A Narrow Victory Page 6

  Unless his parents had asked him to do it and had given him that brief?

  ‘Please, sit down, Inspector,’ Gordon Olliphant said, and himself sat down, with evident relief, in a large and upright armchair. Hillary didn’t bother to correct him on his instinctive use of her title. Besides, she always felt better when people used it anyway. Being called Mrs Greene was always guaranteed to put her in a bad mood.

  She chose the sofa opposite him, and gestured for Zoe to sit beside her and get out her notebook and take notes.

  ‘So, what can I do for you exactly?’ Gordon Olliphant asked. His voice had a raspy wavering quality to it that wasn’t unpleasant on the ear.

  ‘We just wanted to talk about your son for a bit, Mr Olliphant, if you don’t mind,’ Hillary said, careful to pitch her voice clearly and a shade more loudly than she would otherwise do. Although she couldn’t see her witness wearing a hearing aid, she assumed that his hearing probably wasn’t the best. ‘Felix was a very talented man, I understand?’ she began with a carefully innocuous question.

  Gordon Olliphant surprised her by smiling slightly. ‘I wouldn’t know. I was never what you might call arty myself. My wife was, and she said Gordon had “the eye”, whatever that meant. Myself, give me a ledger sheet or a business plan any day.’

  Hillary smiled. ‘But his company, Olligree Interiors, did well, I understand?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Gordon said, with evident satisfaction. ‘I may not have understood the company product, so to speak, but his spreadsheets were always satisfactory.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘He was an only child?’

  ‘Yes. My wife couldn’t have more. It was a surprise when she had Felix – she was in her forties, you see, and we’d given up expecting … well, expecting!’

  Hillary smiled dutifully at the pun. ‘It must have been a wonderful time when he was little. Alas, they grow up so quickly, don’t they?’ she led him on gently.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You must have wished he’d got married and had grandchildren. That would have been a comfort when the worst happened,’ she continued.

  ‘Yes. It might have saved Alice if he had. Given her something to live for, that is. But after the boy died, all the life just went out of her,’ he said simply.

  Hillary nodded sympathetically. ‘He had a girlfriend at the time though. Was that serious?’

  ‘Don’t know. Might have been. But Alice always said that she was far more keen than our Felix, and that nothing would have come of it. Alice knew stuff like that. Women do, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hillary agreed simply. In her experience, they usually did. ‘So Felix wasn’t in any hurry to settle down then?’

  ‘No. My generation, by the time we were thirty, we’d been married for a good few years already, with children well on the way. But nowadays, it seems, things are different. If the youngsters bother to get married at all, that is.’

  Hillary nodded. There was no easy way to ask the next question, and now that she had the measure of her man, she wasn’t sure that too much delicacy was even needed. Gordon Olliphant struck her as the kind of man who would call a spade a spade. But you never knew. Although he seemed comfortable enough talking about his dead son, and time had clearly helped soften the edges of the worst of his grief, appearances could be deceptive.

  It was probably just best to get it out there and see what reaction she got, Hillary mused, and took a slow breath.

  ‘At the time of the original investigation, it seems that the question arose that Felix might have been in the closet, Mr Olliphant,’ she said calmly, and then wondered if the old man would understand the euphemism. She opened her mouth to further elaborate, but she needn’t have worried for Gordon Olliphant merely waved a hand in the air in a dismissive gesture.

  ‘What, that he was a poofter, you mean?’ Gordon’s face creased into a smile, as did Zoe’s, as she imagined the scandalized reaction from some of her friends at the extremely politically incorrect language.

  You had to hand it to the oldsters! They were fearless.

  ‘Rubbish. Even I would have recognized that, if the boy had been that way inclined,’ Gordon said simply. Then he shrugged. ‘He always had girls hanging around him, ever since he hit puberty.’

  Hillary nodded but didn’t push it. Beside her, she could almost hear Zoe bite back the laughter. Either one of them could have told the old man that having girls buzzing around didn’t necessarily mean anything.

  Hillary decided to change tack slightly. ‘That car accident he had was nasty.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll say.’ Gordon’s face fell slightly and he sighed heavily. ‘It affected him badly, that did. Even though he wasn’t to blame. We told him, Alice and me, over and over again, there was nothing he could have done. It wasn’t his fault that poor little boy died. But he had nightmares for years. And it stopped him drinking as well. Not that he ever was much of a drinker in the first place, mind,’ the old man said flatly, giving them a gimlet glance. ‘Alice and I were always worried about that sort of thing, you see. Drink and drugs and that AIDS thing that was around back then. But in the end, we were lucky. He never got into that sort of trouble, our Felix.’ He sighed again. ‘But he felt things more than most, I have to admit. When he had to go to the funeral of that friend of his, he was upset and down for weeks afterwards. But that was just Felix. He was a good boy.’

  The almost inevitable last sentence made Hillary’s heart ache in a familiar way. How many times had she heard parents say just that about their children – either when she’d just informed them of their death or injury, or after arresting them for causing death or injury to someone else?

  He was a good boy.

  Well, perhaps Felix Olliphant had been. In which case, someone had wanted a good boy dead.

  ‘I’m sure he was, Mr Olliphant,’ she said gently. ‘Do you have any idea who may have wanted to kill him?’

  Gordon Olliphant seemed to shrink in his chair, and suddenly looked every minute of his age. ‘I wish I did,’ he said heavily. ‘And don’t think I haven’t wondered about it, every day. But Felix just wasn’t the kind to make enemies. Oh, I know what you’re thinking,’ the old man said, rallying a little and shooting them a rueful smile. ‘I bet you hear it all the time. But Felix really wasn’t the sort to get into fights or cause aggravation. He was a talker not a doer. He liked to see the best in things. His job was typical of him – he liked to make dull things beautiful. He was always reading as a lad, couldn’t play football to save his life. He used to sit drawing for hours. If his friends started arguing, he’d be the peace-maker, you know?’

  Hillary thought she did. Already a picture of their murder victim was beginning to form in her mind. Of course, as they spoke to others who knew him, that picture would be added to, and shift in focus. But slowly, Felix Olliphant would be resurrected, and then they might have a chance of finding out who needed to kill him. And why.

  Hillary talked to Gordon Olliphant for another hour or so, smiling over the photo albums he produced and discussing different aspects of his son’s life. Inevitably, most of Gordon’s insights had centred around his early years – his boyhood and teens. The more adult he grew, the less Gordon knew about his son, which was only natural. When he left home at eighteen to go to uni, contact became even less, and when he started his own business and bought his own home, the contact became even more sporadic still.

  So although he’d been a dutiful son, coming back once a month for Sunday lunch, and never forgetting Mother’s or Father’s Day, family anniversaries or Christmas, it became clear that Gordon hadn’t known much about what was going on in his son’s life by the time he died. Eventually, they thanked him and left him in peace.

  Outside, Zoe was unusually quiet as they walked back towards her car and Hillary could easily guess why. She slipped into the passenger seat and watched Zoe start the ignition.

  ‘He was a nice old boy, wasn’t he?’ Hillary said calmly, as she buckled up her seatbelt.
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br />   ‘Yeah, he was,’ Zoe agreed, sounding subdued. ‘He reminds me a bit of my own granddad.’

  ‘And he loved his son. And his wife.’

  ‘Yeah, you could tell.’

  ‘And it’s suddenly hit you that his life was torn apart by what happened,’ Hillary said softly. ‘That nice old man, and his wife, who clearly doted on them both. Their world was shattered when someone stabbed Felix to death that night.’

  Zoe bit her lip, then burst out, ‘I really want to get the sod that did it!’

  Hillary grinned and nodded approvingly. ‘Now you’re thinking like a copper,’ she said with deliberately bracing cheerfulness.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Hillary and Zoe got back to HQ at lunchtime. As they descended the stairs Hillary glanced at her watch and nodded to herself. It was time to start drawing her worker bees into a cohesive unit, which meant just one thing.

  It was time for a team pint.

  ‘Why don’t we all go down to the Black Bull?’ she asked, once she and Zoe had negotiated the bowels of the labyrinth and were back at the main office.

  She saw Jimmy glance up with a quick grin. ‘You know me, guv, never say no to a lunchtime pint and pie. Whose treat is it?’ he added cannily.

  Hillary grinned. ‘The kitty’s. I’ll take it out of petty cash.’

  She saw the Boy Wonder open his mouth and then close it again without speaking, and guessed that he’d been about to offer to pay and then had second thoughts. She tucked away that particular snippet for later thought. Did people who were rich perpetually feel obliged to pick up the tab? And if so, why had Jake Barnes fought the impulse?

  ‘Right, then. Sam?’ She glanced at the sandy-haired lad, who was still poring over his keyboard. Before the freckle-faced youngster could enthusiastically consent, Jimmy quickly put his oar in.

  ‘Sam’s up to his eyeballs in some research for me,’ he said, clearly guessing that Hillary wanted to spend some time getting to know her new team members, and neatly paving the way.

  Sam groaned but good-naturedly nodded when Jimmy promised to bring him back a pork pie and pickled onion if he were good, then grinned at Zoe when she crossed her eyes at him.

  The Black Bull was a pub close enough to reach easily but not so popular with the police at HQ that it could be considered strictly a hangout for coppers. In the week, it wasn’t that crowded, and Jimmy was easily able to get their orders in while Hillary nabbed a large table next to a somewhat grimy window with an uninspiring view of Kidlington’s main street.

  ‘So, how’s it feel to be working your first case, Jake?’ Hillary asked, once their food had been deposited on the table.

  Jake shrugged. He was wearing a light fawn pair of slacks with a matching sports jacket, and a plain white open-necked shirt. He wore no jewellery of any kind, not even a watch. But his shoes, Hillary bet, had been handmade in Northampton, and the cologne he was wearing probably sold for some three-figure sum by the ounce.

  ‘It’s early days yet, guv, but it’s exciting, of course,’ he replied cautiously.

  Zoe nodded, and gulped at her virgin bloody Mary. ‘I’ll say.’ She went on to expound, at some length, about her first interview experience. Hillary saw Jimmy fighting back a smile in the face of such eager enthusiasm, and let her wind down before continuing her own agenda.

  ‘As you can see, Zoe’s all in favour of field experience, so I think it’s time we got you out of the office as well,’ Hillary said to Jake, sipping at her own lemon and lime and eyeing her Ploughman’s without much enthusiasm. ‘I thought we’d start with some of the victim’s friends. Try and build up a general picture of our murder victim.’ She’d made sure that Jake Barnes had brought his own car to the pub since she’d always intended to leave with him, and send Zoe back to HQ in Jimmy’s car, with orders to write up their notes on the Gordon Olliphant interview.

  ‘Sounds reasonable to me, guv,’ Jake agreed amiably. He was no mug, and knew when he was being sounded out. And it was important that he didn’t blow it.

  ‘I read from your file that you’re recently divorced,’ Hillary said matter-of-factly. ‘Everything all right on that front, is it?’

  Subtlety was a tool she could handle as deftly as she chose, but there were times when only plain speaking would do. Besides, she wanted to see how the Boy Wonder handled a full-frontal assault.

  Jimmy, a little surprised by the suddenness of the attack, paused with his beer glass halfway to his lips, then glanced at Jake, realizing that the guv’nor was testing his mettle. And he was rather curious himself to see how someone who must have been used to calling the shots took to being forced into a secondary role. A man as rich as Barnes surely wasn’t forced on the defensive very often.

  Jake met Hillary’s mild glance with a meaningless smile. ‘Things between the ex and me are fine, guv. Tasha owns her own travel agency. I helped her set it up but I didn’t mind her getting it in the settlement. We still see each other from time to time.’ He paused and took a sip of his diet coke. ‘I’m not saying we’re still friends, exactly, but we’re not enemies either.’

  He thought for a moment of Natasha, and the moment he’d first set eyes on her when he’d been a young and know-nothing 20-year-old. Tall, cool, blonde, a keep fit fanatic like himself, they’d jogged the same route through Oxford’s parks. He’d been intimidated by her beauty at first, and then later spellbound by her physical passion. They’d married a few months after his business had had its first major success.

  They’d bought a flat together in the centre of Oxford with a stunning view of Keble College and the park – one of those large lofty Victorian house conversions, and had partied long and hard for nearly a year before settling down.

  Jake had assumed they’d have children after a year or two, but Natasha, unbeknownst to him, had always had other ideas. When she’d said she wanted to run her own business, a keep fit gym, perhaps, or a travel agency, he hadn’t thought twice about it. His company was raking it in in those early days and a quick scan of the markets made it clear that whilst a gym might not be very economically viable, a travel agency certainly was.

  And when Tasha had put her heart and soul into it, finally taking over full control and building it up, Jake had been happy, because it had made her happy.

  It was only when he began to mention that, at twenty-five, it was a good time to start thinking about having a family, that the cracks finally began to show.

  Now he made sure his face was bland as he sipped his drink and met the calm, beautiful sherry-coloured eyes of his new boss. He wasn’t fooled for one instant by the gentle, questioning look on her face.

  ‘The divorce was amicable enough in the end, guv,’ he told her truthfully. ‘Well, as amicable as things can be with two sets of lawyers involved,’ he added, and Jimmy grunted a laugh.

  ‘So why did you decide you wanted to join the police?’ Hillary asked flat out. ‘I would have thought a young guy like you, footloose and fancy free, with plenty of readies to spend, the world was your oyster.’

  Jake smiled and again sipped his coke calmly, forcing himself to relax. So, she wasn’t altogether buying his altruism act. He wasn’t particularly surprised – someone as sharp as she was, she’d never take things at face value. And if he showed any sign of tension now, he knew she’d be on it like a flash.

  He’d researched Hillary Greene thoroughly before applying to the CRT, and after meeting the formidable lady herself, he was not about to underestimate her one damned millimetre.

  ‘Like I told Commander Donleavy, guv, I wanted to do something useful with my life. My business was—’ And here he shrugged ‘—well, almost a fluke really. It was when the dot com boom was just taking off. Me and two pals came up with this idea that just happened to work. I think I must have always known it was too good to be true because I quickly sold out when the money became silly – I mean, ten million for a business that had only been going six months?’ Again he shrugged. ‘Anyway, I let my pals buy me
out, and barely a month later—’ He spread his hands ‘—the bubble burst.’

  ‘They must have loved you,’ Zoe snorted over her tomato juice.

  Jake sighed. ‘Not really. I mean, yeah, sure, it must have smarted, but they couldn’t really blame any of it on me. It wasn’t my fault it was all so fleeting. Nobody could have predicted it; it was just a fluke, like I said.’

  ‘You must have had some reason for opting out the moment the going got good, though,’ Hillary said, careful to keep her voice neutral.

  Jake realized that she simply wasn’t going to let it go, and reluctantly sacrificed a little bit of his precious privacy to keep her sweet.

  ‘I suppose it was just my pessimism showing, guv,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘I grew up on one of the big council housing estates in Banbury. My dad died when I was five, and my mum married again. Curtis, my stepfather, was great, and his daughter, my stepsister Jasmine, was three at the time. But times were always hard – Curtis was always in work but even so it was never easy. We never went on holiday, for instance, until Jas was ten. I got a part-time job during the summer holidays the moment I hit thirteen. Mum used to go around the supermarkets looking for the cheapest prices, buying the home brands because they were cheaper, stuff like that.’

  Zoe began to mime playing a violin, and Jake grinned at her.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m just trying to explain it like it was,’ he said defensively. ‘Anyway, me and my mates set up this business almost as a bit of a laugh really, but when it became deadly serious, with real money involved … I dunno.’ Jake shrugged. ‘Things changed.’

  ‘I think I get it,’ Hillary said, nodding slowly. ‘You were suddenly worth, literally, millions, at least in theory, and you didn’t trust it enough not to cut and run?’

  Jake drew in a sharp breath. Bloody hell, she was quick. He was going to have watch his step around her and no mistake.