“When we were sitting in the car,” I began, “you said that you and Marie were considering buying this place. I’d like to know how far you went along that route.”
He looked puzzled, shrugged his shoulders, opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. He was upset because another cop was bandying his wife’s name — his dead wife’s name — as if he’d known her for years. I’m afraid there’s no way around that one. “It was Marie’s idea,” he said. “I wasn’t keen because I’m not earning much, just expenses, and Marie’s earnings were erratic, so we weren’t a good risk for a mortgage.”
“So who did you approach?” I asked.
“Well, we, er, tried all the building societies,” he told me, “but they didn’t want to know.”
“Here in Halifax?” I asked. Home of the daddy of them all. Once they were a mutual society, existing for the benefit of members, whether they be investors or borrowers. Now they are part of the big conspiracy, doing it for shareholders and the Great God Profit.
“Yeah.” He gave a little smile at the memory. “You know how it is,” he went on, “these days they’ll give you a loan to have the cat neutered, as long as they’re sure they’ll get their money back, or that you don’t really need it. Everybody was very polite, but they were all sniggering behind their hands. We wanted a repayment mortgage, because of all the trouble we’d read about with endowment policies, but nobody would give us one. ‘Open an account and come back in two years’ was the best offer we had.”
“So what did you do?”
“Nothing. Marie cut some adverts out of the papers and sent away for an application form, but when I explained to her that a secured loan meant that it was them that were secure, not us, she lost interest.”
“Who was that with?”
“No idea. Some company I’d never heard of.”
“Which papers do you take?”
“The Telegraph, usually, but I switch around a bit. Oh, and the Gazette.”
“The Halifax edition of the Gazette, I presume.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“No tabloids?” I asked.
“No, not usually.”
“And did she receive the application form?”
“Yes. I didn’t want to send it back, but Marie said it couldn’t hurt to find out what they offered.”
“And would they give you a mortgage?”
He shook his head. “We didn’t hear back from them, and then…”
And then all this happened. “Do you still have any covering letter that came with the application form, or the advert from the paper?” I asked.
“I imagine so.”
“I’d be grateful if you could find them for me.”
“Why, Inspector? What’s it all about. You’ve caught the…the person who killed my wife, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” I replied. “A young man has been charged, as you know. Let’s just say that I’m following a certain line of enquiry. These days it’s not enough to prove who did the deed, we have to show that nobody else could have done it. We have to pre-empt any suggestions by the defence that another party, a mysterious unknown party, could be involved. You’d never believe the stories they’ll concoct to sow a few seeds of doubt in the jurors’ minds.” And I’m not bad at concocting a few of my own, I thought.
He believed me and went to find the documents. I wondered if there was a room next door where they kept everything: piled up to the picture rail with cardboard boxes, over-flowing bin liners and bulging suitcases, but he was back in thirty seconds, carrying a thin file. “They should be in here,” he said, pulling a sheaf of papers from it.
They weren’t. I recognised a couple of bank books, an insurance policy and what looked like their tenancy agreement, but there was nothing relating to a mortgage application. “Sorry,” he said. “Marie must have thrown it away. Like I said, I tried to discourage her.”
As I walked back to the car I saw another Heckley bus leaving the kerbside, the front of it swinging out only inches from the car parked adjacent to the stop. I caught up with it on the climb out of town, and tucked in behind.
It did the grand tour, leaving the main road to call at every village, dropping off pensioners who’d strayed past the cheap fare deadline, picking up schoolchildren who had stayed behind and office workers carrying briefcases and shopping. When the bus stopped, I stopped. When it crawled up hills, I dropped into first gear and followed it. When it swooped down into the valley, swaying wildly and leaving a cloud of dust and gutter debris billowing in its wake, I hung back, waiting for the disaster that never came.
It took nearly an hour to reach the outskirts of Heckley, where I abandoned the chase, turning off the ring road near a fast bend where a tattered bunch of plastic flowers and a teddy bear marked the spot where young Jamie What’s- his-name died, three months ago. Why would anyone want to commemorate such a place? It’s one of those little mysteries that haunt my sleepless nights, like why do Volvo cars have their lights on during daylight hours, but Volvo lorries don’t? I parked in a lay-by, near a fingerpost that said: Footpath to Five Rise Locks. It was twenty-five minutes past five, but good ol’ Dave Sparkington was still at his desk when I rang him. A little bit of me was wishing that Annette would answer the phone, but it was Dave I needed right then.
“It’s past your home time, Sunshine,” I said. “What are you up to?”
“I’m doing police work. What are you up to is more like it.”
“You’d never believe me. Listen, I’m at Five Rise Locks and could be in that pub called the Anglers in five minutes. It’s two for the price of one before six. Did I hear you say that Shirley had gone to her mother’s today?”
“I’ll be about half an hour. See you there.”
Evidently she had. “What about the kids?” I asked.
“Never mind them, I’m on my way.”
“OK, but don’t be late, I’m famished.”
“I’m coming.”
I strode up the hill to the canal side, where five locks in rapid succession lift the waterway a hundred feet, and crossed over by the footbridge. A narrow-boat was waiting for a companion, before moving up to the next level and sending ten million gallons of water in the opposite direction. The people on the boat wished me a good afternoon and the smell of their cooking made me feel even hungrier. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Turn left to the Anglers, a hundred yards away, right towards Mountain Meadows, home of Tony Silkstone, less than half a mile up the towpath. I looked at my watch and headed right.
There were two pot-bellied ponies in the paddock between his house and the canal, and one of his neighbours was using a strimmer or a chainsaw, or some other implement with an engine that made more noise than horsepower. Further along, four cormorants were perched in a dead tree, one of them spreading his wings to catch a brief burst of afternoon sun, the others hunched like judges. The fishermen are always writing to the Gazette to complain about the cormorants eating all the fish. The birds have been driven inland because there is nothing left for them in the coastal waters, their natural habitat, and the anglers are too dumb to realise that if there were no fish in the canal the cormorants would leave. The birds are just better at catching them than they are. I think they’re cormorants, but they might be shags. I checked the time again and started back towards the pub. Halfway there I saw Silkstone’s car coming up the lane at the other side of the field. Maybe he’d join us, I thought.
Dave pulled into the car-park at the same time as I arrived, and uncurled his bulky frame from the car. “What’s the difference between a cormorant and a shag?” I asked him as we walked in together.
“A cormorant and a shag?”
“Yep.”
“Um, is it that you don’t feel like a cigarette after a cormorant?” It was gloomy inside, but warm and friendly, even though it was a large place, recently given a makeover, and we were the only customers. A young woman in uniform blouse and skirt greeted us as if we were an endangered species and asked what we’d like. Here to serve you said the badge on her blouse and a blackboard behind the bar told us that the guest beer was Sam Smith’s.
“Pint of Sam’s?” I suggested, and Dave nodded his agreement. “Make that two, please,” I said, and she
