‘I had to come to Chelsea. To see my dentist. He’s just round the corner from here,’ Joyce Bims uttered nervously. Molly Treasure had just opened the front door to her in Cheyne Walk. This was roughly at the time that Treasure had been greeting Jeckels in Pall Mall. ‘I’ve never changed dentists, you see. Not since I used to live here,’ Joyce went on in a garrulous manner. ‘And I didn’t want to cancel this visit, in spite of … well, you know. Usually it takes so long to get another appointment. So kind of you to let me drop in like this.’ She took a quavering deep breath, fiddled with the strap of her large leather handbag, stepped over the threshold warily, then looked about her as though she wasn’t quite sure where she was.
Molly had waited to embrace her visitor. ‘I’m glad you rang,’ she said, kissing her on the cheek. ‘And I’m delighted to see you. Was the dentist painful?’ she asked.
Joyce seemed nonplussed by the question. ‘Oh … oh no. It was just a check-up.’
‘Well, let me take your coat. I wish I could offer you lunch. But Mark and I are on parade. A charity do. He’s sending the car for me.’
‘Then I’ll be delaying you?’ She turned as if to leave.
‘No, you won’t. I shan’t be going for ages yet.’
The other woman divested herself of the quite stylish, dark blue woollen topcoat. Then, turning to the hall mirror, she made an adjustment to the rakish little hat she had on. ‘I don’t usually wear furs in London any more,’ she said, making this almost reflex assertion sound even more rueful than usual. ‘Oh, did I say that to you last night? I keep repeating myself.’ She sighed heavily, and too intensely to mark a simple lapse of memory, or the mere abandoning of furs, or, as she had just admitted, to signal any lingering discomfort from the dental visit.
‘Still getting over the shock of Ray, I expect,’ said Molly perceptively. She took Joyce’s arm and led her through the hall and up the wide staircase to the next floor. ‘I think you’re being very stalwart. Coming out of it so quickly, like this,’ she added, while being far from certain yet that the compliment was justified—nor would she have been surprised if it was not.
‘It isn’t that. Really it isn’t. Of course it was a shock. His dying. And finding him like that.’ As they reached the drawing-room, Joyce bent low to her handbag to take out a handkerchief which she then dabbed at the sides of her mouth. ‘You’d think it wouldn’t matter so much. After he’d left me. Three years ago nearly. But … but it’s not the years apart that count, is it? It’s the ones you spend together.’ Her eyes were becoming decidedly waterlogged now as she continued: ‘I know what people are saying about him, but really he had many good qualities. Many.’
‘I’m sure,’ said Molly, while wondering uncharitably about their likely nature. She seated her guest in a comfortable armchair in the Regency bay window at the back of the room, overlooking the garden.
‘My daughter Liza offered to come down. From Liverpool. But I’ve said not to,’ Joyce went on. ‘She has so much work to do always.’ She paused briefly, to no purpose opening and shutting the handbag which she was now nursing on her lap. ‘Liza and her father weren’t close, I’m afraid. Not ever. She’ll come for the funeral later. To … er … to represent both of us, I suppose you’d say. I can’t very well be there, can I?’ she finished, in a seriously questioning tone.
‘I should do what you feel is best. There are no rules. I’m sure everyone would understand if you decided you wanted to be there,’ Molly replied, uncertain if this was the main reason why Joyce had come to see her, but somehow doubting that it was. ‘What about a glass of sherry?’
‘Oh, a sherry would be lovely. Thank you. You’re so understanding.’ Joyce was fiddling with the bag again. ‘It’s as though we were close friends, and we’re not really.’ She breathed in so deeply that it caused a grating noise in her throat. ‘It’s just I feel I can talk to you. It was the same when we first met. I don’t have any really close friends, you see. Not any more. You lose them when a marriage breaks up. And … oh dear, I’m so worried … I’m … I’m distracted.’ Her voice broke on the last word, and quite suddenly, all pretences abandoned, she was weeping piteously.
Molly hurried over, setting down the sherry glasses on the side table beside Joyce’s chair. She knelt beside the stricken woman, putting a comforting arm around her, and making consoling noises. For some time she let the sobbing go on, confident it would cease eventually, which it did. ‘I’m sure that’s eased things a bit, even if it hasn’t solved the problem,’ she said encouragingly afterwards. ‘Want to tell me what’s bothering you? If I can help? Only if you want to, mind.’ She pulled over a smaller chair and sat in it, still keeping a hand on the other’s arm. ‘Would you like to go and tidy up first?’
Joyce looked up shamefacedly, shook her head and wiped her eyes and cheeks. ‘No, I’ll be all right. I’m so sorry.’ She shook her head again, reached for the sherry almost greedily, and took a sizeable sip. ‘It … it was this phone call I got this morning. From someone in financial services. That’s what he said he was.’
‘From a firm selling insurance, you mean?’
‘That’s what I thought at first. Except he said his company were advisers, independent advisers, on investments. On investing large sums of money. Money that people inherit. Unexpectedly. He did say how sorry they were to hear of Ray’s death.’
‘How absolutely appalling,’ said Molly, in genuine outrage. ‘There really ought to be a law against telephone-selling to the bereaved.’ She gave the Cartier triple string of pearls around her wrist a disdainful rattle. ‘And I suppose he thought you were Ray’s current wife?’
‘No.’ Joyce blinked. ‘He was quite clear that I was his … his ex-wife. I said I wouldn’t be inheriting any money.’
‘Which was none of his business anyway,’ Molly protested.
‘I know. But I wanted to get rid of him.’ Joyce stopped to blow her nose, quite noisily. ‘Sorry. Then he explained. About the money I could get back. From the tax Ray paid three years ago. The capital gains tax. After he’d sold the company. Bims DIY.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’
‘Well, neither did I. Not at first. And he said not many other people would either. It was only because he was an expert, and knows the law. The intricacies. So I let him explain. It’s quite simple, really.’ But her expression of strained concentration belied the last comment as she went on. ‘Ray got thirty-four million pounds for the company when he sold it. It was in the papers at the time,’ she added, with a hint of pride. ‘But he had to pay out quite a lot of it, of course. In tax. About twelve million, I remember. That’s what Mr Fifield said too.’
‘Mr Fifield?’ Molly questioned gently.
‘Oh, he’s the man who phoned. He knew all about it.’ She leaned forward in the chair. ‘He said I could claim it back. All of it. The capital gains tax. Because Ray made big capital losses on other companies later, the new ones he invested in. That was last year, and the year before. Mr Fifield was involved with Ray in two of them, and he’d kept track of the others. His company sometimes advised Ray, he said.’
‘So why didn’t Ray claim the twelve million himself? Against the losses?’
‘Because … because he was still alive.’
For a moment Molly thought her visitor was going to burst into tears again, but another quite noisome noseblow seemed to eliminate that risk for the moment, although Joyce’s still woeful expression and lacklustre delivery hardly seemed appropriate in someone who had just come into a huge fortune, even in melancholy circumstances. ‘How interesting,’ said the actress, waiting for further elucidation.
‘It is, I suppose. Mr Fifield says a person can’t claim back the tax paid on gains in one year … not against the losses he makes in later years. Not himself, that is. But if he dies, his widow can claim. For up to three years after.’ She swallowed. ‘I think I’ve got that right.’
Molly cleared her throat unnecessarily while she considered the phrasing of her next question. ‘But … er … but are you Ray’s widow in the sense—’
‘Oh yes,’ Joyce cut in. ‘It’s only the wife at the time who can make the claim. I mean the wife at the time the tax was paid. Ray’s second wife wouldn’t qualify. And … and I have to claim soon. Before the beginning of April. Before the end of this tax year.’
‘Because that’ll be the end of the third year since Ray paid the capital gains?’
‘Yes.’ Joyce’s voice had broken over the word as she had tried to stifle an unmistakable sob.
‘Now really, Joyce, there’s nothing for you to be upset about in this,’ said Molly, again extending a sympathetic hand. ‘Of course you’re distressed over Ray’s death still, but if this Mr Fifield is right—’
‘He sounded quite certain,’ Joyce interrupted again, tearfully this time and with ominous, not hopeful, conviction in her voice.
‘Then it’s a case of an ill wind that’s blowing somebody a bit of good. You,’ the actress insisted. ‘And you deserve it too. The money will make a very nice wedding present for the two of you. For you and Ian.’
Although Molly had not expected whoops of joy to greet the presentation of what to her had seemed a simple and welcome truth, neither had she anticipated a response that would have been a touch more celebratory if she had just announced that the Queen Elizabeth had sunk with all hands. Compared to her earlier tears, the weeping that Joyce now embarked on was even more heart-rending, and it took comparably longer to stem as well, despite the mystified Molly’s deep and sympathetic attentions.
When Joyce was eventually quietened, her head bowed, her eyes fixed on the now soggy handkerchief that her hands were kneading on top of her handbag, the next words she whispered were: ‘You don’t understand.’ She paused, seeming to rally a little, then continued doggedly as though what followed was something she had rehearsed in her mind before this. ‘Ian is an accountant. He would have known the law. About a widow and the tax.’ She sniffed, her breasts heaving. ‘In all the years he’s known me, he’s never … never looked at me as a woman before the other night. Never said he cared for me in … in that way at all. Then suddenly he … he made passionate love to me. And asked me to marry him. Just when they say his practice is failing. So it wasn’t because he wanted me, you see? It’s so obvious, it was for the money. The taxes I’d claim back when Ray was dead. That’s all it was, except I was stupid enough not to see it. Not even when it was explained to me. Not straight away.’ There was a pathetic drop in her voice at the end.
‘Oh come, my dear, surely you’ve got it all wrong?’ Molly exclaimed with a confidence she wasn’t feeling one bit. ‘You told me yourself, Ian asked you to marry him when Ray was very much alive. On Tuesday evening, wasn’t it? At your home?’
Joyce looked up slowly, her eyes reflecting the self-imposed misery she was going through. ‘And after I said yes, when he was certain of my money, then, don’t you understand what happened? That’s when he left me and … and went off and … and murdered Ray.’
‘And that’s what she honestly believes?’ asked Treasure nearly an hour later, as he drove the Rolls-Royce west along Pall Mall. His wife was beside him in the front passenger seat. After bringing Molly to the Institute of Directors, Henry Pink had been excused further duties for the afternoon so that he could attend the funeral of an aunt in Penge.
‘She has no doubt of it at all,’ Molly answered, tight-lipped.
‘That Ian Crayborn is a cold-blooded murderer?’
Molly shook her head. ‘Except the murder seemed to be incidental. I mean, that isn’t what’s bothering her the most.’
‘Oh, come. If it isn’t—’
‘I’m quite serious,’ Molly broke it. ‘It’s the prospect that Ian Crayborn isn’t madly in love with her after all. That’s what’s hurting her so deeply. As a woman. You wouldn’t understand,’ she completed primly.
‘Of course I understand. But the whole thing’s still a bizarre supposition on her part,’ he insisted as he swung the car left at St James’s Palace, heading it down towards The Mall. ‘Naturally she hasn’t confronted her fiancé with any of this?’ he added. ‘With his being her first husband’s killer?’
‘Of course she hasn’t. How could she? In any case, as I’ve said, for Joyce the murder really isn’t the point,’ Molly continued insistently.
‘Well, it’ll be very much the point to everyone else involved, especially the police. Has she told other people, d’you suppose? Her dentist, perhaps?’ he inquired with a caustic smile.
‘I’m sure she hasn’t told anyone but me. And she won’t either. Not till we’ve talked again. I told her I’d ring her this afternoon. At home.’ Molly paused before adding, ‘After I’d spoken to you. After you’ve decided what we should do.’
‘I see.’ Treasure didn’t at all welcome the responsibility that was thus being thrust upon him. ‘Well, I can tell you now, I find it very hard to credit that Ian Crayborn is a murderer,’ he said flatly. ‘And my guess is he does care for Joyce a great deal. More than enough to want to marry her.’
‘But he never—’
‘And he’d not asked her to marry him earlier, probably … probably out of shyness,’ he interrupted. ‘I mean, he hasn’t been a widower all that long.’
‘So you’ve no doubt she’s got it wrong? That it’s coincidence she accepted Ian hours before Ray died, and that his murder made her a millionairess ten times over?’
Treasure hesitated before replying, and only partly because the traffic was heavy as he crossed the car over into Horse Guards Parade. ‘I’ve very little doubt that Bims’s death—’ he began.
‘His murder,’ Molly corrected.
‘All right,’ he conceded, ‘that his murder just after Joyce’s engagement was coincidence. Granted a possibly awkward coincidence in the circumstances. The tax rebate is simply a bonus for Joyce, and … and only very indirectly so for Ian.’
‘But why hasn’t he told her about it too? He’s her accountant, for heaven’s sake? Would you imagine he doesn’t know about it?’
‘It’s possible. Quite possible,’ Treasure offered, but this time his tone was a touch less certain.
‘But it’s his job. Surely he couldn’t be that ignorant? Not about something as important as this?’
‘Don’t you believe it. Even the best accountants have blank spots in their knowledge, just like everyone else. Tax law is terribly complicated. This could be something he’s never come across before. Bims only died last night, after all. There’s hardly been time for Ian to go into all the formal consequences for Joyce. Not in detail.’
‘Not if he wasn’t planning on Bims’s dying before it happened.’
‘Darling, that’s a really preposterous implication,’ he protested.
But Molly had been watching the doubt growing in his expression during his earlier comments. ‘I’ll bet you knew Joyce could be affected financially by Ray’s death, didn’t you?’ she insisted.
‘That she might be, yes. But only vaguely. The regulation involved isn’t one most accountants would be referring to very often. But I’d come across it somewhere, certainly.’
‘Because Grenwood, Phipps has more rich widows as customers than Ian?’
He shrugged. ‘That might have something to do with it. As a matter of fact it was something I’d intended to check on. Wigtree, the lawyer who was at the meeting just now, he said there’d be nothing in the Bims estate to pay back a bank loan. Something did make me wonder if he was right.’
‘But wasn’t Ian at the meeting too?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he didn’t say there’d be lots of money in the Bims estate?’
‘No.’ The banker shifted slightly in his seat as they passed the bottom of Downing Street. ‘Although he could have been thinking the same thing as me,’ he said. ‘Not wanting to volunteer anything till he’d checked the facts.’ There was a pause before he added: ‘Except, come to think of it, I believe I did give him the chance to comment. But … but only indirectly.’
‘You mean you didn’t ask him if he thought Joyce would be getting tax repayments? Was that because you didn’t want him to look suspicious? Because Inspector Jeckels was there?’
The banker gave a diffident sniff. ‘I thought it might be more appropriate to ask Ian when he was by himself, yes. But there was another reason. I’m not sure whether anything Joyce may get back in taxes would be part of her ex-husband’s estate. It could be the money will be legally hers alone. If it is, Bims’s creditors would have no claim on her.’
‘Meaning it may be nobody’s business except her own? Hers and her future husband’s?’
‘That’s right, yes.’
‘So it’d be nothing her future husband would feel he had to raise in front of others? Especially not in front of a policeman? Not during an inquiry into her former husband’s murder?’ Molly completed with deliberation.
‘If you mean Ian could innocently justify professional reticence in the matter, while incidentally avoiding putting himself forward as a murder suspect, I suppose you’d be right. Uncharitably so, but right all the same.’
‘And it could be for the same reason that he’s avoided telling Joyce about her entitlement?’ she persisted, ignoring his last stricture.
‘For the moment, yes. But he’ll need to put her claim before the Revenue soon.’
‘But not quite yet? Not while Ray Bims’s murder is still in the front of everyone’s mind?’
Treasure didn’t reply to his wife’s questions but his face indicated that he was deep in thought. He was still beating a regular rhythm on the steering-wheel with the fingers of one hand, waiting for the traffic lights to change in Parliament Square, when suddenly he asked, ‘So Joyce said Ian was late getting to the theatre to meet her on Tuesday. Did she say how late?’
‘Late enough for him to have had time to burgle the office at Hugon Road after Mr Edingly had left. She’d worked that out.’
‘And we know he went back to the stadium with Bims yesterday, after their lunch with Berty.’ Before driving the car off around the Square, the banker was waiting for a mounted policeman who had reined up beside them to get his frisky horse moving.
‘Yes,’ said Molly, also keenly watching the horse whose rear end was doing a rumba step dangerously close to her window. ‘He said he left straight away afterwards in his own car. Without going up to Ray’s suite with him. But if he did go up, no one need have seen him.’ The police horse now controlled, the car had moved off. She reached down for her handbag. ‘Is Ian’s practice in as much trouble as Joyce thinks?’ she asked.
Treasure pulled a face. ‘According to Berty and Andras Linkina, it’s ground to a halt. He’s been pressing both of them to help him find new clients. At least, he was up to last weekend,’ he completed grimly.