‘I told you. I was going through Ma’s papers. I found letters from a solicitor. They were about drafting a new will. Ma has the house and her portfolio, so it was quite a big deal. Fortunately she saw the light.’
‘Mary changed her mind?’
‘No,’ said Jeremy. ‘The solicitor didn’t go through with it. Raised objections. She probably smelt a rat. I wish someone had done that a bit earlier. Now, getting a poor old woman to change a will in favour of someone she barely knows, is that a crime?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Frieda. ‘Have you met her?’
‘I read the letters. And I asked Ma about her. She was taken advantage of.’
Frieda wanted to say, ‘Your mother is in the room.’ Jeremy Orton was treating the old woman as if she were slightly stupid and didn’t understand English properly. But pointing this out would only humiliate her even more. ‘Can I see the letters?’ she asked instead.
She was addressing Mary Orton, but Jeremy nodded at his brother, who took a file from his bag and handed it across to Frieda. She opened it and flicked through the official-looking letters. One was an invoice. She felt someone close to her: Robin was reading the letter over her shoulder.
‘Three hundred pounds,’ he said. ‘Three hundred pounds for not doing a will. I wonder what they’d charge for actually doing it.’
Frieda saw the name at the bottom of the letter. Tessa Welles. She wrote it down and the address. ‘It sounds like a bargain,’ she said.
‘I know what you mean,’ agreed Robin. ‘At least someone was looking out for my mother.’
‘Have you only just discovered this?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did neither of you know about the will before?’
‘No,’ said Jeremy.
‘No,’ agreed Robin, adding, ‘Of course not.’
The kitchen door opened and Josef came in. He seemed tired but he smiled when he saw Frieda. ‘I did not know,’ he said.
‘I was about to come up.’
‘So, what have you been doing?’ said Jeremy.
‘The roof is fixed,’ said Josef. ‘Not fixed, proper fixed, just a patch to stop the water.’
‘Did you give my mother an estimate for the work in advance?’
Josef gazed at Jeremy with a puzzled expression.
‘Come to that,’ Jeremy continued, ‘I’m not sure what you’re doing commissioning work in my mother’s house.’
‘There was a hole in the roof,’ said Frieda, ‘and you were in Manchester.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Jeremy’s tone turned harsher. ‘You mean that you and this man were looking after my mother and I wasn’t?’
‘Please, Jeremy,’ said Mary. ‘They were just –’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘What would you feel like, if someone did that to your mother?’
‘What did you feel like?’ said Frieda.
‘What do you think?’
‘I am sorry,’ said Josef. ‘I am finished.’
‘Actually,’ said Mary, ‘there are some other things I hoped you could look at. The boiler’s making a funny noise and there’s a window upstairs that won’t shut properly.’
Josef glanced warily at Robin and Jeremy.
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Jeremy. ‘It’s not my house.’
‘I’ll show you.’
Mary and Josef left the kitchen together, and Frieda looked down at her notebook, at the solicitor’s address. ‘Princes Road. Is that nearby?’
‘It’s just round the corner,’ said Robin. ‘Poole just took Ma up the road to the nearest person he could find. It must have seemed so simple.’
‘Can I use your phone?’ said Frieda.
‘Don’t you have a mobile?’
‘Not with me.’
Robin waved her towards the phone in a holster on the wall.
It took several calls and repeated explanations, then Frieda sat for forty minutes of mostly uncomfortable silence before Yvette arrived in a car and picked her up. She didn’t seem happy to see Frieda. ‘You need to tell us,’ she said, ‘if you’re going to talk to witnesses.’
‘I wasn’t exactly talking to witnesses,’ said Frieda. ‘Josef is working on Mary Orton’s house and he rang me because there was a problem with her sons. I didn’t think it had anything to do with the case.’
Yvette was sitting in the passenger seat and Frieda was in the back. She felt like a child being driven somewhere by two disapproving adults.
‘You can’t just act on your own,’ said Yvette.
Frieda didn’t respond. The car pulled up outside a line of shops. ‘Should I come with you?’ she asked.
‘If you want,’ said Yvette, shrugging.
The two women got out of the car. The location of Tessa Welles’s office wasn’t immediately obvious. Number fifty-two was a shop selling tiles and vases, jugs and coffee cups. Number fifty-two B was a small green door to the left. Long rang the doorbell and they were buzzed inside. The two of them walked up the narrow stairs. At the top there was an anteroom with a desk, a computer, neatly stacked piles of papers and a chair. Beyond it, a door swung open and a woman stepped out. Frieda guessed she was in her late thirties, with thick, reddish-blonde hair, long and tied loosely back, as if to keep it out of her way, and a pale face that was bare of makeup, with faded freckles over the bridge of the nose. Her eyes were grey-blue and shrewd, and she was dressed in a charcoal-grey shift dress, thick, patterned tights and ankle boots. She gave a slightly harassed smile. ‘I’m Tessa Welles,’ she said. ‘Won’t you come through? I’ve just made a pot of coffee, if you’d like some.’
She took them into a much messier main office, with a window overlooking the street. Files were piled on her desk and shelves held other box files, legal books. There were certificates on the wall and photographs: Tessa Welles in a group of people at a restaurant, Tessa Welles on a beach somewhere, Tessa Welles on a bike among a group of cyclists with mountains in the background. There were also two paintings that Frieda wouldn’t have minded on her own walls at home. Tessa poured them coffee and Yvette introduced herself, then Frieda as a ‘civilian assistant’.
‘Do you work alone?’ said Yvette, sipping her coffee.
‘I’ve got an assistant, Jenny, who comes in half-time. She’s not here today.’
‘Mrs Welles,’ said Yvette.
‘Ms.’
‘Sorry. Ms. In mid-November, you met a woman called Mary Orton and a man called Robert Poole. It was about drawing up a will for her. Do you remember?’
Tessa gave a very faint smile. ‘Yes, I remember.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Yvette. ‘Is something funny?’
‘No,’ said Tessa. ‘It’s not really funny. But is this about some kind of fraud?’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I don’t know. What I mainly remember is that that man made me uncomfortable. He seemed like a bit of a chancer. What’s happened? Is this a fraud inquiry?’
‘No, it’s a murder inquiry,’ said Yvette. ‘Somebody killed him.’
Tessa’s expression changed to one of shock. ‘Oh, my God. I’m sorry, I had no idea. I –’
‘A chancer, you said.’
‘No, no.’ Tessa made a gesture of repudiation. ‘I didn’t mean to be nasty. I don’t know anything about him.’
‘What did you mean?’
Tessa took a deep breath. ‘When someone alters a will in favour of a beneficiary who is not a family member, it always rings an alarm bell.’
‘What did you say?’
Tessa frowned with the effort of recollection. ‘I think I just talked it through with them … well, with the woman in particular. I asked for her reasons in making the change, why now, whether she had thought it over, discussed it with her family, and so on.’