The Malcontenta bak-2

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Then again, it could have been an accident.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Oh come on, Sergeant.’ Laura looked hard at her. ‘In our work we’ve both seen stranger things. It happens, accidental hanging. Maybe he was doing it for kicks.’

  From the corridor they could hear the muffled sound of patients returning to the basement for the afternoon treatment session.

  ‘Would that seem likely to you, knowing him?’

  ‘Yes,’ she turned away. ‘Yes, I think it would.’

  She was reaching for the door when it abruptly swung open in front of her. Geoffrey Parsons was there, face flushed. He saw her and began gabbling rapidly. ‘Laura! What are you doing? I thought we — ’ Then he noticed Kathy and Gordon standing in the background, staring at him. ‘Oh … I’m sorry.’ He blinked several times. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. I’ll catch up with you later.’ He turned on his heel and hurried away. Laura Beamish-Newell glanced at Kathy with a bleak little smile, almost apologetic. ‘We’re all under pressure,’ she said. ‘It’s all very upsetting.’

  Ben Bromley came round his desk to shake Kathy’s hand. He looked at her keenly.

  ‘When they told me it was a woman in charge, I realized I’d never actually seen a woman detective in the flesh, so to speak. I mean, apart from on telly.’

  ‘I hope I’m not a disappointment,’ Kathy replied drily.

  ‘Oh no, I’m sure you won’t be. From what I hear you’ve made quite an impact with our senior management already, not to mention the punters.’ He grinned at her, eyes twinkling.

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Enough said. I promised myself I wouldn’t speak out of turn. Come on in and sit down. I think we can find room. It’s a bit cramped in here, as you can see.’

  It was true that the room looked no bigger than the storeroom it had indeed previously been, and all available surfaces, including the chairs, were covered with piles of computer print-outs, brochures and other papers.

  ‘Yorkshire, is it?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘Lancashire — Bolton,’ he replied.

  She nodded. ‘I was partly brought up in Sheffield, but I still have trouble telling the difference.’

  ‘I saw the light six years ago. Company I’d been with for the previous fifteen years making window frames finally went the way of half the rest of the north of England, down the tubes. Taken over actually, by southerners. Asset-stripped and closed down. I decided if we couldn’t beat ’em I’d better join ’em. Actually I was bloody lucky. Sir Peter Maples, chairman of the conglomerate that took us over, had just acquired a hobby — ’ he rolled his eyes around the room ‘this place. He’d just rescued it from a fate worse than liquidation and was looking for a business manager to put in. I am he.’

  He had managed to clear a couple of seats for Kathy and Gordon during this, and they all sat down. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ he asked. Kathy hesitated.

  ‘No, no.’ He waved a hand. ‘None of that molasses muck or whatever it is they drink here.’ He reached into a drawer in his desk and pulled out a tin of ground coffee with a triumphant flourish. ‘Italian, smashing, what do you say?’

  ‘Actually,’ Kathy said with a deep breath, ‘that’s the best thing anyone’s said to me all day.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ Dowling muttered under his breath.

  Ben Bromley had a kettle, jug and mugs tucked beneath a hatstand in the corner, and while he squatted to make the coffee, Kathy continued. ‘I didn’t realize the clinic didn’t belong to Dr Beamish-Newell. I just assumed …’

  ‘It did once. He bought this place in the seventies. It was a bit of a wreck, you know, needed a lot doing to it to return it to the glory you see today.’ He gestured at the squalor around them.

  ‘He must have had a bit of money.’

  Bromley looked up at her and winked. ‘Not him, luv, his wife. Behind every great man is a rich wife with an open cheque book.’

  ‘Oh, I see. And then the cheque book ran out, did it?’

  ‘Well, the great doctor is a brilliant man, of course. Learnt his acupuncture in Tibet or Timbuctoo or some such, and had this vision for a centre for holistic whatsit, but within these four walls he wasn’t too good at keeping an eye on his cash-flow. So — ’ he straightened and placed the jug on the desk, spooning coffee into the filter ‘- when things got tricky he managed to interest some of his more influential patients in the idea of setting up a charitable trust to take over the financial liabilities of the clinic and run it as a non-profit organization. They got Sir Peter interested, and he took charge. Should I be telling you all this?’ He looked quizzically at Kathy. ‘Why not? It’s common knowledge. Not much help with what you’re here for. What are you here for, anyway? I heard about poor old Adonis the Greek, but it’s hardly a case for Crimewatch, is it? Or is there something I haven’t heard yet?’

  ‘In cases of sudden death we just need to make sure there aren’t any loose ends.’

  ‘Oh come on, luv! I give you all this background and ply you with coffee — how do you like it, by the way? — and you tell me nothing! Surely there’s something you can tell me? Some titbit? In this house of rumour, one solid fact is worth its weight in red meat! I could have my way with half the lasses in the place if you’d just give me some little juicy thing — only joking, of course. I’m a happily married man and I’m not that desperate — nobody is.’

  He was forty-something, rosy-cheeked and balding. His short and stocky build, inherited from undernourished forebears who had laboured for generations in pit and mill, didn’t provide a particularly dashing framework for his more affluent diet. The thought of him daydreaming of having his way with the lasses of the clinic made Kathy smile.

  ‘Well, for one thing,’ she said, ‘nobody seems to have had any idea that he might have been contemplating suicide. It just seems to have come out of the blue. In cases like that we try to establish some background.’

  ‘Try to get to the bottom of it, eh?’

  Kathy looked carefully at him and he beamed innocently back.

  ‘Why “Adonis”?’ she said.

  ‘Oh well, he was another beautiful Greek youth, wasn’t he? And he died while hunting boars, I believe. There’s plenty of old bores to hunt in this place, I can tell you.’

  ‘You’re suggesting that Mr Petrou preyed on the patients in some way.’

  ‘Heaven forfend, officer!’ He fluttered his hands as a disclaimer. ‘Just my classical mythology carrying me away. Anyway, the human-relations side of this business is not my problem. I worry about the balance sheets.’

  ‘But you look at what’s going on with a pretty shrewd eye, I’d say. What made you think that Mr Petrou was gay?’

  ‘Did I say that? I’m not really sure what he was. I had the impression he wasn’t really sure what he was. But that may be completely out of line.’

  ‘What gave you that impression, specifically?’

  Bromley became vague. ‘Oh … his appearance, manner.’

  ‘What about his behaviour, with patients, say?’

  Bromley looked at her with an angelic smile. ‘Really, officer, I know nothing.’

  ‘Well, how about the balance sheets, then. How have they been doing since Sir Peter took over?’

  ‘Pretty well, as a matter of fact. Plenty of people want what our good Director has to offer. I’ve got a copy of last year’s annual report if you want to have a look.’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  He pulled a copy of a brochure out from under a pile of other papers and gave it to her. While she turned the pages over, Bromley turned to Gordon.

  ‘Talking about bottoms, have you heard the one about the lad with piles who goes to the naturopath and says, “Please doctor, help me for God’s sake, I’m in agony,” and the naturopath tells him to get a tea-bag and insert it in his back passage. So a week later the doctor sees the lad again and says, “How are you feeling now?” and the lad says, “Well, doctor, we haven�
�t got a back passage at home, so I put it in the side lane. But for all the good it did me, I might as well have shoved it up me bum!’“

  Gordon sniggered. Encouraged, Bromley glanced at Kathy, who was thumbing through the report. She was surprised at how glossy the presentation was, in contrast to the rather spartan atmosphere of the clinic. Surprised also by the figures for annual turnover.

  Bromley leaned confidentially towards Gordon and went on. ‘Well, the lad uses the tea-bag as instructed, but it still doesn’t do any good, and he’s still having trouble with his piles, see, so he finds another naturopath and says, “Can you help me?” The naturopath says, “Drop your trousers, then, and bend over and I’ll have a look,” so he does that and after a long time the lad says, “Well? What can you see?” and the naturopath says, “I can see you taking a long journey and meeting a tall dark stranger.”

  Gordon didn’t get it.

  ‘He was telling his fortune,’ Bromley had to explain. ‘With the tea-leaves…’

  ‘Mr Bromley, maybe you’d like to tell us your movements yesterday,’ Kathy broke in. ‘We’re trying to establish everyone’s whereabouts on the estate during the course of the day.’

  ‘Well, that’s easy,’ Bromley replied. ‘I was at home with my family all day. You wouldn’t catch me out here at the weekend if I could help it. I may be barmy, but I’m not mad.’

  The interview teams finished off for the day at around six, and Kathy returned to County HQ with copies of the interview reports soon after. For a couple of hours she sat at a desk in the office reading them and making notes, until she started to nod off. She decided she should have something to eat, although she wasn’t very hungry, and went down to the canteen in the basement. The whole building was quiet, the canteen deserted apart from three people she didn’t know sitting over by the trolley with the sauce bottles.

  She had her head down, poking with her fork at a plate of fish and chips, when someone sat down opposite her at her table. She looked up into Tanner’s face. Her stomach lurched.

  ‘Evening, Kathy,’ he said quietly. It was the first time she had heard him use her first name.

  ‘Evening, sir.’ She put down her fork, preparing herself for trouble.

  ‘Don’t let me interrupt you.’ He leaned forward till his head was only a foot away and picked up one of her chips. ‘D’you mind? Haven’t eaten myself yet.’

  ‘Be my guest. I’m not very hungry.’

  ‘Got to eat. Got to look after yourself. Nobody else will.’ ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Hear you had a run-in with the Deputy Chief Constable today.’

  ‘It was a misunderstanding really, sir. I think I sorted …’ Tanner waved his hand dismissively and took another chip.

  ‘Bloke’s a wanker. Know the definition of a wanker? Someone who’d rather read about it than experience the real thing. Mr Long reads reports. I’m told he’s never actually run a criminal investigation himself in his whole career.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Kathy pictured the monogrammed towelling robe, the vaguely fretful tone in his voice. Tanner’s voice, on the contrary, was a hard growl of experience and caution. Kathy wondered what was going on. She wondered why he was telling her this. She wondered if he’d been drinking, though she couldn’t smell anything. Maybe he was just tired, as she was.

  ‘What did you make of Dr Beamish-Newell?’ he asked, chewing.

  ‘You know him?’

  Tanner stared at her, saying nothing, his expression unchanging.

  ‘He told me I shouldn’t eat junk food. Bad for my skin.’ ‘Looks good to me.’ The male gaze.

  Kathy met his eyes. After a moment they creased at the corners in what might have been a smile, and he reached for another chip.

  ‘I’ll have to buy you another helping of chips,’ he said.

  ‘You certainly know how to treat a girl,’ she said, and immediately wished she hadn’t. It was a stupid remark, brought on by tiredness and by relief that he didn’t seem to be hassling her.

  His mouth, a tight, narrow line, widened. That was definitely a smile. He got to his feet and walked away. Kathy took a deep breath and went and ordered another cup of tea.

  6

  Kathy and Belle sat at the table-tennis table discussing the systems analyst’s progress while the others stood by the tall windows, waiting for the morning sessions to begin.

  ‘I’d really be better staying with the guys on the computers back at headquarters, Kathy. Why don’t you fax the interview sheets through to me as they appear?’

  In the background, Kathy could hear Gordon’s voice: ‘“What can you see?” he asks, and the naturopath says, “Well, I can see that you’ll be taking a long journey across the ocean and meeting a tall dark stranger.” ‘ He got some laughter, not uproarious.

  ‘Would that be secure?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘Oh sure. Send it direct to the fax in my office. Here’s the number. And have one of your people send it at this end — don’t just leave it for the office staff here.’

  From the background Kathy heard another male voice, louder and deeper.

  ‘… packs his old dad off to a home. The first morning in the home the old bloke wakes up with an erection, see? A nurse comes in to give him his pills and when she sees his condition she leaps on top of him and has it off with him.’

  Kathy said, ‘OK, Belle, let’s do that. I think I’d better get this lot into the right frame of mind for this morning.’

  ‘… in the middle of the following night he has to go down the corridor for a leak. He’s in the bog when one of the male nurses comes in, pounces on him, throws him to the floor, and rapes the old bugger. Well, next morning he phones his son. “Get me out of here,” he begs, and explains what’s happened. So the son tells him to be patient. “You win some, you lose some, Dad,” he says. “That’s all very well,” the old bloke cries, “but these days I only get one erection a year, whereas I have to go to the bathroom three times a night!’“ General laughter this time.

  Kathy groaned.

  ‘Good luck,’ Belle grinned at her, making for the door.

  Another voice began, ‘What about the two nurses who …’

  ‘Come on,’ Kathy called to the group of police officers. ‘Bring your chairs over here.’

  Reluctantly they broke up and came to join her. She took them over the arrangements for the day.

  ‘I’ve been through most of the interview sheets from yesterday and we haven’t got a lot, as far as I can see. Everybody’s so bloody polite. Nobody’s got anything much to say about Petrou except that he was “nice”, his death is “shocking”, the Director is “wonderful”, the clinic is “splendid”. I want you to go back in your mind over the people you saw yesterday and try to identify anyone who might be able to tell us more about what’s really going on here, anyone I can follow up on today.’

  They thought for a moment and then someone spoke. ‘I saw a Mrs Martha Price, Sarge. One of the patients, a widow, in her sixties. She practically lives here, been coming for years. I got the impression she knows the comings and goings, and what the staff get up to. You might try her.’

  ‘OK. Anyone else? There was a woman complaining at the desk the first time I came here. Cochrane, I think her name was. She might not be as reserved as the others.’

  ‘Doris Cochrane. I saw her. Hardly got anything out of her.’

  Picturing the huge detective towering over the old lady, Kathy could imagine why.

  ‘What about staff?’

  ‘How about Rose Duggan? She’s a physio like Petrou, and seemed to know him pretty well. She’s engaged to the Estates Manager character that found the body.’

  ‘All right. Now look, if there’s anyone you come across this morning that you think could be telling us more, give them to Gordon when you’re done with them. And for goodness’ sake try to get them to tell you what they really think of all this.’

  ‘Of course we all want to speak well of the dead, Mrs Price.’ Through Ben Br
omley, Gordon had managed to acquire a separate interview room for Kathy. Its small dimensions gave the meeting an intimacy which suited her. ‘But it’s very important that we form an accurate picture of what Mr Petrou was like. No one is perfect, after all, and we need to be aware of any of his failings as well as his good points.’

  Mrs Price wasn’t going to be rushed. The change from the usual routine was welcome, and she was going to make the most of it. She folded her hands on her lap and looked thoughtful. Kathy noticed that the finger joints were swollen with arthritis.

  ‘What sort of failings did you have in mind, officer?’

  ‘Well, I’d rather you told me. I imagine you must have got to know him and the other members of the staff pretty well over the past months.’

  ‘It is true,’ she conceded, ‘that I’ve probably spent more time here in the last few years than anyone else, except staff of course. Since I developed my condition — ’ she glanced down at the walking stick beside her chair ‘- I’ve found it a great comfort to spend time here, and of course I’ve enjoyed the company of the regulars and the staff. I suppose I have got to know them quite well. But, as my late husband used to say, I see the good in people, and they respond to that. I wouldn’t like to be thought of as someone who goes around talking about people’s failings: She looked disapprovingly at Kathy as if she found her questions seriously lacking in good taste.

  ‘Yes, of course. “Failings” is the wrong word, really. I suppose what we’re trying to find, to understand, is anything in Mr Petrou’s private life, in his relationships with people, that might have put pressure on him, caused him stress or anxiety, might even have driven him to take his own life.’

  ‘Of course I’ve tried to think about that, as you can imagine. Tried to remember the poor boy’s state of mind over the past week or two. The trouble is, he seemed perfectly as normal. Cheerful — he always had a bit of a joke with his patients, you know. And what the Americans call “laid back” — not tense or anxious at all. Suave, I’d call him, suave. I don’t think he was any different lately.’