Pascoe said, “Would these beneficiaries know of the changes Lady Denham made from time to time?”
“I don’t think she made a public announcement, but I do not doubt she made her dispositions known to those most nearly concerned.”
This would explain Ted Denham’s confidence that the hall and the bulk of the estate were coming his way, thought Pascoe. But why was he rifling through the bureau in the drawing room? Looking for the copy of the will, perhaps? But what need, if he knew its contents? And in any case Beard would be in possession of the original.
Mysteries-but they were what kept him in gainful employment!
“May I proceed?” said Beard, bringing him back to the present.
“Please do.”
“The other substantial beneficiary is Mr. Alan Hollis, who gets the freehold of the Hope and Anchor.”
“The pub, eh? Worth killing for,” said Dalziel. “Looks a tidy little business to me.”
“Indeed it is, as I can testify. I always stay there on my visits to Sandytown.”
“Oh aye? Had you down as more the Brereton Manor type,” said Dalziel.
“I have been coming here for many years now, and the hotel, of course, has only just opened,” said Beard. “In any case, I prefer the simple life.”
“So what do you do when the pub’s booked up?” said the Fat Man.
This sounded like irrelevant chitchat, but years of watching the Fat Man’s apparently aimless wanderings bring him to some longed-for shore kept Pascoe quiet.
“The two letting rooms at the Hope and Anchor are used solely by myself and Miss Gay or any other visitors stipulated by my late client. I am sure Lady Denham made sure Mr. Alan Hollis did not lose by the arrangement, and in any case his great expectations must have made him more than willing to oblige his patroness.”
There was a noise from the ormolu table. The secretary had let her notepad slip to the floor. She stooped to pick it up, her cheeks flushing as she mouthed an apology.
“Great expectations equal bloody big motive to me,” said Dalziel heavily.
“As a general principle, I would have to agree with you. In this case however Mr. Hollis is very comfortably situated and his expectations have never been in doubt. He seems to have possessed the happy knack of never falling out with his employer, and this bequest has been the one constant in all Lady Denham’s wills, which strikes me as a clever move on my client’s behalf, giving Mr. Hollis a powerful incentive to run as efficiently and as honestly as possible a business that would one day be his.”
“Trusting him didn’t stop her checking the accounts at least once a week,” observed Pascoe dryly, recalling the dead woman’s diary.
“Aye well, she were a Yorkshire lass. Belts and braces, tha knows” said Dalziel, a phrase which drew an appreciative smile from the secretary.
Pascoe said, “Anything else you’d like to draw our attention to, Mr. Beard?”
“As I indicated earlier, the length of the will derives from the small detail,” said the lawyer. “None of the lesser bequests are such as to provoke a crime of greed, but one or two of them you may find peculiarly indicative of Lady Denham’s state of mind as she made her dispositions.”
“For example?”
“‘To Harold Hollis, the shaving mug, badger-hair shaving brush, and cutthroat razor belonging to his late lamented half brother, my first husband, that he might have the wherewithal to make himself presentable should he care to attend my funeral. Also the sum of five pounds, which should suffice to buy enough soap to last the rest of his life.’”
“Wow,” said Pascoe.
“Wow indeed. They were not on good terms, but as you may already know, by the late Mr. Howard Hollis’s will, on his widow’s decease the Hollis family farmhouse reverts to his half brother.”
“Yes, we knew that. Anything else you’d like to draw our attention to?”
“Let me see. To Miss Petula Sheldon of the Avalon Clinic she leaves a bed.”
“A bed?”
“Yes. A single bed, specified as ‘the narrow hard single bed which will be found in what used to be the housemaid’s room.’ I do not completely grasp the significance of this, but doubt if it is kindly meant. The Parthian shot from beyond the grave is a not uncommon testamentary feature, attractive in that it is unanswerable.”
“Except by dancing on the grave and living another fifty years,” said Dalziel.
“Not perhaps an option for all of us. But I do not wish to give the impression that my late client’s small bequests were always motivated by malice. There is for instance the sum of one thousand pounds left to each of the children of Mary and Tom Parker of Kyoto House, the money to be invested on the children’s behalf till they are eighteen, with the rider that a small portion of the interest may be used to buy them ice cream on their birthdays. Another legatee is Mr. Francis Roote of Lyke Farm Barn, who gets a thousand pounds toward the purchase of a motorized wheelchair. And a sum of ten thousand pounds is left to the Yorkshire Equine Trust on condition that they take care of her horse, Ginger, for the rest of his life.”
This made Pascoe smile. Franny had been right. A monster with a heart.
“Mebbe the horse did it,” muttered the Fat Man.
Pascoe frowned his distaste. His mobile rang. He looked at the display, mouthed Novello at Dalziel and Wield, and excused himself.
Outside he said, “Hi, Shirley. What’s the news?”
“Good and bad. Bad is she’s broken her right leg, her right arm and collarbone, plus several ribs, and she’s cracked her skull right open. Good news is that they don’t think there’s any serious damage to her spine and she’s stable.”
“Conscious?”
“No. And until she is, they won’t be able to assess the full extent of the damage to her head. Worst case is, she could be brain damaged.”
“Are they planning to move her to a specialized unit?”
“Not till they’re certain they won’t do more damage by moving her. Anyway, I’m no expert, but this place makes the last NHS hospital I visited look like a doss-house. Dr. Feldenhammer’s whistling up relevant consultants from the Central and other places. Seems they do this all the time for their rich clientele. He’ll wait till he gets their advice before deciding. Unless Clara’s got good medical insurance, the sooner she gets out of here the better, else the sight of the bill will probably kill her!”
“I hope no one’s relying too heavily on her expectations under Lady Denham’s will,” said Pascoe.
“Why’s that, sir?”
“She gets a bit but not a lot.”
“This will, when’s it dated?”
“Couple of weeks ago? Why?”
“Something else I was ringing to tell you. I had a look at her clothes. In the patch pocket on her trousers I found a handwritten will, signed by Lady Denham, and dated the day before yesterday.”
“What does it say?”
“Not a lot,” said Novello, clearly enjoying her spotlight moment. “It leaves everything to something called the Yorkshire Equine Trust. And here’s the really interesting thing, sir. The witnesses are Mr. Oliver Hollis and Miss Clara Brereton. So she knew about it, and my guess is, if the earlier will leaves her anything at all, something’s better than nothing, and she wasn’t about to let this one see the light of day!”
Pascoe didn’t say anything for a long moment while he tried to take in the implications of this.
“Sir? You still there?”
“Yes, Shirley. You haven’t let anyone else see this will, have you?”
“No, sir,” said Novello, sounding hurt.
“Good. Find anything else that might be useful?”
“Just her mobile.”
“Right. Where are you now, Shirley?”
“I’m in the corridor outside the intensive care unit.”
“Excellent. Stay there. Make a note of everyone who has anything to do with her, and let them see what you’re doing. I’ll send someone to relieve you, then get yourself back here ASAP. Something you can do to pass the time is check who Brereton’s been ringing today, who’s been ringing her, with times. Can you manage that?”