Ramsay 04 - Killjoy (21 page)

‘No,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t be an intrusion.’

She wondered if she should invite him for a meal then thought that might cause him embarrassment. Perhaps there was some rule preventing policemen eating with the murder suspects. There should be.

He followed her up the dual-carriageway to Otterbridge in his own car. She saw his headlights in her mirror and though she usually drove home far too fast she maintained the regulation 60 m.p.h. Is this what it would be like? she thought. Living with a policeman? Having to keep all the rules. Could I stand it?

In the house the lights were on and as usual she called up the stairs to Anna. Ramsay followed her through to the kitchen where she automatically switched on the kettle then took a tin from the fridge to feed the cat. Anna wandered in ten minutes later, poured herself a mug of tea and went away without a word.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ramsay said. ‘You wanted some time together.’

‘That’s all right,’ Prue said. ‘ She’s not communicating much anyway. I think she’s in love.’

‘Who’s the subject of her affection?’

‘John Powell. He took her out last night.’ She smiled, making a joke of her unease. ‘You policemen can’t be badly paid,’ she said. ‘He brought her home in a very smart new Polo. His mother’s apparently. My car’s fifteen years old and held together with string.’

‘It’s about money that I want to talk to you,’ he said.

He had intended to stick to a story that his enquiries into the Grace Darling finances were a matter of routine police work, but she was too intelligent to believe that. Even after all these years she knew him too well. He saw that the only way to obtain her co-operation was to tell her the truth.

‘I think Gus Lynch might have been stealing from the Arts Centre,’ he said. ‘ Had you ever suspected anything like that?’

She shook her head. ‘But I’d have no way of knowing,’ she said.

‘Amelia Wood had a bank statement which seems to show that any payment to the Grace Darling—grants from the local authority and money from sponsors—was put on deposit and transferred into the current account when it was needed.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s right. I was joint signatory to both accounts.’

‘Presumably each year the trustees would appoint an auditor to go through the books and make sure that any cheque from either account had a legitimate purpose. You had to keep receipts?’

She nodded. ‘ Of course.’

‘I want to know if there was another account,’ he said quietly.

‘A secret account that the trustees didn’t know about and the auditors never got to see.’

She blushed. ‘There was nothing dishonest in that,’ she said defensively. ‘ Gus started it soon after I arrived. There’d been a fuss about the expenses he claimed after a Youth Theatre production which we took to the Berwick Festival. He’d hired a minibus. The trustees said he should have charged the parents for the transport cost and that in future he should consult them before making a similar gesture. He was furious and said he wasn’t going to them every time he needed five pounds from the petty cash. They should trust him. He’d given up enough to come and work for them.’

‘So he opened a new account in the Grace Darling’s name?’

She nodded. ‘ With the Wallsend and Hallowgate Building Society. We paid in money that didn’t go through the books—small cash donations given by the public, money raised by the kids in informal fund-raising events, that sort of thing. It was used on projects which the trustees might not have approved of. For instance last summer we hired a mime artist to run a workshop and paid him from the account. I suppose it wasn’t strictly honest but there was nothing illegal going on.’

‘You were joint signatory on that account too?’

‘Yes. The banks and building societies insist on two signatures for charitable accounts.’

‘Did you always watch Mr Lynch write the cheque before signing it?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Of course not. You know what it’s like. It’s always a mad house there, always busy. He rushes into my office waving the cheque book. “Sign a couple of cheques for me pet. I’m just on my way into town.” So I sign them.’

‘Without asking what they’re for?’

‘Sometimes,’ she admitted, ‘ if it’s really hectic. Usually he tells me what they’re for—costume hire or transport or to take some supporters for a meal.’

‘You never check?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Of course not.’

‘The building society must send you a statement every six months.’

She shrugged. ‘I suppose so. I’ve never seen it.’

‘Who opens your mail? A secretary?’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘the trustees don’t believe in paying proper secretaries. We’ve had a series of YTS trainees who leave us just as they’re getting competent.’ She paused. ‘You think Gus was making out the cheques I’d signed to himself?’

‘More probably for cash. That would be less easy to trace.’

‘How much did he get away with then?’ she asked cheerfully. ‘Fifty quid? A hundred? There could never have been much more than that in the account.’

‘Oh, considerably more than that,’ he said. ‘I believe that Mr Lynch paid some sponsorship money into the account. A firm called Northumbria Computing donated ten thousand pounds to the Grace Darling about three years ago.’

‘And you believe he took all that?’ She was astounded.

‘Not all at once,’ Ramsay said. ‘I think he withdrew it in cash. Over a period.’

‘And I signed the bloody cheques,’ she said. ‘What a bastard!’

There was a silence. In her room Anna was playing lyrical and sentimental music. Prue took a knife and a board from a drawer and began violently to chop an onion.

‘It isn’t the theft itself which is of most concern at the moment,’ Ramsay said. ‘It provides a motive, you see, for Mrs Wood’s murder.’

‘You think she found out about it?’ Prue stood, poised for a moment with the knife in her hand. ‘ Do you think that’s why he decided to look for another job?’

‘I think it’s almost certain that she suspected he’d been stealing,’ Ramsay said, almost to himself. ‘She’d have heard from her husband that he wanted to buy the flat in Chandler’s Court. She might even have been on the bench when Lynch was charged with non-payment of the community charge. So she went through the bank statement herself to check. But it all happened years ago. If she’d wanted to get rid of him she’d have done it before now.’

‘But she wouldn’t have wanted to get rid of him!’ Prue was suddenly excited, caught up in the investigation despite herself. ‘Don’t you see, he was the best thing that had ever happened to the Grace Darling. He was a famous actor. Even better, a local famous actor. It meant that we got all the publicity we could handle. It meant that the Grace Darling was successful when other similar projects were closing down. It would be worth ten grand to her to keep him.’

‘So you’re saying that she used the information that he’d been stealing to put pressure on him to stay? A sort of blackmail?’

She nodded.

‘It’s certainly very significant that he only decided to announce his resignation on the day after she died,’ Ramsay said.

‘Does that mean,’ Prue said incredulously, ‘ that you think he killed her?’

‘There’s no evidence,’ he said slowly. ‘ We need more than motive.’ He knew this was all a mistake. He had no right to discuss the case with Prue. He had never been so unprofessional, but he was certain he could trust her discretion. She had information he needed, and he continued: ‘Besides, there’s Gabriella Paston. Where could she fit into all this? Is there any way, do you think, that she could have discovered the fraud?’

‘I don’t know,’ Prue said. ‘I think Gus gave her a contribution towards her RADA audition expenses from the building society account but she’d surely have no way of knowing where it came from. Unless…’ she hesitated.

‘Yes?’

‘Unless Ellen told her. Ellen Paston. She’s a dreadful snoop. I’ve even caught her going through the mail on my desk. It would be hard to keep anything in that place secret from her.’

‘And we know that Gabby met Ellen regularly. It’s marked in her diary.’ It’s all coming together, he thought. At last. Gabby and Ellen met for a gossip. Of course Ellen would pass on her suspicions. There was no more juicy gossip than dishonesty of a famous man. And then Gabby must have acted on it. Surely the contribution towards audition expenses wasn’t all she received from Lynch. There was the five hundred pounds which started her savings account. It couldn’t be coincidence that both murder victims had blackmailed the director.

‘All the same,’ Prue said. ‘I can’t believe it of Gus Lynch. He wouldn’t have the guts.’

She stood up and rinsed mushrooms under the tap, then returned to the board to slice them.

‘You do understand,’ he said awkwardly, ‘that this is all confidential. I’m sorry. I’ve put you in an unfair position. You have to work with the man. But I must ask you to keep it secret.’

‘Oh,’ she said lightly. ‘I’ve always been good at secrets. Are you going home? To your cottage in Heppleburn? I should like to see it some time.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Back to the police station. There’s still work to do. It won’t be long, I hope, now.’ He touched her shoulder clumsily, but there was no invitation to his cottage and she thought she had made a fool of herself. He was only interested in her as a means of clearing up his case.

Back at Hallowgate police station Ramsay wondered why he had not asked Prue to come to Heppleburn. He would like to have shown her the cottage. He was busy but he could have made some vague, friendly gesture. He decided that a sort of superstition had prevented him. He did not have a good record in protecting the women he came close to in murder cases. He wanted to keep her safe and when the investigation was over he would make his move.

The telephone rang. It was Hunter reporting on the surveillance operation outside the Pastons’ house. He had called it off now, he said. The van would cause suspicion if it were parked there after dark. Especially if it was there in the morning with all the wheels still on.

‘How did it go?’ Ramsay asked. He thought his interest now was academic. Gus Lynch must be his most likely suspect.

‘It was like St James’s Park on Derby match day, kids in and out all afternoon. And one of the visitors might interest you.’

‘Who was it?’ He tried to sound excited to humour Hunter.

‘John Powell. Now what do you make of that?’

By the next morning the weather had changed. The wind had gone westerly and was mild and damp, carrying squalls of rain. In Hallowgate police station Ramsay and Hunter had a meeting with the superintendent. From his office at the front of the building they saw the bright splash of colour of the yellow oilskins worn by the men driving fork-lift trucks on the Fish Quay against the grey of the river. Ramsay stared out at the scene below him and found it hard to concentrate.

‘So,’ the superintendent said, ‘what are we going to do about Gus Lynch?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Ramsay knew he must appear indecisive and tried to gather his thoughts. ‘I’m tempted to bring him in for questioning on suspicion of fraud but technically that’s awkward because the Grace Darling trustees have never reported a crime. The matter’s complicated of course by his high profile.’

‘You’ve not got enough to charge him with murder?’

Ramsay shook his head. ‘ There’s nothing to put him in Martin’s Dene on the evening of Amelia Wood’s death. We had his car and so far no one’s come forward to say that they gave him a lift. Of course someone might be protecting him. But until we have something more substantial than motive to link him to the murders it would be too risky to bring him in.’

They all knew the problem: once the PACE clock started ticking there was only a limited time before a decision had to be made whether to charge or release a suspect. And if Lynch was released after questioning Ramsay would have shown his hand and given the actor the opportunity to cover his tracks. That’s why he hadn’t asked to see the slush account records.

‘Of course we do have substantial evidence to implicate Lynch in the Paston murder,’ the superintendent said. ‘ Her body was found in the boot of his car.’

‘Yes.’ But Ramsay’s voice was uncertain. Paradoxically it was only the body in the car which made him question their case against Lynch. An intelligent man would have found somewhere to dump it. But perhaps it was all an elaborate counterbluff. Or the result of the sort of panic which leads to inaction.

‘There’s nothing we can do without more evidence,’ he said, taking a decision at last. ‘We can’t even talk to him informally about the missing funds without giving too much away. We need proof that he was in Martin’s Dene on Monday lunch time and Tuesday evening. Either a witness or forensic evidence. He’s well known. You’d think he’d be recognized. We’ve taken the clothes he was wearing on Tuesday for testing but there’s no result yet.’

‘I presume you’ve checked his alibi that he was in the pub in Anchor Street on Monday lunch time?’ The superintendent spoke apologetically, implying he was sure they had checked, but they must realize that he had to ask.

‘Yes,’ Hunter said. ‘He was definitely there. But the barmaid thought it was early, about twelve, and we know from Ellen Paston that Gabby was still in Hallowgate then. She was seen running through the market.’

‘She might have been killed somewhere in Hallowgate, of course,’ Ramsay said almost to himself. ‘We know she never reached the Holly Tree. It’s only supposition that she got to Martin’s Dene. We’ve had no response from the press campaign asking for witnesses and you’d think someone would have noticed her if she were waiting outside the restaurant. It’s a busy road…’

‘So we’re agreed then,’ the superintendent said, ‘that we make no move to question Lynch, at least over the weekend. We can re-assess the situation on Monday. We should have something back from forensic by then.’ He looked up at them. ‘What about this other business on the Starling Farm?’ he asked. ‘Is that relevant to the murder enquiry or is it just something you’ve turned up in the course of the investigation?’

‘It’s hard to say at this stage, sir,’ Hunter said. ‘But I’d like to get a search warrant to find out what is happening in the Pastons’ bungalow. There’s something going on in that place. There were kids running in and out all day. If you ask me it’s a right Fagin’s den.’