by Bud Craig
“Oh, quite,” she said. “Whatever the taxation arrangements, it looks lovely. Great walks. Thanks for inviting me.”
“You’re welcome. Don’t forget this is a working holiday.”
She gave a mock salute.
“Yes, sir.”
* * *
Later that day we sipped tea on the balcony of the two-bedroom flat in Douglas that Tess had provided, admiring the view of the bay and harbour, where boats bobbed about. The forecast was for temperatures in the mid-twenties and clear skies. We were looking forward to a few days of sunshine. I still hadn’t got used to the warm weather, though, and I was wearing a long-sleeved blue shirt and jeans.
We looked through the press cuttings about Tess Weekes that we’d printed out before we left home. Judging by the newspaper photos she was taller than average, about forty with long, mousy hair. She was shown in one picture outside her house a few miles away along the coast accompanied by a dog on a lead. We were interrupted by a knock on the door.
“She’s punctual, I’ll give her that,” I said as I went to let our visitor in.
I was greeted by a woman who clutched a shoulder bag as if to deter thieves. I would probably have recognised her from the press photographs, though she’d had her hair cut short.
“Hi, I’m Tess Weekes,” she said, a nervous smile on her face.
Again I was struck by the regal accent. She wore sandals and white trousers remarkably similar to Louise’s.
“Gus Keane. Come in.”
We shook hands. On her way into the flat she twisted her hands together and forced out another smile. Then we joined Louise on the balcony and sat down.
“This is Louise, one of my senior operatives.”
Tess undid a button of her blue short-sleeved blouse as if needing something to do with her hands.
“Are you happy with the accommodation?” she asked as I poured her a cup of tea.
“Yes, lovely view,” said Louise. “Must be nice living here. Great for kids, I imagine.”
“I wouldn’t know; I don’t have any children.”
“Right. What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a graphic designer. It’s the sort of work you can do anywhere.”
Tess gripped her cup and looked anxiously out to sea, as if expecting the weather to change.
“We know how hard this must be for you,” I said. “How have you been coping?”
“I stagger from day to day, you know. I’m still a bit numb even after two years. I constantly think about the police arriving to tell me he was dead, then finding out about, you know, Peter having another name, another life in Manchester.”
“God, it must have been one thing after another,” said Louise.
“Quite. It was as if everything that’d gone on before was… tainted somehow. We had a wonderful life together.”
“You said on the phone the police hadn’t made much progress,” I said.
“If they have, they haven’t told me. The worst thing is being under suspicion. Peter left most of his wealth to me so I presume the police regard that as a motive.”
A pretty obvious one at that.
“All the questioning made me feel guilty,” she went on, “although I had nothing to feel guilty about. They kept asking where I was at the time Peter died as if to trip me up. And did I know about the other woman? Were there any problems in our relationship?”
“Nightmare,” said Louise.
“It certainly was. I was in London visiting a friend when it happened so of course the police got very interested. It wouldn’t take long to get from London to Manchester, they hinted. It meant a grilling for my friend, even checking if I had actually bought tickets for Cats. I had.”
She sighed and shook her head as if in disbelief that all these things had happened.
“And obviously I didn’t bloody know about the other woman; I would have done something about it if I had. I do know about her now and I’ve flown over to Manchester to meet her occasionally. She’s been here too.”
“Really?”
“Yes. The ironic thing is she seems awfully nice. Very down to earth, you know. We got on from the first few minutes. I know we have the awful pain of betrayal in common but even without that I could have imagined myself being friends with Colette. She’s agreed to talk to you by the way.”
“Good. How did you and Peter meet?”
“Well, I should say first of all I have lived on the Isle of Man all my life. My parents were both paediatricians at the local hospital. They came over here to work in the seventies and stayed. Since they retired, they have run a B & B. Peter stayed there when he came over to look for a house to buy. In those days I helped Mummy and Daddy out occasionally, serving breakfast, taking bookings. I fell in love over the full English.”
This brought a smile to her face, but it was soon followed by tears.
“I’m sorry. It’s just… it all started so well and it’s ended up like this. Not that it has actually ended, not really. Everything’s such a bloody mess.”
As good a way of describing it as any, I thought.
“I dare say you and Peter weren’t together that much.”
“Well, I knew he was a businessman and he’d be away a lot. I didn’t mind that. I quite liked the idea of not living in each other’s pockets. I had my work, family and friends on the island. I’m into amateur dramatics and play violin in a folk band…”
A rich life, I thought, but I needed to move things on.
“We need to know about Peter’s life when he was here. Who did he socialise with? Was he a member of any clubs? Did he get on with neighbours?”
“He spent a lot of time at the golf club. Sandy, the manager, is expecting you to talk to her while you’re here.”
“How do you feel about Peter now?” asked Louise.
“I love him, I always will. Nothing else matters. There’s a Billie Holiday song called Don’t Explain. That’s what I’d say if he walked in the door right now. I wouldn’t ask about the past, I’d welcome him back with open arms.”
The tears started again. I waited until she’d recovered herself before continuing.
“What about the people at Ancarner? I’ll need to talk to some of them.”
Tess looked at me uncertainly.
“Well, I’m not sure…”
Was she worried about what I would find out? There’d been some shady dealings going on, I’d put money on it.
“Listen, Tess,” I said, “let’s be clear about this. If I’m to help you, I need to speak to anyone who might help me. The Ancarner business might have some bearing on Peter’s death or it might not. Either way, there’s only one way to find out.”
“Quite. Do what you have to do.”
“Who are the best people to get in touch with?”
She gave me two names of senior managers at Ancarner, which I wrote down in my notebook. I felt momentarily as if I’d achieved something but of course I hadn’t.
* * *
“What did you think about that?” said Louise after Tess had gone.
“I’m not sure.”
“She certainly seemed to have loved him and had an almost idyllic life with Peter Goodall.”
“So, either all that emotion’s genuine or–”
“She’s pulling the wool over our eyes. Or trying to.”
“If she’s doing that, it can only be because she killed him. In which case, why would she hire me to investigate? It wouldn’t make sense.”
Louise shrugged.
“Nothing makes sense about any of this.”
* * *
The next day we met Sandy, the golf club manager, in the Mashie Niblick bar after a mediocre Sunday lunch at the carvery. She was about Louise’s age, but there the resemblance ended. Sandy was short and plump, with greying, untidy hair; her woolly jumper and polyester trousers were for comfort rather than style.
“How long have you worked here?’ asked Louise.
“Thirty years,” Sandy repli
ed. “I run this place with my husband, Ian. He’s having a day off today, playing golf, would you believe? Anyway, you wanted to talk about Peter Goodall.”
“Yes,” I said. “How well did you know him?”
“Everybody knew Peter.” She smiled. “He’s sadly missed.”
I got the impression she really meant it and wasn’t just going through the motions.
“I’m sure he must be,” said Louise. “We knew him slightly, well, we knew Adam Jennings. He was at a friend’s birthday party on Boxing Day. It was fancy dress; he came as Superman.”
“Oh, yes?”
“You couldn’t get him off the dance floor.”
“I’d never have thought of him as a dancer.”
“Oh, yes,” Louise said, “strutting his stuff like there was no tomorrow, he was.”
Sandy smiled at the thought.
“Well, he certainly wasn’t like that when he was over here. He spent a lot of time on the golf course or in the bar here.”
“I knew he was a keen golfer,” I said.
“Between you and me, Gus, you get some right prats in here, golf seems to attract them. Peter was different though. He was a great guy.”
“As Louise said, we knew him as Adam, but since then–”
“The shit’s hit the fan. But whatever he did or didn’t do, he was a good friend to me and everybody in this club.”
The words were spoken with a kind of understated passion.
“He was well off, we all knew that, but he wasn’t one to flash his money around. He wasn’t half generous though.”
“Yeah?”
“To a fault. He did it on the quiet, you know. I’ll give you a for-instance. Last summer he advised Ian to put his money in Ancarner shares. By December they’d trebled in value. Then about a week before Christmas he gave Ian a call and said, ‘Sell now, don’t delay a minute.’”
Just like he did for Keith Witton. The toe rag must have known for ages the firm was going down the swanny. The bastard made sure he and a few others didn’t lose from it.
“He offloaded them just in time. Set us up for life.”
I bet Goodall set himself up for life while he was about it.
“I suppose you had the police here when Peter was killed?”
“Not half. They were thorough, I’ll give them that. Interviewed all the staff, every single one of them. I was sick of the sight of them by the time they’d finished.”
“I can imagine. Was there anyone on the island he fell out with?”
“No, he got on with everyone, you know. Although…”
“Yes?”
“Well, I did hear him having a row with someone a couple of months before he died.”
“Who was that?”
“Well, it wasn’t anyone who lived here. It was a guy who used to visit him for a couple of days now and then. He worked for Ancarner.”
“What’s his name?”
“Now you’re asking. It was a long time ago, remember.”
That was gonna be a real problem with this case. Peter’s death was headline news at the time, but for most people life had gone on and it was no longer that important.
“Nelson somebody. Do you think the answer must lie in the Ancarner business? I do. There must have been some right goings-on.”
“Plus, he was leading a double life.”
“That was a turn up for the book and no mistake. He always seemed straightforward enough. He obviously wasn’t, was he?”
* * *
We spent the rest of our break on the island walking, taking rides on the ancient railway and talking to a lot of people who knew Peter Goodall. Nobody told us anything of any use but at least we’d had a nice holiday. On the way back to the airport Louise told me she was changing her surname back to Keane.
“You can be known by any name you like.”
I learned that in my first week as a social worker and somebody else had said it to me more recently.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Anyway, I’ll have the same name as Danny again. And you,” she explained.
CHAPTER NINE
The morning after I got back home, I sat down in my office to make a plan. The first step was to make a list of people I needed to see. I’ve always had great faith in lists. They were an essential tool in ensuring I made progress in the investigation. Or so I told myself. I ended up with six bullet points:
Interview someone from Ancarner
Interview Jerry Duckworth
Interview Colette Wycherley
Interview Colette’s gardener
Interview Colette’s neighbours
Interview people who have lost out by Ancarner’s collapse
It looked a bit thin, but I was hoping that once I started talking to people, other names could be added. Steve was coming over that night so I could discuss the case with him before I began. As it turned out he didn’t arrive until gone ten, feeling knackered from the drive. He went straight to bed. It was just as well; we were having a day at the cricket and needed to be up fairly early. Old age was catching up with us, so detective work could wait.
* * *
“I’ve made an appointment with a feller called Nelson Setters,” I told Steve over a cooked breakfast the next morning.
I’d left the kitchen window open to let the heat out – at nine o’clock the temperature was already in the high twenties – and disperse the cooking smells.
“Oh, yeah? Who’s he?”
“One of the big noises at Ancarner.”
Steve wore his usual chinos and polo shirt. He got stuck into another forkful of sausage and bacon while I poured more tea for us both. He stopped chewing momentarily.
“How did you get onto him?”
“Tess mentioned his name, so did the golf club manager in the Isle of Man. She said Peter Goodall had had a row with an Ancarner boss called Nelson something who was staying with him one time.”
Steve nodded as if to say, ‘go on, I’m listening’.
“I read through all the articles about Ancarner I’d printed off. They all mentioned Setters.”
“Do you think you’ll get much out of him?”
“I’m hoping he’ll let slip some insights into the real Peter Goodall.”
“Or Adam Jennings.”
I shrugged, buttering a slice of toast and taking a bite.
“Well, I wish you luck,” said Steve, swigging tea, “but I reckon this Setters bloke will probably give a masterclass in talking bullshit.”
I wished I could find some way of disagreeing with Steve’s judgement, but had to admit to myself he was probably right. I’d have to be on top of my game if I were to get anything out of Mr Setters.
“I’ve been thinking about what Arthur said about Jennings’ murder when we were in The Park Hotel just after it happened. Do you remember that?” asked Steve.
I finished my full English before answering.
“Can’t say I do, Steve.”
“He reckoned it was all about money.”
I nodded, picking up my mug to wash down that last mouthful.
“It’s a classic motive, I suppose.”
“So are the more emotional ones,” he said. “Love, hate, jealousy, revenge.”
That was true but only made things more complicated.
“Of course,” Steve went on, “there’s rarely just one motive. Jennings has upset a lot of people and also made himself a lot of money while he was about it.”
We looked thoughtfully at one another.
“It could be a mixture of things, Steve, but I think the double life angle played a part.”
“Possibly, but that means someone must have known Jennings was Goodall and vice versa, but how? I mean, it’s not the sort of thing you would be looking out for, is it?”
I wondered whether the way I had found out might be significant.
“True. I only found out by chance, or rather Paul did. If Jerry hadn’t happened to hire me to follow Adam or if it had been one of the d
ays Jennings went to London on the train, nobody would have been any the wiser. There’s no reason why someone else couldn’t have found out by chance. Jennings was taking a hell of a risk…”
“Maybe that was part of the attraction,” said Steve. “But risk or no risk, he had to establish both identities and he could only do that by travelling regularly to and from the Isle of Man.”
Steve polished off his breakfast right down to the last morsel.
“That’s what I like to see,” I said, “a nice, clean plate. Good boy.”
“I was brought up properly. You can’t beat a good fry-up,’ said Steve, getting up. “Compliments to the chef. Anyway, we’d better get a move on or we’ll miss the first over.”
Minutes later we were on our way to Old Trafford to watch Lancashire continue their battle against relegation. A day in the sun and a couple of pints, what could be nicer?
* * *
“Well now, Gus, what can I do for you?” said Nelson Setters the next morning.
His jovial air seemed forced. Setters hadn’t changed much since the day he met Peter Goodall at Manchester airport in 2016. He matched Paul’s description: stocky with blue glasses and white hair. Mr Setters had dressed down for this meeting. Cotton trousers and open-neck striped shirt had replaced his business suit and tie. Even so, he looked smarter than me in my t-shirt and jeans.
“I’ve got a few questions for you, if that’s OK.”
We had arranged to meet in the bar of the Keaton Hall Hotel in Worsley. Setters was staying there for a night before flying back to London in the morning. He didn’t seem to be suffering too much as a result of his firm going bust.
“I’m happy to help,” he said.
I took a notebook from the small rucksack I’d brought with me. I explained about Tess hiring me to investigate Peter Goodall’s killing.
“I see. Did you know Peter?”
A true detective would have said something like ‘I’m asking the questions, Mr Setters’, but if I came out with a line like that, I’d sound a right pillock. I tried to avoid this wherever possible and often failed.
“I met him once when I thought I was meeting Adam Jennings.”
“Oh, when was this?”
“26th December 2015.”
He gave a sort of half laugh.
