Broken Dreams (2 page)

She looked reluctant to answer the question.  I tried to help her out. ‘Whatever you say stays between us. It won’t go any further.’

‘Her alleged illness.’

‘Right.’

‘I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but I didn’t like her, to be totally honest with you.’ Unburdening this seemed to enable her to relax. She looked me in the eye. ‘Either as a colleague or as a person.’

‘Was she difficult to get on with?’

‘Very much so. We were very different people, you see. I’ve never married, never travelled very much or led what you might call an exciting life. I have what I have, and I’m very thankful for it. I’m not the type of person who always wants more. Jennifer, on the other hand, was very different. She wanted everything, and I suspect that was only to say she had it.’

I encouraged her to continue.

‘If it wasn’t a flash car, it was holidays abroad and designer clothes. It put a few backs up, that’s for sure.’

‘I assume she could afford these luxuries?’

Sheila nodded. ‘She was well paid and her husband has a good job. He’s some sort of business hotshot, but I don’t really know the details. Besides, most people these days use credit cards to get what they want, don’t they?’

I tried to hold a smile. ‘It’s often the way.’

‘I remember when people used to save up for things they wanted.’

I half-heartedly agreed, anxious to keep her talking to us.

‘How was Jennifer as an accountant?’ asked Don, getting us back on track.

‘Generally, I’d say she was fine; certainly to start with.’

‘To start with?’

‘I assume you were told about the incident with her assistant?’

Don and I shook our heads. ‘No.’

Sheila didn’t hold our stare. The nervous Sheila had returned.

‘It won’t go any further’ said Don, encouraging her to continue.

She placed her hands on the table and took a deep breath. ‘A couple of years ago there was a spell when money seemed to be going missing.’

‘Going missing?’

‘I don’t think all the petty cash cheques made their way into the actual petty cash tin. The auditor brought it to Jennifer’s attention and she sorted it out. Mr Briggs was on holiday at the time and she never told me about the problem.’

‘What happened?’ It was obvious she had felt put out by her lack of involvement.

‘Her assistant, Sonia Bray, left, and Mr Briggs considered the matter closed. Jennifer had told me how difficult it would be to get the proof for a conviction, so there was no point involving the police. She also claimed she’d worked out how much Sonia had allegedly stolen and made sure Mr Briggs got the money back.’

I sat up. ‘I assume you’re not convinced Sonia was behind the theft?’

‘No. Not at all.’

‘Any idea where we could find Sonia?’

‘I think so. I’ll let you have the details.’

Don thanked her.

‘How about Jennifer’s supposed illness?’ I said. ‘Do you know anything about it? Mr Briggs said you’d seen her when she was meant to be at work?’

‘My friend had seen her, shopping in Princes Quay when she was supposed to be here. Sheila laughed and shook her head. ‘Her illness? Jennifer might be many things, but I doubt she had been stressed. As I said earlier, she had loved flaunting her money and telling everyone what a great life she had.’

Don nodded to me that we were done. Whether or not she was simply bitter at Jennifer Murdoch’s lifestyle, I didn’t know, but I was taken back at the spite of the woman. The suggestion Murdoch had stolen from the firm and that Terrence Briggs might have an ulterior motive for sacking her was interesting. Before we had chance to consider it further, Terrence Briggs walked into the room.

‘Sheila was helping us out while we waited’ I said to him.

Briggs nodded to his PA, who quickly left the room. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he asked us.

‘Our jobs’ said Don.

‘Under the circumstances, you don’t have a job. I won’t be needing you anymore.’

‘The police have already spoken to us.’

Briggs walked across the room and opened the door in the far corner. ‘We’ll talk in here.’

The boardroom featured photographs of building developments the company had been involved with over the years. Briggs had been involved in the construction of several well-known buildings around the city. On the opposite wall were black and white photographs of Hull’s fishing past.

‘Fisherman in a former life?’ I asked him.

‘My brother.’

I nodded and asked if he was keeping busy.

‘Plenty on at the moment. I’ve got the bread and butter stuff around the estates, maintenance work for the council and there’s still the regeneration projects on the go.’ He opened his drawer and placed a manila file on the desk. ‘I suppose you can take it back.’  It was the initial report we’d prepared for him on Jennifer Murdoch. It contained all the background information we’d pulled together, including her educational details, family background and anything of interest we’d learnt. We left it sitting there.

‘What did the police have to say?’ Don asked.

‘What’s it to you?’

‘You’d asked us to do a job and now she’s dead.’

‘We’re done then, aren’t we? How much do I owe you?’

He looked flustered. I assumed the police had rattled his cage.

‘You told us you wanted her out of your life.’ I reminded him. ‘Whatever it took, I think you told us.’

‘I didn’t mean I wanted her dead, for crying out loud.’ He pointed at me. ‘Look, I set this place up by myself over thirty years ago, built it up from nothing. I got nothing given to me on a plate. Several years later, here I am with one of the city’s largest building companies. I’m not having someone like her take the piss out of me. It’s not going to happen. All I said was that she was on long-term sick and I didn’t reckon it was genuine. Don’t be twisting my words.’

’The police will see you as having motive’ said Don.

‘I only wanted her out of this place.’

‘It’s still the beginnings of something. She was costing you a lot of wasted money, it makes you angry, you know where she lives, you want rid of her. It’s a thought process they’ll be following’ I said.

‘What’s your point?’ asked Briggs.  He picked the file up.

‘You’ve still got a few hours left on the clock and we don’t like loose ends.’

Don was waiting for me in the reception of Queens Gardens police station, talking to the officer on front-desk duty. I’d taken his advice and called Coleman to arrange reporting the assault. He’d told me to come to the station and, though he’d led me to believe it would be over with quickly, it had taken a couple of hours. When Coleman eventually saw me, I’d kept my composure and answered the questions as honestly as I could. Even though I had nothing to hide, the situation felt like it had been made as uncomfortable and awkward for me as possible. For all that, I was left in no doubt should I learn anything about the murder of Jennifer Murdoch, I was to inform him immediately. Coleman had assured me I wasn’t being treated as a suspect, rather a witness with some useful background information, but I wasn’t so sure. Maybe I was being paranoid, but I didn’t like the situation I found myself in.

I was glad to be out of the building and getting some fresh air. We walked towards a pub close to our office. I needed a drink to calm my nerves. I showed Don the leaflets I’d been given whilst I waited for Coleman.

‘Investigative Officers,’ I explained, ‘cheap detectives, basically.’ The force was recruiting civilians to assist the detectives with interviewing suspects and gathering evidence. It was policing on the cheap.

Don laughed and passed me my drink. ‘Cheeky bastards. Did they tell you anything?’

‘Nothing. I don’t even know how she was killed.’ I’d asked but they’d refused to tell me. They would be releasing details later during a press conference.

‘What about the assault on you?’

‘They weren’t interested.’

Don said he wasn’t surprised and turned the conversation back to Jennifer Murdoch. ‘You’d have thought there would be some forensics, wouldn’t you?’

‘They didn’t tell me if there was.’ We both knew it was only any good if you had a match on the database. I also knew it could take days for the police to confirm a match. They hadn’t asked me for a sample, as they didn’t have the legal grounds to, but they could have asked me to volunteer if they had really wanted to. 

Don asked me what I had made of Terrence Briggs.

‘I don’t like him.’

‘He’s still got a bit of credit left; we should see what turns up in that time.’

  I agreed. Although we still had the regular bread and butter work of serving legal papers from solicitors, we weren’t that busy.

‘I don’t like him.’ I repeated.

‘Why not?’

‘Rude, unpleasant, take your pick.’ I’m usually a good judge of character and something about Briggs jarred with me.  I moved our glasses to one side to allow Don to open the file on Jennifer Murdoch. He started to read to me.

‘Okay, so she’s in her mid-thirties, married and lives in North Ferriby with her husband. Overall salary package is somewhere in the region of £40,000. She’s worked for Briggs for close to ten years.’ He passed the file over to me. There were details of her education and previous employment; father worked the docks, standard education in a local secondary school; nothing unusual.

‘Not such a great employee, though.’ I took a look at the doctor’s notes we’d previously copied from Briggs.

‘Any thoughts?’ Don asked me.

I leant back in the chair and swallowed a mouthful of lager. ‘She’s his accountant, right? She controls the purse-strings. Maybe there had been a falling out between them? Maybe over the money theft?’

Don shrugged. ‘Enough to kill over? I don’t see it.’

Sometimes I’m too inquisitive for my own good. Or rather, our good. Don was good at focusing in on the task at hand. All we’d been asked to do was look at her claim to illness; see if her absence from work was justifiable, and if we could, offer some evidence to her employer.

Don closed the file. ‘I’ll get on with checking her out tomorrow; see what else I can find.’  He looked at his watch and stood up. ‘We’d best hurry up. Sarah’s going to be waiting for us.’

As we walked into the office, Sarah was showing a woman out. The woman wore a head-scarf, partly obscuring her face and didn’t make eye contact as she left. Sarah walked back in and sat down without saying a word.

‘Who’s picking up Lauren?’ Don asked.

‘John.’

I’d not met her ex-husband, but his reputation preceded him. Sarah was in her mid-thirties and hadn’t had much luck with men since. Usually, Don collected his grand-daughter from the childminders if Sarah was held up, but we’d been too busy with Briggs and Coleman. I asked who wanted a drink and busied myself in the kitchen.

‘Potential client?’ I asked, my back turned to them.

‘I think so’ Sarah replied.

I walked across to them with three cups of tea balanced on a tray. ‘What’s her story?’

Sarah opened her notepad. ‘That was Maria Platt. She needs our help to find her daughter.’

Should be a straightforward task, I thought. ‘How long’s she been missing for?’

‘Nearly ten years.’

I sat back in the chair. It’d either be a simple job or a total nightmare.

‘Did you explain our fee structure to her?’ asked Don.

Sarah looked away and said nothing. I looked down at the floor, knowing what was coming.

‘You didn’t, did you?’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘Not really. Look, she’s desperate. I said we’d help her.’ She passed a cheque over to Don. ‘I’ve got this.’

Don looked at it and passed it to me. £200. It wouldn’t go very far in paying the bills.

‘I thought we could see how it goes’ said Sarah, smiling apologetically at us. ‘She’s really desperate.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘She’s dying of cancer.’

Once we’d played out the ritual of Don trying to feign anger with Sarah, we all sat back down together to discuss what we could do to help the woman. I smiled at Sarah. The job wouldn’t make us any money, but I admired her spirit. You could never say her heart wasn’t in the right place. Don also knew that, and being his daughter, he was probably all the more proud of her. Besides, it wasn’t like we were inundated with other jobs and it made life interesting.

‘What’s her daughter’s name?’ Don asked.

‘Donna Platt’ said Sarah. She’d photocopied her notes and passed them across to us. ‘29 years old.’

‘No contact at all?’ I asked.

‘None at all.’

‘Not even birthday or Christmas cards?’

Sarah shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

Don looked up from the notes. ‘How about family? Her father?’

‘Died three years ago. Cancer. There’s a brother who’s three years older, but apparently he’s had no contact with her either. I’ve got his details. He’ll talk to us, if need be.’

‘Why did she disappear?’ I asked. ‘What triggered it?’

‘The official line is she wanted to be a singer, so she was going to head off to find fame and fortune. She was in a band with her friend, regulars on the city’s club circuit. We’ve got the name of a friend she sang with, but she wanted bigger things. She’d spoken about moving to London, but we have no idea whether she made the move or not. Other than that, she had a part-time job in a local shop to help pay the bills.’

‘Didn’t her mother try to contact her to tell her about her father’s death?’

‘She put a notice in the paper asking her to get in touch.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I assume she was reported to the police?’ I said.

‘Her husband wouldn’t allow it.’

‘Wouldn’t allow it?’ What kind of father wouldn’t do everything he could to find his daughter, I wondered?

‘I got the impression she was scared of him.’

‘It’s going to be a tough task’ said Don.  He stood up and walked over to the window. ‘We’ve not got a lot to go on, have we? Or much time to do it, given the financial constraints.’

‘Maybe we should start with the brother and friend? See if we can shed some light on it?’ Sarah suggested.