Dead Money (A Detective Inspector Paul Amos Lincolnshire Mystery)

by Rodney Hobson

  “I think it is also time to take Berry apart,” Amos said. “We’ll talk to him tomorrow morning.”

  However, it so happened that Amos was distracted from this intended action for another 36 hours.

  Chapter 14

  "There's a woman waiting to see you, sir," a uniformed policewoman remarked as Amos walked into the police station next morning.

  Amos was later than usual. The past few days had been gruelling and it was hard to see a way forward in the inquiry - hence his sluggish start to the morning.

  “It’s in connection with the murder inquiry,” the obliging young officer continued. “It’s Mrs Jones. She’s in interview room one with Sgt Swift.”

  Amos was completely taken aback. Inquiries so far had revealed the existence of a wife but not of her whereabouts. Now she had appeared from nowhere.

  Cursing his tardiness, whatever the excuse, he bustled into the interview room just in time to hear Swift asking: "Is there any chance, Mrs Jones, that you can give us some clue as to where your husband might have been intending to go on Sunday afternoon?"

  Amos was not hopeful. After all, the couple had been living apart, probably miles apart, for the past few years.

  "I don't know where he might have been going." There was a slight pause. Something about the gentle stress on the word "might" caused the inspector to raise his eyebrows,

  "But I do know where he should have been," Mrs Jones continued archly. "He was supposed to visit me."

  Amos dropped his pencil on the table.

  "You?" he asked in a startled tone.

  "Me."

  Amos eyed her as she paused for effect. She was striking rather than beautiful, tall, blonde and dressed in sharp but not gaudy colours. Her clothes were good quality and although they did not boast the cut of designer labels they were Marks & Spencer rather than Primark.

  Mrs Jones sat calmly and spoke in a matter-of-fact way, clearly relishing the stir she was causing.

  Recovering his own composure and belatedly introducing himself, Amos said: "I think you'd better tell me all about it. Shall we start with when you arranged to see your husband and why."

  Mrs Jones sat up, leaned forward over the desk and began.

  "The arrangement was made the previous Sunday evening. Ray had rung me and asked if we could try to get back together again. I told him I was willing to talk things over but I wasn't prepared to commit myself."

  "Were you in regular contact?" Amos interposed.

  "Frequent, but not regular," Mrs Jones replied. "We talked on the phone from time to time but there was no set arrangement."

  "So you were still on good terms with your husband despite the separation?"

  "Yes. There was no bitterness when we broke up. It was more in sadness than in anger. Ray got completely absorbed in his work. It got to the point where he was wheeling and dealing six, even seven, days a week.

  "He couldn't bear to go on holiday in case he missed out. I started to go away for the odd week to the Isle of Wight or the Lake District and he would join me at the weekend. Or not as the case may be.

  "Finally he had a heart attack. I thought this would be a lesson to him. Not a bit of it. Even from his hospital bed he was organising his investments. As soon as he was well again he was back in the thick of things. Only now he had religion as well.

  "Looking death in the face had certainly shaken him. He started going to church every Sunday evening. He'd never been in the place before in his life. I gave him an ultimatum. The church I could stand - at least it was only once a week. But either he cut back on work or I left him.

  "He eased up a bit but it wasn't much more than a gesture. Then came the final straw: The night of the ice cream chimes."

  Mrs Jones was clearly enjoying her role centre stage. She paused for effect once again. If she was hoping that Amos would indulge her with a prompt, however, she was doomed to disappointment. He simply stared her down, watching her every facial expression.

  Finally Mrs Jones looked away.

  "The ice cream chimes," she picked up the thread again. "I didn't always go to church with him - I'm not a believer, any more than Ray was before he realised he might face the Almighty sooner rather than later. But I was there that Sunday evening, I'm sorry to say.

  "Well, in the middle of prayers an ice cream van arrived across the road and started playing How much is that doggie in the window? It was quite funny, really. Several people couldn't stop themselves tittering. It certainly made me giggle. Not Ray. He got up pompously and ostentatiously and left the pew. He had to get past two or three people to do so.

  "He walked imperiously out of the church and a few moments later the chimes stopped abruptly. It was a hot evening - hence the ice cream van - and the doors and the top windows were open. We could hear the ice cream van driver shouting at Ray as he walked back to the church: 'You're not a police inspector. You're Ray Jones. I'll report you for impersonation.'

  “Then the van revved up and drove off. I've never heard screeching from an ice cream van's tyres before or since.

  "Everyone was sniggering behind their clasped hands. No-one dared to look at Ray in case they burst out laughing. I felt completely humiliated. Talking about it now, it all sounds very trivial but for me it was the last straw. It was typical of the way he expected other people to suit him. Next day I carried out my threat and left him.

  "I went to Nottingham because I had friends there. I took a job back in teaching and bought a small flat. I asked Ray for as little money as possible - just a few hundred for the deposit and to live on until my first month's salary was through. I didn't want anyone to say I'd been sponging off him."

  Mrs Jones stopped again. "Can I have a drink, please?" she asked.

  "Tea ... coffee ... orange squash?" Amos asked as he rose to his feet. He was not sorry for a short break at this point while he digested the insight that the woman across the table had given him into the life and times of her dead husband.

  Chapter 15

  Amos wandered out of the interview room and was relieved to see his friend Sgt Mark Jenkins at the desk.

  "It's getting interesting," Amos remarked. "Any chance you could spare someone to get tea?"

  "Do I get a mention in dispatches?" Jenkins asked with a grin.

  "Happen," Amos replied noncommittally. He was glad of the diversion created by this banal conversation. He needed a few moments’ break to digest the unexpected appearance of Jones's wife and to put the many questions he wanted to ask into some semblance of order. Nor did he want to sound too eager to hear what Mrs Jones had to say. He did not want to put her off or to put her on her guard.

  A constable whom Amos had never seen before was despatched to the canteen for refreshments.

  A couple of minutes was enough. Two beakers of tea duly appeared - real tea, Amos noted with approval, not the brown stuff out of the machine down the corridor. Amos always selected white coffee on the rare occasions that he used the machine because that tasted passably like tea. The tea tasted like nothing in particular.

  This was a good brew. Even Mrs Jones sipped it appreciatively. She and Amos sat in silence for a few moments but the officer, having had his brief respite, was now impatient to continue.

  Sensing his shuffling, Mrs Jones looked him in the face and raised her eyebrows quizzically to signal that she was ready to resume.

  "How did you feel about your husband? What sort of relationship did you have?"

  Amos was flustered as he tried to ask the question he particularly wanted answered. His Baptist upbringing still left him prudish after all these years.

  Finally Mrs Jones took the hint.

  "Are you trying to ask me if I sex with my husband when I lived with him?" she inquired without embarrassment, indeed with a touch of humour in her voice.

  "Well, yes," Amos said. "How did you feel towards him?” He blushed slightly.

  "It's difficult to explain," the woman opposite him began. "I was very fond of him, certainly. D
o you believe love is the basis for any marriage?" she asked suddenly.

  Amos was certainly blushing now.

  "I thought that was the general idea," was the best he could manage.

  "If you love your partner it's certainly a bonus," Mrs Jones went on unabashed, "but it's not the basis of marriage. Marriage is a working relationship. Not quite a business arrangement - that's too cold. But certainly a working relationship.

  "Yes, I did love him once, before we were married - and afterwards. But you have to get on together, make compromises, share interests."

  This Amos understood. He had much the same relationship with his own wife. His work had made a long-term passion unrealistic. The long irregular hours, bad enough when he was a constable on shifts, had got no better as he climbed the ladder, each higher rung bringing its own demands. However many people you have to give orders to, you are always at someone else's beck and call.

  "I understand," he replied simply.

  "I don't think Ray ever had an affair," Mrs Jones picked up. "I'm sure he didn't. He was too tied up with his ever-increasing business empire.

  "Empire!" she repeated with a dry laugh. "He was a giant carp in a little puddle. Well, it's all history now but, as I told you earlier, we rather started to lead separate lives. It was all pretty amicable, no bitterness, no hard feelings.

  "I actually admired him for his achievements. Some of the business people we entertained were real snobs but Ray told them his mother had gone out cleaning when the family store went through a bad patch to give her three children a better chance in life. They all went to university. Ray was the middle one. He was at Leeds studying psychology. He realised it helped him in his business dealings.

  "Anyway, Ray pursued his business career and I finally went off to Nottingham. We kept in touch. Infrequently, but in touch."

  "Did you have children?"

  “No. We never found out for certain why not. There was nothing physically wrong with me. Ray wouldn't go for tests. It was unspoken between us but I think we both assumed the problem was with him. That was one reason why he threw himself more into the business.

  "He gradually lost interest in sex. By that stage I wasn't too bothered anyway because it was clear that our relationship was going no further."

  Amos leaned forward. "The Sunday he was supposed to see you," he said. "How did that come about? Who got in touch with whom?"

  "Ray rang me," Mrs Jones replied. “In fact, he got in touch the previous week. We hadn't spoken for quite a while when he rang up and said he wanted to see me."

  "And he never turned up," Amos mused thoughtfully.

  "Yes he did," the women opposite butted in quickly. "At least, he did on the first Sunday. He came to see me and we had a chat over tea and chocolate éclairs. It was all very civilised."

  Mrs Jones inserted another of the pauses she made for effect. She knew she was putting a whole new light on the investigation and she was quite relishing her power.

  She's not all that upset about her husband's death, Amos thought. Sad, but not grief stricken.

  Amos let the silence roll on, hoping for the psychological victory of making Mrs Jones continue her story unprompted.

  More tea had arrived with a plate of digestive biscuits. Not quite up to chocolate éclairs standard, Amos thought, but after all this was only police canteen fare. They sipped the tea, still in silence. It was Amos who cracked.

  "What did you talk about over ..." he looked ruefully at the biscuit in his hand "... over your dairy cream éclairs?"

  "As I said earlier, Ray wanted me to come back to him. He said we made a great couple despite our differences. In fact, he said it was the differences that made life interesting. He couldn't promise to give up his business deals - at least he was honest about that - but he promised there would be no more embarrassments.

  “No more Sunday nights at the ice cream van, no more quiet drinks in a dark corner of the pub with Jim Berry while I sat on my own at another table, no more public squabbles with the reporter from the local paper.

  “He meant it. Whatever his faults, Ray kept his word whether it was a promise or a threat. He didn't use words lightly. It was one reason why he was so successful at business. People he dealt with knew they could trust him.

  “He stood by his word even if it cost him. And he looked after those who were loyal to him. So I knew precisely what terms I would be coming back on.”

  Amos was temporarily distracted by the re-emergence of Jim Berry, the man who featured so persistently in Jones’s business files. It was Swift who picked up on what Mrs Jones was saying.

  “Terms?” she asked. “A working arrangement, I suppose?”

  There was a hint of scorn in Swift’s voice but the matter-of-fact woman opposite either failed to detect it or chose to ignore it.

  “Yes, a working arrangement,” she replied. “Ray didn't push me. He suggested I thought about it and we would meet again in a week's time.”

  "Except that the next week he didn't turn up," Amos said. "Didn't you wonder why? Didn't you try to contact him? There was no message from you on his answering machine."

  "No. I waited in but I just assumed that some business had kept him. Reverting to type, you might say. By 4 o'clock I just cleared away the cups and saucers. I ate my cream cake and put his back in the fridge."

  "And what was your answer going to be ... if he had turned up?"

  "I was sad in a way when he didn't show up. I certainly felt slighted. But I was also a bit relieved, to be honest, because it made my mind up for me. Our relationship went back into the fridge along with his cake."

  "Did you not feel tempted to ring Mr Jones to find out why he failed to turn up?" Amos persisted. "Surely you were surprised. After all, he had gone to the trouble of contacting you and had travelled all the way to Nottingham to ask you back. You must have wondered what had happened to him."

  "Of course I did," Mrs Jones replied almost petulantly, "but I wasn't giving him the satisfaction of having me chase after him. Like I said, I wasn't sure I wanted to come back anyway and when he left me sitting twiddling my thumbs I certainly wasn't going to the bother of ringing him.

  "It was up to him to get in touch and make his apologies. Not that Ray ever did apologise. I assumed he had put some business deal before me. In that case I knew my place - and it was not back with him. I told myself he'd done me a favour."

  Amos shifted in his chair. He had a bad habit of leaning back and sliding imperceptibly down and under the table as he listened, especially when the person being interviewed was willing to talk at length.

  The inspector pulled himself up and leaned over the desk.

  "When did you find out what had happened to your husband? Who told you?"

  Mrs Jones smiled. "I still have a great affection for this town. It was painfully quiet, yes, but at least you could walk around at night and feel safe."

  She shuddered slightly, realising what she had said. They were discussing a man who had not been able to sleep safely in his own bed, never mind walk the streets.

  "Well, that's how I think of the place, anyway. And I know a lot of people in this town. Most I met through Ray's business deals but I had plenty of personal friends as well. I didn't sit at home being a cabbage. I joined the local bridge club and the history society. I had time on my hands when Ray was out wheeling and dealing. I told you at the start, by the time Ray and I split up we were leading pretty well separate lives."

  "So a friend got in touch?" Amos ventured. "I'm surprised no-one contacted you right away. Or perhaps they did."

  "Not a friend, exactly. I lost direct contact with a lot of people here when I left. Remember, the intention was to make a fresh start in a new place.

  "No, the friend, if you like, was the local weekly paper. I pay an annual subscription and they post it to me. As you can imagine, the latest edition was a bit of a stunner."

  "The paper is published on Thursday," Amos protested. You should have received it on F
riday, Saturday at the latest. Why have you waited until the middle of the next week to come forward?"

  "I nearly didn't come forward at all," Mrs Jones replied quite sharply. "Why should I? Ray's death was nothing to do with me."

  "But you decided to do your civic duty," Amos said coldly. "Or did you decide to claim your inheritance? It must be a tidy sum."

  Mrs Jones was quite put out. "I have come here voluntarily," she said curtly.

  "Nonetheless," Amos pressed, "You presumably expect to gain something, possibly everything. Surely you are entitled to half anyway as his wife."

  "How do I know what's in the will? He could have changed it a dozen times and I wouldn't know. I should imagine he has left me something but I can manage one way or another."

  Mrs Jones made one of her pauses for effect. Amos was caught out again. He had slid down the chair into that slouching position. Quickly he pulled himself back up.