fashionista’s worst nightmare, one of many reasons why she was Hannah’s best mate in the Cumbria Constabulary.
‘If you’d asked me a month ago, I’d have said Wanda Saffell murdered George. In fact, I’d have staked my pension on it.’
Fern squeezed a sachet of HP sauce over her breakfast. Her plate was as big as a Michelin tyre and crammed to overflowing with eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, fried bread and black pudding. There was something pleasingly shameless about the Bar’s commitment to clogging its customers’ arteries. It was good business, at least in the short term until they were wheeled into intensive care. The smell of hot fat alone was enough to send your cholesterol count zooming into the stratosphere.
‘Who says you’ll live long enough to collect your pension? You realise eating that meal probably invalidates your life insurance?’
Fern wiped her mouth with a paper napkin emblazoned with the logo of the Beast Banks Breakfast Bar, featuring a bull with a libidinous smirk. Presumably an ironic nod to the bull baiters of yesteryear.
‘You know my motto. A short life, but a merry one.’
‘Like the late lamented George?’
‘He wasn’t that merry. Boring old fart is the phrase that springs to mind. Really, an estate agent who threw it all up to collect smelly old books, I ask you.’ A momentary pause and an uncharacteristic blush suggested that Fern had forgotten how Marc earned his living. ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with old books, of course. But you can have too much of a good thing, and George Saffell did own a hell of a lot of them. Give me chick lit and trashy magazines any day.’
‘So, have you linked Wanda to his death?’
‘Uh-uh.’ Fern stirred a couple of sugars into her mug of coffee with enough pent-up aggression to spill half of it onto the formica table top. ‘I swear George didn’t tie himself up and the boathouse didn’t set fire to itself, but…’
‘You’ve ruled out some bizarre form of elaborate suicide?’
‘Who would end it all like that? Imagine how it feels to be burnt alive. More painful than a day of being force- fed Lauren’s homilies.’
‘A weird form of atonement?’
Fern put her elbows on the table, heedless of the fact that it was still swimming in coffee, and gazed pityingly at Hannah. ‘Estate agents don’t do atonement.’
‘Do Forensics confirm suicide is absolutely out of the question?’
‘You know Forensics, they won’t confirm that night follows day, unless you promise not to sue if it turns out they’ve mucked up the chain of evidence.’ Fern glared at her coffee. It had the consistency of the sludge visible in harbours at low tide. Hannah had ordered an orange juice and a couple of slices of toast; her concession to living for the moment was to smear a pat of butter onto the crumbling surface of the toast. ‘Everything is hedged with disclaimers. But the official
‘Motive?’
‘Money, has to be. Otherwise, why not simply divorce him?’
‘He bailed out of house-selling at a good time.’
‘Yeah, he was doing fine until his luck ran out.’ A forkful of baked beans disappeared into Fern’s mouth. ‘The conglomerate that took over his firm have closed half the offices and laid off two-thirds of the staff. “Economies of scale”, they call it. Asset-stripping to you and me.’
‘Did anyone connected with the firm hold a grudge against him?’
‘On the contrary, the people he left behind saw him as a decent old stick. All the more so, once they had a taste of their new masters. A gang of venture capitalists whose only concern is to screw the workforce into the ground.’
‘So, George made millions and threw everyone else to the wolves?’
‘Nobody seems to have resented him enough to do him harm. His father founded the business and he expanded it over twenty-five years. Built up a decent reputation, didn’t get involved in the murky tricks of the property trade. Plenty of Jack the Lads buy at an undervalue through a shell company and then sell on at full price. It’s an easy route to big bucks, but Saffell concentrated on the quality end of the market. Selling seven-bedroomed mansions on fat commission to rich southerners. Rich pickings, and relatively ethical.’
‘Relatively?’
‘If I was prime minister, I’d pass a law to give local first-time buyers a break. I hate people treating houses as an investment when kids can’t find anywhere they can afford in the place their family has always lived. But that’s just me. If everyone said Saffell was a saint, I’d be truly suspicious. His social life revolved around the Rotary Club and the golf course, yawn, yawn. At least until his first wife died. She was a childhood sweetheart who rejoiced in the name of Jennifer. They married young and had one daughter called Lynsey. Lynsey trained as a doctor and now lives in New Zealand with her husband and a couple of little kids. Jennifer died shortly after her daughter emigrated, and Saffell’s comfortable world was shattered.’
‘Until he married glamorous Wanda.’
Fern shovelled a huge chunk of fried bread into her mouth, pausing only to belch as a sign of what she thought about glamour. ‘Jennifer was as ordinary as her name, by all accounts. Second time around, he opted for someone very different.’
‘He must have been quite a catch. A rich, reasonably pleasant man, left on his own through tragedy rather than divorce.’
‘When you put it like that, I might have been tempted myself. The boring personality and the musty old books kind of fade into insignificance when you think of shopping without a budget.’
A bell rang as the door of the Breakfast Bar opened, and in walked Les Bryant and Greg Wharf. Les sneezed furiously in lieu of a greeting, but Greg wandered over to their table and stared at Fern’s plate.
‘Morning, ma’am.’ He grinned at Fern. ‘Glad to see you’re a connoisseur of a tasty pork sausage.’
Fern gave Greg and his juvenile double entendres the withering look they deserved and bit the sausage in half before chewing very hard and very noisily.
‘DCI Larter is updating me on the Saffell case,’ Hannah said. ‘There’s a possible overlap with our inquiry. I’ll brief you later this morning.’
‘Look forward to it, ma’am.’ Greg bestowed a cheeky smile upon her and strode off with a spring in his step to join Les in the queue.
‘Naughty boy,’ Fern said. ‘But I like him.’
‘Keep your hands off,’ Hannah said. ‘He should carry a health warning, everyone tells me he’s bad news.’
‘But a good detective, I hear. Don’t worry, I’m not into cradle-snatching. He’s closer to your age than mine.’
‘Only by two or three years. And you must be joking if you think I’d ever take a shine to him.’
‘So, how is Marc?’
‘Fine, we spent Christmas with his family.’
‘And you’re still speaking to him? The last Christmas I spent with my in-laws nearly turned me into a spree killer. Go on, then. Any chance Marc will make an honest woman of you this year now you’ve bought that posh new house?’
‘Leave it, Fern.’ Hannah snapped a corner off the burnt slice of toast and chewed it furiously. ‘I want to hear about your prime suspect.’
‘Wanda? She met George after her firm won the PR account for Saffell Properties. Her maiden name was-’
‘Smith.’
Fern raised her eyebrows. ‘Actually, that was the name of her first husband. Her maiden name was Hart. Someone who knew her at school told me she was known as Cold Hart. No change there, then. How come you knew she was called Smith — doing a bit of moonlighting away from Cold Cases, are you?’
‘I’ll fill you in after you’ve told me about her life with Saffell.’
‘Once she spotted her chance of a lifestyle of conspicuous consumption, old George didn’t have a chance.
