me.’
‘And did you let him?’
She nodded and sniffed.
‘Have you lost your money?’
Another nod and sniff. ‘It’s looking like it. Well, twenty thousand pounds.’
‘In diamonds?’
‘Diamond. Singular.’
I asked her if she could tell me anything about his business acquaintances, but she had nothing to volunteer.
‘Have you ever heard of K. Tom Davis?’ I asked.
She looked up, startled. ‘Yes, but I never met him. He was behind the diamonds. It was his fault that it all went wrong. Hartley was duped just as much as anybody else.’
She couldn’t expand on her theory, so I invited her to ring me if she thought of anything else and left. I picked up a beef sandwich and a curd tart, carefully avoiding the spoonerism, at a local bakery and made my way back to Heckley. Waiting on my desk was a brown envelope, bursting at the seams. It contained a thick wad of coloured photocopies of the poster I’d done for the bullbars campaign. That was quick, for Traffic, I thought. I put a small pile on everybody’s desk and pinned a couple on notice boards. Then I went to the loo.
Nigel was washing his hands. ‘Hi, boss,’ he greeted me. ‘I’ve a message for you.’
There was the sound of a toilet flushing, and a huge PC came out of a cubicle, tucking his shirt flap into his waistband.
‘Hello, George,’ I said. ‘Successful?’
‘Grand, Mr Priest,’ he replied. ‘Like a flock o’ pigeons landin’ on a wet roof.’
Nigel’s gaze switched from the PC to me and back again, his jaw hanging slack, like a moose with a gumboil. He’s from Berkshire, and lies awake at night wondering if he’d be more at home in Ulan Bator.
‘What was it?’ I asked him.
‘What was what?’
‘The message.’
‘Oh, yes. Two things, actually. First of all the Dean brothers are in the court lists for Monday, so I may be out of circulation for a couple of days. And a chap called Davis just rang. Said you’d been chasing him. He left his number.’
‘Justin Davis?’
‘No, Tom something-or-other.’
‘K. Tom. Great.’
Walking back to the office Nigel said, ‘I’ve been wondering about inviting Heather — Professor Simms — out for dinner. She’s frightfully attractive, don’t you think?’
‘Our new pathologist? Mmm, yes, she is.’
‘She doesn’t wear a wedding ring, but I don’t suppose you know if she has a boyfriend or anything?’
We were back at Nigel’s desk and he tore the top page off his notepad and handed it to me. ‘No idea,’ I told him. ‘Met her for the first time myself on Monday. Just go for it, Nigel. She can only say no. Defeat is no disgrace, to quote Idi Amin’s chiropodist.’
Now he looked more puzzled than ever. ‘Just one thing,’ I confided, lowering my voice. ‘If she offers to cook for you, don’t touch the liver.’
K. Tom Davis’s wife answered the phone. ‘Hello, Mrs Davis,’ I said. ‘This is Inspector Priest. I have a message to ring your husband at this number.’
He was there, so I drove straight over to see him. The obligatory Range Rover stood in front of the garages and I wished I’d brought the bullbars leaflets with me, but as I walked past the car I was pleasantly surprised to see it didn’t have them fitted. I thumbed the bell-push and heard the first four bars of Canon in D from deep within. Or maybe it was the last four bars. Or any combination of bars in between.
This time we didn’t sit in the glorified greenhouse. I slithered about on a chesterfield that was as comfortable as a piano lid and they accompanied me on the matching easy chairs. More depressing hunting scenes adorned the walls — horses frozen in mid-leap against backgrounds straight out of How to Paint Trees.
K. Tom was a big man, impressive, but his beer gut was winning the weight war and his nose had dipped into too many whisky glasses. The gold cufflinks would have paid off my one and only creditor, leaving the sovereign rings — one on each hand — to put a new set of tyres on the cause of same debt.
‘I was scared,’ he explained, when I asked him the reason for his disappearance. ‘I read about Goodrich’s murder and I suppose I panicked. Thought I’d be next on the list, maybe. I told Ruth I was going to see Justin, but I booked into the Devonshire Hotel, in Wharfedale, for a couple of nights.’ At the mention of his wife’s name he broke off rolling the bottom of his tie and gestured towards her. ‘I rang her last night,’ he continued, ‘and she told me of your visit. It’s a terrible business, Inspector. If I can help in any way you have only to ask.’
‘Well, first of all, we’re not sure that it was murder, but somebody did hit him over the head. At the moment we’re calling it a suspicious death.’ Might as well clarify that right from the beginning. ‘When did you last see Goodrich?’
‘Good grief, let me see. Must be over six months ago. I’ve only seen him once since we…since…’
‘Since you went bankrupt?’
‘Since we called the receiver in.’
‘So what made you think you might be next on the list?’
The bottom of his tie looked like a spring roll and I felt hungry. He realised what he was doing and flattened it against his stomach. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘I, er, assumed it was a mad creditor, out for revenge because he’d lost a few quid. They should see what we’ve lost. They all think that we’re the villains of the piece, but we’ve been hurt most of all. The blame really lies with the banks. If they hadn’t pulled the plug on us, nobody would have been hurt.’
And Robert Maxwell was a big cuddly teddy bear. I asked them where they were on Sunday night, Monday morning — not because I cared but because that was what they expected me to ask. They never left the house.
‘Are there any creditors who have been particularly hostile, or threatened violence?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘In fact, I’ve a file of letters you can take with you. Nearly binned them all. Glad I didn’t, now.’
Mrs Davis pulled herself upright and volunteered to fetch the letters.
‘Thanks. So what are your immediate plans? Are you staying here?’
‘Not sure, Inspector. I have a couple of business trips scheduled, trying to sort out a few things — you know how it is. But it’s good to be home again. Don’t see why the buggers should drive me away. What do you think?’
I thought it was complicated, trying to solve a crime you didn’t know about while pretending to investigate one that hadn’t happened. ‘We’re not expecting him to strike again,’ I assured him, and immediately wondered if this was misleading advice. Ah well, never mind, I thought.
He walked out with me. ‘One last thing,’ I said as I opened the car door. ‘If it was the diamonds that collapsed, why did Goodrich go bankrupt?’
‘Because, underneath, he was a foolish man,’ Davis replied. ‘I’m in this business to make money, and don’t deny it. I’m proud of it. As long as it’s legal, I’ll consider anything. But that wasn’t enough for Goodrich. He wanted to be popular too. Looked up to. A valuable member of the community. When the banks foreclosed on us he thought he could come out of it smelling of roses without any of his punters losing, so he did what all desperate men do: he gambled. Bought shares in uranium mines in godforsaken holes in the Kalahari desert; thought he could find another Poseidon; that sort of thing, instead of facing them and saying: “Sorry, I’ve lost your money.” In the end he lost everything.’
‘Right,’ I said, nodding as if I understood. ‘Thanks for your help. Oh, and I’d be grateful if you could leave word of your whereabouts if you go away for more than a couple of days. Something else might crop up that we need your help with.’
‘I’ll do that, Inspector,’ he replied with a smile that would have melted the heart of a traffic warden.
Maggie was in the office when I trudged through the door twenty minutes later. ‘Hi, boss,’ she greeted me.
