John Eider - Not a Very Nice Woman

It was a woman buzzed by the secretary and who brought Grey into her office, calling for coffee to be provided,

‘Raine Rossiter, Inspector. I’m the third generation; and as long as there’s a Rossiter to run the shop we’ll be here on the High Street. Of course I’m married, this is only my professional name; like an actress,’ she giggled in a way Grey might normally have found irritating.

‘I’m afraid it’s sad news that brings me here.’

‘As is so often the case.’ Her mood changed in an instant. ‘A will, a loved one — people rarely visit us out of joy.’

‘Not sad for me personally, but thank you.’

‘I know, your assistant called ahead.’

‘Then you know about Ms Dunbar.’

‘Stella, dead.’ She shook her head.

‘I’m afraid so.’

Who could imagine?’

‘How were you told?’

‘Rachel called me this morning.’

‘Now, you represent Ms Dunbar and the Trust?’

‘My father is the Trust’s named solicitor, but I do the day-to-day work around here now. But,’ her mood changed again, ‘a death at the Cedars doesn’t normally bring out an Inspector.’

‘I’m afraid it was no natural death. Stella was murdered.’

At that moment the receptionist brought in the coffee.

‘Oh Andrea, you won’t believe what the Inspector’s come about.’ Raine Rossiter turned quickly to Grey, ‘You don’t mind if I tell her..? Andrea, Stella Dunbar’s death wasn’t natural, she’s been murdered.’

Andrea’s reaction was no less dramatic than her employer’s; who instructed,

‘Call Rachel for me, will you, and tell her I’ll call myself as soon as I’m finished with the Inspector.’

Andrea disappeared leaving the coffee unserved.

Grey resumed, ‘There are certain details of the Trust I must know.’

‘They’re happy for you to know?’

‘They know it’s a murder investigation.’

‘There are several files — where should we start?’

‘The Trustees?’

She took a card folder from a filing tray in her desk, the tray presumably for those papers she needing keeping handy, opened the folder and read,

‘The Cedars Trust, registered sixteen years ago; with Ms S Dunbar as a Trustee, along with a Mr D Waldron as the only other original one still listed, I notice. There’s a whole inventory of names here, past and present. Do you want them all?’ He nodded and she passed him the paper, ‘Ask Andrea to make you a copy on your way out.’

He read the names, several recorded as long deceased while others were familiar from the day’s enquiries. One name jumped out,

‘Rachel Sowton is a Trustee?’

‘Yes, made so five years ago.’

‘And there’s a name missing here.’ He looked up and down the list again. ‘Charlie Prove.’

‘Charlie’s never been a Trustee,’ she said matter-of-factly.

‘But he should have been made one a decade ago.’

Grey may have phrased this as a statement but would till have liked an answer. None forthcoming, he sidestepped,

‘So tell me, how does the money work?’

‘Well, all residents pay at least five thousand a year into the Trust, depending on need; though apart from the original group only residents who have been there for five years become Trustees and so can decide how that money is spent.’

‘And wasn’t there a one-off fee at the start?’

‘The original eight all put in a one-off fifteen thousand pounds to pay for building work, and also to buy the two downstairs flats they use communally.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, the Trust has for years been paying this back to them a little each year in the form of a subsidy on their fees.’

Grey thought on this a moment,

‘So this makes the repayments a goodwill gesture to themselves, rather than repayments on a loan?’

‘That’s a way of looking at it.’

‘And meaning that if any of them did die before repayment, then there wasn’t going to be a balance of the loan left to pay to their estate?’

‘Yes. They forewent any financial advantage owing to their inheritors, to save the Trust that financial burden of a lump sum required to be paid out upon their death.’

Very clever that, Grey considered of that first Committee.

‘How much of Stella’s was left to pay back to her?’

‘Only a fraction, I’d estimate.’

So there was one potential motive annulled — her death would not benefit the Trust this way.

‘Let’s talk about Stella.’

‘Did you know her, Inspector?’

‘No. How well did you?’

‘I doubt there was a week we weren’t in touch.’

‘In touch with the Trust or with her?’

‘That tends… tended to be the same thing.’

‘You mean she ran things? But I thought there was the Committee?’

But she caught something in his eye as he said this,

‘To ask like that I think you already know how things were run.’

‘Stella had a tendency to supervise?’

‘These are retirees we’re talking about, they’ve had a life of owning businesses and paying bills and they want someone else to take care of all that for them now. What’s more, they want care home service for warden-controlled prices. Okay, they own their own flats, which aren’t cheap either, but someone has to run that place to budget.’

‘And that was Stella?’

‘With Rachel, yes.’

‘Was this why Rachel is a Trustee?’

‘She has to be, she’s more than just a employee.’

‘Stella wanted this?’

‘There was no disagreement.’

‘Was there often with Stella’s suggestions?’

The solicitor considered her answer, ‘Some people felt the wrong side of her, I’m sure of it; but as a professional and as a woman making my way in the world, I understood her, Inspector, understood how we must sometimes be tough, even cold to the world.’

‘I’ll need the paperwork of her two flat purchases.’

‘Andrea will have them for you first thing tomorrow; though,’ she checked herself, ‘there was only one purchase, the first flat was willed.’

He wasn’t sure he had been testing her, but it proved she knew her onions. It also got them where he wanted to be going,

‘That was… twenty-four years ago? Not that you’d have been here that long ago.’

‘I’m not sure I should respond to such flattery, Inspector,’ she answered even as her smile confirmed it had been welcomed. ‘That was indeed my father’s era, though I was his trainee by then. He took me everywhere with him, including to her school.’

‘Her school?’

‘Yes, that big place where she worked, I’ll never forget it. We met her in her lunchhour; I don’t think she lived in town at that time.’

‘Had he dealt with Stella before?’

‘I got the impression she was new to him; after all it was the aunt who was the client.’

‘And the family?’

‘There are other Dunbars beside the aunt in the files, though nothing current. We can check that for you. I must say though, you are going back a long way — what on earth do you think was the motive? I mean, that is why you’re asking, isn’t it — to learn why someone killed her?’

‘You can’t think of any more recent reason?’

‘What kind of question’s that?’

‘Well, you saw her manage her finances; quite substantial amounts I’ve learnt.’

‘I assure you, no institution in this town is better run.’

‘And by just two women, three if we include yourself, the Committee little more than a rubber stamp.’

‘I resent that implication.’

‘You were her friend, that is clear enough. Please don’t let sentiment hold you back now.’

‘I assure you, there is nothing to tell, even were I held! I only wish that my friend were allowed the dignified in death she had in life.’