Murder on Page One (24 page)

‘Easier for some than for others,’ Palfrey said. ‘And no five star hotels, mind. Get some quotes,’ she added.

‘Yes, ma’am. And it’ll be useful to have Chandavarkar here as back-up.’

‘I gather he’s taken today off.’ She sounded disapproving. ‘We’d better not have another murder here in London while you’re all awa’ in Bonnie Scotland.’ From Palfrey’s mouth, the mock Scottish accent sounded strange. She shuddered then got up. ‘Keep me informed, and for God’s sake don’t let this get too ridiculous.’

19

‘Come on, Baggo, we’re off to Guildford.’ Flick had taken a call from Marcus Ramsay, telling her, in a strained voice, that he had discovered something that might have a bearing on Richard Noble’s murder. She had briefly thought about going alone, but decided that Baggo should be there in case there were developments while she was in Pitlochry. This was her last normal day before the retreat.

On the journey, she up-dated him. His disappointment at not travelling north was obvious, and the journey passed in near silence.

But while his exclusion from the Pitlochry team made him huffy, it was the decision about what to do about Margaret Pargiter’s secret that kept him quiet. He did not want to betray her confidence unnecessarily, and if Cilla knew nothing about it, the fact that one of the victims was her father did not affect the inquiry. On the other hand, if she did know, then the rest of the team needed to know it, too. Several times he was on the point of blurting out what Margaret had said then stopped himself; after all, he told himself, a reputation for being discreet was worth having.

The receptionist at Ramsay’s office clearly expected them, and ushered them straight into his room. The solicitor jumped to his feet and rushed round his desk to greet them. Was the Sergeant a little coquettish, Baggo wondered? When the two men shook hands, Baggo noted that Ramsay’s grip was strong yet sweaty. The solicitor seemed nervous, but as keen to please as a puppy. Smiling and running his fingers through his hair, he phoned for coffee and biscuits. This man did not go with the room, with its leather-bound law reports, solid brown furniture, colour photographs of sports teams and a gold-framed oil painting of a lizard-faced judge.

The kettle had evidently been boiled already. Ramsay had not finished thanking them for coming when there was a knock on the door and a busty girl in a tight jumper and a short skirt carried in a tray. As her thigh brushed his sleeve, Baggo got a whiff of cheap perfume and rich coffee. To his surprise, he found this a turn-on. Ramsay made a fuss of pouring into blue and white bone china cups and offering a tempting selection of chocolate biscuits.

‘As I say, it’s good of you to come,’ he said. ‘I do hope I haven’t got the wrong end of the stick here. If I have, or if there’s an innocent explanation, I’ll look terribly foolish, and it will be most embarrassing, not to say damaging …’ His voice tailed off. ‘I rely on you to use your discretion, as much as you can, of course.’ He took a deep breath and looked from one officer to the other. ‘I’ve been going through Richard Noble’s papers, including agency matters, and I’ve found something very odd.’ His voice was low, as if he was wary of eavesdroppers.

‘You probably know that Richard and Lionel Parker were the two partners in the agency. They were very successful, each doing different sorts of work. Richard did crime, as well as other things. One of the areas he did not cover, but Lionel does, is dead authors. A number of dead writers sell amazingly well, and I’m not talking about just Agatha Christie or Stieg Larsson. Well, I found this in Richard’s personal, I stress
personal
, papers.’ He raised his blotter and, with great care, produced a sheet of blue writing paper. ‘It’s a letter,’ he added unnecessarily, handing it to Flick.

The writing was that of an old person, rounded characters formed by a careful but shaky hand using a fountain pen. Baggo moved his chair closer to Flick and they read it together.

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to enquire about royalties from my grandfather’s book, Walks Round North Wales. He was Edwin Morris. I am the only surviving beneficiary of his will (he died in 1959) and I was surprised to see it for sale in a shop in Llandudno when I visited friends there recently. I asked the bookshop owner about it and she said it still sold quite well, and that she sent a royalty cheque to your agency on a regular basis. I have never received anything from you, and I do not believe that Mildred, my sister, did either. She passed away at Christmas, and that leaves me as my grandfather’s sole surviving heir. I can prove that, if necessary.

Would you be good enough to look into this for me? Keeping warm is an expensive business at my age (83).

I am,

Yours faithfully,

Gwynith Morris (Miss).

The address, written in block capitals, was in Manchester, and the letter was dated eleventh February, ten days before Noble’s murder. Miss Morris had also given her phone number.

‘Lionel was away when this came in, and Richard seems to have made some enquiries.’ Ramsay continued, drawing a sheet of A4 from under his blotter. ‘This was attached to the letter by a paper clip.’

In a precise hand, the dead man had noted: ‘Glendower Books, Alun Glendower,’ with an address and phone number. Underneath, an arrow pointed to the name and address of a Jersey-based bank, the Grouville Bank, heavily underlined. Beside that was another phone number and a name, Rob Le Broq.

‘I have to ingather Richard’s estate, so I felt I had to look into this,’ Ramsay said. ‘The long and the short of it is, the royalties were paid into an account in the name of Noble Parker with the Grouville Bank, but the only person who could access that account was Lionel Parker. I spoke to Mr Le Broq, but he wouldn’t tell me any more than that. I then spoke to Waterstones and they confirmed that they sent a monthly account, covering a number of dead authors, to Noble Parker, care of the Grouville Bank, and they paid whatever was due by bank transfer, usually for a sizeable amount. Now, I’ve had a look at Noble Parker’s accounts, and there are some entries of incoming payments relating to dead authors, but they’re very, very modest, not at all detailed, and they come from a bank in the Isle of Man. Richard was the more talented agent, I always thought, but Lionel was definitely the businessman.’

‘So it looks as if Parker’s been moving the money round off-shore accounts and skimming the cream off the payments due to the heirs of dead authors?’ Flick asked.

‘And if Parker knew that Noble suspected this …’ Baggo interjected.

‘Exactly.’ Ramsay ran his tongue over his lower lip. ‘If anyone asked, he would probably have claimed that he used off-shore accounts for tax purposes.’

‘Well thank you for telling us this, Mr Ramsay,’ Flick said. ‘It obviously could give Parker a motive for murder. This is the sort of thing that needs to go to the Serious Fraud Office, and I’ll be in touch with them today. Do you think that Parker has any inkling of your suspicions?’

‘No. Unless the woman from Waterstones, or Le Broq, tells him I’ve been in touch.’

‘Well, I’ll ask the SFO to prioritise this and work with us. They’ll need a warrant to search his house and the office, and I believe getting information from these off-shore banks is like drawing teeth. Meanwhile, please don’t give him any hint that we’re interested in him.’

‘Do you think he might, you know? If he thought I’d spoken to you?’

‘A desperate man might do anything,’ Baggo said, then felt a kick from Flick. ‘Just take sensible precautions, and I’m sure he’ll think twice,’ he added.

‘What sort of precautions?’ Ramsay ran his fingers through his hair.

Flick answered before Baggo could. ‘Nothing dramatic. Vary your routine; lock doors and windows; draw curtains; if possible, avoid being absolutely on your own. He will not do anything against you unless he thinks he will get away with it and it will stop you from harming him. By giving us these,’ she held up the letter and the notes, ‘you have given us what we need, so it would be pointless and stupid for him to kill you. And Parker is no fool,’ she added.

Baggo said, ‘We are regarding this as one of the so-called Crimewriter murders, so even if Mr Noble was about to expose Parker as an embezzler, it does not follow that he was the killer.’

As Baggo paused to let this sink in, Flick said, ‘But, please, I think it would be best if you said nothing to Mrs Noble. If her attitude to him were to suddenly change, it might possibly place her in some danger. Once the search warrants have been executed, we’ll speak to her and take a formal statement. Full cooperation will be her best protection.’

‘But when will you arrest him?’

‘Once we’ve got evidence, Mr Ramsay,’ Flick said.

‘It is a bore, but justice demands it, as that gentleman would tell you,’ Baggo said, nodding towards the judge’s portrait. ‘Please do not worry, sir. You have done exactly the right thing, and I am sure everything is going to work out fine.’

Ramsay showed them out with the nervous movements and forced smile of someone who hoped he had not made a terrible mistake.

In the car, Flick reached for her phone. ‘Cooperation,’ she mouthed to Baggo as she pressed the buttons. She gave Osborne a full account of what Ramsay had said, listened then shrugged. ‘If the phone rings, you answer,’ she said. ‘It’ll probably be the SFO.’ She started the engine and, ignoring the speed limit, headed for London.

‘I would not have expected such a man to be scared,’ Baggo said as they sped through the Guildford suburbs.

‘He’s just out of his comfort zone,’ Flick replied. ‘He’s not a criminal lawyer and he doesn’t like going near a court.’

Baggo glanced at her. Her lips were pouting and she gripped the steering wheel hard. Interesting, he thought …

‘If you wanted to kill a literary agent, this would be an excellent time,’ Flick mused, ten minutes later. ‘Everyone would assume it was Crimewriter. Say Parker killed Noble and the Russians killed Swanson, I wonder who might have killed Robertson. Perhaps the kinky journo did kill Stanhope after all.’

A burst of Beethoven that would have made the composer glad he was deaf erupted from her i-Phone. Baggo answered. Inspector Cummings from the SFO had a dry, unemotional voice but he sounded sincere in his apologies about the size of his work-load and the inadequacy of resources available to him. He could not drop everything to follow up a suspected embezzlement, even if it might have led to murder. What about the Crimewriter killer, anyway?

As Baggo repeated how urgent it was that Parker’s records should be searched, Flick pulled in to the hard shoulder and took the phone from him.

‘Oh, John, it’s you. Yes, Flick… Oh fine, couldn’t be better, and you? … And your mum and dad? … Tell them I was asking for them. Look, John, this is really serious. If this guy gets wind of our suspicions, anything could happen. No, not just destruction of evidence. I think Parker’s having an affair with the widow, and she could be in danger … Yes, really. Even if Crimewriter murdered Noble, Parker might kill to protect himself … A nasty bit of work, I’ve met him, and the lawyer’s scared of what he might do … You’ll have to check this out some time, and if you do it now, it’s got a much better chance of being successful … You’re a star, John. I’ll fax the paperwork to you when I get back to the station. Yes, quite soon. I’ll hand you back to Chandavarkar. He’s got all the details you’ll need.’

Baggo immediately noted the warmer tone when the Inspector spoke to him for a second time. By the time they had finished, Flick had pushed the needle past ninety.

‘It is important that people can rely on you to keep secrets, is it not, Sarge?’ Baggo asked. Now that there was a possibility that some at least of the murders were stand-alone, he could not keep Cilla’s relationship with Robertson to himself, but explaining his delay in revealing it would not be easy.

‘Of course,’ Flick replied, concentrating hard on the road.

‘I was told a secret yesterday, and I promised to keep it to myself if I could.’

‘Does it relate to this investigation?’ she asked sharply.

‘Yes.’

‘Then you can’t keep it.’

‘I went to Newcastle yesterday, on my day off.’

‘And?’

‘I visited Margaret Pargiter.’

‘Right. And?’

‘Cilla Pargiter doesn’t know it. That is why it is a secret, but Laurence Robertson is her father.’

Flick took her foot off the accelerator, earning a blast from the car behind. ‘What? How could you think of keeping that a secret? How can you be sure she doesn’t know it? What made you go to Newcastle in the first place?’

Baggo took a deep breath. Flick was now in the slow lane and she shot angry glances at him.

‘On Tuesday night, after everyone had gone home, I found Cilla’s book on Robertson’s computer. It had been sent by someone called PP, from an e-mail address both Cilla and her mother use. I decided to use my day off to investigate. Margaret Pargiter implored me not to let Cilla know the identity of her father. I believed her that Cilla did not know, so I kept it secret till I realised I had to tell.’

Flick swerved on to the hard shoulder and turned to face Baggo. She spoke very slowly and quietly. ‘I want to know the full story. Now.’

Baggo told her fully and truthfully, apart from when he had found the e-mail containing the book. ‘Please do not spread this further than you need to, Sarge,’ he concluded.