The uniformed man had his doubts, but with his pension less than a year away, he wasn’t going to risk a rocket from that bugger Lambert or any other senior officer. He directed the man through to the CID section. Three minutes later, after a moment studying the board with its photographs of locations and people in the investigation and scrawled questions from the investigating officers, he was in Lambert’s office.
‘Mr Clive Bond, sir,’ the young woman DC announced to her chief. She kept her voice studiously formal, as if to protect some private joke.
The detective shook the stranger’s hand, installed him in a chair, studied him politely but unhurriedly. The man said with a short, nervous laugh, ‘So I meet the illustrious Chief Superintendent Lambert at last. I never thought I’d do this.’ He tried to settle and take in the details of the tight, disappointingly anonymous little office, with its small desk, its computer, its rather ancient filing cabinet.
Lambert afforded him a brief smile. ‘The reality is much less exciting than the fevered creation of the media, I’m afraid. I’m fully occupied with a murder case at the moment, or you wouldn’t find me here on a Sunday morning. I’m told that you’ve come here as a member of the public anxious to help in an enquiry; we are of course grateful for that. But neither of us wishes to waste more of our Sunday than we have to. Please state your business.’
The small figure took an impressively deep breath, produced a card and deposited it on Lambert’s desk. ‘CLIVE BOND. Private Investigator’. He waited for Lambert to study the card and show the first glimmer of amusement. ‘I state that baldly on my cards because I find it’s best to get the hilarity over my name out of the way at the outset.’
Lambert controlled all thoughts of Miss Moneypenny directing this diminutive figure against the forces of world evil. ‘It could have been worse, Mr Bond. You mother could have opted for “James” at the christening.’
‘In which case I should have adopted a different name entirely. I sometimes think that would have been the best way, but I started with my own name and I’m stuck with it.’
Lambert studied the thin-faced, undernourished-looking figure and controlled the smile which threatened the solemnity of his reception. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Bond? Or should I rather ask, what you can do for us?’
‘Mr Peter Preston, your murder victim. I worked for him.’
‘In which case, many thanks for taking the initiative and coming here. We should certainly have unearthed your name and contacted you in the next few days. That is one task less for Detective Inspector Rushton.’
‘He’s the man who told me to come here. I approached him when he was leaving the football ground at Hereford yesterday afternoon. He had a young boy with him, so he didn’t want to speak to me then.’ He volunteered each fact grudgingly. Bond was a man who did not yield information easily; he was used to being paid for each fact he disgorged.
‘How fully and how often did Mr Preston employ your services, Mr Bond?’
The small man glanced at Lambert sharply with the repetition of his name; plainly he was sensitive about what others saw as its comic possibilities. This time he saw no such intent. ‘I did quite a lot of work for him — at times I was almost his full-time employee. But the work was intermittent and there was no real pattern to it. He kept coming back to me, so he must have been satisfied with the way I worked and the things I produced for him.’
Lambert understood the man’s urge to advertise himself. His was a calling in which successes could not be openly proclaimed and the only one who could prove your efficiency was yourself. ‘No doubt you were working on something for him at the time of his death, or you wouldn’t be here now.’
‘Yes.’ Clive Bond looked unhappy; he wasn’t used to his revelations being anticipated. He liked to reveal a morsel at a time, to emphasize the value of what he was being paid for. But then he’d never been questioned by a chief superintendent before; that must surely confirm that his work was important. ‘Mr Preston asked me to watch his wife and to document her movements for him on certain occasions. He let me know in advance when these excursions were to take place.’
‘That means you wouldn’t usually have had much notice.’
‘I was prepared to drop other assignments for Mr Preston; he was a good client who made regular use of my services. Sometimes you can pass less important work on to other people in the profession. We have agreements among ourselves. If you haven’t much on at the time, you’re glad to take on the work.’
Lambert knew enough of the strange, hand-to-mouth existence of the private detective to know that such transfers would be eagerly received by the less successful and less established practitioners of the trade. ‘So you’ve come here to tell us about the movements of Mrs Edwina Preston on the night of her husband’s death.’
‘Yes.’ Again he had intended to reveal this in stages. He was being hurried along and it spoilt his rhythm. ‘She was with another man on the night of his death.’
‘A Mr Hugh Whitfield.’ Lambert told himself he was being petty, but he couldn’t suppress his amusement in anticipating what Bond had planned as a startling revelation.
Clive frowned at the leather-backed notebook he had produced and opened with such ceremony. He drew a mental line through the name he had meant to produce so proudly. He looked so crestfallen that Lambert was moved to say, ‘We have questioned Mrs Preston very closely on two occasions since her husband’s death, as you would no doubt anticipate. But I’m sure you can add to what we have learned from her.’
Bond nodded, returned to his notebook and announced with diminishing confidence, ‘Mr Whitfield and Mrs Preston spent that night in a hotel.’
‘In Broadway, Worcestershire, yes. I’m afraid she revealed both the location and her companion to us.’
‘I see.’ Clive paused again, running his eye down the page, hoping that he still had material which would surprise this grave-faced, seemingly omniscient interrogator. ‘Did you know that Mr Whitfield was late arriving?’
Now at last he had Lambert’s full and eager attention. ‘When did he get there?’
‘Not until ten thirty-four p.m.’
‘I see.’ Lambert made a note on the pad in front of him.
Clive recovered a little of his poise. He said ponderously, ‘Mrs Preston went out during the evening. She left in her green Fiat C3 at ten past eight p.m. and did not return until ten twenty-seven p.m.’
Lambert made a note of the times. ‘I compliment you on your precision, Mr Bond. And where did Mrs Preston journey to in that period?’
Just when he had recovered his equilibrium and told them things they did not know, Clive was deflated. This was the one section of the evening where his detective skills had proved inadequate. ‘I don’t know, I’m afraid. I tailed her as far as the B4632, where she turned south, but I had to wait for a stream of traffic at the junction and I was well behind her before I could follow her. I never picked her up again.’
‘Pity, that. It would have been interesting to know where she went in those two and a quarter hours.’
‘It’s not easy to tail someone at night, you know. Particularly when you don’t want them to realize they’re being followed.’
‘Indeed I do know, Mr Bond. Even professional police drivers on surveillance have great problems during darkness.’