An Open Window, page 15
‘Sounds a good idea. After all, grass keeps growing.’
‘But he started this photographic thing, and it all grew from there. He got the stamping machines cheap.’
‘You were telling me about Paul,’ I reminded her gently.
‘Oh yes. Watching his father. Now that was what Paul would have been good at, working with his hands. Give him a bit of machinery, and he’d take it to pieces and put it back again. That grandfather clock in the hall—he made it keep time. Paul was always a fanatic about time. A clock has to be right, or it’s no use, he used to say. But by the time he was old enough to help his father in the business, it’d grown. There was no place for Paul’s hands, and Walter thought of him as management material. Paul was a Mann, so he had to be in charge of something. And poor Paul’s never had much in the way of brains. So—where to put him? Not finance. Ken Leyton was already in control of that. Control of the…oh, I can’t remember the word.’
‘Production control?’
‘That’s it. That would’ve been way over his head. All he’s ever managed to control is poor Evelyn. I suppose that’s why he married her. And buying and selling…the same. It had to be running the machines, which at least he understood, and the workers, who he didn’t understand at all. And Paul…he just can’t control the workers. Either shouts or appeals. No…common sense, I suppose.’
‘But he seems to manage.’
She smiled at the unintended pun. ‘But only just. Everything has to be on paper, laid out so that he can understand it. And now they’ve got computers…ai…yee! The problems!’
‘I can sympathise.’ We would get to Donald, I was certain. ‘And Clare?’ Hopefully, by way of Clare.
‘You wouldn’t expect her to get involved with a factory. Not Clare! She’d always had what she wanted—and it had to be the best available—without any effort on her part. So she didn’t expect to start making any. When she was twenty-one she got her thirteen shares, and maybe some money came along from them. I don’t know. But Walter was too busy by then to give her the interest she’d been used to from him. It was as though she’d crossed a line that cut them off from each other. Quite suddenly, on her twenty-first birthday, it came about. I could see how much it hurt her. Any little set-back always used to hit Clare badly. It resulted in a kind of independence. She decided she could make her own way with her own assets. Did you realise that she was a very beautiful young woman?’
‘I can imagine that.’ But it must have been a cold, matte beauty. It absorbed light, but would not be able to reflect it. ‘I reckon she’d have her pick.’
‘And did she enjoy herself with the picking!’ She giggled, and patted her lips reprovingly. ‘She scattered broken hearts in all directions.’
‘Perhaps not broken. Bruised, but beating stronger from the experience.’
‘You do understand.’
‘I knew such a woman, when I was young.’
‘But along came the perfect choice,’ she said. ‘She wanted the best, and all of a sudden, there was Aleric Tolchard. A splendid brain—he had a doctorate, whatever that is. And charm! He’d charm the cream off the milk. She brought him here—of course—and I knew at once. So handsome, so clean, and such a beautiful body.’
I raised my eyebrows over the rim of the mug. Misinterpreting, she went to provide me with a refill.
‘Dark,’ she said. ‘Always tanned. He didn’t stand a chance. They were married six months after Aleric took charge of research.’ She stared beyond me, her eyes glazed. Weddings have that effect on women. I waited for it to wear off.
‘And while all this was going on?’ I said at last.
‘You mean Donald?’ She sighed. ‘Donald went to college, the only one who did. He took a double first in engineering. I was very proud of him. He’s the one with the brains. And you can imagine, with all that attention to Clare, he’d been a bit left out. He thought that was why he’d been packed off to college, to get him out of the way. A quiet one, was Donald. He studied like mad, just to show everybody. And d’you think Walter noticed? Not him. He just said: “So you’re back. Perhaps we can fit you in somewhere.” But Donald had no intention of being fitted in. He’d grown his own sort of independence. And he thought he’d got to do better than the other two. So…what d’you think he did?’
‘Nothing,’ I guessed. ‘He sat around and thought about it.’
‘How wrong can anybody be!’ she complained. ‘No, he tried to set up in business for himself. But what good’s an engineering degree for that? All theory, and nothing practical. Oh…it’d be all right at first. He managed to raise money. Borrowed it.’
‘From his father?’
‘As though Walter would encourage him in such foolishness.’
‘But he got it, this money? And started.’
‘And finished, and started again. And finished…I lost touch with it all. He’d be doing fine, with an old garage and two machines, making nuts and bolts or something. What is a normalised bolt, Mr Patton? That was one thing. But it failed when he took on more men. It confused him. He had to do the job himself, you see, not watch other people doing it.’
‘Like Paul, working with his hands?’
‘Yes. Except that Paul…’ She put up a finger, having thought of an example. ‘Where Paul could repair a clock, Donald could design and make one. He did one with a little ball running down a spiral glass tube.’
‘I’d like to see that.’
‘It got broken.’
‘Oh? Pity.’
‘He showed it to his father. Walter had no patience with such things, and knocked it off the table. Not on purpose, I’m sure, but it was about that time Donald left home.’ She looked uncomfortable. ‘All I know since then is what he wrote, and from odd visits here.’
‘When his father wasn’t around?’
‘By coincidence. Yes.’
‘Of course.’
‘He might have slept under his workbenches, for all I know. He wouldn’t let me help him.’
‘Independent.’ As all of them had been, in their different interpretations of it.
‘I know there were several tries at making things go. Pressings for the Yale lock people, that was one I remember. But he was a fool with money. It came in, and he paid it out. The tax people had him in court once.’
‘They don’t understand people who’re not careful with money.’
‘And I suppose it just got worse. Borrowing money to pay debts, then more money to pay the interest on the last lot.’
I had my pipe going by then, and sat back, content to take all night on it. ‘But I understand he had thirteen shares in the company to fall back on.’
She compressed her lips. ‘He seems to have fallen back on them long ago.’
‘He sold them?’
‘Apparently.’
‘Then that should have kept him going…’ Thirteen shares in a company reputedly with capital assets of half a million…that should have brought him at least fifty thousand. I had a thought. ‘Surely not outside the family?’
‘He wouldn’t have dared to do that.’
I supposed not. Donald could reject his father to a certain point, but no further. ‘To Paul? To Clare? Did he tell you?’
‘He told me.’ She nodded solemnly. ‘To Aleric Tolchard.’
Who was a clean and superb example of manhood, and would have been able to recognise a man in a desperate situation. No, it would not have been fifty thousand, that was certain. But surely…
‘And Tolchard voted them?’ I knew this could not have been so, knew it as I said it. ‘No, that wouldn’t do. Did you say, Mary—I’m sure somebody did—that Clare never voted her shares? She wouldn’t trouble to.’
‘I think she gave Aleric a what’s-its-name.’
‘A proxy? Yes.’
I sat back and had another think. With Clare’s 13, and the 13 he’d bought from Donald, Tolchard would have controlled a quarter of the shares. Add 17 that Clare should have inherited on Walter’s death, and he’d have controlled 43. All he would need to do then was hound Leyton out of the company, and Leyton clearly couldn’t have lasted much longer, and he might just have acquired Leyton’s 10. No, I thought. Simpler than that. On Walter’s death, 17 shares would have come to Donald, who’d already shown a willingness to sell cheap. Aleric Tolchard, I decided, had had his eyes on the whole caboose. The factory could well have become his. But in the meantime he’d not have displayed his hand, so would have kept quiet about having bought Donald’s 13 shares.
If Tolchard hadn’t died first. If Tolchard had lived long enough, I wondered whether Walter would have survived for many more months, in any event. There might well have been a secure base in Walter’s belief that his life was in danger.
‘So now?’ I asked. ‘Donald’s in trouble again, is he?’
‘He wouldn’t tell me exactly what. Nothing in detail. You know. He’d borrowed more money. There’s nothing coming in, and not getting the seventeen shares he expected has really put the kybosh on it. He was on the phone for half an hour.’
‘I’ll have to see him.’
‘To do what, Mr Patton? To offer him a loan to cover a loan? He wouldn’t accept it. Not in the family.’
‘I’m not in the family.’ And not in a position to make loans, either. We were talking in thousands, and I thought in tens. ‘I’d have to ask Philip Carne about it.’
‘Donald wouldn’t want that,’ she said quickly.
‘Then what does he want?’ I asked, with an edge of impatience.
‘To sort it out himself, I suppose. He’s so very independent.’
‘Oh sure, I’m hearing a lot about independence. But who can be? Nobody can exist without some dependence on outside support. I thought buying a caravan would make me independent. But it didn’t. It’s only changed the things I have to depend on. He’s been depending on loans. Somebody’s been prepared to offer him credit.’
‘But he’d have to give some sort of security, surely. So in that way, he’s still independent.’ She nodded. Clearly, Donald had said the same thing.
I pushed the empty mug around with the end of my finger. ‘This mug’s independent, but I can push it around with a fingertip. It’s got no purpose unless it depends on somebody picking it up and filling it…’
‘I’ll pour you another.’
‘No, damn it. It was an example. The mug’s independent, and its security depends on one small thing, its handle. It offers itself as a receptacle, so long as you take hold of its handle, which is its security.’
I picked it up by its handle to demonstrate.
‘I’ve got its security now, and in return it offers me mug after mug of nourishment. But I might want more from it. I might get impatient.’ I poised it above the floor. ‘And let it drop.’
‘Don’t you dare!’
‘It was an illustration.’
‘Then I’m sure I don’t know what it means,’ she told me severely.
I wasn’t going to explain it. Loans without security are dangerous, and I didn’t know what security Donald might have. You can get dropped from a great height.
‘Just be sure you tell him I’ve got to speak to him.’ I banged the mug back on the table. I had half a mind to go up and drag him out of bed there and then.
She was frowning at me. ‘I’m sure I don’t understand you, sometimes. Why are you so fierce?’
‘There’s no point in being built like me, unless you can frighten people.’
‘You don’t frighten me.’
‘Then we know where we stand. Now don’t forget, Mary. First thing in the morning. I’ve got to see him.’
She nodded. ‘You’re going up now?’
‘If you’ll show me where.’
‘I’ve already done that.’
‘So you have.’ It indicated how tired I was. I grinned at her. ‘I was forgetting.’
‘You’re as bad as Walter.’
‘And what did he forget? To lock his door?’
‘Never that. I meant, for example, to water the plants in the conservatory.’
‘But Mary…’ I put a hand round her shoulders as she got to her feet. ‘You told me he didn’t leave that room for over two months. So…how could he have watered the plants?’
She smiled up at me. ‘He forgot to remind me to do it.’
Good old Walter, I thought, as I plodded up the wooden staircase, he’d been a typical managing director, using everybody he came in touch with. It would never have occurred to him that by pandering to his own morbid fears and locking himself away, he would be putting a large burden on Mary Pinson. In the same way, it had not occurred to him that he should have insisted on marrying her. It would have saved him having to remember her in his will, in what was surely a quite paltry way, when she should, as his widow, have had it all.
Thus pondering, I went to bed. It was almost two o’clock.
I knew you’d ask about normalised bolts, so I had a word with Chad in the morning. He told me that when they stamp them out of red-hot steel to put the head on the bolt, it alters the granular structure, so that the head could crack off under load. So they heat treat them back to normal. Normalised bolts.
Every bit of useless information helps, but in practice this turned out to be a clue. The death of Tolchard altered the structure, and it had to be normalised.
Think about it. I wish I had.
14
It was at the inquest that I had the chance to ask Chad about the bolts. I think he was there to lend support to Heather, who was supporting her brother by carrying his briefcase. Philip Carne was representing the family.
They were there, ranked at the front. Paul, Clare and Donald. In that order. I did not see them whisper to each other, not once. They sat, facing ahead. I’d have liked a word with Donald, but it wasn’t the time.
When I’d come down to breakfast, Mary had said she’d spoken to Donald about my wanting to see him, but all it had done was drive him out quicker.
So there he was, and I still hadn’t had my word. I was on the rear bench, Detective-Inspector Melrose beside me. I could understand that he’d be interested in the inquest, his suspicious death in Wales being so closely linked with that of Walter Mann. But I’d have expected him to sit with the small group of local police. Instead, he’d chosen to hodge up to me, nudge me in the ribs, and treat me like a friend he hadn’t seen for ages. He had, of course. Whose headlights had been constantly following me, if not his?
He told me he was staying at The Dun Cow in town. He asked what I intended to do that afternoon.
‘A trip back to Wales, to see my wife,’ I told him, to save him the trouble of tailing me.
He had an easier method of doing that. ‘Give me a lift?’ he asked.
I laughed, unfortunately mistiming it, because the coroner was just taking his seat. Melrose would slip the mileage into his expenses statement. I nodded silently as the proceedings were opened.
We were enquiring into the sudden death of Walter Mann. The coroner had chosen to sit with a jury. The witnesses were few. First, the doctor who had been called to the scene and certified death, then the pathologist who had carried out the post mortem examination.
Walter’s death bore all the indications of a fall from a height, such as a third-storey window. Nothing had been found in the stomach contents to suggest that Walter had imbibed drugs or any substance causing giddiness or a sudden malfunction of the brain. Thank you, doctor. Can we have Police Sergeant Bean in the witness box, please?
It was Sergeant Bean who had been called to the house. He gave details of the location of the conservatory, with the open window above it, and the dog locked in the room. Walter Mann had been found face down amongst a shower of glass, with a large hole on the conservatory roof immediately above him.
Mary Pinson was the main witness. She came to the stand. Her voice was quiet but clear. She was not allowed to ramble on without assistance, but was required to answer questions put to her by the coroner. Walter’s mental condition that day was explored. His morbid fears and his locking himself away for the past two months were brought to the attention of the jury, but without any specific mention of the reason for Walter’s behaviour. This was not relevant to the fall, and the coroner saw no necessity to embarrass the family. Mary was asked whether Walter had seemed in any way suicidal that day. She said he had not. Mention was made of the library book, which seemed to support this.
The coroner summed up. Discreetly, reference was made to the locked room and the dog. The word was not mentioned, but it was clear that murder was being ruled out, without any suggestion that, had it not been ruled out, the three members of the family sitting before him would have been the obvious suspects.
It was all conducted with smooth efficiency. Philip Carne need not have been there; the family did not need his representation. The coroner had done his homework.
The verdict was: accidental death.
It was as I’d expected. In fact I need not have gone there apart from the matter of respect. But one thing did arise from it. When we had all shuffled to our feet and had turned to make our way out, I realised that a man sitting three rows ahead of me was the enquiry agent who had sat at Amelia’s bedside and left the card, with a request to contact Philip Carne. The Burns of Burns and Rafton.
Enquiry agents work for money. They have no personal interest in their individual cases, and his interest, even if minor, would have ceased to exist once he’d walked out of that hospital ward. So why had he attended the inquest?
This question seemed to demand an answer. I pushed past Melrose, surprising him, and causing so much fuss that it drew Burns’s attention to me. Recognition was instant. He, too, began shoving and edging to get out. He was thinner than me, and less polite. He reached the door first.
