“Got it,” Richmond said. Then a locked file called SUMMARY.924 came to the screen:
“What the hell is all that about?” Banks asked.
“It looks like financial records for the last quarter of 1992,” Gristhorpe said. “Companies, banks, dates, maybe numbered accounts. Keep going, Phil. Try that ‘LETTER’ file you mentioned.”
Richmond highlighted the locked file, tapped at the keyboard again, and the file appeared unscrambled, for all to see.
It was a letter, dated 1st May and addressed to a Mr Daniel Clegg, Solicitor, of Park Square, Leeds, and on first glance, it seemed innocuous enough:
Dear Mr Clegg,
In the light of certain information that has recently come to my attention, I regret that we must terminate our association.
Yours faithfully,
Keith Rothwell
“That’s it?” Gristhorpe asked. “Are you sure you didn’t lose anything?”
Richmond returned to the keyboard to check, then shook his head. “No, sir. That’s it.”
Banks backed towards the door. “Interesting,” he said. “I wonder what ‘information’ that was?” He looked at Gristhorpe, who said, “Get it printed out, will you, Phil, before it disappears into the bloody ether.”
SIX
I
In Park Square on that fine Monday morning in May, with the pink and white blossom still on the trees, Banks could easily have imagined himself a Regency dandy out for a stroll while composing a satire upon the Prince’s latest folly.
Opposite the Town Hall and the Court Centre, but hidden behind Westgate, Park Square is one of the few examples of elegant, late eighteenth-century Leeds remaining. Unlike most of the fashionable West End squares, it survived Benjamin Gott’s Bean Ing Mills, an enormous steam-powered woollen factory which literally smoked out the middle-classes and sent them scurrying north to the fresher air of Headingley, Chapel Allerton and Roundhay, away from the soot and smoke carried over the town on the prevailing westerly winds.
Banks faced the terrace of nicely restored two- and three-storey Georgian houses, built of red brick and yellow sandstone, with their black iron railings, Queen Anne pediments and classical-style doorways with columns and entablatures. Very impressive, he thought, finding the right house. As expected, it was just the kind of place to have several polished brass nameplates beside the door, one of which read “Daniel Clegg, Solicitor.”
A list on the wall inside the open front door told him that the office he wanted was on the first floor. He walked up, saw the name on the frosted-glass door, then knocked and entered.
He found himself in a dim anteroom that smelled vaguely of paint, where a woman sat behind a desk sorting through a stack of letters. When he came in, he noticed a look of fear flash through her eyes, quickly replaced by one of suspicion. “Can I help you?” she asked, as if she didn’t really want to.
She was about thirty, Banks guessed, with curly brown hair, a thin, olive-complexioned face and a rather long nose. Her pale green eyes were pink around the rims. She wore a loose fawn cardigan over her white blouse, despite the heat. Banks introduced himself and showed his card. “I’d like to see Mr Clegg,” he said. “Is he around?”
“He’s not here.”
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“No.” It sounded like “dough.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“No.”
“What’s your name?”
“Elizabeth. Elizabeth Moorhead. I’m Mr Clegg’s secretary. Everyone calls me Betty.” She took a crumpled paper tissue from the sleeve of her cardigan and blew her nose. “Cold,” she said. “Godda cold. In May. Can you believe it? I hate summer colds.”
“I’d like to see Mr Clegg, Betty,” Banks said again. “Is there a problem?”
“I should say so.”
“Can I help?”
She drew back a bit, as if still deciding whether to trust him. “What do you want him for?”
Banks hesitated for a moment, then told her. At least he would get some kind of reaction. “I wanted to ask a few questions about Keith Rothwell.”
Her brow wrinkled in a frown. “Mr Rothwell? Yes, of course. Poor Mr Rothwell. He and Mr Clegg had some business together now and then. I read about him in the papers. It was terrible what happened.”
“Did you know him well?”
“Mr Rothwell? No, not at all, not really. But he’d been here, in this office. I mean, I knew him to say hello to.”
“When did you see him last?”
“Just last week, it was. Tuesday or Wednesday, I think. He was standing right there where you are now. Isn’t it terrible?”
Banks agreed that it was. “Can you try and remember which day it was? It could be important.”
She muttered to herself about appointments and flipped through a heavy book on her desk. Finally, she said, “It was Wednesday, just before I finished for the day at five. Mr Rothwell didn’t have an appointment, but I remember because it was just after Mr Hoskins left, a client. Mr Rothwell had to wait out here a few moments and we chatted about how lovely the gardens are at this time of year.”
“That’s all you talked about?”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“Then Mr Clegg came out and they went off.”
“Do you know where?”
“No, but I think they went for a drink. They had business to discuss.”
So Rothwell had visited Clegg in Leeds the day before his murder, almost two weeks after the letter ending their association. Why? It certainly hadn’t been noted in his appointment book. “How did Mr Rothwell seem?” he asked.
“No different from usual.”
“And Mr Clegg?”
“Fine. Why are you asking?”
“Did you notice any tension between them?”
“No.”
“Has anything odd been happening around here lately? Has Mr Clegg received any strange messages, for example?”
“No-o.” Some hesitation there. He would get back to it later.
Banks glanced around the small, tidy anteroom. “Does everything go through you? Mail, phone calls?”
“Most things, yes. But Mr Clegg has a private line, too.”
“I see. How did he react to the news of Mr Rothwell’s death?”
She studied Banks closely, then appeared to decide to trust him. She sighed and rested her hands on the desk, palms down. “That’s just the problem,” she said. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since. He’s not here. I mean, he’s not just out of the office right now, but he’s disappeared. Into thin air.”
“Disappeared? Have you told the local police?”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to look a fool.”
“Has he done anything like this before?”
“No. Never. But if he has just gone off … you know. With a woman or something … I mean he could have, couldn’t he?”
“When did you last see him?”
“Last Thursday. He left the office about half past five and that was the last I saw of him. He didn’t come in to work on Friday morning.”
“Have you tried to call him at home?”
“Yes, but all I got was the answering machine.”
“Did he say anything about a business trip?” Banks asked.
“No. And he usually tells me if he’s going to be away for any length of time.”
“Do you know what kind of business relationship Mr Clegg had with Keith Rothwell?”
“No. I’m only his secretary. Mr Clegg didn’t take me into his confidence. All I know is that Mr Rothwell came to the office now and then and sometimes they’d go out to lunch together, or for drinks after work. I knew Mr Rothwell was an accountant, so I supposed it would be something to do with tax. Mr Clegg specializes in tax law, you see. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”
“Maybe you can be. It seems a bit of a coincidence, doesn’t it, Mr Rothwell getting killed and Mr Clegg disa
ppearing around the same time?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t hear about Mr Rothwell’s death until Saturday. I just never thought …”
“Have you ever heard of someone called Robert Calvert?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? Did Mr Clegg never mention the name?”
“No. He wasn’t a client. I’m sure I’d remember.”
“Why didn’t you get in touch with the police when you realized Mr Clegg had disappeared and you heard about Mr Rothwell’s murder?”
“Why should I? Mr Clegg had a lot of clients. He knew a lot of businessmen.”
“But they don’t usually get murdered.”
She sneezed. “No. As I said, it’s tragic what happened, but I don’t see how as it connects with Mr Clegg.”
“Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn’t,” Banks said. “But don’t you think that’s for us to decide?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” She reached for the tissue again. This time it disintegrated when she blew her nose. She dropped it in the waste-paper bin and took a fresh one from the box on her desk.
Banks regarded her closely. He didn’t think she was lying or evading the issue; she simply didn’t understand what he was getting at. He sometimes expected everyone to view the world with the same suspicious mind and jaundiced eye as he did. Besides, she didn’t know about the letter Rothwell had left in the locked file.
He sat on the edge of the desk. “Right, Betty, let’s go back a bit. When I came in, you were frightened. Why?”
She paused for a moment, then said, “I thought you might be one of them again.”
“One of whom?”
“On Saturday morning I was here doing some filing and two men came in and started asking questions about Mr Clegg. They weren’t very nice.”
“Is that what you were thinking of when I asked you earlier if anything odd had been going on?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“It … I … I didn’t connect it. You’ve got me all confused.”
“All right, Betty, take it easy. Did they hurt you?”
“Of course not. Or I certainly would have called the police. You see, sometimes in this business you get people who are … well, less than polite. They get upset about money and sometimes they don’t care who they take it out on.”
“And these men were just rude?”
“Yes. Well, just a bit brusque, really. Nothing unusual. I mean, I’m only a secretary, right? I’m not important. They can afford to be short with me.”
“So what bothered you? Why does it stick in your mind? Why were you frightened? Did they threaten you?”
“Not in so many words. But I got the impression that they were testing me to see what I knew. I think they realized early on that I didn’t know anything. If they’d thought differently, I’m sure they would have hurt me. Don’t ask me how I know. I could just feel it. There was something about them, some sort of coldness in their eyes, as if they’d done terrible things, or witnessed terrible things.” She shivered. “I don’t know. I can’t explain. They were the kind of people you look away from when they make eye contact.”
“What did they want to know about?”
“Where Mr Clegg was.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes. I asked them why they wanted to know, but they just said they had important business with him. I’d never seen them before, and I’m sure I’d know if they were new clients.”
“Did they leave their names?”
“No.”
“What did they look like?”
“Just ordinary businessmen, really. One was black and the other white. They both wore dark suits, white shirts, ties. I can’t remember what colours.”
“What about their height?”
“Both about the same. Around six foot, I’d say. But the white one was burly. You know, he had thick shoulders and a round chest, like a wrestler or something. He had very fair hair, but he was going bald on top. He tried to disguise it by growing the hair at the side longer and combing it right over, but I just think that looks silly, don’t you? The black man was thin and fit looking. More like a runner than a wrestler. He did most of the talking.”
Banks got her to describe them in as much detail as she could and took notes. They certainly didn’t match Alison Rothwell’s description of the two men in black who had tied her up and killed her father. “What about their accents?” he asked.
“Not local. The black one sounded a bit cultured, well educated, and the other didn’t speak much. I think he had a slight foreign accent, though I couldn’t swear to it and I can’t tell you where from.”
“You’ve done fine, Betty.” “I have?”
Banks nodded.
“There’s something else,” she said. “When I came in this morning, I got the impression that someone had been in the place since then. Again, I can’t say why, and I certainly couldn’t prove it, but in this job you develop a feel for the way things should be— you know, files, documents, that sort of thing—and you can just tell if something’s out of place without knowing what it really is, if you follow my drift.”
“Were there any signs of forced entry?”
“No. Nothing obvious, nothing like that. Not that it would be difficult to get in here. It’s hardly the Tower of London. I locked myself out once when Mr Clegg was away on business and I just slipped my Visa card in the door and opened it.” She put her hand to her mouth. “Oops. I don’t suppose I should be telling you that, should I?”
Banks smiled. “It’s all right, Betty. I’ve had to get into my car with a coat-hanger more than once. Was anything missing?”
“Not so far as I can tell. It’s pretty secure inside. There’s a good, strong safe and it doesn’t look as if anyone tried to tamper with it.”
“Could it have been Mr Clegg?”
“I suppose so. He sometimes comes in on a Sunday if there’s something important in progress.” Then she shook her head. “But no. If it had been Mr Clegg I’d have known. Things would have looked different. They looked the same, but not quite the same, if you know what I mean.”
“As if someone had messed things up and tried to restore them to the way they were originally?”
“Yes.”
“Do you employ a cleaning lady?”
“Yes, but she comes Thursday evenings. It can’t have been her.”
“Did she arrive as usual last Thursday?”
“Yes.”
“May I have a look in the office?”
Betty got up, took a key from her drawer and opened Clegg’s door for him. He stood on the threshold and saw a small office with shelves of law books, box files and filing cabinets. Clegg also had a computer and stacks of disks on a desk at right angles to the one on which he did his other paperwork. The window, closed and locked, Banks noticed, looked out over the central square with its neatly cut grass, shady trees and people sitting on benches. The office was hot and stuffy.
Certainly nothing looked out of the ordinary. Banks was careful not to disturb anything. Soon, the Fraud Squad would be here to pore over the books and look for whatever the link was between Rothwell and Clegg.
“Better keep it locked,” he told Betty on his way out. “There’ll be more police here this afternoon, most likely. May I use the phone?”
Betty nodded.
Banks phoned Ken Blackstone at Millgarth and told him briefly what the situation was. Ken said he’d send a car over right away. Next he phoned Superintendent Gristhorpe in Eastvale and reported his findings. Gristhorpe said he’d get in touch with the Fraud Squad and see if they could co-ordinate with West Yorkshire.
He turned back to Betty. “You’ll be all right here,” he said. “I’ll wait until the locals arrive. They’ll need you to answer more questions. Just tell them everything you told me. What’s your address, in case I need to get in touch?”
She gave him the address of her flat in Burmantofts. “What do you t
hink has happened?” she asked, reaching for her tissue again.
Banks shook his head.
“You don’t think anything’s happened to him, do you?”
“It’s probably nothing,” Banks said, without conviction. “Don’t worry, we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“It’s just that Melissa will be so upset.”
“Who’s Melissa?”
“Oh, didn’t you know? It’s Mrs Clegg. His wife.”
II
After a hurried bowl of vegetable soup in the Golden Grill, Susan Gay walked out into the street, with its familiar smells and noises: petrol fumes, of course; car horns; fresh coffee; bread from the bakery; a busker playing a flute by the church doors.
In the cobbled market square, she noticed an impromptu evan-gelist set up his soapbox and start rabbiting on about judgment and sin. It made her feel vaguely guilty just hearing him, and as she went into the station, she contemplated asking one of the uniforms to go out and move him on. There must be a law against it somewhere on the books. Disturbing the peace of an overworked DC?
Charity prevailed, and she went up to her office. It faced the car park out back, so she wouldn’t have to listen to him there.
First, she took out the blue file cards she liked to make notes on and pinned them to the cork-board over her desk. It was the same board, she remembered, that Sergeant Hatchley had used for his pin-ups of page-three girls with vacuous smiles and enormous breasts. Now Hatchley was due back any moment. What a thought.
Then, after she had made another appointment to talk to Laurence Pratt, she luxuriated in the empty office, stretching like a cat, feeling as if she were in a deep, warm bubble-bath. Out of the window she could see the maintenance men with their shirtsleeves rolled up washing the patrol cars in the large car park. Sun glinted on their rings and watch-straps and on the shiny chrome they polished; it spread rainbows of oily sheen on the bright windscreens.
One of the men, in particular, caught her eye: well-muscled, but not overbearingly so, with a lock of blond hair that slipped over his eye and bounced as he rubbed the bonnet in long, slow strokes. The telephone broke into her fantasy. She picked it up. “Hello. Eastvale CID. Can I help you?”
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