DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 2 by Phillip Strang

Author:Phillip Strang [Strang, Phillip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-04-09T22:00:00+00:00

***

A wrought-iron gate, firmly closed, prevented Wendy from progressing. To her right, an intercom. She pressed the button, a voice with a Yorkshire accent answering.

‘I’ve come to see Amelia Bentham,’ Wendy said.

‘Is she expecting you?’ the voice said.

‘Yes. I’m Sergeant Wendy Gladstone, Homicide, Challis Street, London.’

‘Drive to the front of the house and ring the bell. I’ll open it for you, show you the way.’

The remotely-controlled gates swung open. Wendy put her car into gear and drove the hundred yards up to the front of a Georgian mansion.

Amelia had said that her parents were titled, but she had never said they were exceptionally wealthy.

The door to the house opened, a man in his fifties, dressed in a blue suit, stood there. ‘His Lordship will greet you in the drawing room,’ he said.

Wendy had never heard a Yorkshire accent spoken with the haughtiness that the butler imparted. To her, it was odd.

In the drawing room, larger than Wendy’s house, she looked around. The room had an aura of old-world wealth, the peasants toiling in the fields, the squire cavalierly dispensing his orders with no concern as to who was inconvenienced or who it hurt. On the wall, a Rembrandt, a Van Gogh, even a Picasso, but it looked out of place.

‘The most valuable in the room,’ said a voice from behind her. Wendy looked around to see a man well over sixty, closing in on seventy. He was dressed casually.

‘I’m Lord Bentham,’ the man said, extending his hand to shake Wendy’s, a bear-like grip.

‘Sergeant Wendy Gladstone.’

‘Yes, I know. Amelia said that you looked after her after she had discovered the body. Why was she in the house in the first place?’

‘She had a key. If I’d entered without her, I would have needed a search warrant.’

‘Surely you would have required one anyway.’

‘Debatable. The woman’s brother was dead, and we’d just found out about his sister. She had not been seen for a few days. Amelia helped us out.’

‘Explanation accepted. Please take a seat, Sergeant.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘Geoffrey’s the name. The title comes in handy, and so do the privileges, but apart from that we’re simple folk.’

‘I doubt that, Geoffrey,’ Wendy said. ‘Not with all this,’ she said, as she looked around the room.

‘You don’t approve?’

‘It’s not the way I was brought up.’

‘Honesty’s the best policy. Amelia has some issues, as well. Picked them up from the school we sent her to. Education for the nobility on the promotional blurb.’

‘It wasn’t?’

‘I could have had them for false advertising. A hotbed of revolution, rich children sponging off their parents, idealising about the inequalities in society.’

‘Not that they were willing to divide their share.’

‘That’s the problem, Sergeant. You and I understand, both worked hard over the years, made a contribution.’

‘Have you?’

‘I inherited this pile from my father, a waster of the first order: gambler, philanderer, risk taker. Left me with nothing, other than a mansion I couldn’t afford to renovate, and his debts. I set up an engineering company with my brother, a garage at the back of a trading estate.

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