Legacy of Lies (19 page)

His dad hadn't always been so angry, Danny had said in his father's defence, but the farm was unprofitable and the bills were mounting and his mam was nagging about chucking it all in. After all, she'd argued, the farm was from her family, not his dad's, so why was it so important to him.

Danny didn't know the answer to that one. He'd have been happy to move closer to his school and what friends he had in town. Patrick got the impression he'd have been glad to have moved anywhere away from his dad.

That was what troubled him the most, Patrick realized. The sense of abandonment. It was almost preferable that his mother might be dead and unable to get in touch than it was to think she might simply have chosen not to.

Unable to sleep, Patrick sat up again and propped his pillows comfortably against the headboard. He had a pad and pen on the bedside table and the first of the three journals. He'd already found four letters and two numbers in this one the night before, but was no closer to figuring out what they might mean. He began work again, picking up from where he'd left off, focussing his mind on something that he might just possibly be able to solve, unlike the Danny problem which, Patrick knew, he probably could not.

Light crept above the horizon and greyed the darkness outside his window. Patrick worked on, finally falling back to sleep with the journal in his hand and the notepad tumbling from his bed as the sun rose up above the garden wall.

A
lec arrived just before midday. He sounded exhausted and distressed, Naomi thought. Harry had let him in and she hurried through to join them in the hall. His hug of greeting was more like the clasp of someone drowning and, although he tried to sound cheerful and was obviously happy to see her, she could almost feel him pulling her down into the depth of his weariness.

‘Coffee,' he pleaded. ‘Strong please.'

Naomi laughed uneasily and led him through to the kitchen where Harry was busying himself with the newly acquired coffee maker Naomi had bought when she'd been out with Marcus.

‘I hope I've got the hang of this thing,' he said. Satisfied he'd set the process in motion, he told them he was going to rouse his son and left them alone.

‘Are you OK?' Naomi asked anxiously.

‘No. I need to sleep and I hurt like hell. I'd forgotten how lumpy my parents' spare bed was. It's no wonder they don't have anyone to stay.'

Vaguely, Naomi wondered if the bed or absence of guests came first, rather like the chicken and the egg. She asked, ‘Were they able to tell you anything?'

‘Not a lot. Only that Rupert once got the sack for alleged insider trading, but that the money used to buy Fallowfields and the share in the shop was probably clean.'

‘Probably?'

‘Oh, not much doubt really. I'm just in pessimistic mode. Sorry.' He reached across the table and took her hand. ‘The locket we found, it belonged to my mother, by the way. She must have left it here when they and Rupert were still talking. Now she's fretting because she'd already claimed for it on the insurance.'

Naomi laughed. ‘God, that must have been years ago.'

‘True, but you know Mum.'

‘And your London trip. Was it worth it?'

‘Worth it?' Alec considered. ‘Let's just say I discovered a great deal. Worth it … now, that's another question.'

Harry arrived back and went to tend to the coffee, asked if Alec wanted food as he was about to get breakfast for Patrick.

‘Lunch, rather,' he said.

‘Not like Patrick to sleep this late,' Alec commented.

‘No, but I suspect he was up all night with those blasted journals. I found one of them lying on his bed when I went in.'

‘Oh? Did he turn up anything interesting?'

‘Well, I'll let him explain that, but yes, I rather think he has.' There was no mistaking the pride in Harry's voice.

Gratefully, Alec took the mug that Harry proffered and sipped the sweet and scalding liquid. He glanced up as Patrick stumbled, bleary eyed and tousled haired, clutching three leather-bound books and a notebook.

‘Late night?'

The boy nodded. ‘Yeah. You?'

‘Better believe it.' He sighed, knowing that he'd better make a start. ‘Well, since we're all here …' Slowly and somewhat reluctantly, Alec began to tell them what he knew.

‘Kinnear and two others robbed three banks back in 1980. The first two, they got away free and clear, but it looks as though they got greedy. Bank number three was only twelve days after the first and it all went badly wrong. The police arrived. Armed. One of Kinnear's gang was shot dead and the other wounded and a security guard called Fred Ritchie was also shot dead.'

‘What was their MO?' Naomi asked.

‘Wait for the security van to arrive with the day's delivery. Wait until the guards entered the bank, then grab the nearest person to use as a hostage, threaten to shoot unless the security men handed over their delivery and staff dished out whatever they had in the tills. Double whammy. They'd take the hostage outside with them, car would drive up, hostage released, men were away. They were fast and slick and it was all over in a matter of minutes.'

‘So, two or three men inside the bank?' Naomi asked.

‘Three. The driver was never caught. Kinnear fingered someone he said was called Sam Spade.'

Harry laughed. ‘Someone had a sense of humour,' he said.

‘Why?' Patrick asked.

‘Sam Spade was a fictional PI,' Alec explained. ‘It's exactly the sort of thing that Rupert would do.'

‘Rupert!' Naomi was as shocked as he knew she would be.

‘Rupert,' he confirmed. ‘It was never proved but …'

Slowly, he filled in the gaps, telling them what Billy Pierce had said and the assumptions they had both made.

‘But you don't know for certain,' Naomi objected.

‘Not for certain, no. But, Nomi, I've got to face facts here and all the facts point to this being so.'

‘And to Kinnear wanting his money back,' Harry added.

‘Which explains, in part, what he was looking for.'

‘Surely,' Harry objected, ‘he couldn't possibly think that Rupert would keep the money here. How much would it have been anyway?'

‘About £25,000, they reckon.'

‘Doesn't sound like a lot,' Patrick said.

‘Remember this was back in 1980. That would have bought a substantial detached house round where we live and still left change. It's about a quarter of a million, I'd say, in today's money.'

‘Oh,' Patrick said. ‘So, if he'd invested it, it would be worth a lot more now.'

‘Well, yes, I suppose it would. Kinnear probably assumed he'd taken it and spent the lot,' Alec added. ‘I suspect he wanted a share of what Rupert still had. I went through the information the solicitor gave me last night and, from what my father told me about what their father left them and so on I can more or less account for everything there. I called the solicitor this morning and got the name of his stockbroker, called him and accounted for the figures I couldn't match up last night and the references to the shares Harry found in the study. His broker said he'd talked about online trading but he didn't know if Rupert struck out on his own or not. But, the fact is, without getting in a forensic accountant, I can't see any trace of the money from the raids.'

‘Um, I think Patrick might be able to help there,' Harry said.

‘Oh? How's that?'

‘Patrick found out why he buried the journals,' Harry said.

An hour spent examining the letters and numbers Patrick had written down convinced Alec that they were on the right lines, but he also had no idea exactly what they might mean. He had a feeling that Harry might be right and the numbers may refer to offshore accounts. He agreed they needed an expert to look at this and wondered if one could be suggested by DS Fine.

‘Alec, if Rupert was clever enough to set this up, to cover his tracks so far, why didn't he gradually filter this money back into his legitimate business?' Harry asked. ‘I mean, the antiques business would lend itself to laundering, I would have thought. There are a lot of overseas sales and a number of transactions in cash. Both ways.'

‘And how accurately did he keep his books where they were concerned?' Alec questioned.

‘Ah, well now, that's a question,' Harry replied. He paused, mind working. ‘You know,' he continued, ‘I wonder if what I just suggested is precisely what Rupert was trying to do. You know the ledger we found buried with the other things? Well, it's recent, only been kept over the past six months or so. From what I've seen so far it's possible that at long last Rupert decided to bring that money in line, so to speak.'

‘Why now? He didn't need it. His bank accounts were more than healthy.'

‘Because Kinnear came back on the scene,' Harry said. ‘He was trying to pay him off.'

‘Obviously not fast enough for Sam Kinnear,' Alec observed.

Alec had gone to bed, exhaustion winning out over his desire to carry on puzzling this out. Naomi joined him and Harry went back to his examination of the ledger.

Patrick took the laptop into the dining room and set himself up at the table opposite his father. The French doors were open and the sun streaming in. It was hard to equate the peace of the summer afternoon with the violence of men like Kinnear, though Patrick only had to look at the reinforcement and new locks on the doors to be reminded.

‘Dad, why do you think he hasn't tried again?' Patrick asked looking at the door. Kinnear seemed to have gone to ground since his attack on Alec. The routine phone call from Fine that afternoon had once again reported no further sightings. Fine wanted to talk to Alec about getting the media involved; so far his encounter with Kinnear had made it into the local paper only as an attempted mugging. It had made two paragraphs on an inside page, having been deliberately played down at Alec's request.

Fine had gone along with him, preferring to wait until they had more details to go on, but the hunt for Kinnear seemed to have stumbled to a halt.

‘I don't know,' Harry replied. ‘I can't help but wonder if Kinnear deliberately exposed himself that day. If he made certain that Naomi heard him.'

Patrick nodded. ‘The kid from the farm. He texted me last night.'

Harry looked at his son. ‘What did he say?'

‘He wanted to meet.'

‘And?'

Patrick shrugged. ‘We met,' he said. ‘In the meadow last night.'

Harry took a deep breath and Patrick could see he was biting back words. He could guess what they were. Something along the lines of: Don't you realize how dangerous/stupid/irresponsible that was. And just when were you going to tell me about it?

‘I'm telling you now,' Patrick defended himself against his father's unspoken question. ‘First chance I've had really,' he added as reasonably as he dared. He waited, wondering which way, as regards response, his father would decide to go.

Harry closed his eyes, then opened them again. He'd decided, Patrick realized, to come down on the side of what's done is done. ‘Not sensible, Patrick. I'm sure you know that.'

Patrick shrugged, not quite able to concede the point. ‘He was upset,' he said, ‘but he's definitely the kid Marcus saw at the shop. He said he went to tell Rupert not to go to the farm again. His parents had been rowing about it.'

‘His parents? Why?'

Patrick shrugged. Truth to tell he wasn't sure. ‘He
said
his dad thought it was a big waste of time and got all resentful of how much attention his mam was giving it.'

‘You think he was lying?'

Patrick shook his head. ‘I think that's what he thought his dad thought. I think it was just one more thing and if it hadn't been Rupert that made her leave then something else would. I mean, who'd want to live with a man like him?'

‘Rupert made her leave? I don't understand.'

‘No. Not
made
her. Not like forced. Made her realize she wanted to leave, I suppose. But Danny – that's the boy – he's really cut up about it. She's gone and not been in touch since and he's convinced himself she's dead.'

‘Dead? Does he have any reason for thinking that?'

‘I don't think so,' Patrick said. ‘Just that she didn't say goodbye and she's not been in touch.'

‘That's sad,' Harry said. ‘Sad and cruel, in my view, but it may be she thought a clean break would …'

He paused, met his son's gaze.

‘No, I don't think she was right either, Patrick. But there's one thing I don't understand. Was he worried about coming to talk to Rupert at Fallowfields?'

‘No. I asked him that too. He says he came but that Rupert wasn't here and the car was gone too.'

Harry frowned. ‘And this was just a couple of weeks before he died, wasn't it? The time Marcus identified when Rupert was behaving oddly, not going into work, that sort of thing.'

‘Marcus didn't think he'd even wanted to leave the house,' Patrick agreed.

‘But, obviously, on that occasion he did. Maybe his reluctance to go into work was not so much because he was afraid as because he was elsewhere.'

Patrick shrugged. ‘Might have been coincidence,' he said. ‘But, Dad, would you want to be on your own here knowing someone like Kinnear knew where you lived?'

‘No, but then I wouldn't go and see him on my own either and it looks as though Rupert did just that the day he died.'

‘Do you think Kinnear killed him in a way that the post mortem didn't pick up?'

‘I think Kinnear was responsible,' Harry said slowly. ‘But as to what he did to cause Rupert to have the heart attack … It could be that, unless Kinnear tells us we will never know.'

A
lec listened to Patrick's account of his meeting with Danny Fielding.