‘It seems he was soon back in business,’ said Fry.
‘I’m not sure he ever went out of business completely. Just laid low for a while. The trade in misrepresented horses had probably become a bit too difficult for him. The horse passport legislation has helped a lot there, of course — most people know now that you don’t buy a horse without a passport, because it’s almost certainly stolen. Last I heard, Rawson was expanding into some new areas of enterprise. We’d got him on our radar by then, though. So when your officers started making enquiries about him, it raised a flag.’
‘Did you come across Michael Clay in the course of this investigation?’ asked Fry.
Walsh frowned. ‘Michael Clay? Is he an accountant?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘He’s a peripheral figure. Our forensic accountancy people had to deal with him when they were going through the books. He was never in the frame for any charges, though. Is he involved in your enquiry?’
‘We haven’t interviewed him yet, but he’s high on our list,’ said Fry. ‘He seems to have become Patrick Rawson’s business partner.’
‘Well, if that’s the case, my view is that Rawson was probably using Michael Clay as a front man, for the appearance of respectability. Clay is just the sort of person he would be looking for, to protect his own reputation.’
‘You mean someone to take the fall if things went wrong?’
‘Yes, exactly.’ Walsh began to gather his papers together. ‘You know, that was always my biggest regret in this enquiry: that we could never close Patrick Rawson down.’
‘And now — ’ said Hitchens, about to voice what everyone else was thinking.
But it was Dermot Walsh who got it in first.
‘And now,’ he said, ‘someone has closed Rawson down for us.’
Sutton Coldfield had been in Warwickshire once. Now it was part of the huge West Midlands conurbation, centred on Birmingham.
Fry knew that Sutton people tended to see themselves as culturally very distinct from Birmingham, though they were only eight miles or so from the centre of the city. They hadn’t forgotten that Sutton had been a municipal borough in its own right for many years, boasting the title of ‘Royal Town’. Here and there, street signs still recorded the fact. Fry had passed one as she drove into the town from the A38.
If this had been a working-class area, no one would have cared very much about its administrative status. But Sutton Coldfield was regarded as one of the most prestigious locations in Central England. Just a couple of years ago, a national property survey had placed two Sutton streets among the twenty most expensive in the UK.
Fry remembered this north-east corner of Birmingham only vaguely. She had never been stationed in this area, and had no friends who lived here. She did recall a shopping precinct known as the Gracechurch Centre, but now it seemed to be called simply The Mall. Other than that, during her time in the West Midlands she had known it mostly as the home town of a few TV actors: Arthur Lowe and Dennis Waterman among them. It was a sort of celebrity, she supposed.
The Rawsons’ home was in the Mere Green district of Sutton. Fry drove around the northern edge of Sutton Park and found herself in pleasant, leafy streets typical of so many affluent outer suburbs.
‘Nice,’ said Gavin Murfin, who constituted the only assistance she’d found available for the trip. ‘There’s a bit of dosh tied up in these properties, I reckon.’
‘Yes, Gavin. Can you see Hill Wood Road?’
‘You should use a sat-nav like mine, Diane. Do you know, I’ve even got Sean Connery’s voice on it now to do the directions? Brilliant.’
‘Just check the A to Z: Hill Wood Road.’
‘OK, got it.’
This was the semi-rural part of Sutton. Large houses set back from the road and sheltered by trees, with plenty of space between them to provide privacy. Perhaps no actual farming still went on, but it was certainly a place for people who could find a use for stables and paddocks, and large agricultural sheds with concrete hard standings big enough for a few lorries.
‘Off to the right somewhere,’ said Murfin.
They saw the M6 toll road in the distance and turned down a narrow lane for five hundred yards before they came to the entrance to the Rawsons’ property.
‘He did well for himself,’ said Fry, drawing the Peugeot up in front of a triple garage, built in the same style and the same warm, brown brick of the house itself. They crunched across a gravel turning circle to the liveried police car standing near the front door. Fry introduced herself and Murfin to the two West Midlands officers.
‘Good morning, Sergeant. We’ve been expecting you. How was the trip?’
‘Fine,’ said Fry.
‘We should have taken the toll road,’ suggested Murfin.
Fry sighed. ‘Is Mrs Rawson at home?’
‘Yes, we informed her you were coming.’
‘How are we going to do this?’ asked Murfin, as they walked to the door.
‘According to the book,’ said Fry. ‘With courtesy and consideration.’
‘I don’t think I know that book.’
‘They probably hadn’t published it when you were in training, Gavin.’
‘I don’t go back to the Dark Ages, you know.’
‘How come your eating habits are so medieval, then?’ said Fry, as she rang the bell.
Deborah Rawson was sitting in a large conservatory watching a stable girl exercise a horse outside. Mrs Rawson wore a cream silk blouse that looked so expensive it was probably produced by some rare Buddhist silkworm in the foothills of the Himalayas. The atmosphere of the conservatory was thick with perfume. Mrs Rawson had prepared herself for her visitors.
‘If you’re married to a man like Patrick,’ she said, ‘you learn to expect that the worst will happen some time. Sooner or later.’
Fry’s first question had actually been a polite one — an enquiry about Mrs Rawson’s welfare. Now, as she studied the woman, she wondered whether Hitchens had been right about the effects of shock. She looked a little more upset than she had yesterday. Paler, more nervous in her gestures. Her eyes didn’t seem to be able to settle on her visitors, but constantly darted back to the girl and the horse outside.
‘Your husband had been in trouble on a few occasions, hadn’t he?’ said Fry.
Deborah lowered her head, tapping out a cigarette from a packet on the coffee table in front of her. ‘He tended to sail a bit close to the wind, I suppose. Pat was just that sort of businessman, you know. I’m sure you’ve met the type before, Sergeant. He enjoyed the challenge, the adrenalin rush. Thrived on it, in fact.’
‘The challenge of breaking the law?’
‘No, not exactly. The challenge of seeing how much he could get away with. He’s made quite a bit of money, at times.’
‘But his main business was the buying and selling of horses. Is that right?’
‘The equine trade. That’s what he liked to call it, when he was talking to his friends down at the golf club. But I wouldn’t say it was his main business. Not recently, anyway. He had a finger in lots of other pies.’
She lit the cigarette from a gold lighter. Smoke drifted up into the glass roof, and hung there, swirling slowly.
‘I suppose you might say he was a born salesman,’ said Deborah. ‘Patrick had the charm to sell anything to anybody. Snow to Eskimos, isn’t that the saying?’
‘Something like that,’ said Fry.
‘He was selling cars when I first met him. Down in Digbeth, that was. A snappy suit and a dodgy hair cut.’ Deborah laughed. ‘But it was his smile that reeled me in. That, and the commission he told me he was earning.’
Yes, Fry could see Patrick Rawson as a used-car salesman. She reminded herself not to be taken in by a salesman’s smile when she went to buy herself a new car. As if that was likely.
