‘Lester Holroyd’s place,’ the Chief instructed Lambert as they got back into the car. They found Lester at home, finishing his supper. ‘My wife’s out at work,’ he told them. ‘She’s a trained nurse.’ He mentioned a factory on the industrial estate. ‘She works the second shift, two till ten.’
‘Has she been on the second shift long?’ the Chief asked.
‘Since June.’ Lester’s face took on a look of distress. ‘This is a terrible business about Claire, I find it difficult to take in. You know she did relief work sometimes at the yard?’
‘Yes, we do know. It’s about one of Mansell’s men we’d like to ask you now. Norman Griffin. Were you ever aware of any relationship between Norman and Claire?’
Lester didn’t appear surprised. ‘Nothing of any consequence,’ he replied with a movement of his shoulders. ‘I think Norman may have been a bit smitten, nothing serious.’
‘Did you ever have occasion to speak to him about it?’
‘I may have said something once, nothing heavy. He was hanging round the office, if I remember. I asked him if he’d nothing better to do.’
‘Did you ever notice anyone else at the yard paying attention to Claire?’
He shook his head. ‘She never encouraged anything like that.’
The Chief changed tack. ‘Have you and your wife been in touch with your brother since Claire’s body was found?’
There was an uncomfortable silence before Lester answered. ‘No, we haven’t.’
‘May I ask why not?’
Lester shifted in his chair. ‘Neither of us could think what to do or say. We hadn’t been in touch with either of them for some time, the two women never got on. Diane thought it would seem hypocritical to go round now after being unfriendly to Claire while she was alive.’
‘How did you get on with Claire when she worked in the office?’
‘Well enough. She was a good worker, very accurate. She was always very quiet, she never stood about chatting. I didn’t see all that much of her. I’m out of the office a good deal.’
‘Did you see anything of her outside the office?’
‘No. As I told you, we hadn’t seen anything of either of them for some time.’
‘What I’m asking you,’ the Chief enunciated slowly and clearly, ‘is this: did you, on your own, see anything of Claire, on her own, outside the office?’
Lester frowned. ‘Just what are you suggesting?’
‘I’m suggesting nothing. I’m putting a plain, straightforward question. Did you see anything of Claire outside the office?’
‘And I’ll give you a plain, straightforward answer,’ Lester retorted. ‘No, I did not.’
The Chief pressed on, undeterred. ‘Did you ever arrange to meet Claire, drive her out to some quiet spot? Some secluded property on the firm’s books, perhaps, not yet ready for work to start on it?’
‘I most certainly never did anything of the kind,’ Lester returned angrily. ‘It’s monstrous to suggest such a thing.’
‘Perhaps you have some other lady friend – or more than one lady friend – you’re in the habit of driving out to empty properties on the firm’s books?’
‘I have no such lady friends,’ Lester declared with increasing warmth.
‘So if someone tells me your car was seen parked on one of the firm’s sites one afternoon, parked round the back of the house out of sight, and that person heard voices inside the house—’
‘So that’s what all this is about!’ Lester broke in with a broad smile. ‘That’s easily accounted for. I’d be over at the site, whichever one it was, checking something or other. I always have a pocket radio with me when I’m out, I like to keep up with the sports results.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘That’s what your snooper heard.’
‘So you never fancied Claire? Never at all?’
‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. I had a crush on her years ago when I was a lad, still at school – when she was working at Hartley’s.’ He smiled slightly. ‘It didn’t last long, they never did. I must have had a crush on a dozen females before I left school. I don’t suppose Claire even noticed me, just one more spotty schoolboy. She certainly never mentioned it after we met, years later, when she got to know Edgar.’
‘Wasn’t it you that asked her if she would do relief work for Mansell’s?’
‘Yes, but only because Mansell asked me to ring her and suggest it.’
‘One more thing,’ the Chief went on. ‘Just a matter of routine. Could we have a note of your movements for the evening of Friday, November 16?’
If he expected Lester to erupt into protest he was disappointed. After a short pause to cast his mind back Lester answered readily. The evening had been much as usual. He had got in from work around six-thirty, had a meal, read the paper, watched TV. At around a quarter past eight he left the house, got into his car and made a tour of various sites belonging to the firm, arriving home again shortly before ten. Diane had got in from the factory at her usual time, around ten-fifteen; she was tired and went straight to bed. He had stayed up for another hour or so, watching TV. They had spent a quiet weekend, Diane hadn’t felt well. He had suggested she took a day or two off work but she insisted she was recovered by Monday morning and went to work as usual.
‘Do you often drive round the sites in the evening?’ Kelsey asked.
‘Yes, I do,’ Lester told him. He found it a useful aid to security, particularly on a Friday and Saturday when the risk of depredations by drunken louts was at its highest; he enjoyed the drive round. He didn’t go out every evening, nor did he visit every site on every run, but he never left any site unvisited for long. His times of setting out and returning varied according to the weather, his inclination, what programmes were on TV.
‘Did you meet anyone you knew while you were out that evening?’ the Chief asked. ‘Did you speak to anyone?’
Again Lester cast his mind back. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact I did.’ He had encountered two men he knew, encountered them separately, several miles apart. The first encounter was with a bricklayer, currently employed by the firm, who had been walking to his local pub in a village close to Cannonbridge. Lester had slowed the car, had stuck his head out and exchanged a few joking remarks. ‘That would be not long after nine,’ he guessed.
The second encounter was with a former employee of the firm, living in a village some distance from Cannonbridge. Lester had come across him as he walked back to his car after checking a site; it could have been around nine-thirty. The man was taking his evening constitutional, he was in the habit of stopping by that particular site to check progress, keep an eye out for thieves and vandals; even though he had been retired a couple of years he still took an interest in the firm’s activities. Lester had come across him more than once on his checking runs; he had stopped and spoken to the man for a few minutes that Friday evening, as he had done on previous occasions.
He gave the Chief the names of both men. He couldn’t offhand supply their addresses but he would phone the addresses through to the station first thing in the morning, as soon as he got to work.
Shortly after the offices of the Cannonbridge weekly newspaper came to life on Friday morning the Chief went along to look at the back number carrying a report and colour photographs of the Acorn dinner-dance. He was also shown a further batch of colour photographs, taken during the evening but not used in the paper.
In the ordinary way the Chief would have been present at the dinner-dance himself; it was one of the local events he felt obliged to attend although not the kind of evening he much enjoyed. A divorced man, with little of a social life nowadays, it was always a tricky business finding a suitable partner for such a function. He had never been more than a barely adequate performer on the dance-floor; he no longer drank or smoked. Chronic indigestion ensured that any but the most modest sampling of the rich fare invariably provided would be well and truly paid for afterwards.
This year he had been away for the second half of October, using up the last of his annual leave. He had bought two tickets for the dinner-dance, given them away, made a donation to the Acorn fund and then taken himself off with a clear conscience for two weeks of coarse fishing on the Wye.
He studied the paper, then the batch of photographs. He spotted Robert Ashworth right away, in a group of men in earnest conversation by the bar. Lester Holroyd and Stuart Mansell, looking very matey, chatting and laughing on their way out of the dining room. Edgar Holroyd, standing alone, watching the dancing, his face empty of expression.
Diane Holroyd was easy to pick out. She appeared in several photographs, eye-catching in low-cut, figure-hugging scarlet, clearly in high spirits. Her sister-in-law took more finding. He came upon Claire at last in two photographs; in both she was at Edgar’s side. She was dressed with understated elegance in a softly draped gown in a delicate shade of blue-grey. She looked very beautiful but somewhat remote as if not much enjoying the evening.
Tom Mansell looked out of many photographs. In the forefront of a jovial group of men, being slapped on the back. Saying a few words at the donation ceremony, pleasure and satisfaction plainly discernible under a veil of would-be modesty. Seated at the dining-table with Diane beside him, smiling and chatting. On his feet, still at the dinner-table, raising his glass in a toast.
Kelsey picked up the final photograph. Tom Mansell again. On the dance-floor this time for some dreamy number, lights turned low; a slow waltz, perhaps, near the end of the evening. His partner held in a close embrace, her eyes shut. His son Stuart standing on the edge of the floor, gazing across at the slowly circling pair: his father with an absorbed look on his face, and his father’s partner, Claire Holroyd.