Stuart Pawson - Deadly Friends

"The chemist."

"A.J.K. Weatherall. Motive?"

"Money?"

"He'll still have to pay for the car, into the doc's estate."

"In that case, maybe they really were on the fiddle."

"OK." I put a 1 in his alibi box. "He and his wife were fitting curtain rails at the new house," I explained.

"How pleasant. And that brings us to the bag of worms at the clinic' "Mr. and Mrs. Farrier."

"Right."

"Motive?"

"Sex, again."

"Alibi?"

"Yes, but not checked."

"One."

"Yep."

"Barraclough?" I had to bend the word downwards because I was running off the edge of the page.

"Barraclough? What's his motive?"

"Sex, jealousy, anything. We can't rule him out."

"OK. Alibi?"

"You said he was at the same carol concert as the Farriers."

"Of course. So that's a one, again."

"Yep."

"What about Jordan's acting friends?"

I pulled a face and sighed. "I don't think so. We'll have to keep a weather eye on them, though. Can't rule them out completely."

"Next?"

I wrote "Malpractice?" at the bottom of the page.

"What are we doing about that?" Sparky asked.

"Dr. Barraclough is supposed to be ringing me. I'll give him a reminder."

"So, is that it?"

I shook my head. "No, there's one last group." I wrote "Abortions' in the last bit of clear space.

"I thought Barraclough was convinced that the pro-lifers didn't know the clinic existed," Sparky said.

"That's what he said, but we can't be sure. I'm not thinking of just the pro-lifers. Mr. Jordan performed between four and five thousand terminations in his short but eventful career. Including fathers, that's ten thousand potential dissatisfied customers." I wrote "X 10,000' next to "Abortions' and clicked the top back on the pen.

We were both silent for several minutes, pretending to be studying the chart. I was thinking about the five thousand foetuses that Jordan had been instrumental in destroying. I imagined ten schools, side by side.

Filing into them was a long line of boys and girls, smart in their grey uniforms. They carried satchels and sports bags and jostled and teased each other. For as far as the eye could see. I'm in favour of choice, but I couldn't do it.

Sparky leaned his chair back on two legs and flipped his notebook shut.

"You know your comment about the Russian trawler?" he said.

"Mmm."

"I think you'd better make it the whole bleedin' fishing fleet."

Sparky was right. We were no nearer narrowing the field down than when Ged Skinner walked out of the station. We hadn't even considered Darryl Buxton. Much as I'd have loved to have pinned it on him, living in the same block of flats as the dead man was hardly grounds for suspicion. Monday, I'd have a word with Mr. Wood and Mr. Isles. We needed more manpower. Every alibi would have to be checked, every interview re-done. Maybe somebody's guard would drop, or their story wouldn't tally with the first one they'd given. They'd embroider it, add bits that contradicted what they'd said earlier, and talk themselves into a murder charge. And Mother Teresa might buy a Harley for nipping to mass on. I told Sparky that I'd see him Monday and went home.

I had a luxurious shower and smothered myself in smelly gunge that Annabelle had given me for Christmas. Tonight we would eat in style; the Wool Exchange was the best restaurant in Heckley. There wasn't much competition — the second best was the Bamboo Curtain but it had a certain class that no amount of new money can re-create. I pulled the last of the new shirts from its box and carefully unfolded it. It was dark blue, with a thin grey check. It would look good with my dark suit and the red silk tie, which was another present from Annabelle.

I pulled the knot tight and slipped my jacket on, studying myself in the mirror. I looked good, even if it was archetypal detective. The face was pale and I had a few more wrinkles, but they were all in the places where I smile, and I smile a lot. I picked up the holiday brochures and drove round to the Old Vicarage, next to St. Bidulph's, where Annabelle lived.

She was wearing a fawn suit that I'd never seen before and a red blouse. The suit wasn't her colour she's at her best in something really bold but she still looked stunning. She looks good in one of my old sweaters when she's helping me with emergency maintenance in my garden. I stood watching her as she moved around the rooms, checking windows and switches. When she was ready I led her to the front door and held it open. As she passed me she gave me a kiss on the cheek.

"What did I do to deserve that?" I asked, pleased but slightly surprised.

"You look very handsome," she said, rather gravely, and gave me a squeeze.

"And you look very beautiful," I replied, but she turned away, and my kiss fell on her cheek.

Tell me about the Wool Exchange," she said, in the car.

"Right," I replied. "Here comes a rather vague history lesson. The present building was built by the wool barons in the eighteenth century, although, there was something there long before that. It was where they auctioned their produce and conducted their other businesses. It was in use well into this century, but I'm not very good at dates. At other times they used it as an exclusive club and entertained their cotton-picking cousins from over the hill. If we knew its full history we might not want to frequent the place.

Slave-trade money and freemasonry come to mind, but I think you'll like it."

"Have you been before?"

"Mmm," I said. "Long time ago," but I didn't enlarge upon my answer.

My wife Vanessa and I held our wedding reception there. After that we'd come back for a romantic table for two on birthdays and anniversaries. There weren't too many of those. Tonight, hopefully, I was laying a ghost.

Our table was available so we went straight in and sat down. "This is incredible," Annabelle said, looking around. Along the edges of the room was a row of desks on high legs, with merchants' names elegantly written on them in gold paint. Blackboards carried the names of breeds of sheep, probably now extinct, with columns for the prices to be written in sd. Portraits of the leading barons in their ceremonial robes, smug bastards to a man, adorned the walls. It wasn't elegant or aesthetically pleasing in any way, but it was authentic and smacked of wealth and all that went with it.

"Would you like the wine list, sir?" a waiter was saying as he proffered a bound volume. He was old enough to have been here when they drowned their sorrows over universal suffrage. Annabelle shook her head when I looked across at her.

"Just fizzy water, please," I said.

All the other tables were occupied but they were so far apart it didn't matter. We both decided the halibut dieppoise with a salp icon of prawns and leeks sounded good and settled for that. I was starving so I ordered the carrot and fennel soup and we both asked for pate.

"How's the soup?" Annabelle asked as I tucked in.

"Delicious, but," I said.

"But what?"

"But not as good as yours. Same with the bread roll. Have you seen the uplifting slogans carved round the frieze?" I led her eyes upwards. "The one behind you says: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth."

"Good grief, yes," she replied. "There doesn't look anything meek about this lot. Yours says: "Out of Prosperity shall come Peace." I suppose I could go along with that."

"Except when the the prosperity comes from running slaves and peddling opium to the Chinese," I said.

"It's a fascinating place," Annabelle observed, glancing around. "Why haven't you brought me here before?"

"Oh, I just thought I'd keep it up my sleeve," I told her, laying the spoon across my empty bowl.

"And what else do you have up your sleeve?"