There were five photographs on the walls, but they were all of the vineyard and its buildings at different stages of their development. They spanned a period of over twenty years and were interesting enough as a record of the place’s history. But they told you nothing about the man who spent a lot of his life in this room. He only appeared in one of the photographs, the earliest one, in which a young Morton with precisely parted black hair stood just behind the more striking blond-haired figure of the young and handsome Martin Beaumont. The founder and owner of the vineyard beamed his confident, extrovert smile at the camera. The man behind his right shoulder looked more shyly at the lens, as if he could not wait to disappear back to his office and away from public view.
It was eight o’clock on Tuesday evening, and Lambert wondered why Morton had been so insistent that they should meet here rather than in his home, where they had conducted their first meeting. It would be quieter here, he had said. But his house was in a sleepy suburb and he had no children. Had he wanted to keep them away from his wife? Did he fear that she might let him down under pressure? Hook decided to take up that issue later, unless the man proved cooperative.
In the meantime, Lambert would set about piercing the carapace of privacy which this slight, self-effacing man had grown about himself. ‘We know a lot more about Mr Beaumont and his senior staff than when we spoke to you on Friday. This in turn means that we need information from you, Mr Morton.’
‘I shall be happy to help you, of course, as far as I am able to. I should perhaps warn you that I know little about the private lives of my colleagues.’
‘It is your own life, business and private, which interests me most.’ Lambert glanced through the window at the restaurant with its busy car park, at the now deserted offices and shop, at the fields of vines stretching away as far as the eye could see into the soft evening sunlight. ‘You were involved in all this from the outset. You have helped it to grow from a small, risky venture into a prosperous business. I believe you know more about the business methods of our murder victim than any man alive. Particularly the ones he used in those early days. You have so far told us very little.’
Alistair had not been prepared for the directness of this challenge. He told himself firmly that he had known they would get on to this ground eventually, that he had answers ready for them. ‘It is a long time since those early days. I cannot see that they have any bearing on Martin’s death.’
‘You cut some very dangerous corners in the years when you were establishing Abbey Vineyards.’
‘Martin did that, not me. It was a difficult process, establishing an enterprise in a totally new field. We hadn’t really enough capital, but you can’t ask Martin about that now. He took a few risks — pretended at times that we had more money at our disposal than we had, claimed tax relief on a few items which may have been dubious.’
‘Claimed tax relief on items which did not exist. And you were his financial adviser. You not only went along with his lies but devised many of them for him.’
It was strong stuff, much stronger than Alistair had anticipated. He hadn’t expected this to be thrown at him again after all this time. ‘That was never proved. The Inland Revenue investigated everything at the time and gave us a clean bill of health.’
Lambert smiled the smile of the man who had made his point and put his adversary on the back foot. ‘You know as well as I do that it was very far from “a clean bill of health”. My interpretation of their findings is that they knew very well you were at fault but decided not to prosecute for lack of evidence. Mr Morton, you may be relieved to hear that I have no wish to reopen old wounds. We are interested in charging a murderer, not pursuing an ancient fraud case.’
Alistair looked down. His thin, stricken face looking like that of a schoolboy determined to get out the words he had prepared for this. ‘Martin did things which I advised him not to do and said things which I advised him not to say. We were very much a two-man band in the early days; I went along with these things at the time because I felt I had to support him. I would not do it again.’
‘No doubt he told you that he would make it worth your while to do so.’
Whilst Hook marvelled anew at his chief’s ability to make many bricks from little straw, Morton flashed an anguished glance at his questioner, then dropped his gaze again to his desk. ‘He said that once we were established as a going concern and had put those perilous early days behind us, I would become a partner in the firm.’
‘A promise which he failed to honour.’
‘He denied he had ever made it. And I’d nothing in writing to challenge him with, as he reminded me whenever I raised the matter.’ Alistair felt as if teeth were being drawn from him, without an anaesthetic. Even with the assurance that he would not be prosecuted, it was agony for an accountant to admit crimes of financial deceit to a policeman. And it had all been for nothing. He had been a cautious financial man for many years now; it was agony to admit to such ancient naivety.
‘So you felt that Beaumont had led you into a Serious Fraud Squad investigation, with the possibility of a prison sentence and the certain loss of your professional status, without paying the price that he had offered.’
It was a statement, not a question. Alistair Morton could see no way to deny it. He nodded miserably. ‘It remained a bone of contention between us until he died.’
Lambert smiled at the mildness of the cliche. ‘A little more than that, Mr Morton. Mr Beaumont’s intransigence in failing to recognize your loyalty and the risks you had taken without reward became a motive for murder.’
Alistair found himself drawn irresistibly into greater confessions than he had ever intended. He said in a monotone which seemed to come from someone else, ‘I thought about killing him. I don’t deny that.’ He stopped for a moment, remembering the long hours of the night he had spent considering the methods he might employ. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, ‘But I didn’t kill him. Someone else did that for me.’
The CID men allowed the long silence to stretch as a tactic, so that this denial seemed increasingly feeble. It was into this atmosphere that DS Hook eased his first question. ‘You said on Friday that you were at home on the night of this death. That you did a little gardening, watched television, and did not go out again until the next morning. Would you now care to revise that?’
‘No. My wife confirmed that, didn’t she?’
Hook shook his head sadly as he consulted his notes. ‘Mrs Morton was interviewed by a junior officer in uniform. He said she seemed a little unsure of the facts of the matter.’
Alistair was suddenly weary of this, of the years of deceit, of the years of alternately wooing and badgering the man who had refused to concede his rights. He could picture his naturally honest wife trying to do her best for him and failing to convince. He was soiled goods. He didn’t want Amy to become soiled goods too, as a result of what he had asked her to do for him. He said dully, ‘I went out again, late in the evening, on the edge of dark.’
‘And where did you go, Mr Morton?’
‘I came here. Went through my files whilst it was quiet, trying to find something to help me to challenge Martin. I know I could have done that during the day, but somehow I thought that if I had complete privacy I’d have a better chance of finding something.’ He paused, hearing how lame that sounded. ‘And all right, I hoped I’d be able to get into Martin’s own files, to find something from years back that I could use against him to make him deliver at last. I had a key to his office, but I couldn’t get at anything in there. Fiona Cooper is far too competent to allow access to her employer’s private affairs.’ Through his bitterness, there was a strain of reluctant admiration for the PA’s efficiency.
‘And what time did you return home, Mr Morton?’ No one would have guessed from Bert Hook’s quiet prompting that he was recording what might be the preamble to a confession of murder.