Too Much of Water (19 page)

‘And who do you think shot Mr Walker last night?'

‘This time I'm happy to say that I've no idea. Knowing a little of that man and the circles in which he moved, I should think there would be a wide range of suspects.'

Lambert reflected as they drove away that Roy Hudson certainly knew more than he was telling them. And if that was true, he'd moved from being blandly unhelpful to being positively obstructive. And once again he had met them without his wife at his side.

Back at Oldford police station, DI Rushton was filing a new set of information about this second murder into his computer. Deciding that the deaths were almost certainly related, he enjoyed setting up an elaborate system of cross-referencing between the two crimes. When he was able to show some obscure but significant connection among the people involved in the investigations, that would show that old dinosaur Lambert the benefits of modern technology.

He was disappointed with the early information coming in from the routine enquiries. A call from the pathology laboratory confirmed that Ian Walker had probably died some forty to eighty minutes before Lambert and Hook had found the corpse. That was hardly news, since Bert Hook had already told him that the body was still warm when they discovered it. Some time around nine o'clock, then. Probably just after sundown on that long summer day.

But there were as yet no reports of cars seen parked in the area or leaving it hurriedly at that time. Chris had hoped that enquiries made in the region by the uniformed officers would have come up with a vehicle already familiar to them, perhaps belonging to one of the people involved in the Clare Mills enquiry. He would have liked to be able to wave a registration number triumphantly in the face of the chief when he came back from seeing the dead woman's stepfather.

The inspector worked away quietly, recording the information, most of it negative, which was now coming in rapidly from the house-to-house and other enquiries being made around the spot where Ian Walker had died in the Forest of Dean. Chris still clung to his notion that the sheep-badger had killed his former wife Clare Mills, but he was having to accept that his death wasn't a suicide, in view of what forensic said about the death-wound and the position of the shotgun.

The man who came to the desk in the early afternoon would normally have had to deliver his thoughts to the station sergeant, but when he said he wanted to speak to the man in charge of the Clare Mills murder investigation, he was shown through to DI Rushton immediately. Murder opens many doors.

He was a man in his early fifties, Chris reckoned, tall and lean, with his hair cut short and a tan which suggested he worked abroad, perhaps in Africa. Rushton was surprised to find him speaking with a local accent, more surprised to find that he was a resident of South Canterbury, in New Zealand.

He was even more surprised when the man announced that he was the father of Clare Mills.

D
enis Pimbury had grown used to his new name. It had seemed a strange and difficult name when he had decided to adopt it. Now other people seemed to have accepted it, and it sat more happily on his sinewy shoulders than he would ever have expected.

Everyone at work knew him now as Denis, and if they weren't even aware of his surname, he couldn't see how that mattered. He felt more at home on the farm with each passing day. He was on the official payroll now, and he gave value for money. That was the best way of bedding yourself into this new life, which was so very different from what he had known in Croatia. Even his employer seemed to trust him now to get on with the job without supervision. As he worked his way along the long, back-breaking rows of strawberries, the farmer appeared less often at his shoulder. There had even been a suggestion from his employer yesterday that Denis Pimbury would be here many months ahead, that he might be given responsibility for other, more temporary, workers.

It was a mark of his new status that he was taking an official day off. Mr Martin had insisted upon it, now that he was an official employee. Because Denis didn't mind working at weekends, enjoyed it indeed, he was taking his day off on a Tuesday. And much to his surprise, he was rather enjoying it.

He had been here many times before, but only during the hours of darkness. Wandering round the familiar streets of Gloucester when everyone else was at work was a new experience for him. He was able to enjoy the sun of a balmy afternoon without the grinding toil which characterized most of his days.

For the first time since he had slipped into this strange, exciting new country, Denis felt relaxed, very nearly at ease with himself and the world around him.

There had been brief half-hours of happiness when Clare had been alive, snatched interludes when she had managed to convince him that all would be well for him. But he had known even at the time that they were transitory, that once he was out of her presence he would become a creature of the underworld again, a man watching his back and steering clear of any official recognition.

That had all changed with his acquisition of the passport, with his addition to the official workforce at the farm, and with the recognition of Denis Pimbury as a person.

He wandered unhurriedly round the shops, making himself move deliberately slowly, marvelling at the richness and diversity of the merchandise available in this prosperous world. It added to his pleasure that these were the streets where once he had moved only by night, slinking along with an eye always on what was happening behind him. For the first time in many months, he thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers and strolled deliberately along, an Englishman at ease in his ancient city.

In the pedestrian precinct, he stopped for a moment to watch the buskers, standing with a woman police officer at his elbow, making that a test of his nerve in his new-found security. Then he stood looking at the plants outside a gardening shop, pretending that he had borders to fill and a house to maintain. One day, perhaps …

It was all an illusion, of course. A pleasant illusion, but an illusion nonetheless. He was glad that he had proved himself with the policewoman, that he was able to move at leisure among the shops like this. But he was not here simply for pleasure: he had something to do, a mission to complete. It was a routine transaction, he told himself, a thing which would excite no attention among the huge and unheeding public around him. Yet all his assurances to himself did not succeed in stopping the thumping of Denis Pimbury's heart.

The shop was hidden away from the main thoroughfares, down one of the narrow old streets on the cathedral side of the town. It looked from the end of the alley like an ordinary house, sandwiched as it was between other narrow stone cottages which had ceased to trade as shops. Only the three brass balls, so tight against the lintel above its door as to seem almost an apology, denoted the nature of the business transacted here.

There were such places all over the world, Denis told himself firmly. They provided a necessary service, nothing more and nothing less. There had even been such places in his native country. But he had never before set foot inside one of them. The man serving him must not get to know that.

It was not a man but a woman. He almost turned round and left the shop when she came out through the beaded curtain from the rear and stood expectantly at the counter. But retreat would invite suspicion, and that was the thing Denis had learned to fear most of all. And why shouldn't he deal with a woman, after all? This was just a straightforward commercial transaction, the way in which this place made its living. He couldn't explain that he had expected not a woman scarcely older than himself but a hunched and bespectacled old Jew, probably wheezing and certainly grasping: that would merely show his prejudice in all its raw ugliness.

The woman watched the man with the sallow face and the black, hunted eyes as he stood just inside the door. Such diffidence was familiar to her; it came into this tiny shop in a variety of guises. Sometimes it brought with it surprising things. She said as brightly as she could, ‘How may we be of help, sir?'

He sprang forward, reaching the narrow counter too quickly, almost losing his balance and falling with the abruptness of his movement. ‘I want to sell these.'

The ring and the brooch tumbled from the tissue paper onto the glass tray in front of him, tinkling unnaturally loud in that quiet place. Away from the old Georgian window at the front of the shop, there was little natural light; the stones gleamed softly in the semi-darkness, blinking like an accusation at him.

She said coolly, ‘How did you come by these, sir?' Then, when he did not immediately reply, she added more softly, ‘We have to ask, sir. It is required of us by the authorities. There is a lot of stolen jewellery around, you see.'

‘They were my mother's.' Denis found it hard to deliver the phrases he had planned. He had meant to give a fuller explanation, but he found that the simple terse statement was all he could make himself deliver.

It was a familiar enough explanation. The woman at the counter did not give much heed to it. She had asked the question; the answer was not particularly important to her. She flicked on a small, fierce white light and shone it down onto the two pieces whilst she looked at them through her eye-glass. A single diamond in the ring, emeralds in the brooch. Good quality, both of them.

She said, ‘I'll need to consult with my colleague. He's more of an expert than I am on jewellery.'

Denis gave her the briefest of nods, not trusting himself to speak. He was wishing now that he had not come here: it smelt dangerous, and he still had a sharp nose for danger. But he needed the money, after what had happened last night. Money allowed you options.

She picked up the tray and took it back with her through the beaded curtain. She shouldn't really have done that: the proper procedure was to bring any expertise forward to the counter, not remove the goods from the sight of the owner. Once the goods were out of sight, you could do switches, swindle the customer by substituting worthless trinkets and swearing that they were what he had offered to you for valuation. But this man was a foreigner: she knew that from the few words he had uttered. More importantly, he was much too desperate to insist upon the niceties of the trade.

Denis listened to a whispered exchange; he had no chance of distinguishing any of the words. It seemed to him to go on for a long time, though in fact it took no more than a minute and a half. He resisted the urge to turn and flee, to leave his treasures and to indulge the simple, overwhelming instinct to escape.

The woman came back to the counter. ‘It's a nice brooch: antique. There's not as much demand for emeralds as there was a few years ago, but it's attractive enough. And the diamond in the ring is—'

‘How much?'

She could smell the staleness of the man's breath, smell the desperation upon him. She was no more than thirty, but because of her trade she had smelt that desperation hundreds of times before. ‘Five hundred, for the two of them.'

They were worth much more, but she had divined correctly that he wasn't in the frame of mind to bargain. He looked at her with those wild dark eyes beneath the lank black hair, and she moved her foot nearer to the alarm bell on the floor, fearing for a moment that he might physically attack her. She realized in that instant that he knew that she had undervalued the pieces, that he was more intelligent than she had taken him for.

But all he said was, ‘All right. I need cash, please.' The accent he had struggled to lose returned now when he least wanted it, harsh and guttural with his tension.

She smiled at his naivety. ‘We don't do cash, I'm afraid. I'll give you a cheque. It's the normal terms of the trade. You'll find that—'

‘I need cash. I do not sell if it is not cash.' His teeth flashed white in the half-light. In his desperation, he looked like a hungry jackal.

She wondered whether to put all the arguments to him, to point out that it wasn't safe these days to carry large amounts of cash, especially in a pawnshop. But he looked very determined. And at five hundred, the items were a steal. She said, ‘Wait a moment, please,' and went back through the curtain, taking the brooch and the ring with her again. He surely wouldn't take flight without his booty.

She came back within thirty seconds this time, and said, ‘The owner is prepared to make an exception for you. You are very lucky. We'll need your name, of course.' Then she counted out five hundred pounds for him in twenty-pound notes and explained carefully that he was depositing the items with them for a set period, that he could redeem them for the standard charge by producing the ticket she was giving him at any time during that period, that the shop would be entitled to sell the goods for whatever they would realize if he did not redeem them in the time allowed.

He scarcely heard the terms of the transaction. His eyes never left the notes as they passed beneath her practised, manicured fingers. It was only a supreme effort of self-control which prevented him from snatching the money from beneath her professionally smiling face.

That did not surprise the woman. She was used to people not heeding the terms of business. But she felt legally bound to deliver them, even though they were outlined in small print on the back of the pawn ticket. Not many people listened, and even fewer came back to redeem things, these days.

When he had gone, she made the phone call she had always planned. You had to keep on the right side of the law, in this business.

‘It's good of you to come in here so promptly, Mr Mills. I'm very sorry it has to be in these circumstances,' said Lambert. His real thought was that it was a relief to have someone in this baffling case who actually seemed anxious to help them, but he could hardly say that.

‘I landed at Heathrow this morning and drove straight down here in a hire car. It seemed the least I could do for Clare.'