Last Reminder

by Stuart Pawson

‘I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.’

  ‘I had yoghurt, banana and a small jacket potato.’

  ‘It sounds horrible.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t. It was quite nice.’ She’d resorted to her little girlie voice. ‘Charlie…’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Will you come and see me, sometime?’

  I’d be seeing her, sometime, no doubt about it. I just wasn’t sure about the circumstances.

  ‘No, I don’t think so, Lisa,’ I said.

  ‘I thought you said you liked me.’

  ‘I do, Lisa. I think you’re terrific’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘I can’t make it, tomorrow.’

  ‘Saturday?’

  ‘No. I’ll be seeing Annabelle over the weekend.’

  ‘Then it will have to be tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m busy, tomorrow.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to know all about K. Tom. And the…you know…the stuff.’

  ‘You mean the gold?’

  ‘I might do.’

  ‘I don’t believe you know anything about it,’ I teased.

  ‘You’d be surprised what I know,’ she claimed. ‘But I’m not saying anything on the phone. Why don’t you come and see me in the morning, about ten o’clock?’

  ‘That’s a very tempting offer.’

  ‘So you’ll come?’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘Good. And if you’re a very good boy, Aunty Lisa might tell you all about…you know…it.’

  ‘Right,’ I replied, my voice coming from somewhere down in my bowels. ‘I’ll do that. Ten it is.’

  I let Gareth Adey run the morning meeting. Soon as it ended I strode into the CID office and said, ‘You, you and you. Inner sanctum.’ I was in a good mood. I’d changed my normal route to work in order to drive past the local pub again. Two posh limos were standing forlornly in the car park, their windows opaque with morning dew for the first time in their lives. After my visit the silly prats at the bar had shared a taxi home.

  Nigel, Sparky and Maggie followed me into my corner. ‘First of all,’ I told them, ‘I’m giving a lecture a week today at Bramshill. It’s on ethics.’ I turned to Nigel. ‘Could you have a little think about it?’ I asked him. ‘Write down a few ideas for me, if you don’t mind.’

  He nodded.

  Sparky gasped. ‘Ethics! You!’

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I demanded.

  ‘It’s like asking Genghis Khan to talk on road safety.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, pointedly ignoring him. ‘The enquiry into Goodrich’s death is over. Where are we with the Jones boys?’

  ‘You mean the suspect bank accounts?’ Maggie said.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘It’s all in the reports, just like you insist.’

  ‘I know, but let’s hear it in the spoken word.’

  Nigel said, ‘Maud and Brian reconciled three of the Jones’ lists of money in Goodrich’s book with real accounts in local banks.’

  ‘And where did it go from there?’

  ‘About half went to IGI, for diamonds. The other half went on a variety of things: one cheque of eighteen grand to Heckley Motors, presumably for a car; some went into legitimate investments.’

  ‘Goodrich was a big wheel in second-hand endowment policies,’ Maggie told us.

  I pulled the flip chart from the corner and handed a pen to Sparky. ‘You can be teacher, this morning, Dave,’ I told him. ‘Good night, last night?’

  He grimaced at me and stood up. ‘No, bloody awful,’ he admitted, turning over the pages until he reached a blank one.

  ‘Sorry, Maggie,’ I said. ‘You were telling us about second-hand…endowment policies, did you say? What are they?’

  ‘Maud explained it to me. If someone takes out an endowment policy, then finds out that they are dying, say of AIDS, they want the money now, not after the event. The insurance company will pay them a surrender value, based on the number of payments they’ve made, but another option is to sell the policy to a third party for a lot more money. This third party then takes over the payments, and draws the full amount when the original holder pops it.’

  ‘And that’s legit?’ I gasped.

  She shrugged. ‘Everybody benefits, Charlie. It’s a brutal world out there.’

  ‘The insurance companies benefit, Maggie. Why can’t they pay the full amount early, minus payments? They’d have to, eventually, if some poor sod didn’t need the money.’

  Nigel said, ‘We’re not the morality police, Boss. If it’s legal, it’s legal.’

  ‘OK. So what next?’

  ‘Michael Angelo Watts knew Goodrich,’ Sparky told us, writing the information on his chart.

  ‘And,’ I said, pausing for effect, ‘he also knows K. Tom Davis.’ They looked at me, inviting an explanation. ‘I had a ride round there, Wednesday afternoon,’ I went on. ‘Did a little spying. Saw him pay them a visit.’

  ‘That’s interesting,’ Nigel said.

  ‘And he’s a drugs dealer,’ Maggie added.

  ‘Allegedly,’ I said, smiling. ‘Go on.’

  ‘IGI go bust,’ from Nigel.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Michael Angelo Watts very annoyed,’ Sparky suggested.

  ‘I’d bet he was,’ I said. ‘The surprising thing is that we found Goodrich dead in his chair and not standing on the riverbed with his feet in a concrete block. So how did he sweet-talk Watts into leaving him be?’

  ‘Blame IGI – K. Tom Davis – for the failure?’ Nigel wondered.

  ‘Can’t see Watts falling for that,’ Sparky said.

  ‘Nor me,’ I confirmed.

  ‘How about an alternative method of payment?’ Maggie proposed.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, what’s this about the gold?’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you what we know. Mr Smart Arse Caton said right from the beginning that the drugs dealers would prefer payment in gold, because they’re awash with cash, but, on the other hand, anybody holding gold would welcome the opportunity to convert some of it into cash.’

  ‘Jack Spratt and his wife,’ Sparky said.

  ‘Precisely. It’s a marriage made in heaven. And now there are rumours that K. Tom was involved in the Hartog-Praat bullion robbery. Only rumours, sadly, but the fact is that someone, somewhere out there, is sitting on a ton and a half of a very desirable metal.’

  ‘So what’s next?’ Sparky asked.

  ‘Next,’ I replied, ‘is that I am going to interview K. Tom’s daughter-in-law, Lisa Davis, later this morning. She reckons to know something, but I’m not sure. Then, when I have the time, I want to talk to a man called Jimmy the Fish, in Bridlington. Hopefully, they’ll put some flesh on the rumours. Have you all got plenty to be going on with?’

  They always say they have. I turned to Dave. ‘I’m seeing Lisa Davis at ten, so I’d better be off. I want you to give me a ring on my mobile at ten thirty, no later. In fact, better make it twenty past. Say there’s been a murder, and I’m urgently needed. OK?’

  ‘Will do, Chas,’ he replied.

  We were on our way to the door when Nigel said, ‘Have we time for a quicky?’ He meant a joke, not sex. Nigel tries, bless him, but his timing lets him down. We all stopped.

  He turned to DC Maddison. ‘Maggie, how many menopausal women does it take to change a light bulb?’

  ‘I don’t know, Nigel. Please tell me.’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘How do you work that out?’

  ‘No, you’re supposed to say? “Why three?”’

  ‘Oh, sorry. Why three?’

  ‘BECAUSE I SAY SO!’ he yelled.

  I smiled – it wasn’t bad, for him – but I was alone.

  ‘Very funny,’ Maggie stated. ‘Tell me, how many menopausal men would it take to change the same light bulb?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he obligingly replied.

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘Why ten?’

  ‘It’s just a fact o
f life, Nigel. Just a fact of life.’

  Sparky decided to join in. ‘I don’t understand all these silly jokes about light bulbs,’ he told us. ‘About a year ago I was in Sainsbury’s and I saw a man with one arm changing a light bulb with no trouble at all.’

  ‘You mean…single-handed?’ I said.

  ‘Exactly. No trouble at all.’

  ‘How did he manage that?’ Nigel wondered.

  The merest twitch of a mouth corner betrayed Sparky’s triumph. He said, ‘He just showed them his receipt, same as anybody else would.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  One of the hill farmers chose that very morning to transport twenty tons of hay from the outskirts of Heckley to his barn up on the moors, so I was stuck in the half-mile procession that followed his tractor and trailer most of the way, bits of dry grass swirling in his wake like confetti. It’s a sign of a hard winter when they stock up with hay. I was ten minutes late when I parked outside Broadside and Lisa would be worried I wasn’t coming, if she remembered I was supposed to be. The big gate was half open, but I left the car outside. The gate swung shut on well-oiled hinges and the galvanised catch held it there, like a man-trap gripping an ankle.

  A lilac Toyota MR2 stood outside one of the garages, with ‘Lisa Davis Agency’ and a phone number emblazoned on the side. It pays to advertise.

  The front door of the bungalow was ajar. I knocked and pressed the bell, simultaneously. After about forty-five seconds I repeated the exercise.

  ‘Mrs Davis!’ I shouted through the gap.

  No reply. I eased the door open a little and called again. ‘Lisa! Are you there?’

  There was a movement in the shadows at the far end of the hallway. I pushed the door wide to admit more light, and saw the parrot on the floor, waddling towards me.

  ‘Lisa!’ I yelled.

  The macaw was nearly on me. When I’d told Sparky about it he said they cost about two thousand quid, and this one looked bent on freedom.

  ‘Good boy,’ I said, followed by, ‘LISA!!!’

  It kept coming, picking up each foot with the deliberation of a deep-sea diver, the long tail swishing from side to side on the carpet. I stepped inside and tried shooing it back, but it wasn’t having any.

  I closed the door behind me, and a few seconds later the bird had me pinned against it. That’s when I did the bravest deed of my career. I pulled the sleeve of my jacket over my fist and offered my arm to it, like that hapless fool at the dog-handling centre who spends his working days rolling about under a slavering Alsatian. The macaw gently gripped the material in a beak that looked as if it came from Black and Decker’s R and D department and decorously placed one foot on my arm. Its claws went straight through to the skin as it juggled for balance, then it stepped aboard with the other foot and the pressure eased a fraction. I stood up, the bird wobbling alarmingly, but it may have been me. I had a sudden panic attack as I realised why so many pirates wore eye-patches.

  Parrots like to climb, and that means upwards. Unfortunately that’s in lesson two, and I was still struggling with the first. I should have raised my arm, but I didn’t. The bird pulled its way up my sleeve like a rock climber – beak, claw, claw, beak, claw, claw – until it reached the back of my neck. I stood there, bent over like Quasimodo meets Long John Silver, and wailed, ‘Lisa! Help! Please!’

  But no help came. You’re in this on your own, Priest, I thought, and slouched towards the door into the lounge, where the bird’s stand was. The door was open, the room much as I’d seen it before, except for some magazines strewn on the floor. Fashion and gossip. It was easy for me to read them because my eyes were pointing downwards. I sidled against the perch and made jerking movements to encourage the bird in that direction. It banged its beak against the bell once or twice and stepped off my neck, on to the perch. I straightened my back gratefully and said, ‘Phew! Good boy.’ I was speaking to myself.

  The poor bird’s food tray was empty, so I gave it an apple from a bowl on a low table. The macaw held it down with a foot and its beak carved a great wedge out of it as easily as a spoon passes through a bowl of custard. I’d had a narrow squeak.

  But where was Lisa?

  I was in the hall, calling her name, when my foot kicked something. I looked down and saw a mobile phone lying there. The room opposite was the kitchen, where she’d entertained Annabelle. Next was a dining room, then two bedrooms straight out of a film set and a third done out as an office. This was where Justin kept his trophies and souvenirs. I’d have liked to have studied them but this wasn’t the time. The last door, I presumed, was the bathroom. I knocked, and pushed the door with the tip of my knuckle. It swung back, revealing a white and gold suite but not much else. I wasn’t in the mood for gathering ideas about interior decoration.

  So where was she? I shouted her name again, for no sensible reason.

  Surely there’s another bathroom, I thought, probably en suite with a bedroom. I went back to the biggest room and stepped on to the thick shaggy carpet. The curtains were closed, so I put the light on.

  In an alcove was another door, slightly ajar. ‘Are you there, Lisa?’ I called, softly, but there was no answer. I placed the knuckle of my first finger against the door and slowly pushed it open.

  This was Lisa’s bathroom. A large Victorian bath stood in the middle of the room, and she was in it.

  Her throat had been cut.

  Her head lolled sideways, face as white as the porcelain, and one knee was drawn up. She looked like a discarded Barbie doll, with another mouth where there shouldn’t have been one, trapped in a bowl of strawberry jelly.

  I reached a finger down towards the surface of the water, smoother than a newly opened tin of paint, and saw its reflection coming up to meet it. A drip fell from the tap, plinking into the surface and sending a single ripple arcing outwards, so a wave of distortion passed through the image, a momentary glitch on the TV screen. The water was cold.

  A warbling noise startled me. After a moment’s confusion I realised it was my mobile phone. I took it from my pocket and said ‘Priest,’ into it.

  ‘Hello, Hinspector Priest,’ Sparky greeted me in his music hall Yorkshireman voice. ‘This is ’Eckley po-leece station. Could you cum back quickly becoss we’ve got a murder for you to investigate.’

  I stared down at her. No matter what I thought of her morals she’d been a good-looker. She’d run her own business and successfully managed Justin’s affairs. But she’d loved life just a little too much for her own good. Her hair was dry except for where it dangled into the water and capillary action had carried its dark stain upwards a little way.

  ‘I know, Dave,’ I mumbled into the mouthpiece. ‘I’m already there. Believe me, I’m already there.’

  I was sitting on the wall when Les Isles arrived, fifteen minutes later. There were no hay-wagons to slow his progress.

  ‘What’s this all about, Charlie?’ he asked, slamming his car door.

  I told him about my conversation with Lisa the night before, about the suspicions that her father-in-law was mixed up in the Hartog-Praat robbery, and about her intimation that she knew all about it. He gave me a sideways look, as if to hint that there were other reasons, too, for my visit.

  ‘And her throat’s cut?’ he said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Tell me what you know.’

  ‘Front door open – wide open, that is. I’ve had a look round the outside and there’s no other sign of entry. Either the door was unlocked or he had a key. No sign of a struggle. He must have known exactly where she was. It’s an en suite bathroom, not where you’d find it if you didn’t know the layout of the house. The water was flat cold. No rigor mortis, but skin macerated. She rang me about ten last night. I reckon she died not long afterwards. The killer left in a hurry. Are you having a look?’

  ‘I believe you, Charlie. No, I’ll wait till the anoraks have done their stuff.’

  ‘One more thing. There’s a mobile phone lying on the hall
carpet. With a bit of luck he’ll have dropped it on his way out.’

  Les’s eyebrows shot up. ‘In the hallway?’ he asked.

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Just inside the doorway?’

  ‘About three yards inside.’

  ‘C’mon, then. Let’s see it.’

  It was a Sony. We knelt on the carpet and examined it. Look but don’t touch, as my mother used to say. There really should be a standard for what all the buttons do.

  ‘Looks to me as if it’s still on,’ Les observed, pointing at the display. ‘Any idea what’s what?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, but one of them should tell you the number of the owner.’

  ‘But which one?’

  ‘No idea. On mine you press the F button and another, but don’t ask me which. Have it checked for prints, then consult an expert.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Someone outside shouted, and we let the SOCOs in. We showed them the phone and they cordoned-off that side of the hall with their coloured tape. Superintendent Isles donned a disposable overall and went with them to examine the body, while I waited outside, where the air was fresher.

  He was visibly ashen when he emerged, ten minutes later. ‘It’s at times like this I wish I still smoked,’ he admitted.

  ‘I doubt if it would help,’ I said.

  ‘Probably not. How long had you known her, Charlie?’ he asked, concerned.

  ‘Only met her once, plus a long phone call. She was lonely. She hinted that she’d rung other people, but nobody wanted to talk to her. A look at her list of calls might be a good idea.’ I didn’t mention that I’d suggested she have a hot bath and go to bed.

  ‘Mmm. She was certainly a looker. Can I leave the calls with you?’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘Where’s that bloody pathologist?’ he snapped.

  We stood in the doorway, arranging the mechanics of another murder investigation to go with the two unsolved ones that Les was already overseeing for other divisions. I was hoping he’d leave this one to me, as with the Goodrich case. A red grouse landed on the wall, saw us, and flew off again, cluck-cluck-clucking impatiently as he went. Spots of rain were blowing about in the wind.

  My phone was ringing again. I plunged my hand inside my jacket and withdrew it, clutching the dreaded instrument. ‘Priest,’ I said.