Deadly Friends (13 page)

‘You’re an attractive woman,’ I stated. ‘Did he ever approach you? Chat you up? Invite you out?’ I gave myself a small pat on the back for slipping the compliment in and making it sound like a professional observation. She looked uncomfortable and might even have blushed under the make-up.

‘N-No,’ she stuttered, meaning yes.

‘You don’t seem sure.’

‘Well, it doesn’t seem right, talking about the dead when they can’t defend themselves.’

‘The doctor was murdered, Mrs Henderson,’ I reminded her. ‘It’s my job to defend him, by tracking down his killer. If you know something that isn’t in your previous statement you’d better tell me right now.’

She sighed and said: ‘Right.’

I was standing at her desk and there was no handy chair for me to pull closer. ‘Come and sit over here,’ I said, and walked across to a small sofa. She sat down next to me and crossed her legs. Her tights were the same shade as the pancake mix on her face. ‘That’s better,’ I said. ‘Now what do you want to tell me?’

‘About four years ago,’ she began. ‘Clive – Mr Jordan – invited me out. I’d left my husband about three years earlier and was still off men. He was very persistent but I kept saying no. Then he stopped asking me.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Right. Thank you. He must have been very disappointed.’

‘There’s more.’

‘Oh. Go on, then.’

‘As I said earlier, two of us work full-time on reception. This week I’m covering from eight a.m. to four p.m. My opposite number is called Josephine Farrier. She comes on at three and stays until ten. Josie – Mrs Farrier – was having an affair with Clive.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘She told me herself. He must have approached her after I turned him down. Last summer she poured her heart out to me – said she loved him, wanted to leave Eric, her husband, and the two children. Unfortunately for her, that was the last thing on Clive’s mind. It was all a bit pathetic – real Marj Proops stuff. It had been going on for years, she said, after work. When she was on early she was supposed to be at a pottery class, would you believe?’

‘It happens,’ I said. ‘People in love do desperate things. Do you think her husband – Eric – knew?’

‘I don’t know. I told her not to be so stupid. Men only wanted one thing, I told her, and Clive was no different to the rest of them.’

For a moment I felt … invisible. ‘You weren’t very sympathetic,’ I said.

‘It wasn’t sympathy she needed, it was a good shaking.’

‘Right. Did you tell her that she’d been the doc’s second choice, after you?’

‘No. I couldn’t be so cruel.’

‘And she never mentioned that her husband knew?’

‘No, but do you think it’s possible to keep something like that secret?’

‘I don’t know,’ I replied, untruthfully. I’d discovered the answer the hard way, a long time ago. I didn’t have a highlighter pen, so I underlined Mrs Josephine Farrier’s name on my printout. She had some questions to answer.

I interviewed the ward sister, two enrolled nurses and the finance manager without coming to any conclusions, other than agreeing with Nigel’s statement about them all being good-looking. I couldn’t help contrasting the accommodation – every bed in a private room, wallpaper on the walls, no hospital smell – with Heckley General where my father spent his final days. As a visitor, I’d definitely prefer to come here. As a patient, I wasn’t so sure.

Hunger’s clammy tentacles, clutching at my innards, drove me away. I had hoped to last out until Mrs Farrier came to work, at three o’clock, but I’d hardly eaten for twenty-four hours. As I strolled into the foyer for the last time, after seeing one of the nurses, Mrs Henderson looked up from a keyboard and smiled expectantly, awaiting the next name on my list.

‘I think that’s it for today,’ I said. ‘I need to be in the station, shortly.’

‘Will you be coming back, Mr Priest?’ she asked. ‘Yes, I think I’ll have to, but thanks for your help today.’

‘You’re welcome.’

I turned to leave, then stopped, hand to head as if deep in thought. ‘There was one final question I’d like to ask you,’ I said, turning back to her.

‘Yes?’

‘Now, what was it?’ I tapped my cheek with a fingertip. ‘Ah, yes,’ I said. ‘I remember. You said you were off men, Mrs Henderson. I was wondering: are you still off them?’

‘Yes,’ she said, but her smile was so broad her
make-up
did well to contain it. A little flirting can go a long way.

I called in a cafe in the town centre that did steak and kidney pies you could trust, with apple pie and custard to follow. Maggie came in a few minutes after I arrived back at the station. She’d been to see Herbert Mathews, who sent his regards, and to consult the court histories at Burnley. We now had a clear picture of Buxton’s career as a serial rapist – allegedly – but nothing that helped much. All it did was harden our resolve to nail him.

I let Sparky finish the interviews at the clinic. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said when he returned.

‘What?’

‘We’re mixing with a higher class of woman on this enquiry.’

‘You mean Mrs Farrier was a good-looker?’

‘And the other one. All of them, in fact.’

I said: ‘Maybe it’s us. Perhaps we’re growing old, beginning to see women in a new light.’

‘If it is, then yippity-di-doo. Let’s have more of it.’

‘What else did you discover?’

‘She admitted that they were lovers, right to the end. On the night in question she was out with her husband at a choral festival at the local church. Lots of people there that they knew. I’ve got some names, one of which is Dr Barraclough. He sold them the tickets.’

‘Check them out just the same,’ I said. ‘Let’s not have another Ged Skinner.’

‘Right. So what do you reckon?’ Sparky asked.

‘I reckon,’ I told him, ‘that so far we’ve caught more red herrings than a Russian trawler. Do you know what we need?’

‘Er, no. What do we need?’

‘A chart. That’s what we need. When in doubt, draw a chart. And there’s nothing like one for impressing the top brass when they start asking questions.’ I pulled the flip-board easel from the corner and turned over to a clean page.

‘Why not do it on the computer,’ Sparky suggested. ‘Because I wouldn’t know where to start,’ I confessed. ‘Would you?’

‘Er, no.’

‘I’ve only just mastered the flip-board. And besides,
this way I get to use coloured pens. Let’s start with the doctor.’

I wrote his name at the top of the sheet, drew a black square around it to signify deceased and put the date, December 23.

‘Supplying drugs to Ged Skinner,’ Sparky suggested.

I wrote the exact words and drew a little box. ‘That’s his alibi box. Number one means he claims to have one, two means we’ve checked it, three, it’s foolproof. Two, would you say?’

‘Yeah. Two.’

‘Next?’

‘The registrar. And his wife.’

I wrote them in and put ‘sexual’ along the connecting line to suggest possible motives. ‘Alibis?’

‘Only one.’

‘We haven’t spoken to her yet, have we?’

‘No.’

‘We’d better put that right, soon as pos.’

‘Noted.’

‘But presumably she was at the same dinner party?’

‘That’s right. She did the cooking.’

‘Unless they had a takeaway,’ I suggested, ‘and while she was waiting in the shop for eight portions of spare ribs, Peking duck and sweet and sour dogs’ bollocks to be prepared she nipped out to the doctor’s and bumped him off.’

‘Brilliant, Holmes,’ Sparky said. ‘Let’s bring her in.’

‘Maybe not. Who’s next?’

‘The chemist.’

‘A.J.K. Weatherall. Motive?’

‘Money?’

‘He’ll still have to pay for the car, into the doc’s estate.’

‘In that case, maybe they really were on the fiddle.’

‘OK.’ I put a one in his alibi box. ‘He and his wife were fitting curtain rails at the new house,’ I explained.

‘How pleasant. And that brings us to the bag of worms at the clinic.’

‘Mr and Mrs Farrier.’

‘Right.’

‘Motive?’

‘Sex, again.’

‘Alibi?’

‘Yes, but not checked.’

‘One.’

‘Yep.’

‘Barraclough?’ I had to bend the word downwards because I was running off the edge of the page. ‘Barraclough? What’s his motive?’

‘Sex, jealousy, anything. We can’t rule him out.’

‘OK. Alibi?’

‘You said he was at the same carol concert as the Farriers.’

‘Of course. So that’s a one, again.’

‘Yep.’

‘What about Jordan’s acting friends?’

I pulled a face and sighed. ‘I don’t think so. We’ll have to keep a weather eye on them, though. Can’t rule them out completely.’

‘Next?’

I wrote ‘Malpractice?’ at the bottom of the page. ‘What are we doing about that?’ Sparky asked.

‘Dr Barraclough is supposed to be ringing me. I’ll give him a reminder.’

‘So, is that it?’

I shook my head. ‘No, there’s one last group.’ I wrote ‘Abortions’ in the last bit of clear space.

‘I thought Barraclough was convinced that the
pro-lifers
didn’t know the clinic existed,’ Sparky said.

‘That’s what he said, but we can’t be sure. I’m not thinking of just the pro-lifers. Mr Jordan performed between four and five thousand terminations in his short but eventful career. Including fathers, that’s ten thousand potential dissatisfied customers.’ I wrote ‘X 10,000’ next to ‘Abortions’ and clicked the top back on the pen.

We were both silent for several minutes, pretending to be studying the chart. I was thinking about the five thousand foetuses that Jordan had been instrumental in destroying. I imagined ten schools, side by side. Filing into them was a long line of boys and girls, smart in their grey uniforms. They carried satchels and sports bags and jostled and teased each other. For as far as the eye could see. I’m in favour of choice, but I couldn’t do it.

Sparky leant his chair back on two legs and flipped his notebook shut. ‘You know your comment about the Russian trawler?’ he said.

‘Mmm.’

‘I think you’d better make it the whole bleedin’ fishing fleet.’

Sparky was right. We were no nearer narrowing the field down than when Ged Skinner walked out of the station. We hadn’t even considered Darryl Buxton. Much as I’d have loved to have pinned it on him, living in the same block of flats as the dead man was hardly grounds for suspicion. Monday, I’d have a word with Mr Wood and Mr Isles. We needed more manpower. Every alibi would have to be checked, every interview re-done. Maybe somebody’s guard would drop, or their story wouldn’t tally with the first one they’d given. They’d embroider it, add bits that contradicted what they’d said earlier, and talk themselves into a murder charge. And Mother Teresa might buy a Harley for nipping to mass on. I told Sparky that I’d see him Monday and went home.

I had a luxurious shower and smothered myself in smelly gunge that Annabelle had given me for Christmas. Tonight we would eat in style; the Wool Exchange was the best restaurant in Heckley. There wasn’t much competition – the second best was the Bamboo Curtain – but it had a certain class that no amount of new money can re-create. I pulled the last of the new shirts from its box and carefully unfolded it. It was dark blue, with a thin grey check. It would look good with my dark suit and the red silk tie, which was another present from Annabelle.

I pulled the knot tight and slipped my jacket on, studying myself in the mirror. I looked good, even if it was archetypal detective. The face was pale and I had a few more wrinkles, but they were all in the places where I smile, and I smile a lot. I picked up the holiday brochures and drove round to the Old Vicarage, next to St Bidulph’s, where Annabelle lived.

She was wearing a fawn suit that I’d never seen before and a red blouse. The suit wasn’t her colour – she’s at her best in something really bold – but she still looked stunning. She looks good in one of my old sweaters when she’s helping me with emergency maintenance in my garden. I stood watching her as she moved around the rooms, checking windows and switches. When she was ready I led her to the front door and held it open. As she passed me she gave me a kiss on the cheek.

‘What did I do to deserve that?’ I asked, pleased but slightly surprised.

‘You look very handsome,’ she said, rather gravely, and gave me a squeeze.

‘And you look very beautiful,’ I replied, but she turned away, and my kiss fell on her cheek.

‘Tell me about the Wool Exchange,’ she said, in the car.

‘Right,’ I replied. ‘Here comes a rather vague history lesson. The present building was built by the wool barons in the eighteenth century, although there was something there long before that. It was where they auctioned their produce and conducted their other businesses. It was in use well into this century, but I’m not very good at dates. At other times they used it as an exclusive club and entertained their cotton-picking cousins from over the hill. If we knew its full history we might not want to frequent the place. Slave-trade money and freemasonry come to mind, but I think you’ll like it.’

‘Have you been before?’

‘Mmm,’ I said. ‘Long time ago,’ but I didn’t enlarge upon my answer. My wife – Vanessa – and I held our wedding reception there. After that we’d come back for a romantic table for two on birthdays and anniversaries. There weren’t too many of those. Tonight, hopefully, I was laying a ghost.

Our table was available so we went straight in and sat down. ‘This is incredible,’ Annabelle said, looking around. Along the edges of the room was a row of desks on high legs, with merchants’ names elegant
written on them in gold paint. Blackboards carried the names of breeds of sheep, probably now extinct, with columns for the prices to be written in
£
.s.d. Portraits of the leading barons in their ceremonial robes, smug bastards to a man, adorned the walls. It wasn’t elegant or aesthetically pleasing in any way, but it was authentic and smacked of wealth and all that went with it.

‘Would you like the wine list, sir?’ a waiter was saying as he proffered a bound volume. He was old enough to have been here when they drowned their sorrows over universal suffrage. Annabelle shook her head when I looked across at her.

‘Just fizzy water, please,’ I said.

All the other tables were occupied but they were so far apart it didn’t matter. We both decided the halibut dieppoise with a salpicon of prawns and leeks sounded good and settled for that. I was starving so I ordered the carrot and fennel soup and we both asked for pâté.

‘How’s the soup?’ Annabelle asked as I tucked in.

‘Delicious, but,’ I said.

‘But what?’

‘But not as good as yours. Same with the bread roll. Have you seen the uplifting slogans carved round the frieze?’ I led her eyes upwards. ‘The one behind you says: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.”’

‘Good grief, yes,’ she replied. ‘There doesn’t look anything meek about this lot. Yours says: “Out of
Prosperity shall come Peace.” I suppose I could go along with that.’

‘Except when the prosperity comes from running slaves and peddling opium to the Chinese,’ I said.

‘It’s a fascinating place,’ Annabelle observed, glancing around. ‘Why haven’t you brought me here before?’

‘Oh, I just thought I’d keep it up my sleeve,’ I told her, laying the spoon across my empty bowl.

‘And what else do you have up your sleeve?’

I fiddled with my napkin and focused on the table centrepiece. There was a little silver bowl brimming with primulas, and salt and pepper shakers with a coat of arms on them that featured a sheep hanging by a strap round its middle. I’ve never understood what that was about.

‘Nothing,’ I said, softly, looking up into her eyes, bluer than a jay’s wing, and reaching a hand towards her. ‘There’s nothing else, Annabelle. All you see here is all there is.’

Her cheeks flushed. She picked up her fork and pressed the points into the cloth until she realised what she was doing and replaced it. We were too far apart to hold hands so I had to settle for a little smile from her.

An all male party, about eight of them, were at a table in the far corner. We could hear them chattering but they weren’t too bad. As the waiter brought the pâté they all burst into raucous laughter.

‘I must apologise for the noise, sir,’ the waiter said. ‘I assure you they are not regular customers.’

‘It’s not a problem,’ I told him.

One of the group was now on his feet, as if to make a speech. A bread roll bounced off his dinner jacket and he sat down again to loud cheers from his cronies.

‘It’s not how we prefer our guests to behave,’ the waiter said, hurrying off.

‘Tell me about the restaurants,’ I said to Annabelle. ‘And this designer you’re meeting.’

‘I don’t know much about it myself,’ she replied, leaning forward. ‘Xav’s meeting me off the train and I expect I’ll be whisked away to a meeting, or a working lunch. Working lunches are very popular in this business.’

‘I bet they are.’

‘Xav sent me some drawings of the interiors of the restaurants, sort of three-dimensional plans, looking inside, if you follow me …’

‘I think they’re called isometric sketches,’ I said, although I was guessing.

‘Are they? I was wondering if you’d have a look at them with me, when we go home. Will I be able to colour them, to compare how different designs would look?’

‘Of course you will,’ I replied, smiling. Ever since we met I’ve broken the rules to involve her in my work. Now she was doing it with me. A roar went up from the rowdies in the corner. I looked across and Annabelle turned in her seat. One of them, jacket off and sleeves rolled up, was pretending to sing, using a Liebfraumilch
bottle as a microphone. The others started chanting: ‘Sit down you bum, sit down you bum.’

‘This used to be a posh place,’ I said by way of an apology.

‘I think we picked a bad night,’ she replied.

The manager, tall and elegant, scuttled out of the kitchen and headed towards them, a diplomat dashing to quell trouble with the natives. Behind him the chef took up a position in the doorway, meat cleaver in his hand. He looked like a cross between Pavarotti and the King of Tonga. I decided to be on his side.

The manager knew what he was doing. His hands flapped as he spoke, faces nodded at him, smiles broke out and hands were shaken. He went back to his retreat and the chef closed the door.

We ate our pâté and Annabelle told me that the next Luxotel would be on a new complex near West Midlands Airport. Hopefully, she’d be in from the start with the decor of this one. It was nearing completion and decisions needed making in the next few days. I could understand her enthusiasm.

The halibut was superb. I was asking Annabelle if she’d like to change her mind about the wine – a glass of dry white would have gone well with it – when there was another commotion in the corner. They were all on their feet, hooking jackets off the backs of chairs and reaching for wallets.

‘Breathe easy,’ I said. ‘They’re leaving.’

‘Thank goodness for that.’

They filed towards us, threading between the tables in line astern, bellies thrust forward as they swayed with a curious grace, like sailors on a moving deck, and stifled their belches. They could have been the descendants of the men in the paintings, fat and arrogant but minus the class.

Fifth in the line was Darryl Buxton. He was wearing a cream tuxedo with red cummerbund and dicky bow, and a frilly shirt. Each frill was edged in black, in case you hadn’t noticed it. He looked like something from the Great Barrier Reef.

‘Well, well, well,’ he shouted as he saw me, raising an arm above his head in a parody of a bullfighter, ‘look who it fuckin’ isn’t.’

The man in front turned and grabbed him. ‘C’mon, Darryl,’ he said.

‘That’s the bastard who’s trying to frame me,’ Darryl declared. ‘I didn’t know cops ate ’ere. I wouldn’t have suggested it if I’d known cops ate ’ere.’

The parade had shuffled to a halt at our table. My only thought was with Annabelle. We were in a situation that was not of my making, so how could I extract us with minimum embarrassment and maybe even earn a bit of kudos for myself? Was it to be Gregory Peck in
The Big Country
, or Stallone in … whatever? Freud would have loved me.

‘Take him away, please,’ I said to his companion, my hands spreadeagled on the table so he could see I wasn’t going for my gun.

‘He’s a fuckin’ cop,’ Darryl told the restaurant.

‘C’mon,’ his pal said. ‘He’s not worth it.’

They started to bundle him away and I looked across at Annabelle. Her face was white but she was staring defiantly at him.

‘I’ll fix him,’ I heard Darryl say. ‘I’ll fuckin’ fix you,’ he shouted, further away.

The manager was with us, apologising. ‘I assure you sir, we won’t be accepting a booking from them again, and I’m most sorry for any inconvenience or upset caused to you. Please try to enjoy the rest of your meal. Allow me to bring you a complimentary bottle of wine? Sir? Madam?’

‘Who are they?’ I asked.

‘They said they were estate agents. A company called Homes 4 U, I believe. We took the booking about a week ago. It is the last time they will eat at the Wool Exchange, I promise you. Now, about that wine, sir?’

I shook my head. ‘No, we’re all right, thanks.’ Annabelle had pushed her plate away, cutlery neatly laid on it. I felt the same way.

‘I think we’ll just have the bill,’ I said.

He trowelled the apologies on like marzipan and offered us coffees or liqueurs. I told him that the halibut was excellent but we’d lost our appetites, so he knocked ten pounds off the bill and hoped that we’d eat there again. I promised him we would.

I held the car door open for Annabelle and carefully closed it behind her. I walked round and took my
own seat. I pulled my seatbelt on but didn’t start the engine.

‘That didn’t quite work out how I’d planned it,’ I said.

‘It wasn’t your fault, Charles,’ she replied, putting her hand on mine.

‘I’d wanted tonight to be special.’

‘I know.’ She smiled, and said: ‘Up to then, it had been.’

‘Well, at least it wasn’t dull,’ I chuckled.

‘You can certainly say that again. Who was he, that obnoxious man?’

‘That was Darryl Buxton, acquitted of rape five times and in the frame for another.’

‘Five times!’

‘That we know of.’

‘That’s … horrible. Be careful, Charles,’ she said, ‘he looked dangerous.’

‘Only with women,’ I assured her. ‘I can handle the Darryl Buxtons of this world any time at all.’ There’s no harm in a flash of macho, now and again, as long as you keep it under control.

As we drove out of town I said: ‘I think the Wool Exchange must be jinxed for me.’

Annabelle asked me why, and I told her about my wedding reception.

‘Oh, Charles, I am sorry.’

‘Tell me about yours,’ I said.

‘My wedding reception?’

‘Yes. Where was it?’

‘In Kenya.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘A little township called Navashonga, in the north.’

‘Go on. I like to hear you talk about Kenya.’

We were at the traffic lights. They changed to green and I eased forward, Annabelle’s hand on my knee. When I was in top gear again I put mine back on it.

‘It was the start of the long wet season,’ she began, ‘so the acacia trees were in blossom. The church was made of breeze blocks and flattened oil drums, with a piano that had several keys missing. After the service we had a picnic, everybody invited. People came from miles around – half of Africa must have been there – and the Samburu danced for us. It was wonderful.’

I could picture it, through her eyes. She’d shown me her photographs and books and the images were as vivid to me as if I’d been there myself: the flat-topped feverthorn trees, the cattle, swirling dust and pogo-stick dancing of the Samburu, close cousins of the Masai. She was happy when she reminisced, and that usually made me happy, too.

But tonight it was different. Tonight, as I listened to her reminisce, her voice far away, on another continent, with another man, the ache in my stomach felt as if something was trying to suck my entrails from me, and I knew it wasn’t the halibut.