"No," McLoughlin admitted.
"I was incompetent," said Thompson. "I admit it freely. But no one person lost very much money through my failure." He folded his hands across his plump stomach. "My employees have all found other jobs and the Inland Revenue has agreed to honour their National Insurance contributions which I so rashly-how shall I put it-'borrowed' to keep the business afloat." He winked outrageously. "I give credit to my number two for that. He's done all the negotiations on their behalf, or so Maisie tells me. Splendid chap, great organisational flair, full of integrity. He's sorted out the mess I made and wound up the business. Mind you, he's said some harsh words to Maisie on the phone, called me an amateurish bungler, but I don't hold it against him." He flicked a speck of dust from his jumper. "My investors took a gamble on me which was sadly misplaced, but they have cheerfully cut their losses and moved on to more lucrative ventures. I'm delighted. It saddened me to have failed them."
"Hang on," said McLoughlin sharply. "You didn't fail them, Mr. Thompson. You embezzled their money."
"Who says so?"
"You admitted it yourself."
"When?"
McLoughlin turned to WPC Brownlow who had been taking shorthand notes. "Find that bit where he said he got the idea from British embezzlers living in Spain."
She flicked back through her notebook. "He didn't actually say he was an embezzler," she admitted after a couple of minutes, "only that his business was in decline."
"Skip on a few pages," said McLoughlin. "He said it was ridiculously easy to get people to invest in the radiator idea."
"It was," said Thompson. "It was a good idea."
"Dammit all," exploded McLoughlin, "You said it was absurd enough to make bankruptcy likely."
"And I was proved right. That's just what happened."
"You didn't go bankrupt because it wouldn't work. You salted the money away. You said yourself it could have been a great success."
Thompson sighed. "I'm sure it would have been, too, if I'd had more business sense. My problem, as I've tried to explain to you, is incompetence. Are you going to arrest us, Sergeant?"
"Yes, Mr. Thompson. I bloody well am."
"On what charge?"
"Wasting police time, for a kick-off, while I find someone who's willing to press a more serious charge."
"Who?"
"One of your creditors, Mrs. Goode."
"I'll get my solicitor to discuss an out-of-court settlement with her," he said comfortably. "Much more satisfactory than pursuing me through the courts."
"I'll get your wife on an assault charge."
"Poor Maisie. She's demented, you know." He winked with enormous enjoyment. "Doesn't know what she's doing half the time. A short spell of treatment with a sympathetic doctor will do her far more good than a police prosecution. The Vicar will agree with me on that."
"You're a pair of rogues."
"Harsh words, Sergeant. The truth is I'm a coward who couldn't face the disappointment of those who'd put their trust in me. I ran away and hid. Comtemptible, I agree, but hardly criminal." His gaze was level and sincere, but his double chins wobbled. Whether from mirth or contrition, McLoughlin couldn't say.
By the end of his account, Anne was laughing so much it hurt. "Did you let them go?"
He grinned sheepishly. "It was like trying to hold on to a couple of eels. Every time you thought you'd got a grip, they wriggled out of it. They're back home now, but due to answer a charge of obstruction in a couple of weeks' time. Meanwhile, I've got on to his number two, who's hopping mad at being taken for a ride, and told him to go through the books with an accountant and look for straightforward embezzlement."
"He won't find it," said Anne, mopping her eyes. "Mr. Thompson sounds like a real pro. It'll all be neatly tied up in a villa in Spain by now."
"Perhaps." McLoughlin stretched his arms above his head, then subsided comfortably into his chair. He had been up all night again and he was tired.
Jane had told Anne that McLoughlin was in the wrong job. Why? Anne had asked. Because he was over-sensitive to other people's problems. Anne watched him through the smoke from her cigarette. She had none of her goddaughter's naivety so her appraisal was untinged by sentiment. Lust after him she might, but it in no way affected her objectivity. He was not troubled by over-sensitivity towards others, she concluded, but by over-sensitivity towards himself, a trap, in Anne's view, that far too many men fell into. To burden oneself with a socially acceptable image was to put oneself in a strait-jacket. She wondered when McLoughlin had last had a good laugh at himself-if ever. Life for him, she thought, was a series of hurdles which had to be taken cleanly. To touch one would represent failure.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
"I was wondering why men take themselves so seriously."
"I didn't know they did."
"I'm trying to think if I've ever met one who doesn't. Your Mr. Thompson sounds a likely candidate." She waggled her toes on the tapestry stool. "A woman's problems centre round her biological programming. Without her willingness to reproduce and nurture a new generation, the species would die out. Her frustrations come from the species' unwillingness to recognise the sacrifices she makes for the general good. You don't get paid by a grateful government for being on duty twenty-four hours a day to raise a family; you don't get an MBE for training your children to be good citizens; nine times out of ten even your children don't thank you for your efforts, but chuck in your face that they didn't ask to be born anyway." She tapped the end of her cigarette against the ashtray and chuckled. "It's a dog's life being a mother. There's no management structure to speak of, no independent arbitrator, no dismissal procedure for repeated offences and no promotion prospects. Emotional blackmail and sexual harassment are rampant and backhanders commonplace." Her eyes gleamed as she leant forward. "No man would tolerate it. His self-esteem would suffer."
McLoughlin cursed himself silently for being a fool. He should have trusted his first impressions and steered clear. She would have to be very special in bed to make it worth his while to sit through feminist clap-trap to get her there. After all, he thought, was there really so much difference between her and his absent wife? The complaints were the same, merely more fluent and better articulated from Anne. He vowed to become celibate. He had neither the inclination nor the energy to wage war every time he fell randy. If the price of pleasure was capitulation, he could do without it. He'd had to grovel past his wife's headaches and stay awake through low-budget late films for Saturday night sex. He was damned if he'd do it for a woman he wasn't tied to.
He stood up abruptly and unleashed his pent-up rage and disappointment. "Let me tell you something, Ms. Cattrell. I'm sick to death of hearing women complain about their lot. You're all so bloody strident about what a grand time men have and how badly we treat you." He walked to the fireplace and leaned both hands on the mantelpiece, staring into the unlit fire. "Do you think yours is the only sex to suffer from biological programming? The burden on men to perform is infinitely greater. If we weren't programmed to sow our seed, female disinclination would have wiped out the human race centuries ago. You try persuading a woman to have sex. It costs money, effort, emotional commitment and the trauma of regular rejection. If a man wants to do his bit by society, he has to spend a lifetime in chains flogging his guts out to keep his woman content and well-fed so that she first agrees to have his offspring and then looks after them properly when she's got them." He turned to look at her. "It's humiliating and degrading," he said with bitterness. "My procreative chemistry is no different from a dog's. Nature compels us both to eject sperm into a fertile female, the difference is that he doesn't have to justify why he wants to do it whereas I do. Think about that next time you feel like sneering at male self-esteem. It's fragile in the extreme. You're damn right I take myself seriously. I bloody well have to. I've only my office left where rules of behaviour still apply and where I don't have to tie myself in knots to achieve the goals set for me."