Dusty Death

by J M Gregson

‘And when would this be, Mr Edmonds?’

  ‘Next Friday.’

  ‘Recently arranged was it, this trip to Madeira?’

  David heard the scepticism in the man’s voice, wanted to scream at him that this had been arranged for months. But they could check on it, if they wanted to, couldn’t they? And this man seemed to him all-powerful now. Certainly he seemed to know far more about what had gone on in that squalid house thirteen years ago than David would have believed possible.

  He was totally unconscious that he had added considerably to that sum of knowledge, that Peach had not even known Wally Swift’s name until a few minutes ago, let alone his activities in the drug trade in 1991. He said, ‘No, I only booked the holiday this morning, as a matter of fact. I find you get much better prices if you can leave it to the last minute. I’m lucky, I can do that, being the boss. Not that it’s any business of yours.’ He stuck this belated piece of defiance on the end of his defensive words, and immediately regretted it.

  ‘It might be our business, Mr Edmonds, if we need to question you again in a murder investigation. But perhaps we shall be able to come back to you before Friday.’ He gave his victim a final Torquemada smile. ‘You’re free to go now.’

  David got out as quickly as he could, accelerating the BMW away from the police station in a flood of relief, as his pulse returned to somewhere near its normal rate.

  It was not until he was composing himself to announce the joyous news of their holiday to his children that he realized that Detective Chief Inspector Peach should have been thanking him for his help. He had been voluntarily helping the man with his enquiries, after all.

  Fourteen

  The tentacles of great cities spread more and more widely as the years go on. Bolton, once a thriving Lancashire town in its own right, is now essentially part of Greater Manchester, and the urban sprawl has all but eliminated the sparse and unremarkable moorland country which once separated the two.

  There are compensations. Bolton has caught some of the excitement and not a little of the prosperity which came with the redevelopment of the twin cities of Manchester and Salford around the turn of the century. There are new businesses growing up to replace or supplement the old manufacturing ones. In an era of high divorce rates and volatile relationships, one of the most lucrative of these is the introduction agency. The days when the activity was simply called ‘dating’ have long gone: ‘introductions’ imply more research and more careful matching, by the people who have taken upon themselves the task of organizing these meetings. And enable them to charge more.

  It is an expanding market, but as always where there is money to be made and no formal training necessary, there is much competition. The best are doing very well, but the suspect agencies have recently attracted bad publicity to the industry. There have been newspaper articles warning lonely people to be careful, and researchers working for the BBC Watchdog programme have turned its spotlight upon some of the dubious practices and even more dubious charges which have occurred.

  The Jane Watson Personal Introductions Agency in Bolton was not one of the dubious ones. It had a high street position, lushly carpeted and spacious premises, and privacy guaranteed in the interview rooms behind the main reception area. It had excellent literature, printed on expensive stationery, answering all the questions which diffident men and women might wish to ask before dipping their toes into the unknown waters of new relationships.

  The brochure gave an account of the diligent checking and matching which went on before any attempt was made to bring people together, and stressed that the choice of whether to meet or not always rested ultimately with the client. People were reassured about most of their fears before they ever set foot on the premises. It was the proud boast of the owner that most of the people who came into the office to make tentative enquiries enrolled themselves as clients.

  That owner was a working manager, who could usually be found upon the premises. The personal touch was another of the things which tended to promote success. In the area of social interchange, confidence is usually brittle or non-existent, and discreet guidance from a person with experience and insight is a vital ingredient in helping things along.

  Jane Watson had both experience and insight in abundance. Not in introduction agencies, of course: that was a recent development. But about what men required of women and women of men, and of the infinite number of variations which existed in these complex webs of human relations, the proprietor of this particular introduction agency knew a thing or two.

  For the retailers who surrounded the agency in the centre of Bolton, Monday morning was a quiet time, when you could play yourself back in slowly after whatever adventures the weekend had offered. Jane Watson found that her Mondays were very different; they were often the busiest day of the week.

  Sometimes people who had finally broken up a relationship at the crisis time of weekend came in to register for fresh hopes and new excitements. More often, people who had spent a solitary weekend decided that they could no longer stand the trials of life alone, and took the plunge to come in and register themselves with an introduction agency.

  At ten fifteen on this particular Monday, the last day of February, Jane was interviewing a woman of forty-three, who had completed her third divorce during the previous week. One of the advantages of experience was that nothing shocked you now: without raising an eyebrow, Jane took down the dates of three marriages and listened to the lurid details of the latest Lothario who had let the woman down.

  The woman sitting opposite her was small and attractive, slim but shapely, with skilfully cut black hair framing a face with features which might have been shaped in fine china. The face was surprisingly unlined, for one who had been through the emotional traumas which she was outlining with such vigour. She looked much younger than her forty-three years, thought Jane, with a shaft of envy. Petite brunettes always seemed to age best.

  Jane told her that quite bluntly. She even said openly that she was a little jealous of the fact: it didn’t do any harm to bolster confidence, when people were looking for reassurance. The woman said, ‘You think it’s worth registering with you, then? I don’t seem to have much talent for relationships, do I?’

  ‘You haven’t met the right man yet, that’s all. Life’s a complicated business. It’s the purpose of a place like this to make it slightly less so.’ Jane delivered the familiar phrases as if they had just occurred to her; she had long since decided that being an actress was as necessary a part of this game as of the others she had played in her time.

  At least it seemed that she only needed to talk about men this time. She was getting an increasing number of people who requested same-sex partners, and even quite a few who declared themselves openly as bisexual, then asked what the agency could produce for them. ‘It’s necessary that you be absolutely frank with me, for your own sake,’ Jane told this new client firmly. ‘Once I know all about you and about your preferences in partners, I can begin matching you with a selection from hundreds of our male clients. The franker you are with me this morning, the better that match will be.’

  The dark-haired, anxious woman opposite her nodded, admitting the logic of the argument. She was reassured by the appearance as well as the manner of this woman in charge. She looked a hard piece, with her neat, closely cut, blonde hair, her regular but rather blunt features, and the careful make-up which still could not conceal the crow’s feet which were beginning to spread around her eyes. But a hard piece was what she needed, to sort out the emotional minefield of her life.

  This Watson woman had a good figure still, even if there was an expensive bra shaping the breasts beneath that smooth mohair. She looked like a woman who had put it about a bit in her time. That was all to the good: if you were going to guide others, the more experience you had the better.

  And everything about this woman spoke of experience, from her assurance that no detail of sexual history or sexual preference would shock her to the broad, competent
fingers on the pen she was using to make notes. As if she read these thoughts in her new client, Jane Watson looked up and nodded encouragingly at her. ‘All this will go into your personal, confidential file on the computer later,’ she explained. ‘I like to make notes and add comments before I put the final summary on the computer, so that I can make each entry as individual as possible.’

  ‘I don’t mind younger men,’ the dark-haired woman blurted out with a sudden burst of intimacy.

  ‘Don’t mind or prefer?’ The thin mouth beneath the broad nose dropped into an encouraging smile.

  ‘Prefer, I suppose, really!’ She felt herself blushing, despite her three marriages and her years of experience.

  Jane Watson nodded, as if these and much more startling confessions were made to her every day. ‘Meetings like that can be arranged. There are lots of young men who fancy an older, experienced woman. And you’re still very attractive, fortunately.’ She made a note which the older woman could not decipher. ‘You should be aware that you may be taken for a ride if you get seriously involved. Most men are unscrupulous creatures at the best of times, in my experience. And younger men are likely to get you seriously involved and then take you for all they can get financially.’ She looked back at her first page of notes. ‘And you’ve come out of these marriages of yours quite well, financially at least. You must beware of becoming a target for a ruthless young man.’

  You didn’t call them fortune-hunters, these days. That would leave you open to the accusation that you should have rooted out such characters rather than put them on your books. And it was as well to remind this woman that she was quite affluent: the Jane Watson Agency did not come cheap, and she sensed that this lady was going to sign up for the fullest range of its introduction services. It was as well to cover yourself by warning foolish females like this one of the dangers ahead. Losers could sometimes refuse to pay their agency bills when in the midst of an emotional turmoil, and you needed to show that you were fulfilling the terms of the contract you had agreed, if it came to it.

  She checked that the woman didn’t have what she called ‘Any sharp social preferences’, and was assured that the reverse was the case. That meant that she was prepared to take on and enjoy a bit of rough, though of course you never called it anything as crude as that. Not to women, anyway; men were sometimes easily excited by phrases like that. Absurdly gullible creatures men were, when they sniffed sex in the air. Dangerous, but gullible.

  The woman, as Jane had known she would, signed up for the full six months, rather that just the initial trial offer. ‘I’m going to take my time over this,’ she assured herself firmly. ‘Once bitten, twice shy, that’s me now. I’m not going to make any commitment until you’ve provided me with several introductions. Perhaps not even then.’

  She believes it, thought Jane Watson as she listened to the cliches, hiding her contempt under a broad smile. ‘That’s the idea! Play the field for a little while. If I can just have your cheque, we’ll get things moving right away.’

  She watched the woman put her coat back on and leave the shop. Skirt a trifle short, and just a little too tight over the firm little bum. There’d be no problem in finding men ready to investigate a bum like that. And little Miss High Horse would be at it between the sheets within ten days, she reckoned, climbing all over some young stud and trying to convince him he had value for money. She might be well preserved, but she would be too randy and too conscious of the ticking clock to take her time, as she had promised herself she would.

  Still, there was no harm in the Jane Watson Introduction Agency taking a generous slice of the cash she was going to fritter away. Good half-hour’s work, that had been: Jane mentally toasted once again the infinite credulity of human nature.

  She liked to do the first interview with people herself. She could afford good staff now, but she flattered herself that there was still no one who sold the services they offered quite as efficiently as she did. And prospective clients liked to be interviewed by the proprietor herself. It made them feel important that the head of an obviously prosperous concern should take a personal interest in their needs.

  This meant that when a gangling, rather uncoordinated, young man came through the big glass door and moved rather uncertainly over the thick carpet, she moved swiftly forward. ‘How can we help you, sir?’

  She had seen hundreds like him, in her time. Had dozens of them for breakfast, in different ways. Wet behind their ears, but with their dicks bursting out of their trousers and their judgements consequently haywire. The trousers on this one were part of a dark grey suit, and he had a clean shirt and tie above it; probably he’d put on his most formal clothes to come in here, bless him. Tall, with his fresh face still unlined, with clear brown eyes and not a grey hair in sight for years, yet. Early twenties, she reckoned: certainly not over twenty-five.

  Ripe for the plucking. She might even sell him that mobile little 43-year-old arse which had just pranced out, before the week was out. But there was no hurry: this young lad would go down well with lots of women. With his open, innocent face and his straight hair refusing to stay in place, there’d be lots of women who’d want to mother a lad like this. He wouldn’t even have needed her services, if he’d had the confidence he so patently lacked. But of course she wouldn’t tell him that.

  ‘Emily Jane Watson?’

  That careful enunciation of her full name gave her the first shaft of apprehension. ‘I’m Jane Watson, the proprietor, yes. What can I do for you?’ She reached for one of the brochures behind her, prepared to tell him to have a quick scan through it before they took this any further.

  He looked her full in the face, as if it was important to him to memorize the details of it. Then he showed her a police warrant card, holding it rigidly still a foot from her face, as though to show how steady his young hand was. The card was genuine enough: Emily Jane Watson knew very well what they looked like. At least it was only a Detective Constable, and a raw one at that. She’d dealt with bigger police fish than this in her time. She said, her voice suddenly hard as steel, ‘I’m carrying on a perfectly legitimate business here. You can see the books if you like. But I don’t see why you should, DC Pickering.’

  ‘I’m not interested in the books, Miss Watson. I’m not even interested in the business. But we need to ask you some questions.’

  ‘And who are “we”?’

  ‘Brunton CID. In connection with a serious crime committed in 1991.’

  They had found her, then. And quickly, really, considering how she had covered her traces. She tried not to panic, told herself that she had always expected this, from the moment she had seen that idiot Tucker talking on TV about the discovery of that Paki girl’s body. It was worrying, though, that they had got to her so quickly. She had thought about this meeting, and about how she should react to it, on each of the last three nights. Yet now, ridiculously, she found she needed time to think. She said, ‘And suppose I tell you that I was not in Brunton at that time?’

  ‘I should think we might challenge it. And if we found that you had lied about it, we should be forced to draw our own conclusions.’

  She had underestimated this young man. That was not a pleasant realization. She said, ‘Do you have a warrant for my arrest?’ and immediately regretted it.

  ‘No. Do I need one? Are you saying that you have committed a crime? Or that you are not Emily Jane Watson? All you are being asked to do is to help the police in the course of their enquiries, at the moment.’ Gordon Pickering dwelt histrionically upon the last phrase: he hadn’t been selected and trained by Percy Peach without learning to apply pressure.

  ‘What exactly is it that you want me to do?’ Both of them knew in that moment that she was going to co-operate.

  ‘We can interview you here if you wish. I’ll ring the man in charge of the case and get him out here. Tell him that you don’t wish to come into the station.’ He made that sound as if it would be a confession of involvement in this crime, which
he still hadn’t specified, though both of them knew perfectly well that it was the murder of Sunita Akhtar.

  ‘And have police cars with lights flashing lined up against the kerb outside here? Lot of good that would do to a business which relies on discretion for its very existence! No, I’ll come into your damned station, clear this up once and for all. Just give me an hour to reorganize my day, let me make a couple of phone calls. And please note that I haven’t even admitted that I was in the area in the year you specified.’

  But both of them knew that there was no mistaken identity here.

  Matthew Hayward was on his way to play the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto Number Three with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

  ‘They’re the official Classic FM orchestra, you know,’ his agent had said. ‘But it’s the Third they want you to play, not that old war-horse the Second. But Classic will play your Beethoven recording and give you quite a few mentions on the air, in the two weeks before the concert. You’ll probably find they’re a bit populist, a bit vulgar, but the publicity will be good for us.’

  Matt noted as he drove how his agent had changed from ‘you’ to ‘us’ since he had begun to enjoy success. Well, he didn’t mind that, so long as the bookings came in. And he didn’t mind the ‘populist’ approach from Classic FM, if the truth be told. It gave him a kick to hear his name mentioned in their publicity between records, and it meant that they chose to play him in preference to other pianists when he had a concert coming up with their chosen orchestra.

  And since they had put his picture on the cover of their monthly magazine, a couple of people had actually recognized him when he was walking along the street in Brunton. That had been quite nice, really. You wouldn’t want it all the time, of course, wouldn’t want people stopping you wherever you went. But it was really quite pleasant to be modestly famous, to have strangers coming up to you to tell you that they had enjoyed your playing. Matt Hayward was human enough to enjoy the prospect of becoming that awful twenty-first century phenomenon, a celebrity.