by Roy Lewis
Inspector Waters leaned back in his chair and locked his hands behind his head. ‘Come on, Gilbert, let’s have it out in the open. There was a woman here last night. She registered herself as Eileen Grant. You were trying to have it off with her, weren’t you?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You paid for her drink in the bar, chatted her up. Followed her into the residents’ lounge. Late in the evening. What happened after that?’
‘It’s none of your damned business!’ Gilbert snapped angrily.
Grout felt that Inspector Waters seemed to have touched a raw nerve in the photographer.
‘I repeat, it’s none of your business! But I’ve nothing to conceal. Yes, I met her and I paid for her drink. Yes, we had a brief conversation in the lounge. Then we went to our respective rooms. I didn’t see her again after that. She did not appear at breakfast. And that’s all I can tell you about her.’
There was anger in his tone, but something else again, Grout suspected. A suppressed irritation, a frustration. Maybe Gilbert had tried to pick up the Grant woman. From his bitter tone, Grout wondered whether the attempt had been unsuccessful.
After a moment, Gilbert muttered, ‘Yes, we talked in the lounge. And then, after a while, after we had a drink together I went onto the terrace. She was there too. We spoke there for a while. A few minutes only, until she finished her drink. Then she left to go to her room, I stayed on the terrace. That was it.’
The inspector nodded. Grout felt he should be pressing the matter a little further, less suggestively perhaps, but it seemed that Waters was losing interest in this line of inquiry. He was looking back at the notes taken in Gilbert’s earlier interview. Grout would have liked to intervene but had already been told to back off once. He was disinclined to raise the inspector’s blood pressure further.
‘Let’s turn to other matters. Your statement …’ Inspector Waters said. ‘You say you found the body up at Chesters when you were out walking?’
‘Yes.’
‘You always go for a walk before breakfast?’
Paul Gilbert hesitated slightly. Grout felt the man would have liked to say it was his normal habit, but decided against it.
‘No … but, well, I couldn’t sleep. Had a bad night.’
‘Because of the alcohol you’d drunk?’
Gilbert raised his head disdainfully. ‘No. It was insomnia. I had little to drink that evening. But I had things on my mind.’
‘The woman?’ Waters demanded, almost sneering.
Gilbert bridled. ‘I was lying awake, planning my photographic layouts. It can get … obsessive.’
‘So there was no particular reason why you wandered in the direction of Chesters?’
‘One can obtain interestingly lit shots in the early morning.’
‘So you took your camera.’
Gilbert hesitated. ‘No, I didn’t.’
Waters looked him directly in the eyes. ‘Funny, though. You aren’t a habitual morning stroller. You go out, without your camera. And you find a dead man. Pity … still, it’s your loss, isn’t it? You could have taken a shot the newspapers would have paid a bundle for. I think that’s something you must regret now, hey? But by the way, did you take a shot of that woman, Eileen Grant?’
There was a short silence.
‘I did not,’ Gilbert said at last.
Once again, Grout had the instinctive feeling there was something Paul Gilbert was holding back. It was nothing he could put his finger on but he felt there was an odd undercurrent, a tension behind the man’s words. Grout glanced at Inspector Waters; it seemed the thought had not occurred to him. Grout opened his mouth and then, once again, thought better of it.
Inspector Waters tossed aside the statement that Gilbert had provided. He looked at his own notes. ‘All right, Mr Gilbert, we’ll leave it at that. If you’d be so kind to make a further statement regarding your meeting with Eileen Grant we needn’t bother you further.’
Gilbert’s chair scraped as he stood up. He stood there for a moment, looking down at the police inspector. ‘Why are you so interested in Eileen Grant? Why all the questions about her?’
Inspector Waters smiled thinly. ‘We’re simply following up on anything of interest, Mr Gilbert. Just make the statement. Add perhaps what you and she talked about, that sort of thing.’
‘She said little. We just talked about my work.’
‘There you are then. That tells us something, doesn’t it? She’s interested in photography!’
Gilbert scowled. ‘It was just a casual conversation. But I don’t understand … You’re suggesting some kind of link. What has she got to do with all this … business?’ He could not bring himself to mention the dead man he had stumbled across at Chesters.
Inspector Waters gathered up his papers. His tone was cool. ‘We don’t know yet. The fact is, this lady friend of yours, she upped and left early this morning, it seems. Sort of … disappeared. Maybe around the time you were taking a stroll and finding yourself staring at over a corpse. Or maybe she left earlier. You see, Mr Gilbert, there’s a sort of mystery about our Miss Eileen Grant. But we’ll find out in due course. We’ll find out, I’m sure… .’
Detective Chief Inspector James Cardinal arrived in Newcastle early that evening. Rooms had been booked for him and for Grout at the Turks Head Hotel. Grout met the senior officer in the bar before dinner. Cardinal ordered drinks for them both, and after a brief hesitation told the barman to put the tab on his room. Grout guessed the hesitation was due to Cardinal’s hope that Grout would dig into his own pocket for the drinks. It was a game of cat and mouse that Grout had become accustomed to playing; he knew that if he waited, Cardinal would give in. It was a minor triumph but one he enjoyed.
‘I’ve had a long talk with the Chief Constable,’ Cardinal said. He sipped his Newcastle Brown and pulled a lugubrious face. ‘Strong stuff, this … I spent the afternoon with him at Ponteland and put him in the picture. It’s what I expected. I had to work on him a while before he agreed we could continue an involvement in the investigation into Rigby’s murder. He says his own people have plenty on their plates anyway.’
Grout had little doubt Inspector Waters would be less than pleased.
‘We can have the use of the lab facilities up at Gosforth,’ Cardinal continued. ‘Any other help we need, we can just ask for it.’
‘I doubt if the lower ranks will go along with that willingly,’ Grout observed.
‘Touchy, are they? Well, it’s to be expected, I suppose. So your visit to Chesters wasn’t all wine and roses?’
‘Truculence was in the air,’ Grout admitted.
‘Truculence.’ Cardinal registered that he was impressed by the choice of word. Then he grinned. He was in an expansive mood. He could remember that not so long ago Grout had been a member of a provincial force and would have bitterly resented the entry of an outsider to his manor. Shows how situations can alter feelings, he concluded to himself. ‘So where do you go from here?’ Cardinal asked.
‘There are several questions I want to ask witnesses … they’ll have dispersed so I’ll have to chase them up.’
‘Legwork’s good for you, lad,’ Cardinal said approvingly. ‘Get you away from those books you stick your head into. You’re a copper, not a lawyer. Anyway, fill me in with what you’ve got.’
Grout did so, telling him what had happened at Chesters and at The George Hotel.
‘So, you think this woman—’
‘Eileen Grant. At least, that’s how she registered herself at the hotel. Could be an assumed name, of course.’
‘You think she might possibly be tied up in the murder?’
‘That’s going a bit too far, sir, at the moment. But it’s a possibility. All this hanging around outside the hotel … it could be she was waiting for someone, and that person could be Rigby. Or maybe she was waiting to meet the man who killed him.’
Cardinal grimaced. ‘That’s all going a bit too far for my money.’<
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‘She left the hotel without checking out.’
Cardinal nodded, frowned. ‘We’ll need to ask her about that when we find her. But you think this man Gilbert has more to tell us?’
Grout nodded. ‘I’d like to have another word with him. I have the feeling there’s something he was holding back. But I don’t know what, and it may not be important. Still …’
They were silent for a little while. Cardinal employed himself by steadily emptying his glass. Then he stared at it, raised his eyes to Grout, and scowled until Grout took the message.
‘Same again, sir?’
‘No,’ he replied, to Grout’s relief. The relief was short-lived. ‘No, I’ll have a Jameson this time. Double. I’m partial to Irish whiskey, even if I have no great love for the Irish themselves. All that peat, and mournful songs and mountains sweeping down to the sea.’
‘Well, you have to admit they built our railways,’ Grout said. He rose, went to the bar and obtained the drinks, settling for another half of Newcastle Brown for himself. When he returned, Cardinal accepted the glass and said reflectively, ‘Leave this woman – Grant – to me. We’ve got her description, I’ll get it circulated. The address she gave on the register might not check out, but we’ll see.’
‘What about the photographer, Gilbert?’
‘We’ll let him stew a few days. Don’t push him. If he’s got more to tell us, pressure right now might make him dig in his heels but if he’s left alone, given time to cool down, thinks he’s clear, a bit of verbal needling later on might cause him to collapse. That’s called psychology, Grout.’
Cod psychology, Grout thought to himself, but remained silent.
‘Then there’s the other question to consider,’ Cardinal murmured.
‘The museum?’ Grout suggested.
‘Exactly that,’ Cardinal nodded. ‘We need to find out why it got broken into. Was it Rigby himself who broke in? And if so, what the hell was he after? Apart from which, what was a fairly well-provided art thief, working for my old friend Gus Clifford, doing out at Chesters in the first place?’
‘He was supposed to have been on his way to London for the meeting,’ Grout said. ‘I’ve been puzzling about that myself. Did he know the meeting had been cancelled?’
Cardinal sipped his whiskey with an air of considerable satisfaction, partly because it was a Jameson, and partly, Grout guessed, because he had not paid for it himself.
‘I’d be prepared to bet that Gus Clifford’s fingers are all over this business. I’d bet my bottom dollar on it. But what I can’t work out is what would be in the museum at Chesters to pull Rigby there, never mind why he got murdered for his pains. Was Rigby obeying orders from his boss, or did he get turned off because he was trying to strike out on his own? You find out, Grout, and who knows? I might even put it in your case for promotion.’
That old carrot again, Grout thought. ‘The curator told me the man who heads the Antiquities section at the university knows as much about that storeroom as anyone. He often takes students there with him, as part of their training. I think my first task had better be to have a word with him. Find out what he can tell me. The curator says the man is well-known to the general public. His name is Professor Godfrey.’
Cardinal frowned. ‘Godfrey? I fancy I’ve come across that name somewhere.’ Then he recollected; his wife watched popular television programmes about archaeology, and often drooled about a professor called Godfrey. ‘He wouldn’t be the one who appears on television programmes, would he?’
‘Don’t know, sir.’
‘That’s right,’ Cardinal said sourly. ‘Law, not archaeology, is your thing. God knows what you hope to get out of all that study. Law, and Urdu … Still, it’ll be up your street, prowling around the university corridors, hob-nobbing with those young oiks and their stuck up teachers, dons, whatever they call themselves. Did I ever tell you I never went to university, Grout?’
Mentally, Grout groaned. He suspected Cardinal was going to talk about the University of Life.
‘I’m a graduate of the University of Life, me.’
Cardinal rose to his feet, a tall, slim man with the beginnings of a middle-aged paunch. Two inches shorter, younger, thicker in the body and slower in his movements, Grout scrambled to his feet. Cardinal eyed him carefully.
‘You knew I was going to say that, didn’t you, Grout?’
Grout hesitated, then shrugged non-committally.
‘Smartarse,’ Cardinal said and led the way from the bar towards the dining room. ‘You can buy the wine.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Detective Sergeant Grout was never quite certain about the nature of his relationship with Chief Inspector Cardinal.
The DCI had made no direct reference to the fact that it had been the Chief Constable, Grout’s uncle who had recommended that Grout be attached to Cardinal’s squad but there had been the occasional barbed comment, hints that the DCI disliked suggestions of nepotism. On the other hand, Grout felt that Cardinal had been impressed by the assistance he had been able to provide in the first case they had worked together. The closing of the illegal immigrant case in Bradford had been facilitated by Grout’s ability to communicate with the local community, not least because he was able to converse with them in Urdu. Not that it had prevented Cardinal from continuing to make a few snide comments from time to time about Grout’s activities outside his mainstream occupation as a detective; the DCI had made it clear he felt Grout’s law studies – and even the acquisition of Urdu – were largely a distraction, or even a waste of time. Though there were occasions when Grout suspected Cardinal quietly approved of the fact he was trying to extend his qualifications, even if he would never admit to the fact.
What puzzled Grout, and somewhat disoriented him, was that Cardinal also seemed to put as many obstacles in his way as he possibly could, restricting the time he had available to study – albeit while rightly insisting that his full-time job with the Squad must come first. But it all led to a confusion in Grout’s mind: he could not work out just what Cardinal really felt about him. As a colleague, and as a man.
What was certainly clear was the fact that Cardinal was determined to get the last ounce of effort out of Grout in the carrying out of his duties.
Grout’s appointment to meet Professor Godfrey at the university was quickly made. When he arrived at the professor’s office he recognized him immediately as a man who had made frequent television appearances, even though Grout would have been unable to identify the programmes in which the academic had appeared. It was a comment he was sorry he made, when he blurted it out to the professor.
‘Ah yes,’ Godfrey said, nodding his head and laughing in a somewhat falsely embarrassed fashion which Grout felt was a little theatrical, ‘it’s one of the problems associated with the media spotlight. Being recognized in the street and yet being taken for some other celebrity – not, of course, that I really regard myself as a celebrity! In addition, I’ve come to realize that the academic world being what it is, one loses a certain amount of credibility among colleagues if one appears too often. A panel game for morons and a tutorial or lecture presentation before some of the best brains in university circles … some people regard these as occupations that are, shall we say, mutually exclusive.’
Godfrey was a few inches taller than Grout, broad-shouldered, immaculately dressed in an elegantly cut grey suit. His features were finely-chiselled, good-humoured and as he spoke he leant forward as though wishing to build personal bridges with the person he was talking to. His brown hair curled thickly on the top of his head but at the temples there was a frosting of silver. Women would find this man attractive and television appearances would enhance his insistently sincere gaze.
Indeed, Grout wondered whether Godfrey’s personal appeal had been remodelled, chiselled out of his experiences in front of the camera. Certainly, the professor was a personable individual; he was reputed to receive considerable fan mail for his Sunday afternoon cultural pro
grammes, and the inanities of the panel game he chaired on Tuesday evenings would seem to fix millions in their armchairs. He was unmarried and his secretary clearly adored him, as did many of the middle-aged women who were addicted to his appearances. As they sat in the Senior Common Room Godfrey offered Grout a drink. Grout refused, he had a suspicion it might be sherry. Courteously, when Grout refused the offer, Godfrey refrained from calling for a drink for himself.
‘I don’t get too much hassle from my colleagues at the university here, about my television appearances, I mean,’ Godfrey announced, crossing one leg over the other as he settled back into his leather armchair. ‘A certain amount of chaffing goes on, naturally, it’s understandable. The thing is, as long as one maintains a reasonable academic reputation with published works, it’s possible to keep the critics at bay. I get a few snide remarks in the press thrown at me from time to time, but one must develop a thick skin to ward off such gnat bites, don’t you agree?’
Grout had never appeared on television, and did not expect to do so. But he agreed with the comment. It was difficult to do otherwise with this charming and easy-mannered man.
‘I understand one of your published works concerns Chesters Fort,’ Grout said.
‘Oh, it wasn’t just about Chesters,’ the professor replied swiftly. ‘The book was rather wider in concept than that. It ranged across the whole raft of reasons for the building of the original Wall, the legions that built it, the pinnacle of its utility, its gradual abandonment and decay … no, the book did not concentrate merely on Chesters. On the other hand, you might be referring to the slighter book on Chesters itself, that was merely an extract from the major work … there was a local print run from a small Chester-le-Street publisher that was quite successful. I have a copy or two in my room, I’ll let you have a signed copy if you would like one.’
Non-committally, Grout replied, ‘That’s very kind, Professor.’ He paused. ‘You’ll have heard about the murder up at Chesters.’
‘My dear chap,’ Godfrey spread his well-manicured hands theatrically, ‘when the news broke, I was one of the first people local television contacted to obtain some background and local colour. They didn’t actually use me personally in the presentation but … well, the event has set things buzzing in the north, hasn’t it? So romantic, after all, a murder at such an historic site.’