An Inspectnor Calls

5

An Inspector Calls

    Mike Collingwood looked sourly at the witness. It would have to be him: Dr Roger Browne, Ph.D. and How’s Yer Father. He was a skinny English bloke of about Mike’s own height, just on six-foot, only in Browne’s case the scholarly stoop that he’d developed already, though he couldn’t be thirty yet, was managing to disguise it. The thick, light brown hair was in the sort of cut that you never saw on anyone except Poms like him. Looked as if it had once been short back and sides like what the barber had given you automatically when he, Mike, was a kid, only in this case the barber had forgotten to take enough off the top in the first place and the lot had grown out so that now the top bits were too long and extremely floppy. Pommy, in short. Mike had met the type at Polly’s birthday party last month. Personally he wouldn’t’ve gone—he’d known it’d be all types from up the varsity—only Polly’s youngest brother, Bob, had been in town and he’d dragged him. And ya know what? He’d been right. It had been.

    “Hullo, Mike,” the type said feebly. “So they sent you.”

    “Yeah, must be because I know the set-up,” Mike agreed coolly. He shook hands briefly, since Browne was holding his out. “Polly not here?”

    “No.”

    “That’s a mercy,” he muttered. “Well, tell me the whole thing from the beginning, would you, Browne?”

    The Pom sat down on one of the huge squashy black leather sofas the Carrano mansion featured, looking sort of green. Well, okay, wasn’t every day that members of the public happened across dead bodies, not that there was anything particularly gruesome about the late Donald John Banks. “I’m sorry?” he bleated.

    God Almighty, the bloke had been out here for nearly a flaming year, hadn’t he? “I’m sorry?” Hadn’t it dawned that no-one said that out here? Cloth ears, probably. Mike repeated loudly: “I think you’d better tell me the whole thing from the beginning.”

    “Er—yes, of course,” he bleated. “Where shall I start?”

    Mike sat down and set his small tape recorder on a giant glass and brass coffee table. The glass was about two inches thick and it had bubbles in it. Were those meant? Must be, this was the Carrano mansion. “Preferably at the beginning,” he replied without amusement, switching it on.

    At this the type came out with: “Very well, I got up. Is that proemial enough for you?”

    Mike guessed that one, see? Proem, hence proemial. Not that he’d’ve pronounced it like that. Back in the flaming Dark Ages he’d done a combined B.A.-LL.B. Mostly psychology for the B.A., but they’d made everyone do English I back then. God knew if they still did; probably not, basic literacy didn’t seem to be a requirement for anything, these days. He didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking at him, he looked at the recorder and said: “Initial interview with Dr Roger Browne timed at—uh—nine-oh-two a.m. Go on, give us the proem, Dr Browne.” And sucks to him.

    Sure enough, the Pom replied in a very flattened voice indeed: “I got up this morning at around six-fifteen…”

    Whistling softly, Roger pattered down the faint track towards Jake’s pool. It was very early: just after six of a fine December’s morning, and the grass on the hillside, lush and green at this time of the year, was still dripping with dew. Spiders’ webs sparkled in the taller foliage of the fennel and toetoe clumps. He sniffed the scented morning eagerly. A few tiny puffs of white hovered in the west but otherwise the sky was a cloudless forget-me-not blue. He could hear birds twittering in Polly’s orchard and in the dark belt of native trees edging Jake’s shrubbery at the foot of the slope. A perfect day…

    He fumbled clumsily with the lock of the tall gate in the fence that the Council’s recent new by-law had forced Jake to erect around the pool. Typically of Jake Carrano’s pugnacious style, the fence had been a bone of contention. Roger sniffed slightly. Carrano’s current arch-enemy, one Don Banks, had reported the unfenced state of the patio pool to the Puriri County Council—Mr Banks was a councillor himself, the sort who had a finger in every pie.

    The lock suddenly yielded: he stepped past the last row of bushes within the fence and turned towards the pool.

    Shock held him motionless for a long moment. A grey-suited figure floated spread-eagled in the turquoise water. For an instant Roger thought it was Jake—and then he realised, with a rush of mingled relief and some darker emotion he didn’t care to define, that this was a much smaller, slighter man.

    Shouldn’t instinct take over at such moments? His never seemed to. Gritting his teeth, he jumped into the pool and, with considerable difficulty, hauled the body up the steps at the shallow end. Shuddering—partly with cold, as the pool heating was off, and partly with shock—he knelt and attempted artificial respiration. But the man was obviously very dead.

    After some time Roger gave up and sat back on his heels, panting and shivering. The corpse—strange word, that: the articulated S pinpointed fairly accurately the period at which it had come into English from French; odd how in English it had come to mean only “dead body”: did this reflect the Anglo-Saxons’ contempt for their Norman masters? Not his subject, of course.—The corpse, he thought crossly, wrenching his mind back to attention, looked vaguely familiar: a middle-aged, balding little man. No, he couldn’t place him. He scrambled up and began to hammer on the French doors, yelling.

    It was some time before a surprised Jake, swathed in a heavy navy silk dressing-gown, appeared in the doorway, yawning and scratching his unshaven face.

    “What’s up, Rog? –Holy shit!” He fell to his knees beside the body.

    “He’s dead,” said Roger flatly. His voice sounded odd in his own ears; his legs had begun to shake.

    Jake examined the dead man cursorily. “Dead as a doornail.” He looked up. “Ya know who this is, don’tcha?”

    “Er—no.”

    “Bloody Don Banks!” said Jake violently, scrambling up. He ran a hand through his tousled black curls. “The fat’s in the bloody fire now, and no mistake!”

    According to Browne Carrano’s side gate that gave you access to the pool had been locked when he arrived—but then he’d said he couldn’t actually swear to it, he was hopeless with keys, unquote, and it was just possible that it had been unlocked and he’d locked it and then unlocked it. Yes, he had his own key; no, he had never lent it to anyone; no, there had been no-one in sight on or from the hillside. (Had he looked? Mike didn’t bother to ask that.) Yes, Carrano knew he sometimes used the patio pool before breakfast; yes, it had taken some time to rouse him; yes, the body had been floating in the pool when he arrived; no, the pool heating hadn’t been on—at least, the pool water had been so cold that he was sure it wasn’t; um, he couldn’t remember whether it had been on or off last time he’d used the pool, sorry—er, but that had been in the afternoon, so he might not have noticed. No, he hadn’t heard any cars as he came down the hill—or later, for that matter; yes, he was sure; yes, quite sure, it was so early there were no commuters leaving for work and yes, you could see Matai Street and the corner where it met Pohutukawa Bay Road quite clearly from the hillside (but had he looked? Mike didn’t ask him that, either). To the best of his recollection—actually using the phrase—he hadn’t touched Mr Banks’s watch and Carrano hadn’t, either—that was, he couldn’t recall his doing so and he was sure he’d have noticed if he had, unquote. And “er, yes,” the French doors had been locked—well, no, he couldn’t positively remember trying them but he knew they were always locked at night, with the alarms on, and no, he couldn’t swear he hadn’t tried them, either...

    Okay, the type was a rotten witness, but in the first place Mike had pretty much expected that, and in the second place it was pretty much par for the course when a citizen happened across a dead body. He ignored the expression on his sergeant’s face, switched the tape recorder off, thanked the bloke and asked him to get Carrano in here, if he wouldn’t mind. Browne went out looking squashed and D.S. Short then cleared his throat uneasily, but Mike ignored him. Never mind Jake Carrano could buy and sell the whole country and was a personal friend of Chief Superintendent McElroy’s, this was a homicide investigation and he was gonna be treated exactly the same as everyone else.

    When he came in he wasn’t in the heavy navy silk dressing-gown described so vividly and redundantly by ruddy Browne, he was in fawn slacks and a short-sleeved navy knit top just like any bloke. Except that those were Gucci loafers on his feet, Mike Collingwood would have bet a considerable sum, and that chaste little logo on the chest wasn’t one ya saw on the rack at Farmer’s, that was for sure. A greater contrast than that with the weedy Pommy Browne, reflected Mike drily as the man sat down on the huge squashy black couch, could hardly be imagined. He wouldn’t be as tall as Browne (if the type’d ever stand up straight), he’d be about five-ten, and burly with it—wide-shouldered, deep-chested. The whole country know he was an orphan, brought up by the nuns in that orphanage down Takapuna, and likewise the whole country knew he had Maori blood even though his exact parentage was unknown. Mike had accidentally copped an interview with the bloke on a so-called current affairs programme—current gossip, more like—in which the cretinous interviewer had asked him if he was proud of his Maori heritage, clearly expecting the answer “Yes”, and getting the answer “How can I be, mate, I haven’t got a clue what me flaming heritage mighta been!” And good on him, the cretin had shut up like a clam. But the bloody media weren’t wrong: you could see it. Not full-blooded, he had dark grey eyes and though his nose was straight it wasn’t the flattened Polynesian nose. But his skin was the deep olive-brown shade you saw in lots of Maoris of mixed blood, and the squarish, rather flat face with its wide mouth and wide jaw were typically Polynesian, as were the thick black curls, worn short, but doubtless not given a short back and sides by the local barber—no. He was, Mike recognised on a certain sour note, a very good-looking bloke, and gee, as Polly Mitchell never had been known to fall for a type that wasn’t, ya might’ve expected that, eh? He’d be getting on for twice her age but when had that stopped her?

    “You blokes okay in here?” he said mildly before Mike could utter.

    “Uh—yeah,” replied Mike feebly. You could’ve called the room a living-room, or possibly a family-room if you weren’t aware Carrano was a bachelor. However, its area was about that of an average New Zealand house, with not one but three sets of monstrous black leather suites, a thick oatmeal shag-pile carpet and what presumably were the latest in giant pottery pots, also in shades of oatmeal, and against its pale oatmeal walls some huge abstract paintings, millionaires for the use of, in toning shades. The only spot of colour was a gigantic turquoise glass bowl on an oatmeal plinth, millionaires for the use of. But the room’s wall of glass gave directly onto the patio, so it was certainly handy to the scene. Handy for keeping an eye on what those scene-of-crime morons were doing out there, too. The room was slightly split-level and that up there on the higher level over near the far door was a gigantic bar of the size usually seen in good-sized hotel lounges— Forget it.

    “Put the air-con on, if ya like. It’ll get hot in here in the afternoon: faces west. Seems to be working okay at last; had a lot of trouble with it last year.”

    “Uh—thanks. We’re okay,” said Mike feebly. There would possibly be as many as half a dozen houses in the country with air conditioning.

    “Well, shoot, then, Collingwood,” he said, leaning back at his ease.

    He wasn’t aggressive about it, but gee, no mistaking who was used to being the alpha male in any group he was in, eh? Mike replied mildly: “Just describe the events of the day from the beginning, thanks, Mr Carrano.”

    He shrugged slightly. “Okay. Woke up hearing some tit screeching outside somewhere, decided me gardener might’ve locked himself out of the shed again, hauled me dressing-gown on in case it was Princess Di and not Dan Franklin, staggered downstairs and into here, had a fight with the fucking curtains—they work on bloody strings, don’t look at me, it was the fairy interior decorator’s idea—got them back, saw it was Rog Browne panicking, unlocked the door and saw what he’d got. Clear?”

    “Did you recognise who it was?” replied Mike, ignoring the fact that his sergeant had turned purple.

    “Yeah, fucking Don Banks. I was expecting him last night, if ya must know, but I hadda go out unexpectedly and by the time I got back there was no sign of him.”

    Oh, really? Mike got down to it. It took some time. Carrano remained entirely unmoved through the lot.

My dear Clément,

    I write in English as ordered, though your English does not need improving! Yes, I was surprised that the news of our murder has reached the French media, but then, I suppose Jake Carrano is not nobody, in Europe. Quite a coincidence that your sister and her husband are planning to take one of his consortium’s new flats outside Lyon!

    I shall continue where I left off in my last. You’re quite correct, it does seem to be helping, to write it all down. The day must have worn on its appointed way, and possibly the police imposed some sort of order of events—but I can’t say what happened when. Certainly Chief Inspector Collingwood with his team of men crawled all over the patio and the shrubbery, asked unendingly repetitive, not to say irrelevant and pointless questions, and generally bumbled about like the traditional bluebottles in a jar. At some stage in the long, hot day Jake’s friend and business associate Ken Armitage arrived with a lawyer in tow. The latter seemed quite unaffected by the whole thing; possibly he’s used to that sort of scene? The general impression of muddle was not exactly helped by the fact that Jake was evidently supposed to be at some important business meeting in the city: in the intervals of the policemen’s questioning he conferred anxiously with Ken, who seemed to spend most of his time on the phone or at the assorted communications machinery in the study. Jake’s daily help, Daphne Green, must have arrived for work at some stage, because at around one o’clock she appeared with trays of sandwiches. The police ate most of them.

    The Press sniffed out the scandal, of course, isolated though Pohutukawa Bay is. Paid informants in the police force, I dare say. By late afternoon, when, bored out of my mind but not allowed to go home, although it’s only two minutes’ walk up the hill, I went for a desperate stroll down the short front driveway, a huge television van was blocking Reserve Road outside Jake’s property. I was turned back at the high wrought-iron gates by a police constable who appeared even more bored than I, and certainly even hotter, in spite of the summer uniform: there’s no shelter near the gates. A later foray revealed a small army of smartly uniformed men from a private security firm. One of them helped the constable to turn me back, this time. Keeping the Press out, he explained. Complete with huge Alsatian dogs with huge teeth. Reassuring, in its way.

    Finally Collingwood and his cohorts departed—the body, of course, had long since been carted off—leaving an unfledged-looking constable on guard on the patio. What this young man was supposed to accomplish I had no idea and nor, it seemed, did the constable: as the noise of his superiors’ cars dwindled into the distance he made himself comfortable on one of the yellow and white striped sun-loungers.

    Well, my dear fellow, that was about it. I suppose the aftermath of any crime is as much as an anticlimax for the onlookers. Or witnesses, as the icy-mannered detective would no doubt class me.

    I did manage to read the article you recommended but frankly, structuralism is not “my bag”. Interesting in its way, but you are quite right: the Communist dialectic has no place in literary criticism. Indeed, one wonders why these people imagine any sort of political stance, feminist or otherwise, has! Is that heresy, these days? I’ll pass the article on to Polly Mitchell: structural analysis is more her type of thing. By the way, I told her about your reaction to the Anglophone “history/herstory” nonsense, and she was amused. Though of course claiming that jingoism cuts both ways!

    Term has finished here, of course, and we’ve started the Long Vac., but I have a lot of preparation for next year. I’m afraid Polly was right, and one’s tone needs to be moderated considerably—not to say one’s content, alas—for the first-year students. I shall have to rewrite all of my French I lecture notes. The standard here is no higher than that at the redbrick, and I do find myself wondering from time to time why I ever bothered to give that job up to come out here. However, the weather is very pleasant at this time of year and I'm looking forward to another Christmas in the sun, though as I've decided to save up for a trip back home in the not-too-distant future, I won’t be spending this one in a pleasant motel in the Bay of Islands like last year. No, well, it’s lovely here on the cliff top at Pohutukawa Bay, and the pohutukawas are coming into bloom, right on cue, all along the cliff! Very, very dark green foliage, lightly dusted with a powder of dark red blooms, like nothing one sees in the North. The trees themselves are old, gnarled things, designed (if that is the word!) to cling to the cliffs in the winter winds. In any case, with this unfortunate murder I dare say I wouldn’t be permitted to leave.

    I shall think of you and Antoinette enjoying the brisk snap of the freezing Paris streets with the smell of burning chestnuts in the air. Have a very merry one, dear old man.

Hoping to see you both in Paris before another year has elapsed.

Yours,

Roger.

P.S. You mentioned the food here: well, steak and chips is what is deemed appropriate for the "menfolk": Ken prepared some for us on the day of the murder!

    Poor old Rog thinks he oughta push off now the cops have gone—manners, see? Even at a time like this.

    “No, stay, Rog, Ken’s rustling up some grub. What a day, eh?”

    “Mm.” He looks just about out of it, poor bugger. After a bit he comes out with: “Did he drown or was he dead when he went in, do you know, Jake?”—which I don’t think he would of, if he was his normal self. Though tact isn’t the R. Browne specialty, true.

    Shrug, do I know? “Collingwood seems to think he drowned. Dunno whether that means he thinks he was pushed, or not.”

    “No.”

    “See ’im on the news?”

    “Collingwood? Mm. Platitudes and bad grammar.”

    Uh—yeah. S’pose it was, yeah. Out here we’d consider Collingwood to be a nicely spoken joker, but—yeah. “Reckons I did it. Stupid tit.”

    So this time he comes out with: “I suppose you didn’t, did you?” Too tired to know what he’s saying, poor tit.

    “Nope. Beats me who could’ve, actually.”

    At this point Ken surfaces with two huge plates of steaming steak and chips, thank God! “Get these down yer.” Dumps the plates on the coffee table and disappears. Them hot plates gonna crack the glass? …Apparently not, no.

    “Eat,” he says, reappearing with a plate for himself and the salt and pepper. “You’ll feel better.” Sits down and tucks in.

    We’ll feel even better with a few beers to wash it down, so I’ll grab some from the bar fridge.

    “See?” says Ken finally, draining his can. “Better, eh?” He sits back and belches. Pretty sure Rog is thinking “How coarse.” Oh, dear, how sad.

    “Yeah, feel almost half-human. Anyone feel like a brandy? Whisky?”

    The vote’s for brandy. Ken sips and says on a sour note: “Well, whodunnit?”

    Ta for that, old mate. “Me, apparently.”

    “Yeah. Apart from you.”

    “Nobody else here. Unless bloody Esmé turned up like she reckoned she was gonna.”

    “There could have been someone else,” Rog objects—this’ll be yer varsity logic, see? “I mean, if it was last night, like Collingwood seems to think.”

    “Who?”

    “Yeah, who?” agrees Ken, staring at the nong.

    Aw, gee, he’s floundering. “Well, I don’t know! …But someone. Where were you, Jake, come to that?”

    “Yeah, where were ya?” agrees Ken with a glare.

    This brandy isn’t bad. “Out. O,U,T, out.”

    “You’ve said that,” notes Ken.

    “Collingwood seemed to accept my alibi.”

    “Yeah,” me old cobber notes sourly: “that’ll be why he went on nationwide TV and gave the whole country the impression that you done it!”

    “Yeah.”

    “Look, what is this fucking alibi of yours, anyway?”

    “Can’t tell ya; involves someone else.”

    All right, the two mugs meet each others’ eyes and then glance hurriedly away again, give me strength! How long has Ken known me? Is he gonna—? Yes, he is.

    “Shit, Jake— I mean, I know all that about a lady’s reputation, and that— But Christ, the whole country knows about you and Polly after that stupid photo in Metro last year! Not to mention those pics in that Aussie rag last Easter when we all went to Tazzie!”

    “It’s not that, ya great flaming tit.”

    “Well, what the fuck is it?”

    “Toleja. Can’t tell ya.”

    “By Christ, you’d drive a saint to drink, Jake!” he howls.

    “Well, you’re in no danger then, are ya?” I pour him another brandy on the strength of it. “Have another, Rog.”

    “Uh—no, thanks all the same, Jake, I think I’d better go home.” He yawns. “I’m all in.”

    He tries to take his usual route home—across the patio and up the hill—but turns out that what that young constable is out there for is to stop ’im. Are they Preserving The Scene of Crime, the twits? There won’t be much evidence in that flaming chlorinated water, will there?

    So Ken heaves himself up and offers to drive him. The tit demurs, thinks that’s the word, yes, demurs. “Can’t risk the Jag’s springs on the track, Ken,” being heard, and also the words, “But you have to go down Reserve Road and right along Matai Street and then up Pohutukawa Bay Road, there’s no direct route from the top of Reserve Road!” being heard, but Ken knows all that, ya ning-nong! Likewise that it’s almost four sides of a square by the time you get to the turning circle at the end of the track. Wow, geometry as well, eh? Well, don’t look at me, my idea was my road was gonna run from the top of Pohutukawa Bay Road on the cliff top right along to the top of Reserve Road, see? And no, I was not gonna call it Jacob Carrano Boulevard!

    Gee, as there’s no other way of actually driving up there Ken ignores all the palaver and more or less pushes him out bodily.

    Phew!

    Think I’ll have another brandy and, uh, maybe not ring Polly, no. She was working, well, not sure if she went in to the flaming varsity or not, the narrative was muddled and I wasn’t concentrating, funnily enough, but someone kindly told her it was all over the news, so she rang me and tried to insist on coming over, but no way! I’m keeping her firmly out of it! Bad enough she’s part of me flaming alley-by.

    Ken gets back in under ten minutes.

    “He get home all right?”

    “Yeah.” He sits down heavily.

    “Have a brandy. –Thinks I done it.”

    “Noticed that.” He swigs. “Didja?”

    “Don’t be a flaming nana!”

    We both sip for a bit. “S’pose it was murder, not an accident?” he says dubiously.

    “Who knows? I dare say Banks coulda had some kind of fit and fallen in. But Collingwood was acting bloody suspicious if it was an accident.”

    “Yeah. –Look, Jake, if you had a flaming meet set up with Esmé and ruddy Banks, why in Christ weren’t you here for it? –And don’t give me any alibi crap, I’ll ruddy crown ya!”

    “Didn’t want to spill the beans in front of that silly young tit, Rog Browne, is all. None of his bloody business.”

    “Oh,” he says, looking cautious, the ning-nong. It’s nothing exciting, risky, risqué, or even interesting, old mate.

    “Okay, it was like this, see. Started about, uh—quarter to eight. The doorbell went.”

    Damn, that was the doorbell. According to me watch it can’t be Don Banks yet, surely: it’s only quarter to eight and I told him nine o’clock. And it can hardly be bloody Esmé: I said quite clearly half-past nine, thinking, Better give me and Don Banks a chance to get everything straight first—present her with a fait accompli—otherwise she’ll change her mind about the deal for the fiftieth time and we’ll be here all night, arguing. Mind you, she’s mad enough for anything: maybe she has changed her mind—decided to have her say first, or something. All right—put down me almost-drunk coffee—better get the ruddy door.

    “Prior!” What’s he want? I’ve known the Priors for years. Margaret’s okay—on the committees of several charities I give to—but Derek, never mind that holier-than-thou act he puts on on account of the big Baptist aid organisation he works for, is a real piece of slime. Sort of type that puts his hand on girls’ bums at barbies, in fact I saw that very hand on a girl’s bum at one of me own barbies last summer. Not Polly’s bum, it wasn’t, or the shit wouldn’t’ve lived to tell the tale.

    Goes red, the soft-faced git that he is. Them bulgy pale blue eyes, ya know? Never trust a bloke with bulgy pale blue eyes. “Hullo, Jake. Uh—may I come in?”

    (No.) “Yeah, sure.” What the Hell...?

    Right, I get a coffee and a brandy into the little twerp and pretty soon find out what the Hell. Fucking Don Banks. Well, yeah, I’ve always known he was a bastard, but putting the squeeze on bloody Prior because he’s been sleeping around? ’Tisn’t poor Margaret finding out that the little worm’s shit-scared of, of course, it’s his bloody Baptist bosses, and Don Banks is shrewd enough to have cottoned on to that. Mind you, I’d’ve said the little shit was too cagy to go in for blackmail. It’ll be this barmy new scheme of his, that’ll be it. Liquidating all his assets to buy a hunk of Carter’s Inlet that’s all mud and mangroves except for the bit that me and me ex just happen to own jointly, and plonk a ruddy great leisure development on it, complete with marina. And apparently bloody Prior’s considered an asset to liquidate.

    “Pay him off? No, you bloody well won’t!”

    Derek shifts nervously in his chair. “Well—it’s the last thing I want to do, of course; only—well, I can’t think what else to do!” Goes red again and mumbles: “I know if it was you, you’d say Publish and be damned; only—only I’m nuh-not as strong as you, Jake; I—I just can’t!”

    Yeah, all right, have another Cognac. He takes a swig, not in the manner of one unaccustomed, never mind the Baptist teetotal crap he spouts in public, and goes on: “Margaret and I can just raise the fifty thousand if we sell our shares and—and put the house on the market, buy a cheaper place; but I—I thought perhaps you’d be able to—to think of an alternative.”

    So I tell him to go to the cops. This reduces him almost to tears.

    All right, ya feebleized twat, lemme think... Mm. “Look, what’s his actual proof?”

    “What? Oh! Oh, well, he saw me with the girl, of course; and—and he says she’ll swear to—to—to it, if necessary.”

    “Got at her, has he?”

    Miserable nod

    “You seen her since?”

    “Yes; I thought I’d, um, throw myself on her mercy. You know: beg her not to support Banks’s story.”

    “This Raylene Finlay, she’s one of the local Finlays, is she?” Derek nods glumly. Yeah, right! All that family are the same—known for it: you could dig for a week without finding a decent feeling in the lot of ’em. “You wouldn’ta got much change out of her.”

    “No,” he agrees miserably. “Mr Banks must have offered her money. I—I offered to pay her, myself, if she’d just—just deny it all; but shuh-she laughed at me.”

    Ya don’t say! A Finlay woulda laughed at him in any case. “How much?”

    “What?” he bleats.

    “How much didja say you’d pay her?” Any minute now bloody Don Banks himself is gonna walk in on us—and won’t that be a nice turn-up for the books!

    Aw, gee, he went up to a thousand in the end. A measly thou’? And Banks is bleeding him dry: already got three payments of ten thou’ each out of him and is now demanding a lump sum of fifty, claiming that’d be the last of it! Yeah well, up the ante and she’ll change her tune. Only first—

    “Hang on, Derek, I gotta make a phone call.” Luckily there’s a phone in the study. No answer at Banks’s place—he musta left. Um, it’s just on half-past, feels a Helluva lot later, though!

    Okay, now for it.  “Look, Prior, I reckon we’d better go and see her.”

    He makes these gulping noises, but gives in.

    I’d better just scribble a rapid note for ole Don. Derek’s eyeing this procedure uneasily and finally bleats. “Are—are you expecting someone? I—I’m afraid I’m ruining your evening.”

    “It’ll wait.” I should be back by about half-past nine; offer a Finlay a fat enough bribe—! But I better make sure I get her out of the way, too, in case the bitch decides to play both ends against the middle. Send her to Sydney? She’d probably jump at the chance to get to Oz. Yeah; maybe if I get her over there, put her up in a big hotel for a while, while I put the hard word on Don Flaming Banks—make sure the little shit never tries that trick on twice. Yep; and I’ll have a word with the cops, too; once me old mate Chief Superintendent McElroy has had a word in bloody Banks’s ear...! Heh, heh!

    So I stick the note to the unlocked front door with a bit of Sellotape and we go out onto the sweep in silence. Then Derek bleats: “Would you drive, Jake? I don’t feel up to it, really.”

    If we take my car he’d have to come back to fetch his, and I’m damned if I’m gonna have him bumping into Banks! Okay, I’ll get a taxi back, or walk: bloody Derek can go on home and put poor Margaret out of her misery. Christ! When ya think about what the sod’s put her through—! All right, gimme the keys to yer fucking Volvo.

    Ken’s thinking what I’m thinking, by the look on his face.

    “Yeah. Wring the bugger’s neck for ’im, eh? Except that that’d upset poor bloody Margaret. The Finlay bitch had been drinking: took ages to get any sense out of her: we were there till gone ten. But the Sidders suggestion clinched it. Drove Prior home to Kowhai Bay, left him and his fucking Volvo to it, and started walking back down to Puriri. Bloke gave me a lift as far as the Pohutukawa Bay Road turnoff. I rang Jock McElroy as soon as I got home and went straight up to Polly’s. Woulda been round elevenish. Never saw a thing, going up or on me way back: never bothered to put the patio lights on. Presumably poor bloody old Don was already dead.”

    “Shit.” Ken takes a good swig. “Lucky for you you’ve got Prior to alibi you, if it was murder.”

    “Yeah. ’Course, if I hadda been here, he might never have been done in!”

    “Eh? Aw—no; see whatcha mean.”

    “Ironic, isn’t it? I was out trying to sort out one of Don Banks’s little messes, and he was here, a sitting duck for someone to shove into my pool!”

    Ken swallows. “Uh—yeah. Bloody ironic, when ya look at it like that.”

    Sigh. “Jeez, I’m buggered.”

    “So’m I. Could turn in?”

    “I oughta phone Marjory.”

    “Eh? Oh—Mrs Banks? No, I’d leave that till tomorrow, Jake: she’s sure to have a houseful of friends and relations—you know.”

    “All weeping over the dear departed—yeah. Righto, then, I’ll leave it.” Yawn, haul meself to me feet. “Use the yellow guest room, Ken, I think everything’s in there.”

    We go slowly upstairs and he says thoughtfully: “It’s done you a favour, anyway.”

    “Eh?”

    “Well,”—he’s not meeting my eye—“the Puriri Council’ll probably let that cliff road of yours up here go through, now that Don Banks won’t be around to block it.”

    “He’d agreed to that anyway.”

    “Eh? When was this?”

    “Just a couple of days ago.”—Can’t stop yawning.—“That was what this meet with him and Esmé was gonna be about, last night.”

    “I thought it was gonna be about you and her selling that dump up Carter’s Inlet to him at long last?”

    “Yeah. My road was the pay-off, see? The bottom line. We let him buy that parcel of land, he gets the water frontage for his bloody holiday homes—he was talking about a marina, wouldja believe? It’s shallow as buggery up there! Anyway, he gets the land up Carter’s Inlet, and in return he lets my development on the cliff go ahead.”

    “What does Esmé get?” he asks brilliantly.

    “Well, nothing now, eh? Tough tit. Unless Marjory decides to go ahead with the deal. Shouldn’t think she’d be interested, though. No, Esmé was gonna get the cash. Well, not all of it! Half! Her half, ya birk!”

    “Oh,” ’e says, sagging against the banisters. “Thought you’d gone soft there, for a minute, Jake.”

    “Thought I’d gone soft for a minute my arse!”

    “So Don Banks was gonna cough up for that dump plus let your road go through?”

    “YES! That was the DEAL, what’s the matter with you?”

    “Dunno.”—He’s yawning his head off, too.—“Must be something to do with finding an old mate all mixed up with The Murder in the Swimming Pool Mystery, or something.”

    “Yeah, all right. Sorry.”

    “How much?”

    “Eh? Oh!” I tell him how much I was gonna sock poor ole Don for.

    This strikes home, I can see ’im swallowing. “Banks musta really wanted that dump of yours and Esmé’s.”

    “Stop calling it a dump! –Actually I’d just as soon not sell it, that bach is ruddy peaceful, and bloody Esmé’s never been near the place since her old man popped ’is clogs. No, well, thing is, Don Banks saw himself as The Entry-pren-newer of the Future. Mister Big.”

    “Eh?”

    “Megalomania. Selling out everything he owned, apparently. Putting everything into this flaming leisure development idea, reckoned he was gonna make a fortune.” Ken’s goggling at me, so I wink. “Or so me spies tell me.”

    “I getcha.” And we go along the landing in silence.

    “Here ya go, Ken. The cistern in the ensuite’s been fixed, by the way.”

    “What? Oh—good. Who’d ya get in?”

    “A local bloke and he’s booked up to Christmas.”

    “It’s Christmas in less than a mon—”

    “Of next year, if ya’d let me finish. And he wouldn’t wanna go all the way down to your place, anyway, the petrol costs’d be prohibitive.”

    “They’d match my bloke’s bill, then,” he says glumly.

    Uh—mm. Poor Ken almost never talks about his wife, or her illness. It must be about ten years back that he was planning to divorce her and marry Magda von Trotte—Magda Wette, she was back then—but then they found out Gillian had multiple sclerosis, and Magda settled for Bruno von Trotte. Bruno knows all about Magda’s relationship with Ken but he doesn’t care so long as she’s discreet. If you ask me, Gillian knows all about it, too, but she’s never brought the subject up.

    “Ken, it’s a bit pointless to keep that place of yours on, now that Gillian can’t really enjoy it. Ever thought of moving?” –’Tis nice, but it’s a ruddy big house for the two of them. And it’s in Parnell, he’d certainly get his price for it.

    “Not for about the last three years, no. She bawled her eyes out at the mere idea and the doc tore a strip off yours truly. And before you start, I have consulted another specialist, yes, and his opinion was the same. Getting rapidly worse, very little hope of any further remissions.”

    “Bugger. Sorry.”

    He sighs. “Yeah. –Megalomania’s right, he coulda lost the lot.”

    “What, ole Don?” Shrug. “Yep. Miles from anywhere, Carter’s Inlet.”

    “Mm… Mind you, the roads are better these days.”

    “Yeah. Well, there could be possibilities. Vague ones. In the future. Not the sort that’d make Banks’s flaming fortune tomorrow, though!”

    “No.” He’s yawning again. “Probably turn out he had a heart attack or something and fell in of his own accord.”

    “Yeah.”

    “Um—I told you you should have fenced the pool off on the house side as well.”

    “So ya did. So did five million notices from the flaming Council, if ya must have it! After the ruddy fence was up, mind you!”

    “Aw. Typical.”

    “Bit late now, eh?”

    “You said it,” he agrees sourly.

    “Yeah. ’Night.”

    “’Night, Jake,” and he goes into the yellow room. Well, it’s got everything that opens and shuts, he’ll be comfortable enough, but it is horribly yellow. These giant—I meant giant—buttercups all over the walls. But the other guest rooms are worse. One of them’s got a painting of giant puce-tinged magnolias. All right where they belong, which is on magnolia trees. But fifty times life-size on yer bedroom wall? God! But when do I have the time for flaming interior decorating?

    ... Just as well I have got that alibi, actually. Unless the poor silly sod had a heart attack or something. But if it wasn’t that, who the Hell could’ve done it? No, it’s ruddy mad, thinking like that. Like something out of a flaming Agatha Christie or something. Musta been an accident: slipped and bashed his head on the tiles, if it wasn’t simply a heart attack or a stroke.

    Something like that. Musta been.