Stuart Pawson - Last Reminder

‘How about popping round for lunch? Surely you are allowed a lunch break.’

‘That sounds a good idea. Tomorrow, about one.’

‘Let me know if you can’t make it. And Charles?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Be careful.’

‘Don’t worry. It’s not very heavy. Just routine.’

Except it’s never just routine. I put the phone in my pocket and drove back to Goodrich’s house.

The body had gone, replaced by a couple of marginally healthier ones from Fraud Squad.

‘Not…Maud and Claud, from Fraud?’ I asked when I saw them.

‘Not…Defective Inspector Priest?’ the female DS responded. I’d worked with them once or twice before; been for a drink with them a few more times; seen them in the canteen several times a day for the last five years. ‘Where do you want us to start?’ she asked.

‘That lot,’ I said, waving expansively at the rows of filing cabinets. ‘Find out what he was up to. Oh, and who killed him.’

‘It’s gonna be a long night,’ she sighed.

I had a wander round the house. If fingerprint experts found a tenth as much evidence as they leave behind we would eliminate crime. Every surface in the place was coated with their powders, creating an impression of neglect. His sitting room was all black leather and stripes. He must have read somewhere that stripes were sophisticated, so he’d gone overboard with them. Or perhaps he had a contact in a deckchair factory. Everything looked expensive and tasteless. A couple of heavy table lamps were held aloft by naked nymphettes, at odds with the large hunting scene above the fireplace. I looked at it more closely. Original, about three thousand quid at a guess, by an unknown artist whose credibility would die with him.

Upstairs were a junk room, a gymnasium of sorts, a study-cum-library and his bedroom. The gym had an exercise bike, a jogging machine and one of those multipurpose machines of torture that they threatened Galileo with. The speedo on the bike told me he’d cycled eighteen miles on it, and the jogger had done forty-five. Arnie Schwarzenneger was safe.

The books were unedifying. Mainly thrillers, at the more violent end of the spectrum. He was a Jackie Collins fan. Some Wilbur Smith and John Grisham, lots of book club editions. One cabinet was filled with military histories.

In the bedroom, above the double bed and on the facing wall, were arty photographs of young men flexing their pecs. Black and white, so the sweat showed. The duvet cover was chequered, almost Black Watch tartan, with matching pillow cases. Two pillows, one on top of the other, sat in the middle of the bed.

It was the pillows that brought it home to me; pulled me up with a start. It was a human being we were dealing with. No matter what his tastes were, how he lived his life and earned his money, we had a duty to him. I looked through the drawers where he kept his socks and underpants, ran my hand across the shoulders of the suits in his wardrobe. He had more suits than I have bad habits. As I left the room I glanced at the pillows again. I pile mine up like that, except that he made his bed after he got out of it, while I make mine when I climb in.

I rejoined Maud and Claud, who are actually Maud and Brian, downstairs. Brian was looking at a file, trying to compile a table of basic information from it. Maud was on the phone. She is Afro-Caribbean, and joined the police when, midway through an accountancy course, after they’d sent her abseiling in Borrowdale, she decided she needed more action in her life. She made sergeant, but one night a gang of skinheads cornered her and left her for crippled. When she recovered she was determined that they wouldn’t drive her from the job. She did a spell back in uniform, then Fraud learnt of her background in accountancy and snatched her up.

‘He’s known to us, Mr Priest,’ she said, clicking the phone off.

‘Like how?’ I asked.

‘Allegations of fraud resulting from his bankruptcy. Nothing concrete. We’re waiting for something more specific from the receiver.’

‘He went bankrupt six months ago,’ I protested. ‘How long does it take?’

Maud shrugged her shoulders. ‘Solicitors,’ she stated, explaining everything.

Sparky popped his head round the door. ‘Hi, boss. There you are. How’s it going?’

‘Slowly, David,’ I replied. ‘But hopefully you are now going to give us the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for.’

He came in and sat in a typist’s chair that looked as if it might collapse under him. ‘Hardly that,’ he said. ‘Talk about keeping yourself to yourself. It’s a wonder this lot round here ever get round to breeding. Mr Goodrich’s neighbours lead very discreet lives. Never look through their lace curtains, never take their eyes from the road ahead when they are forced to leave their desirable little castles. I’ve had more cooperation on the Sylvan Fields estate.’

‘But…’ I said.

‘Whaddya mean, but?’

‘But you wouldn’t have come back if you didn’t have something to tell me.’

‘We’ve been working together too long,’ he grumbled. ‘But there was just one thing. Young girl at the end of the street. Works shifts at some fast-food joint. She says there are sometimes posh cars in Goodrich’s drive as she passes in her car. All times of night and day.’

‘So what? He’s a businessman. Works from home. It would have been odder if there hadn’t been.’

‘She particularly noted one about a month ago, in the afternoon.’ He glanced awkwardly at Maud, who was standing next to me, part of the conversation.

‘Go on.’

‘He parked in the road, so she noticed his number plate as she drove by. She says it was a BMW, a big one. They were playing a George Michael song on Radio Two, and the registration number stuck in her mind. It was W-A-M, WAM.’

‘Wham?’ I repeated.

Maud said, ‘They were a pop duo. Not your type. George Michael was the leading light until he went solo.’

‘I’m not totally decrepit, Maud,’ I stated. ‘But shouldn’t there be an aitch in there, somewhere.’

‘Christ, Charlie,’ Sparky retorted. ‘She remembered part of his number. Give her some credit for that, don’t criticise her spelling!’

‘OK, I’m sorry. W-A-M. Any idea where that might be from?’

‘No.’

‘Did she notice anything else about the car? Or him?’

Sparky looked embarrassed, something I’d never seen before. ‘There was one thing,’ he said.

‘Go on.’

‘According to her… He, er, was a black guy.’ The best way to meet any sort of a problem is to charge at it, headlong. I turned to the DS from Fraud Squad and said, ‘Sounds highly suspicious to me, Maud. What do you reckon?’

Expressionless, she replied, ‘No doubt about it. With a car and a complexion like that he must have been a drugs dealer. Let’s try to find this BMW, top priority.’

It was ten o’clock when I arrived home. The fish and chip shop was closed, I was out of cornflakes and the bread needed defrosting, so I went upstairs to have a quick shower and then crash. I needed a good night’s sleep more than food. Tomorrow’s big meeting wasn’t scheduled until nine thirty, so I’d have time for a full English in the canteen, first thing. You could lubricate a JCB with a canteen breakfast, but to hell with the risk.

I was sitting on the end of the bed taking my trousers off when the phone rang.

‘Priest,’ I intoned, rather pleasantly, in the hope that it was Annabelle.

‘This is Inspector Lockett from Lingwell. Is that DI Priest?’

‘The one and only, Mr Lockett. How can I help you?’

‘Ah, good. Good evening.’

‘Good evening.’

‘We have a problem with a hostage situation, and I’ve found your name on the list of trained negotiators. Could you possibly come and take over?’