“I have?”
Banks nodded.
“There’s something else,” she said. “When I came in this morning, I got the impression that someone had been in the place since then. Again, I can’t say why, and I certainly couldn’t prove it, but in this job you develop a feel for the way things should be – you know, files, documents, that sort of thing – and you can just tell if something’s out of place without knowing what it really is, if you follow my drift.”
“Were there any signs of forced entry?”
“No. Nothing obvious, nothing like that. Not that it would be difficult to get in here. It’s hardly the Tower of London. I locked myself out once when Mr. Clegg was away on business and I just slipped my Visa card in the door and opened it.” She put her hand to her mouth. “Oops. I don’t suppose I should be telling you that, should I?”
Banks smiled. “It’s all right, Betty. I’ve had to get into my car with a coat-hanger more than once. Was anything missing?”
“Not so far as I can tell. It’s pretty secure inside. There’s a good, strong safe and it doesn’t look as if anyone tried to tamper with it.”
“Could it have been Mr. Clegg?”
“I suppose so. He sometimes comes in on a Sunday if there’s something important in progress.” Then she shook her head. “But no. If it had been Mr. Clegg I’d have known. Things would have looked different. They looked the same, but not quite the same, if you know what I mean.”
“As if someone had messed things up and tried to restore them to the way they were originally?”
“Yes.”
“Do you employ a cleaning lady?”
“Yes, but she comes Thursday evenings. It can’t have been her.”
“Did she arrive as usual last Thursday?”
“Yes.”
“May I have a look in the office?”
Betty got up, took a key from her drawer and opened Clegg’s door for him. He stood on the threshold and saw a small office with shelves of law books, box files and filing cabinets. Clegg also had a computer and stacks of disks on a desk at right angles to the one on which he did his other paperwork. The window, closed and locked, Banks noticed, looked out over the central square with its neatly cut grass, shady trees and people sitting on benches. The office was hot and stuffy.
Certainly nothing
“Better keep it locked,” he told Betty on his way out. “There’ll be more police here this afternoon, most likely. May I use the phone?”
Betty nodded.
Banks phoned Ken Blackstone at Millgarth and told him briefly what the situation was. Ken said he’d send a car over right away. Next he phoned Superintendent Gristhorpe in Eastvale and reported his findings. Gristhorpe said he’d get in touch with the Fraud Squad and see if they could coordinate with West Yorkshire.
He turned back to Betty. “You’ll be all right here,” he said. “I’ll wait until the locals arrive. They’ll need you to answer more questions. Just tell them everything you told me. What’s your address, in case I need to get in touch?”
She gave him the address of her flat in Burmantofts. “What do you think has happened?” she asked, reaching for her tissue again.
Banks shook his head.
“You don’t think anything’s happened to him, do you?”
“It’s probably nothing,” Banks said, without conviction. “Don’t worry, we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“It’s just that Melissa will be so upset.”
“Who’s Melissa?”
“Oh, didn’t you know? It’s Mrs. Clegg. His wife.”
2
After a hurried bowl of vegetable soup in the Golden Grill, Susan Gay walked out into the street, with its familiar smells and noises: petrol fumes, of course; car horns; fresh coffee; bread from the bakery; a busker playing a flute by the church doors.
In the cobbled market square, she noticed an impromptu evangelist set up his soapbox and start rabbiting on about judgment and sin. It made her feel vaguely guilty just hearing him, and as she went into the station, she contemplated asking one of the uniforms to go out and move him on. There must be a law against it somewhere on the books. Disturbing the peace of an overworked DC?
Charity prevailed, and she went up to her office. It faced the car park out back, so she wouldn’t have to listen to him there.
First, she took out the blue file cards she liked to make notes on and pinned them to the cork-board over her desk. It was the same board, she remembered, that Sergeant Hatchley had used for his pin-ups of page-three girls with vacuous smiles and enormous breasts. Now Hatchley was due back any moment. What a thought.
Then, after she had made another appointment to talk to Laurence Pratt, she luxuriated in the empty office, stretching like a cat, feeling as if she were in a deep, warm bubble-bath. Out of the window she could see the maintenance men with their shirtsleeves rolled up washing the patrol cars in the large car park. Sun glinted on their rings and watch-straps and on the shiny chrome they polished; it spread rainbows of oily sheen on the bright windscreens.
One of the men, in particular, caught her eye: well-muscled, but not overbearingly so, with a lock of blond hair that slipped over his eye and bounced as he rubbed the bonnet in long, slow strokes. The telephone broke into her fantasy. She picked it up. “Hello. Eastvale CID. Can I help you?”
“To whom am I speaking?”
“Detective Constable Susan Gay.”
“Is the superintendent there?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“And Chief Inspector Banks?”
“Out of the office. Can I help you? What’s this about?”
“I suppose you’ll have to do. My name is Mary Rothwell. I’ve just had a call from my son, Tom.”
“You have? Where is he?”
“He’s still in Florida. A hotel in Lido Key, wherever that is. Apparently the British newspapers are a couple of days late over there, and he’s just read about his father’s murder. It’s only eight in the morning there. He can’t get a flight back until this evening. Anyway, he said he should get into Manchester at about seven o’clock tomorrow morning. I’m going to meet him at the airport and bring him home.”
“That’s good news, Mrs. Rothwell,” Susan said. “You do know we’d like to talk to him?”
“Yes. Though I can’t imagine why. You’ll pass the message on to the Chief Inspector, will you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. And by the way, I’ve made funeral arrangements for Wednesday. That is still all
