False Diamond - An Abbot Agency Mystery Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Further Titles by Veronica Heley from Severn House

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Further Titles by Veronica Heley from Severn House

  The Ellie Quicke Mysteries

  MURDER AT THE ALTAR

  MURDER BY SUICIDE

  MURDER OF INNOCENCE

  MURDER BY ACCIDENT

  MURDER IN THE GARDEN

  MURDER BY COMMITTEE

  MURDER BY BICYCLE

  MURDER OF IDENTITY

  MURDER IN HOUSE

  MURDER BY MISTAKE

  MURDER MY NEIGHBOUR

  MURDER IN MIND

  MURDER WITH MERCY

  The Bea Abbot Agency mystery series

  FALSE CHARITY

  FALSE PICTURE

  FALSE STEP

  FALSE PRETENCES

  FALSE MONEY

  FALSE REPORT

  FALSE ALARM

  FALSE DIAMOND

  FALSE DIAMOND

  An Abbot Agency Mystery

  Veronica Heley

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain 2013 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  First published in the USA 2014 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of

  110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  eBook edition first published in 2014 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Heley.

  The right of Veronica Heley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Heley, Veronica author.

  False Diamond. – (An Abbot Agency mystery; 8) 1. Abbot, Bea (Fictitious character) – Fiction. 2. London (England) – Fiction. 3. Suicidal behavior – Fiction. 4. Family violence – Fiction. 5. Detective and mystery stories.

  I. Title II. Series

  823.9’14-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-0-72788-298-1 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-484-3 (ePub)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  ONE

  Bea Abbot ran a domestic agency whose watchword was discretion and whose clients did not wear fake diamonds … until, that is, the Holland family crashed into her busy day.

  Wednesday afternoon

  It took a lot to rile Bea Abbot.

  The woman in the mink coat succeeded. She burst into Bea’s office, pushing someone before her. ‘Mrs Abbot? Right! We need your help!’

  Bea said, ‘I’m afraid I don’t—’

  The mink coat swung a young woman into a chair and stood over her. ‘Mrs Abbot will set you right!’

  ‘Who …?’ said Bea. Out of the corner of her eye she was aware of a third person hovering in the doorway … until he was pushed aside by Carrie, her office manageress.

  Carrie, arms akimbo, was not amused at the intrusion. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Abbot. They asked if you were in and swept right past me. Shall I …?’

  Bea had belatedly recognized the young woman in the chair. ‘No, Carrie. It’s all right.’

  Carrie hesitated. She was no fool and could sense trouble.

  Bea was firm. ‘I’ll deal with it.’ She waited till the door had closed behind her office manageress to say, ‘Dilys? Are you all right?’

  Obviously, the girl was very far from all right. Her hair was all over the place, her lipstick was smeared, the handbag over her arm was open and her coat was awry. ‘It’s not true! He loves me!’

  ‘Humph!’ said the mink coat, seating herself, unasked. ‘Let me introduce myself. I am Dilys’s aunt, Sybil Holland. I do not visit London often, and I do not normally concern myself with what the family gets up to. The dividends I receive from Holland and Butcher are not my only source of income, and I have never questioned my brother’s ability to run his companies until now. It is true that I expressed some concern when I heard that his only daughter was marrying a salesman with a dubious background but he would not be warned, not he! Little pig-head, we used to call him when we were young, and the years have done nothing to compensate for his lack of common sense. So what do I find when I return to this distressingly run-down country where bad manners seem to be the norm? My niece has allied herself to a charlatan who gave her a piece of glass for an engagement ring! Typical!’

  Bea looked at the mink coat, recognizing intelligence and the easy assumption of command possessed by those accustomed to wealth. Yes, the woman must be seventy if she was a day, but her mink coat – it showed a disregard for popular opinion that she should wear one – was superb, and she was wearing the biggest, most sparkly diamond rings Bea had seen in a long while. Her hair was a doubtful red, her eyes were outlined in black and she wore a bright blue eyeshadow, the sort which had been popular in the sixties. Was she out of date? Yes. But those same eyes glittered as brightly as her diamonds.

  ‘It’s not true!’ screamed Dilys, throwing her legs about. ‘It’s not! He loves me!’

  Sybil Holland sniffed. ‘Chucking your toys out of the pram will get you nowhere.’

  ‘I’m twenty-eight years old! I’m a married woman with three children!’ Dilys tried to hit her aunt, and missed. ‘I won’t listen, I won’t listen, I won’t—’

  Bea shouted, ‘Enough!’

  Silence.

  Sybil Holland snapped her mouth shut.

  Dilys overflowed with tears, but was also quiet.

  Bea leaned back in her chair and told herself to relax. It was not at all like her to shout. Even when provoked, she took pride in presenting a civilized exterior to the world. She reminded herself that she was a successful businesswoman, that she ran a first-class domestic agency from the basement of her Georgian house in Kensington, that her only son was a member of parliament, that she paid her bills on time and that she looked pretty good for her age.

  She swung her chair round to her computer and saved the document she’d been working on. ‘Now –’ turning back to her visitors – ‘I do not in the least understand why you have come to see me and, let me add, I have no wish to be involved with the firm of Holland and Butcher in any way. Yes: at one time there was a suggestion that that firm �
�� responsible as it is for training people for high-class domestic work – might merge with my agency, which specializes in finding such people jobs. But I decided against it. End of.’

  ‘I can see you’re no fool,’ said Sybil, ‘but this development changes everything.’

  Bea sent her a look designed to quell. ‘May I call you a cab?’

  Dilys started to hiccup. ‘I … oh, hic! … You must … hic! … It’s not—’

  ‘Stupid girl!’ said Sybil, pulling a gold cigarette case and lighter out of her enormous handbag. Prada, of course.

  ‘No smoking, if you please,’ said Bea. Cigarettes and a mink coat? The harridan lived in a time warp.

  Sybil ignored Bea to light up, sending a stream of smoke down both nostrils. A dragon in action?

  Bea averted her eyes. ‘Dilys, I’ll fetch you a glass of water.’ Ignoring the third member of the party who was still standing by the door, she stepped out into the busy main office.

  Carrie half rose from her seat. ‘Shall I send for backup, Mrs Abbot?’

  ‘No, thanks. I can cope.’ She ran the cold water tap in the cloakroom and took a glassful back to her office. The man – and who on earth might he be? – had taken a seat by the window. He smiled at her as she returned. Smiling was cheap. Helping someone in distress costs energy.

  ‘There you are,’ said Bea, handing the glass to the hiccuping girl. ‘Now, I’ll call you a cab, shall I.’ She made it a statement and not a question.

  The mink coat was having none of it. ‘Don’t be obtuse. We need an expert opinion on that fake diamond of my niece’s before we go anywhere. I knew it was a zircon, a poor man’s substitute, as soon as I laid eyes on it. I offered to take her to the nearest jeweller’s to have it valued, and she refused. My younger brother here said he’d do it, and she said we’d take it off her finger over her dead body.’

  Bea observed that Dilys was wearing a gold wedding band, but no diamond ring.

  Sybil said, ‘She said she’d swallow it rather than let us have it appraised.’

  Bea wanted to laugh, but stifled the impulse. ‘Retrieving it might be, um, uncomfortable.’

  The harridan took a pull on her cigarette and looked around for a non-existent ashtray.

  Bea thought of opening a window to let out the smoke but they were having a bitterly cold winter and she wasn’t keen on catching her death of cold.

  Sybil said, ‘We’d been talking about you over lunch, discussing your refusal to merge with H & B, and considering how best to make you change your mind. Of course, I understand why you turned us down. Only an idiot would have allied herself to the cretin my brother appointed to run it.’

  ‘I don’t think calling people names—’

  ‘I never liked the look of him,’ said Sybil, ‘but there was never any arguing with my brother when he’d made up his mind. Appointing Benton managing director of one of the jewels in the crown of Holland Holdings …! A child could have foreseen …! What a disaster! The man talks like a PR machine and acts like an elephant, trampling upon the sensibilities of the workforce. I told my brother that Benton needed to be got rid of, but would he listen? No. In spite of … well, never mind that. Then at lunch today my eye was caught by the fake diamond which my niece was displaying to all and sundry. The Hollands have never stooped to glass before. I was devastated.’ She didn’t look devastated. She looked triumphant. ‘It’s clear that the man is as much a fake as his diamond, and that his removal from the company and from my niece’s bed is a consummation devoutly to be wished.’

  Bea leaned back in her chair. Almost, she applauded the old dear. ‘Forgive me, but you cannot be aware of all the reasons why I decided against—’

  Sybil raised one finger after the other. ‘One: you think my brother is past running his business affairs in a sensible manner. I agree. Two: you disliked Benton on sight, thinking him a lightweight who’d been promoted beyond his capacity. Again, I agree. And three: you don’t care to be pressured into a rash move by your ambitious member of parliament son.’

  That last statement took Bea’s breath away because it was true. Though how the woman had reached that conclusion …! With some reluctance, Bea nodded.

  Sybil said, ‘My brother ought to have retired some years ago, but he needed to have something to occupy himself with, and so long as he was bringing home the bacon, I was not disposed to interfere. However, when I was alerted to …’ A frown and a dismissive gesture. ‘No need for you to hear about that little problem, which I am sure can be sorted out quickly enough, no need for me to intervene, but in the matter of my niece and the affairs of Holland and Butcher, action needs to be taken at once. I am not about to sit back and see my dividends vanish. As far as you are concerned, you will wish to be involved since your son is in such dire need of money. In conclusion—’

  Bea stiffened in her chair. Did Max need money? Really? Could it be true? How did this harridan know?

  ‘It is clear we need you to save Holland and Butcher.’

  Bea pushed back her chair. ‘No.’

  Sybil Holland grinned. ‘Of course, you’ll take some persuading, but you’ll come round in the end. I like your style. You and I between us can sort this mess out, quietly and efficiently.’

  Bea thought fast. Could Max really have got himself into a financial mess with H & B? When that firm had begun to make serious overtures to Bea concerning a merger, it was he who had arranged for Bea to dine out with Benton – the newly appointed managing director – and his wife Dilys. Max and Benton had sat next to one another, detailing Dilys off to entertain Bea. A bad move, as it was Bea who owned and ran the agency while Max merely swanned around being an important personage. Important in his own estimation, anyway.

  What had Max hoped to gain by introducing them to one another? Well, Max had been aiming for non-executive but well-paid directorships in both concerns. Max could talk big. Benton could talk big. Benton had a loud, braying laugh, which had made Bea shudder. Further observation had caused her to conclude that he was a Johnny-cum-lately: a backslapping, heavily-tipping, fully paid-up member of the chauvinist brigade. He’d ignored Bea and his wife throughout in order to discuss plans for a projected merger with Max.

  Bea had been left to make conversation with his wife Dilys, who gave the impression of being a naive child, married too young to know what she was doing, and discouraged from thinking for herself ever since.

  Something else of importance had happened that evening: Bea had gone down with food poisoning, and Dilys had been kind to her. Now that was the sort of thing which people remembered. Bea felt she owed Dilys something in return.

  The girl shot a look at Bea from under shaggy eyebrows.

  The child seems terrified! Why?

  The mink coat lit another cigarette from her first and ground out the stub in the empty cup on Bea’s desk. ‘I admit I wouldn’t have chosen to introduce myself to you with a naughty child in tow, but she seemed to have formed a good opinion of your abilities. So, when she starting having hysterics in the restaurant, I thought we’d give you a chance to show what you’re made of. If you will accompany the silly girl along to the nearest reputable jeweller, ask for an appraisal and stand by her when she faints at the verdict, she’ll have to believe us.’

  Bea didn’t know whether to be amused or indignant. ‘The agency employs people who would be happy to—’

  ‘The less outsiders know about this the better.’ She looked at her watch, which was tiny and studded with more diamonds. Naturally. ‘She’s got to be home by four to fetch the children from school and prepare something for supper. Let’s get this business dealt with here and now. Then she’ll have to admit she’s married a wrong ’un, and we can take steps to rectify the damage.’

  Rectify the damage? This was the sort of woman who, during the French Revolution, whiled away the time on the steps of the guillotine by knitting.

  Dilys wailed, and hiccuped. ‘No, hic, no! He loves me! I won’t go with you!’

&nb
sp; ‘Benton,’ said the mink coat, investing the word with the disdain of an aristocrat dealing with a turd deposited on the carpet by a visitor’s dog, ‘does not deserve consideration. He has foisted himself on to our family by fraud and, now that he has been found out, must be disposed of without delay.’

  ‘He’s my husband!’

  ‘Who got you pregnant as a way to climb the ladder.’

  ‘He loves me!’

  ‘Humph!’

  Bea shut down her computer and extended her hand to Dilys. ‘Come. You’ll want to visit the cloakroom and get yourself cleaned up, won’t you?’ To Sybil, ‘Forgive us if we disappear for a while. I’ll have a cup of tea sent in to you, shall I?’

  Dilys put her hand in Bea’s with the trust of a small child being rescued from a bully in the playground.

  As they passed through the busy office, Bea smiled and nodded to Carrie, signalling that everything was under control. ‘Tea for our guests, Carrie?’

  Dilys was limping. The girl was wearing high-heeled boots which made walking difficult. Her black coat with a fake fur collar was not new and was too large for her. She’d probably bought it when she was pregnant. Underneath she wore a pink blouse which didn’t fit properly, over black trousers which sagged around her bottom. Nothing was new and everything looked well worn, which made Bea wonder how much money Benton gave his wife for a dress allowance.

  Dilys had worn a rather fussy, costly dress to the restaurant when they’d first met, but that hadn’t been new, either. The girl had probably donned her best bib and tucker today to have lunch with her formidable aunt, and she had been hit with a piledriver instead of a custard pie.

  Bea ushered Dilys into the cloakroom and said, ‘When you’ve tidied yourself up we can have a talk, privately, just you and me.’ Bea shut the door on Dilys and went to check whether or not Maggie’s office was free. Maggie was not only Bea’s sort-of adopted daughter, but also a project manager much in demand. Fortunately, she was out that afternoon. Good. Bea wanted to talk to Dilys in private and without interruption.