilian’s will. We tried every argument we knew to persuade Duane to go along with what we’d all decided. He ought to have been able to see it was in his interest, too! Lottie’s father would have been generous with Lilian’s money. Duane and Lottie would have had plenty to invest in the business and keep them going until they got into profit. Lottie’s father wouldn’t have refused her. But no . . .’

‘But no, he wouldn’t agree to keep it all quiet,’ I said, ‘because Duane Gardner was a
good
detective, in both senses of the word.’

‘You were mistaken, anyway, Adam,’ Jessica added, ‘in thinking Duane didn’t ever meet Henry directly.’

Her words acted on the heated atmosphere like a bucket of cold water thrown over fighting dogs. Lottie gaped.

Adam blinked. ‘What? Why, the sneaky little—Duane never said a word to us!’

‘Perhaps Duane had summed you up pretty well,’ I told him. ‘He never trusted you, Adam.’ I turned to Lottie. ‘His mistake was to trust his girlfriend.’

She turned brick red. ‘I shouldn’t have trusted him! He went behind my back to consult Henry Culpeper in person.’

Jessica shook her head. ‘Henry likes to see for himself where his money is going. Duane went to see him two or three times, at Henry’s own request, and on the last occasion he told us that he had traced Edna to that hostel. Henry asked me to go along there and see what it was like and, if possible, to see Edna. I went but missed my mother, who had gone out. I did meet Fran.’

‘I don’t know why you had to interfere,’ Lottie said bitterly to me. ‘The old woman is nothing to you.’

‘Think of me as a friend to watch over Edna’s interests,’ I said.

Adam snorted. ‘To think Gramps went behind my back like that! I never suspected it.’ He shook his head as though some insect buzzed around it.

Jessica spread out her hands. ‘It wasn’t that he didn’t trust you, Adam, but Henry was hedging his bets, as I suppose you’d call it.’

And perhaps, I thought but didn’t say aloud, Henry had had time to consider that Adam and his sister might not be over-delighted when Edna walked back into Henry’s life. He wanted someone else to know what was going on and he chose Jessica because she, too, had an interest.

Adam was doing some rapid thinking. ‘I didn’t kill Duane. I went with him to that detective agency’s office but only to search it, once we’d got Mrs Duke out of the way. We didn’t find anything and I left. I thought Duane left, too, but he must have gone back. I don’t know what happened after that.’

‘So who did kill him?’ I countered.

‘I don’t know, do I?’ he yelled at me. ‘Ask her!’ He pointed at Lottie.

‘You shit!’ She leapt out of her chair and began to pummel Ferrier around the head and shoulders with her clenched fists. ‘You lying, two-faced, spineless creep! You’re worse than Duane!’ She whirled round and before we could stop her grabbed a kitchen knife from the display on the dresser behind her.

Jessica and I threw ourselves at her. The table crashed over. Adam’s chair fell back with him in it and landed on the floor for a second time with a deafening clatter. Lottie, screaming like a banshee, flung herself on top of him. Trying to hang onto her and her knife-wielding arm and pull both away was like trying to hold back a runaway horse.

Eventually I managed to twist her wrist and the knife clattered to the floor. Jessica wrapped both arms round Lottie’s upper body, clamping her elbows to her sides. Lottie squealed and kicked backwards but dancers are strong. Jessica hauled her away sufficiently to allow Adam to scramble to his feet and scuttle to the far side of the kitchen out of Lottie’s avenging reach. Blood was streaming from the side of his head, not from a knife wound as far as I could see but from colliding with the floor or furniture in his fall.

‘She’s crazy!’ he gasped, pointing at her wildly. ‘For pity’s sake, don’t let go of her.’

‘I should never have relied on you!’ snarled Lottie at him. She no longer looked beautiful. Her features were distorted and hate-filled. ‘You all let me down, you, Becky, Duane, everyone! You couldn’t take care of the old woman and you hadn’t a clue what to do about
her
!’ Her head jerked sideways to indicate me. ‘I
should
have killed Duane myself. At least then I’d have known it was done and I wouldn’t have to worry that anyone else knew about it. But I relied on
you
!’

‘Fran!’ Jessica gasped. ‘Have you a mobile? Can you call the police? Then help me hold Lottie till they come?’

‘It’s already sorted . . .’ I replied, dodging another wild kick from Lottie.

‘Oh, hell!’ cried Adam and turning, bolted out the kitchen door while Lottie screamed imprecations after him.

‘You’re spot on,’ I told her. ‘You can’t rely on him.’ I looked at Jessica. ‘It looks like we’ve lost him.’

‘Oh, he won’t get far,’ observed Jessica. ‘But are you sure about the police?’

Lottie had gone limp in her arms, not from surrender, but temporary exhaustion. She’d have another go at wresting herself free at any moment.

‘Sit her on that chair,’ I suggested. ‘You can keep your grip on her upper body and I’ll hold her legs.’

Lottie found some quite astonishing language to tell us what she thought of that and resisted us vigorously. Jessica got a clout in the eye which would turn into a real shiner and I got clobbered on both shins. I’d be hobbling for days afterwards.

‘I hope you’re right about Adam!’ I panted to Jessica when we had Lottie immobilised between us at last.

‘Oh, yes,’ she gasped. ‘He’s not fool enough to hang around his flat in Docklands and he can’t go to his grandfather. But wherever he goes, Adam can’t operate without money. He’ll have to use his credit card or access his bank account in some way.’

‘There’s his sister,’ I said. ‘He might go to her for help.’

Lottie gave a sinister little chuckle. It made my spine prickle.

‘Becky,’ asked Jessica in a surprised voice. ‘
She
never has any money! She’s permanently broke and begging handouts from everyone she knows. She’s never done a day’s work in her life and is living in expectations of Henry’s will, if anyone is. She must have been more frightened than Adam when she heard about my mother.’

Lottie said unexpectedly and in quite a reasonable tone, ‘Talk about a skeleton in the cupboard.’ She twisted her head to look up at Jessica. ‘I hope Henry marries mad old Edna and leaves her and you the lot in his will. It would serve Adam right.’

She sagged slightly and appeared to have relaxed. ‘I’ll deny it all,’ she said. ‘You won’t prove a damn thing. Adam and Becky have more reason to want Edna to stay missing than I did. Duane was my boyfriend. We were together for a long time. Why should I agree to any plot to kill him? It’s nonsense. No jury would buy it.’

Her eyes met mine and she smiled. ‘I’m going to put his portrait up on that wall,’ she said. ‘Just like I told you.’

Chapter Nineteen

That was when the doorbell rang. We looked at one another.

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘that will probably be the police.’ I had fished Ganesh’s mobile from my pocket but I put it back. ‘I told you it was sorted. I’ll just go and let them in.’

Lottie’s whole body gave a convulsion. ‘What do you mean, police?’

‘I forgot to tell you,’ I explained. ‘You haven’t met my friend, Ganesh. But while I’ve been here having this interesting conversation with you and Adam, Ganesh went to see the cops to tell them about Lilian and Edna being sisters. You know, Inspector Morgan herself said to me not long ago, “Money makes motive.” ’

I walked down the hall past the neglected plant and opened the door. Morgan stood there with a plain-clothes man I didn’t know. Possibly he was a sergeant from the local station. He looked at me as if there was no difference between the plant and me.

‘There you are, Fran,’ Morgan greeted me in a way that boded ill for me at some later date. ‘Mr Patel said you would be. You’ve been playing hotshot amateur detective again, I hear. All right, what’s going on? First Les Hooper came to see me this morning with some garbled tale about keys. He was hardly out of the door before your mate Ganesh turned up with some yarn about your ferreting around in the Records Office. Typically, I might add, instead of bringing your information to me, you scurried out here to do things your own way as usual. Patel insisted I should get out here immediately so here I am and oh, boy, this had better be worth the trip or you are in serious trouble! Where’s Lottie Forester?’

‘Lottie’s in the kitchen. Jessica’s keeping an eye on her but it might be a good thing if we hurried back there. She’s awfully angry, Lottie I mean, and she can be violent. She tried to knife Adam Ferrier. He’s got away.’

‘Bloke in the car that burned rubber going past us?’ observed the sergeant as we all three hastened down the hall. ‘I tried to get his number to pass it on to traffic. Speeding in a built-up area and driving without due care, if ever I saw it.’

They drove off a little later with Lottie in the car. She went quietly enough and it worried me.

‘I want to see both of you,’ said Morgan to Jessica and me before she left. ‘In my office tomorrow, please, nine o’clock. Mrs Davis?’

‘I’ll be there,’ Jessica promised. ‘I should have come to you before. I realise that now. I can come today if you want.’

Morgan shook her head. ‘I want to interview Lottie Forester first and get her statement. She’s asked for her solicitor to be present so we have to wait until he gets there. In the meantime, we need to pick up Ferrier. I’m going to be busy for the rest of today. But tomorrow, nine o’clock, right? Fran? Don’t let me down.’