The Suicidal Solicitor: The Danzig and Hare Murder Mysteries, #3

By Roger Butters

The Suicidal Solicitor

A third case for chess-playing sleuth Jim Danzig, of Castletown, and his partner in both senses of the word, Judith Hare. Local solicitor, millionaire and social climber Stuart Brooksbank, faced with imminent disgrace and financial ruin, has committed suicide. Or has he? His widow and son seem convinced that his death was murder.

A sceptical Danzig agrees to make enquiry, in the course of which he soon encounters an undoubted murder, not to mention an unsuccessful attempt to strangle the deceased's widow. With little time or ability for modern technology, he sets about solving the mystery by his usual oldfashioned methods: logic, making a nuisance of himself, and a fair amount of luck, plus as ever information provided by his police friend and informant D.C. Nobby Clarke.

A punch-up with one of the main suspects, taking part in a shambolic Old Boys' cricket match, and attending a wicca ceremony are all part of the job. At the end, Danzig and Hare as usual emerge triumphant, and a psychopathic murderer is brought to book.

Approx. 61,000 words

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roger Butters
• Release date: Nov 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393257752

Roger Butters

Roger Butters is a native of Stafford, where he still lives. At various times, he has tried his hand at aviation, owning racehorses, and Shotokan Karate. Altogether he has published over a dozen novels.

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Roger Butters

Copyright © 2019 Roger Butters.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of research or private study, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, with the prior permission of the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN 9781787234307

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

In Memory of the real ‘Gabby’ Hayes

(B.P. Hayes, M.A. Oxon., 1928-2009)

A Great Schoolmaster

Principal Characters

Jim Danzig, myself, enquiry agent

Judith Hare, my partner

Richard Mantle, solicitor

Scholtz van der Wyk, pathologist

Cynara Cross, new-age therapist

Malcolm Lockwood, Det. Superintendent )    Midshire

John Tilson, Det. Inspector      )     CID

Robert ‘Nobby’ Clarke, Det. Constable   )

Carole Brooksbank, widow of Stuart Brooksbank, solicitor

Vince Brooksbank  )  her stepsons

Michael Brooksbank ) 

Margaret (Maj) Tyler, her sister, life coach

George (‘Gabby’) Hayes, lecturer in mathematics, Maj’s boyfriend

Trish Plummer, Stuart Brooksbank’s secretary

Barrington Plummer, her husband

Wallace Enderby, Brooksbank’s accountant

Royston Northage, book publisher

Harry Stafford, shareholder in Northage’s company

Terence Flello, Brooksbank’s neighbour  

Grace Flello, his wife

Grant Alderson, heath ranger

Francis Carne, school teacher

John Lipman, bookshop manager

Rex Wainwright, captain of Castletown School Old Boys Cricket XI

Simon Roberts, his vice-captain

Norman Vance, one of Brooksbank’s clients

Sheila Vance, his wife

Kevin Randall, a maths student

Dawn, hotel receptionist

I

IT was about a quarter to ten that morning when the phone rang. I’d read what post there was, and was poking about trying to come to terms with the new computer. I’m a long way from the cutting edge of modern technology. I decided I’d use it for research on the Web, word processing, the occasional email, and that’d be about it. So far as I’m concerned accounts belong in ledgers, not spreadsheets. As for files, discs and memory sticks are for back-up only. The real things are made out of paper, or hard copy as they seem to call it nowadays. I’ve an office in the new suite of business premises in the Riverdale Centre, half a mile south of the centre of Castletown. My name’s Danzig. I’m an enquiry agent.

I lifted the receiver. ‘Mr Mantle on the line for you, Mr Danzig.’

Solicitor. Over the years he’s referred more work to me than anyone else. Not only for that reason he probably ranks as my best friend, though on the whole I’m not a man who finds close friendship easy. ‘Okay, Cheryl, put him through.’

‘Hello, Jim. Wonder if you can help a client of mine.’

‘Glad to, if I can.’

‘I’d better make it clear though, she’ll be instructing you direct.’

In other words I’d have to look to her for my fees, not him. Presumably she was with him, or he’d have said so in so many words.

‘Well, I’ve been warned. What’s her name?’

‘Carole Brooksbank. Stuart Brooksbank’s widow. She’s here with me. I expect you know the case.’

If not, I’d have been the only man in Castletown who didn’t. Stuart Brooksbank, solicitor, had been a past President of the Castletown Law Society, Vice-chairman of the local Conservative Association, and Chairman of the Parish Council at Milton, the village where he lived, five miles out of town. For good measure he was also Chairman of the Round Table, a patron of Warwickshire Cricket Club, and a life member of the Castletown Golf Club, that’s the posh one at Milton Hall, not the plebbish affair at Princeton Hill. At various times he’d been on the board of Castletown Rovers Football Club and the committee of the Operatic Society, and was a director of a publishing company specializing in works on local history. In fact it was hard to find a local activity in which he hadn’t been involved at some time or other.

He lived in a one-and-a-half-million-pound mansion on the edge of Milton village. A similar place in the Home Counties would have set you back three times that amount. He owned a holiday home in the Algarves, kept a yacht at Cowes which he seldom used, drove a Porsche 912 and a giant station wagon, attended Ascot every year (the royal enclosure, naturally), was a personal friend of many of the great and the good, and involved, if rather superficially, with various charitable causes, particularly fashionable ones. Recently he’d been into global warming, albeit that his own lifestyle must have left a bigger carbon footprint than most. In short, a relentless self-publicist, whose photograph appeared in the Castletown Chronicle in some capacity almost every week, often accompanied by his glamorous young second wife, whose name I couldn’t have told you offhand, but evidently it must have been Carole.

Last Easter he’d topped himself. Exhaust fumes, the traditional form of gas poisoning since domestic supplies became less toxic. Brooksbank had made sure. His wife and son being away, there was little chance of being interrupted. He’d sealed the doors to his garage, fixed a tube to the car exhaust, and stuffed it through the driver’s window. Then he’d got in and started the engine. Surprisingly for a man with so many acquaintances and commitments, his body hadn’t been found for over a week. It isn’t only recluses and dossers who aren’t missed when they die.

His death had opened up a huge Pandora’s box, or to put it more bluntly, the fertilizer had well and truly hit the fan. His lifestyle had been far beyond that normally to be expected of even the most successful country solicitor, and it seemed that much of his wealth had come from spread betting and commodity futures. What had originally been the road to riches ultimately became that to ruin. Rather than quit while he was ahead, he’d tried pyramid trading, effectively betting more heavily the more he’d won. Again he’d been successful at first. Then he’d become less successful. Then much less successful. Then he’d started using clients’ money to bale himself out. But he’d continued to lose. Following a couple of complaints, the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority had launched an investigation. That all this was no more than the tip of an iceberg of reckless fraud seemed beyond doubt. 

If Mantle wanted me to investigate the deceased’s murky financial affairs thoroughly, he’d come to the wrong man. I can read a balance sheet, and keep my own accounts in order, but that’s about all. It wasn’t likely, though. Richard knows what I can do and what I can’t.

‘She’s not entirely satisfied with the inquest verdict,’ he continued.

‘Open, if I remember rightly.’

‘Yes, that’s right. Better than it might have been, I suppose. And there’s a rather puzzling feature about a codicil to his will, but ... anyway, I’ll let her tell you about it when she sees you. Can she make an appointment?’

I considered briefly. ‘I can see her now, if she’s with you.’

I heard him speak to his client, then agree. As I put the phone down I wondered what I’d let myself in for.

II

HALF an hour later Brooksbank’s young widow sat opposite me on one of the chairs I’d recently picked up at a local antique auction. I’d decided on the Dickensian look rather than tubular steel or aluminium. My desk was of similar vintage. ‘A.T. Danzig & Co., Private Enquiry Agents’ it announced on the window behind her, in mirror writing. Not a bad free advertisement, looking out as it did over the main Hampton Road. I’d just had it altered. My partner in both senses of the word, Judith Hare, was the ‘& Co.’

Previously I’d only seen Carole Brooksbank in photographs, usually attending glitzy social functions. In person she was less glamorous than I’d expected. She was tall and willowy, which I dare say is fashionable, but has never been to my taste. Her complexion was pale rather than fair, her blonde hair pulled back from her forehead into a sort of ponytail-cum-bun. She was severely dressed in a black business suit, and wasn’t wearing makeup, which gave her the washed-out appearance that those women who usually wear tons of the stuff tend to get when deprived of it. She sat twisting her hands in her lap. Indeed her whole manner was nervous and fidgety, which I put down partly to the distress of losing her husband, mostly to the subsequent disclosure of the state of his financial affairs.

‘It’s good of you to see me so soon, Mr Danzig,’ she said. She had a reedy, rather nondescript voice. As the conversation progressed I noticed that when she remembered she used the long ‘a’ sound in words like ‘pass’ and ‘bath,’ which isn’t the way most people speak naturally until until you’re thirty or forty miles further south.

‘Not at all. I hope I can help.’ Judy had shown her in, and stood hovering. ‘Do you mind if my associate, Miss Hare, sits in and takes some notes? She does shorthand, and I’m not a great fan of recording machines.’

‘No, that’s all right.’

Judy sat in a corner next to the filing cabinet, took out her reporter’s notebook, crossed her legs and pushed back her tousled red mane. Once she was installed, I asked: ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’m Stuart Brooksbank’s widow?’

I can’t stand the so-called Australian interrogative. Why people have to raise the pitch of their voice at the end of an indicative sentence, as if there’s an unspoken question, is quite beyond me. It’s contrary to all the rules of English or any other language that I’m aware of.

I just said: ‘So Mr Mantle told me.’

‘I think he also told you I wasn’t satisfied with the inquest verdict on my husband.’

‘Open, if I remember rightly.’

‘Yes. The coroner said that there were one or two puzzling features, and that an open verdict seemed best in the circumstances.’

That didn’t surprise me. The local coroner, Kenneth Hart-Miller, was inclined to give the deceased the benefit of the doubt in cases of suicide, in a rather old-fashioned attempt to spare relatives’ feelings. ‘What verdict would you have preferred?’

She shifted in her seat and pressed her lips together. Then she glanced around like a character in an old film noir, and leant forward earnestly. ‘Mr Danzig, I believe my husband may have been murdered.’

I suppose that’s what I should have expected. The facts of the case as reported had seemed to rule out any question of accident. Not that murder seemed in the least likely either. ‘What makes you think that?’

‘Two things really. First, there was no note.’ She paused. I decided to make the obvious comment.

‘There isn’t always. I expect the police have told you that.’

‘I know, I know, but I think Stuart would have left one somehow. And then there was the bruising.’

That was a different matter. ‘Bruising?’

‘Yes. There were some bruises to his face, and the back of his head. The pathologist said they were superficial, but I thought they needed explaining.’

So did I. ‘Who was the pathologist?’

‘I can’t remember the name. It sounded foreign.’

‘Van der Wyk?’

‘Yes, that’s it.’

Scholtz van der Wyk is one of the few totally competent professional men I know. If he thought the bruising wasn’t important it probably wasn’t. ‘I’ll have a word with him. What did the coroner say about it?’

‘He said he thought there was enough doubt to justify an open verdict. But the police are convinced it’s suicide.’

‘And you don’t agree?’

‘Well, I’m not convinced. But I’d better be honest, Mr Danzig. As I’m sure you know, my husband was in financial difficulties. But his life was quite heavily insured. The insurers say it was suicide, and won’t pay. So I suppose you might say I’ve an axe to grind.’

‘Insured for how much?’

‘A hundred and twenty thousand pounds. Not a lot of money to Stuart, at least until the end, but as things have turned out it might just make the difference between whether his estate is solvent or not.’

It was a lot of money to me, anyway. ‘I see. May I ask who inherits?’

‘The house goes to me - I’m joint owner already - together with a third of the residue. Michael, that’s my stepson, gets two-thirds.’

‘Is he your husband’s only child?’

‘No. There’s an older son, Vince. I’ve only met him once. He lives abroad. He and his father are estranged. We – Michael and I, that is - tried to trace him at the time of the funeral, but we couldn’t. The last we heard he was in New Zealand.’ After a short pause she continued: ‘There’s something else I ought to tell you about the will. Stuart made a codicil to it shortly before his death.’

I recalled that Mantle had said something of the sort. ‘I suppose it didn’t give any indication that he intended to take his own life?’

‘I really don’t know. It hasn’t come to light.’

‘That sounds a bit odd, certainly. How do you know it exists, then?’

‘Soon after I got back home - I’d been spending a few days with my sister - our neighbours, a Mr and Mrs Flello, came round to offer their condolences. They mentioned that Stuart had called in on them on Good Friday, and asked ... them to witness it.’ She’d remembered to say ‘ahfter,’ but when it came to ‘asked’ she forgot. She nearly made the mistake of trying to retrieve it, but rightly decided that this would merely draw attention to her error.

‘And they don’t know the contents?’

‘No, that’s right.’

‘I assume you’ve looked for it?’

‘Yes. Everywhere in the house that I can think of. And I tried his office, of course. And the bank.’

‘Where did your husband keep his will?’

‘In an old deed box at the office, along with those of his clients. But the codicil wasn’t with it.’

‘He hadn’t said anything about intending to alter his will?’

‘No. Nothing at all.’

If it had been a codicil rather than a new will, it was unlikely to have contained any drastic change. Curious, nevertheless. ‘Is it causing any problems regarding probate?’

‘Mr Mantle says it might. His advice is to apply for probate in the usual way, but include an affidavit explaining the position about the codicil, and give an undertaking to submit it for probate if it’s ever found. We’re not in a position to apply yet, anyway.’

Presumably the deceased’s affairs were in such a mess it’d take quite a while. ‘Who are the executors?’

‘Myself and my husband’s brother, Alan. Unfortunately ...’ She hesitated again. ‘Alan’s a few years older than Stuart, about sixty-five I think, and his wife says that over the last couple of years he’s been showing signs of Alzheimer’s or something similar. So that may cause additional problems.’

‘Why did your husband appoint him, then?’

‘He made the will four years ago, when we were first married. At the time Alan was all right. Not that he and Stuart were ever particularly close. I think he made him executor because he hadn’t much choice. He’d fallen out with Vince, Mike wasn’t yet of age, and he didn’t want the people at his office knowing his business, even after his death. And of course banks and trustee companies charge the earth.’

‘How old is Michael now?’

‘Twenty-one.’

‘So it’s possible the codicil simply appointed him as the second executor in place of your husband’s brother.’

‘Yes, that occurred to me. I suppose it’s the likeliest thing.’

‘Well, the legal position doesn’t concern me directly, of course. Let’s get back to things I know something about. To be frank, from what I’ve read of the case, there’s a clear motive for suicide. Can you suggest one for murder?’

‘I expect my husband had made some enemies in his business dealings. But I don’t know any details. He never confided in me about such things.’

It occurred to me that some of his clients must have been feeling pretty murderous, for a start. Aloud I said: ‘No-one in particular you can suggest?’

She paused for thought, and shifted one of my paperweights aimlessly. I noticed that her nails were a mess. ‘Well, now you mention it, there is one person. But I really can’t believe he’d go as far as murder.’

‘Go on.’

‘Stuart had an old school friend called Northage - Royston Northage. They’d stayed in touch all their lives, despite the fact that Roy used to travel about the world a good deal, whereas Stuart stayed put. Roy was a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, but this last ten years or so he’d returned to Castletown and set up a small publishing company specializing in local history. He started with Castletown, but then extended his operations to cover other towns in the county. He’d even published one or two books of places farther afield. Photographs of mediaeval remains, old maps and pictures, personal reminiscences from elderly people, royal visits throughout the ages, you know the sort of thing.’ I nodded. ‘I think he made a reasonable living, but nothing special. Stuart was a director, and had provided some of the capital he’d needed to set up the business, but he was more or less a sleeping partner. Roy made all the decisions.’

‘From what I know of your husband,’ I ventured, ‘that doesn’t sound much like him.’

‘Not as a rule, no. He was very much a hands-on sort of person. But with Roy Northage it was different. Stuart had known him all his life, the whole business was very small-scale by his standards, and he wasn’t all that interested. It was more of a friendship thing than anything else. As I say, his financial commitment was quite small, so