Ben Bromley had a kettle, jug and mugs tucked beneath a hatstand in the corner, and while he squatted to make the coffee, Kathy continued. ‘I didn’t realize the clinic didn’t belong to Dr Beamish-Newell. I just assumed …’
‘It did once. He bought this place in the seventies. It was a bit of a wreck, you know, needed a lot doing to it to return it to the glory you see today.’ He gestured at the squalor around them.
‘He must have had a bit of money.’
Bromley looked up at her and winked. ‘Not him, luv, his wife. Behind every great man is a rich wife with an open cheque book.’
‘Oh, I see. And then the cheque book ran out, did it?’
‘Well, the great doctor is a brilliant man, of course. Learnt his acupuncture in Tibet or Timbuctoo or some such, and had this vision for a centre for holistic whatsit, but within these four walls he wasn’t too good at keeping an eye on his cash-flow. So — ’ he straightened and placed the jug on the desk, spooning coffee into the filter ‘- when things got tricky he managed to interest some of his more influential patients in the idea of setting up a charitable trust to take over the financial liabilities of the clinic and run it as a non-profit organization. They got Sir Peter interested, and he took charge. Should I be telling you all this?’ He looked quizzically at Kathy. ‘Why not? It’s common knowledge. Not much help with what you’re here for. What are you here for, anyway? I heard about poor old Adonis the Greek, but it’s hardly a case for Crimewatch, is it? Or is there something I haven’t heard yet?’
‘In cases of sudden death we just need to make sure there aren’t any loose ends.’
‘Oh come on, luv! I give you all this background and ply you with coffee — how do you like it, by the way? — and you tell me nothing! Surely there’s something you can tell me? Some titbit? In this house of rumour, one solid fact is worth its weight in red meat! I could have my way with half the lasses in the place if you’d just give me some little juicy thing — only joking, of course. I’m a happily married man and I’m not that desperate — nobody is.’
He was forty-something, rosy-cheeked and balding. His short and stocky build, inherited from undernourished forebears who had laboured for generations in pit and mill, didn’t provide a particularly dashing framework for his more affluent diet. The thought of him daydreaming of having his way with the lasses of the clinic made Kathy smile.
‘Well, for one thing,’ she said, ‘nobody seems to have had any idea that he might have been contemplating suicide. It just seems to have come out of the blue. In cases like that we try to establish some background.’
‘Try to get to the bottom of it, eh?’
Kathy looked carefully at him and he beamed innocently back.
‘Why “Adonis”?’ she said.
‘Oh well, he was another beautiful Greek youth, wasn’t he? And he died while hunting boars, I believe. There’s plenty of old bores to hunt in this place, I can tell you.’
‘You’re suggesting that Mr Petrou preyed on the patients in some way.’
‘Heaven forfend, officer!’ He fluttered his hands as a disclaimer. ‘Just my classical mythology carrying me away. Anyway, the human-relations side of this business is not my problem. I worry about the balance sheets.’
‘But you look at what’s going on with a pretty shrewd eye, I’d say. What made you think that Mr Petrou was gay?’
‘Did I say that? I’m not really sure what he was. I had the impression he wasn’t really sure what he was. But that may be completely out of line.’
‘What gave you that impression, specifically?’
Bromley became vague. ‘Oh … his appearance, manner.’
‘What about his behaviour, with patients, say?’
Bromley looked at her with an angelic smile. ‘Really, officer, I know nothing.’
‘Well, how about the balance sheets, then. How have they been doing since Sir Peter took over?’
‘Pretty well, as a matter of fact. Plenty of people want what our good Director has to offer. I’ve got a copy of last year’s annual report if you want to have a look.’
‘Yes, please.’
He pulled a copy of a brochure out from under a pile of other papers and gave it to her. While she turned the pages over, Bromley turned to Gordon.
‘Talking about bottoms, have you heard the one about the lad with piles who goes to the naturopath and says, “Please doctor, help me for God’s sake, I’m in agony,” and the naturopath tells him to get a tea-bag and insert it in his back passage. So a week later the doctor sees the lad again and says, “How are you feeling now?” and the lad says, “Well, doctor, we haven’t got a back passage at home, so I put it in the side lane. But for all the good it did me, I might as well have shoved it up me bum!’“
Gordon sniggered. Encouraged, Bromley glanced at Kathy, who was thumbing through the report. She was surprised at how glossy the presentation was, in contrast to the rather spartan atmosphere of the clinic. Surprised also by the figures for annual turnover.
Bromley leaned confidentially towards Gordon and went on. ‘Well, the lad uses the tea-bag as instructed, but it still doesn’t do any good, and he’s still having trouble with his piles, see, so he finds another naturopath and says, “Can you help me?” The naturopath says, “Drop your trousers, then, and bend over and I’ll have a look,” so he does that and after a long time the lad says, “Well? What can you see?” and the naturopath says, “I can see you taking a long journey and meeting a tall dark stranger.”
Gordon didn’t get it.
‘He was telling his fortune,’ Bromley had to explain. ‘With the tea-leaves…’
‘Mr Bromley, maybe you’d like to tell us your movements yesterday,’ Kathy broke in. ‘We’re trying to establish everyone’s whereabouts on the estate during the course of the day.’
‘Well, that’s easy,’ Bromley replied. ‘I was at home with my family all day. You wouldn’t catch me out here at the weekend if I could help it. I may be barmy, but I’m not mad.’
The interview teams finished off for the day at around six, and Kathy returned to County HQ with copies of the interview reports soon after. For a couple of hours she sat at a desk in the office reading them and making notes, until she started to nod off. She decided she should have something to eat, although she wasn’t very hungry, and went down to the canteen in the basement. The whole building was quiet, the canteen deserted apart from three people she didn’t know sitting over by the trolley with the sauce bottles.
She had her head down, poking with her fork at a plate of fish and chips, when someone sat down opposite her at her table. She looked up into Tanner’s face. Her stomach lurched.
‘Evening, Kathy,’ he said quietly. It was the first time she had heard him use her first name.
‘Evening, sir.’ She put down her fork, preparing herself for trouble.
‘Don’t let me interrupt you.’ He leaned forward till his head was only a foot away and picked up one of her chips. ‘D’you mind? Haven’t eaten myself yet.’
‘Be my guest. I’m not very hungry.’
‘Got to eat. Got to look after yourself. Nobody else will.’ ‘No, sir.’
‘Hear you had a run-in with the Deputy Chief Constable today.’
‘It was a misunderstanding really, sir. I think I sorted …’ Tanner waved his hand dismissively and took another chip.
‘Bloke’s a wanker. Know the definition of a wanker? Someone who’d rather read about it than experience the real thing. Mr Long reads reports. I’m told he’s never actually run a criminal investigation himself in his whole career.’
‘Is that right?’ Kathy pictured the monogrammed towelling robe, the vaguely fretful tone in his voice. Tanner’s voice, on the contrary, was a hard growl of experience and caution. Kathy wondered what was going on. She wondered why he was telling her this. She wondered if he’d been drinking, though she couldn’t smell anything. Maybe he was just tired, as she was.
‘What did you make of Dr Beamish-Newell?’ he asked, chewing.