The Stratford Murder by Mike Hollow (best thriller novels of all time .TXT) 📗

me, Inspector. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t there. She’s lying.’ She looked around helplessly. ‘It wasn’t me, I tell you. It was her – she made me do it.’

Her words became unintelligible through her tears. Jago beckoned to Cradock, and they crossed the room together. Jago took hold of Audrey’s arm, and Cradock Vera’s.

‘You’re both under arrest,’ said Jago.

Vera’s voice turned to a subdued and pitiful moaning, but Audrey stood motionless, her face fixed in an icy glare.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

When Jago arrived at work the next morning, Station Sergeant Tompkins drew him to one side.

‘Someone’s come to see you, sir,’ he said. ‘He was here first thing – Mr Ballantyne, husband of one of those women you brought in last night. Young Cradock’s got him in the CID office, waiting for you.’

‘Thanks, Frank,’ said Jago.

He went straight to the office. As soon as he entered the room, Ballantyne jumped to his feet, clutching his hat with both hands before him in a beseeching manner.

‘Good morning, Mr Ballantyne,’ said Jago. ‘How can we help you?’

‘Help me?’ said Ballantyne, his voice drained of its former confidence. ‘There’s only one thing you can do to help me. Let me see my wife – I beg you. I must see her.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Ballantyne. That won’t be possible at the moment.’

Ballantyne’s already distressed face crumpled. He seemed to be fighting back tears.

‘That’s what I feared you’d say. But I can’t just stay at home waiting. She’s my wife, Inspector, my wife – can you understand? She’s all I have. I can’t imagine living without her.’

‘She’s been arrested in connection with a very serious crime, Mr Ballantyne.’

‘I know, I know. I’d give anything just to turn the clock back and prevent this terrible thing happening. Our home’s like a grave without her – my grave.’

‘Actually,’ said Jago, ‘there’s something I need to ask you about your home.’

Cradock slipped a piece of paper across the desk to Jago, who picked it up. He scanned what was written on it, then looked up, noticing a hint of wariness in Ballantyne’s eyes.

‘When we spoke to you on Wednesday,’ he continued, ‘you said you bought the house last year with a legacy you’d received.’

‘Yes.’

‘A legacy of two thousand, one hundred and sixty pounds?’

‘Er, yes. But how did you—’

‘How did we know? We checked with your bank, and that’s the only large sum that’s been paid into your account in the last five years. The curious thing is that you deposited the money in cash. But I assume the solicitor didn’t pay you the legacy in cash. Am I right?’

‘Yes, well … It was actually a loan of sorts.’

‘Of sorts?’

‘It was a loan from my cousin Charles.’

‘Mr Lewis?’

‘Yes, that’s right, but it was what you might call an informal loan, unofficial.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘How can I explain? You have to understand – we’d lived in theatrical digs all our lives, moving from one cheap lodging house to another, barely getting by, with no security for the future. We’d saved a little, but nothing like enough to have a comfortable retirement in a home of our own. Then my cousin asked me to look after a bag of his. Well, I say asked, but in fact he told me, and he wasn’t a man to say no to. Just for a few weeks, he said, so I agreed, although I suspected there was something fishy about it. He was a somewhat unorthodox businessman, if you know what I mean. The bag was locked, too. He insisted that we tell no one he’d given it to us, and if anyone asked, we were to say we knew nothing about it. The next thing we knew, he’d had a heart attack and died.’

‘And I suppose your curiosity got the better of you?’

‘Well, yes, naturally I opened the bag – he wasn’t to know, so I forced the lock, and found it packed full of five-pound notes. A small fortune. Knowing Charles, I thought it was highly unlikely that anyone would know he’d left it with me, probably not even his family, but still I waited for a month, just in case. When nothing happened, I paid the money into the bank. I reasoned to myself that he was a moneylender, and he’d given me this money temporarily, so in a way he’d loaned it to me, and since no one was likely to know about it, now that he was dead I wouldn’t have to pay it back – it’d effectively become a gift. That was just over a year and a half ago.’

‘During which time I believe Audrey has enlisted the help of your wife to hold seances in order to try to find her late husband’s missing money.’

‘Er, yes. But I think Audrey imagined it was a far greater sum. Vera was unable to establish through her gifts where such an amount might be, and she agreed with me there was no point in complicating matters by mentioning this comparatively small sum that he’d, er, loaned us.’

‘So she deceived Audrey?’

‘Well, er, I cannot vouch for my wife’s gifts, Inspector. I’m sure she, er, acted in good faith.’

‘Oh, yes, I’m sure she did – good faith that made sure his little nest egg remained safely in your little nest.’

Ballantyne looked crestfallen. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, there’s nothing I can say. I feel as though I’ve let you down – and let your father down, too. I was foolish. Having that money in my hands and thinking that with my cousin dead probably no one knew I had it was just too great a temptation. I know I should’ve resisted it, but I failed, and there it is. But whatever may happen to me now is nothing compared with what poor Vera’s facing. I just can’t believe it, Inspector.’

Watching the miserable scene playing out before him, Jago felt sorry for Ballantyne: just a weak man overcome by temptation. He felt a bitter regret too that this man had been a link with his own father