through his hair and grinned. “I’ve met the lady in question, albeit briefly. I can fully understand Matt’s reticence. I think she’s a domineering and aggressive bitch! But he’s a lawyer and he may put it more nicely than I would. But isolating the keys is always a wise precaution.”
Before meeting Richard Bilston the following Monday, Ruddock referred to the file, and found that the name of the cleaner was Mrs Salmon, she lived in Pennington village and she had been attending the property for some years. By chance Ruddock waylaid Pelham in the corridor on the Friday afternoon and asked him the question.
“Mrs Salmon,” mused Pelham, giving a sidelong glance at his watch which denoted that he was late for his usual Friday afternoon appointment - a golf date with a solicitor from a rival firm. “What about Mrs Salmon?”
“You mentioned once that you had reservations about her,” said Ruddock uneasily. “Was there anything specific?”
Pelham gave a wry smile.
“Yes and no. I met her a few times, I just had a feeling. She seemed … well… possessive…no …that’s not the right word…proprietary, as if she owned the place.”
“You mean, there could have been something going on?”
“Good God no! Nothing like that!” The idea seemed to amuse Pelham. “I felt she was …well…! Overbearing and …hmmm! Maybe untrustworthy. Put it this way, I wouldn’t leave my wallet lying around when she was in the vicinity…don’t quote me on that!”
“Oh!” Ruddock grimaced. “I think I get the picture.”
“When are you going to the house?”
“Next Monday. I’m going with Richard.”
“Good. Keep me informed.”
Chapter 2
Ruddock parked his car in the Billacc car park, entered the offices and was directed to Richard’s office. Richard was dictating a letter into his computer terminal and waved Ruddock to a chair. He finally laid down the dictaphone and leaned forward.
“You want a coffee before we go?”
Ruddock shook his head.
“Not for me,” he said. “I had one before I left the office.”
Richard picked up his brief case and led the way out into the car park where his car was parked. They got into the car and Richard pulled out into the traffic.
The trip to Pennington took a few hours, conversation was easy as they knew each other quite well. They were both much the same age and both were married with children approaching early teenage. They were also both keen football followers, Richard was a Chelsea man while Ruddock followed the Arsenal so football talk took up most of the journey. They had about half an hour to go before they touched upon the subject of their quest.
“Why did John never make a will?” asked Richard.
“I was hoping you could tell me that,” said Ruddock. “I find it quite incredible that a man of such wealth could make no provision whatsoever for the disposal of his estate. Let’s face it, none of us are immortal.”
“It’s strange that he never mentioned anything about his family at all,” said Richard. “He was married of course, but he married late and that was Evelyn Pritchard, from our own organisation. That is where they met, and they never had any children.”
“Did he have any family at all?”
“I never heard of any, he was a very private man, never said anything about any family, we never knew where he was born or anything about him. He and my father hit it off when they met, they found they had a common aim, and they joined up in a partnership.”
“That was in Leicester, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. My father was running a small business from a garage at the time, dealing mainly with repairs of small office machinery and the like. I believe John Accrington turned up originally as a repair man, but he clearly had a penchant for sales and administration.”
“Office machinery?”
“That’s how my father started, as computers entered the market many of the old office machines began to disappear, and IBM for one pulled out of typewriters altogether,” said Richard. “Dad took on John and they later became partners, I believe John had some money which he invested in the business at the time, and as time progressed they moved completely into computers and later into software.”
“Where did John come from?”
“I don’t know, maybe my father knew, but it was a subject that never came up between me and John. Maybe I should have asked, but I found him to be a somewhat forbidding character, difficult to approach at times. I talked business with him of course, but in the every day round of business discussions I never got around to anything else. Maybe I should have, I might have got to know him better.”
They reached the village of Pennington and travelled slowly up the main street. Ruddock was struck by the old gabled appearance of so many of the village buildings and felt as if he had gone back in time about 400 years.
“Nice place to live,” remarked Ruddock.
“Very rustic, and very historic, that building over there was apparently built in the 1400’s,” said Richard Bilston, indicating a black and white building. “That one over there. . ” he pointed over to the left “…was used as a Roundhead headquarters during the Civil War. The pub has been standing for over 400 years, and parts of the church are said to have been in existence before William the Conqueror arrived.”
“He certainly selected a beautiful place to live.”
“And a secluded one,” grunted Richard. “It’s almost a throw back several hundred years, though there are a few new houses appearing here and there, while the railway station is about half a mile away. It’s handy for commuting, but much of the land is private estates and farm land, landed gentry and all that, which prevents too much development.”
“Maybe that’s why Accrington preferred to extend his house sooner than look for a larger one.”
“Very likely.”
Eventually they espied the lane that led to Accrington’s house. The residence was tucked away behind trees, they entered the drive after opening the main gate and proceeded cautiously. The drive was surfaced with gravel, and was lined with small trees. The building came into view and Richard drew up in front of it.
The house was quite impressive, the facade had a couple of gables and the front door was situated in the middle of the frontage with a covered porch.
“The frontage was - or is - the original house,” explained Richard after they had alighted and were both leaning on the car roof. He proceeded to give a description of the house and its recent history as far as he knew it. Apparently it was originally erected in the late 1700’s. When Accrington extended it he added onto the rear, which was a local authority requirement who stipulated that the frontage was to remain as it was - a question of maintaining the local architecture. The council were also very particular about the design and materials used for whatever was erected on
