"You mean, they'd introduce a doctor who was having problems to someone similar who'd pulled through, so they could counsel each other?"
"I think that's it. If you are responsible for someone else's well-being you are, hopefully, less likely to top yourself. I bet they had some really miserable phone calls, but we all enjoy a good moan, don't we? Anyway, he got an MBE for it, so somebody thinks it works.
After resigning from Parliament he threw himself into it, but I don't know if he still runs the show; he must be nearly seventy now."
"Where does he come from?"
"He's not English. Well, nationalised, not born here. Poland, Hungary or somewhere. I think he probably fled here with his parents during the war. When are you seeing him?"
I looked at my watch. "Twelve o'clock. I've stung him for lunch."
He was dressed differently but I easily recognised him. The politician's suit was replaced by fawn slacks and a crumpled linen jacket, and he wore a straw Panama hat. The face was long and aristocratic, as I remembered it, with a nose designed for looking down or sniffing claret. Our Man in Heckley. I rose as he glanced around the pub garden, and he lifted a hand in recognition and threaded his way between the plastic furniture.
"This is pleasant," I said as he seated himself next to me. The garden led down to the canal, and several narrow-boats were moored nearby. I fetched two pints of bitter while he composed his speech.
We sipped the froth off the tops of our glasses, and after licking his lips appreciatively he said: "I'm very grateful for you seeing me, Mr.
Priest. I know you're a busy man."
"We never close an unsolved case, Mr. Crosby," I replied.
"Right. I've been trying to decide where to start, not really knowing how much you already know…"
"First of all," I said, 'how about telling me how you came to own a run-down house in Chapeltown when you lived in your constituency, Heckley." If it was a love nest we'd better have it out in the open, then I could go home and mow the lawn.
He nodded, eager to explain. "I think it would be better for me to begin there," he replied. I turned my chair slightly towards him because the sun was slanting into my left eye. A dappled shadow from the hat's brim fell across the top half of his face and he gazed comfortably at me through watery blue eyes. I decided to buy a hat just like it.
"The house originally belonged to a lady I knew as Aunt Flossie," he told me. "She fostered me when I came to Leeds as a young teenager.
Adopted me, almost. We drifted apart as I began to find my feet, because she clung to the old ways she was orthodox Jewish while I threw myself into being everything English. She couldn't understand that, Mr. Priest, but I loved it here. England was like a dream come true for me."
"Where did you come from?" I asked.
"Germany. A town called Augsburg, in Bavaria."
A mosquito landed on the rim of my glass and another was irritating my neck. Al fresco has its problems. I wafted them away and took a sip.
"Go on," I invited.
"In 1975 she died and left me the house, as simple as that. I was the nearest thing to any family she had. We'd kept in touch, it wasn't a great surprise to me. I put the house up for sale but nobody was buying houses at the time, and a little later a woman came into my Saturday-morning surgery saying that she had to escape from her boyfriend. He beat her up regularly and she feared for the safety of her little girl."
"Jasmine Turnbull," I said.
He paused, mouth still open, then said: "That's right, Mr. Priest.
Jasmine Turnbull." He had a drink of his beer and I waited for him to continue. "Now," he said, 'it seems unbelievably naive of me, but at the time it was a perfectly natural arrangement. I owned a spare house, fully furnished, and Mrs. Turnbull, Jasmine's mother, needed somewhere to go, desperately. We agreed that she could live there for a couple of weeks, see if it was suitable, and start paying me a small rent when she was eligible for benefits. I was horrified when my agent told me how it would look if the papers got hold of it. Mind you," he said, with the first hint of a smile since he arrived, 'she was a beautiful girl. I think I might have been rather flattered by the accusations. To cut the story short, I had a word with Social Services and they moved another couple of battered wives in. That got me out of the frying pan, but…" He stopped, realising that his choice of phrase wasn't appropriate, and started again. "Because the place was now regarded as multiple occupancy, we were in breach of the fire regulations. We were arguing about who was responsible frankly, who paid when… when…" He reached for his glass and turned it in his fingers. '… when thirty-two Leopold Avenue burnt down," he said, very quietly, 'and eight lives were lost."
A waitress hovered nearby and when he finished speaking she asked if we'd like to see a menu. I shook my head and she went away. "And you had to resign as an MP," I said.
He nodded.
"And now you have some new evidence?"
He gave a little start, as if just waking, and said: "New evidence? Oh, I'm not sure."
"So what is it you want to tell me?"
He took a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his brow and neck with it. The forecasters had predicted the hottest day of the year and it was looking as if they were right. Three elderly women with pink arms protruding from flowery dresses stood debating where to sit and eventually arranged themselves around the next table. They looked like sisters.
"What do you know about John Joseph Fox?" Crosby asked.
Now it was my turn to be surprised. J. J. Fox was one of the top six entrepreneurs in the country, fighting it out with the others to be the next Murdoch or Rowland, but with half the population expecting him to be another Maxwell. He was a Flash Harry with the Midas touch, famous in the past for his golden Rolls Royces and platinum women, but nowadays courted by politicians of all persuasions because of his media interests. I shrugged my shoulders. "Just what I read in the papers,"
I said. "What's he got to do with it?"
"Do you know how he started in business?"
"Mmm. He claims to have begun with a barrow in the East End, doesn't he?"
"As you say, that's what he claims. There may be a kernel of truth in it. His real beginning was when he won a boxer in a poker game."
"A boxer?" I queried.
"A boxer, Mr. Priest. A heavyweight with a glass chin. That didn't matter; you just backed the other fellow. He moved with a violent crowd in London in the late forties, early fifties. He expanded rapidly, from second-hand cars sold from bomb sites to bingo and discotheques when the cinemas began to close. J. J. Fox became an expert at turning one man's failure into his success. It's a lesson he has exploited to the full over the years." He paused for a drink. The old ladies were leaning forward, studying menus, their heads bobbing about like cauliflowers in a cauldron. Crosby carefully placed his glass on the table and continued. "Unfortunately, as he expanded he attracted attention from the gangs that were becoming a feature of life in south London at the time. He wasn't really a criminal, just a struggling businessman who had to be flexible with the rules.
Ultimately he wanted to be part of the Establishment, not fighting it.
So he assessed the situation and decided to move north, lock, stock and barrel. Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds were sitting ducks for someone with his talents."