Cobweb (9 page)

‘Lovely,' I said.

‘Derek always said that only barbarians drank coffee in the afternoon,' she recollected fondly. ‘But he was terribly old-fashioned. Do sit down, Miss Langley, I won't be a minute.'

The room was old-fashioned as well but immaculately clean. There were framed photographs of babies and toddlers on the mantlepiece, presumably grandchildren, and several of various policemen in uniform, including old black-and-white ones where the subjects were stiffly at attention and had very short haircuts.

‘That's Derek's father, the one on the horse,' Mrs Harmsworth said, coming back into the room with a small table and seeing where I was looking. ‘He was in the Mounted Division. The others are his two brothers and their grandad – they all made the Met their career but Derek was the only one to go in the CID.'

I waited until we were drinking our tea, served with Marks and Spencer's fondant fancies – I find these almost impossibly sweet but dutifully ate one – before I asked any questions.

‘I understand Inspector Gray didn't go along with the accident findings,' I said quietly.

‘John? No, and I don't either. But wringing my hands and making a fuss isn't going to bring Derek back, is it?'

‘No, but if his death wasn't an accident, then whoever was responsible might have killed John Gray too and other police personnel's lives might be in danger. That's what my – Patrick Gillard's concentrating on.'

She was silent for a few moments, pensively stirring her tea. Then she said, ‘There was no earthly reason for Derek to have been driving along that particular road in the small hours of the morning. He might have worked late some evenings and even at weekends, but he always came home before ten. If something cropped up – and it would have had to be something serious like a new murder case or his car breaking down – then he'd phone me. I hadn't heard from him and was really worried.'

‘And he'd said nothing to you at all before he went to work that day that might explain a change of routine?'

‘No, not a word.'

‘Could he have been on a private errand of some kind? On his way back from seeing a friend or from buying something? – as a surprise for you, perhaps?'

‘He'd still have told me he was going to be late. Believe me, he could be a grumpy old devil sometimes, but he was very considerate about his comings and goings, as he knew I was a worrying kind of person.'

‘Are you sure that any errand he was on couldn't have been in connection with his retirement plans? Could he have been looking at property?'

Vera Harmsworth shook her head emphatically. ‘No, not a chance. Derek would never do that. Things like deciding to buy houses would have been discussed at length between us and he always left paying bills to me, perhaps because I used to be an accountant. I think he would have lived in a tent if he could. He hated decorating, doing repairs and so forth, and I can't remember the last time he did anything in the garden. I shall have to get a man in to …' Her voice trailed away and she fought back tears as she remembered, yet again, that he would never do those things now.

‘Did your husband ever discuss his work with you?' I asked.

Dabbing at her eyes, she said, ‘No, not really. Only funny things that happened to him. He knew I didn't like to hear about murders and shootings.'

‘He didn't mention the names of people he regarded as particularly dangerous?'

‘Only if he'd managed to put them behind bars and it was all in the papers. He was really happy then. There were quite a lot of them over the years. Terrible people, Miss Langley, really terrible. Look what happened to poor John Gray.'

‘But there's no one you can remember by name?'

‘No, sorry. I suppose I deliberately put them out of my mind.'

‘Did John Gray come to see you after your husband died?'

‘Oh, yes, several times. He was a lovely man. He was quite like Derek in some ways and loved the countryside and watching wildlife. It made life worth living after the nature of their jobs. What Derek used to call “small, fine things”.'

I placed my cup and saucer back on the table. ‘Mrs Harmsworth, did he tell you about anything he was investigating regarding Derek's death?'

‘Yes, he told me he was going back through old cases to see if he could make any connections. He thought Derek had met someone who'd somehow overpowered him and pushed his car off the bridge on to the motorway. I mean, we both knew that Derek hardly drank at all – just the odd pint of bitter; but they said he was full of whisky. It was on his clothes. Derek
hated
spirits.'

‘And yet those in authority didn't go along with that.'

‘No, well, John had a bit of a reputation for wild theories and had got into trouble before for airing them. He was told that if he could find some real evidence then something might be done. And then the poor man was killed by a burglar – or that's what was said in the papers.'

‘What will you do?' I asked after a reflective silence.

‘I always fancied a little bungalow on the coast – Seaford, perhaps; but I've gone off the idea now. I mean, when you've got each other it doesn't matter if you don't know people for a while in a new place. I'm really not sure what to do, but I must pull myself together – you just can't sit at home and brood.'

‘What about your family?'

‘Both our son and daughter are married and live abroad – David's in New Zealand, Anne in South Africa – but I have to confess that I don't really see eye to eye with either of their spouses, so there would be no question of going to live with them. Not that I want to live the rest of my life abroad.' And then she really did wring her hands. ‘I do so wish I could help you, my dear, but I probably wasn't a very good policeman's wife.'

‘I'm quite sure you were,' I told her, really meaning it. ‘The best, in fact.'

It was when I rose to go that I saw the card, half tucked behind one of the framed photographs.

‘Jo-Jo's?' I queried.

Vera Harmsworth smiled. ‘Oh, Derek took me in there for a meal one night. It's a nice little place with a restaurant at the back and some kind of club in the basement. I think there was method in his madness, as he went off for a few minutes to talk to someone who worked there. I guessed that it might be some kind of informer – but that is only a guess. I kept the card they gave us with the bill as it had a calendar on the back. But it's last year's – I must throw it away.'

‘May I have it?'

She presented it to me with a flourish. ‘I can recommend the food.'

After, believe it or not, asking a policeman the whereabouts of Shire's Yard, I found myself walking down a narrow cobbled lane, actually little more than an alleyway, in the oldest part of the centre of Woodhill. This was not to say that the place was a slum: I passed several upmarket boutiques and a hairdresser's en route to where I could see a neon sign above the entrance to my destination.

It was quite late. I had returned to our lodgings – the landlady, a retired doctor who hated having an empty home, had given us both a key – showered, written up a few notes of my interview with Mrs Harmsworth and then phoned home. All was well in Devon although George was in the doghouse for getting out of the field and munching his way through someone's vegetable garden. (We later discovered that the only casualties had been some grass and the tops of a few old Brussels sprout plants.)

The bar one immediately entered was fairly quiet, possibly, I soon discovered, on account of the prices. I ordered a glass of wine, large, telling myself that I was not driving, and settled on a stool at one end of the counter. From where I was sitting I could not see a lot, mainly because of carefully placed oriental screens and the way the place was laid out with the bar a sort of island in the centre and tables set in alcoves and off in various other nooks and crannies. It was a wonderful venue for clandestine meetings of every kind.

The Ladies' was through the restaurant, I was told, and deliberately went the long way round, establishing that Patrick was nowhere to be seen unless he was in one of the gloomy seemingly dead-ends where it would be intrusive of me to probe. He wasn't in the restaurant either.

‘Do you have a table for one available?' I enquired on my return journey.

They did, and someone fetched my glass from the bar for me while I studied the menu.

‘Well, well,' said a voice I recognized from somewhere on the other side of the ornate Chinese-style pierced screen. There was the sound of movement and, moments later, he came into view.

‘Hello, Detective Chief Inspector Colin Robert Hicks,' I said.

H
e sat down in a gust of stale sweat. ‘I thought I'd seen your face before today somewhere. Brinkley tells me you're the writer Ingrid Langley.'

‘Police intelligence really has hit the fast lane,' I said. ‘How is it progressing with finding out who killed Jason Giddings?' His untidy hair could do with a wash as well.

Smirking in superior fashion, Hicks said, ‘A scumbag killed him for his cash. Then, ten to one, other scumbags knocked
him
off, ditto, and chucked his body in a river. It had to be people like that or they'd have taken the credit cards as well.'

‘MPs shouldn't go for walks in the park after dark?'

Another smirk. ‘I knew you were a clever girl. Got it in one.'

I decided on mozzarella with tomato-and-herb salad and some garlic bread, with possibly a dessert to follow. ‘I'm disappointed. I thought you'd be following the same lead as Patrick and checking up on Theordore du Norde, Giddings's stepson, who was overheard making threats to him and apparently used to meet dodgy types in here. Giddings was given the info by a friend and, according to his wife, informed Special Branch. There's word that Derek Harmsworth knew a snout who worked here. Is that a coincidence, or not?'

‘Forget Harmsworth. He's out of it. The old fool got ratarsed on whisky one night and drove off a bridge.'

‘According to his wife, he never touched spirits.'

Shaking his head dismissively Hicks said, ‘She's a daft old biddy, probably in the first stages of dementia. Fred Knightly should know: he met her at some police bash. He said she didn't have an idea in her head and kept asking Harmsworth when they could go home. As I said, Harmsworth's out of it.'

‘I'm not surprised she wanted to go home if Knightly's anything like you.'

Deaf to this remark he gazed about. ‘Where's that man of yours?'

‘Goodness knows. I've only come in here for something to eat.'

‘He's been working late using Gray's office – or did until you showed up. Take a look at this. Hard at it, eh?'

I gazed at the photo that had been thrust at me. It was of poor definition, taken from the rear and side, and showed a man and woman having sex. She was sitting on the edge of the desk, feet on chairs set wide apart, he between them, his trousers and underpants around his ankles. Her head was on his shoulder and you could see neither of their faces.

A waiter had appeared hopefully nearby and I gave him my order, also requesting a jug of iced water. ‘It's not Patrick,' I said to Hicks when he had gone. ‘And probably not Erin either but another woman wearing a red wig. Did someone in the Vice Squad owe you a favour?'

‘Who else could it be? You can see it's Gray's office all right as there are the pictures of his allotment – or some bloody garden or other he had – on the wall behind the bloke's head. No one else has been working in there – it's well known in the nick that the pair of them were as snug as a bug in there for days.'

‘It's not Patrick,' I said again, ignoring the blatant lie.

‘I've the guy who set up the hidden camera who'll swear under oath if necessary that it is.' He tucked the photograph back in his wallet. ‘This is going to Mike Greenway tomorrow. It's a pity hubby's backside's covered by his shirt or he might have had to drop his pants to try to prove it's not him.' He guffawed.

I said, ‘Patrick was the second-youngest major in the British Army when he was sent out to the Falklands. They were undercover in the hills above Port Stanley when there was an accident with a grenade and he was badly injured. His right leg below the knee is now of exceedingly expensive construction and definitely not the one with which he was born. Now thank me for preventing you from making a complete silly-billy of yourself.'

I thought for a moment that he would actually lay hands on me, but he called me something highly uncomplimentary instead as he got to his feet. And then, with exquisite timing, the jug of water was placed before me and I shot its contents in the direction of his midriff as he did so. It landed in highly satisfactory fashion on the front of his over-tight cotton trousers and for the second time in so many days he raged off, only this time leaving a trail of drips.

I had barely started on my meal when the chair opposite was again occupied.

‘As I was a police officer already on the premises,' Patrick said in a very rural PC Plod voice, getting out a notebook, ‘I said I'd investigate the management's complaint that a female member of the public has assaulted a customer. Would you care to give me your version of events, madam?'

‘Hicks,' I said, ‘showed me a photo of you bonking Erin in Gray's office that he's going to send to your boss tomorrow.'

Patrick's jaw dropped.

‘Phoney, obviously, and I proved to him it was. I was really tempted to let him go ahead, but we don't have time for that kind of self-indulgence. He's out for your blood all right.'

Patrick took a cherry tomato from my plate and ate it, thoughts obviously elsewhere but pulling a face as he doesn't really like them. I called over the waiter and ordered calamari with garlic on fusilli for him before I lost the lot. Having to watch him eat squid was better than going hungry.