‘OK,’ I said. ‘You can sit in the car while I nip in for a quick one.’
He condescended to come in with me, agreeing that perhaps he could manage a pint of low-alcohol beer.
‘Yak! What’s this?’ he gasped, after the first sip.
‘It’s called I Can’t Believe It’s Not Dog Wee,’ I told him. My pint of Black Sheep was first class. After further grumbling from Sparky I took his glass back to the bar and had ten shots of lime juice put into it to mask the taste, and borrowed a menu.
‘Hey, this sounds good,’ I announced, flicking through the pages. It was all home-made, and they did Barnsley chops and rhubarb crumble. My mouth started to water.
‘I thought you’d eaten once, today,’ he protested.
‘It’s not for now,’ I said. ‘Maybe one evening. It looks a good place for a meal.’
We were nearly in Heckley when an ambulance came towards us, blue light flashing. Sparky held up the traffic to allow it to make a right turn across our bows. The word ‘Ambulance’ was emblazoned in back-to-front letters across its front. The sign writers must love doing that. I’d been thinking about the BMW the girl had seen outside Goodrich’s, wondering how far to take it. If it was a standard registration mark in Swindon there could be several thousand cars carrying it, hundreds of them BMWs. Tracing the car we wanted would be a lot of effort for a doubtful cause.
I said, ‘Do you think the WAM number is a no-no?’
Sparky nodded. ‘Looks like it. It was worth a shot. How far do you want us to go with it?’
‘Tell me what the girl said, the one who saw it.’
A youth in a Fiesta came tearing past us, realised he was running out of room, and hit the brakes. ‘Prat!’ Sparky cursed. ‘Sorry, what about the girl?’
‘Tell me exactly what she said.’
‘Right. She was going to work. She started at seven so it would have been about twenty to.’
‘So it was light.’
‘Correct. She noticed that there was another posh car outside Goodrich’s house, although she didn’t know his name.’
‘Had she ever met him?’
‘No. Never even seen him, that she knows of, but was intrigued by the fancy cars that called on him. I think it set her imagination wandering. The driver of this one, the BMW, was getting out, and she noticed that he was a black man. Be honest, Charlie — Sweetwater isn’t exactly Heckley’s answer to Harlem.’
‘OK. He was black. He was the wrong side of the tracks. Anything else? How come she didn’t get a description if she was so interested?’
‘Rasta haircut, and he took a briefcase out of the boot of the BMW, which she thought was odd. That’s all.’
‘Except she noticed the registration letters, and they struck a chord with her because she’s a George Michael fan.’
‘That’s about it.’
I half turned in the passenger seat, so I was facing him. ‘How does this sound?’ I asked. ‘If she saw him, watched him take his briefcase out of the boot, perhaps she was already past him when she took his number.’
‘You mean, in her mirror?’
‘Mmm.’
‘So it would be M-A-W, not W-A-M’
‘It’s worth a try.’
He nodded his approval. ‘Sounds possible. She could have been watching in her mirror and WAM on his number plate caught her attention. Do you want me to have another talk with her?’
‘No. Just give it a whirl.’
I looked at my watch as we were swinging into the nick car park. ‘Half six,’ I said. ‘You might as well have a reasonably early finish.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll just see if I can catch Nigel.’
He parked and released his seatbelt. ‘In that case, I’ll just try the DVLC with this number.’
I got out and spoke to him across the roof of the car. ‘OK, you win,’ I said. ‘We’ll both have an early night. See you in the morning.’
I called in at the supermarket on the way home and stocked up on frozen meals for slimmers. They’re the last thing I need, but they’re tastier than the regular ones. If you’re trying to encourage people to eat less, I’d have thought it would make more sense if they tasted like reconstituted tennis balls, but their loss is my gain, so to speak.
After I’d eaten I had a look at the E-type in the garage, sitting in it and running my fingertips round the wooden rim of the steering wheel. It smelt of leather, with perhaps a hint of Annabelle’s perfume, or maybe that was just my imagination. We’d had some adventures together, and some fun. The car didn’t need anything doing to it before the Lord Mayor’s parade, just a quick hose down and twenty gallons of petrol putting in. I wished Dad could see it now. I wished Mum could have met Annabelle, known I was doing all right.
I found my drawing board and a pad of 140 lb paper and did some sketches for the bullbars poster. Computers have taken all the skill out of lettering. I typed the words ‘Bullbars Kill Kids’ in forty point Optimum, with ‘Take them off, NOW!’ in smaller letters underneath it and ran off a copy. After a few adjustments it looked good. I watercoloured the sketch and superimposed the wording. When I was happy I did a final version. As an afterthought, in small letters across the bottom, I wrote that further information could be obtained from East Pennine Police Traffic Division, to make it look official without actually saying so.
There were only six of us at the morning meeting, including Nigel, who wasn’t in the team any more, and Brian from Fraud, who’d just called in to give us the latest findings. Maud was staying with us, and Jeff Caton. Sparky was barely able to contain himself, struggling to stifle a smile, like a scrap-dealer at a disaster. I deliberately ignored him.
‘First of all,’ I told them, ‘keep calling it a murder enquiry. Or at least, a suspicious death. We don’t want it leaking to the press that Goodrich died of natural causes. Mind you, they all reported his murder, so it’s unlikely that they’ll retract the story and apologise. The main problem is Wednesday’s Heckley Gazette. We could ask them not to print the truth, but it might be easier just to keep them in the dark, so watch what you say. Right, Maud, what have you got for us?’
‘The credit’s Brian’s,’ she said. ‘So I’ll let him tell you.’
‘Right, ta,’ he said. ‘Well, I started ringing banks, partly armed with information from Goodrich’s files, partly cold calling, trying to pin down his clients’ accounts. In the end I had to start counting them on my toes — I’d run out of fingers. His main accounts seem to be here in Heckley, with First National, but he has other accounts in Bradford, Leeds and Halifax. None of the managers were willing to talk without consulting a higher authority, in fact they were all bloody cagey. Except one.’ He awarded himself a little smile of satisfaction. ‘Last year I was at Bradford, and we uncovered a potential fraud at a branch of the Consolidated that could have cost them millions. A young girl, a graduate recruit, had worked out a scam that was near foolproof. We saved the manager’s skin, so yesterday I decided it was time to call in the favour. He couldn’t have been more helpful: spent half an hour on the computer, with me looking over his shoulder, and tracked down an account at their Oldfield branch where the amounts coincided with those in the book for Mr D. Jones. I have a printout here.’ He waved a sheet of paper at us.
‘Well done,’ I said. ‘Tell us more.’
‘Right, ta. Well, all the money was moved on fairly quickly, to other accounts and various other places, but the two largest payments were made to someone called International Gem Investments, whose head office is in Leeds. Then we found something similar with his E account, which is with their Huddersfield branch.’
I must have shuffled or something, because Brian hesitated and looked at me. ‘Sorry, Brian,’ I said, ‘but maybe I can interrupt to explain something. When we interviewed the people who lost money through Goodrich, most of it went down the tube with something called investment diamonds, bought from this company called IGI. Apparently the intrinsic value of the diamonds they bought is only about a tenth of what they paid. And now IGI
