LITMIR.BIZ

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      “I’ve been in the house a few times, I am a fellow director of John Accrington’s,” Richard Bilston explained. ” I paid a few visits to the house after my father died, we had to discuss company policy sometimes over the weekends.”

      “Your father was…?”

      “Kenneth Bilston, the original founder of the company in conjunction with Mr Accrington,” explained Richard.

      “And you have a key?”

      “Yes he does,” Ruddock broke in at this point. “I represent Mr Accrington’s lawyers, we collected all the keys to the property and retained them in our offices. The key that Mr Bilston used is one I gave him to open the front door when we arrived. We were here to search for company papers and any personal papers of the late Mr Accrington.”

      “There are some papers lying on a sofa in the study, did you remove those?”

      “No, they were already there.” said Richard. “They look like company papers to me, but I haven’t had a chance to study them in full yet.”

      “Perhaps you can accompany me into the study Mr Bilston, and you Mr Ruddock, and see if you can assess whether anything else is missing.” said Eddington. “But don’t touch anything.”

      He led the way into the hall and then into the study and invited them to have a look around. Richard did so, and gave a minor double take as he looked at the computer.

      “That should be on the desk, not over there on that small table by the door,” he said. “Somebody has moved it.”

      The Detective Sergeant moved over to look at it more closely, reached out and his hand came up holding the cable and the electric plug.

      “Disconnected,” he remarked. “You’re right. It seems to me that somebody is collecting stuff together ready to move it. Have you any ideas who?”

      They looked at each other, then Ruddock nodded.

      “One other person used to have a key, the lady who did the cleaning here. She’s a local, she lives in the village.”

      “Hmmm!” said Eddington. “We seem to have no signs of forcible entry. That rear door, the French window, was opened from the inside.”

      “I don’t follow that, we sent a messenger down here to collect any keys from those who held them, we’ve got them all at our offices, bar this one that we used today.” said Ruddock.

      “It looks as if there’s another one floating around, that door was definitely opened with a key,” said Eddington. “There’s no sign of any jemmy marks anywhere.”

      “The only key held down here, apart from those held by John Accrington and we’ve got all the ones he had; is the one used by Mrs Salmon.”

      “ Ah! I think we may have to interview the lady in question. Mrs Salmon you say?”

      “Yes, she lives in the village somewhere, I’m not sure where.”

      “In a place this size anybody shouldn’t be too difficult to track down,” said Eddington. “But I have come across Mrs Salmon, I know her husband, not well, but I know him.”

      “We asked about her at the pub,” said Ruddock. “The landlord wasn’t too forthcoming about her.”

      “That would be Fred Barratt, his reticence doesn’t surprise me; she isn’t Fred’s favourite person! I may have a word with him first.” said Eddington. “Leave her to us, gentlemen, I suggest you come back another day, say later in the week. It will give us time to sort things out. I don’t think we’ll be here for too long, hardly the crime of the century, but John Accrington was a well known figure around here.”

      Ruddock nodded gloomily, he wasn’t looking forward to having to allocate another day to visit the village, but it seemed he had no choice.

      “Very well,” he said slowly. “If you consider that’s necessary.”

      “I do,” Eddington replied heavily. “We’ll need to have a good look around, especially in view of the strange circumstances of Mr Accrington’s death.”

      “Are you investigating that?”

      “Not me!” Eddington shook his head. “Two of my colleagues from the Yard are looking into that, they were down here last week poking around. They’ll probably want to know about this.”

      He seemed to realise that perhaps he was saying too much, and snapped his folder shut. They made their way out of the front door, they shook hands and after a brief conversation climbed aboard their vehicle.

      “We’ll give you a call,” said Ruddock.

      Eddington gave them a wave as they drove away.

      Chapter 3

      “Any joy?”

      Pelham and Ruddock approached each other from opposite directions in the street and met outside the door to their building. They entered the foyer and headed for the lifts.

      “Stalemate for the present,” said Ruddock and explained the circumstances of the previous day. He paused as they entered the lift, there were other tenants in it who had come up from the basement car park, they waited until these had exited and then recommenced the conversation as they entered the Fell, Pelham & Drysdale reception area.

      Pelham paused outside his office.

      “An intruder, you say?”

      “It looked that way,” said Ruddock. “Some kitchen chairs were parked in the hallway near the back end, and Richard reckoned some desk ornaments had vanished. There were towels in the hallway too, all neatly stacked in a pile.”

      “Ready for later collection, eh?” Pelham entered his office, Ruddock followed him in.

      “It looked very much like that.”

      “And you say the police are involved?”

      “Yes, a Detective Sergeant named Eddington.”

      “I’ll give him a call this morning,” said Pelham. “But for my money, this sounds like an inside job. From the items that have gone or been piled up, it sounds like that bloody Salmon woman.”

      “But we relieved her of her key, didn’t we?”

      “So bloody what!” snorted Pelham. “She had that key for so damned long she could have run off a hundred duplicates of it. It looks as though we may have to change all the locks to be on the safe side.”

      “Hell!!” said Ruddock. “There were some company files littering the sofa as well in Accrington’s study.”

      “They were probably searching for valuables,” Pelham said as he cocked his head to one side to read a phone message on his desk. “The company files wouldn’t have interested Mrs Salmon - assuming she can read anything other than pound signs! And they would have been wasting their time looking for valuables, John had no time for personal ornamentation, he had a gold wrist watch and that was about it.”

      He pulled his chair out from the desk and eased himself into it.

      “Give me that Detective Sergeant’s card and I’ll call him. I’ll let you know what transpires.” he said. “Any signs of documents cases, deed boxes - did the safe look as if it had been tampered with?”

      “No, nothing like that, though it looks as if a television set has walked.”

      “Hmmm!” Pelham inclined his head to one side. “I know he certainly had a couple of deed boxes, I saw them myself in his study once when we were sorting out the share transfer to the Bilston brothers. One of them was a fixture there by the side of his filing cabinet, but there was another one as well - don’t know where he normally kept that.”

      “No, we didn’t see any deed boxes, unless they’re in the

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