Die Happy lah-24

by J M Gregson

  Lambert afforded him a brief smile. ‘The reality is much less exciting than the fevered creation of the media, I’m afraid. I’m fully occupied with a murder case at the moment, or you wouldn’t find me here on a Sunday morning. I’m told that you’ve come here as a member of the public anxious to help in an enquiry; we are of course grateful for that. But neither of us wishes to waste more of our Sunday than we have to. Please state your business.’

  The small figure took an impressively deep breath, produced a card and deposited it on Lambert’s desk. ‘CLIVE BOND. Private Investigator’. He waited for Lambert to study the card and show the first glimmer of amusement. ‘I state that baldly on my cards because I find it’s best to get the hilarity over my name out of the way at the outset.’

  Lambert controlled all thoughts of Miss Moneypenny directing this diminutive figure against the forces of world evil. ‘It could have been worse, Mr Bond. You mother could have opted for “James” at the christening.’

  ‘In which case I should have adopted a different name entirely. I sometimes think that would have been the best way, but I started with my own name and I’m stuck with it.’

  Lambert studied the thin-faced, undernourished-looking figure and controlled the smile which threatened the solemnity of his reception. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Bond? Or should I rather ask, what you can do for us?’

  ‘Mr Peter Preston, your murder victim. I worked for him.’

  ‘In which case, many thanks for taking the initiative and coming here. We should certainly have unearthed your name and contacted you in the next few days. That is one task less for Detective Inspector Rushton.’

  ‘He’s the man who told me to come here. I approached him when he was leaving the football ground at Hereford yesterday afternoon. He had a young boy with him, so he didn’t want to speak to me then.’ He volunteered each fact grudgingly. Bond was a man who did not yield information easily; he was used to being paid for each fact he disgorged.

  ‘How fully and how often did Mr Preston employ your services, Mr Bond?’

  The small man glanced at Lambert sharply with the repetition of his name; plainly he was sensitive about what others saw as its comic possibilities. This time he saw no such intent. ‘I did quite a lot of work for him — at times I was almost his full-time employee. But the work was intermittent and there was no real pattern to it. He kept coming back to me, so he must have been satisfied with the way I worked and the things I produced for him.’

  Lambert understood the man’s urge to advertise himself. His was a calling in which successes could not be openly proclaimed and the only one who could prove your efficiency was yourself. ‘No doubt you were working on something for him at the time of his death, or you wouldn’t be here now.’

  ‘Yes.’ Clive Bond looked unhappy; he wasn’t used to his revelations being anticipated. He liked to reveal a morsel at a time, to emphasize the value of what he was being paid for. But then he’d never been questioned by a chief superintendent before; that must surely confirm that his work was important. ‘Mr Preston asked me to watch his wife and to document her movements for him on certain occasions. He let me know in advance when these excursions were to take place.’

  ‘That means you wouldn’t usually have had much notice.’

  ‘I was prepared to drop other assignments for Mr Preston; he was a good client who made regular use of my services. Sometimes you can pass less important work on to other people in the profession. We have agreements among ourselves. If you haven’t much on at the time, you’re glad to take on the work.’

  Lambert knew enough of the strange, hand-to-mouth existence of the private detective to know that such transfers would be eagerly received by the less successful and less established practitioners of the trade. ‘So you’ve come here to tell us about the movements of Mrs Edwina Preston on the night of her husband’s death.’

  ‘Yes.’ Again he had intended to reveal this in stages. He was being hurried along and it spoilt his rhythm. ‘She was with another man on the night of his death.’

  ‘A Mr Hugh Whitfield.’ Lambert told himself he was being petty, but he couldn’t suppress his amusement in anticipating what Bond had planned as a startling revelation.

  Clive frowned at the leather-backed notebook he had produced and opened with such ceremony. He drew a mental line through the name he had meant to produce so proudly. He looked so crestfallen that Lambert was moved to say, ‘We have questioned Mrs Preston very closely on two occasions since her husband’s death, as you would no doubt anticipate. But I’m sure you can add to what we have learned from her.’

  Bond nodded, returned to his notebook and announced with diminishing confidence, ‘Mr Whitfield and Mrs Preston spent that night in a hotel.’

  ‘In Broadway, Worcestershire, yes. I’m afraid she revealed both the location and her companion to us.’

  ‘I see.’ Clive paused again, running his eye down the page, hoping that he still had material which would surprise this grave-faced, seemingly omniscient interrogator. ‘Did you know that Mr Whitfield was late arriving?’

  Now at last he had Lambert’s full and eager attention. ‘When did he get there?’

  ‘Not until ten thirty-four p.m.’

  ‘I see.’ Lambert made a note on the pad in front of him.

  Clive recovered a little of his poise. He said ponderously, ‘Mrs Preston went out during the evening. She left in her green Fiat C3 at ten past eight p.m. and did not return until ten twenty-seven p.m.’

  Lambert made a note of the times. ‘I compliment you on your precision, Mr Bond. And where did Mrs Preston journey to in that period?’

  Just when he had recovered his equilibrium and told them things they did not know, Clive was deflated. This was the one section of the evening where his detective skills had proved inadequate. ‘I don’t know, I’m afraid. I tailed her as far as the B4632, where she turned south, but I had to wait for a stream of traffic at the junction and I was well behind her before I could follow her. I never picked her up again.’

  ‘Pity, that. It would have been interesting to know where she went in those two and a quarter hours.’

  ‘It’s not easy to tail someone at night, you know. Particularly when you don’t want them to realize they’re being followed.’

  ‘Indeed I do know, Mr Bond. Even professional police drivers on surveillance have great problems during darkness.’

  ‘All you can see is rear lights. One small car looks very like another. It’s much easier in daylight.’

  ‘Of course it is. And we’re very grateful for the new information you have brought to us. It will be added immediately to our other material from the enquiry and be the subject of our further investigation. What did you do when you decided that you’d lost contact with Mrs Preston’s car?’

  ‘I went back to the hotel in Broadway to check whether my subject was going to reappear there. She did, but not until ten twenty-seven. Mr Whitfield arrived in his own car, a Volkswagen Sirocco, exactly seven minutes later.’

  ‘Thank you. We shall use this material in questioning the parties involved in due course. You did the right thing in coming forward. Unfortunately the law regards you as merely a good citizen doing his duty and there is no obvious means of rewarding you. However, I will see if we can make you some sort of payment from the money we use for police informers.’

  ‘I’ve never been a police snout.’ Bond spoke instinctively and indignantly, for once unmindful of his own interests.

  Lambert gave him a mirthless smile. ‘I understand that. But you should not be too proud to accept a payment if it can be engineered. Obviously the person employing your services on that night is not in a position to pay you. I would think that a claim on his estate would not be well received.’

  Clive Bond relaxed for the first time. ‘Thank you for your consideration, Chief Superintendent Lambert. It is much appreciated. A regular income is not one of the benefits of private detection.’

  Lambert was s
till smiling at the stiff formality of this a minute after the man had left. Then he buzzed DI Rushton, whom he had seen twenty minutes earlier organizing the mass of information that had come in from house to house enquiries and team interviews into a more coherent whole on his computer. ‘I think you’d better come in here, Chris. I have a new development to report.’

  NINETEEN

  The Ros Barker exhibition in Cheltenham was going well. Harry Barnard’s gallery was spacious and well-sited, near the centre of the town. He might have no artistic pretensions himself, but he knew his business and knew how to display the work of those he chose to favour with their own exhibitions. He had taken pains to advertise this relatively unknown protegee in the most telling places and he had produced a brief but impressive brochure to introduce her paintings and what they were about.

  There was a photograph of Ros on the front, earnest but smiling shyly, an expression that took the severity out of the strong, aquiline nose. It had been taken two years ago and selected from those available by Kate Merrick, who thought it suggested the humour as well as the essential seriousness of her partner and her art. The account of her work and her budding career inside the brochure was followed by a quotation from the eminent television art critic, Arthur Jackson: ‘Rosemary Barker’s work is original without being merely fashionably avant-garde. It is comprehensible without ever being trite, strikingly intelligent without attempting to confuse.’ There were small but well-printed reproductions of the paintings which had been accepted by the Royal Academy for its last two summer exhibitions.

  Barnard had decided that the exhibition should be attended by the artist herself for three hours on the opening Sunday afternoon, divining correctly that serious art lovers were likely to visit when the rest of the town was quiet and parking was easy. Ros and Kate Merrick had enjoyed staffing the gallery for an unusually busy session. There were now three more paintings carrying red ‘Sold’ stickers than at the beginning of the afternoon, two of them major works, with price tags which only Harry Barnard had thought realistic.

  An altogether satisfactory day. Thus far.

  Ros had scarcely had time to think about the CID visit, which had been arranged for five o’clock, the advertised closing time for the gallery. In the event, she quietly locked the doors and put up the ‘Closed’ signs whilst allowing the three potential patrons who were examining her work an extra quarter of an hour — you didn’t wish to hurry people who might be prepared to spend hundreds of pounds. Lambert and Hook arrived at their appointed hour, but seemed perfectly happy to examine the various paintings until she was ready to talk to them. ‘Enlightened policemen,’ Kate muttered at her from the side of her mouth. ‘Civilization is really beginning to advance.’

  Ros grinned at the comment, but was surprised by the awareness both men seemed to exhibit when they moved briefly into the small room behind the gallery that Barnard had allotted to her for private conversations with people interested in buying. Hook actually suggested a Pre-Raphaelite influence in her work; she found herself disproportionately pleased by that. She made a conventional remark about hoping their Sunday’s work had been as fruitful as hers, whereupon Lambert moved briskly into the reason for their visit here.

  ‘You must wish Peter Preston was here today to see the number of red discs on your paintings.’

  She smiled. ‘He wouldn’t have acknowledged it meant anything. “Philistine money pursuing philistine art.” I can almost hear him saying that. In a curious, masochistic sort of way, I shall almost miss him.’

  ‘That is a generous thought. I doubt if he was ever so generous towards you.’

  ‘No. Perhaps he was good for me, though. It’s salutary for you to have to justify your approach to art every now and then — not that I was ever going to convince Peter. He was harmless enough, I suppose, if you didn’t allow yourself to be upset by his barbs.’

  ‘Which you were, on occasions.’

  How precise the man was, how ready to pick you up on what you said unthinkingly. She remembered now that she’d told him on Tuesday that most serious artists were easily wounded when you attacked their work. She’d probably been talking about Sam Hilton and his verse, but it was equally applicable to her own art. And these men had been talking to others for days now; probably someone else had told them how aggressive Preston had been towards her. She would take it as a warning to weigh carefully what she disclosed to them in the next few minutes. She said quietly, ‘Preston had done good work himself in the past. He no doubt realized that although you try to develop a carapace around yourself against criticism, you remain vulnerable to attacks on your work.’

  Lambert smiled. ‘Which includes praise as well as negative comment, as you reminded me on Thursday.’

  How accurately he remembered things she had tossed out so lightly at the time! Ros smiled back at him and said, ‘Mr Barnard has selected extracts from the critics which reflect well on me. Perhaps I should take care to remember that there are other and less flattering judgements.’ She felt perfectly relaxed, buoyed by her successes of the afternoon, cocooned for the moment from the more sordid realities of life outside her art.

  ‘You are very charitable towards Mr Preston. He was far more vindictive than you suggest.’

  The first warning bells rang in her head, recalling her abruptly from the successes of the day. She said thoughtfully, ‘I suppose he was the kind of man who treasured a grievance.’

  ‘Not only treasured it but documented it fully. The sort of man who would build up detailed dossiers on people he came to regard as enemies.’

  Ros was conscious of both men studying her intently, watching her reactions to this, trying to decide whether it was news to her or whether she was already aware of it. ‘Are you saying that he compiled such a dossier about me?’

  ‘Yes. Are you telling us that you were not aware of that?’

  She did not answer them directly. ‘It’s the sort of thing he would have done, I suppose. He couldn’t let anything go. If he thought you were being favoured at his expense, he took it very personally.’ She forced a smile. ‘It’s flattering, in a way, to think that he thought I was worthy of that sort of attention.’

  ‘He had a lot of practice. By the time of his death, he had become an expert at delving into people’s pasts. He employed a private detective to build up his knowledge, whenever he thought that was worthwhile. He had people followed and kept careful notes of dates, times and other details.’

  Ros made herself pause and think. ‘Preston would hardly have found that sort of attention worth his while, in my case. I have made no secret of my association with Kate Merrick — rather the reverse, if you wish to know. I’ve been proud enough of it to proclaim it at times. Everyone knows we’re partners. A generation ago, that might still have been mildly interesting, though hardly scandalous, except to a few old fogies. Nowadays, I don’t think anyone turns a hair.’

  Lambert still knew a few who would, in rural and highly conservative Gloucestershire. ‘I think Peter Preston realized that. He’d moved in circles where being gay was common and accepted, even thirty years ago. But he took care to inform himself about your earlier history. He didn’t name his sources in his files, but I suspect he knew former police officers and sounded them out about you. Information like that should remain confidential, but we have little control over people in the police service once they retire. For the unscrupulous, it can be a way of supplementing a pension. I suspect Preston paid people for information revealed, though in your case there are no names attached.’

  Ros’s mouth was suddenly very dry. ‘What sort of information?’

  ‘He went back ten or twelve years. To your last days at school and your years at the art college.’

  ‘I got in with the wrong set.’ For the first time in her life, she found herself mouthing the phrase she had heard so often from her mother.

  ‘Very much the wrong set. You probably know that several of your former associates are now in prison. Two of th
em serving five-year sentences for GBH.’

  ‘I cut myself off from them. I haven’t followed their careers since then.’ She tried to be firm, even dismissive, but it sounded a weak denial even in her own ears.

  ‘You were guilty of some pretty wild things yourself, when you were nineteen and twenty.’

  ‘I was never charged with any offence.’

  ‘You came very near to it, even with the good lawyer your mother called in for you.’

  ‘It’s ten years since I was in any trouble. It’s no longer relevant.’

  Bert Hook said gently, ‘It wouldn’t be, Ros, if this wasn’t a murder enquiry. We have to take into account any previous tendency to see violence as a solution to problems.’

  She could think only of going into the tired cliches about once a villain always a villain and innocent until proved guilty. From being on a high from the sale of her paintings, she felt abruptly deflated and exhausted. She was back in the world of reality, which was presenting its harshest aspect to her. She repeated the same futile argument in a flat voice. ‘My life now is totally different from my life ten years ago. What I did then has no bearing on my life today.’

  ‘Unless your behaviour then shows character traits that persist, Ros. It doesn’t make you guilty of the crime committed last Tuesday night, but we have to take these things into account. Past experience tells us that we need to do this. The records show that people who’ve been violent once tend to be violent again, when they’re put under pressure.’

  She tried to muster some sort of denial, but he made it all sound distressingly logical. And her mind was weary, too weary to resist. She nodded dumbly, not trusting her tongue. Hook spoke with a gentleness which mitigated the harshness of his message. ‘Ten years ago, you stabbed a man, Ros. By all accounts, you were lucky that he didn’t die.’