Final Account

by Peter Robinson

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was he surprised?”

  “When he first came in and they grabbed him, yes.”

  “But after?”

  “I … I don’t know. He didn’t do anything or say anything. He just stood there.”

  “Do you think he recognized the men?”

  “How could he? They were all covered up.”

  “Did he seem surprised after the immediate shock had worn off?”

  “I don’t think he did, no. Just … resigned.”

  “Was he expecting them?”

  “I … I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “Do you think he knew them, knew why they were there?”

  “How could he?”

  She spoke with such disbelief that Banks wondered if she had noticed that her father really wasn’t so shocked or surprised and it confused her. “Do you think he knew what was happening?” he pressed. “Why it was happening?”

  “Maybe. No. I don’t know. He couldn’t possibly, could he?” She screwed up her eyes. “I can’t see it that clearly. I don’t want to see it clearly.”

  “All right, Alison. It’s all right. I’m sorry, but I have to ask.”

  “I know. I don’t mean to be a cry-baby.” She rubbed her bare arm over her eyes.

  “You’re being very brave. Just one more question about what happened and then we’ll move on. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Did your father go quietly or did they have to force him?”

  “No, he just walked out with them. He didn’t say anything.”

  “Did he look frightened?”

  “He didn’t look anything.” She reddened. “And he didn’t do anything. He just left Mum and me all tied up and let them take him and … and kill him like an animal.”

  “All right, Alison, calm down. How did you get free from the chair after they’d gone?”

  Alison sniffled and blew her nose. “It was a long time,” she said finally. “Hours maybe. Some of the time I just sat there, but not really there, if you know what I mean. I think Mum had fainted. They’d really tied us tight and I couldn’t feel my hands properly.”

  As she spoke, she rubbed at her wrists, still ringed by the burn-marks. “In the end, I tipped my chair and crawled over near the table where my mother’s sewing basket was. I knew there were scissors in there. I had to rub my hands for a long time, so they could feel properly, and I don’t know how … but in the end I cut the rope, then I untied Mum.” She shifted her position. “I’m worried about Mum. She’s not herself. She doesn’t want to eat. What’s going to happen to her?”

  “I’m all right, Alison, dear. There’s no need to worry.”

  The voice came from the doorway, and Banks turned for his first glance of Mrs Rothwell. She was a tall woman with short grey hair and fine-boned, angular features, the small nose perhaps just a little too sharply chiselled. There seemed an unusually wide space, Banks thought, between her nose and her thin upper lip, which gave her tilted head a haughty, imperious aspect. Banks could see where Alison got her small mouth from.

  Her chestnut-brown eyes looked dull. Tranquillizers prescribed by Dr Burns, Banks guessed. They would help to explain her listless movements, too. Her skin was pale, as if drained of blood, though Banks could tell she had put some make-up on. In fact, she had made a great effort to look her best. She wore black silk slacks over her thin, boyish hips, and a cable-knit jumper in a rainbow pattern, which looked to Banks’s untutored eye like an exclusive design. At least he had never seen one like it before. Even in her sedated grief, there was something controlled, commanding and attention-demanding about her, a kind of tightly reined-in power.

  She sat down in the other armchair, crossed her legs and clasped her hands on her lap. Banks noticed the chunky rings on her fingers: diamond clusters, a large ruby and a broad gold wedding band.

  Banks introduced himself and expressed his condolences. She inclined her head slightly in acceptance.

  “I’m afraid I have some difficult questions for you, Mrs Rothwell,” he said.

  “Not about last night,” she said, one bejewelled hand going to her throat. “I can’t talk about it. I feel faint, my voice goes and I just can’t talk.”

  “Mummy,” said Alison. “I’ve told him about … about that. Haven’t I?” And she looked at Banks as if daring him to disagree.

  “Yes,” he said. “Actually, it wasn’t that I wanted to ask about specifically. It’s just that we need more information on your husband’s movements and activities. Can you help?”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry, Chief Inspector. I’m not usually such a mess.” She touched her hair. “I must look dreadful.”

  Banks murmured a compliment. “Did your husband have any enemies that you knew of?” he asked.

  “No. None at all. But then he didn’t bore me with the details of his business. I really had no idea what kind of people he dealt with.” Her accent, Banks noticed, was Eastvale filtered through elocution lessons. Elocution lessons. He hadn’t thought people took those in this day and age.

  “So he never brought his business home, so to speak?”

  “No.”

  “Did he travel much?”

  “Do you mean abroad?”

  “Anywhere.”

  “Well, he did go abroad now and then, on business, and of course, we’d holiday in Mexico, Hawaii or Bermuda. He also travelled a lot locally in the course of business. He was away a lot.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Oh, all over. Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol. Sometimes to London, Europe. He had a very important job. He was a brilliant financial analyst, much in demand. He could pick and choose his clients, could Keith, he didn’t have to take just any old thing that came along.”

  “You mentioned financial analysis. What exactly did he do?”

  She picked at the wool on her sleeve with long, bony fingers. “As I said, he didn’t tell me much about work, not about the details, anyway. He qualified as a chartered accountant, of course, but that was only part of it. He had a genius for figures. He advised people what to do with their money, helped businesses out of difficulties. I suppose he was a kind of trouble-shooter, if you like. A very exclusive one. He didn’t need any new clients and people only found out about him by word of mouth.”

  That all sounded sufficiently vague to be suspicious to Banks. On the other hand, what did he do? Investigate crimes, yes. But to do so, he chatted with locals over a pint, interviewed bereaved relatives, pored over fingerprints and blood samples. It would all sound rather nebulous and aimless to an outsider.

  “And you never met any of his business associates?”

  “We had people for dinner occasionally, but we never talked business.”

  “Maybe, if you have a moment later, you could make a list of those you entertained most frequently?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “If you want.”

  “Now, Mrs Rothwell,” Banks said, wishing he could have a cigarette in what was obviously a non-smoking household, “this next question may strike you as rather indelicate, but were there any problems in the family?”

  “Of course not. We’re a happy family. Aren’t we, Alison?”

  Alison looked at Banks. “Yes, Mother,” she said.

  Banks turned back to Mrs Rothwell. “Had your husband been behaving at all unusually recently?” he asked. “Had you noticed any changes in him?”

  She frowned. “He had been a bit edgy, tense, a bit more preoccupied and secretive than usual. I mean, he was always quiet, but he’d been even more so.”

  “For how long?”

  She shrugged. “Two or three weeks.”

  “But he never told you what was wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ask?”

  “My husband didn’t appreciate people prying into his private business affairs, Chief Inspector.”

  “Not even his wife?”

  “I assumed that if and
when he wanted to tell me, he would do so.”

  “What did you talk about over dinner yesterday?”

  She shrugged. “Just the usual things. The children, the house extension we wanted to have done … I don’t know, really. What do you talk about when you’re out for dinner with your wife?”

  Good question, Banks thought. It had been so long since he and Sandra had gone out to dinner together that he couldn’t remember what they talked about. “Did you have any idea what he might have been worried about?” he asked.

  “No. I suppose it was one of the usual business problems. Keith really cared about his clients.”

  “What business problems? I thought he didn’t talk to you about business.”

  “He didn’t, Chief Inspector. Please don’t twist what I say. He just made the occasional offhand comment. You know, maybe he’d read something in the Financial Times or something and make a comment. I never understood what he meant. Anyway, I think one of the companies he was trying to help was sinking fast. Things like that always upset him.”

  “Do you know which company?”

  “No. It’ll be on his computer. He put everything on that computer.” Suddenly, Mrs Rothwell put the back of one ringed hand to her forehead in what seemed to Banks a gesture from a nineteenth-century melodrama. Her forehead looked clammy. “I’m afraid I can’t talk any more,” she whispered. “I feel a bit faint and dizzy. I … Alison.”

  Alison helped her up and they left the room. Banks glanced over at WPC Smithies. “Have you picked up anything at all from them?” he asked.

  “Sorry, sir,” she said. “Nothing. I’ll tell you one thing, though, they’re a weird pair. It’s an odd family. I think they’re both retreating from reality, in their own ways, trying to deny what happened, or how it happened. But you can see that for yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  Banks listened to a clock tick on the mantelpiece. It was one of those timepieces with all its brass and silver innards showing inside a glass dome.

  A couple of minutes later, Alison came back. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Mummy’s still weak and in shock. The doctor gave her some pills.”

  “That’s understandable, Alison,” said Banks. “I’d almost finished, anyway. Just one last question. Do you know where your brother is? We’ll have to get in touch with him.”

  Alison picked up a postcard from the top of the piano, gave it to

  Banks and sat down again.

  The card showed the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge, which looked orange to Banks. He flipped it over. Postmarked two weeks ago, it read,

  Dear Ali,

  Love California, and San Francisco is a great city, but it’s time to move on. I’m even getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road! This sightseeing’s a tiring business so I’m off to Florida for a couple of weeks just lying in the sun. Ah, what bliss! Also to check out the motion picture conservatory in Sarasota. I’m driving down the coast highway and flying to Tampa from LA on Sunday. More news when I get there. Love to Mum,

  Tom

  “How long has he been gone?”

  “Six weeks. Just over. He left on March 31st.”

  “What does he do? What was that about a motion picture conservatory?”

  Alison gave a brief smile. “He wants to work in films. He worked in a video shop and saved up. He’s hoping to go to film college in America and learn how to become a director.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  Banks stood up. “All right, Alison,” he said. “Thanks very much for all your help. WPC Smithies will be staying here for a while, so if you need anyone … And I’ll ask the doctor to pay your mother another visit.”

  “Thank you. Please don’t worry about us.”

  Banks looked in on Richmond, who sat bathed in the bluish glow of Rothwell’s monitor, oblivious to the world, then went out to his car and lit a cigarette. He rolled the window down and listened to the birds as he smoked. Birds aside, it was bloody quiet up here. How, he wondered, could a teenager like Alison stand the isolation? As WPC Smithies had said, the Rothwells were an odd family.

  As he drove along the bumpy track to the Relton road, he slipped in a tape of Dr John playing solo New Orleans piano music. He had developed a craving for piano music—any kind of piano music—recently. He was even thinking of taking piano lessons; he wanted to learn how to play everything—classical, jazz, blues. The only thing that held him back was that he felt too old to embark on such a venture. His forty-first birthday was coming up in a couple of weeks.

  In Relton, a couple of old ladies holding shopping baskets stood chatting outside the butcher’s shop, probably about the murder.

  Banks thought again about Alison Rothwell and her mother as he pulled up outside the Black Sheep. What were they holding back? And what was it that bothered him? No matter what Mrs Rothwell and Alison had said, there was something wrong in that family, and he had a hunch that Tom Rothwell might know what it was. The sooner they contacted him the better.

  III

  Laurence Pratt delved deep in his bottom drawer and pulled out a bottle of Courvoisier VSOP and two snifters.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized to DC Susan Gay, who sat opposite him at the broad teak desk. “It’s not that I’m a secret tippler. I keep it for emergencies, and I’m afraid what you’ve just told me most definitely constitutes one. You’ll join me?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Not on duty?”

  “Sometimes,” Susan said. “But not today.”

  “Very well.” He poured himself a generous measure, swirled it and took a sip. A little colour came back to his cheeks. “Ah … that’s better.”

  “If we could get back to Mr Rothwell, sir?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. But you must understand Miss, Miss … ?”

  “Gay, sir. DC Gay.”

  She saw the inadvertent smile flash across his face. People often smiled like that when she introduced herself. “Gay” had been a perfectly good name when she was a kid—her nickname for a while had been “Happy” Gay—but now its meaning was no longer the same. One clever bugger had actually asked, “Did you say AC or DC Gay?” She comforted herself with the thought that he was doing three to five in Strangeways, thanks largely to her court evidence.

  “Yes,” he went on, a frown quickly displacing the smile. “I’d heard about Keith’s death, of course, on the radio this lunch-time, but they didn’t say how it happened. That’s a bit of a shock, to be honest. You see, I knew Keith quite well. I’m only about three years older than he, and we worked here together for some years.”

  “He left the firm five years ago, is that right?”

  “About right. A big move like that takes quite a bit of planning, quite a bit of organizing. There were client files to be transferred, that sort of thing. And he had the house to think of, too.”

  “He was a partner?”

  “Yes. My father, Jeremiah Pratt, was one of the founders of the firm. He’s retired now.”

  “I understand the family used to live in Eastvale, is that right?”

  “Yes. Quite a nice house out towards the York roundabout. Catterick Street.”

  “Why did they move?”

  “Mary always fancied living in the country. I don’t know why. She wasn’t any kind of nature girl. I think perhaps she wanted to play Lady of the Manor.”

  “Oh? Why’s that?”

  Pratt shrugged. “Just her nature.”

  “What about her husband?”

  “Keith didn’t mind. I should imagine he liked the solitude. I don’t mean he was exactly anti-social, but he was never a great mixer, not lately, anyway. He travelled a lot, too.”

  Pratt was in his mid-forties, Susan guessed, which did indeed make him just a few years older than Keith Rothwell. Quite good-looking, with a strong jaw and grey eyes, he wore his white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his mauve and green tie clipped with what looked like a silver American doll
ar sign. His hairline was receding and what hair remained was grey at the temples. He wore black-framed glasses, which sat about halfway down his nose.

  “Did you ever visit him there?”

  “Yes. My wife and I dined with the Rothwells on several occasions.”

  “Were you friends?”

  Pratt took another sip of cognac, put his hand out and waggled it from side to side. “Hmm. Somewhere between friends and colleagues, I’d say.”

  “Why did he leave Hatchard and Pratt?”

  Pratt broke eye contact and looked into the liquid he swirled in his snifter. “Ambition, maybe? Straightforward accountancy bored him. He was fond of abstractions, very good with figures. He certainly had a flair for financial management. Very creative.”

  “Does that imply fraudulent?”

  Pratt looked up at her. She couldn’t read his expression. “I resent that implication,” he said.

  “Was there any bad feeling?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “When he left the firm. Had there been any arguments, any problems?”

  “Good lord, this was five years ago!”

  “Even so.”

  Pratt adopted a stiffer tone. “No, of course there hadn’t. Everything was perfectly amicable. We were sorry to lose him, of course, but …”

  “He wasn’t fired or anything?”

  “No.”

  “Did he take any clients with him?”

  Pratt shuffled in his chair. “There will always be clients who feel they owe their loyalty to an individual member of the firm rather than to the firm as a whole.”

  “Are you sure this didn’t cause bad feeling?”

  “No, of course not. While it’s unprofessional to solicit clients and woo them away, most firms do accept that they will lose some business whenever a popular member leaves to set up on his own. Say, for example, you visit a particular dentist in a group practice. You feel comfortable with him. He understands how you feel about dentists, you feel safe with him. If he left and set up on his own, would you go with him or stay and take your chances?”

  Susan smiled. “I see what you mean. Do you think you could provide me with a list of names of the clients he took?”

  Pratt chewed his lower lip for a moment, as if debating the ethics of such a request, then said, “I don’t see why not. You could find out from his records anyway.”