Making a Killing

by Bud Craig

  “How on earth do you remember that?”

  “It was my best friend’s sixtieth birthday party. I broke up a fight between Adam and a guy called Jerry Duckworth.”

  “A fight? Peter? Surely not.”

  I could have explained that Jerry threw the first punch, but Nelson’s response gave me an opening I wasn’t going to waste.

  “Why are you surprised at the idea of Peter fighting?”

  “I thought you knew him.”

  “I met him once; you worked with him for years. Now answer the question or we’ll be here all day.”

  A startled look was his first reaction, but he recovered quickly.

  “Good point. Peter was quite a gentle guy. I don’t think I ever saw him lose his temper, let alone fight anybody.”

  I waited for more, but nothing came.

  “Some people might be surprised to hear a successful businessman described as gentle. Wasn’t there a streak of ruthlessness beneath the charm?”

  He shook his head.

  “He wasn’t ruthless – driven, I’d say, clear-minded. He set himself goals and made damn sure he reached them.”

  “How did he do that?”

  He shrugged.

  “Thinking about him now, I honestly don’t know. Like I say, he didn’t get angry or shout at people. He got them to do what he wanted without seeming to try.”

  There was one obvious reason why people did as they were told and I put it to Setters.

  “He was the boss. Wasn’t that enough to get what he wanted?”

  He shook his head as if putting right a naive new employee.

  “That was part of it, sure, but unless the boss has special qualities – and Peter did – he won’t get very far.”

  I wasn’t sure about the special qualities bit, but I reluctantly had to admit he had a point. Boss or not, you had to go about things the right way. There was no point in pursuing that though.

  “Now let’s get onto the actual murder. I’m at a disadvantage here as it was quite a while ago, but I’ve managed to piece together some of the details. Can you tell me how you came to know Peter had died?”

  He sipped his coffee then put the cup down with great care.

  “The police came to see me in a cottage I was renting down in Salcombe.”

  “Devon?”

  “That’s right.”

  Yachting country, where those with a few bob tended to congregate.

  “I’d got away to escape the media coverage of the Ancarner business. I still don’t know how they found me.”

  “Did they ask your whereabouts at the time of the murder?”

  “Sure. I wasn’t happy at the time; feeling a bit paranoid, to be honest. Ancarner executives weren’t the most popular people in the world. Now of course I realise they had to ask.”

  “And where were you at the relevant time?”

  “In Salcombe.”

  “Would you say Peter Goodall was popular with his colleagues?”

  “Yeah, fairly. He joined in any social activities the firm arranged, you know, golf days, quiz nights for charity, Christmas nights out.”

  “Right.”

  “You have to bear in mind in the two years leading up to his death he was practically semi-retired, spending more and more time in the Isle of Man.”

  “You went to see him there, didn’t you?”

  “Oh yes, several times.”

  “I understand you had a stand-up row with Peter on one of your visits.”

  His eyes opened wide for a moment but he quickly re-assembled his features into the usual neutral mode.

  “Who told you that?”

  “It doesn’t matter who told me. I’ll be talking to a lot of people before I’ve finished and following up what they tell me is part of my job. Tell me about this row.”

  He spent a few seconds trying to outstare me in the hope I would back off.

  “I wouldn’t call it a row exactly,” he said. “There was… there was an issue I felt we needed to resolve but Peter wasn’t willing to discuss it.”

  I pretended to make copious notes, but was really killing time in the hope he’d tell me more.

  “You won’t be surprised to know our disagreement was about money. Peter was taking large amounts out of the company and paying himself huge bonuses in cash and shares.”

  I stopped writing and looked at Nelson.

  “And?”

  “He was giving himself far more than I got and I was the one who virtually ran the company. Peter wouldn’t talk about it. His attitude seemed to be, ‘tough, there’s nothing you can do about it.’ He only came into the office a couple of days a week, for God’s sake.”

  I had learned from my researches that Setters had been given a bonus of more than four million pounds on top of a handsome salary so my sympathy flowed like cement. In spite of this, I couldn’t help wondering if being paid less than Goodall was, for Mr Setters, a motive for murder.

  “When did this disagreement happen?”

  He fiddled with his cup, pretending to think deeply. Somehow, I didn’t trust Setters.

  “From memory, I’d say September or October 2015.”

  Not long before Ancarner went under.

  “It sounded like Mr Goodall was squirrelling money away because he knew the business was about to fail.”

  “Well,” he blustered, “that’s a bit of an oversimplification. It was all perfectly legal, I can assure you.”

  Course it was, Nelson. One law for the rich and one for the rest of us.

  “Maybe the process of taking the money was a bit complicated, but the underlying facts must be simple enough. Why not explain it to me?”

  “I honestly can’t. Peter was cleverer than all of us and he got away from the mess with more than anyone, I can tell you that. As for how he did it and where the money is now, your guess is as good as mine.”

  I left soon after this. The good news was Rachel lived nearby and was at home with the kids for half-term. I called to see them when I’d finished with Mr Setters and had an afternoon of comparative sanity.

  CHAPTER TEN

  At ten o’clock the next morning, I phoned Jerry Duckworth.

  “Good morning, Jerry,” I said. “Gus Keane here.”

  “Gus who?” He coughed.

  “Keane, I’m a friend of Steve Yarnitzky and a private investigator. You hired me a couple of years ago.”

  “Oh, I remember. Well, if you’re touting for more work, I’ve got fuck all for you.”

  I moved the phone away from my ear until another bout of coughing had subsided.

  “No, I’ve been asked to investigate the murder of Peter Goodall aka Adam Jennings. I need to find out as much as I can about him.”

  “So what?”

  “You knew him well at one time and I’d appreciate it if I could talk to you, get some insight into Adam.”

  “Yeah, OK. I’m pretty busy today, but I could maybe fit in half an hour this morning.”

  In other words, I’ve got sod all to do and talking to you will kill a bit of time. I arranged to see Jerry at eleven.

  * * *

  I thought I’d better give the car a run out so drove to Whitefield, serenaded by Joan Armatrading. Me Myself I, one of my favourite songs, seemed appropriate somehow. The case I was investigating was about people who thought of themselves first, last and always. Why couldn’t everyone be like me, selflessly devoted to the good of others? Whatever, it was a great song and Joan was a great singer, good enough to be considered for my Desert Island Discs list. I was hearing her at her best in the car’s state of the art music system.

  Marti, my ex-girlfriend, had lent me her BMW when she’d gone off to join Ellen Gallagher’s band, having met one of Salford’s greatest rock stars through me. As she was in no hurry to get it back, I’d hung onto it. I could never have afforded one myself.

  The transport system in Manchester was so good there was hardly any point in having a car sometimes. That suited me fine as driving wa
sn’t my favourite activity. It was only the chance to listen to music that made it bearable.

  Heavy traffic meant it took longer to get to Jerry’s than it would have done on the tram, so it was a quarter past eleven by the time I arrived. Superficially, Jerry seemed much the same as he did a couple of years ago.

  “Now then, Gus,” he said, holding out his hand to shake mine on answering the door, “how’re you doing?”

  I was taken aback by this friendly greeting. My memory of Jerry was of someone sunk in a deep melancholy. We went into the living room and sat down. From the settee he looked at me with a perky expression on his face. Cheerful and ready for anything, I would have said. We went through a few social niceties before I took out my notebook from my jacket pocket and got into the investigation.

  “Right, let’s get started. Jerry, where were you the day Adam died?”

  “I was at my sister’s in Derby, or at least on the way there, left at about half nine.”

  “Did you drive there?”

  He nodded.

  “The police checked everything out, talked to the neighbours, confirmed the timings with my sister.”

  “Right.”

  “So, if you’re asking if I had a fucking alibi, the answer’s yes. You know what alibi means, don’t you, a clever lad like you?”

  “Yes, some people reckon it means excuse, but in fact it means elsewhere.”

  I spoke with the confidence of a man who had A-level Latin. I knew it would come in handy one day.

  “Correct. Elsewhere was precisely where I was when Adam died. Therefore, I didn’t kill him.”

  Well, that made sense.

  “Adam was a close friend, wasn’t he?”

  “I thought he was until the bastard jumped into bed with my wife. Well, all this about him pretending to be somebody else shows how trustworthy he was. Peter Goodall, he called himself, Badall more like. He was bad through and through.”

  Merely by mentioning Adam’s name I had flicked a switch which set Jerry off.

  “Had you any idea he had another identity?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Never mind what I think. Answer the question.”

  “All right then, no.”

  He folded his arms, a sulky, petulant expression on his face. His smile soon returned.

  “Erin’s left me, by the way. The wife. She’s got a new bloke and a new job in Birmingham. No forwarding address.”

  “So, she soon forgot about Jennings?”

  “That was just a fling, apparently. It’s the real thing with Brummie boy.”

  Having no wish to know about his wife’s romantic history, I made an attempt to bring some structure to the interview.

  “Try and think back to the time Adam died. Had you seen him since the punch up at Steve Yarnitzky’s party?”

  He took his time.

  “I saw him a couple of days before he died.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, I gave him a call, suggesting I came round to, kind of, apologise and suggest a reconciliation. He said OK.”

  “What happened when you got there?”

  “Well, we just chatted about nothing in particular, like you do. I said are we friends again? He said, yeah, sure. He didn’t seem bothered either way, said he had already forgotten about my ridiculous behaviour.”

  “He favoured the honest approach, did he?”

  “Yeah. Then I made a bad mistake,” said Jerry. “I asked him for a loan. I’d overstretched myself a bit and I needed about ten grand to get myself straight.”

  “I assume he said no.”

  “Yeah, the bastard just laughed at me. Ten grand would have been nowt to him. Once more my life was being ruined by Adam bloody Jennings.”

  I was tempted to tell Jerry it was time he accepted responsibility for his own actions but I wasn’t there to give him advice.

  “How did you come to be in debt?” I asked.

  “Well, a few of my bets went wrong,” he admitted. “I told Adam this.”

  “What was his response?”

  “He had the cheek to say I should seek professional help. I haven’t got a gambling problem, anyone can make a mistake.”

  “Why did you go to Adam for a loan?”

  He shrugged.

  “I couldn’t get one anywhere else and he was the only rich person I knew.”

  “What made you think he was rich?”

  Jerry shrugged.

  “Well, he never seemed to go to work and he always had plenty of money. A financial advisor would be well off, wouldn’t he? Stands to reason.”

  “As it turned out, he was rich, but only as Peter Goodall. Anyway, he would have guessed easily enough that the need for money was the real reason for your visit. He would have been bound to turn you down.”

  “Suppose so.”

  “When I saw you in 2016, you seemed to blame Jennings for your problems. Since he died has your life got any better?”

  “Not really.”

  Soon there was nothing left to say. I said I’d have to leave and got up.

  “Before you go,” said Jerry, “let’s talk about your investigation.”

  “OK.”

  He waved towards the seat I’d just vacated.

  “Sit yourself down and I’ll try and put you on the right track.”

  “OK,” I repeated and sat down again.

  I reckoned Jerry was glad of the company and missing police work.

  “Firstly, who else will you be talking to?”

  I hesitated before answering but couldn’t see any harm in telling him.

  “Well, Adam’s partner, Colette…”

  “Obviously. Now remember, you don’t want to be too nice to her. Just cos she’s the grieving widow, that doesn’t mean she’s beyond suspicion. She only lives round the corner, by the way.”

  “I know.”

  “Right then, who else?”

  I was beginning to feel I was at a job interview.

  “I thought maybe her neighbours.”

  “Good thinking. Neighbours can be more objective. They’ll just report what they observe.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I lied.

  “Conversely, they can be very subjective, you know what I mean? They may have their own agenda; might feel they have to say something even if they know nowt. Or else they’re glad of someone to talk to.”

  Like you, I didn’t say.

  “Yeah, good point.”

  “And some of them like being the centre of attention, like them wallies who get themselves on the telly, when one of their neighbours gets killed. When you’ve finished the first lot of interviews, what next?”

  Good question, I could have said, but I’d try to come up with something more impressive.

  “I’ll follow up any leads, identify more people to talk to. Think on my feet.”

  “Think on your feet, I like it. Outside the box job. Well, I won’t keep you. Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Right. Well, it looks like the police are getting nowhere with their investigation,” said Jerry as I got up to leave, “otherwise whatshername wouldn’t have hired you. I know from experience that most murders are solved within forty-eight hours.”

  “I’ve heard that.”

  “I don’t want to put you off, but you could be wasting your time, mate.” He smiled. “But you’ve had success in the past, so who knows? Let me know how you get on. In the meantime, fuck off and leave me alone so I can relax.”

  * * *

  As I walked back to the car, I thought about Jerry Duckworth. He seemed happy enough, but I wondered what he did with his life. I was struck by the difference between him and Adam Jennings. Adam had been confident and charming, completely in control. Duckworth was always on the verge of being out of control and day-to-day life was a constant struggle. At least Jerry was still alive. I got in the car. Before driving off, I called Colette, Adam’s partner.

  “Hi, Gus, how lovely to hear from you
,” she said.

  The effusive greeting took me aback. I wasn’t used to it, so I was struck dumb at first. Colette carried on speaking.

  “Tess told me she’s asked you to look into Adam’s murder. I take it you want to come and see me?”

  “That’s right. I could be with you in a few minutes time if that’s all right, I’m in the area.”

  “Fine by me.”

  * * *

  “It’s nice to see you again,” said Colette Wycherley as we went into her living room and sat down in matching armchairs.

  Again, I was surprised at the warmth of her greeting, wondering whether it was genuine.

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  “The last time we met was in Waterstones a couple of years ago, wasn’t it?”

  I’d almost forgotten about that and now cast my mind back, but I couldn’t remember much about that chance encounter.

  “That’s right.”

  “You didn’t recognise me at first because the only other time we’d met, I was in fancy dress.”

  I nodded, hoping we weren’t going to chat aimlessly all day. Then I realised I was being ungrateful. Very few people I met in the course of an average day said it was nice to see me. None in fact.

  “Yeah, that’s right, Mary Queen of Scots,” I said.

  Colette was dressed for the weather in blue shorts and a grey t-shirt. The room was trendy though comfortable, with yoga books on the coffee table alongside flyers for her classes. Anaemic water colours had been placed with random care on the walls. A brick coloured throw had been, well, thrown on the back of the settee.

  “How have you been since Adam died?” I asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Oh, well… I have good days and bad days. Work helps, you know. As well as being satisfying in itself, it stops me thinking about Adam.”

  I was struck by the absence of emotion in the way Colette spoke. It contrasted powerfully with the obvious pain Tess Weekes was suffering. Still, everyone was different. Maybe Colette had learned to keep her feelings to herself.

  “Does the yoga help?”

  “Oh, yes. I won’t explain now, it will take too long. Sign up for one of my classes if you want to know more.”

  “I’ll think about it. You made quite a career change when you left the police.”

  “Yes. I’d always wanted to teach yoga, get more deeply into it, you know, but could never afford to give up the day job. Then my gran died and left me some money. Adam helped me too, but at that time I didn’t know everything I know now.”