[Inspector Peach 12] - Pastures New

by J M Gregson

  He made a few notes and then Peach told her that she must get in touch with the number on the card he gave her if anything which might have a bearing on this crime occurred to her. Anything she said would be treated in confidence, but she shouldn’t hesitate to convey any thoughts she had, however minor or unlikely their connection with the death might seem.

  And then they were gone. She watched them move swiftly down the drive and into their car. Only when it had turned the comer and disappeared from view did she fall to wondering whether it would have been technically possible for Steve to kill her father.

  It was a preposterous line of thought, of course, but those two had encouraged her to think of even the most unlikely scenarios.

  * * *

  John Kirkby had now spent three days beside the vivid blue waters of Lake Garda. They had been the days of unwinding which the private detective had promised himself, the necessary prelude to the proper enjoyment of the remaining days of his holiday. The unwinding hadn’t really happened. He wasn’t really a holiday person, he concluded glumly.

  His wife seemed to be enjoying herself, so that was good. He painted a dutiful smile upon his face whenever she was around, which was most of the time. If he felt that his proper métier was the grimy back streets of northern towns, his proper climate the grey drizzle of Lancashire and Yorkshire, he kept such thoughts to himself when Kate was around. He strove to find good things in the bright Italian landscape, but he noticed that his approbation consisted mainly of agreement with his wife’s enthusiastic commentary.

  He found the brilliant clear light the most alien thing of all. This was an artist’s light, their tour representative informed them enthusiastically, particularly appreciated by the painters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, available in England only in places like St Ives in Cornwall. John felt unnaturally exposed in it. In so far as he appreciated art at all, John Kirkby was a Dutch interiors man, relishing the subtle tones of those men who had suggested darker secrets beneath the modest surface comforts they portrayed.

  Today was Tuesday and Kate had booked them a half-day cruise upon the lake, with a stop at a village on the far side. Once away from the shore, the light seemed to John even more brilliant, as the sun sparkled upon waters which were ruffled by the gentlest and warmest of breezes. John nodded his approval of his wife’s eulogies about lake and mountains, even contriving to point out with some enthusiasm the contrasting effect of the one patch of shadow on the hillside with the wisps of white cloud slowly dissipating above it.

  Having done his duty, Kirkby left his wife with a cappuccino and retired to the shaded side of the vessel. Mustn’t get too much sun, he explained. He listened to the desultory conversation of his fellow trippers on the boat and found that it was not illuminating. He gazed over the azure waters, shut out the meaningless chatter from his ears, and wondered what the weather was like in Brunton.

  When they toured the narrow streets of the tourist village, John found a brief animation in preventing his wife from purchasing the trinkets which the salesmen and their women pushed at them so insistently. Kate admitted that these things were mostly rubbish, but maintained nevertheless that she was towing along a husband without a soul. When he questioned the logic of this reasoning, she told him with an air of secret knowledge that he was not a woman.

  They lunched on pasta and some Italian minced concoction which John had never heard of. He found it unexpectedly palatable, even tasty, and was slightly and secretly disappointed. It went rather well with the Chianti, and Kate saw to it that her husband had more than his share of that.

  John Kirkby quite enjoyed the sail back to their resort. The sun was much lower in the sky by now. The lake was a deeper blue and the hills beyond it were bathed in a gentle, old masters’ light, which was much more to his taste than the noonday dazzle. He could see their hotel as they moved nearer to the land; in another hour, he would be donning the jacket and tie he still insisted upon for dinner.

  The boat emptied rapidly when they berthed. After hours of enforced inactivity, the crowd of trippers melted quickly and noisily away to their evening concerns. Kirkby did not join in this hasty debarkation. He waited until even his wife had joined the stragglers at the end of the queue before he moved from his seat. He was always interested in detritus. What people left behind them could be more revealing than they ever realized.

  There was a lot of rubbish left behind: the passengers on the boat trip had been mainly British. Kirkby shot a swift glance at his wife’s unconscious back, then selected an English copy of The Times, which had been discarded on a saloon bench by its departing owner. He rolled it tightly, but it was impossible to conceal it from the disapproving Kate.

  ‘Thought you might want to read the accounts of the finals at Wimbledon,’ he said optimistically. ‘And I can check on what’s happening in the cricket.’ He slapped the paper energetically against his thigh.

  It was in the privacy of the en suite bathroom that he discovered why Geoffrey Aspin had not phoned him as promised. A single paragraph in the home news section told him that the body of this ‘prominent industrialist’ had been discovered after a celebration of his sixtieth birthday in a local stately home. Foul play was suspected and a police hunt was under way.

  John Kirkby was a man not easily shocked. But he was stunned for a moment by this. Then he thought of the implications for himself. His first thought was that he might never be paid in full for the commission Aspin had given him. Then other and wider considerations took over. He was an ex-copper and old habits die hard. He knew what he had to do.

  He decided not to tell his wife. Kate would not welcome evidence that his thoughts lay still at home. Moreover, he felt a genuine desire not to spoil a holiday she deserved and was obviously enjoying.

  He waited until his wife was in bed and reading her detective novel before he looked up from his own book and said, ‘I don’t feel at all sleepy tonight, love.’ He walked across to the window and drew aside the thin cotton curtains. ‘It’s a beautiful warm night. I think I might just go out for a breath of air and see the stars over the mountains.’

  Kate yawned. ‘If you’d said that an hour ago. I’d probably have come with you.’ But she was glad that at last he seemed to want to get the full value from his holiday. ‘Don’t be too long. I’ll get on with my book.’

  Kirkby moved out of the shadow of the hotel, down to where he could hear the water lapping gently against the shore of the lake. This is where he would get the best signal. He looked at his watch. There was an hour difference in time: it would still be only nine thirty in Britain. He pictured the police station, quiet on a Tuesday evening, with only a skeleton staff. With a murder inquiry in train, he would still get their attention. He checked the number on the pad of his mobile phone, then tapped in the international code and the number.

  ‘My name is John Kirkby. I run a private detective agency in Brunton.’

  Some of the people at Brunton nick knew him. This one didn’t. He said, with the air of a man repeating words he had spoken many times, ‘Unless you have evidence of a crime being committed or urgent information, sir, you should contact the station in the morning. We have only a skeleton staff here at the moment, so unless you require urgent police assistance—’

  ‘It’s about the murder inquiry. The Geoffrey Aspin case. I was working for Mr Aspin at the time of his death.’

  There was a pause. He could almost hear the cogs turning in the trained machine which was the brain of the desk sergeant. Then the voice said rather breathily, ‘Detective Chief Inspector Peach is handling this investigation. What is it you have to report?’

  John Kirkby was too fly a bird for this. There might be profit, or at the very least kudos, in this for him. There might even be a lucrative story for him to sell to the press if he played his cards right. ‘I am at present on holiday in Italy. My own work for Mr Aspin may or may not be connected with this case. Please inform DCI Peach that I shall contact him as soon as I
return to the UK. I shall be home by the weekend. Goodnight, Sergeant.’

  Fourteen

  Denis Oakley decided to see his CID visitors at the factory.

  He was not getting on well with his third wife and there was no knowing quite what she would say if they questioned him about his recent difficulties. The works of the new industrial estate would provide a more neutral environment for what he hoped would be no more than a routine exchange.

  He set up his dead partner’s room for the meeting, and marvelled again at how different Geoff had been from him. The attraction of opposites was a dubious concept in marriage, as far as Geoff was concerned, but it certainly seemed to have worked for them in business. Geoff had provided consistency, as well as the reassurance for the staff who worked here, whilst his own more maverick temperament had been ideal for the variety of situations he had met in the wider world outside.

  This room retained something of the personality of the man who had used it. Behind an antique mahogany desk there was a matching round-backed chair; Denis would have had a lighter modern wood. Pictures of the Lake District and Scottish sea lochs adorned the walls; Denis would have had more colourful and less representational art. But it was an appropriate place to meet the police, he decided. They would surely be impressed by the way Geoff’s office exuded success and old-fashioned values.

  He was pleased to find that the plain-clothes chief inspector who was conducting the case was accompanied by a young and attractive woman in a dark green sweater and trousers. Plainly the police service had improved since he and Geoff had spent a night with them as drunken students forty years ago. The woman had remarkable dark-red hair; she was introduced to him as DS Blake and Denis gave her his practised introductory smile. He congratulated himself upon his decision to conduct this exchange here: it might have rather cramped his style if that touchy wife of his had seen him exercising his charms.

  As Peach took him through the early part of Saturday afternoon, he answered easily enough, amplifying his account a couple of times as he smiled at the woman making notes. Then the DCI said, ‘I understand you were the first man to make contact with Mr Aspin at the conclusion of his speech.’

  ‘One of the first, anyway. I was happy that my old friend was taking the plunge into matrimony again. I didn’t think the old stick-in-the-mud had it in him. I think that’s what I said to him as I shook his hand. Words to that effect, anyway.’ He grinned deprecatingly at Lucy Blake, who raised her eyebrows minimally and then made a note. Peach had taught her lots of things over the last three years; the use of the eyebrows was one of the most unlikely of them.

  ‘When was the last time you saw Mr Aspin?’

  ‘That was virtually the moment we’ve just been talking about. I joshed him a little, gave a chaste kiss of congratulation to his future wife, and left him to it. He had a lot of people around him at the time and I’d said my piece.’

  ‘Did you see any of his family talking to him after the speeches were over?’

  ‘Do you know, I don’t think I did? Curious that, isn’t it? I expect they’d offered their congratulations beforehand.’

  ‘Do you, indeed? Have you any reason for that opinion?’

  He couldn’t understand why this man Peach should seem so hostile to him. Perhaps he was like that with everyone; perhaps it was a CID technique. ‘No, I haven’t actually. I haven’t really thought about it until this moment.’

  ‘Really. That seems a little odd. Especially as you’ve no doubt been thinking about who killed your partner. Any ideas, Mr Oakley?’

  ‘I’ve thought about it, as you suggest. I haven’t come up with any answers, or I’d have been in touch with you. You have the advantage of having a large team of officers to help you.’

  ‘And you have the advantage of previous knowledge of the deceased over many years. Knowledge of his friends and his enemies, of the exact state of his business, of who might gain from Mr Aspin’s death. Areas where we were in total ignorance when we began this investigation on Sunday.’

  Denis didn’t like the implication that they were not so ignorant now. He tried to sound calm and objective as he said, ‘I suppose what you say is true. I - I can only think that it will be someone in his family who turns out to have done this. They were the people who were going to be most immediately affected by Geoff’s plans, weren’t they?’

  ‘They are patently the people who seem most threatened by a second marriage for Mr Aspin, yes. How will this death affect your business, Mr Oakley?’

  He was shaken by this sudden switch, when he had been expecting the opportunity to enlarge upon the family’s motives. He smiled the practised, open smile he had developed for customers who threatened him with a switch to another printing company. Don’t look threatened. Don’t allow them even to suspect that this matter is of great importance to you. You’re used to being out there in the world on your own; you’re even used to fighting battles with little more than your wits as weapons. And in the field of commerce, you know far more than policemen moving out of their depth do. Take a deep breath and baffle them with science.

  ‘It will be business as usual. I assured the staff of that at the earliest opportunity. No one’s job is at risk. Aspin and Oakley’s is a long-established firm. No one should pretend that the loss of a man of Geoff’s talents and vast experience isn’t a blow, but it is one which can and will be handled. It’s early days yet, and I shall be speaking to senior staff later this week. My own thoughts are that I should continue as Sales Manager, doing exactly the work I have done over the last few years, whilst we appoint a works manager here to fill the void left by—’

  ‘What are the personal implications of this death for you, Mr Oakley?’

  Peach cut through the verbiage more incisively than any hostile client Denis had dealt with. He found himself struggling with decisions about his facial expression, when he should have been thinking furiously about his reply. He removed the smile: that was no longer appropriate, when talking about the death of his friend. But he did not want to look worried and send out totally the wrong message. He tried to look grave but untroubled, and found that combination very difficult. ‘It will mean more work, I suppose. That is inevitable, at least until a new manager is securely in place. I shall have to take more executive decisions: I was used to discussing everything with Geoff and it will seem strange to—’

  ‘What are the financial implications for you, Mr Oakley?’ Now he had to look puzzled rather than apprehensive. One part of his brain told him that they couldn’t know anything about his difficulties, another that the huge team of officers assembled for a murder inquiry would be delving into the backgrounds of the people who had been closest to the victim. ‘I can’t see any immediate effects. We shall have to make sure that the business continues to run effectively, as I’ve already indicated, but—’

  ‘Mr Aspin was a man with a long-established local reputation. Financial institutions often have their confidence shaken by the death of a prominent figure. It may be regrettable and unfair for those who have to continue running the business, but one sees it happen, even with major stock market companies.’

  Denis wondered who had put this objectionable and aggressive man up to such thoughts. He forced a smile and said, ‘Aspin and Oakley’s is not in that league, you know. We don’t have a stock market price to consider. Geoff was a great man to have beside you, but hardly a—’

  ‘You never became a limited company, did you, Mr Oakley?’

  They’d done some research. The problem was that he didn’t know exactly how much. He parried the blow. ‘We never thought it necessary. We are essentially a small local business which has become more successful than we ever imagined it would be when we set out.’

  ‘And as that sort of business, you are more vulnerable. It is more likely that you will be adversely affected financially by the death of your partner. Is that the case here?’

  ‘No. The effects of Geoff’s passing are personal and administrative. I s
ee no severe financial implications for me.’

  He watched the woman he had tried to charm making notes, wondered exactly how she was recording his replies. As if she sensed his scrutiny, she looked up suddenly and said with the same sort of false brightness he had earlier essayed himself, ‘So who do you think killed your friend, Mr Oakley?’

  He smiled at her, bathing her in charm, automatically trying to establish some sort of relationship. ‘I’ve really no idea, you know. As I said, I’d have to put my money on one of the family, if you pressed me. I expect you think the same. But I’ve no notion which one. I’ll leave that to you.’

  She looked at him steadily for a moment, as if making an assessment of his reliability, then gave him a curt nod.

  Peach asked him a few more questions about his whereabouts on Saturday evening. He was glad for once that he hadn’t spent the night in a strange bed. Then they were on their way, with a final warning that they might need to speak to him again when they knew more. He hoped that was no more than routine.

  He rang the bank manager as soon as they were safely off the premises. ‘I’ll come in for that meeting you requested tomorrow, if you can fit me in,’ he said as lightly as he could. It was always good to take the initiative in these things, even when you knew you had no choice. They fixed a time of nine thirty. Then he said as casually as he could, ‘I’ve just had the police here, talking about poor Geoff’s death. They haven’t spoken to you, have they?’

  There seemed to him quite a pause before the calm voice on the other end of the phone said, ‘No. No one has approached me yet.’

  Denis Oakley tried for the rest of the day to forget the little word at the end of that sentence.

  * * *

  ‘The full post-mortem report’s in.’ Detective Constable Brendan Murphy bustled in with the printout from the computer on which he was collating the accruing evidence in the Aspin case.