and watched her walk away. If she was disappointed she didn’t let it show.
I didn’t sit on the fence. That’s never been one of my failings. I leapt straight over it and crossed the paddock, veering off to the right in case they were having drinky-poos in the conservatory. At the other side I sneaked along the fence until I reached the corner of their garden. They didn’t appear to be in there, having a post-prandial swim or sipping pina colada while swatting the odd passing humming bird.
It was definitely the Range Rover. I let myself in through the gate and put the garage between me and the house windows. I listened for a while before peeping round the end of the garage. He might have been washing the cars, or decoking his barbecue, but he wasn’t. The Golf — I always thought it a daft name for a car until someone told me it stands for Goes Like Fuck — was there, so they were probably both in. Thinking about it, it’s a daft name for a game, too.
Fortunately, the big Range Rover was nose-up to the garage. Nigel was right. I squeezed between the front of it and the up-and-over door and ran my fingers over the bullbars that I was certain hadn’t been there before. If anyone came out, I’d be caught. ‘Just happened to be passing, Mr Davis. Thought I’d pop in to see how you are.’ Feeble, but it’d do.
Unless he shot me, and asked questions afterwards. There was a precedent, where a detective had been killed as an intruder, and the householder, a known villain, was unconditionally discharged and given fifty pence from the poor box for the cost of the cartridge. I made a mental note to check if Davis was a shotgun licence holder.
There was something fishy about the bullbars. When I ran my hands over them the feel of the paint was inconsistent. The ends, which curl over the headlamps and are designed to mash the kidneys of any pedestrian who gets in the way, were coated in what felt like enamel, or maybe even some sort of epoxy paint. A good solid finish. What you’d expect on a vehicle of this quality. But the horizontal tubes across the front of the radiator, put there to break femurs, spinal columns or children’s skulls, were different. They were just spray-painted with black cellulose. The sort of job you could do yourself with a couple of aerosols from Halfords. I tried to remember if I’d seen any in the garage, and felt that I had.
Trouble was, they were welded in. The ends fitted into vertical pieces, and a seam of welding locked them in place. It wasn’t good deep welding, though. It was what my mate Jimmy Hoyle would call chicken shit. I wondered if the insurance company had been to look at the Jaguar yet.
A good shake might have dislodged the tubes, but that would probably trigger the alarm. I picked at the welding with my thumbnail, without success. One time, I never went anywhere without my Swiss Army knife, but they were now considered offensive weapons, so I didn’t even have that. I found a twopence piece in my pocket and attacked the welding with it as best I could.
A big flake fell away, revealing how the tube was loosely slotted into the uprights. I found the flake on the floor and examined it. Plastic Padding has a thousand uses, and Davis had created another one. It’s good stuff. I spat on the piece and fitted it back where it came from, but you could see the join as a white line where the paint had cracked. It’d have to do.
A voice shouted, ‘Please your bloody self! I’m washing the car,’ and a door slammed. I forgot my rehearsed lines and bolted round the end of the garage. It was Davis. I couldn’t see a hosepipe at this end, so I might be safe. He wasn’t at the back when I peered round the corner, and when I calculated he was busy I tiptoed down his garden, breaking into a nonchalant stroll as distance gave me confidence. A minute later I was heading across the neat grass of the park, in Annabelle’s wake. With luck, he’d dislodge the piece of Plastic Padding with his brush and think he’d not made a good job of it. With a bit more luck, they’d serve apple pie in the cafe. I deserved a piece.
On Monday morning I returned Annabelle to the Old Vicarage and still made it to the office before Mr Wood did. It was a pleasant way to start the week.
My good mood didn’t last long. Gilbert hadn’t read a paper or listened to the radio for two weeks, so news of a murder, the rhubarb run and his senior officer on a fizzer came as a succession of shocks to him. After the early morning briefing we deployed the troops and Inspector Adey and myself returned to Gilbert’s office for a policy discussion. That meant budgets. While we were there the assistant chief constable rang Mr Wood to say that Bramshill had been delighted with my talk.
‘He said it was down to earth and provocative,’ Gilbert growled. ‘I bet it was.’
‘I want some time to concentrate on Lisa Davis’s murder,’ I told him. ‘I’m sure it’s tied up with the bullion robbery.’
‘I thought you said Superintendent Isles had arrested Mr Watts junior,’ he replied.
‘He has, but Michael Angelo didn’t do it. I’m sure of that.’
‘OK. No doubt Sergeant Newley can cope.’
‘Just what I thought.’
Mr and Mrs Davis were in when I knocked on their door. The Range Rover was in the garage, so I couldn’t see if K. Tom had done a repair job on the Plastic Padding I’d disturbed. He was in his shirt sleeves, spectacles hanging round his neck on a lanyard, and he didn’t look pleased to see me. Not many people are.
‘DI Priest,’ I said. ‘Can I have a word?’
They sat me on the same shiny seat as before, after removing a selection of the morning papers. They had mugs of coffee, the real stuff, liberally dosed with brandy from the smell of it, but they didn’t offer me one. If this was how the wealthy spent a typical Monday morning, it hardly seemed worth the hassle.
‘Your sergeant came to see Ruth on Friday,’ K. Tom told me. ‘I’d gone for a round of golf, but I can’t add anything to what she said.’
‘Fair enough. Have you heard from Justin?’
‘Yes,’ Mrs Davis replied. ‘He arrived back on Thursday, and rang me Friday morning.’
‘But you haven’t seen him?’
‘No. He said he was spending some time with Lisa’s parents.’
‘How did he sound?’
‘Shocked. How would you expect him to sound?’
Her hackles were rising. Good. It’s always more interesting when there’s a note of antagonism in the answers, and it saves a lot of misdirected sympathy. I turned to her husband and said, ‘Mr Davis, do you think I could have a word with your wife in private, and then perhaps the same with you?’
He looked perplexed for a few seconds, then shrugged and rose to his feet, saying, ‘If it helps. I’ll be in the snooker room, when you want me.’
As soon as he’d gone I opened with, ‘Why don’t Justin and his stepfather get on with each other, Mrs Davis?’
She fingered the material of the mohair cardigan she was wearing. ‘They do get on,’ she assured me. ‘There were a few difficulties a while ago, just, like, growing pains, when Justin resented Tom, but they patched it up. Now Tom follows him all over the place. Helps him in his career. He says he’s Justin’s number two fan, after…after…’ Her voice trailed off. She looked pale and upset, but I noticed that she’d been reading Hello! magazine when I came in. It jarred with her apparent demeanour, but I don’t suppose there is a publication called Grieving Mother-in-Law Monthly.
I said, ‘I believe your husband knew Lisa before Justin did. What exactly was their relationship?’
‘You mean did they have an affair?’ she snapped.
I waved a hand in assent.
‘Of course not,’ she retorted. ‘Lisa worked for K. Tom for a while as a temp. She had ideas above her station. He helped her start up in business and she repaid him by trying to wreck our marriage, steal him away. She was a gold digger, but Tom wanted none of it. Then she met Justin and changed her target.’
‘So you didn’t approve of her marrying Justin?’
‘That’s putting it mildly, Inspector.’ She moved the newspapers again, looking for something. Her handbag was alongside her easy chair. She lifted it on to her knee and found a long, gold cigarette case in it. Her hands were shaking as she lit up and puffed clouds of smoke towards the chandelier.
‘When did you last see Lisa?’ I asked.
‘July twenty-third.’
I blinked in surprise. ‘That’s, er, a very precise answer,’ I commented, inviting an explanation.
