“I didn’t see you. You weren’t here. I’ve got nothing. Please?”
Banks took out his warrant card. The woman put her hand to her heart. “Thank God,” she said. “You just never know what might happen these days, the things you read in the papers.”
“True,” Banks agreed. “Why were you watching?”
“I heard you in there, that’s all. It’s been quiet for a while.”
“How long?”
“I’m not sure. Two or three days, anyway.”
“Do you know Carl Johnson?” Johnson’s identity hadn’t been revealed in the press yet, so the woman couldn’t know he was dead.
“No, I wouldn’t say I knew him. We chatted on the stairs now and then if we bumped into each other. He seemed a pleasant enough type, always a smile and a hello. What are you after, anyway? What were you doing up there? Has he done a moonlight flit?”
“Something like that.”
“He didn’t look like a criminal type to me.” She hugged herself and shuddered. “You just can’t tell, can you?”
“What did you talk about, when you met on the stairs?”
“Oh, this and that. How expensive things are getting, the weather … you know, just ordinary stuff.”
“Did you ever meet any of his friends?”
“No. I don’t really think he had any. He was a bit of a loner. I did hear voices a couple of times, but that’s all.”
“When? Recently?”
“Last couple of weeks, anyway.”
“How many people do you think were talking?”
“Only two, I’d say.”
“Could you describe the other voice?”
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t really listening. I mean, it’s muffled anyway, you couldn’t actually hear what anyone was saying. And I had the telly on. I could only hear them in the quiet bits.”
“Was it a man?”
“Oh, yes, it was another man. I’m certain about that.
At least, he had a sort of deep voice.”
“Thank you, Mrs … ?”
“Gerrard. Miss.”
“Thank you, Miss Gerrard. Do you know if Mr Johnson owned a car?”
“I don’t think he did. I never saw him in one, anyway.”
“Do you have any idea what he did for a living?”
She looked away. “Well, he …”
“Look, Miss Gerrard, I don’t care if he was cheating on the social or the taxman. That’s not what I’m interested in.”
She chewed her lower lip a few seconds, then smiled. “Well, we all do it a bit don’t we? I suppose even coppers cheat on their income tax, don’t they?”
Bank smiled back and put a finger to the side of his nose.
“And an important detective like yourself wouldn’t be interested in something as petty as that, would he?”
Banks shook his head.
“Right,” she said. “I only know because he mentioned the weather once, how nice it was to have outdoor work.”
“Outdoor work?”
“Yes.”
“Like what? Road work, construction?”
“Oh, no, he weren’t no ditch-digger. He was a gardener, Mr Johnson was, had real green fingers.”
It was amazing the skills one could learn in prison these days, Banks thought. “Where did he work?”
“Like I say, I only know because we got talking about it, how some people are so filthy rich and the rest of us just manage to scrape by. He wasn’t no communist, mind you,he?”
“Miss Gerrard, do you know who he worked for?”
“Oh, yes. I do go on a bit, don’t I? It was Mr Harkness, lives in that nice old house out Fortford way. Paid quite well, Mr Johnson said. But then, he could afford to, couldn’t he?”
The name rang a bell. There had been a feature about him in the local rag a year or two ago. Adam Harkness, Banks remembered, had come from a local family that had emigrated to South Africa and made a fortune in diamonds. Harkness had followed in his father’s footsteps, and after living for a while in Amsterdam had come back to Swainsdale in semiretirement.
