“Calm down, Gerry,” Amos said, as soon as he could butt in. “What on earth are you on about?”
“Your TV show,” came the answer. “It’s all very well giving out YOUR name and OUR number just as long as you’re here to pick up the pieces. What are you doing back in Lincoln anyway?”
What indeed, Amos suddenly wondered. Why on earth hadn’t he and Swift carried on to Boston? The one good thing about it was that he now had a completely new light on the character of the hitherto saintly Simeon Knowles.
“You mean the interview with Look North went out?” Amos asked in surprise.
“It went out at lunchtime on the early edition,” Burnside snapped irritably. “Don’t tell me you’d forgotten about it?”
Amos had indeed forgotten all about it, given the distractions of events at home, at the doctor’s surgery and then chatting to Jenkins. In any case, he had not expected the interview to be broadcast until that evening, when the pictures would also be published in the Lincolnshire evening papers. Presumably the Look North producer had decided to steal a march on the print media.
“Sorry, Gerry,” Amos said briskly, before remembering that inspectors had no need to apologise to sergeants, “we’ve been tying up some loose ends with Dr Austin and we had to come back to HQ to talk to Sergeant Jenkins, who had some personal knowledge of the deceased. We’ll get down to you as quickly as we can.”
Amos rang home to warn his wife that he would be working late but there was no response. Had she gone off to her sister’s, like the last time?
Then he called Swift into his office so they could speak in private. In view of the incident with Swift’s boyfriend Jason the previous evening, Amos offered his deputy the option of working on at HQ and getting home at a reasonable time that evening.
Swift promptly declined.
“I don’t allow my private life to interfere with my work, sir, as you well know,” she said curtly.
“That’s fine,” Amos replied. “It’s just that Gerry is holding the fort down there and is keen to help so it wouldn’t have been a problem.”
Swift’s face fell for a moment at the mention of Gerry Burnside but she swiftly pulled herself together and followed Amos to the car park, more determined than ever not to be usurped.
“In that case, would you drive, please,” Amos asked, handing the keys to Swift.
She grabbed them eagerly. At least they would get to Boston in time to get on with the case.
Amos was deep in thought throughout the journey. He really had not been concentrating properly on the case. It was not just the strain at home, nor was it the fact that there was just one, obvious, suspect who was taunting him.
What was preying on his mind was the attitude of the Chief Constable. Sir Robert Fletcher had initially made it clear that he would have preferred a different inspector on the case because he wanted a quick resolution. Now he was now putting an obstacle in the way by blocking the post mortem.
It was more than just the post mortem. That in itself was insignificant, since even Amos did not expect it to throw up anything that he did not already know. It was more the growing suspicion that Sir Robert wanted the inquiry pushed back until it could be dropped quietly.
He no longer wanted a quick, dramatic arrest. He had not been in touch with Amos to see how the case was going. That would normally not have been untoward, especially when there was a pet campaign on the go. However, on the rare occasions when Fletcher had a personal interest in a case he would be continuously interfering.
The more he thought about it, the more Amos became convinced that the Chief Constable wanted him to fail.
Chapter 25
“Some names keep cropping up in the phone calls,” Gerry Burnside said as Paul Amos and Juliet Swift entered the incident room, where three detective constables were taking the calls. All three constables were on the phone, scribbling away.
Burnside handed Amos several sheets of typed paper, some with additional notes in pen scribbled on as afterthoughts. As Amos glanced down the list, Burnside slid past him and edged a little more closely than decency would allow to Swift, who backed away as discreetly as she could.
Amos acted to distract the Boston sergeant.
“No offers on the couple in their forties, I take it, Gerry?” the detective inspector asked.
“Not so far,” Burnside admitted. “Once we’d got names confirmed for the others in the photos we started asking the callers if they knew them but they can’t be local. No-one saw them come into the church, or leave, and they didn’t speak to anyone as far as we can ascertain.”
“We’ll start with the woman and child,” Amos announced peremptorily. “They’re nearest.”
“A bit grisly, taking a child to watch a man plunge to his death, don’t you think, Sir,” Swift objected, while seizing the opportunity to move round to the other side of Amos, nearer the door and further from the attentive Burnside.
“I’m not thinking of her as a suspect,” Amos conceded. “But she was there. Did she see anything? And did the boy see anything? Why have they not come forward?”
Burnside insisted that Amos and Swift take a burly uniformed constable with them to guard the car while it was parked. When they arrived at the house they understood why.
It was in a rundown terrace in a cul-de-sac with large potholes in the road, the odd brick lying around and a car jacked up on bricks with the wheels removed and the windows smashed in. There was no other vehicle in sight.
Eve German, the woman named by several callers, lived halfway down on the left hand side, though so few houses had numbers on that they had to start at No.15 and count up to 27 in odd numbers. The screwholes in the door that once bore this number could be seen among the peeling paintwork.
The window frame was rotten to the point where strips of newspaper had been pushed into the gaps to keep out the rain and draughts.
Amos knocked as loudly as he dared, fearing that a door panel would give way – just two raps with his knuckles. Almost immediately he heard running feet coming up behind the door, which was opened by the small boy in the photographs. He looked distinctly unkempt, with holes in his pullover where it was coming unravelled and short trousers that looked a size too small for him.
The woman who had been identified as Eve German by respondents to the TV interview hurried belatedly to stop him.
At least they had settled which woman on the photographs the boy was with, Amos thought, though it probably didn’t greatly matter.
Amos stepped inside the door and showed his warrant card. The woman looked relieved. Perhaps, Amos wondered, she had feared that her visitors were the loan sharks who preyed on this area of Boston.
“Mrs German,” he said, “we just wanted to ask you a few questions about the unfortunate incident at the Stump on Saturday. You were there at the time.”
“Stephen, go up to your room and play while I talk to these people,” the woman told the boy. “Stay close to the wall.”
The front door had led directly into the front room and a door at the back was ajar, giving a glimpse of a kitchen containing a very old but remarkably clean gas oven and hob. In fact, as Amos glanced round, the front room was surprisingly clean and tidy. There was a small table with two wooden chairs and one battered armchair.
Along one side wall ran a steep staircase open to the room except for a rickety looking handrail.
The youngster left reluctantly but he kept to the wall as instructed as he climbed the stairs. German watched him all the way.
“You’ll have to sit where you can,” German said apologetically.
Amos pulled out a chair at the table and nodded to the armchair for Swift, so German sat at the table opposite the inspector.
“It’s Miss German, by the way,” she said tartly. “I’m not married.”
“My apologies,” Amos said. “Miss German, can you tell us please why you were at Boston Stump on Saturday morning with, I assume, your son.”
“Yes, he�
�s my son,” German answered defiantly, as if she was being accused of having a child out of wedlock by a court of morals.
“The Stump,” Amos prompted.
“We make our own entertainment here. As you can see, we don’t have a television set, just a radio some kind person gave us.”
“Was that person Simeon Knowles by any chance?” Swift asked from the armchair.
“No, it most certainly was not,” German said indignantly.
“Miss German,” Amos said soothingly, after looking at the battered radio which stood on the table between them. “We’re not here to accuse you of anything or to pass judgement on your lifestyle. We are here because you may have seen something that will help us to determine how Mr Knowles fell to his death. So, do I take it you went to the Stump to see the abseiling as a free trip out?”
Slightly mollified, German nodded her assent.
“Did you know Mr Knowles or did you see anyone else you recognised at the Stump.”
“No.”
“When you went into the church, did you see a man wearing a harness? Did you go anywhere near him.”
“I think I saw him,” German said cautiously, “but I didn’t go anywhere near him. There were lots of people milling around and the bells were clanging. We didn’t stay in the church because it was so noisy and Stephen was frightened. We went across the footbridge to the other side of the river.”
“Did you see a woman with the man wearing the harness?”
“I don’t think so. I can’t remember but there were lots of people.”
“Miss German,” Amos said quietly but firmly. “Why did you not come forward as a witness after Mr Knowles fell to his death? We were appealing in the local media for witnesses.”
“We don’t have a television so I didn’t see your appeal,” came the rejoinder. “And we don’t take a newspaper either. I can’t afford them.”
As Amos opened his mouth to speak, he was interrupted by a small voice from the top of the stairs. Stephen had crept out of his room without anyone noticing.
“Are you here about evil granddad?” he asked.
German spun round in horror but before she could stop her son from saying more, the boy looked straight at Amos and added innocently: “He fell from the top of the tower.”
Chapter 26
A shocked silence descended on the small front room where Miss German and her young son eked out a basic existence.
Realising he had said something he should not have done, but unaware of the bombshell he had just dropped, Stephen burst into tears and started to hurry down the stairs, sobbing “Sorry Mummy” and grabbing at the unstable handrail.
German leapt up in alarm and rushed over to hold the rail steady as her son half tumbled down the stairs and she hugged him tightly, reassuring him that he had done nothing wrong. As the sobs subsided, she carried him over to the chair at the table and sat him on her knee, still hugging him.
“Miss German,” Amos said simply, “I think you have some explaining to do.”
The woman nodded but waited for a few seconds until she was sure that Stephen was all right. However, she made no attempt to release her son.
“Yes,” she finally admitted, “Simeon Knowles was Stephen’s grandfather. I say ‘was’, not because Knowles is dead, but because he disowned us. He never was a proper grandfather.”
“So Knowles’s son was Stephen’s father?” Amos stated the obvious. “Did Simeon Knowles know?”
“Oh, he knew all right,” German said bitterly. “He knew.”
She paused to look down at her silent and immobile son, clasped safely in her arms, and she kissed him lightly on the top of his head before continuing.
“John – that’s Stephen’s dad – and I met at a dance at the Gliderdrome in Boston one Saturday night. We really hit it off. John was working in a solicitor’s office in Boston and doing really well. Simeon – and his wife – were really proud of him back then.
“They certainly weren’t amused when I shipped up at their home one day. Their very-posh, everything-in-its-place home. They obviously thought I wasn’t good enough. I’d come from a pretty lowly beginning. In fact, I was brought up in a children’s home and went to the local primary school and then a comprehensive.
“I had to stand a fair amount of bullying to get to university and I had to work my way through to a degree with no help from anyone except the sympathetic woman who rented me a room.
“John had it all on a plate. But I didn’t resent that. He was a lovely bloke, hardworking and considerate. He had bought a house with a mortgage in one of the better ends of Boston because he wanted to stand on his own two feet and not rely on his parents.
“They didn’t like him leaving home but they accepted it because they had no choice. What they couldn’t accept was me moving in with John. They were staunch churchgoers and they regarded it as living in sin. Finally, when all attempts to persuade John to break up with me failed, they refused to have anything more to do with him.
“John was very upset, even more so when his mother died soon afterwards. He and I were Christians in the true meaning of the word, not churchgoers but people who tried to live decent lives and help others. We didn’t believe in God and we certainly weren’t going to get married in a church. We were fine as we were.
“I was teaching English in a school in the town for a couple of years and then I became pregnant. John was overjoyed and while it wasn’t something I was counting on I was happy because he was happy.
“John told his father because he hoped that a grandchild would bring a reconciliation. He told John I was a gold digger and I had got pregnant on purpose to trap him. John was even more outraged than I was because he knew it wasn’t true.
“Stephen was born seven years ago and for the next three years we were wonderfully happy apart from the sadness of being estranged from John’s family. He had a sister who disappeared off to Australia and apart from his father he had no-one. I felt for him because I had no-one either.
“Then, when Stephen was three, John died of a heart attack. I have always believed that the strain with his parents took its toll. But for Stephen and me, the horror was just beginning. Have you read any Charles Dickens, inspector? Bleak House, where a brilliant legal brain omits to make a will, with disastrous consequences?
“John hadn’t made a will. He died intestate. The house was in his name – he’d bought it before I moved in and I suppose the taunts from his father about me being a gold digger meant I never pressed him to put it into joint names. The car and his investments were also in his name only.
“You’ve heard the saying ‘he’d rob his own grandmother’? Simeon Knowles actually did rob his own grandchild. He took everything. He went to court to get us evicted. That was another disaster. We left the house thinking the council would rehouse us but they said we had made ourselves homeless. It seems we should have waited for the court to appoint a bailiff to escort us off the premises.
“I had a bit of cash in the account I had when I was teaching so we managed to rent this ghastly place and we’ve lived off benefits ever since. I’m trying to get back into teaching now Stephen’s a bit older.”
“You realise this gives you a motive, and you were there when it happened,” Swift said sternly. “Why did you lie to us?”
German made no reply. She was quietly sobbing, her son clinging to her.
“I think that’s enough for now, Miss German,” Amos said gently. “We’ll see ourselves out.”
Chapter 27
Jonas Tomlinson lived on the northern outskirts of Boston in a better area where homes were sparser but generally well appointed. However, this house, like Eve German’s, had clearly seen better days. So, too, had Tomlinson.
Amos and Swift were shocked to be greeted by a thin, elderly man with unkempt hair in scruffy clothes and sporting three days of stubble on his chin. He had looked quite respectable in the photographs, shaven, hair combed and wearing a suit, albeit one that hung rather
loosely on his spare frame and with a tie not properly fastened.
Had they met him in the street they would not have recognised him from the photograph. Even on his own doorstep, Amos felt obliged to say “Mr Tomlinson?” as a question rather than a statement of the obvious.
Tomlinson nodded and invited them in, without bothering to ask for identification. Were they so obviously police officers or was Tomlinson glad of the company? Amos wondered as he entered the front door.
While German had made a valiant attempt to keep the interior of her home in as clean and tidy a state as possible, Tomlinson had made no such effort.
The narrow hallway badly needed decorating. The wallpaper was dirty where people had rubbed against it as they entered and you could see the lines where the wallpaper abutted. Newspapers were scattered around the lounge floor and a plate and beaker stood on a small table. The television was switched on in the corner.
Tomlinson hastily switched off the mindless game show he had been watching, grabbed the plate and beaker and offered the officers a cup of tea. Swift, who had followed at the rear and had taken the opportunity of peeping into the kitchen unnoticed by Tomlinson, hastily declined and shot Amos a glance to advise that he do likewise. The detective sergeant had seen the pile of unwashed crockery in the washing up bowl and on the kitchen table.
“That’s fine, Mr Tomlinson,” Amos said. “We just want to ask you a few questions.”
“Are you from the Boston Standard?” Tomlinson asked. “Is it about the drainage system?”
“Neither. We’re police officers and we’ve come about the incident at Boston Stump on Saturday morning.”
Tomlinson looked genuinely surprised but disappointed. His face fell.
“Oh, all right,” he said lamely.
“Mr Tomlinson,” Amos went on. “You were seen at Boston Parish Church on Saturday morning. Why were you there?”
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