hours. Paperwork, like rust, never sleeps.
The Dean brothers were due in court Monday morning. They are considerably brighter than the average tea leaf who passes through our hands. Computers and videos are standard fare for most of them, exchanging hands at about fifteen per cent of their market value. But a young crook can only carry one of each out through the window and up the garden path to his waiting Fiesta, and he looks suspicious with it. The Dean brothers know that it’s the chip, deep within the computer, that gives it its value. And you can carry hundreds of them in your pockets and still have room for a UB40 and a packet of three. They hit the new British Gas offices six months ago at two in the morning. The security videos showed them moving quickly from computer to computer, spinning the screws out with rechargeable drivers and removing the chips and hard-disk drives which represented well over half the value of the machines.
What the Deans didn’t know was that, as they entered the building through a fanlight at the back, they were sprayed with an invisible dye called FOIL — fluorescent organic indexing liquid — that was impossible to remove and would show bright orange under ultra-violet light.
Another thing that they didn’t know was that their getaway driver, a neighbour with a reputation for his skills behind the wheel, had all the imagination of a stuffed warthog. He’d stolen a car and fitted it with false plates. For hours he’d wracked the sawdust inside his skull, trying to think of a suitable registration number. Something catchy, without being memorable. Sort of a Eurovision Numberplate Contest entry. Eventually, in desperation, he copied the number off an old motorbike he’d owned years ago. The video cameras captured his image and later that morning our Nigel captured his substance. The Deans lived next door and glowed like a pair of Jaffas under a u/v light. Because of its organic content the FOIL spray has a DNA fingerprint unique to each installation, and would prove that they had been in British Gas’s offices. The technical term we guardians of the law use in a case like this is ‘bang to rights’.
I did the morning meeting in record time and went over the case with Nigel before he went to court. They were our first FOIL arrests, and the system was on trial as much as the Deans. An expert from the company that makes the sprays was due to attend, to say how foolproof it was.
When Nigel had gone I made a coffee and studied the outstanding crimes printout. Prioritising them is our biggest heartache. Do we concentrate on Mrs Bloggs’ stolen jewellery — sentimental value only, not insured and no chance of recovery — or on the ram raid at Microwaves-R-Us in the High Street? You make your decision and offer a silent apology to Mrs Bloggs.
After that I made a few calls to organise Wednesday’s rhubarb run, when we would hit Michael Angelo Watts’ fortress on the Sylvan Fields estate. Most of all we needed technical assistance from our scientific people at Wetherton. Professor Van Rees is head of the Home Office forensic laboratory that we use, and agreed to loan me a couple of technicians and some equipment. I was arranging some uniformed muscle from the Woodentops when Maggie caught my eye. She was on her phone, and I heard her saying, ‘Put them in an interview room. I’ll tell him.’
‘Tell him what?’ I asked when I’d finished.
‘Tell him that Mrs Joan Eastwood just walked in, accompanied by a brief and asking to speak to you. That’s all.’
I rocked my chair back on two legs and sipped my coffee. ‘Now what on earth can she want?’ I wondered aloud.
‘Perhaps her husband’s finished that boat,’ Maggie suggested.
‘The Temeraire? She wouldn’t know, not living with him. I went to see her on Friday, leant on her a little.’
‘I know. I’ve read your notes. You think she did it, don’t you?’
‘It’s possible. Let’s give them five minutes, then see what it’s all about.’
The brief was female, mid-thirties, in a suit that made her look like a Dallas undertaker and an expression to match. Appropriately sombre, but with one eye on the cash register. She introduced herself as Mrs Bannister, of the local big-wig law firm, and said that her client wished to make a prepared statement. I took the typed sheet she offered and inspected the aforementioned client.
‘Hello, Mrs Eastwood,’ I said, directly to her. She was wearing ski pants and an anorak with embroidery down the sleeves, and alongside her was what looked like an overnight bag. She’d come to stay. Her face was the same shade of pale as the walls and she was trembling. She just nodded a greeting.
A brief glance at the statement told me that Mrs Eastwood admitted hitting Goodrich on the head. The only intention had been to express her anger at him, not to inflict any injury, and there were mitigating circumstances. As she was no danger to the public, bail would be applied for when she appeared before a magistrate in the morning.
I passed the paper to Maggie and leant on my fist, rubbing a forefinger against my cheek.
Mrs Eastwood shuffled in her plastic chair.
‘Would either of you like a coffee?’ I asked.
Neither of them would.
After a long silence I said, ‘In that case, with your permission, Mrs Bannister, I’d like to do a recorded interview with Mrs Eastwood.’ I don’t go in for all this ‘my client’ bullshit. Without waiting for a reply I spun my chair round to face the tape recorder and checked it for tapes.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’ I pressed the red button and the one with a single arrow on it and peeked through the little window to confirm that the wheels were turning. I read the date off the calendar on the wall and the time off my Timex — waterresistant to forty metres but I’ve no intention of proving it — and introduced everybody.
We started with an ice-breaker: ‘Mrs Eastwood, would you mind telling us your address and date of birth?’
She stumbled through it, hesitating and mixing her words up. Her hands moved from the table to her lap, and back to the table again. Her fingers were long and bony, with no rings on them. She’d left her earrings at home, too.
‘You were formerly married to Derek Eastwood, and shared the marital home at Sweetwater.’
She nodded.
‘For the tape, please, Mrs Eastwood, if you will.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you mind if I call you Joan?’
‘No.’
‘Thank you. Will you tell me, Joan, why you are here, today.’
‘It’s in the statement, Inspector,’ Mrs Bannister interrupted.
‘I’d like to hear it in Joan’s words, if you don’t mind.’
‘But I do mind. The statement makes it perfectly clear why my client is here.’
‘Fair enough. According to the statement, Joan, you have admitted hitting Hartley Goodrich on the head with a plant pot.’
She nodded.
‘Mrs Eastwood nods,’ I said.
‘Sorry. Yes. I hit him.’
‘That’s all right. Would you please tell us, Joan, what led up to this?’
She gathered her thoughts for a few seconds, then launched into it. ‘I was…annoyed…mad with him. It was just like you said. I let myself in…picked up the milk bottle from the doorstep. He was watching television. We were supposed to be…supposed to be…’
‘Supposed to be what?’
‘Supposed to be going away together.’
‘I see.’
‘He should have picked me up, Sunday evening, when I finished work. I thought something must be wrong — he hadn’t been too well. When I saw him, dozing in the chair, glass of whisky…I just snapped. I…I…’
‘You picked up the nearest thing that came to hand and hit him with it.’
Our eyes met for the first time. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘It was a heavy plant pot,’ I told her. ‘Surely you realise that hitting a person on the head with something like
