The Pursuit of Truth

by Arthur Hughes

  ‘How is it you speak such good English?’

  She laughed. ‘Because I had an English husband.’

  ‘Had.’

  ‘Yes, he is married to someone else now. A Russian. He likes the exotic.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Am I married again or do I like the exotic?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘No, I’m not married. And no, I don’t like the exotic. But I do like Englishmen, strong and silent.’ She laughed. ‘And what about you … I’m sorry, I don’t know what to call you.’

  ‘Richard.’

  ‘What about you, Richard. I think you are married, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And do you like the exotic?’

  ‘I suppose I am attracted by it.’

  ‘It? We are talking about women, Richard.’ When Healey didn’t reply, she went on, ‘I’m sorry, I’m embarrassing you again. And I don’t think this is a very interesting subject for poor Sam here, is it my sweet? Let’s talk about something else. How about the weather? No? How about …’ Silvia looked round as if checking that there was no one who could overhear her. ‘How about the murder?’ she whispered.

  ‘I don’t think we should talk about that,’ said Healey. ‘Not here.’

  ‘Why not? Nobody can hear us. But if you say no, we won’t. But we can talk about Dr Crouch, can’t we? He was such a kind man. Wasn’t he, Sam? Such a terrible thing that he should die like that.’

  ‘He was kind to us students,’ agreed Sam. ‘He always had time to talk. And if you had a problem with your work, he’d spend ages helping you sort it out.’

  Healey wondered whether Crouch had shown such kindness to all his students or just to attractive females like Sam. ‘Was he a good teacher?’ he asked, thinking it would be interesting to compare a student’s view with that of Crouch’s colleagues.

  ‘People liked him as a teacher because he told you exactly what you needed to know for exams. If you took good notes at his lectures, you couldn’t go wrong. But he was boring. And he said exactly the same things year after year. Didn’t change anything. Some people never went to his lectures, just got the handouts, and notes from people of previous years.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you know if he was popular with other members of staff?’

  ‘Not really. I think Peter thought he was a bit of a fusspot, from what I’ve seen on the course. Besides that, I don’t know.’

  When Healey offered to buy a second round of drinks, Samantha said no, if he didn’t mind, she had better get back to the Hall. The coach might get back early and she didn’t want to be seen. ‘That’s the one bad thing about this job,’ she said. ‘You’re always on duty. If they see you anywhere, anytime, they feel that they can ask you to help them do anything. I’m not complaining, it’s been a good experience, but just now, after three weeks, I’ve had enough of them.’

  ‘I’ll come back with you,’ said Silvia. ‘Perhaps we could have a nightcap together. I’ve got something in my room.’

  ‘Not for me, thanks,’ said Samantha.

  ‘How about you, Richard?’

  Healey was tempted. Wasn’t this just the kind of excitement he was looking for? He sensed, however, that it was probably unwise. Or was he afraid of what might happen? He wasn’t sure, but he said no thanks, he had to get back. As he watched the two women walk off, arm in arm, he felt a sharp pang of regret. ‘Home,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Home.’

  Despite telling himself to go home, Healey decided to take a small detour. From Pepper Lane he turned into Falstaff Avenue, and two minutes later stood outside the Crouches’ house. The curtains of Crouch’s study were drawn but the light was on. As he watched, on the curtains he saw the shadows of two people moving about, first apart then coming together. Two people. Teresa Crouch and who? Wright? No sign of his car. Reyes? It could be. Should he go to the door and ring the bell? He could invent some pretext for the visit. Healey was undecided and for the moment just watched the moving shadows.

  They made love for the first time since that night.

  At the climax, there was Crouch again.

  Falling, falling, silently falling.

  THURSDAY

  Healey began to wish that he’d taken the car. Much easier by train, he’d told Teague, who had looked unconvinced, but the one taking them from Reading to Gatwick airport was dirty, uncomfortable, and slow, hardly getting up any speed before slowing down again to stop at some out-of-the-way station where no one got on or off. It was noisy too, after they had opened windows in order to let some air in. Roll on privatisation, he thought. Not that he would have admitted such a thought to his sergeant, whose political views were somewhat to the right of the present Conservative government and who probably believed the whole rail system should be scrapped and the saving in subsidies used to reduce the duty on petrol.

  Despite his regret at taking the train, Healey was happy. Things were beginning to take shape and he had the feeling, familiar after so many years as a detective, of moving quickly forwards towards a solution. Everything was about to become clear, he was sure, though he could not say yet, even to himself, who the murderer was.

  The previous night he had been standing across from the house in Falstaff Avenue for no more than a quarter of an hour when the light went off in the study and one in the front bedroom went on, only to go off a few minutes later. The house remained dark and Healey set off home, resolving to come back early next morning.

  It was just after seven when he arrived at the house. There was no sign of life. He knocked but there was no response. He knocked again and stepped back from the door to look up at the upstairs windows. He was about to knock again when the door opened a crack and a dark brown eye peered at him. The door opened wider. In the same blue dressing-gown that she was wearing when he first saw her, and holding Gia against her shoulder, was Teresa, her face still full of sleep.

  ‘I’m sorry to call so early,’ he said. ‘Could I come in?’

  Without a smile, Teresa turned and walked through into the living room, leaving Healey to follow her, closing the door behind him. He sat down opposite her and the child, who was on her mother’s knee and sucking her thumb, watching him closely.

  ‘I’ll get directly to the point,’ he said. ‘I believe that there is someone else in the house. Would you mind telling me who it is?’

  Teresa went tense. She didn’t reply immediately. Eventually she said, ‘What makes you think that there is someone here?’

  Healey didn’t want to admit that he had been watching her house the previous night. ‘Is there?’ he asked.

  ‘Is this your business? If I have somebody in my house that is my private affair. Aren’t I right? This isn’t a police state.’

  ‘No it isn’t. And I’m not interested in your affairs as such.’ Healey emphasised the word ‘affairs’. ‘But I’m investigating the murder of your husband and I’m collecting any information that I can that will help me discover who the murderer is. So could you tell me, please, who it is that’s here in the house with you?’

  ‘If you must know, it’s my cousin.’

  ‘Your cousin?’

  ‘She’s here to help me with everything. This isn’t an easy time, you know.’

  ‘No, of course. You say ‘she’. So it’s a female cousin?’

  Teresa cast him a scornful look. ‘Would you like to see her? Just to make sure that she’s female?’

  ‘I would like to speak to her, if you don’t mind. If she doesn’t mind.’

  Teresa lifted Gia from her lap, took her by the hand and went upstairs.

  The cousin, if that was what she was, came down after a lot of muttering, not in English as far as Healey could tell, some of it appearing to express reluctance on her part. She was younger than Teresa but looked very much like her: quite tall, shapely, with a pretty face. So many lovely women in the world.

  She told him that she had arrived from the Philippines only last night and confirmed that she had co
me to help Teresa while she was sorting out her affairs. Her English, though there was an accent, was faultless. Healey asked her if she would mind showing him her passport, which she went upstairs to get. Teresa, who had said nothing since she had come down with her cousin, went into the kitchen, her child holding her hand, and Healey heard her pour water into the kettle and switch it on.

  The name on the passport was Maria Leticia Lopez Reyes. It had a six-month visa for entry into the UK dated a few days previously, against which was a stamp showing yesterday’s date, over which were scrawled the initials of the immigration officer who had dealt with her on arrival. ‘Your name is Reyes,’ said Healey. ‘Are you related to Ricardo Reyes?’

  The cousin looked surprised and did not answer. ‘She is,’ responded Teresa, who had come to the kitchen door. ‘We all are. It’s a big clan.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed the cousin. ‘He is my cousin.’

  ‘And Roberto Reyes? Is he your cousin too?’

  ‘Yes, of course. He is Ricardo’s brother.’

  ‘And when did you last see these gentlemen?’

  The cousin seemed to reflect. ‘I saw Ricardo yesterday morning before I left the Philippines. Roberto is in England, I think. I haven’t seen him for a long time.’ She didn’t ask the reason for Healey’s questions.

  Teresa appeared again at the kitchen door. ‘I’ve made tea, Chief Inspector. Would you like some?’

  ‘No, thank you. But I didn’t know you were a Reyes too.’

  ‘I’m not. But I’m related to them. In any case, I don’t think you asked me.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but I did ask you about the Reyeses and you could have said that you were related.’

  Teresa shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’s a very big family and I’m not one of the important ones.’

  Healey said nothing. He made a note of the cousin’s full name and the date and number of the visa, and was on the point of leaving when he asked Teresa if she knew about a drawing in her husband’s office at the University, one apparently done by a child.

  ‘Yes, Gia did it.’

  ‘Do you know where that drawing is now?’

  ‘Yes. It’s in Gia’s room.’

  ‘So did you take it from the office?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did you get into the office?’

  ‘With my key. Do you want me to give it to you?’

  ‘No, no. That’s not necessary.’

  As Healey walked towards his car, Teresa watching him motionless in the doorway, he wondered what else she could have done in the office if she had a key. The threatening letter. Could she have written it and printed it there? Not impossible. Still thinking about this possibility, he drove slowly down Falstaff Avenue and turned left into Pepper Lane. Within five minutes he was at the Hall, where he was met by Teague, who strutted towards him with a big smile on his face.

  ‘Guess what, sir. Reyes. He’s being held by Customs and Excise. Gatwick Airport. Drugs.’

  That was how they came to be sitting opposite each other on this awful train. Teague was doing the crossword. ‘Greek island. Six letters, fourth letter b.’

  ‘Lesbos.’

  ‘Lesbos? That isn’t where the word …’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  Healey watched as Teague, chuckling, struggled to hold the paper steady against the shaking of the train as he wrote in the missing letters. He had once spent a lot of time himself doing crosswords, though of the cryptic kind, but one day he had decided that they were a waste of time and hadn’t done another since. Now he occasionally did the Quick Crossword in the Guardian, or at least finished the ones his wife had started, but his greatest pleasure, if he was honest, was in demonstrating how easily (usually) he could provide the answers to the clues that baffled Teague.

  He had the feeling about this case that he used to have with a difficult crossword. You’d be struggling, then get a couple of clues and suddenly everything fell into place. The drugs, the Reyes family, Crouch’s connections with the Philippines. The amounts of money Crouch had stashed away weren’t much but there could be more. PF? Peter Farrell or not? Could be a coincidence, though if he were trying to solve a clue in a crossword and he already had two infrequent letters in place, and found a word which fitted and which was somehow connected with the clue, he’d be pretty confident that it was the right one.

  The train slowed down and lurched to a stop at Dorking Deepdene. A young blond woman in shorts dragging a large suitcase passed the window, evidently intending to board their carriage. Immediately Teague was up and striding to the door. Through the window, Healey saw him step down from the platform, say something to the woman, take the case from her, and climb back on board, the woman following him. Healey heard the door slam and expected to see the two of them appear but they didn’t. They must have passed through into the next carriage. Disappointed, Healey picked up the paper that Teague had abandoned and, after a glance at the half-completed crossword, turned to the sports pages.

  ‘It’s a very simple story, Chief Inspector,’ said the Customs Officer, small and neat in his crisp white shirt with a dark blue tie, a Londoner thought Healey from his accent. Healey and Teague sat on the other side of his grey metal desk in an office that was noteworthy most for the fact that it had a window that gave out onto a large baggage area, perhaps twenty feet below, where hundreds of passengers were milling around carousels, or pushing trolleys, some empty, some full, in what seemed like random movements. Healey presumed that any passengers who happened to look up towards the office would not see anything but reflections.

  ‘Yes,’ repeated the officer, straightening his already perfectly placed tie, ‘a very simple story. We had a tip-off that a consignment of cannabis would be arriving on a flight from the Philippines yesterday. We checked the baggage of everyone coming through but nothing turned up. In the end there are just two cases on the carousel, going round and round. Then we see this man with a trolley standing a distance away, watching them. Can’t make up his mind. Then all of a sudden he walks straight over, grabs them, pops them on his trolley, and sets off for the green lane.’

  ‘Where you stopped him,’ put in Teague.

  The customs officer looked at him in mock surprise. ‘Yes, strangely enough, that’s just what we did.’ He paused to see the effect of his remark but Teague looked straight back at him, as if oblivious of the sarcasm.

  The officer continued, ‘He denied all knowledge of the contents, said he was collecting the cases as a favour for a friend. A still unnamed friend, I might add. Someone he says he doesn’t want to get into trouble.’ He laughed. ‘Trouble, ha! He’s the one in trouble.’ His accent was unmistakably London now and Healey half expected him to go on to say ‘Cor blimey’ or ‘Strike a light’ in his excitement.

  ‘Is it possible to see his passport?’ asked Healey.

  The man pulled open the drawer and took from it a green-covered passport similar to the one that Healey had examined earlier that morning and passed it to Healey, who thumbed through it before handing it back.

  ‘I think we can be pretty sure that this isn’t his passport,’ he said.

  ‘No?’ The man didn’t seem very surprised.

  ‘Tell me, how would you describe his English?’

  ‘Ropey?’

  ‘Well, Ricardo Reyes is supposed to have excellent English. He teaches for the British Council in Manila. The man you’re holding is probably his brother, Roberto Reyes. Said to be a businessman over here to make contacts.’

  ‘He’s certainly done that,’ said the customs officer. He put his hands on the desk as if to stand, but paused. ‘I understand that you want to see him in connection with a murder, is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then he could be in even more serious trouble.’

  Healey made a noncommittal gesture with his head. ‘We’ll have to see,’ he said. ‘Can we speak to him now?’

  The customs officer stood up. ‘This way, gentlemen. Mr Reyes awaits you.�
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  ‘Just one thing,’ said Healey. ‘What was the name on the luggage?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I should have told you. There was no name. No airline tag. Either it was never put on or, more likely, someone took it off for them at the other end.’

  ‘How do you think the cases got on board?’

  ‘Interesting you should ask that. Could have happened in a number of ways. Most likely a passenger. Especially as there is an actual Miss Reyes on the flight list, would you believe? Unfortunately, by the time we had the gentleman’s name, she’d already been through immigration and customs. Could be a coincidence but I doubt it somehow.’ The customs officer looked at Healey. ‘I suppose you’re wondering how he managed to get into the baggage hall.’ Healey did not demur. ‘Well so are we,’ the customs officer continued. ‘He had a ticket for an earlier flight from Paris on him but he wasn’t listed on it. But that isn’t of interest to you, is it?’

  Before going into the interview room, they watched Reyes on the closed circuit television monitor. He was sitting upright, motionless, his clasped hands resting on the desk in front of him. ‘A hard nut,’ volunteered the customs man. As Healey and Teague entered, Reyes, smaller than he had appeared on the screen and wearing an open-necked, canary yellow, long sleeve cotton shirt, looked up but otherwise did not move. He must have been about fifty, with thinning swept-back black hair, sallow skin, and hooded amber eyes that reminded Healey of a lizard. There was an ugly dark mole on the left side of his nose.

  ‘Mr Reyes,’ Healey began.

  The man continued looking at Healey but made no response.