Tip Off (18 page)

‘No,' I answered quickly, ‘no, it was some kind of domestic accident. But, Jane, I'm coming down to see you.'

I heard a few dry sobs. ‘You're in London now – at Toby's?'

‘Yes. He rang me late last night and asked me to meet him here. Matt and I found him, but I'll tell you all about that when I come. I'm only ringing you now because I wanted to let you know before the press find out.'

‘The press? Oh, God,' she moaned.

‘Look, Jane, they're bound to be interested.'

‘I suppose so.' She sniffed. ‘Thanks so much for ringing. Come as soon as you can, please, Simon.'

‘I will.'

 

On our way out of London, I called Emma. She was just waking up at my house. As concisely as possible, I told her what had happened.

‘I'll go and see Jane now,' she offered without hesitation.

‘That would be really kind. I should think she'll need some support.'

‘It's no problem. I certainly don't feel like going back to Ivydene now.'

‘You should be careful,' Matt said when I'd rung off. ‘Emma'll have moved in to your place before you know it.'

‘So?' I said. ‘That could save me a lot of time and petrol.'

 

As we turned off the M4 on to the Oxford Road, fifteen minutes from Wetherdown, I started to worry.

‘What on earth are we going to tell Jane?'

‘I'll ring that detective and see if they've got a result yet,' Matt suggested.

‘They won't know any more by now.'

‘They might,' he insisted.

I handed him the piece of paper on which the policeman had written his number, and he dialled it.

‘DI Wyndham? It's Matthew James here. We'll be seeing Mrs Brown shortly. Can you tell us yet what you think happened?'

He listened for a few moments, nodding his head. ‘I see . . . And you're sure about that? . . . Okay, thank you. We'll tell her.'

He clicked off the phone, turned to me and pulled a gloomy face. ‘They're convinced it was suicide, but they won't be releasing a statement for the time being. It seems the press haven't picked it up yet.'

‘I was really hoping it wasn't suicide,' I said, disappointed and not at all looking forward to telling this to Jane.

‘They found no sign that anyone else had been in the flat.'

‘But how did Toby get up to that beam?'

‘He only had to stand on the chair and chuck the rope over, didn't he?'

I thought about Toby, tormented to the point where his life seemed intolerable, and wondered what any of us could have done to help him.

Nothing was going to make it any easier to tell his mother, I thought, as I turned through the gates of Wetherdown.

 

‘No,' Jane said firmly. ‘No way.' She looked at me defiantly.

I turned and walked across her drawing room to take refuge in staring at the view through the bay window.

Matt, tactfully, hadn't entered the conversation. He sat in the chair to which Jane had waved him, with his head tilted back and his eyes half closed. Emma, who had been doing her best to comfort Jane for the last half hour, sat forward on a sofa with her chin in her hands.

Jane was on her feet, aiming sporadic, angry thrusts with a poker at the fire which blazed in the large iron grate.

I turned back to look at her. ‘Jane, I'm sorry to be the one telling you this, but I'm only passing on what the police think. And I have to be frank – when we walked into the flat this morning, it was the first thing we thought,' I said, trying to convince her despite myself.

Jane pulled herself up to her full five feet seven, standing a couple of paces in front of the fire. ‘Toby wouldn't have taken his own life for anything. He was far too confident of his own abilities – and too fond of himself, for that matter. He was well able to handle any crisis that came along – emotional, financial or . . . sexual.' She faltered a moment and looked at me with an unfamiliar, hunted expression in her eyes.

‘You must know, Simon, there were aspects of his private life of which I did not approve . . .' Her voice tailed off as she seemed to be struggling with her conscience. She sat down heavily in an armchair by the fire where she gazed into the flames for a few moments.

When she was ready, she took a deep breath and turned to look at me. ‘I presume you knew that he was gay?' She glanced at the two other people in the room, then quickly turned her face to the glowing logs once more.

Emma, Matt and I didn't speak for a moment. Not because we were shocked but because it had obviously taken such a lot for his mother to admit to Toby's homosexuality.

‘No,' I said eventually. ‘I didn't know – not for sure. He never said or implied anything about it to me.' I slowed down to choose my words carefully. ‘I wouldn't deny, though, that the possibility had occurred to me. I don't remember his ever being involved with a woman.'

Emma nodded. ‘He must have been very discreet.'

When Jane looked up at us, tears glistened in her eyes. ‘Can you imagine how much he suffered, pretending to us – to all his friends? I think he was terrified of its getting out – even in this day and age, when most people don't seem to care about that sort of thing. Of course, he knew I knew, but we never said so openly. And I believe he tended to go for chaps a long way from his own social milieu.

‘I may not have approved of those aspects of his life-style,' she went on, speaking more firmly now, ‘but, God knows, I loved him and knew him very well. And I can tell you categorically that whatever else he might have done, Toby did
not
commit suicide.'

She breathed in deeply through her nose and squared her jaw. ‘He must have been murdered. And if the police aren't going to treat it as murder, then you two are going to have to.'

Neither Matt nor I spoke as the gold carriage clock on the mantelpiece ticked on another ten seconds.

Jane looked sharply at each of us in turn. ‘Well? I'm asking for your help – for your professional services.' Her voice was rising. ‘I'm instructing your company to find out who murdered my son.'

I looked at Matt. His eyes swivelled from Jane to me. Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head.

I looked at Emma. She gave no indication of her opinion.

I took a deep breath. ‘I'll do what I can, Jane, but it won't be on a professional basis. I'll do it for you.'

I saw her face almost sag with relief. I hadn't realised how badly she needed my support, or how much she'd had to force herself to keep strong, to convince me that she wasn't becoming hysterical.

‘Thank you, Simon. You're a good friend.'

We drove several miles across the wet and windswept downs in silence but as we dropped into the Thames Valley, Matt spoke. ‘I'm not promising anything, but if the Jockey Club decides to retain us, I'm prepared to treat Toby's death as murder, as part of that investigation.'

I glanced at him gratefully. ‘Thanks. I think I'm going to need all the help I can get.'

‘Let's get on with it then, at least until Tintern takes us off the case,' Matt said, resigned to losing the rest of his Sunday, though probably glad of the action. ‘But this has all turned a bit nasty,' he added impassively. ‘I wonder why Toby did it?'

‘Why are you so sure he took his own life?'

‘That's obviously what the police think. I hardly knew him, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was involved with a lot of fairly unsavoury people. Or maybe his new bosses had seen through him or found him out, and he couldn't face the consequences. You knew him better than I did but how well was that? Did you have any real idea how he ran his private life?'

I shook my head with a sigh. ‘No, of course not. He talked to me about horses, and sometimes pictures and furniture, occasionally about his mother, but never anything about his private life.'

‘So you really can't say, one way or the other, if there might have been good reason for him to top himself?'

 

We talked around Toby's death for half an hour. As we reached the edge of London, I dialled the number at his flat. No one answered, not even a machine. I guessed the police had already taken away the answerphone tape for analysis. Fortunately, we didn't need it; we had our recorder in the basement.

We drove on to Hay's Mews and, after a few minutes, raised Mr Tilbury from his lair again. He was still looking queasy and deeply shocked. The police had gone, he said, but he wouldn't show us up to the flat this time – simply handed over his key with a request that we give it back on the way out.

 

The police had tidied away most of the mess they'd made in the course of their investigations, but the broken chair was still propped against a table, with a single, dusty footprint on its brocade upholstered seat.

Elsewhere, on the furniture, windows and doors, the forensic team's powder still lingered.

‘I should think the police have helped themselves to any interesting paperwork,' I said.

‘They could have missed something.'

But, after a thorough search, we found nothing significant. It was only after we'd given up and I was in Toby's bathroom that I noticed one curious item on the wall.

It was a regimental photograph – the sort of group shot that hangs above thousands of loos, only ever gazed at for a few brief minutes by male visitors. I saw that it had been taken thirty-five years before and scanned the names underneath. In the third row, fourth from the right, was Major Gervaise Brown. My eyes flicked back to the faces, and I found Toby's father. There was a marked similarity between him and his son but, if pressed, I'd have said Toby was more like Jane.

I went back to the list of names. Sitting behind Major Brown was Captain The Hon. Gerald Birt, Emma's father – young, determined, and easily recognisable. Fascinated, I studied the rest of the names and faces for a while, but found no others that meant anything to me.

 

In the mews outside, Matt got into the car beside me.

‘Right. Where now?'

‘I thought we might go and pay a call on Mrs Hackney.'

‘Toby's cleaner? The one I met when I delivered the wine?'

I nodded. ‘That's her.'

‘Okay,' he said. ‘Jane gave you her number didn't she?'

For answer, I pulled my notebook from a pocket and passed it to him.

‘I'll get it,' he said, ‘but you speak to her. You're better at that sort of thing.'

 

‘'Ullo?' a sleepy, female voice answered.

‘Mrs Hackney?'

‘That's right.'

‘My name's Simon Jeffries. I'm a friend of Toby Brown's.'

‘Oh, yes.' Her voice suggested that she had, at least, heard of me.

‘Sorry to have woken you.'

‘What's the time?'

‘It's eleven-thirty.'

‘Oh, gawd!' she wailed. ‘I was up 'alf the night with me sister at the 'ospital. Didn't get back till five in the mornin'.'

‘Then I'm very sorry to trouble you, but I wanted to come round and see you – it's to do with Mr Brown.'

‘What about him?'

‘He's had an accident and we'd like to talk to you.'

There was a moment's silence before she answered. ‘Why? What happened?'

‘I'll tell you when I see you.'

‘Oright then. 'Ow long'll you be?'

‘Fifteen minutes.'

There was another long pause. ‘Is Mr Brown oright? Can I speak to 'im?'

‘No, I'm afraid you can't. They took him off in an ambulance,' I added, glad to have lied only by omission.

‘That's lucky,' Matt said when I'd finished. ‘It sounds as if the police haven't been to see her yet.'

‘Maybe they don't even know about her. Perhaps Toby paid her in cash. He was passionate about evading tax where he could.'

‘I should think Tilbury would have told them. Anyway, let's hope we get there first.'

Matt read the map and directed me to Mrs Hackney's address in a block of council flats near Victoria station. Although it was only a few hundred yards from several famous London landmarks, it was a grimy, disintegrating monument to shoddy sixties architecture.

‘I'll mind the car,' Matt said.

Inside the block, the lift to the seventh floor wasn't working. I took the faintly urine-scented staircase, and was grateful for a life that had spared me living conditions like these.

Blowing a little, I pressed the bell push and was answered by a five-note chime. This prepared me for the unsophisticated but well-polished ambience of the small flat into which I was invited a few moments later.

Mrs Hackney was a homely, grey-haired figure of about sixty, dressed in a powder blue track-suit and a pair of pink fluffy slippers. From the look of concern on her face, I guessed she was very fond of her eccentric boss.

I accepted her offer of a cup of tea, and looked around the cheap, cherished souvenirs and mementoes strewn around the surfaces of her living room where she had left me on a wood-framed sofa. There were plates and mugs depicting the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana; a poorly painted Swiss weather house, in which both man and wife lurked indecisively in their doorways. A vase of silk lilies and a real four-trumpeted amaryllis sat on the two low tables in the room.

Mrs Hackney moved the lilies to place my tea, in willow pattern china, within reach.