Blood on the Marsh (DI Susan Holden 3)

‘Don’t be late.’

‘Don’t worry, David Wright. I won’t be.’

Whatever Detective Superintendent Collins’ faults were – and in Holden’s view he had a self-confidence and self-importance that were almost Blairite in their intensity – procrastination was not one of them. Barely half an hour after Holden called him, there was a knock on her door, and in came Detective Constables Lawson and Wilson. Holden looked up and returned their broad smiles.

‘You look like you’ve just won the lottery.’

‘Almost as good, Guv,’ Lawson replied, still grinning. ‘We’ve escaped Sergeant Johnson’s community policing seminar.’

‘Well, that is a shame!’ Holden leant back her chair and surveyed them. She had always liked Jan Lawson, from that first day when the WPC, as she had been then, had buttonholed her in the station car park and had told her that her label was showing. She had short blonde hair, mischievous eyes, and a character to match. Wilson, she thought, looked older, more mature. His dark hair was longer than she remembered (slightly), and he stood there smiling languidly, apparently more at ease with himself than she ever remembered. It was the first time she had seen him since her extended break, and he seemed to have aged several years in those six months. Mind you, that was just as well. Half the time he had looked and felt like an awkward 16-year-old schoolboy, not a young detective making his way.

Holden picked up the phone. ‘I’ll get Sergeant Fox, and then we’ll bring you up to speed.’

‘It’s good of you to see me at such short notice.’ DC Wilson sat down opposite Charles Hargreaves. The solicitor had kept him waiting outside for ten minutes, but he hadn’t minded because Hargreaves’s PA, Miss Celia Johnson, had not only brought him a cup of tea, but had then engaged him in bright conversation. Her round face was framed by brown curly hair, and her laughter rose deep and rather coarse from within. Wilson had found himself wondering how she might react if he asked her out.

‘Not at all.’ Hargreaves waved a hand dismissively. ‘When the police request an urgent interview, I always do my best to co-operate. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but I just wanted to run my eyes over Mrs Nanette Wright’s papers so that I could answer your questions.’

‘Well, we just need to check out her will. To see to whom she left her estate.’

‘Of course.’ Hargreaves nodded vigorously, and looked down at the open file in front of him, as if he needed to double check the details. ‘In fact, it’s all very straightforward. She left all her estate to her son, Mr James Wright, all except for some items of jewellery that she has specified be given to her granddaughter, Victoria.’

‘What about her grandson, David?’

Hargreaves looked down again, adjusting his glasses as he did so. ‘Nothing was left to anyone else.’

‘Oh!’ Wilson felt a spurt of sympathy for the forgotten boy. He hoped his own gran wouldn’t ignore him just because he was male.

‘I believe David was adopted,’ Hargreaves said, looking up. ‘Maybe that explains it.’

‘Oh!’ Wilson said again. He didn’t remember being told that in the briefing. He’d check it out later, but right now there were other questions to ask. ‘Do you know how large her estate is?’

Hargreaves leant back, and smiled at Wilson as if he was a rather uncouth young nephew. ‘That’s a question to ask her accountant, I think.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Wilson flushed, but not – as might once have been the case – with embarrassment. It was anger he felt, anger at being so patronized by this man who felt a handmade suit and a public-school accent put him above people like himself. ‘I would imagine,’ Wilson persisted, ‘that you have some idea of your clients’ financial affairs. After all you wouldn’t want them defaulting on their bills.’

‘Indeed.’ The hand waved again, a tennis player’s hand perhaps, acknowledging a good return of service. He leant forward. ‘What I can tell you, Constable, is that about a year ago she took a quarter share in her son’s house. I had to draw up the agreement.’

‘Really?’

‘Really! But as I say, if you want financial details, you’ll need to speak her accountant. His name is William Kelly.’

‘Do you have an address and phone number?’

Hargreaves leant back again, and pointed a single complacent finger towards the ceiling. ‘Next floor up, young man.’

At much the same time as Wilson was being patronized by Charles Hargreaves, Holden, Fox and Lawson were undertaking the grunt work that a police investigation typically involves. From the list that Fox had compiled the previous day, it had become obvious to Holden that there were all too many people who could potentially have put morphine in Nanette Wright’s hip flask and so caused her death. Quite apart from all the staff, there were visitors and business callers. ‘And, of course,’ Holden pointed out, ‘we shouldn’t ignore the possibility of other residents being involved. The question is where to start. We aren’t necessarily looking for someone with an obvious motive to commit murder. If the morphine was put in the hip flask by someone merely hoping to quieten Nanette down, then we may be looking for someone with a petty grudge against the old woman, or someone whom she managed to rub up the wrong way. But if the intent was to kill, then well …’ Holden shrugged and opened her hands in apparent supplication to a higher being.

‘There is another way of approaching the problem.’ Despite her lack of experience, Lawson was not a person to hold back. Keeping quiet gets you nowhere. That had always been her motto. ‘What I mean is that we could start with the people who could most easily have gained access to morphine. Which is presumably some of the more senior nursing staff.’

‘I take your point, Lawson.’ It was a guarded welcome. ‘In fact,’ Holden continued, ‘my next move is to go and talk to Fran Sinclair about their drugs regime.’ Lawson felt a flush of pleasure. There was a juvenile part of her that needed her boss’s approval. ‘But’, Holden was saying – of course there had to be a ‘but’ – ‘I don’t want to make too many assumptions yet. What I want you and Fox to do, Lawson, is to try and build up a picture of Nanette Wright’s life here, and in particular her last few days. Did she tend to wander around a lot, or stay in her room? Did she have particular friends? Was she popular or unpopular? Get people to talk about her, and try and find out who she related to. Did her family visit her much during the week? You don’t need me to spell it out. Just find out as much as you can.’

William Kelly was the very antithesis of Wilson’s idea of an accountant. For a start, he was dressed an in open-neck black shirt and black jeans. The top two shirt buttons were undone, revealing a small silver cross on a fine chain, and there was noticeable stubble on his face. His hair was jet black and short, and his eyes flickered with amusement.

‘So you’ve been and seen Charles, I gather, and now it’s me for the third degree.’

‘Just a few questions, if you don’t mind.’

‘You want to know how much Nanette Wright was worth, I expect.’