I chose a seat a long way from the bird, but where I could keep a wary eye on it. ‘Are you racing in Australia?’ I asked, sinking so far into an easy chair that I briefly wondered if I’d be joining him. A photograph of Justin and Lisa, him dressed like a knight at a tournament in his speedway leathers and clutching a huge cut-glass vase, hung over the fireplace. It was the only clue to how he earned his living, but I knew that somewhere there would be a special room stuffed to the Artex with his trophies. I have three football medals in a Zubes tin.
‘Yeah. The season’s ended here,’ he replied, ‘so it’s three months over there, every winter. It’s a hard life.’ He was grinning as he said it.
‘You’re not doing too badly out of it,’ I reminded him, with a wave of a hand.
‘We’re all adrenaline junkies,’ he explained. ‘The money helps, but nobody goes into speedway for the money. It’s the travelling that gets you down.’
I’d have liked to have heard all about it. As a failed sportsman, they’ve always fascinated me. I didn’t know anything about speedway, but it was a Cinderella sport, and I’d bet pain and sacrifice were a commoner story than fame and riches.
Justin was polite and friendly, but I was there to quiz him about his father’s involvement in a scam.
‘We met your mother yesterday,’ I explained. ‘She said your father was possibly over here, or maybe he’d gone to a race meeting with you. I’m trying to piece together Mr Goodrich’s movements, and I’d like a word with your father. Have you any idea where he might be?’
‘You said…dead. Was this guy murdered?’ he asked. At the mention of his father he looked worried, or angry. His face was pale and he fidgeted with his fingers. Maybe he was ready for another fix of adrenaline.
‘At the moment it’s just a suspicious death,’ I lied.
Voices came from the hallway as Lisa and Annabelle came in, then faded into another room.
I opened my mouth to ask, ‘When did you last see your father?’ but choked it off. We’d had too many paintings in this enquiry. ‘Have you seen your dad recently?’ is what came out.
‘No,’ he whispered, his brow creased in thought.
‘So when did you last see him?’
‘In the summer, when I went round to see Mum. He was there. July. I don’t think I’ve seen him since then.’
‘He doesn’t go to meetings with you?’
‘No.’
‘Never?’
He gave a little smile. ‘Sometimes I wonder if he’s there in the crowd, watching me, but it’s a dream, I know he’s not. We fell out. They sent me to a good school, wanted me to go on to university, be a lawyer, help him in the business. Thought I should be grateful. I bunked off to go racing.’ He paused, wondering how much to confide in this stranger. ‘Truth is,’ he said, ‘K. Tom is only my stepfather. I was about six or seven when he married my mother. Let’s just say we don’t get on. He came to see me race once, about two years ago, in Gothenberg. Came up to me in the paddock, right out of the blue, saying he’d brought me my spare bike, just in case I needed it.’
‘And had he?’
‘Yeah. He’d collected it from here and taken it over to the Continent. Said he’d had a premonition that I’d need it, wanted to be involved, let bygones by bygones, all that crap. I said “OK,” but he never came again.’
Lisa appeared and placed two coffees on a low table. ‘We’re in the kitchen, talking seriously,’ she said, walking out with an exaggerated wiggle and a backward glance.
I shouted a thank you after her, and when she’d gone I asked Justin, ‘How much do you know about K. Tom’s business?’
‘Nothing. He’s into all sorts of wheeling and dealing, all over my head.’
‘What about International Gem Investments? Have you heard of them?’
‘Was that the diamonds racket?’
‘Mmm.’
‘In that case, I’ve heard of them. He sent me a load of information about it and rang me up, said he’d double my money in two shakes of a cat’s tail. I showed it to my manager, who said, “No way.” Then I read that they’d gone bust and a lot of people had been hurt. Since then I’ve had nothing to do with him. Bad for my image, I’m told, as if that mattered.’
‘Sounds as if you have a good manager.’
‘The best. She’s called Lisa.’
I shook his hand and thanked him for being candid with me. He told me that he didn’t like K. Tom, but was convinced that he couldn’t kill anyone. ‘Oh, he’s not a suspect,’ I reassured him. They both walked to the gate with us, and as I got into the car Lisa said goodbye to me across the roof, her eyes lingering just a little longer than was necessary.
I broke the silence a mile down the road. ‘They’re a pleasant couple,’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘They have a parrot.’
‘Really?’
‘A scarlet macaw.’
‘Mmm.’
I looked across at Annabelle. She was staring straight forward, her face pale, hands in her lap. I felt I was with a stranger. As soon as a lay-by appeared I swung into it and stopped, switching off the engine to indicate the seriousness of the situation. Annabelle took a deep breath and bit her lip.
I said, ‘All the way up here you were quiet. In the pub with Mike and Susie you were the old charming Annabelle, a delight to be with. The same, no doubt, with Lisa Davis. Now, alone with me, you’ve gone quiet again. It’s obviously something I’ve done or said that’s upsetting you. For that, whatever it is, I apologise. If I’ve inadvertently hurt you, then I’ve hurt myself a hundred times more. But if I don’t know what it is, how can I make amends?’
She turned to face me, and I looked into those light-blue eyes that can look like cornflowers in June but now shone like glaciers. Something gripped me that I’d last experienced when I’d looked down the barrel of a twelve- bore held by a madman. It was called fear, but this time it was desolation, not death, that I was risking.
‘You think Donald did it, don’t you?’ she said.
So that was it. ‘Oh,’ I replied.
‘You think Donald killed the swans in the park. You offered to take him home so you could quiz him. I’m surprised you didn’t ask him for his fingerprints.’
My eyes flicked towards the glove box that held his coffee mug. ‘It’s a possibility,’ I told her, lamely.
‘But Donald’s parents are friends of mine, Charles. Donald is a friend of mine. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Can you imagine what it must be like for him? He was brain damaged at birth, and he knows it. He knows what he is like, and if that isn’t enough he has to fight prejudice, too. It makes me so angry.’
She was close to tears, and she doesn’t cry easily. I risked reaching out and holding her hand, and she placed her other one over mine. The best thing to say when you don’t know what to say is nothing.
I could go so far towards imagining what it must be like for Donald. Willing to work, but no proper job. No chance of ever driving a car or enjoying himself on equal terms with other young people. And then there was sex. Every time he looked at a newspaper or the TV he’d hear about couples bonking, or have some bimbo’s breasts thrust towards him. This mysterious activity was being used to sell everything from cars and coffee to walnut whips, but at twenty-eight he’d never had a nibble of it. The nearest he ever got was to dig the garden of the beautiful lady who was a friend of his parents. We’re told that it’s themselves that the mentally handicapped usually hurt, not other people. If that’s true, and it is, then they must have the forbearance of the angels.
After a few minutes I said, ‘I’ve been a policeman for a long time. Maybe too long. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve lost sight of how normal people behave. But I’m a good cop and I enjoy what I do. I’ve tried to share as much of it with you as I can, Annabelle, to involve you as much as possible. I’ve tried, love, believe me, I’ve tried.’
She squeezed my hand and said, ‘I know you have, Charles — that’s why you brought me here today. It’s not all your fault. I’ve been feeling a little low since the weekend, perhaps I’m over-reacting.’
I placed my hands back on the wheel and shook my head. ‘No, you’re not over-reacting. You’re dead right. I’ve let my prejudices show, and it hurts.’
Annabelle started to speak, but I interrupted her with the words, ‘Look in the glove box.’
