Michael Fowler - Secret of the Dead

Hunter could sense Grace, shuffling beside him, seething. He knew the remark would have wound her up. Before she had chance to bite, he replied, “Thanks for the offer, but that might not be a wise thing, what with the investigation and everything.”

Blake-Hall looked perplexed again. “Everything?”

“A throwaway comment sorry. I just meant under the circumstances.”

“My, things have changed. I guess this is what I’ve heard your retired colleagues moan about. Political correctness and all that. The detectives I knew in the past would have jumped at my offer.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say it’s political correctness, but yes, things have changed.” Hunter flipped open his folder. “If I can just tell you why we are here.”

“To be honest I’ve been expecting you. I believe you want to ask me about Jeffery Howson.”

Hunter was caught off guard again. He asked, “Did that reporter tell you that?”

“No, Alan Darbyshire rang me and told me what’s happened. Terrible shock.”

“Oh? When was that?”

“A couple of days…” He paused, stroked his un-shaven jaw-line and then continued. “Yeah, it was either Thursday or Friday when he told me.” He shook his head and smiled. “You detectives I don’t know. There’s nothing sinister about Alan ringing me up and telling me what happened. We go back a long way. But then you know that, otherwise why would you be coming to see me about Jeffery Howson? Let me just say on record that I’m indebted to those two guys. If it hadn’t been for them, my wife’s killer would never have been caught. Since then, we’ve kept in touch. In fact, when Alan retired from the Force I gave him a job.”

This was news to Hunter. He dearly wanted to look at Grace. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her making notes. “He never told us that when we spoke with him the other day.”

Peter Blake-Hall shrugged his shoulders. “It’s no big secret. I took him on to manage the staff in my club. He’d interview and vet the staff for me, and to be honest it made good business sense when it came to getting the licence when we changed across to an official lap-dancing club. He was with me until about eighteen months ago.”

“Did Jeffery used to work for you as well then?” said Grace.

“Jeffery? Good God no. Jeffery kept himself to himself when he retired, although I’m guessing Alan would have told you that. No, Jeffery changed after he got divorced. To be honest I’m partially to blame for that. I don’t know if you know, but Alan and Jeffery used to come to my club regularly, more-so after they arrested Danny Weaver. I treated them to a few beers and the entertainment. I know officially it was frowned upon, especially the type of premises they were back then, but it was my way of saying thank you. One night, Jeffery’s wife turned up at the club and caught him chatting with a couple of the girls. There was a right to-do between them. She accused him of carrying on with one of them, slapped him across the face and stormed out and that was the end of their marriage. I learned from Alan that she had left him. He did come in a couple of times after she left, but it wasn’t for long. To be honest, I had to politely ask him to stop coming, he was so bloody morbid and miserable around the punters. I kept in touch with Alan though, and as I say he worked for me once he retired.”

“So when did you last see or speak with Jeffery?” asked Hunter.

“Crikey, that is a question.” Peter Blake-Hall stroked his chin and gazed up into the roof space. A few seconds later he said. “It wasn’t that long after Danny Weaver’s trial. That’s when I had to have a quiet word with him. As I said, he became a miserable sod. He came in just to prop the bar up and drown his sorrows. He took the request well though. There was no animosity between us about it. You can check that back with Alan.” Blake-Hall uncrossed his legs, and hunched forward, planting his hands onto the top of his thighs. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“That reporter I threw off my doorstep said you were re-opening my wife’s case. Is that right? And do you think Jeffery’s murder has something to do with that?”

Inwardly, Hunter was cursing. He’d make sure that sooner, rather than later, he’d track down that journalist and give him a piece of his mind. He said, “You have to appreciate, Peter, there are some things we can’t discuss. It would be fair to say that as a result of Jeffery’s murder we are looking into the possibilities of why he was killed. That includes looking at some of the previous cases he was involved in. Your wife’s case is one of those. Does that answer your question?”

“I guess so.” He leaned back against several large cushions. “Does that mean you’re looking at Danny Weaver? I thought he was still inside?”

Hunter didn’t want to mention the previous day’s interview, or the likelihood that he would be shortly released. He’d prefer to deal with that when it happened.

Before he had time to magic up a response, Grace rescued him. “Mentioning Daniel Weaver, did you know him prior to his arrest? I have noticed that on a couple of occasions you have referred to him more personally as Danny rather than Daniel.”

Blake-Hall switched his gaze. “Nothing gets past that pretty little head does it? The answer to your question is that I did know Daniel Weaver before his arrest for Lucy’s murder. Danny worked for me. I used to import cars from Germany, Mercedes and BMWs. It was very lucrative. Before the nineties you could get away with bringing in cars, and so long as you registered an individual, and not a business, as the owner you’d get away with not paying any VAT. It was a loophole in customs. I’d have a circle of people, including Danny, who’d bring the cars in and register them in their names. I’d keep them garaged for six months and then move them on. I made a nice tidy profit.” His mouth suddenly tightened. “I looked after Danny and that’s how he repaid me.”

“So when did you find out about him having an affair with Lucy?”

“I didn’t. Not until after he’d been arrested. It was a complete surprise. Apparently they’d been carrying on under my nose for over six months.”

“So the news was broken to you by Alan Darbyshire and Jeffery Howson?”

“I think it was Alan who told me.”

Hunter said. “Now my colleague has raised the case of Lucy, I’d like to just clarify one or two things from your original statement made back in nineteen-eighty-three, if that’s okay?”

Peter Blake-Hall turned back to Hunter. “You’re asking something there. That was such a long time ago.”

“Don’t worry about that, I’ll prompt you as we go along.” Although Hunter hadn’t got the statement to hand he had read the case file so many times that much of it was locked inside his head. “You said in your statement that the last time you saw Lucy was on Friday tea-time, twenty-sixth of August. Can you remember that?”

“Yes, that’s something I’ll never forget. It was August Bank Holiday and I went in early to the club because Bank Holidays were our busiest times. I can remember that.”

“And you stated that when you got back in the early hours Lucy wasn’t in the house?”

Peter nodded.

“Yet you didn’t report her missing straight away. In your statement you reported her missing late the next morning. Is that correct?”

“No that’s wrong. I actually reported her missing in the early hours of Saturday. As you say, when I got back from the club, about one am, Lucy was nowhere to be found, so I telephoned the police station then, but the guy in the control room said that as she was an adult they wouldn’t make any enquiries until she had been missing for twenty-four hours and that I should ring back then if she hadn’t returned home. I then rang around a couple of her friends I knew. I got them out of bed in fact, and the next morning I couldn’t wait any longer and so I contacted Alan Darbyshire. I told them it was unusual for Lucy to disappear like that, and he took it seriously. He and Jeffery came round to see me straight away. The rest is history.”