The Hanging in the Hotel (35 page)

There was the crunch of a large car drawing up on the gravel outside. Jude flinched, recognizing the significance of the sound. But none of the others reacted, so, swallowing down her fear, she
continued to outline her argument.

‘But, Mr Hartson, it’s striking in how many cases you’ve withdrawn your financial support at a very bad time, and as a result the owners have been forced to sell up, and then
– remarkably – their properties have been bought by one of your companies.’

He still couldn’t see anything wrong. ‘I always offer well over the going rate. Otherwise they wouldn’t sell to me.’

‘And then you sit on the properties until your friends in the planning departments get change of use agreed, and you develop them into housing.’

‘In exact accordance with current government policy,’ said Bob Hartson complacently. ‘The south-east needs more houses. I bet the prime minister wishes there were more
developers like me around.’

‘I don’t know. I think the prime minster likes to keep all the power to himself. He might not like you having as much as you do – or indeed the way you use it.’

‘How do you mean?’

Surprisingly, the answer came from Suzy. ‘Like the way you’ve used your power over me! Constantly threatening to take your investment out of Hopwicke House unless I do exactly as you
want. Making me take cut-rate bookings for functions like the Pillars of Sussex dinner, so you can show off to your friends!’

Rick Hendry joined in. ‘And the way you’ve manipulated me! Encouraging me to invest in your companies, then threatening to expose my involvement with you. Constantly asking for
favours in return!’

‘Favours like getting Kerry through the
Pop Crop
auditions?’ suggested Jude.

‘Yes,’ said Rick Hendry.

‘Oy!’ the girl wailed. ‘That’s not the reason. It’s because I’m good!’

All her idol responded to this was ‘In your dreams.’ Kerry burst into tears.

‘Favours like building up Max Townley’s hopes for his television career?’ Jude went on.

‘Yes,’ Rick Hendry admitted. ‘And the worst of the lot was making me agree to be auctioneer for that bloody auction of promises!’

‘I’m not so sure, Rick,’ said Jude. ‘Don’t you think the worst was actually using your showbiz contacts to persuade a beat-up actor like Lionel Greaves to spend a
little time in one of Bob Hartson’s unconverted flats in Hove, taking a very small part for a very large amount of money?’

But that was an admission too far for Rick Hendry. He looked bemused. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Kerry Hartson was now weeping bitterly. Her mother leant across to comfort her. But her stepfather was enjoying himself too much to notice. He was positively glowing with confidence.

‘I don’t deny anything you’ve said, Jude.’

‘And you don’t deny that, if it appeared in the press, a list of all the deals of that kind that you’ve done would look pretty bad?’

‘Sure, it’d look bad, but it’s not going to appear in the press.’

‘Because Nigel Ackford and Donald Chew are both dead.’

‘Yes. Conveniently, they are.’ Bob Hartson’s smile was almost smug now. ‘And no one will ever be able to find any connection between me and either of their deaths.
Anyway, if I wanted to keep that stuff out of the press, I wouldn’t have gone after Nigel or Donald. I’d have silenced the journalist – this Karl whatever-his-name-is. And I
notice nobody’s yet made an attack on him.’

‘Oh, but they have,’ said a new voice, as Carole Seddon stepped into the bar.

‘What?’ Bob Hartson’s demeanour changed completely. He looked as if he had just received a heavy punch in the stomach.

‘You should be careful,’ Carole went on, ‘when you use someone else to do your dirty work. There’s always a danger they may go freelance and start doing things off their
own bat. Like attacking Karl Floyd. Like trying to attack me – and breaking down my front door!’ she added indignantly.

‘Where is he?’ Bob Hartson gasped.

‘In the kitchen. Where do you expect him to be?’ asked Carole. ‘That’s his proper place.’

‘I’ll go and get him,’ said Suzy.

A moment later, she returned through the dining room, and resumed her seat. The man who had followed her from the kitchen stood framed in the doorway, looking in amazement round the group in
front of him. Finally, his eyes rested on Bob Hartson.

‘What is this? What’s going on?’ he asked.

The developer seemed to have recovered some of his composure. ‘Oh, it’s very simple. You’ve just been accused of two murders.’ He turned to Carole. ‘Or is it three?
You didn’t say whether Karl Floyd was dead or alive.’

‘Alive. Badly beaten, but alive.’

Bob Hartson turned back to the man in the doorway. ‘Two murders and one GBH, I reckon it is then.’

‘But there’s no way I could have done the first one. I was fast asleep in the stable block.’

‘No,’ said Jude coolly. ‘You were supposed to be in the stable block, but when I checked the chambermaids’ check sheets for that night, it turns out you were actually in
one of the rooms inside the hotel.’

‘I didn’t know anything about that,’ said Suzy.

‘No. But I think I know who organized it.’

Under the probing beam of Jude’s look, the way Kerry Hartson turned away her tear-stained face was sufficient admission of guilt.

The man in the doorway appealed to Bob Hartson. ‘It’s rubbish, isn’t it? They can’t prove anything, can they?’

The property developer smiled a hard smile. ‘I could say I saw you do Nigel Ackford.’

‘But you didn’t. You weren’t there. You’d got an alibi with Donald Chew. That was the whole point.’

‘Hm.’ Bob Hartson’s self-confidence seemed to be returning very quickly. ‘I certainly didn’t see you kill Donald Chew. And the attack on Karl Floyd – the
first I heard of such a thing was when this lady mentioned it a minute ago.’

‘But I thought it was what you’d want, Bob. Suzy rang to the car while you were on site. She told me that woman Carole was going to meet Karl Floyd. I thought you’d want to
stop that. I thought that was what you’d want, Bob.’ The was pathos in his repetition of the line.

The developer shook his head sagely. ‘Very risky, to try and imagine what other people might want, Geoff.’ He looked his driver straight in the eye. ‘Next thing you’ll be
telling these good people that I wanted Nigel and Donald dead.’

‘But you did. You told me to get rid of them.’

‘Doesn’t sound like me.’ Bob Hartson turned to his wife. ‘Does it, Sandra?’

‘No,’ she said weakly.

‘Not my usual style at all.’ He rose from his chair and moved towards the bewildered chauffeur. ‘I think you must have got the wrong end of the stick, Geoff. And that’s a
dangerous thing to do when you’ve been inside twice for GBH.’

‘But, Bob, you told me—’

‘I don’t think you’ve got any proof of that, Geoff.’

‘You bastard!’

Quick as a flash, a gun appeared in the chauffeur’s hand.

Even quicker, Bob Hartson’s hand bunched into a fist and shot up into the man’s jaw.

The bullet hit the bar-room ceiling before the gun smashed into the wall.

As his chauffeur crumpled on to the floor, Bob Hartson looked back at his guests and gatecrashers. ‘Well, say thank you. I think I saved at least one person’s life there.’

Then he looked up as Inspector Goodchild came into the room. ‘Reg, good to see you. I’d assumed Carole would call you over here.’ He pointed to the heap on the floor behind
him. ‘There’s your murderer.’

The pub was full, but Carole and Jude felt a distinct atmosphere of disappointment around the Crown and Anchor when the news came through that Bob Hart-son’s chauffeur
Geoffrey Gardner had been charged on two counts of murder and one of grievous bodily harm. The police knew they’d get him on the last count, because Karl Floyd had identified Gardner as the
man who attacked him, but they were surprised when the driver admitted to the murders of Nigel Ackford and Donald Chew.

The accused kept insisting that he had done the killings under the express instructions of his boss, Bob Hartson, but could produce no proof to back up his assertions. Since Geoffrey Gardner had
a prison record for violent crime and Bob Hartson had never been charged with anything, the police were inclined to the view that Gardner was simply trying to shift the blame. And since Bob Hartson
would certainly engage the best lawyers money could buy, the police view was unlikely to change.

As Carole and Jude sat over their Chilean Chardonnay in the bar that evening they tried for the umpteenth time to think of a single scrap of evidence against Bob Hartson. ‘There must be
something we’ve forgotten,’ Jude insisted. ‘Something that hasn’t been explained.’

Carole removed her rimless glasses and polished them thoughtfully with a handkerchief. ‘Well, I suppose the only thing that hasn’t been explained is what happened to the note Donald
Chew left in Nigel Ackford’s bedroom.’

‘That’s true.’ Jude perked up instantly. ‘Yes. Kerry found it, and gave it to Suzy. She showed it to me, and then later in the evening it had disappeared from her apron
pocket.’

‘There’s probably some perfectly simple—’

But before Carole had time to defuse the idea, Jude had her mobile phone out and was moving excitedly towards the pub door. ‘I’m going to ring Suzy. Too noisy in here.’ And she
was gone.

‘You look like a cat that’s had its mouse taken away.’

At the sound, Carole looked up to register that Ted Crisp had joined her.

‘Yes, I’m sorry, I . . . Jude’s just finding something out for me.’

‘Oh yeah? Well, if you’re trying to nail Bob Hartson, you have my full support.’

Carole looked puzzled. Ted nodded his head towards the old milk depot behind the pub. ‘Work starts on that site Monday week.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘And it’s one of Bob Hartson’s companies that’ll be doing it.’

The landlord’s news did nothing to improve Carole’s mood.

But at that moment, Jude came rushing back into the pub, and her bubbling manner suggested that maybe all hope was not completely lost.

‘I talked to Suzy. She knows what happened to the missing note!’

‘Really!’

Ted Crisp hadn’t a clue what was going on, but he wasn’t about to interrupt their euphoria by seeking explanations.

‘Yes. Kerry talked to her about it some time last week. It was Kerry who removed the note from the apron!’

‘Why?’

‘This is the good bit . . .’ Excitement sparkled in Jude’s brown eyes. ‘Kerry mentioned to her father she’d found the note, when she saw him at the dinner, and Bob
Hartson insisted she should take the note back and destroy it. Well, don’t you see what that means?’

‘What?’ asked Carole, confused, but beginning to catch her friend’s childlike elation.

‘Bob Hartson didn’t want anything suspicious connected with Nigel Ackford’s room! That apparently threatening note was bound to alert the police to something funny going on.
The fact that he asked Kerry to destroy the note means Bob Hartson knew that the murder was going to take place!’

‘Yes,’ Carole sighed with satisfaction.

‘Yes,’ Jude echoed.

‘Erm . . .’ Ted Crisp broke into their microclimate of mutual bliss, ‘I don’t fully know what you’re talking about, and I don’t want to put a damper on
proceedings or anything but are you saying you’ve now actually got proof against Bob Hartson?’

‘Yes.’

‘Proof that would stand up in court?’

‘Well . . .’ But Jude was in no mood to have her enthusiasm dented. ‘Yes, we have. If the police only use their imagination and —’

‘Inspector Goodchild use his imagination?’ asked Carole, beginning to absorb the moisture from Ted’s wet blanket.

‘Of course,’ Jude brazened on. ‘Then if we can get Kerry to stand up in court and repeat what she told Suzy . . .’

‘And what’s the likelihood of that happening?’ Carole’s question was bleak. ‘Kerry shopping her own father, after all this?’

The sudden flare of excitement had fizzled out. The atmosphere of disappointment reasserted itself. All three of them found themselves looking out through the pub window to the old milk
depot.

Seeing the site of Bob Hartson’s next highly profitable project served only to turn the knife in their wounds. There had to be some way they could nail him.

Karl Floyd was out of hospital when Carole and Jude went to visit him, but he moved with difficulty, his arm was still in plaster, and the healing scabs on his face would leave
him scarred for life.

He hadn’t been keen on the idea of a meeting, and pretty soon after their arrival he made clear why. As soon as Carole mentioned the names Bob Hartson and Geoffrey Gardner, Karl stopped
her. ‘I don’t want to have anything more to do with that.’

‘What? But come on, I thought it was your ambition to be a crusading journalist?’

‘Yes, it was. It’s not now.’

‘Why ever not?’ asked Jude.

The young man made a painful, open-armed gesture, as if his broken body was answer enough.

Carole tried to bring him back to a proper sense of duty. ‘You’ve got all that information. All that stuff on your computer about Renton and Chew, about the Pillars of Sussex
and—’

‘I’ve wiped it.’

‘All?’

‘Yes. I’m giving up journalism.’

‘What does your father think about that?’ asked Carole. ‘I thought you were named after Carl Bernstein.’

‘My father doesn’t know yet.’

‘But, Karl,’ Carole insisted, ‘you’ve got nothing to be frightened of. The man who beat you up is in prison, and will be staying there for a long, long time.’

The boy looked at her sardonically. ‘And you think Bob Hartson isn’t capable of finding another heavy?’

There was disbelief in Carole’s voice as she asked, ‘Are you actually saying the beating you received has frightened you off?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

There was a silence before Jude spoke. ‘What are you going to do instead of journalism?’

‘Nothing for a while.’ Karl Floyd spoke with new confidence. ‘I’m going to buy a couple of flats – live in one, get rent from the other – and spend a bit of
time working out the next stage of my career.’