Last Reminder

by Stuart Pawson

  ‘Ooh, great,’ he answered, rising to his feet. As he threaded his arms into his jacket he asked, ‘Are we taking the murder bag with us?’

  ‘Might as well,’ I told him.

  Dave turned to the table where DC Margaret Madison was deep in conversation with three uniformed WPCs. ‘Maggie,’ he called.

  She looked up at us.

  ‘You’re wanted.’

  Mad Maggie took a final gulp from her mug and joined us. ‘What’s so funny?’ she asked, warily eyeing each of us in turn.

  ‘Dave made a sexist comment,’ I told her. ‘We’ve a suspicious death. Let’s go.’

  ‘Umph!’ she retorted, glowering at him.

  A uniformed constable, male, at an adjacent table, was reaching over for the ketchup. Maggie took the opportunity to snaffle the Eccles cake from his side plate as we passed by.

  ‘That’s called theft,’ I informed her.

  ‘Then I’m safe as houses. This lot couldn’t catch a train.’

  I collected all the available information from the duty sergeant while Dave fetched anything we might need from the office upstairs. We piled the stuff in the boot of my car and set off. Sweetwater is an upmarket development on the outskirts of Heckley, encroaching on to the moors like bracken does. I’d considered moving there myself when they started building, until I saw the prices. Maggie knew the area, and gave me directions through a mouthful of crumbs.

  ‘Don’t make a mess in my car,’ I warned her.

  ‘Soddy, both,’ she replied. ‘It’th the nexg threet on the lebd.’

  It was the last house, separated from its neighbour by about fifty yards of what the estate agent probably referred to as paddock and a thriving hawthorn hedge. It was posh, private and remote. Young Constable Ireland was waiting at the gate.

  ‘Good morning, Graham,’ I greeted him, having asked the duty sergeant for his first name. ‘What have you got for us, then?’

  He gabbled a description of what he’d seen when he entered the house, stressing that he hadn’t touched anything and not leaping to any conclusions. Usually they have it solved before I arrive, until the facts emerge.

  ‘Was this door open?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, sir. Well, unlocked.’

  ‘I see. This’ll be your first suspicious death?’ I surmised.

  ‘Yes, Mr Priest, sir.’

  ‘OK, this is what happens. I take a peek inside, as carefully as possible, to confirm what you’ve already told us. If I’m satisfied that it looks like murder we send for the duty detective superintendent who takes over as SIO. He will then bring in all the boffins and momentum does the rest. Where’s the milkman who reported it?’

  ‘He rang from home, sir. Apparently he’d noticed that Sunday’s delivery was still on the doorstep when he came this morning. He finished his round, but was concerned, so he rang us.’

  ‘He delivers on Sundays?’

  ‘He must do, sir.’

  ‘Blimey, the man’s a paragon. He’ll be winning a good citizen’s award if he’s not careful.’ A fairly new Ford Scorpio stood in the drive. ‘Presumably he’d noticed that the car was still here. What’s the householder called?’

  ‘He’s a Mr Goodrich, sir.’

  ‘Goodrich, right. Now the first thing for you to remember, Graham, is that I don’t like being called sir. Use it when somebody of a higher rank is here, if you want, but otherwise, forget it.’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  It makes me feel old, and I’ve never subscribed to all this deference towards rank. That’s why my promising career peaked at inspector, and I am now the longest-serving DI in the force. Sometimes I wonder if I’m like one of those women you see at office parties who are the wrong side of middle age, but who wear the shortest skirts and kick their legs higher than their younger rivals. No doubt about it, but at least a man can compete and still retain some of his dignity. Right at that moment I felt anything but dignified as I wriggled into a nifty pale blue overall and drew the hood over my head.

  ‘You don’t ’alf look a pillock in one of those,’ Sparky confirmed.

  I took the disposable paper overboots he was offering and we walked to the front door of the imposing house. A pint of milk, gold top, stood on the step. I slipped the overboots on, and a pair of rubber gloves, then gingerly turned the door handle.

  Graham had told me what to expect, but I still felt that familiar, intoxicating cocktail of nerves and curiosity as I edged down the passageway, casting my eyes from side to side, taking in the furniture and bric-à-brac that were like a fingerprint of a person’s life. Or of a marriage, perhaps. Poor Graham must have been scared silly when he walked in here. We’d take him for a pint, afterwards.

  Goodrich was in the kitchen, slumped in a rocking chair facing the Aga stove. The kitchen was huge, and I could tell that this was the room in which he, or the family, if there was one, spent most of their time. It was a good room, large, but still warm and cosy. Farmhouse, in agent-speak.

  The curtains were closed and the television was on. A blond-haired surf-clone was begging a girl in a bikini to come back to him, against a backdrop of the Wallagongawalla hills. Meanwhile, in the house, someone had done the washing-up. One plate, one knife and fork, one coffee mug, one pan. I knew the scene only too well. A glass of whisky – Knockando, according to the bottle – stood on the Aga, and another mug contained the makings for a fresh cup of Nescafé. The kettle was full but cold, and he’d never got round to brewing his drink.

  An apparent reason wasn’t difficult to deduce. In his bald spot, towards the back of his head, was a gaping gash about an inch long. Lying on the floor, spilling its soil across the carpet, was a plant pot containing what I later discovered was a Dieffenbachia picta. I knelt down and saw where the edge of the heavy pot had made contact with skin and skull.

  Maggie had armed young Graham with a book to keep a log of all visitors. They and Sparky gathered round when I emerged.

  ‘Single blow to the head with a plant pot,’ I told them. ‘Hardly a frenzied attack. Not much blood, possibly not immediately fatal. I get the feeling that he lives alone, but maybe has a cleaner or housekeeper. Rigor mortis, glass of whisky by his side, so he probably died last night. And he must have known his attacker well enough for them to be a visitor to his house.’

  Sparky said, ‘So we’ll see what the neighbours have to say, eh?’

  ‘You and Maggie, yes please. Meanwhile I’ll send for the cavalry and get out of this lot. I feel like Woody Allen doing his impersonation of a sperm cell.’

  ‘No, you’re much funnier,’ Maggie assured me.

  There’s a buzz in the air at the beginning of a murder enquiry. The adrenaline is pumping and you feel as if you are standing at the brink of some great discovery. Murder is the ultimate crime, with no going back. In the next few hours we would know more about the late Mr Goodrich than his bathroom mirror did. And perhaps we would know who hated him enough to kill him.

  Most of all we needed to know who and what the dead man was. How did he earn his living? What was his social life like? More plainly, what did he do for money and sex? Maggie and Dave went knocking on doors. Neighbours can be amazingly forthright when they know that any comebacks are unlikely. The houses were widely spaced, so there weren’t too many doors to knock on in the immediate vicinity. In my street the builder would have fitted another three desirable dwellings, ideal for the first-time buyer, between Goodrich’s and the house next door. Maggie and Dave would ask the neighbours about him, his friends, his lifestyle; and about any odd movements, strange cars, et cetera, in the street. Slowly, we would build up a tapestry, leading us to the point where the guy in the last panel catches the arrow in his eye.

  I took a quick look round the exterior of the house while waiting for the sub-divisional officer and the scenes of crime officers to arrive. It was made from fine old stone, probably reclaimed from some demolished Victorian building in the town, like a workhouse or a mill, or some other temple to sufferin
g, and the SOCOs would paint the whole place silver with their aluminium fingerprint powder. There were three or four bedrooms, at a guess, with a double garage stuck on one side and what looked like an office extension on the other. The garden was designed for economy of effort – mainly grass, with a few shrubs and fruit trees round the edge. Once again I recognised the style. My ultimate ambition is to replace my grass with Astroturf. There were no footprints, no discarded swag bags, no signs of forced entry.

  The scenes of crime van arrived and I let the officers in after a brief discussion. If they decided that the kitchen was where it all happened – the locus of the crime, to use the jargon – then I wanted to be let loose in the rest of the house as soon as possible.

  ‘Start with that,’ I suggested, pointing to the bottle of gold top standing on the step of the side door. ‘Let’s not waste time looking for the milkman.’

  Next to arrive was Gilbert Wood, my superintendent. ‘Hello, Gilbert. What are you doing here?’ I asked.

  ‘Les Isles should have come but he can’t make it. They made an arrest yesterday in one of his other cases and time’s running out. He says can we manage and to keep him informed. So,’ he said and rubbed his hands together, ‘here I am to keep a weather eye on my ace detective.’

  ‘Great,’ I replied. ‘The old firm back together again.’

  ‘The old firm indeed. So what have we got?’

  ‘Male victim, fiftyish,’ I told him. ‘Killed by a single blow to the head. Broken plant pot, complete with plant, lying on the floor. Not a very determined attack – I’ve had worse knocks playing football. Possibly he died afterwards; choked or something. Rigor mortis, so he’s been dead a while. Maggie and Dave are talking to the neighbours.’

  ‘What about motive?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like robbery, at this stage. He’s sitting in his chair, with the telly on, so he must have known his assailant. Door not locked, no sign of forced entry. Looks as if they let themselves in, or out, walked up behind him, picked up the plant pot, and pow!’ I did a little demonstration of bashing someone’s skull in with a flower arrangement.

  The SOCO came out, a bunch of keys dangling from his hand. He nodded to Mr Wood and turned to me. ‘Excuse me, Mr Priest. There’s an office at the side of the house. I’ve unlocked the outside door, so you can be having a look in there, if you want. The internal door was locked, so there’s probably nothing in it for us.’

  ‘Great. Thanks.’ I led Gilbert round the side and we let ourselves in.

  The room was L-shaped, a single storey extension with lots of windows. It looked as if clients called on him, for the bottom bit of the L was a waiting area, with four chairs and a coffee table with magazines. Executive Car, What Boat? and Investment Monthly should have given me a clue to how Goodrich earned his crust, but they didn’t.

  He had the biggest leather chair I’d ever seen, looking out of place behind the type of desk you can buy flat-packed in any office furniture store. On other desks there were two PCs, with VDUs, keyboards and a shared printer; fax machine, duplicator and shredder; and two walls were lined with filing cabinets. Between all these was an assortment of stacks of trays in coloured plastic, all flooding over with paperwork.

  I didn’t know where to start, and Mr Wood didn’t offer any help. The blotter pad on Goodrich’s desk was from the Prudential and his walls bore calendars from Norwich Union and Sun Alliance. His diary had the Eagle Star logo embossed on the front and alongside it was a jotter pad from Scottish Widows.

  ‘He’s an insurance man,’ I concluded. They pay me a lot of money to arrive at conclusions like that.

  Gilbert studied the diary while I riffled through a few drawers of files. Some were filled with glossy leaflets and presentations from various companies, but I soon found the ones filled with his clients’ files, all in neat alphabetical order. There were eight cabinets of them, each with four stuffed drawers. They started at Aaron and went right through to Mr and Mrs Zwendsloot. Somebody had some work to do.

  Sparky poked his head round the door. ‘Morning, Mr Wood,’ he said.

  ‘Good morning, David. Glad to see we’ve got some brains on the job.’

  ‘She did it,’ I told them, holding up Mrs Zwendsloot’s file. ‘It’s bound to be the last one we look at.’

  ‘Thought you might like to know – he was a financial adviser,’ Sparky announced.

  ‘A financial adviser?’ we echoed in unison.

  ‘That’s right. The neighbour told me.’

  ‘Just what I thought,’ Gilbert claimed.

  ‘Well, if you’re going to ask’ I protested. ‘Anybody can ask.’

  ‘The neighbour’s called Eastwood,’ Sparky said. ‘Might be a good idea if you had a word with him, Charlie. He seems to know a bit about the victim.’

  ‘Right. Will do.’ Sparky might still be a constable after serving as long as me, but I always do as he says.

  Gilbert said, ‘I’ll get back to the factory, start things at that end. Incident room over there?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Want me to drag the HOLMES team in?’

  I nodded my head. ‘Yeah, but only one of them. I can’t see us needing it. I haven’t heard of any other financial advisers being bumped off.’

  ‘OK. What help do you need?’

  I threw a desperate glance at the rows of filing cabinets. ‘What’s the chances of getting someone from the Fraud Squad to have a look at these? He might even be known to them already.’

  ‘Will do. I’ll see you when you get back.’

  Dave led me round to the neighbour’s house. It was in the same style as Goodrich’s, but smaller and the garden was well kept. Eastwood was as tidy as the garden. He was late middle-aged, with neat grey hair and one of those scrubbed complexions that looks as if it belongs on a baby. He wore a patterned cardigan that might have been a Christmas present from an aunt who thought he was still a teenager, and a striped tie. And shiny shoes. People who wear a tie and leather shoes in their own homes disconcert me.

  Sparky introduced us. ‘I wonder if you could repeat to Inspector Priest what you have already told me about Mr Goodrich.’ With a conspiratorial wink he added, ‘Then I don’t have to write it down.’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ Eastwood replied with a smile. He didn’t seem perturbed by the fact that his next-door neighbour was lying, or more precisely, sitting, with his head bashed in.

  He gave us the general background that we needed.

  Goodrich was single and lived alone. He had been a financial adviser, dealing with clients all over the East Pennine region and was famous for his involvement with a variety of worthy causes. He had a reputation for supporting local charities and for an ability to commute modest savings into serious wealth.

  ‘You sound sceptical,’ I interrupted.

  ‘Do I?’ Eastwood replied, with exaggerated surprise.

  ‘So what was the secret of his success?’

  ‘Well, for a start, he was a master of self-publicity. And he’d made a few good investments, but he didn’t realise that it was just good luck. He thought he was clever. Infallible. Believed his own publicity. There’s only one way to make a lot of money on the markets, Inspector, and it’s the same as the way for losing a lot of money.’

  I leant forward, waiting for the secret to be revealed. This could be useful.

  ‘Gambling,’ he explained.

  ‘Gambling?’

  ‘That’s right. Going for the big-interest investments. Trouble is, this year’s top earner is often next year’s disaster. Goodrich thought he could pick them out, but he just had a little luck. He only advertised his successes, nobody knows about the fortunes he lost.’

  ‘So you weren’t one of his clients?’

  ‘No chance, thank God. I am assistant manager of the Heckley branch of the York and Durham, so all my investments are through them.’

  ‘Lucky you. What else can you tell us about him?’ I’d let him volunteer what he could, then ask the searc
hing questions. Like: did you kill him?

  ‘Well,’ he continued, ‘six months ago, his luck ran out. He was declared bankrupt. Apparently it was the talk of the neighbourhood, but unfortunately I was away on holiday; missed all the gossip. Since then he’s lived like a recluse.’

  Sparky said, ‘So what will have happened to all his clients?’

  Eastwood shrugged. ‘Nobody knows. It’s all up in the air. Some will have lost their money, others will have had their investments frozen. Either way, there’s a lot of angry people after Hartley’s hide. Apparently,’ he added with relish, ‘quite a few of them are retired police officers.’

  Hartley. Hartley Goodrich. A fine name for a whizz-kid. I wondered if growing up with a name like Goodrich had made it inevitable that he would drift into the world of high finance. As soon as he learnt the meanings of the components of his name, did the cells down one side of his body grow larger, subtly bending him towards anything that smelt of money? There used to be a dentist in Halifax called I. Pullem, and I remember marvelling at such an incredible coincidence, but it wasn’t. Long before the poor kid had cut his own first tooth his relatives would bounce him on their knees, saying, ‘By ’eck, our Ian, tha’ll make a reet good dentist when tha grows up.’ It wasn’t a coincidence, it was inevitable.

  And then there’s me. Priest. I was never ordained – didn’t like the uniform – but I do take confessions.

  ‘When did you last see him?’ I asked.

  After some thought he said, ‘Last Wednesday.’ They’d crossed paths in the doorway of the newsagent’s shop, about a quarter of a mile away, and exchanged good mornings.

  ‘And you haven’t seen or heard of him since?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not, Inspector.’

  ‘Did you notice any comings and goings over the weekend?’

  He shook his head. ‘Sorry, but no. You see, the two houses are separated by the hedge and are almost invisible to each other. Also, I spend a lot of time in my little workshop, at the other side. At the moment I’m constructing a model of the Temeraire.’

  ‘The Fighting Temeraire?’ I wondered.