Last Reminder

by Stuart Pawson

  ‘The Temeraire? She wouldn’t know, not living with him. I went to see her on Friday, leant on her a little.’

  ‘I know. I’ve read your notes. You think she did it, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s possible. Let’s give them five minutes, then see what it’s all about.’

  The brief was female, mid-thirties, in a suit that made her look like a Dallas undertaker and an expression to match. Appropriately sombre, but with one eye on the cash register. She introduced herself as Mrs Bannister, of the local big-wig law firm, and said that her client wished to make a prepared statement. I took the typed sheet she offered and inspected the aforementioned client.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Eastwood,’ I said, directly to her. She was wearing ski pants and an anorak with embroidery down the sleeves, and alongside her was what looked like an overnight bag. She’d come to stay. Her face was the same shade of pale as the walls and she was trembling. She just nodded a greeting.

  A brief glance at the statement told me that Mrs Eastwood admitted hitting Goodrich on the head. The only intention had been to express her anger at him, not to inflict any injury, and there were mitigating circumstances. As she was no danger to the public, bail would be applied for when she appeared before a magistrate in the morning.

  I passed the paper to Maggie and leant on my fist, rubbing a forefinger against my cheek.

  Mrs Eastwood shuffled in her plastic chair.

  ‘Would either of you like a coffee?’ I asked.

  Neither of them would.

  After a long silence I said, ‘In that case, with your permission, Mrs Bannister, I’d like to do a recorded interview with Mrs Eastwood.’ I don’t go in for all this ‘my client’ bullshit. Without waiting for a reply I spun my chair round to face the tape recorder and checked it for tapes.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’ I pressed the red button and the one with a single arrow on it and peeked through the little window to confirm that the wheels were turning. I read the date off the calendar on the wall and the time off my Timex – waterresistant to forty metres but I’ve no intention of proving it – and introduced everybody.

  We started with an ice-breaker: ‘Mrs Eastwood, would you mind telling us your address and date of birth?’

  She stumbled through it, hesitating and mixing her words up. Her hands moved from the table to her lap, and back to the table again. Her fingers were long and bony, with no rings on them. She’d left her earrings at home, too.

  ‘You were formerly married to Derek Eastwood, and shared the marital home at Sweetwater.’

  She nodded.

  ‘For the tape, please, Mrs Eastwood, if you will.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you mind if I call you Joan?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thank you. Will you tell me, Joan, why you are here, today.’

  ‘It’s in the statement, Inspector,’ Mrs Bannister interrupted.

  ‘I’d like to hear it in Joan’s words, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘But I do mind. The statement makes it perfectly clear why my client is here.’

  ‘Fair enough. According to the statement, Joan, you have admitted hitting Hartley Goodrich on the head with a plant pot.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Mrs Eastwood nods,’ I said.

  ‘Sorry. Yes. I hit him.’

  ‘That’s all right. Would you please tell us, Joan, what led up to this?’

  She gathered her thoughts for a few seconds, then launched into it. ‘I was…annoyed…mad with him. It was just like you said. I let myself in…picked up the milk bottle from the doorstep. He was watching television. We were supposed to be…supposed to be…’

  ‘Supposed to be what?’

  ‘Supposed to be going away together.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘He should have picked me up, Sunday evening, when I finished work. I thought something must be wrong – he hadn’t been too well. When I saw him, dozing in the chair, glass of whisky…I just snapped. I…I…’

  ‘You picked up the nearest thing that came to hand and hit him with it.’

  Our eyes met for the first time. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘It was a heavy plant pot,’ I told her. ‘Surely you realise that hitting a person on the head with something like that was likely to cause a very serious injury.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to hit him with it.’

  ‘Come on, Joan. It was on the table. You picked it up and brought it down on his head. How high did you raise it? This high?’ I held my hands level with my face, palms inwards.

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she protested.

  ‘Then tell me what it was like.’

  She was ringing a handkerchief between her fingers, twisting it around them. ‘I…I just picked it up. It was there on the table, where he’d left it.’

  It had been the only piece of greenery in the house. All else was dark colours, mainly shades of grey, and the only other non-geometric shapes in the place were the curves of the nymphs and bodybuilders that adorned his walls and low tables.

  ‘What do you mean by “Where he’d left it,” Joan?’ I asked. ‘Did you buy him the plant?’

  She sniffed and nodded.

  ‘Go on, please.’

  She realised that she’d strangled the hanky lifeless and put it away. ‘His house needed brightening up,’ she began. ‘I gave him the Dieffenbachia about a fortnight earlier, as a little present. Thought it might encourage him to buy a few more. When I saw it on the table, right where I’d left it, I realised he cared for that about as much as he cared for me.’

  ‘So you saw his neglect of the plant as reflecting his attitude to you. The plant was a symbol.’

  Mrs Bannister shuffled in her chair, but didn’t speak. I was earning her fee for her.

  ‘Yes,’ Joan confirmed.

  ‘Go on, please.’

  ‘I picked it up. I only intended emptying it on his head. I turned it over and the plant pot fell out of the bowl. I hadn’t realised it was in a separate pot. It landed on his head and he fell sideways. I dropped the bowl – the planter – and waited for him to sit up, but he didn’t. I looked at him, and realised he was dead. I’d killed him. I was quite calm. There was no pulse. I was on my way out when I thought about fingerprints. I took the tea-towel and wiped everything I’d touched, just like you said.’

  Mrs Bannister sat back in her plastic chair, a why-am-I-always-the-last-to-know expression on her face.

  ‘Were you and Hartley having an affair?’ I asked Joan.

  She nodded, but I let it go. ‘For how long?’

  ‘About three years, I think.’

  ‘Since before you went on the cruise?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Joan, what happened when you left York and Durham? Did you lose your job?’

  She jerked upright, staring at me. Mrs Bannister chipped in with ‘Is this relevant, Inspector?’ because she realised she’d completely lost control.

  ‘I think it might be in your client’s interest to answer the question, Mrs Bannister. Were you sacked, Joan?’

  She heaved a huge sigh, as if sloughing off all her worries. ‘Yes, I was.’

  ‘Could you tell us why?’

  ‘I suppose it has to come out. I was caught copying the files of some of our wealthier clients. Hartley – Mr Goodrich – asked me to do it.’

  ‘And then he would approach them with a view to offering alternative investments. More lucrative ones.’

  ‘Yes, something like that. I couldn’t see any harm in it, but it was dishonest.’

  Not really, I thought. The bank would have sold them to him without a second’s hesitation, if there’d been anything in it for them. Disloyal, maybe. ‘And they sacked you,’ I said.

  She nodded and gave the tiniest hint of a smile at the memory. ‘Escorted me from the premises. It was very embarrassing for Derek.’ Notoriety can be fun, she’d discovered. I’ve known it for years.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘That�
�s when my marriage collapsed. I left Derek and found a flat. Soon after, I took a job at the hospital and moved to Leeds.’

  ‘But you stayed friends with Goodrich?’

  ‘Yes. He was very supportive.’

  I should think so. He’d only destroyed her career and her marriage. I said, ‘And when you received your share of the marital home, he invested it for you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In an investment diamond?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So he lost you your money, too, or most of it.’

  ‘Yes. Hartley said he was trying to recover it for me, but I’m not sure.’

  ‘Mmm. You might be interested to learn that when we found Goodrich he was clutching a three-carat diamond. I’ve a suspicion that it was yours.’ I turned to Maggie and suggested we check it. ‘Unfortunately,’ I continued, ‘it will only be worth a fraction of what you paid for it.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  Mrs Bannister looked at her watch. ‘Could we speed things up, Inspector? I’ve another appointment at twelve.’

  She brings in a client to confess to a killing and worries about missing lunch. ‘Joan, you said you and Goodrich were going away. For a holiday or for ever?’

  ‘No, just a few days together. We…I… We’d considered moving in with each other. Well, I had. He went along with the idea at first, then changed his mind. Said he’d been on his own too long – it wouldn’t work. We decided to go away as a sort of trial, I suppose.’

  ‘So, come Sunday evening, you finished work and were waiting for him with your bags packed, but he didn’t show up.’

  ‘No. I mean, yes, that’s right.’

  ‘And first thing Monday morning you went round to see him. He was calmly watching telly, and something inside you snapped.’

  Mrs Bannister stirred in her seat, wanting to object to my putting words in her client’s mouth, but couldn’t see anything wrong with what I was suggesting.

  ‘Yes,’ Joan agreed.

  Mrs Bannister said, ‘We intended offering a plea of guilty to causing GBH, Section Twenty, but in the light of what we’ve just heard I’d suggest a Section Forty-seven assault might be more appropriate. May I have a copy of the tape and hand my client over to your custody, Inspector?’

  I had some thinking to do. Section Forty-seven is actual bodily harm, but you can’t commit it against a dead body. Technically speaking, a charge of attempting to commit ABH was possible, if Mrs Eastwood hadn’t realised he was already dead. Attempting to commit a crime is still an offence. If someone puts his hand in your pocket, not realising it only contains fluff, he is still guilty of attempted theft.

  Trouble was, she had a good defence. Mrs Bannister would claim that her client only wanted to embarrass Goodrich, cause him discomfort, and who could prove otherwise? If she’d known he was already dead we could have done her for an offence against the coroner’s legislation, but she didn’t, and although it might be a crime to conceal a dead body, there is no compulsion to report one. I felt the case go wriggling through my fingers and back into the river, like the eels I caught when I was a kid. But now, like then, I didn’t mind.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. I think we’ll let her go home.’

  ‘What do you mean, go home?’

  ‘Exactly that. Mrs Eastwood, Mrs Bannister, Hartley Goodrich died of a heart attack, sometime on the Sunday evening. When you saw him, Joan, on Monday morning, he had already been dead for about ten hours. You struck a dead body with that plant pot. You didn’t kill anybody. What I propose to do is pass the file to the Crown Prosecution Service for them to consider. I feel certain that they will deem it unlikely that it is in the public’s interest to proceed further, and recommend that no charges be made.’

  I’d considered dropping the whole thing myself, there and then, but decided that this way we would keep the coroner happy, if he asked any questions about the bump on the head.

  Neither of them moved, apart from a slight sinking motion. Joan appeared not to comprehend that she was a free woman. Mrs Bannister recovered first. ‘This is all highly irregular, Inspector,’ she declared. I think she’d have preferred a murder-one rap.

  ‘Mmm, it is, isn’t it?’ I agreed, amiably. ‘But at no time have we said that this was anything other than a suspicious death. Mrs Eastwood has admitted to an assault, but she has aptly demonstrated that she was provoked, and that her intentions were not unduly malicious. As the victim was already dead…’ I upturned my palms.

  ‘In that case… You said my client is free to leave.’

  ‘Yes. At no time has she been under arrest.’ I turned to the tape recorder. ‘Interview terminated at…eleven thirty-two.’ I clicked it off and extracted the tapes.

  Joan smiled for the first time in a week. ‘I…I don’t know what to say,’ she mumbled.

  ‘How about “Goodbye”?’ I suggested with a grin.

  Mrs Bannister grabbed her briefcase and jumped to her feet. She had an urgent appointment to attend.

  ‘Before you go,’ I said, ‘do you mind if I have a quick word with Joan in private?’

  She hesitated, and a look of panic flickered across Joan’s face, as if she expected me to make a dramatic denouement and tell her that she was under arrest.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I assured her. ‘It’s nothing to do with Goodrich’s death.’ I handed a copy of the tape to Maggie, who led Mrs Bannister to the front desk to sign for it.

  When they’d gone I said, ‘It must be a great relief to know that you didn’t kill Hartley.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I…don’t know if I’m supposed to thank you, or not.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ I told her. ‘I’m afraid I did lead you on a bit, but the truth came out, eventually.’

  ‘Yes, and I wasn’t very honest, was I?’

  ‘You’re not a very convincing liar,’ I told her.

  She blushed, saying, ‘I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused you, Mr Priest. And ashamed of myself for being so devious. At one time…before…’

  She let the rest of it hang in the air. She was going to say that at one time, before she met Goodrich, she wouldn’t have known how to tell a lie.

  ‘Joan,’ I began, ‘the conversation you had with Hartley about K. Tom Davis and the Hartog-Praat robbery. That’s what I want to ask you about. Is there anything at all you can remember him ever saying about the gold?’

  But there wasn’t. He talked about it once, then warned her never to mention it again, and she hadn’t. It looked as if the trail petered out with him. I walked Joan to the foyer, where we met up with Maggie and Mrs Bannister again. The solicitor asked Joan if she was all right, and she nodded and smiled.

  ‘There’s just one final thing, Mrs Eastwood,’ I said.

  The three women gave me their attention.

  ‘When we searched Goodrich’s car,’ I told her, ‘we found a packed suitcase in the boot. It looked as if he was about to go away for a few days. Just thought you’d like to know.’

  She smiled briefly, and her eyes filled with tears. It was drizzling outside, which must have felt good on her face. When they reached the car Mrs Bannister put an arm around her shoulders. I wouldn’t have told her if I’d known it would upset her.

  I collected a hot chocolate from the machine and walked upstairs with Maggie. ‘Another one for the clear-up rate,’ I boasted.

  ‘Not even a piddling Section Forty-seven,’ she replied.

  ‘But a blow for justice, Maggie. Who do you think we should catch this afternoon?’

  ‘Ah, I’d like a word with you about this afternoon. Do you think I could have an hour off to visit the optician?’

  ‘God, yes,’ I said. ‘In fact, I ought to come with you. I either need some reading glasses or longer arms.’

  I held the office door open for her and she gave me one of her exasperated looks. ‘Oh, I can read all right,’ she assured me. ‘Reading’s no problem. Reading’s just fine. It’s
the bigger objects that I can’t see. Do you know, about a week ago I examined this car, and guess what? There was a suitcase in the boot, and I completely overlooked it. Never saw a thing.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Commander Fearnside caught me at home, halfway between boil-in-the-bag cod in butter sauce and Look North. Five minutes earlier the phone had rung but nobody had been there, although I thought I heard breathing.

  ‘Did you try ringing a few minutes ago?’ I asked him.

  ‘No, Charlie. This is my first attempt. Why? Somebody playing silly buggers?’

  ‘Probably. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Right. Well, the file for the Hartog-Praat robbery is in the post, but I’ve had a chat with the SIO and thought I’d fill you in with the relevant stuff.’

  ‘Great. Fire away.’

  ‘First of all, just over a ton and a half of gold was stolen, worth about ten million pounds at today’s prices. None has been recovered. Money like that causes rifts in the underworld community, and tongues wagged. Someone put the finger on a certain bank robber and general blagger called Cliff Childs. Prints in one of the getaway cars led us to a property in the East End owned by a pal of his, so we lifted him. He was ID’d by one of the guards through a tattoo on his neck. He’s well into a twenty-year sentence, could be out in three or four, but he was only the sharp end. The brains were never caught.’

  ‘So someone is still sitting on a pot of gold, holding it for him.’

  ‘Ha! I hope they are, for their own sake. He’ll be bloody annoyed if they’ve blown it in, what?’

  ‘Mmm. Anything else?’

  ‘That’s only the beginning. All of Childs’ associates, visitors, phone calls, et cetera, are monitored, as far as is possible. Most of them are predictable, but a couple of visitors were interesting. Early in his sentence a smalltime crook called Jimmy McAnally called on him a couple of times, right out of the blue. Their paths had crossed in Strangeways, so they could have known each other. Then, blow me down if he didn’t visit him again, about eighteen months ago. Another crook called Morgan had visited Childs at about the same time as McAnally’s first two visits, but he died in a brawl shortly afterwards.’