Just Desserts

by J M Gregson

  Barry’s mother had been used to say when he was a small boy that money burned a hole in his pocket, that he just couldn’t wait to spend it. The phrase came back to him now, and with it came the absurd fantasy that the thing he had kept in the pocket of his jeans since the night of the murder was beginning to burn its way into the flesh beneath it. He slid his right hand for a moment from the throttle to the small bulge beneath the denim on his thigh, as if he needed reassurance that the thing was not a red-hot brand; even through the thick sausage-fingers of the gauntlets, through the black leathers which encased his limbs, he could tell that it was not so.

  But he needed to be rid of it. He had known that since the night of the murder, but he had done nothing about it, his will atrophied by his fear of discovery. With the sight of those policemen on the way to Camellia Park, his resolution was confirmed. He began immediately to implement it.

  The bolts which Alan Fitch had sent him to purchase could wait. He’d think of some explanation as to why it had taken him so long in due course. That wasn’t his primary concern now. He must get rid of the watch.

  He didn’t go into Gloucester. He took the by-pass, then roared along the complex of new roads which had been built to connect with the M5. But he ignored the turnings which would have taken him away to the north towards Birmingham or south towards Bristol and the West. They were unknown lands to Barry Hooper. He wanted somewhere as far from home as possible, but somewhere where he had been before. He couldn’t venture into completely unknown territory. Not with what he had in the pocket of his jeans. Not to do what he had to do to get rid of it.

  He opened the throttle and roared up Birdlip Hill, exulting in the power beneath his slim frame, crouching with his head low to the handlebars, staying in the overtaking lane as he passed a stream of heavy lorries as if they were standing still, slowing in the last fifty yards to walking pace as he came to the roundabout at the top of the steep rise.

  He had intended to take the turning for Cheltenham just after the roundabout, disposing of the watch at a shop there which he knew took such things. But something told him that he wanted to do this further from home, that the more miles he put between him and the place of the murder, the less likely he was to be discovered. If he went to a shop he didn’t know, that would somehow give anonymity to the transaction, and anonymity was essential to secrecy.

  He rode on to Burford, that delightful little Cotswold capital which was full of antique shops, which was sure to offer him the facility he needed. Yet the town, so full of tourist crowds which would absorb his presence in the summer months, was quiet on this bitter December Friday. Barry cruised quietly down its main street, feeling far too conspicuous, feeling as if the bow windows of the old shops were themselves observing him. He did not dismount, but turned swiftly at the bottom of the hill and accelerated back up the High Street and out of the town.

  He needed the faceless streets of a city. He tried not to panic as he got stuck for three miles behind the back of a huge van on the narrowest section of the A40. Alan Fitch was going to wonder where on earth he had got to, was going to demand an explanation for his absence. He would cross that bridge when he came to it: he had problems enough to contend with before then.

  It was a relief to get to the miles of dual carriageway which ran past the old town of Witney. He accelerated up to eighty, ninety, a hundred, passing a succession of Mercs and Jaguars and BMWs, feeling the mastery which his speed and acceleration gave him. Then he eased back the throttle and moved at a steady eighty; it would never do to be stopped for speeding, with the watch in his pocket.

  It took him longer than he had thought to find the place he wanted in Oxford, because of the one-way system. But he found a spot to park his bike at the end of the street. He looked briefly into the small window of the shop. It was full of rings and jewellery and, reassuringly, had two trays of timepieces, old and new. He marched quickly through the door, before he could lose his nerve.

  It was dark within the shop, as he had expected, and he blinked to adjust his eyes to the dimness after the brightness of the street outside. What he had not expected was to be confronted by a young woman. He had somehow expected an aged figure, full of knowledge, bent with age, shocked by nothing, and not asking him too many questions.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ Above the small, professional smile, her face was bland, deliberately impassive. This was obviously the greeting she offered everyone who entered the shop.

  ‘I’ve a watch I want to sell. A good one.’ He fumbled in the pocket of jeans which seemed suddenly too tight, had to set down his helmet and his gauntlets awkwardly on the floor to give himself the use of both hands.

  ‘We might be interested.’

  Barry glanced automatically towards the three brass balls in their triangle above the door on the street, but they were now invisible behind him. He had thought these places bought anything and everything, hadn’t anticipated a lukewarm female like this to bargain with. He said as confidently as he could, ‘You’ll want to buy this, when you see it. It’s a good one.’

  He produced the watch at last, set it down on the tray she pushed towards him across the mahogany counter. It looked good, gleaming softly yellow and expensive in the dim yellow light.

  She stared down at it, her expression still impassive. ‘It’s a Rolex.’

  Barry thought she sounded impressed, despite herself. That gave him a little more assurance, and he said boldly, ‘Didn’t I tell you it was a good one?’

  ‘Is it genuine?’

  Snotty cow. ‘Yes, of course it is.’

  ‘There are a lot of fakes about, you see. There always are, when the genuine article is as costly as a Rolex.’ She did not look at him. Instead, she turned the watch over, reached to her right, produced a powerful overhead light and an eyeglass. She studied both the front and back of the watch intently through the eyeglass. Then she put the eyeglass down and finally looked into his face. Reluctantly, to his mind, she said, ‘This appears to be the genuine article.’

  ‘I told you it was.’

  She smiled a mirthless smile. ‘In this business, you have to be certain. I’m sure you’ll understand that we can’t just take anyone’s word, however genuine he might appear.’

  Barry could tell that these were phrases she used all the time. Yet he thought he caught a note of irony in the way she had used them to him, thought he caught her glance straying to the helmet and goggles he had pushed behind his feet. Saucy little minx! He’d like to have her on the back of his bike, take her up to the ton, see if she still felt like putting him down with a wind like that howling up her skirt. She was older than he’d thought at first, probably nearly thirty. There were no rings on her perfectly manicured fingers, which seemed odd in a place where she was surrounded by them. He said, ‘I understand that you have to be careful. But this is a Rolex all right. What’s it worth?’

  She smiled at him, and this time he was sure it was a patronizing smile. ‘You mean, what are we prepared to pay for it, don’t you? We have to make a profit. Costly items tend to hang about for a long time, when we’ve had to lay out our money for them.’ It wasn’t true in this case. The serial number said the watch wasn’t more than eighteen months old; a Rolex as new as this would go within days, at the right price. ‘Have you any provenance for the watch?’

  ‘Provenance?’ He stared at her, trying not to look stupid, and failing.

  ‘We like to know something of the history, when we take in a Rolex watch.’

  ‘It belonged to my grandfather. He died last month. He always said the watch was coming to me. I’d like to keep it, but I need the money.’ He had prepared this story in case anyone asked him how he had come by the watch. Now it had all come tumbling out too suddenly, the phrases piling up on top of each other, when they should have been delivered in a much more relaxed fashion. He wished he was anywhere but in front of this cool woman, who seemed to see through everything he was saying and find it amusing. But he stuck to his g
uns: it would be as bad anywhere else he took the watch, he was sure of that now. At least he had overcome his fears and brought himself here; he was going to tell his tale and stick stubbornly to it.

  He glanced down at his leathers and said, ‘I’ve just bought a new bike, a Ducati 620. They don’t come cheap, you know.’

  The woman gave him that thin-lipped, knowing smile again. ‘I’m sure they don’t. What did you want for the watch?’

  He’d thought they would be anxious to get hold of such a valuable piece, that they’d give him a price and he might be able to get them up a little by cool bargaining. He could feel the blood rushing to his face; even the tops of his ears felt hot. He said, ‘You know the value of these things better than I do. It must be worth at least a thousand, surely?’ But he knew even as he spoke that he had let the uncertainty creep into his voice.

  The woman frowned. ‘We certainly couldn’t go as high as that. Not without a provenance. No offence, sir, but we only have your word for how you came by the piece. In the circumstances, I don’t think we could go above . . .’ She paused, glanced down at the watch again and shook her head gently. ‘Three hundred pounds.’

  ‘It’s worth more than that, surely?’

  ‘You’re welcome to take it elsewhere, sir, of course. Someone else might think differently, but I doubt whether they’ll offer you more than that. Not without any provenance.’ She shook her head, with more certainty this time, and eased the tray with the watch upon it an inch in his direction.

  ‘Four hundred.’ Barry stuck out his jaw sullenly.

  The woman smiled, knowing that the argument was over, that the bargain was going to be resolved heavily in her favour. ‘If it will help you, sir, I’ll go to three fifty. But that has to be our final offer.’

  ‘All right.’

  She nodded, approving the wisdom of his decision. ‘I’ll make you out a cheque.’

  ‘I’d prefer cash, if you don’t mind.’

  This time she did not trouble to disguise the condescension in her smile. ‘That’s not how it works, I’m afraid. We don’t hold large sums of cash on the premises nowadays – it’s against all police advice. We’ll give you a receipt for the watch, which covers you against any sharp practice on our account. But I can assure you that our cheques do not bounce.’ She smiled her first open, wide smile at the absurdity of such a notion.

  Barry took the cheque and the receipt, stowed them carefully away in the pocket of his jeans which had held the watch. She made him leave his name and address. He thought of refusing, of calling the whole thing off, even at this late stage. But he couldn’t face the prospect of beginning this ordeal again from the start, in another place like this.

  He turned away so quickly that she had to remind him to pick up his helmet and gauntlets when he had his hand on the handle of the door.

  For Barry Hooper, it was the final humiliation.

  Joanne Moss had watched the police car drive slowly up the unpaved track to the greenkeeper’s shed, had known that the police must be interviewing Alan Fitch. Barry Hooper had ridden off on that new motorbike he was so proud of before the CID men came, so they had Alan to themselves. They were up there for a good half-hour; she was surprised how long they took with the normally taciturn Fitch. Joanne wouldn’t have minded being a fly on the wall up there.

  She had expected that the CID men would call in to see her before they left Camellia Park. She was left with a sensation of flat anticlimax when the police car drove slowly past the windows of the clubhouse and turned back along the road towards Oldford. She knew that the detectives had already spoken to Mrs Nayland and her daughter, and to Chris Pearson, the manager of the enterprise. Now they had interviewed Alan Fitch, who surely came below her in the loose hierarchy of Camellia Park. If you discounted Barry Hooper, the youngest and latest of the employees, who could surely have little to tell them, she was the only one of the staff who had not yet been interviewed about the death of Patrick Nayland.

  Joanne knew it was ridiculous, but instead of being relieved, she felt a vague sense of disappointment, as if she had not been afforded her due status.

  Half an hour after the police car had left, when she had tidied the clubhouse kitchen and made sure the food she needed for a busy Saturday lunchtime was ready in the fridge, the phone rang. A rolling, unhurried, country voice. Detective Sergeant Hook, confirming the address of her flat. He sounded friendly, gave her the impression this was little more than routine, said he was sure she saw more of what went on at the little golf course than most, from her position at the hub of things in the clubhouse. They would like to talk with her in private, away from the distractions of the golf course. They would like to speak to her in her flat, that evening at six thirty.

  Her status was restored. So was her apprehension.

  It was a few minutes later on that Friday afternoon that Detective Inspector Rushton, sitting in front of his computer, collating and cross-referencing the information accruing from the team assembled for the Nayland murder, discovered an important fact.

  Facts, Superintendent Lambert always said, were the only reliable things. He was a regular Gradgrind about facts rather than guesswork, and the way you had to look for the significant ones. Well, this was a real belter of a fact. And he hadn’t gone chasing about the countryside interviewing suspects to discover it, like that old dinosaur Lambert. This fact had come to Chris Rushton directly as a result of the application of modern technology.

  Even Chris had thought he was merely observing routine when he had asked forensic to submit a sample of the dead man’s plentifully spilled blood to the people who ran the National DNA Database, for comparison with anything they had recorded there. The database retains only the DNAs of those with criminal convictions, so it seemed a very long shot in the case of an ex-Army officer and respectable businessman like Patrick Nayland.

  It was a long shot which scored a direct hit. The apparently highly respectable Mr Nayland had a conviction from eleven years earlier. He had been found guilty on a charge of Indecent Assault against a nineteen-year-old girl.

  Ten

  Joanne Moss had the tea tray ready when Lambert and Hook arrived at her flat on the dot of six thirty. Rather to her surprise, they accepted the offer; no doubt they had had a long day.

  She left the door to her living room open whilst she boiled the kettle in the neat little kitchen. They looked round the room without disguising their interest. Perhaps that was part of the training, to develop a thick skin; perhaps nosiness was a built-in habit by now for these men who looked to her so experienced. She wondered if the place looked as bare to them as it did to her, if they were remarking the empty spaces from which she had stripped photographs and memorabilia during her hasty sweeping away of significant items yesterday.

  She had dusted the surfaces, so that they could surely not realize that the now rather bare-looking room had been crowded with pictures and other trivia only a couple of days earlier. She congratulated herself again on the ruthlessness of her clearance. It was impossible that they could be aware of her expedition into Gloucester to get rid of the dustbin bag with its significant contents. All the same, she wished now that she had not left them alone in the room.

  She took advantage of the final moment of privacy to check again on her own appearance by pushing the door to and looking into the mirror on the back of it. Her dark hair was perfectly in place, her make-up light but skilfully applied. Her deep brown eyes were clear now: the puffiness around them which she thought she had detected earlier in the day seemed to have disappeared. The white blouse and grey skirt she had selected after Hook’s call to arrange this meeting still seemed appropriate; not at all gaudy, as if she was treating this death with unbecoming levity, but not too formal either, lest she should suggest that it meant more to her than was fitting.

  With her confidence thus bolstered, she picked up the tray and moved boldly back into her sitting room. They did not speak as she poured the tea and offered them bisc
uits, but she was conscious of them studying her, weighing up her appearance in a manner more open than anything she had ever experienced.

  Then Lambert said, ‘You were the person who discovered the body. Will you describe that moment for us in detail, please?’

  ‘I told your officers about it on Wednesday night, immediately after it happened.’

  ‘Nevertheless, I should like you describe it again for us now, adding anything which you may have omitted in the excitement and shock of the discovery. Begin with the moment you left the restaurant, please.’

  Was he implying she had deliberately tried to deceive the police at the time? She could deduce nothing from his demeanour. She said evenly, speaking like one in a dream, ‘Things were getting very noisy in the restaurant. We were nearly at the end of the meal and most people had drunk a fair amount – we knew we had taxis arranged to take us home at the end of the evening. The noise level was very high: I remember thinking what a row we were all making when I was on the steps down to the basement. I went into the ladies’ loo. I suppose I was in there for three or four minutes.’

  ‘Was anyone else there at the same time?’

  ‘No. I passed Michelle Nayland, Patrick’s stepdaughter, at the top of the stairs, but no one else came down to the Ladies whilst I was there.’

  She watched Hook making a brief note of the name, felt for a moment that she had betrayed the girl. Lambert said, ‘Go on, please.’

  ‘There isn’t much else to tell. As I came out of the Ladies, I noticed the door into the gents’ loo wasn’t quite closed. Then I saw Patrick’s foot – well, I didn’t realize at first whose foot it was.’ She felt herself reddening, as if she had almost given herself away. This was ridiculous. ‘I could see enough through the gap in the door to realize that whoever was in there was lying flat. My first thought was that someone had collapsed, was in need of help. I called through the doorway, but there was no reply. I think I turned to go upstairs to get help next, but then I realized that the person in there might need immediate attention. So I pushed the door wide open.’