Death Rope Read online

  So far decorating the house to her own taste was the only idea she had come up with. It was early days and she wasn’t yet ready to make sweeping changes, but with her husband gone she was a wealthy woman since she had inherited everything from Mark. He had originally included his son in his will but Charlotte had assured him she would make sure Eddy received his fair share, only it would be better coming from her.

  ‘Don’t you see,’ she had argued, ‘if you leave a generous settlement to Eddy there would be nothing left to bind him to me. I know he’s not my real son but he’s like a son to me, and what’s more important, he’s your son, and he’d be the only family I’d have left if anything happened to you. So it would be better if he thought his inheritance came from me if you weren’t here. That way we’re sure not to grow apart without you there keeping us together as a family. Of course I’d tell him you wanted him to have half of what you left.’ She paused. ‘You know I sometimes get the impression he only tolerates me because we both love you.’

  As a result of that conversation, and a few more along the same lines, for the rest of her life she could afford to do whatever she wanted. Eddy’s loss was her gain. She was looking forward to making the most of her newfound freedom, confident she had done nothing wrong in persuading Mark to leave everything to her. After all, Eddy was a waster. In fact, it could only benefit Eddy and Luciana that Charlotte had been left in control of all Mark’s money. Her stepson and his sour-faced wife would have spent their share in no time, still ending up with nothing. And if Charlotte chose to spend what had originally been intended for Eddy, he would be no worse off.

  15

  For a moment Amanda lay, befuddled, wondering what had woken her. She was drifting off to sleep again when she heard a ring at her door. Turning over, she ignored it, but the bell rang again. Muttering to herself, she clambered out of bed and peered through the curtains. The front step was out of sight but she could see a black van parked on her drive.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  The only answer was another ring on the bell.

  ‘Who is it? What do you want? What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve got a delivery for you,’ a man’s voice answered.

  ‘What is it? I’m not expecting anything.’

  The doorbell rang again.

  ‘You know it’s seven o’clock in the morning?’ she called down. ‘I told you, I haven’t ordered anything.’

  The man stepped back from the door and came into view. He wasn’t looking up, and most of his face was concealed beneath a grey baseball cap.

  ‘Are you Amanda Abbott?’

  She glanced at her watch, tempted to go back to bed, but the man was waiting on her doorstep and, besides, she was curious to know what he had brought her.

  ‘Yes. Hang on!’ she replied. ‘I’m on my way. Wait there.’

  Quickly pulling on her dressing gown and slippers, she hurried down the stairs and opened the door. The man who had rung her bell looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t remember where she had seen him before. Tall and weather beaten, he had the kind of face that gave little away. He could have been anything from thirty to forty. His dark eyes glittered enigmatically at her from beneath his baseball cap.

  ‘You said you were delivering something?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  He wasn’t holding a parcel, and there was nothing on the doorstep.

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  He jerked his head in the direction of the van which looked old and battered.

  ‘I haven’t ordered anything,’ Amanda said. ‘Where did you say you’re from?’

  ‘From the garden centre. I’m delivering your tree.’

  ‘My tree? What are you talking about? What tree? I haven’t bought a tree. I don’t want a tree. There must be some mistake.’

  ‘There’s no mistake, lady. Not if you’re Amanda Abbott.’

  ‘I am Amanda Abbott, and I’m telling you, I haven’t bought a tree. You’ve got the wrong house.’

  He shrugged. ‘They told me your brother bought it for you, but it’s taken them a few weeks to get hold of one.’ He paused but she just shook her head, too taken aback to reply. ‘Oh well, your brother must have wanted to surprise you.’

  ‘He’s done that all right,’ she muttered, speaking more to herself than to the delivery man.

  ‘I don’t mind waiting a moment if you want to check with him?’

  Amanda drew in a sharp breath. The man had no way of knowing that her brother was dead. Making a snap decision, she decided she couldn’t turn away the last gift her brother had bought her.

  ‘If my brother chose it for me, then you’d better bring it in, whatever it is. At least let me have a look at it,’ she added, wondering what kind of tree it was. ‘Is it a rose bush? He knows – he knew how much I love roses.’

  ‘As it’s a gift, you’ll need to take a look and confirm you want this tree before I fetch it down. You’re not obliged to accept it, and I’m not going to get it out only to have to hoist it into the van again if you don’t want it. It weighs a ton.’

  Amanda hesitated. ‘If my brother bought it for me, I can assure you I’m going to want it. Anyway, I can’t come outside. I’m in my slippers.’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve been very patient with you, lady, but I can’t hang around here all day. If you want to come and have a look at it, fine. Otherwise I can take it back and you and your brother can sort it out with the garden centre. I’m just the delivery man. And I’ve got other calls to make.’

  He turned and began to walk away from her.

  ‘No, wait,’ she cried out. ‘I do want it. My brother bought it for me. Please bring it round the back. I’ll go and open the gate.’

  ‘I’m not getting it out until you’ve seen it. You might change your mind.’

  ‘Oh, very well.’

  Amanda placed a shoe in the corner of the door frame to prevent the door from closing behind her and followed the man over to his van. Luckily it was early and there was no one else around to see her outside in her dressing gown and slippers. Not that she would have cared. She was about to receive a gift from her dead brother. The thought made her feel quite emotional. Unaware of her feelings, the man glanced towards the street before opening the van door. Then he stepped back so she could walk across behind the van and look inside. To her surprise, it was empty.

  ‘But – there’s nothing there. I don’t understand –’

  While she was speaking, a hand was slapped across her mouth and she was hoisted up and shoved forwards on to the floor of the van. She landed on her hands and knees with a painful jolt. For a few seconds she was too stunned to react. As she scrambled to her feet, the door of the van slammed shut. With a thrill of terror she spun round just as the van jerked forwards throwing her down on to her knees again. She yelped aloud in pain and fear.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she called out. ‘What’s going on? Who are you?’

  She climbed to her feet again and began banging on the side of the van. ‘Stop this van! Stop it at once! Help! Help! I’ve been taken against my will. Help! I’ve been kidnapped!’

  There wasn’t much point in shouting because no one was likely to hear her above the noise of the engine. She slumped down on to the floor and waited, leaning against the side of the van. It was hard to determine what was going on, or to fathom why anyone would want to kidnap a woman of her age and modest means. She was neither wealthy, nor young and attractive.

  ‘What do you want with me?’ she called out.

  The only answer was the steady roar of the engine

  16

  Geraldine kept quiet about her visit to a forensic handwriting expert in London. It wasn’t that she was in any way uneasy about it. Eileen had given her the go ahead to look into Mark Abbott’s death in her own time, and that was exactly what she had done on her day off. All the same, it was no one else’s business if she chose to spend her free time pursuing an enquiry on her own. So far she h
ad discovered nothing to suggest that Mark Abbott’s death had been anything other than suicide. Only his sister’s insistence, and a random comment from one of his work colleagues, had raised a question over whether he might have been murdered. Soon Geraldine was going to pay a visit to Mark’s sister to assure her that her suspicions were unfounded, but first she wanted to question the dead man’s lawyer and his doctor. That way, she hoped she would be able to satisfy Amanda that the police had done everything possible to establish the truth surrounding her brother’s death. And she wanted to satisfy herself.

  She arranged to go and speak to the lawyer on Tuesday. Williams and Bensonfield were located close to the centre of York, too far away for her to walk there and back in her lunch hour. Parking as near to the office as she could, she trotted up the stairs to the front door where a buzzer let her in straight away.

  ‘I have an appointment to see Mr Jeffrey,’ she said, holding up her identity card.

  The young blonde receptionist barely looked up as she directed Geraldine to the right door. With curly ginger hair and a boyish face, the solicitor looked like a schoolboy caught sitting at the headmaster’s desk. Geraldine smiled at him. Even a man in his position seemed to assume a guilty air when speaking to a police officer.

  ‘How can I help you?’ he asked, motioning her to a chair.

  When Geraldine explained the reason for her visit, the lawyer looked solemn. ‘I suppose there’s no reason to conceal the details of the will from you,’ he replied cautiously. Rising to his feet, he drew a Manila folder from a filing cabinet and glanced through it, resuming his seat as he perused the document. ‘The will was perfectly straightforward. In the event of his predeceasing his wife, the entire estate went to her.’

  Geraldine nodded. ‘Did he leave very much?’

  ‘Well, there’s the house, of course, which is now paid off, and savings of over two hundred thousand.’ He hesitated. ‘And there’s a policy on his life.’

  ‘Wouldn’t any life insurance normally be void if he committed suicide?’

  The lawyer’s eyebrows rose slightly. ‘Yes, you’re quite right, that’s often the case, but it wasn’t in this instance. There was a two year exclusion clause which meant he would need to survive for two years after taking out the policy in order for her to benefit from it.’

  Geraldine nodded. The solicitor had confirmed the details of the will.

  ‘He took his life two years and one week after taking out the policy, to be exact. The insurance company are trying to kick up a fuss, but they’ll have to pay out.’

  Geraldine sat forward and studied the solicitor’s expression closely. ‘Does anything about that strike you as odd?’

  ‘You mean because he waited long enough for his wife to benefit from the policy?’ He shook his head. ‘No, not really. It’s thankfully uncommon, of course, but not unheard of. One week after the policy became due may be cutting it a bit fine, but it’s all above board. The insurance company are contesting it, but they know they’ll have to pay up.’

  The lawyer had nothing more to tell her and she went back to work in a slightly more thoughtful frame of mind than she had been in that morning. It was the work of a few moments to establish that Mark Abbott’s financial situation appeared to be comfortable, and had been so for a while. There was nothing to indicate any reason for him to be suffering stress, no sudden unexplained payments, no evidence of blackmail or any other pressure. His sister had accused his widow of killing him. Certainly his death left Charlotte a wealthy woman, which could possibly be a motive for murder. But there was no evidence to suggest she had a hand in his death.

  That evening Geraldine paid a visit to the doctor, her final enquiry before going to see Mark’s sister. She wasn’t looking forward to facing the aggrieved woman, but it would be better to put an end to the matter once and for all. If she didn’t, Amanda was bound to continue pestering the police about her brother’s death. Geraldine was already regretting having become involved. As Eileen had pointed out, if every widow was accused of murder when she inherited her husband’s estate, there would be a lot more cases to look into than there were detectives to investigate them.

  ‘Ah yes, Mark Abbott,’ the doctor said, swivelling his chair around to look at her. He had a surprisingly young face beneath his grey hair. ‘A sad case. It always seems such an unnecessary waste of a life when that happens, doesn’t it?’

  When Geraldine asked whether the victim had given any indication that he might be feeling suicidal in the days and weeks preceding his death, the doctor shook his head.

  ‘Not a glimmering,’ he said. ‘Not that that’s necessarily significant,’ he added quickly. ‘Unless a patient chooses to share his or her feelings, there’s no way of knowing what might be going through someone’s mind.’ He shrugged. ‘We’re doctors, not mind readers. But if you’re asking me if he was suffering from depression or illness of any kind, mental or physical, I’d have to tell you he was in sound health.’ He checked his screen. ‘He was on Lipitor to control his cholesterol, but that’s not uncommon in men of his age, and he’d been taking it for over four years without any reported side effects. Apart from that, he was a stone or so overweight, had a sprained wrist ten years ago, and a bout of flu a couple of years back, and that’s it. An uninteresting medical history. There was nothing wrong with him at all. He was in sound health both physically and, to all appearances, mentally as well. There was no way this could have been predicted,’ he concluded, slightly on the defensive.

  ‘So why would he have killed himself?’

  The doctor shrugged again. ‘You’re the detective,’ he said, adding quietly, ‘who knows why anyone does anything?’

  17

  After a heavy rainfall during the night, what had threatened to be a grey day turned into a sunny morning. Since her retirement, one of Moira’s pleasures in life was exploring the parks in the city. But when the weather was changeable, as it had been for the past few days, she and her husband walked around the block instead of going into town. Geoff insisted on taking what he called his ‘daily constitutional’ in the fresh air, unless it was actually raining, and Moira usually accompanied him. She was happy looking at her neighbours’ gardens, some of which were every bit as attractive as the public spaces they frequented. Smiling at her own neat front garden, she followed Geoff down the path. The daffodils were still out, along with crocuses and snowdrops and other early flowers.

  ‘It’s certainly turning out to be a lovely day,’ Geoff said.

  Checking the next-door garden as they passed by, Moira spotted something brown lying on the doorstep. Peering more carefully she saw it was a solitary leather walking shoe. Her neighbour must have dropped it without noticing. Always keen to do a good deed, Moira told her husband to wait for her while she went next door to return the shoe to its owner. The shoe must have been outside overnight because it was soaking wet. Holding it by the laces, she rang the bell, a smile prepared in readiness. After waiting for a moment she rang again, but there was no answer. Geoff was calling to her to get a move on so she put the shoe down and went on her way. It was nothing to do with her, really, if her neighbour had left a shoe out overnight. More fool her if it got ruined. She should have been more careful.

  Returning from the walk, Moira glanced next door and saw the shoe was still there. As well as the shoe, her neighbour’s black and white cat was sitting on the doorstep, scratching at the door and mewing.

  ‘Hasn’t she got a cat flap?’ Geoff asked, catching sight of the animal.

  ‘I don’t know, do I? I’ve never been inside her house.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t look like she has,’ he said. ‘Anyway, that cat’s probably too fat to fit through one.’ He chuckled. ‘Come on, love, let’s get home before it starts raining.’

  Moira glanced up at the gathering clouds and hesitated. ‘We can’t just leave that poor cat sitting there. Do you think she’s gone away and forgotten about it?’

  ‘Now, don’t start wit
h your speculation.’

  ‘Geoff, we have to do something.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Anyway, even if you’re right, and she has gone away, I’m sure the cat can fend for itself.’

  ‘It’s not a wild cat, Geoff. You can see it’s used to being well fed.’

  Ignoring her husband’s remonstrations, Moira went up the path and rang the bell again. Still there was no answer. She lifted the flap on the letter box and tried to peer inside, but she couldn’t see anything.

  ‘Hello,’ she called through the letter box. ‘Are you home? You left a shoe out here and your cat wants to come in. Hello?’

  The only answer was Geoff summoning her. ‘Come on, love, she’s obviously gone out. Let’s go in and put the kettle on.’

  Stepping away from the front door she stared at the window, but the curtains were closed.

  ‘You poor old thing,’ she said to the cat.

  The cat followed them all the way to their own front door where Moira shooed it away. ‘No, Moggy,’ she said, ‘you can’t come in. You don’t live here. You go on home.’

  Then she felt guilty because of course the cat couldn’t go home while her neighbour was out.

  ‘I hope she hasn’t really gone away and forgotten about that poor animal,’ she said later, after she had brewed a pot of tea.

  ‘What animal?’

  ‘You know, that cat next door.’

  ‘You’re not still on about that, are you?’

  Moira shrugged. Geoff was right. It was nothing to do with them. That evening she went outside to put the kitchen refuse in the bin. In the near darkness she yelped and nearly dropped the rubbish bag in fright as something brushed against her leg.

  ‘Good lord,’ she said, half laughing with relief, ‘you nearly gave me a heart attack. Isn’t she back yet? What are we going to do with you? I told you, you’re not coming in my house.’ She sighed as the cat followed her to her door, arching its back and rubbing itself against her legs. ‘Oh, come on then, I suppose a saucer of milk won’t be missed. Only don’t think you can make a habit of it.’