He said, ‘When I went on Gidman’s payroll, I set up an online account for the money to be paid into. Not in my own name, of course, and not using my own PC at home. Funny, as stuff started coming back to me, the details of that account and the passwords and everything, they came back bright and clear while other stuff about my actual life before I became Ed Muir was still hazy and fragmented.’
‘Perhaps it says something about your priorities,’ she couldn’t resist saying.
He took her seriously and replied, ‘Yes, I think so too. The money was for Lucy’s treatment. That was always my priority. That was why I made no effort to use the account other than to establish it was still active. Spending Lucy’s money on clothes, or booze, or living expenses, it didn’t feel right.’
How could he talk about her so calmly? she asked herself.
Because, the answer came, he now had Lucinda.
She thought about what he’d been willing to do for the sake of his first daughter. What lengths might he now be willing to go to in the interests of his second?
‘Then we had Lucinda. Naturally we got to talking about the christening. Ali didn’t really want to go over the top…’
‘Ali?’
‘My partner. Doesn’t earn a fortune. She’s a clarinettist with the Mid-Yorkshire Sinfonietta, and does a bit of tutoring too.’
‘A music teacher. Like me.’
He looked surprised, as if the correspondence hadn’t previously struck him.
‘Yes, that’s right. Don’t make anything of it. She’s very different. Small, talks a lot, quite bouncy.’
‘That’s supposed to make me feel better, that she’s different?’
‘No. I wasn’t trying to make you feel anything. Just telling you. I mean, I know all about Mick, and I’m not going to get my head in a knot because, apart from being a cop, he’s completely different from me.’
He was right, she thought. Mick was older and in physical build, in taste, in outlook, in everything very different from Alex. Was that significant?
She put it aside for later examination and said, ‘You were saying about the christening…’
‘Was I? Oh yes. Me, I get a decent screw, but nowhere near enough to push the boat out the way I wanted to. Like I said earlier, it just seemed important somehow to make the christening an occasion to remember. And then I thought of that account. The way I saw things, it seemed perfectly fitting to use it to celebrate Lucinda’s day. I wouldn’t take a penny more than I needed for the christening, I thought. I had my heart set on the Keldale, they do these things so well. I got a price from them and paid in advance by transferring the exact sum direct from this account. It did cross my mind that activity after seven years lying dormant might attract attention, but it seemed a very small risk. It wasn’t as if I was clearing the account out, and the money wasn’t coming direct to me, it was going straight to the Keldale. Anyway, I was old news, who’d be interested in me after all this time?’
He shook his head as if in disbelief at his own naivety.
‘And who is interested in you, Ed?’
He said, ‘Goldie Gidman, of course. He’s the one who knew about the account. The rat pack never got anywhere near it, I’m sure. I knew enough about the way these things are investigated to make sure I covered all my tracks. But Gidman must have put a watch on that account the day I disappeared. And he’d leave an alarm set. He always was a very careful man, Goldie. Hated loose ends. That’s why it was so hard to lay a finger on him. He didn’t really need to have me on his payroll. It was just an extra precaution.’
‘A precaution that became a liability when the rat pack started investigating you.’
‘That’s right. Then after all these years suddenly the account becomes active. All he’s got is a payment to the Keldale Hotel. So what does he do? My guess is he’d send someone up here to see if they could pick up my trail. There was an attempt to break into the Keldale office last weekend. I read about it in the paper. The manager going on about how pleased he was with their new state-of-the-art security system, installed on police advice. Wouldn’t surprise me if that was down to Goldie, seeing if he could find what the payment was for. And when it failed, he thought, What do you need to lure a hunted animal out of hiding? Answer, a tethered goat.’
She said, ‘Is that what I am? A tethered goat?’
‘I’m afraid so. His people would have to be careful. The way Goldie would see it, if I got the slightest whiff he was on my trail, I’d be over the hill and far away. On the other hand, I’d probably react very differently to the appearance of my wife on the scene. Incidentally, are you still my wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Mainly because for a long time I was hoping you’d come back,’ she said. ‘And then when I stopped believing that was a possibility, it seemed less complicated to hang on till I could become an official widow.’
‘Of course. Seven years, presumption of death, then you’d be entitled to everything, not just a divorcee’s share. Good thinking. Mick help you there, did he?’
‘No. Mick’s not mercenary, he would have preferred me divorced so we could marry straight away,’ she retorted defensively.
For some reason this made him smile momentarily.
She went on, ‘So you’re saying Gidman arranged to have your face put into that photo and have it sent to me? Meaning he had a photo of you. Why didn’t his people just flash it round the hotel?’
‘Two reasons,’ he said promptly. ‘One was it would be an old photo. I doubt if anyone would recognize me.’
‘I recognized you,’ she said.
‘Gidman’s people have never been my lover,’ he said.
There was no regret, no vestige of affection in his tone, confirming her sense that nothing remained of their old relationship.
‘The other reason?’ she said.
‘Because they wouldn’t want to draw attention to themselves by making overt enquiries in case they couldn’t get rid of me quietly and they triggered a murder investigation. You, on the other hand, could flash the photo wherever you wanted. Stick it on lampposts, get it in the paper. They hoped someone might put you on to me. Or better still that I’d see it and make contact, and you’d lead them to me.’
‘That’s why you kept me sitting halfway up the hill so long,’ she said. ‘So you could make sure I wasn’t being followed.’
‘You’ve got it,’ he said.
‘And if they had followed me…you said murder investigation. You don’t really think they’d try to kill you?’ she said incredulously. ‘For God’s sake, this is Yorkshire, not New York!’
He laughed and said, ‘You don’t imagine Goldie has gone to all this trouble because he’s been missing my lively conversation, do you? He sees me as a real danger.’
‘But why? What could you do? Stand up in court and allege that seven years ago you were taking bribes to keep Gidman informed of the progress of a police investigation? Could you even prove that the money in this account came from him?’
He shrugged and said, ‘Money always leaves a trail, as I’m finding out. But that’s not the point. There’s a big bag of shit with Goldie’s name on it sitting around at the Yard. It’s mainly rumours and allegations and the CPS won’t touch it with a bargepole. But once get him in the dock, and anything goes. That was what Macavity was all about, putting together a case, any kind of case, that would get Gidman on the sharp end of a prosecution. And we might even have got there if I hadn’t kept him ahead of the game.’
‘That was seven years ago. He’s had another seven years to make himself safe.’
‘Of course he has. And I’m sure the kind of lawyers he can afford would tear my evidence to shreds. So not much chance of a conviction. But that bag of shit would have been emptied on the courtroom floor and the stink would stick to him for ever. Once he wouldn’t have cared. But from what I read, another ten years or so, and Goldie could be visiting Downing Street to see my son, the Prime Minister. I could put an end to all that. The Tories would never forgive someone who’d tracked stinking estuary mud across their lovely royal blue carpet.’
Listening to him she was reminded of the bright, sharp-minded young cop he’d been before their daughter’s illness began to darken all aspects of their life. He could sum up situations in a flash, analyse possibilities, assess odds.
And he was passionate for justice.
