Last Reminder (6 page)

We held a questions and answers session and doled out the various jobs. I asked Jeff Caton to take over the list of clients that Claud – Brian – had started and try to develop some sort of profile of each one that would eliminate most of them and leave us with a few possible suspects. Criminal Records would be a useful starting point. Maud and Brian were visiting local bank managers. One or two of them were going to have a nice day. Hopefully they’d be able to match the dates and amounts in the cash book to transactions over the counter.

The phone rang just as we were winding up. It had to be Nigel because we’d arranged to be undisturbed except for his call.

‘Have you met the new pathologist, boss?’ he enthused in my left ear.

‘Professor Simms. Yes, I’ve met her.’

‘Heather,’ he announced, with barely disguised triumph. ‘She’s ever so attractive, isn’t she?’

‘Er, yes. Very pleasant. What did she say.’

‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he gushed. ‘She just pulled the sheet back, looked at his hands and then at his face and said, “Sedentary work. Very
trustworthy looking. Meets lots of people.
Self-employed,
possibly in the financial sector.” She’s brilliant!’

I said, ‘No, Nigel. She just has a reasonable memory. I told her all that, yesterday.’

‘Honest?’ His voice had lost its enthusiasm.

‘’Fraid so.’

‘Bloody hell!’

‘Come on, Nigel,’ I urged. ‘There’s a room full of people here, hanging on your every word, so hide your disappointment and tell me what she had to say about the stiff.’

‘Right, boss. But you’re not going to like it.’

He was right, I didn’t. And when he’d finished I wished I hadn’t asked.

The troops were all on their feet, waiting to disperse. I turned to them and said, ‘Just as we thought: time of death sometime Sunday evening. Ring in with anything interesting; otherwise, same time tomorrow. Go to it, my bonny boys and girls, and make sure to put it all down on paper, tagged for the computer. Remember, reports mean arrests. What do reports mean?’ But nobody answered. I turned to the super. ‘Can we have a word in your office, Gilbert?’ I asked.

Trudging up the stairs, Gilbert said, ‘Well?’

‘In your office,’ I replied. ‘I’m playing for time.’

We need major enquiries. If we didn’t have one, every once in a while, it would be necessary to
invent them. A murder investigation opens doors, and we often solve several other, less serious crimes, on the way to catching the killer. During the hunt for the Ripper the crime rate in West Yorkshire fell dramatically. That was because anybody out late at night became accustomed to being stopped by the police.

‘Do you mind if we have a look in your boot, sir?’ we’d say. ‘Oh. And could you explain what these forty-eight turkeys are doing in here?’ Or these silver chalices, or this jemmy and balaclava.

‘Coffee?’ Gilbert asked, closing the door behind us.

‘You’ve just had one,’ I protested.

‘Well, I’m having another. I’ve a feeling I’m going to need it.’

I sat down and looked at the pictures on his walls while he prepared a brew. Most officers of his rank have framed photographs of themselves adorning their offices, taken at peak moments in their careers. Yours truly meeting the Princess Royal; the class of ’82 at Bramshill; me, when I won the Silver Truncheon at Hendon.

Gilbert collects pictures of fish. I was studying an evil brute called a thornback ray when he flopped into his chair.

‘Can you eat those?’ I asked, nodding towards it.

‘Mmm, delicious. Caught two last year. Go on then, break my heart.’

I said, ‘According to the post-mortem, Hartley Goodrich died of a cardiac arrest while seated in his favourite chair, sometime Sunday evening. He was hit on the head by the plant pot about twelve hours later – Monday morning. Somebody wasted their energy.’

Gilbert took a sip of coffee, grimaced and produced a dispenser of sweeteners from his drawer. He clicked one into his cup and gave it a perfunctory stir. Now he was playing for time. ‘Is that an offence?’ he wondered, although he knew the answer.

‘Depends on what the intention was,’ I confirmed.

‘And that’s nearly impossible to prove.’

‘Mmm.’

He did the routine with the sweeteners again, complete with grimace.

‘Why don’t you use sugar?’ I suggested.

‘Empty calories.’

‘You could always eat one less biscuit.’

‘Don’t be so bloody self-righteous. So I can tell Les Isles that we don’t need his help and we can wind up the enquiry and put the troops back where they belong – keeping the streets tidy, eh?’

I shook my head. ‘I want to keep on with it,’ I declared. ‘Tell Mr Isles that it’s not murder, but Goodrich is – was – up to his neck in something, and I want to find out what it was. A murder
enquiry gives me the licence I need to knock on doors. Doors that otherwise would be slammed in my face.’

Gilbert said, ‘And where does the coroner fit in with this little scheme of yours?

‘You have a word with him. Don’t you have a lodge meeting, or something, where you could collar him?’

Gilbert rolled his eyes. ‘We’re in the same bloody golf club,’ he stated.

‘You don’t play golf,’ I reminded him.

‘I’m a social member, same as he is. They have the best selection of whiskies in the county. If I have a word with him it will be in office hours, not over the Macallan.’

‘OK. Thanks.’

‘I said “if.”’

‘We need the inquest adjourning, indefinitely,’ I said. ‘If no next of kin turn up it shouldn’t be a problem. I want to find out who the Jones boys are, and where all that money came from.’

‘Right, but I want DS Newley back, running operations, and most of the staff.’

‘No problem, but I’ll need Sparky, Maggie, young Caton, and Maud at least.’

‘It’s a deal. We’ll start winding down tomorrow, and you can have until the end of the week.’

‘The end of the week!’ I gasped, dismayed. ‘That’s not long enough!’

Gilbert held his arms out, like John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan. ‘I’m on holiday next week,’ he announced. ‘You’ll be in charge. What more can I say?’

‘Right,’ I said, nodding and smiling. ‘Right.’

I had an hour at the keyboard, typing my own version of events, and read a financial magazine that I’d bought on the way in, swotting up the difference between a PEP and a TESSA, in case anybody asked me. Fraud Squad was still working through the files when I called at Goodrich’s house. We’d decided it would be easier to work from there, rather than hump all the files to the nick, where we didn’t have room for them. I noticed that they’d commandeered a kettle and his tea-bags.

The rest of the house already smelt of disuse – death, even – or was my imagination playing games with me? I wandered through the rooms, trying to read the mind of a man I’d never met. He was obviously well off. The pans in the kitchen were by Le Creuset. I’d heard of them because Annabelle told me that she’d just bought one, and he had a full set. I put the
Dieffenbachia
back in its bowl and ran some water into it. The curtains in the other rooms were made of a heavy silken material, elaborately ruffled and brocaded, with ropes to open and close them. The dining room seated eight around a polished mahogany table, with a captain’s chair for the head of the household. It all looked unused
under a thin patina of dust, as if the place had been sealed until the master came home from the war. The decor throughout was by Barratt, out of Harewood House. Upstairs the slim-hipped
slack-lipped
young men still held their poses, and a red admiral had died of exhaustion against a window. I opened drawers, felt down the back, found an unopened packet of twelve condoms, long past their use-by date, and gave an uneasy nod of recognition.

Sparky came looking for me. Maud and Brian had identified the banks that Goodrich used, and went off to put the willies up the managers. It’s a stiff sentence for not reporting suspicious cash transactions.

As soon as they’d gone I asked, ‘Anything on the WAM number?’

‘No, but we’re in with a chance,’ he replied. ‘AM is a Swindon registration mark, so there shouldn’t be too many around here. I’ve asked Swansea for a printout of any BMWs with those letters kept in Heckley to begin with. No point in overdoing it just yet.’

‘Good. Now let me tell you something.’

Sparky listened as I related the pathologist’s findings, a big grin splitting his face when I’d finished. ‘You crafty sod,’ he said. ‘Trust you to make a convenience out of a midden. So we’re after wheeler-dealers, eh, and not really bothered who biffed him on the bonce?’

‘That’s about the size of it.’

‘Right. Well, I think we need to know who was in that car, whoever we upset. I’ll get back to the station and do some chasing.’

‘You do that,’ I told him. ‘And find me the addresses of the directors of the diamond company, IGI, if you have the time. Maybe we should pay them a visit. I’d, er, buy you some lunch, but I have an appointment. See you later.’

‘I noticed you’d washed your neck,’ he replied.

First thing I saw outside Annabelle’s back door was a pair of Wellington boots that were far too large and definitely not her colour. I knocked and went in. Seated in the kitchen was a young man, several inches of sock wriggling off the end of his toes, as if his feet desperately needed circumcising.

‘Hello,’ I said. It seemed as good as anything.

‘Hello,’ he repeated nervously. He had a long face that was slightly askew, and nursed an empty coffee mug.

‘I’m Charlie,’ I told him. ‘And you must be Annabelle’s gardener.’

He nodded and examined the coffee mug. His trousers were too long for him and his jacket sleeves too short, and they looked as if they’d been machine-washed at regular intervals. The poor lad obviously wasn’t quite all there. ESN, we used to call it – educationally sub-normal – but that was
now considered politically incorrect and I couldn’t remember the new term.

‘You’ve certainly done a good job,’ I admitted. ‘Annabelle’s garden has looked smashing all summer.’ I gave him a grin. ‘I hope you charge her the proper rate for the job.’

‘Sh-she pays m-me three pounds f-fifty an hour,’ he declared in a burst of verbosity.

I was suggesting that he demand four quid when Annabelle strode in, looking all the things that reduce me to the state of the young man who did her borders, and gave me a peck on the cheek.

‘Sorry about that, I was on the phone,’ she explained. ‘I thought I heard you. Have you met Donald, the person who works wonders in my garden?’ She was wearing a striped butcher’s apron over a skirt and bright red blouse, and I noticed the makings of lunch at the far end of the work surface.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve just remarked what a good job he does. I was wondering about making him a better offer to come and do mine.’

All the praise was making him blush. He rose to his feet, slouching, and put his mug in the sink. ‘I’ll go n-now,’ he announced.

‘But your bus isn’t for another fifteen minutes,’ Annabelle told him. Turning to me she said, ‘He missed the one he usually catches.’

‘Where do you live?’ I asked.

‘Oates S-S-Square,’ he informed me.

I briefly wondered if it was named after Titus or Captain. ‘Where’s that?’

‘N-near the p-park.’

‘Heckley park?’ I wondered with sudden interest.

‘Y-yes.’

‘Do you go in the park much?’

‘S-sometimes.’

I said, ‘Look, it’s trying to rain outside. I could easily run you home. It wouldn’t take ten minutes.’

‘N-no, I’ll walk to the n-next stop.’

‘Are you sure?’ Annabelle asked. ‘Charles could easily give you a lift.’

‘N-no thanks. Is it all r-right if I come WWednesday?’

‘Tomorrow? Instead of Thursday? Of course it is, if you prefer it. Have you put your money somewhere safe?’

‘It’s in my p-pocket. Bye.’

‘Goodbye, Donald.’

‘S’long, Donald. Nice to meet you.’

As the door closed behind him the smile slipped from Annabelle’s face. ‘He’ll go straight to the pub,’ she said.

I shrugged my shoulders. ‘If it makes him happy…’

She came to me and we hugged each other. ‘This is nice,’ I told her. ‘I think I could get used to it. Trouble is, I won’t want to go back to work.’

She leant back from my embrace. ‘I was ringing Marie and Toby to thank them for the meal on Sunday. They are coming to stay for a couple of days at half-term. They haven’t got a car, so I’ll have to run them around, show them the sights. You don’t mind, do you?’

Toby and Marie were the manufacturers of the sloe gin that had laid me low. ‘Of course not. They’re good company. Tell them to bring some home-brew with them.’

‘I doubt if they have any left,’ she reproached, breaking from my grasp.

‘Oh. So when is half-term?’

‘Three weeks. Right. Food. How does trout in almonds, with vegetables, sound?’

‘Dee-licious. With Annabelle surprise for pudding?’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that. I thought you only had an hour for lunch.’ She removed something from the refrigerator and busied herself with the cooking. ‘It was good of you to offer to run Donald home,’ she said, over her shoulder.

No it wasn’t. There was nothing good at all about it. I wanted a talk with him, ask him if he’d killed the swans in the park. But you are beautiful and naive, I thought. A summer’s breeze blowing through my corrupt and jaundiced life, and I don’t deserve you.

Sparky was replacing the phone as I walked in. ‘Appointment go well?’ he casually asked.

‘Yeah, not bad,’ I told him, sitting in the chair opposite.

He leant across and brushed my lapel. ‘Bit of seafood sauce on your collar,’ he said.

I looked down and pretended to wipe some more off. ‘It’s probably crime brulee,’ I replied. ‘It gets everywhere.’

‘I bet it does. There are no WAM Bee-Emms in Heckley, but two in Halifax. Unfortunately the owners don’t fit our description.’