by Ted Tayler
“Thank you, ladies,” said their employer. Daphne and Suzanne left without making a sound.
The tick on the clock seemed to get louder as Nick Barrett stirred two lumps of sugar into his milky coffee.
“To business then, gentlemen,” he said, sitting back in his chair.
“DS Sherman contacted you and informed you that we were taking a fresh look into your friend’s death,” said Gus. “I want you to tell me everything you remember about your good friend, Gerry Hogan.”
“Where do I start?” said Nick Barrett.
“From the beginning, sir,” said Gus, “and don’t leave anything out.”
CHAPTER 4
Gus knew they were in for the long haul. The man hiding behind the impressive desk enjoyed being the centre of attention. By giving Nick Barrett free rein to talk about himself just as much as Gerry Hogan, they could learn an awful lot.
It was easy to read through a murder file and absorb details of the victim, the suspects, and the eye-witnesses, without getting behind the words on the paper and analysing the leading players' genuine character in the drama.
Gus wondered how Gerry Hogan, an intelligent, hard-working, faithful husband and partner, suffered a pompous prig like Nick Barrett.
“It’s so long ago now, Mr Freeman,” said Barrett. He took a bite out of a Bourbon and sipped his coffee. “We met at Fitzmaurice Grammar in September 1969. We remained in the top stream together for the next five years, although we weren’t always in the same classes when we chose O-Level subjects. Gerry had already decided that the Sciences weren’t his forte, and frankly, as he was hell-bent on finance as a profession, they were next to useless. We both studied Mathematics and English Language, of course. Gerry was more of an athlete than I and had other friends from the school football, rugby, and cricket teams, but we became friends. I invited him to my twelfth birthday party, and Gerry returned the favour eight weeks later. So it continued. Gerry and I both lived in the town. We bumped into one another at the youth club on Mason’s Lane, cycled around the local villages watching the girls go by as the song said. We survived those awkward early teenage years, and when around a quarter of us returned to the sixth form to study A-Levels, Gerry and I found ourselves in the same common room. He chose Maths, Economics, and Geography, while I opted for History, English, and Geography. They couldn’t keep us apart for the entire two years. Barrett and Hogan. Batman and Robin. We both got A’s across the board. We put in the work and got our reward. I remember telling DI Kirkpatrick when I spoke to him six years ago that Gerry was like me in that regard. He had his heart set on a particular career, and nothing was going to stop him. There were always distractions, from students who wanted to smoke, drink, and get up to all kinds of mischief. They would have deflected us from our goal. Sometimes Gerry kept me on the straight and narrow, that’s for sure.”
“You didn’t have the same reasons for wanting to achieve your goal, did you, sir?” said Gus.
Barrett finished a second Bourbon and picked up a Garibaldi.
“You see through me, Mr Freeman,” he sighed. “I would have chosen the arts, music, drama, perhaps. My father sat here in this chair and his father before him. I had no choice but to pursue a career in law.”
“You both did exceptionally well in your A-Levels,” said Gus. “That must have opened more options in your choice of university. Yet Gerry went just up the road to Bristol to study Business and Finance.”
“Bristol is still in the top five UK universities at which to study Law, Mr Freeman. It wasn’t a rash choice. Gerry and I learned to drive with the same instructor, bought cars from the same second-hand lot, and took it in turns to drive backwards and forwards. That’s not to say we didn’t immerse ourselves in the undergraduate experience. We certainly did that. Not for the first time, Gerry came to my rescue when I was in danger of falling foul of the law.”
“After you graduated, did you come straight here to work with your father?” asked Gus. “Was there a room available for you upstairs?”
“This firm was in transition, Mr Freeman,” said Barrett. “When my grandfather opened the doors here on Head Street, he covered anything and everything. Of course, legislation was quite different a century ago, and when my father replaced Joseph as head of the firm, he tried to adjust to the changing times. By the time I arrived here from Bristol, he had specialised. We still handled criminal cases in those days, but the crime rate in a small country town does not keep the wolf from the door. I could tell that our future looked bleak unless we modernised and specialised. My father and I disagreed on that matter, so when Gerry told me of his plans after we’d graduated, I was only too glad to accompany him on his travels.”
“You went to Australia for a gap year together then?” asked Gus.
“We did, and what an eventful nine months that was,” said Barrett.
“Perhaps you can tell us more in a moment, sir,” said Gus. “What happened while you were away?”
“My father was part of the furniture here with Barrett’s from the early 1950s, working alongside my grandfather. Joseph Senior passed in 1978 while I was at university. So, as you can see, Joseph Junior had had only had a couple of years at the helm. He’d been in the shadow of his father for so long that when the full glare of the spotlight fell on him, it soon became apparent that he wasn’t up to the task. Clients who had been with us for years moved elsewhere. Large companies closed as imports crippled our industrial base. The writing was on the wall. The firm was on the brink of collapse, and my father did the only thing he could. He invited Bruce Atkins to join the firm. Bruce is a very able chap in the industrial accident and personal injury field.”
“Where there’s blame, there’s a claim,” said Gus.
“A crude description of what Bruce does, Mr Freeman. We’re not ambulance chasers like those on the other side of the Atlantic. When I returned from my backpacking adventure, I found the new partnership was a fait accompli. My father was in his mid-fifties and not in the best of health. I couldn’t argue with the decision to adjust the range of services we offered, but I could see that Bruce was only a sticking plaster that would keep us afloat for two, maybe three years. I could also see that my father wasn’t the right person to drive the firm's necessary changes. I persuaded him to step aside so that I could search for another partner. One who specialised in another area that offered the possibilities of a steady income stream.”
“Natalie Flook, I assume,” said Gus.
“No, Natalie only became a partner ten years ago. Fergus Dillon occupied Room Three upstairs from the early Eighties until he retired.”
“From what I can tell in the time I’ve been here, the adjustments you’ve made appear to have worked,” said Gus. “The firm is in a far healthier state than when you took charge.”
“One does one’s best, Mr Freeman.
“We know that Gerry Hogan returned from Australia only weeks before Evelyn flew to join him. You were their best man, weren’t you? Did anyone rush from the other side of the world to meet up with you following your adventures?”
“Look at me, Mr Freeman,” said Nick Barrett. “Imagine how I looked in my early twenties. I was short, overweight, and ordinary looking at best. Gerry wasn’t a blond Adonis, but he had a far higher strike rate with the females than I ever did. That was true in the youth club on Mason’s Lane, on the university campus, or in any pubs and clubs in Bristol where students gathered to socialise. I tagged along on our travels to Australia, talked to dozens of girls on the same voyage of discovery, but when Gerry and I flew home, my powder was still dry.”
“Does that mean there isn’t a young Barrett in the wings ready to join the firm?” asked Gus.
“I found someone eventually, Mr Freeman. I was in my early forties; Ginny was three years younger. We have a daughter, Josephine, who has no interest in the law. I’m happy to say that she’s following the path that I craved. Josie is an accomplished musician with hopes to become an actress. A career in mus
ical theatre could be where she makes her mark. Ginny and I will support her every inch of the way. Five more years and this place will have a new name on the letter heading. Bruce Atkins will find a bright young thing to join the partnership, and Ginny and I can grow old gracefully.”
“Unlike your best friend Gerry Hogan,” said Gus. “Tell us about that Australian trip now, Mr Barrett. When DI Kirkpatrick carried out his investigation six years ago, he couldn’t find a single person who might have wanted to murder Gerry. That killer had to come from somewhere in his past. I’ve studied the murder file in detail, and I can’t see evidence of much digging into what went on in the months before Gerry met Evelyn on the beach at Bondi.”
“At the end of February, we took the late-evening flight from Heathrow with Singapore Airlines and settled in for the fourteen-hour flight to Singapore. Gerry’s father drove us from home. He knew my father had already issued instructions on what to do and what to avoid at all costs. Gerry’s father just told us to have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do type of thing. We had a delay before we took the connecting flight to Darwin, but after twenty-three hours of travelling, we landed in Oz. After we collected our bags and reached the arrival hall, we soon found a rather striking looking girl waving a placard for a hostel on our list of potential places to stay. Thirty minutes later, we walked outside into blistering heat and got in a combi-van with fellow travellers for the brief trip to our digs. The place was rough and ready. It marked the start of a succession of hostels where we slept, except for the drunken nights we spent on a beach somewhere. Within a month, I’d done the things my father told me not to do at least once, except finding a girl short-sighted enough to have sex with me.”
“Gerry was more successful, I take it?” asked Gus.
“I don’t know what other friends did in those situations, Mr Freeman,” said Nick Barrett. “We would visit a bar, start drinking Toohey’s, and check out the talent. Gerry was always better at chatting up the girls than I was, so I carried on drinking while he tried his luck. When he found two girls willing to join us, I’d loosened up sufficiently to hold a conversation with whichever girl wasn’t his target. When we spoke next morning, he didn’t go into great detail about whether they’d had a splendid night or a disaster. Thank goodness. Gerry was an honourable man. He wouldn’t brag about his sexual exploits, nor would he say anything disparaging about the young ladies in question. If you pressed me for a number of nights when Gerry didn’t sleep in the same room as me or close by me on a beach under the stars, I’d say five or six. One of those nights was different. That was the night he met Evelyn. She was a beauty. I could tell from the get-go that Gerry was smitten. I hadn’t planned to sleep on the beach that night, but after another scorching hot day, a series of barbies where a hundred travellers congregated, drinking, smoking dope, and singing until the early hours, I couldn’t get up off the sand. I was wasted. I fell asleep next to an eighteen-stone New Zealander who must have drunk two cans to each can that I managed and didn’t stir until dawn. I remember stepping carefully through the arms, legs, and heads of youngsters still asleep. Everyone had stayed right where they were that night. Gerry was at the hostel when I stumbled in. We were almost at the end of our trip. I was fed up with sand in my bum crack every day. He didn’t want to fly home. All he talked about on the flights from Sydney to Singapore, then Singapore to Heathrow, was Evelyn.”
“Evelyn flew to the UK to join Gerry a month later,” said Gus. “They married in a registry office and then lived in Clifton. What did you make of that?”
“I was just glad to be in Bradford-on-Avon,” said Barrett. “Long hot baths, the comforts of home. I wouldn’t have missed that trip for the world, but I was in the thick of it here, trying to steer the firm into calmer waters. I liked Evelyn. She was a lovely girl, perfect for Gerry, and they made a handsome couple. I was proud to be asked to be his best man.”
“After they married and rented that place in Clifton, did you see much of them?” asked Gus.
“Alas, no,” said Barrett. “I was surplus to requirements. A third wheel, and a busy man. Gerry and Evelyn were making their way in their chosen careers too, and when they had spare time, they naturally spent it together. We didn’t lose touch entirely, and when Gerry bought his place on Trowle Common and my godsons arrived, Gerry and I met up far more frequently. Evelyn stayed at home with the children. Gerry and I would play snooker in the club on Market Street. It was one sport where I could join in with him without embarrassing myself. Gerry loved the game, as I’m sure you have learned.”
“Whose idea was it to include a games room into the extensions to the Trowle Common property?” asked Gus.
“Not Evelyn’s, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Nick Barrett. “She was happy for Gerry to see an old friend. Evelyn wasn’t the sort to keep her man tied to the home. Everyone needs a little space at times, don’t they? Gerry popped into Bradford for a few frames of snooker and a beer with me. Evelyn went upstairs to her studio and worked on her wildlife portfolio while Sean and Byron slept in the bedrooms next door. After I married, Ginny was probably glad of a few hours of peace while she looked after our infant daughter. Like you, Mr Freeman, I struggled to think of anyone who might wish Gerry harm. He avoided trouble in his teenage years; his behaviour in his business life was exemplary. Nobody had a nasty word to say about him. Gerry had a fine grounding in that regard working at Hargreaves Lansdown. I knew several of Gerry’s neighbours on the Common. He was a good neighbour too, never fell out with anyone. That was Gerry; he always wanted to be seen to do the right thing, not attract any dirt that might stick to him and cause problems later in his life. Gerry didn’t deserve to lose Evelyn as he did when she was doing something so worthwhile. Why do bad things happen to decent people? Then he found Rachel, and Ginny and I were pleased for him. He had a second chance to find happiness. When I heard about the shooting, it devastated me. Gerry Hogan was one of the finest men I’ve ever met. I miss his company.”
“Did you keep in touch with Sean and Byron?” asked Gus. “As their godfather?”
“A different generation, Mr Freeman, and a tricky situation. Belinda started throwing accusations around like confetti after the contents of the will got made public. We didn’t deal with that document. Gerry used a smaller firm on Market Street. Rachel was the major benefactor. Belinda received a lump sum, and Sean will get his inheritance next year when he reaches twenty-five. Byron has a further two years to wait. Rachel was less approachable than Evelyn. The snooker nights had reduced in frequency, partly due to Rachel, but Sean and Byron could play snooker with their father. Byron, more often than not, beat his father in the months before Gerry died. After Gerry’s murder, it wasn’t clear what might happen to the trio’s living arrangements. Sean was eighteen, and Byron sixteen. Rachel was a touch over thirty.”
“Was there any talk?” asked Gus.
“When isn’t there, Mr Freeman?” said Nick Barrett. “Far too many people have their minds in the gutter. Did the rumours have any substance? I didn’t think so for one minute.”
“How was the situation resolved?” asked Gus.
“Sean was due to go to university in September,” said Nick Barrett, “while Byron should have started his A-Levels. The boys lost their mother in 2002 and then their father ten years later. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they rebelled after such tragedies. However, Gerry instilled the same standards of decent behaviour in his boys that I had admired for so long. Sean’s A-Levels followed a similar path to his father. He was destined to join his Dad in the financial services sector. Byron was less academic and took after his mother. Rachel had no interest in the business that she inherited but was sensible enough to employ a manager to keep things running while Sean studied for his degree. No prizes for guessing where he studied. As for Byron, he is now a professional snooker player aiming to make it out of the Challenge Tour onto the World Snooker Tour circuit.”
“So, we can find Sean running his
father’s old business,” said Gus.
“Sean is still only twenty-four. Only a handful of the many thousands of financial services firms have over five employees. Many firms are run by just one person. Sean kept the services of Daniel Braund, Rachel’s manager, and as far as I know, has no intention of flying solo in the immediate future.”
“Is there anything else you think we need to know, sir?” asked Gus.
“Byron is in Turkey this week at a hotel in Antalya, playing in a tournament. Other than that, I have nothing.”
“When was the last time you spoke with Rachel Cummins, sir?” asked Gus.
“Five years ago, possibly. I’ve had no reason to make contact. Sean Hogan plays snooker in the club that his father used. I see him there from time to time. It’s Sean that keeps me appraised of Byron’s progress.”
“I think that’s it for now, sir,” said Gus. “We need to interview family members as soon as possible. Perhaps they will throw a chink of light on what happened six years ago. I must admit the whole thing has me baffled.”
“Join the club, Mr Freeman,” said Nick Barrett.
Neil and Gus left Nick Barrett behind his desk, looking out of the window at the well-maintained lawn and shrubbery below.
“The bloke can certainly talk, guv,” he said.
“That man is an expert at speaking at length and saying nothing that helps.”
As Neil opened the front door and stepped back to allow his boss to leave first, Gus glanced through the glass partition into the inner sanctum. Daphne and Suzanne had stopped work and were staring straight at him. He gave them a friendly wave. They both stood up and made their way towards Mr Nicholas’s office. Gus half-expected the glass barrier between them to become frosted.