Last Reminder

by Stuart Pawson

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘In fact, I’ve a file of letters you can take with you. Nearly binned them all. Glad I didn’t, now.’

  Mrs Davis pulled herself upright and volunteered to fetch the letters.

  ‘Thanks. So what are your immediate plans? Are you staying here?’

  ‘Not sure, Inspector. I have a couple of business trips scheduled, trying to sort out a few things – you know how it is. But it’s good to be home again. Don’t see why the buggers should drive me away. What do you think?’

  I thought it was complicated, trying to solve a crime you didn’t know about while pretending to investigate one that hadn’t happened. ‘We’re not expecting him to strike again,’ I assured him, and immediately wondered if this was misleading advice. Ah well, never mind, I thought.

  He walked out with me. ‘One last thing,’ I said as I opened the car door. ‘If it was the diamonds that collapsed, why did Goodrich go bankrupt?’

  ‘Because, underneath, he was a foolish man,’ Davis replied. ‘I’m in this business to make money, and don’t deny it. I’m proud of it. As long as it’s legal, I’ll consider anything. But that wasn’t enough for Goodrich. He wanted to be popular too. Looked up to. A valuable member of the community. When the banks foreclosed on us he thought he could come out of it smelling of roses without any of his punters losing, so he did what all desperate men do: he gambled. Bought shares in uranium mines in godforsaken holes in the Kalahari desert; thought he could find another Poseidon; that sort of thing, instead of facing them and saying: “Sorry, I’ve lost your money.” In the end he lost everything.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, nodding as if I understood. ‘Thanks for your help. Oh, and I’d be grateful if you could leave word of your whereabouts if you go away for more than a couple of days. Something else might crop up that we need your help with.’

  ‘I’ll do that, Inspector,’ he replied with a smile that would have melted the heart of a traffic warden.

  Maggie was in the office when I trudged through the door twenty minutes later. ‘Hi, boss,’ she greeted me. ‘Where’ve you been skiving all day?’

  ‘Oh, you know. A little shopping, weeded a couple of herbaceous borders, took in a show.’ I plonked K. Tom Davis’s file of poison pen letters on her desk. ‘Take a look at those when you have a minute, but not as bedtime reading.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Customer reaction, after losing their life savings. Oh, and when you have a chance have a word with the Devonshire Hotel, please, find out who’s been staying there the last couple of nights. Anything for me?’

  ‘No. The couple of villains among the creditors had alibis that you could have lined a nuclear reactor with. I suppose it would have been less suspicious if they hadn’t.’

  ‘You mean they could have taken a contract out on Goodrich?’

  ‘It’s possible?’

  ‘I don’t know. It wasn’t exactly an IRA job, and I can’t see the Mafia sentencing anyone to death by blow to the head with a flower pot, can you?’

  ‘Unless they realised he was already dead.’

  ‘Mmm. Could be.’

  ‘Mike Freer rang,’ she told me. ‘Said you’d offered to do a bust for him. Wants a word with you about it. Apparently a load of heroin from the Continent has suddenly started appearing on the streets.’

  ‘Great.’ I tried his number but he wasn’t in.

  ‘How’s Annabelle keeping?’ Margaret enquired as I replaced the phone. She’s kept a weather eye on my love-life ever since my divorce.

  ‘Huh, don’t ask,’ I snorted.

  ‘Oh no,’ she sighed. ‘What have you done now?’

  I told her about the swans in the park, about Donald and the episode with the rat, and how I had purloined his coffee mug for a sample of his prints.

  She shook her head with disbelief. ‘This is serious, Charlie,’ she declared.

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘You let her down and I bet that’s a big sin in the eyes of someone like Annabelle. This is going to take more than a bunch of flowers.’

  I was saved from further depression by the phone. ‘What’s the difference between an astronaut and constipation?’ Mike Freer’s voice intoned in my ear.

  ‘I’m…longing to hear,’ I told him.

  ‘An astronaut goes to Mars but constipation mars your goes.’

  ‘Gosh, yes. What else did it say on your cornflakes packet?’

  ‘It said that we’d be very grateful if you could hit Michael Angelo. We picked somebody up who’d just made a collection from him, at his home. It’s the same stuff that we’re finding all over the place. From the Continent, and we think he’s the major distributor.’

  ‘How do you know it’s all the same stuff?’

  ‘Analysis – gas chromatography, mass spectrometers, all that gizmology. Far too complicated for you, Charlie. Basically, what it tells us is that if it grew in yak shit, it comes from Tibet. We can nearly describe which field.’

  ‘Right. Let me give it some thought. Pencil us in for the middle of next week.’

  ‘Will do. Oh, and Charlie…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Remember, possession might be nine points of the law, but it’s twelve at Scrabble.’

  ‘Definitely, and there’s many a true word spoken in Chester. S’long. I’ve work to do.’

  I replaced the phone before he could come back to me and gave my brow a mock wipe.

  ‘Freer, at a guess,’ Maggie said.

  ‘The one and only.’

  ‘No, he’s not – I know where there’s a big houseful like him. So what are we doing next week?’

  I rocked back on my chair and tried to grip my pen between my nose and top lip, but I couldn’t manage it. Outside, the sun was shining, and a couple of jet fighters streaked by, a long way off, looking for defenceless sheep to fire pretend missiles at. I might have been a fighter pilot, if you didn’t have to wear those overalls with pockets down below the knees.

  ‘Maggie,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, Charles.’

  ‘What would happen…just supposing…if I did something really stupid? I mean…stupid. Would they retire me early, do you think?’

  ‘How stupid do you mean?’

  ‘Stupid stupid.’

  ‘That stupid?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Nobody would notice.’

  ‘C’mon, Maggie. I’m being serious.’

  ‘OK. What you’re saying is, if you did something that was an embarrassment to the force, would they retire you early on full pension?’

  ‘Exactly,’ I declared, giving her a thumbs-up.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shit. Why not?’

  ‘Times are changing. They won’t let you out on ill health these days if you still have one of all the things God gave us two of.’

  ‘Mmm, that’s a disappointment. Never mind, we’ll do it just the same.’

  ‘Do what, Charlie? Trying to hold a conversation with you is worse than talking to Freer.’

  ‘Right. I’ve just invented something called a rhubarb run, and we hold the first one next week, against Michael Angelo Watts. Pass the telephone directory across, please. I’ll just make a phone call and then explain it to you. Do you think they still have a sewage department at City Hall?’

  They did, but it wasn’t called that. Maggie and I drove over to talk to the people who ran it and spent half an hour poring over street plans of the Sylvan Fields estate. It’s unbelievable what’s going off under our feet.

  ‘It’s no wonder the roads are so bumpy,’ I said, in a spirit of understanding of their problems. The surveyor who was helping us nodded his agreement and smiled happily.

  ‘They’re not bumpy in Bourton-on-the-Water,’ Maggie reminded him.

  We explained what we were trying to do, and made a firm arrangement to meet two of their staff at six thirty on the following Wednesday morning. We would be paying their ov
ertime. Gilbert would love this, but I decided not to spoil his holiday by telling him before he went. On the way out we had a little explore, wandering along corridors that had coloured arrows on the floor and lighting that didn’t cast shadows. The signs and furniture were a cross between Habitat and the Early Learning Centre.

  ‘It makes Heckley nick look like a squat,’ Maggie remarked.

  Back at the nick I said, ‘Put the kettle on, Maggie,’ as we strode into the office, adding, ‘Bet they’re not allowed their own kettles at City Hall.’ The young constable who’d discovered Goodrich’s body was standing near my desk, helmet under his arm like a guardsman at a court martial. ‘Hello, Graham,’ I greeted him, hoping I’d remembered the name correctly. ‘Come to ask for a transfer to CID?’

  ‘No, sir. I was wondering if I could have a word with you in private.’ He sounded worried.

  ‘Sure,’ I replied, adjusting to serious mode. ‘Come into the inner sanctum.’ I turned and raised my eyebrows at Maggie and led him into my little partitioned-off office space.

  ‘Sit down, Graham. Now, what can I do for you?’

  ‘I’ve come to apologise, sir, for the hair.’

  ‘I thought I’d told you to stop calling me sir.’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Priest.’

  ‘That’s better. What hair are you talking about?’

  ‘The hair that the SOCO found at the scene of the crime. Mr Goodrich’s, that is.’

  Realisation crept over me like when you stand under the heater in Marks and Spencer’s doorway on a frosty morning.

  ‘Oh, that hair!’ I exclaimed, clenching my teeth tight together to immobilise my face.

  ‘Yes. I’d just like to say that I’m sorry for the trouble it caused and I hope that it didn’t impede the enquiry too much. Oh, and it won’t happen again.’

  Nice little speech. ‘Was it your hair?’ I asked, almost choking with the effort.

  ‘No, sir, Mr Priest. My girlfriend’s.’

  ‘I see. Presumably you got it on your collar when she kissed you goodbye.’

  ‘Something like that, Mr Priest,’ he blushed.

  ‘OK. Well I’m afraid it’s gone away for analysis. From that we will be able to tell all sorts of things about her: what medication she’s taking…hormone levels… Ooh, all sorts of things.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And then there’s the cost. Fifty-two quid.’

  ‘I don’t mind paying,’ he blurted out, half reaching for his cheque book.

  ‘No, that won’t be necessary,’ I told him. ‘We’ll manage to lose it somewhere. So, apart from this little hiccup, Graham, how are you settling in?’

  ‘Fine, Mr Priest,’ he replied, almost smiling.

  ‘No problems?’

  ‘Mmm, I found it hard, at first. But it’s getting better. I suppose if you could manage it on your first day, the job wouldn’t be worth having.’

  ‘That’s the attitude, Graham,’ I said. ‘Give it a couple of years at least. Anything you need to know, don’t be afraid to ask.’

  He was still thanking me as I saw him out of the door. Maggie placed a steaming mug on my desk and asked, ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘Problems with his sex life,’ I replied. ‘He just needed some advice.’

  ‘And he came to you!’ she exclaimed. It’s the casual remarks of friends that hurt most of all.

  There was a football match on television that night, so I collected a frozen Chinese banquet and four cans of Sam Smith’s proper beer from the supermarket and had a quiet night at home. Can’t say I enjoyed myself, but I was doing what was expected of me.

  While I was in the Friday morning meeting, listening to Gilbert’s long list of dos and don’ts, Joan Eastwood left a message to say she had some information I might be interested in. I picked up the phone, then decided to drive to Leeds instead.

  Mrs Eastwood poured me a tea, barely avoiding spilling it into my china saucer. Everybody I spoke to on this case was nervous, as if they were hiding something. Even K. Tom Davis’s natural arrogance barely concealed the underlying fear, and now Mrs Eastwood was fussing around like a mother hen with a fox at the gate.

  ‘Can I offer you a biscuit, Inspector?’ she asked.

  ‘No thank you, Mrs Eastwood,’ I replied. ‘What exactly is it you wanted to tell me?’

  She perched herself on the edge of a chintz-covered chair that might have shot out from under her had it not been so solid. ‘It’s about…Mr Goodrich,’ she admitted.

  I peered at her over the rim of my cup and invited her to continue.

  ‘You said to ring you if I thought of anything else.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Well, it may be nothing, but on the other hand…’

  ‘Just tell me all about it, Mrs Eastwood. Anything you want.’

  ‘Very well. Er, I don’t know where to begin. Hartley – Mr Goodrich – and I were…close, if you know what I mean. We didn’t have an affair, but we were… I’m not sure what you’d call it.’

  ‘Let’s just say that you were very good friends.’

  ‘Yes. Very dear friends. I suppose it all sounds foolish to you, Inspector.’

  ‘No, Mrs Eastwood. It sounds the most natural thing in the world.’

  ‘Does it? Well, Hartley liked to talk about his work. Most of it was beyond me, but he was filled with all sorts of schemes. After he met K. Tom Davis he was convinced that they would both become millionaires. He was terribly impressed by Mr Davis, thought he could do no wrong. It was Davis who influenced him, got him into trouble.’

  She was straying off the point, defending her boyfriend.

  ‘What was it you wanted to tell me?’ I asked again.

  Her hands were in her lap, fingers intertwined and thumbs rotating around each other. ‘One night,’ she began, ‘two years ago, I was pulling Hartley’s leg about K. Tom, saying he thought more about him than he did me. He’d had a little too much to drink. We both had. There’d been a bullion robbery about seven years earlier, over six million pounds in gold bars stolen while on its way to a place in Sheffield…’

  Suddenly, this was interesting. ‘The assayers’ offices,’ I said. ‘The Prat something robbery.’

  ‘Hartog-Praat, that’s right.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, apparently a few people were arrested but none of the gold has ever been recovered. Hartley boasted that Davis knew all about it. Next day he came to see me at work. He looked dreadful. Scared. Told me to completely forget what he’d said; never mention a word to anyone. So I didn’t, until now. With Hartley being killed in that horrible way, I wondered if…if…’

  ‘If maybe he’d spoken to anyone else?’

  ‘Yes, something like that.’

  She sniffed and blew her nose on a tissue which she proceeded to twist into a passable origami corkscrew. My impression was that she had a lot more invested in this piece of information than she was claiming. I sipped my tea and waited for her to tell me more while giving her the once-over, the way we men are supposed to do. She was a little overweight, but it was evenly distributed. She carried it well – there was a Rubens model underneath that blouse and skirt, and two or three years ago she’d have been in her prime. I suppressed the improper thoughts, placing my cup on the table. If she had been having an affair with Goodrich, but didn’t want it to be public knowledge, that was fine with me. Adultery is still a sin, or at least an admission of failure, to most people, pop stars and Royal Family excepted, but why was she so nervous about it?

  ‘Is – is that of any use to you, Inspector?’ she wondered.

  I stroked my lips with the knuckle of my first finger. ‘Nothing else?’ I asked. ‘Did he ever mention it again?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘Try to think.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it since your first visit. There’s nothing else. How close are you to finding Hartley’s…the person who attacked him?’

  I uncrossed my legs and pushed myself more uprig
ht in the chair. ‘I thought we were fairly close,’ I told her, grateful that she hadn’t referred to his killer. ‘But this new information widens the field. Now there are a lot more people “in the frame”, as we say.’ I like to throw in some jargon, people expect it from a cop.

  ‘So you have… You are, er, following certain lines of enquiry?’

  She was better at it than me. ‘Well, I shouldn’t really be telling you this,’ I said, picking my cup up again, ‘but we’ve found a hair at the scene of the crime. As soon as we have a suspect we’ll see if it matches. If it does, they have some explaining to do.’

  The tissue fell to pieces in her grasp. It wasn’t Kleenex’s fault, she’d have done the same with a piece of corrugated iron.

  ‘A hair?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes.’ I finished my tea and leant forward. ‘Let me explain how we work, these days,’ I confided. ‘Off the record, of course. We don’t just gather obvious clues, like hairs and fingerprints. We try to analyse the behaviour of the criminal, from all the little, apparently inconsequential things that he does, and from this we build up a portrait of the person we are looking for. In theory we could take a hair sample from everyone in the country, but this way we’ll narrow it down, eventually, to just the one we want.’

  ‘H-how can you be so sure?’ she asked, white faced.

  I wasn’t enjoying this, but I waved a hand expansively, as if I was being matey, revealing little titbits to a friend. ‘We can’t,’ I admitted, ‘but I’ll tell you what we have so far. This is the picture, as I see it. The attacker arrives Monday morning, say about eight thirty. Picks up a bottle of milk from the doorstep and enters. Either the door is unlocked or he has a key. Mr Goodrich is apparently watching TV, glass of whisky by his side. The attacker hits him on the head with a handy pot plant, Goodrich slumps forward, dead. Fingerprints! thinks our assailant. He then fetches the tea-towel, which he knows is concealed under the work surface, wipes the plant pot clean and replaces the tea towel where it belongs. He is a very tidy person. On the way out he remembers the milk bottle and puts it back on the doorstep, after wiping that, too. I keep saying “he”. It could, of course, be a she. When we find someone who was sufficiently familiar with him and his home to fit in with that little scenario, we’ll just use the hair for confirmation.’