Off the Record (32 page)

‘You recorded this earlier, you say?’ said Steve admiringly. Ferguson nodded. ‘It’s very well done. What about speech? Is there any distortion?’

‘You can hear for yourself,’ said Ferguson. He took another Bakelite case from his pocket and weighed it in his hand. ‘I . . . I recorded a poem by Robert Burns to give you an idea of what speech sounds like.’ He took out the
Alligator Hop
and fixed the new ribbon into the machine. ‘Here goes.’

What followed certainly rhymed, but it wasn’t Robert Burns and it wasn’t Ferguson speaking. A man’s voice filled the room.
‘Mary had a little lamb . . .’

Molly screamed. She couldn’t help herself. It was Dad’s voice.
Dad’s!
For the briefest fraction of a second she thought she had imagined it, but the stunned bewilderment on Steve’s face convinced her.

She started towards him, wanting support, and then – it was as if time slowed to a crawl – her shocked disbelief took on the quality of a nightmare. She saw the minute fair hairs on Steve’s face stand out as his face reddened and contorted. His teeth showed in a snarl and the dull sheen of his jacket shifted under the light as the muscles on his arms rippled as he sprang forward.

With the movement, time snapped back to its proper speed. Jack Haldean caught him and Steve struck out, desperate to get to the machine. Hector Ferguson caught his flailing arm, reeling back under Steve’s furious onslaught. Jack knocked him off balance and forced him down.

All the time, the voice, her father’s voice, continued,
‘It followed her to school one day, it was against the rules . . .’

She leapt back as Steve, utterly desperate, fastened his hands round Jack’s throat, oblivious to Ferguson’s attempts to pull him off. Jack jerked his knee upwards. Steve grunted and slackened his grip. Jack put his fist under Steve’s chin and shoved as hard as he could.

Then there were other men in the room. Two policemen and Inspector Rackham. The policemen seized Steve and the Inspector forced first one of Steve’s wrists and then the other into handcuffs.

With the policemen holding on to his shoulders, Steve stood, hunched and dangerous, his breath coming in gusts.

‘Steve?’ she said blankly. ‘
Steve?
’

‘Let’s hear the rest of the recording, shall we, Mr Lewis?’ It was Rackham, his voice cool and decisive.

Steve shook himself like a wounded animal about to attack. ‘No!’ He gathered himself up. ‘You can’t have that recording.
I’ve
got it. Ferguson sent it to me. I’ve got it. I destroyed it.’

‘And I copied it,’ said Gerard Carrington grimly.

And there, standing in the doorway to the storage room, incredibly, was Gerry. He came forward into the room. At the sight of him, Steve Lewis crumpled, sinking to his knees.

‘You don’t understand,’ he began. ‘It’s not what you think.’ His voice sharpened to a shrill whimper. ‘I didn’t do it! I didn’t!’ He reached out and tried to grab the hem of Molly’s dress. She stepped back sharply. She didn’t understand what was happening but for a split second she’d seen another Steve, a cringing, frightened, frightening Steve. A Steve who wasn’t quite sane. He tried to laugh, tried to look at her with that special smile of his, and it was a mask. She was scared of what lay behind the mask.

‘Gerry?’ she said weakly. ‘Gerry?’

He turned to her, apologetic and anxious. ‘My God, Molly, I’m sorry. If there had been any other way, I wouldn’t have agreed to this, but there wasn’t.’

She searched his face. His eyes were troubled but totally, completely sane and full of concern. ‘I really am sorry,’ he said. In the silence, Charles Otterbourne’s voice continued. ‘These are your father’s last moments on earth,’ said Gerry. ‘Haldean told us exactly what it was and where it was.’

‘Dad?’ said Molly in a whisper. Her voice came out as a sob as she heard his voice, Dad’s voice. ‘Listen! That’s Dad. Please, can we listen?’

The recorded voice took on a slightly self-conscious tone.

‘I have chosen Mary had a Little Lamb in conscious imitation of Thomas Edison’s first recorded words. This remarkable machine is the work of Professor Carrington, who . . .
The voice stopped and there were the sound of footsteps. Out of the speaker came the sound of distant birdsong and the noise of a man breathing. Then came the scraping noise of a chair being pushed back. ‘
Stephen? I thought you had gone to your uncle’s. Stephen?
’

It was Steve Lewis’s voice. There was a gasp, then a flat whiz as if a sharp gust of air had been blown through a pipe, followed by a choking, gurgling noise and a thud.

There was a satisfied laugh and Lewis spoke once more.
‘Easy.’

Carrington moved forward, unconsciously shielding Molly from Lewis. ‘You murdered Charles Otterbourne and you’ve done your level best to murder me.’

Molly felt sick. Jack, seeing her eyes blaze in her paper-white face, reached out to her, but she shook him off. Very deliberately she walked to where her husband still knelt on the floor. ‘You
laughed!
You killed him and you
laughed!
’

Lewis raised his head and laughed once more. ‘So what? You should be grateful. He ruled you, heart and soul. Killing him was the best thing I ever did. I did it for you.’

‘No!’ Molly started away and buried her head in her hands, stumbling against Gerard Carrington. He put his arm round her shoulders, drawing her to him.

‘Hector,’ cried Mrs Dunbar in distress. ‘Who killed Mr Otterbourne? Who killed Andrew?’

‘Him,’ said Ferguson succinctly, gesturing to the crouching man. ‘Lewis.’ Mrs Dunbar gave a little gasp. ‘But how?’ she wailed. ‘I don’t understand.’

Jack gestured to Ferguson who switched off the recording. ‘He used a silenced gun, Mrs Dunbar, the same gun he used to kill your husband and Hugo Ragnall.’

‘There’s more on that recording,’ said Carrington. ‘I know every word of it. It records my father coming into the room and seeing Charles Otterbourne’s body. My poor father was beside himself. He took his own life, but you killed him, Steve, as surely as you killed Hugo Ragnall.’

‘Wait a moment, Mr Carrington,’ Rackham warned. ‘Stephen Vincent Lewis, I arrest you for the murder of Charles Otterbourne, of Andrew Dunbar . . .’

Lewis, still restrained by the policemen, got to his feet. ‘I know what I’ve done,’ he said wearily. ‘What’s the point of going through all this rigmarole?’ He raised his handcuffed wrists and then dropped his hands in a gesture of defeat as Rackham doggedly went through the names and the charge. ‘I’m a gambler. I always have been. I know when I’ve made my final throw. What do you want me to say? The only one I cared about was Ragnall.’ His mouth trembled. ‘We’d been friends.’ He looked at Jack. ‘It’s your fault. I killed Ragnall because of you. It’s your fault.’

‘You did it,’ said Jack flatly. ‘You had the choice.’

‘Choice?’ Under Rackham’s wary eye Lewis, his face sickly white, sank into a chair. ‘Choice? I’m not to blame. It was
him.
Charles bloody Otterbourne.’ He looked at Molly huddled against Carrington. ‘It was your fault. I was your husband. You should have done what I wanted, not him! All you ever did was dance attendance on your father.’

‘You stole the money from the pension fund,’ said Jack levelly.

‘You stole it?’ whispered Molly.

‘Of course I stole it!’ said Steve impatiently.

‘
You?
Then Dad’s not a thief ?’ Her mouth straightened into a thin line. The anger, the white-hot anger that had scorched her ever since that shocking revelation, burned in her chest, flared and was gone in a flood of relief. Dad
wasn’t
a thief. Gerry
wasn’t
guilty. Nothing was broken. Nothing apart from this white-faced man huddled in a chair. And, oddly enough, she didn’t feel anger but a wave of compassion. Moments before she’d been scared of what was behind the mask, but the real tragedy was there was virtually nothing. He’d inflated himself with deceit, cunning and hatred and now the balloon was pricked and there was nothing left but this shivering remnant of a man.

‘Steve,’ she said softly. ‘How could you?’

‘I did it for you.’

She shook her head. More deceit. ‘No.’

‘Yes, I did! Your father prided himself on his business sense.’ Steve laughed harshly. ‘I was teaching him a lesson. If he’d had any idea how to run a business, he’d have been on to it right away. But no, he was far too high-and-mighty to bother with such petty details as accounts. I tell you, I laughed myself sick, knowing how I was getting my own back. It was the only way I
could
get my own back.’

‘What did you do with the money?’ asked Rackham.

‘Lived, damn it.’ A vicious smile curved his mouth. ‘Gambled high, and had the pleasures only money can bring.’

‘I knew you had other women,’ said Carrington. Molly gave a gasp and he held her close.

‘So what?’ countered Lewis. ‘You didn’t know, did you Molly? I was good to you. I’ve always been good to you. Don’t forget, I saved the firm. That was my money. I’d won it.’

‘Maybe you did,’ said Jack. ‘But it’s money you won gambling with the pension fund. Hugo Ragnall figured out what you were up to.’

‘Hugo Ragnall?’ Lewis laughed once more. ‘Do me a favour. Hugo Ragnall never had a clue. I got him out of a hole and he was grateful to me. That, believe it or not, was sheer kindness. I wanted an ally, someone else who would say,
yes, sir, no sir, three bags full, sir
to that bastard’s face and live their own life behind his back. I had it all planned out. That’s the only thing that made life bearable, knowing that one of these days I’d see that swine, Otterbourne, pay. As soon as the pension fund business was discovered, it was curtains for him. I knew exactly what I was going to do. I could take the money in complete safety and blame it all on him. It just happened sooner than I thought, that’s all. It was clever, you know? I’ve always been smart. And Molly . . .’ His mouth trembled again as he looked at her. ‘You should have been happy. I did it for you. I
cared
for you.’

‘Don’t give us that, Steve,’ said Carrington, his arm round Molly. ‘The only person you’ve ever cared about is yourself.’

Lewis’s face darkened. ‘You bloody foreigner. I cared enough to know what your game was. How dare you look at my wife?
My
wife?’

Rackham dropped a hand on his shoulder. ‘Come on, Lewis. It’s time we went.’

With Rackham and the two policemen in attendance, Lewis was led out to the waiting police wagon, Jack and Ferguson bringing up the rear. Perhaps it was Lewis’s utter acquiescence that made his captors relax their guard for, without any warning, Lewis suddenly kicked out, catching the sergeant in the knee and, wriggling out from their grasping hands, raced into the road.

An oncoming lorry swerved wildly but Lewis was caught, flung into the air like a rag doll, rolled to the other side of the bonnet, and fell into the path of an oncoming car. There was a scream, the shriek of brakes and a horribly drawn out series of thuds as Lewis was dragged along the road. The car swerved wildly, crashed into the lorry, and, amongst the shattered glass and sudden silence, Lewis, one side of his head pulped and unrecognizable, lay still.

F
our days after the events in Bridle Lane, Jack had a telephone call from Gerry Carrington. ‘It’s Molly,’ explained Carrington. ‘I’ve told her what I know, but there’s plenty I can’t explain. Could we come and see you, Haldean?’

‘Good idea,’ said Jack. ‘I’ll ask Hector Ferguson too.’

Jack added brandy, lemon juice and a couple of slices of orange to the cocktail shaker and brandished it with a flourish.

‘That looks very elaborate,’ said Bill Rackham dubiously, handing the drinks to Molly Lewis and Gerard Carrington. ‘I think I’ll stick to whisky, Jack.’

There were five people in Jack’s sitting room on Chandos Row. Jack himself, Bill Rackham, Hector Ferguson and, looking rather tense, Gerard Carrington and Molly Lewis.

Molly took an abstracted sip of her cocktail. ‘Thanks. The more I think about what happened, the less I can see how everything fitted together. It’s the details I want to know.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I understand what drove Steve on. He fairly loathed poor Dad. I’ve come to realize just how much he resented him. Dad controlled everything but Steve wanted to run the firm. I don’t know if my father ever promised him anything, but Steve wanted to be in the driving seat. He simply couldn’t bear being second in command and he hated the way I worked round Dad’s feelings. At the same time, Steve didn’t want to leave Stoke Horam. I think he nursed up his grievances. I couldn’t understand it at the time, but I think he
enjoyed
hating Dad.’ She lit a cigarette and sat without speaking for a few moments. ‘It’s not really sane, is it?’

‘No, it isn’t,’ agreed Jack quietly.

Her forehead creased in a frown. ‘It all seems like a bad dream. I know what happened, but I’m not sure why it happened.’

‘Or how you managed to get to the bottom of it all,’ put in Gerry Carrington.

‘It was a question of fruit,’ said Bill.

‘Fruit?’ asked Hector Ferguson, frowning at the slice of orange in his glass. ‘I don’t see how fruit comes into it.’

‘It was fruit,’ said Jack, settling himself into an armchair. ‘That, and something my editor said which stuck in my mind. He talked about writing a story around a set of illustrations. The meaning of pictures depended on the words around them and it struck me that was like evidence and interpretation. We’d been shown, in a manner of speaking, a very convincing series of pictures, or evidence, telling us you were guilty, Carrington. But if we changed the words around those pictures, the evidence could be interpreted a different way.’

‘And the answer was a lemon?’ asked Hector Ferguson.

‘Well, it was a raspberry, as a matter of fact,’ said Jack, with a laugh. ‘I suddenly saw what you might call the big story, the real story, the one thing that lay behind everything else. And the big story is where Hugo Ragnall fitted in.’ He glanced across to Carrington. ‘Carrington, do you remember when we went to see your Uncle Maurice? We met his housekeeper, Mrs Tierney, as well, didn’t we?’