‘He had a bank account,’ said Ken defensively. ‘In Causton.’
‘The Windhorse had a bank account, Mr Beavers. Not quite the same thing. To cover your tracks so efficiently,’ continued Barnaby, ‘involves a lot of determination plus a fair amount of rather iffy know-how.’
‘I don’t like the turn this conversation’s taking, Chief Inspector.’
‘Blackening the name of a person who can’t defend himself is despicable,’ said Heather and looked round in surprise when Suhami laughed.
‘One of the reasons we found it so difficult to trace him was that Craigie was an alias. And the first of many, adopted when he came out of prison just over two years ago where he had served five years out of seven for fraud. In fact, Miss Gamelin, your father was not far out when he called Craigie a con man.’
‘That is utter hooey!’ May rose trembling, as near to rage as any there had ever seen her. Arno trembled, too, in sympathy and admiration. ‘His astral body was radiant. Suffused with blue. That’s something no one can fake.’
‘I’m sure that’s true, Inspector,’ said Suhami. She also seemed most moved and on the verge of tears. ‘You might have checked all sorts of things but there’s a mix-up somewhere. You’ve confused him with someone else.’
‘Mind you,’ said Ken, ‘I suppose anyone who’s going to be successful at a mucky business like fraud has to be totally convincing. The essence of the job.’
Heather nodded. Both of them seemed to have quite abandoned the ostentatious knowing of their place. Forgetting his alcohol/drug-infested bloodstream, Arno shook his head chidingly at this sign of breaking ranks then wished he hadn’t. The result was so sensational he thought for a moment it had rolled off entirely.
‘Do you mean that someone from his past broke in here,’ asked Heather, ‘and attacked him?’
‘That’s nonsense,’ said Andrew. ‘The only people in the room when he died were us.’
‘Indeed,’ agreed Barnaby. ‘Although I think Mrs Beavers is right in a way when she suggests someone from his past was there. And certainly the manner of that past contributed to his death. However, it’s my conviction that Craigie died not because he was a con man but because he was not.’
‘I knew it!’ May cried out in triumph. ‘The aura never lies.’
‘I don’t get that,’ said Andrew. ‘You just told us he was.’
‘Let me expand. When I discovered his background I naturally saw the acquisition of the Manor House - using I’m pretty sure money from a time share swindle - as a major ingredient in some grand scam. But, going into the affairs of the Windhorse, I found not only was everything in financially immaculate order but that quite an altruistic flavour hung over the place. Bursaries were given to the deserving and, occasionally perhaps, to the undeserving. People who came for healing or therapy were not charged a set fee but asked to pay what they felt they could afford. Every month a varying amount was sent to charity. And yet ... something was going on. We have Jim Carter’s letter to prove this. And tonight, via the evidence of Mr Gibbs, his spoken words: “I shan’t let you do it. I’ll tell everyone what I know.”
‘The letter, written so soon before Mr Carter’s death, struck me as deeply worrying. Now that we’re aware of how he died I feel it appears less so. The spoken threat however - and I do see it as a threat - remains. What did Jim Carter know and, equally important, what was Craigie about to do, that instigated such a violent response?
‘My conclusion about the first half of that question is predictable enough. Jim Carter knew about the past. The second part isn’t so easy. I thought if I could find out more about Carter this would help. My sergeant and I looked around his room and here, although his clothes and effects had been removed, I found two things that I thought were interesting.’
He paused and Troy, standing well back against the wall, barely nodded in an involuntary acknowledgement of the power of his chief’s personality and narrative skill. There wasn’t a movement anywhere. Not a blink. Nothing but total absorption.
‘One of them was an empty shoe box which had once contained some extremely expensive Italian loafers. An unexpected choice for a man who spends all day at his devotions. A tiny anomaly but, as I say, interesting.
‘And then there were the books. At first sight just the type that you’d expect. All second-hand - that’s fair enough, not everyone can afford new books. But all the prices were marked in decimal coinage. Now Jim’s nephew has told us that his uncle read devotional literature all his life, yet none of them could have been bought before 1971. In truth, as our department discovered, none of them was bought before 1990. They were part of a job lot from several second-hand bookshops in Slough and Uxbridge. Nearly six hundred altogether.’
‘My uncle’s collection was probably somewhere else,’ said Andrew. ‘Maybe downstairs in the library.’
‘But you told us you recognised the books in his room, Mr Carter. And how much seeing them distressed you.’
‘Do you mean they were bought just to create the right effect?’ asked Ken.
‘Precisely so,’ said Barnaby who had helped dress enough sets for his wife’s drama group to know whereof he spoke. ‘But what was so strange about these bulk buys is that they were collected, and in two cases paid for, not by Craigie but by Carter.’
‘Jim?’ May looked completely bewildered. ‘But why on earth would he do that?’
‘Perhaps his nephew can tell us?’
‘No idea.’ Andrew shrugged, opening his hands in helpless incomprehension. ‘Unless, completely taken in, he was persuaded to make a contribution.’
‘Oh, I don’t think your uncle was that easy to take in. I’d say, if anything, the boot was on the other foot.’
‘I don’t know what you mean, Chief Inspector, but I do know I don’t intend to sit here and listen to you malign him.’ He climbed down from the table and was half way to the door when Barnaby spoke again.
‘Why did you dye your hair, Mr Carter?’
‘We went into all that when I was in your office. I didn’t want anyone to connect me with my uncle.’
‘But the likeness was negligible. I could hardly see it at all.’
‘I thought it was there - all right? And decided to protect myself. Christ - I was nearly killed three days ago, I’m assaulted tonight by a madman with an iron bar. You’d think I’d get sympathy and understanding. Not a bloody third degree.’
‘So fair on the photograph, wasn’t it? Nearly white - very striking. Anyone who’d met you as a child say, as Craigie did, might easily have recognised you again.’
‘As a ...’ Andrew stared around, inviting everyone to share his incredulity.
‘How old were you? Eight, nine? When they worked together?’ Now Andrew shook his head in the way people do when presented with something strictly beyond belief. ‘I’d say this was the real reason you didn’t want the police called in after your uncle’s death. Not because people here might be put on the alert but because of what we might discover.’
‘All this is absolute nonsense.’
‘I believe Andrew’s right,’ said May. ‘The first gathering I went to, Jim was on the platform and spoke of how meeting the Master changed his life. That was why I joined. I was so moved by his testimony.’
‘You can see that old trick, Miss Cuttle, in any market place. A shyster selling rubbish and another in the crowd shouting as how the rubbish changed his life. Tell me - didn’t you find staying at the Windhorse a touch expensive when you first arrived?’