174110.fb2 Last Reminder - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 5

Last Reminder - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 5

CHAPTER FIVE

I stopped at a corner shop and bought an A to Z. The sister, Dorothy, lived somewhere off the Haworth Road, on the far side of the town, and Eastwood didn’t know her phone number. Some enquiries are like pushing a Tesco’s trolley up the down escalator. Bradford has developed a system of by-passes, but I wanted to go through the city centre. There was gridlock at Forster Square, caused by a broken-down bus. Just after the buses were de-regulated the ones in Bradford carried the message: Privately run for the benefit of the customer, or something similar. Immediately underneath were the words: No change given. I noted that they’d had the decency to remove the benefit of the customer bit. A young girl in a sari and a Nissan let me filter on to the roundabout and I gave her a wave. We were off again.

I drove through the Land of a Thousand Curries, past cinemas converted into mosques or carpet warehouses, and halal butchers that had been Coops and Thrifts when I was a kid. Old men in pyjama trousers, sticking out from under Umbro anoraks, strolled the pavements, followed by women who might have been sixteen or sixty, ravishing or dog-ugly. The veil is a great equaliser. I felt uncomfortable. I think I subscribe to the melting pot theory of integration. If we have to have ghettos, let them be multinational. The Romans knew a thing or two. When they conquered a country they adopted the local gods. It must have saved them a lot of hassle.

Dorothy opened the door as far as a chain would allow and a cat shot out through the gap. It was a bow-fronted terrace house in a street that was running to seed but not quite decay. I’d had to park three doors away, and a couple of cars standing on blocks told me that the rot was starting.

‘I’m DI Priest from Heckley CID,’ I told the pale face that peered at my warrant card through the gap, almost level with my own. ‘I’m trying to trace your sister, Joan Eastwood. I wonder if I could come in and have a word with you?’

She took the chain off and let me in. The front room was barely furnished, with unframed prints by Klimt and Modigliani on the emulsioned walls, and I had the choice of sitting either on an upright chair or something between a futon and a palliasse. I chose the upright and Dorothy dossed on the floor, next to her coffee mug and ashtray. She was wearing jeans and a baggy sweater that was perpetually falling off one shoulder, revealing a pale-blue bra strap.

‘Sorry,’ she said, waving the mug at me and removing the fag from her lips to have a drink. ‘Can I offer you a coffee?’

‘Thanks all the same, but no. Can you tell me if you know where Joan is?’

‘Is this to do with Hartley Goodrich?’ she asked.

‘Yes. We believe your sister was friendly with him and may be able to tell us something about his lifestyle.’

She smiled and took a drag of her cigarette, which brought on a coughing fit. For a few seconds I thought she was going to choke, but another swig and a puff restored her equilibrium. Sometimes I think there must be a link between smoking and coughing. Perhaps it’s something the medical profession should look into. ‘Ambleside Road,’ she said. ‘Number twenty-three. That’s Leeds, Alwoodley. A nice area. And, boy, will she be able to tell you about Hartley’s lifestyle.’

‘Go on.’

‘No, I’m only guessing about them. You’d better ask her yourself.’

‘So you think they were having an affair?’

She nipped the butt of her cigarette into the ashtray and reached out for the packet of Benson and Hedges that was nearby. ‘More than likely, in my opinion.’

‘Have you ever met Goodrich?’

She nodded and smiled, dabbing the end of a fresh cigarette against a five-for-a-pound plastic lighter.

‘When was this?’ I asked.

‘Bout four, five years ago. Maybe longer. They used to play bridge on Saturday evenings and tried to fix me up with him. Joan was full of how wonderful he was. Hartley this, Hartley that. In fact, he was a slimy little toad, except that he wasn’t little, apart from his intellect. I couldn’t stand the guy, but for a couple of weeks I had a certain sadistic pleasure in pandering to his political views. Then I exploded and told him what a fascist shite he was.’ She turned her hands palms upwards. ‘That was the end of my journey into suburbia.’

I laughed, conscious that she probably regarded me as a fascist shite, too. ‘I bet that was worth seeing,’ I said.

‘I enjoyed it, but I’ve a feeling I may have driven Joan into his arms. Have you met her ex, Derek?’

‘Yes. He gave me your address.’

‘Has he finished the Temeraire, yet?’

‘No, not yet,’ I chuckled.

She heaved a big sigh and put the cigarette between her lips. I rose to leave, thanking her for her assistance. The fug in the room was like it used to be in pubs twenty years ago.

She hauled herself upright, saying, ‘You’re a man of the world, Inspector, so you probably recognise the types. I’m the bright sister who made a mess of things; Joan was the dumb one who made good. C’est la vie.’

‘Oh, I suspect you have your moments,’ I told her.

‘Moments,’ she agreed, nodding wistfully.

‘One more thing — when did you last see Joan?’

‘It’d be about six weeks ago. Met her for lunch in Leeds. But we talk on the phone every fortnight or so.’

‘And did she seem just the same as always?’

‘Yes, as far as I could tell.’

‘Does she work?’

‘Yes, as a nursing auxiliary at the local hospital. She moved there to be near the job. Perhaps that’s something you should ask her about, too.’

‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me.’

‘She worked for York and Durham, like Derek. Pension plan, key to the executive toilets, the full package. Left in an unseemly hurry and was unemployed for a while, after their marriage collapsed. I’d have thought she could have wangled herself a transfer to another branch. Something happened, but I don’t know what.’

‘I see. Thanks. So when I’ve gone, presumably you’ll give her a sisterly ring and tell her I’m looking for her.’

‘Yes, presumably I will.’

‘In that case, maybe we could ring her now and make me an appointment, if you don’t mind?’

Joan worked shifts and wasn’t answering, so I rang her from the station the following morning and then hot-wheeled it over to Leeds. She was probably about five years older than her sister and a good six inches shorter. She had a round face compared with Dorothy’s long Virginia Woolf countenance, and dressed differently — mohair twinset against denim and Aran. As far as I knew they were full sisters, but it didn’t look as if they shared the same gene pool. Perhaps their mother had been susceptible to the odd smooth-talking insurance man, too. The permissive society didn’t really begin in the sixties, we just started talking about it then.

She had the upstairs flat in a rather swish maisonette. Rented furnished, I presumed, although her stamp was on the place: lots of artificial flowers and the dreaded Lladro. Her hand shook as she poured me a cup of tea.

‘Mmm, I needed that,’ I told her, taking a sip. When she was settled I asked her how well she knew Mr Goodrich.

‘Fairly well, I suppose,’ she replied.

‘I believe you held bridge evenings,’ I prompted.

‘Y-yes, that’s right. For a while.’

‘Was he any good?’

‘Quite good. Very competitive — he tried harder than we did. He liked to win.’

‘Did he bring his own partner?’ I asked. I’d heard about bridge evenings. Sometimes they didn’t even bring a pack of cards.

‘No. We always had a problem finding a fourth. The lady on the other side of us liked a game, but she had to go into a home. Alzheimer’s disease. Then Dorothy made the numbers up for a while, but it wasn’t really her thing. So eventually they fizzled out.’

‘And how many times did you go on holiday together?’

She’d put her cup down, then picked it up again to keep her fingers occupied. Now she placed it back on the table to avoid spilling the contents. I obviously knew a lot more than she expected.

‘Just the once, a Caribbean cruise.’

‘Mrs Eastwood, was Goodrich one of the reasons for the failure of your marriage?’

She shook her head defiantly. ‘No, not at all.’

I asked her all the routine stuff about when she’d last seen him, finishing off with a query about investments.

‘After the divorce,’ she said, ‘Derek had to buy my half of the house. Hartley offered to invest the money for me.’

‘And did you let him?’

She nodded and sniffed.

‘Have you lost your money?’

Another nod and sniff. ‘It’s looking like it. Well, twenty thousand pounds.’

‘In diamonds?’

‘Diamond. Singular.’

I asked her if she could tell me anything about his business acquaintances, but she had nothing to volunteer.

‘Have you ever heard of K. Tom Davis?’ I asked.

She looked up, startled. ‘Yes, but I never met him. He was behind the diamonds. It was his fault that it all went wrong. Hartley was duped just as much as anybody else.’

She couldn’t expand on her theory, so I invited her to ring me if she thought of anything else and left. I picked up a beef sandwich and a curd tart, carefully avoiding the spoonerism, at a local bakery and made my way back to Heckley. Waiting on my desk was a brown envelope, bursting at the seams. It contained a thick wad of coloured photocopies of the poster I’d done for the bullbars campaign. That was quick, for Traffic, I thought. I put a small pile on everybody’s desk and pinned a couple on notice boards. Then I went to the loo.

Nigel was washing his hands. ‘Hi, boss,’ he greeted me. ‘I’ve a message for you.’

There was the sound of a toilet flushing, and a huge PC came out of a cubicle, tucking his shirt flap into his waistband.

‘Hello, George,’ I said. ‘Successful?’

‘Grand, Mr Priest,’ he replied. ‘Like a flock o’ pigeons landin’ on a wet roof.’

Nigel’s gaze switched from the PC to me and back again, his jaw hanging slack, like a moose with a gumboil. He’s from Berkshire, and lies awake at night wondering if he’d be more at home in Ulan Bator.

‘What was it?’ I asked him.

‘What was what?’

‘The message.’

‘Oh, yes. Two things, actually. First of all the Dean brothers are in the court lists for Monday, so I may be out of circulation for a couple of days. And a chap called Davis just rang. Said you’d been chasing him. He left his number.’

‘Justin Davis?’

‘No, Tom something-or-other.’

‘K. Tom. Great.’

Walking back to the office Nigel said, ‘I’ve been wondering about inviting Heather — Professor Simms — out for dinner. She’s frightfully attractive, don’t you think?’

‘Our new pathologist? Mmm, yes, she is.’

‘She doesn’t wear a wedding ring, but I don’t suppose you know if she has a boyfriend or anything?’

We were back at Nigel’s desk and he tore the top page off his notepad and handed it to me. ‘No idea,’ I told him. ‘Met her for the first time myself on Monday. Just go for it, Nigel. She can only say no. Defeat is no disgrace, to quote Idi Amin’s chiropodist.’

Now he looked more puzzled than ever. ‘Just one thing,’ I confided, lowering my voice. ‘If she offers to cook for you, don’t touch the liver.’

K. Tom Davis’s wife answered the phone. ‘Hello, Mrs Davis,’ I said. ‘This is Inspector Priest. I have a message to ring your husband at this number.’

He was there, so I drove straight over to see him. The obligatory Range Rover stood in front of the garages and I wished I’d brought the bullbars leaflets with me, but as I walked past the car I was pleasantly surprised to see it didn’t have them fitted. I thumbed the bell-push and heard the first four bars of Canon in D from deep within. Or maybe it was the last four bars. Or any combination of bars in between.

This time we didn’t sit in the glorified greenhouse. I slithered about on a chesterfield that was as comfortable as a piano lid and they accompanied me on the matching easy chairs. More depressing hunting scenes adorned the walls — horses frozen in mid-leap against backgrounds straight out of How to Paint Trees.

K. Tom was a big man, impressive, but his beer gut was winning the weight war and his nose had dipped into too many whisky glasses. The gold cufflinks would have paid off my one and only creditor, leaving the sovereign rings — one on each hand — to put a new set of tyres on the cause of same debt.

‘I was scared,’ he explained, when I asked him the reason for his disappearance. ‘I read about Goodrich’s murder and I suppose I panicked. Thought I’d be next on the list, maybe. I told Ruth I was going to see Justin, but I booked into the Devonshire Hotel, in Wharfedale, for a couple of nights.’ At the mention of his wife’s name he broke off rolling the bottom of his tie and gestured towards her. ‘I rang her last night,’ he continued, ‘and she told me of your visit. It’s a terrible business, Inspector. If I can help in any way you have only to ask.’

‘Well, first of all, we’re not sure that it was murder, but somebody did hit him over the head. At the moment we’re calling it a suspicious death.’ Might as well clarify that right from the beginning. ‘When did you last see Goodrich?’

‘Good grief, let me see. Must be over six months ago. I’ve only seen him once since we…since…’

‘Since you went bankrupt?’

‘Since we called the receiver in.’

‘So what made you think you might be next on the list?’

The bottom of his tie looked like a spring roll and I felt hungry. He realised what he was doing and flattened it against his stomach. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘I, er, assumed it was a mad creditor, out for revenge because he’d lost a few quid. They should see what we’ve lost. They all think that we’re the villains of the piece, but we’ve been hurt most of all. The blame really lies with the banks. If they hadn’t pulled the plug on us, nobody would have been hurt.’

And Robert Maxwell was a big cuddly teddy bear. I asked them where they were on Sunday night, Monday morning — not because I cared but because that was what they expected me to ask. They never left the house.

‘Are there any creditors who have been particularly hostile, or threatened violence?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘In fact, I’ve a file of letters you can take with you. Nearly binned them all. Glad I didn’t, now.’

Mrs Davis pulled herself upright and volunteered to fetch the letters.

‘Thanks. So what are your immediate plans? Are you staying here?’

‘Not sure, Inspector. I have a couple of business trips scheduled, trying to sort out a few things — you know how it is. But it’s good to be home again. Don’t see why the buggers should drive me away. What do you think?’

I thought it was complicated, trying to solve a crime you didn’t know about while pretending to investigate one that hadn’t happened. ‘We’re not expecting him to strike again,’ I assured him, and immediately wondered if this was misleading advice. Ah well, never mind, I thought.

He walked out with me. ‘One last thing,’ I said as I opened the car door. ‘If it was the diamonds that collapsed, why did Goodrich go bankrupt?’

‘Because, underneath, he was a foolish man,’ Davis replied. ‘I’m in this business to make money, and don’t deny it. I’m proud of it. As long as it’s legal, I’ll consider anything. But that wasn’t enough for Goodrich. He wanted to be popular too. Looked up to. A valuable member of the community. When the banks foreclosed on us he thought he could come out of it smelling of roses without any of his punters losing, so he did what all desperate men do: he gambled. Bought shares in uranium mines in godforsaken holes in the Kalahari desert; thought he could find another Poseidon; that sort of thing, instead of facing them and saying: “Sorry, I’ve lost your money.” In the end he lost everything.’

‘Right,’ I said, nodding as if I understood. ‘Thanks for your help. Oh, and I’d be grateful if you could leave word of your whereabouts if you go away for more than a couple of days. Something else might crop up that we need your help with.’

‘I’ll do that, Inspector,’ he replied with a smile that would have melted the heart of a traffic warden.

Maggie was in the office when I trudged through the door twenty minutes later. ‘Hi, boss,’ she greeted me. ‘Where’ve you been skiving all day?’

‘Oh, you know. A little shopping, weeded a couple of herbaceous borders, took in a show.’ I plonked K. Tom Davis’s file of poison pen letters on her desk. ‘Take a look at those when you have a minute, but not as bedtime reading.’

‘What are they?’

‘Customer reaction, after losing their life savings. Oh, and when you have a chance have a word with the Devonshire Hotel, please, find out who’s been staying there the last couple of nights. Anything for me?’

‘No. The couple of villains among the creditors had alibis that you could have lined a nuclear reactor with. I suppose it would have been less suspicious if they hadn’t.’

‘You mean they could have taken a contract out on Goodrich?’

‘It’s possible?’

‘I don’t know. It wasn’t exactly an IRA job, and I can’t see the Mafia sentencing anyone to death by blow to the head with a flower pot, can you?’

‘Unless they realised he was already dead.’

‘Mmm. Could be.’

‘Mike Freer rang,’ she told me. ‘Said you’d offered to do a bust for him. Wants a word with you about it. Apparently a load of heroin from the Continent has suddenly started appearing on the streets.’

‘Great.’ I tried his number but he wasn’t in.

‘How’s Annabelle keeping?’ Margaret enquired as I replaced the phone. She’s kept a weather eye on my love-life ever since my divorce.

‘Huh, don’t ask,’ I snorted.

‘Oh no,’ she sighed. ‘What have you done now?’

I told her about the swans in the park, about Donald and the episode with the rat, and how I had purloined his coffee mug for a sample of his prints.

She shook her head with disbelief. ‘This is serious, Charlie,’ she declared.

‘You think so?’

‘You let her down and I bet that’s a big sin in the eyes of someone like Annabelle. This is going to take more than a bunch of flowers.’

I was saved from further depression by the phone. ‘What’s the difference between an astronaut and constipation?’ Mike Freer’s voice intoned in my ear.

‘I’m…longing to hear,’ I told him.

‘An astronaut goes to Mars but constipation mars your goes.’

‘Gosh, yes. What else did it say on your cornflakes packet?’

‘It said that we’d be very grateful if you could hit Michael Angelo. We picked somebody up who’d just made a collection from him, at his home. It’s the same stuff that we’re finding all over the place. From the Continent, and we think he’s the major distributor.’

‘How do you know it’s all the same stuff?’

‘Analysis — gas chromatography, mass spectrometers, all that gizmology. Far too complicated for you, Charlie. Basically, what it tells us is that if it grew in yak shit, it comes from Tibet. We can nearly describe which field.’

‘Right. Let me give it some thought. Pencil us in for the middle of next week.’

‘Will do. Oh, and Charlie…’

‘What?’

‘Remember, possession might be nine points of the law, but it’s twelve at Scrabble.’

‘Definitely, and there’s many a true word spoken in Chester. S’long. I’ve work to do.’

I replaced the phone before he could come back to me and gave my brow a mock wipe.

‘Freer, at a guess,’ Maggie said.

‘The one and only.’

‘No, he’s not — I know where there’s a big houseful like him. So what are we doing next week?’

I rocked back on my chair and tried to grip my pen between my nose and top lip, but I couldn’t manage it. Outside, the sun was shining, and a couple of jet fighters streaked by, a long way off, looking for defenceless sheep to fire pretend missiles at. I might have been a fighter pilot, if you didn’t have to wear those overalls with pockets down below the knees.

‘Maggie,’ I said.

‘Yes, Charles.’

‘What would happen…just supposing…if I did something really stupid? I mean…stupid. Would they retire me early, do you think?’

‘How stupid do you mean?’

‘Stupid stupid.’

‘That stupid?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Nobody would notice.’

‘C’mon, Maggie. I’m being serious.’

‘OK. What you’re saying is, if you did something that was an embarrassment to the force, would they retire you early on full pension?’

‘Exactly,’ I declared, giving her a thumbs-up.

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘Shit. Why not?’

‘Times are changing. They won’t let you out on ill health these days if you still have one of all the things God gave us two of.’

‘Mmm, that’s a disappointment. Never mind, we’ll do it just the same.’

‘Do what, Charlie? Trying to hold a conversation with you is worse than talking to Freer.’

‘Right. I’ve just invented something called a rhubarb run, and we hold the first one next week, against Michael Angelo Watts. Pass the telephone directory across, please. I’ll just make a phone call and then explain it to you. Do you think they still have a sewage department at City Hall?’

They did, but it wasn’t called that. Maggie and I drove over to talk to the people who ran it and spent half an hour poring over street plans of the Sylvan Fields estate. It’s unbelievable what’s going off under our feet.

‘It’s no wonder the roads are so bumpy,’ I said, in a spirit of understanding of their problems. The surveyor who was helping us nodded his agreement and smiled happily.

‘They’re not bumpy in Bourton-on-the-Water,’ Maggie reminded him.

We explained what we were trying to do, and made a firm arrangement to meet two of their staff at six thirty on the following Wednesday morning. We would be paying their overtime. Gilbert would love this, but I decided not to spoil his holiday by telling him before he went. On the way out we had a little explore, wandering along corridors that had coloured arrows on the floor and lighting that didn’t cast shadows. The signs and furniture were a cross between Habitat and the Early Learning Centre.

‘It makes Heckley nick look like a squat,’ Maggie remarked.

Back at the nick I said, ‘Put the kettle on, Maggie,’ as we strode into the office, adding, ‘Bet they’re not allowed their own kettles at City Hall.’ The young constable who’d discovered Goodrich’s body was standing near my desk, helmet under his arm like a guardsman at a court martial. ‘Hello, Graham,’ I greeted him, hoping I’d remembered the name correctly. ‘Come to ask for a transfer to CID?’

‘No, sir. I was wondering if I could have a word with you in private.’ He sounded worried.

‘Sure,’ I replied, adjusting to serious mode. ‘Come into the inner sanctum.’ I turned and raised my eyebrows at Maggie and led him into my little partitioned-off office space.

‘Sit down, Graham. Now, what can I do for you?’

‘I’ve come to apologise, sir, for the hair.’

‘I thought I’d told you to stop calling me sir.’

‘Sorry, Mr Priest.’

‘That’s better. What hair are you talking about?’

‘The hair that the SOCO found at the scene of the crime. Mr Goodrich’s, that is.’

Realisation crept over me like when you stand under the heater in Marks and Spencer’s doorway on a frosty morning.

‘Oh, that hair!’ I exclaimed, clenching my teeth tight together to immobilise my face.

‘Yes. I’d just like to say that I’m sorry for the trouble it caused and I hope that it didn’t impede the enquiry too much. Oh, and it won’t happen again.’

Nice little speech. ‘Was it your hair?’ I asked, almost choking with the effort.

‘No, sir, Mr Priest. My girlfriend’s.’

‘I see. Presumably you got it on your collar when she kissed you goodbye.’

‘Something like that, Mr Priest,’ he blushed.

‘OK. Well I’m afraid it’s gone away for analysis. From that we will be able to tell all sorts of things about her: what medication she’s taking…hormone levels… Ooh, all sorts of things.’

‘Oh.’

‘And then there’s the cost. Fifty-two quid.’

‘I don’t mind paying,’ he blurted out, half reaching for his cheque book.

‘No, that won’t be necessary,’ I told him. ‘We’ll manage to lose it somewhere. So, apart from this little hiccup, Graham, how are you settling in?’

‘Fine, Mr Priest,’ he replied, almost smiling.

‘No problems?’

‘Mmm, I found it hard, at first. But it’s getting better. I suppose if you could manage it on your first day, the job wouldn’t be worth having.’

‘That’s the attitude, Graham,’ I said. ‘Give it a couple of years at least. Anything you need to know, don’t be afraid to ask.’

He was still thanking me as I saw him out of the door. Maggie placed a steaming mug on my desk and asked, ‘What was that all about?’

‘Problems with his sex life,’ I replied. ‘He just needed some advice.’

‘And he came to you!’ she exclaimed. It’s the casual remarks of friends that hurt most of all.

There was a football match on television that night, so I collected a frozen Chinese banquet and four cans of Sam Smith’s proper beer from the supermarket and had a quiet night at home. Can’t say I enjoyed myself, but I was doing what was expected of me.

While I was in the Friday morning meeting, listening to Gilbert’s long list of dos and don’ts, Joan Eastwood left a message to say she had some information I might be interested in. I picked up the phone, then decided to drive to Leeds instead.

Mrs Eastwood poured me a tea, barely avoiding spilling it into my china saucer. Everybody I spoke to on this case was nervous, as if they were hiding something. Even K. Tom Davis’s natural arrogance barely concealed the underlying fear, and now Mrs Eastwood was fussing around like a mother hen with a fox at the gate.

‘Can I offer you a biscuit, Inspector?’ she asked.

‘No thank you, Mrs Eastwood,’ I replied. ‘What exactly is it you wanted to tell me?’

She perched herself on the edge of a chintz-covered chair that might have shot out from under her had it not been so solid. ‘It’s about…Mr Goodrich,’ she admitted.

I peered at her over the rim of my cup and invited her to continue.

‘You said to ring you if I thought of anything else.’

‘Mmm.’

‘Well, it may be nothing, but on the other hand…’

‘Just tell me all about it, Mrs Eastwood. Anything you want.’

‘Very well. Er, I don’t know where to begin. Hartley — Mr Goodrich — and I were…close, if you know what I mean. We didn’t have an affair, but we were… I’m not sure what you’d call it.’

‘Let’s just say that you were very good friends.’

‘Yes. Very dear friends. I suppose it all sounds foolish to you, Inspector.’

‘No, Mrs Eastwood. It sounds the most natural thing in the world.’

‘Does it? Well, Hartley liked to talk about his work. Most of it was beyond me, but he was filled with all sorts of schemes. After he met K. Tom Davis he was convinced that they would both become millionaires. He was terribly impressed by Mr Davis, thought he could do no wrong. It was Davis who influenced him, got him into trouble.’

She was straying off the point, defending her boyfriend.

‘What was it you wanted to tell me?’ I asked again.

Her hands were in her lap, fingers intertwined and thumbs rotating around each other. ‘One night,’ she began, ‘two years ago, I was pulling Hartley’s leg about K. Tom, saying he thought more about him than he did me. He’d had a little too much to drink. We both had. There’d been a bullion robbery about seven years earlier, over six million pounds in gold bars stolen while on its way to a place in Sheffield…’

Suddenly, this was interesting. ‘The assayers’ offices,’ I said. ‘The Prat something robbery.’

‘Hartog-Praat, that’s right.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, apparently a few people were arrested but none of the gold has ever been recovered. Hartley boasted that Davis knew all about it. Next day he came to see me at work. He looked dreadful. Scared. Told me to completely forget what he’d said; never mention a word to anyone. So I didn’t, until now. With Hartley being killed in that horrible way, I wondered if…if…’

‘If maybe he’d spoken to anyone else?’

‘Yes, something like that.’

She sniffed and blew her nose on a tissue which she proceeded to twist into a passable origami corkscrew. My impression was that she had a lot more invested in this piece of information than she was claiming. I sipped my tea and waited for her to tell me more while giving her the once-over, the way we men are supposed to do. She was a little overweight, but it was evenly distributed. She carried it well — there was a Rubens model underneath that blouse and skirt, and two or three years ago she’d have been in her prime. I suppressed the improper thoughts, placing my cup on the table. If she had been having an affair with Goodrich, but didn’t want it to be public knowledge, that was fine with me. Adultery is still a sin, or at least an admission of failure, to most people, pop stars and Royal Family excepted, but why was she so nervous about it?

‘Is — is that of any use to you, Inspector?’ she wondered.

I stroked my lips with the knuckle of my first finger. ‘Nothing else?’ I asked. ‘Did he ever mention it again?’

‘No, never.’

‘Try to think.’

‘I’ve been thinking about it since your first visit. There’s nothing else. How close are you to finding Hartley’s…the person who attacked him?’

I uncrossed my legs and pushed myself more upright in the chair. ‘I thought we were fairly close,’ I told her, grateful that she hadn’t referred to his killer. ‘But this new information widens the field. Now there are a lot more people “in the frame”, as we say.’ I like to throw in some jargon, people expect it from a cop.

‘So you have… You are, er, following certain lines of enquiry?’

She was better at it than me. ‘Well, I shouldn’t really be telling you this,’ I said, picking my cup up again, ‘but we’ve found a hair at the scene of the crime. As soon as we have a suspect we’ll see if it matches. If it does, they have some explaining to do.’

The tissue fell to pieces in her grasp. It wasn’t Kleenex’s fault, she’d have done the same with a piece of corrugated iron.

‘A hair?’ she whispered.

‘Yes.’ I finished my tea and leant forward. ‘Let me explain how we work, these days,’ I confided. ‘Off the record, of course. We don’t just gather obvious clues, like hairs and fingerprints. We try to analyse the behaviour of the criminal, from all the little, apparently inconsequential things that he does, and from this we build up a portrait of the person we are looking for. In theory we could take a hair sample from everyone in the country, but this way we’ll narrow it down, eventually, to just the one we want.’

‘H-how can you be so sure?’ she asked, white faced.

I wasn’t enjoying this, but I waved a hand expansively, as if I was being matey, revealing little titbits to a friend. ‘We can’t,’ I admitted, ‘but I’ll tell you what we have so far. This is the picture, as I see it. The attacker arrives Monday morning, say about eight thirty. Picks up a bottle of milk from the doorstep and enters. Either the door is unlocked or he has a key. Mr Goodrich is apparently watching TV, glass of whisky by his side. The attacker hits him on the head with a handy pot plant, Goodrich slumps forward, dead. Fingerprints! thinks our assailant. He then fetches the tea-towel, which he knows is concealed under the work surface, wipes the plant pot clean and replaces the tea towel where it belongs. He is a very tidy person. On the way out he remembers the milk bottle and puts it back on the doorstep, after wiping that, too. I keep saying “he”. It could, of course, be a she. When we find someone who was sufficiently familiar with him and his home to fit in with that little scenario, we’ll just use the hair for confirmation.’

‘I see,’ she said in a very tiny voice, her expression somewhere far away, like Holloway.

I jumped up, looking at my watch, and made a hurried goodbye. ‘Anything else you want to tell me?’ was my parting invitation, but she shook her head. As I left she closed the door behind me and I heard the click of the latch.

I sat in the car for several minutes, wondering and worrying about her. It would have been easy to go back, tell her that Goodrich died of a heart attack twelve hours before he was hit on the head, but I didn’t. I just placed the key in the ignition and turned it. Nobody had wired half a kilogram of Semtex across the terminals, so the engine started and I drove back to Heckley.