‘Arthur was a quiet man and highly intelligent, but, as they say, lacking ambition. He specialized in property law and could have gone much further in a bigger practice, but he was content to stay in conveyancing and here. He didn’t even want to become a partner.’ Chandler spoke as if that was both incredible and sad.
Did he draw up wills?’ Not that Horton thought that was relevant, but he recalled one of his theories that someone wanted to suppress a will made by Hazleton in order to inherit and so had dispensed with a witness and the lawyer.
‘A few times when we were short-staffed but it wasn’t a regular occurrence.’
‘Did either Victor Hazleton or Arthur Lisle make a will with you?’
Chandler’s eyebrow again lifted in surprise. Horton couldn’t help wondering how many hours he stood in front of a mirror practising that. Had someone once told him he resembled Roger Moore? If so, they had grossly misled the man.
‘Arthur did. I don’t know about Victor; would you like me to check?’
‘I expect my sergeant already is. If Mr Hazleton did make a will with you, sir, we’d like a copy of it.’
‘Of course.’
Horton didn’t ask to see Arthur Lisle’s will because he knew that Chandler wouldn’t let him see the will of someone still living. Dennings hadn’t found a copy of it in Lisle’s house yesterday. And Horton didn’t think it was relevant anyway. He said, ‘What did Lisle do in his spare time?’
‘I don’t think he had much with his wife so ill for many years. He was devoted to her and his family.’
But his daughter didn’t seem so devoted to her father, only visiting him fleetingly, once a week, thought Horton. He got the impression from the way Chandler spoke that being a family man was something of a black mark against Lisle and wondered why before answering his own question. DCI Bliss and Uckfield were the same; family first in their eyes meant lack of commitment. With them, as it had once been with him, he thought with a twinge of guilt, it was job first and family second. Well, he’d paid the price. And what of Bliss and Uckfield? Bliss was single and Uckfield barely acknowledged his family. Cantelli was different though, thank goodness, and he was right to be.
He didn’t think there was much more he could get from Chandler and what he had got was precious little. He showed him Yately’s photograph and asked him if he knew or recognized him. He drew a blank.
‘I believe your firm handled Colin Yately’s divorce eighteen months ago.’
‘Well, he doesn’t look familiar but then I don’t handle divorce, and neither did Arthur. You’ll need to talk to Susan Elizabeth Hague, only she’s on maternity leave at the moment. I deal with business law and disputes, intellectual property. But why do you want to know about this man?’
‘Could we have Ms Hague’s contact details?’
‘Terry Bramley can give them to you, he’s our office manager. But you haven’t said why you’re interested in Colin Yately.’
Horton told him that he’d been found dead in the Solent and that they’d established a connection between Yately and Arthur Lisle.
‘I see,’ Chandler nodded thoughtfully. ‘I heard on the news about a body being found at sea. I’m afraid I can’t tell you how Arthur and Mr Yately became friendly but I suppose it could have been through this firm. What did Mr Yately do for a living?’
‘He was a postman.’
The eyebrow shot up again. There was a tap on the door and Linda entered. ‘There’s no record of a will for Victor Hazleton. Sergeant Cantelli also asked me.’
And, Horton recalled, there hadn’t been one in Hazleton’s personal file in his house, so where was it? Had Hazleton actually made a will? Surely being a tidy man he must have done. If it was in the house then they’d find it. He wondered if the Walkers were there now checking to see if anything was missing and whether Dennings was with them. Well he’d have nothing to report back to Dennings about this connection. It was clearly a disappointing dead end. It seemed Cantelli had risked seasickness for nothing.
Horton thanked Chandler for his time and said they’d notify him if and when they had news of Arthur Lisle. He left Chandler looking concerned and headed along the corridor, glancing into a couple of rooms on the way. He found Cantelli in the last room on the first floor talking to a bald, fresh-faced man in his late forties, who was sitting in front of a computer at a desk that was laden with more paperwork than Horton’s. Immediately Horton could see Cantelli was on to something and his heart quickened.
Swiftly, Cantelli introduced Terry Bramley, the office manager. ‘Mr Bramley says that Arthur Lisle was here two weeks ago.’
‘He asked to see an archive file,’ Bramley said. ‘From October 1980. They’re archived off site and he asked me to request it.’
Horton knew immediately this was significant, although he couldn’t see how. He said, ‘You obliged even though Lisle was no longer an employee.’
‘I didn’t see any harm in it, especially as he’d worked on the case,’ Bramley said defensively.
‘What case?’
Bramley flinched at the sharpness of Horton’s question. He flushed, saying, ‘I, er, don’t know. He wasn’t specific, just said he wanted to check something on an old case he’d worked on.’
Was Bramley lying? Horton didn’t think so, but he could see Bramley was mentally calculating whether his desire to oblige Lisle was going to get him into trouble. ‘It was manic in here. I didn’t have time to question him about it. Arthur is completely trustworthy and discreet. I gave him the number of the storage company and he rang through and requested the file himself.’
‘And when was it delivered?’
‘That day. I don’t know what time but Arthur said he’d come back after lunch and I told him he could use my office. I had a half day.’
That was unfortunate from their point of view. ‘Was the file still here the next day?’
‘No. Arthur left a note on my desk thanking me and said he’d got the storage company to collect it.’
Cantelli said, ‘Why didn’t Mr Chandler mention this?’
‘Because he wasn’t here. He was out fishing, with a client.’
Convenient, thought Horton. So Lisle had slipped in, accessed the file and slipped out again without anyone knowing what he’d been searching for. Of course it could have nothing to do with his disappearance or Hazleton’s death, but what was it that Lisle was so keen to look up? They needed to know.
‘Could you phone the storage company and tell them we have permission to access the file.’
‘Now?’
Horton nodded.
As Bramley picked up the phone, he said, ‘Does Mr Chandler need to know about this?’
‘I suggest you tell him.’ Horton didn’t need to add, ‘before we do’. He got the address and telephone number of Susan Elizabeth Hague before they left and on the way to the storage company that was just outside Newport, Cantelli rang her, while Horton drove. Coming off the line a few minutes later, Cantelli said, ‘She remembers the case very well, and Colin Yately. It was a straightforward divorce, no complications.’
‘Lucky them,’ muttered Horton, thinking of his own marital split and divorce proceedings that seemed to be stretching on for ever. Then he recalled the filthy, sodden, half-chewed body in the woman’s dress and suppressed a shudder; poor Colin Yately hadn’t been so lucky after all.
‘She said that she usually handles divorce at the top end of the market, and the staff I spoke to confirmed that Wallingford and Chandler are expensive and exclusive but get excellent results for their clients. She liked Colin and she knew him very well because he was the firm’s postman. So she agreed to take it on.’
That explained that and confirmed Horton’s views about the legal practice. ‘Did you get to talk to Chandler junior?’
Cantelli shook his head. ‘No, he was still with his client but he handles wealth management.’ Cantelli quickly consulted his notebook and read, ‘Which entails estate and tax planning, business succession, charitable giving, trusts and asset protection. Would be nice to have some wealth to manage,’ he added snapping his notebook shut. ‘The talk is that Wallingford and Chandler are doing very well, thank you. Chandler runs a Range Rover and lives in a large manor house near Kingston, and Chandler junior is single but has a girlfriend who works in London. Junior lives in an apartment at Cowes Marina. The staff I spoke to all liked Arthur Lisle; there wasn’t a bad word said against him; quiet, kind, calm and brilliant at his job. None of them remembered Victor Hazleton.’