A Genuine Mistake

by Ted Tayler

  “I noticed you took advantage of not having any input in the conversation to fill your face, Neil.”

  “Did I miss the notice in the newspaper nominating Gerry Hogan for a sainthood, guv?”

  “Nick Barrett was a fan, wasn’t he? Before he mentioned the wife and daughter, I wondered whether his interests lay elsewhere, despite the frequent references to females they met on the trip.”

  “I pegged him as an old-fashioned type, old before his time, guv. It goes with the territory. That legal language deliberately makes everything sound old and venerable.”

  “Did he mention one name we didn’t already have on our list, Neil?” asked Gus.

  “Not one, guv,” said Neil, “apart from Ginny and Josephine. I can’t see any point in interviewing them.”

  Gus and Neil returned to the station car park. The place was just as busy as it had been earlier.

  “Five or six nights,” said Neil.

  “I made a mental note of that, Neil,” said Gus. “Not sure how it helps us.”

  “No, I don’t suppose those traveller hostels kept pristine records on who was staying there any more than they kept the rooms in five-star order.”

  “If we discovered that Gerry Hogan upset someone between February and November 1981, would that person wait until May 2012 before taking his revenge? That’s a non-starter, Neil.”

  As Neil drove them back through Holt village, Gus wondered what Alex had discovered. If Nick Barrett was right, and Gerry Hogan was a saint, then that was another door slammed in their faces.

  They were running out of doors.

  “Where next, guv?” asked Neil as they entered the lift.

  “Luke will have our next meetings arranged, Neil,” said Gus. “Or he’s for the naughty step. I want you to concentrate on Nick Barrett’s background. Do some digging to find out whether he’s the bumbling country solicitor that he purports to be.”

  “Got it, guv,” said Neil. “I can’t see what Gerry Hogan saw in the bloke.”

  They exited the lift, and Gus headed for the restroom. Neil laid his jacket on the back of his chair and sat with a sigh.

  “No joy?” asked Luke.

  “Gus had a plan which didn’t work for a change,” said Neil. “I sat on my hands while Nick Barrett gave us his life story, with occasional references to our victim.”

  “What did you learn?” asked Blessing Umeh.

  “In a nutshell? We got confirmation that Gerry Hogan was an honourable man in every part of his life. He was never in trouble and went out of his way to keep his friends on the straight and narrow. His business affairs will be squeaky clean, no matter how deep Alex digs if we can believe everything his pal Nick says. Hogan’s sons come from the same mould. During the gap year that Barrett and Hogan spent together, there were half a dozen occasions where Hogan may, or may not, have slept with a fellow female backpacker. Barrett followed the line that as a gentleman never discusses such matters, therefore his pal Gerry would never say a word about what happened.”

  Gus returned from the restroom with two coffees.

  “White, one sugar, Neil,” he said. “Have you given them the potted version?”

  “Pretty much, guv,” said Neil.

  “Any ideas where to look into Nick Barrett?”

  “I can’t talk to Bruce Atkins and Natalie Flook, guv. They’re partners in the firm and will close ranks. As for the pit bulls in the office, well…”

  “Daphne and Suzanne? I think we’ll leave them well alone. They’ll be very protective of Mr Nicholas. Your best bet is to do a spot of overtime one evening this week. Drop by the club that he mentioned on Market Street, enquire about membership over a beer. Mention Barrett’s name for a potential reference, then sit back and see what reaction you get.”

  “Right, guv. I can swing it with Melody once I tell her she’s got a night out on Friday.”

  “What sort of club is it, Neil?” asked Lydia. “Are you sure Melody will let you go there?”

  “It may have been a private members club in the past, Lydia. Perfectly proper and above board. The type of club where the only female they allowed in worked behind the bar. I’ve visited dozens of them over the years. I can imagine they were a welcome refuge for thousands of married men who just wanted somewhere to get away from the wife and kids for an hour between the wars and into the Fifties. Most of the places had a small bar, a dartboard, and a billiard table. Some termed themselves as Reading Rooms, which attracted teetotal men. They still had a billiard table, but the walls contained shelves of books and magazines, rather than a dartboard.”

  “It sounds Victorian, guv,” said Blessing.

  “Most of the premises were from that era, Blessing. Now, who was likely to join such a club? Their membership came from middle-class professional men, who avoided the working men’s clubs like the plague—managers who didn’t want to rub shoulders at the bar with the factory workers they employed. Everything changed in the Seventies when women insisted they should be allowed to join. A few famous golf clubs and London establishments held out for as long as they could. The result was inevitable.”

  “Quite right too, guv,” said Lydia.

  “Perhaps you should go to Market Street tomorrow night, Lydia, with Neil. Take a good look. When I joined the force in 1975, there were over a dozen similar clubs in Salisbury. I can show you three buildings within a hundred yards of this office that were once a hive of activity several evenings a week. Most had a small bar, a dartboard, and a billiard table. In the larger premises, there was also a skittle alley. You could argue that the type of club that only catered for men had had its day. But how many working men’s clubs are still in business? Very few of the traditional variety. Times have changed. As an ex-copper, I know how valuable they were for obtaining information. I knew where certain people would be on any given night. I could drop by the Constitutional Club and find Billy Jenkins with a pint of Watney’s Red Barrel in one hand and three darts with feathered flights in the other. A quick chat as he waited his turn at the oche, keeping as far away from the smoke from his Capstan Full Strength as I could, and I was on my way. If he gave me a useful tip, Billy found a pint behind the bar later, courtesy of the Salisbury Constabulary.”

  “My Dad worked that way too, guv,” said Neil. “Terry hated the big family pubs that they built on the housing estates. They did away with the public bar, the snug, and the lounge. Everyone piled in together in one large room. The world and his wife could listen in to your conversation, and he had no chance of spending a quiet five minutes with a source without someone spotting them. The villains put the squeeze on the informants, and the sources dried up; sometimes, they got closed down permanently. No, Dad was sorry to see the corner pub and those small clubs disappear.”

  “It is what it is,” said Gus. “There’s no way that way of life will ever come back. As for the club that Neil’s going to tomorrow evening, they have two snooker tables and a bar,” said Gus. “Barrett and Hogan went there together regularly at times during their early twenties and less frequently when Hogan’s family came along. These days it’s Sean and Byron Hogan who will be well known in the club. After finishing work at the firm his father built, Sean plays a few frames for fun, while Byron makes his name as a professional.”

  “The practice they put in at home must have paid off,” said Luke.

  “Every time I picked up a stick, it would remind me of the day my father got shot,” said Blessing.

  “A cue, not a stick, Blessing,” said Gus, “but it’s a fair comment. Gerry always played snooker once he added the games room to his home. The boys took to the game when they grew tall enough to reach the table. We’ll learn how his death has affected them when we interview them.”

  “Byron Hogan is in Turkey this week, Blessing,” said Neil. “Do you think we’ll get a chance to fly out to interview him?”

  “I think we’ll concentrate on Sean Hogan first and ask him when his brother returns to this country. I want to talk to Ra
chel Cummins first, anyway. What’s the plan, Luke?”

  “Tomorrow morning, guv,” said Luke. “After nine o’clock. Ms Cummins’s first fitness class isn’t until the afternoon. Then she’s at a gym in Bradford in the evening.”

  “Call her and say I’ll be at her home on Trowle Common at nine-thirty,” said Gus. “I’ll drive here, collect one of you, and drive over.”

  Five faces looked from one to the other.

  Who would get the short straw?

  CHAPTER 5

  “I haven’t decided who’s coming with me yet,” said Gus. “I need to reassess our strategy. Nothing is happening with this investigation. I thought by giving Nick Barrett enough rope, he might hang himself or at least reveal something damning about his best friend.”

  “Nothing works to fit the timeframe, does it, guv?” said Alex. “Hogan and Barrett were at school together…”

  “And Bristol University,” said Neil. “They took it in turns to drive there in term time and stayed in the city in the evenings enjoying student life.”

  “After graduating, they flew to Australia together,” said Gus, “and backpacked from Darwin to Sydney, via Alice Springs and Uluru.”

  “If one or both of them did something that made them a target, why did it take thirty years before someone sought them out?” said Luke.

  “We can’t dismiss the gap year entirely,” said Gus. “But, again, if a jealous boyfriend discovered that Gerry Hogan slept with his girlfriend, fiancée, or wife thirty years before, it’s a long time to hold a grudge.”

  “Maybe he slept with one of each, guv,” said Neil. “They all chipped in for a hitman.”

  “Thank you, Neil,” said Gus.

  “Unless they had only just discovered it happened, guv,” suggested Blessing. “What if it was a couple who were married for the past thirty years and things turned sour? Perhaps during the bust-up, the wife admitted she had cheated. The husband could have lost everything after the divorce, turned to the bottle for comfort, and started searching for the bloke his ex-wife had mentioned. He blamed Gerry Hogan for his miserable existence.”

  “What books do you read, Blessing?” asked Lydia. “That’s a bit Mills and Boon, isn’t it?”

  “It’s the only way I could bridge the gap between events in Australia and the murder six years ago,” said Blessing.

  “So, we do need to find out more on these liaisons that Gerry Hogan had, guv,” said Neil.

  “Good luck with that,” said Gus. “We can’t ask Gerry Hogan. Nick Barrett doesn’t have a clue, and the chances of the hostels they stayed at having records that go back that far are slim.”

  “There may be a way we can find the pieces of one of your jigsaws, guv,” said Blessing.

  “The famous jigsaws,” laughed Neil.

  “Go on, Blessing,” said Gus. “Listen and learn, Neil.”

  “I’m not saying it would be easy, guv,” said Blessing. “You say Nick Barrett knows nothing about the girls in question. That’s not entirely true. What was he doing while Gerry was chatting up one of these girls earlier in the evening?”

  “Sat in a bar somewhere, getting drunk,” said Gus. Then he caught onto Blessing’s train of thought. “Barrett told us he was chatting to her friend. That’s our starting point. Get Nick Barrett to tell us about those girls. What part of the country did they come from, or were they local girls?”

  “See if Barrett can recall which resort it was, which bar, and give us an approximation of the date,” said Luke.

  “First names would help,” added Alex.

  “What do we do with these scraps of information?” asked Neil. “We can’t hope to trace them through hostel records. Airlines don’t retain passenger records for long because of privacy concerns either, so we can’t check who was in the country at the same time as Hogan and Barrett.”

  “Their trip was pre-internet days too, Blessing,” said Lydia. “So, there won’t be a pictorial record of someone’s gap year on Facebook, unlike kids who have travelled Down Under in the past fifteen years.”

  “If I were travelling that far, I wouldn’t go alone,” said Blessing. “The person I chose to fly with would be a close friend. We would bond even more during the time away from home. I reckon those girls are still friends today, even if they’re coming up to sixty years of age and living on different sides of the world. They’re the sort of person who uses Facebook to keep in touch with old friends. If I had first-name pairings and places they visited, maybe Divya could write a search routine to find possible candidates.”

  “You needn’t worry about upsetting one of them by asking if they knew a Gerry Hogan,” said Neil. “According to Nick Barrett, Gerry went for the most attractive girl in the bar. It shouldn’t be difficult to work out which one of the two he chose.”

  “It’s a long-shot, Blessing,” said Gus. “At the moment, though, I have got nothing better to suggest. We’ll run with it for a couple of days.”

  “Wish I had the magic bullet, guv,” said Alex. “I’ve only spent half a day so far studying the firm’s website. They follow the traditional spiel for these sites. I don't know how much of what I can currently see is Sean’s recent input, that of the manager Rachel Cummins installed in the interim or even Gerry’s original concept for the business. You can confirm that when you interview them.”

  “Firms such as Gerry Hogan’s are investing in your financial future,” said Luke. “There’s always a price to pay for that advice, plus none of them forgets to add the important rider. Always seek a professional opinion. Tax rules can be complex; they can depend on individual circumstances and are subject to change. The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up. Nothing is guaranteed. You might not get back your initial investment.”

  “Have you had personal experience?” asked Alex. “That sounded to be from the heart.”

  “Not me, but a shifty advisor royally screwed my parents. It’s all very well warning people to seek professional advice. Even someone with the right diploma can be a scam artist or simply give you the wrong advice by not giving your account due care and attention.”

  “If we take Nick Barrett’s comments at face value, then nobody suffered under Gerry Hogan’s watch,” said Gus.

  “I didn’t go directly to the Hogan website, guv,” said Alex. “I did hunt for the dirt on them first. I didn’t find anything. Nothing has ever been serious enough to make it to a court or the media.”

  “Follow the money,” said Gus. “That’s what they keep telling us. Something must turn up, Alex. It has to. Nothing that Nick Barrett told us this morning helped to explain why someone wanted to kill Gerry Hogan.”

  “Are you convinced Barrett is telling the truth, guv?” asked Lydia.

  “If he was lying through his teeth, Lydia, he fooled me. Neil’s going to put him under the microscope, but it’s another long shot.”

  “What should we do, guv?” asked Blessing.

  “Are you asking for a worthwhile task that might dislodge a clue?”

  “As opposed to a general cry for help, yes, guv,” said Blessing.

  “Well, something you said about a possible chain of events in Australia is still nudging me in the ribs. It can’t hurt to search for news items between the dates when our intrepid explorers were Down Under. It might not be a spurned lover; just an incident that made it into the newspapers. You’re looking for incidents where backpackers fell foul of the law or got on the wrong side of the locals. Check for sexual assaults, that sort of thing.”

  “Everything we’ve learned so far doesn’t mark Gerry Hogan as a sexual predator, guv,” said Neil. “He got more than his fair share anyway.”

  “We only have Nick Barrett’s word for that,” said Gus. “It’s worth checking, especially when we have little else to go on.”

  “Nick Barrett told us he was unsuccessful the whole time he was in Australia,” said Neil. “Perhaps he was hiding something.”

  “It still begs the question,
Neil,” said Alex.

  “Why wait for thirty years,” sighed Neil. “I know.”

  “And why kill Gerry Hogan if Nick Barrett was the guilty party?” asked Lydia.

  “Unless they got the wrong man,” said Blessing.

  “The man on the doorstep asked for Gerry by name. Let’s keep going with the lines of enquiry we started with,” said Gus, “plus the items we’ve added this afternoon. We’ll debrief what we’ve learned on Thursday morning and reassess if necessary. For the rest of what remains of today, I suggest each of us updates our digital files and then heads home. Tomorrow will be a better day.”

  Wednesday, 15th August 2018

  Gus had arrived home at twenty-past five last night and started cooking the meal he’d promised Suzie. He resisted settling for the cheese omelette and chips that she fantasised over. There were ample supplies of healthier ingredients in the fridge and freezer.

  Suzie drove through the gateway at twenty minutes to six. Gus had a bottle of Chardonnay poised to pour her a glass and paused. Half a glass for himself while he finished cooking, and then a glass of water each at the kitchen table when they ate. Old habits die hard.

  “Did you make any progress with your case today, darling?” asked Suzie as she breezed through the hallway into the main bedroom.

  “Two steps forward, three steps back,” said Gus.

  “Never mind. There’s always tomorrow.”

  Five minutes later, Suzie joined him in the kitchen. She looked radiant.

  “That smells good,” she said. “You’ll never guess who I saw going to lunch together today.”

  “Vera Butler and Rick Chalmers,” said Gus.

  “Heavens, no. Where on earth did you get that idea? They’re the most unlikely pair I know. No, it was our police surgeon and the new girl.”

  “Rhys Evans and Geraldine Packenham?” said Gus. “I hope they stuck to the thirty-minute comfort break that she imposed on the rest of the back-office staff.”

  “No idea; I spotted them walking along London Road as I moved between the Hub and the main building. Geoff Mercer has added another topic to the list of things he wants me to oversee. In a few weeks, I’ll need to break it to him gently that I won’t be there to keep his string of plates spinning.”