“Did he have friends?”
“Not close ones, no. He didn’t mix much. And people left him alone. Not because they were scared of him or anything. Just … there was something remote about him. It was as if they hardly even noticed him most of the time.”
“What about his cell-mates? Did he share?”
“Most of the time, yes.” He smiled. “As you probably know, it gets a bit overcrowded in here. Must be because you lot are doing such a good job.”
Susan laughed. “Us or the courts. Was there anyone in particular?”
“Let me see …” Watson held out his hand and
counted them off on his fingers. “There was Addison, that’s one. Basically harmless, I’d say. Business fraud. Then there was Rodgers. No real problems there, either. Just possession …”
“Johnson was brutally murdered,” Susan butted in on Watson’s leisurely thought process. “Did he meet anyone you think capable of doing that?”
“Good lord, no. Not in here,” said Watson, as if prison were the last place on earth where one would expect to find real evil-doers. “He was never in with any of the really hard, serious lags. We keep them separate as best we can.”
“But someone could have involved him in a criminal scheme, something that went wrong? Drugs, perhaps?”
“I suppose it’s possible. But Rodgers was only in for possession of marijuana. He wasn’t a dealer.”
“What about the business fraud?”
“Like I said, he was harmless enough. Just the old purchasing scam.”
Susan nodded. She had come across that before. A purchasing officer for a large company simply rents some office space, a phone and headed stationery, then he “supplies” his company with goods or services that don’t exist and pockets the payment. He has to be careful to charge only small amounts, so the purchase orders don’t have to go to higher management for signing. If it can be worked carefully and slowly over a number of years, the purchasing scam can prove extremely lucrative, but most practitioners get greedy and make mistakes.
“Could he have got Johnson involved in something more ambitious? After all, Johnson was a bit of a con-man himself.”
Watson shook his head. “Prison took the life out of Addison. It does that to some people. You’re on the job
long enough you get to recognize the signs, who’ll be back and who won’t. Addison won’t. He’ll be straight as a die from now on. He was just a mild-mannered clerk fancied a crack at the high life.”
Susan nodded, but she had already noted Addison’s name in her book. “What about the others?”
“Aye.” Watson lifted his hand again. “Who did we say … Addison, then the possession fellow, Rodgers. Then there was Poole. I wouldn’t worry about him, either.”
“Poole?” said Susan, suddenly alert. “What was his first name?”
“Leslie. But everyone called him Les. Funny-looking bloke, too. One of those old-fashioned Elvis Presley haircuts.” Watson laughed. “Until the prison barber got to him, that is. From what he said, though, the women seemed?”
But Susan was no longer listening. She couldn’t help but feel a sudden surge of joy. She had one-upped Richmond. With all his courses, caches and megabytes, he hadn’t discovered what she had by sheer old-fashioned legwork. He was working on the Gemma Scupham case, of course, not the Johnson murder, but still …
“Sorry for interrupting,” she apologized to Watson, then looked at Mackenzie. “May I use your phone, sir?”
10
I
In the evening beyond the Venetian blinds in Banks’s office,
puddles gleamed between the cobbles, and water
dripped from the crossbars of lamp-posts, from eaves
and awnings. Muted light glowed behind the red and amber
windows of the Queen’s Arms, and he could hear the
buzz of laughter and conversation from inside. The
square itself was quiet except for the occasional click of
high-heels on cobbles as someone walked home from
work late or went out on a date. An occasional gust of
cool evening air wafted through his partly open window,
bringing with it that peculiar fresh and sharp after-the rain smell. It made him think of an old John Coltrane
tune that captured in music just such a sense of an
evening after rain. He could make out the gold hands
against the blue face of the church clock: almost eight.
He lit a cigarette. The gaslights around the square—an
affectation for tourists—came on, dim at first, then