'You may be right, Andy. Perhaps his assets are looked after somewhere else.'
'I see. Well, perhaps I'll stick in my own place for a bit. Cheers, Willie. See you at the club some night.'
So. As far as Willie Noolan knew (and on matters financial there was little that happened locally without Willie getting a sniff of it) Lewis and Cowley were in a bad way, a business crisis which overspilled into Lewis's private life. It would be easy to check Noolan's hints, but hardly necessary, he felt. The house must be heavily mortgaged, the cottage too, and from the sound of it, there might not be a lot of insurance cover there.
All in all, one ought to feel very sorry about Matthew Lewis. But there was something in all this which bothered him. Perhaps it was time James Cowley was confronted with the full majesty of a detective- superintendent instead of the lightweight threat of a sergeant.
Which reminded him of Pascoe whom he had not yet seen. He felt slightly guilty. The lad would probably have read about it in the newspapers now. Still, that was what life was all about. You opened a paper and read that someone you knew had died. Or was dying. Or was going to be killed.
And one day the name you read was your own.
There was a knock at the door and it was no surprise when Pascoe walked in.
'You've seen the papers, Sergeant?'
'Sir.'
'I'm sorry. If I'd known where you were last night, I'd have told you. But there's still no body been found.'
'No, sir.'
'Tell me, Sergeant, this friend of yours, would he write a suicide note in poetry?'
'What?'
'Poetry.'
'The note was in poetry?' Pascoe thought hard. 'I doubt it… well, no one would… but he might quote somebody else's. He was – is – a great lover of the apt quotation. You don't happen to know what the note said?'
'No, lad. Such things are not revealed lightly, even among policemen. Anyway, put it out of your mind. There's other work to be done. This Lewis business.'
Quickly he filled Pascoe in on the new information they had.
'Nothing gels,' he said in conclusion. 'It's all scrappy. I think you'll have to go and talk with Sturgeon if you can.'
'To Doncaster?'
'If it's inconvenient,' said Dalziel wearily, 'we could ask him to meet you half-way. He is after all merely a sixty-eight-year-old man, half dead after a car crash. He is also the only person who can confirm or deny what seems to be a nutty idea on the face of it – i.e. that he killed Lewis. If he did, I'd like his word on it before he snuffs it. So hurry.'
'Yes, sir,' said Pascoe without enthusiasm.
'How's his wife?' asked Dalziel.
'Still in hospital, but getting better. She was worried about the cats.'
'Hospitals,' said Dalziel gloomily. 'It's been a good week for the doctors. Off you go then, Sergeant. We might as well keep up the illusion of motion, though it's all running on the bloody spot. By the way, while you're at it, find out anything you can on the circumstances of Sturgeon's crash, will you? I'm beginning to have a feeling about this.'
'Me too, sir. But I'm not sure what.'
'Suicide after murder. It's not uncommon.'
'No, it's not,' said Pascoe flatly
'Oh, shit!' said Dalziel. 'I'm sorry. I keep forgetting… look, just how concerned are you about this other business, Sergeant? How delicately do you want people to tread?'
'It bothers me,' admitted Pascoe. 'It's getting better but it's always there. And sometimes I feel this anger stirring inside. Such an anger that I could..’
He found he had clenched his fists and forced himself to relax. Why am I telling Dalziel this? he wondered. A fat old copper who thinks tears in a man are proofs incontrovertible of homosexual tendencies.
'Hold it in, lad,' advised Dalziel. 'One of these days it'll mebbe come in handy. By the way, I forgot. We never asked Lauder if he knew anything about Lewis. Give him a ring before you set off for sunny Doncaster.'
He said I forgot, noted Pascoe. Coming from Dalziel this was a kind of sympathy.
'You've been worried, have you, Andy?' asked Dr Grainger. 'That's good. I hoped you might be.'
'Hoped?'
'That's it. I bet your fertile imagination's run through every disease known to man and invented a few more besides. Well, you'll be pleased to know you've got none of them.'
'None? You mean there's nothing wrong with me?' growled Dalziel, beginning to bristle with anger.
'Don't sound so disappointed. Anyway, you're far from perfect, I assure you. That's why a bit of good honest fear might be a help. Let me list your faults. You smoke too much, you drink too much and you eat too much. In addition you try to interrupt your doctor. You wanted bad news. I'll give it to you. You follow my advice or within a twelvemonth, two years at the most, I reckon you'll be laid low, perhaps permanently, by one or more of half a dozen complaints.'
'Such as?' said Dalziel almost humbly.
'You name it. High blood pressure, bronchitis, cirrhosis, thrombosis.'
'God Almighty!' said Dalziel disbelievingly. 'I can't have them all!'
'Believe me,' said Grainger, 'we all have them all. Only some people have them more than others. I've made out a diet sheet for you. You'll need to drop at least a stone, to start with. It'll be difficult for you, especially without the comfort of tobacco and alcohol, so I'm giving you a prescription for a mild tranquillizer, just so you don't become too unbearable to yourself and others. OK?'
'OK,' said Dalziel helplessly. 'You're a bloody sadist though.'
'Do as I say and you may yet live to dance lightly on my grave.'
'One thing before I go,' said Dalziel, looking with distaste and disbelief at the diet sheet he held. 'You're on the committee at the Liberal Club aren't you?'
'That's right. You're not going to join after all this time?'
'I'm not that sick,' grunted Dalziel scornfully. 'No, it's just that a couple of your members have come my way lately.'
'Matt Lewis and Edgar Sturgeon, you mean? Tragic, tragic. Everyone at the club's desolated.'
'Were they very friendly? With each other, I mean.'
'Not particularly. Though I've seen them together once or twice since Edgar retired.'
'I see. Any word on either of them round the snooker table?'
'Pardon?'
'Come on!' said Dalziel. 'I know clubs. Any little titbits of gossip, scandal, you know?'
'I'm your doctor, Andy, not one of your snouts!' said Grainger indignantly.
'All right. No harm in asking, I've got some right surely after this!'
He waved the diet sheet violently in the air.
'You think so? All right then. I shall deny having said it but, in confidence, the word was that Lewis was a very sharp man on a business deal.'
'You mean a crook?'
'I mean he worked on a large profit margin in everything he did.'
'Oh aye. Suppose I told you he was financially in Queer Street when he died?'
Grainger nodded, unsurprised.
'Why not? The trouble with being a crook in a place like this is, it gets known. That little firm has always gone in for the 'class' stuff – none of your suburban semis. So the people interested in the kind of property market Lewis and Cowley catered for are the same people who'd have heard the rumours. Businessmen, the aristocracy of brass. So a spiral starts. Less business for the firm, and then still less business because everybody knows they're doing less business! Add to this the rate at which Lewis could spend money.'
'What on?'
