I growled.
‘Joy! I can’t see her involved in this.’
‘I don’t know her, but I’d like to talk to her.’
‘I can arrange that. There is another alternative…’
‘Joe contacted Andover and told him I was coming to see him. Yes, I had considered that.
Maybe Joe thought Andover would kill me, but silenced Joe instead.’
‘Which means –’
‘That Joe found out who Andover was and did some kind of deal with him. That’s why he told me the trail was cold. It’s why he never found out why Westnam, Couldner and Brookes allowed themselves to be blackmailed. Yes, it had crossed my mind.’
Miles let out a long slow breath. ‘Where does DCI Crowder fit in?’
‘I’m not sure, except he thinks I killed Joe, or was an accomplice to his death. I assumed he was from specialist investigations. He knew all about me.’
‘I’ll find out. Joe was handling a couple of cases for me. I’ll talk to Detective Superintendent Reede; he’s head of the Major Crime Team. I expect he’ll send someone to interview me.’
‘What will you say if they ask you about me?’ I asked a little anxiously.
‘I’ll tell them the truth - if they ask me the right questions.’ He smiled. ‘But they might not know what the right questions are.’
‘Miles, don’t get into trouble.’
He cut me short with a smile. ‘You’re forgetting I’m a criminal lawyer and a good one at that, with one exception: you.’
Yes.
‘Was Joe married?’
‘Divorced. How did you get on at the funeral?’
‘Jennifer Clipton told me that Sergeant Hammond, Clipton’s second in command, won the lottery or the pools or something, chucked in his job and took off for sunny Spain. Can you check it out for me?’
‘You think he might have been paid off?’
I shrugged. ‘If Andover bought Joe off, he might have bought Hammond too. And see what you can find out about DCI Clipton’s death. I know the coroner said natural causes, and it probably was, but see if the police are satisfied with that.’
‘How do I get in touch with you?’
‘I’ll ring you. I’ve given Jennifer Clipton your telephone number; she’ll call you if she remembers anything that can throw a light on what her father was doing visiting the Isle of Wight. Could you ask Joe’s secretary if she’ll meet me?’
‘Of course. Where?’
‘Wherever she wants.’
I glanced at my watch. It was almost four o’clock. ‘Could you try her now?’
Miles picked up his phone. ‘She won’t be in the office. I’ll try her mobile.’
I crossed to the window as he called her number.
‘Joy, it’s Miles.’
His voice faded into the distance as I stared at the grey brick façade of the grammar school opposite. It was where Vanessa had once taught, and where our boys had gone to school. Vanessa had suggested I try Miles’s law firm. After my trial and conviction Vanessa had resigned her job as assistant head teacher. She’d since found a new job teaching at a private school just outside Petersfield, which the boys now attended. It was close to where they lived with their stepfather.
My eyes travelled along the road to where a stocky man wearing a crash helmet was standing beside his motorbike, looking this way. Was he following me? Was he a copper?
I wondered if Joy would tell me anything.
Would she still have those reports that Joe had compiled on his investigation into Andover? Had she handed them over to the police? Or had Joe destroyed them? Perhaps Andover had done that after killing Joe. If they were the same reports I had then I knew they weren’t worth the paper they were written on. But what if Joe had sent me edited highlights and the real reports contained some clue as to the identity and whereabouts of Andover? I had to check.
Miles came off the phone. ‘Ten o’clock tomorrow.’
Damn. I had hoped it would be today. I said,
‘Where?’
‘The café in the Portsmouth Museum.’
That seemed as good a place as any.
The day was drawing in earlier than usual because of the now relentless rain and heavy skies and I was surprised to find my neighbour waiting for me in the small forecourt of my houseboat when I returned home. Her long, very wet hair in various shades of brown was framing a scowling face. She wore a long flowing green raincoat that reached Doc Martin-type boots.
‘Have you seen my mother?’ She demanded before I had even pushed back the gate. She was glaring at me as if I’d kidnapped her.
I didn’t even know she had a mother. ‘No. I’ve just returned from the mainland.’
She looked cross, as if it had been irresponsible of me to leave when her mother had gone missing.
‘She might be inside your houseboat.’
‘I doubt it. It’s locked.’ I could see that she wasn’t going to believe me, so I opened up and we stepped inside. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Ruby Kingston.’
‘And yours?’
I could see she was reluctant to tell me. I thought she was going to tell me to mind my own business, but after a moment she said,
‘Scarlett and no cracks about Gone with the Wind.’
‘It’s a very pretty name. Mine’s Alex Albury, but I expect you know that already.’
She sniffed and scoured the interior of my lounge as if her mother could have been secreted somewhere.
‘I wasn’t convicted of kidnap or murder,’ I snapped, irritated by her manner.
‘Makes no difference to me what you went down for.’
‘Or that I was innocent?’
She gave a cynical smile. ‘That’s what they all say.’
‘In my case it happens to be true. What made you think she could be here?’
‘She forgets where she lives. She knocks on all the houseboats along here and I thought she might have got in without you realising it.’
I was about to say that I thought I would have noticed an old lady rattling around the place when something in her expression prevented me.
Behind her scowling countenance I could see genuine concern in her large brown eyes.
‘I’m sure she’ll turn up,’ I said gently, but she mistook my meaning.
‘Oh yes, she’ll turn up, perhaps dead on the beach, washed up by the tide. She might even turn up in the mortuary after being knocked down by a car.’
‘Look, I –’
‘Forget it. What do you care anyway?’
She stormed out and I was left feeling shocked by her sudden outburst and then angry with her.
I dismissed her and her mother from my mind, made myself something to eat and took the folder of Joe’s reports from underneath the mattress where I had stowed it. A bloody silly place, I know, and the first place Andover would have looked. I read through them again. There didn’t seem to be anything in them that Andover would be interested in.
Roger Brookes’ house was just outside a village called Wootton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire; Joe had furnished me with the address two years ago. That must have been just before Brookes had sold out to Sunglow. I jotted the details down in my notebook and lay back on the bed. The couple of whiskies I’d drunk had made me sleepy.
I was woken by a noise. I glanced at my watch and was surprised to see that it was almost ten o’clock. The noise came again; someone was trying to get in. Suddenly I was alert. I stuffed my notebook into the pocket of my trousers and crept to the door. I threw it open to find a very wet and very distressed old lady on my doorstep.
This must be Ruby.
‘Hugo!’ she cried, tumbling into my arms and pressing her soaking wet head against my chest, her body heaving with sobs; I could see her pink scalp through her wispy grey hair. Her dress was sodden and her legs and feet filthy. Disgust was my first reaction, followed swiftly by fear, not of her but of my reaction: I had wanted to push her away. I folded my arms around her frail body. It seemed to give her some comfort because the sobs eased. I wondered who Hugo was?