fitted another three desirable dwellings, ideal for the first-time buyer, between Goodrich’s and the house next door. Maggie and Dave would ask the neighbours about him, his friends, his lifestyle; and about any odd movements, strange cars, et cetera, in the street. Slowly, we would build up a tapestry, leading us to the point where the guy in the last panel catches the arrow in his eye.
I took a quick look round the exterior of the house while waiting for the sub-divisional officer and the scenes of crime officers to arrive. It was made from fine old stone, probably reclaimed from some demolished Victorian building in the town, like a workhouse or a mill, or some other temple to suffering, and the SOCOs would paint the whole place silver with their aluminium fingerprint powder. There were three or four bedrooms, at a guess, with a double garage stuck on one side and what looked like an office extension on the other. The garden was designed for economy of effort — mainly grass, with a few shrubs and fruit trees round the edge. Once again I recognised the style. My ultimate ambition is to replace my grass with Astroturf. There were no footprints, no discarded swag bags, no signs of forced entry.
The scenes of crime van arrived and I let the officers in after a brief discussion. If they decided that the kitchen was where it all happened — the locus of the crime, to use the jargon — then I wanted to be let loose in the rest of the house as soon as possible.
‘Start with that,’ I suggested, pointing to the bottle of gold top standing on the step of the side door. ‘Let’s not waste time looking for the milkman.’
Next to arrive was Gilbert Wood, my superintendent. ‘Hello, Gilbert. What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘Les Isles should have come but he can’t make it. They made an arrest yesterday in one of his other cases and time’s running out. He says can we manage and to keep him informed. So,’ he said and rubbed his hands together, ‘here I am to keep a weather eye on my ace detective.’
‘Great,’ I replied. ‘The old firm back together again.’
‘The old firm indeed. So what have we got?’
‘Male victim, fiftyish,’ I told him. ‘Killed by a single blow to the head. Broken plant pot, complete with plant, lying on the floor. Not a very determined attack — I’ve had worse knocks playing football. Possibly he died afterwards; choked or something. Rigor mortis, so he’s been dead a while. Maggie and Dave are talking to the neighbours.’
‘What about motive?’
‘Doesn’t look like robbery, at this stage. He’s sitting in his chair, with the telly on, so he must have known his assailant. Door not locked, no sign of forced entry. Looks as if they let themselves in, or out, walked up behind him, picked up the plant pot, and pow!’ I did a little demonstration of bashing someone’s skull in with a flower arrangement.
The SOCO came out, a bunch of keys dangling from his hand. He nodded to Mr Wood and turned to me. ‘Excuse me, Mr Priest. There’s an office at the side of the house. I’ve unlocked the outside door, so you can be having a look in there, if you want. The internal door was locked, so there’s probably nothing in it for us.’
‘Great. Thanks.’ I led Gilbert round the side and we let ourselves in.
The room was L-shaped, a single storey extension with lots of windows. It looked as if clients called on him, for the bottom bit of the L was a waiting area, with four chairs and a coffee table with magazines. Executive Car, What Boat? and Investment Monthly should have given me a clue to how Goodrich earned his crust, but they didn’t.
He had the biggest leather chair I’d ever seen, looking out of place behind the type of desk you can buy flat- packed in any office furniture store. On other desks there were two PCs, with VDUs, keyboards and a shared printer; fax machine, duplicator and shredder; and two walls were lined with filing cabinets. Between all these was an assortment of stacks of trays in coloured plastic, all flooding over with paperwork.
I didn’t know where to start, and Mr Wood didn’t offer any help. The blotter pad on Goodrich’s desk was from the Prudential and his walls bore calendars from Norwich Union and Sun Alliance. His diary had the Eagle Star logo embossed on the front and alongside it was a jotter pad from Scottish Widows.
‘He’s an insurance man,’ I concluded. They pay me a lot of money to arrive at conclusions like that.
Gilbert studied the diary while I riffled through a few drawers of files. Some were filled with glossy leaflets and presentations from various companies, but I soon found the ones filled with his clients’ files, all in neat alphabetical order. There were eight cabinets of them, each with four stuffed drawers. They started at Aaron and went right through to Mr and Mrs Zwendsloot. Somebody had some work to do.
Sparky poked his head round the door. ‘Morning, Mr Wood,’ he said.
‘Good morning, David. Glad to see we’ve got some brains on the job.’
‘She did it,’ I told them, holding up Mrs Zwendsloot’s file. ‘It’s bound to be the last one we look at.’
‘Thought you might like to know — he was a financial adviser,’ Sparky announced.
‘A financial adviser?’ we echoed in unison.
‘That’s right. The neighbour told me.’
‘Just what I thought,’ Gilbert claimed.
‘Well, if you’re going to ask’ I protested. ‘Anybody can ask.’
‘The neighbour’s called Eastwood,’ Sparky said. ‘Might be a good idea if you had a word with him, Charlie. He seems to know a bit about the victim.’
‘Right. Will do.’ Sparky might still be a constable after serving as long as me, but I always do as he says.
Gilbert said, ‘I’ll get back to the factory, start things at that end. Incident room over there?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Want me to drag the HOLMES team in?’
I nodded my head. ‘Yeah, but only one of them. I can’t see us needing it. I haven’t heard of any other financial advisers being bumped off.’
‘OK. What help do you need?’
I threw a desperate glance at the rows of filing cabinets. ‘What’s the chances of getting someone from the Fraud Squad to have a look at these? He might even be known to them already.’
‘Will do. I’ll see you when you get back.’
Dave led me round to the neighbour’s house. It was in the same style as Goodrich’s, but smaller and the garden was well kept. Eastwood was as tidy as the garden. He was late middle-aged, with neat grey hair and one of those scrubbed complexions that looks as if it belongs on a baby. He wore a patterned cardigan that might have been a Christmas present from an aunt who thought he was still a teenager, and a striped tie. And shiny shoes. People who wear a tie and leather shoes in their own homes disconcert me.
Sparky introduced us. ‘I wonder if you could repeat to Inspector Priest what you have already told me about Mr Goodrich.’ With a conspiratorial wink he added, ‘Then I don’t have to write it down.’
‘Ah, I see,’ Eastwood replied with a smile. He didn’t seem perturbed by the fact that his next-door neighbour was lying, or more precisely, sitting, with his head bashed in.
He gave us the general background that we needed.
Goodrich was single and lived alone. He had been a financial adviser, dealing with clients all over the East Pennine region and was famous for his involvement with a variety of worthy causes. He had a reputation for supporting local charities and for an ability to commute modest savings into serious wealth.
‘You sound sceptical,’ I interrupted.
‘Do I?’ Eastwood replied, with exaggerated surprise.
‘So what was the secret of his success?’
‘Well, for a start, he was a master of self-publicity. And he’d made a few good investments, but he didn’t realise that it was just good luck. He thought he was clever. Infallible. Believed his own publicity. There’s only one way to make a lot of money on the markets, Inspector, and it’s the same as the way for losing a lot of money.’
I leant forward, waiting for the secret to be revealed. This could be useful.
‘Gambling,’ he explained.
‘Gambling?’
‘That’s right. Going for the big-interest investments. Trouble is, this year’s top earner is often next year’s disaster. Goodrich thought he could pick them out, but he just had a little luck. He only advertised his successes, nobody knows about the fortunes he lost.’
‘So you weren’t one of his clients?’
